Polytechnic Youth レコード& CD

Review: North London minimal synth label Polytechnic Youth looks to Brooklyn for their latest release with The Botanist & The Archaeologist, a collection of imaginary '80s film and vintage horror scores from Faten Kanaan. Some twelve tracks long, Kanaan's mastery of vintage synths is there to behold from the moment the epic "Viriditas" swoops into action, but there is also a real depth on display here too. Witness the spectral harmonies and soft focus chimes of "Spy Films" or the instrumental organ drift of "Coryphee." If you are sick of people banging on about the Stranger Things soundtrack, lay this tremendous album on their figurative doorstep and watch as their senses open to some truly wonderful synth music.

Review: Cult artist Colin Potter has been serving up superb albums for decades, with each year bringing a new clutch of solo or collaborative excursions. "Here", the veteran experimentalist's first outing for Poytechnic Youth, is another must-check affair. This time he's in a dark and intoxicating mood, offering up atmospheric soundscapes rich in woozy modular electronics, fuzzy guitar solos, metronomic post-punk bass, unsettling ambient chords, horror soundtrack aesthetics and off-kilter, delay-laden drums. It reminded us a little of early Joy Division, Chris Watson-era Cabaret Voltaire and other DIY-era experimentalists, though there's little doubt that it's a Colin Potter record.