Back catalogue: Experimental/Electronic

Review: A aka Mika Vainio's 'Fermionit' is a significant release from the late Finnish producer, who passed away in 2017. Originally featured in a Belgium Detuned 6x12 boxset just before his death, the track received critical acclaim from collectors and fans. Now, it returns to Mika's own Sahko label for a well-deserved 12" release. 'Fermionit' embodies the essence of Finnish techno with its minimalistic, cold and stark sound. The track's passive-aggressive edge showcases Vainio's signature style, blending raw, unfiltered textures with a profound sense of depth. This release not only honors Vainio's legacy but also offers a chance for new listeners to experience the pure DNA of Finnish techno. An essential listen for fans of minimalist and avant-garde electronic music.

Review: Say a big hello to the new Modez label here while getting lost in the hard hitting first release from Modelle. It's a bold barrage of bass, Baille funk and dubstep across six sizzling cuts. 'Pursuit' opens up with lithe broken beats wired up with electricity and percussive hits. 'Dum Dumb' is built on a distorted low end with hard-ass raps and brutal drum breaks, 'Razor Rex' arrests the attention with its pulsing bass and bleeping modular synth sequences while 'Petrie's Rage' is a hyper-speed cosmic banger. 'Jeff On God' (feat Parkinson White) shuts down with more low end energy and this time jungle breaks provide the power source.

Review: Coming through in a limited quantity of 500 copies for Record Store Day 2015, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Christoph H. Mueller - two heavyweights of the German electronica tradition - offer up their tracks from the previously released Vienna EP for a bit of remixing action. "About Tape" features the great ambient master Brian Eno, but rather than just leaving it loose and hollow, Peter Kruder rewires the tune into a delightful blend of subtle tribalism and airy atmospherics; on the flipside Takamosky blends docile piano keys into more mechanical beat patterns with his remix of "Origami II", and Ken Hayakawa transforms "Himmer Uber Lima" into a laid-back, almost Balearic house cut. Wunderbar!

Review: Maelstrom returns to Central Processing Unit for his fourth outing, and this time he's dropping his longest release yet. French electro mainstay Joan-Mael Peneau, known to many as Maelstrom, has been a fixture on the scene since the early 2000s, and he brings every ounce of that experience to his new LP, The FM Tapes. Spanning 11 tracks, this album is a masterclass in precision, confidence, and control. From the opening moments of 'Ondes Courtes', Maelstrom makes it clear that he's not here to mess around. The track offers a dark, brooding take on electro, with tight, shuffling beats and expertly layered synth work that sets the tone for what's to come. Tracks like 'Alt50ser' follow, pushing forward with mechanical rhythms and a frenetic energy that could only come from an artist with such a seasoned hand. 'La Vie Sociale Des Sons' showcases his knack for combining complex soundscapes with raw, dancefloor-ready energy, blending heavy basslines with shimmering top-end details. The album's centrepiece, 'Res 06 (feat. Fasme)', serves as a standout, bringing in an almost cinematic quality. The beats remain hard and driving, but there's a subtle elegance in the way Maelstrom weaves textures around them, creating something that feels both intense and intricate. Yet, despite all the technical wizardry, The FM Tapes never feels cold or clinical. There's a warmth to tracks like 'My Digitone', where the rhythms are precise but still leave room for playfulness and experimentation. It's this balance of meticulous craftsmanship and spontaneous energy that defines the LP and makes it feel so vital.

Review: Non-Stop Healing Frequency is music designed to soothe you. It is the second album from Ruth Mascelli, aka one quarter of Special Interest, and is a progression from their debut album in that it is a "carefully constructed sequence of electronic mood pieces, tender ballads, kosmische disco tracks and industrial symphonies" Using synth, drum machine and piano, as well as Mascelli's own voice, these 11 pieces explore themes like new age and self-help scams, gnostic mysticism and different ways of working through grief. It's an exploration of how we all get through life, basically, and by listening to you will, in fact, get through life a little easier.

