Back catalogue: Coldwave/Synth

Review: Hassan Ideddir's 1989 single "Atfalouna" sees an expanded repress courtesy of Dark Entries. Born to Berber parents in Morocco, Ideddir began making music at the age of 10 after being discovered singing in the stairwell by his school's headmaster. Encouraged by his peers, he began playing concerts, and his status grew. In 1987, he played a string of sold-out concerts in Casablanca, Rabat, and Marrakesh, in support of a children's charity. The success of these concerts secured him a record deal, and he went to Paris to record his debut single "Atfalouna" in 1988.

Review: The iconic North London dance music duo Idjut Boys are famed for their nostalgia fueled offerings of dub, disco and house and join forces again for this 4 track single featuring 4 completely different takes on the track 'Speedball'. The 'Full Whip' version is an 80s powersynth with powerful kicks and synth perfection, an authentic use of a commodified sound used in the past couple of years. 'Severe Itching' takes the party downstairs into an acid techno rave, the liquid bass seeping through your ear canal into your skull - an utterly extraterrestrial experience. 'Strip Off Dub' is just that: a stripped back dub version of 'Full Whip'. Focusing on the heftier synths and bass, with the rushing wind effects that compromised 'Full Whip'. 'Whizbang Mix' invites you back into the bassment for another slice of acid house pie, the meeting point between 'Full Whip' and 'Severe Itching' that feels like trying to listen to the former after the laters aforementioned liquid has blocked your eardrums. This one's for the messy afterparty.

Review: Fans of mechanical techno-not-techno sounds will be all over Minimal Wave's latest transmission from 80s French underground heroes In Aeternam Vale. Having reissued several essential lost works from the outfit last year, most notably the proto-Sandwell sound of "Highway Dark Veins", Veronica Vasicka delivers another two tracks from the vault. Stylistically mirroring that previous two track release the title track is an equally brilliant synth-techno beast which could easily pass for a Function track today, while B-side "Calling Somewhere" sounds like a cold wave version of proto-halfstep. Needless to say, the fact that these tracks are 22 years old literally left us speechless.

Review: After coming up while working in the Rush Hour record store in Amsterdam, Interstellar Funk has now branched out and established his own sound and his own label. And that is Artificial Dance, where he hooks up with Loradeniz for this interesting take on cold wave and synth. The tracks are underpinned by contemporary bass and deep groves which makes them perfect for club play but not at the expense of the melodies. They are curious, crystalline, freeform and mystic and help make this a handy record that brings something different - not least the new age ambiance of 'Situational Lullaby'.

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: The arrival of Il Quadro di Troisi could not have been more ironic. Anything but new faces on the music scene, the Italian electronic partnership of Eva Geist and Donato Dozzy debuted as the reality of living in a pandemic really began to hit home - November 2020. A month that usually calls for their brand of dark, Ital-disco-cold-synth stuff was void of the situations you'd want to hear it in. No parties, no clubs, no concerts - not even an opportunity to stick it on when getting ready to do something. Nevertheless, we've more than made up for it now, and having grown incredibly close betwixt that waking nightmare and today's chaos, the arrival of a new LP is an enticing prospect. As the notes explain, "everything changes, all things evolve, nothing stays the same... La Commedia marks the band's embrace of a more traditional song form, shaped by a very personal and distinctive musical style. The distinguishing elements of Il Quadro di Troisi's music meld into a unique mix that is both seductive and eerie, elegant and earthy, contemporary and timeless."

Review: Try Googling Influenza Pods in 2022 and you're unlikely to find the work of Bruno De Angelis and Giovanna Gulinello anywhere close to the top of the results. Add Memoire, the title of this LP, and things get even worse, with scores of pandemic diaries on offer for the grisly-minded. However, do a little digging and you'll soon realise these guys were among the pioneering electronic outfits of the late-1970s and 1980s, with this particular record a case in point.

Together the pair became a couple after moving to London, stayed there for a bit before heading back to Italy, where things began to formalise in terms of studio output. Often using recordings of dialogue from British soap operas, strange sounds and funky noises, they create heavily textured, subtly rhythmic and resolutely leftfield pieces that don't immediately invoke other artists and outfits. And there aren't many people you can really say that about.