今週

Review: We won't make the obvious joke about buses - you know, the one about waiting ages for an Autechre album and then two turn up pretty much at the same time. But we will say this. If Plus, the second of Sean Booth and Rob Brown's two albums to drop within a fortnight of each other after a lengthy absence, were a bus, it wouldn't be headed out on any recognisable route that we know about. You might find the odd bit of scenery that feels vaguely familiar - the tension-laden strings of 'ii pre esc' or the scrambled drum & bass machinations of 'X4', but in the pair's hands they are splintered and re-assembled very much in their own image, one foot in the frenetic exhortations of electro and the other deeply planted in the land of industrial experimentation. Closing track 'TM1 might bear a slight resemblance to the squelchy acid of Drexciya, for instance, but its occasionally four-to-the-floor beats stop and start with a wonderfully disorientating playfulness. Brave and original, as ever, this is not for the faint hearted but at the same time takes you places you never thought you'd encounter.

Review: As with the first SchleiBen series, Emotional Response follows the success of the second set of split releases with a stand-alone album by one of the highlights, in Neil Tolliday. Recorded over a 17-year period, the ambient, drone and noise pieces collected here offer a glimpse in to the depth of a supremely talented, thoughtful and at times, troubled musical mind. As his love for house music and the success of his Nail moniker grew and waned during the ascent 90s boom, there followed his somewhat surprising success as one half of Balearic-pop combo Bent, propelling Tolliday in to a world of indie-charts and endless touring. The eventual unhappiness of this 'music career' and increasing need for personal escapism led him start experiment new musical forms of expression. A thinker and oft-over drinker, success was viewed with a deep suspicion and introspection, drug use and later, depression. As his other music projects slowly imploded, this new, personal music was for many years, made purely for Tolliday's own absorption and comedowns. Taken from an initial 4 track recording in Nottingham in 2000, more pieces were subsequently recorded around the globe on numerous devices - old portable cassette recorders, hand held digital stereos and even mobile phones. These heavily manipulated samples were slowed down, reversed, smudged and stretched before analog and modular patching, Mellotron, editing, programming and post production were added to the melting pot. With hundreds of tracks collated, in the last few years Tolliday began putting them out via Bandcamp using different aliases, on made up record labels, with no press or mention to anyone. This would happen every 6-9 months - a new label was created with logo, band/artist names and a few albums worth of music, leaving it there for a few weeks before then deleting the lot. Here then is a snapshot of those recordings, chosen to represent the depth of music, while trying not to think too much about in to the emotions that were used in making them. With special hand painted artwork by Sam Purcell, commissioned from the artist's own photographs taken from a adjournment at Homerton hospital, the hope is to do justice to such wonderful music and present Neil Tolliday, finally an artist, shorn of pseudonyms, in a broader light.

Review: Amorphous Androgynous are back with something suitably epic in the form of this symphonic, 40-minute prog space-rock concept album, We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal. It is presented as five fantastic parts with the legendary Peter Hammill and Paul Weller both guesting, while the Chesterfield Philharmonic Choir and a 25-piece live orchestral string section provide the sumptuous sound that makes this most expansive and borderless record sound so meaningful. A cosmic trip of gigantic proportions with all the ups and downs you need to really feel moved, this is the definition of prog lavishness.

Review: Burnski's Instinct project continues to gather steam with the release of a second album following last year's Still Life, which established the Leeds tech house veteran as a serious player in the new wave of UK garage. The ideas come thick and fast on Point Of View, flowing from the aqueous 2-step funk of 'Pistolwhip' to the 4x4 uplift of 'Sunstream', but the strongest moments come when the sound design collides with formidable bassweight on the likes of 'Select'. This is primarily a collection of club tackle, but it's packed with enough shade and depth to reach beyond the dance for all those other moments when you need a little shuffle in your life.

