The latest in a long line of unorthodox record release strategies has materialized in the six weeks since February 1, 2009.

At one point in the sixties Moby Grape released five singles on the one day, a marketing strategy that quickly proved to be a mistake. This century's version of that tactic has seen Andrew Broder (of Fog) release the following reviewed albums at the rate of one a week and he plans to keep doing so for the foreseeable future. Taking a leaf out of the Radiohead book of self-promotion it is up to the individual who downloads the product to decide how much they donate to the website for the goods. But should you be flocking to partake in this veritable flood of creativity or is it best seen as yet another signpost on the way to the future shape of the artist/customer interface?

Experts, Specialists 
Despite consisting of only three tracks this still weighs in at just shy of 40 minutes of noise. Quite a drone-fest for the first 14 minutes in the shape of 'Distance'. The 10 minutes of 'Toughen' are pretty similar although in a different key and a bit more listenable. Rounding the release out is 'Wet Match' which sounds more like sodden furniture being pushed around by asthmatic Pickfords men in a howling gale. Next...

Raw Bulb
Broder goes one better on this release and lets rip with four tracks. Hang on, let rip is disingenuous. Drying off the match from the last album and striking it would produce a more enjoyable experience than 'Gas Leak' which introduces us to this opus. The blueprint remains the same on 'One Hundred Dollars', 'Stop Making Plans' and 'Vacuum' - all good background music for the next George A. Romero movie but generally boring as hell.

Suture
Shortening the tunes and racking up the number to eight on this album goes someway towards improving the listening experience, in fact I'll go as far as to say that there is a playful element in evidence. After the first track, 'Bats', though things soon enough get back to droning monotony. Things pick up a bit on the third from last track 'Places No One Else Is' which is a combination of looped shimmering guitar noise and a sound that can best be described as R2D2 farting. 'Reasons Not To Go' meshes what sound to be looped didgeridoo and gamelan quite pleasingly before morphing into what could easily be an outtake from the Twin Peaks OST. Lastly 'Reliance' is just under there minutes of Disney mice on speed.

Unqualified
This one raises the track number to 10 and begins with 'Whipscorpion' which by the sounds of it is a recording of a blindfolded man stumbling through a garage filled with kitchen pans. Mostly it's the same tried and tested drone formula throughout though albeit at least in more bite-sized chunks. To someone feeling more sarcastic than I the track names on here would be a real gift but at this point I quite just want the experience to be over so won't dwell on that area. I'm sure there's actually a cover version of 'We Shall Overcome' here although it could just be that that title coupled with the unaccompanied distortion played tricks on my ears.

We Had To Eat The Owl 
And this? It certainly has the most interesting title of the five albums, but by this time I was desperate for something with a beat and so all but past caring. This struck me as the most atmospheric release though and possibly the most unsettling as a lot of the tracks sounded as if they had hungry wild animals feeding noisily in the background. There were even some drums, or at least drumming, of a tribal nature (notably on 'Revel') but nothing to tap your foot to. An interesting signpost after all for me then as I've still yet to be won round to the enjoyment of listening to this sort of stuff other than at low levels when you can forget it's there - and that's hardly the point of making music surely?