Back catalogue: All genres

Review: Begun in earnest during the COVID-19 pandemic, after the former had remixed the latter's new Radiohead material, Mark Pritchard and Thom Yorke exchanged much of the for their new record Tall Tales remotely. Forerun by new single 'Back In The Game' then 'This Conversation Is Missing Your Voice', the album takes shape as a surreal mythopoesis, warping back in time to 2020's plague, where the former track's hyperreal music video (dir. by Jonathan Zawada) sees a rooftop figure defenestrating art itself amid grotesque figures bearing the worst of a mutant contortionist slice-of-life. Yorke has said that the album was crucial to him, describing the music-making process as "mental."

Review: Thom Yorke and Mark Pritchard revive the collaboration first aired on the latter's 2016 album Unde The Sun, this time across a full album reportedly four years in the (top secret) making. It's a compelling synthesis of Yorke's atmospheric melancholy and Pritchard's textured production. It expores a range of moods, from the uneasy tension of 'A Fake In A Faker's World' to the hypnotic rhythms of 'Back In The Game', while the eerie, spectral qualities of 'This Conversation Is Missing Your Voice' reveal the pair's ability to intertwine experimental soundscapes with a visceral emotional pull. Standout moments include 'Gangsters,' where Pritchard's intricately layered beats mesh with Yorke's haunting vocal delivery, and 'Wandering Genie,' which closes the journey with a strange sense of release. The music takes unexpected turns, not just as a statement of collaboration, but as a reflection of two artists playing with the unknown, pulling their sonic worlds into unexplored spaces. Each track is a feather in the cap of their combined ingenuity, with Yorke's vocal vulnerability and Pritchard's production wizardry in full synergy.

Review: Since Radiohead went on hiatus a few years back, Thom Yorke has thrown himself into all sorts of solo and collaborative projects. His latest sees him join forces with Sydney-based British electronic music stalwart Mark Pritchard for an album that expands on their previous collaboration (the superb 'Beautiful People' from Pritchard's 2018 album Under The Sun). It's a breathtakingly brilliant concoction all told, with the pair conjuring ethereal, oddball and immersive songs in which Yorke's distinctive vocals - sometimes delivered as you'd expect, other times layered-up, mutilated or utilised as textures - rise above backing tracks made with unusual synths and drum machines, and variously indebted to ambient, IDM, ghostly electronica, lo-fi beat-scapes and the gripping intensity of horror soundtracks. A modern electronic classic in the making.

Review: Bruno Pronsato has always operated at the fringes of the electronic world and draws as much from the inventiveness of jazz as anything else. Now he is back with a new album Rare Normal that is his most adventurous and ambitious yet, and it was made at a time that he was, we're told, "immersed in the work of Charles Ives" and that the eight tracks are a result of him experimenting with mixing dissonance and consonance, tone rows and twelve-tone theory. The result is deft and abstract minimalism with supple rhythms that rise and fall next to mending pads and deft sampled vocal whispers. Its intimate and late night and hella moving given how quiet and unassuming it is overall.

Review: We're not sure any of us would have predicted that there would be a new Propaganda album in 2024 - after all, it has been 40 years since they made their debut, and almost 20 years since 'principle song writers' Ralf Dorper and Michael Mertens last got together to record an album. Simply titled Propaganda, the album is undoubtedly a triumphant return - a set that recalls the ground-breaking brilliance of their earliest work. Sure, some of the synthesisers and sonics have been updated - it's not quite as cold and icy as their earliest explorations - and there are subtle rhythmic nods to more contemporaneous dance rhythms, but the results are uniformly excellent. For proof, check the throbbing headiness of 'Purveyor of Pleasure', the alt synth-pop bubble of 'Tipping Point', and the atmospheric excellence of 'Love:Craft'.

Review: Bureau B present the very latest full-length LP from art-synth auteurs Propaganda, aka. Ralf Dorper and Michael Mertens. Emerging almost two decades on from their last release, this record is nonetheless remarkable as it is their first and only self-titled record, suggesting a sense of culmination and timeliness - in Bureau B's words, Propaganda (the LP) explores "fresh sounds and styles, and (reflects) personal and societal changes since their last outing". The excesses and lacks of boom-bust capital exhaustion and planetary-systemic fatigue are heard in full sway here; both themes alloy themselves starkly against the understated EBM and dark synth influence that permeates the record, a sound otherwise distinctly connoted as 80s and retroistic. Through their crystal-clear productions - their techno-Arcadian visions in composition, and passionate lyrical musings on machinic desire by way of collaborators Thunder Bae and Hauschka - Propaganda synthesise a yet new subliminal message, one that charts a line out of the past and into the present.

