Review: New York-based minimal electronica artist Brendon Moeller takes cues from drum & bass and lowercase on his latest record for ESP Institute. Like a sonic Hockney painting, just six generous tracks span a curtly two sides on 12", as classy deluges marry with designer percs, conspiring to make a large but radially controlled splash. Every experiential stylistic base Moeller has passed so far, such as IDM or ambient dub, is revisited and checked off, and combined to form a wet emulsion here. 'Vibrations', the highlight of ours, pays special attention to fricative, stimulant audio-exploits in the sound design, with its synthetic mid-claves and potent rubber basses sounding like the reflex responses it predicts and expects from us. No wonder ESP liken the entire record to one big tingling sensation.
Review: Ambient Classics From Japan on Mukatsuku features two lush filled classics from the label Form@ Record label from the land of the rising sun....First up, Shuichiro Nakazawa under the guise of Modern Living from 1998 - initially taken from the CD only Art Form 2 compilation although it also popped up on Music From Memory's excellent Virtual Dreams collection - now gets a whole side on loud cut 180 gram vinyl to itself. On the flipside comes Virgo aka Yasutaka Sato with his gorgeous deep techno ambient gem 'System For Zodiac piece, taken from the Landform Code CD, of which only 30 copies were ever made and has never seen light of day to vinyl until now. No repress hand numbered to 300 copies and first 100 come with Japanese Origami paper crane + sticker.
Review: Developed as off-the-cuff cassette overdubs, work taking place in Manchester and Massachusetts, combined with syncopated vocals, Human Engineering very much lives up to its name. Narrated by Rick Myers, with long-time collaborators Andy Votel and Sean Canty in charge of the noises, it's a strange place to spend some time but it's also oddly beautiful. At first ear, the aesthetic feels rough and mechanical, definitely anything but human. But as things draw us further in to whatever this plain is, the organic at the root of everything rises to the surface. Suddenly, the obtuse noises no longer sound alien, and instead have taken on their true form - products of people, perhaps artefacts from a time we're about to forget. One in which machines were ours, not their own.
Review: Legendary Finnish label Sahko returns with a curveball on its sub-label Puu, meaning wood or tree. While the three artists featured on this EP may seem like unlikely bedfellows, American minimal producer Bruno Pronsato, French fourth world explorer Romeo Poirier & British ambient producer Memotone, their sounds are united in a quest for the organic, the tropical & the gaps between genres. Bruno Pronsato's 'Above The Laundrette (Manieres Bizarres mix)' is an exploration of organic percussion, treading similar paths to percussionist Eli Keszler. The second track is a welcome extended version of 'Thalassocratie' from Poirier's excellent Hotel Naga LP. The pick of the three goes to Memotone's 'The Way In(side)' which sounds like a lost balearic cut from Jon Hassell's seminal Dream Theory In Malaya.
Review: This new collaboration between Swedish producer Civilistjavel! and Lebanese artist Mayssa Jallad is both a conceptual inversion and a sonic ghost of Jallad's original record. Refracting material from her Beirut-focused album through sparse dub techno, Civilistjavel! transforms narrative-rich compositions into abstract, often beatless forms where Mayssa's voice floats disembodied in a fog of delay and reverb. Tracks like 'Baynana (Version)' and 'Holiday Inn (March 21 to 29) (Version)' feel haunted by memory, with structure hinted at but rarely resolved. It's a remarkable shift in context, but one that remains emotionally aligned. Civilistjavel!'s production avoids spectacle in favour of slow erosionivocal fragments hover, dissolve, re-emerge. Even more rhythmic moments like 'Kharita (Dub)' maintain an eerie restraint, built on slippery grooves and shimmering decay. Both artists are working far from their geographic homesiMayssa in Boston, Tomas in Uppsalaibut the result sounds uncannily unified. It's a record that holds grief and beauty in the same hand, illuminating the quiet force of Mayssa's voice and Civilistjavel!'s deft minimalism. Not so much a remix album as a parallel reality: austere, spectral, and deeply moving.
