Back catalogue: Post Rock/Experimental

Review: Icelandic post-rockers Sigur Ros picked up hefty amount of critical acclaim for their third full-length album () in 2002 and now it gets a special 20th-anniversary release on exclusive translucent haze vinyl. It was very much a record of two halves, with the first section of tracks offering up lighter and more optimistic pieces, the second taking a darker, bleaker, more melancholic path. The vocals are all sung in a language of made-up gibberish called 'Hopelandic' that lends the already intriguing music and air of extra enigma. As is often the case with this band, the tracks often head to huge climaxes that are as thrilling now as always.

Review: It's either the most timely re-issue of 2020 or the most inappropriate. Cast your mind back to when everyone's (or at least most people's) favourite Icelandic woodland sprite power-chill-pop oddities released Takk... Back in 2005 it was a symphony of celebratory, life-affirming walls of sound, the ideal score to an Attenborough documentary. Now it feels a little a painfully poignant and emotionally charged sonic memory of a lost world. Fear not, though, like this album, the good days will return again.

In the meantime kick back and remind yourself how good this record is. Not quite on a par with the preceding LP, ( ), which took this unique troupe from obscurity to global stardom by way of soft yet subtly gargantuan harmonious arrangements, here the songwriting and craft is more traditional, and certainly better suited to platforms like radio. Nevertheless, the tracks are no less beguiling, bewitching or intoxicating.

Review: US producer SSPS is a ram outsider who is well known to fans of the weird and the wonderful. His adventurous experiments have landed on labels like L.I.E.S. and Kode run by Traxx and collide punk, noise, wave, hardcore, slow beat and jakbeat. This is a retrospective release that brings together some of his many highlights and proves why he is so well-loved by a community of fans on the fringes of the underground mainstream. As well as this genre references there are plenty of odd vocals and smeared synths unifying the sounds which here included four tunes recorded live For Unlimited Nation Summer Of 2020.