All Genres

Review: Original copies of the original 1978 seven-inch of 12 Tribes Of Israel's debut single are not only hard to find, but also exceedingly expensive on the rare occasions they do come up for sale. This reissue then is well overdue. "Kill The Devil" is that rarest of things: an instrumental roots reggae workout that peppers a dancefloor-friendly groove with fluid piano, Hammond organ and jazz guitar solos. The flipside dub version - re-titled "Bury The Devil" - is also superb, with a stripped-back, reverb-drenched version of the track's killer groove rightly taking pride of place throughout.

Review: Second time around for the 1975's sophomore set, I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful Yet Unaware of It, an album that remains one of the most glossy, eclectic and colourful in their catalogue. Clocking in at just under 80 minutes and 19-tracks deep, it expands on their '80s synth-pop influenced alternative rock sound by throwing in songs that variously doff a cap to Mogwai, mid-'80s INXS, drive time-rock, AM radio AOR, Stevie Nicks' synth-pop era songs, Eno-esque instrumentals, Warp style melodic IDM, gospel, nu-disco and even the rushing cheeriness of piano house. It's big, bold and showy, but also very entertaining.

Notes: The Limited Edition Pumpkin Mult is here! Craft sonic concoctions with this pulp-free multiplier, exclusive for a limited time.

Mult is a 2 input, 6 output signal splitter. Channel 1 is normalled to channel 2 when no cable is present, allowing the user to split an input signal six ways, or two input signals with three outputs each.

Review: Past Inside The Present are on a mission to make you slow down and enjoy the now more than we do in modern life. They do so with this latest 12", which features four accompaniment programs "designed to give the stasis user a pleasurable experience in extended hypersleep." This is hi fidelity listening music that is as cathartic and escapist as it comes. Each track is like tuning into and endless continuum of sound that ebbs and flows infinitely. Celestial and delicate, if you can't relax in the company of these then you got real problems.

Review: Aussie outfit 5 Seconds of Summer were already well established when they released Youngblood in 2018, but the album helped move them to another level of fame and popularity altogether. As this Universal Japan reissue proves, the set is still their most polished and well-rounded to date. It expanded on their original pop-rock sound by drawing more on the post-EDM dance-pop sound that was then, as now, dominating airplay and sales charts worldwide. There are still some gnarled guitars accompanying their boyband style group vocals, but they don't dominate the sound space like they once did. Instead, you'll hear more beats, instrumentation and sonic effects more often associated with chart-bound R&B, Calvin Harris and their former touring buddies, One Direction.

Review: .Mikhail Khvasko has been painting a vivid, sunkissed picture of Balearic bliss with his A Vision Of Panorama project since it first emerged on Mellophonia back in 2016. As the nights start to draw in, this latest drop is just what you need to escape to an imagined coastal idyll where the sun never sets. From the steady groove of 'Floral Rhythm' to the gentle skank of 'Seaside Tune' this is immaculately rendered feel-good music rendered in plush synths with an unmistakable 80s finish. There are beats to be enjoyed on 'Blues 909', but you've never heard the totemic techno machine sound as smooth and mellow as it does right here.

Review: Lontano Series' latest presentation, La Linea Negra, was born out of a trip producer and sound recordist AB Uno made to the Santa Marta area in Colombia. Deep in the Amazonian rainforest, he spent some days staying with a family from the native tribe of Arhuaco. The result is a superbly atmospheric, 25-minute piece that sees him later his own pulsing ambient electronics, Arhuaco voices and occasional tribal drum rhythms atop evocative field recordings of village life and the natural world that surrounds them. It's a breathtakingly atmospheric and evocative affair blessed with a genuine sense of time and place, as if you're eavesdropping on life in a remote corner of South America while sustained, slowly changing ambient chords ebb and flow across the sound space.

Review: Tyler Myroon AKA Abstrakt Sonance has released some of his most potent music since joining Truth's Deep, Dark and Dangerous label, so hopes are naturally high for this first missive for the imprint in two years. Title track 'Ishtar' is particularly potent, with the self-proclaimed "bass music force" wrapping clandestine chords and creepy melodies around punishing dubstep drums and gargantuan sub-bass. The EP's other instrumental cuts, 'Behind Closed Eyes' and 'Nightmares', offer deeper and hazier variations on a similarly bold and aggressive theme, while the two vocal cuts - and in particular opener 'We Nuh Pay', where Killa P, Long Range and Crowell trade verses - sound like future party-starting classics.

Review: After some great ones by Desert Sound Colony and label co-heads Alec Falconer and Tiago Walter, Ba Dum Tish are back with another curious release by the enigmatic Active Research. It's the sound of the '90s underground on the A side, with the dark drum & bass epic 'Howweryuu' and its Optical / Alex Reece influence, followed by the UK electronica throwback sounds on 'Apexxx North'. On the flip, things take a more abstract turn on the deep and dystopian electro bass journey "Collection Of Noises" followed by the sublime ambient bliss of "Loosen The Moorings".

Review: The seventh album from South London-based producer and experimental maverick Darren Cunningham and it's a beauty. The last time we heard from him, in 2018, he was collaborating with the London Contemporary Orchestra and improvising a score for a Stockhausen opera and he's taken an element of that work with him and married it to disorientating, otherworldly electronics. 'Karma & Desire' has a real feel of escapism, almost to the extent of feeling like an out of body experience, as dislocated and disembodied melodies float around in the ether. There are the first proper vocal collaborations he's undertaken here, but the two tracks are no pop bangers, songstress Zsela's efforts sounding more like some beguiling abstract poetry. Travelling further and further, creatively, from the normal environs of dancefloor culture, he's not lost any of his spellbinding musicality or sonic storytelling skills.

