TAPE
Opera Plus
HAPNA040CD
Häpna 2002/2008
13Tracks. 63mins54secs

TAPE
Milieu Plus
HAPNA041CD
Häpna 2003/2008
12Tracks. 51mins58secs

The pooled intuition of Johan Berthling, Andreas Berthling, and Tomas Hallonsten is manifested predominantly in tightly controlled, continually surprising spontaneous designs - a sort of tightrope walk between high energy free blurt and rigorous attention to form.  The Swedish group has been embracing - even celebrating - their stylistic contradictions since 2002, and the versatile, lysergic fusion of languid free jazz, ambient, folk, and broken balladry has since weaved itself stealthily, but inexorably, into the fabric of contemporary music. Continue Reading »

2562
Aerial
TECCD004
Tectonic Recordings 2008
10 Tracks. 51mins09secs

2562 is the project of one Dave Huismans who, unlike the vast majority of artists evolving within the confines of, or in the immediate periphery of dubstep, doesn’t actually come from London but from The Hague in the Netherlands, where his local postcode provides him with his moniker. Huismans is not a new comer. He has, in recent years, released records under a variety of pseudonyms, including Dogdaze and A Made Up Sound, and has already been gathering praises for his various incarnations as techno boffin or conveyor of broken beats.

Huismans first appeared as 2562 (pronounce twenty-five sixty-two) last year with a couple of EPs released on Bristol-based Tectonic Recordings and rapidly gained critical acclaim across the board. Continue Reading »

HULK
Rise Of A Mystery Tide
OSA009
Osaka 2008
11 Tracks. 45mins22secs

This Hulk has very little to do with the Marvel Comics monster with serious ADHD issues, apart perhaps for a definite colour affinity, as Thomas Haugh hails from Dublin, capital city of the Republic of Ireland, a country as green as the aforementioned bully boy. In fact, Hulk’s debut album, Silver Thread Of Ghosts, was a moving assemblage of delicate found sounds and guitar textures together with orchestral brushes, set into drone-like formations, light years away from the enraged spirit of the Marvel character.

Before joining the ranks of Irish imprint Osaka Recordings, Hulk appeared on Static Caravans with his debut single, Fixed Star Day/The Sea Is Mute, The Waves Are Hymns in 2002, and consequently went on to have material featured on compilations released on Expanding and Melodic. Silver Thread Of Ghosts was released in 2005. Since, very little has been heard from Haugh, but eighteen months in the making, Rise Of A Mystery Tide has finally landed. Continue Reading »

RATATAT
LP3
XL3532
XL Recordings 2008
13 Tracks. 42mins24secs

It’s not easy to categorize Ratatat.  The Brooklyn-based duo of Evan Mast and Mike Stroud embrace a diverse smattering of styles, picking and choosing to create a kind of Frankenstein creation that is, damn the term, perhaps best referred to as simply “electronica”.  Like the big beat, maximal French house, and jungle recordings that fit the late-nineties press categorization of “electronica”, Ratatat are making electronic compositions from a song-based mind state.  Counter to the exhausting, minimal repetitions, which categorize much of techno, house, and other defiantly non-song-based electronic fields, Ratatat’s songs (not tracks) focus on melody and resolution.  Most songs on LP3, in fact, feature at least one instrument that sounds as though it’s trying to sing lyrics, and tell a story. Continue Reading »

ZAINETICA
Soul Paradox
RN019
Rednetic Recordings 2008
11 Tracks. 73mins55secs

It has been a while since Rednetic founder and Zainetica mastermind Mark Streatfield has released on his own imprint. Instead, Zainetica outputs have been materialising on countless independent labels, including Lacedmilk, Enpeg Digital, Boltfish, Kahvi and many more. It was although with a Zainetica release, Streatfield’s debut, Escaping Dust, to be précised, that the label was launched in 2002. So, his latest dispatch, Soul Paradox, is a very welcome return to the Rednetic and another fine addition to a catalogue that is growing to be one of the most consistent around. Continue Reading »

IZUMI MISAWA
Speaking Behind The Raindrops
SIC007
Symbolic Interaction 2008
10 Tracks. 43min45secs

Izumi Misawa stirs the atmosphere with hypnotic suggestion whereby vibration, tremors, repetition - whether of a musical rhythm or a spoken phrase - and special tone colors affect the mind through various levels of pressure on the senses.  These cycles of wistful instrumental sketches and flights of elytra often seem innocent enough, and even seem caught in the web of a giddy eclecticism, but the mood is one of serendipity, and the impassioned whirling is not without its justifications.

