CD Album Recommendations March 2014

Review: As with pretty much all Kenny Dixon Jnr releases, Moodymann - his eleventh full-length - has caused something of a stir, with vinyl copies selling out in the blink of an eye. Now on CD, the album remains one of his best - a kaleidoscopic, fast-paced sprint through soul-soaked deep house, baked drum machine jams, jazz-flecked interludes and low-slung grooves. Dixon's distinctive drawl is more prominent than on some previous excursions - no bad thing - while fans will notice a slew of alternative versions of KDJ classics - "Freeki M*thaf*cka" being perhaps the best known. Best of all, though, are the more downbeat moments - see "Heaven" and "Stupid Cosmic" - which allow Dixon to indulge his atmospheric tendencies. In a word: essential.

Review: For some reason, the world's foremost ambient explorers have always been prolific. Take the sadly departed Pete Namlook, who released 10 albums in 1994 alone. Brock Van Wey is cut from similar cloth. It was only last week that he delivered an album under his BVDub pseudonym; here, he returns to his given name for a similarly tactile, two-CD voyage into the world of beatless dreamscapes. The Namlook comparisons are understandable; like the once mighty German, Van Wey specializes in creating sprawling pieces based around gradual shifts in long, drawn out chords, slowly shifting melodies (check the Satie-inspired "Can't Go Home Without You"), delay-laden instruments and epic atmospherics. When he gets it right - as he does on Home - there are few greater exponents of the art of ambient.

Review: It's three years since Craig Smith and Graeme Clark impressed with One Night In The Borough, a landmark album that epitomized all that was good about the cut-and-paste, disco-sampling deep house scene of the time. This sophomore set offers more of the same, delivering tracks that ride a range of tempos in their trademark deep, loopy, hypnotic and pleasingly baggy style. While there are plenty of surprisingly supple, heavily electronic uptempo cuts on offer (see "Feel", the disco rush of "In Your Arms" and the classic, Frankie Knuckles-ish US house of "Read My Mind"), they're still at their best when operating at a slower tempo, as the deliciously jazzy "Walk Away" and sensual throb of "Through The Night" neatly prove.

Review: Despite making her name in the minimal techno scene, German producer Dana Ruh has recently moved further towards deep house territory. Here she completes the switch with a sumptuous, sinewy debut album for Jus-Ed's Underground Quality imprint. Naturally sees the Berlin-based producer effortlessly move through a range of deep, dreamy and groovy cuts, most of which are rooted in Chez and Trent style analogue deepness. Highlights are plentiful, from the loose and sweet bump of "Just Don't" and smooth "Train Ride To You", to the acid-flecked New Jersey chunkiness of "Don't You Find Me". There are nods to her minimal past - check the deep tech-house shuffle of "Dirty Egg" - but for the most part it's a warm and sensual affair.

Review: Whether or not Berlin-based Italian Luca Montellaro's sophomore album, Churches Schools & Guns is a concept album (we have no idea, to be honest), there's a definite connection between the evocative, uneasy title and the clastrophobic, paranoid music contained within. "The Horror", a decidedly unsettling foray into nightmarish ambience, sets the tone. The maudlin but strangely involving music which follows shuffles between ethereal, post-dubstep tech-scapes ("The Self as Another", "Human Triage"), druggy hypnotism ("Follow the Leader"), sludgy downtempo oddness ("Catch 22") and tumbling, monastic ambience ("Falling"). Throughout, there's an uneasy sense of a bleak, other-wordly story unfolding.

Review: A new album from Stefan Laubner under his STL moniker isn't exactly a rare occurrence; At Disconnected Moments is his 14th album as STL, adding to the glut of long players and CDrs the producer has released under his own name and as Lunatik Sound System. However, arriving on Smallville it represents the first STL long player to be released on a label other than Laubner's own Something operation. It also happens to be one of his most engaging and well rounded listens for some time, with the likes of the chunky "Scuba's Motion Dub", the blissful "One Day" and frantic mood of "Amelie's Dub" all proving particularly robust. Highly recommended.

Review: Dusty Kid's particular brand of techno has always been enveloping. While rooted in the dubwise rhythms of dub techno and the sparse pulse of minimal, his tracks tend to be densely layered and expertly textured, resulting in a sound that's rich and intoxicating, with just the right amount of hypnotic, repetitive melodies. This trademark sound is much in evidence on III, his third full-length but first for Isolade. From start to finish, the Italian delivers music to get lost in, from the calming and sweet "Sandalyon" (like Isolee doing deep techno) and dubby "Doom", to the tougher dancefloor styles of acid-techno assault "Flames" and predictably murky "Darkroom".

