New releases this week: Leftfield

Review: Fashion Flesh aka John Talaga debuts on ESP Institute with two mind-bending tracks crafted from homemade electronics, circuit-bent gear and tape manipulations. Side A's 'Atoms Revolt' explores the secret lives of machines while channelling chaotic energy into controlled sonic accidents, layered distortion and surreal textures. Side B's 'New Freedom' evokes a dystopian adventure into Detroit's decaying industrial sprawl while fusing Geiger-like pulses and eerie oscillations with fragmented voices into a dark rhythmic storm. Talaga's ability to extract soul from machines is remarkable here in what is a visceral and cerebral EP.

Review: Javier Marimon returns with a set of amb-immersers shaped by architecture, memory, and the shifting continguities of sound and physical space. Made during his time in Saigon in 2018, the tracks lean into absence, with subtle, bass-free constructions predominating over a musical space that exists to be inhabited. A further remix from Vand , meanwhile, reinterprets the original material through a thinner lens, offering a contrasting perspective without overwhelming the source. A quiet but affecting punctuation mark in an already rather grand artistic discography.

Review: Alien D is the NYC-based producer Daniel Creahan, and he's back with a debut on Theory Therapy that taps into widescreen worlds of techno immersion. Departing from the ambient abstraction of his previous work, this album as a subtle kinetic pulse with tracks like 'Soil Dub' and 'Sleepy's Gambit' propel listeners forward with dubwise rhythms crafted for deep dancefloors. The album builds on an infectious, steady groove with repeating phrases and subtle shifts that keep the music in constant motion. Conceived in the first days after the COVID lockdown, these sounds exude a hopeful quality and capture the transcendent moments of early-morning parties when the moment is full of unbridled hope for what might come.

Review: And the award for best box set idea of the year goes to Ghostly International, who've recognised the untapped crossover market potential between tape culture and architecturally minded 3D sandbox gaming. Both Minecraft and cassettes offer unequivocal home downtime experiences, so what better way than to celebrate such ingenious associations than with a mammoth expansion of Daniel Rosenfeld's original soundtrack under the name C418? After many vinyl and CD reissues became fanatic cult favorites, with several sold-out color variants, now both volumes Alpha and Beta appear in opaque green; assuming the rewind button functions properly and the reels haven't garbled round the spools, you're in for a degradable lo-fi treat and analogue alternative listening experience; mute the laptop output and fire up the Nakamichi, you wally.

Review: A four sided selection of remixes of the goth kingpins' widely acclaimed and long awaited latest album Songs of a Lost World. From the moment Paul Oakenfold's 'I Can Never Say Goodbye' rework opens proceedings i lush strings, half-submerged vocals, and a cinematic pace i it's clear that curation, not just contribution, has shaped the form. Orbital turn 'Endsong' into a glistening spiral of sequencers and tension, while Sally C's raw house take on 'A Fragile Thing' ups the pulse without disturbing the gloom. Smith i still unmistakably the same outsider from Crawley, West Sussex i guides things with restraint, letting the space speak louder than the noise. Four Tet's version of 'Alone' closes the first disc like a forgotten lullaby, cracked and glinting. You don't get every remix i the more textural, post-rock turns are gone i but you do get a sharp cross-section that keeps faith with both atmosphere and momentum. It's the kind of record that feels designed for the night: not to lift it, exactly, but to sink into it willingly, track by track.

Review: E-bony's Digital Dawn album is about "defining his identity as an artist" and it comes through INDUSTRIAS MEKANIKAS. This 12-tracker welds together electro and techno with plenty of personal sound perspective and dark textures that keep it decidedly underground. Collaborating with Noamm on four tracks, their creative synergy adds depth and elevates the record's complexity with the likes of 'Matrix Kod' getting gritty and eerie, 'Aurora Noir' bringing snappy kicks and coruscated acid lines and 'Data Delight' fizzing with pixelated synth sugariness.

Review: A dream pairing from opposite corners of the sonic world, British synth polymath James Holden and Polish clarinettist Waclaw Zimpel land somewhere deep in the trance zone on this six-track debut. Opener 'You Are Gods' flickers into motion with modular ripples and clarinet spirals, setting a tone that's at once meditative and exploratory. 'Sunbeam Path' floats toward more radiant territory, while 'Time Ring Rattles' and 'Incredible Bliss' channel fast-paced, arpeggiated fervour. 'Sparkles, Crystals, Miracles' cools the system with ambient drift, before the closer melts into layered organ drama and a reverent air. The pair's range of instrumentation-violins, algoza flutes, lap steel, and modulars-gives each piece a handmade feel, but it's their shared commitment to improvisation and trance that binds it all. Rather than chase genre, they zero in on shared instinct-and let the current carry them.

