Juno Recommends Leftfield May 2020

Review: Four Tet is back with a new album of shimmering wonderment on his own Text label. As ever, it's the way that Kieran Hebden tugs at the heart strings so artfully that makes him so well-loved, and he's not holding back one iota as "Sixteen Oceans" opens up with the ineffably pretty "School". There's some advanced garage ruminations on "Baby", classic ambience on "Harpsichord", and so the eclectic and extremely soul-cleansing vibes continue across three sides of wax. In addition to this wonderful new album, Hebden has also held back the fourth side for a bunch of locked grooves so satisfying you could get lost in them all day.

Review: Earlier in the year, Yves Tumor announced the release of this album by releasing 'Gospel For a New Country', a low-slung chunk of post-punk pop brilliance that mixed weighty grooves and emotive vocals with flash-fried guitar riffs amd sampled big band horns. Fittingly, it's this fine track that kicks off 'Heaven To A Tortured Mind', a notably fuzzy, live-sounding set that continues his evolution from quirky electronica maker to alt-rock artist. While there are some electronic sounds dotted across the set, for the most part it's funk-rock riffs, ESG style basslines, organic drums and his own heartfelt vocals that dominate. It could win him many new fans; certainly, it's a very good album.

Review: Three years on from the release of his terrifically Balearic and glassy-eyed debut LP on Running Back, Lewis Day AKA Tornado Wallace offers up a sequel of sorts: a fine mini-album that marks his first appearance on JD Twitch's admirable Optimo Music label. The collected cuts still contain some of the Australian producer's sonic hallmarks - those colourful synths and so on - but the overall mood is far more psychedelic, intense and otherworldly than some may expect, with definite nods towards feverish African rhythms, humid ambient techno, raw early '80s new wave cuts and the hallucinatory electronics of early goa trance. It's a definite sonic shift, but one that's hugely successful. In fact, it may well be his most alluring release to date.

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: Turin techno stalwart Andrea has been serving up slabs of goodness on Ilian Tape since way back in 2012, though "Ritorno" is remarkably his very first full-length excursion. The 12 track set is far more varied than his fine club-focused singles, with the Italian variously turning his hand to swelling, Global Communication style ambient techno ("Attimo"), ultra-deep breakbeat dreaminess ("SKLYN"), melodious, jungle-influenced IDM ("LS September"), bassbin rattlers ("TrackQY", the skittish brilliance of moody roller "Reinf"), dreamy soundscape techno ("LG_Amb"), angular fusions of bass music and dark Italo-techno ("Drumzzy") and picturesque ambient dub slow jams ("Twin Forests").

Review: The mighty Tom Jenkinson follows up the rambunctious success of his recent "Be Up A Hello" LP with this wonderful EP of mind-bending electronics that show off his musical chops and programming genius alike. In particular, we're in thrall to "MIDI Sans Frontieres", a track created in response to the 2016 Brexit referendum which found Jenkinson reaching out to "sound makers, irrespective of what kind of music they make, where they live, their background or their age". The results rank among one of the most gorgeous tracks to emerge under the Squarepusher banner in recent memory - a powerful, melancholic lead and some deftly arranged breakbeats that become much greater than the sum of their parts, as a project like this should be. Top drawer stuff from one of the all-time greats.

Review: The generous run of Zero 7 reissues continues with the welcome return of their 2006 LP "The Garden". While it received something of a frosty reception on release, this album has refined with age to become a fan favourite and an all-round wonderfully accomplished work that highlights all the best qualities of Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker. From lush, starry-eyed and '60s tinged psychedelia to bittersweet pop and plenty of lounge-ready moods, it's incredibly easy to sink into like all the Zero 7 material, but shot through with depth to keep you listening attentively. Sia also makes some standout appearances, not least "Throw It All Away" and "Waiting To Die", while Jose Gonzalez is on stunning form too. Fans have been waiting a long time for this, and no doubt there will be plenty more converts to the Zero 7 sound too.

Review: Islands, volcanoes and instrumental exile stories...
From Overseas is the experimental ambient project by Kevin Sery.

Originally from the tiny French overseas department and region, Reunion Island, he routinely bounces between his home island, a small port town on the east coast of the US and continental Europe picking up fresh ideas and inspiration along the way.

