Back catalogue: Classical

Review: Kali Malone's The Sacrificial Code stands as a defining work of 21st Century minimalism, shaped by years of intensive study. Originally released in 2019, the album emerged from her time at Stockholm's Royal College of Music, where she explored sound, space, and alternate tuning systems under the guidance of organ tuner Jan Borjeson. Stripping composition down to its starkest form, she embraced canons and slow-moving harmonic shifts, slowly but surely stepping into a sound emphasising monumentality. Now, six years later, The Sacrificial Code is reissued via Ideologic Organ, featuring a new 2023 recording of the title track on a 16th-century organ. Malone's self-taught recording techniques bring out the instrument's spirant resonance, creating a time-dilating sound. Less mournful, more tranquil, the new version mirrors the concurrent transformations of music and listeners in step, over time.

Review: Buenos Aires-born but now based in Barcelona, Nicolas Melmann explores sound's social and poetic dimensions through what he calls "transdisciplinary projects." He is inspired by Erik Satie's "furniture music" and his compositions create spaces of calm and contemplation as evidenced here on this lovely new blue LP. Musica Aperta blends acoustic and electronic elements with rich harmonies where soft textures meet delicate raspiness and it is divided into three parts. Each one slowly immerses you in time while echoing Satie's concept, Arvo Part's minimalism and Phill Niblock's roughness. It is a calming and cathartic escape from the fast-paced of modern life.

Review: Yumiko Morioka's Resonance was originally released in 1987 on Akira Ito's Green & Water imprint. Album, artist and label would all trifect to help along the enviro-ambient sound of which Ito was to become a part. For its quiescent but heartrending chamber pianos, Resonance was known for its use mostly in documentaries and as background music for spas, which hardly befitted the weight of Morioka's actual achievement at the time. By 1994, Morioka had moved to California, where she had shifted her focus to family life, unaware that Resonance had gained a new following outside Japan via online platforms. In 2017, when Morioka learned of this, she was recovering from a devastating California wildfire that destroyed her home and belongings. Despite the tragedy, she returned to Japan, worked in commercial music, and later opened a chocolate shop in Tokyo. Resonance, recorded on a Bosendorfer grand, blends improvisation with calm, introspective beauty, influenced by both Japanese environmental music and Western composers such as Erik Satie. The album was remastered in 2023, preserving its serene quality.

Review: Dietro il Processo is a TV investigation series directed by Franco Biancacci that was broadcast by RAI in Italy from 1978 to 1980 as part of the Storie allo Specchio series. The legendary Ennio Morricone composed the main theme and scored three episodes: L'urlo, L'ultima notte di Pier Paolo Pasolini and Il caso Montesi. Although the tracks were not initially released in any format, the soundtrack became available on CD in 2009. For Record Store Day 2025, this first-ever LP edition has been assembled and comes on white vinyl so allows a chance to revisit to these most dramatic pieces.

Review: Morricone aficonadi will be champing at their costume jewellery for this one. Scored for the Sergio Martino film Ruba Al Prossimo Tuo (1976), Morricone provided a hauntingly atmospheric soundtrack, marking the flick out from the rest in the Italian Giallo wave, and its usually otherwise funk-backed, upbeat exploitation emotes. The film follows a chilling, traitorous femme-noir formula, as a young woman, Giulia, is put through a seedy ringer after witnessing a brutal murder. As Edda Dell'Orso sings above Morricone's samba arrangements, the record is notable for its renderings of classic Latin style in much broodier, more dubious tones.

Review: In the right circles,, Martin O'Donnell and Michael Savatori are living legends. Working with the iconic US video game company Bungie Inc, the pair put their names on the map - or maybe maps? - by creating soundtracks to a number of high profile titles, either as a duo or individually. O'Donnell is arguably the better known, or at least has the bigger online persona, but both composers deserve plenty of credit. Halo: Combat Evolved was the first title in what is now a huge and genre-defining first person shooter franchise, and the score reflects the emergence of video game music as an integral part of the on-screen action. O'Donnell and Savatori's efforts to ensure instrumentation dramatically changed with events in the game, which is by nature relatively non-linear, was a revelation. While their efforts to separate these into individual suites foresaw the rise of playable stories as films in their own right.