Back catalogue: Coldwave/Synth

Review: There's much to admire on this latest 12" excursion from hard-working Israeli duo Red Axes. On the A-side you'll find two brand new collaborations, the most notable of which is "NYX Tape" - a clandestine, mind-altering chunk of minimal wave drug-chug featuring the distinctive spoken word vocals of original no wave star Gina X (she of "No GDM" fame). Chloe Raunet AKA C.A.R lends her similarly stylish spoken word vocals to the EP's other original production, the acid-fired electro filthiness that is "5 Min". On the flipside you'll find two tasty re-edits of tracks from the Dark Entries catalogue: a dub-tinged, dancefloor-friendly take on Solid Moon's spacey "Destination Moon" and a rolling, club-ready tweak of X-Ray Pop's quirky electronic bubbler "La Machine a Rever".

Review: While it has perhaps been slightly lost in the depths of time, and in the vastness of the ambient ocean, John Foxx's Metamatic label is a cornerstone of British leftfield and electronica. Since the late 1990s the label has released a steady and impressive selection of material that never truly fits into one genre or under one roof. This new collaborative EP is everything that UK electronic music is about, with five exploratory slices of machine noise that simply make perfect sense. Wrangler's "He's A Liquid", for instance, takes a mechanical industrial groove and spreads it over tight sci-fi sonics; Hannah Peel's "Tidal Wave" satisfies the pop fans with a slow and chimerical heart-stopper; "030" by LoneLady is a violin-led bundle of percussion and desolate vocal strips. The B-side flexes more muscle thanks to the head-banging pseudo trance of "No-One Driving" by The Soft Moon, followed by Xeno and Oaklander's nastier, more break-driven version of "He's A Liquid".

Review: The original pressing of Subsequent Pleasures, the self-financed and ludicrously limited debut EP from Dutch darkwave pioneers Xymox (later to rename themselves Clan of Xymox), is notoriously hard to get hold of. Props, then, to reissue specialists Dark Entries for making it available again on vinyl for the first time since 1983. While this version doesn't include all of the tracks featured on the original, it does contain all the killers, including the electro-goth wooziness of "Going Around", the Joy Division-ish "Strange 9 To 9" and the superb synth workout "Call It Weird". It's one of those releases that should be an essential purchase for anyone with even the remotest interest in darkwave.