A Colourful Storm Vinilo y CD

Review: You may remember Mark previous releases on labels such as A Colourful Storm, Berghain's Unterton and BEB associate Low Company. They were a little while ago so it's great to have him back and hear how his sound has been evolving wherever he has been hiding out. First things first: both the whole-side tunes on this long player have superb titles. 'So You Betrayed The Creative Arts' is first and is a superb exploration of space and time, with sparse breaks under tanging synths and eerie pads. It's a late-night spy-soundtrack from a dystopian world. 'For Your Own Personal Ends' then gets a little busier, with numbing off-grid hits and drums, shimmering melodies and detuned notes lingering in the air to suspenseful effect.

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: Unchained is the longstanding solo project of Nathaniel Davis. Gabbeh is his latest offering to the world, a suite of blissfully introspective tracks that envelop the soul in a blanket of soft, delicate moods, their sole purpose to comfort aching heads. Remarkably, dedicated fans will know you can trace the artist's lineage to noise mix tapes on CD-R, although more recent excursions into Bossa nova influenced tones perhaps help bridge the gap between then and now. Recorded at home over a three year period, from 2020 to 2023, Grenoble, Switzerland, played a big part in end results here. "I think certain songs reflect, in ways, Grenoble's natural surroundings. 'Drac' is named after the river that flows from the mountains down to the city - 'Dru' is the name of a well-known peak near Chamonix," Davis has explained. That as may be, nevertheless there's something more transportive than that here - songs feel as though they would be at home anywhere green, slow and thoughtful.

Review: Andrew Chalk and Timo Van Luijk have been garnering praise for their work as Elodie for over a decade now, establishing themselves on the European ambient circuit as fine purveyors - nay, creators - of blissful music by way of improvisational techniques and processes. Not that you'd be able to tell given how finished and fully formed things sound on every track.

The two offered here are a case in point. Look beneath the hood though, and you start to see the tell-tale signs that not everything here was planned. It's too good, and feels too natural for that to have been the case - beautiful moments captured in a crystalline recording, never to be repeated again. From waves of background synth to chimes, twinkles and serene oceans of atmosphere, it's really rather special stuff.

Review: Time Is Away is a lovely sonic daydream that takes you on a heady trip through beautiful and weird, romantic and exotic, intimate and hard-to-define sounds. It has been selected and arranged by London duo Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney and is one of those brilliantly beguiling collections that invite you into all new musical worlds. The pair behind this are well known to NTS listens who love their cult show and often span musical, literary and filmic worlds with their selections. While far-flung and obscure at times, this is an absorbing and rewarding listen.

Review: Veteran Italian duo D'arcangelo return with a new EP for Aussie label A Colourful Storm. Across the five tracks featured on the Arium EP, Fabrizio and Marco present their singular take on IDM that earned them several releases on Aphex Twin's seminal Rephlex label. There's the introspective, mesmerising bliss of opener 'Godsonix' plus the emotive 'Spacing Out', as well as the artificial intelligence of the title track and the visceral beats of closing track 'Familiarity' rounding out another terrific release by the Roman brothers.