Review: The seventh album from South London-based producer and experimental maverick Darren Cunningham and it's a beauty. The last time we heard from him, in 2018, he was collaborating with the London Contemporary Orchestra and improvising a score for a Stockhausen opera and he's taken an element of that work with him and married it to disorientating, otherworldly electronics. 'Karma & Desire' has a real feel of escapism, almost to the extent of feeling like an out of body experience, as dislocated and disembodied melodies float around in the ether. There are the first proper vocal collaborations he's undertaken here, but the two tracks are no pop bangers, songstress Zsela's efforts sounding more like some beguiling abstract poetry. Travelling further and further, creatively, from the normal environs of dancefloor culture, he's not lost any of his spellbinding musicality or sonic storytelling skills.

Review: The seventh album from South London-based producer and experimental maverick Darren Cunningham and it's a beauty. The last time we heard from him, in 2018, he was collaborating with the London Contemporary Orchestra and improvising a score for a Stockhausen opera and he's taken an element of that work with him and married it to disorientating, otherworldly electronics. 'Karma & Desire' has a real feel of escapism, almost to the extent of feeling like an out of body experience, as dislocated and disembodied melodies float around in the ether. There are the first proper vocal collaborations he's undertaken here, but the two tracks are no pop bangers, songstress Zsela's efforts sounding more like some beguiling abstract poetry. Travelling further and further, creatively, from the normal environs of dancefloor culture, he's not lost any of his spellbinding musicality or sonic storytelling skills.

Notes: Two-channel spectral tilt filter with simple single-knob control and CV input. Adjust the frequency balance by turning the knob to emphasise highs or lows. Simple but effective way to add movement or stereo width.

Supplier's Notes:
The TILT EQ concept was first introduced in the 1970's by Quad Ltd, featured on the company's model 34 preamplifier.

The tilt control tilts the frequency spectrum of the audio signal by simultaneously boosting the treble and cutting the bass frequencies, or vice versa, making it a simple to use but powerful EQ.

As stated by Quad Ltd, it was designed to produce a very gradual change in balance across the musical spectrum without changing the overall subjective level.

This gradual fall from Bass to Treble, or vice versa, means there's no sudden change and hence no 'coloration' added to the sound, the sound will remain entirelly natural but with a slight added bottom or high end. In practice, it rotates most of the audio-range frequency response around a 1Khz axis, so as to change the overall balance of the sound from warm to cool without affecting either the apparent volume or the "color" of the sound.

Here this idea is introducedinto the modular world in a stereo configuration.

CV input with attenuverter was added for the Tilt control as well as a Spectral Motion switch that allows stereo spectral matching or inverted spectrum use of the Tilt control: Left=Right matches both channels direction, i.e. when left channel is tilted to the low end the right channel will also be tilted to the low end

Left Right inverts the Right channel spectrum, i.e. when left channel is tilted to the low end the right channel will be inverselly tilted to the high end, or vice-versa.

This possibility is extremmelly interesting when applied as a stereo effect, in other words a spectral EQ panner. This module will also be available as a full DIY kit.

Specs:
4Hp
4.5cm deep
40mA on each rail

Review: Get your hands in the air and wave them about like you just don't care, because this is exactly the sort of tune that will make you do that. It's built on huge old school referencing breakbeats, with just as retro piano chords layered over the top. Add in some twitchy acid sounds, slamming drums and a lung-busting diva vocal and you have an irresistible, festival sized house anthem that will unite all dancers in raptures. On the flip is a dub for those who like something slightly more subtle, but it still bangs like a heavyweight with her back against the ropes.

Review: For Those That Know step up with another exquisite choice of underground hero to boost with a retrospective release - ADJ. Andy Jaggers has been a lynchpin to the UK electro scene since the 90s, and his Pyramid Transmissions label (run with Pathic) is rightly lauded and unsurprisingly hard to get hold of after release. This release gathers together some of Jaggers' finest work from recent years, including some previously unreleased tracks and highly sought after album cuts that have been out of reach for too long already. If you want high grade, forward thinking electro with a braindance tint, this is an album you won't want to miss.

Review: Back in June, a copy of Akira Freeze's hitherto unknown single 'Tell Me Baby' appeared on an online auction site and ended up selling for well over $2,000. It sparked Athens of the North boss Euan Fryer into action, as he tracked down the rights to the record in order to reissue it. Little information exists about the record, but we can confirm that it is utterly beguiling. A-side 'Tell Me Baby' is superb, with slick, soulful lead vocals rising above squelchy synth-bass, spacey chords, luscious electronic melodies, twinkling keyboard solos and unfussy drums. Flipside 'I Remember', an even more intergalactic-sounding affair, is arguably even better, making this a very desirable 45.

Review: All proceeds and profits from this new drop on Selections will be donated to Black Lives Matter charities, making it an even more appealing offer beyond the sheer quality of the house heads gathered together here. The mighty Kai Alce leads the charge with the sweet and bumping 'Hear The Waves', which is followed up by the punchy but warm 'Furacao Dento' by Demuir. Nick Holder opens the B side up with a killer slice of broken beat house, all crooked percussion locked into a deep, rolling groove. 83 West finishes the record off with a teasing, slow-release heater that keeps the energy simmering throughout - a masterfully executed cut to hold the dancefloor under a spell.