Leftfield / Experimental / Electronic Recommendations February 2017

Review: To accompany their re-release of East Wall's superb 1991 debut album, Silence, Dark Entries has decided to put out the Italian band's forgotten debut release, 1985 single "Eye of Glass". Tending towards the darker end of the Italo-disco spectrum, but blessed with typically cheery synthesizer melodies and skewed female vocals, it's a record that seems far more inspired by the earlier British new wave synth-pop movement than pleasing the clubs of Rome or Rimini. The vocal version is accompanied by a subtly different instrumental, which includes waves of warm synths and offers more prominence to the band's bubbly electronics, throbbing arpeggio bassline, and delay-laden drum machine hits.

Review: Italo-disco digger Intergalactic Gary has described Silence, the 1991 debut album by largely overlooked synth-pop outfit East Wall, as a "timeless masterpiece" that boasts "unique atmospherics and pure emotion". Thanks to this re-mastered reissue from Dark Entries you can now judge for yourself. It's certainly a hugely entertaining collection of songs, all of which boast a killer combination of analogue drum machine grooves, sparkling synthesizers, and sassy vocals from East Wall's stylish front woman, Tiziana Wells. Interestingly, despite the album's '90s vintage, it all sounds like it was recorded in the mid 1980s. This is especially true of "Privacy", a thrusting chugger that is widely considered to be one of the heaviest tunes in the Italo-disco canon.

Review: Five years ago, as part of his ongoing vinyl reissue series, Norwegian ambient maestro Biosphere offered up an expanded edition of his 2000 album Cirque. Due to popular demand, he's decided to serve up this edition again in early 2021. The album remains as fresh as it did when it first emerged 21 years ago, with the producer's usual icy ambient sound washes being replaced by warmer, hazier aural textures, gentle melodies, deep bass and a wide variety of distant-sounding rhythms that rarely dominate the sound space. The additional material, most of which is featured on record three, is equally as impressive, with the publicity-shy Norwegian expertly blurring the boundaries between dub techno and ambient techno.

Review: If you have a serious interest in Italo-disco, you should already be aware of Kirlian Camera. For the uninitiated, Angelo Bergamini's band was founded in 1980, and has been a constant presence on the Italian music scene ever since. "Helden Platz" was originally released in 1987, and is one of the standout moments in their bulging discography. Full of Cold War-era paranoia, the A-side extended version is dark, gothic and stylish, with impassioned female vocals riding body-popping machine drums, moody chords and a mind-altering arpeggio bassline. On the flip you'll find the notably different 7" version, and the gripping dark ambient of "Burial".

Review: As one of the founding fathers of the ambient scene, any new beat-less missive from Brian Eno should be considered essential listening. It's years, though, since the ambient pioneer has put out something quite as mesmerizing as Reflection. As critics have pointed out, the single-track structure - think 54 minutes of mostly meditative bliss, with occasional darker moments, built around chiming notes that slowly shift and change shape as the piece progresses - recalls 1985's brilliant Thursday Afternoon. It feels more minimalist in outlook than other recent Eno projects, with the "generative" nature of the music (supplemented by an app that rearranges the music depending on the time of day you listen) recalling the musician's early academic approach. Either way, it's uttering beguiling.

Review: Although William Basinski's work is often tagged as 'neo-classical', the veteran producer is very much an electronic musician. His craft does involve plenty of deep instrumentation and symphonious arrangements, but he's been experimenting with tape loops and reel-to-reels for over three decades. A Shadow In Time is his new EP for his own 2062 imprint, run alongside James Elaine, and it's every bit as glorious as the rest of 2062's glorious catalogue. "For David Robert Jones" is the opening slice of glorious sonority, a wondrous loops of aqueous sounds with free-roaming jazz instruments balancing in mid-air, and a mysterious charm to its hazy smoke of sounds. The title track "A Shadow in Time" is a sparser, less imperceptible slice of ambient textures that slowly builds into a vast, fiery soundscape of aural delight. A beautiful sonic massage.

Review: The Microcosm: Visionary Music Of Continental Europe, 1970-1986 presents works from 'cosmically-taped' artists; legends like Vangelis, Ash Ra Tempel, and Popol Vuh through to more obscure names in the form of Bernard Xolotl, Robert Julian Horky and Enno Velthuys. According to Washington State label Light In The Attic, the compilation aspires to present these these works of "ambient, new age, neuzeit, prog, krautrock, cosmic, holistic stuff, whatever one calls it - as a pulsating movement unto itself", and they've done a fine job of that when you hear how well curated this album really is. From major label recordings through to limited obscure cassette editions, it unearths some truly captivating and oddly inspiring gems from beatless electronic music's recent past.

Review: With his trailblazing Black Mill Tapes series now a distant memory, Pye Corner Audio man Martin Jenkins seems to have made a conscious effort to slow down. Stasis is his first album for a year, and feels far more considered than some of his previous work. Some may bemoan the lack of experimental spontaneity, but the album contains some of Jenkins' best work to date. Check, for example, the sharp, ghostly chords, starburst melodies and metronomic synthesizer arpeggios of "Autonomization", the vintage '90s ambient electronica of "Ganzfeld Effect", and the dreamy, heartfelt bliss of the similarly minded "Ways Regained"; all are amongst Jenkins' most emotive tracks to date, and simply bristle with brilliant ideas.

Review: Having done such wonderful work alongside Wolf Muller on The Sound Of Glades album, Cass makes a welcome return with an expansive album release on Emotional Response. The German producer's ambient tendencies blossom here, occasionally meeting with laconic drums as on "U" but primarily dealing in huge swathes of melody. DJs will want to hold out for the dramatic pulse of "Ann", where a more pronounced drum set makes for one of the album's most club-ready moments. There's a strong variety of tones and moods across Youth Sessions, from the strafing arpeggios of "Running" to the bliss-out shapeless swirl of "Prismatic Prolog", and this ensures that the album will not dull with repeated listens.

