Planet Mu レコード& CD

Review: Planet Mu, despite its advancing years, remains right at the cutting edge of electronic music. Its releases are never less that boundary nudging and constantly moving with the times. Back with a new album after Hyper Flux in 2017 did so well, Herva experiments with homemade hardware on this record. For it, he managed to build a "point-to-point mixer from scratch" and as such moves away from sample based music here. It is a thrilling conception that draws form IDM, electronics and its very own rule book when it comes to rhythms, timbre and texture. Mind being stuff for sure.

Review: Alan Myson's latest album as Ital Tek - his eighth for Planet Mu since debuting in 2008 - is an album of contrasts, offering aural darkness and light, intensity and becalmed beauty - and sometimes within the same track. It's rooted in ambient, experimental electronica and what would once be called IDM, but Myson has gone to great efforts to avoid stylistic cliches and well-worn tropes. As a result, it's unpredictable but addictive, with distorted creep-outs ('Heart String') and unsettling soundscapes ('Darking') sitting side by side with cuts smothered in glacial beauty ('The Next Time You Day') and melancholic, slowly unfurling sonic bliss ('Shattered').

Review: Mike Paradinas amassed a fine body of work under the stage name u-Ziq through the 1990s. The Planet Mu label head is currently reissuing some of it with Lunatic Harness, his fourth album form 1997, the latest to get the treatment. It came out of the so-called drill&bass movement but was more pretty than most from that niche sub-genre. While Aphex Twin and Squarepusher always went for abrasive textures, he delves into more celestial and suspensory sounds rich in shimmering melody. It remains one of the best IDM albums of any era.

Review: Saint Abdullah is the fraternal partnership of Mohammad and Mehdi Mehrabani-Yeganeh, two Iranian brothers now based in the US. Their collaboration with Ireland's Eomac first manifested in Patience Of A Traitor for Other People last year and now they follow up in quick fashion with an expansive album for Planet Mu. Chasing Stateless maintains a commitment to broadcasting Middle Eastern sonics which has been consistent throughout the Saint Abdullah catalogue, but the approach isn't obvious. Rather, snatches of speech samples or a particular choice of tuning sets the mood around deadly, blunted beat downs from the low slung hip-hop of 'Pretense Of Neutrality' to the uptempo electronica of 'No Negotiations And No Dialogue'.

Review: Given it's a reunification of latter-day UK electronic visionary Rian Treanor and decade-spanning next level imprint Planet Mu, many ears will already know what to expect from this one - a collection of tracks that are jarring, alien and wildly unorthodox, while still somehow immediately engaging rhythmically. Suffice to say, your presumptions are correct in this case.

In many ways the four tracks here are among Treanor's most accessible, although that's perhaps not saying too much. The broken, dub-techno-on-speed opener, 'Obstacle 2', manages to be frantic and deep at the same time. The glittering synth lines of 'Obstacle 3' help create a sense of rave-y invitation, despite the track itself being a staccato curveball. While the remaining two efforts are equally impressive examples of how to push sonic limits without asking too much in terms of audience endurance.

Review: Finnish producer Vladislav Delay is releasing their sophomore album as an industrial drone narration of the juxtaposition of returning to urban life after exploring the northern arctic (an idea explored in his previous works). After a long walk or meditative experience of peace, the moment when we thrust ourselves out the front door onto the main road - that is Isoviha. No track better encapsulates the synthetic incessant noise of city life than 'Isonuha' with it's synthetic incessant noise. Industrial crushing and experimental cymbal crashes fight each other in this bloodsport of a track. 'Isoviha' is intense and heavy on the soul, a reflection of it's anti-synthetic narrative.