Back catalogue: Coldwave/Synth

Review: Soft Cell's seminal debut album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret tells a vivid tale of early 80s Britain as a seedy night world of peep shows, prostitutes and sex dwarves. It's such wonderful poetry that such a subversive act were also able to score the biggest selling single of the year and throw so many unsuspecting listeners into their lascivious world and now this landmark slice of synth pop is getting a heavyweight reissue treatment with a monster six-CD set which goes in deep on extended versions, lost demos, live renditions and instrumentals. If you want an exhaustive document of this eternal classic, then look no further.

Review: Phaedra is the fifth studio album by German electronic group Tangerine Dream, recorded in November 1973 at The Manor in Shipton-on-Cherwell, England, and released in 1974 through Virgin. An icier, tempoless departure for a band otherwise better recognised for their sequencer-led, soundtrack-bred sound, this was a hidden moulin for frost-drone fanatics, and a deviant pupil of the otherwise strict Berlin School. Despite receiving little to no airplay, Phaedra gained significant traction through word of mouth when it was released by a rather more hippified Richard Branson's fledgling Virgin label, eventually reaching number 15 on the UK Albums Chart and remaining on the charts for 15 weeks. Its long-form pieces, such as 'Sequent C' and 'Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares', represent an indifference to constraints of timing, instead washing over the ears as diachronic, swirling, crisp ice ambient smirrs.