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Review: Over the years, Sam Shepheard's work as Floating Points has become increasingly ambitious, moving further away from his dancefloor roots and closer to spiritual jazz, new age and neo-classical. Even so, it was still a surprise when Shepheard announced Promises, a 46-minute piece in 10 "movements" featuring the London Symphony Orchestra and legendary saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. It's an undeniably remarkable piece all told; a constantly evolving fusion of neo-classical ambience, spiritual jazz and starry, synthesizer-laden soundscapes notable not only for Sanders' sublime sax-playing and Shepheard's memorable melodic themes, but also the intricate, detailed nature of the musical arrangements. It's a stunningly beautiful and life-affirming piece all told, and one that deserves your full attention.

Review: Of all the artists past and present who claim to let their music do their talking for them, Burial is one of the elite band of whom this truly is the case. In fact, so reluctant is he to engage with the cult-of-personality hoopla that surrounds almost every modern producer and musician of merit, that he remains a genuine recluse; he has never appeared live, only one obliquely-angled publicity photograph is known to exist, and the number of interviews he has given can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Yet despite this, his music speaks loud and wide, and the world has been listening ever since his 'South London Boroughs' EP debut on Hyperdub in March 2005. His eponymous album, which began life as a low-key release in May 2006, is now widely regarded as the benchmark release of the ever-widening dubstep genre, picking up unanimous critical acclaim along the way, and ending the year heavily featured in many 'best of' polls. Now Burial returns with 'Untrue', a new record of weird soul music, which lovingly processes spectral female voices into vaporised R&B and smudged 2step garage. Vocal lines are blurred, smeared, pitched up pitched down and pitch bent until their content is cast adrift from their original context and they whisper their saccharin sweet nothings into the void. The album continues with the debut's crackle-drenched yearning and bustling syncopations, haunted by the ghosts of rave, but also reveals some new Burial treats with a more glowing, upbeat energy. Kicking off with the skittering 2step syncopations and vocal science of 'Archangel', 'Near Dark' and 'Ghost Hardware', before long it descends into a space of radiant divas and ambience. Where 'Burial' first was humid, suffocating and unrelentingly sad, 'Untrue' is less sunless. Many of the tracks are so sweet, they become toxic, underscored by the almost geological rumbles of growling basslines. Unlike the overpoweringly melancholic prevailing mood of before, Burial's sound is now better defined as a downcast euphoria typified by the epic, muted optimism of the album's last track 'Raver'. Forget central heating the radioactivity of this album is all that you'll need to keep you warm this winter. 'Untrue' is available as full 13 track digipack CD, including recent underground hit 'Ghost Hardware', and 9 track DJ friendly double vinyl set, from which some of the beatless pieces have been edited.

Review: There have been plenty of column inches devoted to this collaborative debut album from hyped producer Kamaal Williams (AKA Rhythm Section International sort Henry Wu), and fast-rising Afrobeat drummer Yussef Dayes. With such raw talent to choose from, it's little surprise to find that Black Focus is as good as the critics claim. Their sound is distinctive: a London-centric take on jazz-funk that's loose, rich, organic and shot through with soul. Their major influences seem to be the work of West London broken beat pioneer Kaidi Tatham, and his inspiration, jazz-funk legend Herbie Hancock. These touchstones, combined with Dayes' brilliant drumming and Williams' superb synth solos and jammed-out Rhodes lines, makes Black Focus a hugely alluring set.

Review: In line with the timely reappraisal of all things R&S related, the resurgent Apollo have seen the opportunity to bring one of their most celebrated records back for another round on CD. Aphex Twin's ambient recordings mature magnificently with age, sounding ever richer and more emotive as the rest of electronic music continues to play catch up all around. From the gentle breakbeats of "Xtal" to the aquatic techno lure of "Tha", the airy rave of "Pulsewidth" to the heartwrenching composition of "Ageispolis", every track is a perennial example of how far ambient techno could reach even back then. It's just that no-one quite had the arm-span of Richard D. James.

Review: Back in 2016, Martin Jenkins unveiled the first instalment of a "loose trilogy" of vaguely conceptual albums for the Ghost Box label. Entangled Routes is the third and final part of this trilogy and lands two years after its predecessor, Hollow Earth. Though not expressly acknowledged within the music, Jenkins' inspiration this time round was apparently "mycorrhizal networks" - subterranean networks of funghi that transfer water, carbon and other minerals and nutrients to the roots of plants. Musically, what's on offer is intoxicating and far-sighted, with Jenkins mixing up trippy ambient psychedelia with modular-rich, melodious electronica, throbbing, arpeggio-driven dancefloor cuts and what would once have been called IDM. As usual, the album is full of great ideas, beautifully executed, and sequenced in such a way as to provide a genuine aural journey.

