Juno Recommends Leftfield: November 2023

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: Lee Gamble is an artist who excels in delivering post-modern music with a strong sense of sentiment and history. Just look at his breakthrough Diversions 1994-1996, in which the ambient threads in first wave jungle were blown out into grandiose chasms of sound. On this latest album, he's taking a similar approach to source material, but this time the focus is on pop earworms in which all kinds of emotive, catchy sonics get dissolved and reformed into vast, unpredictable shapes. Vitally, the emotional dimension is maintained no matter how unrecognisable the original samples are, as Gamble continues his fascinating path forwards and backwards through time.

Review: In the wake of The Knife, Olof Dreijer has been plenty busy behind the scenes and scattering hints of his incredible production for those paying attention. Now it feels like he's building to a wider profile breakthrough as he lands a knockout blow with this release on Hessle Audio. It's a maverick release, which is its pass into the curious sound world shaped out by Ben UFO, Pearson Sound and Pangaea, but equally it brings something new to the label. The joyous, colourful melodic daubs across the EP alone are something to make a dance collectively look up in wonder, with 'Camelia' being an especially beautiful, uplifting track to bring hope and positivity when so much club music tips towards the darkness.

Review: Generations of modular might fold in on themselves as legendary Buchla pioneer Suzanne Ciani patches into accomplished French synthesist Jonathan Fitoussi for this outstanding album on Obliques. The title is clearly a tribute to Morton Subotnick, whose own Silver Apples Of The Moon is a true ground zero for West Coast synth albums and as you might surmise Ciani and Fitoussi opt to create something more shapely and inviting than the wild, brilliantly alien tonal mutations Subotnick conjured up back in the 60s. If you're familiar with either artist's work you won't be disappointed, as exquisitely rendered melodic flourishes, delicate spatial processing and subtle textural shifts unfurl around your ears across these eight beautiful pieces of synth perfection.

Review: .Named after the iconic stairs in the Bauhaus building, Dessau, Germany, designed by Walter Gropius, OMD's 45th anniversary record is worthy of that name: an inimitable piece of design. Musically, Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys have given us many landmarks over their near-half century making tunes (not something you get to write every day) and this is certainly up there. It's also very OMD to opt for a completely fresh addition to the burgeoning catalogue, rather than a series of reissues, to mark the event. That said, Bauhaus is new by definition but perhaps not really design. One of the most immediately captivating things about the record is the fact so much of what's here feels like it's OMD through the ages. Film noir-ish 'Veruschka', politicised numbers like 'Kleptocracy' and dramatic high energy pop aplenty ('Don't Go'), these have always been totems of the duo, and all are back again.

Review: Carsten Nicolai's distinctive approach to reduced, crystalline electronics continues to bear fruit with the second part in the Hybrid:ID series, which commenced in 2021. As with the prior volume, the music contained within is drawn from a commissioned score to a dance piece by Richard Siegal. As his own Noton label outlines, these ten pieces 'delve into infinity, drawing inspiration from resonance and elasticity.' Needlepoint pulses, electrostatic flickering and elegant dub techno forms abound, each sound given appropriate space in the unmistakable style Nicolai has made his own over a celebrated career on the fringes of contemporary electronic music.

Review: Following the breakaway success of her debut album The Internet, Glume returns to Italians Do It Better with her hotly anticipated follow-up, Main Character. As you would rightly expect from Johnny Jewel's label, seductive synth noir is the order of the day once more, but moving on from her first steps she's become a much broader sort of pop concern. There are some surprising collaborations with the likes of Rufus Wainwright, STRFKR and of Montreal, while Glume produced the album with Jewel and Sean Ono Lennon. It's an album which boldly reflects and develops the identity of a fascinating character on the alternative pop circuit.

Review: Front 242 are usually credited as early pioneers of EBM (Electronic Body Music), a somewhat clunky and retroactive genre term to describe a chugging style of dance music that emerged from the industrial, new wave and synthpunk crazes of the early 1980s. However, the Belgian electronic music group didn't call it that at the time; indeed, many contemporaries of theirs preferred the term 'sequencer music'. Their debut album Tyranny For You epitomises that innocence, preferring instead to liken their exploration of new sonic frontiers to a condemnation of war. And despite channelling a controversially militaristic, some-say fascist image in their live shows, the onward march of this album is in fact a deep criticism of the industrial backbone of ultranationalist conflict, represented in its ironic acid raindowns and explosive IED snares.

