Review: Finnish label Vuo kicks off its year with a second instalment in the Ruutana City Mood Series. Once again it brings four vital dubbed out grooves to a lovely green marbled vinyl starting with Ohm & Kvadrant's 'Borsen' which is a smoky, grainy roller with icy drums. Armin Bender's 'All Or Nothing' brings a little extra light and optimism in the airy pads and Tm Shuffle pairs things right back for 'Efficient Answers' which is a gritty basement jam. Gonzalo Villarreal's 'Curanto' shits down with tons of lovely echo and reverb on a raw percussive cut.
Review: Vuo returns with another entry into his ongoing Ruutana City Mood Series, with this one being on eco black wax but a green vinyl version is also available. Ohm & Kvadrant open with a smoky, textured roller driven by icy drums. Armin Bender follows with 'All Or Nothing' which offers a lighter, more optimistic vibe with airy pads. Tm Shuffle strips things back on 'Efficient Answers' to deliver a gritty, minimalist basement groove. Closing the EP, Gonzalo Villarreal presents 'Curanto', a raw, percussive cut bathed in rich echo and reverb for a captivating close.
Review: Opal Sunn's 'Elastic' lands on Test Pressing Recordings as the first in a trilogy, bringing together Alex Kassian and Hiroaki Oba's knack for genre-blending electronic soundscapes. Known for their captivating live sets, they've crafted an EP that traverses moods and styles. The A-side opens with hypnotic deep trance, layering rich synth textures and rolling grooves. Over on the B-side, things get lush and atmospheric: one track dives into dub influences, saturated with warm basslines and echoing chords, while the final cut drifts into serene, ambient territory. It's an impressive start that shows their mastery of both rhythm and space.
Review: Sweet Harmony is back with a compilation bursting with colourful shapes, textures and fresh techno rhythms. Anatole Serre's 'Hyperdulia' is a fast-paced fusion of drums, breakbeats and subtle allure that is followed by Xiaolin's 'Breath of Water,' a more ethereal yet still-driving percussive trip. On the B-side, Feenicks' 'All Fairies Tell Tall Tales' delivers an uplifting blend of trance and new wave that has a dreamlike energy and the closer from Alfred Czital is a fast, progressive wonder.
Review: Banging electrobass from Spain's Masa Series, mooting six of their roster artists for an incendiary exercise in grit and vibrancy. Having already invited a slew of artists for individual releases, the Cluster series here aims more at collectivity. All the tracks here nail the label's signature smushing of heavily heat-glued sound, moving between everything from electro to breaks, landing somewhere in the synaesthetic register of an earthen sonic purply-brown. The highlight here, though, has to be Anna Kost's 'Conjunction', which breaks this general rule through a fast dubstep-ish 150BPM exploration in nervous respiratory pad design and glance-off percs, making for a bracing potential set intro.
Review: London's Lirica Archives hear two acid/electro heads go head-to-head on a new EP themed after a nominal, demented festival. Andy Somoza and Aka Juanjo are two producers from Bolivia and therein lies the four-track rub: a slickly unsettling analog house record flecked with South American flavour and fervour. With two sides shared equally between artists, Somoza handles peaktime with rubbery basses and single-hit vocal ones, while Juanjo burrows deeper into the groove, with growling basses and swarthily shadowed vocal samples arranged longitudinally across 'The Unknown' and 'Constante'.
Hazmat Live - "The Marriage Of Korg & Moog" (4:50)
Review: Passing Currents aims to stand out from the predictable by offering a deeply human touch in its music. This five-tracker backs that up by melding academic expertise with dancefloor intuition and the A-side features txted by Phil Moffa remixed by Yamaha DSP coder okpk after they met during doctoral studies, they flip technical mastery into bass-driven energy while Atrevido' fuses California warmth with analogue electro, Josh Dahlberg's rediscovered 2009 electro gem, 'Ass On The Floor', still bangs and Detroit's Kevin Reynolds delivers hypnotic grooves before Hazmat Live pushes boundaries with a sound rooted in soulful, experimental innovation.
