No Longer A Secret,

Much like their breakthrough debut, Astronoid's self-titled follow-up is hard to define and a wonder to behold. Once again transporting listeners into the ether upon a dream-thrash cloud, the Lowell, Massachusetts-based band manage to elevate their sound – soaring higher and purer – while exercising matured control over their attack. Tracks explode even brighter and hit even harder, sliding into a torrential sweet spot that trades the riffy, hardcore leanings and prog noodling of Air for expanded psych-rock atmospherics. Of their many influences, Astronoid draw more upon the beauty/brutality dichotomy favored by acts like Mew and Deftones, a grander and more refined version of their vision.

The 16th-century composer, Cypriana Bazylik, was born in Sieradz, an important commercial and cultural center at that time. He composed only for a short period of his life, when he was employed in the court band of Prince Mikołaj Radziwiłł in Vilnius. Several of his songs and several psalms have survived and are included on this CD. The music, masterfully presented by the Ensemble Jericho vocal group, is largely an original adaptation of the musicologist and organist Bartosz Izbicki - voices, new harmonies, and sometimes changed rhythmic formulas have been added.