The best new music to hit Dave Segal's inbox this week. by Dave Segal Flore Laurentienne, "Autriche III" (Secret City Records) A Canadian project led by Mathieu David Gagnon, Flore Laurentienne make electronic-tinged classical music of exquisite sophistication and beauty. Their first two albums—Volume I and Volume II—deal in expansive gestures, with analog synthesizers and strings leading the way. Many of the group's orchestrations evoke the classiest Hollywood soundtrack music and, consequently, they can occasionally feel overwrought and maudlin. But there's no denying the ambition and melodic gracefulness inhabiting Flore Laurentienne's tracks on these records.  With their third album, 8 tableaux (which was inspired by the works of 20th-century Québécois painter/sculptor, Jean-Paul Riopelle), Flore Laurentienne tone down the drama, to their advantage. You can hear the results from the first few seconds of opening track "Point d'acrange," whose icy keyboard tintinnabulation contrasts with poignantly swelling synths that keep ascending to triumphant heights. On "La nuit bleue (Bourgie)," it seems as if insects are singing to the late, great ambient keyboardist Harold Budd's skeletal tone poetry—an odd concept, well executed. "Cap-Tourmente" consists of infinitesimal sonic events somewhat reminiscent of Pete Jolly's keyboard mesmerism on Seasons, while a distant drone adds gravitas. "Feuilles IV" sounds like Scottish IDM legends Boards of Canada in a panicked reverie. Album highlight "Autriche III" offers a series of gentle explosions of an unconventionally tuned guitar that decays amid austere drones, to greatly moving effect; it reminds me of Slowdive's "Rutti." At about the five-minute mark of this seven-minute track, the drone intensifies and rises in pitch while the guitar disperses. It's a brilliant example of hypnotizing the listener and then jolting them into a higher state of consciousness. "Bleu-vert (Vert de bleu)" centers around gorgeous cascades of synth disguised as pedal steel, undergirded by a serene, sonorous drone. What a sweet way to end an album.  Flore Laurentienne open for William Basinski at Seattle First Baptist Church on September 20, as part of the Reflections series.  Bill Horist, “Agents of the Lazarus Taxa” (Right Brain Records) Avant-garde guitarist Bill Horist has been weirding up Seattle's underground music scene for nearly 30 years. He's played with numerous bands, including jazz-fusion heavies Ghidra, global-music subversives Master Musicians of Bukkake, and improv supergroup SYCH with Wally Shoup, Chris Corsano, and C. Spencer Yeh.  But Horist really shines on his solo recordings and performances. A lefty who plays guitar right-handed, Horist wrings unusual and engrossing sounds out of his instrument via non-traditional methods, making you forget that a guitar—rock's most iconic symbol—is generating them. In a 2004 interview in The Stranger, Horist said, "[T]he sounds one can get by not playing by the rules [are] much more expansive, idiosyncratic, and personal. The main thing is that I can't play an earnest blues lick to save my life, but when I cram a drum cymbal under the strings, it feels sincere!" His albums this decade—2021's Tastemaker Epics , 2023's Church and State (with Amy Denio), and the new Substratum—find Horist attaining creative highs. The latter's eight track titles derive from Horist's occupation as a marine photographer. The innate weirdness of sea life (a picture of a Red Trumpet Tubeworm graces Substratum's cover) is an analogue to his music. Similarly, there's a disorienting depth to the playing that feels akin to a nocturnal deep-sea swim. "The Acrobats of Kalabasis" begins with minimalist pinpricks of six-string chimes that eventually get reverbed into a bizarre orchestra of anchor klangs and intense thrums. "Urschleim Hecklers" is a desolate seascape of forlorn guitar sighs, like Robert Fripp crying into his amp. Sometimes Horist's pieces simply render all attempts to classify and describe them futile. Sometimes you just gotta revel in the unpredictable strangeness of the twisted aural episodes parading by on Substratum. That being said, the album reaches a peak on "Agents of the Lazarus Taxa." This is where the true mysteries of the sea percolate, as Horist turns his axe into a conduit for tones that can't be notated on a score sheet by summoning several unspeakable passages, unsettling moods, and unusual timbres. It's hard to imagine anyone listening to this on drugs not descending into madness. And that's one of the highest compliments I can give to a piece of music.   Bill Horist's album-release party/"underwater photography immersion" happens September 21 at The Grocery Studios, 7 pm-10 pm, $, all ages. Undular Bore opens.