Back catalogue: Experimental/Electronic

Review: Sean Bowie is back with another ode to the tortured, damned, and damned good. The Florida-born enfant terrible of US alt-rock can barely put a foot wrong in our eyes, whether that's the post-chillwave of Teams, the moniker he was recording under in the early-2010s, or the Tumor releases. This is the place where Death In Vegas fans come to be reassured it's not quite over yet.

The Asymptotical World, not to be confused with The Asymptomatic World, is a case in point. This is punk, if punk decided to dive into bed with electroclash and they had a baby that wasn't really what anyone expected. It's sludgy, scummy, guitar-driven chaotic noise that occasionally dissipates into white mayhem, all the while maintaining not just its sense of self, but an underlying feeling you're two seconds from a rave while in the moshpit.

Review: Born in Algeria, when it was still among France's colonies, to French parents who themselves claimed Italian heritage, it makes perfect sense that Edouard Joseph Scotto Di Suoccio would wind up making music that seemed born out of a very different place to the one you're looking at. No matter what, or where, you're gazing upon. Strange tunes that take some describing, let's start at the beginning. Following his series of chanson singles released in the late-1960s under the pseudonym Ted Scotto, by the middle of the next decade he'd adopted the Tregger alias and was dipping toes into tones along the lines of what Space Oddities is packed with. First laidback jazz funk, things became more and more exploratory, sci-fi, disco, and kosmische influenced as the years went by. That legacy is remembered and honoured today on some of the world's finest groove-soaked dancefloors and the DJs that dominate them, with this collection giving an insight into the more experimental end of that oeuvre.

Review: Madrid label Glossy Mistakes proudly present the first ever dual release of Susumu Yokota's 1997-8 albums 'Fruits Of The Room' and 'Greenpeace', made under his Stevia alias. The two albums were Yokota's dedication to the early days of Japanese club culture, which back then was informed upon by the psych'ed-out dancey rock of the 1960s and the fallout of US breaks / rave. The first of these two reissues, 'Greenpeace', is jazzy and roomy, and is sonically contemporaneous to the big beat stylings of Coldcut or Herbalizer, but thrown brazenly into an ambient, psychedelic rave context.

Review: Club culture can be curiously misled at times. While the focus is so often on breakdowns, in reality it's the hypnosis of looped drums and hi hats that often captures our imagination. And while belters frequently steal the limelight, in doing so we're at risk of forgetting the unifying, open-armed foundations that are found in everything from techno to hardcore to jungle and beyond. Brutal Flowers certainly makes a strong case for rethinking priorities. "A no-airs and graces piece of cool future-proof ambience" the label puts it. We'd agree. YS's stunning record seems to speak to our inner dreams of what rave has been and could still be, it hits nail-on-head in turning the emotions of surreal walks home post-club with friends into beautiful, understated yet grand synth overtures. It never forgets that heads down and ethereality are not opposites, but instead two halves of the same passion, and thoughtfulness is really the only secret ingredient in the dance music spectrum.

Review: Is it rock? Is it metal? Is it synth pop? How about art noise? Someone, somewhere, is trying to pen a thesis on how you define the mighty and mysterious Yves Tumor. Best leave it to them, then. Wonder aside, the Knoxville, Tennessee outsider has finally delivered the follow up to Heaven To A Tortured Mind and it's every bit another masterpiece that grabs listeners by the jugular and challenges them, while delivering exactly what they didn't realise they wanted to hear.
While it's difficult to find much genuinely surprising in music today, the sheer breadth of Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume (Or Simply Hot Between Worlds) is in itself a shock. Over the course of 12 tracks, we hit grinding electroclash ('God Is A Circle'), seductive operatic pop ('Lovely Sewer'), main stage heavy rock ('Parody'), distorted and pained metal ('Meteora Blues'), and high-paced, rousing indie ('In Spite of War'), among other styles, all realised via a unique musical identity some would kill to possess.

Review: Sean Bowie's fifth full-length as Yves Tumor arrives with an epic title (the academically minded will be debating its meaning for years to come), a grandiose electro-rock/post-punk goes-electroclash sound, and a bagful of valedictory reviews. It's basically an extension of Bowie's previous work with a few twists, but that's no bad thing; after all, the artist's distinctive sound and strong songs have always been an impressive calling card. Highlights are plentiful, from the fizzing, 21st century punk-funk of 'Lovely Sewer', and the Prince-does-Nine Inch Nails-flex of 'Parody', to the alternately jangling and sleazy 'Operator', and the post-ESG dancefloor heaviness of 'Fear Evil Like Fire'.