Back catalogue: All genres

Review: Midnight Riot help the listener carve out their own personal Balearic headspaces with their new compilation Balearic Headspace, likening the "experience" of Balearic not just to a sound, but an affect, one that cannot be experienced without specific records or specific times and places. Do we believe it to be true? We may or may not, but that doesn't distract from the whopping curation job here, with most tunes on offer consisting of both total newness and reworks/revisions by the Midnight Riot crew; this 12" is a four-track selection of a wider 19-track digital comp. Our highlight has to be the ultra-smeary Tom Moulton mix of 'This Is Caribbean Disco' by Fsq, which floats atop a serious floe of stretched-out axe bubble and echoing crosstick, as its lyrics deal in word-painted themes of being held underwater. As mindfully, cognitively Balearic as it gets!

Review: When it first landed on Leng in 2018, Fernando Pulichino's 'Search of Indigo' delivered a typically attractive blend of dub disco, nu-disco, Balearica and stylish lead vocals from Luca Gaspirini. Six years on, the track returns in remixed form. The Argentinian producer and multi-instrumentalist kicks things off with his own 'AM Mix', a deliciously low-slung and psychedelic chugger propelled forwards by raw, restless TB-303 acid lines, low-slung bass guitar and the dreamiest of pads. Luca Trevisi AKA LTJ Experience handles the rest of the EP, delivering a trio of hazy, slow motion and pleasingly dubbed-out revisions. His A-side remix, in which echoing vocal snippets and jangly guitars catch the ear, is followed by the superbly squelchy, acid-flecked 'Dirty Mix' and the more immersive and hazy dancefloor 'Dub'.

Review: The classy Tech Startup label keeps it pretty high brow again here with a new minimal EP that is for heady floors and dancers who are happy to immerse themselves in ambient sound worlds. 'Terra Preta' is a floating escape to the stars, then 'Tone Dial' has the same sweeping synths but with supple deep techno rhythms. 'Reprise' is a complete flip with acid laced broken beats demanding a physical response and 'Stone Please' then trips you out with some deft loops and sine wave made.

Review: Five years on from their debut collaborative EP 'Frisina Meets Toco', modern Brasilian dance artists Gerardo Frisina and Toco return for a second faceoff, this time with liaising artist Luzia Dvorek serving as ringmaster. Centring on samba-infused jazz and deep house with mystical and folk influences, "deixa passar" translates from Portuguese to "let it pass", though the mood is certainly not outright passive. This delectably quartered slice of carnivalesque dance music is rather rich in sonic papaya juice, charting sustained vocal contrasts between Toco and Luzia against smoky and furnaced beats. Aperient track 'Deixa Passar' leans heaviest on languid piano, whilst dozier mists emerge on the B-side in the form of 'Ile' and its rework by Gerardo Frisina, bringing pan flutes, strings, breathy vocal counterpoints, cabasa shaker, and subtle bass undercurrents.

Review: Four Tet's live performance at Alexandra Palace delivers an immersive experience that blends intricate electronic soundscapes with undeniable dancefloor energy. The set opens with a subtle, hypnotic groove, gradually building in complexity and intensity as live drums and layered synths take centre stage. As the performance evolves, tracks like 'Sing' and 'Love Cry' explode with energy, effortlessly weaving between deep, ambient textures and vibrant, pulsing rhythms. The live setting offers a fresh dimension to the material, with each track feeling more expansive and dynamic. This is an exhilarating performance, showcasing Four Tet's ability to transform his recorded work into an electrifying live experience.

Review: Unheard Of Hope - one prominent tine of the holy trinity / label supergroup known as TAR/MM/UOH - specialises is that all-too-rare subsection of music, the avant-garde. Theirs is a seedier aesthetic, preferring the more traditional, yet grimmer and demurer ends of this hotly contestable musical "approach", and perhaps emblematic of this is the latest record by Guatemalan cellist and vocalist, Mabe Fratti. Out on every format - tape, CD, vinyl - Sentir que no sabes ("feel like you don't know") hears Fratti's crystalline vocals glint like life-giving liquids, and sound too to effuse from the same fruitful source as its watershed cello lows and occasional blossomy arp-pop structures (ballad 'Pantalla azul' is by far the poppiest moment). The evident confidence brought to the record lends it an element of surprise, too, when we discover that it is entirely thematically rooted in doubt. In the words of the artist, this is a record born of the "moment when you feel you don't know anything and you are soft like jello and any fork can go through you." When one finds strength in permeability, one embraces what is normally registered as a pure antagonism, and all seemingly rigid particulars are changed for ever.

Review: Zoltan Nagy AKA P60 has spent the last four years slowly building up his Midnight Fashion label and its dedicated downtempo offshoot, Midnight Fashion Chill. Following a handful of solo EPs on the latter imprint, Nagy has now decided to offer up a first imprint compilation - one that not only showcases his work, but also that of Marcel (AKA sometime Cookin' Records artist Marcell Dudas) and Plastic City regular Forteba (AKA Hungarian stalwart Krisztian Dobrocsi). Musically, the set lives up to its' title, offering an enticing and undeniably blazed mix of DJ Calm style trip-hop, warming 1990s style downtempo grooves, slow-burn Baleric soundscapes, Onra-esque neo-boogie beats and warm, deep and languid, jazz-flecked mid-tempo house.