THE HELIOCENTRICS Schallplatten & CDs

Review: It's only six months since The Heliocentrics released their last album, 'Infinity of Now', but boy how the world has changed since then. To reflect that, this new collection of songs is more intense, dark, paranoid, uncertain and, well, angry. It makes for a typically out there record that pulls together disparate worlds and defies familiar conventions. There are moments of sweetness and light such as "Space Cake" but also pixelated realms of jazz complexity that glisten and glean. This is an album that will lead you to strange, thought provoking places, but will also greatly reward any time you spend there.

Review: It's been nearly ten years since the first release of Orlando Julius and The Heliocentrics' first ever collaborative album, Jaiyede Afro, which did thorough justice to the creative possibilities of Nigerian Afrobeat that arguably haven't been represented so well since Fela Kuti's last releases. Deft rhythms, and loosely-laid-down layers of guitar and horn, ride over each other like harmonious, health-giving backings for life across this short statement of nine tracks. Now reissued via Strut, we're reminded of its spiritual mood of tricky electronics and wahhing ambiences, as it slowly expands outwards into a holistic psychedelia, more than the some of its easily discernible parts.