Review: Kali Malone's The Sacrificial Code stands as a defining work of 21st Century minimalism, shaped by years of intensive study. Originally released in 2019, the album emerged from her time at Stockholm's Royal College of Music, where she explored sound, space, and alternate tuning systems under the guidance of organ tuner Jan Borjeson. Stripping composition down to its starkest form, she embraced canons and slow-moving harmonic shifts, slowly but surely stepping into a sound emphasising monumentality. Now, six years later, The Sacrificial Code is reissued via Ideologic Organ, featuring a new 2023 recording of the title track on a 16th-century organ. Malone's self-taught recording techniques bring out the instrument's spirant resonance, creating a time-dilating sound. Less mournful, more tranquil, the new version mirrors the concurrent transformations of music and listeners in step, over time.
Review: Kali Malone's The Sacrificial Code stands tall, meditating on the perception of time through the pipe organ. Originally released in 2019, the album was shaped by Malone's engagement with tuning systems, electroacoustic composition, and Sweden's experimental music scene. Following her apprenticeship with organ tuner Jan Borjeson, she embraced historical temperaments and archaic compositional forms, stripping them down to their starkest essence. Now reissued by Ideologic Organ, this 2025 edition features a newly recorded 'Sacrificial Code III,' captured on the 16th-century meantone organ at Malmo Konstmuseum. Malone's meticulous recording process, from close-micing techniques to the spatial placement of sound, enhances the organ's physical presence, creating an immersive, time-dilating effect. Each chord resounds with the breath of the instrument, as the record's restrained grandeur invites listeners into an amorphous, time-bending experience.
Review: Italian-born, German-based Marco Shuttle's first release on Astral Industries is built from field recordings taken in Colombia's Tupana Aru U nature reserve. Blending organic sounds with electronic manipulation, it captures the essence of the rainforest through both natural and synthetic elements. 'Part one' layers distant wildlife, dripping humidity and low-end pulses, while Part two shifts into abstract territory with reverberating echoes and shadowy percussive patterns. A final spoken passage from an indigenous guide provides context, grounding the work in real-world experience. The release offers a sonic study of a disappearing ecosystem, with proceeds supporting Amazon Watch. Shuttle shapes the sounds of the rainforest into something urgent and thought-provoking.
Review: The twelfth studio release from Manchester duo Marconi Union reaffirms why they remain such a quietly vital force in ambient music. Formed in 2003, the pair's latest work arrives after a two-year process of reorientation i one that saw them scrap old habits, test new material live, and ultimately return to the atmospheric instinct that first defined them. The result is a seamless 55-minute composition split into nine movements: fluid, immersive, and full of emotional nuance. It's a brand new release that spans sequencer-driven passages, low-lit drone work and impressionistic electronics, all stitched together with an elegant sense of pacing. 'Eight Miles High Alone', the first piece completed and shared publicly, sets the tone with a solitary pulse and slow-building tension i its clarity and weightlessness shaping much of what follows. The music unfolds without force, evoking both disquiet and release. Though wordless, the journey speaks volumes. A sense of modern anxiety hovers throughout, yet it's counterbalanced by warmth, space and stillness. After years of refining their sound across acclaimed releases and multimedia collaborations, Marconi Union deliver some of their most affecting work to date i not by reinventing themselves, but by rediscovering the beauty of doing less, slowly, and with purpose.
Review: Built as a continuous 55-minute suite split into nine movements, Marconi Union's The Fear Of Never Landing hears the duo recapture a state of exhilarating levity. Their 12th studio album, it finds them in refreshed head and soundspace, having come a heck of a long way since their 2003 debut Under Wires And Searchlights. The record emerged slowly over two years, during which the Manchester duo (Jamie Crossley, Duncan Meadows) grappled with creative uncertainty, reconnecting with their foundations through live experimentation. The catalyst came while scoring the cult 1975 film Downhill Motion, an experience that rekindled their affinity for cinematic composition and set the tone for this surefire introspection aid. From 'Eight Miles High Alone', a hypnotism which finds its inducer in sequencer-driven pulses, evoking isolation, weightlessness and quiet tension.
