Planet Mu Vinyl & CDs

Review: Planet Mu has been one of the breeding grounds for juke and footwork even before many people over in Europe had cottoned on the hyper-rhythmic US style. They continue to put out the genre's fresh sounds, this time with Chicago man DJ Manny pushing the template into fresh new realms. He climbs high on the BPM counter here with his 160+ beats staying soulful, with plenty of hook melodies and well-treated and deployed vocal samples adding character to the physicality. Minimal techno, r&b, jungle and more are all referenced in this brilliantly driving album.

Review: Planet Mu, despite its advancing years, remains right at the cutting edge of electronic music. Its releases are never less that boundary nudging and constantly moving with the times. Back with a new album after Hyper Flux in 2017 did so well, Herva experiments with homemade hardware on this record. For it, he managed to build a "point-to-point mixer from scratch" and as such moves away from sample based music here. It is a thrilling conception that draws form IDM, electronics and its very own rule book when it comes to rhythms, timbre and texture. Mind being stuff for sure.

Review: Alan Myson returns once more as Ital Tek, continuing a not-so-well-cited yet important sound. There's never been much of a name for it, maybe thanks to its appearance in the meting-potty post-dubstep era - but Tek's is a sound of minimal aesthetics and glossy-wonky beats. Other artists might include Kuedo, Lorn or MssingNo (but it's not wave, witch house or purple). Genre-mindedness aside, Timeproof is Myson's fifth album for Planet Mu, following 2020's Outland for a long meander through the fluid timey-wimey nature of time, and how it varies depending on its perceiver(s)' mental states. Beaty sublimers like 'Phantom Pain' and 'One Eye Open' make this a staggering time-dilating journey, one whose appeal, true to its name, will surely last for electronic music fans decades into the future.

Review: Jerrilyn Patton's dark energy finds a new form on this beguiling new album Akoma. The title meaning heart in Akan, once again this maverick multi-disciplinary artist bares all in a totally unique way. At points intriguing and intimate (the playful bounce and momentum of 'Open Canvas', the spider-like patter and skittishness of 'The Precision Of Infinity' the classic glitches and switches of 'Sodalite') At others moody and moving (the powerful staccato strings of 'Summon', the cold percussive minimalism and stirring chants of 'Eye Am') At all times captivating and genuinely unlike anything else around. Featuring the likes of Bjork, Philip Glass and Kronos Quartet, this is a powerful body of work from all directions.

Review: Inimitable footwork titan Jlin returns for yet another challenging take on footwork and juke, Perspective. A pivotal follow-up to her 2017 album Black Origami, it comes as a comparatively terse mini-album, and consists of electronic versions of her compositions for the percussion ensemble Third Coast Percussion. Something about Perspective seems to appreciate footwork's rhythms as rhythmic "impossible shapes", owing to the genre's loose and sometimes off-kilter triplets. On the likes of 'Fourth Perspective' and 'Disonance', she seems to equate juke with minimalism, introducing Reichean additions and subtractions, not to mention a glassy, surreal timbre overall.

Review: After the massive impact of Vex'd in the breakthrough years of dubstep, it was big news when Jamie Teasdale chose to swerve in his own direction and emerge as Kuedo. Released in 2011, Severant was a bold statement of intent which didn't wholly shirk what had come before, but placed emphasis on the kind of romantic synthesis you'd readily associate with Vangelis and saw trap and other influences sneaking into the mix. In hindsight, Severant is typical of the times we live in, drawing on a glut of influences and presenting its own idiosyncratic vision, but above all that the emotion and intent of Teasdale's ideas make it an enduring, captivating listen.

Review: Back in 1996, Richard D. James and Planet Mu boss Mike Paradinas collaborated on a bizarre self-titled album under the name Mike & Rich. A cult addition to their respective highly-regarded canons that saw the pair applying their braindance template to easy listening and funk, the album soon came to be known as Expert Knob Twiddlers thanks to the excellent cover art. Newly reissued on Planet Mu, the album has been "carefully cleaned up, re-edited and remastered from the original DAT tape [and] put into a more fitting order." Some twenty years on the album remains a playful listen made all the more compelling by the addition of seven previously unheard tracks. A must for any fans of Aphex Twin and u-ZIQ.

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: Mike Paradinas is well known these days as the man behind peerless label Planet Mu but of course he was also a core part of the IDM firmament back in the 90s. He had a super run of albums that sat right up there with the best of them in their own way and now many of them are being reissued. But Magic Pony Ride is an all new long player and his first for his own label since 2013. It has his signature happy melodies and wordless vocals - he was writing it while mastering an anniversary version of his Lunatic Harness classic - with wide open spaces sucking you in to their midst as the jungle beats ride on.

Review: Mike Paradinas continues to be a prolific force in electronica after so many years helping push the scene forwards via Planet Mu. Magic Pony Ride is his first LP of new material on his own label since 2013, although Analogical Force did carry the excellent Scurlage LP last year while he's also been busy reviving the Tusken Raiders alias for more roughneck electro and jungle business. There's jungle to behold on this new record, too, but as with much of his u-Ziq work, Paradinas prefers a more melodious approach here. There's also a different element at play - dare we say a degree of maturity in the compositional aspect? Just check the haunting piano-led lilt of 'Goodbye' and you'll see what we mean.

