Umor Rex US Vinyl & CDs

Review: Alexandre Bazin is back on Umor Rex records with what amounts to his most dancefloor orientated sound yet. This latest EP opens with the lo-fi and caustic, dubbed out breaks of 'Grow' before 'Innervision' sinks you into a cosmic synth reverie on gently churning rhythms. There's an indie-shuffle to the organic hits and muted synth melancholia of 'Capture' while 'Push' is brutalist drum machine sleaze. Elsewhere is 'Four Steps' (remix) which is another fizzing fusion of dystopian synths and depraved drum loops and 'Messaging' is a more heady and optimistic melodic beat workout.

Review: There's more to song titles like 'Song to Noise' and 'A Siren Is A Simple Device' than meets the eye here. The former is a lyrical declaration for the power and beauty of noise, cacophonies as art, walls of sound as things of real intellectual might. The latter paying homage to how much emotion can be felt in the most mundane refrains and vibrations in the air. Setting a precedent for the album as a whole, analogue sound researchers Driftmachine - AKA Andreas Gerth and Florian Zimmer - team up with word and sound artist Andreas Ammer, known for his work with Acid Pauli, to create something that plays with and changes our perceptions of what noise is, what it can be, and what it might be used for. An academic exercise, the results are surprisingly inviting and accessible.

Review: Another exceptional double album deep dive from Umor Rex mainstays Andreas Gerth and Carl Oesterhelt, respectively one-half of Driftmachine, and the artist who debuted with the landmark 11 Pieces for Synthesizer album. As ever, trying to summon adjectives to correctly describe what's here isn't easy, but let's give it a go anyway. Mysterious, dark, haunting, but also ultimately very beautiful - albeit often in a slightly chilling way - it's highly rhythmic patient stuff. A fitting title, it's hard not to picture tribalism, gatherings, premeditated practices and timeless traditions when becoming absorbed by the hypnotic contents here. It's transportive stuff, both in terms of time and place, era and style, a sense of loops and cycles being the real omnipresent thread here. Earthen ambient, strange factory floor downtempo, cinematic synths and more. The kind of record that's only possible when two people haul themselves up in a remote village with an abundance of instruments and see what happens.

Review: Buenos Aires-born but now based in Barcelona, Nicolas Melmann explores sound's social and poetic dimensions through what he calls "transdisciplinary projects." He is inspired by Erik Satie's "furniture music" and his compositions create spaces of calm and contemplation as evidenced here on this lovely new blue LP. Musica Aperta blends acoustic and electronic elements with rich harmonies where soft textures meet delicate raspiness and it is divided into three parts. Each one slowly immerses you in time while echoing Satie's concept, Arvo Part's minimalism and Phill Niblock's roughness. It is a calming and cathartic escape from the fast-paced of modern life.