With a beautiful master by Stephan Mathieu (12k, Shelter Press, ...), From Overseas releases his first full length album "Home" on PITP. "Home" is a journey through beautiful soundscapes where dark and light intertwine, where ambient tones give way to post-rock guitar craft, then segway to melodic drone, noise and back again. These soothingly powerful songs evoke emotions on a full spectrum, dreamy unplanned travels and inspire us to question the nature of the place that each of us calls home. The fourth track, Maloya Tales, is a personal tribute to Sery's homeland 'Reunion Island' and gives the listener a glimpse of the mystical rhythms of traditional Reunionese Maloya music.

Review: Exuberant 1990s electronic music revivalist Ludwig Af Rohrscheid has released some of his most magical music of late, with December 2019's "Between Worlds" being one of his best to date. There's much to set the pulse racing on this four-tracker too, from the rushing, trance-influenced melodic positivity of breakbeat wiggler "Blissful Lie" (which, incidentally, lifts the same Aisha sample as the Orb's "Blue Room"), to the IDM/braindance fusion of "Psychiflux" and ultra-deep, spaced-out brilliance of "Cloud Walker", via the madcap insanity of "Weightless", which flips from a jazz-flecked ambient soundscape to a maniacal braindance stomper midway through.

Review: Thomas Koner has been on a strong run of form lately, not least for reviving the Porter Ricks project with Andy Mellwig, but his solo work is equally vital in the sphere of intense electronic processes, extravagant sound design and dub-informed experimentation. This new album on Mille Plateaux builds on his considerable legacy with another deep dive into DSP biomes and obfuscating synthetic textures. You can almost reach out and touch the many materials rubbing up against each other on "Extention (Attack)", while the febrile bass tone coursing through "Potential (Sustain)" feels as though it could slither out of the speakers and wrap itself around you at any moment. It takes great skill to sculpt such tones, and this album proves once again Koner is a leader in his field.

Review: Imaginary Softwoods has the kind of overwhelmingly beautiful take on ambient music that finds his early cassette-only releases being picked up and reissued on vinyl by a range of labels from Digitalis to Archives Interieures. This time around 2016 Mineral Disk release "Annual Flowers In Color" has been picked up by Amethyst Sunset, giving a fresh airing to a stunning album. The highlights are primarily the longest tracks - "Aura Show" is a stunning, glacial drone piece at heart although it goes on a sizable journey over 10 minutes. The shorter vignettes are just as delightful though - the winsome reverie of "The Geranium Room" will have you lamenting its brevity when it finishes after 65 seconds.

Review: Three years ago, Giuseppe Tillieci and Filippo Scorcucchi joined forces as LF58 for a debut EP of blissful ambient epics on Auxiliary that arguably didn't get the coverage its quality deserved. We have a sneaking feeling that the pair's debut album, which lands on the fantastic Astral Industries imprint, won't go unnoticed. For starters, it's brilliant, with the four lengthy tracks seeing them drift between Global Communication/Irresistible Force style melodic positivity (the hazy effects, huggable pads and echoing melodies of "Iniziazione"), ultra-deep, psychedelic dub techno ("Rituale", where simple melodic refrains wind in and out of sparse but hypnotic beats), swelling tropical ambient warmth with added deep space effects ("Metamorfosi") and the kind of languid, slow-motion fare that sits somewhere between Pete Namlook and Spacetime Continuum (side D suite "Evocazione/Contatto/Risveglio").

Review: After the expansive run of eXquisite CORpsE EPs on Platform 23 last year, Robbert Heijnen and Debbie Jones' project gets another fresh airing under the XqST guise. The seductive rhythmic incantations gathered on this release were largely recorded in 2003 in Vancouver, once the couple's children were in bed. Quite what the junior XqSTers would have made of the transcendental drum loops emanating from their parents' studio is anyone's guess, but the quality is remarkable. Dense and foggy in atmosphere, but with a sharply defined percussive angle at every cycle of every loop, this is another wonderful document of the often overlooked work of this singular pair of drum obsessives.

Review: Astonishingly it's been four years since we last heared from Jamie XX, who midway through the last decade seemed an unstoppable musical force of nature. This comeback 12" - a single-sided, white label affair - is therefore hotly anticipated. Happily, we can confirm that it's rather good, with the experienced producer building a fiendishly percussive groove out of layered hip-house style breaks and tribal drum hits before introducing a gargantuan bassline, speeding things up to a "Shangan" style tempo and letting loose. Throw in some bold synth lines, a few electronic bleeps and some cut-up, glassy-eyed female vocal samples and you have a future dancefloor anthem on your hands. As comebacks go, "Idontknow" is pretty special.