Review: Belarusian post-punk trio Molchat Doma started out as little known local artists but, through the power of the internet and the cult of record collectors digging ever deeper, now have a revered profile amongst those who know. Their work has gone viral such is it uniquely curious charm and Monument is their victory lap. On this newest record, S Krysh Nashikh Domov and Etazhi epxand their minimalist sounds into more fulsome post-punk grooves. Some are slow and inviting, others are more urgent and angular for the dance floor, sousing something like a ghostly apparition of Joy Division.

Review: In line with the timely reappraisal of all things R&S related, the resurgent Apollo have seen the opportunity to bring one of their most celebrated records back for another round. Aphex Twin's ambient recordings mature magnificently with age, sounding ever richer and more emotive as the rest of electronic music continues to play catch up all around. From the gentle breakbeats of "Xtal" to the aquatic techno lure of "Tha", the airy rave of "Pulsewidth" to the heartwrenching composition of "Ageispolis", every track is a perennial example of how far ambient techno could reach even back then. It's just that no-one quite had the arm-span of Richard D. James.

Review: If you've got even the slightest interest in the cutting edge, synthesizer-heavy Tokyo scene of the 1980s, this killer compilation from Japanese music crate-digger Nick Luscombe and Wewantsounds is simply essential. It features tracks plucked from the vaults of cult labels Nippon Columbia and Better Days, with Luscombe offering up inspired selections that variously touch on deep synth-pop, electro, post-punk experimentation, jazz-funk, ambient and what would now be classic as Balearica. It's such a good collection that we're finding picking highlights difficult, though our current faves include the disco-tinged punk-funk of Juicy Fruits' 'Jenie Gets Angry', the slow-motion jazz-funk of Yumi Murata, Chiko Asamoto's smooth and sensual synth-pop, and the synth-reggae eccentricity of Akira Sakata.

Review: To celebrate the album's 25th birthday, Bobby Bird has decided to release a freshly re-mastered version of his second studio album as Higher Intelligence Agency, Freefloater. It further distils the saucer-eyed musical template he developed (initially with the assistance of then studio partner Steve Chandra Savale) on 1993 debut Colourform. That means a decidedly intergalactic, frequently psychedelic blend of IDM electronics, mind-mangling TB-303 lines, dub basslines, ambient textures and mutant electro beats. It's considered by many to be an "ambient electro" classic and we'd have to agree. Thanks to Bird's painstaking re-mastering work, it also sounds better than ever.

Review: Aside from a handful of tracks made available via his own website, Mark Pritchard hasn't released much in the last few years - though as this first EP as MP Productions shows, he's kept himself busy. More sharply club-focused than many of his albums, the six-track set sees him bounce between his melodious and summery take on early noughties eight-bar grime ('Be Like Water'), dreamy, high-tempo post-IDM lusciousness ('In My Heart'), next level lo-fi acid jack ('J Is For...'), child-scaring Drexciyan electro heaviness ('One Way Mirror') and an insanely percussion and bass-heavy take on gqom ('Rakatak'). The EP also includes his infamous and sough- after re-wire of LFO's 'LFO', here titled 'LFO Special', which re-imagines the bleep & Bass classic as a future dancehall anthem.

Review: "In Rainbows", Radiohead's seventh album, finally gets a physical release! It's one thing downloading this landmark album, but to actually hold this is something special. Not only do you get increased sound quality, but you also get the amazing artwork from Stanley Donwood. This album includes "Nude", a live favourite for many years that was originally written during the "OK Computer" sessions. More minimal that their "Kid A" period, "In Rainbows" does something that very few albums have done - its sound is distinct from previous Radiohead albums, but is still clearly Radiohead. Hail to the kings, they are back on top form. Get this album while you can.

Review: You might think the score to an episode of Charlie Brooker's acclaimed dystopian nightmare simulator Black Mirror is the last thing you need to hear right now. Well, you'd be wrong. While there's plenty here to set nerves on a sophisticated and musically-accomplished edge, the classical, ambient, drone and found sound-style compositions aren't all that troubling.

