Review: A collaborative new single by sampletronic master Kieran Hebden (aka. Four Tet) and guitarist and composer William Tyler, two acclaimed musicians and both longstanding friends. Part of a recent spewing-forth of Hebden-adjacent material to hit the shelves after the artist's oft-reported-upon "agent of chaos" phase, these two tracks, pressed to a furtive 12", provide a neat counterpoint to that assessment. Rather than a pair of riddim bangers, the record flaunts Hebden's signature electronic textures and Tyler's guitar into a hypnotic, nominally dark soundwhirl, reminiscent of the earliest days of Text, but with a unique edge - a sonic corner never quite scoured before by either artist.
Review: Seven years after he gave us the spectacularly beautiful Asleep Versions, Jon Hopkins presents four minimal piano stunners to help us return to those half-awake moments of absolute bliss. The bit before the dark in the back of your eyes turns red and you realise it's going to be another 12 hours or so before you're climbing back into the sack and returning to a place where, let's face it, most of us are pretty happy.
In terms of the music itself, this is Hopkins and therefore you know the score in terms of vision. Opening on the tranquility of 'Heron', which sounds as though it was recorded by a lakeside in southern England complete with wildlife on tape, from here things only get more intoxicating, until the delicate pitter pattered notes of 'Wintergreen' close us out on a subtle but moving air.
Review: The inaugural 9128.live label release came from the UK's Jo Johnson and Hilary Robinson, featuring subtle, harmonic drones and manipulated piano, originally aired as part of the duo's set for the CALMA (Madrid) takeover on 9128.live, April 2020. Released digitally in 2020, the set is now available on 12" vinyl, split into two long-form compositions.
Review: The Moon and the Melodies, a remarkable collaboration between Cocteau Twins and ambient pioneer Harold Budd, remains a standout achievement in both artists' repertoires. First released in 1986, this enchanting album is now receiving a well-deserved vinyl reissue, meticulously remastered by Robin Guthrie from the original tapes. This album is a stunning fusion of the Cocteau Twins' signature dreamlike atmospheres with Budd's elegant, improvisational piano, resulting in a listening experience that is both expansive and deeply personal. The blending of Elizabeth Fraser's ethereal vocals, seamlessly intertwined with Guthrie's luminous guitar work and Raymonde's resonant bass, creates a sound that is both distinct and evocative. The album effortlessly balances vocal tracks with instrumentals, each adding to its rich and diverse sonic palette. This reissue offers a chance to rediscover a defining moment in the evolution of dream pop and ambient music. The Moon and the Melodies continues to stun audiences. This CD edition is the perfect vehicle to an ethereal beauty of the highest order.
Review: The Moon and the Melodies, a collaboration between Cocteau Twins and ambient pioneer Harold Budd, stands as a unique gem in both artists' discographies. Originally released in 1986, this ethereal album is now being reissued on vinyl, remastered from the original tapes by Robin Guthrie. Unlike anything else the Cocteau Twins ever produced, this record blends their dreamlike soundscapes with Budd's serene, improvisational piano work. The result is an atmospheric journey, at once intimate and expansive. Tracks like 'Sea, Swallow Me' shine with Elizabeth Fraser's otherworldly vocals, intertwined with Guthrie's shimmering guitar and Raymonde's grounding bass, creating a sound that feels both familiar and entirely unique. Instrumentals like 'Memory Gongs' and 'The Ghost Has No Home' highlight Budd's delicate piano, enhanced by the band's signature ambient textures. The album is a study in contrasts, vocal tracks sit alongside instrumentals, each contributing to a cohesive yet diverse listening experience. For fans, this reissue is a chance to revisit a pivotal moment in the evolution of dream pop and ambient music. The album's enduring appeal is evident in its continued influence in social media. The Moon and the Melodies remains a shining light that can happen when artists from different realms come together to create something truly timeless.
