Back catalogue: Experimental/Electronic

Review: Grand River's always-illuminating One Instrument label reawakens with a new album from Martin Sander and Michel Isorinne's Bandhagens Musikforening project. Having previously appeared on Northern Electronics and Semantica, now these two advanced synthesists place all their attention on a select few studio pieces to see how far they can take them. First up is the Roland System 100, which affords them plenty of tonal possibilities for the pulsing, kinetic 'Nedgravd I Naturen'. With the Yamaha DX-7 they create a towering ambient piece of FM synthesis, while the Roland SH-101 gets applied to a dense and detailed slice of obtuse leftfield techno. The Oberheim Matrix 6R becomes a vehicle for cinematic melancholy, and the Waldorf Microwave teases out an immersive swirl of ambience as you might well expect from the One Instrument series.

Review: The latest release on ever-crucial French jazz outpost Heavenly Sweetness welcomes the work of Bardainne Jaumet, a collaboration between accomplished French saxophonist Laurent Bardainne and Versatile regular Etienne Jaumet for four musically rich excursions into cosmic disco, Library music and the golden age of European synthesiser exploration. This is perhaps not what you might expect from the pairing of these two artists, or indeed the label, but the sheer compositional power and production of these two is simply undeniable. Grandiose statement pieces from two incredibly talented minds meeting on the same astral plane with a well-appointed studio as a vessel.

Review: Well Curated is a series of releases and parties that - in its own words - "reflects the ethnomusicology of the last 50 years of music" - and aims to reach into all genres, merging classic styles and breaking down barriers. Steve Spacek occupies the A-side with the breezy broken beat and soul-in-space of 'Alone In Da Sun', while Lukid's 'Hair Of The Dog' is a more intense counterpart, with wobbling sub-bass and swirling, surging atmospherics hovering above.

Review: And so Bjork's majestic remix collection continues to trickle onto our shelves and into your eardrums. The legendary leftfield pop singer / producer gives up her "Lionsong" tune for remix action from none other than Juliana Huxtable; the newcomer has only got a couple of cameo appearances to their name, but she's coming through string with this one. In essence, it's a techno tune - driven by fire kick drums and minimal sonics - but her soulful twists of vocals render it to be much more than that in the end. It's a soothing, delicate techno massage with a powerful energy.

Review: This surprise new EP finds celebrated music writer and producer Blackdown on the same EP as Burial for the first time since the latter remixed the former 15 years ago. There is a heavy Detroit influence in the far-sighted synths of 'This Journey' (VIP), with angsty vocal samples stitched into the bristling, swinging rhythm. Burial's 'Dark Gethsemane' bares all the producer's usual hallmarks - pitched up vocals, deft samples and a catchy 2-step shuffle. Blackdown then offers up a remix filled with chattery claps and UK funky rhythms to open the B-side, while Burial's 'Space Cadet' is another 2-step classic with its heady way up in the heavens.

Review: Royal Wavetable Mellodies & Old TDKs by Mexico baed artist Brainwaltzera is a perfect coming totters of the symphonic, the synthetic, the organic and the electronic. It's a record that could be a lost 70s classic as much as a new school homage to minimalism, experimental ambient and vintage synths. In fact, this is a selection of archive recordings in the artist's characteristically idiosyncratic style that we cannot get enough of. The collection of tracks are gorgeously native and innocent, with wispy melodies and retro keys all smeared and smudged into moving pieces of ambient that are beatless but dynamic.

Review: Third part of the compilation celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Milanese record shop. This collection is entirely composed of previously unreleased music, exclusively produced for the occasion by many artists of great relevance in the worldwide music scene, who supported the store over the last ten years. The artists who produced the music for this compilation are Egyptian Lover, Ellen Allien, Thomas Brinkmann, Neil Landstrumm, JD Twitch, Matias Aguayo, San Proper, Tolouse Low Trax, Jay Glass Dubs, Dj Marcelle, Jorge Velez, Tamburi Neri, Fabrizio Mammarella, Heith, Itinerant Dubs, Timeslip89, Kreggo and Intersezioni Ensemble. The entire work is composed of 4 x 12", plus a bonus EP.

