Juno Recommends Leftfield: February 2022

Review: Burial's first full-length EP since 2012's 'Rival Dealer' hears the South London enigma plunge the depths of his newest dark ambient sound, wrenching the emo essences of rave from their breakbeats to produce a purely ambient affair. Spanning every emotion from depression to triumph, 'Antidawn' opens with a cough, in a seeming nod to the COVID lockdowns of recent years. Meanwhile, disparate sections buzz and weave in and out of one another on 'Shadow Paradise' and 'Strange Neighbourhood', never quite landing on their feet before being whisked away again. One of Burial's most defining world-building works.

Review: After a run of reissues and a boundary-blurring fusion of classical music and electronica (January 2021's Angel's Flight), Norwegian ambient veteran Geir Jennsen AKA Biosphere has gone back to basics on Shortwave Memories. Ditching software and computers for analogue synths, drum machines and effects units, Jennsen has delivered album that he claims was inspired by the post-punk era electronics of Daniel Miller and Matin Hannett, but instead sounds like a new, less dancefloor-conscious take on the hybrid ambient/techno sound he was famous for in the early 1990s. The results are uniformly brilliant, making this one of the Norwegian trailblazer's most alluring and sonically comforting albums for decades.

Review: Tom Middleton and Mark Pritchard created a landmark of ambient music when they released 76:14 back in the 90s. Their Global Communication project was never just about ambient though, and it also coursed through deep house and more besides. In the spirit of progress, Middleton has returned to thinking about the project from a contemporary perspective, stepping forth as GCOM with the epic scope of E2 XO. From stirring orchestral suites to high octane DSP, it's an expansive listening experience that shows Middleton pushing himself into new terrain in the studio. Whether you tie it back to the prior material or not, it's a towering piece of work from an elder statesman of UK electronica.

Review: Polish composer Olga Wojciechowska and veteran electronic producer Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner, combine on A Strangely Isolated Place to revisit a beloved Strie album - Olga's more electronic and experimental alias. With previous releases on Serein and Time Released Sound as Strie, Olga Wojciechowska's 'Struktura' was released in 2015 to a limited audience due to its physical-only format. As Olga's work becomes increasingly more coveted, through her more recent releases on A Strangely Isolated Place (Unseen Traces & Infinite Distances), and with Struktura praised as one of her finest albums to date, the discussion to breathe new life into the album resulted in a unique pairing with Scanner, an electronic music producer and multimedia artist responsible for some of the most defining works of the genre since the early 1990s.

Blurring the line between harmony and dissonance, Struktura's original recordings paint an eerie, haunting and beautiful picture, conceptualized around abstract art, with intricacies and mystery abound. Here, Strie's original recordings remain untouched, albeit lovingly remastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri, and it is left to Scanner to provide further interpretations of Olga's original recordings. Scanner productions can typically traverse a myriad of styles, but here, Robin took a primarily live-hardware approach to the remixes, allowing the rawness of his recordings to add story and depth. Recorded in one take, with no overdubs, the reinterpretations strip the melodies and textures to their original essence, bringing an entirely analog element to Olga's intrinsically detailed originals. Featuring artwork by Rep Ringel and mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri, Struktura Revisited will be available on Gatefold 2LP in a black/grey half-and-half vinyl, with 6x6" soft-touch heavy art card.

Review: Delia Derbyshire has rightly been getting the props she deserves in recent times, albeit many years after they were due. Best known for the pioneering work she did with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, she is in no uncertain terms one of the most innovative electronic musicians of the last century. Her album The Dream was written in the 19060s and is the result of being asked by British playwright Barry Bermange to create music for four of his radio plays. Fantome Phonographique reissue it now in all its rather desolate and eerie glory with subtle drones, spoken words and mystic motifs making it an intriguing listen.

Review: Gang of Duck's co-founder Sabla serves up a debut album on new label Pensaments Sonics, which has been conceived out of the necessity "to release albums from a sonic perspective." This one is a brilliantly frayed-edge, soft focus work of ambient electronics, swirling pads and found sounds that add rich detail to the often sparse tracks. Lots of shadows, dream states and hallucinations feature throughout as tracks get dark and sub aquatic like 'Ground Loop' and more post-human and desolate on 'Constellation Of Data.' Introspective yet propulsive, this is a hugely absorbing listen.

