Juno Recommends Leftfield: March 2022

Review: Formed in Leeds, England, in 1981, Vicious Pink have at various points been described as 'provocative', 'sexualised', and 'catchy'. If you've never encountered the outfit before, then it's probably going to take about two seconds to realise how accurate those points are. Not least as West View opens with one of their most successful singles, the super-chartable, but subtly suggestive 'Cccan't You See'. Those who are familiar with their oeuvre will probably have picked up on the fact this LP isn't in their back catalogue. Instead, West View is a retrospective celebration of this often overlooked early British synth-pop group, collating early and rare demos, remastering and re-releasing. The result feels transportive, authentic, and - even if you're just imagining what that show at legendary Leeds venue The Warehouse would have been like, in support of Soft Cell - vivid.

Review: Polish composer Olga Wojciechowska and veteran electronic producer Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner, combine on A Strangely Isolated Place to revisit a beloved Strie album - Olga's more electronic and experimental alias. With previous releases on Serein and Time Released Sound as Strie, Olga Wojciechowska's 'Struktura' was released in 2015 to a limited audience due to its physical-only format. As Olga's work becomes increasingly more coveted, through her more recent releases on A Strangely Isolated Place (Unseen Traces & Infinite Distances), and with Struktura praised as one of her finest albums to date, the discussion to breathe new life into the album resulted in a unique pairing with Scanner, an electronic music producer and multimedia artist responsible for some of the most defining works of the genre since the early 1990s.

Blurring the line between harmony and dissonance, Struktura's original recordings paint an eerie, haunting and beautiful picture, conceptualized around abstract art, with intricacies and mystery abound. Here, Strie's original recordings remain untouched, albeit lovingly remastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri, and it is left to Scanner to provide further interpretations of Olga's original recordings. Scanner productions can typically traverse a myriad of styles, but here, Robin took a primarily live-hardware approach to the remixes, allowing the rawness of his recordings to add story and depth. Recorded in one take, with no overdubs, the reinterpretations strip the melodies and textures to their original essence, bringing an entirely analog element to Olga's intrinsically detailed originals. Featuring artwork by Rep Ringel and mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri, Struktura Revisited will be available on Gatefold 2LP in a black/grey half-and-half vinyl, with 6x6" soft-touch heavy art card.

Review: A little-known fact related to Brian Jones is that the Rolling Stone and 27 club member once sorted the soundtrack for a cult crime film, 'Degree Of Murder'. The film stars his then-partner Anita Pallenberg in its lead role as Marie, who kills her boyfriend in self-defense. Now some 50-odd years on from its original release, Rhythm And Blues reissue some selected cuts from the soundtrack and press it to hi-def wax, showing off Jones' indelible riffing and shreddage. An innovative rock soundtrack, it features Jones on a virtuosic slew of self-taught instruments: sitar, organ, recorder, guitar, bass, banjo, dulcimer, Mellotron and harmonica. In 2012, his collaborator Jimmy Page said "Jones knew what he was doing... He was moving forward."

Review: Does what it says on the tin, this one - collects together some of Adam Shaikh's early recordings from the nineties. The Vancouver artist was a real don in the ambient and dub scene back then, his keyboard sills and knack for comics atmosphere always making him a firm favourite with the heads. He released on a range of top labels including his own Modulation Elektronik and some of the most choice pieces are included here. The opener is an archetypal deep space scene-setter then the likes of 'Vapor' cast free from rhythm and suspend you amongst the stars while 'Oberon' is a seductive fusion of dub depth and cinematic ambient design.

Review: Ambient music is a broad church these days, with the term covering everything from overly academic drone experiments, and fractured soundscapes, to Jon Hassell-esque 'fourth world' material and Eno style layered instrumentals. Space & Awareness, Simon Huxtable's latest full-length voyage as Inhmost, is ambient in the 1990s sense of the term: electronic, intergalactic, gently psychedelic, immersive, melodious and subtly influenced by IDM, experimental dub and the sample-heavy material of the Orb. It's a classic sound no doubt, but one that Huxtable absolutely nails. Meditative but interesting, deep but never dull, it's a Pete Namlook-esque trip that may well count as Huxtable's greatest album yet - and that's saying something!

