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Review: Ambient and neo-classical pioneer Nils Frahm's Music For Animals is, amazingly for someone as prolific as he, his first fresh studio material since 2018's All Melody and 2019's associated All Encores. It is also his first work on the new label he has co-founded with his manager and it plays out over three immersive hours that are quite different to his previous work. It doesn't make use of his famous piano skills but is a mediative and spacious record that allows room to think. Despite the length of it, this is a record worth giving your full attention.

Review: Voices From The Lake is the pairing of Italian techno craftsmen and sound sculptors Donato Dozzy and Neel. They came together to do a live show at the famed Labyrinth festival in Japan and that's what gave rise to this new now seminal album. It's a deeply meditative and dubbed-out world of delicate synths and rolling drums that change only slightly and slowly but manage to keep you utterly locked in for the duration. It's pure techno that has been remastered for this new edition across eight sides of wax. An absolute modern classic for sure.

Review: You may not be familiar with avant-garde composer Valentina Goncharova, but this incredible collection of rare home recordings is enough to answer any questions you might have as to how mind-blowing her work is. The sort of artist who needs to flee the Leningrad Conservatoire in order to have the space and freedom to fully explore ideas. Combining elements of musique concrete, drone, ambient and a kind of lo-fi classical, this is an expression of place - sanctuary of the home - and its ability to offer protection from creative oppressors. Using vocal mantras, curious refrains, amplified and distorted strings (cello in particular), you really get a sense of not only the where but the how behind these arrangements. Hushed but dense, they draw the listener in with surprising speed, so before you know it you're right there in that domestic studio watching a genius at work.

Review: Fresh off the acclaimed reissue of his Feuerfalter LP in both parts on Harthouse last year, the legendary Frankfurt label presents another reissue of a classic LP by hi-tech minimalism engineer Boris Brejcha. Die Maschinen Kontrollieren Uns ("The Machines Are Controlling Us"). was the Frankenthal native's second album released in 2007, where the masked crusader presented a whopping sixteen tracks. A true zeitgeist of a golden era in minimal techno, tracks like 'Brainstopper' with its atonal assortment of blips and bleeps underpinned by clipped rhythms will really take you back to the old says, as will the glitchy micro-funk of "Die Maschinen sind Gestrandet" (Second Edition) or the deep tech house of "Wellenreiter (2.0)" could have been played aboard a Sunday boat party along the River Main circa 2008.

Review: On the back of Kompakt's expansive retrospective of his work under the Gas alias, the essential Box, Wolfgang Voigt has decided to deliver a new album - his first for 17 years. Predictably, Narkopop is as cinematic, widescreen and densely layered as anything the German ambient producer has done to date. Over 11 spellbinding tracks, Voigt blends field recordings and droning electronics with sweeping, almost orchestral movements, swirling melodic cycles, and occasional forays into rhythmic hypnotism. The result is a collection of "wall of sound" ambient compositions that does a terrific job tiptoeing the fine lines between both grandiosity and intimacy, and joy and pain. In a word: essential.

Review: Those who've been paying close attention will know that Alex 'Omar' Smith has been mixing things up musically of late, veering away from the deep Detroit house he's famed for in order to explore a wider range of influences. New album "You Want" doesn't exactly reverse this trend, but it is far more rooted in his particular brand of seductive, off-kilter deepness and techno-tinged hypnotism than recent singles. That's undeniably a good thing, because nobody does crunchy, machine driven club jams better than the Motor City producer. There are nods towards Italian style piano house, disco, broken beat, jazz funk, Masters at Work and - more surprisingly - industrial techno (see the filthy closing cut) - but the resultant cuts don't sound like anything other than tried-and-tested Omar-S club jams.

Review: The mighty Hospital Records is reissuing Green Graves, a classic album from Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement from back in 2016. It's an album that, as the title suggests, soundtracks a trip through the jungle with steamy pads and humid atmospheres, distant animal sounds and deep tribal rhythms. It's full of ambient and experimental mystery and intrigue, with suspenseful pads over barely-there skeletal drums that snake through the undergrowth on cuts like 'Red Protection Against Black Magic'. 'Nocturnal Anatomy' is darker and more dubby, hitting at the arrival of humans and their machines who come to destroy the forest.

