New releases this week: Ambient/Drone

Review: Still riding high from the success of his superb re-make of Manuel Gottsching on Test Pressing ('A Reference to E2-E4'), Alex Kassian returns to Pinchy & Friends - who released his similarly popular 2021 EP 'Leave Your Life' - after a three-year break. Beginning with the lusciously languid, Balearic, effects-laden and sonically layered title track ('Body Singer', where Jonny Nash style guitars and tumbling sax motifs rise above a sparse drum machine beat and shoegaze-esque aural textures), the Berlin-based producer offers up a loved-up mix of weightless ambient bliss (Kinship), kosmiche soundscapes (the sun-flecked 'Skinship'), revivalist Krautrock (the Can-after-several-spliffs headiness of 'Trippy Gas') and immersive, cinematic excusions (the gorgeous 'Mirror of the Heart').

Review: There is a delightful lightness of touch to these deep dubwise explorations on the newly emerging False Aralia label, set up by Brian Foote, who founded US leftfield institution Peak Oil. Drums lap like gentle waves, synths unfurl as softly as passing clouds and smudged, ghostly vocals from Loveshadow's Anya Prisk bring romance. 'Externalism 02' is brilliantly wistful - barely there pads hint at emotional pain but dissipate before you hurt too much. 'Externalism 03' is a more lo-fi and minimal work with shuffling drums and murky low ends coalescing into a tender and bubbling soundscape then 'Externalism 04' is a sonic collage that is always shifting its focus from flickering candles to blurry pads. Hugely experimental but warmly comforting sounds.

Review: False Aralia is a popular houseplant native to Taiwan but also the name of this new experimental label which has got us intrigued. We don't know who or what Iri Gram is but we do know having listened to this that they make intricately designed dub, minimal, ambient and sound art fusions that sound like nothing else but also conjur up familiar feelings and nostalgia for forgotten memories. All four are couched in dub with wispy melodies and frayed edges, smudged surfaces and poly rhythms that range from slow and bubbly to more urgent and fractured. They all endlessly mutate and leave you lost in a whole new sound world but wanting more.