D'ARCANGELO レコード& CD

Review: Veteran Italian duo D'arcangelo return with a new EP for Aussie label A Colourful Storm. Across the five tracks featured on the Arium EP, Fabrizio and Marco present their singular take on IDM that earned them several releases on Aphex Twin's seminal Rephlex label. There's the introspective, mesmerising bliss of opener 'Godsonix' plus the emotive 'Spacing Out', as well as the artificial intelligence of the title track and the visceral beats of closing track 'Familiarity' rounding out another terrific release by the Roman brothers.

Review: Earlier this year, Italian electronica veterans Fabrizio and Marco D'Arcangelo returned to action with a 12" on Happy Skull that marked their first new material for three years. We're told there's more to come, but here they revisit their past, delivering a compilation that includes their sought-after 1996 debut EP for Rephlex in its entirety, plus two fresh cuts (opener "Main Theme" and closer "Wane (Reprise)" and a swathe of tracks recorded in the late '90s for an aborted follow-up to their lauded first 12". Heavily influenced by Aphex Twin, industrial techno, twisted ambient and what would later become known as "Braindance", the material remains breathlessly imaginative and otherworldly all these years on. If anything, it's a master class in cutting edge electronica.

Review: A newfound interest around Italian duo Fabrizio and Marco D'Arcangelo has resulted in releases on Spain's Analogical Force, The Kelly Twins' Happy Skull and a new one for Solvent and Lowfish's Suction based out of Toronto - who consider II as 'an imaginary sequel to the duo's classic 1996 debut EP on Aphex Twin's legendary, now-defunct Rephlex Records. That release was also reissued on the label last year. From the industrial edged electronica of "Callying Sybil" which calls to mind early Autechre, the jagged and angular "Qabbalahwhich" honed in on the emerging sounds of drum 'n' bass at the time, to the three installments of "Diagram" that hone into aesthetics of an even earlier period, namely the '80s.

Review: Brothers Fabio and Marco D'Arcangelo can trace their roots back to Rome's industrial techno revolution of the early 1990s, but are arguably best known for their frequent outings on Rephlex. This EP originally came out on Richard D James and Grant Wilson-Claridge's imprint way back in 1996, when they were still beginning their musical journey. It remains a blisteringly good six-tracker, with highlights including the raw, Aphex Twin-influenced "Somewhere in Time", the guttural, fuzz-drenched post-electro rhythms and Kraftwerk bleeps of "Diagram VII (Milk Mix)", and the pleasingly skuzzy industrial hip-hop of "Skrakt". Arguably best of all, though, is the shimmering "80s Mix" of "Diagram 7", which recasts the track as a melodic chunk of funk-fuelled electro.

Review: The present face of IDM is here heard occupied by dream duo D'Arcangelo and Karsten Plum, whose latest joint effort for Acid Avengers bowls us over with its acid tweezings, pangs, twingings, twangs, thrums and flits-past. The pH scale skyrockets to the point of insanity on Pflum's side, with 'Hornfish Acid' and 'Aroe Acid' jointly corroding the full length of the Earth's core with their snippy but incisive sizzles and 'ows, until we reach a forbidden underworld uncannily reminiscent of Oz - except the faces of the protagonists are horribly twisted into a yellow, illegal-raved rictuses. D'Arcangelo's 'Gawain' does equally as much with its eerie sprung-verbed chroma-chords and muted but moving melodies; so too does 'Walker Two' raise the tempo to silly speeds, coming as a veritable velociraptor of Druqks-y breaks and drill bits, all let loose from the barrel at a surely illegal rate of fire.