Juno Recommends Leftfield February 2021

Review: Full marks to Light in the Attic for the title of their latest well curated compilation. Somewhere Between: Mutant Pop Electronic Minimalism & Shadow Sounds Of Japan 1980-1988 is both broad and undefined yet highly specific. It captures the various moods of the music within perfectly - gentle lullabies of retro future synth music, curious Far Eastern pop ditties and all out ambient experimentalism that is never less than intriguing. The double LP comes with special liner notes and treads a thin line between metro boogie and sparkling atmospherics that will keep you coming back to discover more with each listen.

Review: In the decade since the release of his debut In 8 Movements in 2010 on Ethereal Symphony, the enigmatic New York-based producer Black Swan has built a reputation with his brand of tape-based symphonic drones. This year marks his 11th full length which comes courtesy of Indianapolis imprint Past Inside The Present. Repetition Hymns is quite a fitting soundtrack 'to the temporal distortion of quarantine, in which each day feels like an endless repeating loop.' This collection of foggy, ethereal soundscapes exist in a world of analogue saturation, capturing the medium's natural process of degradation, complete with imperfections which makes for an altogether sublime experience.

Review: It's been almost a full decade since the last Wagon Christ album from Luke Vibert. He is a producer who can do just about anything and has been right at the sharp end of any number of sounds for the last 25 years. The newly revived Wagon Christ project is sounding as good as ever here across 14 tracks of glistening electronics, dancing grooves and exquisitely colourful melodies that draw on dub, pop, boogie, synth, house, electro and techno but always come out with a very distinctive Vibert twang. The melancholic slow motion pomp of 'Special Designer Song' and chunky funk of 'Likewutchyadoo' are particular standouts.

Review: Amongst collectors of post-punk era cassettes, Solid Space's sole album, 1982's Space Museum, has long been a sought-after item. While scarce and hard to find, the demand is largely down to the music contained within. Combining bright and spacey synthesizers with cheap drum machines, fuzzy guitars and vocals musing on science fiction and isolation, British DIY musicians Matthew Vosburgh and Dan Goldstein (previously both of of Exhibit A) created something surprisingly magical and alluring despite its lo-fi creation. For proof, check this first ever vinyl edition from Dark Entries, which thrillingly also contains two previously unreleased cuts from the duo's archives.

Review: Last year, the new beat-loving diggers behind the Musique Pour La Danse label stumbled on something rather bizarre in a second-hand shop: an erotic VHS video from 1989 whose soundtrack was a direct copy of legendary new beat LP King of The Beat, a fake 'compilation' where every sleazy, mid-tempo, mind-altering cut was in fact written and produced by the same trio of Belgian studio buffs. So, they've decided to reissue that LP as Erotiques New Beat, adding extensive liner notes from new beat scholar Geert Sermon, and pressing it to shocking neon pink vinyl. It's a fine set full of distinctively odd, druggy, acid-flecked and synth-heavy cuts, most barely known outside of new beat collector circles. It's well worth picking up.

Review: A number of Ennio Morricone's best soundtracks have been pieced together in a five part reissue series that now serves up its final instalment. Each collection centres on a different movie genre and this one, Passion, shows the more romantic and lovestruck side to the artist's sound. The Italian brings all his usual gusto, energy and passion to these pieces which range of sentimental and teary eyed ton more heavy and heart broken. Each one is pregnant with emotion and makes for truly involved listening even without the pictures to accompany them.

Review: RECOMMENDED
Even the most determinedly understated chin-strokers will likely have emitted a squeal of delight when this one was announced. Everyone's favourite electronic producer-cum-contemporary composer (or vice versa?) releasing his latest works of art across two media - namely an album on cult hero label Erased Tapes, and a movie available on highbrow streaming service Mubi.

This is the audio, and while nobody who caught the video when it was available to view on-demand could argue this is just as powerful on its own, the solo sound is still an intoxicating and compelling ride. 'The Dane' is classy piano bliss, '#2' sits in the big room electronica end of things, 'Fundamental Values' is a scatty, broken ambient journey to the edges of drum 'n' bass, 'Enters' opens on long, ambient refrains.

Review: Solo releases from Depeche Mode mainstay Martin Gore are a genuine rarity. To date, he's released just one solo set under his given name - 2003's Counterfeit2 - and another as MG, some six years ago. The Third Chimpanzee, his first lone release of any sort since, is effectively a scaled-down sequel: a five-track EP/mini-album of electronic instrumentals created using a battery of modular synthesizers. It's as quietly impressive as you'd expect from gore, with clanking, industrial-influenced rhythms, IDM-informed synth sounds and growling, post-ambient noise being joined by early Depeche Mode style stabs and dark, growling motifs. Gore's sonic standards remain predictably high throughout, though we'd suggest starting with the Bladerunner-esque future dystopia of 'Howler' and the metallic, mind-altering intensity of 'Mandrill'.

Review: American ambient label and blog Past Inside The Present has a couple of very special albums out this month and hit sis one of them. The Free Dust record is actually built on a creative limitations: "Everything I make for this project is made by recording electric guitar through a few pedals to cassette 4-track" says the artist who records things to a tape machine then manipulates them and feeds them into a DAW which gives the music is gorgeously hazy, old, frayed, authentic textures. It's late night music for wandering minds and is utterly cathartic.

