Juno Recommends Leftfield: September 2022

Review: A Strangely Isolated Place presents a collection of tracks made by longtime friends and frequent collaborators Luke Entelis (Viul) and Thomas Meluch (Benoît Pioulard), combining their enchanting soundscapes for maximum effect. The album is inspired by the isolation and uncertainty the Covid lockdown caused - "Konec" is Czech word for "end," and refers to the devastating transformation that Luke and Thomas' home city of New York underwent during the pandemic. The finished tracks began as short synth sketches by Luke, with the two friends developing them into fully fledged ambient masterpieces while reflecting on a time spent in lockdown, collaborating to create a series of strangely beautiful interludes and "a sense of vitality breaking through the immediate surrounding dread." Judge for yourself, but in our eyes, it's a job well done.

Review: Those sounds that are so squelchy it feels as though you're going to sink into and through the floor via the subs. Remember them? Pye Corner Audio offer a perfect example of that with the A-side to this wonderfully polished and perfected two-tracker, with 'Circuit Riot' stripping out the unnecessaries to offer a stripped back slice of low-tempo acid crying out for a trippy dancefloor.

Flip it to find quite the opposite, although the appropriately-titled 'Pocket Disco' does keep up the ethic of drawing listeners ever deeper. In this case, though, we're brought into a spiralling looped hook-dominated roller that barely lets up, combining proggy-ness with space disco in a way that's bound to win over a broad range of ears and feet.

Review: Vrioon was the first ever collaboration album between Alva Noto and legendary synth man and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. 20 years after it became the first instalments of V.I.R.U.S.'s five records together it gets the full reissue treatment. The original tracks from the album are joined by an all new composition 'Landscape Skizze' which was laid down in 2005. The record is defined by alternate piano chords, lush electronic tones and quivering timbres that are delicate yet impactful.

Review: The sophomore solo release of Los Angeles-based artist and producer marine eyes (Cynthia Bernard), moving to the esteemed Past Inside The Present after her soothing debut record, idyll, on Stereoscenic Records in March 2021. Also one half of the ambient duo, awakened souls, she most recently curated the mental health benefit compilation for Past Inside The Present, Healing Together. Filled with the sounds of nature and visions of the clouds and heavens above, chamomile is a totally absorbing listen, wrapping you up in its harmonious chordplay and transporting you to a calmer, sunnier, altogether nicer place.

Review: Shack is back! The master of intricately layered drumming, who has long been twisting our melons with his dark and intriguing experimental sounds, returns to Honest Jons here for some more mind-melting workouts. These feature drums the man himself played in Dakar in February 2020 across three layered and enchanting excursions. The first is a real awakening, the second is more twisted and tight, with toms and echo and bass and hand drums all jumbled up while the third is full of intrigue and mystery, ancient drums run through with modern synth sounds to make for something scrambled yet transcendental.

Review: zake & Wayne Robert Thomas come together to serve up a thoughtful and healing deep dive into "what it means to continue living life in the face of loss and uncertainty." Their album is one of great depth emotional and full of subtle struggles that we can all relate to. 'To Those Who Dwelt in a Land of Deep Darkness' was first put out as a 10" lathe but now gets pressed dup properly to 12" vinyl with three extra tracks taken from the original recording sessions. They say the best art comes out of adversity and that is certainly true here.

Review: A Split Second's cult coldwave EP Flesh was dropped back in 1986 on Antler Records. The band of Marc Heyndrickx, and Peter Bonne (aka Chrismar Chayell) only formed a year earlier but his debut single made a huge impact and has become a real classic of the EBM and wave world ever since. Numerous albums followed well into the 90s but rarely did the pair ever top this - the jerking rhythms, ravey electronics and retro-future chords all resonating as much with audiences now as they did back then.

Review: Astral Industries latest release introduces us to a new name, Dialog. Yet while the project may be fresh, it's creators Dutch electronic maverick Samuel van Dijk and Finnish experimentalist Rasmus Hedland are both vastly experienced, with impressive discographies to boot. The album, which is effectively a slowly evolving suite of four lengthy, untitled tracks, has been described by Astral Industries as a conversational exchange that sees the interplay of dynamic frequencies, evocative imagery and contemporary sonic art. In practice, that means a mixture of out-there, effects-laden electronics, grandiose sound design, ultra-deep ambient soundscapes, mutilated found sound, distant spoken word samples and the kind of stargazing ethos explored on vintage Pete Namlook releases (and Jimmy Cauty's 1990 album as Space).

