FRANK HARRIS Vinyl & CDs

Review: Composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Frank Harris has enjoyed a long and varied career. During the 1980s, he was one of the world's most esteemed Synclavier synthesiser programmers, and also recorded extensively with singer-songwriter Maria Marquez - though it took until 2019 for much of that music to be released (on the album Echoes). This 12" boasts fresh reworks of tracks from that set. Frankie Deluxe handles side A, first delivering a deliciously slow-burn revision of 'Loveroom' - all sparse, undulating synth melodies, whispers of percussion and beautiful lead vocals - before offering up a seductively summery shuffle through the samba-seeped shuffle of 'Down By The Rio'. That track is twice more remixed on the flip. First Frakas supplies a tactile, deep Balearic nu-disco tweak, before Julian Dyne offers up a deep, dubbed-out, slow-motion house take.

Review: Strangelove Music's latest vinyl-only outing dips into the infrequently explored archives of American multi-instrumentalist Frank Harris and collaborator Maria Marquez, a pairing that previously released a couple of sought after "ethno-wave" singles in the late 1980s. "Echoes" gathers together unreleased music made in 1985, presenting it as an unheard album that oozes off-kilter quality from start to finish. Most of the tracks were made using Harris' custom Synclavier synthesizer station, with his humid and breezy new age melodies and dreamy chords working brilliantly with Marquez's folksy, multi-lingual vocals, a variety of world music inspired rhythms and some seriously atmospheric field recordings. It's a formula that guarantees unusual but inspired results from start to finish.