Review: Ambient music blog and label Past Inside The Present welcomes Tobias Karlehag for a lush new album that invites you to empty your mind and sink in deep, and, says the artist, "represents a transformative process for me both creatively and personally." He has spent 10 years studying across the world from Sweden to New Delhi and in that time he picks dup plenty of worldly musical traditions that gently inform this record. He is also deeply into modular synth sounds, which show in the unique textures and deft details that make this such a stirring collection of peaceful and soothing sounds.

Review: Bamboo Shows has been run by DJ Erevan since 2018 and promotes audio sophrology, 90's reminiscences, psychedelic atmospheres and exotic breaks. For its latest release, they've tapped local Lyonnaise talent Guillaume Lespinasse aka Jonquera (The Pilotwings/Tera Octe) who offers up an incredible 14 track album with a spiritual atmosphere that was said to be produced in only a mere seven days. The Darkos LP takes inspiration from medieval dark-ambient ('Pont de Djabe'), HD sound-design ('Saint Cotson') and esoteric illbient ('Couvent dos Cordelieus'/'Feune de D'main') through to noise music and doom metal.

Review: Multi-instrumentalist and composer Naliah Hunter's debut, 'Spells', is a much-needed slice of ambient fantasy. The project began as an "exercise in reclamation" over her own musical motivations, and resulted in a 6-track ritual in which each piece represents a different kind of magic spell.

Like protective water, air and fire charms, Hunter takes on many incantatory roles. She is a vocalist, harpist, and synth player. Her harp, in particular, takes centre stage; the calming wind spell 'Quiet Light', for example, is an embellishment of scale flourishes and dangling chimes.

Hunter likens her studio to an altar, taking ritualistic care to light candles and incense while creating. Like the track 'Talisman' - with sprinklings of midrange tones, relieved breaths and interpretive semi-lyrics - her music is intended for healing. A chunk of the album's proceeds are being given to the Loveland Foundation, which provides therapy for young black women.

Like beautiful but dissolving memories, every track fades out only after around two minutes, like the effusive wispiness of an apprentice wizard's practice. Speaking to KEXP, Hunter noted that her 'spells' had the express purpose of "creating locations away from here"; they are specifically "transportation spells". Fantasy has always been a genre of escape; like a timid fairy or Harry Potter snitch, the EP flits past in a wonderful plume of magic smoke.

Review: Morgane Lhote aka Hologram Teen is back, after that great one a few months back on The Ransom Note, with more low slung nu-disco goodness on London's Polytechnic Youth on the Geometries Insensibles EP. From the bright like neon, slo-mo groove of 'Halogene Menthol' with is breezy disco retro-tinged vibe and airy synthesizers, to the noir-ish slow burning Italo of 'Robot Moses' and closing with the romantic French new wave of 'Amour Fission' - it certainly is all in the name. Lhote was formerly a member of outfits such as Stereolab and The Projects (with Mira Aroyo and Edward Ball).

Review: This 1989 album by Haruomi Hosono is a pivotal one from the emergent world music scene of the late 80s. It incorporates sounds and scenes from all over the planet including Arab and Latin American music, folk, Japanese ambient and plenty more. A masterpiece of electronic pop, it takes you on a world adventure all from the safety of your own home and now it is finally pressed to vinyl outside of Japan for the first time with cutting by Bernie Grundman, on a clearly slab of wax, and with a full insert booklet.

Review: Debut albums don't often reach the heights of this one, which could well be a lost Boards of Canada album such is the richness of its stunning ambient electronic pallet. The mysterious Cult 48 behind the project got people despertae to find out more with this one right from the off: it's cosmically minded with its twinkling keys and lush chords, and rhythm comes from the gently tumbling drums that eventually transport you away from the here and now. Tight jazz drumming stands out on tracks like 'Slowly The Sky Turned Black' while 'On Diesel Verge' is a more textured piece that pairs light with dark.

Review: The latest short-run missive from Antwerp imprint Edicoes CN is an intriguing proposition. It was inspired by the painter Isson Tanaka, who spent his final years living and making art on the island of Amami Oshima. The album's two lengthy pieces were directly inspired by both the island's landscape and Tanaka's isolated life during the 1970s. Japanese sound artist Hideki Umezawa, who visited Amami Oshima three years ago, handles side A, expertly fusing field recordings he made on the island with electronic pulses, ambient chords and becalmed aural textures. American producer Andrew Pekler takes over on the flip, offering a swelling, humid and soft-focus piece where exotic bird noises and rainforest sounds wrap around gaseous and weightless new age movements.

Review: Two facts about Fireball XL5, the British sci-fi puppet show created by legendary husband and wife team Gerry and Sylvia 'Thunderbirds/Captain Scarlet' Anderson. Firstly, this was their third time using 'supermarionation', a word that has nothing to do with Nintendo and everything to do with plastic models moving their mouths in sync with real dialogue. Secondly, the programme only lasted one series, albeit it did comprise 39 episodes.

Background set, this reissue of the original soundtrack plays true to the Anderson OST rulebook, to the point where once you know the series it's impossible not to start picturing potential scenes on strings to suit the music. Nevertheless, it's all accomplished stuff, from dramatic overtures to espionage-worthy arrangements and weirdly complex, danceable stuff that pulls you in like an episode of The Monkees.

Review: The Ghost of Tsushima soundtrack makes combined use of traditional Japanese instruments and arrangements as scored by Ilan Eshkeri and Shigeru Umebayashi. It's an epic listen that goes from gentle and vulnerable passages of dramatic tension to grand overtures, swelling synths and tense chord progressions that convey real drama. As far as video game music goes, it is about as epic and accomplished as you could imagine, and even without turning on a console it makes for a truly involving adventure.