Back catalogue: Balearic/Downtempo

Review: Said to be discovered and championed by a young Daniele Baldelli, this track from 1983 has been defined as a cosmic classic. The work of producer Steve Coe and his partner Sheila Chandra as Monsoon, they combined elements of dub, dance and ethnic music, mainly released through their Indipop label. Their mesmerising and majestic track 'The Dream' is featured on this reissue by Emotional Rescue, as well as an edit of original B-side cut 'Meditasian' featuring a sublime sitar solo which will hypnotise you into submission, but cut down by a good 20 minutes compared to the original.

Review: A sublime five-track EP that opens with 'Magik,' a nice loose and fluid downtempo sound with lush and wispy melodies. Elsewhere 'Reboot' brings some sleek metallic lines and cosmic keys, 'Reality 2.0' has funkier drums, 'RSVP' is a late-night electro-tinged reverie and 'Keep Livin' closes as a ten-minute zoned-out opus.

Review: The Mantua based Tempelhof pairing of Luciano Ermondi and Paolo Mazzacani mark their debut on Aficionado with a sublime two track 12". The music here was allegedly inspired by the recording sessions they did for the recent Hoshi LP with Gigi Masin and if you are familiar with his work you will be able to hear how Ermondi and Mazzacani applied the lessons learnt wit the ambient maestro on Piano Piano. The title track is an absolutely gorgeous modern ambient composition that feels like it could go on for a lot longer than its eight minute duration without getting tiresome. Those sumptuous piano notes are pitch perfect. On the b side Ermondi and Mazzacani nudge proceedings gently towards the dancefloor with the delightful Balearic wonder "Barbados". Like most Aficionado releases this wont be around for long.

Review: File Under Disco have amassed some serious respect in house and new disco corners. Check these glittering grooves from Maffia Club's Rocca and you'll understand just why: "Pizza On Wednesday" struts and sways with beautifully rounded Prelude-style bass run, soft sexy vocals and charming flute parps. Elsewhere we hit "A Magical Day", a seriously spaced out, stripped back nodder that's peppered with bubbly FX, staccato synths and a muscular bassline. "Love Power", meanwhile, is as authentically disco as it gets: big strings, cheeky synth squiggles on the fills and, above all, a big old stomping groove. Feel the love!

Review: If you've ever got a few hours to spare, check out Legowelt's discography - the Dutch analogue fetishist is astonishingly productive (and, of course Legowelt is simply one of Danny Wolfers' many pseudonyms). Here, he adds another label to the growing list with a surprise appearance on Andrew Morgan's Washington D.C-based Peoples Potential Unlimited imprint. Unsurprisingly, Wolfers explores many of his favourite themes on Puzzles in Life, merrily skipping between melodic, bubbling deep house (the excellent title track), slo-mo Detroit futurism ("Video Phone To Space"), super-slo stargazing boogie (the superb "Cruise Till The Sun Shines") and woozy, intergalactic ambience ("Los Alamos Motel"). In many ways, this is an unusual turn from PPU, but it's a calculated gamble that's more than paid off.

Review: Who can deny anything Roy Ayers, really? Japanese pianist and electronic music producer Kan Sano reworks the American soul, funk and jazz legend's infamous hit "Everybody Loves The Sunshine". He breaks down the sugar-dusted original into something freeform, downtempo and acid jazz leaning, while on the flip, "Music Overflow", sounds exactly like a production you would make after being inspired by sunshine, soul, Roy Ayers and a room full of drum machines and synthesisers.

Review: New Yorker Elliot Taub graces this 8th Kinfolk release with 3 trax of varying intesity. 'Do That Dance' is an uptempo melodic bass and synth heavy dancefloor jam. 'Thirteenth Roll in A Bakers Dozen' takes a slower spaced out route. '10 Dollars' conitnues in the same mode but this time with guitar and a super heavy synth line pushing the driving force along and finally Soft Rocks grab a hold of '10 Dollars' and turn it into a John Carpenter-esque electro groover.

Review: Rekid is the alter-ego of Matt Edwards. With numerous recording projects (Rekid, Radio Slave, Quiet Village, Mathew E, Sea Devils) Matt Edwards’ music breaks down the traditional barriers of dance music and exposes influences from Walter Gibbons to Andy Weatherall to DJ Harvey to create a truly unique sound. "85 Space/Retrospective" are two more amazing slabs of tech/disco/slowed down house, his trademark sound as a taster for his forthcoming album "Made In Menorca".

