Back catalogue: Balearic/Downtempo

Review: Kulture Galerie has got off to a superb start with a release that got the attention of big names such as Laurent Garnier, Midland and Vladimir Ivkovic. The pressure is on, in that case, to follow that up with a second release that makes just as much impact and the label passes the test with flying colours with a various artists' collection featuring some big names. Chief amongst them are Detroit don John Beltran with his scintillating hi-tek soul workout 'Canarias', and Bohm with the densely woven synth layers and dusty drum programming over the gorgeous 'Tactical Options!' Add in the more hard edge drums of 'Metropolitan Soul Museum's 'Negative Mouth', the melodic elegance of 'Bankastraat' and the acid madness of Tramic's 'Lanterns' and you have a vital 12".

Review: While Brown Fang (Jon Thompson and Henry Scott) have worked with Huw Costin as Torn Sail before, this tidy two-tracker marks the first time a record has been jointly credited to their two projects. Naturally, the Nottingham trio has pulled out all the stops to make sure that the release is as memorable as possible. They set the tone with 'Exit', a suitably gorgeous, sofa-ready shuffler in which glistening guitars, bubbly electronics and dreamy chords ride a warming bassline and sparse, minimalistic beats. On 'Endless', the three East Midlands-based friends explore their ambient inspirations, laying down an immersive soundscape that you'll want to get lost in again and again.

Review: Don't let the playful, tongue-in-cheek title put you off; this EP does not contain 'Balearic gabba', should such a thing exist, but rather a quartet of largely dancefloor focused remixes of delightful downtempo cuts from the Hell Yeah! Recordings catalogue. SIRS steps up first to deliver a chugging, Italo-disco-goes-Balearic re-make of Carmel 3000's 'Super Rapido', before we're treated to one of Calm's TB-303-laden 'mellow acid' dubs, this time of Sergio Messina & The Four Twenties' gorgeous, soft and sun-soaked 'Sometimes Remember'. Over on side B, Feel Fly delivers a soft-focus Balearic deep house take on Pedro Bertho and Mariana Gehring's 'Tornei', while DJ Spun's revision of My Friend Dario's 'Acid Mosquito in a Summer Night' is a twisted, genuinely psychedelic dub disco excursion.

Review: Swiss imprint Phantom Island specialises in the kind of atmospheric, slow-motion Balearica that looks far and wide for inspiration. Their latest EP, a collaboration between live electronic performer Tillman Ostendarp and singer/songwriter Gina Ete, naturally takes a similar approach. Title track 'Le Bouqet', for example, features subtle nods towards the more atmospheric material on Peter Gabriel's 1980s album 'So' with drowsy chords, ethereal electronics, clicking beats and the sweetest of vocals, while 'Tetra' is creepy, dark and atmospheric in the extreme, with live percussion catching the ear. Elsewhere, 'Nonchalant' is like trip-hop after a hit of opiates, 'Customer Care' is a wonky number with distorted vocals, ambient textures and West African percussion, and Fuga Ronto's remix of 'Le Bouquet' is a retro-futurist leftfield synth-pop gem with added dub delay.

Review: Hell Yeah is a label that is right at the heart of the Balearic sound worldwide. It is studiously run by Italian Marco, who is also a deep-digging DJ himself, a part of the Balearic Gabba Soundsystem and also co-founder of much loved Berlin club night Buena Onda. The night's second compilation is coming soon but before that is this taster which gives you a great cross-section of the sounds to expect: leftfield disco, mature grooves, deep and slow acid workouts and plenty in between. Japanese master Calm really stands out here with his take on Gallo's 'Abysso.'