Review: Ace Records continue their series of compilations from Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs, tapping into unique niches of British music culture under titles like English Weather and The Tears Of Technology to arrive at this latest joint, Fell From The Sun. This is a specific trip into the downtempo, after hours sounds prevalent in 1990-1991, as the acid house wave broke and Balearic selector ethics seeped into studio practice. The selections are absolutely on point, from The Orb's majestic remix of Primal Scream's 'Higher Than The Sun' to Saint Etienne's own moody roller, 'Speedwell'. It's bouncy and boundlessly optimistic as well as being supremely chill, absolutely of its time but still ringing with an eternal charm that feels ready for a revival. Let this compilation be your guide.

Review: The hype machine may have kicked into overdrive at the announcement of a new Aphex Twin EP, but after all there's a reason we all get so excited. Richard D. James is just a rare sort of artist - one who can wrench untold depth, detail and feeling from the oddest of angles and still keep it rave-ready in the process. It's been a while since we had some new material from the Cornish wonder, but now he's gifting us four fresh slabs of braindance par excellence which bristle with his distinctive touch. Those subtle microtonal shifts in the melodies, the particular flair with which the drums are dissected, the overall head-spinning tapestry of the whole thing - no one does it quite like Aphex, and this CD single gives you his considerable skills in the highest definition.

Review: The Future Sound of London keep their fans busy with a steady dispatch of music via the fsoldigital.com label, but it feels like there's a sense of occasion around this new album. Rituals E7.001 is purportedly the first part in a trilogy, and it already highly prized by the devoted followers of Brian Dougans and Garry Cobain's music. It's not hard to hear why on listening to the gorgeous strains of 'Hopiate', which harks back to some of the duo's most iconic music (we'll let you guess which one we mean). FSOL have always had a particular touch in their exploration of electronica, ambient and outernational sounds, and it sounds rich with inspiration on this new, expansive album.

Review: Given that Four Tet's recent 0181 LP was comprised of material from Kieran Hebden's archives, and last year's Pink was largely compiled of tracks from the previous 18 months of 12" releases, it seems fair to say that Beautiful Rewind is his first proper album since 2010's There Is Love In You, and as such, it arrives with some degree of expectation. The past few years have seen the producer engage increasingly with the dancefloor, and these rhythms are most definitely present across the LP, particularly in the jungle breaks of "Kool FM", pirate radio-influenced techno of "Buchla" and hesitant dubstep style rhythms of "Parallel Jalebi". For the most part however Beautiful Rewind is as varied as the likes of Rounds and There Is Love In You, with the minimalist kosmische of "Ba Teaches Yoga", analogue gurgles of "Crush" and dawn chorus sounds of closer "Your Body Feels" all as beautiful as his most enduring tracks.

Review: Given his innate ability to craft intensely atmospheric and often fundamentally unsettling music, it seems apt that Thom Yorke has finally got around to producing a film soundtrack. It's fitting, too, that said soundtrack is for Luca Guadagnino's weirdo remake of 1977 Italian horror flick "Suspiria". Yorke nails the brief, delivering a string of chilling, otherworldly instrumentals that not only draw on his well-established love of dark ambient and gruesome electronica, but also foreboding neo-classical movements and sparse, wide-eyed arrangements. There are a smattering of superb vocal moments, too, with recent single "Suspirio" - described by one broadsheet reviewer as "the saddest waltz you'll ever here" - standing out.

Review: We're asked to Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities. But the twist is, this plane of existence we somehow find ourselves in already is. Such is the overarching fable at the heart of James Holden's new album. The esteemed electronic musician and DJ knows as much, and is quoted to have said 'I want this to be my most open record, uncynical, naive, unguarded, the record teenage me wanted to make'. So, a high dimensional space of all possibilities can be found within us, right where we started - not some other dimension or higher plane of consciousness. All this is conveyed pretty neatly through Holden's crushed bitscapes, future techno ambientrancers, and exploration of revolutionary themes. Like exploring a bountiful rainforest full of bohemians and mushrooms, longtime fans and newcomers alike are sure to be delighted.