Review: PRZ's debut on Sync 24's Cultivated Electronics comes in the form of a magnificent new double album, Lost Art. As a producer, DJ, and co-founder of Chateau Royal already known for a unique style that merges intricate rhythms with ethereal melodies, he builds on a sound he has been honing for a decade on prestigious labels like Clone West Coast Series and Hilltown Disco. This work is a cohesive one starting with the atmospheric 'Introvert' and then going on to feature more playful tracks like 'Lazerton' and the title cut alongside darker electro tunes like the corse 'Velocity Shift' and retro funk of 'Back From 89.'

Review: Melbourne's Pugilist, known for the compelling 'Negative Space' EP, teams up with fellow Australian artist Pod for Iridescent, their debut collaboration on Of Paradise. Across nine meticulously crafted tracks, the duo embarks on an exploration of contemporary dance music. This isn't just a collection of tunes; it's a shifting soundscape, rich with textures and unpredictable in form. From cavernous dub basslines to ethereal atmospheres, Pugilist and Pod deliver a dynamic, genre-blurring journey. 'Haus' and 'Myriapoda' stand out, blending deep rhythms with intricate melodic detail, while moments of ambient serenity wash over, creating a truly immersive, genre-transcendent listening experience.

Review: Fascinating Balearico-steppers from low-key production outfit and chillout band Puli, debuting for new Miami label Open Space. Responding to a flux of "musicians from the east side of Los Angeles" having "re-established the city of angels as the first city of Balearica", Swirling is one of many new records to find itself included in this newfangled niche. Its progenitors Puli are expert renderers of the sound, and all its members have many a bullet-point CV entry, the already eminent John Jones, Phil Cho and Damon Palermo laying among its core members. Drawing on the energies of local LA downtown parties - experienced in swungover, stark contrast to woozy Sunday eves spent munching on tacos - this coming-together of cool cats incenses us most with 'Cloudy' and 'Leech Seed Dub', both of which are mid-record tinkerers, satisfying the stereo field in as much as the mono centre is kept as hotfooted as a bare tread on a quick-drying pool patio. The serener moments are charming too; the B's 'Bongo Springs' and 'Swirling' up-and-down the proceedings to electro and psychedub territories respectively, rounding the record off on versatile notes of calm, irrespective of tempo.

Review: Puma Blue, the project of South-London-born, Atlanta-based Jacob Allen, moves in a starkly different direction with this latest release. Stripping away the layered trip-hop, jazz, and electronica influences of previous works, he now focuses on a more direct and vulnerable form of songwriting. With just his guitar and voice, Allen crafts an album that feels intimate, raw, and deeply personal. Each track is a careful balance of simplicity and complexity. On 'Tapestry', the narrative unfolds like a dense, aching reflection, while 'Hotel Room' captures a moment of quiet melancholy with an almost confessional tone. In contrast, 'In the Absence of You' is stark in its honesty, delivering a minimalist sentiment that resonates with painful clarity. The absence of the full band setup places the weight of emotion solely on Allen's shoulders, allowing his vocal delivery and guitar work to shine. The result is a profoundly affecting listen, one that's less about expansive sound and more about the intimate space between notes, where every breath and pause feels significant. It's a deeply personal exploration of solitude and longing, executed with haunting simplicity.

Review: First released in 2022, Rheinzand's Atlantis Atlantis updated the Belgian disco-house collective's sound for the utmost present, laying down a thickly layered collection of uncanny dark disco via post punk across thirteen tracks. Now two years on from the original release, Netherlands producer Pete Blaker has teamed up with the band to rework the album tracks; however, in the words of the label and Blaker themselves, this is by no means your bog-standard 'remix' album! Unlike most, this one hears Blaker go the extra mile, sonically refurbishing the tracks with entirely new instrumental layers and vocal takes, personally commissioning the band to do so himself. Formatively emerging after being asked to do just one remix for the band in 2021, this is a rare case of divine inspiration striking in an unexpectedly extended fashion - not to be missed.