Back catalogue: Balearic/Downtempo

Review: K15's long-awaited album, Hope Is Perseverance, is a testament to his two-decade-long journey in music. From the dreamlike essence of 'life interrupted' to the intricate textures of 'hollowed' and 'new territories', the album captures K15's distinctive cinematic style with a nod to beat culture. The title track is an expansive nine-minute exploration featuring soulful string arrangements and captivating drum programming, hallmarking K15's artistry. A compelling ode to hope, the album also highlights K15's multifaceted identity in the music landscape.

Review: Following a run of quietly impressive singles on Boitte Music, Nicolas Saavedra brought his Kabinett project to Internasjonal back in 2022. A couple of EPs later and the Bogota-based DJ/producer is ready to deliver his debut album. Taking cues from fellow Colombian Felipe Gordon, the tracks on offer blend vintage and contemporary synth sounds, electric piano motifs, MPC-driven lo-fi beats, a few choice samples and his own vocals to create a set of tracks that variously draw inspiration from deep house, lo-fi pop, jazz-funk and space disco. Highlights include dreamy pop number 'Volatile Love', the Prins Thomas-esque 'Owl Disco', the decidedly psychedelic and hard chugging title track, and stellar cosmic funk head-nodder 'Don't Rush'. An album that's well worth your time and money.

Review: French label Good Morning Tapes welcomes Paris-born electronic innovator and 70s GRM alumni Ariel Kalma New York-based trio Asa Tone for some serious deep ambient soundscapes. The wellness movement has never been more polar than it is now but if you ask us, nothing could be better for your mental health and sense of self than sitting a dark room with this one nice and loud so you can soak up its high fidelity designs, the microscopic pads, the whimsical melodies and slowly shapeshifting sounds in all their glory. A tremendous work.

Review: This analogue-driven masterpiece sets a high bar for exciting music in 2025. The ten-track album, crafted by the Gothenburg duo (featuring members of Fontan and Ultra Satan), blends intricate soundscapes with emotional resonance, offering a listening experience that is both reflective, thought-provoking yet at times, challenging. Vind explores the intersection of rhythm and emotion, creating an atmosphere that feels timeless and innovative. The first single, 'Montilla', embodies the album's ethos. With its downtempo pace and broken beat structure, the track feels like a sonic odyssey. Psychedelic elements and exceptional guitar work add layers of complexity, while leftfield textures make it stand out. The result is a piece that's unique, grounded but also otherworldly. 'Medvind Part 1' is a great example at the ability of the band to create an outstanding blend of various styles of music such as Latin, ambient and folk music along with many others. Vind is a rewarding journey for all who cherish inventive music.

Review: With their debut album on !K7 Records, Kassian (aka the pairing of Joe Danvers-McCabe and Warren Cummings) return to the warm, sample-based house sounds that originally brought them together. Over five years, they revisited early ideas, refining their craft to create a record that explores emotional depth beyond their club-focused tracks. The album has been, we're told, shaped by time, loss and reflection so weaves through various atmospheres with live instrumentation, field recordings and percussion that evolve over time. Featuring Joe Armon-Jones from Ezra Collective on keys and Timothy Kraemer on cello, Channels makes for a tender and introspective journey.

Review: Dubio makes no secret of its intention, from the word go. The opening, titular track give us the lay of the land. A record inspired by the soundtrack to a puzzle game of the same name, there's a cyclical, perpetual kind of motion to everything here. Obviously, we know where the start of each piece is, and the conclusion. But the vibe isn't forward motion, nor backwards. Instead, there's a gradual meandering tempo, a loose, open-ended kind of aesthetic that invokes the old cliche - the journey, not the destination. And with that, you can't help but sense a little mystery here, too. Kettel isn't always known for this type of free spirited exploration, and yet here we are, and how we got here is part of what we're trying to figure out. Musically, that means warm pads and string refrains, twinkling chimes, plodding, almost unsteady percussion and a sense of wonder and perpetuity throughout.

Review: Sheffielder Matthew Relton - initially known as Kidnap Kid, but now releasing as Kidnap - has been on quite a musical journey since first emerging as a boisterous garage and UK bass producer early last decade. His first full-length, 2020's Grow, showcased his maturation as an artist by focusing on songs and instrumentals that tended towards the tactile and picturesque. On this follow-up, he's leaned further into the "artist maturing" theme via a blend of picturesque songs (voiced by regular collaborator Ian Stannard, Gabrielle Apin and others') and ambient instrumentals shot through with yearning, oblique nostalgia, delicate instrumental arrangements and plenty of sweeping, cinematic chord sequences. It's not pop, per se, but it is hugely accessible with tons of crossover potential. Expect to see him on festival stages in the months and years ahead.

