Review: If you can't make it to the Kazakh steppe to watch the launch of the actual Soyuz spacecraft, the next best thing is to immerse yourself in this spacey, dreamy, blissed out psychedelic instrumental music with a 70s AOR touch and send your imagination on a voyage. Minsk collective Soyuz have some seriously strong musical chops and subsequently can bring in guest appearances from the sensational Biel Basile of the rising Brazilian group Sessa and Anthony Ferraro (Toro Y Moi, Astronauts, Etc.). They fit into the mixes beautifully, sounding like they've been part of the group their whole lives. It's a real gem of a release and a likely future collectible 7" from the Brighton-based independent label Mr Bongo.
Review: Saint Etienne's latest release envelops listeners in a serene, ambient soundscape that gently guides the mind into a state of calm. The track 'Half Light' exemplifies this approach, with its ethereal melodies and soothing rhythms creating a tranquil atmosphere and the album - the their 11th since 1991's debut Fox Base Alpha - continues this theme, offering a cohesive journey through layered tranquillity. A testament to the band's ability to craft immersive experiences that resonate deeply with the listener.
Review: Arriving almost exactly three months after its predecessor, HiFi Sean and David McAlmont's third collaborative full-length is lightly a conceptual flip side to 2024's Daylight - a "dusk till dawn" night drive sequel, as they put it. To provide a distinctly different sonic sheen to the album that preceded it, the duo has reached for slow, soft-touch grooves, dreamy textures, bubbly electronics, strobe-lit synths and musical motifs forged in darker, if still colourful, tones. Add in McAlmont's honeyed, effortlessly soulful vocals, and you have another genuine gem from the 1990s survivors. Highlights include Blessed Madonna collaboration 'The Comedown', the tactile bliss of 'Goodbye Drama Queen', the huggable wooziness of 'High With You' and the heartfelt sweep of 'Star'.
Review: Seefeel's new album Everything Squared marks their first release since 2011, on which the "first ever shoegaze-electronica band" flex a positively retroactive take on the sound they sired. From the opening 'Sky Hooks' - a track which weaves an oxbow shape through small bankside groves of nymphlike-vocals in the peaks, and determined plods through ambient dub subterrains in the troughs - to the penultimate 'Hooked Paw', a similarly dubby but comparatively gnosis - a sophistic dream-blear for vocals and detuned atmoss at 140bpm, recalling the surreal ambient fort-das of HTRK or Clouds - this is not a record to be listened to lightly, despite its comeback status.
Review: Nala Sinephro's latest full-length record, Endlessness, hears the London-based jazz and electronica musician dive deep into the fundaments of nature and existence. Via a decalogue of 'Continuums' - which begin slowly on a note of muted brass and serenely laggard drumming, the first of which rarely stoops to settle on any particular rhythm, more than indulging the not infrequent metric detour - the album swells into a slow but sure expansion in cosmic jazz, which not explicitly but implicitly elicits cosmic thoughts, universal ponderings that exceed the limits of single lifetimes.
Review: It is still rather cold here at Juno HQ, but the days are starting to feel little longer and brighter, which means we're ever more open to Balearic reveries. Few are better than this one from Studio, the Swedish duo of Dan Lissvik and Rasmus Hagg who created a sound bridging indie, electronic and psychedelic music. Their 2006 debut blended Balearic romanticism with Krautrock, disco, dub, afrobeat and pop lyricism influenced by new wave and has been hard to find in physical and even streaming formats over the years. Inspired by DJ Screw, J Dilla and European live DJ sets, Studio embraced an "anything-goes" ethos, unbound by musical borders, and the results have stood the test of time.
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