Review: The Microcosm: Visionary Music Of Continental Europe, 1970-1986 presents works from 'cosmically-taped' artists; legends like Vangelis, Ash Ra Tempel, and Popol Vuh through to more obscure names in the form of Bernard Xolotl, Robert Julian Horky and Enno Velthuys. According to Washington State label Light In The Attic, the compilation aspires to present these these works of "ambient, new age, neuzeit, prog, krautrock, cosmic, holistic stuff, whatever one calls it - as a pulsating movement unto itself", and they've done a fine job of that when you hear how well curated this album really is. From major label recordings through to limited obscure cassette editions, it unearths some truly captivating and oddly inspiring gems from beatless electronic music's recent past.

Review: It is no secret that we here at Juno HQ are huge fans of the one and only Alex 'Omar S' Smith. He is a machine when it comes to making music and barely a year goes by without another expansive new album form the Detroit badman. Here comes this year's and it has all the things you would hope for and expect: raw, unfussy but infectious house with dusty drums and 80s synths. Supercoolwicked is a frequently appearing guest who lends these tunes alluring vocal touches while the grooves themselves are subtly, effective tweaks on Smith's tried and tested template. We are here for it.

Review: If you've not seem the movie Oppenheimer chances are you've had your head buried deep in the sand for the past year or so. The multi-Academy Award-winning scientific epic charts the development of the first nuclear bomb and subsequent realisation, on the part of the man who cracked the formula, that such terrifying power should never have been brought into our world. Directed by Christopher Nolan, outspoken critics of the master filmmaker may by now be wondering if he'll ever make another movie with a linear storyline - so much of his output is anything but these days. However, that slightly surreal, disjointed, era-jumping approach to storytelling necessitates a soundtrack that combines stunning classical and more avant-garde experimentations. Which Ludwig Goransson delivered with spectacular effect. Now those tones are yours to own.

Review: 20 years is a long time in clubland, but Watergate has embodied the age old phrase that time flies when you're having fun. The Berlin institution has represented a catchy end of the tech house sound throughout its tenure, both on the dancefloor and through its long-standing in-house label. Now they celebrate their big birthday with a cute compilation taking in such massive names as Henrik Schwarz, Sasha and Anja Schneider alongside the more niche names who made major breakthroughs thanks to the club's support. Pressed on three records and featuring a mammoth 18 tracks, there's a lot of bang for your buck if you can't get enough of that Watergate sound.

Review: The Stone Techno Series from The Third Room aims to pay homage to the historic coalmines at the Zollverein, Europe's largest complex of the sort. Techno's links to heavy industry are often duly noted in the press, but the likening of techno to the extraction of raw materials is not so much - which is what lends the music on this compilation a special character. With contributions from the likes of Perc, Lokier, Kink, James Ruskin, Luke Slater and Adiel, techno is lent a softer and more natural-mineral edge - as if the fast pummelling of the kick drum were caused by repetitive geological processes, not heavy pistonry or machine tools. That's all thanks to its use of samples recorded directly at the mines at Ruhr. All this complements an upcoming festival at the site, at which many of the featuring artists will play.

Review: Anyone looking to bolster the freakier end of their techno collection could do worse than checking out this bumper compilation from Advance Public Listening. It is a mighty four vinyl box set with tens of tracks across eight sides of heavyweight vinyl (that makes the whole thing weigh in at not that for off a kilo of wax.) It takes in plenty of experimental sounds, ambient laced tracks for 5am dreaming and mind melting cuts for the after party. There are also wonky peak time workouts and plenty in between from a classy selection of artist from all over the world.

Review: Was anyone ready for one of the most talked-about albums of the year to be Andre 3000 going ham on the flute? Probably not, but in a post-reality world New Blue Sun just slots right in. Of course the legions of Outkast fans are going to be split when an artist of such prominence takes a wild swerve into experimental musical pastures, but for those with an open mind or a pre-existing appreciation of ambient and leftfield music, this album is an easy sell. Teasing the tension between acoustic and electronic, ancient and hypermodern, grounded and ethereal, Andre has been bold and honest in presenting this album to the world and his gamble has paid off.