Mute 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: Vince Clarke (Erasure, Yazoo, Depeche Mode, The Assembly) presents his first ever solo album, Songs of Silence. As the album title suggests, it's a lyricless (though not vocal-free) instrumental album, and unlike anything you might've previously heard before from Clarke as an artisan of dynamic electropop. Rather, this LP brings with it a comparatively sober ambient electronic beauty, its unique characteristics lending it a category of its own. But two self-imposed oblique strategies underpinned its creation - first, that the sounds Clarke generated for the album would come solely from Eurorack (a modular synthesizer format introduced in the mid-90s), and second, that each track would be based around one note, maintaining a single key throughout.

Review: Trailed as a direct sequel to his previous solo album, 2017's "Avanti", "Volume Massimo" sees Nine Inch Nails member Alessandro Cortini offer up another immersive trip through droning guitar textures, repetitive synthesizer motifs, exotic sitar parts and fuzzy electronics. It's effectively a series of "maximal" instrumental soundscapes with sounds so large and layered they rise above the "meditative" tag pushed by Mute's PR team. This is no criticism, though, just a reflection that while contemplative at times, one of the most joyous things about the album is Cortini's ability to build thrilling walls of sound.

Review: Forged in the darkness that exists beyond shadows, Scope Neglect opens up a new chapter in the storied career of cult producer, musician, and artist Ben Frost. A record of almost-unfathomable ferocity, taking inspiration from the blackness of industrial and metal, core elements of these scenes are untethered, taking us to a stylistic unknown - abstract, brooding and unflinching. Seven years after his last LP, at which point he told The Guardian 'I don't know if I have any more records left in me', the enigmatic polymath - a celebrated underground icon whose work spans film, visual art, and opera - proves his own doubts were unfounded. Scope Neglect is a spectacular powerhouse of sound that feels made for spaces bigger than any room, hall, or stadium. Left unrestricted, it could be capable of reaching the ends of the universe itself.

Review: While Ben Frost's work has long been marked out by deft-touch dark ambient, experimental instincts and clandestine aural textures, he's always thrown in surprise excursions and drawn on musical inspirations that other like-minded producers would fear to embrace. This latter characteristic comes to the fore on Scope Neglect, his first solo set for six years. Remarkably, it utilises the moodiness, weight and ten-ton guitar licks of metal - played by Car Bombs guitarist Greg Kubacki and bass-slinger Liam Andrews of My Disco fame - as a starting point. Frost naturally puts these through the sonic wringer, combining them with his own skittish, IDM-influenced beats, dark ambient soundscapes and razor-sharp electronics. The results are unusual, impressive and emphatically enjoyable, sitting somewhere between timeless electronica, Nine Inch Nails and experimental metal.

Review: In honour of the launch of the "Love Record Stores" project, Mute has decided to make Pole's brilliant third album, "3", available in a special yellow-vinyl edition. That's as good an excuse as any to add it to your record collection, though the set's undisputed quality and stone-cold classic status is arguably more of a selling point. By the time he originally released it, Stefan Betke had successfully fine-tuned his spaced-out, minimalist electronic dub style. Combining hypnotic rhythms, some influenced by hip-hop and others by Basic Channel style dub techno, with deep dub basslines, opaque electronics and dusty, often glitchy samples, Betke used "3" to cement his reputation as a genuine sonic innovator. While all of his albums are essential, "3" is arguably the best of the lot.

Review: Astonishing, 22 years have passed since the release of Stefan Betke's debut album as Pole. Along with the "2" and "3" albums that followed in 1999 and 2000 respectively, it helped establish him as a producer with a defiantly distinctive, dub-fired sound: a brand of electronic minimalism that drew just as much on ambient and micro-house as it did techno and of course reggae soundsystem culture. Crackly, spaced-out, hypnotic and mind-soothing, all three albums sound as fresh now as they did when they were first released. Helpfully, Mute has decided to reissue all three at once via this box set. There are no bells and whistles, just three essential albums in a plain black box. If you don't own them already, you know what to do.

Review: Pole's 2022 album Tempus featured one particular track, 'Stechmuck' which was centred on the sound of his dying Minimoog. It's a tidy continuation of the faulty Waldorf filter which inspired his project name in the first place, and now Stefan Betke has taken the inspiration of his broken gear further by inviting a heavyweight cast of remixers to reversion the track. You might not have expected UK electro punk agitators Sleaford Mods to be crossing paths with German minimalist dub, but here we are and the results are incendiary. Elsewhere, Rrose delivers a textbook slice of writhing, tactile techno and Alessandro Cortini brings his grandiose synth expertise to bear on the track.

Review: Depeche Mode member Alan Wilder is Recoil. This musical project found him landing on Mute with a great series of albums including the likes of Liquid and Unsound Methods as well as his sixth LP, subHuman. This one dates back to 2006 and came after a 6-year break from recording. It is dark and broody electronic music "which sets the listener a challenge to analyse what makes us human and subHuman." It's a collaboration with bluesman Joe Richardson who served up guitars as well as harmonica and eerie vocals. Themes in the record include murder, death, and religion while guest singer Carla Trevaskis did a fine job of serving up ethereal sound on 'Allelujah'.

Review: Mute began reissuing some classic albums from Recoil last year and already they have vanished so this is another pressing of one of their best - from former Depeche Mode member Alan Wilder. 2000's Liquid is thought to be one of his best works as he delves into dark and involving electronic worlds with its hypnotic and deeply charged charm. Its moods - desire, fury, and violence - are paired with self-reflection that encourages you to go deep inside yourself while listening. There are haunting and ghoulish moments of intensity like 'Strange Hours' next to more soothing trip-hop cuts like 'Breath Control'.