Review: Sean Johnston has put together some righteous compadres to form a new project - The Summerisle Six. Featuring Jo Bartlett (Yellow Moon Band) on vocals, Andy Bell (Oasis and Ride amongst others) & Duncan Gray on guitars, Kev Sharkey (That Petrol Emotion, The Undertones, Elvis Costello to name a few) on percussion, Mick Somerset Ward on Sax (Clock DVA, Was Not Was, Crooked Man). This Is Something is a driving pop groover reminiscent of a late 80's early 90's Indie Dance anthem. The Dub mix invites the OG mix to ALFOS, turns the lights off and presses the smoke button for a chuggy heartwarming trip across the dance floor. There are no words to describe Rico Connings mix other than to say this 10 min journey has to be heard to be believed. A genuine Balearic gem.

Review: Renowned for the immersive nature of his sunset-ready blends of ambient, Balearic, deep house and new age sounds, Soshi Takeda is best-known for Floating Mountains, his cassette-and-digital only 2021 album on 100% Silk. Soon, it may be this mini-album - his first outing on Studio Mule - that people cite as the Japense producer's best work. Rich in colourful 1980s new-age synths and sparse drum machine sounds, twinkling piano solos, and oodles of enveloping ambient textures, the six tracks on show draw some inspiration from Japanese ambient pioneers (Midori Takada especially) and contemporary crews (Coastlines in particular) while delivering a distinctive musical voice. Inspired stuff all told.

Review: Takovou stakes his claim to a wider audience with 'Perfect Match', a wonky four-tracker with a sense of depth and slow unfurling that is hardly achievable by most artists (presumably, they'd lose their patience). Dreamy movers like 'Homesickness' and 'Bubbles' are at once light and deep, perhaps reflecting the airy and unburdened headspace of this obscure Russian artist, who now resides in Tbilisi. A curveball also comes in the form of 'Another The Same', which more recalls Four Tet than the prior, less dense ambient works heard before.

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: Both "Corner Song" and "The Flying Man" were first featured on Tempelhof and Gigi Masin's second collaborative album, 2016's arguably overlooked album Tsuki. Both are naturally worthy of a single release, though, as they deserve wider recognition. Both are quietly beautiful, drowsy and hazily picturesque, with gently percussive opener "Corner Song" just edging out the beat-less brilliance of "The Flying Man" - in which Masin delivers a weary and heart-aching vocal - in the "best track" stakes. On the flip you'll find a radical re-interpretation of "Corner Song" by New York producer Jex Opolis, who wraps Tempelhof and Masin's glistening guitars around a wonderfully colourful and tactile Balearic boogie groove.

Review: London's Rose Robinson aka Tigerbalm delivers a stunning debut EP on New York's Razor-N-Tape, showcasing her versatile and soulful sound. 'Nina' arrives in three different mixes, all infused with her smooth vocals and lush keys.The original is a low slung affair (feat Farafi) that provides ample mood music, while the thumping Elado mix sets its eyes on the main room, and finally the Voilaaa remix is definitely our favourite - which infuses Afro boogie elements for one seriously infectious version.

Review: Todd Russell and The Dangerous Coats (aka. Scotty Coats and Erick "Todd" Coomes) are destined to impress with their of psychedelic rock and ethereal electronics on their latest single, Playa Larga. Touted as "in very real danger of being lost forever", this is an unearthing of two of their private downtempo-ish recordings, which both come on a double A-side 12" adorned with artwork by Arizona artist Frank Gonzales. Hailing from LA, they wear their hometown on their sleeve here, charting the mood of heat-hazed convertible sweats and brand boulevard cruisings, albeit with a humid rainforested twist.

Review: Quentin Sinclair Foster is a cult South African producer who mastered the art of downtempo and deep house across a series of vital cuts. Now, the Soundbath label has got together a first ever vinyl pressing and reissue of them which is sure to help them become classics all over again. That will certify be true of the one, Tsidi's 'Contagious' (Transcendal dub remix), which has everything required to become an anthem - the smooth female vocal, soft focus synths and subtle old school bass. Add in four other equally lush and romantic house sound and you have a real doozy.

