Juno Recommends Leftfield February 2019

Review: Andrea Porcu's ROHS! label has been a long time fixture in the ambient field, from net label origins to limited CDr and vinyl releases from a host of respected underground operators. This latest release, two years in the making, features two original tracks from PURL. These sublime ambient pieces, "Slow Poem" and "Cellar Door," move in slow, atmospheric ripples of submerged rhythm and glacial melodics, giving plenty of space for inventive remixes from Segue, Wanderwelle and many more. It's a perfect double pack of dreamy drifters for the chill-out room crowd to sink into.

Review: On his third full-length outing for Ghost Box, Pye Corner Audio man Martin Jenkins offers up a sequel of sorts to 2016's "Stasis". While that featured music inspired by suspended animation, sleep and "cosmic exploration", "Hollow Earth" sees the admired experimentalist heading underground for a spot of "subterranean exploration" and "submerged psychology". Interestingly, while there are plenty of dark and immersive cuts throughout the album - see the John Carpenter style chug of "Descent", the quiet solitude of "Prismatic Gateway" and the clandestine throb of "Dancing Shadows" - it's nowhere near as pitch-black as you'd possibly expect. Instead, he plays around with melancholic melodies and quietly beautiful electronics, a blueprint that results in such poignant and picturesque cuts as "Deeper Dreaming", the bubbly "Mindshaft" and glassy-eyed "Surfacing".

Review: For their latest trip into musical paradise, Zurich's Phantom Island crew has turned to debutants The Gagosians, a trio made up of former Soulphiction guest vocalist Suzana Rozkosny, A.C. Kupper (Guitar) and Kay-Zee (Synths). In its original form "Run For My Honey" is a slightly creepy but hugely enjoyable 4-minute chunk of no-wave wonkiness, with Rozkosny's strutting, post punk style vocals rising above lo-fi drum machine beats, surf-rock style guitar loops and elongated organ chords. On the B-side, Label co-founders Lexx and Kejeblos provide a stellar remix that drags the track further towards skewed, Balearic-minded electrofunk territory. While many of the original instrumentation remains, their body-popping beats and thickset synth bassline give the cut a whole new dancefloor dimension.

Review: Three years on from the release of their acclaimed debut album, "Yr Body is Nothing", Augustus Miller and Jae Matthews are finally ready to release the second Boy Harsher full-length. It's a hugely atmospheric affair, with the lauded pair sashaying between moody creepiness (the slowly shifting musical dystopia of opener "Keep Driving"), guitar-flecked new wave ("Face The Fire"), arpeggio-driven alternative synth-pop ("Fate"), Pet Shop Boys-esque Italo-disco influenced throb-jobs ("LA"), EBM-driven dancefloor funk ("Come Closer", "Tears"), icy electronic soundscapes ("Crush") and immersive, wide-eyed ambient ("Careful"). It does sound like it could have been made around 1985, but that's precisely the point: Boy Harsher can certainly deliver well observed retro-futurism better than most.

Review: Given that Chi Factory producer Hanyo van Oosterom can do no wrong, it's little surprise to find that his latest outing for Astral Industries - his most expansive yet - is another very special excursion. The set was inspired by, and is dedicated to, minimalist American poet Robert Lax, who was a contemporary of Jack Kerouac. As a result, there's a slightly sparser feel to the set than some of van Oosterom's previous work. Of course, he still makes great use of field recordings, spoken word samples and softly winding electronics, alongside minimalist, tribal-tinged rhythms that doff a cap towards dub techno and vintage ambient dub. All four tracks are ebbing and flowing 20-minute epics, making "The Mantra Recordings" the perfect album in which to immerse yourself.

Review: Roy Garrett born Roy Sambar in Colonia, New Jersey arrived in New York City hungry to explore the sex and porn scenes he'd seen advertised in the Village Voice's classified section. He danced in Times Square theaters The Gaiety, Ramrod, and Big Top before moving into adult film. From 1979 through 1983 Garret starred in ten films, five of them for Joe Gage, including his lead role in 'Heatstroke'. Throughout this period of self-discovery, he wrote the suite of poems that became 'Hot Rod to Hell'. In 1982 he recorded 48 of the poems with haunting, atmospheric score by Man Parrish, who also did several soundtracks for Gage. The project was produced for the stage and for cassette by Manhattan illustrator Robert W. Richards. Richards calls 'Hot Rod', "a searing voyage through the labyrinths of modern male sexuality; it's geography ranging from porn theaters to back room bars to the intimacy of shared beds. Only a man born at exactly the moment in gay history that Garrett was could have lived through and conceived this work." Roy Garrett tells his stories of sex, violence, truth, and illusion, a visceral and personal a record as any of that moment in gay history pre-AIDS. Joe Gage, describes 'Hot Rod' as, "...sweet danger. This is a perceptive look at the underside of love. It is funny, scary, surprisingly moving and best of all, extremely acute in observing the specifics of the human condition." All poems have been carefully remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The records come housed in a jacket designed by Gwenael Rattke and includes an 44-page full color magazine with all 48 'Hot Rod' poems plus 44 previously unpublished poems from Garrett's archive. All proceeds from 'Hot Rod' will be donated to Housing Works, a New York City based non-profit fighting the twin crises of AIDS and homelessness.

Review: Under the Nocturnal Emissions alias, Nigel Ayers has been making inspired sound art and experimental ambient music since 1980. In that time, he's put out many fantastic releases, with 1988's cassette-only "Spiritflesh" amongst the most beguiling. Here issued on vinyl for the very first time, the album sees Ayers and a small group of collaborators create woozy ambient soundscapes out of a limited range of instruments and a large number of manipulated and processed field recordings (according to Mannequin's accompanying liner notes, these are mostly of various animals and birds, though such is the tape trickery you can barely tell). The results remain utterly spellbinding, as if Chris Watson had sat down with Brian Eno to create something magical out of his noted nature recordings.