Review: In the grand tradition of German psychedelic rock and early electronic music, Ash Ra Tempel's 1971 debut is something of a ground zero. Whatever you think of the krautrock tag, the coterie of artists and innovations associated with the era and movement begins right here. This 50th anniversary edition of a truly seminal album takes us back into the heart of the band and their big ideas, as spelt out in the manifesto from Manuel Gottsching which has been faithfully reproduced in this lavish edition. From the psych freak out of 'Amboss' to the swirling soundscape of 'Traummaschine', this is as landmark as it gets.

Review: The ambient husband-and-wife duo is an effective formula, one which here reawakens in the form of Awakened Souls. James Bernard and Cynthia Hall Bernard join forces for the making of Unlikely Places, a mini-album of Californian swells, field-recorded wonderments and guitar-drenched accompaniments - ultimately a washed-out ode to the creative possibility in all things. Centring on the idea that inspiration can be found anywhere, this is an album of relentless, gazy, waterfally gushings, from the hopeful 'It Could Be Wings' to the moodier 'Moonbeams'.

Review: Soundtrack heavyweight Clint Mansell was the perfect choice to score 2009 film Moon, in which Sam Rockwell goes through a brilliantly off-beat adventure while working a solo stint on a base on the dark side of our nearest celestial object. It's an artful, subtly eerie film with a score to match, and Mansell perfectly conveys the isolation of Rockwell's character while evoking the sense of wonder a sci-fi film demands. For the first time since its original release, the Moon OST is available once more on vinyl, appropriately enough pressed up in lunar white.

Review: FSOL continue to be a prolific force in the sonic universe of their own making. The Environments series they started in 2007 has come to a head with a trio of albums over the past year and this is the last of them. There's a pointed callback at work on Environment 7.003, the cover explicitly referencing seminal early album ISDN, and the album is scattered with subtle nods to those mid 90s glory days. But The Future Sound Of London has always been about pushing forwards and that's precisely what Brian Dougans and Garry Cobain do on this resplendent suite of electronica, sure to satisfy the die hard fans without lazily rehashing old ideas.

Review: Call Super has always been something of an underground darling - one of those untouchable artists with next level skills in the club, and a unique studio sound that excites even the most hardened and passionate fan. 'Eulo Cramps' is the artist's fourth album and one from the centre of a multifaceted project they call 'Tell Me I Didn't Choose This' which includes poetry, auto-biographical writing, painting and music. It is full of personal reflections and his signature melding of jazz, electronica and the unique voices of Julia Holter and Eden Samara. Though adventurous and experimental, it is an album steeped in very real emotion which we can all connect to.

Review: One of Giuliano Sorgini's finest and most sought-after titles, Scappo Per Cantare, is finally available as an official LP reissue, and the first ever to be remastered from the original tapes. Originally released in 1971 on the small library music imprint FAMA - which operated as a sub-label of RCA Italy - the record contains the original music written for Scappo Per Cantare, a small, pseudo-psychedelic 'musicarello' (musical comedy film) broadcast on RAI television. Despite this seemingly innocuous commission, the music - though he's uncredited, it was made in collaboration close confidant Alessandro Alessandroni - is incredibly surreal, and a psychedelic treat for anyone seeking crisp, chordophonal-compositional mastery distilled on record.

Review: 20 years have now passed since The Cinematic Orchestra unveiled their soundtrack to experimental, Soviet-era silent documentary film The Man With The Movie Camera. As this deluxe, deliciously packaged anniversary reissue shows, it remains one of J Swinscoe and company's most timeless and on-point works - an effortlessly atmospheric affair that blends neo-classical strings and deep, smoky jazz instrumentation with subtle electronics, swelling ambient chords and nods to contemporary music. This time round, the album - which boasts highlights including the fan favourite title track, the dancefloor-ready 'Theme De Yoyo' and the stirring 'All Things' - has been pressed to coloured vinyl and comes accompanied by extensive new liner notes.

