Back catalogue: All genres

Review: Founded in Tumwater and Olympia, the latter, amazingly, is the Washington state capital, Unwound enjoyed 14 years of unfettered creativity between 1988 and 2002, and yet you'd probably struggle to find many outside the US, even in rock clubs, that would cite them in a list of favourites. Thankfully, A Single History presents the case for reappraisal this group deserve. Not that they ever wanted to court attention and reverence. Often categorised as post-hardcore, Unwound make the kind of angular, gritty, dissonant rock that celebrates unusual guitar tones, walls of sound, and garage-y rhythms. There are elements here that betray just how much they helped paint the scene into which grunge emerged, there's plenty owed to punk in the truest sense, while the pared back minimalism contrasting louder moments speaks to post punk and art rock. Analysis aside, it's all just so good.

Review: User.Exp's first release on Greyscale Recordings provides a thoughtful sonic exploration, made up of field recordings, contact and hydrophone mic sessions and shortwave transmissions (either generated from scratch or really recorded). Artist and label are met with serendipity and ease here; though many releases have hit the Greyscale stocks - all working well within their trademark sonic and visual monochrome - User.Exp's latest is an especially congruent record, bringing crackly burrs and earthen movements to an album that feels large in scope and difficult to pigeonhole, yet intuitively felt. As if to describe a set of 12 different microbiomes - all besieged by a black-and-white, ecosystemic blight - the likes of 'Pollution', 'Erosion' and 'Wind' provide indications enough as to the set of ideas going in here. A deeply calming release, full of textural intricacies and yet not without a creeping sense of unbalance too.

Review: Black Truffle presents a formerly unheard live album by rudra veena master Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, recorded in the North Indian city of Vrindavan at the Druhpad Samaroh festival in 1982. Dagar was a nineteenth-generation descendant of the musical Dagar family, famed for their meditative approach to the tradition of Hindustani court music. The rudra veena is a large and low-pitched string instrument amplified by two huge, hollowed-out gourds, and Dagar became the first modern dhrupad musician to perform with it as an instrumental soloist. True to form, in this recording of Dagar, in which he performs the night raga 'Yaman Kalyan', we hear all manner of frozen tanpura stasis; twisting, hovering drones; gracefully bent notes. Dagar weaves a complex web, bringing the recording to a fitting, measured conclusion, in contrast to the unrestrained virtuosity rounding off most performances by his contemporaries. This edition is adorned with beautiful archival photographs of Dagar taken by Swedish percussion legend Bengt Berger and accompanied by detailed notes from Bradford Bailey.

Review: This sophomore album from Istanbul-born, Berlin-based electronic composer and sound artist Huma Utku explores psychological phenomena through a series of sonic essays. Drawing on her background in Psychology, Utku combines her academic and artistic practices in this ambitious release and includes recordings from her Elektronmusikstudion residency in 2020. The album also features synth intrigue, electroacoustic, experimental techno, industrial and spoken word all brought to life with piano, strings and vocals. Utku creates a dramatic, unsettling soundworld here while exploring themes of grief, consciousness, dream analysis and psychological symbolism. It's a truly intimate exploration of the human condition.