Nebelgelb (feat The Metropolitan Narrative) (6:57)
Tau (Vril Vintage Tool remix) (7:11)
Nebelgelb (feat The Metropolitan Narrative - Sleeparchive remix) (4:59)
Review: The smudged, dark and shadowy nature of the creepy artwork for this new 12" on TMN Trax is indicative of what to expect musically of this new label. It's a collab EP from Ones and Rasval with an appearance from The Metropolitan Narrative and remixes from Vril and Sleeparchive. 'Tau' is the deep and dubby roller that opens up with a grainy vibe and foggy atmosphere over muted drums, then 'Nebelgelb' gets more edgy with layers of subtle haunting pads and paranoid voices panning about the mix. Vril's contribution is a pacey, warm and lo-fi techno hypnotiser and Sleeparchive closes down with muted dub brilliance.
Review: If you've ever been luck enough to attend the Freerotation music festival than plenty about this remix package will make sense. Not least the interpretation by event co-founder and modular synth hero Steevio, here delivering a remix on vinyl for the first time. Bringing in elements of jazz, ambient, field recordings, dub, house music and - albeit barely audible - subtle shades of tech, it's a sophisticated package that fully buys into the theory of electronic sounds being a form of high art. Running the gamut from the stepping, poised but decidedly free spirited 'Lucid' and Deadbeat's tense, drone-y take on'Sam Gimignano', to the lush keys and white noise of Andrea Cicheki's redo of 'Siegfried 2.0' and Dr Nojoke's beautifully blissed out smoky house, it's as dense as it is accomplished.
Review: After four years of work fusing acoustic and electronic sound worlds, Rand finally unveiled the fruits of their labours with Peripherie. The duo of concert pianist Jan Gerdes and minimal techno producer Dr. Nojoke have cooked up urban and sensitive music for piano and electronics that was all recorded live with no overdubs back in 2019 at Berlin's Chez-Cherie Studios. It was made across three pianos with improvisation at the heart of the process. It's a great collision of worlds, from dark and intense pieces of pulsing techno to more light and hopeful and empty soundscapes that perfectly blur the edges between the different tools used. Fans of Nils Frahm, Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto will enjoy digging into this one.
Review: The celebrated 'Live from Studio S2' performance is now available on vinyl once more featuring all four tracks from the session, including the unreleased 'Hawaii Oslo' and 'Glass'. Premiered on the Gondwana Records YouTube channel back in 2021, this session has since picked up over three million views and captivated fans worldwide in the process. It was recorded this session at the Berlinale Film Festival's EFM sessions in Studio S2 in Warsaw, where Hania Rani had previously recorded for her debut album Esja. The set includes new arrangements of beloved tracks that are all sumptuous and beautiful.
Sleep: Tranquility Base (Alva Noto Remodel edit) (5:37)
Sleep: Tranquility Base (Kelly Lee Owens remix) (4:03)
Review: Max Richter's latest work Sleep: Tranquillity Base first arrived on Deutsche Grammophon for World Sleep Day. Ot is a thirty minute work split across two parts and are inspired by the moon landings. It is music that "functions as a vessel that disconnects and travels through the body of work, allowing art to provide something which resembles peace within ourselves." It also comes with a couple of belting remixes from much loved contemporary innovators Alva Noto and Kelly Lee Owens. There is a reason Max Richter is so well revered and his music has had over three billion streams and this EP is one of them.
Review: The state51 Conspiracy label comes very much correct early on in the New Year with this two-track grey marbled vinyl 12" in a fancy spot-varnished sleeve. It takes the form of two fresh Santaka reworks of original compositions by Rytis Mazulis and avant-garde choir Melos Collective which were first released back in 2020. Santaka, which means "confluence" in Lithuanian, is the coming together of DJ and producer Manfredas and drummer and producer Marijus Aleksa and here they layer up disembodied vocals and dark jazz melodies on 'Ramybe' and then 'Autoportretas' is a textural ambient exploration packed with fascinating sound designs.