Review: There has been a steady stream of Nurse With Wound material released and reissued recently, with the fathomless creaks of Salt Marie Celeste still looming in our lower registers. Now Dirter are digging right back to the start to present a definitive version of the very first Nurse With Wound venture, originally recorded back in 1980 with a line-up of Steven Stapleton, Jim Thirlwell and William Bennett. Although it wasn't released until 10 years later, this amalgam of tape cut ups, sludge and noise make for a compelling time capsule on the various extremes of sonic exploration that were to come from all three. As you might well expect, there are additional tracks included here you would never have heard before, making this one for long time fans as well as those just beginning their NWW journey.

Review: With one foot in a kind of ancient religious dance, and another deep in the midst of a 21st Century music studio packed with the kit that makes things sound great, Parisian sonic explorer Dang-Khoa Chau, AKA DK, breaks from releasing on some of electronic music's most revered and respected contemporary labels (L.I.E.S., Second Circle, 12th Isle) for an outing entirely under his own spell.

Taking inspiration from his South East Asian heritage, this is hypnotic stuff that would sound equally at home in a gong bath as it would on some of the more experimental, worldly-travelled dance floors. From the ear worm loops and workshop percussion of 'Metal Frames', to the meditative 'Enlightenment Process', it's an incredibly coherent whole, but broken down into separate parts you have seven tracks that are equally strong on their own.

Review: Cry Sugar is the all-new album from long-time Warp mainstay Hudson Mohawke. It is yet another powerful statement that looks to mix the profane with the spiritual across some thrilling club tunes. The record is said to be inspired by "90s John Williams, film scores and spectacular soundtracks" and runs a gamut of emotions with plenty of dance floor euphoria served up in an array of innovative rhythms. HudMo himself says it is "a demented OST to score the twilight of our cultural meltdown." We say - we love it.

Review: Formed around Peter Kember, AKA Sonic Boom and former Spacemen 3 type, Experimental Audio Research certainly lives up to its name. A daring, high concept music collective that has, at times, featured names including Kevin Martin, Eddie Prevost, and My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields, sometime collabs boast names such as Bowery Electric's Lawrence Chandler and the legendary Delia Derbyshire.

In 1996, the group released Beyond the Pale, a collection of sounds that are largely constructed through post feedback and electronic boundary stretching. Ambient in the truest, most spatial and space-y sense, what's here is truly transportive stuff capable of taking you to an entirely different realm. Packing depth, resonance, and most significantly, power, it's a landmark in the real sense of the word.

Review: Bay Area dub techno titan Bvdub takes things in a monolithic direction on this latest ambient album for Joachim Speith's Affin LTD label. Bvdub is of course more known for his beatless drone works these days than his techno output, but you can still hear the sense of melancholic regalia of his earlier work in these voluminous pieces, one a side across a generously apportioned double pack. These long form pieces swirl and swim with thick layers of reverb and processing, but there's also space for more pronounced elements - take the plaintive piano on 'Twelve Years Apart', for example. Epic ambience abounds across this refined addition to the canon of a prolific artist.

Review: Space is the place - at least, it's the place uppermost in the mind of Indianapolis-based label Past Inside The Present founder zake and his sonic partner Ossa - location given as the north pole according to his Twitter - as they embark on collaborative 10 tracks. The fact that that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration - NASA to you and me - has supplied them with celestial sound emissions for the tracks is a bonus. But ultimately, the real headline factor once it's actually on your turntable is the vivid atmospheres and gorgeous textures that the pair are capable of generating. The album's closer, 'Metric Expansion', is a tremulous glory, peaking and slipping away like rays of sunlight. 'Space & Time', meanwhile, is a simple, gliding analogue delight, and 'Drifting' proves you can carve imperceptible beauty from a couple of well-crafted chords.