Review: Released back in 2003, Rounds was the third LP from Kieran Hebden as Four Tet and perhaps the first long player that widely established him as a pioneering voice within electronic music. Though it doesn't feel like a decade since it was released, Domino celebrate the album's tenth anniversary in requisite fashion here, reissuing it in double LP format and slipping in a CD of Four Tet performing live in Copenhagen in 2004. Listening back now, it's easy to understand why Rounds is viewed as an early classic in the Four Tet canon, transferring his love for free jazz records to a beat template that's more palatable on the ear (Fact pickers might want to know that Hebden recently revealed to Pitchfork the LP was made entirely from samples) "She Moves She" still sounds absolutely haunting too!

Review: By now, we should all know what to expect from deep house legend Ron Trent. Over the years, he's fine-tuned his musically complex, emotion-rich sound to a tee. This fourth album, the follow-up to last year's more mixed up Dance Floor Boogie Delites, sees him at his most cosmic and melodic. Think smooth pads, darting synth doodles, hypnotic - and occasionally percussively complex (see "Atmosphere" - grooves, and twinkling piano melodies. For those who appreciate his slightly soft focus approach, it's a delight, with some genuine gems to behold. "Sweetness", "Space Dance" and the darker, clubbier "Blood & Fire" are arguably among his best tracks of recent years.

Review: Widely regarded as Boards of Canada's finest hour, Music Has The Right To Children finds itself the subject of a well-deserved 2LP gatefold reissue from Warp Records. One of the most defining records of what was known for better or worse as IDM still sounds as timeless as it did in 1998, as the library tones of "Wildlife Analysis", thick downtempo rhythms of "Roygbiv" and out of focus melodies of "Olson" prove. Essential!

Review: The first installment of Late Night Tales' After Dark was that rarest of things: a DJ mix that retained a smoky sense of early morning, home listening atmosphere while retaining an open-minded focus on the dancefloor. This follow-up - once again compiled and mixed by Bill Brewster - offers more of the same. Musically it's pleasingly varied, moving from the string-drenched downtempo beauty of Typesun's "Last One Home", to the heady Balearic rock of General Lee, via Justus Kohnke, the soulful post-bruk smoothness of As One, and the sprightly analogue electronics of Emperor Machine's remix of Paqua's "Late Train". There's also a bunch of previously unreleased tunes to enjoy, including killer contributions from the Mang Dynasty (AKA Ray Mang), The Gino Fontaine (Chicken Lips man Andrew Meecham) and - most surprising of all - The Grid and Robert Fripp.

Review: Given the wide-eyed, largely downtempo nature of their music, it's perhaps a little surprising that it took Late Night Tales this long to ask Royksopp to mix a volume in the long-running after-hours series. Royksopp are, of course, old hands at this kind of thing - they delivered an impressive Back To Mine comp back in 2007 - and use the opportunity to mix-up a typically heady selection of stoner soft rock (Little River Band, FR David), sparse dub-rock (Tuxedomoon), cinematic soundscapes (Johann Johannsen), psychedelia (Prelude), well-worn favourites (Acker Bilk) and folksy Balearica (John Martyn). Fans will be pleased to see a sprinkling of unreleased Royksopp fare, including intensely beautiful opener "Daddy's Groove".

Review: Joe Mount of lovable scuzz pop outfit Metronomy mans the latest volume in the long running Late Night Tales, a series who always seem to get the best results out of an unexpected cast of participants (Belle & Sebastien, MGMT, Trentemoeller and Midlake being recent inductees). It's hard not to get sucked in from the sugar sweet opening of Outkast's "Prototype", which is the first of several tracks that demonstrates Mount has a penchant for slow bumping R&B and outsider hip-hop with Tweet, Sa Ra and a Dr Octagon classic also appearing. A typically far reaching approach to genres applies here with the cosmic jazz of Chic Corea happily mingling with Autechre and Two Lone Swordsmen, and American synth oddities Geneva Jacuzzi and Appaloosa mingling for attention with The Alan Parsons Project and Herman Dune. The de-rigueur cover version arrives with a Metronomy rendition of Jean-Michel Jarre's "Hypnose" while Paul Morley ends the selection with a spoken word piece. This vinyl edition has 18 of the tracks spread separately across two plates as well as the mixed CD and a booklet!

