Experimental/Electronic charts

Review: Reissued via French label Rotorelief on its 35th Anniversary year, Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella is the debut album of trailblazing noise and avant-garde musician Steven Stapleton. Catapulting Stapleton's macabre alias to success in the thin breath of just three through-composed drone pieces, this sonic statement was unparalleled at the time (1979), with its unusual mix of prepared tinkerings, feedback drones and cog-jams famously causing Sounds magazine to momentarily abandon their five-star rating system to specially award the album five full question marks. Absurdly sadistic, the album is also known for its original publication of the infamous Nurse With Wound List in the liner notes, which listed the entirety of Stapleton's influences going into the album's making - some acts named therein were so obscure that many fans speculate as to whether they were invented. An exemplary work of outsider music - or at least, one that is infamous by proxy to the more baneful works of the outsider music archetype - get ready to hear all things spectral over the more sustained tones: chains rattling, chairs squeaking, shakers shaking, even monologues in French.

Review: Contemporary tastemakers Geilgling return with a set of remixes of material from Leafar Legov's recent album, Mirror. First up it is German minimal maestro Isolee who flips 'Fade' into some of his signature sounds - smeared synths and abstract designs all weave together over a minimal beat to make for something seductive and late night. Polish loop master Jan Jelinek then flips 'Fade' into a slow motion shuffle with bright, celestial shards of melodic light and downbeat, melancholic vocals over a chugging beat. Last of all is a mix of 'Jing' that is all broken loops, chopped vocal fragments and hallucinogenic synths.

Review: Something of ground-breaking album on its initial release in December 1994, ISDN is one of Future Sound of London's most name-checked sets. It's effectively a re-edited and rearranged collection of live recordings - jammed out tracks that were initially broadcast to the world via ISDN links to clubs and radio stations, which FSOL brilliantly moulded into a mind-mangling journey through IDM, trip-hop, proto-big beat, dub, ambient, found sounds, field recordings and wayward electronica. To celebrate the album's 30th birthday, it returns as a two-disc set, freshly 'amalgamated and re-sequenced' by FSOL to include material from both previous editions of the album. It is, then, a kind of 'definitive version' of the LP, and one that still sounds as joyously weird, trippy and psychedelic as it did first time around.

Review: South African Warrick Sony is a ground breaking composer who was behind the Kalahari Surfers project which now gets a vital spotlight courtesy of Emotional Rescue. This compilation shows how effortlessly eclectic his sound was - from jive rhythms to jazz, tabla to political speeches and much more in between. A Hindu pacifist who was once conscripted into the South African Defense Force, he founded this group as a way out getting his ides out there, calling on other musicians as and when he needed them. It was the first radical white anti-apartheid pop in South Africa and as this vital collection shows it explored polyrhythms, slow motorik, dub sound collage and even a goofy cover of Nancy Sinatra.

Review: French dystopi-dance duo Justice gear up for their fourth full-length album, Hyperdrama. Owing to their towering status as producers and artists, it marks their first album in seven years since 2016's Woman. Unlike the neater fusions of disco and funk that the band have achieved in the past, Auge and Rosnay describe their latest as an embittered battle between the two stereotypes, elaborating that the album 'oscillates between pure electronic and pure disco but you never really get the two at the same time'."

Review: Burnski's Instinct alias has given rise to two full-length albums and a swathe of EPs in just the past two years alone, and now he's heralding spring with the launch of a new label, Abyla, and his most delicate, ambient record to date. Happening is a far cry from what you might know of Burnski or indeed the Instinct project overall, focusing as it does on orchestral ambience with a preference for plaintive piano lines at the front of the mix and ample drone matter backing it up. These short vignettes glide between moods, hovering in moments of tender minimalism or bursting with effervescence depending on the situation.

Review: Analogue synth spooks rejoice, Pye Corner Audio is back with further explorations of the sweet spot between nostalgic fuzz and circuit-borne futurism. Ghost Box is a spiritual home for Martin Jenkins' flagship project, and he continues to edge out the scope of the Pye Corner sound without derailing the fundamental atmosphere. On The Endless Echo, warm, pulsing melodics set to eerie keys abound, and there's a fine balance between gorgeous ambient atmospheric pieces and sinewy, danceable rhythms, but Jenkins manages to sound fresh and inspired even while reliably holding true to the overall project aesthetic.