The subtle drama of 'Shot', which uses reversed string refrains to create a sense of hide and seek, the tolling of whatever that noise is above the waves of synth on 'Degrade', and the wondrous hope of 'This Is My Last Day''s pianos are all incredibly pleasing to the ear. But don't get too comfortable. The distorted chaos of 'Chain Smoking Addict', foreboding atmospheres on 'Reverse Surface' and ominous sci-fi sounds of 'Gun Is Real' and 'Shot' all lie ahead. And like most reflections in the Mirror, it doesn't end reassuringly but you won't regret the ride either.

Review: We won't make the obvious joke about buses - you know, the one about waiting ages for an Autechre album and then two turn up pretty much at the same time. But we will say this. If Plus, the second of Sean Booth and Rob Brown's two albums to drop within a fortnight of each other after a lengthy absence, were a bus, it wouldn't be headed out on any recognisable route that we know about. You might find the odd bit of scenery that feels vaguely familiar - the tension-laden strings of 'ii pre esc' or the scrambled drum & bass machinations of 'X4', but in the pair's hands they are splintered and re-assembled very much in their own image, one foot in the frenetic exhortations of electro and the other deeply planted in the land of industrial experimentation. Closing track 'TM1 might bear a slight resemblance to the squelchy acid of Drexciya, for instance, but its occasionally four-to-the-floor beats stop and start with a wonderfully disorientating playfulness. Brave and original, as ever, this is not for the faint hearted but at the same time takes you places you never thought you'd encounter.

Review: Dark Entries is humbled to continue digging through the archives of legendary producer Patrick Cowley. While best known for his production on chart-topping cybernetic disco anthems such as Sylvester's 'You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)' or his own 'Menergy', Cowley, who passed away from AIDS-related illness in 1982, left us with a substantial body of work. Since 2009, Dark Entries has been working with Cowley's friends and family to shed light on the lesser known facets of this singular artist's output. This has resulted in a string of celebrated archival albums, including Catholic (featuring Jorge Socarras), School Daze, Muscle Up, Afternooners, and the recent Mechanical Fantasy Box. Some Funkettes, the latest addition to this series, is a collection of previously unreleased cover songs recorded from 1975-1977. These raw, unembellished tributes both showcase Cowley's early musical interests and chart the development of his production techniques.

Review: In recent times, Luke Abbott has spent much of his creative life collaborating with others, forgoing what was a blossoming solo career in favour of joint projects. On Translate, he breaks this spell for the first time in six years, eschewing studio and live hook-ups in favour of solitary composition. The results are predictably impressive, with the Norfolk-based artist subtly updating his melodious, synthesizer-powered electronica sound whilst retaining the stylistic ticks and vintage IDM influences that made his earlier solo work such a riveting listen. The results are uniformly impressive to our ears, with highlights including the dense, rainbow-coloured rush of 'Ames Window', the synth-symphony that is foreboding, sci-fi inspired gem 'Earthship' and similarly doom-laden, Bladerunner-esque opener 'Kagen Sound'

Review: To say Fading is a work that feels dense would be an understatement. The latest from German ambient dub don Pole is a dedication, or perhaps more accurately a meditation on his mother's descent into the confusion and uncertainty of Alzheimer's, the neurological condition that - to put it mildly - is currently responsible for stealing the identity from 10million people in Europe alone.

It's a concept that has been attempted before, with varying outcomes and in a multitude of styles. Here, though, you can't help but feel a large part of the approach centres on our feeling of sinking deeper into crackling, fizzing and popping arrangements that are at once minutely detailed and beguiling. Things make sense overall, but when we listen carefully to the dark, immersive electronics at play, we're not quite sure how the various noises come together to create something so familiar. Exceptional, if tragic stuff.

Review: So, how long have you been waiting for this one to drop? The answer really depends on two things - whether you've just been waiting for new long form material from the UK IDM legends Autechre, or whether you've been waiting for Autechre to put a proper album together that stays true to the principles and format of a 'proper album', as this does.