Review: Burial's first full-length EP since 2012's 'Rival Dealer' hears the South London enigma plunge the depths of his newest dark ambient sound, wrenching the emo essences of rave from their breakbeats to produce a purely ambient affair. Spanning every emotion from depression to triumph, 'Antidawn' opens with a cough, in a seeming nod to the COVID lockdowns of recent years. Meanwhile, disparate sections buzz and weave in and out of one another on 'Shadow Paradise' and 'Strange Neighbourhood', never quite landing on their feet before being whisked away again. One of Burial's most defining world-building works.

Review: 
After his surprise drop with music writer and producer Blackdown on the Keysound label last month, the enigmatic Burial is now back with a fresh new EP all of his own. It comes on his longtime home of Hyperdub and features two more of his deft designed, ghostly deep dubstep post-nightbus joints. 'Chemz' is a strict raver filled with rushed up sounds, plenty of dance floor love and big hooks that is many different tracks, moods and vibes all rolled into one. As always, these Burial sounds look back to go forwards and do so in thrilling fashion.

Review: Heavyweight heroes Kode9 and Burial are no stranger to working together having done so to great success on FABRICLIVE 100 back in 2018. They don't actually collaborate on this one, though, instead serving up one side each of a new 12" for Fabric. As experimental artists with a penchant for drawn from the UK hardcore continuum you roughly know what to expect - fresh rhythms, emotive sounds designs, compelling rhythms. The 140g 12" comes in both limited edition and standard black vinyl versions, and both have bespoke 3D design with the fabric logo printed on reverse board heavyweight card.

Review: It almost seems redundant, writing something about the latest fabric Originals release. If you could think of a more enticing double-header for fans of bass, Leftfield techno, and UK-hued alternative electronic music then we want to hear it, with both producers here moving well beyond cult status and into the world of households names in homes well beyond their original audiences. And yet, remarkably, neither have strayed too far from where they initially set stalls. Hyperdub boss Kode 9 proves this first, with the sightly dizzying 'Infirmary'. Born from a combination of loose, open, galloping UKF and organic techno, with its foundations rooted in footwork, it's a bounding high-energy body mover that refuses to quit. Flip it and find Burial edging closer to 'dance music' than many might be used to, although it's a deep, moody interpretation packed with the spellbinding vocal flourishes of a mutant garage and suppressed, fidgety drums so subtle they're close to background noise.

Review: Italian composer and modular synth wizard Caterina Barbieri makes a debut on the Light-Years label here with a profound work of ambient beauty. Known for her musical vortexes, she warps space and time with her compositions and has done ever since breaking through with 2017's double-album Patterns Of Consciousness. Spirit Exit again finds her start up her modal rug and get to work in her home studio amidst Milan's two-month pandemic lockdown in 2020. It's a personal work that "takes inspiration from female philosophers, mystics and poets spread across time." The transportational sounds are as complex as they are emotive from front to back.

Review: .Caterina Barbieri is up there with Italy's greatest contributors to experimental, avant garde, artistic electronic music. Given her homeland has provided so much in that realm, such a statement is really saying something. Inform by pop, dance, classical, ambient, industrial and more, her work oozes sophistication and thoughtfulness, and - based on several first hand experiences - is very much capable of hypnotising and rendering audiences speechless. Ecstatic Computation is a prime example of her capabilities. Released in 2019, here repressed due to popular demand, it positions her as commander of space and time, utilising arpeggios and oscillations to distort our perception of where notes are and arrangements might be going. Sounds seem to swirl around the listener, engulfing us in a glorious sonic storm, or lulling into a trancelike, meditative state.

Review: Caterina Barbieri is an Italian modular goddess. Her 2019 album Ecstatic Computation was opened up by the majestic 'Fantas' and now it gets a whole new lease of life with this bumper package of variations. Each artist was personally chosen by Caterina and told to do whatever they wanted with the source material. The results are beguiling from the off with Evelyn Saylor, Lyra Pramuk, Annie Garlid & Stine Janvin going for a loopy, multi-layered vocal version that is constantly ascending to heaven. There is more calm from Kali Malon who keeps it strictly ambient and Carlo Maria approximates peak time melodic techno but from a much more artistic rather than narcotic point of view.