Review: Four Flies present the first ever 45rpm to be taken from Giuliano Sorgini's masterpiece album Zoo Folle. The library and soundtrack specialist cooked up some irresistibly groovy and funky sounds on the record and two of the best are picked here for serious DJ deployment only. 'Mad Town' opens up with some killer and funky drum breaks with a slick flute line adding extra pizzazz up top. It's a psyched out number for big dance floor moments an on the flip, 'Ultima Caccia' is a more Afro-tinged and tribal number with blissed out drums from Giuliano and some mad funky percussion by session player Enzo Restuccia.

Review: 12k is very happy to welcome Uwe Zahn, aka Arovane, to the roster. Arovane, a well-respected artist in the field, hailing from within the German countryside, has been active since the early 2000s beginning with releases on City Centre Offices and DIN in the heyday of the IDM and microsound years. He has since gone on to release work with n5MD, Pure Magnetik, and Strangely Isolated Place, among others. With Reihen he takes his characteristic pointillist synthetic structures and impeccable sound design and lays them in a web of fagility, decay and etherealism that feels like new a new direction for Zahn.

Review: As he's moved further towards a career in soundtrack composition, Trentemoller's music has become increasingly widescreen and atmospheric, with the Danish artist drawing inspiration from dream-pop, the Cocteau Twins and Durutti Column as much as the ambient, electronica and immersive techno he was once famous for. All of these strands combine beautifully on 'Memoria', a picturesque and enveloping affair whose multitude of highlights include the yearning, string-laden and bittersweet brilliance of 'No More Kissing The Rain', the wall-of-sound dream pop shimmer of 'In The Gloaming', the mid-80s indie-pop haziness of 'Dead or Alive' and the glassy-eyed and tactile 'All Too Soon'.

Review: Tape Hymns is a mesmerizing amalgam of sounds carefully crafted by frequent collaborators zake and City of Dawn. The warm hiss of analog tape as the foundational structure of these arrangements brings forth pastoral mediations with becalmed, atmospheric intent. Tape Hymns mix echoing sonic tones, slow-drifting sounds with immersive low-end frequencies.

Review: Minimal Wave is honored to present West View, a double LP of rare demos and newly remastered classics by UK duo Vicious Pink. Vicious Pink was an electrifying synth-pop duo formed by Josephine Warden and Brian Moss, who met in a smokey Leeds nightclub in 1981. The pair formed their band Vicious Pink Phenomena and soon after went on to provide gloriously off-kilter backing vocals for their friends, Soft Cell, completely unrehearsed. Later, they dropped Phenomena to simplify their name. Between 1982 and 1986, they released seven singles that all reached the UK dance charts, despite the fact that their ambitions never lay in commercial success. To this day, their music remains artful, catchy, and provocative. West View compiles material from their early days together, featuring previously unreleased demos as well as newly remastered classics like Cccan't You See and My Private Tokyo. The double LP is housed in a glossy heavyweight sleeve, accompanied by a 12-page LP-sized booklet featuring the duo's entire 'how it happened' story, unpublished lyrics, and unpublished photos from those early years. The double LP is limited to 999 copies.

Review: RECOMMENDED
The information readily available about this release is, at best, pretty limited. What we can tell you is that Mobius was first conceived as an 'aerial ballet' by Cie XY, who worked with the choreographer Rachid Ouramdane, leaving music to the established partnership of Jonathan Fitoussi and Clemens Hourriere. Perhaps what's more important than all that, though, is the central building block for much of what's here.

Billed as "a brand new episode in their exploration of the legendary modular synthesiser - The Buchla", the result is a collection of work that could quite easily sit at home next to the likes of Fort Romeau or the lighter end of Kompakt's output. At times, well at home on dancefloors in darkened rooms, in other moments lush and serene in the extreme.