Review: We've always been big fans of Delroy Edwards. But, we don't only rate his music; we love his attitude and the way in which he's gone about releasing material through his own LA Club Resource imprint. Whether it be grainy, maladjusted techno or noise and distorted juke, he has managed to build a concrete sound aesthetic for himself. Moreover, we love the fact that he's waited until now to drop his debut album instead of going in too early and risking to dilute his talents because of pressure from the scene of which he's part of, a scene which expects instant gratification and albums from the start. Hanging At The Beach has been described by Edwards himself as the most personal work he's done to date, and it truly sounds like the artist has space to play and get his mood across correctly throughout its thirty cuts. These range from his signature house sound, through to lo-Fi drum machine sketches and fine segments of power electronics. This one comes hugely recommended!

Review: Over the last two decades, few electronica producers have amassed as impressive a discography as John Beltran. Whether crafting becalmed ambient pieces, evocative IDM tracks, or atmospheric dancefloor shufflers, the veteran producer always infuses his work with an atmospheric sense of time and place. Everything At Once, his speedy follow-up to last year's Espais, is another master class in delivering emotion-rich electronic music. Highlights abound, from the glistening, Artificial Intelligence-era Warp Records IDM of "Sinem", and droning mood-piece "Gentle Boxes", to the pitched-down rush of "Tanzmuzik" and future ambient jazz classic "Dream Lover".

Review: During the 1970s, Sven Grunberg was a member of Mess, one of Estonia's most notable progressive rock bands of the period. Towards the end of the decade, he began turning his attention towards both soundtrack composition and ambient music, creating meditative electronic workouts partially inspired by his Buddhist faith. Anima 1977-2001 offers a showcase for some of his lesser-known soundtrack work, and is made up of previously unreleased tracks originally recorded for obscure animated films (and, intriguingly, what the label calls a "puppet play"). Naturally, it's all enjoyably eccentric, but also hugely impressive, sitting somewhere between electronic library music and more straightforward cinematic fare.

Review: Sound designer turned ambient explorer Scott Morgan is one of Kranky's longest-serving artists. He first appeared on the American label under his now familiar Loscil alias way back in 2001. Monument Builders is his eleventh solo full-length, and sees him effortlessly flitting between icy, slow-burning ambience, analogue soundtrack salvos (see the John Carpenter-ish "Red Tide", a bubbly blast of Cold War paranoia), cinematic tension-builders ("Straw Dogs"), throbbing, post-drone soundscapes ("Anthropocene"), and bittersweet mood pieces (the melancholic brilliance of "Weeds"). As you'd perhaps expect from a man whose day job involves scoring computer games, the album is hugely atmospheric and immersive.

Review: Aside form being a poignant and startling presence on our charts, the Mannequin label is doing plenty of justice to Italy's industrial past. Throughout the last few years, label head Alessandro Adriani has resurfaced a whole heap of incredible music from the European peninsula, and this single by the shady Flo & Andrew is a perfect example of that. Released in 1981, "Take Suicide" is a deranged pic of music, like a cavernous wave of distorted sonics and technoid power beats, it truly makes us wonder what these two dudes were smoking back in the early 80s! On the flip, things turn even weirder thanks to the ominous bleeps and sonics of "To Committ Suicide", followed by a sublime porterhouse number called "Japanese Girls". The synths on the latter are particularly reminiscent of Mr Fingers' best output. A touch of class, and an excellent reissue. 5 stars.

Review: Despite the warm glow of nostalgia promised by the title, The Golden Ravedays is not the weighty, thrill-a-minute voyage into hardcore revivalism some may expect. Instead, it sees veteran German producer Superpitcher deliver a pair of fireside-warm, loved-up outings that sit closer to Balearic pop than sweaty, warehouse-friendly club smashers. A-side "Little Raver" sees him singing a hazy song about a long-lost dancer over a rich, warm, evocative and decidedly lo-fi pop backing. B-side "Snow Blind" is an altogether sunnier affair, with cascading electronics, dreamy chords and tumbling melody lines wrapping themselves around a chugging, head-nodding dancefloor groove.

Review: Felix K and DB1's Elemnt project is an intriguing prospect. This debut album builds on the promise of previous releases by showcasing the duo's hard to pigeonhole style over three weighty slabs of wax. Stylistically, their dark, intense and often obtuse incorporates elements of dark ambient, modular techno, experimental D&B, minimalist aesthetics, metallic IDM (think Autechre, for starters), post-dubstep heaviness, experimental noise, and even a dash of dub techno. It's a mixture that makes for interesting and largely enjoyable listening, with highlights worming their way into your consciousness rather than leaping up off the wax.

Review: We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want Records is a label founded and curated by Oliver Mental Groove of Mental Groove Records and Stephane Armleder aka The Genevan Heathen of Villa Magica Records. This is the label's seventeenth release in only a mere three years of operation and they've brought us a bunch of much needed re-issues of work by the likes of Bernard Parmegiani, John Carpenter and Michel le Grand. Here we have the original soundtrack of Amer, a 2009 Belgian-French horror film written and directed by French directors Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani. There are contributions from some of the greatest Italian composers such as Stelvio Cipriani, Bruno Nicolai and the possibly the best of them all: Ennio Morricone. As a bonus there are eight "thrilling, frightening and suspenseful infinite loops" taken from the movie's original sound effects library.