Review: Marie Guerin, or maybe you know her as Marie de la Nuit, is a sound artist who has explored field recordings, radio archives and "hertzian ghosts" for almost a quarter of a century since her debut in 2001. Her work blends voices, textures and ambient sounds that examine sound heritage and its preservation. Transportees is an electroacoustic composition that connects archaic and electronic trance and in doing so weaves a musical thread from Brittany to Tunisia. It follows a trance-like journey through recordings and oral traditions, all rooted in Guerin's passion for archives. The album reflects her fascination with capturing and preserving songs and transforming them into a soundscape that bridges past and present.
Review: Cliff Martinez's soundtrack is a full realised musical world that is defined by eerie synths and pulsating rhythms, all of which perfectly capture The Neon Demon hypnotic and unsettling atmosphere. Martinez is well known for his work on Drive and Only God Forgives and here once more delivers a score that is both haunting and seductive while mirroring the neon-lit world of fashion and obsession. The soundtrack weaves dreamy, ambient textures with dark, throbbing electronic undercurrents that draw you in and highlights include 'Neon Demon' and 'Mine' which pulse with icy beauty and mean this one stands as one of Martinez's most evocative and chilling compositions.
College - "A Real Hero" (feat Electric Youth) (4:27)
Riziero Ortolani - "Oh My Love" (feat Katyna Ranieri) (2:49)
The Chromatics - "Tick Of The Clock" (4:45)
Cliff Martinez - "Rubber Head" (2:58)
Cliff Martinez - "I Drive" (2:00)
Cliff Martinez - "He Had A Good Time" (1:29)
Cliff Martinez - "They Broke His Pelvis" (1:52)
Cliff Martinez - "Kick Your Teeth" (2:30)
Cliff Martinez - "Where's The Deluxe Version?" (5:12)
Cliff Martinez - "See You In Four" (2:28)
Cliff Martinez - "After The Chase" (5:23)
Cliff Martinez - "Hammer" (4:37)
Cliff Martinez - "Wrong Floor" (1:26)
Cliff Martinez - "Skull Crushing" (6:02)
Cliff Martinez - "My Name On A Car" (2:14)
Cliff Martinez - "On The Beach" (6:42)
Cliff Martinez - "Bride Of Deluxe" (3:37)
Review: OK. Let's face some facts. The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to Drive is up there with one of the best scores ever put together. And that goes for the compositions of Cliff Martinez as much as the guest bands and artists drafted for the other songs. Where else are you going to hear Riziro Ortolani and Katy Ranieri's operatic overture, 'Oh My Love', and The Chromatics' low sung, mood-building electro tracker 'Tick of the Clock', side by side? The answer is, of course, nowhere. And that's just skimming the surface. Deeper inspection take us to some stunning pieces of ambient and drone. 'I Drive' is a remarkable example of gong bath on record, 'Skull Crushing' is overwhelmingly heavy thanks to its use of distant sound and up front quiet. It feels like you're in a pressurised chamber. We could go on, but that wouldn't save any room to mention the trophy piece - College and Electric Youth's spectacularly emotive synth stunner, 'A Real Hero'.
Review: The reissue of Moltitudine in labirinto, originally released in 2003, is a profound sonic exploration by ambient pioneer Gigi Masin and electronic artist Giuseppe Caprioli. This album merges Masin's signature subtle minimalism with Caprioli's raw electronic textures, crafting an intense and introspective experience. Moltitudine in labirinto draws listeners into a maze of sound that evokes hidden corners of the psyche, with low-frequency drones and looping motifs guiding the journey. Across nine movements, Masin and Caprioli create a cinematic symphony that feels simultaneously vast and deeply personal, channeling a 'harmony of the spheres' through restrained yet emotionally powerful soundscapes. The intricate structure and fluidity reflect a complex inner world, making each listening experience unique and meditative. For long-time fans, this vinyl reissue is a welcome revival of a work that remains a cornerstone of ambient and electronic music. Moltitudine in labirinto stands as both a historical document and a timeless exploration of ambient's expressive potential, an artful encounter of melodic finesse and electronic depth that feels as relevant and poignant today as it did upon its original release.
