Sahko Finland レコード& CD

Review: Since the mid 1990s electronic explorer and sound designer Ryoji Ikeda has amassed a vast catalogue of releases. Some of these, though, are either hard to find or were only released on certain formats - hence this release on Sahko. It gathers together two lengthy compositions from early in his career that were previously only available on CD. Our pick of the pair is gorgeous A-side 'Luxus 1-3', a stunning, 16-minute suite from 1995 debut album 1000 Fragments that fuses deep space ambience with the orchestral musical cycles of American minimalism and plenty of gently mild-altering effects. Flipside 'Space', which first surfaced in 1998, is a ghostly piece of haunting sound design in which distance sub-bass tones struggle to break through a dense fog of creeping chords and digital watch bleeps.

Review: The thing about early synthesiser music is that there's always a new mad scientist to discover. Take Osmo Lindeman, for example. While the real electronic sonic historians will likely be familiar with this Finnish experimental pioneer and master film scorer, most other people probably won't be. Thankfully, then, this collection of his most plugged-in works can set the record straight. A package that celebrates his avant garde approach to marrying gadgets and gizmos with the brassy seduction of jazz. So although the tracks here may not be his most renowned contributions to the pantheons - see the soundtracks to Rakas, Totuus on armoton, and Tulipunainen kyyhkynen - the Electronic Works gathered by the Sahko Finland team are certainly among his most groundbreaking and boundary pushing. Like listening to what outer space may have sounded like if it put on a concert in the late-1960s featuring trumpet and sax maestros, prepare for a series of fascinating audio adventures and juxtapositions.

Review: Wow. When you're writing about music releases it's often tempting to present difficult to describe tunes as unique. That's not always factually accurate, though, as is clear when you come across something like this seven-way bag of the wonderfully bizarre. Half the stuff on here, at least, really does defy categorisation, although we can probably lump it all together as experimental, industrial-leaning electronic music with avant-garde tendencies. And a libido. What that describes varies wildly. Nuke Watch's 'NWPJS Perc' interprets the term as a kind of slow build, low BPM workout made up of what could well be the noise of various tools, pipes and taps being struck. Umfang delivers a dark and menacing hip hop-electro instrumental, packed with atmosphere and pent up energy. Ana Fosca goes for shrill refrains and drones. Egg Meat serves a dominatrix of off-time weirdo-techno tones with mind melting percussive cacophonies.