Review: Eleven miasmic, brooding tape meditations from the legendary Bryn Jones, reissued and packaged by Ukrainian label I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free. Recorded in the immediate wake of the Oslo I accords, the album both bares Jones' stance on the peace pact and eerily predicts its aftermath, with humming, resonant drones, tinny vocal fragments and reversed percussion colliding in aural analogues of political tension, distrust and cyclicality. Overall it is an equally meditative and ominous listen, peppered with many of the hallmarks of mid-nineties Muzlimgauze productions, from swung, steppy, proto-DMZ ride cymbals, to plucked FM synth MIDI earworms, to his ever-present swathes of darkly churning string drones. Essential!

Review: On their third LP, British-Singaporean singer-songwriter Nat Cmiel is moving in a new direction - not only with a move from Bayonet Records to Ninja Tune, but also favouring a guitar-led indie rock sound, a departure from the critically acclaimed 'Serotonin II' and Danny L Harle produced 'Glitch Princess'. Lead single 'sulky baby' is a bright affair, distorted guitars circling Yeule's brand of gloomy lyrics sang with a smile. 'dazies' gets off the mark with a killer electric guitar lead, giving way to a plucked ambience with a computerised Nat ringing off a word association of a person kicked to the curb. When Kin Leonn isn't working their production magic, Yeule's self-production breaks the space. 'fish in the pool' is an ambient piano interlude with light-as-a-feather vocal adlibs, something that wouldn't be out of place in a Studio Ghibli production.

Review: Vincent Fenton's FKJ project has been a delight to melt away in since first appearing some time back in 2013. His body of work has been measured but meaningful since then, with just his self-titled album to his name aside from a scattered selection of singles. The last we heard from the French artist was the Ylang Ylang EP, released in 2019 digitally on Mom + Pop. Given the EP's warm reception, FKJ has decided to put out a vinyl edition himself, and truth be told his smoky, soulful blend is perfectly suited to wax.

Review: In line with the timely reappraisal of all things R&S related, the resurgent Apollo have seen the opportunity to bring one of their most celebrated records back for another round. Aphex Twin's ambient recordings mature magnificently with age, sounding ever richer and more emotive as the rest of electronic music continues to play catch up all around. From the gentle breakbeats of "Xtal" to the aquatic techno lure of "Tha", the airy rave of "Pulsewidth" to the heartwrenching composition of "Ageispolis", every track is a perennial example of how far ambient techno could reach even back then. It's just that no-one quite had the arm-span of Richard D. James.

Review: Emotional Response has described soFa's fourth compilation for the label as "internationalism for the adventurous DJ", full of club music for the open-minded. It's basically an eclectic, esoteric musical travelogue that serves of intriguing, entertaining and admirable electronic music for those of a leftfield persuasion. There's much to enjoy, from the undulating melodies, off-kilter beats and mind-soothing chords of Infuso Giallo's 'Torus', and the moody techno-not-techno wave minimalism of Puma & The Dolphin ('Grass Drum'), to the analogue-heavy cold-wave dystopia of Houschyar ('Intercontinental'), the dark ambient techno of Lamusa II ('Artificial') and the tribal tinged electronic psychedelia of Bolva ('Rite II').

Review: Klamm is the new label dedicated to the artistic output of Saele Valese. After "Ivic", a collection of old and new materials published on Alva Noto's label (NOTON) at the beginning of the year, Saele Valese releases now his first real album "A White, White Day". Written and recorded between 2018 and 2021 the material of this work was sliced, glued and recreated several times, just like a filmmaker in the editing process, before finding its final form. Inspired indeed by the most poetic cinema, 'A White, White Day' represents, in the form of a non-linear and enigmatic narrative, a personal and psychological reflection on time, memory and dreams. Mastered by Rashad Becker.

Review: Well Curated is a series of releases and parties that - in its own words - "reflects the ethnomusicology of the last 50 years of music" - and aims to reach into all genres, merging classic styles and breaking down barriers. Steve Spacek occupies the A-side with the breezy broken beat and soul-in-space of 'Alone In Da Sun', while Lukid's 'Hair Of The Dog' is a more intense counterpart, with wobbling sub-bass and swirling, surging atmospherics hovering above.

Review: Hyperdrama is the fourth full length album from the French Duo Justice. Two songs have preceded the album's May release. 'One Night/All Night (featuring Tame Impala)' is destined to be a club hit with its catchy EDM pop appeal. The bombastic electro pulser 'Generator' will also have a strong club appeal to it and you can expect the rest of the album to be just as strong with a production job that's clean and the tracks are powerful. This version comes in a beautifully designed gatefold 2xLP that also includes a sticker.