Review: This EP weaves a labyrinth of sound, where the absence of clear genre boundaries is the only constant. The opener leads with ambient pulses, before shifting into the hypnotic, bass-heavy swells of 'Infrasound Loop,' as if crossing into a parallel dimension. As it unravels, 'Submerged Reactions' builds a wave of evolving textures, quietly oscillating between glitchy abstractions and weighty drones. Throughout, the artists' mastery of subtle, complex layers remains apparent, each track a gradual immersion into its own sonic world. On clear vinyl, it's an intricate, immersive listen-complex yet fluid, intricate yet accessible, making it easy to lose yourself in the flow.
Review: Lorenzo Masotto is an Italian pianist and composer from a village near Verona who studied at the Conservatory F.E. Dall'Abaco and the Hochschule fur Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar. His music now returns to Whitelabrecs with his new album Earde which is inspired by the landscapes surrounding his hometown in Northern Italy and reflects the beauty of local nature and Masotto's travels through Iceland and the Dolomites. Recorded in a deconsecrated church to capture its natural acoustics, the album explores the deep connection between place, memory and creativity which gives rise to a meditative, harmonic experience.
Review: The first ever release on the International Anthem label came by way of Rob Mazurek, genius musician of of the Jersey and Chicago jazz "schools". The trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist turned ever more avant-garde on this two-suite album, which was dedicated to the lunar cycle and heard him forgoing his signature brass for a monophonic cornet experiment, recorded at Chicago bar Curio. Documenting the performance, which was delivered alongside Matthew Lux on electric bass and Patrick Avery on organ, IA transport us right on back into the room with the trio, letting us in on a real-live experience of sidereal drones, selene harmonics and waning delays, paradoxically featuring in a suite which, both of whose titles suggest, always waxes crescent.
Review: Buenos Aires-born but now based in Barcelona, Nicolas Melmann explores sound's social and poetic dimensions through what he calls "transdisciplinary projects." He is inspired by Erik Satie's "furniture music" and his compositions create spaces of calm and contemplation as evidenced here on this lovely new blue LP. Musica Aperta blends acoustic and electronic elements with rich harmonies where soft textures meet delicate raspiness and it is divided into three parts. Each one slowly immerses you in time while echoing Satie's concept, Arvo Part's minimalism and Phill Niblock's roughness. It is a calming and cathartic escape from the fast-paced of modern life.
Review: Moshe Fisher-Rozenberg returns to Altin Village & Mine with Cosmic-Astral, his second album as Memory Pearl. Inspired by a 1970s psychotherapeutic music program used alongside LSD, he reimagines its classical compositions through electronic manipulation and using MIDI transformations of works by Strauss and Scriabi. He crafts new landscapes enriched by improvisations from Sam Prekop, Joseph Shabason and others and, as a psychotherapist and musician, he blends that expertise with musical creativity to shape a delicate trip across nine tracks that form a pathway to sonic healing.
Review: French-British singer-songwriter and performance artist Lucy Sissy Miller opens Pre Country with noises that don't feel remotely close to country - more Imogen Heap than Patsy Cline. But as the record finds its gear, reference are changed through a moody and mysterious veil of latter-day Patti Smith and the oeuvre of Laurie Anderson. A meditation on Americana which recognises its folk roots but isn't afraid to embrace the high tech of today, either. Pieced together using journal notes, poems, voice memos, found and collected, manipulated and obscured sounds, it's a reflective and quiet, tender kind of place to find yourself - a record that asks for patience and rewards you with increasing immersion. "It'a an album about memories and how we stitch up these moments, making them movie-like to make sense of these experiences," says Miller. We'll leave it at that.
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