Back catalogue: Classical

Review: The Head As Form'd In The Crier's Choir is Sarah Davachi's latest album, and her sixth or seventh for her very own Late Music. Inspired by the tragic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, this new record is a vanishingly passionate septet of songs, a suite of mystifying reverence bound in the otherwise kept-simple arrangements of organs, strings, trombones, woodwinds, voices and electronics. A doomy liturgical feeling is instantly evoked here, with peacefully pure yet mournful drones sense-dashingly likened to the pealing of a bell, as though the sonorous resonances thus emitted had been stretched out in a worthy but failed attempt to stop time. A lengthy theoretical tract accompanies the release, minutely detailing the various specialist pipe organs used on the record, as well as their formal relevance to the record's theme as impurely meantoned instruments, as well as their historic, occult provenance.

Review: Sarah Davachi's latest record, The Head As Form'd In The Crier's Choir, is a septet of compositions, written between 2022 and 2024, that form a conceptual suite and album-length observation of the mental dances that we construct to understand acts of passage. Transient in both name and sound, this stunning, droning set of compositions will work as timely quellers for those currently in a migratory state of mind, literally and/or figuratively. Often basking in the impure associations evoked by pure harmony and tonality, all the pieces are slow-moving, suggesting a lowered existential frame rate. Drawing inspiration from the classical myth of Orpheus and Eurydice - in which Orpheus ventures into Hades while living, dodging the usual psychopompic rites applied to those who have actually died, in a wager with the gods to resurrect Eurydice, his love - Davachi's record is a worthy intertext, bringing stygian drones of egress - woodwinds and electronic stretchings most notably - to the theme.

Review: Decca and CAM Sugar present the complete edition of Francois de Roubaix's historic La Scoumoune score, contracting unreleased tracks, demos, and alternate takes. The 1970 thriller, directed by Jose Giovanni and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, witnesses a small-time crook entangle himself in a torrid torsion of crime and fate, themes mirrored in de Roubaix's palpating score. Roubaix blended barrel organs, synths and unconventional sounds like rattles and springs, inculcating in the viewer the thrill of the chase, while the formal strategy to use entirely different instruments for each track went on to nail its touchstone status. Now a well of versatility, it comes regularly sampled in hip-hop and electronica; remixes by Alessandro Baldessari, Jean-Michel Bernard, and Benjamin de Roubaix, doing justice to a record whose very being seems to beg out loud for the remixing.

Review: Healing Sound Propagandist releases Julien Demoulin's Ephemeral Maps, a beautifully fitting follow-up to Dreams In Digital Dust. This album continues the journey through the same lush soundscapes that captivated listeners on Demoulin's previous work, but this time subverts them to produce a, well, less dusty, more aerial take. The LP, released on cassette and digital only, sounds like it took a long time to make, and as though its drones were being overturned through and out of ancient soils. From the jump of 'Land Before Memory', we're thrust into what sounds like a contradictorily landed but birds-eye-view of an epochal realm, with an atonal drone heard pocketed below a set of slow-release rustlings and leaven fadings-away. Some moments, like 'Through The Drowned City', revel in high pitch and clarity, while chromaticism and tension thrive elsewhere on moments such as '27th Day (Challenger Deep)'. Intended as a challenge to the idea of the anthropocene, this is somewhat abstracting, depersonalising ambient record, so it's not for the faint of heart, but it doesn't come without a deep reserve of human sentiment either.

Review: Taylor Deupree's next project is an ambitious one that finds the artist re-imagining his own well-regarded album from 2002, Stil., in an elaborate acoustic fashion. Sti.ll comes after a long-running collaboration between Deupree and Greyfade's Joseph Branciforte, an arranger and producer who has translated Deupree's focus on meticulously loop designs and hypnotic reputation into the world of chamber music. In place of the original digital sounds are clarinet, vibraphone, cello, double bass, flute, and percussion. The overall rhythm and tone of the original are maintained having been meticulously transcribed and then performed by an ensemble of New York musicians. It is a fascinating work that straddles two worlds to perfection.