Review: Baby is the brand new album from Cosmetics, the Vancouver-based synth wave duo that formed in 2008 but have been rather quiet on the release front in recent times. having teased their return with a superb new pair of singles on 7" recently, now Cititrax/Minimal Wave finally unveil the full album in all its glory. This pair, which is made up of Nic Emm and Aja Emma, fuses artfully crafted synth and wave sounds into something new. It is dark but beautiful, with icy moods and grooves overlaid with the stunning vocals of Emma cutting through in their own alluring manner. The album comes on limited edition clear vinyl and marks a welcome return for this talented outfit.

Review: Jon Hopkins' fourth album Immunity is a bona fide classic that is now a full ten years old. To celebrate the milestone, it has been newly remastered for this special reissue. Listening back now reminds you just what a confident and adventurous record this was - a creative trip deep inside Hopkins' mind that brought totters everything he had done and learned up to that point. The focus was firmly on the dancefloor but still, the tracks come with plenty of emotional nuances, from sad piano motifs to stirring choral drones but shifting rhythms and real-world sound effects that brought the whole thing to life.

Review: Mary Lattimore is one of the foremost harpists of her generation, a status duly restored with the release of her latest LP, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada. Named after a hotel in Croatia about which Lattimore recalls many blissful holiday memories, the LP laments the oncoming threat of loss, as Arkada now faces plans to be renovated. Through this immediate story, a wider picture of collective mourning is painted - the album is a collaborative affair, enlisting the many famous faces of shoegaze, folk and goth stardom, namely the likes of The Cure's Lol Tolhurst, Rachel Goswell and Meg Baird - producing a sound that is as eerie as it is serene.

Review: The tide of (hyper)pop has ebbed into increasingly emo and indie directions and the frothiest edge of this fluid movement is perhaps best represented by the latest album from Yeule (Nat Cmiel). Softscars follows up Yeule's 2022 album Glitch Princess and continues the trend of ultra-glossy, CD-reflective, knife-edge sounds packed into the blueprint of downtempo dream pop, in which said gloss reflects Cmiel's own personal experience of healing from trauma. The likes of 'ghost', 'dazies' and 'sulky baby' are giving glitchy alternate-reality Green Day in their Boulevard Of Broken Dreams era, with a dash of ejector-jewel-cased lyrics and a sprinkling of George Clinton-esque production flavour.

Review: Max Richter's latest work Sleep: Tranquillity Base first arrived on Deutsche Grammophon for World Sleep Day. Ot is a thirty minute work split across two parts and are inspired by the moon landings. It is music that "functions as a vessel that disconnects and travels through the body of work, allowing art to provide something which resembles peace within ourselves." It also comes with a couple of belting remixes from much loved contemporary innovators Alva Noto and Kelly Lee Owens. There is a reason Max Richter is so well revered and his music has had over three billion streams and this EP is one of them.

Review: Silva Screen Records continues their vast compilation project here with another tribute to the late Ryuichi Sakamoto, the legendary former member of Yellow Magic Orchestra who passed not so long ago. They have pressed this one up to various formats and this is a gatefold transparent lime green and black splattered vinyl from the acclaimed film scorer. He wrote for epics such as Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, The Sheltering Sky and The Last Emperor. This album takes in plenty of the most standout tracks from those movies, all performed by the Brussels Philharmonic and conducted by Dirk Brosse.

Review: Tyresta's Small Hours album (a direct follow-up to 2020's All We Have) comes on beautiful 180-gram splatter green vinyl via Past Inside The Present and is another majestically subtle and intimate ambient work that explores "impermanence, grief, loss, healing, and growth". It's an album that reveals more with each listen as the carefully layered-up synths and melodies intertwine harmoniously to make for a perfect late-night soundtrack. There's plenty of soul searching to be done while lost in the midst of this album, but it will be a rewarding task as you cannot fail to find "solace, rejuvenation, and a rekindling of the unfettered spirit," as the label puts it.