Back catalogue: Experimental/Electronic

Review: A collaborative new single by sampletronic master Kieran Hebden (aka. Four Tet) and guitarist and composer William Tyler, two acclaimed musicians and both longstanding friends. Part of a recent spewing-forth of Hebden-adjacent material to hit the shelves after the artist's oft-reported-upon "agent of chaos" phase, these two tracks, pressed to a furtive 12", provide a neat counterpoint to that assessment. Rather than a pair of riddim bangers, the record flaunts Hebden's signature electronic textures and Tyler's guitar into a hypnotic, nominally dark soundwhirl, reminiscent of the earliest days of Text, but with a unique edge - a sonic corner never quite scoured before by either artist.

Review: My Own Mirror To Stay is a brand new and first-ever compilation from the Sure Thing label. It finds them carefully curating six new artists and welcome them to the family, each with their own personal reflections of the dance floor. Lukas Urban kicks off with supple, seductive and stripped back techno while Soreab layers up prickly percussive layers and Sanguine sinks you into a dream state with his lush ambient pads and skeletal rhythms. The flip side features three more elegantly designed and meticulous bits of techno sound sculpture. The always exceptional Neel has mastered this one too.

Review: There is a ton of sonic scuzz and frosty electronic texture to both cuts on this new limited 12" from Natural Sciences. And that is frankly to be expected when you are dealing with these two artists - the long-time LIEs associate Beau Wanzer goes first with the fucked up drums and gnarly synths, wiry electronics and dark vocal mutterings of 'The Table Scrap'. On the flip is Chicago noise specialist Hieroglyphic Being with 'This Is The Right Time In Human History 2 Be Stupid.' It's a lo-fi and fuzzy world of busted drum loops and anxious synths.

Review: Marking the start of an exciting new collaborative project, Wolf + Lamb proudly share the debut release of The Waves & Us. Formed out of
a creative meeting of minds between Maayan Nidam, Markus Nikolaus and Louis McGuire, theirs is a sound that strengthens the storied
approach of a live band with the experimental thrust of analogue electronics. Pop and rock fundamentals lend an earthly hook to the
tracks, but these are anything but straight-forward songs.
Maayan has already forged a formidable career in electronic music, both under her own name and as part of Mara Trax, scoring releases
on such celebrated labels as Perlon. Markus performs his own solo project Cunt Cunt Chanel, while Louis is part of Ballet School, a band
releasing on noted indie label Bella Union. The whirlwind of creativity that has whipped up around the trio has yielded an album which will
follow this single, made up of one-take recordings that capture the energy and adventure that powers The Waves & Us.
Maayan's electronics provide the atmospheric backdrop to the songs, running modular synthesisers and drum machines through detailed
chains of processing and effects with an emphasis on a warm, charmingly rough finish. Markus' guitar undergoes a similar fuzzy treatment
while his voice calls out introspective, abstract lyrics to set the mind racing. Louis' bass underpins the music with a dubby sensibility,
bringing a necessary balance to the frequency range.
Making the most of their in-the-room recording approach, the singles will feature alternative takes of the songs that will appear on the
album, providing a little insight into the flutters and fluctuations that shape the development of this project. With their eyes fixed on live
performances and an arresting sound already formed, this is a vital time for all three artists and the people that listen to them.

Review: It only seems like yesterday when Nick Cave delivered his wonderfully captivating joint piece with fellow-Australian Bad Seed Warren Ellis. In fact it was early March, and since then we've all likely been through the kinds of highs and lows this record reflects so accurately. There's a lot of space to Carnage, but it's also an album of intensity, in a refined and sophisticated way.

Packed with incredibly cinematic, theatrical and dramatic moments, at its loudest 'White Elephant' is bordering on a genuinely euphoric religious experience, one rousing and hugely emotional crescendo of chorus and big stage notes after another. At its quietest, 'Shattered Ground' sounds like one man alone with a piano and eternal sadness. Meanwhile, the title track is classic troubadour business. In summary, a grand, mesmerising and personal voyage.

Review: Shackleton and Waclaw Zimpel's first album Primal Forms was a masterful collaboration which arrived on Cosmo Rhythmatic in 2020. The pair clearly found fruit in their crossover as they return for a second instalment, this time on 7K! and with an expanded approach thanks to the addition of Siddhartha Belmannu, a strikingly talented young singer in the field of Indian classical music. The over-arching intention of the artists was to make a joyous album about the wonder of life and living, but of course this isn't a one-dimensional happy-clappy record. Rather, it's a meditative exercise dealing in fascinating microtonality and mesmerising harmonic interplay with the power to have a profound, uncanny effect on the listener.