Review: Mike Paradinas is a veteran producer and owner of Planet Mu but he keeps on serving up thrilling new sounds. Grush is his latest, a new album packed with energetic tracks that he hopes reclaim the "dance" element of IDM. Inspired by the melodic dance music of the genre's early pioneers, Grush blends sweetly nostalgic melodies with dynamic, road-tested rhythms. Many tracks were developed during times on the road and from the spiralling notes of 'Hyper Daddy' to the aquatic acid footwork of the title track, Grush traces Paradinas' musical journey with signature style and invention. With influences from early Black Dog to Drexciyan funk, it's a vibrant, live-inspired record that works in a wide range of contexts from the club to the sofa.

Review: When electronic musicians invent new words, you know you're in for an accompanying sonic treat. u-Ziq aka. Mike Paradinas' latest record Grush aims at something between a crush and a grunt - as if to suggest the violent hydraulic floorings of the former and the cave-manic disinhibition of the latter. Sonically, this follows suit with Paradinas' as-ever ascendant, wompy-breaksy sound, which this time comes peppered with additional flavours of black MIDI and generative sound-spurts honed at live shows; the ultimate aim of the album is to replicate the nonstop feel of a live tour, with each track here having been meticulously road-tested and polished for home listening (or not - get out there and dance to the thing, couch potatoes!)

Review: XTEP marks the first u-Ziq material from Mike Paradinas in some six years and precedes the release of a full album later from the Planet Mu boss due out this year. Having been coaxed away from his fine curation of Planet Mu over recent years with the Heterotic project done in cahoots with wife Lara Rix-Martin, Paradinas returns to his universally recognised u-Ziq project with this five track EP which seem to present a diverse and accessible snapshot of Paradinas' production palette, veering through smudged out analogue funk, gauzy piano house, pulsing electronic disco and more rhythmically diverse material. This would seem to justify Planet Mu's claim that Paradinas has abandoned "the furrow-browed quest for cutting-edge exploration, exchanging it for an altogether more carefree fun approach".

Review: Planet Mu main man Mike 'Mu-ziq' Paradinas and Hannah Davidson AKA Mrs Jynx have long been friends, though it took shared grief (both had a parent who succumbed to cancer over the last couple of years) to finally get together in the studio and make some therapeutic music. The results, as showcased on Secret Garden, are nothing less than sublime; a set of highly emotive, picturesque tracks that mix bittersweet bliss and heart-aching musical melancholia with brief blasts of aural sunniness and rushing bliss. It's rooted in ambient and electronica, of course, but also includes a number of hypnotic, dancefloor ready excursions and rhythmic, soft-touch epics. Above all though, it's as melodious and colourful as it is poignant and thought-provoking, offering a surprisingly on-point musical translation of the grieving process.

Review: Johnstown, Pennsylvania isn't the first town on everyone's lips when it comes to deep dive electronics. But then, sadly, most people still don't seem to have encountered Nondi. Better known to some of those who have as Tatiana Triplin, the US producer and head of the 'net label HRR has developed a cult following for her experimental takes on some already quite leftfield electronic genres: breakcore and footwork, alongside Detroit-hued techno. What's remarkable about all this is the fact she confesses to only really having direct experiences of these genres online, as oppose to amid the sweat and frenzy of the situations they were first intended for. While this might lead some to assuming her work lacks authenticity, nothing could be further from the truth - it's all so authentic because the interpretations are entirely hers.

Review: Saint Abdullah is the fraternal partnership of Mohammad and Mehdi Mehrabani-Yeganeh, two Iranian brothers now based in the US. Their collaboration with Ireland's Eomac first manifested in Patience Of A Traitor for Other People last year and now they follow up in quick fashion with an expansive album for Planet Mu. Chasing Stateless maintains a commitment to broadcasting Middle Eastern sonics which has been consistent throughout the Saint Abdullah catalogue, but the approach isn't obvious. Rather, snatches of speech samples or a particular choice of tuning sets the mood around deadly, blunted beat downs from the low slung hip-hop of 'Pretense Of Neutrality' to the uptempo electronica of 'No Negotiations And No Dialogue'.

Review: Finnish producer Vladislav Delay is releasing their sophomore album as an industrial drone narration of the juxtaposition of returning to urban life after exploring the northern arctic (an idea explored in his previous works). After a long walk or meditative experience of peace, the moment when we thrust ourselves out the front door onto the main road - that is Isoviha. No track better encapsulates the synthetic incessant noise of city life than 'Isonuha' with it's synthetic incessant noise. Industrial crushing and experimental cymbal crashes fight each other in this bloodsport of a track. 'Isoviha' is intense and heavy on the soul, a reflection of it's anti-synthetic narrative.

Review: Xylitol is the alias of producer and DJ Catherine Backhouse, also known as DJ Bunnhyhausen. Building on her slowly snowballing status as a co-host of the radio show Slav To The Rhythm, which focuses on vintage central and eastern European pop and electronica - as well as co-writing a book on Yugoslavian pop culture - Backhouse's debut album 'Anemonies' is the essential musical component for aiding the task of stomaching her many multifarious outings. Taking as her cue the art of illustrating molluscs, anemones, cnidaria and other aquatic creatures, Xylitol uses Anemone as an album-form outlet for the exploration of fizzing, extrambient jungle missives; tissued, papillary hardcore. The name Xylitol is an indication of what's in store for you here: impeccably reasoned intellibreaks, and piqued, pitched-up samples, both of which invoke childhood pelagic fantasy; virtual underwater verde. The whole record is an odyssean island hop, and we thoroughly recommend it.