Review: London's Middex return with new album In Second Floor and Third Floor Story, an experimental fusion of electronics, scratchy synths and noise that is overlaid with spoken word pieces. In the case of the opening track, that's a list of decent sounding cars. On 'Lived I', echoing and haunting vocals muse on early blossom, refuse collection all sort sorts of other odd subjects. The intensity grows throughout cuts like 'The Mascot Of Insurmountable Breath' and the brief but arresting glassy sounds of 'Registered Feeling' and dark, devilish winds of 'Tongue Holds Back.'

Review: Leipzig has a lot to answer for. The East German city has a very hushed reputation for being the place Berlin once was, albeit on a far smaller scale, but the sprawl is nonetheless changing at a rapid rate. So while you're still likely to find an abundance of squat parties, exceptional but internationally unsung club spaces, and memorable dive bars, some institutions are vanishing. The 'off-space' Kardamom is sadly one of the more recent losses.

Just before the place disappeared, though, Travel By Goods boss Arthur Boto Conley decided to bring together Kassem Mosse and Mix Mup for a live performance that would form this album, circa 2019. Comprised of on-the-fly remixes from the label's back catalogue, it's a grainy, sample-heavy, often off-centre and off-beat deep dive into collages of sounds, drums, loops, hooks and ideas. Basically, you'll wish you were at the show, but that's a feeling you'll have to put up with.

Review: Ilian Tape kicks on with another entry into its ITX Series, this time with a lovely hand-stamped long player from MPU101. It is a deep dive into escapist ambient worlds with plenty of grainy tape hiss and cosmic static, celestial melodies and provocative moments of introspection. Analogue machinery is really brought to the fore on fuzzy sounds like 'CreamyPORTAL-Xa' with patient and pastoral synth smears, while 'APEX CA 91352' has brighter and more mellifluous melodies rising up through the mix. There is plenty of pensive beauty in these cuts, not least the gorgeous 'Junelake Smokes'. Another gem from Ilian Tape.

Review: Since he started producing music, Berlin-based American sound artist Jake Muir has been obsessed with sampling. His 2018 album "Lady's Mantle" was based on manipulated chunks of vintage Californian surf rock, and its follow-up, 2020's midnight symphony "The Hum Of Your Veiled Voice" was sourced from a wide variety of old records, and inspired by the work of experimental turntablists like Marina Rosenfeld, Janek Schaefer and Philip Jeck. On "Mana", Muir looks back to a misunderstood musical movement. Around 1995, a group of New York producers and DJs - including DJ Olive, DJ Spooky and Spectre - pioneered a genre-dissolving sound by unifying hip-hop techniques with ideas pulled from dub, jungle, ambient music and industrial noise. Badged "illbient", it was a short-lived genre that felt like a high-minded psychedelic cousin of the UK's trip-hop. Muir uses illbient as the springboard for "Mana", utilizing a selection of samples to inform his frothy drones and foreboding atmospheres. He ushers the material into 2021 by diverting it through his own contemporary worldview, attempting to recreate the hyperreal fantasy histories of Japanese RPGs (think "Dark Souls" and "Final Fantasy") and nod to sensual, tactile soundscapes of European industrial labels Staalplaat and Soleilmoon. The result is a magickal, sensory journey that's as physical as it is representational.

Review: Following up on the material reissued via Music From Memory, here is a reissue of Roberto Musci and Giovanni Venosta's sought after ambient masterpiece from 1987. The album realises sound from electric, acoustic and documentary source, taking ethnic field recordings (from Africa, Indonesia, Asia, India) as the thematic centre. While studying guitar and saxophone in his hometown of Milan, Musci developed a deep fascination for non-western music and set out to travel across India, Asia and Africa, which he would do extensively between 1974-1985. Born 1961, Giovanni Venosta is an Italian composer who specializes in collages of samples (mainly ethnic music), found sounds, live improvisation. He has also composed film soundtracks.