Boy Harsher

Review: Three years on from the release of their acclaimed debut album, "Yr Body is Nothing", Augustus Miller and Jae Matthews are finally ready to release the second Boy Harsher full-length. It's a hugely atmospheric affair, with the lauded pair sashaying between moody creepiness (the slowly shifting musical dystopia of opener "Keep Driving"), guitar-flecked new wave ("Face The Fire"), arpeggio-driven alternative synth-pop ("Fate"), Pet Shop Boys-esque Italo-disco influenced throb-jobs ("LA"), EBM-driven dancefloor funk ("Come Closer", "Tears"), icy electronic soundscapes ("Crush") and immersive, wide-eyed ambient ("Careful"). It does sound like it could have been made around 1985, but that's precisely the point: Boy Harsher can certainly deliver well observed retro-futurism better than most.

Review: Self-styled "minimal synth duo" Boy Harsher has released some fine music over the last few years, though little quite as on-point and majestic as 2018's "Country Girl" EP. Here they offer up a new-look "uncut" edition of the stylish set, which expands the original four-track set via a quartet of previously unreleased recordings from the same period. You'll find the original EP - complete with the throbbing but picturesque "Motion" and dreamy "Country Girl" - on side A, with the bonus material on the flip. Of these, we're particularly enjoying the gentle pulse of "Underwater", and the "Please" era Pet Shop Boys flex of "Send Me A Vision" and "Westerners".

Review: Best known for his work as half of "minimal synth duo" Boy Harsher, Augustus Muller has a neat sideline in composing scores for experimental short films produced by his friends from the Four Chambers collective. "Machine Learning Experiments" offers up two of those scores on one must-check LP. A-side suite "Orange Theory" sees Muller confidently strut between creepy sci-fi ambience, thrusting Italo-disco influenced dancefloor workouts, more melodic and spaced-out synth-wave and clandestine, Vangelis-esque soundscapes. Over on side B, the "Hydra" soundtrack is an altogether more immersive affair, with Muller sticking to clandestine ambient and the kind of slowly throbbing fare that was once the preserve of John Carpenter.

Review: Best known for his work as half of "minimal synth duo" Boy Harsher, Augustus Muller has a neat sideline in composing scores for experimental short films produced by his friends from the Four Chambers collective. "Machine Learning Experiments" offers up two of those scores on one must-check LP. A-side suite "Orange Theory" sees Muller confidently strut between creepy sci-fi ambience, thrusting Italo-disco influenced dancefloor workouts, more melodic and spaced-out synth-wave and clandestine, Vangelis-esque soundscapes. Over on side B, the "Hydra" soundtrack is an altogether more immersive affair, with Muller sticking to clandestine ambient and the kind of slowly throbbing fare that was once the preserve of John Carpenter.