Review: Jasper Tygner is making moves, and fast, and is now one of the most interesting new names to have emerged in the underground. His Off Season EP is a case in point and is a multi-faceted work. 'Ready' is a standout and features Art School Girlfriend with its lush ambient synth craft and glitchy keys suspending you in a vibe while the vocals activate your heart. Later on this master of deep and downtempo sound worlds hooks up for a second time in 2023 with DJ Boring for the excellent 'So Unknown' which is another irresistible gem.

Review: Given Tornado Wallace's impeccable Balearic credentials, you'd expect his new A.S.O project - a collaboration with Berlin-based singer-songwriter Alisia Seror O'Neill AKA Alias Error - to tend towards the dreamy, immersive and emotive. It does, of course, with the pair conjuring gorgeous slabs of downtempo leftfield pop variously influenced by the layered textures of shoegaze, the wide-eyed bliss of 80s dream pop (Seror O'Neill's vocal delivery is at times reminiscent of Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser), the blazed Bristol beats of Massive Attack, the flat-on-your-back day-break headiness of ambient, the hard-to-pigeonhole brilliance of the Duratti Column and the late-night-on-AM-radio atmosphere of Kelley Polar and Morgan Geist's similarly inspired Ai Suisse project.

Review: Last year Detroit techno stalwart Jeff Mills launched a new project, The Zanza, an ever-changing collective of jazz, Latin and electronic musicians who could help him explore his love of a wide variety of styles and genres. Following on from the project's debut release, Mills has now delivered a debut album that once again proves not only his versatility as a producer, but also the vivid, widescreen nature of his musical vision. Wonderland is not an ambient or techno album - though it does contain multiple nods to the latter - but rather a hybrid affair that draws great influence from Latin music (and samba in particular), jazz in many forms, dubbed-out electro, jazz-funk and, on the rushing 'The Time Is Tight', organ and piano-heavy gospel house.

Review: It was only last year Lewis Taylor returned after 18 years with the warmly received NUMB. As an unconventional spirit within the modern British soul scene, he's always pursued his own path whether recording in the late 80s as Sheriff Jack or working with Gnarls Barkley. In 2002, in the wake of a deal with Island Records, he struck out on his own with two-part psychedelic soul opus Stoned, and here we get a reissue of Stoned - Part II laid down on wax for the very first time courtesy of Be With. If you have a thing for blue-eyed soul as well as Shuggie Otis' dreamy approach to songwriting and instrumentation, you're going to love this record.

Review: One of the great unsung talents of 21st Century British soul, Lewis Taylor's legacy in fact reaches back to the 80s and long stints as a solo artist and collaborator. He even signed to Island Records at the turn of the millennium, but after a couple of albums went independent and conjured up a double-album opus over the course of two years which begins with this hidden gem, Stoned - Part I. Now Be With have done the right thing and revisited this and other greats from Taylor's catalogue and given it a proper vinyl pressing, giving you the chance to savour his blue-eyed psychedelic songwriting all over again, or perhaps indeed for the first time.

Review: Elysian On Moon Lake is a new album from TECWAA that takes a differs path than its predecessor. Where that one was full of air and sparkle, this one is more claustrophobic and dusty. It is tight and dark an involving with plenty of weird electronics obscuring the beauty of the pianos on opener 'Never, There. Was.' 'Tropic Notations' is a cosmic workout with electro drums and aline synth sounds, while things get leggy and zoned out on 'No Lies To Her Fire.' Highlights on the second side include 'Welcome Dystopia' with its visceral techno stomp.

Review: Following a couple of decent but arguably overlooked 12" singles, Tecwaa has decided the time is right to drop his debut album. The Swedish artist proceeds to languidly shuffle through evocative, occasionally icy tracks that variously draw influence from deep house, 1980s wave music, spiritual jazz, leftfield synth-pop, trippy electronica and chugging psychedelic disco. It's an interesting and entertaining set, with each success delay-laden track delivering a new twist on his hard-to-pigeonhole late night/early morning sound. By the time the bubbly, acid flecked "Those Cosmic Plains" rounds the album off, you'll be ready to listen to it all over again.

