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Review: Aniara's output has always been brilliantly designed for club deployment but could never really be considered as mere tools. The artists who appear on the Swedish imprint have a cultured sound and a knack for crafting maximum impact from minimal elements. Enter Mattias El Masouri who does just that with the sublime 'Time Dilation In Ultraviolet'. It's a hypnotic deep house cut with real drive that's down to the deft broken kick drum patterns, pulsing synth and heady pads that swirl above. 'Inre Dimension' is a 13-minute plus sonic daydream with paddy drums, drumming pads and perfectly airy hi-hats that anchor you in the heart and now as your mind wanders.

Review: Emotional Rescue turn their attention to Rare Silk and their sublime cult classic "Storm". It's one of those rare tracks with a wonderful otherworldly quality that manages to be smooth and accessible, and somehow not like anything you've ever heard before. It must be somewhere in the mix, between the dreamy harmonized vocals, lush instrumentation and curious sense of space. The original on the A side is a treat enough, but then throw in a mercurial dubbed out version by Arp on the flip and you've got yourself a 12 inch portal to a most delightful dimension.

Review: Available in extremely limited quantities, this new 7" from Burning Soul arrives in both black, or as we have it here, white, and it's another gem from Kidding that keeps up this fine Swiss label's high-quality output. The A-side bursts to life with 'Seriously,' a blistering funk anthem infused with Hammond-organ melodies, underpinned by a deep bass groove and gritty guitar licks. Flipping over to the B-side, 'Komet Ride' kicks up the tempo with even more vigorous drumming and exhilarating organ solos. It's a whirlwind of funk brilliance, underscoring Kidding's knack for delivering electrifying musical adventures.

Review: The long-gestating follow up to 1992's initial instalment, Black Aria II would finally arrive in 2006 after years of discussion from Misfits/Samhain horror-punk visionary Glenn Danzig, and further his exploration into the cavernous realms of modern classical dark ambience. Conceptually based around Lillith, the first wife of Adam, the material here is far more minimalist and starker than its gothic predecessor, while utilising a more varied array of instruments on top of the pre-established organ and strings, with more Eastern sonic influences to conjure a mercurial vision independent of the preceding volume. Complete with eerie chimes, chants and esoteric lamentations, the project marks one of Danzig's most intriguing works when compared to, say, his Elvis covers compilations, and offers a transportive, biblical, haunting narrative delivered almost exclusively via instrumental atmospherics and insidious gloom.

Review: Since the unveiling of their decrepit debut EP Granular Transformation at the end of 2020, Californian doom-tinged tech-death brutalists Apparition have become a hushed name and recommended extremity amongst the caverns of audible ugliness. Following on from 2021's insidious and unsettling full-length LP Feel, the band return with Disgraced Emanations From A Tranquil State; a monolithic opus set to eclipse any of the muted hope of their previous material. Dissecting forms of early psychedelic proto-doom, but with the sole intention of re-channelling those fuzzed out sonics into abyssal swathes of complex, heaving dread, this isn't your beer-chugging, whiplash-headbanging gross out death metal (while there's always a place for that). Rather, this is a cosmic realm of Lovecraftian variety, designed to enthral, impress, touch, harrow, and haunt in equal measure. Arriving courtesy of Canadian extreme metal peddlers Profound Lore, no refunds will be offered for those lost to the abyss.

Review: Pampa offshoot Hart & Tief launched earlier in the year, via a split 12" featuring tracks by Soulphiction and Mike Denhert. This time round, fellow German producers DJ Koze and Robag Wruhme are at the controls. Koze kicks things off with "Driven", a clanking, booty-shaking fusion of metallic percussion hits, resonating electronics, dub techno motifs, and minimalist textures. It feels a little like a contemporary Berlin take on early '90s Sheffield "clonk" (think Sweet Exorcist's Clonk's Coming album on Warp), which is no bad thing in our book. Wruhme's "X-mop 198" is a much more straightforward, early morning techno bubbler, albeit with similarly clanking percussion hits amongst the thumping kick drums and restless, one-note riffs.

Review: NX12X is the first in a new series of experimental records from this label and the artists given the keys for the inaugural release are Goldsmiths student and modular synth maestro Sam Hostettler and electronic innovator La Leif who tackle a pair of tracks each. Hostettler's sounds are the moody, heavy ambient atmospheres of 'Pointalims' and the more light and airy li-fi soundscapes of 'Opalescence.' La Leif offers broken beats with a skeletal feel and a burial-style synth aesthetic on 'Kyoto' and then crunchy breaks and fizzing, distorted synth malfunctions of 'Kimochi.'