Review: Multi-award winning composer and viola maestro Astrid Sonne is an artist you won't forget in a hurry. Freewheeling between the somewhat regimented, or at least highly intentional world of electronic music production and the looser, more open-ended possibilities of experimental contemporary classical, melding both together in a place which is deceptively close to pop, she runs on improvised sections and meticulously crafted arrangements alike, in ways that feel truly natural. Following her acclaimed 2021 long form, 'Outside of Your Lifetime', with another beauty on Escho, one of many standout alternative imprints active in her native Denmark, Great Doubt is perhaps her most radio-playable effort to date, and yet musically it also embraces some of the most varied influences. From loop-based hip-hop to surreal court music, patient string-focused ambient, to leftfield drum machine pop.

Review: Widely regarded as Boards of Canada's finest hour, Music Has The Right To Children finds itself the subject of a well-deserved 2LP gatefold reissue from Warp Records. One of the most defining records of what was known for better or worse as IDM still sounds as timeless as it did in 1998, as the library tones of "Wildlife Analysis", thick downtempo rhythms of "Roygbiv" and out of focus melodies of "Olson" prove. Essential!

Review: Twinkle3 are a trio made up of accomplished flautist Clive Bell and electronic experimenters David Ross and Richard Scott. Their latest project welcomes the legendary David Sylvian into the mix alongside Kazuko Hohki, who was in 80s synth pop oddity Frank Chickens amongst other projects. Their collective venture for Cortizona treads predictably unpredictable territory, where minimalism, sound design and free improvisation merge into a meditative, distinctive whole. The woodwind and electronics intertwine in sublime fashion, resulting in a compelling trip for anyone who appreciates delicacy and risk in their leftfield electronica.

Review: Emotional Response bring you some truly healing sounds from Polish producer Bartosz Kruczynski, who first teamed up with the label as The Phantom for the first round of the Schleissen series back in 2015. He's since delivered a debut album to Growing Bin and released as Earth Trax on Rhythm Section and others. The mood across this collection of pieces produced for Polish studio TVP Culture opens up a rich seam of inspiration around the ambient end of Kruczynski's work through short pieces rich in sonorous delights. From fluttering fourth world-isms to hazy dub soundscapes, this is pure listening pleasure from start to finish.

Review: Beneath the grit and, err, grime of UK MC output, there's a highly fertile and imaginative artsy scene making underground stars in cities like London and Manchester. Names like Blackhaine, Icebox Violet, and Novelist have long-since flown flags - to various extents - for experimental tracks that marry rhymes, poetry, abstract musicality and heavy broken beats.

Coby Sey is another for that list, and like the rest, as he explains on 'Permeated Secrets', he "don't care if you like my work". Simply put, these sounds aren't for everyone, they were never intended to be. Instead, they showcase a staunchly British take on urban observation, packed with melancholy, hints of rave, and a love for exploring outsider ends of established art forms - often winding up in places few have been before.

Review: Prince Istari's earliest memories are of his mother playing the tranquil melodies of Erik Satie's pieces on the piano. Skipping school, he'd bask in the sun, absorbed by the serene tunes and years later in 2024, rediscovering his mother's sheet music sparked a creative resurgence. He transformed them into dub versions, crafting a tapestry of sound, and each piece's form dictated its direction, evolving from heavy dub to delicate piano and synthesiser blends. The finale, a relic from his past as Istari Lasterfahrer, features a distorted recording of his mother playing Satie to complete the circle. This special record comes in limited quantities of just 200 copies.

Review: Legend has it that around 1997, The Future Sound of London decided to make an album that combined the electronic and broken trance-inducing acid the outfit were already renowned for, and progressive rock. As work continued, a decision was made to go full psyche rock, and the result was The Isness by The Amorphous Androgynous. Had the original idea come to fruition, the hybrid sounds therein might be similar to Life In Moments. Originally released in 2015, this record is one of those very special instances in which you're presented with something that genuinely sounds new. Of course, there's plenty owed, too, with moments definitely nodding to the likes of Sabres of Paradise, slow mo dark room chug and other leftfield dance. On the whole, though, the combination of late night jazz, otherworldly electronica, tripped-out space rock, ambient and movie-esque scores is pretty incomparable.

