New releases last two weeks: Library/Archive

Review: 'Incense Music for Dining Room' is the third release in the acclaimed Incense Music compilation series curated by Toru Hashimoto, with artwork by Jiro Fujita and mastering by Calm, who is one of Japan's leading figures in jazz, chill-out and Balearic music. The 7" comes with two standout tracks: side-A features a beautiful reinterpretation of Yusef Lateef's 'Love Theme From Spartacus,' famously sampled by Nujabes on 'The Final View,' while Side-AA delivers a mellow, jazzy take on Joe Thomas' 'Coco' which also known as the basis for Buddha Brand's 'Buddha's Holiday.' It makes for a refined blend of nostalgia, jazz and chillout for discerning diggers.

Review: People Like Us, the long-running project of Vicki Bennett, returns with her first album since 2018's The Mirror. Again via sampling, and stylising in vintage neo-psych-tronic audio collage, Copia here muses on abundance and self-replication, reassembling fragments of sound into something sub-interconnected, rhizomatic. Emerging from her recent AV performance The Library of Babel, the album blends electronic textures with whimsical, often uncanny vocal moments, inlining contributions from Matmos, Ergo Phizmiz, Hearty White, Gwilly Edmondez, and others. Lyrics and melodies by Phizmiz act as a connective spine, while the project as a whole embraces an "exquisite corpse" approach, multitracks traded over oceans and timelines, forming a gaudily grotesque patchwork resistant to linearity. As always with Bennett's work, Copia blurs the borders of past, present and potential, offering a poignant meditation on creativity.

Review: Measured Mile, the 7"s label run by Bob Stanley, firms its focus on DJ-friendly 45s that are or were either very rare or previously unavailable in the format. Its run of sharply curated 7"s is replenished with another three-tracker, this time an unusual choice, fencing two classic British sports broadcasting themes, pivoting from midtempo funk to faster breaks. Leading the A are two standouts from Douglas Wood, 'Cranes', known as the punchy, synth-heavy theme from the BDO World Darts Championship - and 'Drag Racer', the atmospheric opener to the BBC's Snooker World Championships coverage, both drawn from the revered Studio G library catalogue. On the flip, John Cameron's 'Sprocket Shuffle' - the lively 1980s ITV Snooker theme - rounds out the package in a flurry of analogue texture and charming nostalgia.