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Review: The eagerly awaited album A La Sala marks the return of Texas-based trio Khruangbin, seamlessly blending Thai funk, psychedelic rock, and world music influences. Laura Lee's groovy basslines, Mark Speer's intricate guitar melodies, and Donald "DJ" Johnson's precise drumming define each mesmerizing groove. Tracks like 'Farolim De Felgueiras' and 'A Love International' exude a relaxed vibe, perfect for lazy summer days, while 'Juegos Y Nubes' infuses Latin rhythms with a psychedelic twist. A La Sala takes listeners on a captivating journey through diverse musical landscapes, showcasing Khruangbin's adeptness at genre fusion and their talent for crafting sonic euphoria.

Review: Returning with their heftiest and most malevolent work to date, Desolation's Flower marks the fourth full-length from the Oakland based queer blackened screamo-sludge two-piece Ragana. Their first effort upon signing with extreme purveyors of underground ugliness The Flenser (home to caustic noise-rock titans Chat Pile and ecstatic black metal newcomers Agriculture), the LP serves as a creative rebirth following their longest gap between projects yet, with their preceding third LP You Take Nothing arriving back in 2017. Continuing their grim excavation into hideous sonic malaise, yet with an expanded palette of grooving doom, frenetic screamo-violence and heaving sludge metal ripped right from the banks of the bayou, this is a thick, dense, murky gaze into a void that spits back eternal blackness.

Review: Kilometre Club lands on the Indianapolis label Healing Sound Propagandist with a collection of sounds made using only one piece of gear, the Squier Bass VI, with the assistance of guitar pedals. Each one is a pure and cathartic meditation on minimalist drones that are deft and wispy. The compositions are smartly layered up and slowly ascend to the heavens with subtle spaces between notes and long tails making their mark on your heat. Says the artist, "this is an album for floating away while calling out vowels in reverse alphabetical order" - and we love it.

Review: Souvenirs is the first vocal album from Ethiopian nun, composer and pianist Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru. It was recorded between 1977 and 1985 in a lo-fi setup in her family home in Addis Ababa shortly before she was exiled to Jerusalem. Playing the piano and singing through a boom box, Gebru captured the solemn mood of the time as she faced the prospect of leaving her homeland to escape the upheaval brought about the 1974 revolution in Ethiopia. Her playing fuses Western classical with Ethiopian traditional and Orthodox music, while her Amharic lyrics touch on the tumultuous situation she found herself in, in profoundly poetic ways. The accompanying 16-page booklet offers translations of these words, so the message can land for listeners beyond the powerful impact of the recordings themselves.

Review: Johanna Sadonis (real name Johanna Platow Andersson) is the German Wiccan frontwoman of Swedish retro psych-doomers Lucifer. Crafted in collaboration with her regular songwriting partner and husband Nicke Andersson (of hard rock heroes The Hellacopters and death metal legends Entombed), the aptly titled V marks the group's fifth full-length and distils accessible AOR style hooks with the sleight hands of proto-metal and blues-tinged psychedelia, while lyrically delving into the occult and cosmic otherworldly rituals; elevated and brought to life by Platow's sultry, frosted and commanding presence.

Review: The prolific ambient producer Zake (Zach Frizzell) has his latest release out for out us to enjoy. B4 Plus 3 features seven compositions in all. Many of them are brilliantly done drone pieces that are expressive in beautifully done tones that rise and slide. The heavenly 'Braken' as the opener for example. The layered tones creatively mask the depth of the drones to the point of a spontaneous feel that is almost changed by anything as slight as a light wind. 'Betrayal' present bells that ring out from the meandering depth while 'Blight' is deep and foreboding tot he point of being machinelike. 'Bane' is one of the most moving pieces in drone we have heard in a long, long time. Limited to only 50 cassettes in total (+download code), act fast to get the brilliant, peaceful and moving B4 Plus 3.

Review: Dwell Time II is the second part of a three-part project on Past Inside The Present from T.R. Jordan. Each of the albums was made using the same material in the same time frame, and they are all part of one overarching and coherent suite that he refers to as "musical composting." This is the cassette tape version and it is full of grainy, fluttering howls, soft warbling pads, pastoral references like flowing streams and mossy rocks and plenty of grand spatial elegance that harks back to the likes of Hiroshi Yoshimura and early Brian Eno experiments. Another immersive offering from this fine label, then.