Review: Brock van Wey's BVDub project has long been a source of inspired, sonic detailed and aurally grandiose ambient, where experimental sound design techniques and the overdriven noise of dub techno add untold layers of complexity. Violet Opposition, his latest full-length excursion under the alias, continues in this vein, with waves of fuzzy, hard-to-pigeonhole noise, effects-laden chords, mutilated instrumentation and cascading, ear-pleasing melodies combining to create a quartet of epic, opaque ambient soundscapes. It's an approach that pays dividends though, with the immense beauty of van Wey's arrangements and instrumental choices consistently breaking through a wall of echoing, intoxicating aural fuzz.

Review: Remembrance follows a similar formula found on zake's previous effort, Geneva (released on Past Inside the Present, 2020). He produced eight short phonic motifs and then invited artists to collaborate, rework, and expand upon the source material resulting in a new, unique creation. The album consists of eight short vignettes by zake, six collaborative pieces, and eight completely reworked tracks. The track titles and overall theme of these works are based off the gorgeous poetic narrative "Remembrance" written Julia Frizzell.

Review: Pioneers of slow-evolving minimal drone, zake & City of Dawn transform unadorned inputs into beautiful complexity in their latest effort, 'Pinehaven'. The drone duo is known for their carefully crafted textures, avoiding sudden shifts or abrasive sonorities. Their focus, as heard in previous efforts, offer up the steady ebb and flow of sound, cultivating a profound sense of meditative stasis and explorations of high-fidelity sound.

Review: Hailing from Singapore and with a vivid and curious artistic identity swirling around them, Nat Cmiel releases their latest album as yeule in a swirl of hypermodern synth pop. There's a dreamy, slightly sad quality to Cmiel's songs, but that only adds to their charm as those sweet melodic refrains get under your skin. This latest album on Bayonet is called Glitch Princess - a fitting title for an artist who seems so vitally defined by the internet age. When so many fear the future and our tense relationship with technology, yeule appears to be OK with the state of play, recognising the flaws but embracing the positives as we slip into a digital way of being.

Review: Snowmelt is a new record by Australian artists Seaworthy (aka Cameron Webb) and Matt Rosner, the long awaited follow up from their 2010 collaboration Two Lakes. Matt Rosner continues to explore the natural world to inspire his work based out of remote Western Australia. His most recent release being No Lasting Form (Room40). Webb's output as Seaworthy has been sparse in recent years as he continues to pursue a career in environmental research, focusing on urban wetlands and their ecosystems. This marks the first substantial release since Wood, Winter, Hollow, a collaboration with Taylor Deupree in 2013.

Review: Remarkably ahead of its time for 1982, 'Warp' is New Musik's debut album, and at the time showed off its lead brain Tony Mansfield's strange yet dazzling production chops, after his previous stints for Naked Eyes, A-Ha and The B-52's. While only lasting for 5 years, the band's legacy endured and now gets re-chronicled lovingly and at just the right time. Including on 5 bonus tracks that expand upon the original 12, this version comes to limited red vinyl, and of course, contains the smash hit cover of The Beatles' 'All You Need Is Love'.

Review: The collectors cache for Star Wars fans knows no limits, and although there have been plenty of pressings of the soundtrack to A New Hope over the years, this one is a little different. Created for Universal Japan, this edition comes with the distinctly different artwork and attendant obi strip which makes this something of a special item to enjoy as a display piece as much as a listening experience. Of course, John Williams iconic score is a masterpiece in itself, taking you across the dunes of Tatooine and through the brutalist corridors of the Death Star. A must have for collectors and a gem of musical history in its own right.

Review: Packing shades of formative era Cabaret Voltaire, Neural Circus, and Fad Gadget, among others, the opening, title track to Le Cliche's latest long form is everything you want in cold synth wave. It's fun and packed with the energy of a factory floor, but at the same time saturated in a kind of sinister broodiness, never fully committing to the party it will so clearly set off. Elsewhere things get more exploratory still. 'Thin White Sheets' is a downtempo menace, 'Francophilia' is broken electro sex at its finest and most-loin-arousing, 'All This Silence' is all about muted waves of harmony and a big room feeling. 'Tara It's Getting Late' feels like we're approaching the chaotic culmination of a dance floor session. Make no mistake, this is benchmark for the genre.

