Juno Recommends Leftfield: March 2024

Review: If you're keyed into the modern classical stretch of the contemporary ambient world, you'll have likely discovered Kali Malone before. Her works have been largely focused on the organ, which she has pushed into all manner of experimental realms as a vessel for life-affirming drones, but don't be misled into thinking that's the only tool in her kit. Malone is a constantly evolving, inquisitive artist and her new album All Life Long confirms this with specific pieces for voice and brass performed by Macadam Ensemble and Anima Brass. Rewarding the patient listener and breaking new ground in her compelling, studious approach to music, this is another firm reminder of Malone's formidable presence in contemporary experimental music circles.

Review: Chicago trio Purelink prove themselves to be sonic alchemists once more as they serve up a bewitching brew that pulls apart the essence of ambient, dub tech and electronica to rebuild all new musical forms. Ever since forming first in 2020, Tommy Paslaski (aka Concave Reflection), Ben Paulson (aka Kindtree), and Akeem Asani (aka Millia) have regularly got together in a studio workshop to explore "the endless possibilities of a laptop" armed with banks of samples. Now they distill those sessions into music that is beautifully delicate yet captivating - slow and subtle rhythms, deft chords and icy minimalism all unfurl into a richly immersive soundscape here.

Review: 36's new album Reality Engine explores "the blossoming dynamics of artificial intelligence and the ever-changing definition of reality" on Past Inside The Present and does so with a continuation of his richly melodic sound while also evolving into new realms. The sheer beauty of these sounds is enough to uplift and energise, with chords ascending to the heavens on the opener 'Imagine The Truth' and then rolling out to infinite horizons on 'Axiom Haze'. 'Reality Engine' suspends you amongst the clouds and 'Beyond The Hyperreal' is a perfect marriage of immersive and organic sounds and hints of digital augmented reality engines. A sublime album, for sure.

Review: California's James Bernard is a much-loved regular on this label as well as being a veteran of the wider ambient scene who has been hard at it for more than three decades. His latest outing on Past Inside The Present with Anthene (aka Brad Deschamps of Toronto) is Soft Octaves, an album that finds them crafting a series of sounds using electric six-string bass. It has a huge range from the deepest depths to the wispiest of highs and each of the tracks here was recorded in one single take. The results are spellbinding indeed and the range of the bass's sonic ability is astonishing as it sounds at times like a cello, at others woodwind and is always intriguing.

Review: Dark Entries takes it back to New York City in around 1982 for this previously unreleased record from Ike Yard. This cult crew was made up of Stuart Argabright, Michael Diekmann, Kenneth Compton, and Fred Szymanski and they worked in their own realm somewhere between proto-body music and No Wave peers in New York. They disbanded just a year after forming having dropped an EP on Les Disques du Crepuscule in 1981 and then a self-titled album for Factory in 1982. Using the Korg MS-20 and the Roland TR-808 they cook up plenty of hybrid electro-acoustic sounds and ramshackle rhythms that are underpinned by moody baselines and perfect to get bodies moving in the club. Whether you're a post-punk fan or lover of weird electronics, this is well worth checking out.

Review: Shanghai-based, Malaysian-born artist Tzusing offers us a future-facing and experimental techno record that also serves as a meditation on "China's complicated history of patriarchal heteronormativity, and how these archaic double standards continue to dominate the culture in pervasive, often invisible ways." It is packed with dancefloor highlights after a deep-thinking cultural monologue to start with. Hard and funky drums, twisted sonics, manic uptempo bangers and wheezing voices and downtempo rhythms all combine into something utterly unique.

Review: Arv & Miljo's new album delves into radical environmental activism and draws from the Swedish Plogbill movement's early 90s actions alongside Earth First! and Earth Liberation Front. Mixing monologues, interviews, protest songs, and site recordings with raw kosmische synth music, the pair crafts a mesmerising audio collage. Chaotic yet harmonious, disorienting yet soothing, the album reflects dedication, passion, and the spirit of change. Originally a limited CDR release in 2021, it quickly became a highlight in Arv & Miljo's discography. Now on, Jorden Forst offers a multi-faceted journey through environmental activism and the human spirit's resilience.