Review: Now here's a rarity for you. Not even many of the most committed megafans know that Brian Eno, Holger Czukay and J.Peter Schwalm, accompanied by Raoul Walton and Jern Atai, performed a secret live music show, outside the esteemed Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, situated in the city of Bonn, in August 1998. Forming a part of the opening party of Eno's Future Light-Lounge Proposal multimedia installation, this furtively-recorded album hears an exclusive slice of incidental "high-altitude food music", of course made during Brian Eno's airborne ambient era. Now reissued via Gronland, this five-piece cut of sophisti-ambi-krauttronica makes for a welcome surprise.
Review: Habitat Ensemble is a new musical collective that is led by musician Marius Houschyar and this is their self titled debut album on the delightful Music From Memory. The group has roots in the south of the Czech Republic where, we're told, outsiders and creatives have been meeting at a summer school since the 1990s. It was in the summer of 2022 that this group came together, inspired by the idea of exchanging the down cultural and musical ideas through music. They first started out with a series of multidisciplinary workshops which then blossomed into this full length - a fusion of jazz, ambient, world music and experimentation that is organic and enriching.
Review: Ensemble Modern and experimental, Berlin-based music composer and sound artist Hainbach come together for Primer, an album sourced from their 2022 Checkpoint concert and reworked in the studio with bassist Paul Cannon. The record transforms their fine live performance into a rich, immersive home listening experience with Hainbach's signature use of nuclear research gear, tape loops and vintage electronics weaving haunting, ever-shifting textures throughout. As such the pieces pulse with a sonic spark that captures the spirit of experimentation and collaboration and is taps into plenty of avant-garde thinking in its approach to drone and ambient.
Review: The fourth ever solo studio album from the acclaimed electronic artist and composer Laurel Halo, Atlas is intended to guide the listener through their own subconscious mind, coming as an intense sequence of soaring ambiences and beatless jazz montages. Finding its footing in instrumental improvisation by Halo herself, plus featuring artists Coby Sey, James Underwood and Lucy Railton - and then blowing any assumptive connotation with jazz out of the park with its subtly effected vocal processing and electronic tinkerings and washes thereafter - fans can be sure that this is not going to be your stock experimental affair.
Review: Long regarded as one of the most prolific producers of new age music, Steven Halpern has released an astonishing number of albums since making his debut 45 years ago. Even so, few of his full-lengths are quite as sought after as the LP that started it all, 1975's "Christening For Listening: A Soundtrack For Every Body". Here it gets the reissue treatment, admittedly with a relatively limited pressing. The album is rich and evocative, joining the dots between new age, ambient and experimental jazz, with the seven-part A-side "Spectrum Suite" offering a slowly shifting journey that should really be listened to in its entirety. Closer "Subtle Body Suite", a moody, up-tempo dancefloor jazz number full of squally trumpet solos, is also incredible.
Review: Back in the depths of the global Coronavirus pandemic, Nick Hoppner and Alex Kassian decided to join forces to record an album, one that would set aside their club credentials and instead focus on their collective love of krautrock, ambient and 'guitar-driven music'. The result is The Big Melt, the duo's first missive as H.A.N.K. Beginning with the immersive, enveloping sound world that is 'Cruise' - a slow-build, effects-laden dreamscape that offers nods to classic Tangerine Dream, shoegaze and 1990s ambient electronica - the album bobs along attractively, with exotic rhythms and intoxicated electronics ('A Useful Fever') sitting side by side with shuffling Balearic instrumentals ('Azul's Garden'), kosmiche epics ('Jag Aar Jag'), sitar-laden wonders ('While My Tar Gently Weeps'), and analogue-rich nods to Neu!, Can and Dunkelziffer ('No Harm').