Review: Cosmic Disco Machine Records is an Italian independent record company specialising In reissue compilations, with the fourth volume of their eponymous series here, in a limited run of copies as always, There's a wonderful selection of tracks, with all have been only gently mastered to keep the original and characteristic mood of each one. Whether its Richard Wahnfried's entrancing "Time Actor", the off-kilter slo-mo polyrhythms of Mecanica Popular's "La Edad Del Bronce", or the more experimental realms of Italo explored by Schaltkreis Wassermann and Logic System - there's some proper oddball music of a fine vintage on this one.

Review: If R.i O is a new label to you it won't come as much of a surprise to learn the crew are Berlin based. This collection of work from eight different artists is about as German capital as things get - the ideal accompaniment to a lonely and slightly unhinged journey to bed on the U-bahn after too many days surrounded by the city's resident hedonists. It's eerie, unsettling, tense, clad in industry and in many ways incredibly steely. Yet it's also strangely beautiful. Veering from more ambient outings such as the bumbling, subtly melodic 'Tuerkis' by Syncboy, to slow motion dark dance floor stuff ('Wavering Limits' by Pannotia), and mechanical funk steeped in witching hour atmospheres (Twoonky's 'Primera'), it's a strange place we find ourselves in, but notable by the fact nobody wants to leave.

Review: RECOMMENDED
Radio Nova programmer Max Guiget steps out under his well established Blundetto guise for another masterclass in mechanical dub-funk stuff, this time to provide a soundtrack to Canal+'s series VTC. Centred on a night driver for a ride share company, Nora, and her addiction to amphetamines, the show presents the mess that has become her life in all its vivid and uncomfortable details. Debts, divorce, and a bed on the backseat of the car she uses to pick customers up.

Faced with this kind of quietly disturbing realism, and a world that exists predominantly as a nocturnal realm, Guiget's work is steeped in brooding atmospheres, but rather than simply looking to build feelings through long refrains and deep dive ambience, there's often a slow but definite, forward-motion rhythm to what's here, with tracks like 'La Chapelle' an eerie yet groovy case in point.

Review: Orison is the latest aural exploration between zake & City of Dawn and a predecessor to their previous orchestral effort, 'A Sorrow Unrequited'. Orison is a prayer or plea to a deity. The archaic origins of the term stem from the Latin language simply meaning to 'speak to God'. Patient and solemn symphonic drifts that foster stillness, boundless thought, introspection, and eternal contemplation.

Review: Austin Powers eat your heart out. Cosmic Disco Machine delivers what may or may not be the only compilation of swinging 1960s lounge-jazz you'll ever need to buy, piecing together 26 tracks of hip-grindingly rhythmic, flute and organ-infused tunes just crying out to be transported back to a party in a modernist mansion surrounded by photographers from the emerging fashion media scene, rock 'n' roll stars, drug lords, pornographers, business tycoons and... well, you get the point.

Certainly kitsch, nevertheless the unarguably complex music on Sextopolis is genuinely impressive even if you're not into pastiche or retro. Instrumentally outstanding, artists such as Janko Nilovic, The Flying Dutchmen, Tonio Rubio, Guy Pedersen, Pierre-Alain Dahan and Pierre Hollassian line up to showcase exactly why psychedelics were so popular when these tones were front and centre.

Review: If you've ever been to any of the Danish islands Astrid Sonne's work will make perfect sense. Raised on Bornholm, sitting in the middle of the Baltic Sea, it's a quiet setting removed from the pressures of life, a million miles from the hipsters of Copenhagen and the art crowd of Aarhus. A place where you can really take time out and reflect, appreciate the slow beauty of life and celebrate its nuances.

Outside Your Lifetime feels very much like those ideas encapsulated. It's an electronically-driven piece of work, but here those gadgets are used in such a way as they sound organic, if you can even hear them at all. Elsewhere, we're transported to the atmosphere of a cave concert, tides slowly breaking on a nearby shoreline, vocals intensified by the acoustic impact of the granite itself.