Review: It's fair to say Placelessness is the work of an Australian experimental supergroup. Oren Ambarchi has been a towering figure of hyper-minimalism since the mid-80s, most notably creating tense and elongated stretches of recordings and performance using guitar tone. Robbie Avenaim is an accomplished experimental drummer, and Chris Abrahams heads up The Necks. That's a very condensed biography for three incredibly accomplished musicians who finally make good on years of live collaborations and criss-crossed pathways to deliver a stunning album which brings their respective qualities into sharp relief, somehow fuller than their solo efforts without losing the vital subtlety and patience which has guided them to greatness.
Review: Vrioon was the first ever collaboration album between Alva Noto and legendary synth man and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. 20 years after it became the first instalments of V.I.R.U.S.'s five records together it gets the full reissue treatment. The original tracks from the album are joined by an all new composition 'Landscape Skizze' which was laid down in 2005. The record is defined by alternate piano chords, lush electronic tones and quivering timbres that are delicate yet impactful.
Review: Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto dropped this one first back in 2006. It was the third collaborative album between the ambient maestros and the third installment of V.I.R.U.S.'s five albums series. It was remastered last year and now gets served up as a reissue alongside three all-new pieces, namely 'City Radieuse', 'Veru 1', and 'Veru 2'. The first of those was written for a short cinematic essay in 2012. The album centres around the pano with padded bass and electronic frequencies adding extra depth and texture. It is another classic in their oeuvre.
Review: Hardanger is a collaboration between Mariska Baars, Niki Jansen and Rutger Zuydervelt. Named after Jansen's Hardanger fiddle, the album expands on Baars and Zuydervelt's established chemistry after beginning as Jansen's improvisations with Baars adding vocals and guitar, all later shaped by Zuydervelt into two long-form tracks-one an electro-acoustic collage, the other more meditative. Baars blends ambient and folk and is known for collaborating with artists like Peter Broderick, while Jansen is a folk violinist and Zuydervel's prolific output as Machinefabriek is well worth checking as are his film scores and collabs as Piiptsjilling and Fean with Baars.
Review: Truly living up to its name, Venusia - a word that has three meanings; a genus of moth, town in Italy, and the Roman goddess of love (who, as it happens, was named after the planet, Venus) - is essentially an homage to the fragile beauty of life, and the sense that our being present in this existence is something of a marvel. A one in a billion gamble that paid off without us even having to decide if the odds looked good enough to bet.
A collaborative work from four friends, with Henrik Meierkord on cello, Pawel Kobak playing flute, Marco Lucchi in charge of electronics, and Rocco Saviano on guitar duties, this atmospheric and cinematic ambient soundscape is grand and small, expansive and intimate, but overwhelmingly emotionally captivating in each of those modes. Complimented by gorgeous butterfly artwork by Valerii Bogorod, it's impossible not to fall for this intoxicating experience.
Review: Ambient legends Abul Mogard and Rafael Anton Irisarri team up for new album Impossibly Distant, Impossibly Close. Unfolding naturally after being booked to play at the same show in Madrid in 2023, the two ambient artists' dazzlingly warm, slow-progressing approaches to ambience fuse neatly together here. Just two long pieces, 'Piece Of Forever' and 'Waking Up Dizzy On A Bastion', titularly grasp at the theme of eternity, determinism, historical peaks and troughs: the supporting atmosphere is equally as impressively arresting, seeming to urge the listener to 'give over' and move with the flow of time, less than the flow of will. Such a paradigm shift can indeed serve to make distance and closeness seem irrelevant.