The Queer Art Of Slowness (feat Sasha Wilde) (2:48)
Dual (feat Alex McKenzie, Memory Play & Sasha Wilde) (4:36)
Quantology (2:02)
How Do I Know What I Want When Everybody Is Telling Me I Should Want What I Dont Have (feat Memory Play) (6:18)
Laying On The Floor Staring Up At Dust In The Air (1:31)
Breathing Room (feat Laura Misch) (3:57)
Language Couldn't Say (feat Laura Misch) (3:07)
Pataphysical (feat Laura Misch) (3:23)
Wildest Imagination (feat Laura Misch & Marysia Osu) (4:21)
Review: El Hardwick's sophomore album, Process of Elimination, explores illness as a pathway to personal and anti-capitalist transformation. Rooted in their experience of chronic illness after years of pushing their body beyond its limits, the album reflects Hardwick's journey toward healing through mysticism and natural remedies. Turning away from the need for a formal diagnosis, Hardwick embraced a process of self-rewilding, rejecting capitalism and gender norms to reconnect with their body and the earth. Musically, Process of Elimination combines lush, dubby soundscapes with cosmic experimentation. Tracks like Dual feature sparse synthesiser tones alongside woodwinds and double bass, creating a spacious environment for Hardwick's spoken-word reflections. Collaborations with musicians such as Alex McKenzie and Laura Misch bring a range of organic textures to the album, enhancing its sense of natural exploration. The album shifts between ambient meditations and more rhythmic moments, with highlights like 'Quantology' and the IDM-tinged 'How Do I Know...?' revealing a balance between introspection and forward momentum. Hardwick's process is further mirrored in their personal journey of coming out as trans non-binary, which they describe as another form of elimination, moving beyond binary definitions. Ultimately, Process of Elimination is a powerful reflection on healing, acceptance and the reclaiming of energy, inspired by thinkers like Silvia Federici and Donna Haraway, and enriched by contributions from London-based artists and friends.
Review: Reissues don't come more significant than this. Jon Hassell's work new and old has been enjoying plentiful appraisal in recent years, with his outlook on Fourth World music finding fresh relevance with a modern crop of artists. While much of his catalogue has been given a fresh lease of life, they've been saving one of his most seminal works. Vernal Equinox was originally released in 1978, one of Hassell's first albums alongside Earthquake Island. It's essentially the blueprint for outernational music - a heady brew of global signifiers stewing together in one unclassifiable pot marked out only by Hassell's inimitable trumpet style. From ambient heads to sonic explorers, you won't want to miss the chance to own this most precious of albums.
Review: Since the release of Jon Hassell's last album in 2009, there's been an upsurge in interest in the "Fourth World" style he pioneered alongside Brian Eno way back in 1980. It seems rather fitting, then, that the 81 year-old trumpeter turned experimentalist has returned to show the pretenders how it should be done. Listening To Pictures (Pentimento Volume 1) is every bit as alluring as you'd expect, with Hassell delivering thrilling new soundscapes that pull the Fourth World template (think combinations of American minimalism, ethnic styles from around the world, advanced electronics and manipulated trumpet sounds) in a variety of directions. It's in turns trippy, hypnotic, beautiful, poignant and otherworldly, with each ambient composition being accompanied by another where Hassell draws influence from contemporary IDM or drowsy experimental jazz.
Review: The Jon Hassell retrospective series from Ndeya Records continues with 'Further Fictions', one of the recent three to explore the visionary composer and performer's ideas centring around the idea of the Fourth World. Further Fictions is a double CD anthology of the music on the vinyl editions, with a disc devoted to each album in hardbound book style packaging and an extensive booklet containing sleevenotes and archival images.
Review: Steve Hauschildt is no newcomer to the blossoming ambient scene, having released his first album almost a decade ago. In that time, he's earned a reputation for crafting genuinely poignant electronic music that neatly sidesteps ambient's various stylistic cliches. There's plenty to get excited about on this latest full-length - his fourth for venerable Chicago institution Kranky - starting with the sun-bright, Tangerine Dream style synthesizer arpeggios of the brilliant "Same River Twice". Elsewhere, he gets stunningly melancholic on the drifting beauty of "A False Seeming", doffs a cap to Global Communication and Steve Hillage on the glistening positivity of "Ketracel", and gives Pete Namlook a run for his money on the spacey wonder of "Strands".
