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Review: The creative partnership between Tiga & Hudson Mohawke expresses a mutual love of "hardcore romance," a liminal state where the bounds between euphoria, melancholy and the raw power of friendship disintegrate completely. Recorded in Los Angeles from 2019-2023, these commonalities ebbed and flowed through various recording sessions, culminating in their debut album - L'Ecstacy - the sounds in which "all come from the same place, the same musical universe," in Hudson Mohawke's own words. Referencing the album's locus of bouncy elasticity and cinematic gloss - "we're building a particular kind of zone where it all fits together. A place lost in time." With guest appearances by luminaries like Abra, Channel Tres, and Jesse Boykins III, as well as album artwork by Wolfgang Tillmans, the result is delivered with "no apology, no cynicism, no irony, no winking."

Review: The impeccable Lithuanian label Greyscale is a real leader when it comes to dub techno and already they are racing into 2024 in fine style with a first full-length of the year from label head Grad_U! The sublime and immersive Sustain has eight larges ambient soundscapes that are detailed with field recordings from another planet. Each one is alluringly empty and beautiful, intriguing and unsettling to make for an escapist trip to another dimension. The way the producer manages to conjure up what feel like familiar emotions in such a faraway world is second to none and will leave you wanting to do it all over again the second it ends.

Review: Global Underground's' Select' series acts as a kind of annual nod to all the club-focused and after-hours music they love, mixed together by an un-credited DJ or studio engineer to keep things moving. 2024's edition - the ninth to date - is naturally packed to the rafters with tasty tracks from both established producers and rising stars. That means an attractive, immersive and frequently emotive mix of ambient-tinged deep electro (Pablo Bolivar & Nacho Sanchez), evocative tech-house (Dixon re-working Nandu's 'Around', Guy J's hypnotic, acid-flecked 'State of Trance'), pitched-down neo-trance dreaminess (Joris Voorn editing Solee), grandiose big room workouts (Fur Coat & Lexur), 21st century acid house (Phunkadelica remixing Damon Jee) and uplifting progressive house (D-Nox).

Review: After four appearances on Lithuania's Greyscale, Ajnkana delivers his first long player Integers Equations, with more than an hour of "tangibly eerie, atmospheric chords", ambience but not ambient-edged beats and dubby effects either destined for play on deeper dancefloors or comedown soundtracking post-party living room sessions. The titles may be blank as anything, all binary and consisting of 1s and 0s in slightly different orders, but the instrumental, slowly-enveloping tracks have plenty of personality. Fans of Sahko, Chain Reaction and Ilian Tape's more esoteric offerings will love it.

Review: Subset makes a welcome return to Greyscale with his second full-length album after the success that was This Quiet Earth. The follow-up, Ambient Particles, is another widescreen work of great cinematic details that again showcase Sunset's studio skills. The track titles give an insight into his thinking behind the music with the likes of 'Sandstorm on Mars' swirl of textured pads over baron landscapes of undulating bass and 'Cocooned Under the Stars' feels adrift in the endless darkness of space with only distant twinkling pads for company. Elsewhere 'Chains In The Wind' is a spacious and dubby ambient techno trip and 'Ambient Particles' brings a little more movement with its rolling drums. A sophisticated and soothing album once more from Subset.

Review: Phonica Records toasts 20 years in style with this three-disc exploration of the house and techno they're best known for. It's no surprise they were able to pull in a heavyweight cast of characters for this collection, but they've made sure to leave enough room for the stars of tomorrow, too. Familiar names include Daniel Bell, Shy One, Willow, Peggy Gou, Midland, Will Saul and Ron Basejam, but there's also surprise inclusions like Tim Reaper and Comfort Zone teaming up for a signature jungle excursion. This is a heavyweight reflection of everything Phonica has represented for the past two decades, but equally a sign towards where they're heading in the future and it couldn't sound rosier.

Review: .For the 100th volume in their ongoing 'Mood Series' of albums, Greyscale has chosen to offer up something very special: a double disc set of previously unreleased "secret weapons" produced by label main man Grad_U. It's an undeniably brilliant collection all told, with the long-serving artist offering up a rich selection of deep techno and dub techno treats in his distinctive style. Highlights are plentiful and include (but are in no way limited to), the house-infused, hypnotic techno positivity of 'Run Out', the intergalactic dub techno pulse of 'Compound', the acid-flecked intensity of 'Seismic Investigations', the immersive rhythmic sound soup of 'Whispering Rails', and the melodic flutter of 'Orbital Outpost'.

Review: Second time around for the late, great Rai Harakami's second album, Opa*q, gets the reissue treatment. It's long been tricky to source outside of Japan and for whatever reason has not been issued in any form since it first surfaced in 2009. It's an attractive and at times off-kilter blend, with Harakimi mixing and matching ambient textures and enveloping electronic soundscapes with jazzy keyboard solos, quirky grooves, madcap post-techno acid lines, IDM and break-core style beats, and the kind of squelchy and tactile synth motifs more often associated with boogie albums made in the 1980s. It feels pleasingly lo-fi, too, as if a writer of 1980s and early 90s video-game soundtracks had made an electronica album. This edition also includes fine remixes by Ian O'Brien and Max 404, plus two hard-to-find bonus cuts.

Review: The unstoppable dub techno and ambient label Greyscale seems to drop new music each week. This time it is BT Gate X-138's 'kV Pylon' that serves as the musical vehicle to take us on a trip through rich sonic landscapes and an array of emotions. Over seventy sublime and spacious minutes, this vital CD goes from grainy and lo-fi moodiness on the opener to explorations of the ocean floor on '330kV Test' via gloriously uplifting and optimistic pieces of melodic beauty such as '330kV Test'. It is another triumph from a label and artist that will find favour with all techno and ambient lovers.