Strangelove New Zealand Vinilo y CD

Review: In some circles, Arvo's 1984 album Luna is considered something of a lost synth-pop classic. It was unarguably the high point of Arvo's career, with the album's two most lauded tracks - "Bikini" and "So Deep" - remaining popular with dusty-fingered Balearic beards. Here those two tracks are given the reissue treatment by New Zealand imprint Strangelove Music. You'll find the breezy, stylish and largely slo-mo original versions on the A-side, with fresh reworks on the flip. First, French producer Shelter does a brilliant job in extending "Bikini", wisely extending the dreamy first section and making more of the Brazilian-influenced synthesizer motifs, before Aussie Italo-disco digger Hysteric delivers a head-nodding instrumental take on "So Deep" that's worth the entrance price on its own.

Review: New Zealand's Strangelove crew serves up this brilliantly wide-eyed and genre non-specific album from CCCVVV to take you back to warmer days as winter really hits. The Brussels based duo of Clara Vellin and soFa Elsewhere have a retro-future take on electronic music that takes in slow motion sounds, comforting ambient bliss, lush downtempo instrumentals and plenty in the weird and wonderful spaces in between all that. There are decidedly cosmic affairs like 'Generationen' with its lush chords and pillowy pads, and more sun-kissed and beachy pieces like 'Bacin Bacetto' with its gently breaking waves.

Review: New kids on the reissue block, New Zealand's Strangelove Music are off to a flying start with this beautiful 1983 art pop record from subversive chanteuse Lena D'Agua. "Jardim Zoologico" fuses electro boogie with Afrofunk with healthy measures of cosmic polish while "Tao" is a straight up Balearic gem that sparkles with sentiment and horizontal soul. Only ever released on Portuguese label Valentim De Carvalho, this reissue is over 30 years overdue.

Review: Portuguese pair Antonio and Manuela Duarte made plenty of music together in the mid-to-late 1980s - mostly offering an intriguing fusion of Ash Ra style meditative kosmiche, ambient electronics, new wave style and Iberian instrumentation - but very little of it was ever released. Hence "Electricidade Estetica", a debut album made up of previously unheard recordings that have sat dormant on reel-to-reel tapes for well over three decades. It's a fine collection of tracks, all told, most of which are near impossible to accurately describe or pigeonhole. Fundamentally, they're all inventive, atmospheric and ear-pleasing, offering a fine collection of head-in-the-clouds cuts that rises above its lo-fi roots to present the Portuguese pair as previously unheralded Balearic pioneers.

Review: This reissued LP from 1984 follows Strangelove's previous issue of Sjunne Ferger's early singles and soundtrack work on Children's Mind. Restored and fully remastered from the original tapes, it comes with new liner notes and photography. A sonic snapshot of Scandinavia's early '80s electronic/progressive movements, Mindgames is a singular album with a Balearic outcome that showcases a lifetime of musical and personal exploration by the Orebro native. As a child jazz drummer prodigy, arts venue operator, music teacher and Aikido practitioner, a bewildering array of personal and creative influences are channeled into Ferger's only long player.

Review: Strangelove Music's latest vinyl-only outing dips into the infrequently explored archives of American multi-instrumentalist Frank Harris and collaborator Maria Marquez, a pairing that previously released a couple of sought after "ethno-wave" singles in the late 1980s. "Echoes" gathers together unreleased music made in 1985, presenting it as an unheard album that oozes off-kilter quality from start to finish. Most of the tracks were made using Harris' custom Synclavier synthesizer station, with his humid and breezy new age melodies and dreamy chords working brilliantly with Marquez's folksy, multi-lingual vocals, a variety of world music inspired rhythms and some seriously atmospheric field recordings. It's a formula that guarantees unusual but inspired results from start to finish.

Review: Composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Frank Harris has enjoyed a long and varied career. During the 1980s, he was one of the world's most esteemed Synclavier synthesiser programmers, and also recorded extensively with singer-songwriter Maria Marquez - though it took until 2019 for much of that music to be released (on the album Echoes). This 12" boasts fresh reworks of tracks from that set. Frankie Deluxe handles side A, first delivering a deliciously slow-burn revision of 'Loveroom' - all sparse, undulating synth melodies, whispers of percussion and beautiful lead vocals - before offering up a seductively summery shuffle through the samba-seeped shuffle of 'Down By The Rio'. That track is twice more remixed on the flip. First Frakas supplies a tactile, deep Balearic nu-disco tweak, before Julian Dyne offers up a deep, dubbed-out, slow-motion house take.

Review: Strangelove has managed to secure a first ever official reissue of this much love curiosity from Viola Renea. The Japanese artist recorded it initially in 1985, and fused alt rock, new wave and art rock styles into a pure and glistening record with mandolins, violins and synths all freely colliding underneath intriguing vocals. At times haunting and mysterious, at others heavenly and otherworld, it is the sort of oddity that real music lovers fawn over. Filled with imagination and a million subtle references to myriad musical scenes and styles it makes for a truly absorbing journey through the old and the new.

Review: Romie Singh's 'Dancing To Forget' EP is truly ahead of its time, mirroring the production stylings of her 2022 contemporaries. First listens wouldn't reveal it was made in 1986; dub, ethereal and international styles all peek through on this recollected slice of experimental vocalism, recalling the Fairlight-hued approaches of every classic downtempo dance act from C Cat Trance to Malcolm McLaren, let staying much cleaner than either. This record grows progressively stranger as it goes on; 'Dancing To Forget', selected from her 'Masters' LP, operates in an emotive dub tone, while the later 'Credo' operates in a much jankier art-pop insanity.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Record is slightly warped, otherwise in perfect working order***


Romie Singh's 'Dancing To Forget' EP is truly ahead of its time, mirroring the production stylings of her 2022 contemporaries. First listens wouldn't reveal it was made in 1986; dub, ethereal and international styles all peek through on this recollected slice of experimental vocalism, recalling the Fairlight-hued approaches of every classic downtempo dance act from C Cat Trance to Malcolm McLaren, let staying much cleaner than either. This record grows progressively stranger as it goes on; 'Dancing To Forget', selected from her 'Masters' LP, operates in an emotive dub tone, while the later 'Credo' operates in a much jankier art-pop insanity.

Review: Here comes a fascinating collection of odd pop, world music, folk and experimental sounds from Starngelove. It is a personal inventory of music from 1980's New Zealand and hums with strange spirits, nocturnal voodoo and shamanistic melancholia that channels South Pacific magic into 11 hugely otherworldly tracks. There are avant-gard artists like Drone & Kim Blackburn, wave tinged disco cuts from Blam Blam Blam and proto-electro jams from Ludvigson & Gash and their "Uallang Jnr". Stiff Herbert offers a hugely catchy earworm, while Rupert's "Soul Brothers" is a warm, enchanting take on soul music. As far as musical adventures go, few are finer than this one.

Review: Elsewhere Jr 1 is aims to bring "something a little different, something a little out there" to the listener, and indeed it does. This double LP compilation brings together both new and old compositions from a wide range of countries, with the unique twist that they were all made for young'uns; kids; children; tykes; little ones. 2.5 years in the making, this international project heard its makers thoroughly scour the archives for every strange children's music curio, from Belgium to Denmark, extracting a surprising amount of cosmic weirdness from the works.