Review: Clarinet and synclavier collide on The Universe Will Take Care Of You, an expansive arp odyssey through freeform new age trance sequences and orgastic blooms. British producerJames Holden and clarinetist Waclaw Zimpel's take joint reins, but they swap roles with uninformed confidence, with Holden adventurously stepping into violin and hand percussion away from his usual synth spell cantations, and Zimpel moving beyond reeds to electric ivories. Vast biennales of trance extend like ravenous, roided plants, suggesting an overcurrent of carnivorousness in all that bliss. Moroccan Gnawa and Indian classical music fed the album's electroacoustic pedigree, producing the seemingly effortless fusional glut of sound you hear before you.

Review: Legendary video game soundtrack-er Motorhiro Kawashima is best known for his efforts on the iconic Streets of Rage 2 and 3 titles. The latter is remembered as one of the hardest to define scores of all time, certainly in terms of a playable titles, and even 30 years on still amazes and baffles anyone who encounters it. Less well known are the artist's solo and standalone efforts, which came much later. Acrobatizm and Prepared Wave were the first two of those records, and emerged in the pre-pandemic late-noughties. Both draw heavily on the glitch and leftfield experimental techno worlds, which were in rude health at the time, doubling down on staccato rhythms and mind-blowing arpeggiation, with the punchiness and jerky vibes more than nod to the glory days of 8-bit gaming.

Review: A striking collection of digitally manipulated piano pieces, each one of them on this album are named after iconic films and TV shows. They are all crafted late at night as a response to passive media consumption and aim to blur the line between classical impressionism and contemporary digital manipulation. Drawing inspiration from Viktor Shklovsky's concept of "ostranenie" (which means estrangement), the work challenges habitual perceptions and makes the familiar feel strange. The music oscillates between mechanical MIDI chaos and intimate, fragile moments that question the emotional stakes of sound in a world where technology can often flatten deeper meaning. It's a profound exploration of art's role in resisting the numbing effects of mindless routine and endless immersion culture.

Review: Electronic soul innovator Liv.e followed up her acclaimed Girl In The Half Pearl with PAST FUTUR.e last year, and it's now dropping on vinyl. The surprise seven-track project was made in just 24 hours and announced via a post on X. It's a lo-fi synthwave collection that betrays her genre-defying instincts and trades neo-soul smoothness for raw, hallucinatory energy. She bellows like a dancehall toaster and delivers fragmented narration over fuzzy, pulsing synths that echo Gang Gang Dance's experimental spirit. Is it an EP, album, or mixtape? It doesn't matter-PAST FUTUR.e is an unfiltered transmission from one of r&b's most inventive voices, and it's wildly unpredictable.

Review: Adapted from the Premio Strega-winning novel of the same name, penned by Antonio Scurati, M - Son of the Century is an ambitious performance piece about the political rise of Benito Mussolini, directed by BAFTA-grabber Joe Wright. As for the soundtrack, one half of The Chemical Brothers, Tom Rowlands, delivers a spellbinding, raw and truly emotional electronic epic which translates a tense and uneasy tale into sounds. "A lot of this original soundtrack was built around playing old acoustic instruments using modern electronics; working in that way helped me reference the past yet still create something fresh and dynamic," Rowlands has said of his efforts. A thoroughly unique and masterful series of compositions which could only have been created by a master of the craft.

Review: First released three years ago and now receiving a deserved reissue, I Am A Tree I Am A Mouth is undoubtedly one of the most magic albums by Australian-American sprano and composer Jane Sheldon - an artist famed for her unique, voice-based works. While the album is not entirely made up of layered vocals and vocalisations - Sheldon employs long, languid ambient drones and textures throughout - they're naturally the focal point. Most of the lyrics (mostly sung, but some spoken) are taken from Rainer Maria Rilke's 1995 tome The Book of Hours (meaning Sheldon largely sings in German), and these are delivered in all manner of inspired ways. The results are uniformly dazzling, blurring the boundaries between chamber music, neo-classical and ambient music's experimental fringes.

Review: Silver Tears is the new project from Berlin-based artists Luca Venezia of Curses fame, and Damian Shilman of Skelesys. After debuting in 2023 with a standout track on Next Wave Acid Punx Deux, the duo returns with their self-titled full-length album and it features eight tracks of refined, beat-driven coldwave that are all layered to perfection. Deep bass, shimmering guitars, mechanical drums, and haunting baritone vocals. Blending dancefloor energy with introspective moods, it draws influence from 90s shoegaze and grunge. Their sound pays homage to the goth subculture while proving its continued relevance through a compelling mix of elegance, darkness and emotional intensity.

