Back catalogue: Coldwave/Synth

Review: Savage Garden's Darren Hayes returned from the wilderness in 2022 after a hiatus of almost ten years. During that time, he tried his hand at stand up comedy, kept a social media presence in the form of shared videos featuring him bursting into song, and evidently spent a fair amount of time recharging. After all, you don't make albums with the energy of Homosexual, the comeback piece, if you're running on empty.
Let's Try Being In Love was the first single taken from that, and in many ways the whole package is more about message than music - a guy publicly celebrating his sexuality and marriage after spending a very long time not feeling ready to do so, during a period in which he was a bonafide global pop star. Here said track appears in both 12" extended form and a Louis La Roche mix, both of which are made for chugging dancefloors, filtered tracking synths firing on all cylinders and an overall sense of self.

Review: Heartworms are brand new outfit releasing under Speedy Wunderground - one of the few contemporary imprints giving fresh faces a fighting chance. Their debut EP 'A Comforting Notion' embeds the dystopian vision of one Jojo Orme into our minds - the frontwoman is a grandiose performer, giving tired tropes of delicate female bandleaders a run for its money through means like gritty post-punk and dark synth instrumentation, and a macabre sense of humour. The band's name references a heart-defecting parasite that is commonly found in dogs and is spread through mosquito bites - but don't worry, this EP will make your heart feel nothing but joy (permitting, at least, that you're a fan of bleak music!)

Review: Italian producer Heinrich Dressel has made a name for himself in a very focused pursuit of 70s and 80s synth wave soundtracks. Relishing in the horror and keeping one hand on the schlocky funk, he's graced the likes of Cyberdance, Strange Life and Mannequin with his Giallo-rooted sound, and now he's returning to Slow Motion with an exquisite EP of brooding, creepy crawlies that kick down low and keep it chilly up top. Paying tribute to iconic synth chips on 'CEM 8220' and exploring sweeter tones on the cascading 'Arpeggio Jawa', this is Dressel at his best.

Review: Bordello A Parigi is back with more of their sublime electro jams this time from Heinrich Dressel. The EP kicks off with 'Galatograd', a slow and steady jam with shimmering chords and lazy baselines. 'Eden Olympia' then picks up the pace a little with still skill drums and celestial keys that take you on a jaunt through the cosmos. 'Remoria' brings many layers of lush and futuristic synth work and timeless electro rhythms that are comforting and subtly celebratory and 'Mylos' shuts down this most lovely EP with another classy sound.

Review: Here comes a special Japanese edition of Harvey Sutherland's superb Boy album. Since debuting in 2013, Mike Katz has released a lot of music under this alias, always flitting between interconnected styles (electronic disco, deep house, jazz-funk, nu-boogie, revivalist New Jersey garage and Italo-disco) without ever laying down an album of all-new music. Boy, then, is a significant milestone in the Melbourne producer's career and offers an exploration of what he calls "neurotic funk" - a boundary-blurring fusion of jammed-out analogue electronics and live instrumentation that draws on a multitude of musical styles without neatly sitting in any one pigeonhole.

Review: Michael Hoenig and Manuel Gottsching were two prominent German kosmische / film composers, with the latter particularly known for his helming of the world-famous Ash Ra Tempel project. 'Early Water' is a lesser-cited collaborative live album performed by the pair in Autumn 1976, but it wasn't released until way later in 1995 - and even then, the album remained accidentally deleted by the label Musique Intemporelle, and was thus unavailable for a period of time. A rare find and relic of the Berlin school, this is an impressively blue-mooded arpeggiator, as easy for soundtracking fantastical swimming pools as it is for home lounging.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Slight tear and creasing to corner of outer sleeve, also the record has light surface marks/smudges, but otherwise in excellent working condition***

Review: Two years on from the release of his brilliant third album "Parallels", dark-wave and synth-wave explorer Hord returns to Avant with an equally impressive sequel. Rich in "Bladerunner"-era Vangelis synth sounds, clandestine grooves, moody chords, distant vocals and druggy arpeggio lines, the album is an altogether more atmospheric, tuneful and ethereal affair than some of the producer's previous outings. The overall mood is bittersweet and melancholic, but that's no bad thing. To our ears, it's the most impressively emotive Hord release to date, and that's reason enough for further exploration.

Review: A warm welcome back to perennial genre-benders Hot Chip, who return to stores after three long years with their eighth album, some 21 years after making their debut. Freakout/Release is no dramatic change in direction, but instead a further distillation of what has always made the band so appealing - a trademark fusion of synth-pop, loved-up house sounds, lilting and sometimes melancholic lead vocals, loose-limbed organic drums, nods to Prince and an ability to craft killer hooks. There are highlights aplenty, from the gravelly live hip-hop funk of 'The Evil That Men Do' (where rapper Cadence Weapon delivers a star turn) and the subtly post-punk influenced, saucer-eyed brilliance of 'Hard To Be Funky' (featuring Lou Hayter), to the classic Hot Chip sing-along flex of 'Time' and the krautrock-tinged 'Out of My Depth'.

Review: The Human League signed to the Papillon label after a compilation of their greatest hits in the late 90s. At that time the band consisted of Philip Oakey, Susan Sulley and Joanne Catherall and together they recorded the Secrets album along with assistance from Neil Sutton, who not only played keys but also took care of plenty of the writing. It was released in 2001 but didn't get much promotion as the label got into financial difficulties. This new double album version has been mastered at half speed and pressed in its original sleeve. It's the sound of Human League as you know and love it, but better.

Review: Does synth-pop get any more essential than this? When The Human League delivered their third album Dare in 1981, they instantly evolved from minimal wave outsiders to chart-topping pop treasures, and with the hits on here is it any surprise? From the epic, aspirational opener 'The Things That Dreams Are Made Of' through dark dancefloor monster 'The Sound Of The Crowd' through to their biggest hit, 'Don't You Want Me' casually tucked in at the back of the running order, it's a wall-to-wall classic which should be nestled into every record collection? If you don't own it already, now's your chance - and on translucent blue vinyl no less.

Review: Southern California-based composer and improviser David Rosenboom is a figure who can't quite be aligned to one particular school, his work slipping intriguingly through the cracks. A collaboration with vocalist Jacqueline Humbert, Daytime Viewing is an extraordinary narrative poem set over a song cycle consisting of six pieces. Quietly released privately in 1983, Unseen Worlds has brought this seminal work back into view along with a full remastering. Exploring ideas of absurdist theatricality, TV soap operas, commercialism, and family, Humbert's voice and Rosenboom's production merge to create a landscape that is at once lush yet also dystopian. An entirely unique release that invites endless study.

Review: You can always rely on PC Music to serve the sort of futuristic, inventive hyper-pop that no one else does. Clearing is a superbly captivating debut album from synth pop, witch house, dream pop artist Hyd, who used to be known as QT. It features some previously released singles but mostly new music that serves as a biography of the singer-songwriter. She has been part of this influential label since day one and here references everything from millennial synth sounds to 80s and 90s acts on the same lineage. It's a proper album too that plays out well from front to back as one coherent listen.

Review: Music from Memory have coaxed a special one off long player out of the trio of talents that is Belgian producer soFa, German musician Houschyar and the legendary Turkish drummer and percussionist Okay Temiz. Second Circle is made from studio session that started back in 2018 and makes use of a number of homemade instruments. Plenty of overdubbing techniques have been sued to achieve the richly layered sound and each piece is an intoxicating and meditative study in otherworldly electronics and earthy percussion. A gloriously unique and original listen.