Review: Lion's Drums full length exists as en exploration in multiple dimensions. First by challenging the notion of the album format by presenting a body of work that lies snuggly between remixes, edits and original works and secondly as a means to delve into the transcendent potential of the drum. The album sets the tone by putting these two concepts fully on display with its hypnotic chant, swaying one into ease over the first two songs. In orderly cue folding and unfolding, meditatively through, melodies as muddied pastelle whispers cast over the measured language of the drum. Breaking away from the musing themes of the opening songs we find an ecstatic ritual in "Tanz der Korperlinge" and "Journey to Middle Earth", two distinct varieties but both of the same perennial species. Inky ether seeps back in through the second half of the album with a peak of frenzied tumbling toms and incongruous textures hovering above in the Manos Tsangaris' collaboration "Crying Tafel" and his re-imagining of Tullio De Piscopo's unhinged drum excursion "Fastness". The closing exemplifies the edit/remix/original ethos proposed for this work with Lions Drums drawing from tapes and original material of electronic pioneers Suzanne Ciani and Roberto Musci. Drawing from unreleased music and song sketches by the original artists as well as field recordings from travels & studio sessions made by Roberto Musci & Manos Tsangaris in the 80's and early 90's he constructs a side winding journey through playful textures and ethereal moods.

Review: The titan of soundtracks himself Hans Zimmer may be best appreciated in a multiplex over the sound of crunching popcorn, but some of his compositions transcend the silver screen to become engrossing listening experiences on their own terms. That's absolutely the case with Interstellar, which finds Zimmer stretching his compositional chops into the cosmos - a theatre grand enough to house the full scope of his vision. Pressed at audiophile quality on double clear vinyl, this might well be the finest way to experience Zimmer's multi-faceted score as it veers from ascendant synth suites to plaintive piano passages and more patient, subtle moments of reflection. A grandiose edition for a grandiose piece of work.

Review: Mary Lattimore's last album Silver Ladders is still a firm favourite here at Juno HQ, two years on from its release. To keep us fans sated the Los Angeles-based harpist is now back with a counterpart release, Collected Pieces: 2015-2020, which brings together some of her best bits from that five year period. It is a limited edition record that also includes some new and unreleased bits, singles that have only been on Bandcamp before now and some other obscurities from 2017's sister LP, Collected Pieces. It is a heavenly selection with contact mics and pedals the only accompaniment to Lattinmore's Lyon and Healy Concert Grand Harp.

Review: John Carpenter soundtracks are always going to get any record collector hot under the collar. Escape from New York, featuring Hollywood heavyweights Lee Van Cleef and Kurt Russel, from way back in 1981 is one of the great man's many successes. Right from the opening bars there is an unmistakable sense of tension and drama that draws you in. All of the original tracks are included on this blue, limited edition vinyl version as well as more than 20 minutes of unreleased music plus sounds from scenes deleted from the final print.

Review: In remembrance of Pete Birch, AKA Woosh, AKA The Peaceful Ones and founder of Spirit Wrestlers. Four ambient pieces, three of which were released as part of Pete's 52 Card Trick series on the Spirit Wrestlers Bandcamp site, plus another piece which was a favourite of Pete's but was never finished in time.
Collected together on vinyl for the first time, all profits from the sale of this record will be donated to the Spirit Wrestlers Foundation. Set up after Pete's passing, the Foundation promotes the belief that ""Music is the Healing Force of the Universe"", that ""Love Is the Most Important Thing"" and helps causes that were close to his heart. Nx

Review: 'No Beauty In The World' is a reflection of how in a world so cruel we can find beauty, with its music bouncing between beautiful ambience and piano loops, modular synth melodies to darker textural and feedback driven drones. Unlike other wounds records where the fluidity of the entire album tells a story, 'No Beauty In The World' explore various sonic possibilities and territories. This is a culmination of over 2 years of writing and recording, constantly driven by the uncertainty and darkness in the world that we live in. Despite it all, the sonic arc of the album gives us something to hope for, maybe there is beauty in the end. The record was engineered and mixed by Diogo Strausz (Far Out Recordings) in France and mastered (digital and vinyl) by Lawrence English (Room40). The record features collaborations from guitarist Carlos Ferreira and drummer / synthesist Phillip Stosberg.