Review: With a background playing in Swedish punk bands, the potent emotional force distilled within Jose Gonzalez's music suddenly makes a lot of sense. Hearing the ten songs on "In Our Nature" is almost like a palette cleanser. Even more starkly compelling than before, his approach is identifiably patient, methodical and focused on illuminating melodic details at unexpected angles. As a guitarist, he finds accord with players like Geoff Farina, and in the finger-picking style of Cuba's Silvio Rodrigeuz. Having worked on the songs at length on his own, the album was recorded to tape in two weeks in a studio in Gothenburg. Jose (guitar and vocals) is joined by Erik Bodin (percussion), Hakan Wirenstrand (keyboards) and Little Dragon's songwriter/vocalist, Yukimi Nagamo (backing vocals).

Review: When it comes to a reissue such as this it can't be understated just how arresting the work of Boards of Canada can be in the right situation. This EP, that came to light in between Music Has The Right To Children and Geogaddi, represents the enigmatic duo at their most powerful, channeling their energy into four long-form tracks that draw on all of their combined strengths. "Kid For Today" is haunting and dark but utterly heartbreaking, whilst "Amo Bishop Roden" heads into more mysterious territory. "In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country" is eerie in its titular invitation to join a cult, and "Zoetrope" tips its hat to Terry Riley et al in its looping phrases, but really there's no describing the magnificence of these gems, pleasingly reissued on vinyl to beat the Discogs chancers.

Review: Amsterdam label Music from Memory are steadily becoming the most interesting archivally minded operation out there, with this retrospective of Mallorcan guitarist Joan Bibiloni following essential issues of work by Gigi Masin and Leon Lowman. On El Sur, MFM founders Tako Reyenga, Abel Nagenast and Jamie Tiller cast their gaze over Bibiloni's work from the more experimental era of his long career (he first released a single in 1967) selecting tracks from a six album run which commenced with the album Una Vida Llarga I Tranquila, originally released in 1984. It was during this time that Bibiloni began to compose with the assistance of tape loops, drum computers and synthesisers and these primitive experiments make for compelling listening across the ten tracks on El Sur.

Review: Black Sands, the eagerly anticipated fourth album from Simon Green AKA Bonobo, is no revolutionary change from his signature sound but does come with perhaps even more subtlety and complexity than his previous offerings. Having constantly instilled a degree of integrity and value back into chill out music following the influx of Cafe Del Mar and Coffeeshop compilations, Green once again displays a musicianship that sets him apart as a true artist and producer amongst a sea of downtempo and chillout DJs.
His undeniably clear understanding of composition and arrangement of live instruments has enabled Green to make an album that reaches out through diverse styles, taking influence and inspiration from wherever possible. On Black Sands, Green delves into electronic music and bass more than he did across Animal Magic, Dial "M" For Monkey or Days To Come but does so with enough subtlety and finesse to refrain from causing a radical shift in his product. Tracks like "Kiara," "We Could Forever" and "All In Forms" all utilise beats and bass in a more contemporary outlook than we are used to with Bonobo. Of course the instrumental feel is still there for all to see. Title track "Black Sands" takes this position for almost seven minutes of a horn infused waltz whereas "Kong" assumes the traditional soul-jazz Bonobo take and "Animals" lets delicate drum patterns guide us through pleasing tempo shifts.
The instrumental vibe is highlighted further in the album's approach to vocals. Unlike his last album, Days To Come which was littered with vocals, Black Sands houses only three tracks that contain vocals. The breathy vocals of Andreya Triana complete tracks like "Stay the Same" and "The Keeper" turning them in more traditional songs. Black Sands is another loving crafted offering that uses orchestral arrangements but this time merged with more of a dance aesthetic. As he continues to make chillout more credible in his experimental way, it's no wonder that Bonobo is one of the biggest artists to come from the excellent Ninja Tune.

Review: A cult Brazilian band at their peak in the 1980s, Finis Africae represent the pinnacle of what post punk and its experimental offshoots reached for in South America. A lot of this compilation focuses on sprawling tracks that feature distant shapeless vocals, lightly pattering percussion and languid guitar, but cuts such as "Radio Tarifa" shimmy with the upstart angles of disco-not-disco at its finest, shot through with a salsa flair. Twisting and turning from child-sung folk to industrial-tinged instrumentals, through slow-pumping indie jangle and so much more besides, you'll find yourself pleasantly surprised at many turns discovering one of the hidden gems of the other side of the world.