Review: Meeting in the wonderfully intimidating and disorienting - not to mention disorganised - chaos of downtown Manhattan in the 1980s, Sussan Deyhim and Richard Horowitz struck up a lifelong partnership emotionally and creatively, sharing in a radical vision of what pop could be if it was allowed to break free from the shackles of major labels obsessed with commercial ambition. Together, people often cite them as both singular - certainly in Deyhim's approach to vocalisation - and yet resolutely abstract and varied, always moving into new territories and exploring the idea of musical languages being written rather than read back and repeated. This collection, pieced together with input from the two masterminds themselves, is wonderfully bizarre and beguiling introduction to their world.

Review: Djrum (Felix Manuel) presents his latest full album in six years, in what has been described as a "literal creative rebirth". Beginning in earnest in the 2020 COVID lockdown, this a record whose creation treads a path of almost archetypal infamy: all the best electronica albums, in our view, are born of hard-drive losses. And Djrum's hard-drive meltdown, of course, seemed to correspond to a literal collapse and renewal; such ostensible catastrophes are painful at first, but they tend to breed re-incarnal transformations. Reflecting in the shaking disaster-piece stutters of 'Three Foxes Chasing Each Other' to the ambi-spatially adept 'A Tune For Us', the record spans prodigious instrumentality and electronica abstractions, verging on speedcore, jazz and techno-halftime in places. From vinyl DJ to reckoner of hardcore musicianship.

Review: Recorded during a year in which Sholto Dobie spent time in Vietnam, Sweden and Lithuania, 23 lands on Infant Tree and finally lets us know what a full length album from one of the foremost avant-electronic ambient contemporaries would sound like. A startling debut, albeit one that you don't really feel startled by, more absorbed and elevated, it's an amalgamation of tone, noise, and sound, led by compressed air, tubes, reeds, flutes and timers. Physical instrumentals and things that create a tangible sense of space and place. Born in Edinburgh, but now based in Vilnius - a European hotbed of musical innovation, from throbbing techno to weirdo - 23 distills a number of factors into its immersive whole. In some moments, it's as though signals are being picked up from the deepest corners of our known universe. In others, we feel the intimacy of humanity gathered around sacred fires, the near-silence of our world amid vast emptiness beyond.

Review: The release of the Transformers: Music From The Original Animated Series LP is a long-awaited treat for fans of the classic animated series. Composer Johnny Douglas masterfully crafted the scores, which are integral to the emotional depth and context of the show. The package design stays true to the series aesthetic, with vibrant graphics and multicolored vinyl LPs featuring iconic characters like Optimus Prime and Bumblebee. The included tracks offer a fantastic sampling of the memorable music from the series, leaving fans eager for future volumes. The music itself sounds phenomenal, with restored clarity and depth that enhance the listening experience. Nostalgic and immersive, this release is ideal for fans of the original Transformers series.

Review: Vienna's Johannes Auvinen, aka Tin Man, and Mexico City's Gabo Barranco, aka AAAA, make up DOVS. Their second album together moves in the direction of retro aesthetics, harking back to a time where charting the "out-there" psychogeographic terrains of life might have been simpler. Billed as a "strictly ambient" affair - contrasting to their last collaborative record Silent Cities, and its dance focus - this quaint synth-driven LP is demonstrates how one might use melody and gear-born timbre to flesh out an open, point-blank theme. From allusions to architectural design to nature to the Islamic philosopher Rumi, this record is a soft-spoken yet eloquent dalliance with simplicity, inviting us listeners to step out into the open.

Review: Stay With Me is an album by Past Inside The Present label head zake and T.R. Jordan from back in 2022. Now it has been revisited for a series of remixes by Dotlight and extra synth and field recording additions by zake that have all been pressed up to 180 gram purple vinyl. It is a work of immersive ambient beauty, with slowly shifting soundscapes defined by the most subtle of synth wisps, but each conveys a great feeling. Dutch guitarist Dotlights brings gentle beats to the likes of 'Infinite Sound' that add downtempo depths and late night romance to the already soothing original sounds.