Downtempo / Balearic Recommendations July 2016

Review: Icelandic classical, experimental and soundtrack composer Olafur Arnalds steps away from the loops and Broadchurch OSTs to conjure yet another sublime LNT saga. Carefully balancing between contemporary odysseys ("Jomsvikingarimur"), dense futuristic electronic weaves ("Last Remnants"), fuzzy 22nd century pop ("A Noise") sludgy cosmic funk ("Jasmine") and introspective soul ("Our Love Comes Back"), Olafur blows wave after woozy wave of soft sonic conjurations in a way that's broad, detailed and cleverly considered. Good night.

Review: The iconic Finnish label Sahko Recordings comes correct once more with this 12" edition of the classic "Heaven Taste" by British art-rock troupe No-Man. Tim Bownes and Steven Wilson recorded "Heaven Taste" with the assistance of Mick Karn, Richard Barbieri, Steve Jansen and Ben Coleman in studio sessions back in the summer of '92, with the track first surfacing as a rather epic, enveloping 21 minute version on the Painting Paradise EP for One Little Indian in 1993. Given the length and class, it is no surprise "Heaven Taste" was adopted by the emergent ambient techno scene rising in London in the early '90s with Mixmaster Morris a particular champion. This Sahko edition sees No-Man's Steven Wilson turn in an 11-minute edit that doesn't lose any of the original's finely crafted grandeur, whilst on the B-side Jimi Tenor pops up with a rearrangement that highlights his skill at playing the flute and keyboard!

Review: Music From Memory is a new label founded by Redlight Records duo Tako Reyenga and Abel Nagenast and fellow Amsterdam dweller Jamie Tiller and arrives with the mission statement "Giving overlooked and unreleased music that we love a second chance." Whilst there are plenty of labels going down the reissue path with varying degrees of musical integrity, its clear this trio have the best intentions at heart and their debut releases sets the bar truly high. The ocean loving Rhode Island based keyboardist and singer song writer Leon Lowman self released a series of albums in the early 80s dedicated to his hometown and the various women he tried to woo during this period. Executed as lo-fi beach funk and lazy synth jams in a manner that sounds way ahead of it's time, Lowman's work never received the wider acclaim it truly deserves and these albums have become highly sought after curios (check the Discogs listings for his debut LP Syntheseas) Material from both his 1980s albums features on Liquid Diamonds along with unreleased material that Lowman recorded at the time and this 12 track collection is likely to prove very popular with the musical historians out there!

Review: Tobi Neumann and Marco Unzip's ToCo project unveils itself with deft subtlety and relaxed restraint. Both respected in the techno realm, "Right Place" sees them switching to something a lot baggier, spacious and fun. "Right Place" is a slow palpitation session with cosmic overlays and dense bass plods ebbing and flowing, "Supafly" is U.F.Orb era synthetic funk while "Sweet Elisa" is a Map Of Africa-style soiree into cushioned cosmic disco. Some side projects shine with so much creativity they outweigh the sum of their parts, ToCo is definitely one of them.

Review: The latest volume in Music From Memory's impressive 12" series of reissued obscurities takes us back to late '80s St Louis and the hard to find world of Workdub. Formed of Virgil Work Jnr. and Nicholas Georgieff, Workdub's output was restricted to a pair of highly limited albums recorded between 1989 and 1992. All four tracks are taken from these two albums, and offer a lucid, ear-catching fusion of early ambient house electronics, experimental oriental synth-pop, alien jazz breaks, spacey Detroit influences, and stuttering drum machine rhythms. It's a hard-to-place but wonderfully evocative mixture, arguably best displayed on standout opener "Island Breeze". That said, the curiously Balearic, Tangerine Dream influenced "Caravan" is rather tasty, too, while its' ambient alternative mix, "Caravan Revisited" is almost overpowering in its' simple beauty.