Review: The latest addition to the catalogue of Swiss label, Second Thoughts, John Haycock's Dorian Portrait is a striking fusion of jazz and ambient. Showcasing Haycock's Kora specialism - the 21 stringed instrument that has its roots in West Africa - this is an impressive debut studio album from the Manchester-based artist. The opening track, 'Mykes', fans out onto a rippling melody where the plucked strings of the Kora melt into the twin tones of Haycock's electronic components, striking an intriguing balance between a sound that feels age old yet resolutely new. Another standout track, 'Dissolution', grows out from a more prominent bassline, like a plant pushing through soil - leaves unfurling, stretching out towards the sun. This is a beautifully reflective album for quiet introspection and shared listening alike.
Review: Noted as a "beacon of unease against the deluge of false positive corporate ambient currently in vogue" (we're looking at you, Spotify) Tim Hecker's No Highs is a righteous paean for what ambient music should be. And that certainly isn't mindful background music for turning you, the listener, into the best and most productive capitalist you can possibly be. Instead, Hecker's latest invites considered and focused listening; an alternative to the mediated, telescreeny musical SSRIs that impose on us today. A world turned upside down, the album presents highlights such as 'Lotus Light', 'Pulse Depression' ad 'Winter Cop', which suggest anarchic themes, while also fastening a sense of jaggedness and tumult, in a style of music that is so incorrectly expected to be neither of those things.
Review: "Anoyo", Tim Hecker's latest must-check album, was apparently designed as a companion piece to its predecessor, 2018's "Konoyo". Like that album, it was inspired by his desire to fuse his brand of experimental electronica and wayward ambient music with the sounds of "gagaku" - a form of Japanese classical music famed for being played at the Far East nation's Imperial Court. In practice, that means recordings of traditional Japanese instruments and drums chopped, sliced, looped, mangled and reversed, fused with Hecker's own spacey ambient electronics and hazy electronic textures. It's a unique recipe, but one that results in a string of sublime, otherworldly compositions that just get better with each successive listen.
Review: Talk about appropriate names. There's something about Helen Island that sounds as though it has been cast adrift, washed up, and left to establish its own thing. The Parisian enigma's work feels ghostly, haunted by a past that has vanished into the ocean mist. Whether they'll ever be reunited is the real question, but mystery is the joy here. Whether it's at the uptempo, synth pop hued 'Hot Zone Regular Day', or the weird and wonderful psyche-electronica-field style 'Forever Starts Today', breathy samples on 'Indivisibl' or the innocent contemporary classical-cum-ambient plucked strings and keys of 'Restless Lovers' and 'Gore Lore', the whole thing is a strange and beguiling ride through the outer reaches of popular music.
Review: Dylan Henner (AD 93, Phantom Limb) returns to Dauw with Performs Raymond Scott's Soothing Sounds for Baby, an album reinterpreting selections from Scott's iconic 1962 work. Available on limited edition vinyl, featuring artwork by Skrew Studio that references the original releases. Raymond Scott's contributions to music are immeasurable and pioneering, with his records remaining uniquely interesting. Viewed through the lens of modern "ambient" music, the meaning of his compositions has evolved. Once revolutionary, they now serve as archival pieces, preserving an era of early electronic music and its technological constraints. In homage to Scott's foresight and genius, Henner recontextualises these ideas within a 2024 musician's mindset and studio, creating a version that aligns with his perception of Scott's music's purpose: soothing babies. Henner revisited the original records briefly, transcribing melodies and noting timbres, before embarking on his own creative journey. This album honors Scott's legacy while infusing it with contemporary sensibilities.
