Juno Recommends Experimental May 2020

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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.

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: Hospital Records has decided to close down Med School after 13 years, an imprint it used to offer up a mixture of more experimental fare and tracks from fast-rising artists. "Med School: Graduation" is the label's last hurrah - a triple-vinyl set with bonus 10" dubplate containing tons of previously unheard material from many of the artists who passed through the imprint over the years. It's a fittingly impressive and expansive finale, with highlights appearing at a rate of knots. We're particularly enjoying the slick jazziness of Bop's "Magic.gif", the dubstep-goes-tribal insanity of Royalston's insane (and insanely good) "Mark's Shibari Groove", the soundscape D&B shimmer of Etherwood's "Nowhere To Go But Everywhere" and the punishing peak-time brilliance of S.P.Y's "Black Flag VIP".

Review: Three years on from his last full-length outing, Norfolk's leading electronic adventurer returns with a brand-new album, his fifth in total. "Blizzards" is in some ways similar to the melodious and inventive trademark sound he's been crafting over the last 15 years - think bold electronic melodies, unsettling and off-kilter chords, curious noises, and occasional rhythms that sit somewhere between IDM and ambient techno - yet at times it feels more fuzzy and forthright than usual. So amongst the relaxed and slowly shifting soundscapes and quirky electronica you'll find a number of bustling club cuts, with "Stepping Stone", "Vectra" and the surging, sparking "Eris & Dysnomia" standing out.

Review: This EP from Tokyo based NTS host Adam Oko was first put out in 2015 as a cassette on London imprint Astro:Dynamics. The four pieces of instrumental music that make it up are charmingly pastoral and beautifully soothing. They wash over you repeatedly with an ambient charm but also subtle, implied sense of rhythm that gives them real movement. Each one adds up to a natural musical landscape from the sunniness of the opener to the more pixelated textures and mischievous late night feel of "Diet Of Germs." In between there are jazzy harmonies and abstract notions of funk that draw you in time and time again.

Review: After impressing via relatively low-key appearances on NON and Hyperdub, Klein returns with his first album since his self-released debut, "Only" in 2016. It's the kind of album that rewards repeat listens, with the producer's layering of different audio elements (processed field recordings, snatches of instrumentation, skewed vocal snippets and so on), skewed beats and impressively out-there experiments requiring serious focus and consideration. We can confirm that it's well worth the time, though, as the set's mixture of out-there ambient experiments, glitchy beat tracks, dense sound collages and curious interludes is really rather impressive.

Review: Lorenzo Senni returns to the fray after a couple of years out with his highly advanced, emotionally charged electronics. After the scintillating run of EPs on Warp, he delivers his first album for the label he now calls home, and it builds on the sound he's established by fusing the heart-rending impact of trance with bold sequencing and processing that could only come from a smartly arranged tangle of internal computer processes. This is elegant computer music with guts, and exuberant blasts of personal expression rendered in glorious high definition. It's as good as everyone expects, and for that we should rejoice. Welcome back Lorenzo Senni!

Review: Husband-and-wife team Carl Hultgren and Windy Weber have been successfully fusing elements of ambient, dream pop and shoe gaze since the early 1990s, keeping up a steady release schedule that has so far resulted in no less than 11 studio albums and a string of inspired collaborative sets. Their latest album, "Allegiance & Conviction", is their first for three years and sees them drowsily drift through a selection of opaque, otherworldly tunes rich in densely layered guitars, hazy aural textures, barely audible vocals and dreamy, delay-laden sounds. It's a hugely enticing set all told, with our favourites including the glistening head trip of "Moth To The Flame", the Labradford style post-rock drones of "Alone" and the slow-burn bliss of "Crossing Over".