Back catalogue: Coldwave/Synth

Review: Following on from their widely acclaimed album Afraid To Leave, Berlin's beautiful maudlin post-punk outfit Bleib Modern presents a compilation of remixes and reworks by esteemed artists from across darkwave, post-punk, and EBM. From IV Horsemen's club-worthy rendition of 'Bitter Smile' to M!R!M's dreamy synthpop take on 'Into The Night' via Dune Messiah's crooning 'Loony Voices, 2 Afraid 2 Leave: Remixed Reimaged Reloaded Part 2 offers truly diverse interpretations. With contributions from luminaries like The KVB and Blind Delon, it provides a fresh perspective on Bleib Modern's sound and serves as an exciting interlude that showcases the band's versatility and paves the way for future creations

Review: Towa Tei is best known for his membership of the influential house music troupe Deee-Lite, the legacy of which has helped sustain a prolific solo career. Now comes the two fresh bits 'Ear Candy' and 'Muse'. Channelling the aesthetic spirit of Tei's many collaborators and influenecs - that of singer and drummer Yukihiro Takahashi, once a member of the legendary techno-pop band Yellow Magic Orchestra, and the artist Yayoi Kusama - we get something between broken beat, electro-funk, and downtempo dadaist electronica as the result, as we are implored to "bring that funky music", an impulse almost certainly as addictive as the sugary highs elicited from actual candy.

Review: TVAM first crept onto the radar in 2018 with a self-released debut which split the difference between Suicide and Boards of Canada, but since then his sound has broadened to incorporate a shred of pop nous and anthemic grandeur best captured on new single 'Costasol'. If that track has a deceptively gentle, dreamy demeanour, there's plenty more space for murkiness and claustrophobia elsewhere on the EP, as the one-man-band indulges his industrial and lounge tendencies in strange, compelling new mutant forms. 'Ephemerol' in particular stands out as the perfect misfit foil to the lead track's poised bombast, fuelling the dualistic intrigue of an artist who never misses.

Review: Music For Dreams label head Kenneth Badger was so inspired by the Tangerine Dream soundtrack to the classic Michael Mann film The Thief that he and Tolga Bo0.95yu0.95k from the Turkish band islandman decided to write their own soundtrack to an imaginary movie. They managed to write 10 tracks within 24 hours while imagining a film that told a story about two people stuck on the arctic ice cap where one tries to fool the other. Influences from Vangelis, John Carpenter, and Tangerine Dream all feature in what is a superb and escapist listen.

Review: Club scene doyen, dance music veteran, and rave culture hero Johannes Auvinen opts to depart from the dance floor, at least for the time being, and deliver Arles - an ode to the other side of the electronic-acid scene, those sounds that make most sense after the chaos and carnage of a party have subsided and you're safely home on the couch with you and yours and all dearest.
And it works as well as it should, with the experience both of living in that world and making anthems for it clearly evident in the overall production quality and ideas. Arles is a warm blanket, that friendly therapist, an album that understands where you've been because it was there too. Remarkably, despite what that may suggest, this is not ambient or particularly leftfield stuff. Instead, it's rhythmic, pop-infused electronica goodness, for want of a more succinct, less awkward turn of phrase.

Review: It's been 40 years since Michal Turtle released his seminal, ground-breaking album Music From The Living Room into the world and promptly disappeared back into the aether. An extremely obscure cult classic known only to deep diggers and aficionados of the finest order, it wasn't until Music From Memory reissued some of the tracks from it via retrospective compilations of Turtle's unreleased music almost 30 years later that his name become more widely known and a new generation were able to discover the artist's unique and pioneering style of experimental electronic music production, the majority of it very much ahead of its time, and to this day still timeless. Invisible Inc. contacted Turtle in the summer of 2023 about releasing something else by him, and it was during this exchange of emails that ideas were expressed about releasing not simply a straightforward reissue of Music From The Living Room to mark its 40th anniversary (the album has never been reissued in full), but rather a re-imagined and re-constructed take on the album, bringing contemporary techniques, styles and newly recorded vocal and instrument parts into the mix and breathing new life into these wonderful compositions. Collaborators old and new were brought into the studio and the songs re-created from the ground up. Familiar songs like 'Are You Psychic?' and 'Village Voice' are overhauled and echo remnants of their original counterparts, but simultaneously sound like completely new tracks. The always mesmerising 'Phantoms Of Dreamland' is represented through a live recording at Cafe OTO, featuring original album vocalist Lucianne Lasalle and regular collaborator HOVE on electronics. The remaining tracks, however, will be completely new to the ears of most people, never having been reissued or heard in these new forms ever before.