Back in stock: Leftfield

Review: The arrival of a new Cabaret Voltaire album - the first since 1994 according to our records - should excite all those who hold the work of the pioneering Sheffield outfit dear. It's now a solo project from Richard H Kirk (he decided to keep the name after parting company with Stephen Mallinder in the late '90s), but the distinctive stylistic ticks remain (think paranoid sonic textures, metallic percussion hits, clear dub influences, plentiful spoken word samples, curious electronic noises and nods towards the industrial funk, EBM and post-punk). Naturally it's not as ground-breaking as Kirk and company's work in the '70s and '80s, but it is undeniably a Cabaret Voltaire album - and one that subtly updates the Cabs' particular brand of dense, dancefloor-ready paranoia for a new century.

Review: First released 22 years ago at the turn of the millennium, Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil has been described as one of Coil's most "mind-altering creations"; given the fiercely experimental and often otherworldly nature of their catalogue, that's some going. The album, which has now been fully remastered, was one of the first things Coil recorded following their relocation to Weston-super-Mare, and sonically it's as bleak, windswept, and barren as the town itself seems out of season. It's full of droning tones, modular blips, metallic melodies, slowly shifting ambient textures and musical motifs that lap in and out like waves. Furthermore, the album's standout moment, the near 14-minute 'I Am The Green Child', is like some mutant, experimental sea shanty crossed with a hypnotic ambient-industrial raga.

Review: Second time around for Com Truise's acclaimed debut album Galactic Melt, which has now reached its tenth birthday. Now presented on rather fetching black and orange "swirl" vinyl housed in a similarly deluxe sleeve (there's spot-varnish aplenty), the remastered album has never looked and sounded so good. It always sounded great, of course, with the American producer effectively defining his now trademark sound - all eight-bit synthesizer sounds, sun-bright melodies, dusty drum machines, arcade-ready electronic motifs and feelgood aural references to 1980s musical culture. Highlights include 'VHS Sex', 'Aircal', 'Hyperlips', 'Glawio' and pulsating closing cut 'Futureworld'.

Review: Director Max Kestner's documentary film portrait Copenhagen Dreams is a tribute to the Danish capital. That also happened to be the place acclaimed composer Johann Johannsson was living at the time he was asked to score the movie. As always he does so with real aplomb and devastating emotionality. This now classic soundtrack features celestial keyboard sounds, emotive string quartets, clarinet, subtle electronic and plenty of melodic magic that both swells and breaks the heart. Academy Award winner Hildur Gudnadottir plays on the soundtrack with various other of Johann's favourite Icelandic talents.

Review: RECOMMENDED
If 2020, and the coronavirus pandemic, did anything good for music it was forcing a long overdue reevaluation of the role technology plays. Video games had a bumper year, and it didn't take long for the historic relationship between computer entertainment and contemporary musical compositions to start finding favour with content-starved editorial teams.

They say there's no turning back, ever, and as such the smart money is on albums like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice not just becoming more commonplace, but taken more seriously going forward. Soundtrack to Activision's critically acclaimed video game of the same name, in which players take on the role of a shinobi in feudal Japan, as you'd expect it's a deeply atmospheric collection that invokes misty mountaintops, shadows dancing off bamboo and patient heroics. An OST equal to any major movie.

Review: The seminal musicians who have graced King Biscuit Time on US radio are too many to count, but who's complaining when so much gold material can be dusted down and given a fresh pressing. They surely don't come more momentous than this - German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk captured in 1975 as they were in the midst of progressing from their warm, organic kosmische roots towards the game-changing synthesis they're eternally treasured for. 'Autobahn' is of course the big hit here, stretching out over the A side as it should, but don't overlook the wonderful 'Kometenmelodie' and two-part 'Morgenspaziergang', all demonstrating Schneider, Hutter et al as the extraordinary visionaries they were.

Review: "I would beg listeners both animal and human to allow these beautiful landscapes I've created in collaboration with Mark Nelson to sing and speak and weep for themselves. Please. Forget about words. Just LISTEN," says Kramer of this latest exploration of sounds less familiar. Meanwhile, Nelson quotes the legendary Arthur Russell for his take on things: "If I could convince you these are words of love, the heartache would remain but the pain would be gone". The Chicago-based composer and performer certainly summarises this listening experience. There's pure bliss running through these serene ambient, almost New Age-style tracks, but within that a certain reflective sadness. Crystalline melodies refract and develop, ebb and flow, at times making pure harmonies, in other moments more atmospheric refrains. They make us long for things that were or may be, although there's still space here for taking stock and acknowledging what is.

Review: Plenty of dark disco's finest practitioners come together on this new 12" on Iptamenos Discos, with Psycho Weazel serving up the original tune. They are two producers from Switzerland who mix up indie-dance, cold wave, breakbeat and EBM. Here they offer 'Mains D'Argile' featuring Curses which has sweeping, widescreen synths bring a retro feel to a stiff, kinetic beat. The wonderful Marvin & Guy offer an extended mix for extra long club fun and then it is Local Suicide who guests on 'Matra Murena' which brings a perfect mix of light and dark to stark grooves, and Rafael Cerato remixes to close out the package.

Review:  Mental Groove offshoot Music Pour La Danse knows a thing or two about tieless techno. And they don't come much more vital than the self titled 1994 debut album from Jonah Sharp (aka Spacetime Continuum) and David Moufang (aka Move D). It never quite got the props it deserved back then and has been an underrated gem ever since but this reissue should put paid to that. It is a holy meeting of lush ambient design, cavernous dub spaces, hints of glistening IDM melody and deeper than deep techno drums that leave you feeling cleansed inside and out.

Review: Mika Vainio's "Olento" is one of the key albums from his fine discography and now, finally, it is available on vinyl for the first time. The sophomore album first landed in 1996 and laid down a new blueprint for minimal techno that has rarely been bettered since. The album is also a fine summation of the Finnish artist's sublime and singular style - icy ambient tundra that are vast in scale but minute in detail, warped synth oscillations that sound at once futuristic but also somehow like field recordings from a lonely part of the arctic circle, and brain melting sine waves that lock you in a trance. Essential.

Review: Coldwave excursionist Shari Vari aka Void Vision finally comes through with her highly awaited Sub Rosa LP on the gorgeously on-point Mannequin imprint. The taster EP "Sour" out earlier this year was a taster of what's to come from Vari in terms of diversity and quality. Sub Rosa contains a little of everything when it comes to the electronic dance edge, where "Everythin Is Fine", for example, takes a techno beat and slaps down some vocals all over its makeup, while "Hidden Hand" is a true Drexciyan electro number. Then there's more abstract moments such as "Slow Down", "Vulgar Displays" with its rolling stabs of percussion and "Queen Of Hearts" with that humungous swell of low-end and quirky, heady melodies. Yum.