Back catalogue: Experimental/Electronic

Review: Yu Asaeda's been putting out a whole range of quality, bass-centric sounds under the name ENA since the late 2000s, but these have come out on a rather sporadic basis. Appearances for the infamous 7even Recordings was followed by material on Samurai Horo, the excellent Hidden Hawaii and, more recently, the Samurai label's offshoot, Horo. Divided: Body is so much more than a mere 'bass' EP, and it actually manages to veer off into some pretty strange and imperceptible sounds that remind us of the material emanating from the PAN consortium. For instance, the opening "11th Divided" manages to create a raw, loose groove out of fractured synth sounds, which is followed up nicely by the swarming drones operating in the higher ends of "12th Divided". Over on the flip, "13th Divided" launches a subtle yet hefty groove made up of what sound like bass pops made from a monophonic synth, which leaves "14th Divided" to linger in its dreary pool of fuzzy drones and washed-up sonics. A massive, merited TIP!

Review: Etch on Ilian Tape; the stars have aligned on this one as the free-spirited breaksmith runs a fine yarn from deep meditative mindfulness ('This Morning, Transparently') to super wonky bass weirdness on the strange rolls and sways ('This Isn't Music') Constantly peppered with strange, well-dug samples and a tone and energy that grows across the EP climaxing with the devilishly cured breaks and sleepy arpeggio and trippy bass of 'Emmagedoon Snow Waltz'. No one else on the planet makes music like Etch.

Review: If there's one collaboration that we have bowed down to over the last few years, it's most certainly this new found friendship between London's Kevin Martin aka The Bug, and American doom metal guitarists, Earth. One wouldn't immediately make the connection between inner-city future-grime music and suburban stoner rock, but the two styles were in perfect unison, and this is because they're both fascinated with dark, looming clouds of bass. Whether that's through virtual synths or badass bass guitars, it doesn't matter, because the mood is mightily present. Concrete Desert is the alliance's debut LP, and it's all guns blazing from start to finish; tunes like "Snakes vs Rats" or "Metal Drone" represent exactly the sort of freshen-up that each respective act needed - on the one hand, The Bug could have done with some more external influences to the melodic constructions, while Earth needed a new framework to enter the minds of a new, European audience. We've dubbed this style 'metal drone', and we're pretty sure that it's gonna stick after you've played it out for a few minutes. A blinding collab, right here.

Review: Seven arresting, original new exercises from E-Saggila aka Canadian producer Rita Mikhael. She wears her love of dub on her sleeve - see the slow motion skank of 'Amnesiac' aming others - but not in the usual reassuring, bubbling echoes of dub techno, aiming for something much more angular and alarming. "Breaks remain staccato hammers," says the blurb, with maximum accuracy, "and kicks are cast to negate cardiac systems," while the rhythms veer from off kilter to nailed down and the sonics vary from the lush to the caustic. This territory to the left(field) of electronica is over saturated with identikit productions, but Mikhael does it like you've never quite heard before.

Review: Belgian synthesist David Edren has a sterling reputation as part of the rapidly re-blossoming (if that's a word) New Age music scene. Once the preserve of hippies-cum-proto-hipsters who preferred must to musk and were well ahead of their time in terms of things like seaweed-based chocolate alternatives and not being bastards to the planet, in the 21st Century their values, and at least some of their favourite sounds, are finally becoming mainstream.
Over 12 tracks, Relativiteit Van De Omgeving reveals itself to be an incredibly visual experience, both in terms of creation and consumption. Apparently, Edren was picturing widescreen imagery of the tracks themselves, from meteor showers to the miniature jungle of an urban greenhouse. This is reflected in the tones themselves, which move from earthy and woody ('Uurwerk') to cosmic ('Schaatsenrijder'), and back again.

