Album debut from Inter Gritty. This island-hopping adventure takes us from the quirky depths of Ictis through the 303 workout of Stac Lee and the brutal pounding of Swona, to the lush electronics of Cijin. The Norrköping, Sweden-based producer has taken his sound one step further from his previous EPs and painted a bigger picture, covering an archipelago of sound that offers both rough seas, jagged cliffs and serene forests.
Andy Stott rarely gets it wrong. To date, he’s release a trio of fine full-lengths on Modern Love, each of which has arrived perfectly formed. It’s a similar story on fourth album Too Many Voices. Rich, spacious and melodious, it draws on both classic and contemporary sounds, channeling Yellow Magic Orchestra, James Blake, Boards Of Canada, Autechre and clap-happy drum machine funk, before twisting these varied inspirations into thrilling new shapes. For all the high-minded experimentalism, Stott’s greatest gift is an ability to create music that’s inspired and entertaining, achieving a balance between boundary-pushing and old-fashioned melodiousness. When he gets it right, as on Too Many Voices, few can really compete.
Known and admired for its rich and moody ambient and techno output, Field Records is presenting a brand new LP from Iori. His mesmerizing ambient excursions come under the title of Cold Radiance, and the album features eight tracks that suck you right into his world. Each track here is a long and absorbing affair that slowly unfolds and pulls you right into its grainy core. There are dark, texturally rich tracks that are full of menace as well as more heavenly, suspensory and angelic ambient offerings.
Debut album by Detroit producer Cinematic 74 a.k.a. Brooks Mosher, who is known for his excellent detroit / house productions on labels as Dolly and Other Heights. Though, his ambient recordings are less known till date, under the alias Cinematic 74, Brooks presents a collection of ambient works produced between 2003-2015. Nine spacious and tranquil cuts, connected to harmonies and moments of bliss. Still, a variety within the album is captured, ranging from darker, remarkable synth-washed soundcsapes to more melodious moods with emphatic rhythm forms.
Monochord are Vienna-based musicians Bernhard Hammer and Jakob Schneidewind, two thirds of Elektro Guzzi, though Monochord paints a different picture. Electroacoustic experiments and filmic elements define the music that develops instinctively yet irrevocably, a sense of forward motion setting them apart. Compositionally minimal, these tracks maximize their inherent potential all the way through to their logical and even illogical end. Referencing electronica, ambient, shoegaze and at times modern classical harmonics, Monochord builds and unbuilds in a slow heartbeat. Introspective and filmic, its quiet and non-confrontational nature makes Monochord move in the interzone between various spheres. Their music escapes definition and that is its truest definition. Its subtle pulse and evocative and drony feel invite and inspire.
The German producer Milton Bradley presents his full-length debut on his own Do Not Resist The Beat label. Bradley has been one of techno’s key names for much of the past decade. “Tragedy Of Truth” incloses in 10 tracks, the full range of Milton Bradley Techno sound: dark, Industrial leaning to 1990s style Acid.
The highly anticipated follow up to their 2013 Dream of the Walled City (OST) LP, Samo DJ and Max Stenerudh return with another far out record complete with backstory. Originally composed as an accompanying piece for artist Thomas Jeppe’s exhibition in Tehran, Iran the music contained on this release was originally pressed on extremely limited cdr’s given out for free at the exhibition. As it stands it would have been a crime to keep this music in the private sector, thus now we see an official release in long playing format here on L.I.E.S. Dream-like, full of drama, suspense and full of cinematic overtones, once again the duo of Samo and Max deliver beyond the full scope of psychedelic soundtrack madness.
Originally released by Legowelt’s Strange Life on a CD-r back in 2007, Mons Testaceum was the debut album from MinimalRome co-founder Heinrich Dressel and the onset of a trilogy dedicated to Monte Testaccio, an artificial mound in Rome composed almost entirely of ‘testae’, fragments of broken amphorae dating from the time of the Roman Empire. Notable for the prominent usage of Elka Synthex, a legendary Roman synthesizer, Mons Testaceum remains a wonderful curio of the Dressel discography and fans of the Italian’s work will delight at the chance to own it on vinyl thanks to MNQ!
One half of Genius Of Time, Alexander Berg makes his debut on Hivern as Dorisburg. Irrbloss features nearly an hour of Dorisburg new music. Eight cuts in which Berg unleashes several incarnations of his sound and delves into his most melodic and mystical facet. Tracks such as Irrbloss and Votiv exude a highly spiritual feeling, connecting the majesty of archaic folk music with state of the art electronic production. Gloson and Gripen, in contrast, are much more dancefloor oriented eorts, showing Berg’s most cerebral and somber side. Kassiopeia and Cirkla are two slices of sinuous cosmic techno that demonstrate once again Berg’s ability to blend evocative landscapes with club eciency. Finally, Insvept and Sagofabrik conde a more meditative and adventurous approach. In other words: a gripping journey with a kind of inspirational energy not easily found in today’s dance music.
In addition to his prolific output as Not Waving, London-dwelling Italian Alessio Natalizia has developed quite an interest in profiling the vast archive of music that surfaced from his motherland in the 1980s. After Strut tapped him to curate the Mutazione compilation back in 2013, Natalizia has taken to square his focus on more specific artists, with this Tapes retrospective following a similar profile of Daniele Ciulini last year. Selected Works 1982 – 1992 spans a decade of recordings from Tapes, aka brotherly pair Giancarlo and Roberto Drago whose style of industrial music absorbed the counter-cultural influence of William Burroughs or Throbbing Gristle, and the sci-fi dystopia of J.G. Ballard and John Foxx. The 21 tracks here will delight anyone with an interest in the obscure annals of European primitive electronics.
