Leftfield / Experimental / Electronic Recommendations September 2016

Review: Patrick Keel started his career as a drummer with various unsuccessful bands, before buying a synthesizer in 1980 and forming "one-man-band" The Pool. While he released numerous albums and singles over a five-year period, it's 1983 single "Dance It Down" that has stood the test of time. This Dark Entries reissue features the punchy, electro-influenced new-wave original and spacey Dub from the U.S 12", plus the lesser-known European Mix (closer in style to Italo-disco, though actually made by a Belgian). Arguably even better is flipside "Jamaica Running", where glistening melodies cluster themselves around a proto-dancehall rhythm, and its' stoned, pitched-down alternative mix, "Jamaica Resting".

Review: The master of minimal noise returns! Following up the excellent Forse series on Important Records and last year's tremendous Risveglio on Hospital Productions, Alessandro Cortini returns with Spie LP on Make Noise, which follows up some great releases by the likes Keith Fullerton Whitman and Richard Devine. After all; they did all create their compositions on the same Make Noise Shared System modular synthesizer didn't they! Described by Cortini as "a gorgeous sunrise over a decimated landscape" these two long form drone journeys are just as hypnotic and all-consuming as his previous efforts but have much more of an edge and sense of aggressiveness as opposed to his MC-202 experiments on previous efforts. Fans will not be disappointed.

Review: Producing and playing under Chymera for more than 15 years, Brendan Gregoriy's distinctive take on house and techno has seen him play at iconic venues like Panorama Bar, Womb, Output, and Rex Club, and release music on respected labels including Ovum, NRK, Delsin and Cocoon. 2016 sees Brendan take on a new alias, Merrin Karras. Inspired by the sounds of artists like Klaus Schulze, Biosphere and Abul Mogard, and finding renewed focus in creating without external pressures or deadlines, Gregoriy's ambient experimentation emerged, fully-formed, as Merrin Karras. His debut album under this moniker, Apex, was written and recorded in two Berlin winters, it's a record driven by a widescreen contrast between celestial beauty and engulfing black hole intent. Flawlessly produced, Vangelis panorama and vintage sci-fi exist in a space where drums and rhythmic elements have been willfully stripped out - and where the synths can truly breathe.

Review: Amongst ambient aficionados, obscure 1980s outfit The Chi Factory - a collaboration between Jacobus Derwort and Hanyo van Oosterom - has a cult following. While the duo went their separate ways in 1987, Derwort continued to work on tracks, which fused field recordings taken in far-flung locations around the world, with indigenous instrumentation and his innate ability to craft mood-altering soundscapes. The Bamboo Recordings offers the first chance to savour those previously unheard mid-to-late-80s tracks; while they've been remixed for release, they remain as trippy, inspired and intoxicating as you'd expect. Akin to a humid saunter through thick Mangrove swamps, the album feels like a long lost, tropical partner to The KLF's Chill Out.

Review: Like many of his contemporaries, US producer Huerco S usually deals in wavy, trembling house amalgams, but also often deals in all things ambient and beatless. This new LP on Anthony Naples' Proibito, however, is a marked step in a different direction from the artist, and it shows us that he's more talented at the genre than merely a B2 stuck on at the end of a techno deviation. For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have) is a stunning ambient album; each track across its duration is filled with life and purpose, a clear musical and expressive direction that many so-called ambient artists lack. It's likely to be remembered for a long time, and allow this artist to be seen as having a truly experimental mindset.

Review: Talk about a transformation; former Minus mainstay and minimal stalwart Marc Houle goes from ping-pong beats and hiccuping rhythms to this deep, 80s-referencing house release. " Don't Want To Watch You Read" is a mesmerising affair, centred on a booming bass and featuring a mysterious vocal that is similar to the one that featured on Brian Kage's record on FXHE earlier this year. There is a reference to Houle's minimal past on the rushing sirens of the Golden Filter remix of "Read", but in the main this is a radical departure. The title track is a pulsing electronic disco affair, while the Red Axes remix of "Read" is an epic, EBM-fueled reshape.

Review: Oliver Ho inaugurates his new imprint under the Broken English Club alias "where absurdist melodrama meets vile electronics." This new 7" inch features two raw and confronting tracks: on Side A we have the title track with its pounding and trance inducing tribal drums backing an onslaught of alien vocals, swimming in layers of noise and distortion; riveting stuff! On the flip "Our History In Bones" harks back to the chilling drone rock experiments as heard on his tremendous Suburban Hunting LP last year with his trademark nonchalant vocals in yet another brilliant display of modern post-punk interpretation.