Review: While Ben Frost's work has long been marked out by deft-touch dark ambient, experimental instincts and clandestine aural textures, he's always thrown in surprise excursions and drawn on musical inspirations that other like-minded producers would fear to embrace. This latter characteristic comes to the fore on Scope Neglect, his first solo set for six years. Remarkably, it utilises the moodiness, weight and ten-ton guitar licks of metal - played by Car Bombs guitarist Greg Kubacki and bass-slinger Liam Andrews of My Disco fame - as a starting point. Frost naturally puts these through the sonic wringer, combining them with his own skittish, IDM-influenced beats, dark ambient soundscapes and razor-sharp electronics. The results are unusual, impressive and emphatically enjoyable, sitting somewhere between timeless electronica, Nine Inch Nails and experimental metal.

Review: French outfit Chateau Flight have spent two years in the studio making music, playing around and experimenting and now the fruits of that work are presented on this new album La Folie Studio. It is full of the sound of analogue machines conversing and the artists themselves speaking through their darkened basslines or eerie pads. Occult worlds are crafted, ambient soundscapes are cooked up and leftfield cosmic explorations occur throughout a journeying album full of a wide range of emotions. This lovely record features guests on the odd track such as Johnny Nash on guitar, Cosmic Neman mumbling on 'Mange', John Cravache playing 'his special organ" and Bony Bikaye singing on 'Esika Molimo Ezali'. It's an occult world of left of centre sound that will keep you coming back for more.

Review: The legendary experimental German band Einsturzende Neubauten is back with their first album since 2020, Rampen (apm: alien pop music). Since their formation in 1980, the band his sought out to blaze their own trail in making what others would assume is noise into their own brand music. Their own music language was created and brought with them legions of followers that have added a bit of Einsturzende Neubauten's influence to their own sounds. The band has once again pushed their sound even further - alien pop music. This edition comes on yellow vinyl.

Review: Cult English electronic duo I Monster aka Sheffield based record producers Dean Honer and Jarrod Gosling dropped Neveroddoreven, their second studio album, on 21 July 2003. A little later than first planned, it now gets a special 20th Anniversary re-issue on CD as well as this double gatefold. It incudes the original album plus three new singles and the much loved acoustic version of 'Daydream in Blue' which even if you don't think you know, you will, because ti has been rather ubiquitous in ad campaigns for brands including Ford and Magnum Ice Cream. Also helping to keep this band relevant after all these years was their single 'Who Is She' going viral on TikTok in 2023 and picking up 290M Spotify streams.

Review: A fresh and exciting new concept record from ambient master Jan Jelinek; the new LP Social Engineering is made of nothing more than the text-to-speech renderings of the content of phishing emails received in the musician's inbox over an undisclosed period. Over the course of 13 tracks, Jelinek reworks, timestretches, juggles and expands these robotic narrations into speech-synthetic soundscapes, making for a weird and well-paced foray into a certain greyscale sonic unheimlich. Beginning with a Microsoft impersonator and ending on a 'polite threat', Jelinek's latest record presents an ironic conundrum; indeed, Social Engineering presents the only kind of decision under pressure - whether or not to buy ingenious new experimental ambient music - that we can't refuse.

Review: Rings Around Saturn (Rory McPike) returns for his latest full-length album after 2018's self-titled brokntoys debut, moving on from self-definition to explore a new concept, that of 'All Things Shining'. The LP touches on ambient, electroacoustic studies and filmic/VGM composition, but outside of these references, it stands as a beautiful suite of songs, effortlessly evoking a palette that seems to burst and ooze with a mood of jubilance and hope. Fans of hedonic calculators like Barker will similarly pleased at its use of trance dispositifs, but which are yet lent a glossier, rainmaking vibe ('Sphereology'), while later cuts go on to evoke idyllic Hellenic hallways and walled paradisiacal gardens, with a vocal-angelic edge.

Review: Originally released in 2005, Silenced captures the essence of The Black Dog's enigmatic allure, transporting listeners to otherworldly realms with its lush, tuneful compositions and angular genius. Each track on the album is a testament to the group's unparalleled ability to surprise and entrance, evoking a sense of both unease and beauty. For fans of The Black Dog, Silenced serves as a welcome treat, while also serving as an entry point for those new to the group's mesmerising soundscapes. Definitelt one of their best full length albums yet to date.

Review: Canadian composer Mort Garson enjoyed an eclectic career, though in electronic music circles he's most celebrated for a string of experimental electronic albums he produced using early Moog synthesizers. "Mother Earth's Plantasia" is a bizarre but brilliant beast: a 1976 set that was designed to be played to plants to help them grow (really) and was given away free at a Los Angeles garden store. As this first ever reissue proves it remains a dizzyingly far-sighted set. Sometimes symphonic, occasionally spacey and always intoxicating, much of the material is far quirkier than contemporaneous synthesizer-fired sets. Highlights include the pulsing ambient spaciousness of "Ode To An African Violet", the twinkling, cascading beauty of "Rhapsody In Green" and the jaunty cheeriness of "You Don't Have To Walk a Begonia".