Review: The album that everybody is talking about. 'Sexuality' is produced by Sebastien Tellier, alongside Daft Punk's half Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo.

Review: Tellier's tenth original solo album - and his fourth this decade - takes us right back to the illustrious bed of emotional melodies he's been synonymous with since 2000. Having immersed himself in a world of synths on his last few LPs, there's a refreshing sense of organic orchestration throughout L'Aventura. Ranging from the epic vocal harmonies of "Love" to the lolloping Royksopp adventure "Ladult" via the pastoral textures of "Aller Vers Le Soleil" at points this is dreamy, at others it's direct... But at all times it offers something new on every listen. You could argue this is one of his best long players to date.

Review: Rose Robinson's debut album as Tigerbalm, 2022's International Love Affair, was a genuinely glorious affair in which she wrapped indigenous instrumentation and all manner of global music influences around grooves rooted in cosmic disco, nu-disco, proto-house, Italo and Balearic beats. This palette of influences once again comes to the fore on this remixed version, which boasts some of her favourite artists rework tracks from the LP. It's all killer, no filler - as the old saying goes - with our picks including Session Victim''s percussive deep house fix of 'Cocktail D'Amore', Isaac Soto's devilishly dubbed-out interpretation of 'La Brisa', a hybrid jazz-funk/Balearic soul re-build of 'Cosmic Camel' by Mystic Jungle, and a predictably proto-house leaning vocal interpretation of 'Tokyo Business' by Andrew Meecham AKA The Emperor Machine.

Review: It's been a while since we last heard from Tosca (three years, in fact), and even longer since they released a record that pricked the consciousness of downtempo dub connoisseurs. Thankfully, Odeon is something of an unlikely return to form. Opening with the atmospheric ambience of "Zur Guten Ambience", Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber move through their entire repertoire of spine-tingling, horizontal sounds. Along the way, they touch on folksy iciness ("What If"), alien dub-house ("Heatwave"), Roxy Music-ish art-pop ("Jayjay"), bluesy dub ("Mexiner") and, most notably at all, post-punk funk-pop ("In My Brain Prinz Eugen"). It is, of course, pretty smooth, but that's all part of their stoned charm.

Review: Viennese duo Tosca have been dealing in ambient sounds for most of their long-running career, but this new LP on Germany's K7 marks a change in their musical style and vision. While they've been praised for their downbeat jams and abstract sounds in the past, Outta Here is all about rhythm and motion wrapped in a warm, jazzy blanket. "Crazy Love", for example, is basically a boogie tune, while "Have Some Fun" sounds like the perfect leeway between hip-hop and house. "Swimswimswim" is another favourite of ours, mainly for its sensual vocals and alluring groove. A sublime turnout for the Austrian boys!

Review: Tosca's wonderful No Hassle celebrates its 15th anniversary with a reissue that reaffirms its timeless allure. The album remains a hallmark of downtempo and electronic music and is a seamless fusion of jazz, trip-hop, and ambient elements. From ethereal vocals to hypnotic grooves, Tosca crafted a soundscape that transcends the usual genre boundaries and invites listeners into a world of sublime tranquility and introspection. Packed with lush instrumentation and sophisticated production, the record is a perfect escape that is as useful now in the busy modern times as it was back in 2009.

Review: Electronic duo Tosca (Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber), based in Vienna, was founded in the fallout of the success of the former's Kruder & Dorfmeister project - albeit during a time when Dorfmeister wanted to explore other sonic worlds. Now, they've come a long way since then; and a testament to this endurance comes in the form of their most recent album Mirage. Named after a tiny cafe in Vienna - halfway between Rupert's home and the Tosca studio - the album also takes its namesake from the alternative word for a fata morgana, i.e. the optical illusion of strange shapes sometimes glimpsed on distant ocean horizons. All that in mind, we're met here with a full-length remix project of the original album, in keeping with a longstanding tradition that every album of theirs hears a remix.