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Picking up where he left off on his last long player ”Mirrors and Copulation” we hear an evolution in Haslam’s sound New York’s Gunnar Haslam appears on L.I.E.S. with his third lp for the label titled “Lebesgue Measures”. Picking up where he left off on his last long player “Mirrors and Copulation” we hear an evolution in his sound throughout the nine songs. Still there are the understated yet grooving acid lines next to carefully programmed drums and attention to surrounding detail which creates beautiful and balanced atmospheres. There is a brightness coupled with an underlying sullenness tapping into some sort of mystical and seemingly obscured narrative which moves through the entire record. Deep and immersive stuff to say the least.
Some 31 years after they were first conceived, the cuts that make up Anna Homler and Steve Moshier’s Breadwoman & Other Tales remain thoroughly odd, out-there and entertaining. During the duo’s mid-1980s collaboration, performance artist Homler channeled the spirit of a character she’d created called Breadwoman, delivering bizarre vocals – half sung, half spoken, in some kind of made-up dialect – she referred to as “divine speech”. These were worked into musical pieces by experimental composter Moshier, who utilized cheap drum machines, battered analogue synthesizers, and chamber music players to create hypnotic, otherworldly tracks that remain hugely charming. The story of their creation and performance, told in great detail in the accompanying liner notes, is also fascinating.
Italian DJ and producer Manuel Fogliata hasn’t released a lot of records over the last ten years, but the few he has put out have always been worth tracking down. Perhaps best known for his work alongside Donato Dozzy in creating the much sought-after Aquaplano records at the tail end of the last decade, Nuel’s solo outings have been just as consistent and just as impressive. Whether taking on metallic electro or syrupy, bass-heavy ambience, Nuel’s attention to detail and his keen ear for a groove has made each release something to treasure.
Michigan’s ambient and soundtrack specialist John Beltran introduces a new LP that will be co-released by Delsin and his digital only label Dado Records. Blair French aka Dial.81 is an experimental producer and visual artist who won an award for his score of Detropia–a documentary about his home city of Detroit–and now makes his ambient debut. As you would expect of such a project, it boasts suspensory and near spiritual pieces of ambient music with angelic chords and glassy textures. There are also more frosty cuts that sound like a chilly Autumn walk, tracks that feature emotive neo-classical piano pieces and suggestively rhythmic compositions that sooth your mind. The second half of the record touches on church like passages of synth heavy sounds, strikingly sad violins and lo-fi arrangements that sound, one hopes, a little like what you might hear as you pass from this life to the next.
Jordan “Jordash” Czamanski doesn’t put out many solo records, but when he does, they tend to be rather special. Certainly, that is the case with Lushlyfe II, the Rush Hour released collection of ambient and experimental downtempo. He begins with the drowsy ambience and watery sound effects of “Sweet Dreams” – a kind of experimental, instrumental lullaby – before capturing the weary confusion of early morning stumbles back from the party on the soothing, guitar-laden “Yetghua”. Even better is the oddly exotic, jazz-flecked fluidity of “Sus”, while closer “Bol” is little less than a mood-enhancing horizontal treat.
The soundtrack for Brad Abrahams documentary on South Florida’s strangest bipedal resident, as told by the rare few who claim they’ve encountered the creature. At over 1.5 million acres, the ‘Glades are the largest wilderness area east of the Mississippi, with thousands of acres untouched by man. If indeed something this strange could exist, it would surely be here. Cassetape comes in faux leather luxurious plastic case and with a micro-zine included.
Rotterdam’s Ian Martin has brought his own brand of dark ambient and unsettling electronics to a stellar clutch of labels. Of these, it is the Bunker/Panzerkreuz crew that Martin has become most readily associated with, perhaps due to the fact label and artist reside in the Netherlands. Wright Seer finds Martin back on Panzerkreuz for his first release of 2016 and features five more untitled tracks of subtle drone-electro hybrids that sound all the more mind-bending with each successive listen.
Michael Isorinne delivers a stunningly beautiful EP for Dutch label Field. From the hissing ambience on “Blurred Perceptions Of Substance” to the solemn layers of sound and bird song melody on “Reality Is What You Can Get Away With” to the organic textures of “Whereabouts Unknown”, this is a sensuous, sumptuous release. In places, it is almost opulent in its detail, as the chiming bells and eerie sound scapes of “Without Tears” demonstrate. However, Isorinne is never too conceited to stray into self-indulgence and closing track “Terrestrial Measure” reveals the producer’s frailty and humanity for all to experience.
Nico Motte, the man behind the visual identity of the Parisian imprint Antinote, makes an impressive come-back on the label’s catalogue with Life Goes On If You Are Lucky. Each song seems to be the result of a long session of orchestration by Nico Motte, composer, arranger and conductor, who has been attributing to each electronic component a specific role to play in these 7 little instrumental suites, disturbed from time to time by human elements – a saxophone on Terra d’Amore, the voicefrom Syracuse’s Isabelle on Tacotac – only to reminds us that Life Goes On If You Are Lucky is above all about human fragility.
The Hipodrome Of Music 