Pigbag: Lend An Ear (Y)/23 Skidoo: The Culling Is Coming (Operating Twilight)

BOTH OF these docile records stand or fall as assemblages: their creators propose to be organisers of sound, something more than itinerant pop musicians. Perhaps they imagine their fishing for the irrational and stirring of the boundaries of song and sonic slab is somehow more enlightened, more dangerous than the tidal wave of abject crap that passes for most popular noise. I want, sometimes, to take their side, but neither recording gives me much heart.