Ancient Methods - "The Clock Hands' Endless Mantra" (5:14)
Phase Fatale - "Corporate Graft" (4:49)
Review: This compilation marks a decade of relentless techno energy, celebrating the underground legacy of Lanna Club with four powerhouse producers. This isn't just a compilationiit's a snapshot to a decade of raw, uncompromising sound. Umwelt kicks things off with 'Alchemy', an intense, hard-hitting track where pounding beats merge with traces of trance, electroclash and EBM. It's a high-energy, mind-bending opener that sets the tone for the record's deep journey ahead. Silex92's 'Blades & Pillows' follows with a slower, yet equally heavy approachiits trudging rhythm and sci-fi-infused melodies create an ominous and hypnotic atmosphere. On Side-2, Ancient Methods delivers 'The Clock Hands' Endless Mantra', a percussive, looping techno storm laced with tribal and alien textures. It's the kind of track that transforms a dancefloor into a ritualistic experience. Phase Fatale closes things out with 'Corporate Graft', a showcase of strong production and dystopian energy, where industrial undertones meet body-shaking rhythms. What you get is, four powerful examples of current style in techno.
Zero Days - "Neurotypical" (feat Casey Hardison) (6:04)
Zero Dayz - "War On Drugs" (feat Casey Hardison) (5:12)
Acerbic - "Acid On My Mind" (6:21)
Acerbic - "The Acid Saga" (5:58)
Review: Eddie Santini and Matthieu-F are have poured years of dedication into Resilient Recordings. Now their second addition to the catalogue appears as a split side shared between Zero Days and Acerbic, two newcomers to the scene, but freshly cut and spruced by their patrons nonetheless. 'War On Drugs' with Casey Hardison hears an expansive likening of the USA's war on drugs to a "war on mental states", suggesting an illiberal attitude which sows a repressive, anti-revelrous hell. Hardcore techno reaches its apotheosis on 'Neurotypical Consciousness', meanwhile, whose stuttering sixteenths and mega-compressed mix brings a decisive ploughing forth.
Review: A2L were active between 1988 and 1990 and released two albums and several EPs on labels like 1st Bass, Big One and Force Inc. Their sound blended British psychedelic house with elements of new beat, industrial, EBM and early acid house and in doing so captured the raw energy of the UK rave scene. Notably different from typical acid house acts of the time, A2L's music took in machine funk, samplers and turntable techniques to create trippy, infectious grooves. This collection compiles rare underground gems from them from 1989 and features standout tracks like 'Even Though It's Make Believe' and 'Come On.' It's a great look back to the experimental spirit of the late 80s.
Review: The Abstract Eye often works live and crafts tunes in one take, and that MO is the idea behind this new collection. It features plenty of hard-to-define sounds from over the last ten years, many of them with a cosmic synth outlook and raw analogue drums. 'Skyfather' is a real eye opener with its sense of mystic cosmic wonder, 'Real Myths' fizzes bring as burning phosphorus and 'A Yearning Feeling' is more paired back and introspective with jittery drums and electro rhythms all soothed by the melancholic synth work.
Review: In June, Actress delivered an RA mix that was nothing short of surprisingientirely new, unheard material from Darren S. Cunningham himself. Asked if it was an album, he called it "a collage -Braque," leaving interpretation open. This CD edition captures the essence of Actress's sound: fluid, shape-shifting, and unconcerned with traditional definitions. Whether a mixtape or sonic collage, it's unmistakably Actress, offering listeners a raw, evolving soundscape that resists labels and challenges boundaries, making it an essential piece for fans of his ever-innovative style.
Review: Faithfully jammy acid techno from the idiomatic Acid Cuts, a new Grecian outing helmed up by an as yet unnamed head honcho. 'Der Compositeur Classique' is the first LP on the label and comes by way of producer Apoll, real name Andre Pollmann, a longtime fixture of the German industrial landscape come soundscape (he grew up in the Ruhr area), whose movements through the 80s industrial and EBM circuits through to minimal techno has made for a well-seasoned though not unbalanced purveyor of sound. An eight-tracker of knockingly brutal acid pingers, this is a motherboard's worth of complication and fidget here, best among them being the deep house-techno trembler 'Top Of The Block' and the utilitarian, preferential hip house verger 'Coffee, But No Cookies'.