Review: .

Review: This one has been a very long time coming indeed. Work on Hapticality began, whether Phataphysical really knew it or not, back in 2013, with tracks crafted between then and 2021. Not that you'd necessarily guess this was an eight year writing process, such is the coherency between the pieces, and the overall sense of being one complete work.

A deep dive to say the least, perhaps what's most astounding is the tangible atmosphere that each track creates individually, all of which contributes to a wider feeling. Hardly easy to achieve, die-hard fans of the ambient outfit, who claim so much more than mere reverence in the scene, will likely contest that point, and argue that they would expect nothing less from these masters of dream-like electronic adventures.

Review: Steven Stapleton is Nurse With Wound. Originally a band, sometimes abbreviated to NWW, since 1978 the English act has explored a range of dark and brooding styles, including industrial, dark ambient, drone, and noise. Well known for sound collages - usually pretty intense in nature - influences come from the dada and surrealist art schools, cabaret music, John Cage, The Beach Boys, Krautrock, and Musique Concrete. She & Me Fall Together In Free Death is, in this instance at least, the highly anticipated reissue of the landmark album which proved just how good NWW is at all forms of song craft. Work here edges into the eerier end of Liars collaborating with Tom Waits' at his most experimental and that's really clutching for reference points. Quite unlike anything else you'll buy today, we promise.

Review: Finally, the debut Bochum Welt album Module 2 has been reissued after an initial run on Rephlex. Bochum Welt (Gianluigi Di Costanzo) has just recently celebrated 30 years of releasing music. His brand of IDM, electro and techno has been often copied but never equaled. His futuristic music seems to always be forward thinking and ultimately, timeless sounding. This edition is on matching green vinyl and includes all the classic material of the first release. Fans of AFX, Squarepusher and Cylob are sure to be aware of Bochum Welt. But for those who aren't....

Review: If this is your initial encounter with Omit then buckle up and prepare for some first contact stuff. The South Island New Zealander has been creating otherworldly arrangements since 1990, taking listeners on deep space explorations via sounds that are as inviting and alluring as they are strange and disconcerting. Humans, after all, tend to feel very wary (to put it mildly) about stepping into unknowns. On Insec this is particularly pronounced. The sense of vast is omnipresent throughout the four mammoth tracks, distant tones sound as though they're refracted rays of light bouncing off some satellite or other, or solar sails deployed on a ship exploring a far off cluster of exoplanets. The individual pieces blend perfectly and lead into one another to create a sense of epic odyssey. An adventure through noises that are impactful because of the surrounding silence and their own innate qualities.

Review: The 1990s was arguably the first 'golden age' of ambient - a time when the inherently atmospheric and laidback style not only exploded in popularity, but also became the post-club soundtrack of choice for a whole generation. This personal survey of the 90s ambient scene from journalist and author Jon Savage does a good job in gathering together a representative selection of genuine gems and overlooked classics, drifting between the bubbly, deep space brilliance of Richard H Kirk's Sandoz project ('Limbo'), bleeping ambient house ('Calm' by 2 Cabbages on a Drip), early progressive house (React 2 Rhythm), electronic psychedelia (the tabla rhythms and swirly noises of Rapoon), ambient blues (Underworld), IDM (U-ziq), and glacial, slow-motion bliss (Biosphere).

Review: Originally released digitally in 2013, Pink collated a series of 12" releases from Kieran Hebden issued over an 18 month period on his Text label. Hebden and record club and subscription service Vinyl Me, Please have teamed up to give Pink a double vinyl release for any Four Tet fans that weren't quick enough to nab those 12"s at the time. There is plenty of classic Four Tet to be had here too. "Jupiters" experiments with swung garage beats in an unmistakably UK Bass style, while "128 Harps" is a whipcrack MPC workout given his light melodic touch and "Peace On Earth" is a beatless 11 minutes of analogue kosmische. But it's the centrepiece of Hebden's Fabriclive mix, the brilliantly moody "Pyramid", and the loose limbed jazz-house of "Pinnacles" that really set this album apart from his other long-playing efforts, two examples of timeless dance music which demonstrate why after nearly 15 years in the game Hebden is only improving with age.