Either way let's just say Sign has been some time in the making, and it's definitely a case of payoff for patience. For the most part it's the waves of space age melody that really stand out, tracks like 'Esc Desc' seem to fill the room with bands of sci-fi harmony. Of course there's plenty of glitch and bleep here, too - the stepping 'Au14' is a case in point - alongside rumbling, bass-heavy business like 'Si100', where playful drips of percussion create a juxtaposition of innocence and menace.

Review: Minimal Wave is honored to present a reissue of Jyl's self-titled full-length album from 1984, originally released on Klaus Schulze's Inteam label. Born and raised in California, Jyl travelled to Europe in her twenties to dance and met several talented and like-minded collaborators along the way. She ended up in Germany, and worked with Ingo Werner, Angela Werner, and Klaus Schulze, on what would become one of the most important and forward thinking electronic albums of the time. Shortly after its release, the song "Computer Love" became a mini-hit along with the album's opening track "Mechanic Ballerina". The lyrics of "Silicon Valley" and "Computer Generation" are reflective of the times and have become even more relevant now, 36 years later. The production and song arrangement on the album is immaculate. The synthesizers, drum programming and vocal contributions complement Jyl's voice perfectly. The album contains an incredible depth beyond a regular dance album likely due to the spirit of the people behind it - the list of contributors add to its significance and near-mythological mystery.

Review: If you were judging Kieran Hebden's 11th Four Tet studio album merely on the way it's presented, you'd immediately think he'd spent the last two years immersed in early '90s ambient house albums. While it's unlikely he's done that, it's fair to say that New Energy does owe a debt to classic electronica sets from that period. For all the exotic instrumentation and subtle nods to post-dubstep "aquacrunk" experimentalism and chiming, head-in-the-clouds sunrise house, the album feels like a relic of a lost era. That's not meant as a criticism - New Energy is superb - but it is true that his choice of neo-classical strings, gentle new age melodies, sweeping synthesizer chords and disconnected vocal samples would not sound out of place on a Global Communication album.

Review: Scott Morgan has made rather a lot of fine music over the years, and little better than his seventh album as Loscil, Coast/range/arc. Here it returns on vinyl after a nine-year absence, complete with a fresh bonus cut recorded in the same period, the Biosphere-esque arctic ambience that is 'Black Tusk (descent)'. Sonically, it fits snugly into the rest of the album, which offers the clearest distillation to date of Morgan's trademark sound. Full of beautiful, icy and slowly unfurling compositions that tend towards the meditative, the set is notable for Morgan's seemingly innate ability to craft immersive soundscapes out of a mixture of hazy drone textures, gaseous electronic chords, soft-touch melodies, atmospheric field recordings and simmering, near cinematic musical movements.

Review: For fans of experimental and ambient music, olafur Arnalds is as vital as they come. He has amassed an innovative discography over the last decade, joining the dots between classical and electronic sounds. His new album, though, marks a new chapter in his ongoing story. The self-confessed perfectionist dips his toe into messy waters such as romance, a global pandemic and settling down. It was written at home in his harbour studio and captures the essence of what it means to be alive in 2020. It's enthralling, challenging, and thought provoking, and is his most coherent work for a while.

Review: A year after it first appeared in stores, De:Tuned has decided to reissue the ninth instalment in their terrific De:10 series of singles and EPs, this time on purple vinyl. It's a rather special one, because it contains two early, previously unreleased 1992 productions from Andy Turner and Ed Handley, not as Plaid, but rather under the rarely used Atypic alias. A-side "Henkhisesui" is simply superb. It opens with a deliciously atmospheric intro full of dreamy ambient chords and bubbly electronic melodies, before introducing a crunchy, early IDM style beat pattern and stabbing analogue bass. The marginally longer "Palaeeudyptinae" is warmer and more tactile, with the pair peppering a skewed, post-hip-hop beat with blissful electronic melodies and glassy-eyed synthesizer sounds.

