Various Artists: No New York (Antilles)

WELCOME TO the unwave. I haven't heard so much ferociously avant-garde and aggressively ugly music since Albert Ayler puked all over my brain back in — what? — '64. And like Ayler, who started at the end of his development and then started working his way backward (and eventually jumped into the Hudson River for a permanent swim), this music has no future. But it does have a vindictive present. It's a nihilistic burnt-out last blast of mangled energy that scours the spirit. It's cleansing power that is unreal — spend a few hours with this record and then everything sounds different.