Review: King Pari is an LA-via-Minneapolis duo who creatively blend influences from Prince and psychedelic dub into a new sound they have described as "bedroom funk." Their infectious lo-fi tracks are rich in emotion and brimming with funky grooves so make for a catchy listen. This group actually picked up props from Prince himself before the late Purple genius passed in 2016 and since then jazz innovator Kamasi Washington has also annoyed himself as a fan. This full length is only sure to win the pair ever more accolades for this new take on classic funk.

Review: Pieter Kock shows us how it's done with The End II, a fantastic new experimental beats LP manifested on the Macadam Mambo label, in a move that has been described as "quite unexpected". A doyen of post-10s German kraut-tronics, Kock first found his savvy as a releaser of retrofutural cassette tapes for various outlets - the likes of RIO, Meakusma and Moonwalk X - all of which assumed album form (to date, Kock has not released a single single or EP). Macadam Mambo offer a suggestion as to why this is: "all the demos that he sent were so good that there was no question about doing something." If by "doing something" you mean releasing over 16 strident club-churners in the style of far leftfield dub, synthpunk and krauty Krankenschaften, you've made no mistake. Dive into any one of these exotic exo-treats, and your eyes will just as surely turn helical.

Review: You might say the clue is in the name, but as well as bearing a nice selection of differently cut beat action, this double album from French/Syrian producer Ahmad Qatrami aka Konalgad on New York's Dance Data label, is also a nicely cerebral affair jammed with celestial adventures for mind as well as feet. It refuses to get stuck in any stylistic rut, from the cloud-like ambience of 'REM' to the brooding bass and dubby stepping of 'Subzero Experiment' and the simmering shimmer of 'Dots To Dots', half digi-dub thump and half subtly filtered junglist trimmings, it keeps on giving something new right to the end. Konalgad apparently translates as "the universe of tomorrow" in Arabic, and this artist definitely has a bright future to match his already quite impressive track record.

Review: Electronic music owes much to legendary synth makers like Roland, Yamaha and Sequential Circuits and now Rack Sessions explores their unique sonic identities by dedicating each track to a single synth. From the cinematic grandeur of 'The D' (Roland D-550) to the nostalgic warmth of 'MiR' (Korg M1R), each composition is shaped by its instrument's distinct character while beats take a backseat as atmospheric soundscapes unfold-'802 Nights' (Yamaha TX802) evokes open highways, while 'SOB' (Oberheim Matrix-6) channels sci-fi tension. These are carefully crafted and deeply evocative sounds.

Review: To celebrate the 25th anniversary of The K&D Sessions, Kruder & Dorfmeister present a stunning limited-edition box set, available on 6xLP. Mastered by renowned engineer Bernie Grundman, this edition promises an audiophile listening experience. The set includes a newly added 6th LP featuring previously unreleased material, including remixes of Madonna, Roni Size, Lewis Taylor and Count Basic. The lavish packaging boasts gloss finishes, metallic gold Pantone details, and clear UV varnishing on the sleeves. Additionally, it includes a 40-page booklet filled with rare, unseen photos from the original era and extensive liner notes by Max Dax, Robert Menasse, and Werner Geier. A hi-res A2 poster is also part of the package. The standout tracks on the sixth LP include Kruder's 11-minute remix of Madonna's 'Nothing Really Matters', along with K&D's interpretation of Roni Size's 'Heroes' and U.F.O.'s 'L.O.V.E.'. Lewis Taylor's 'Lucky' appears in two remixed forms, one dubbed out and the other vocal-driven. This deluxe release elevates the original The K&D Sessions, which became the soundtrack for countless late 90s afterparties and lounge sessions, to new heights with a beautifully crafted presentation fitting for its enduring legacy.

Review: Jesper Kyd may not be a 'household name', but once you've encountered the Danish composer and sound designer's work you're unlikely to forget who he is or what he is capable of. Largely self-taught, he began exploring composition at an early age, by 14 was composing on a Commodore 64 and then an Amiga, and later became a member of the audio-visual computer-based artist collective Silents DK, a demogroup. Soon after that, he was collaborating with the Crionics coders. Seemingly born into the world of video game development, but from a staunchly artistic perspective, to date he's created some of the most accomplished game scores we've encountered, and 2006's Hitman: Blood Money is among them. Recorded with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, it's tense, building, grand and, even without the on-screen action, thoroughly captivating contemporary classical stuff.