Review: It has taken five years for FKA Twigs to follow up her astonishing first album, "LP1". With that kind of timeframe, you can't help but have high expectations for the finished product, expectations "Magdalene" more than meets from the off. An artist in the truest sense - with every step and stage in the recording process controlled by her - it's an accomplished comeback for a woman who in the last half decade has experienced both personal loss and major physical challenges. Don't expect more of the same, then, but instead a talent finding new purpose and new confidence following difficult times. With the ever-impressive Nicolas Jaar giving a helping hand, the result is a raw, honest record that's deeply personal, full of self-reflection and, ultimately, accepting and positive. Not to mention destined to be on repeat. Her position as one of the UK's most vital and compelling acts re-confirmed.

Review: In interviews promoting Fossora, her tenth album, Bjork joked that it started life as "her Clarinet album" - a nod to the set's extensive (and sometimes experimental) use of regular and bass clarinet instrumentation. Really, though, it's her lockdown album, and one partly inspired by the grief she felt following the passing of her mother in 2018. In many ways it's an astonishing set, with the Icelandic artist adding her own distinctive lyrics and vocals - still effortlessly emotional and addictive after all these years - to tracks that brilliantly fuse, mix and mangle red-lined tribal drums, fuzzy IDM style electronics, brass band arrangements, jazz instrumentation and, on the inspired title track, increasingly intense, break-neck dancefloor rhythms that tend towards the gabber end of the spectrum. Unusual, entertaining and utterly beguiling; it's another brilliant album from a genuine one-off.

Review: Back in 2004, during their tour promoting their 'Tour De France Soundtracks' album, Kraftwerk's performance at Cirkus in Stockholm was recorded for broadcast on Swedish radio. This two-disc set presents that recording in full. It's more atmospheric than some of their 'official' live albums (the audience sounds more involved) and includes some killer versions of hits and album tracks. The spruced-up, fully digitised re-make of 'The Model' is a blast, 'Radioactivity' dually creepy and utterly joyous, and the 'Computer World' medley - which also includes 'Home Computer' and 'It's More Fun To Compute' - utterly brilliant. The riotous, ten-minute show-closing take on 'Musique Non-Stop' is also superb.

Review: Los Angeles based ambient husband and wife duo, awakened souls join with Reunion Island native, From Overseas to create Keep The Orange Sun. After hearing each other's individual music, a deeper conversation started about shared musical influences and inspiration leading to the creation of this album. Keep The Orange Sun guides the listener on a thoughtfully curated path. Starting with the certainty of life's changes (Certainty of Tides) to arising self-doubt (Release/Adapt) and celebrating immersion in the present moment as the gateway to deeper connection with nature and one's life (Keep The Orange Sun). The instrumentation present in each track channels elements of electronic, shoegaze & ambient with each artist's distinct musical fingerprint highlighted.

Review: Having taken time out to travel the world and experience new things (including psychedelic substances in California), John Hopkins planned to make Singularity, his ninth album, "a sonic ecosystem that starts and ends on the same note". He soon got frustrated by these limitations, so instead just laid down a fluid and hazy album that combines his usual luscious, ambient electronics with a variety of sparse, heavy and off-kilter rhythms. While undeniably laidback in parts, the album also boasts a number of foreboding techno workouts and uses a wider palette of instrumental sounds than we've come to expect (including some fine strings and his own intricate piano playing). The resultant set is rather impressive, all told, and while not quite a "sonic ecosystem", it's certainly an enjoyable journey.

Review: Contemporary British jazz drummer-master Yussef Dayes returns with Black Classical Music, a monumental 18-track LP that not only contains collaborations with Rocco Palladino, Charlie Stacey, Alfa Mist, and Mansur Brown, but flaunt his compositional chops after the immediate fact of the studio, with the likes of 'Rust' and 'Early Dayes' laying down a heartfelt and clean foray into the nu-est expression of British jazz yet. Predominantly made in collaboration with Black artists, it's an album that aims to chart the history of an entire art form a fresh perspective, evidently tracing the line of his own personal past-present at the same time.

Review: Tony Allen is on record as saying that The Source, his first album on iconic jazz label Blue Note, is the best recording he's made. Given his length of service and vast discography, that's a bold claim. Certainly, it's a fine album, with the legendary drummer and his selected musicians - mostly jazz players from Paris, plus a Cameroonian guitarist and previous Allen collaborator Damon Albarn on one cut - effortlessly blur the boundaries between Afrobeat and the kind of jazz pioneered by Allen's percussion heroes Art Blakey and Max Roach. It's a brilliant hybrid that fits Allen's unique style of drumming like a glove, and there's no doubt that the former Fela Kuti sticks-man is the real star of the show.