Review: LA based industrial trio HEALTH have had quite the curious trajectory from their confrontational noise-rock beginnings, to providing the acclaimed score to Max Payne 3, all the way to redefining themselves as a gritty, synth-metal behemoth on 2019's Vol 4: Slaves Of Fear. Following on from their lockdown-inspired two-part Disco 4 collaborative project which boasted cuts written in tandem with artists ranging from a multitude of differing sonic spheres, such as alternative hip-hop (JPEGMAFIA, Ghostemane) to hyperpop (100 Gecs) and even grindcore (Full Of Hell), their latest endeavour appears to be taking cues from both their more vicious experiments as well as their newfound collaborative ethos. With features from the likes of Godflesh and Willie Adler of Lamb Of God, whilst embracing both their metallic and techno-leaning indulgences simultaneously, Rat Wars promises to distil the myriad of components essential to the sonic makeup of HEALTH into one oppressive, melancholic, hellish, absorbing and vital collection.

Review: If you've not seem the movie Oppenheimer chances are you've had your head buried deep in the sand for the past year or so. The multi-Academy Award-winning scientific epic charts the development of the first nuclear bomb and subsequent realisation, on the part of the man who cracked the formula, that such terrifying power should never have been brought into our world. Directed by Christopher Nolan, outspoken critics of the master filmmaker may by now be wondering if he'll ever make another movie with a linear storyline - so much of his output is anything but these days. However, that slightly surreal, disjointed, era-jumping approach to storytelling necessitates a soundtrack that combines stunning classical and more avant-garde experimentations. Which Ludwig Goransson delivered with spectacular effect. Now those tones are yours to own.

Review: L.F.T. lands on Pinkman with a six-tracker of conceptual electro and dungeon synth, aimed squarely at the dancefloor. 'Electric Vampire' is the contemporary counterpart to Nosferatu; rather than transforming into a bat, this hematophagic harpy has no problem traversing the fibre-optic cables and electric wiring that make up our telecoms and wi-fi systems. The idea of an electric vampire, a version of the 'energy vampire' trope that pervades folk consciousness at the moment, likewise pervades the six tracks on this blood-boiler. The EP mutates progressively into more and more grotesque forms; by the time we reach track five, 'Demonic Toys', we're deep into the blood sacrifice, having lost fourteen pints, provided nothing resembling a tourniquet. How could you possibly stem this badboy record's flow?.

Review: Much loved doom monger emo kids Depeche Mode have always been ripe for remixing by new generations of electronic music artists and so it is that there 'My Favourite Stranger' gets a series of re-rubs here on Columbia. Tech house mainstay Boris Brejcha remixes first and elongates the grooves with mournful pads up top. The Ela Minus remix of the same tune brings some extra textured and darker moods and the best is saved till the last if you ask us. The Lond Island Sound remix is high speed and tinged with electro synth work as the moody vocals echo about the mix to trippy effect.

Review: Sindh combines old and new worlds on his latest mystic hymns, this time kicking off the A-Biotic label with his dark and alluring four-track EP 'Andaman'. He manages to fuse organic and synthetic materials here as he heads down a darkly introspective path where minimal and IDM, dub and techno all collide in mutant form. 'Jangil' is a real standout with its bubbling halftime rhythms and icy synths backed by distant angelic chorals. The bewitching sounds continue on 'Galathea' which rides back and forth on its heels as subtle sines, scurrying synths and menacing pads all interlock before 'Hinam' locks you in a dense synth stasis and loopy sense of lurching rhythm.

Review: The enigmatic Light Sounds Dark label often seem nigh but murmurers of the electronic music underground, though they're best known for their reissue compilations of 80s synth rarities. Though that's not their entire scope, with no end of new solo LPs in the vein of textural dub, wilfully obscure ambient and new wave also gracing their register. Ever mysterious, but not having released new label material since 2018, they're now back on their business with the first volume of their Intersection On The Point Of Parallel, consisting of 14 unnamed, gothic glimpses of the dark, melted-ice sublime. Beginning on a note of cacophony before teasing later chord-driven emotes and ersatz falls into droning hell and temperate acid rainforests, there's a sonic biome here for every musical temperament, from open pearl to hard-cased extremophile.

