Yellow Swans - Going Places (2010)

I'm hardly familiar with the "noise ambient" genre, but if there are other albums like this out there then I want to hear more of it. In contrast to the sharp, ear-destroying aggressiveness of artists like Merzbow, Yellow Swans use noise in a much more subtle fashion preferring to immerse the listener into a dreamlike, but chaotic state rather than shock you into submission. The noise samples are seemingly random yet there is a clear sense of progression in each track as marked not only by volume/intensity, but also by subtle changes in the underlying musical structure. It's a bizarre, yet beautiful kind of ambient music that shows the incredible diversity of the genre and has made me want to explore the noise world more.
9/10