Review: Jason Barton is one man, London based experimental project BArTc. Insubstantial As Ghosts is his 14 track debut album and it comes on the label run by Colin Potter, who is well known for weird electronics thanks to his time as a member of Nurse With Wound. Barton has said that influences include Cabaret Voltaire co-founder Chris Watson and industrial legends such as Coil, Skinny Puppy and Einsturzende Neubauten. The music is built in many layers of synths, found sounds and environmental recordings. It results in organic and experimental sounds that are heavily distorted with various effects.

Review: With a wealth of modular techno and experimental sounds to his name, Ralph Cumbers is a prolific producer by anyone's standards and he seems to be going through a particularly productive spell of late. As well as records on PAN and Public Information being announced recently, last year's excellent Acid Tracts cassette has now been reissued on vinyl thanks to the Alter label overseen by Luke 'Helm' Younger. Fans of Bass Clef's under rated Punch Drunk LP Reeling Skullways are encouraged to investigate here, as the potential shown on that album is opened up in glorious fashion across wider stylistic spectrum. Already an album filled with witty track titles, this vinyl edition comes packing an extra previously unreleased one in the shape of "Music Sounds Better Without You".

Review: Pierre Bastien and Michel Banabila are bonafide musical visionaries who have come totters for the first time on this debut collaborative album, Baba Soiree. They have achieved plenty over their careers in electronic music and draw on all of it here as they fuse their own idiosyncratic styles into something new. The churning and rigid mechanical loops and experimental instrumental setups come from Bastien while the sound designs and superbly chosen and assembled samples come from Banabila. Sitting somewhere between dance floor fun and avant garde invention this is a great piece of sonic alchemy.

Review: Portland-based Kevin Palmer tucks himself away in a shed to make his music, so the myth goes. Wherever he makes it, he has always cooked up something special in the in-between electronic worlds. Now he lands on Blundar with a brand new album on numbered and heavyweight translucent green vinyl that offers up 12 tracks of ambient, dub and downtempo experiments which are at times intriguing and cosmic and others laid back and beautifully lazy. Each one is deftly detailed with myriad synth sounds, and atmospheric motifs and they all add up to a perfectly deep, dreamy and immersive listen.

Review: It's reductive to say that Dr. Steven T. Birchall's 1973 album is an exercise in academic electronica. Nevertheless, when the heads who don't already know get wind of the fact he used an EMS Putney (AKA a VCS-3), Ampex MM-1000 16 trk, DBX noise reduction, SpectraSonics Console, Studer A80 Recorder, Eventide Clockworks, Instant Phaser, Cooper Time Cube and EMT Reverb to achieve this stunner there's bound to be some note taking.
Plucked from a more innocent period in synthesised production, yet also one that was far more complex in terms of what was needed to achieve forward-thinking sounds, after pressing play you can't help but picture Birchall as some mad genius surrounded by vast arrays of machines, wires, plugs and intermittently blinking lights. In truth, the finished product is every bit that cosmic and explorative, a true testament to how much people back then thought the future would sound. Yet it's also very much a human feeling thing when heard today, its analogous tones both naive and familiar.

Review: Four new amorphous cuts from Bitchin Bajas, a Chicagoan trio active since 2010, and operating in the circle of freeform, longform, largely formless improv electronica. A staple of the North American music circuit, their live show is a mammoth operation involving tapes and guitars, and their music sounds something akin to what would happen if Terry Riley's Buddha on the front cover of 'Shri Camel' were given an extra bionic limb. 'Amorpha', 'Geomancy', 'World B. Free' and 'Quakenbruck' are rhythmic, humble forways through 'waves', 'phases', 'stratospheric arcs' and whatnot, leading to a fantastical musical enlightenment.

Review: Following from the success of this year's Vulnicura LP, Iceland's Bjork has decided to release an acoustic companion made up of string-only reinterpretations; a more abstract and pensive piece, if you will. One Little Indian is the label, of course, but this time there are strictly no beats, and the only concrete sounds within it are the subtle and placid wails of Bjork's own voice. While it isn't truly a pop album, there is enough playfulness and charm to render it playable not only as a solitary piece of music, but also alongside other pieces...in an explorative DJ set, perhaps.