B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition
Signals
Shadowspace
No Closer Than The Moon
Landfall
Zonal Prospect
Air Foundry
Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***
The Frequency Domain label has been quietly issuing some of the most compelling electronica of recent times, with a staggering cast of characters including Anthony Child, Bass Clef, Luke Sanger and more delivering more introspective, experimental material over the past couple of years. Now it's the turn of Apologist, a lesser-known project from Brendan Nelson which manifested in one 7" back in 2006. If you appreciate dreamy, slightly dubby electronics which move through different moods and scenes without getting you up off the sofa, this is the perfect trip. Many layered, richly rendered and full of grit and personality, it's the kind of record you'll discover new secrets in every time you visit.
Review: Tristan Arp's second album on Facta and K-Lone's Wisdom Teeth is a multidimensional exploration of sound blending pin-drop rhythms, ethereal vocals and swirling ambience. The writing started in Mexico City and was completed in New York and through the tracks, Arp fuses modular synths, cello, found sounds and spoken word to craft a rich world where nature and technology converge. Inspired by the idea of machines collaborating with nature, the album's hopeful tone envisions a future of rewilding and new possibilities across tracks that were performed live and improvised throughout. Many standout moments include the 10-minute 'Life After Humans' which ogres a beautiful escape.
Review: De:tuned house As One on their latest album-length demonstration in melodic house and techno. With over 30 years of studio experience under his belt, the pivotal British producer also known as Kirk Degiorgio once again lands on De:tuned with the mesmerising eight-track album, Requiem. Now joined by Catherine Siofra Prendergast, this progressive melodic release spans every wondrous end from elegiac acid to fractal bleep techno, keeping every waking or sleep-dancing moment harmonic and blissful over its course. Only the cavernous 'Message Received' marks any comparatively sinister moment, its textural harmonics offering little respite for the purely diatonic ear.
Review: In a Catholic or other ecclesiastical context, a requiem is a song written and recited as an intended repose for the dead; a lyrical aid for mourning. And with over 30 years of studio experience under his belt, British techno producer Kirk Degiorgio lands on De:tuned with his very own 'Requiem', an eight-track excursion through ambi-mesmeric audio in the vein of digital, calculative ambient techno and other adjacent dance styles; though we are indeed left to wonder whether we're mourning anything here, because by the sounds of it, nothing at all has died. A longtime alias of Degiorgio, As One is nonetheless joined by fellow songwriter and producer Catherine Siofra Prendergast for this particular trip through the cyberspace sublime; best among these acid ambient apotheoses have to be 'Message Received', which slings low compared to the gaseous highs that precede it, and the closing 'Requiem', a masterclass in nimbus-floating techno.
Review: DDS has tapped up the mysterious and enigmatic Japanese dub techno stylist Shinichi Atobe for another album. Discipline is his seventh for the label and each of those has been as faultless as the next - happily, this keeps up that impeccable run which started with a debut on the Chain Reaction label in 2001. The eight cuts on the record offer up delay-laden steppers, swaggering 909 rhythms, plenty of evocative pads and subtle backlit synths that bring a future feel to the soulful, authentic grooves.
Tales Of The Unknown (unreleased Chill mix) (10:04)
Review: In the mid-90s, Audio Science released two CD-only albums, Aural X-Perience and Hypnotic, both of which gained critical acclaim and have since achieved cult status. This new double album on the Rezpektiva label brings together standout tracks from those revered recordings. It begins with the slow motion and psyched-out prog of 'Tales Of The Unknown' and takes in highlights like the slick house punch of 'Strings In The Night' as well as an unreleased Chill mix of 'Tales Of The Unknown' which brings new cosmic energy to the lush original. A great reminder of one of the 90s' finest innovators.
Friday Afternoons, Op. 7: A New Year Carol (part 2) (3:00)
Challengers: Match Point (3:21)
Compress/Repress (2:25)
Review: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, known for their remarkable work with Nine Inch Nails and film scores like The Social Network, deliver a techno-charged soundtrack for Luca Guadagnino's tennis-themed love triangle drama Challengers. The score is a pulsating mix of electroclash, synth-pop, and driving techno, expertly weaving traditional instruments with electronic beats. Reznor and Ross take Guadagnino's vision to heart, crafting a soundtrack that not only drives the narrative but also challenges expectations with its bold, rhythmic energy. Tracks like 'Compress/Repress', co-written with Guadagnino and featuring Reznor's vocals, showcase their ability to blend artistic expression with the film's themes of control and power. Overall, this is a excellent soundtrack that works well to support the visual or just listening to it without having seen the movie.
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