Back catalogue: Coldwave/Synth

Review: Following up last year's production with Baltimore techno legend Maurice Fulton on 'Jigoo', the next release on Gudu is the first of two songs by label boss Peggy Gou that she will release over the coming months. Her first single in over two years, it translates to 'Butterfly' and is another collaboration. This time with fellow Korean sensation OHHYUK who is the lead singer and guitarist in the band Hyukoh. 'Nabi' is a downtempo, pop-inflected number said to be inspired by '80s synth classics and '90s Korean songs that Gou's mother used to play at home during her childhood.

Review: The latest outing from Swiss reissue specialists WRWTFWW takes us back to 1981 and the debut single from Bern-based post-punk combo Grauzone. The 12" release of "Eisbaer" has long been a must-have amongst fans of off-kilter, dancefloor-ready new wave, and this replica reissue includes all three tracks featured on that version. Opener "Eisbar" sets the tone, with the bands weary, half spoken/half sung vocals rising above a backing track that's powered forwards by relentless bass guitar, screeching riffs and broken computer style electronics. "Film 2" is a heavy, synthesizer powered workout peppered with delay-laden drum hits and odd noises, while closing cut "Ich Liebe Sie" is a clicking and quietly melodious affair that's almost entirely electronic.

Review: In many ways the critical reception to Dave Gahan's debut solo outing is still surprising. Mainly because a good number of critics seemed surprised at the depth and assurance of the record, which kind of seems to deny the fact this is the voice of Depeche Mode, arguably one of the finest bands to ever come out of the UK and certainly a group that understand what it means to layer musical textures and meld multiple themes.

'Stay' might be the best case in point. It's patient, it's elegant, there's a real air of sorrow but also you can't help feeling loved while listening to it. Balladry in the truest sense, the fact that track is sandwiched between the soft half-house music of 'I Need You' and the epic, theatrical anthem 'Black & Blue Again' is a case in point. A real journey.

Review: A new collection of tracks by 60s and 70s electronic music visionary Mort Garson, including his soundtrack for the CBS News live coverage of the moon landings and music from a National Geographic documentary on them in 1970, is being released to co-incide with Garson's 99th birthday. Expect a cavalcade of elegant Moog manoeuvres that will whisk you back in time rather than back to the future or into sapce, but treat you to some euphoric, uplifting and beautiful melodies along the way.

Review: Canadian composer, arranger, songwriter, and electronic music pioneer Mort Garson just keeps on giving, even now, 15 years after his death. Archival releases since have come not-so-thick-and-fast, but occasional and well thought through, with Journey to the Moon & Beyond the latest example of this. Not, as the cover and title might suggest, the score to some forgotten 1970s animated classic, but instead a collection of stuff very few will have heard before, let alone had opportunity to buy, it's really something special. On the track list, then, you'll find the soundtrack to 1974 Blaxploitation movie Black Eye, or at least part of it. Similarly splendid, but in a very different way, are the grand tones of 'Zoos of the World', originally made to accompany a 1970 National Geographic special of the same name. Then there's the music he wrote for the 1969 moon landings, as used by CBS News at the time. History bottled, or rather pressed, get it while it's fresh (and in stock).

Review: It can often take months or even years of therapy to even begin to start addressing the real reason you're in the room talking to a trained professional. For Gazelle Twin, it has taken three albums - and more than a decade - to get to a point where it feels comfortable enough to turn her razor sharp songwriting gaze inwards. So, whereas before we heard observations on outward looking subject matter, here we take a turn for the insular. The result is an altogether darker experience, musically and thematically. There's a constant sense of drama and tension to this art-pop odyssey, and subjects such as childhood trauma - and its impact on our adult selves - are never off the table. Almost operatic, while there's plenty here to challenge, not least the universal expectation that later in life things get less scary, ultimately Black Dog is also about overcoming and confronting our most existential fears.

Review: Given her length of service (her first appearance as a guest vocalist was way back in 1992), it seems extraordinary that The Love Invention is officially Alison Goldfrapp's debut solo album. It's a typically sparkling, colourful and entertaining affair, taking the synth-pop sound that marked out her long collaboration with Will Gregory as Goldfrapp, and injecting it with a big dose of dance-pop energy. It's hardly a radical recalibration of her sound, though the influence of some of her collaborators - most notably co-producer Richard X (who was involved in some of the album's strongest moments) - is certainly evident. Goldfrapp naturally stars throughout, channelling her inner Roisin Murphy, with highlights including the sub-heavy, house-influenced synth-pop strut of 'So Hard So Hot', the vibrant 'The Love Injection' and catchy opener 'Never Stop'.

Review: Hoga Nord welcome Gravite for the third in their Layers album series and it is another intense synth, dub, chug and cold wave mix. Right from the off, the textures are caustic and uncomfortable. Squealing synths speak of desperation and trauma as whaling winds blow all around on 'Eclipse'. 'Chilled' has a heavy chugging rhythm that's overlaid with mournful chords that bring bittersweet melancholy and the paces picks up with the punk funk of 'Red Horizon' (feat Al Lover). Later on there are buzzy synths and busted drums on 'Into The I' and deep and dubby techno on 'Into The I' to make for an adventurous album that travels far and wide.

Review: Back in the early-to-mid 1990s, Robert Fripp collaborated with numerous ambient house-era electronic artists, including the Orb (see the largely forgotten FFWD>> album) and The Grid, who invited the long-time Brian Eno collaborator to recording sessions back in 1992. While some of the latter material made it onto their '90s albums, much of Fripp's work - dreamy guitar textures, drone works and other electronic experiments -was left in their archive. Leviathan is based around these unissued recordings, with Dave Ball and Richard Norris adding their own new sounds to create a string of beautiful, meditative, and picturesque ambient compositions that sit somewhere between their own ambient works, Norris's recent modular electronic explorations, and the forementioned FFWD>> project.

Review: Originally released back in the early '80s, Veronica Vasicka's label has done its audience a fine service by re-releasing Portrait by Swiss duo Guyers Connection. Full of self-conscious vocals and in places decidedly lo-fi synth lines, it's surprising and disappointing that this collection wasn't a big hit first time round. After all, both "Pogo of Techno" and "Keep the City Clean" are as catchy as an oddball Yazoo, "Die Grille" is a jaw-dropping, windswept synth composition and "National Und Stander" sees the duo fuse ponderous piano lines with pulsing, rippling basslines. Best of all though is "Ein Glas Voll Gurken" a breathy synth-pop song that could have conquered charts had it been sung in English.

Review: Not named after the notorious-famous Berlin techno institution Tresor, but instead taking its name from 'treasure' in Cornish, Gwenno presents her third full-length studio album, largely written in St. Ives, with most of the words Cornish, too. If that sounds pretty adventurous, then wait until you hear the tracks themselves, which benefit from handiwork by collaborator and friend Rhys Edwards, who is also credited with production of the record.

Introduction over, this is a wildly diverse and spectacularly different album. At times things feel haunting, almost choral. In other moments, we're in a 1960s-hued pop-y place, while work like 'Ardamm' seems born amid the dark room chug of underground goth post punk disco. Overall, it's certainly the artist's most spectacularly idea-filled outing, ensuring nobody is going to forget about it in a hurry.