Review: Back in 2018 Leaving Records first released this low key gem from Sam Gendel and Sam Wilkes, which blended the natural lull of live saxophone and bass guitar with considered FX processing to create some spellbinding grooves somewhere on the outer periphery of soul jazz. It's totally fresh, totally chill, and bursting with soul thanks to the impeccable playing from Gendel and Wilkes. It's gone through a number of iterations including previous tape issues and a white label private press run of 50, and now it's finally getting a repress so the latecomers can cop a wax edition and shirk the scalpers. Music this warm and fuzzy deserves to be heard on wax.

Review: Berlin's Cocktail d'Amore and Tokyo's Ene Records have come together once again to present the music of Solidair. The duo of Cocktail alumni Luigi Di Venere and Jules Etienne present three tracks aimed to induce a dance floor hypnosis. Orgonite (Riding the Waves) does just that, a slow build awash in the ebb and flow of acid tinges, just enough to wet your whistle on a Saturday night. The original mix keeps the skeletal support but throws in a life preserver of 8 bit gaming synthesis. Frisky arps call and respond to each other before making way for sinewy pads to lift off. Tiger's Eye sets itself onto cruising speed incorporating elements of late 90's acid techno with the sleek and smooth clubbing aesthetics of modern day Berlin.

Review: Of all the artists past and present who claim to let their music do their talking for them, Burial is one of the elite band of whom this truly is the case. In fact, so reluctant is he to engage with the cult-of-personality hoopla that surrounds almost every modern producer and musician of merit, that he remains a genuine recluse; he has never appeared live, only one obliquely-angled publicity photograph is known to exist, and the number of interviews he has given can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Yet despite this, his music speaks loud and wide, and the world has been listening ever since his 'South London Boroughs' EP debut on Hyperdub in March 2005. His eponymous album, which began life as a low-key release in May 2006, is now widely regarded as the benchmark release of the ever-widening dubstep genre, picking up unanimous critical acclaim along the way, and ending the year heavily featured in many 'best of' polls. Now Burial returns with 'Untrue', a new record of weird soul music, which lovingly processes spectral female voices into vaporised R&B and smudged 2step garage. Vocal lines are blurred, smeared, pitched up pitched down and pitch bent until their content is cast adrift from their original context and they whisper their saccharin sweet nothings into the void. The album continues with the debut's crackle-drenched yearning and bustling syncopations, haunted by the ghosts of rave, but also reveals some new Burial treats with a more glowing, upbeat energy. Kicking off with the skittering 2step syncopations and vocal science of 'Archangel', 'Near Dark' and 'Ghost Hardware', before long it descends into a space of radiant divas and ambience. Where 'Burial' first was humid, suffocating and unrelentingly sad, 'Untrue' is less sunless. Many of the tracks are so sweet, they become toxic, underscored by the almost geological rumbles of growling basslines. Unlike the overpoweringly melancholic prevailing mood of before, Burial's sound is now better defined as a downcast euphoria typified by the epic, muted optimism of the album's last track 'Raver'. Forget central heating the radioactivity of this album is all that you'll need to keep you warm this winter. 'Untrue' is available as full 13 track digipack CD, including recent underground hit 'Ghost Hardware', and 9 track DJ friendly double vinyl set, from which some of the beatless pieces have been edited.

Review: The legendary Future Sound Of London have finally started dropping their Environments series on vinyl format, which will no doubt please the countless numbers of FSOL junkies out there! These sessions, the present title being the penultimate in a series of five, have been long sought after and they have been pivotal in shaping the sound of today's electronic dance music. Fifteen tracks in total here and the interesting thing about this album is the fact that it can be heard either as single tracks or as one developing and morphing wall of sound. All but one of these tracks, "Murmurations", are from way back and haven't seen the light of day, so get listening and indulge yourself in some pioneering sounds!

Review: Thankfully, Richard D. James has decided to finally release at least some of the output that he's been banging on about since mid-2000s. In a number of interviews, the might Aphex Twin hinted that he has vast artilleries of tracks stacked up and unreleased, probably more on purpose than out of laziness...or maybe not. What we do know is that AFX is reborn after the string of acid 12"s released about 10 years ago on Rephlex, that saw the alias become one of the most popular of James' alter egos. Orphaned Deejay Selek is a collection of tunes that contain all of the Twin's magic and unpredictably, but that also cut straight to the point and head to the middle of the dance floor. This is banging brain dynamite coated in the man's iconic style and flair. Welcome back AFX, and many hats off to Warp for making it happen.