Editions Mego Austria Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Caterina Barbieri is an Italian modular goddess. Her 2019 album Ecstatic Computation was opened up by the majestic 'Fantas' and now it gets a whole new lease of life with this bumper package of variations. Each artist was personally chosen by Caterina and told to do whatever they wanted with the source material. The results are beguiling from the off with Evelyn Saylor, Lyra Pramuk, Annie Garlid & Stine Janvin going for a loopy, multi-layered vocal version that is constantly ascending to heaven. There is more calm from Kali Malon who keeps it strictly ambient and Carlo Maria approximates peak time melodic techno but from a much more artistic rather than narcotic point of view.

Review: Although the past several years have seen ambient musician Christian Fennesz collaborating with a number of high profile figures - Ryuchi Sakamoto to name one - as well as release an EP, cassette, and soundtrack, the Austrian's last full solo LP was 2008?s Black Sea, making Becs very eagerly awaited indeed. A conceptual follow-up to 2001's seminal Endless Summer, Becs supposedly eschews the drone-based productions of Black Sea and sees a return to the "more florid pop mechanisms" of Endless Summer, something evident across the searing yet colourful textures that make up the album.

Review: Unarguably unnerving and just a little haunting, resolutely abstract, and incredibly confident. Material Object's Telepath fits right in at Editions Mego, breaking ground without you necessarily realising it. Recorded in a single improvised session with one violinist, the record pulls those elements apart, and reforms them into mutated electronic structures. Or moments.

At times, you can hear the source material, or instrument. In other moments, these parts have been distorted, compressed, ripped open, and reconfigured to such a degree the tones that are almost unrecognisable. The result is science fiction in sound, a spellbinding - and at times nerve-wracking - trip into the complete unknown, where notes loom heavy and huge on the horizon, or strained and edgy in the immediate. To all those who press play, we say abandon hope of categorisation

Review: Since he first emerged on Diagonal a decade ago, Powell has been associated with abstract rhythms, hard-edged electronics, modular madness and fearsome experimentation. Piano Music 1-7, then, is something of a departure: a set that's as equally as inspired by piano jazz and neo-classical musical movements as fractured electronica and the Radiophonic Workshop. Of course, this is not piano music in the Nils Frahm sense - much of the actual piano motifs are delivered on lo-fi keyboards and synthesizers, while his fluid, attractive and ultra-melodic refrains come wrapped in studio effects and occasional electronic textures. A great example of this hybrid sound is 'Piano Music 4' - all alien electronics, woozy piano riffs and unsettling experimental intent, while the raw beauty of shimmering ambient number 'Piano Music 7' is simply sublime.