Review: A warm welcome back to Gaussian Curve member and Melody as Truth founder Jonny Nash, whose last solo album of gentle, guitar-laden ambient explorations appeared back in 2017. Interestingly, "Make A Wilderness" is something of a departure from his trademark sound. While still gentle, ambient and evocative, it relies far more heavily on poignant piano work, heart-aching female vocalizations, field recording style aural textures, distant cello parts and ghostly electronics. There's much beauty to be found, but it's a far creepier and in some ways melancholic set than we've come to expect. This is no great criticism, though, because "Make A Wilderness" is superb from start to finish.

Review: Irish imprint Appian Sounds is keeping schtumm about the identities of the two Spanish producers behind the Lost Epcot project. It's because they want us to listen with "fresh ears" and "without bias", which seems fair enough to us. Whoever produced it, "Aslant Sound" is a highly impressive debut. Musically, it's atmospheric and intergalactic in tone, with the mystery duo serving up tracks that touch on B12 style ambient techno, Pete Namlook-esque deep space soundscapes, early Autechre or Black Dog style IDM, bustling, Rephlex style "brain-dance" and ambidextrous, off-kilter electronica. The album's great strength, though, is its timeless feel. While many of the inspirations might be vintage, Lost Epcot's assured debut sounds like the future.

Review: With a passion for bleak, post-industrial landscapes, drawn-out experimental compositions and mind-altering modular electronics, Craven Faults may well be the 21st century's answer to early Cabaret Voltaire. Certainly, we could imagine Richard H. Kirk, Stephen Mallinder and Chris Watson being impressed by "Intakes", the foreboding, paranoid and slowly shifting A-side to the self-consciously mysterious outfit's second vinyl outing. It ebbs and flows impressively over the course of 14 minutes, offering a dusk-to-dawn journey that evokes mental images of shuttered factories and boarded up housing estates. Flipside "Ings" is arguably even better, with pulsating, Tangerine Dream style arpeggio synthesizer melodies bobbing and weaving for 17 mesmerizing minutes.

Review: It would be fair to say that a vinyl edition of "Celestial Realms" has been a long time coming. The one-off collaboration between new age musician Jonathan "Lyghte" Goldman and cult ambient artist Laraaji was originally only released on cassette. As Laraaji's reputation has rocketed in recent years, demand for the hard-to-find tape has risen - hence this first vinyl reissue. It comprises two long, fluid and laidback compositions built around slowly shifting ambient chords, delay-laden zither textures, subtle bell melodies, occasional guitar solos and meandering synthesizer lines. Both tracks are wonderfully blissful and calming, suggesting that they're best listened to while lying flat on your back.

Review: Three years on from the release of their acclaimed debut album, "Yr Body is Nothing", Augustus Miller and Jae Matthews are finally ready to release the second Boy Harsher full-length. It's a hugely atmospheric affair, with the lauded pair sashaying between moody creepiness (the slowly shifting musical dystopia of opener "Keep Driving"), guitar-flecked new wave ("Face The Fire"), arpeggio-driven alternative synth-pop ("Fate"), Pet Shop Boys-esque Italo-disco influenced throb-jobs ("LA"), EBM-driven dancefloor funk ("Come Closer", "Tears"), icy electronic soundscapes ("Crush") and immersive, wide-eyed ambient ("Careful"). It does sound like it could have been made around 1985, but that's precisely the point: Boy Harsher can certainly deliver well observed retro-futurism better than most.

Review: On his contribution to the long-running "DJ Kicks" series, Leon Vynehall has decided to take a widescreen approach, offering up a blend that showcases the depth and variety of his music collection rather than his club-rocking skills. The first half of the mix ebbs and flows with the laidback drowsiness of his selections, which flit between post trip-hop beats, ambient, IDM, electronica and crunchy post-punk pop. Midway through he begins to crank things up a notch or two via RAC's UK garage-influenced 1997 cut "Fushigi", the chunky peak-time warmth of Crinan's "Kilimanjaro" and the bass-heavy pump of Ploy's "Pressure", before unleashing some seriously intense experimental dancefloor workouts from the likes of Etch, Aphex Twin and Peach. It makes for a hugely enjoyable and at times breathtakingly brilliant musical journey.

Review: Recent years have seen sporadic releases from Ruins, a long-serving combo who can rightly claim to be Italian new wave's most celebrated act. Stroom has decided against asking the band for new material; instead, they've rifled through Ruins' archives and put together this fine compilation of rare and unheard material recorded between 1981 and '84. There's much to admire, from the breezy pop shuffle of "Alone" and Cure-influenced, bass-propelled oddness of "Skeleton In Love", to the sparkling synth-pop brilliance of high-tempo number "Boys & Girls" and the punk-funk/dub disco-influenced throb of killer closing cut "It's Not Too Grand".

Review: It was early September when Laraaji first joined forces with log(m) in their Canadian studio. The legendary ambient artist has been back a few times since, but it's taken the dub-loving duo well over a decade to finish off, prepare and mix the material. It was, of course, worth the wait. "The Onrush Of Eternity" is a stunning set, with Laraaji's distinctive instrumental passages and drifting ambient textures gently ebbing and flowing around his studio partners' distinctively spaced-out, hi-tec dub rhythms and bubbly electronic flows. There's enough variation across the triple-vinyl set to please those who like to pick and choose tracks, though it's so engaging and immersive you'll want to listen to it straight through in one 105-minute sitting.