Review: These works by revered American beat poet William Burroughs appear here in two parts. Their original format lasted for over an hour, first appearing in in the late 90s as a free CD with the French magazine Crash. The CD was quickly withdrawn, with only approximately 100 copies finding their way into circulation. The Curse Go Back LP utilises Burrough's long employed techniques of Dadaist style cut-ups of readings. He was in London from the mid-50s through to 1974, residing in Piccadilly. It was allegedly in this particular period that he further honed the techniques he used for creating cut-ups on tape, working alongside Ian Sommerville. Pressed on transparent vinyl in a numbered edition of 500.

Review: While the name Tomorrow The Rain Will Fall Upwards may remind you of a particular Vietnam War scene in Forest Gump, don't let that put you off, the sounds here are double the pop psychedelic rock of the film. Rumoured to involve HTRK's Jonnine Standish, Brazilian singer Lucas Santanna and These Immortal Souls' Genevieve McGuckin, Wreck His Days marks the project's second release, presented again by Kiran Sande's Blackest Ever Black. A dark presence inhabits all seven tracks of this LP that should appeal to fans of Goblin, to Italian Horror and Giallo OSTs with "Reverberasia" fusing metal with ambient Italo doom. As the title suggests "Ghost From The Coast" is swathe of haunting atmospheres and coarse textures, only with an underlying bassline funk, while an eight-minute "...And I Tried So Hard" provides some sparkling respite from the forlorn sounds of everything preceding it. "I Beat As I Sleep As I Dream" then penetrates Kosmische territory, with acoustic, Latin guitars easing the tension of a devilish "Ay Carmela". Without a doubt one of the best collections of music BEB will release in 2016.

Review: A-Ton is a new label from Berlin heavyweights Ostgut Ton, designed to focus on "ambient, archive and alternative music". They've pulled off something of a coup for this debut release, persuading British techno legend Luke Slater to open up the archives of his '90s intelligent techno project, The 7th Plain. Chronicles I boasts a mixture of previously released and unheard material, which moves from glistening, outer-space ambience (the near perfect "Boundaries", "Grace"), to fizzing Motor City techno ("T-Funk Statues"), via intergalactic intelligent techno, dusty downtempo grooves (the jazzy hip-hop rhythms and ambient electronics of "Slip 7 Sideways"), and melodious IDM.

Review: Originally Recorded live at Music Laboratories, New York, September 29, 1982 and eventually released 27 years later, William Basinski's 92982 receives a vinyl re-issue courtesy of the Temporary Residence label. Spread across two slabs of vinyl, the four separate parts to 92902 see Basinski teasing out ethereal, mesmerising loops from a reel to reel in all their decayed and degraded glory. It's all drenched in delay and reverb that works in the same tradition of his seminal LP, The Disintegration Loops . The truly haunting dark ambience of "92982.2" in particular is essential listening and a moment you won't forget, complete with eerie field recordings of NYC.

Review: John Frusciante of Red Hot Chilli Peppers forays into techno music once again courtesy of Los Angeles 303 purists Acid Test. The results are definitely interesting, take opener "Foregrow", an early '90s IDM sounding jam reminiscent of early Aphex Twin complete with Frusciante's emotive crooning over the top. The disjointed and confusing beat programming of "Expre'act" features sombre and emotive elements in the background complemented by.. a guitar solo? Interesting! On the flip "Lowth Forgue " gives that little silver box a workout (finally) good and well on this wicked smack electro number while "UNF" ends the EP on a positive note on this freeform retro electronics journey.

Review: Simon Shreeve appears again this year for Karl O'Connor's esteemed imprint, following up the impressive Healing Bowl EP. It's no wonder really; the man also known as Monic pushes the kind of highly-engineered modern industrial music on his own Osiris Musik label, so easily finds a welcome home here. On side A, harsh textural abrasions are contrasted by body bashing bass frequencies on the demonic "System Living" while the seething and slow burning breaks contrasted by eerie chimes and nefarious sound design on "Silver Sun" sounds like running through a nightmare in slow motion. The paranoid and immersive sound design of the title track (on the flip) is reminiscent of some of Trent Reznor's soundtrack work, yet fantastic in its own right. Like Shifted is doing likewise of late, Shreeve deconstructs the classic aesthetic of UK techstep, deconstructing it in a modern format.