Review: There should be more than a few techno fans getting rather excited right now. You see, Donato Dozzy and Nuel's Aquaplano Sessions is something of a "holy grail" for tribal-influenced minimal techno collectors. Originally released over two 12" singles on the short-lived Aquaplano label in 2008 and 2009, the material has long been held in high regard - so much so, in fact, that copies of the original vinyl pressings are extremely hard to find. This reissue from Spectrum Spools is great news for anyone who missed out first time round. While there are some immaculate deeper moments (see the becalmed dreaminess of "Aqua 8"), it's the robust, aggressive, bass-heavy and occasionally intense tracks that really stand out.

Review: Eerie electronic explorer Martin Jenkins' reputation has been growing for some time. Since making his debut with the self-released Black Mill Tape Vol 1 in 2010, Jenkins' Pye Corner Audio productions have become must-have items for those seeking evocative soundscapes, tense textures, rough synthesizer sketches and creepy analogue tones. Here, he pitches up on acclaimed experimental label Type to tell the story so far. Collecting together tracks from his first four self-released albums, Black Mil Tapes Vol 1-4 should be essential listening for anyone with even the tiniest interest in ambient. In turns both intensely unsettling and pleasingly calming (see the dreamy goodness of the softly rhythmic "Toward Light"), it's a wonderfully vivid and enjoyable collection.

Review: Given their long individual commitments to the dubwise cause, you'd expect a collaborative album from dub techno type Scott Monteith (AKA Deadbeat) and sometime Rhythm & Sound vocalist Paul St Hilaire to be a formidable proposition. And so it proves, as the duo apply their dub techno credentials to a more traditional dub framework on The Infinity Dub Sessions. St Hilaire is at his beguiling, soulful best riding Monteith's riddims, which veer from floor-friendly dub-house and dub-techno grooves (see "Little Darling" and "Rock of Creation"), to heady trips into more traditional dubwise territory (check the celebratory "Peace & Love" and tumbling "Hold On Strong"). Throughout, there's a loving authenticity that's extremely appealing.

Review: By now, we should all know what to expect from Lack of Afro, AKA veteran funk, soul and hip-hop producer Adam Gibbons. This fourth studio album for regular home Freestyle Records is being pitched as his most eclectic yet. Certainly, there's plenty of variety in the textures, styles and tempos, from the disco-funk stomp of Herbal T hook-up "Brown Sugar" and sweet Northern Soul blast of "The Contender" (all fuzzy guitars and pleasing horns), to the soft soul shuffle of "Making It Right" and Breakestra-ish hip-hop funk of "Here We Go Again". Despite the variety, Gibbons is still at his best when really cutting loose, as the superb opener "Freedom" adeptly demonstrates.

Review: Here, Beat Pharmacy man Brendon Moeller delivers his fourth full-length, his first since 2011. In typical fashion, there's a twisted, druggy intensity to the music, which flits between psychedelic electronica (see opener "The Frequency of Love" and vaguely tropical "Stepping Out"), tough, acid-tinged techno beatscapes ("Guilty Pleasure"), dub-influenced sludge (the excellent title track), and dubstep-influenced industrial spookiness ("Deep Fried"). For all the murkiness on display, there are moments of startling beauty and almost alarming clarity, with the samba shuffle and sun-flecked melodies of "Tricks of the Shade", and picturesque, humid "Lost" standing out.

Review: As the man behind the long-running Perc Trax label, Ali Wells has had a considerable part to play in shaping the landscape of UK techno. His debut album Wicker & Steel, released in 2011, was only his first full-length in a decade of producing, but the influence both it and the curation of his label had was wide ranging, prefiguring the revival for a harder, more industrial aesthetic in techno which emerged in the following years. The Power & The Glory is Wells' second album, and is a significantly more ambitious statement than its predecessor, combining his obvious appreciation of the experimental noise sound coming from the US underground with the pounding floor-focused rave bangers he's well known for. Quite simply, Wells has raised the techno bar once again.

Review: There's something deeply personal about this second album from German minimal techno producer Frank Heinrich. Named Deep V as a tribute to his late brother, who used that recording alias, it sees the former Cadenza and Cocoon man deliver a typically hypnotic set of late night techno grooves. With rhythms and soundscapes intensified through the use of field recordings made around the world, and an understandably melancholic tone, it's arguably Heinrich's best work to date. It shuffles impressively, offering the sort of tactile techno grooves that make the most sense in vast spaces at five in the morning. It's a fitting tribute to his brother, that's for sure.

Review: As you might expect, multi-instrumentalist and producer Benedic Lamdin's music seems to be improving with each successive album. A Journey Too Far, his fifth under the Nostalgia 77th moniker for regular home Tru Thoughts, is arguably his most deftly produced and emotionally rich album to date. Doffing a cap to his usual influences - jazz, Rotary Connection, soft-focus organic soul - but with a greater emphasis on folksy elements, its 11 tracks ooze loose musicality and pastoral textures from every fluid groove. It also benefits greatly from the presence of German singer Josa Peit, whose strong but fragile vocals provide the album with a strong focal point.