Not Not Fun US Vinyl & CDs

Review: Jimmy Lacy's first missive as Sip, a highly limited cassette put out by Chicagoan "small press" specialists Eye Vybe Records, captured him performing synthesiser soundscapes live on a local radio station. Since then, he has put out a debut studio album - the synth-wave, new-age and Radiophonic Workshop-influenced Leos Naturals - and a collaborative cassette. Here he makes his vinyl bow with another distinctive collection of synth-rooted recordings, Leos Ultras. Like much of his previous work, it seems to exist at the intersection between Stereolab, 1970s new age synthesiser recordings, lo-fi Balearica, experimental movie soundtracks and the vintage synth-powered cheeriness of Plone. It's an enticing, entertaining and pleasingly pure proposition whose occasional nods to jazz surprise and delight in equal measure.

Review: Not Not Fun, based in California, deliver their latest V/A compilation, Alley Of The Sun, a direct-to-dome soma-expander spanning the intersections and vivisections of ambient, kosmische, Americana, you name it... in their words, in fact, the inexhaustible list endowed to the label's "Pacific palette" includes "rainforest ceremony, skyway motorik, Tascam rapture, silhouette shoegaze, basement vapor, astral ascension, jazz shadows, 5th world tropics, lucid dream drone, desert quests, prophecy electronics, ritual wreckage." The compilation reflects NNF's now two-decade exploration and evolution in sound, and centres on an all-round dewey, cosmopolitan sound, of no fixed residence or polarity, and replete with gongs, sloshes, drippings, singing bowl hits, Loon bird calls and auratic hums.