Back catalogue: Coldwave/Synth

Review: Galvanica's 'Nightlights In Japan' dropped in 1987 and was a perfectly dreamy post-rave comedown soundtrack with heavenly pads and angelic whispered vocals. It came with various different remixes that repurposed it for different moments. The remix dance version is more driven by classic and crunchy analogue 80s drums with tumbling melodies and plenty of feelings of subtle euphoria. The single version tweaks that just a touch and the maxi instrumental turns up the drums and strips out the vocals for something more rock and club-ready. Tip!

Review: 20 years after he released the superb (and subtly eclectic) 'Super EP', Morgan Geist has prepped a follow-up of sorts - or at least a new three-tracker that takes the same 'mixed up' approach. Many will fall head over heels in love with opener 'Twilight Express', a deliciously warm and colourful chunk of nu-disco/deep house fusion, smothered in strings played and arranged by his old pal Kelley Polar, which recalls the sound and spirit of his acclaimed Metro Area collaboration with Darshan Jesrani. On 'Black Test Car' Geist goes a little more skewed and off-beat, offering a skewed, semi-angular take on the sound explored on his Double Night Time album, while the TB-303-sporting 'Feeling Is Mutual' joins the dots between squelchy electronic disco, deep synth-pop, acidic excursions and the sci-fi futurism of his earliest techno releases.

Review: In many ways the critical reception to Dave Gahan's debut solo outing is still surprising. Mainly because a good number of critics seemed surprised at the depth and assurance of the record, which kind of seems to deny the fact this is the voice of Depeche Mode, arguably one of the finest bands to ever come out of the UK and certainly a group that understand what it means to layer musical textures and meld multiple themes.

'Stay' might be the best case in point. It's patient, it's elegant, there's a real air of sorrow but also you can't help feeling loved while listening to it. Balladry in the truest sense, the fact that track is sandwiched between the soft half-house music of 'I Need You' and the epic, theatrical anthem 'Black & Blue Again' is a case in point. A real journey.

Review: Galcher Lustwerk has put together a collection of 10 ambient cuts here that he wrote to score a film by Josh Kline, a fine artist whose solo exhibition 'Project for a New American Century' recently opened at the Whitey Museum of American Art in New York. It is a dystopic science fiction movie that details what happens after the climate crisis really takes hold. The music is an esoteric mix of free jazz, drones and bleeped-out ambient that is alive with busy, fizzing frequencies. It's a dense, textural brew that collides synth and sax sounds into a new sort of tribute to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner score.

Review: Canadian composer, arranger, songwriter, and electronic music pioneer Mort Garson just keeps on giving, even now, 15 years after his death. Archival releases since have come not-so-thick-and-fast, but occasional and well thought through, with Journey to the Moon & Beyond the latest example of this. Not, as the cover and title might suggest, the score to some forgotten 1970s animated classic, but instead a collection of stuff very few will have heard before, let alone had opportunity to buy, it's really something special. On the track list, then, you'll find the soundtrack to 1974 Blaxploitation movie Black Eye, or at least part of it. Similarly splendid, but in a very different way, are the grand tones of 'Zoos of the World', originally made to accompany a 1970 National Geographic special of the same name. Then there's the music he wrote for the 1969 moon landings, as used by CBS News at the time. History bottled, or rather pressed, get it while it's fresh (and in stock).

Review: Alison Goldfrapp has infamously broken away from her involvement with the longtime synth duo Goldfrapp to explore new solo outings. Finally, we hear the extent of her efforts in this arena: The Love Invention, her newest album, is a dazzling dance-centric vision of electropop in technicolour, aiming to put across Goldfrapp's vocal range and stylistic versatility (not least through various collaborations across the dance music spectrum, from Richard X to Claptone and Paul Woolford). Love, lust, desire, amour... just about every variation on the feeling is conveyed on this stonker of an LP.

Review: Not named after the notorious-famous Berlin techno institution Tresor, but instead taking its name from 'treasure' in Cornish, Gwenno presents her third full-length studio album, largely written in St. Ives, with most of the words Cornish, too. If that sounds pretty adventurous, then wait until you hear the tracks themselves, which benefit from handiwork by collaborator and friend Rhys Edwards, who is also credited with production of the record.

Introduction over, this is a wildly diverse and spectacularly different album. At times things feel haunting, almost choral. In other moments, we're in a 1960s-hued pop-y place, while work like 'Ardamm' seems born amid the dark room chug of underground goth post punk disco. Overall, it's certainly the artist's most spectacularly idea-filled outing, ensuring nobody is going to forget about it in a hurry.