RYOJI IKEDA Vinyl & CDs

Review: There's something undeniably tactile about Japanese composer Ikeda's Ultratronics which here comes as a special Japanese Edition on CD. The bass is metallic and dense, the grainy and glitched-out synths ringing out in a mathematical tempo on tracks like 'ultratronics 05'. There's a philosophy of high art, a scene that Ikeda has dabbled in before with installations and exhibitions, that is a hallmark of Japanese electronica composers old and new. The album has just as many pared-back moments (like in 02 and 07, scattered throughout vocal samples of rocket and space radio transmissions) as it does hardcore electronic industrial thrashing (06 and 14 spring to mind for mind-blowing explosions of synths).