Review: The Malka Tuti train keeps on rolling across international landscapes, with core artists Tapan in the engine room, steering the ship. The Belgrade duo, made up of Nebojsa Bogdanovic and Goran Simonoski, have teamed up with fellow Malka Tuti artist Decha (aka Viktoria Wehrmeister) for their latest single. 'Twenty' in its original form thumps at a chugging tempo populated with bugging synth lines and unusual percussive clangs, while Decha's voice springs from speech to singing and back again. There's also a collection of remixes, including a swirling Full Circle version and the snappier EBM snarl of Rebodello's '2021 Positive Thinking' remix. Finishing it off is Tapan's own beatless version, which ramps up the trippy FX and dense pad tones for a truly evocative experience.

Review: Re-issue time for the fourth long playing effort from Daniel Lopatin's Oneohtrix Point Never project, this one initially dropping after a lengthy gap. His knack for texture and fuzzing soundscapes knows no bounds, but here they are offset with more open and empty pieces that reset the mood. There are moments of pure inward reflection, more outward gazing ambient tracks that imbue you with a sense of hope and plenty of hallucinatory melodies.

Review: RECOMMENDED
If you've ever heard Tom Waites' 1999 attempt at freaking the shit out of anyone in earshot - 'What's He Building in There?', the closest a song has ever come to parodying a David Lynch movie scene - then the opener here, 'Guram', might sound familiar. In fact, there are enough nuanced noises floating about Malar to ensure the whole album feels like it's suggesting things to you.

Ultimately, Uwalmassa has delivered what you might call a percussive, atmospheric masterpiece. Even at the most ambient-drone end, for example 'Caruk', the sounds involved have enough patterned purpose to ensure you're never going to wander too far into the abyss. Meanwhile, a good chunk of what's here - 'Putung', 'Rantas', 'Belit', to name but three - are resolutely drum tracks, dipping toes into subtle effects, waves and delays to help engineer distinct moods.

Review: Jaki Liebezeit, Clive Deamer and Tony Allen are all clear influences on Marconi Union's new album Signals. The Manchester musicians have already got a well formed discography (there have been a rather impressive 12 albums in the last 18 years) but this latest addition is another boon. It's a seamless mix of synthetic textures with organic sound, shimming drums with soaring riffs. The drumming is in fact central to this record - never overbearing but never insignificant, it provides the compelling rhythms while the mellifluous guitars add the emotion. A deeply involving listen for sure.

Review: We're never short of magical soundtracks from the Italian master Morricone. You might well spend your whole life trying to comprehend every score and still be left with some gaps to fill. Thankfully Vinyl Magic are here to help with a new pressing of an all time 60s classic, Vergogna Schifosi. It's redolent of the era, with chirpy beat on "Guardami Negli Occhi" sounding unmistakably 60s, while the more fantastic, female singer-led pieces like "Ninna Nanna Per Adulti" capture the otherworldly mood Morricone could inspire in his music. Pressed up on clear vinyl and every bit as beautiful as it sounded when first released, this is an essential facet within the career of an all-time great.

Review: New Musik is a band well known to deep diggers and synth music lovers. They dropped their debut album From A to B in 1980 and a CD version with extra tracks followed din 1984 as did a reissue in 200. This latest repress comes across two slabs of translucent vinyl and charts the earliest sounds of the South London school friends. At this point the band had already appeared on BBC Top of the Pops but shunned major offers to instead hone their craft first. It paid off, as this is a fantastic debut.

Review: Jazz legends Miles Davis and Michel LeGrand composed the soundtrack to Dingo 30 years ago, which is why this anniversary edition is now bing served up by Rhino on heavyweight red vinyl. It is the first repress since original rase in 1991 and Selections from the motion picture include one of Miles Davis' final filmed performances. There was a huge number of personnel involved in the album, with everything from woodwind to French horn, keys, bass and trumpet to sax, drums and percussion all involved in making it a rich tapestry of stylish and evocative jazz.