Review: Nominated for a Grammy Award upon release, Bjork's tenth studio album was a true masterpiece and proved that the Icelandic enigma is far from out of ideas. Aesthetically - both in terms of the visuals and music itself - it's surreal and rich, and this 2023 version adds more to the brew, with additional vocals and extra effects on three of the tracks, including an appearance by her daughter, I?sado?ra Bjarkardo?ttir Barney, and bonus production on 'Ovule'.
Those who missed it first time should know this is one of her least compromising outings - if not the least compromising record she's ever done. Centring on two main sources of inspiration, bass clarinet and gabber music (up there with the most Bjork ideas you've ever heard), despite what that sounds like the LP is all mayhem, warehouse parties and weird woodwind accents. A thing of resolute beauty and visionary ideas, again, our only advice is to take a listen rather than let some writer attempt to explain what's here.

Review: "Another Bjork album?!" cry the naysayers. But little do they know they've been duped into thinking the Icelandic legend's last full-length, Utopia, was a recent affair. Actually, it's already been a good five years since the singer's flowery flabbergaster, and collab with experimentalists Arca and Doon Kanda, came to be. Fossora, by contrast, is a much more mournful LP: it's a meditation on generations, and was in part inspired by the death of Bjork's mother. It also contains collaborations with her two children, Sindri and isadora. A homelier affair, revisiting Bjork's upbringing in Iceland, on which she hadn't reflected on record since she was 16.

Review: When is a remix album not a remix album? When it's creatively driven by Bjork. The wonderfully titled Bastards might be a collection of reversions from her 2011 album Biophilia but it's clear all artists have been specially considered for their job and worked hard to subvert their usual motifs; stretching from the warped techno twists of 16-Bit's take on "Hollow" to the ghostly acapella of These New Puritans remix of "Mutual Core", this is one bastard you want in your life.

Review: In interviews promoting Fossora, her tenth album, Bjork joked that it started life as "her Clarinet album" - a nod to the set's extensive (and sometimes experimental) use of regular and bass clarinet instrumentation. Really, though, it's her lockdown album, and one partly inspired by the grief she felt following the passing of her mother in 2018. In many ways it's an astonishing set, with the Icelandic artist adding her own distinctive lyrics and vocals - still effortlessly emotional and addictive after all these years - to tracks that brilliantly fuse, mix and mangle red-lined tribal drums, fuzzy IDM style electronics, brass band arrangements, jazz instrumentation and, on the inspired title track, increasingly intense, break-neck dancefloor rhythms that tend towards the gabber end of the spectrum. Unusual, entertaining and utterly beguiling; it's another brilliant album from a genuine one-off.

Review: Two years after Marc Richter released his most widely available album Back To Comm album, Alphabet 1968, on the ever amazing Tape imprint, he delivered another landmark with Earth. Originally, the music was conceived to accompany two screenings of the video Earth by Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen. First commissioned for the Sydney Festival 2011, the visual work was scored by Melbourne's Oren Ambarchi for the grand unveiling, but then toured the planet, with different musicians invited to reimagine the soundtrack for different locations. Germany's Black To Comm was enlisted for Berlin and Krakow, and as the smart money was always on, he offered up a strange, beguiling, abstract but highly visceral score. Almost impossible to describe, at once witty but incredibly sad, troubling and intriguing, traumatised but honest, it might be the perfect accompaniment to a film in which several frames are dedicated to landscapes piled high with human corpses. Following the two live performances, the producer opted to make these 'tunes' his next record, which is now finally getting a reissue.

Review: When Black To Comm's staggeringly powerful Alphabet 1968 first landed, rather confusingly in 2010, it stood out on a burgeoning ambient and drone landscape for several reasons. Firstly, it was rather short. Certainly in comparison to similar sounding releases of the day - less than 45 minutes. Secondly, it managed to cram, or rather delicately introduce, myriad sub genres and styles within the relatively brief run time. Each track comes across as though it is autonomous, yet the collection really needs to be explored as a whole to get the full impact. So while 'Trapez' has this stunning, purposefully naive quality to it - like a music box fed through various levels of distortion, chimes straining through the muffled playback - preceding number 'Forst' is this grand, palatial overture of refrains and background marching drums, taking up a full quarter of the entire album on its own. Elsewhere, 'Traum Gmbh' brings fret and chaos to the equation, shrill notes invoking horror movie scenes, while 'Musik Fur Alle' invites us into an aural realm that owes much to candlelit folk tales.

