Juno Recommends Downtempo / Balearic May 2018

Review: Robin Lee takes a break from his day job as Faze Action to slip into the occasional Rudy's Midnight Machine alias for this outing on his own label. It's a mellow, atmospheric ride into pastures you wouldn't normally associate with Faze Action, although "Midnight Safari" is smooth and luxurious enough to feel right in any context. "In The Air" has a mysterious air to it, helped in no small part by the evocative Eastern lilt of the strings running through the centre of the track. There's a sassy boogie step powering "Reach Backless," while "Windchimes" flips the script with a semi-ambient live bass reverie. It's back to the party one last time with "Solar Plex" though - this record is about synthy funk first and foremost.

Review: REPRESS ALERT: A seminal re-release: Whichever Way You Are Going You Are Going Wrong marks the start of a very deep, spiritual and hugely influential recording career for Mark and Clive Ives. Recorded in their own small Wimbledon terrace house in 1982 using nothing acoustic guitars, keyboards a small selection of wind instruments, it's a fusion of Balearic, psychedelic folk, proto electronic and ambient music that sits in such a unique world of its own, it still sounds fantastically fresh today. At points very lo-fi and fuzzy ("The Cleaner") at others very crisp, folky and pastoral ("CH Revisited"), imagine Robert Wyatt collaborating with Osunlade, or the Cinematic Orchestra hooking up with Brian Eno and you might get a slightly clearer picture. Only slightly though... These pictures aren't meant to be crystal. That's the beauty.

Review: Jephte Guillaume and Joaquin "Joe" Clausell have been releasing collaborative singles and EPs as Mental Remedy for the best part of 17 years. Even so, A Journey To Noi is the New York duo's first full-length excursion. In their own words, the album is a soundtrack that "tells the story of an artist who travels to a foreign land and finds her true calling" with guidance from "melody, rhythm, dance and friendships". The soundtrack aspect is arguably key, as there's certainly something cinematic about the duo's fusion of global instrumentation, sweeping orchestration, deep space electronic ambient and, as you'd expect from a Clausell project, musically expansive spiritual house and jazz-dance workouts. Perhaps what's most impressive, though, is the sheer magnitude of the pair's collective musical vision.

Review: "This release is a 12"" and it's individually 500 hand-numbered limited edition. The first 100 copies are pressed on CLEAR TRANSPARENT vinyls (AR013).
It contains 2 previously unreleased tracks from TONY ESPOSITO's Viaggio Tribale CD (2004): Dove c'e luce and Veronica song + A SPECIAL BALEARIC REMIX of Dove c'e luce from LucaEffeSunset + 3 previously unreleased tracks from the Lucan (Basilicata) musician Antonio Nicola Bruno CD (2004): Storia della terra mia and Danza e ridanza. In addition to the usual Archeo insert of credits and photos of the original album, it features also of a second insert concerning a beautiful photographic journey of 2004 by Manu-Archeo, related to this Music.

Archeo Recordings is a reissue record label that regenerates old, lost, obscure (and forgotten) rare gems of Italian music of the 70s and 80s, and not only.
All outputs are licensed by the artists and the vintage labels; audio tracks are remastered in their original form; the sleeves and center labels are graphically recreated for today but all based on the original images.
Archeo would like to make the music available to a wider audience of collectors, DJs, music lovers of a forgotten time.
All releases are hand-numbered limited edition vinyl. The first copies of each release are pressed in coloured vinyls."