Review: Ian Elms dropped his now cult classic Good Night album back in 1992. It is widely regarded as a synth masterpiece that drew on the minimal thinking of the Berlin scene, the occult charm of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and a DIY vibe from the early electronic punk world. Across 15 tracks constructed largely from voice and synthesizer, he captured fragments of emotion and embellished them with live drums, samples and a Polymoog Keyboard 280a. It has a haunting and noir charm that has made original copies impossible to find and super expensive if you do. Thankfully, Dark Entries now reissue this special record with a postcard featuring photos and notes from Elms.

Review: Duma's Lord Spikeheart and serial collaborator Elvin Brandhi come totters for some mind-boggling left-of-centre sounds here on Drunken Love. These are unhinged sounds that feed the noise of bands like Napalm Death into an industrial grinder and come out even more demented no the other side. Core to it is Brandhi's unique vocal treatments which make use of a singular sampler technique and have been present throughout her work. Even the Francis Bacon-esque cover art is brilliantly grotesque yet alluring. Though not for the faint of heart, the is a fascinating record.

Review: Emeralds really are the gift that keeps on giving. And giving. tTe Cleveland, Ohio-trio have around 40 releases out, which landed in rapid succession over a period of about four years. Many are self-facilitated CDs and cassettes, nodding to a 'record everything' mentality that keeps them front of mind, and invites listeners into their development, wrong turns and staggering successes. Within that insanely long oeuvre, formal releases bookend mini eras, each showcasing a slightly refined, retuned and rethought sound. Does It Look Like I'm Here? is no different, offering the most beautiful and crystalline music this outfit has made to date. Up against the epic-dominated preceding outings, where ten minute tunes abound, things are more 'standard album format here', with a couple of exceptions. But the tracks are not bound by uniformity or rules of this or that, and instead feel just as expansive.

Review: New York-based musician James Emrick is well known for working with Kinetic Media and is a masterful sound designer who has scored several projects. This is his new full-length and one that finds him making use of an array of granular and feedback processes within Max/MSP environments "to arrive at an idiosyncratic form of computer music that feels wilfully opposed to operating within the sediments of the genre." It's a fancy concept but one that rings true when you tune in as this is music that sounds like little else - all granular, shimmering, like falling rain or shards of glass blowing in a breeze. It's complex by process but simple to fall deep into. It has a widescreen melodic allure that makes for a cathartic and uplifting record.

Review: Formed around Peter Kember, AKA Sonic Boom and former Spacemen 3 type, Experimental Audio Research certainly lives up to its name. A daring, high concept music collective that has, at times, featured names including Kevin Martin, Eddie Prevost, and My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields, sometime collabs boast names such as Bowery Electric's Lawrence Chandler and the legendary Delia Derbyshire.

In 1996, the group released Beyond the Pale, a collection of sounds that are largely constructed through post feedback and electronic boundary stretching. Ambient in the truest, most spatial and space-y sense, what's here is truly transportive stuff capable of taking you to an entirely different realm. Packing depth, resonance, and most significantly, power, it's a landmark in the real sense of the word.

Review: Prince Istari's earliest memories are of his mother playing the tranquil melodies of Erik Satie's pieces on the piano. Skipping school, he'd bask in the sun, absorbed by the serene tunes and years later in 2024, rediscovering his mother's sheet music sparked a creative resurgence. He transformed them into dub versions, crafting a tapestry of sound, and each piece's form dictated its direction, evolving from heavy dub to delicate piano and synthesiser blends. The finale, a relic from his past as Istari Lasterfahrer, features a distorted recording of his mother playing Satie to complete the circle. This special record comes in limited quantities of just 200 copies.

Review: Troekurovo Recordings is a production team made up of Toki Fuko, Vadim Basov and Evgeny Vorontsov and they have been hidden away deep in some enchanted Russian forests recording music. Now they are putting out the results on this superb double pack. This project started back in 2016 as a live experimental jam and is now an annual tradition made on loads of analogue gear on the banks of a canyon that was formed many years ago by a melting glacier. The locale provides inspiration - from the fresh country air to the meteor showers often visible overhead - for the music making which is strictly "no preparation, no pre-programming - hardware, friends and live improvisation only."