Review: John Blackford's career got an early boost when he won a Moby remix composition. He then released one rather good EP of electro workouts on Bot in 2008, before all but disappearing. Organism marks his comeback from that extended hiatus and is really rather good. He begins with the dark, moody and intoxicating "Third Eye", before rolling through melodious, evocative cuts that variously tip a wink to hip-hop/IDM fusion ("Dopamine"), post-Drexciya dark-scapes (the jazzy "Faust"), spacey electronica ("Implicit Memory"), clandestine ambient ("Dark Matter") and slowly unfurling beauty (the creepy-but-blissful "Organism"). As returns go, it's really rather good.

Review: James Blake's debut album is undoubtedly one of 2011's most keenly awaited releases, and its arrival via his own (major label funded) Atlas imprint ensures their is no lull in momentum for a producer who enjoyed a watershed 2010 with releases on Hessle Audio and R&S. The results here differ wildly from his previous sonic excursions - gone are the shimmering R&B soaked melodies of "CMYK" and the sheer experimentalism of the Klavierwerke EP, which saw the young Londoner depart from the confines of the dancefloor and enter a realm where there was only a passing reference to rhythm-based music. Instead we are treated to Blake's own yearning, raw voice, delicate pianos and an underlying sense of melancholy. Ubiquitous single "Limit To Your love" and the crackly sonic terrain evoked on "The Wilhelm Scream" are among the most immediately pleasing moments, but there is much to explore here. It's a fascinating opus and surely the catalyst to a long and fruitful career at the top.

Review: Remember when James Blake first popped into the common conscience? Or slid, subtly, gently, barely-existing, like a thought without a mind, lost in the vast expanse of silence, trying to be heard? The originality of those early outings will always stand out as defining a moment in UK electronica where things began to change; post dubstep, haunted by the ghosts of garage, pre-techno takeover, genres starting to collapse back in on each other, paving the way today's label-less stuff.

In comparison, Friends That Break Your Heart is a far, far more traditional episode in the story of Blake. Those old fragments of tracks haven't just been glued back together, new parts have been added to create incredibly detailed and - dare it be said - busy collages. It's R&B infused, synth topped, pop balladry influenced electronic future soul. And we're really quite (very) into it.

Review: Brooklyn's Tyler Gilmore, aka BlankFor.ms, has released on Works for Tape and Piano, a full-length on Puremagnetik and has remixed The Cinematic Orchestra and Para One. Here he drops a new album on Mystery Circles that comes on hugely limited red vinyl. Once again it showcases his richly textured, emotive ambient music that is all made using his collection of analog synthesisers, an old spinet piano and degraded tapes. His experimental techniques result in some truly moving and impactful ambient that stays with you long after it has finished playing.

Review: Mystery Circles is busy at the moment with a great series of tapes, albums and 7"s all dropping in relatively quick succession. This one is a nice heavy 180-gram vinyl long player with only 100 copies pressed. It's Brooklyn's Tyler Gilmore, aka BlankFor.ms, at his best, if you ask us. His highly textured ambient uses gorgeous spinet piano, dusty and degraded tapes and analog synthesisers to make for something that evokes deep memories and transports you to places you had long forgotten. It is a touching record that leaves an indelible mark.

Review: RECOMMENDED
Dean Blunt is nothing short of an enigma. Whether you're reading one of his interviews of few words, listening to the records that seem to both celebrate the avant-garde and obsess over it, or watching him descend into strange, otherworldly cacophonies on stage, usually shrouded in smoke, he's never really been an easy guy to pin down. And that's exactly what he's always been going for.

It's something of a surprise, then, to learn that Black Metal 2, the long-awaited, seven years in the making sequel to his critically acclaimed Black Metal, is actually pretty straight forward. In a Dean Blunt kind of way. Opening on the compressed strings and near-spoken word of 'Vigil', the record takes us into the deep dark depths of strange, hook-fuelled guitar poetry, and we never want to find our way back.

Review: Widely regarded as Boards of Canada's finest hour, Music Has The Right To Children finds itself the subject of a well-deserved 2LP gatefold reissue from Warp Records. One of the most defining records of what was known for better or worse as IDM still sounds as timeless as it did in 1998, as the library tones of "Wildlife Analysis", thick downtempo rhythms of "Roygbiv" and out of focus melodies of "Olson" prove. Essential!

