Back catalogue: All genres

Review: While Brown Fang (Jon Thompson and Henry Scott) have worked with Huw Costin as Torn Sail before, this tidy two-tracker marks the first time a record has been jointly credited to their two projects. Naturally, the Nottingham trio has pulled out all the stops to make sure that the release is as memorable as possible. They set the tone with 'Exit', a suitably gorgeous, sofa-ready shuffler in which glistening guitars, bubbly electronics and dreamy chords ride a warming bassline and sparse, minimalistic beats. On 'Endless', the three East Midlands-based friends explore their ambient inspirations, laying down an immersive soundscape that you'll want to get lost in again and again.

Review: Siamese Twins Nic Ford, Khun Fluff, and Temple Rat team up with sonic reinterpreters Jonathan Kusuma, Konduku and Higher Intelligence Agency, for the Katha Remixes - adding to the recently popularised genre of amphibious techno. While the label Siamese Twins normally go for cassette, this neat precision V/A release is a yellow vinyl number. Like a noctile toad stalking the night, the tracks here range from dark organic chuggers to jumpy synaptors to melodic bloopers, all reflecting different facets of the amphibian master genome.

Review: Moscow-based deep techno artist Toki Fuko arrives on Russian label Luck of Access with three cerebral tracks forming his glittering new EP, 'Sanctum'. Starting with the expanding and contracting spaciousness of the title track, 'Sanctum', Korotaev allows space for reverberating synthlines to extend outwards, skittering into the distance across the pulsating core of the track, exploring a reflective space that feels at once private and collective. For the second side, everything slows down to a patient, meditative pace. Luxuriating in a moment of slowed breathing, 'Draft' unfolds in a series of exhaling atmospheres, delicately punctuated with strokes of light, glistening on the surface of a rippling body of water. The final track, 'Drift', moves downstream, driven by a winding ambience and decorated with flurries of unravelling organic percussion. At the heart of each of these tracks is a force that feels eternal, held in undulating patterns that continue long beyond their end.

Review: Music For Dreams label head Kenneth Badger was so inspired by the Tangerine Dream soundtrack to the classic Michael Mann film The Thief that he and Tolga Bo0.95yu0.95k from the Turkish band islandman decided to write their own soundtrack to an imaginary movie. They managed to write 10 tracks within 24 hours while imagining a film that told a story about two people stuck on the arctic ice cap where one tries to fool the other. Influences from Vangelis, John Carpenter, and Tangerine Dream all feature in what is a superb and escapist listen.

Review: Legendary German experimental label Mille Plateaux is back this week, with a fascinating album by Melody Tomb which is a collaboration between Tokyo artist Teruyuki Kurihara and London drone pop band The Leaf Library. Story has it that back in March 2020, The Leaf Library sent Kurihara some material to play with, in the hope that a collaboration would be born. He was indeed receptive, resulting firstly in the track 'Kite Beach' which was featured on the band's Objects Forever compilation in 2021, with the rest of the album slowly appearing over the next year that takes in drone, soundscapes, minimal techno and industrial noise throughout its eight tracks. The artists hope to continue the collaboration with another album in the near future.

Review: It's amazing to think how close this record was made to its predecessor, Tiblsc's critically acclaimed (and rightly so) debut album, Delusive Tongue Shifts. Which isn't to suggest for a moment that the two are particularly different, more just the first outing was so close to perfection it's hard to imagine anyone having found the time to have other material ready to go almost immediately after the initial batch.

Hypertranslucent picks up where its older sibling left off, and runs with similar themes and sounds. It glides and floats its way through eight tracks of stunning ambience, quiet but impactful, opiate but clearly formed and coherent. The musical equivalent to a lucid dream - producers fully in control of every moment, but with the sense of reality and rules drifting into the ether.

Review: RECOMMENDED
With sounds that might remind some of the USS Discovery's spore hub jump drive in Star Trek: Discovery, it should go without saying Tobias' Hall Ov Fame sits in the futurist end of ambient and drone music. But that's not to suggest there isn't also plenty of humanism happening here, too. The lush, perhaps ironically warm tones of 'Abandoned' come with added, inaudible vocals, albeit even these sound like they might be reeling off departure times for the day's starship flights.

Geeking out aside (blame the producer's clear knack for realising the kinds of noises that transport you directly into the cosmos), this is a record of deep layers, texture upon texture seeming to move in tandem, moments of harmony dissipating into simple refrains, before the next movement begins. Stunning.

Review: Dutchman Tom Trago has somehow been away from what was once his home label for a full decade now. He makes a welcome return like a long-lost son on new album Deco, a superbly accomplished record that takes its name from a sauna he frequented when he needed to decompress. Eventually, he put his musical career on hold and went to speed time with his young family and so this album was recorded after a long time away from club dance floors. It is delightfully whimsical with airy melodies, curious chords and majestic synth craft all drifting over barely-there rhythms. It's an album that provided musical therapy for Trago, and now us.

Review: Troekurovo Recordings is a production team made up of Toki Fuko, Vadim Basov and Evgeny Vorontsov and they have been hidden away deep in some enchanted Russian forests recording music. Now they are putting out the results on this superb double pack. This project started back in 2016 as a live experimental jam and is now an annual tradition made on loads of analogue gear on the banks of a canyon that was formed many years ago by a melting glacier. The locale provides inspiration - from the fresh country air to the meteor showers often visible overhead - for the music making which is strictly "no preparation, no pre-programming - hardware, friends and live improvisation only."

Review: Twinkle3 are a trio made up of accomplished flautist Clive Bell and electronic experimenters David Ross and Richard Scott. Their latest project welcomes the legendary David Sylvian into the mix alongside Kazuko Hohki, who was in 80s synth pop oddity Frank Chickens amongst other projects. Their collective venture for Cortizona treads predictably unpredictable territory, where minimalism, sound design and free improvisation merge into a meditative, distinctive whole. The woodwind and electronics intertwine in sublime fashion, resulting in a compelling trip for anyone who appreciates delicacy and risk in their leftfield electronica.