Tags: Ambient Techno

Review: London-based label For Those That Knoe returns with a terrific release by underrated Slovenian producer Vid Vai. He's been slowly yet steadily honing his craft over the last 12 years with releases on respected labels such as Assemble Music, Tvir, Gilesku and Oskar Offermann's White to name but a few. Laminar Flow also happens to be his first full-length, taking in a wide variety of moods and grooves along the way. From the evocative and acid-laced flow of 'Incubation Theory', the sci-fi electro of 'Oort Cloud' to the sublime ambient offering 'Dusk By The Bay' and the saucer-eyed sunrise breaks of 'Shifting Sands' - the result is a timeless piece of liquid-smooth sonic art.

Review: Efficient Space's latest essential release sees Andras and Instant Peterson take a trawl through the darker, lesser-visited corners of Australian electronic music. According to the label, the pair lifted material from "local 12" singles, CD-Rs and the archives of community radio station 3RRR FM". Highlights come thick and fast throughout, from the acid-flecked, "Nude Photo" style Detroit fun of FSOM's "Resist The Beat" and chiming, trumpet-laden bliss of Ian Eccles-Smith's "The Slaughtering Eye", to the jaunty, mid-90s New York style bounce of Blimp's "Yellowgold" and the ultra-deep ambient techno pulse of Tetrphnm's "Track 11". Check, too, the enveloping dreaminess of Screensaver's drifting ambient closer, and the jazzy dancefloor depth of Inner Harmomy's "Da Lub Club".

Review: The more discerning and concentrated electro head will be tuned into the work of Bot1500. It is an alias of Shinichi Kobayashi, a producer who since 2018 has landed on the likes of Analogical Force and Furthur Electronix with a unique mix of futurist sounds. This one is another brilliant EP featuring cuts like 'Chartreuse 8.' It's a propulsive rhythm built from silky breaks and overlaid with the sort of heart-aching and thought-provoking chords that will send you inward on the dance floor. The five other cuts are just as much a perfect mix of the physical and the cerebral.

Review: Sansibar aka Sunny Seppa is fast becoming a large name in underground techno and house. Now, he has opened up his new label called Sin Sistema with the first release titled 'We Rise'. The title track is a pure crusher! This fast-paced corker features a wicked acid line and a beautiful lingering melody that creates an almost acid trance stormer. Things change up quickly with the slow acid wiggle of 'Elastic' that has us comparing it to legendary slow acid tracks like from Jammin Unit. For the second side, 'Sonic Minds' might just be the floor filler of the lot while '2K' is the dancefloor workout monster for the house heads. If 'We Rise' is any indication, Sin Sistema will be a label to buy on the spot.

Review: After what seems like an eternity, Carl Craig has rebooted his Psyche project, which last released new material in the mid 1990s. There's no brand-new music (yet), but rather a suite of new versions of one of the legendary Detroiter's first outings under the alias - 1990 classic 'From Beyond'. Craig kicks off proceedings by delivering his own 2023 interpretation - a typically moody, analogue-rich and sci-fi seeped blend of 1990 Yorlshire bleeps, dark Michigan bass and hybrid electro/Motor City techno drums - before Seth Troxler re-frames the track as a hypnotic, spacey, string-drenched and otherworldly slab of tech-house hypnotism. Over on side B, Ataxia's take is a metallic, sub-heavy slab of breathless techno brilliance, while the Admn remix is a more melodious, positive-sounding treat that builds in waves before unleashing organ bass, UR-style orchestral stabs and star-fall electronics.

Review: We don't know much about Foley, the artist behind this EP on Mulen Records offshoot Oldivibes, but we can confirm that he/she/they has delivered something truly special. It's a nostalgic, retro-futurist affair, with the producer offering up a quartet of cuts laden with references to classic deep house and US garage. 'C'mon Get Down', with its restless bassline, bustling breakbeat house drums, spacey textures, hip-hop vocal snippets and nods to modern tech-house, sets the tone, before 'Electronica' blends early morning deep house tropes with not so subtle nods to bleep & bass and sci-fi techno. Elsewhere, 'Latenight' is a Kerri Chandler-esque bumper featuring killer organ stabs and smooth bass, while 'Euro Pulse' is a trance-inducing early morning throb-job with luscious ambient techno pads.

Review: South African Portable is one of those cultured artists who doesn't release a lot, but when he does, it is more than worth hearing. And this is a bumper new drop from him on Circus Company in the form of Augmented Dreams, a new double album that takes its title from the use of everyday technological advancements "to achieve what were once only dreams or visions of past generations." He goes deep into minimal, techno and ambient to fuse totters the synthetic and the organic, the real, the imagined and the unreal on a richly rewarding album that makes for a complete listening