Review: Released back in 2003, Rounds was the third LP from Kieran Hebden as Four Tet and perhaps the first long player that widely established him as a pioneering voice within electronic music. Though it doesn't feel like a decade since it was released, Domino celebrate the album's tenth anniversary in requisite fashion here, reissuing it in double LP format and slipping in a CD of Four Tet performing live in Copenhagen in 2004. Listening back now, it's easy to understand why Rounds is viewed as an early classic in the Four Tet canon, transferring his love for free jazz records to a beat template that's more palatable on the ear (Fact pickers might want to know that Hebden recently revealed to Pitchfork the LP was made entirely from samples) "She Moves She" still sounds absolutely haunting too!

Review: Manchester's Sferic welcomes label debutant Romeo Poirier for an evocative ambient trip that captures similar heights as his 2016 record "Plage Arriere." It's made up of brass sounds, found sounds, sampled sounds and plenty of grainy lo-fi textures that can be cloudy and muggy or warm and romantic depending on your perspective. It will have you gazing off into the distance either way, narrowing your eyes as you try to identify the seamless fused sounds and hazy visions off on the horizons. It's relaxing and cathartic in a new, cliche-free way and provides a real excuse to escape the daily grind.

Review: The arrival of a new Cabaret Voltaire album - the first since 1994 according to our records - should excite all those who hold the work of the pioneering Sheffield outfit dear. It's now a solo project from Richard H Kirk (he decided to keep the name after parting company with Stephen Mallinder in the late '90s), but the distinctive stylistic ticks remain (think paranoid sonic textures, metallic percussion hits, clear dub influences, plentiful spoken word samples, curious electronic noises and nods towards the industrial funk, EBM and post-punk). Naturally it's not as ground-breaking as Kirk and company's work in the '70s and '80s, but it is undeniably a Cabaret Voltaire album - and one that subtly updates the Cabs' particular brand of dense, dancefloor-ready paranoia for a new century.

Review: To coincide with the release of the remix version of the 100 Gecs album, the St Louis-raised duo of the same name has decided to reissue their much-lauded 2019 debut. As critics pointed out at the time (and have done ever since), it's one of the most breathless and imaginative electro-pop albums of recent times, with the pair excitedly mixing and matching elements of hip-hop, grime, trap, synth-wave, synth-pop, dubstep, IDM, experimental electronica, grubby pop-punk, gabber and a myriad of other styles, all served with lashings of vocals put through an auto-tune filter. It's utterly bonkers, to be honest, but undeniably thrilling.

Review: Thanks to Massive Attack's recent anniversary reissue of their touchstone "Mezzanine" album, trip-hop is back in the headlines. While we don't expect a full-blown revival just yet, it's always worth dipping into the style and its hazy, dub-flecked and sample-heavy sound. This triple-disc genre retrospective from Wagram should be an essential listen for both confirmed trip-hop heads and newcomers alike. It contains plenty of well-known classics - see the contributions from I Monster, Tricky, Smith & Mighty, Kid Loco, Moby, Boards of Canada, Kruder and Doefmeister, Tosca and Nightmares on Wax, for starters - as well as under-appreciated underground hits and lesser-celebrated selections (Sabres of Paradise's remix of Red Snapper's "Hotflush" being the undoubted highlight).

Review: Long-serving Swedish producer Joel Mull, previously best-known for his club-focused techno sets, first started work on Nautical Dawn, his first album under his occasional Damm alias, over a decade ago. Inspired by the natural phenomenon of 'nautical dawn' - that point when the sun is not yet above the horizon, but bathes the sky in vivid colours - he wanted to make music for the break of dawn that combined home-made field recordings with suitably drowsy, opaque electronic motifs, slow-burn ambient chords, tactile aural textures and, when the mood took him, horizontal and hypnotic beats. It may have taken him a while, but the resultant set is little less than inspired: an evocative set of enveloping compositions that tease and tingle the senses.

