Music For Dreams Denmark 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: RECOMMENDED
"Music for watching waves; music infused sharply with crushed ants and Eucalyptus; like climbing into one of those gaping holes in a big Mountain Ash that a possum has inhabited with a collection of mid-century synths." So says the official write up for Angophora's Together, the Australian duo's second LP that takes a lead from the first and then steps out on a path of its own. These are positive moods, made for good days with great people, and no drama.

It's the sound of the spectacular accommodation you stumbled upon after a sweaty trek through tropical landscapes, the perfect refuge at just the right time. While ambient is the technical term, this is more an adventure in multi-instrumentation. Acoustic guitars, pianos, soft percussion and swooning synths make up the majority of what's here, but rather than look to focus on 'a vibe', the tracks are very much whole in the traditional sense of structure.

Review: If you're looking for something suitably vibrant, colourful, summery and laidback to alleviate the winter blues, Tolga Boyuk's fourth album as Islandman should hit the spot. Musically diverse but sonically coherent thanks to his love of whispered, multi-lingual vocals and undoubted musical skills, the album's kaleidoscopic and ear-catching cuts offer a widescreen take on Balearica that draws on styles including Turkish psyche-funk, dub, dancehall, cosmic disco chuggers, Italo-disco, quirky synth-pop, West African rhythms, traditional Indonesian music, Latin drum jams and much more besides. Throw in a couple of ultra-dreamy, woodwind-and-strings-laden ambient excursions and you have a genuinely brilliant collection of inspired musical fusions.

Review: Prins Emanuel is a Malmo-based artist with many strings to his bow, but here he returns to Music For Dreams for another exquisite excursion into the cosy folds of ill-defined kosmische-jazz-jam band music. It's a warm and many layered sound shaped out by instrumentation first and foremost, but driven by a motorik sensibility which carries each piece on its journey into mellow, mysterious terrain. It's not as explicitly worldly as most Fourth World music, but it shares that sense of relocation to unknown realms via tender means of travel. Immediate enough to draw you in from the first measure but subtle enough to keep you coming back to learn more, this is an undoubtedly brilliant record by a hidden treasure of Sweden's alternative music scene.

Review: First released in 2022, Rheinzand's Atlantis Atlantis updated the Belgian disco-house collective's sound for the utmost present, laying down a thickly layered collection of uncanny dark disco via post punk across thirteen tracks. Now two years on from the original release, Netherlands producer Pete Blaker has teamed up with the band to rework the album tracks; however, in the words of the label and Blaker themselves, this is by no means your bog-standard 'remix' album! Unlike most, this one hears Blaker go the extra mile, sonically refurbishing the tracks with entirely new instrumental layers and vocal takes, personally commissioning the band to do so himself. Formatively emerging after being asked to do just one remix for the band in 2021, this is a rare case of divine inspiration striking in an unexpectedly extended fashion - not to be missed.

Review: Moloko Island is the debut album from Mike Salta & Mortale on Music For Dreams label and is the soundtrack to a getaway world "where good vibes can float freely" and "only fantasy set the limits." The tracks here are made up of those you may have heard on some more Balearic dance floors in the recent past as well as plenty of new ones. The open is a buoyant groove full of the joys of hope and optimism as you set out on any new adventure and from there you can sink back into 'Bon Abanut', have a gentle boogie to 'Yaeyama' and gaze up on the stars while lost in the magic of 'Bye Moloko.'