Leftfield

Review: Finnish underground icon Sasu Ripatti returns under his most frequently used pseudonym, Vladislav Delay, for another bout of Dancefloor Classics. The series has already established a loyal following, and the fourth episode is enough to explain why, even if you've not encountered any of the preceding instalments. Music for imagined dancefloors is how the official release information puts it, it quickly becomes clear just how vivid that imagination is. Throwing down a string of footwork inspired cuts, the four tracks here are frantically upbeat and packed with filthy, jacking potential. But they're also deep, at times ghostly - or at least a little eerie - and ground in a desire not just to make people move, but also push sounds forward into new territories. Never an easy line to tread, the overall results hit as hard as the beats themselves.

Review: Back in 2005 we might not have predicted what a phenomenon Ghost Box would become. In the years since, the label has become a beacon for the hauntological exploration of Britain's inherent oddness creeping just below the surface. Julian House's graphic design is a huge part of the label's artistic merit, and it figures his music as The Focus Group follows a similarly aesthetically rigorous direction. There's a pastoral collage quality to Hey Let Loose Your Love which takes you right back to the 70s, with beautiful musical passages offset by surrealist samples and unexpected diversions into the recent history of these wyrd isles.

Review: When he's not busy exploring the minutiae of electronic frequencies as Alva Noto, Carsten Nicolai likes to amuse himself with experiments like this one, where he sent magnetic tape and photographic film out to various parts of the world addressed to Mr Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, hoping for the packages to be returned to him. The idea was these magnetic tapes and photosensitive films would pick be exposed to electromagnetic waves and radiation during their respective journeys, and so when he received his parcels back, he digitised the results and made this album, presented as a gatefold 10" with an eight-page booklet.

Review: TVAM first crept onto the radar in 2018 with a self-released debut which split the difference between Suicide and Boards of Canada, but since then his sound has broadened to incorporate a shred of pop nous and anthemic grandeur best captured on new single 'Costasol'. If that track has a deceptively gentle, dreamy demeanour, there's plenty more space for murkiness and claustrophobia elsewhere on the EP, as the one-man-band indulges his industrial and lounge tendencies in strange, compelling new mutant forms. 'Ephemerol' in particular stands out as the perfect misfit foil to the lead track's poised bombast, fuelling the dualistic intrigue of an artist who never misses.

Review: Sasu Ripatti continues to plunge into techno abstraction through his Hide Behind The Silence series. It's but one outlet for the seemingly constant stream of innovative sound emerging from the Finnish pioneer's studio, and on this fourth 10" he's offering up more compelling studies in noise, texture, rhythm and space. 'Death Of A Bassdrum' seems to take aim at techno by burying a 4/4 kick under a twitchy, uncomfortable bed of scuffs and scrapes, while 'Post-Mortem' diverts into space-building sonics where found sounds and artful reverb create a vibrant, three-dimensional space to explore with your mind's eye.