Review: Words and terms such as benchmark, revolutionary and paradigm shift are thrown around far too casually and liberally when writing about music. But if there's one electronic album that really does live up to those tags it's Ultravisitor. Still sounding like it's from another planet to this day, from the moment eponymous opener headbutts us with an ice breakbeat shatter to those very last guitar plucks on 'Everyday I Love', this is concentrated Squarepusher in every possible geometrical permutation. So many breakcore and IDM parameters were set on this exceptional body of work. From the metal militancy of 'Steinbolt' to the fantastical drive (and wild slap bass) of 'Tetra-Sync', this remains a wholly unique LP that's both wonderful challenging and definitely not of this earth.

Review: One of the most legendary female producers in history of electronic music brings out her sixth solo album - not to mention her numerous seminal recordings as part of Throbbing Gristle and Chis & Cosey - and the first in three years. 2t2 is an intimate yet electrifying statement, a dualistic journey through rhythmic propulsion and meditative introspection across nine tracks entirely composed, performed and produced solely by Cosey herself. With 2t2, she expolores personal loss and global upheavalm transforming them into a defiant sonic odyssey, weaving raw energy and introspective depth together. The beat-driven tracks pulse with kinetic urgency, echoing her industrial and electronic roots, while the ambient passages invite deep contemplation. Lead single 'Stound' exemplifies this balanceiCosey's overtone chanting evokes resilience and catharsis, grounding the record in both personal and universal strength. 'Threnody' pays tribute to Delia Derbyshire and Andy Christian, weaving echoes of past creative dialogues into Cosey's present explorations. Even in its darker moments, there's a lightness, a refusal to succumb to despair, in evidende and Cosey seemingly embraces sorrow as a path to joy, a reminder that resistance and resilience are acts of creation. With 2t2, Cosey Fanni Tutti once again defies convention, crafting an album that is personal and powerful.

Review: This 2024 edition of Lament by Ultravox is a comprehensive, end-all-others 7CD + DVD deluxe edition expander including a (you won't believe) 72 tracks, with a newly remastered version of the album alongside a fresh 1980s-style extended remix. The seventh studio album by British new wave pioneers, Lament marked the final appearance of original drummer Warren Cann until the band's reunion in 2012 with Brilliant. But despite the name and the grievous context, the album was hardly lachrymose in sound, and it achieved much commercial success, owing to a prosperous prior experience with producers Conny Plank and George Martin, who drove its lush Chrysalis synthpop sound. Aforementioned remixes include contributions from Moby, Steve Wilson, Blank & Jones, and Midge Ure, while a newly mixed full concert recorded at Hammersmith Odeon in 1984 comes stapled in at the end. Mastered and cut by Phil Kinrade and Barry Grint at Air Mastering, London.

Review: Cape Town ambient producer Jason van Wyk pares his sound down to its barest, most expressive elements, doing sound justice to the name Inherent (though he's always interested in ideas of transparency and simplicity, with the similarly themed Opacity dropping on Home Normal in 2017). He now leans into stillness in motion, folding ghost-traced piano lines and gauzy drones into long, slow exhalations, where just when things threaten to dissolve entirely, he rejigs the frame. Brittle guitars now creak in, synth arps flicker like faulty neon, rhythms emerge with princely precision. It's not a departure so much as a consolidation, as van Wyk revisits old tools with rewed restraint, preferring unembellished ambiences. Like the innate returns of close reading, we're invited to closely listen here, since glints of detail glister just below the surface.

Review: The most aptly-named record label in the world, Light Sounds Dark present another collection of wildly experimental bits and pieces cultivated in the lab of things that you simply don't hear in other places. Suitably christened 'Track 1', 'Track 2', and so on until 'Track 29', this is a huge point of entry for newcomers to the LSD realm and an excellent deep dive for veterans alike. Winds howl and thunder crashes before beautiful harmonies change the vibe from cold to warm, Gregorian chants echo in and out above dubby, stubby beats, and post punk guitars lunge forward beneath jerky, naive melodies. And that's just the first few parts here. A journey to the outer reaches of the musical universe, then back again, turning left at the industrial jazz and continuing through shoegaze, soundtrack, field and weirdo pop. Mind you don't get lost, now.

Review: A quarter of a century is a long time in any form of media or entertainment. But when it comes to video games and music, it might as well be a full century. What feels like a lifetime ago, in 2000 The Sims helped define a playable genre that had only seen niche popularity in the past with titles like Little Computer People and Creatures, and more mainstream attention with the standalone pet-in-your-pocket craze kickstarted by Tamagotchis. Breaking open the barriers between regular folk and the idea of living an entire life through a character on screen - now something we've become very used to - The Sims was revolutionary and appealed across the board. So it needed a soundtrack that could do the same. And that's exactly what it got. Beautifully immersive piano overtures, bouncy chip tunes, the kind of tracks you might find on a home shopping channel interlude... you get the point.