Touch Sensitive Vinyl & CDs

Review: Natalia Baylis based her first album for Touch Sensitive around the fortuitous discovery of an Italian-made CRB Elettronica Ancona Diamond 708 E organ at the recycling centre, in what now seems like a fated outcome for the Irish ambient artist. Feeding the wonky sound of the instrument into swirling pools of processing, she used one of her father's old photos of three ladies bathing in the sea to set her angle of approach - and so Mermaids came to be. Enchanting, mysterious and flowing like the ocean, we couldn't think of a more fitting title for this mesmerising album.

Review: Cherrystones is Gareth Goddard, a well regarded DJ, producer and archivist. Here he is back in control of a Critical Mass as he selects another selection of superb music from the worlds of synth, indie, wave and more. He is one of NTS's longest standing hosts and someone who has an enviable collection of records. It's been five years since the first volume of this series but it was work the wait - the 18 tracks explore every facet of the post punk and new wave era. From the Netherlands to Italy, England to Belgium, this is outer music that is also accessible and danceable.
It's a real education from one of the best musical teachers out there.

Review: Taking their cues in equal part from the Thames Valley sound of the early '90s, the Rugby school of two-chord rapture birthed by Spacemen 3 and the kosmische extrapolations born in Berlin, Belfast's seven-piece Documenta deal in twilight soundscapes and widescreen effects-pedal euphoria. Collected over a year-long period of experimentation and expansion with the help of fellow Belfast visionary David Holmes, this eight-track salvo showcases a band with the wherewithal to transcend the influences that spawned them, not to mention its somewhat prosaic moniker, reaching out across new horizons above and beyond its two tags.

Review: Belfast label Touch Sensitive Records delivers The Host's second LP, and only his second release altogether under that alias. The Host is actually Northern Irish bass scientist Barry Lynn aka Boxcutter, a producer who has put out a vast amount of material on Planet Mu, and a string of EP's on Scuba's Hotflush Recordings, among many others. Touch Sensitive has decided to go for his more abstract work, however, and judging by their previous compilation by London's Cherrystones, these guys are into the deep end. Esalen Lectures is an album that requires patience and an open mind to allow its moody soundscapes to enter your mind. Once tracks like "Submersion" or "Primate Change" gather their momentum and rhythm, though, The Host's arrangements will stick in the back of your mind like no other contemporary drone and ambient music. From dubbed-out sonic swirls to twisted blends of drone, this is gorgeous and comes heavily recommended.

Review: Cork based musician Elaine Howley is part of many locally successful bands including The Altered Hours and Crevice, but this is her debut solo venture. The Distance Between Heart And Mouth is the haunting final culmination of an audio diary first noted down on a four-track tape recorder, later translated into gorgeous musical form. Glitchy darkwave and boxy dream pop tempered by ghostly vestiges of goth are among its sonics, as the album slinks through nine synthy meditations on intimacy, communication and ritual.

Review: Cork multi-instrumentalist Elaine Howley debuts her solo album 'The Distance Between Heart And Mouth', producing the best parts of an 'audio diary' recorded to four-track cassette between 2019 and 2020. The longtime Irish psych-folk veteran has here produced what might be argued to be the best culmination of a range of styles, imagining a weird, figurative radio station chanced on by a curious dial-scrubber. Everything from free folk, romantic indie, techno, dub and shoegaze crop up here, recalling something between Grouper, Tradition and The Avalanches.

Review: Prepare yourself for a crazy but wonderful deep dive into the legendary world of cult French outfit Vox Populi!, focusing primarily on their 'big years' of 1986-1990, inverted commas used to hopefully articulate that these guys are yet another example of why music consistently fails to give outsider artists the widespread recognition they deserve. Nevertheless, those who know VP know just how incredible their music is.

In the first three tracks alone the breadth of their output becomes clear. Opener 'Caballo Blanco' could be And You Will Know Us By The Trail of the Dead meeting Primal Scream at a Goan festival in the late-1960s. 'Mush Dub Gnarls & Vrooms' takes us into downtempo electronica with an undercurrent of bite, nodding to Andrew Weatherall's Sabres of Paradise project. Meanwhile, 'Holistikoholic' almost seems to reprogram the mind to the court of some king or other, with its jaunty flutes and wooden percussion.