Erased Tapes Vinyl & CDs

Review: Iceland's Olafur Arnalds (Kiasmos) and German multi-instrumentalist Nils Frahm team up again for some breathtaking excursions in classical/ambient crossover bliss. Frahm's sombre piano passages gently dance over Arnalds' serene soundscapes and eerie field recordings on this bittersweet and emotive journey. What was meant to be a one hour video recording of the duo in action turned out to be an eight hour long improvisation session and these are some of the segments of the wonderful marathon recording. We particularly enjoyed the gorgeously haunting electronic soul captured on "23:52" where those analogue synth strings just rise and rise to an epic climax.

Review: Ben Lukas Boysen's Alta Ripa marks a transformative milestone in his artistic evolution as he blends introspection with bold experimentation. Rooted in the serene landscapes of rural Germany where his creativity first blossomed, the album also reflects the dynamic energy of Berlin, which reshaped his sound in the early 2000s. Boysen's fourth studio album bridges past and future, merging the reflective melodies of his youth with the innovative tones of Berlin's electronic scene. He describes it as music his 15-year-old self would admire but only his grown-up self could create. Unbound by tradition, Boysen's eclectic influences drive his constant musical reinvention.

Review: You know we're all in trouble if Daniel Brandt starts making albums about the Doomsday Clock - now closer than ever to midnight, and Armageddon - and whether or not the Earth will survive us. More than just a record, not only does this reflect the darkest of the Brandt Brauer Frick legend's oeuvre, thematically and in moments aurally, it also represents the latest in his long list of defining work and groundbreaking projects from the artist. The LP is one aspect, an apocalyptic live rave show another, where fans and masochists alike can indulge in a multimedia presentation of end times. Sticking to the sounds, though, Brandt again shows himself to be a true electronic maestro here, from the earthy wooded percussive loops of 'Resistance', to the droning string funnels on 'Addicted', 'Steady''s rolling post-club depth, and the opening alarm call future tech-step of 'Paradise OD'. So, if it does all come down to this, at least we're bowing out on a sonic high.

Review: Erased Tapes, London's purveyors of the new garde in ambient music, take on one of the legends in revered Oregon folk experimentalist Peter Broderick. On the Partners LP, he starts out with the spoken word poetry of the title track, then the sombre piano piece "In A Landscape", complete with eerie tape hiss lurking in the background. Other highlights include the emotional and bittersweet "Carried" and the awe inspiring closing track "Sometimes" where Broderick's vocals come gloriously come into the fold, on a price which is truly captivating and special.

Review: Coming from a classical piano background, Nils Frahm has certainly turned into one dark dude! Having already released plenty of works on a myriad of labels, he lands on London-based Erase Tapes with what is probably one of his wildest pieces of music to date. Spanning 12 tracks in total, Frahm goes from joyful odes to the piano over to psychedelic synth improvisations to what sound like intricate tape manipulations, nutty drum-machine programming and a bag full o'field recordings. If you're into the idea of Tchaikovsky on some serious amounts of stimulants then look no further, this guy is shaping the way pianos are played...

Review: In 2018, Nils Frahm initiated the "Encores" series: a trilogy of EPs exploring different aspects of his musical world. Here, those sets get gathered together on vinyl for the very first time. Listened to in sequence, it sees the Berlin-based pianist and composer offer up solo acoustic pieces for piano and harmonium (tracks 1 to 5), before layering up piano, processed field recordings and complimentary instrumentation on a suite of sublime ambient tracks (6 to 9). The final section of the album - originally "Encores 3" - sees him flip the script entirely, working almost exclusively with a combination of modular and analogue synthesizers and electronically processed voices. That the collection hangs together as a coherent album despite these stylistic shifts is testament to Frahm's abilities both as a performer and producer.

Review: RECOMMENDED
Even the most determinedly understated chin-strokers will likely have emitted a squeal of delight when this one was announced. Everyone's favourite electronic producer-cum-contemporary composer (or vice versa?) releasing his latest works of art across two media - namely an album on cult hero label Erased Tapes, and a movie available on highbrow streaming service Mubi.

This is the audio, and while nobody who caught the video when it was available to view on-demand could argue this is just as powerful on its own, the solo sound is still an intoxicating and compelling ride. 'The Dane' is classy piano bliss, '#2' sits in the big room electronica end of things, 'Fundamental Values' is a scatty, broken ambient journey to the edges of drum 'n' bass, 'Enters' opens on long, ambient refrains.

Review: Japanese vibraphonist and marimba player Masayoshi Fujita returns with Migratory, his masterful new solo album, on which his sonic explorations into the unknown continue. Forming part of a nascent uptick of albums exploring ideas of freedom in movement and displacement, Fujita's record sonically documents and expresses a return to his native Japan with his wife and three children, fulfilling his lifelong dream of living and composing music in the midst of nature after remaining resident in Berlin for 13 years. After this move, Fujita set about converting an old kindergarten into a music studio, and, perhaps adjoining his own experience of raising children, found himself composing Migratory in part through the dialogue formed of the ideaistic relationship of early childhood, movement and settling. Selectively mixing bird ambience, electronics and, of course, his patented vibraphone, Fujita's record is a melancholic but no less arresting one.

Review: Kiasmos is the duo of Icelandic composer olafur Arnalds and Faroese musician Janus Rasmussen. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of their iconic debut album, it now gets reissued on a limited blue vinyl pressing of only 2000 copies. This album has been streamed over 100 million times on Spotify and is a cornerstone of experimental and ambient music that has inspired many artists around the world. Following the success of their recent album II, this anniversary release reminds us of the pair's beginnings when two friends were simply experimenting and creating music together in the studio. It has aged well and prices a great release from busy modern life into a world of supple rhythm and delicate, tender melody.

Review: London-based Erased Tapes stalwart Rival Consoles crafts electronic music with an emotional core, bridging the human and the synthetic in a way few can. His ninth album channels a renewed creative energy, emerging from a period of detachment to produce some of his most immediate and affecting work. 'Catherine' flickers with a stripped-back intimacy, its exposed melody riding skittish drums, while 'Known Shape' lunges into unfamiliar rhythmic terrain. The title track, a euphoric closer, marks the point where hesitation turns into catharsis. Elsewhere, '2 Forms' bends and fractures under its own weight, and 'In a Trance' locks into an off-kilter, hypnotic pulse. Field recordings and unconventional techniquesidrums dampened on a sofa, tape loops capturing shifting room acousticsilend a tactile quality to the album, reinforcing its sense of place. Each piece feels like a snapshot, an artefact from a restless journey, where nostalgia and forward momentum collide in vivid bursts of colour.