Review: Ezra Collective has described their hotly anticipated second album, 'Where I'm Meant To Be', as "a thumping celebration of life". As with their previous work, it's rooted in the band's love of on-stage improvisation - call-and-response instrument solos abound throughout - and peppered with contributions from guest vocalists including Sampa The Great, Emeli Sande and Nao. Musically, it's undoubtedly joyous, blurring the boundaries between contemporary UK jazz, afrobeat, hip-hop, dub, Latin rhythms and soft-touch electronics. The plentiful highlights include steppers-powered dub-jazz workout 'Ego Killah', sparkling opener 'Life Goes On' and the Afro-Cuban brilliance of 'Victory Dance'.

Review: Back in the early-to-mid 1990s, Robert Fripp collaborated with numerous ambient house-era electronic artists, including the Orb (see the largely forgotten FFWD>> album) and The Grid, who invited the long-time Brian Eno collaborator to recording sessions back in 1992. While some of the latter material made it onto their '90s albums, much of Fripp's work - dreamy guitar textures, drone works and other electronic experiments -was left in their archive. Leviathan is based around these unissued recordings, with Dave Ball and Richard Norris adding their own new sounds to create a string of beautiful, meditative, and picturesque ambient compositions that sit somewhere between their own ambient works, Norris's recent modular electronic explorations, and the forementioned FFWD>> project.

Review: Pharoah Sanders was a monumental figure in the field of spiritual jazz, and this album from 1977 was his undisputed masterwork. Receiving renewed recognition in recent years as a collaborator, his passing in 2022 has cemented his legendary status, and so Luaka Bop take on the task of paying tribute with a lavish reissue of this landmark release. As well as the original album, this two-disc edition features previously unreleased live renditions of 'Harvest Time' and a 70-page booklet with interviews, rarely seen photographs and an interview with Sanders himself.

Review: It wasn't so long ago we were writing about the joys of BVDUB's Fumika Fades, a new double pack in February that sunk us deep into moving ambient soundscapes. Now the Bay Area dub techno titan Brock van Wey is back once again with yet another album - he dropped plenty of them last year too so is clearly in a mad creative patch. Slowly Shifting Lakes comes in multiple formats, this one being a double CD. The ambient here is coarse and textured, fizzing synths stretching out over skittish rhythmic frameworks before sinking into calmer waters on cuts like the escapist 'Searching For Glowing Shores.' Another triumphant album for sure.

Review: Geir Jennsen returns as Biosphere, one of the most enduring names in Norwegian electronic music and by now synonymous with elegant, plaintive ambient of the highest calibre. Inland Delta is made up of nine new musical pieces recorded between 2022 and 2023, primarily focused on improvised performance on a range of vintage keyboards recently restored to pristine condition. As lead track 'Franklin's Dream' demonstrates, there's space for traditional piano as well as the looming drones we know and love Biosphere for, all composed on the fly with a keen sense of harmony that comes from Jenssen's vast experience in this corner of experimental music.

Review: Canadian composer Mort Garson enjoyed an eclectic career, though in electronic music circles he's most celebrated for a string of experimental electronic albums he produced using early Moog synthesizers. "Mother Earth's Plantasia" is a bizarre but brilliant beast: a 1976 set that was designed to be played to plants to help them grow (really) and was given away free at a Los Angeles garden store. As this first ever reissue proves it remains a dizzyingly far-sighted set. Sometimes symphonic, occasionally spacey and always intoxicating, much of the material is far quirkier than contemporaneous synthesizer-fired sets. Highlights include the pulsing ambient spaciousness of "Ode To An African Violet", the twinkling, cascading beauty of "Rhapsody In Green" and the jaunty cheeriness of "You Don't Have To Walk a Begonia".

Review: As Biosphere, Norwegian producer Geir Jenssen pretty much defined a whole genre of ambient music across several seminal albums. In 2011, his N Plants outing was another critically acclaimed one that took inspiration from the Japanese post-war economic miracle. Every track on the album is named after a Japanese nuclear plant and features a warm, diffuse glow that never leaves you. Rhythms are suggested by the rippling of synths or tumbling of chords as distant hues, soft glow keys and fuzzy vinyl crackle all bring each track to life in a way that makes it as good in the foreground as the background.

Review: Kokoroko, a London-based eight-piece featuring musicians with disparate cultural roots and a love of improvised performance, have long been tipped as future stars of British music. Could We Be More, the award-winning outfit's debut album, more than delivers on the promise of their previous singles, offering up a set shaped by their communal love of Afrobeat, dub, Highlife, percussion workouts, spiritual jazz and smooth grooves. Highlights come thick and fast throughout, from the deep and sun-splashed shuffle of 'Ewa Inu' and the warming, sunset-ready soul-jazz of 'Dide O', to the horn-heavy celebration that is 'We Give Thanks' and the Balearic, beat-free bliss of 'Home'.

