Back catalogue:

Review: Given his long-held love of fusing elements of different musical cultures from around the world, Auntie Flo (real name Brian D'Souza) is almost the perfect Multi-Culti artist. It's something of a surprise then to find that this is only his second outing on the label. He begins in confident mood with 'Esperanto', a delightfully melodious, bubbly and synth-heavy slab of chugging sonic joy, before wrapping waves of mind-altering electronics and sun-bright synths around a slipped Afro-tech beat on 'Unua Libro'. Over on side two, D'Souza takes us to a deeper and more immersive place on 'El Heine', explores hybrid cosmic/ambient soundscapes on 'Ho Mia Kor', and doffs a cap to the new age ambient pioneers of times gone by on blissful closing cut 'Mia Penso'.

Review: Developed as off-the-cuff cassette overdubs, work taking place in Manchester and Massachusetts, combined with syncopated vocals, Human Engineering very much lives up to its name. Narrated by Rick Myers, with long-time collaborators Andy Votel and Sean Canty in charge of the noises, it's a strange place to spend some time but it's also oddly beautiful. At first ear, the aesthetic feels rough and mechanical, definitely anything but human. But as things draw us further in to whatever this plain is, the organic at the root of everything rises to the surface. Suddenly, the obtuse noises no longer sound alien, and instead have taken on their true form - products of people, perhaps artefacts from a time we're about to forget. One in which machines were ours, not their own.

Review: This beautifully presented box set gathers all five albums from Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoti's V.I.R.U.S series, a collaborative project spanning five albums originally released between 2002 and 2011. Disc one (Vrioon) sets the tone, with Sakamoto's beautiful (and frequently effects-laden) piano motifs rising above glitchy minimalist rhythms and experimental ambient soundscapes. The albums that follow offer subtle shifts in their collaborative sound whilst retaining the same core artistic approach, with the pair frequently alternating between poignant, slow-burn minimalism and emotive, mood-enhancing ambient maximalism. Throughout, the pair beautifully balance hard-wired electronic experimentalism with classical musicality.

Review: Spanning five EPs beginning with the 2002 EP 'Vrioon', the VIRUS compendium marks an important era in the shared history of minimalist magna Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto. The look-back comes after the duo first connected through a mutual appreciation for each other's work in the early 2000s: Sakamoto had become interested in experimental electronica and came across Nicolai's (Noto's) minimalisms under the Alva Noto moniker. Intrigued by the precision and texture of Nicolai's sound, Sakamoto reached out; though he was hardly able to predict the unbalanced, restlessly abstract expressionist sound to follow: the sonic equivalent of a sputtery colour field painting.

Review: Hailing from Atlanta, Andre 3000 continues to redefine the contours of musical experimentation with his latest sonic offerings. On 'Moving Day', a piece first showcased in last year's short film documenting his recent work, the OutKast veteran trades in his usual genre-defying flow for the smooth, ambient tones of a cosmic flute. The track unfolds like a slow-motion dream, where the melodies drift in and out of focus, capturing the disorienting yet soothing experience of moving through transitions. Then comes the reversed version, 'Day Moving', which inverts the gentle flow of the original, adding an unsettling, almost ghostly quality as the music warps and loops. The third track, 'Tunnels of Egypt', brings in an unexpectedly grounded yet still vast atmosphere, with its deep, resonant percussion and sparse instrumentation evoking a journey through both time and space. Andre's recent forays into the abstract have seen him abandon his commercial past in favour of an introspective exploration that challenges both him and his audience. Across these three tracks, he once again demonstrates his ability to balance complexity with restraint, creating something both otherworldly and deeply personal.

Review: Swedish composer Ellen Arkbro's Nightclouds is a deeply introspective and romantic turn that collects five solo organ improvisations recorded across Europe in 2023-24. Departing from installation-based compositions, Nightclouds explores slow, chordal improvisations rich in texture and atmosphere while drawing on sacred music, ECM jazz and minimalism. Along the way, Arkbro creates immersive soundscapes that balance austerity and emotional depth while shifting between meditative stillness and modernist tension with standout recordings like 'Morningclouds' and two variations on the title track. Through meticulous mic placement and tonal clarity, Arkbro draws you in with the intimacy and vastness of her sonic world.

Review: A cross-hemispheric exchange gave rise to Nocturna, the first collaboration between New Zealand composer Andrew Thomas and German sound artist Joachim Spieth - the former's first for Affin after long-held stints Kompakt. Beginning with Thomas's piano sketches, composed during a Southern Hemisphere summer, the material was passed to Spieth just as light returned to the North. A subtle transformation ensued; Spieth preserved the piano's fragile warmth as its edges came sculpted across ambient textures and restrained sound design. A peek-a-boo of presence and absence is scripted, where each decision to withhold a note feels as resonant as those included. Clipped reverb gargantuans contrast to crystal clear piano scales on our favourites, 'Lumina' and 'Amethyst'.

Review: There are immersive experiences that inspire artists to do great things. Then there's Aboutface heading to the Wampis Territory, in the Peruvian Amazon, to live with the local community, learn a little of how they live and their relationship with the Lungs of the Planet, capturing field recordings collaboratively with those people, and trying to articulate their world through an electronic-organic deep dive album. After you've got over the jealousy about how life-changing that trip was, let's focus on the fundamentals. This is seriously escapist stuff that seems to have been made using every root, branch, and animal encountered during those weeks. The synthesised elements are audible, but take a backseat to what was and is actually there. Or here. Quite unlike anything we've heard this year, it's a stunning way to raise awareness and support for Indigenous-led conservation and initiatives trying to stop illegal deforestation and ecocide.