Review: There's an undeniably far-out feel to the Zenker Brothers' second album, Cosmic Transmission, which adds further layers of trippy textures, hallucinatory sounds and smoky intensity to the aural blueprint first explored on their 2015 debut full-length Immersion. There's much to admire throughout, from the mind-bending ambient weirdness of opener 'When Nothing is Safe', and the slipped dub haze of 'Whose In Control', to the drug-addled IDM of 'Natural Connection', and the polyrhythmic techno trip of 'Divided Society'. Most striking of all is the trio of tracks that close the album, all of which are powered forwards not by heavy techno beats (or even their usual crunchy, off-kilter breakbeats) but rather a series of ear-catching, fuzz-soaked synthesizer arpeggio lines.

Review: Originally released in 1985 on cassette, this self-titled record from Flaming Tunes was their only one. It's a cult home recording that came after collaborative time spent together by childhood friends Gareth Williams and Mary Currie and is influenced by Williams's time spent travelling India and studying classical Kathakali dance. The music was recorded in a house in South London and makes use of piano, bells, clarinets and percussive sounds that are layered up into simple arrangements. The lo-fi melodies, oblique rhythms and hypnotic qualities of it make it a gold standard for anyone who prides themselves on unearthing the more outlier albums out there.

Review: Four Tet is back with a new album of shimmering wonderment on his own Text label. As ever, it's the way that Kieran Hebden tugs at the heart strings so artfully that makes him so well-loved, and he's not holding back one iota as "Sixteen Oceans" opens up with the ineffably pretty "School". There's some advanced garage ruminations on "Baby", classic ambience on "Harpsichord", and so the eclectic and extremely soul-cleansing vibes continue across three sides of wax. In addition to this wonderful new album, Hebden has also held back the fourth side for a bunch of locked grooves so satisfying you could get lost in them all day.

Review: 'The Man-Machine' is closer to the sound and style that would define early new wave electro-pop. Less minimalistic in its arrangements and more complex and danceable in its underlying rhythms. Like its predecessor, 'Trans-Europe Express', there is the feel of a divided concept album, with some songs devoted to science fiction-esque links between humans and technology, often with electronically processed vocals ("The Robots," "Spacelab," and the title track); others take the glamour of urbanization as their subject ("Neon Lights" and "Metropolis"). Plus, there's "The Model," a character sketch that falls under the latter category but takes a more cynical view of the title character's glamorous lifestyle. More pop-oriented than any of their previous work, the sound of 'The Man-Machine' in particular among Kraftwerk's oeuvre had a tremendous impact on the cold, robotic synth pop of artists like Gary Numan, as well as Britain's later new-romantic movement.

Review: Although widely celebrated as a pioneering and influential work, the original Japanese version of Ryuichi Sakamoto's third solo album, Hidari Ude No Yume, has long been hard-to-find. Helpfully We Want Sounds has secured the rights to reissue it in Europe, pairing the Yellow Magic Orchestra man's original set - complete with sung and spoken Japanese vocals - with a partner disc of entirely instrumental versions. Musically, it remains as vibrant and otherworldly as it did at the turn-of-the-80s, with the great Sakamoto combining elements of jazz, traditional Japanese music, new age, ambient and new-wave with rubbery synth-pop and proto-electro sounds. The fact that it still sounds like nothing else is not only proof of Sakamoto's genius, but also why you genuinely need it in your life.

Review: Who hasn't been waiting with bated breath for this? Oneohtrix Point Never's rise to the upper echelons of experimental electronica over the last decade or so has not been without good reason, with his back catalogue innovative and realised with patience and attention to detail, even if the tracks are often chaotic.

2018's Age Of, the Brooklyn-based maestro's previous full length, was his most accessible and traditionally structured, but on this latest - fourth on the seminal Warp Records - he's back in the wildly avant-garde, and looking back at his own past through a retro futurist gaze. The vocoders and strings of alt-pop bomb 'Long Road Home', the crackling 80s power-cum-R&B of 'The Whether Channel' and the warped keys of closing credit-worthy 'Lost But Never Alone', juxtaposed with samples and soundbites from the US broadcasting world that inspired the producer's name.