The tracks are of a patient, unhurried, un-mechanized mind.  A frenetic succession of scratched fragments cracks the proceedings open before a lurching procession of wobbly, spasmodic beats settles them down, at which point they are wedded to beatific textures, shimmering keyboards and disparate shards of found sound that provide moments of dizzying disruption. Continue Reading »

TRICKY
Knowle West Boy
WIGCD195
Domino Recording Co. 2008
13 Tracks. 46mins22secs

Trapped between the paranoid atmospheres and claustrophobic beats that have become his own doomed musical universe on one side and his need to escape toward more accessible grounds, Tricky has been looking for a fresh way to express himself for some time. Knowle West Boy is not quite the flamboyant renaissance that he deserves, as the recent rock-infused single Council Estate attests, but there is definitely a renewed fever running throughout and it contributes to this album feeling more focused than the lacklustre Juxtapose or Vulnerable for instance. Continue Reading »

LOWRIDERS DELUXE
Lowriders Deluxe
SICO11
Symbolic Interaction 2008
11 Tracks. 57mins48secs

Ten years in the making, this debut Lowriders Deluxe release sees long-term friends Mark Streatfield, Joseph Auer, Simon Thomas and Clive Burns collaborate on a full length release for the first time. London-based Streatfield and Chicago-born Auer, who, having spent part of his life travelling the world, has now settled down in Tokyo, founded the excellent Rednetic imprint in 2002 and have since continuously delivered some of the finest electronic music around. Both have also released countless solo EPs and albums, the former as Zainetica and, more recently, Cyan 341, and the latter under his own name. Simon Thomas is also a regular on Rednetic as Utility Player, whilst Clive Burns is best known as the guitarist with alternative outfit Deep Valley Orgasm.

Lowriders Deluxe takes these four away from their usual respective grounds and into a series of elegant ambient pieces reminiscent in part of the lush sonic landscapes of early Orb, Global Communication or Future Sound Of London mixed with hints of classic Warp or early Rephlex electronica. Continue Reading »

M.B. + E.D.A.
Regolelettroniche
KARU8
Baskaru 2008
04 Tracks. 47mins24secs

Born in 1955, Maurizio Bianchi is a long-standing member of the Italian experimental music scene. He debuted in 1979, and, until 1984, he released a considerable amount of work, but then withdrew from the music business completely as he entered a deeply religious and spiritual part of his life. He came out of retirement in 1997 and has since resumed a very productive work pace, with a mix of new releases and re-issues being made available. Twenty years Bianchi’s junior, Emanuela De Angelis first emerged as lead singer and guitarist with noise formation Joyce Whore Not in the early nineties and later founded Mou, Lips!, an experimental electronic project, with Andrea Gabriele, and has been working as a solo artist for over four years.

For their first collaboration, Bianchi and De Angelis create long and expensive drone-like forms, developed over the four tracks and nearly fifty minutes of Regolelettroniche, which vaguely translates into ‘electronic rules’, and which informs the record and sets its the boundaries. Continue Reading »

HE CAN JOG
Middlemarch
AB017
Aubiobulb Records 2008
09 Tracks. 43mins06secs

The strangely named He Can Jog is one of the many projects of Brooklyn-based sound artist Erik Schoster who focuses primarily on textural sound explorations. Originally from Madison, Wisconsin, Schoster spent his formative years studying composition and improvisations. In the last four years, he has released a handful of MP3 EPs and his work has also been featured on a few compilations, including on no less than four from Sheffield’s excellent Audiobulb, which have been nurturing his talent for some time. It is therefore only fair that they got to release Middlemarch, the follow up to his debut album, New Ground Has Not Broken, Soil Last Week And Dirt Today, released in 2004. Continue Reading »