Review: One of our favourite labels here at Juno HQ if only because of its superb name. We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want Records serves up another super reissue here, this time of the hugely sought after Haruomi Hosono-produced Interior self-titled debut. It first came in 1982 and finds Daisuke Hinata, Eiki Nonaka, Mitsuru Sawamura, and Tsukasa Betto all produced by Mello Magic Orchestra. It's a blend of feel good ambient, synth pop and gentle electronic minimalism designed for you to sink in deep.

Review: Exploring electroacoustic techniques via piano, guitar, voice, and synthesizer, Istanbul-based composer, performer, and DJ Eylul Deniz makes her debut for the Dark Entries label under the Sunfear project name. The results fall somewhere between ambient, jazz, and experimental music with the addition of het haunting voice adding to the feeling of traditional songwriting being subverted and abstracted. Always taking unexpected turns, the title track even dipping into slow motion hip-hop beats, this Is a sometimes dark, sometimes uplifting exploration into totally original and highly memorable new territory.

Review: The final part of Dark Entries' long-running series of archival Patrick Cowley releases showcases tracks originally recorded for Afternooners, a late '70s gay porn film by director John Coletti. As with previous Cowley releases on Dark Entries, the double album also contains previously unheard material rediscovered from the Fox Studio archives. It's another essential collection of atmospheric synthesizer music in the producer's distinctive style, all told, with tracks ranging from the whistling cheeriness of "Hot Beach" and the sparkling, cowbell-laden throb of "One Hot Afternoon" to the dubbed-out, semi-ambient dreaminess of "Bore & Stroke" and the humid, upbeat "Jungle Orchid".

Review: 'Tapis Roulannt' jumps from the starting blocks as it means to go on, it's a high tempo assault that opts for a subtly lo-fi polish, rendering it less savagely assaulting than it might have been and packing a surprising level of funk thanks to that retro synth refrain and them fidgety high hats.

On the other side we've got 'Casiotone Nails', which drops the energy level down a little in the immediate but is definitely a case of slowly consuming you - guaranteeing that by the end of the track the floor is going to be going off, relentless chug and descending, off-tone hook luring us ever closer to some pretty intense, but not hard, places.

Review: Born in Girona, Spain and based in Berlin since 2019, Alex Busse' Santacruz's Ameeva project previously came to life on the Lowless music label in 2020 and the album 'Fractura del SueNo'. His live set for the 9128 Birthday event took these experimental electronics to a deeper, more personal level, weaving friends' samples and conversations into a rich tapestry of drone and field recordings, creating an immersive and enveloping 40-minute narrative. That's been captured here by the 9128 label, which aims to document significant live performances by artists that previously performed on the 9128.live platform, with results that are imaginative and impressionist, like clouds of synths and other soundscapes with the serene relentlessness and sense of purpose as molten lava moving down the mountainside.

Review: Known for his work with natural sound-making things, such as water, wood, and stones, Japanese composer Yoshiaki Ochi's Natural Sonic is a pretty defining chapter in the artist's career, given it conjures feelings of being in the great outdoors, surrounded by nature's wonder and mystery, within about two seconds of pressing play on delicate percussive opener, 'Dawning'.

From there that imagery only grows more vivid. 'Woods From The Sea', for example, actually sounds like you're hauled up on a beach tapping out rhythms with timber washed up from some shipwreck or other. 'Ear Dreamin'' entices with its trickles and chimes, like exploring some hidden cave or thick rainforest. 'Madal Sonic' is pure tribal stuff. Like an enthralling fantasy, with the narrative open for your to write, this is a deep and truly immersive joy.

Review: Intended as a series of companion pieces to accompany the artist's tenth album 'Solastalgia', 'Agitas Al Sol' is Rafael Anton Irisarri's latest statement of wonder in drone, released three years later. Whereas the 2019 album was like gazing in awe at a slow-motion avalanche hurtling towards us, this follow-up is like surveying the aftermath of said avalanche in real time, allowing for a more tactile submergence in texture, with less drone resounding. Yet another brooding, crackly, tape-loopy mantra on eco-anxiety from the American producer and engineer.