Juno Recommends Balearic / Downtempo: April 2023

Review: Montreal's Bernardino Femminielli is one of those artists who seems to slip between easy categorisation, sometimes offering up deep cover grooves for the diggers, or elsewhere indulging in an arch synth pop, minimal wave and other such delights. He's gone as big as it gets on this release for Before I Die, covering the monumental 'Sign Of The Times' by Prince and giving it his own twist with some seriously breathy French vocals. On the flip, Antinote founder IUEKE offers up a subtle remix which takes a light touch and focuses on decorative sonics around the edges of the groove, while Talking Drums take a dubbier approach for their own twist on 'O Signe Des Temps'.

Review: Coyote drop a special 7 inch single. Inspired by recent events over the last 2 years and their continuing love affair with all things dub and reggae sound system.related. They have been playing lots of this type of stuff at their monthly night at The Bodega in Notts. Apparently causing some heat at recent ALFOS parties too. Bubble Up!

Review: Emotional Rescue has had this reissue in the works for a while, but it was delayed by the sad passing of Steve Coe after the rerelease of The Ganges Orchestra's The Dream. Finally, though, the right time has come for this one to be bacon the racks and it is a much-loved reminder of Coe's wizardry in the studio. It comes with plenty of Eastern flavours to bring something new to the dance floor, not least thanks to tabla disciple turned teacher, Jhalib (Millar), who helped Coe on this one back in 1982. The likes of Danielle Baldelli and chug dons like Andrew Weatherall long favoured it, and if it's good enough for them...

Review: Twisted are continuing their solid reissue campaign for one of the true greats of psy-trance culture, the mighty Sphongle. Simon Ponsford and Raja Ram's project of course reached beyond the trappings of dancefloor formula to become a much broader concern drawing on global music traditions and new age spirituality as much as mind-tweaking electronica. On this, their fourth album, the electronics were positively subsumed by intricately woven layers of flute, guitar, sitar, cello, hang drum and much more besides. Released in 2009 and remaining a firm favourite amongst the group's devoted fanbase, this remastered repress spread Ineffable Mysteries across three discs for maximum fidelity.

Review: Mysticisms' reissues are usually on point, with main man Stuart Leath and comrade Piers Harrisson doing an excellent job in picking superb, but often overlooked, material. Leath has done it again here, offering a fresh release for Japanese great (and Flower Records founder) Little Big Bee's 2006 cut 'Scuba'. The track itself is gorgeous - a noughties take on ambient house full of saucer-eyed melodies, sumptuous deep house beats, nu-jazz flourishes and the dreamiest of chords. The EP also contains two rather exciting new remixes from old pal of the label Apiento. He first joins the dots between ambient house, bleep and electro on his dreamy, sub-heavy '4AM Mix', before re-casting it as an immersive, mind-soothing future ambient classic on the 'M25 Mix'.

Review: Berlin label Magic Movement brings more transcultural musical lushness to your ears here courtesy of Kermesse. This new 12", which comes with an insert, opens with the beautifully aimless and rolling house depths of 'On The Road' which empty your mind before 'Limbo' layers in more elastic basslines and subtly vamping chords to get you on your toes. 'Melting' follows that same lazy and inviting groove framework but this time with some indie male vocals while closer 'Wawanko' casts free and heads into the cosmos with rich melodies and more well treated vocals.

Review: Yagya (Adalsteinn Gudmundsson) is one of the foremost names on the intersection of ambient house, dub techno, and dream pop, having achieved international renown for their many icy, mournful and gaseous long-players and EPs for many imprints over the years. 'Faded Photographs' is Yagya's latest, and his ninth album to date, bringing together an interesting dozen of tracks overlaid with vocals from fellow artists Benoit Pioulard and Bandreas, and saxophonist oskar Gudjonsson. While stooped in pop songwriting, every track here locks in a triplet groove on top of 4x4 beat structures, producing a skippy, carefree and lackadaisical effect.

Review: Originally released in 2020, this 12" from a Lisbon-based label made quite the splash when it first came out. While it's loosely considered an edit endeavour, given the sprawling, music-first Balearic vibe spilling out of the grooves, it's easier to consider Imaginaria EP part and parcel of this emergent label's artistic expression. They doubled down on this idea with the expansive 2022 compilation El Mundo Es Sonido, but given the OG pressing's scarcity it's great to see this first record back in print for all the eagle-eared dreamers out there.