Review: When it comes to a reissue such as this it can't be understated just how arresting the work of Boards of Canada can be in the right situation. This EP, that came to light in between Music Has The Right To Children and Geogaddi, represents the enigmatic duo at their most powerful, channeling their energy into four long-form tracks that draw on all of their combined strengths. "Kid For Today" is haunting and dark but utterly heartbreaking, whilst "Amo Bishop Roden" heads into more mysterious territory. "In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country" is eerie in its titular invitation to join a cult, and "Zoetrope" tips its hat to Terry Riley et al in its looping phrases, but really there's no describing the magnificence of these gems, pleasingly reissued on vinyl to beat the Discogs chancers.

Review: Given that it's been eight years since the last Boards of Canada album, Tomorrow's Harvest should, by rights, push Daft Punk's Random Access Memories in the hype stakes. Certainly, it's a fine set. During their sabbatical, Marcus Eoin and Michael Sandison have lost none of their power to amaze and impress. Chords drone, samples hiss, synths shimmer and beats swing. There are intense ambient moments and intoxicating, post-IDM dreamscapes. It is in turns icy, warm, introspective and blindingly picturesque. Throughout, Tomorrow's Harvest is impeccably atmospheric, conjuring images of windswept Scottish moors, becalmed Cornish bays and maudlin pagan ceremonies. As comeback records go, it's pretty darn good.

Review: The more discerning and concentrated electro head will be tuned into the work of Bot1500. It is an alias of Shinichi Kobayashi, a producer who since 2018 has landed on the likes of Analogical Force and Furthur Electronix with a unique mix of futurist sounds. This one is another brilliant EP featuring cuts like 'Chartreuse 8.' It's a propulsive rhythm built from silky breaks and overlaid with the sort of heart-aching and thought-provoking chords that will send you inward on the dance floor. The five other cuts are just as much a perfect mix of the physical and the cerebral.

Review: Fresh, warm and spontaneous - brainwave research center's eight track debut album is everything that electronic music sometimes forgets to be. Recorded and produced in the back of Smith's synthesizer/electronic repair shop, Specs Sales & Repair, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the project is a joint collaboration between NYC-based house/techno producer, Chase Smith (W.T. Records, Apartment, is/Was), & documentary filmmaker, Christa Majoras (School of Visual Arts).
Described as a distillation of influences from experimentalism of Steve Reich, Laurie Spiegel and Black Dice, the 90s ambient techno of The Orb and Pete Namlook/Fax and more motorik flavours like Kraftwerk, Suicide, Manual Gottsching, it's a gentle but lively affair from the Art Of Noise-esque 'ah ah ah ah ah' and bubbling jam 'Bird Brain' to the epic arpeggios v guitar closer 'Day Dreaming'. This is first of four releases that the artist has planned, but there's certainly enough here to get your teeth into for now.

Review: After what seems like an eternity, Warp has finally decided to give Broadcast's Microtonics series a full release. Initially made available only to fans at gigs, the two-volume series saw the band experimenting not with their krautrock-influenced brand of trippy electronic pop, but rather the kind of music concrete and synthesizer experiments that were once the preserve of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Peter Zinovieff and the various modular synthesis fetishists that came in their wake. For that reason, it's not Broadcast at their most accessible, but if you're into vintage synth sounds and admirable experimental electronica, Microtonics makes for hugely enjoyable listening.

Review: Erased Tapes, London's purveyors of the new garde in ambient music, take on one of the legends in revered Oregon folk experimentalist Peter Broderick. On the Partners LP, he starts out with the spoken word poetry of the title track, then the sombre piano piece "In A Landscape", complete with eerie tape hiss lurking in the background. Other highlights include the emotional and bittersweet "Carried" and the awe inspiring closing track "Sometimes" where Broderick's vocals come gloriously come into the fold, on a price which is truly captivating and special.

Review: Cate Brooks is now up to a seventh release on Clay Pipes and with each new outing she always evolves. 'Easel Studies' is no different and sees the artist going further than ever before beyond the pale when it comes to sound synthesis and experimentation on the Buchla Music Easel. What results is melody that's both abstract and alien but still beautifully compelling. She layers it up in hypnotic fashion across ten tracks that range from the cosmic to the synthetic, the ambient to more rhythmic. It's the sort of record to put on loud and tune in to closely and lose all sense of space and time.