Review: Peak Oil welcomes UK duo Wrecked Lightship for 'Antiposition', a debut EP on the label from the pair of Laurie Osborne (once known as Appleblim) and Adam Winchester aka Dot Product. The pair refine their sound and bring a range of innovative rhythms here with elements of dub, d&b, tribal sounds and deft sound design across hard-to-define cuts. 'Hex' is a cosmic broken techno trip, 'Bizarre Servants' is a slower and heavier dub and 'Sunken Skies' is prickly and kinetic as it flirts with live sounding drum & bass tropes and 'Diminished Ark' as well as with wispy sine waves, refracted melodies and barely there rhythms.

Review: It's the late 1950s and modernism reigns. The fires of World War II have been extinguished, leaving behind scorched earth, half-ruined cities, and a firm focus on looking ahead to a better world. How little they knew. From this Cold War setting, wherein the lines between good and bad appear deceptively clear, a new form of jazz begins to emerge. Smooth, cool, and unarguably inviting, Miles Davis was among the greatest proponents of the 'modal' movement - whereby long, linear melodic movements were favoured over the nervous energy and tension of what had come before. The legendary trumpeter, bandleader and composer gave us a lot of landmark sounds, and his score to the Louis Malle film, Ascenseur Pour L'echafaud, isn't one of the best known. Nevertheless, it defines everything that was great and timeless about the iconic brass man.

Review: Martin Scorsese's Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues series may not be the Academy Award-winning director's most famous contribution to popular culture, but the PBS documentary film saga, in which the legendary director takes us on a journey through the development of a sound he holds dear to his heart, is well worth looking for. Featuring luminaries such as John Lee Hooker, Lightnin' Hopkins, Muddy Waters, and more, each episode welcomes a different filmmaker, allowing them to refocus on artists they love. For this album spin-off, we centre attention on the mighty Stevie Ray Vaughan, one of the most influential of all blues musicians who tragically died at the age of 35 in a helicopter crash. Although far younger than many of the greats he's often listed alongside, his exceptional abilities on the guitar, and often unique sonics, set him apart from almost anyone else, alive or dead. Listen to what we mean here.

Review: Desire shares Escape, their new album written and recorded in Los Angeles and Palm Springs, California. Inspired by the ultra-vivid world of 1970s giallo films, they wrote the soundtrack of their dreams using their favourite musical instruments: Minikorg, Jupiter 8, 909, Mellotron, Simmons Rhythm Modules, String Machine, a D-50 & Fender Rhodes. Though the set of inspirations are half a century old, the actual sound of this 13 track EBM, Italo and synthpop monster is decidedly contemporary, preferring wompy, sidechainer kick-carriers and basses abuzz, while huge gated impacts collide with steamier intakes of breath and glassy Italo elements. The ineffably laid-back quality of synthwave and pop blends well with the noirer, gothic components and are nicely joined together via the giallo theme.

Review: Curated under the expert guidance of Yoko Kanno, this LP offers a selection of chill-out and downtempo tracks that allows you to explore iconic songs like 'Adieu' from Cowboy Bebop: Blue (featuring Emily Bindiger) and a brand-new recording of the hit 'The Real Folk Blues' (featuring Mai Yamane). Immerse yourself in the cultural phenomenon of Cowboy Bebop with this exceptional vinyl set on deluxe 140g pink and dark blue marbled" vinyl disc with an insert print containing song track list, credits, liner notes and interviews with Yoko Kanno.

Review: Intersection On The Points Of Parallel Vol. II is the second volume in the eponymous series from mysterious, largely new wave and post-punk oddity reissues label, Light Sounds Dark. Fittingly, and perhaps as it should be, very little info accompanies this incredible new release, allowing us to figuratively melt into the music here. With nineteen tracks of excess wonderment - teased out through found object tinkerings, circuit-bent synths, and pre-DAW hardware wringouts - you can be sure that every track here was sourced from the deepest, darkest depths of '70s-80s tape-bound Tartarus. Notable moments include the B1 and B2, both droning, but one serving as the rhythmical counterpoint to the doomy other, and the C3, an impossible-to-place coldwave experiment that sounds like something between a Dillinja throwaway and a DZ Lectric lost cut.