New releases last four weeks: All genres

Review: Well Curated is a series of releases and parties that - in its own words - "reflects the ethnomusicology of the last 50 years of music" - and aims to reach into all genres, merging classic styles and breaking down barriers. Steve Spacek occupies the A-side with the breezy broken beat and soul-in-space of 'Alone In Da Sun', while Lukid's 'Hair Of The Dog' is a more intense counterpart, with wobbling sub-bass and swirling, surging atmospherics hovering above.

Review: .Rhetorical Islands was originally pieced together from Giuseppe Ielasi's work for l'Audible Festival in Paris. An event dedicated to pushing forward thinking, mind-expanding, experimental and just plain strange sounds, his efforts certainly fit in with all of those terms. Presented here as ten standalone tracks, all without name and many without the usual elements we expect from a 'track', this first vinyl pressing of the work is really an extension of the original idea, rather than a time capsule of it. "Isolated sound worlds" is the phrase Ielasi used to describe what's happening here, and it's certainly true that the individual parts stand alone and can each be heard as autonomous. But together they also make a strange kind of sense, complementing, almost feeding into each other, even at the most stark juxtaposition. Ultimately, then, it's about interpretation, making what we choose from the ingredients.

Review: The second solo releases from Edward Ka-Spel to appear on the Lumberton Trading Company label offers eight spectacularly original compositions from the outsider artist. These are tracks that bore their way into the heart and mind through startlingly personal moods and meanings. The atmosphere is often tense, and, when it's not, 'surreal' is the word that springs to mind - albeit more unusual hallucination than comical experiment. 'Platform 5' might be the best example of how unnerving things can get, the low, rumbling synth bassline underpinning spoken word, distant, almost inaudible harmonic refrain and eerie chorus. 'No Show Tomorrow' asks "what if they had a war and nobody showed up' to seemingly disconnected tones, notes and noises. 'They Seek Her Here' ups the tempo with a synth-wave-breaks trip through dystopian spaces.

Review: Ilian Tape's ITX Series provides another opportunity to sink into some deeply escapist ambient and drone soundscapes from the usually dance floor-focused breakbeat and techno label. MPU101 has served up a few of these EPs before and they always find them coax plenty of magic out of their analogue machines. 'TEAM 700_76' is a nice and bleary-eyed post-Blade Runner soundtrack, 'BLOCK-1_2AREA666' has a darker undercurrent of menace, 'TrailerparkBeauty' brings some twinkling celestial keys and 'Sunset Memories' closes on frazzled chords that speak of heat damage from a scorching sun.

Review: Turin's reputation as an enclave of Italian alternative music and culture is well known. Southern Europe's Motor City has the stunning piazzas and palazzos we want from its country, but also the huge industrial areas, many now in decline or waiting to be redeveloped, that catalyse so much in electronic and industrial music. Meanwhile, a few miles beyond town we find spectacular countryside, national parks, mountain ranges, and inspiration for deep ambient. SabaSaba were born from and into this, and the duo have established themselves as one of the region's foremost purveyors of unusual tunes. Unknown City is a like a blueprint for what a contemporary horror score could be, whether that's the slow release of the John Carpenter-esque 'Night Plotters', haunting chants and shimmers of 'Wrists Free', eerie atmospheres of 'False Speech', or anything in between.

Review: At least one person has described Scythe's work as "expertly modulated space blues and isolationist architectures." First emerging from the ether (or at least that's how we like to think of it) through a series of clandestine cassette releases on Low Company in 2019 and 2020, Head X'Change almost feels like the culmination of all that has come before. A weird and truly wonderful place to spend time. A collaborative project between David West and R.A. Jones, elements of kosmische intermingle with a kind of earthy ambience, DIY electronics leading into white noise moments or new age melodies. At times it's so joyfully opiate you wonder if there's any way of getting back up off the pillow. In other moments, there's tension, eeriness, and uncertainty. Once you're in, it's a wild ride indeed.

Review: Brothers in sounds (and lineage) Mark and Clive Ives deal with two of the biggest issues impacting music right now on one incredible record.WOO have a reputation for taking parts of archived sounds and formulating new things from those segments, and in this case the work is born from excerpts of four-track tape recordings made in the late-1980s. They then began reflecting on the "imminent nature of humanoid robots", and starting to create Xylophonics/Robot X. From artificial intelligence to reuse and sample politics and economics, these themes seem to guide the sounds themselves, which feel strangely nostalgic and futuristic, a vision of tomorrow that is inseprtable from the humans that made it - their understanding of the unfolding machine age through weird distorted jazz tech, deconstructed dub and psychedelic electronica. So, remembering all this is a reconfigured version of stuff made almost 35 years ago is truly mind-blowing.