Review: If there's one collaboration that we have bowed down to over the last few years, it's most certainly this new found friendship between London's Kevin Martin aka The Bug, and American doom metal guitarists, Earth. One wouldn't immediately make the connection between inner-city future-grime music and suburban stoner rock, but the two styles were in perfect unison, and this is because they're both fascinated with dark, looming clouds of bass. Whether that's through virtual synths or badass bass guitars, it doesn't matter, because the mood is mightily present. Concrete Desert is the alliance's debut LP, and it's all guns blazing from start to finish; tunes like "Snakes vs Rats" or "Metal Drone" represent exactly the sort of freshen-up that each respective act needed - on the one hand, The Bug could have done with some more external influences to the melodic constructions, while Earth needed a new framework to enter the minds of a new, European audience. We've dubbed this style 'metal drone', and we're pretty sure that it's gonna stick after you've played it out for a few minutes. A blinding collab, right here.

Review: Of all the artists past and present who claim to let their music do their talking for them, Burial is one of the elite band of whom this truly is the case. In fact, so reluctant is he to engage with the cult-of-personality hoopla that surrounds almost every modern producer and musician of merit, that he remains a genuine recluse; he has never appeared live, only one obliquely-angled publicity photograph is known to exist, and the number of interviews he has given can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Yet despite this, his music speaks loud and wide, and the world has been listening ever since his 'South London Boroughs' EP debut on Hyperdub in March 2005. His eponymous album, which began life as a low-key release in May 2006, is now widely regarded as the benchmark release of the ever-widening dubstep genre, picking up unanimous critical acclaim along the way, and ending the year heavily featured in many 'best of' polls. Now Burial returns with 'Untrue', a new record of weird soul music, which lovingly processes spectral female voices into vaporised R&B and smudged 2step garage. Vocal lines are blurred, smeared, pitched up pitched down and pitch bent until their content is cast adrift from their original context and they whisper their saccharin sweet nothings into the void. The album continues with the debut's crackle-drenched yearning and bustling syncopations, haunted by the ghosts of rave, but also reveals some new Burial treats with a more glowing, upbeat energy. Kicking off with the skittering 2step syncopations and vocal science of 'Archangel', 'Near Dark' and 'Ghost Hardware', before long it descends into a space of radiant divas and ambience. Where 'Burial' first was humid, suffocating and unrelentingly sad, 'Untrue' is less sunless. Many of the tracks are so sweet, they become toxic, underscored by the almost geological rumbles of growling basslines. Unlike the overpoweringly melancholic prevailing mood of before, Burial's sound is now better defined as a downcast euphoria typified by the epic, muted optimism of the album's last track 'Raver'. Forget central heating the radioactivity of this album is all that you'll need to keep you warm this winter. 'Untrue' is available as full 13 track digipack CD, including recent underground hit 'Ghost Hardware', and 9 track DJ friendly double vinyl set, from which some of the beatless pieces have been edited.

Review: La Perversita is something of a seminal French underground record first released back in 1979 but still sounds way ahead of its time today. It's a concept record and collage of found sounds, guitars and synths that was designed to "sublimate sexual perversion." It comes from Jacques Pasquier who was the founder of S.C.O.P.A./Invisible Records and a key part of the alternative scene that was rife in Paris in the 70s with producer Hector Zazou amongst other creative talents and outsiders. This remastered reissue comes with extensive liner notes from people in and around the project at the time.

Review: Wanderwelle & Bandhagens Musikforening's masterful Victory Over The Sun album gets skilfully reinterpreted by some of techno's most forward thinking protagonists. Amsterdam pair Wanderwelle themselves go first with a misty ambient take of 'An Unusual Sunrise' that sets a perfectly dramatic scene. Label boss Sverca serves up one of the highlights with his deep, pulsing hypnotic version of the title track and Anthony Linell sinks us way down below the ocean surface on his meditative dub roller. There is more energy to the busted beats and hidden vocal sounds of Celestial Crusade (E-Saggila remix) and plenty more greatness through the other tracks.