Review: Weird balearic acid electro and downtempo from the group known as Hektisch Sprengen DJs (known as the heads of the label Terra Magica). Their efforts until now have been to release oddball music from their contemporaries, but never before have we heard anything from the heads themselves. Drawing on Latin music styles such Cumbia, there are all manner of phoned-in vocal samples thrown in, such as Dr. Alban's refrain from the 1990s hit 'No Hash Hash, No Cocaine'. A low-end-centric, soft-edged effort to induce trance states in the listener.

Review: After first surfacing last year in their native Japan, Coastline's second full-length - their debut dropped in 2019 - finally gets a 'worldwide' release on vinyl courtesy of the on-point Be With Records. Like its' predecessor, 'Coastlines 2' is a genuine Balearic delight - a sumptuous, slow-motion affair that giddy blurs the boundaries between bossa, ambient, gentle jazz-funk, samba, colourful synth-scapes and much more besides. Our picks of a very strong bunch include the Andreas Vollenweider-inspired slo-mo Latin shuffle of 'Tenderly', the blazed deep jazz-funk of 'Alicia', the piano-laden early morning wonder 'Night Cruise' and the squelchy future boogie of 'Sky Island'. In a word: superb!

Review: Satoshi is well known for his work alongside Makoto but here he steps out with a first ever solo album. The title and typography and make clear reference to the legendary Aphex Twin album that very much set the temple for electronic ambient but the music inside is wholly original. It takes the form of a collection of archival works that sit next to newer compositions. Like much of the music he has made in collab with Makoto, the sounds on this album are performed mainly on his much loved and trusty Casio CZ-5000 synthesiser. Guests such as Benedek from PPU and L.I.E.S. plays on guitar, while Makoto and Kuniyuki Takahashi bring percussion.

Review: Awesome Tapes From Africa welcome backPretoria, South Africa-born and based DJ Back Low for Impumelelo, who brings new magic to the world of amapiano. His expressive sounds mix up both dreamy stunt vibes and firmly rooted grooves with a range of superb vocalists featuring across the 12 tunes. Fresh rhythms, abstract designs and plenty of slow-burning sounds all make this another standout record from this fine new school artists. Production comes from collaborators Black Low has called upon from his local area and help make this such a vibrant and vital long player.

Review: Swiss imprint Phantom Island specialises in the kind of atmospheric, slow-motion Balearica that looks far and wide for inspiration. Their latest EP, a collaboration between live electronic performer Tillman Ostendarp and singer/songwriter Gina Ete, naturally takes a similar approach. Title track 'Le Bouqet', for example, features subtle nods towards the more atmospheric material on Peter Gabriel's 1980s album 'So' with drowsy chords, ethereal electronics, clicking beats and the sweetest of vocals, while 'Tetra' is creepy, dark and atmospheric in the extreme, with live percussion catching the ear. Elsewhere, 'Nonchalant' is like trip-hop after a hit of opiates, 'Customer Care' is a wonky number with distorted vocals, ambient textures and West African percussion, and Fuga Ronto's remix of 'Le Bouquet' is a retro-futurist leftfield synth-pop gem with added dub delay.

Review: Canadian artist Caribou's much-adored album 'Our Love' hears a reissue, harkening back to a time still occupying vaguely recent memory in which festival summers from the mid-to-late 2010s were dominated by Dan Snaith's band-backed productions and innocent croons. Explosive at the time of its release, hits such as 'Can't Do Without U', 'All I Ever Need' and 'Dive' are now veritably etched into the public consciousness, and it all comes down to Snaith's spelt-out use of soul vocal samples and cleverly warm house production.

Review: On his eighth album, legendary tech-house and low-slung techno producer Mr G offers up a typical atmospheric, mesmerising collection of cuts. Ushering us in to his rum-fired, weed-powered sound world via the hypnotic dub techno motifs and chugging tribal drums of 'For Those Who Have Lost', the long-serving Londoner proceeds to shuffle between deep, dusty, sample-rich house ('Goin' Home To See My Ma'), creepy and hushed early morning techno ('No Safe Zones'), slipped new age ambient ('Found My Space In Between', the IDM-influenced 'Floppy'), dubbed-out techno drum jams ('Mantra13 (Peace)'), ultra-deep slow jams ('New York On My Mind'), modular weirdness ('Sleepless Nightz'), head-nodding hip-hop/electro fusion ('Like DatY'All') and out-there, mind-mangling electrofunk ('Gratitude (Good, Bad, Indifferent)'.