Back catalogue: Experimental/Electronic

Review: The Avidya label arrives with a bold new concept that sees it push itself to "step out of comfort zones to release a series of EPs of broad, challenging and deep music." The first affair is a fine one from four artists, the first of which is Lyon based procure A Strange Wedding from the Worst label. His slow trance locks you in and then Gothenburg trio Datasal come through with a prog rock and post funk and dance fusion. 84PC's contribution is peak time gold and Barcelona's Iro Aka arrive with another debut to round out this fine offering.

Review: LIMC's Ramp EP is a perplexing thing. Released by Germany's Inch By Inch this year, it sounds like it was born in simpler times, while also being a complex piece of work by anyone's standards. Downbeat? Certainly in terms of tempo, but perhaps not so much when it comes to how you take in the contents, which are designed to keep you hooked rather than play easy on the mind.

IDM? Maybe, there are few genre labels more fitting, although to us it really sounds more like an accomplished, refined, and sophisticated retro-hued video game score looking for a home and finding one not in the colourful on-screen antics of some bright-eyed playable, but the sound systems of forward-thinkers everywhere. A great, if obscure, one to own.

Review: For the second release on New York City's Peace Anthem Records, Annie Garlid
Aka UCC Harlo - a viola player and singer from Connecticut, living in Berlin - joins NY Graffiti for what the label so eloquently described itself as 'Ketamine-paced grooves, baroque miniatures, hazy-humid sonics, and dub inflections'. On the A side, you've got UCC Harlo serving up the minimal atmospherics of 'Let's See' awash in shimmering FM synth aesthetics, followed over on the flip by the evocative breaks of 'UN' by NY Graffiti, not to mention each of them delivering a remix of the other's track.

Review: Chewed Corners represents the first u-Ziq album from Mike Paradinas in six long years, a period where the electronic music landscape has shifted considerably. A shift thanks in no small part to his own role at the head of Planet Mu that has established itself as one of the most formidable names in electronic music, documenting the ever fracturing dubstep genre as well as steadfastly championing the Chicago footwork scene. This new album sees Paradinas embrace the dual influences of 80s synth pop and Chicago footwork across a suite of 14 tracks filled with luscious analogue sounds that feel like the logical extension of the sound explored on the recent u-Ziq EP XTEP.

Review: Always hot on the steel-hard plates and murky subterranean atmospheres, Public System turns in a haunted double package from the crypt. Spanning hi-octane indus bullets, half-baked mutant salvos and shadow-clad juicers from a host of reputed names and rabid underdogs, this new comp collates ruff’n’tuff joints from gritty techno don Container, genre-unbound explorer E-Saggila, Berlin’s electro arsonist Privacy, acid-spitting hydra DJ Loser x Penelopes Fiance, basement guerillero Yabboq Penuel alias Le Syndicat Electronique, neo-punk beat thrasher Crave, Yves Tumor collaborator and sine-wave crusher Anthem, expert circuit dissector Beau Wanzer, Liquid G as remixed by Mick Wills, Night Gaunt’s Lower Tar, occult machine funk preacher Maenad Veyl, DJ Chupacabras under new guise 110, soundwaves cross-pollinator DJ Richard, vibrant mood-scapist Gavilán Rayna Russom, as well as label boss Myn going ubiquitous with studio fellows Kluentah as Myntha, and R Gamble as Fade Accompli. A much desirable feast of raw, unhinged, all-round spine-tingling jams for the club and not.