Review: It is always a joy to hear from the Music For Dreams label. Not only is it a musically interesting outlet but also one that digs deep into plenty of fascinating different scenes. And this is one such case as the project is centered around 99-year-old Iboja Wandall-Holm who sings about memories from her childhood growing up in Eastern Europe. The record plays out like a musical encounter where the songs are worked into magical forms by Danish musician Mikkel Hess and other members of his Hess Is More band with extra collaborative input from label head and producer Kenneth Bager.
Review: Guitarist and composer Patrick Higgins moves out of his comfort zone for a high concept record that pushes boundaries in many directions. As emotionally charged as it is expansive, the title track itself premiered at Monom Studios, Berlin, on a 75 surround speaker setup, giving some idea as to how bold and high spec the ideas are behind the collection as a whole. Versus has plenty of fingers on live instrumentation, but it's also concerned with totems of electronic production - the seamless interweaving of musical textures and layers, free improvisation and an appreciation for bridging styles within and between tracks themselves. Avant garde, ambient, experimental, and installation-worthy stuff from a true great, these are less tracks and more sonic moments contributing to a wider, singular work that's good enough to fully immerse you.
Review: WRWTFWW Records is back with a third collaboration with Japanese electronic, ambient and synth-pop group Interior. This time they reissue a forgotten 1989 solo gem by band member Daisuke Hinata that very much deserves more spotlight. Tarzanland captures the essence of late-'80s California with sun-soaked kanky? ongaku, minimalistic proto-chillwave and breezy synth melodies all washing over you in delightful fashion. Its lush soundscapes evoke the likes of Steve Winwood and Steely Dan as it is infused with nostalgia and serene electronic sounds. They make for a blissful journey through simple pleasures, where ocean waves and warm breezes empty your mind of all but the nicest of thoughts.
Review: It's been seven years since Holden's debut album The Idiots Are Winning was released on his own Border Community imprint, and in that time new material has been scarce to say the least. Thankfully, The Inheritors was well worth the wait; produced with a combination of Holden's extensive analogue modular system and his own self-coded software, the album takes in influences as wide as The KLF, Elgar, ceilidh music, pentatonic folk scales and ancient pagan rituals, with each track recorded in one take with no overdubs. Border Community cohort Luke Abbott's Holkham Drones album would be the closest comparison, but even that superb record doesn't come close to the sprawling marvel that is The Inheritors, with highlights like the jazz sax of "The Caterpillar's Intervention" and twisting analogue techno of "Gone Feral" coming thick and fast.
Review: British ambient producer Jimmy Billingham aka HOLOVR has previously flaunted his wares on respected imprints such as Opal Tapes, Firecracker and Indole where he presented the brilliant Line Of Flight LP last year. "Into Light" or "Apparent Motion" could pass for The Orb or even CTI's early ambient electronica experiments, both awash in soothing analogue pads, hypnotic bleeps and faint 303 acid flourishes. On the flip, there's more quality to be found on the cosmic journey "Involution" that's full of vintage analogue synth flair, screeching and squealing all over the place; it's pure bliss.
Review: Ezekiel Honig is a New York City-based artist who founded two vital labels, Anticipate Recordings and Microcosm, and now he is back with a new album on 12K. Unmapping The Distance Keeps Getting Closer is a tender and honest work of art that wears its heart on its sleeve with piano, horns and broken rhythms all characterising the palette. Field recordings are also worked into the arrangements to add a real narrative and to really evoke a sense of place. Add in plenty of textural and tactile motives and you have a journeying album full of melancholy but also a sense of hope.