The Fantastic Life Of Mr Adonis The Peacock (3:04)
The Wheels Are Spinning (5:36)
Review: In a first-time collaboration, psychedelic trance godhead Simon Posford (best known as Hallucinogen and a founding member of Shpongle) teams up with fellow hippie and flutist Raja Ram (Ronald Rothfield) on a welling improvisatory record, Improvisations For Piano And Flute. Though both are highly esteemed artists in their respective micro-corners of the electronic music scene, Posford and Rothfield both depart significantly from their usually danceable ends for a living-room recorded set of ambiences. With a synth placed atop an antique Bluthner piano, Raj and Simon would join in after the other first begun playing, delivering a 44-minute effluence for the spontaneous soul.
Review: Recorded at the legendary Eglise du Saint-Esprit in Paris, Blue Veil is the very first time we've been given a record fully dedicated to the incredible solo cello work of Lucy Railton. A spectacularly talented composer who is a master of the world's most mournful-yet-beautiful instrument, this is as much of a heart-stopping performance as it is a concept work of art. In many ways, Blue Veil is an experiment in resonance. If it were synthesised, we might refer to it as drone, although by nature the label infers a level of dullness. Here, we're talking about the natural refrains of an orchestral sunrise, the ebb and flow of contemporary classical tides. We're invited in, hypnotised, lulled and then let go. Free to wander back into the world after a brief respite from its relentless pace.
Review: London promoters Sagome continue their evolution and expansion into an essential label with their third release. This one comes from Italian duo Rain Text which comprises Giuseppe Ielasi, a renowned mastering engineer and one-half of Bellows, and Giovanni Civitenga, who hosts the long-running Skyapnea show on NTS. Their new album III offers sequentially titled, intricately detailed electronic compositions that blend abstract techno, glitchy sound design and experimental electronica. Comparable to Mika Vainio's sonic manipulation yet more densely layered, III nods to the fractured sounds of Actress and the decay-driven textures of late-period Jan Jelinek. It's engaging and unique, to say the least.
Review: A Monster's Expedition + Earlier Adventures is a double disc collection of music from four different video games (namely A Monster's Expedition, Sokobond, Cosmic Express and A Good Snowman Is Hard to Build) all composed by Eli Rainsberry, Allison Walker, Nick Dymond, and Priscilla Snow. Each one is utterly unique to the game and each one comes laden with beautiful soothing atmospheres delicately coloured with ponderous and whimsical melodies that will distract you from whatever you are doing they are so gorgeous. This is music to get lost in and it comes with superbly serene artwork from Andre Rodrigues.
Review: Phoebe Guillemot's world-building as RAMZi has yielded us a plethora of exquisite albums since she first emerged in the tape-oriented scene around 2013. She's gone on to helm different projects, tour the world and generally blossom as a singular and gifted artist. After a string of self-released LPs, she's popped up on Music From Memory with one of her most refined works to date. Hyphea unmistakably belongs in the RAMZi-verse, full of the same mystical, softly shaped flora and fauna which makes her music so inviting, but there's also a sense of structure and purpose here which suggests she was honing her expressions - a natural progression for an artist who can make electronic music sound so very natural indeed.
Review: Ghosts is the third solo album from Polish pianist and composer Hania Rani. It comes after an artist residency in Switzerland in an abandoned sanitarium amongst the mountains so is inspired by the numerous rumoured ghosts that inhabit the hills. Lead singles 'Hello' and 'Dancing with Ghosts' take drastically different approaches, with the former being an electro-ambient take on lounge jazz sensibilities and 'Dancing with Ghosts' being a moody and grumbling duet ballad with Patrick Whatson. The whole album has a lingering sense of finality and creeping doom, but with keys, strings and layered vocals making for a brilliantly atmospheric and moving listen.
Review: Hana Rani presents Nostalgia, a live album recorded at Witold Lutoslawski's Concert Studio at the Polish Radio in Warsaw, captured in breath-held detail, shortly after the release of her third solo album Ghosts. An homage to the Polish radio station, Rani describes the nine-piece record as a response to her visitation in 2018, just before the release of her debut record Esja. Soon establishing a recording studio in the proximate municipality of Mokotow, Rani channelled Polish Radio's historic broadcast energies into a locus of inspiration; Nostalgia builds on this in concert, in turn responding to a set of personal video recordings and photographs taken on a quiet, snowy day in the building. Weaving tinkling, clastic acoustic and electric piano around intervalent drones, and backed up by a string ensemble, Rani sound-paints a unique picture of Polish radiophonic history through a personal lens.
