Back catalogue: All genres

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged/torn but otherwise in excellent condition***


Swedish producers Dorisburg (aka Alexander Berg) and Sebastian Mullaert decided to head to Malmo's Inkonst venue and install their music-making gear in preparation for this new record. They spent plenty of time there soaking up its aura and also creating a club setting with smoke machine, lights and so on. Then they turned on their gear and got going, with the results of those sessions presented here. They are fluid, ever-evolving soundscapes of tastefully reduced techno, futurist scenes and gentle but potent rhythms that find a perfect home on Neel and Donato Dozzy's Spazio Disponibile label. It's music that moves your mind and body in the most subtle and subversive of ways.

Review: 'PULSE 01' is the first release in PITP's new series, which is an ongoing exploration of ambient tech, while offering a more structured display of beat-driven ambient music. Pulse 01 features brand new tracks by SYNE and Influx.

SYNE is Dennis Huddleston from the UK, who is most recognized for his ambient work as 36. He returns to his SYNE alias for the first time in nearly 5 years, with only his second record since his 2017 self-titled debut LP.

'Dystalgia' is a 12 minute opus, spread over 3 movements. Soaring pads and razor sharp percussion combine for a dynamic, emotionally charged journey in sound. Showing love to the Detroit greats, but recognising the distinct UK influence which made him fall in love with Techno in the early 90's, it's a surprising pivot in Dennis' sound and one which all lovers of beautiful, melodic ambient techno should enjoy.

Influx is the techno/acid/trance moniker of James Bernard. With his first release in 1993 (Braineater EP on Sapho Records), Influx is no stranger to techno and acid. This project had been in hibernation for nearly 14 years until his 2021 remixes for his collaborative album with 36 and awakened souls (The Other Side of Darkness). Revel Dub is a dub-techno excursion with sprinkles of ambient and psy-trance rounding out the frequencies. The Slow Version dials back the tempo to half-time and travels to more ambient dub territories.

Review: 'PULSE 01' is the first release in PITP's new series, which is an ongoing exploration of ambient tech, while offering a more structured display of beat-driven ambient music. Pulse 01 features brand new tracks by SYNE and Influx.

SYNE is Dennis Huddleston from the UK, who is most recognized for his ambient work as 36. He returns to his SYNE alias for the first time in nearly 5 years, with only his second record since his 2017 self-titled debut LP.

'Dystalgia' is a 12 minute opus, spread over 3 movements. Soaring pads and razor sharp percussion combine for a dynamic, emotionally charged journey in sound. Showing love to the Detroit greats, but recognising the distinct UK influence which made him fall in love with Techno in the early 90's, it's a surprising pivot in Dennis' sound and one which all lovers of beautiful, melodic ambient techno should enjoy.

Influx is the techno/acid/trance moniker of James Bernard. With his first release in 1993 (Braineater EP on Sapho Records), Influx is no stranger to techno and acid. This project had been in hibernation for nearly 14 years until his 2021 remixes for his collaborative album with 36 and awakened souls (The Other Side of Darkness). Revel Dub is a dub-techno excursion with sprinkles of ambient and psy-trance rounding out the frequencies. The Slow Version dials back the tempo to half-time and travels to more ambient dub territories.

Review: It's eerie, deeply atmospheric, littered with what feel like found noises and strange abstract tones, but then rooted in impressive levels of musicality, possessing just enough form and structure to move beyond sound installation into full blown movements.

Or at least that's the case with the first part of this double release, Garden of Shadows & Light (Part 1), which sees melody used in almost abstract ways to bring emotional responses out of the listener. Meanwhile, Part 2 takes us into submerged realms that may or may not have something to do with whales. If all this sounds pretty out there then it should, after all this is Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Toop's live performance from The Silver Building in London in 2018, where the former performed sat at and inside a piano, while the latter used bone conduction and vibration motors among other things. Eccentric and innovative.

Review: Seoul-based duo Salamanda clearly struck upon a persuasive formula when they first cropped up on Good Morning Tapes in 2020. Somewhere between delicate ambient and a modern kind of deep house, their music carries a tenderness which feels absolutely at home on Facta and K-Lone's eminently soothing stable, Wisdom Teeth. In Parallel builds on the sound laid out on previous records for Human Pitch and Metron by presenting a more focused duo seemingly conscious of their rapidly grown audience and considering how to best build upon their tender sound without losing the charm. Threading subtle pop elements into their gossamer-light constructions, this is a rich, satisfying listen from a duo it's so easy to love.

