Leaving US レコード& CD

Review: Experimental saxophonist Sam Gendel has been gifting us with reams of golden material in the past few years, from collaborative wonders to solo reflections, but this Fresh Bread will keep us chewing for days. Clearly Gendel can't help but make incredible music, and this collection is pulled from his personal archives of skits, sketches, unreleased pieces and more in between. It sounds shockingly complete for what is meant to be a gathering of offcuts, but the diaristic quality does feel like getting closer to the inner workings of the artist. If you appreciate beats, loops and experimental vignettes with an organic quality, you'll find a lot to enjoy in here.

Review: Green-House is the handiwork of Olive Ardizoni, who finds a sympathetic ear in Leaving Records for her delicate, pastoral strains of ambient reflection. Rather than being static, these are charmingly alive pieces that quiver with sensitivity and plaintive melodies that suggest some inspiration from the iconic Mort Garson record composed for houseplants. If you enjoyed that wobbly ride through sweet-natured synth refrains, you'll love this album too as it interweaves warm tones around bucolic field recordings. This comes highly recommended - a record that leaves you feeling nourished after listening.

Review: 'Cutetronica' (for want of a better pun, perhaps) has been making recent waves in experimental electronic music circles, with artists like Boy Lucid, Toiret Status, Dialect or any other number of net-bound trailblazers building convincing, glitzy-shiny soundworlds. Mari Maurice, aka. More Eaze, is another expert in the field. Her latest eight-track LP nods to something between acoustic folk and slippery-plastic fantasy; from the off of 'Gentle Pets', it's as if a small child had gone wandering in a field and dropped their Nintendogs cartridge with such force that it caused the game's virtual universe to spill over into our world, with veritably soul-quelling results. The album errs off into darker and more emotive moments, as on 'Suped' or 'Goodnight', but this is for the most part a light-hearted yet emotionally complex LP, neither for the faint or the heavy of heart - it strikes just the right balance.