Back catalogue: Modern Classical

Review: Leading British composer Craig Armstrong truly broke through with his second studio album As If To Nothing in 2003. It came five years after his 1998 debut The Space Between us and now celebrates its 20th anniversary with a deluxe reissue treatment that sees it get remastered at half speed for extra loudness and clarity. This special edition also comes with heavyweight villa and an embossed sleeve making it the ultimate collectors' package. The modern classical sounds contained within have more than stood the test of time, too.

Review: Originally released in the mid 80's on UK cassette label Bite Back!, this nearly lost gem finds new life 30 years later on Cocktail D'Amore Music. Steve has cobbled together a superbly melancholic electronic concept album. Wistful melodies often evoke sentiments of a lost childhood and hazy English mornings. Each song within remains untitled allowing full perceptive freedom as to what they all communicate, a language for the feelings that have no name. Untitled A1 - A6 leads one along intimate soundscapes of pattering drums and tinkering piano, a sense of closeness and trust develops with the introduction of each new idea much like the beginning of a bed time story. Untitled B1 - B3 then begin to breathe more openly awash in angelic colours before abruptly turning downward on B4, a wall of booming drums and atmospheres from the furthest reaches of the galaxy before the last trio of songs settles gently back on Earth.

Review: 'Feral Vapours of the Silver Ether' is the second album by Chris & Cosey as Carter Tutti, following 2004's 'Cabal'. A haunting, gothic 11-tracker that revels more in cinematic beauty than abrasive sonic gristle, its standout pieces such as 'Woven Clouds' recalling the heartfelt studio masterpieces of This Mortal Coil or the mysterious blackgaze dissociations of Black Tape For A Blue Girl. Cosey's voice appears in crystal clarity, against utmostly gut-wrenching string movements and synthetic choirs of angels.

Review: It's easy to get lost in the sounds MMMD create. The Greek trio shot to the top of any self-respecting ambient-drone geek with 2013's exceptional Som Sakrifis, a piece of work so resolute in its mission to draw you in and then tighten the clasp it gets to the point where you can't see, or hear, a way out, and the three producers have continued to deliver those sorts of goods since. Roto Vildblomma is no change of course. To call the EP oppressive would be unfair, although opening track 'Vildblomma' does come with this sense of dread and a distinctly uneasy mood, organ refrains hitting notes that are hard wired to make things feel a little ominous. Elsewhere, similar senses also prevail, 'Skora''s more whispered approach to unsettling is different yet equally eerie. However, there are also moments of delicate quiet, almost to the point of silence, and a sort of ancient exoticism that's mysterious but exciting and wondrous, rather than menacing.