Review: Polytechnic Youth kicks off the year with a superb new MITRA MITRA full length album, their first since the brillaint 2018 album Marionettes, also on this label. The Vienna bad formed towards the back end of 2014 and since then Violet Candide and Mahk Rumbae have gone on to great things. Candide hails from New Zealand and has long been immersed in the post-punk and minimal synth scene as both a DJ and more battery a producer. Rumbae is a Brit who has been part of bands like Konstruktivists. This new record heads in a darker direction than before and is all the more alluring for it.

Review: RECOMMENDED
Boy Harsher really can do no wrong. The dark wave, minimal-leaning devil disco synthers - AKA vocalist Jae Matthews and producer Augustus Muller - have been making music to blow minds, and accompany visceral imagery, since long before they had tracks licensed for TV and movies. So it's fitting they have now graduated to writing an entire score, and what a score it is.

The Runner spans the groove-infused, mechanically euphoric 'Autonomy', through the sinister and unsettlingly tense 'The Ride Home', 'Machina' and its sexy retro-futurism, 'Escape''s e-funk warm balladry, and so much more. It's a wild ride through an after dark world that's as familiar today as it was in the 1980s, and yet still feels like a true adventure. Compelling to listen to, and that's putting it mildly.

Review: Within moments of 'Lust' kicking into its delightfully opiate take on disco you're hooked on Boy Harsher. Many try to emulate the spirit and sound of the 1980s synth underground, few have managed to hit the nail on the head while still delivering something that's entirely themselves, and feels as though born of a new era, and an old one, all at the same time.

So much of Lesser Man feels similar to what you imagine having sex with robots might be like - militant, deceptively human, and unbelievably raunchy in a stiff kind of way. The future unfolding, crashing, and trying to love in front of your eyes, if this is telling of 2022's musical standards then we're all in for a real treat. Twisted, slightly sinister, utterly sexy, mechanical-but-groovy joy.

Review: Zombie Flesh Eaters, or Zombi 2 to give it's Italian title, is just one of the many, many horror films Fabio Frizzi soundtracked, but it's surely one of his most famous works. Beyond the gory delights of the visuals, Frizzi's compositions remain stunning period pieces from the vanguard of synthesiser music. Now Beat Italy have gathered the soundtrack together for a run of reissues, all adorned with different artwork, which aim to celebrate this monumental work. For the collectors, you'll be hard pressed to choose a favourite so maybe just plump for them all to be sure.

Review: The work of long-serving, previously cult Italian composer Piero Umiliano has come under the spotlight of late, with reissues of both his oddball soundtracks to bizarre European movies, and fresh pressings of some of his most enticing library music LPs (most notably collectors' favourites Polinesia and Continente Nero. This vast box set digs deeper into his work as a composer for music libraries, offering up CD editions of 13 albums Umiliani wrote and recorded between 1971 and '83. There's naturally plenty of variety across the albums -horror-friendly synth sounds, suspenseful electronica, camp disco, grandiose orchestral works, Afro-cosmic and psychedelic funk all feature - while the compositions themselves are frequently eccentric, entertaining and ear-pleasing in the best possible ways. A superb, in-depth celebration of one of Italian music's cult figures.

Review: The best thing about music is the way it continually presents you with people that have been doing their thing for time, and very well indeed, but have somehow managed to do that thing far from your wandering ear. Introducing John Carroll Kirby, just one star in the constellation of Los Angeline music, but one who has worked with the likes of (drum roll, please) Solange, Norah Jones, Frank Ocean, Miley Cyrus, and Bat For Lashes, among others.

In truth, you can probably hear as much of those artists as you can another of his conspirators, Connan Mockasin, here. Cryptozoo is a record out of time, but perhaps not timeless. We wander through strange ambient jazz, elevator hooks, and cut scenes from a forgotten Final Fantasy game. It's the past and present, it's familiar and yet exploratory, and it makes perfect sense as aural accompaniment to a movie about metaverse beasts.

Review: German electropunk veterans Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft (aka DAF) have a long and storied as well as vital musical history. This album, Nur Noch Einer, is a poignant one before you hear here the first sounds on account fo the fact that it was started by the band's Robert Gorl and Gabriel Delgado in late 2019, but just a few months later, Delgado sadly passed away. The writing process was stopped in its tracks but after some time had passed, Gorl decided to finish the record on his own. The title means 'Down To One' and is a perfectly pure embodiment of the band's sound.