New releases last eight weeks: Balearic/Downtempo

Review: Kareem Lotfy and Heith are back with their Ghost Lemurs project, and arguably their most conceptual and captivating record to date. Describing Wombs & Spirit Aliens as "a type of folk music devoid of a specific homeland, but resulting from the authors' heritages, simultaneously divided and united by the Mediterranean Sea", it feels like stepping out of our traditional timeline and into another dimension. Unarguably psychedelic - you can almost hear the shooting stars wisp by core arrangements as you desperately try and stargaze in the mind's eye - it's also unarguably earthly. Polyrhythms and melodic motifs seem to be taken straight from the ceremonial practices of long lost communities and tribes. Those who built their civilisations around a connection with the terrestrial and extraterrestrial, something most of us can only really hope to imagine in 2024.

Review: Soffplaneten takes us deep into a world of downtempo delight with the Samlar Damm LP on Sunken Rock Recordings. It is an eight-track odyssey that veers from the gentle rhythms of the opener to the languid dub rotations of 'Kom Till Mitt Talt' complete with twanging guitars and soulful vocal seductions. 'Hoga Mamma Moln' is a more percussive and upbeat cut built from loose drums and tin pot percussion but held together with smeared and heat-damaged chords. 'Tunnelbanan' is a whacked-out and laid-back stoner joint while 'En Suddig Musik' gets more experimental and unusual in its sonic collage. A wonderfully irreverent new take on Balearic overall.