Review: Wanderwelle & Bandhagens Musikforening's masterful Victory Over The Sun album gets skilfully reinterpreted by some of techno's most forward thinking protagonists. Amsterdam pair Wanderwelle themselves go first with a misty ambient take of 'An Unusual Sunrise' that sets a perfectly dramatic scene. Label boss Sverca serves up one of the highlights with his deep, pulsing hypnotic version of the title track and Anthony Linell sinks us way down below the ocean surface on his meditative dub roller. There is more energy to the busted beats and hidden vocal sounds of Celestial Crusade (E-Saggila remix) and plenty more greatness through the other tracks.

Review: If you encountered the 2019 album, Essaka Hoisa, Waqwaq Kingdom's inimitable style will already be familiar. For those who never did, the outfit comprises Shigeru Ishihara aka DJ Scotch Egg and Kiki Hitomi (ex-King Midas Sound), which should give some clues as to where influences are coming from on this, their first outing since the aforementioned obscure masterpiece. Dokkoisho follows a similar line, marrying elements of 8-bit techno, African polyrhythms, contemporary electronica, dancehall, and traditional Japanese folk. Sometimes, although not always, it almost feels like it's happening all at once, like opener 'Positive Sound'. Although that doesn't mean sacrificing coherency or quality. In other moments, things are more focused, for example 'Positive Sound', which opts to strip things back wonderfully to offer a lunging, hypnotic, drum-first workout.

Review: Originally formed in 2014 as a trio dedicated to blurring the boundaries, the Waves now exists as a solo project of one of the members: Berlin-based Maayan Nidam. Here she presents her long-promised debut album, 'Motorikherz', an atmospheric and off-kilter affair that confidently joins the dots between eyes-closed experimentalism, wonky post-punk-pop, minimal house, opioid electronica and stylish new wave pop. It's opaque and atmospheric in the extreme, with Nidam's evocative vocals rising above (or sometimes being buried beneath) sparse but warming analogue electronics, stripped-back rhythms, heavily processed instrumentation and inventive production trickery. As you can see, it's hard to describe, but it's adventurous, entertaining and - for the most part - surprisingly soothing.

Review: Husband-and-wife team Carl Hultgren and Windy Weber have been successfully fusing elements of ambient, dream pop and shoe gaze since the early 1990s, keeping up a steady release schedule that has so far resulted in no less than 11 studio albums and a string of inspired collaborative sets. Their latest album, "Allegiance & Conviction", is their first for three years and sees them drowsily drift through a selection of opaque, otherworldly tunes rich in densely layered guitars, hazy aural textures, barely audible vocals and dreamy, delay-laden sounds. It's a hugely enticing set all told, with our favourites including the glistening head trip of "Moth To The Flame", the Labradford style post-rock drones of "Alone" and the slow-burn bliss of "Crossing Over".

Review: Nothing hits quite like a dose of that raw Midwestern noise Wolf Eyes are capable of conjuring. Nate Young's troublesome project has shirked popular consensus for 25 years now, following its own gutter-dwelling logic into ever slimier surroundings. Of course not everything along such a path is perfect, but when the noise hits right, it's majestic. On Dreams In Splattered Lines, released on the ever-excellent Disciples label, Young and fellow Michigan miscreant Jonny Olson are on superlative form, wreaking some tangible brilliance out of scattershot chaos. Just listen to 'Plus Warning' and you'll understand - this is Wolf Eyes at their best.

Review: Peak Oil welcomes UK duo Wrecked Lightship for 'Antiposition', a debut EP on the label from the pair of Laurie Osborne (once known as Appleblim) and Adam Winchester aka Dot Product. The pair refine their sound and bring a range of innovative rhythms here with elements of dub, d&b, tribal sounds and deft sound design across hard-to-define cuts. 'Hex' is a cosmic broken techno trip, 'Bizarre Servants' is a slower and heavier dub and 'Sunken Skies' is prickly and kinetic as it flirts with live sounding drum & bass tropes and 'Diminished Ark' as well as with wispy sine waves, refracted melodies and barely there rhythms.