New releases this week: Ambient/Drone

Review: Alien D is the NYC-based producer Daniel Creahan, and he's back with a debut on Theory Therapy that taps into widescreen worlds of techno immersion. Departing from the ambient abstraction of his previous work, this album as a subtle kinetic pulse with tracks like 'Soil Dub' and 'Sleepy's Gambit' propel listeners forward with dubwise rhythms crafted for deep dancefloors. The album builds on an infectious, steady groove with repeating phrases and subtle shifts that keep the music in constant motion. Conceived in the first days after the COVID lockdown, these sounds exude a hopeful quality and capture the transcendent moments of early-morning parties when the moment is full of unbridled hope for what might come.

Review: Legendary video game soundtrack-er Motorhiro Kawashima is best known for his efforts on the iconic Streets of Rage 2 and 3 titles. The latter is remembered as one of the hardest to define scores of all time, certainly in terms of a playable titles, and even 30 years on still amazes and baffles anyone who encounters it. Less well known are the artist's solo and standalone efforts, which came much later. Acrobatizm and Prepared Wave were the first two of those records, and emerged in the pre-pandemic late-noughties. Both draw heavily on the glitch and leftfield experimental techno worlds, which were in rude health at the time, doubling down on staccato rhythms and mind-blowing arpeggiation, with the punchiness and jerky vibes more than nod to the glory days of 8-bit gaming.

Review: A striking collection of digitally manipulated piano pieces, each one of them on this album are named after iconic films and TV shows. They are all crafted late at night as a response to passive media consumption and aim to blur the line between classical impressionism and contemporary digital manipulation. Drawing inspiration from Viktor Shklovsky's concept of "ostranenie" (which means estrangement), the work challenges habitual perceptions and makes the familiar feel strange. The music oscillates between mechanical MIDI chaos and intimate, fragile moments that question the emotional stakes of sound in a world where technology can often flatten deeper meaning. It's a profound exploration of art's role in resisting the numbing effects of mindless routine and endless immersion culture.

Review: First released three years ago and now receiving a deserved reissue, I Am A Tree I Am A Mouth is undoubtedly one of the most magic albums by Australian-American sprano and composer Jane Sheldon - an artist famed for her unique, voice-based works. While the album is not entirely made up of layered vocals and vocalisations - Sheldon employs long, languid ambient drones and textures throughout - they're naturally the focal point. Most of the lyrics (mostly sung, but some spoken) are taken from Rainer Maria Rilke's 1995 tome The Book of Hours (meaning Sheldon largely sings in German), and these are delivered in all manner of inspired ways. The results are uniformly dazzling, blurring the boundaries between chamber music, neo-classical and ambient music's experimental fringes.

Review: What planet were you born on? To be honest, it never really matters with Light Sounds Dark. Sent off in search of intelligent sounds from across the universe, the label has been amassing but never pillaging a vast array of tones from various corners of the known and unknown cosmos for time now, although the exact hour and date is really dependent on your relationship with the continuum. LSD 046 makes this point clear as ever. Numbered tracks are all your getting in terms of being able to catalogue and make sense of what's here, adding to the idea that your lost in a realm that's neither there nor there. Tunes fizzle and gargle, slow strings refrain, lo fi Kraut shouts beneath the crackle of analogue, intergalactic organs ring out into silence. And then we run out of words to possibly describe what's on the record long before the last episode.

Review: The most aptly-named record label in the world, Light Sounds Dark present another collection of wildly experimental bits and pieces cultivated in the lab of things that you simply don't hear in other places. Suitably christened 'Track 1', 'Track 2', and so on until 'Track 29', this is a huge point of entry for newcomers to the LSD realm and an excellent deep dive for veterans alike. Winds howl and thunder crashes before beautiful harmonies change the vibe from cold to warm, Gregorian chants echo in and out above dubby, stubby beats, and post punk guitars lunge forward beneath jerky, naive melodies. And that's just the first few parts here. A journey to the outer reaches of the musical universe, then back again, turning left at the industrial jazz and continuing through shoegaze, soundtrack, field and weirdo pop. Mind you don't get lost, now.