Review: Was there anyone who combined soul and synth pop this well with such expert instrumentation as this band?! This collection captures two iconic sessions for the John peel show recorded during the early 1980s, showcasing a beloved band at their creative peak. Remastered for a fresh listen, the album highlights their ability to craft memorable melodies and intricate synth-driven soundscapes. The funky, melodic opener boasts a strong chorus and infectious groove, setting the tone for an engaging journey through soulful pop. An upbeat, feel-good gem in 'Some People I Know To Lead Fantastic Lives ' follows, blending frenetic rhythms with shimmering synth textures that radiate warmth and optimism. An important hit for the band, 'Wishful Thinking' demonstrates clever songwriting and a catchy structure that's impossible to resist, solidifying its place as a synth pop classic. The collection also includes a stunning downtempo track with 'Watching The Rainclouds' , rich with soulfulness and unique instrumentation, showing the band's range and ability to evoke deep emotion through delicate melodies and expressive keyboard work. This compilation is a fantastic snapshot of their evolution and a reminder of their enduring influence. Fans old and new will find much to love in this expertly curated and beautifully remastered release. China Crisis continues to be more respected as time goes on.
Review: Rain and experimental music have long shared an intriguing connection. Hanns Eisler's 1941 work "ierzehn Arten, den Regen zu beschreiben explored rain's musical qualities while later artists like The Beatles and David Toop found inspiration in its rhythms. Today, amidst pressing climate change, rain's once poetic allure has dimmed. However, Razen's album Rain Without Rain, which was recorded in an abandoned Dusseldorf tunnel, revisits rain's musical potential. Blending early electronics and traditional instruments, the Brussels collective led by Brecht Ameel and Kim Delcour captures raw acoustics in unconventional spaces and cook up a unique soundscape that thrives on restraint and silence.
Review: Depeche Mode member Alan Wilder is Recoil. This musical project found him landing on Mute with a great series of albums including the likes of Liquid and Unsound Methods as well as his sixth LP, subHuman. This one dates back to 2006 and came after a 6-year break from recording. It is dark and broody electronic music "which sets the listener a challenge to analyse what makes us human and subHuman." It's a collaboration with bluesman Joe Richardson who served up guitars as well as harmonica and eerie vocals. Themes in the record include murder, death, and religion while guest singer Carla Trevaskis did a fine job of serving up ethereal sound on 'Allelujah'.
Review: Ten year anniversary? Has it really already been ten years since Recondite's sophomore album 'Hinterland' came out?! Recondite almost single-handedly was responsible in many peoples eyes for the resurgence in techno during the early 2010s. After beating down the doors of Ghostly International for many years, the fans finally get their wish in the shape a new, shiny reissue. Coming on smokey black vinyl this time, nobody has a reason to not have this record in their collection. Included are legendary tracks like 'Stems', 'Clouded' and 'Leafs'. Many think that not only is this the best Recondite album but one of the best techno albums of the year 2013.
Review: Light In The Attic's continued series of Lou Reed reissues follows up the outstanding Words and Music, May 1965 with this wholly different side to the legendary singer-songwriter. As a devoted student of Tai Chi, Reed composed some ambient pieces for his own personal use while practicing. It was only as friends started to ask for copies that he decided to round the project out and present it as his last solo album - in his own words, "I then wrote two more pieces with the same intent: to relax the body, mind, and spirit and facilitate meditation." As well as the music, remastered and pressed onto double vinyl, there's bonus reading material in the form of interviews with people close to Reed in the context of his Tai Chi, yoga and meditation practice.
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