Review: Austrian duo Tosca aka Richard Dorfmeister and schoolmate Rupert Huber, are synonymous with downtempo and ambient and have been for over two decades. It's exactly 20 years in fact since their third album, Dehli9, dropped 2003 and offered two quite different sounds. The first half of the record is what you might call traditional downtempo, the second a more sparse affair defined mostly by plaintive, evocative piano pieces based on '12 easy to play piano pieces' by Rupert Huber. It's a sombre but alluring listen in which the space between the minimal notes really comes alive.

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: Tricky's Maxinquaye is one of the undisputed high watermarks for the divisive trip-hop term, but it's better to consider it as a complex, nuanced portrait of urban UK malaise in the mid 90s. There's aching beauty in the musical make-up as much as Martina Topley-Bird's stunning voice, and there's artful ugliness, unease and paranoia, not least in Tricky's unmistakable flow. This re-wrote the rules on what hip-hop could be, and it remains an indelible expression and document of a place in time. Alongside the extended Super Deluxe editions of the album, this single LP pressing features the original album remastered and sounding better than ever.

Review: Tropicantesimo's Session 3 is the third in what is a trio of EPs that all come ahead of and tease a new Gitania album. This is a collection of sounds steeped in ritual, in healing and celebration of self through sound and dance. Tropicantesimo was originally a party in Rome that soon became a "collective listening experience" which now has its own studio. DJs Hugo Sanchez, Lola Kola, Rocco Mago, Gabor, and Egeeno are behind the sounds and they all bring a mix of world rhythms, messages and sounds that are steamy, deep, languid and alluring.

Review: Tropics - AKA singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Chris Ward - deals in a smooth and spare electronic sound, in which the love of '80s Peter Gabriel and Arthur Russell that he grew up is parlayed into yearning songs that are both stylishly understated and emotionally engaging. Never less than inventive and melancholically melodious, 'Rapture', his second album, makes for an exquisite litany of heartache and regret, as Ward delivers the kind of late night tales that will be manna to anyone whose tastes veer in the direction of Sade, James Blake and The XX alike.

Review: Newcastle cold pop duo Troth have always been one to watch if you're on the pulse of the city's underground experimental scene, thanks to their dreamy sound, hypnotizing live sets and a propensity to induce zone-out states in whoever chooses to listen. Their latest LP 'Forget The Curse' carries the same lo-fi, folk and synthwave sensibilities as their rather obvious influence Hype Williams, building a clairvoyant dialogue between the vocals of Amelia Besseny and Cooper Bowman. Channelling the idea of dream logic into their music, we are further charmed into doing the duo's bidding, through such instruments as an affected sax and high-cut piano echoes ('Forget The Curse').

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.

Review: French label Macadam Mambo has always operated at the fringes of electronic music. Whether doing disco, world music or experimental sounds it has always had its own odd but alluring musical identity. For this one Tutu Ta goes deep the world of dub and electronics across 12 dark yet nuanced cuts on the Lonely Eyes album. It's a world of wonder with warped synths and ghostly vocal fragments, DIY rhythms and smeared pads that bend space and time. Lighter dubs like 'Talk Of Da Town' sit next to menacing shanks such as 'Krunk (Woody Flute mix)' while the percussive swagger of 'Kilburn Market Dub' is one to get you moving.

Review: The Mellophonia label offshoot Fusion Sequence won us over with its well-presented and great-sounding first EP, and now a quick follow-up does the same. This one is another various artists affair that starts with some nice futuristic robot disco from Vanity Project. There is more organic and lush Balearic from Bobby Bricks and Pacific Coliseum follows that spine-tingling Ibiza sunset vibe. On the flip side, there is everything from late-night electronic house to lazy disco via Sorcerer's blissed out 'Just For Love' which would entrance any dance floor. There's as much quality as there is variation on this one, which makes it a useful EP indeed.