New releases last two weeks: Coldwave/Synth

Review: If you at first mistakenly read the title of the new Pye Corner Audio box set as "Where Things Are Now: No Tomorrow", you're not alone - Martin Jenkins' effortless blend of retro-nostalgia and forward-facing production is a keen match for reflexive cynicisms like this. His use of sizzling vintage audio-tropes could only have been achieved in the 21st Century and helps foster a reinstated optimism. The name of the full series is actually Where Things Are Hollow; and while two volumes have been released already, a third original one now comes added here, on top of a full remix roundoff featuring Alessandro Cortini, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and John Talabot, producing this rather banging four-volume set.

Review: Xmal Deutschland commemorate their influential 4AD years (1983-1984) with a brand new release, literally presenting us with Gift. The collection celebrates the band's profound impact on British audiences in the early 80s, marked by a unique and half-devised lyrical language, as well as a magnetic feminine mystique commandeered by the women in the group. Their breakthrough support slot with Cocteau Twins accompanied the first two albums to come out via 4AD, which grabbed audiences by the collective ear with a painter's stroke of hard-graded darkwave and goth. Gift brims with a penumbral presence, while the titular "gift" is intended as pharmakon, both a present and a poison; Xmal's music is appropriately contradictory and complex, skating thin ices of beauty and elusivity. This limited-edition 3xLP boxset includes Abbey Road remasters of their albums Fetisch and Tocsin, along with tracks from related releases like Incubus Succubus II and Qual, packaged with striking artwork and a photo booklet. The magic of Xmal Deutschland lingers like radiation and has an indelible half-life.