From The Top 10 of 2006 You May Have Missed(courtesy The Rasputin Manifesto)

They call it "experimental music" beacause it's literally experimenting(obviously) testing a variety of new approaches to hopefully achieve captivating new sounds or intriguing new possibilities. And, just as in science, not only do the experiments fail as often as they succeed(perhaps even more so) but even the failures have significance-not only in the realm of trial and error but because in music, one man's noise is another man's symphony. But what is the point of endless experimentation? In science there is a goal- a cancer to cure. But what about music? Brooklyn trio Monotract may not have stumbled onto the end-all-be-all of musical experimentation, but they damn sure make a solid arguement for it with XPRMNTL LVRS. Shockingly dynamic and tight, they put the band back in noise band, with discernible song structures and actual melodies mixed in with the chaotic cacophony of feedback loops and noise jargon. Opener "There are Hard Days I Can't Forget" mixes what sounds like digital gears grinding with a deeeeep bass groove good enough for Bootsy, which is followed by "Projectus" a song that implodes halfway only to return with an undeniably catchy vocal hook. Call it "music for noise lovers" or "noise for music lovers", but to call it ground-breaking is simply to categorize it, it's downright mindblowing and 100% essential.