Sit Around The Fire (with Ram Dass, East Forest) (8:24)
Singing Bowl (Ascension) (19:46)
Review: At this stage in his career, Jon Hopkins should be able to do whatever the hell he likes. After proving his synaesthetic abilities throughout the 2010s - with masterpieces like 'Light Through The Veins' and his last album 'Singularity'- it's clear this climactic electronica artist knows no bounds. Now he debuts a new full guided meditation-style LP documenting his ketamine-fulled revelations realised in a remote Ecuadorian cave. Relinquishing beats and drum sounds, this is a fully ambient affair from Hopkins, and routinely features soothing, sampled vocal snippets from the late yogi and guru Baba Ram Daas, as well as collabs with producer and psychedelic ceremony guide East Forest.
Review: Jon Hopkins' forthcoming album Ritual spans 41 minutes of uninterrupted sonic exploration, drawing inspiration from ceremony, spiritual liberation and the hero's journey and creating a dense and immersive soundscape that showcases his mastery of depth and contrast. Collaborating with long-term partners like Vylana, 7RAYS, and Ishq, as well as newcomers like Clark and Emma Smith, Hopkins weaves together cavernous subs, hypnotic drumming, and transcendent melodies to craft a sonic experience that is both emotionally and sonically weight. Ritual sees Hopkins' evolution as an artist, building upon themes explored throughout his 22-year career while venturing into new sonic territories. The album's first single, 'Ritual(evocation),' offers a tantalising glimpse into this expansive sonic landscape, with its hypnotic rhythms and darkened soundscapes drawing listeners into a world of introspection and catharsis. With its warm, live feel and seamless blend of softness and intensity, Ritual promises to be a transformative listening experience for fans of electronic music and beyond.
Review: Jon Hopkins' fourth album Immunity is a bona fide classic that is now a full ten years old. To celebrate the milestone, it has been newly remastered for this special reissue. Listening back now reminds you just what a confident and adventurous record this was - a creative trip deep inside Hopkins' mind that brought totters everything he had done and learned up to that point. The focus was firmly on the dancefloor but still, the tracks come with plenty of emotional nuances, from sad piano motifs to stirring choral drones but shifting rhythms and real-world sound effects that brought the whole thing to life.
Review: With Ritual, electronica mastermind Jon Hopkins follows up his storied meditation-aid LP, Music For Psychedelic Therapy, for a return to the sublime uplifts that characterised his establishing sound. Somehow, Hopkins says of his latest full-length, "I have no idea what I'm doing when I'm composing. I don't know where it's coming from, and I don't know where it's going, nor does it seem to matter. I just know when it is finished." Such remarkable humility sits in in stark contrast to the deep grandeur of the record, which refreshingly seems to have been made without overconscious intent; Hopkins' describes his approach to the album as a simple matter of creation, without too much second-guessing or reasoning after the fact. This would seem to counteract Psychedelic Therapy's interest in self-reflection and personal enlightenment; Ritual, as we glean from the title, is more action-oriented, pursuing the many epic pilgrimages and blue beyonds that Hopkins was first known to have embarked upon.
Review: At this point in his career, it seems that classically trained pianist come electronica visionary Jon Hopkins can do no wrong. Whether we're thinking of his unmistakable all-time great LP Immunity, or his more recent inward-bound journeys into a trippy serial panacea, Music For Psychedelic Therapy, the musician, in Domino's own words, is an established auteur, capable of casting a whole range of dark sonorous arts perhaps only the most storied audio wizards can cast. His latest record, Ritual, is the latest utterance to escape the Hopkins grimoire; staying true to the adage that a real magician simply does not reveal their secrets, Hopkins is deliberately cryptic about the meaning of Ritual, except for the fact that his music-making process is itself a ritual. Humbly, he insists "I have no idea what I'm doing when I'm composing". Well, from the various sublime, epiphanic, master-warlock's evocations heard across this record, it sure doesn't sound like it!