Review: Music From Memory are spending some time exploring the world of music created for dance and performance. There's a common interest in experimentation between the mediums, but not at the cost of musicality, which comes here with a distinct 80s veneer. Gerard Stokkink has a thread of drama and poise about the vivid synthscapes of "Yellow Turtles" while the self-titled track from Ivory Playground calls to mind the delicate fingerpicking guitar you might expect to hear from Alexis Georgopoulos & Jefre Cantu-Ledesma. Atlantis Transit Project have a heavier tribal lilt to the percussion on "Bird Perspective", and Ramuntcho Matta's "Zoique III" holds a mirror up to the freaky disco drum work of Jan Schulte and Niklas Wandt.

Review: Astonishing, 22 years have passed since the release of Stefan Betke's debut album as Pole. Along with the "2" and "3" albums that followed in 1999 and 2000 respectively, it helped establish him as a producer with a defiantly distinctive, dub-fired sound: a brand of electronic minimalism that drew just as much on ambient and micro-house as it did techno and of course reggae soundsystem culture. Crackly, spaced-out, hypnotic and mind-soothing, all three albums sound as fresh now as they did when they were first released. Helpfully, Mute has decided to reissue all three at once via this box set. There are no bells and whistles, just three essential albums in a plain black box. If you don't own them already, you know what to do.

Review: Back in 1999, Birmingham duo Plone released what we still believe is one of the most overlooked albums on Warp, the cheery Jean-Jacques Perrey-goes-IDM brilliance of "For Beginner Piano". For some reason they've released very little of note since, making this new album a must-listen for fans of warm, sun-kissed electronica, early evening downtempo grooves and cheery 1970s children's TV soundtracks. It's every bit as colourful and melodious as their Warp-era work of the late 1990s, which isn't that much of a surprise since it apparently contains tracks recorded at different points between 2000 and 2019. What's most impressive about it - aside from the quality of the Brummie duo's compositions - is just how joyous it is. One listen and you'll be hooked.

Review: Like many of his contemporaries, US producer Huerco S usually deals in wavy, trembling house amalgams, but also often deals in all things ambient and beatless. This new LP on Anthony Naples' Proibito, however, is a marked step in a different direction from the artist, and it shows us that he's more talented at the genre than merely a B2 stuck on at the end of a techno deviation. For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have) is a stunning ambient album; each track across its duration is filled with life and purpose, a clear musical and expressive direction that many so-called ambient artists lack. It's likely to be remembered for a long time, and allow this artist to be seen as having a truly experimental mindset.

Review: With the Cinematic Orchestra's epic "To Believe Remixes" album set to drop any day now, Ninja Tune has decided to offer up a couple of vinyl samplers featuring some of the finest revisions. This one begins in fine fashion via a stunning Mary Lattimore rework of "Wait For Now" in which Tawiah's sublime, heart-wrenching vocals rise above simmering strings and heavenly harps, before New York "prepared piano" specialist Kelly Moran delivers a similarly swelling, beat-free neo-classical take on "The Workers Of Art" that's every bit as sublime. Over on side B, Fennesz delivers a darker, more atmospheric take on Roots Manuva collaboration "A Caged Bird/Imitations of Life" that increases in moody intensity as it progresses, while Lucinda Chua strips "To Believe" back to stirring strings, heartfelt vocals and little else. Like the rest of the EP, it's jaw-droppingly good.

Review: Elina Shorokhova AKA Soela has shown much promise over the last few years, with her releases on Lost Palms, E-Beamz and Detroit Underground all attracting plenty of plaudits. She's now been added to the Dial Records roster and here offers up a hotly anticipated debut album that prioritises mood, melody and glassy-eyed aural textures over any specific desire to make dancefloors move. That's not to say that you couldn't play much of the music in a club setting, it's just that the brand of house explored throughout is dreamy, tuneful, ultra-deep and pleasingly hypnotic. There are nods to ambient, IDM, dub techno and minimal, too, making it the kind of set to immerse yourself in on headphones while enjoying a little spring sunshine.

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.