Review: By this point it feels fairly safe to say that FSOL will never stop either reissuing or releasing albums, as long as they're alive that is. Brian Duogans and Garry Cobain's music is trailblazing, and they've had successes in both the underground and mainstream worlds since the late 1980s. 'Life In Moments', however, is a relatively recent release - the 2016 release aimed to explore, via their signature experimental electronic blends and synaptic glitchings, the alleged 'space/time/dimension' that exists, and to which we travel, when we die. Ambient, classical and chillout collide as ever on this eternal light-tunnel of an LP.

Review: Gilles Peterson and Bluey's Str4ta project has always been something of a nostalgic offering, with the pair exploring their mutual love of Brit-funk, jazz-funk and dancefloor grooves of the early 1980s. Naturally, they've loosely stuck to the same winning blueprint on sophomore set 'Str4tasfear', with the addition of an impressive cast-list of collaborators, a touch more production polish and a subtly wider set of inspirations only enhancing the listening experience. The results are uniformly impressive, with our picks of a very strong bunch including the slap-bass sporting, floor-friendly brilliance of 'Turn Me Around', the Maze-esque 'Night Flight' (all squelchy electronic bass, glistening jazz guitars and colourful synthesizer solos), the sweat-soaked jazz-funk disco heaviness of 'Lazy Days' (featuring Emma-Jean Thackray) and the super-sweet 'When You Call Me'.

Review: The 1990s was arguably the first 'golden age' of ambient - a time when the inherently atmospheric and laidback style not only exploded in popularity, but also became the post-club soundtrack of choice for a whole generation. This personal survey of the 90s ambient scene from journalist and author Jon Savage does a good job in gathering together a representative selection of genuine gems and overlooked classics, drifting between the bubbly, deep space brilliance of Richard H Kirk's Sandoz project ('Limbo'), bleeping ambient house ('Calm' by 2 Cabbages on a Drip), early progressive house (React 2 Rhythm), electronic psychedelia (the tabla rhythms and swirly noises of Rapoon), ambient blues (Underworld), IDM (U-ziq), and glacial, slow-motion bliss (Biosphere).

Review: This is a CD verison of Ryuichi Sakamoto's very welcome return to the fray. It is his first solo album since 2017's async. Milan Records have released 12 in January to coincide with the venerated Japanese composer's 71st birthday, and the timing is poignant given the album draws from musical sketches created while Sakamoto battled for two and a half years with cancer. Sakamoto himself describes reaching for his synths as a kind of therapeutic response to a big operation, and so the music carries an added depth of personal experience from one of the most profound ordeals a person can go through.

Review: Dolphin is a new collaboration from UK jazz keyboardist Greg Foat and treasured Venetian ambient maestro Gigi Masin. The album was recorded in those strange years of 2021-2022, as both artists pooled their talents into mutual compositions which they then developed and embellished through the thoroughly modern practice of online file exchanges. There was time for some final recording sessions in person at a studio on the Isle Of Wight, where Moses Boyd, Tom Herbert and Siobhan Cosgrove lent their various instrumental talents to some of the pieces and the end result is a gorgeous, expansive trip through elevated musicianship and patient songwriting - a truly exquisite feast for the ears and mind.

Review: Veteran producer and the founder of Planet Mu, u-Ziq (real name Mike Paradinas) presents what is arguably his best album yet, though it will fly under the radar for those who are only interested in his early work. Like something between domestic house, beatific trance, and watery music for Atlantean holiday-letting, 1977 says it's a nostalgia trip to when Paradinas started making music under different monikers, when in actual fact it's the kind of thing we haven't ever heard him do to such an affecting extent. A family affair, Paradinas' partner Meemo Comma's voice peppers the album in a ripplingly soft manner, while a washed-out lounge mood, worthy of re-soundtracking the film Solaris, continues the album's instrumental charge.

Review: The arrival of a new Cabaret Voltaire album - the first since 1994 according to our records - should excite all those who hold the work of the pioneering Sheffield outfit dear. It's now a solo project from Richard H Kirk (he decided to keep the name after parting company with Stephen Mallinder in the late '90s), but the distinctive stylistic ticks remain (think paranoid sonic textures, metallic percussion hits, clear dub influences, plentiful spoken word samples, curious electronic noises and nods towards the industrial funk, EBM and post-punk). Naturally it's not as ground-breaking as Kirk and company's work in the '70s and '80s, but it is undeniably a Cabaret Voltaire album - and one that subtly updates the Cabs' particular brand of dense, dancefloor-ready paranoia for a new century.