Review: Back in the 1990s, the combination of Mixmaster Morris, Jonah Sharp (he of Spacetime Continuum fame) and Haruomi Hosono was the closest thing you got to an ambient supergroup (the Orb's collaboration with Robert Fripp and Thomas Fehlmann as FFWD not withstanding). The trio only recorded one album together, the sublime Quiet Logic, but it's an absolute doozy - as this timely reissue proves. For one reason or another, it was only ever released in Japan at the time, meaning this is the first time it has been available worldwide. As you'd expect with such masters of the art form at the helm, it is genuinely superb - a slowly evolving opus that moves between unfurling, dub-fired ambient techno ('Waraitake') to ambient jazz eccentricity ('Dr Gauss/Yakan Hiko (Night Flight)'), via deep ambient d&b ('Uchu Yuei (Night Swimming)') and deep space ambient.
Review: Apodelia is Hotspring's second solo release on Mood Hut; the record is partly a further exploration of song forms, studio techniques and instrumentation explored on 2020's Obit For Sunshade. This latest addition to the artistic moniker of Scott Gailey Spring explores lifting into revealing; scouring fidelities, playing with emotion, and improvising by night. A timestretched, textural nocturne is painted in sound, echoing a more contemporary incarnation of mid-'10s Mister Lies; the glassy piano refractions of 'Glanzstrasse 6', the ripply audio-pools and autotunings of 'Organ With Fire' and the beat-cracklings of 'Day Moment' are all highlights.
Review: A reissue of the third LP from Brian Leeds, an American DJ and producer based on Brooklyn, originally from Kansas City, if this is your first time coming across his work then prepare for a pretty deep dive into lush, dreamy soundscapes, otherworldly drone, and adventurous aural effects, all of which are realised with a musicality that goes well beyond many digital composers.
First unveiled to critical acclaim back in 2016, proof of concept is in the pudding here - one earful and you realise just how much here stands up to new productions today, explaining a little about why people were painting Huerco S as something of a visionary when the debut long form, Colonial Patterns, first arrived. Building on the blueprint laid out then, For Those Of You... is a rich and captivating ambient listening experience that's more than worthy of the spotlight second time round.
Review: Kicking off his new R&R imprint, LA-born and Berlin-based producer Huerta brings us TV Slang - an LP which exists somewhere between rhythmic and ambient house. For the title track, woozy voice samples drift in and out of focus, existing in a space just outside of reality. 'Stutter Dub' emerges as one of the more dance-geared tracks, yet it's still decorated with the hazy sound design of the release's ambient numbers; its buffed-out environment softening the edges of Huerta's percussion. On the B-side, 'Traces' features dreamily reverberating piano chords embellished with glittering breaks. This is a highly multi-faceted release which promises to take listeners and dancers alike into a beautifully realised soundworld.
Review: Trumpeter Chris Ryan Williams and cellist Lester St. Louis form HxH (H by H) are a boundary-pushing electroacoustic duo who work with acoustic instruments and electronics in real-time. Their debut album, released on KMRU's label OFNOT captures their expansive, sculptural sound, and it is one rooted in jazz, noise, classical and Black experimental traditions. Drawing comparisons to Sun Ra or Laurel Halo, their music is fluid, unpredictable and emotionally resonant. Tracks like 'Pyrex Vision' and 'BEACH' showcase a dynamic interplay between form and freedom and are influenced by visual artists like Torkwase Dyson. HxH's sonic world is both daring and intimate and is an ever-shifting architecture of sound.
Review: Some albums deserve to stay buried, but Hydroplane's 1997 debut album is not one of those. An alternative project from shoegaze-influenced indie band The Cat's Miaow, the self-titled album offered a uniquely hazy, spaced-out blend of lo-fi dream pop vocals, atmospheric guitar textures, DJ Shadow style sample collage, stoned beats, Radoiphonic Workshop style electronic experiments and '90s ambient tropes. It's an unusual but hugely alluring musical melting pot that went largely overlooked at the time - hence this first ever vinyl pressing of the previously CD-only set. We'd recommend giving it a listen because it really is in a genre sub-category all of its own.
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