Review: Minneapolis' Chris Bartels aka Blurstem, and Philadelphia's Andrew Tasselmyer of the likes of Hotel Neon and Gray Acres have hooked up once more for a second collaborative album Midnight Letters. This album's starting point was original concepts played out on guitar which were then processed and experimented with through an ages-old analog tape machine. Add in an array of iPad audio processing apps, samplers, and Ableton software and you have a perfect mix of tools to serve up a sonic journey that perfectly merges the old with the new. The resulting ambient soundscapes are immersive and sparse but packed with subtle details that convey all manner of emotions.

Review: This is a special cassette tape version of the recent album from zake, one of ambient's most prolific artists, alongside From Overseas on his own Past Inside The Present label. As always it is an almost impossibly deep ambient selection that once again finds him exploring fresh and always emotionally moving musical territory. Demain Des L'aube features eight tunes that convey real melancholia and have a gently persuasive sense of movement. Each one is vast in scale and sweeps you up and sinks you into the grainy lo-fi pads, wispy melodies and distant string-based sombreness.

Review: Marc Ertel's Live At Black Circle on Past Inside The Present US arrives on limited edition cassette and is another sublime ambient entry into this now legendary label's impressive offerings. He has served up similar here before alongside the likes of boss man zake and this time goes deeper than ever into slowly shifting soundscapes that are pregnant with emotion, grey in scale but with a real sense of melancholic beauty. As his tones and timbres evolve, the moods slowly shift and you get ever more subsumed into his sonic universe.

Review: ASC returns with a deeply emotive album on Past Inside the Present, showcasing a new chapter in his musical journey. Known for his versatility across electronic and drum & bass genres, James Clements channels introspection and healing in Loss. Quiet bird calls and field recordings intertwine with ASC's expertly crafted synths, creating a therapeutic sonic landscape. Each track evokes a range of emotions, from melancholy to hope, acceptance to sorrow. Loss invites listeners to embark on a poignant journey, where ASC's mastery shines through in every moment. It's a captivating and beautiful testament to the power of music as a form of self-expression and healing.

Review: '1989 (Taylor's Version)' sees global pop icon Taylor Swift revisiting one of her many masterpieces with a newfound maturity and depth. Swift's 2023 reimagining of her 2014 album breathes fresh life into iconic tracks like 'Shake It Off' and 'Blank Space,' while also introducing previously unreleased material like 'The Lakes.' With Taylor's trademark introspection and emotional resonance, each song feels like a rediscovery, resonating with both nostalgia and contemporary relevance. The album serves as a testament to Swift's enduring talent and artistic growth that she can re-captivate listeners with fresh infectious hooks, irresistible beats, and poignant storytelling and in doing so once again reaffirms her status as a modern music icon.

Review: Alex Israel's new 'Uncertainty Manipulated' release on Somnambulant Drift features generative music he has crafted by "building elements of arbitrary length that work together melodically but do not correspond in time. As the individual components replay, they overlap coincidentally, resulting in music that makes itself." The result is four tracks of sublime and escapist ambient with no beginning and no end but plenty of heart-aching piano chords, harp strums, hazy drones, mindful synth smears and meditative moods that offer comfort but also encourage inward reflections. It's a perfect coming together of man, machine and absorbing minimalism.

Review: Chicago's mighty Specter stands firm as a pivotal figure among the chosen artists on Theo Parrish's esteemed Sound Signature label. His latest new long player Brutus presents another unique fusion of house sounds. In this cassette tape format, Specter expertly merges synthetic and organic elements that call to mind Parrish's own distinctive style. The album also embodies a seamless blend of timeworn, rustic tones and dynamic, futuristic visions within his singular house realm and impart some devastating feelings through the melodies, while the drums consistently mesmerize and keep you entranced within his rhythms.

Review: Thomas Xu from Steady Flight Circle and Tommy Kladis from Music Time with Friends come together on this new cassette-only release that captures three of their sessions at Kladis's studio. Xu was on synthesizers while Kladis was in charge of samples, drums and loops on the SP-555 and the final touch was lo-fi drums from John Shaughnessy. It takes the form of two extended jams that reach out to almost 15 minutes of dusty, ambient-laced soundscapes with distant percussive details and melancholic moods. 'Klaxu' has more darkness and more prominent rhythms to it but both pieces make for escapist listening.