Back catalogue: Experimental/Electronic

Review: XAO is back on his long-term label Canvas with another scintillating new album, Wirehead. It is his second following the head tuning 2019 debut Eternal Care Unit and it comes with liquid metal surfaces, chrome sheen and wispy sound design that is utterly futuristic. Though very much a clean digital album laden with video game FX and contemporary sound design, there is warmth and humanity in these tracks. Delayed percussion, guitar fuzz, celestial chords and rich, hearty bass all make it so as techno, IDM and electro are all fused together.

Review: Xylitol is the alias of producer and DJ Catherine Backhouse, also known as DJ Bunnhyhausen. Building on her slowly snowballing status as a co-host of the radio show Slav To The Rhythm, which focuses on vintage central and eastern European pop and electronica - as well as co-writing a book on Yugoslavian pop culture - Backhouse's debut album 'Anemonies' is the essential musical component for aiding the task of stomaching her many multifarious outings. Taking as her cue the art of illustrating molluscs, anemones, cnidaria and other aquatic creatures, Xylitol uses Anemone as an album-form outlet for the exploration of fizzing, extrambient jungle missives; tissued, papillary hardcore. The name Xylitol is an indication of what's in store for you here: impeccably reasoned intellibreaks, and piqued, pitched-up samples, both of which invoke childhood pelagic fantasy; virtual underwater verde. The whole record is an odyssean island hop, and we thoroughly recommend it.