Review: Norwegian online magazine Monument presents its second release titled The Scandinavian Forest. As expected, they've tapped some of the hypnotic techno genre's seasoned experts to deliver their take on deep and atmospheric dancefloor sounds. Highlights come from Dutch dub engineer Roger Gerressen with the heady greyscale minimalism of 'Angsalvor', the ever reliable Sebastian Mullaert will cast a spell on you with the arcane trance induction of 'Unwind' and rising Bavarian talent Polygonia hands in the strobe-lit frenzy of 'Stellar Rain' which will push you into mental overdrive.

Review: Snowmelt is a new record by Australian artists Seaworthy (aka Cameron Webb) and Matt Rosner, the long awaited follow up from their 2010 collaboration Two Lakes. Matt Rosner continues to explore the natural world to inspire his work based out of remote Western Australia. His most recent release being No Lasting Form (Room40). Webb's output as Seaworthy has been sparse in recent years as he continues to pursue a career in environmental research, focusing on urban wetlands and their ecosystems. This marks the first substantial release since Wood, Winter, Hollow, a collaboration with Taylor Deupree in 2013.

Review: Lettera Cosmica by Riccardo Sinigaglia and musician and visual artist Mario De Leo was recorded back in 1981. It has never before been published and is the consolidation of an artistic and human partnership that aims to trace the four seasons in musical form. It has been made using analogue loops, prepared tapes featuring strings and piano, draws on lots of freaky time and pitch shifts and has been filtered with a Teac 3340 4-track recorder. The results seem at once ancient and ritualistic but also futuristic and occult. The volts are unique to the South of Italy and as they harmonise it is hard not to be left spellbound by this accessible yet experimental work. .

Review: Originally from Rome, Italy, Marco Antonio - the man behind the mask, or the MaSpaventi moniker - relocated to Amsterdam in 2007. A switch from one historic and stunning city to another, in doing so he landed himself smack bang in one of the most vibrant and pro-active electronic music communities and industries on the planet. Suffice to say, then, he's both in the right place and the wrong place to get noticed, with a healthy scene also meaning lots and lots of noise to shout over.
As Vicino Lontano proves, the man in question - who also teaches electronic music production software Ableton alongside other lessons at music schools, including Abbey Road Institute - isn't really up for shouting at all. His work speaks volumes and much louder than most anyway, through sci-fi-hued cosmic dance floor stuff, space age drone, off-centre Italo, and futuristic ambient of the highest possible order.

Review: Andrew Bunsell and Tom Rellen comprise Staran Wake, the rapturous electronic music project traversing icy wonderworlds and capturing convincing musical analog-ies of them. Seven years of making music together preceded this sublime opus, after which a further four years were poured into its polishing off. Sublime aweworlds like opener 'The Watcher' use uncanny sounds and samples, as if evoking the image of moving across great plains of snow on horseback. Elsewhere, minimalist composition (as on 'Moth Syndrome') and far-out concepts filtered through physical-mimicky synths ('Ocean Trapped In Jurassic Caves') make for a unique multifaceted trip across miles.

Review: STBL is the alias of Spanish sound artist Jorge Ortiz de Pinedo. "Reflected" is his new LP for Gailur Records, an intense voyage from the roots of classic ambient to more experimental layouts very rich in textures and details. This unique mixing brings us a very special release of contemporary ambient music. This is the 4th release of Gailur Records.

Review: Paul Dickow has made some memorable and mesmerising music since emerging as Strategy 21 years ago, initially switching between much-admired experimental and underground labels (Kranky, Idle Hands, 100% Silk, Further Records) before establishing his own imprint (Community Library). Wet Room, his 20th full-length, is another fine collection of cuts in his distinctively deep, dubby and trippy sonic style. It's rooted in ambient, sound collage and experimentalism, but also touches on digi-dub, deep dub techno, trip-hop and the far-sighted, intergalactic electronics (if not the rhythms) of Motor City techno. Most of all, though, it feels like a coherent, immersive sonic journey, making Wet Room one of his most coherent and accessible LPs yet.

Review: Philadelphia may not shout as loud as America's Big Electronic Music Cities - LA, New York, Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, San Francisco - but there's compelling evidence to say it should. Philly-based Ulla Straus is just one name on an ever-growing list of essential listens, her stunning ambient work capable of transporting audiences - at home and in live settings - to completely new places. First released on tape in 2019, Big Room is archetypal Straus, and cemented her place in the pantheons of what some have labelled 'post-bbliss', but we're not sure how appropriate that term is; the sonics here seem to trigger a response in our serotonin receptors for all the right reasons. Lush 'scapes that are never obvious, tones that don't stop exploring even when you'd be happy enough to stay put in every moment forever.