Review: Ahead of an impending, headline performance at this year's edition of Berlin Atonal, Richard Fearless opens up his Death In Vegas project to the Industrial icons that are Chris & Cosey. It's "Consequence Of Love," an early highlight of the most recent DIV LP, Transmission, that is the focus of attentions here, and arguably a track that looks to Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti's Throbbing Gristle for inspiration. The original version is presented here on 12" format for those Death In Vegas loving selectors out there who want a loud pressing of the track and the accompanying Chris & Cosey remix does take it to a different place. That breathy vocal is given more prominence and fairly dominates the remix.

Review: For their latest No 'Label' release, Rush Hour has turned to "Brussels-based Prince of modern psychedelic electronics" Bear Bones, Lay Low, a prolific producer who has been delivering intriguing, synthesizer-based curiosities on obscure labels for well over a decade. Hacia La Luz begins with the trippy, Tangerine Dream-in-space swirl of "Lightning Eyelids", before heading to the rainforest with Timothy Leary and Terrence McKenna via the hallucinatory drums and humid electronics of "Jewelled Selva Mating Rites". Psychedelic synthesizer lines, exotic melodies and starburst electronics come to the fore on the album's other three tracks, with the magic mushrooms-in-Goa trip of "Crystal Poppies" standing out.

Review: Roh!s Records is a Sardinian record label based in Berlin, founded by Andrea Porcu in late 2007. Between 2007 and 2016 the label moved to different countries such as Belgium. They offer a much needed re-issue of Tetsuya Nakamura aka Arc Of Doves' 2014 album "Never Let Me Go" which features emotive piano lines gently floating triumphantly above sharp breakbeats and providing a wonderful contrast. On the flip "Wish You Were Here" is more sombre and mellow, showcasing more of Nakamura's expressive piano skills.

Review: Martin Jenkins is back with his Pye Corner Audio moniker and this shit gets realer every time. While the PCA sound doesn't neatly fit into one genre category, it satisfies the sense line nothing else by merging all the best aspects of techno, acid, dub and sometimes even two-step. Prowler, this latest LP for More Than Human, is a subtle foray into the subtler ends of the techno spectrum, charged by killer leftfield tunes like "After Dark" and "She Hunts At Night". If you're into the current PLO Man sound, or the Irdial Discs vibe that PLO based his own label and productions on, this gear will come as a welcomed surprise thanks to its ever-building beat patterns, warm infusions of pseudo acid, and a rare ability to sound just as good in the dance floor as they do off it. Recommended.

Review: It's that time again people: Kompakt rounds up the usual (and not so usual) suspects on its label roster for the year's most definitive collection of dreamy and emotive electronic music for Total 16. There's a lot to get through on here, but as usual; it's all quite brilliant! Starting out with the return of Spanish minimal hero Alex Under on the gloriously uplifting journey track, "Llaman A La Puerta", The Modernist is back also with the sublime deep house of "The Price Of Love" featuring Hot Chip's Joe Goddard on vocals. And of course, the regulars: Jurgen Paap with "Eden"; a true highlight which really nails the label's trademark sound, Matias Aguayo with the bleepy and bumpy retro leanings of "Komm" and label bosses Voigt & Voigt with the rather dark and gloomy epic "Denken Sie Laut".

Review: Tale of Us launch their Afterlife label in style with the Realm of Consciousness compilation. Bringing together some of the best-known names in contemporary techno as well as a group of newcomers, it moves effortlessly between esoteric moods. Tale of Us contribute the ambient intro, while Monoloc and Woo York are both in more mellow form than usual on the melodic "Phoenix" and "Poseidon" respectively. Meanwhile, Recondite contributes the sad melodies and throbbing bass of "Murphy's Law" and Locked Groove balances supernaturally beautiful hooks with powerful bass pulses on "Emeralds". Even more dance floor-focused tracks, like Obscure Shape & SHDW's "Die Wiederkehr", are filled with trancey melancholia.

Review: In March, Izabel Caligiore decided to launch a label named after her superb Lullabies For Insomniacs show on Redlight Radio, with its debut release coming from the excellent Sugai Ken. Lullabies For Insomniacs now returns, proffering a debut LP from the impeccably obscure Unearth Noise. Full of clandestine mood pieces, droning textures, unsettling pitched-down IDM rhythms, mutant wind chimes and deep space explorations, Prayer & Resonance does a fine job balancing dark and maudlin material, with tracks that feel more gently positive. At 17 tracks deep, it takes a little time to fully take root in your consciousness, but the musical rewards are more than worth the effort.