Aegri Somnia - Monde Obscure

Cryo Chamber: 2015

Oh, dark ambient, may you wrap your bleak, inky tendrils over my confused being, leading me into dreams, reflections, and realms that are as twisted reality to our own. The Dread Year Of 2016 shows no remorse, but it cannot compare to the strangeness your scene provides in a multitude of ways. Near futures where we blew it all up (us maniacs!), peaks into dimensions perverting our hypercritical sense of moral decency into twisted parodies upon ourselves, inner and outward sojourns into extreme isolation from humanity’s failings, pondering how the self can carry on in the face of so much strife and decay. Forever searching for those specks and glimmers of light and hope in an unyielding chaos of black.

I did not intend for this genre to provide so much escapist solace this year, but damn if it doesn’t do the job better than most of my traditional standbys. Or maybe it’s that whole ‘new novelty’ factor, sounds and songcraft that is fresher for yours truly. Oh, but that’s just so much less poetic.

Anyhow, Monde Obscure is yet another Cryo Chamber album I’m reviewing, because of course it is. I promise though, this will be it from the label for… a little while? There’s only a few left in this endless backlog, so they gotta’ be spaced out better than this last batch of EVERY. OTHER. CD. Though I’m quite enraptured by a lot of this label’s output, a little more variety needs to kick in soon. I didn’t undertake this wacky listening project just to hear the same ol’ over and over.

ANYhoo, this album comes from Aegri Somnia, or Jurica Santek to the Croatian Crab-Lovers Committee [citation needed]. The Latin alias translates to ‘The Patient’s Dreams’ in Google, referring to fever dreams, or dreams induced from madness – something to do with a suffering sickness. And while the project has existed in some capacity over the last decade, Mr. Santek hasn’t done too much with it, a sprinkling of a smattering of released material over that time. Still, with digital albums like Nothingness and Script, he developed enough of a cult following (yeah yeah, ‘cult’, ‘dark ambient’, har har), that Cryo Chamber gave him the greenlight to put out a new album under their banner, spiffy hardcopy CD and all.

With cover art of a burnt-out husk of an apartment tower, you’d expect Monde Obscure some post-apocalyptic business, but the tale behind this album is a much different. Rather, this charred building serves as a portal to another realm, one not for the faint of heart. As dark ambient records go, this one is heavy on the field recordings, music almost incidental to the whole. There are snippets of piano, pad, choir, and tonal drone, but Mr. Santek would rather guide you through creaking infrastructure, dripping water, burning hallways, and distant echoes of crowds shuffling beyond this mortal coil. Feels like I’m playing one of the good Silent Hill game while listening to this.

Sounds From The Ground - The Maze

Waveform Records: 2010

It took nearly fifteen years, but Elliot Jones and Nick Woolfson had finally found a way to evolve their sounds from the gound. They had to have been itching for something new after all that time, but their craft with ambient dub was so skill, there wasn’t much need to mess with the formula. True, they did some nu-jazz and trip-hop explorations too, yet so did everyone else in the downtempo scene around the turn of the century, so their efforts mostly got lost in the glut. Perhaps that’s why they ended up back with Waveform Records shortly after, a sturdy, steady print with a small enough roster they wouldn’t be buried in the process. Only drawback may have been Waveform’s dedication to the spliff’d side of chill vibes, but Sounds From The Ground maneuvered those waters far better than most throughout the mid-‘00s, milking the style nearly up to our current decade.

As I said though, changes were afoot, required even. Waveform itself was moving ever so slowly into contemporary sounds found on the crusty festival circuit, new cats on the scene embracing digital production over the sample-heavy style of the ‘90s. After so many years doing the dubby trip-hop thing, Sounds From The Ground finally embraced a comparatively ‘plastic’ aesthetic as well. The Maze was their first effort in this bold new realm of psy-dub electro!

Whoa, wait, that’s way too much overselling for this album. Its different compared to their prior work, but on a song-writing level, not that much different. There’s still an undeniable sense of dub groove Sounds From The Ground navigate with ease throughout, sections still filled with floating chill-out bliss (Temple Steps, Midnight Crossing, ambient leaning Afterglow), plus room for excursions into oddball electro explorations (Delphine, Acid Cornflats). Though never the hookiest of music makers, Jones and Woolfson come up with a couple nifty earworms befitting their legacy (A Thousand Colours features a lovely little swaying melody with its dub groove, This Land works in a grumbly, gritty bassline that has me wondering if the duo were feeling the dubstep itch as well). And just in case you still craved some of their jazzy influences, The Lenox gets some of that lounge vibe going with muted trumpets and spritely keyboards jamming alongside chill acid. Also, is it just me, or does the title of this song have you imagining Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, but staring Annie Lennox in the titular role? What a bizarre book that would have made, featuring an androgynous synth-pop singer over a grumpy Wilfred Brimley stand-in. Future consideration for the 2071 100th Anniversary reboot!

And that’s about it for The Maze. Like so many Sounds From The Ground albums, there’s little at fault with their songcraft, though if you don’t fancy the dubby side of downtempo chill music, you probably won’t be fussed with this album. Still, in adapting a few new tricks to their trade, The Maze is one of the higher recommendations in their discography.

Tricky - Maxinquaye

Island Records: 1995

Tricky was my first exposure to trip-hop, via Deep Forest of all groups. The world beat duo provided music for the 1995 cyberpunk thriller Strange Days, and Teenage Sykonee being the throes of ethno-pop at the time, eagerly checked the movie out. Cannot deny I was also quite intrigued by the Kathryn Bigelow film on its concept, a look into the near future of the year 2000, and what the End Of The Millennium might hold.

It seems so quaint now, the fear that things would somehow catastrophically and abruptly end just after 11:59pm of December 31, 1999, and I’m not just talking that silly Y2K Bug thing. Nay, Strange Days depicted a society where, with the right kind of angle, seemed on the verge of utter collapse, a powder keg of racial strife and decadent decay, easily lit with but a single, reckless act of senseless, bigoted brutality. I have to admit Ms. Bigelow teased such an eruption so expertly throughout the movie, I actually believed the prophetic Millennial Apocalypse was nigh at the movie’s climax. Yet, clearer heads prevailed, the ‘eruption’ but a ‘scritch’ overall. Ms. Bigelow was smart, knowing Y2K paranoia was much ado about nothing. No, the real problems wouldn’t start until 16 years after! (Sorry, but it’s difficult not getting topical and political right now)

Tricky’s debut Maxinquaye is hailed as one of the shining moments of trip-hop’s mid-‘90s peak, in large part because it’s barely a trip-hop album at all. True, he helped Massive Attack set the template of the genre, and there’s definitely some all-time classic trip-hop class on here. Overcome, the opening track - and tune featured in the Strange Days soundtrack (relevancy!) – works a sultry, dubby, tribal thump, losing itself in the grit of inner city lust and doubt. Aftermath, his debut single, was initially intended for Massive Attack, but the lads behind Attack said ‘nay’ to that one, a shame because it would have fit marvelously into their canon.

That rejection, plus feeling generally stagnant within the group, prompted Tricky to pursue his solo ventures. He had plenty of ideas in his head, but not much production capability on his own though. Enter producer Mark Saunders, who somehow stitched together Tricky’s wayward muse into comprehensible music. Soul, punk, hip-hop, dub, and all manner of sample-heavy abstraction fill Maxinquaye, leaving you unsure where it’s going at any given time. The vocal dynamic between Tricky’s subdued conscious raps and cooing of singer/life partner Martina Topley-Bird fuels the sense of life on the skids, a scattershot collage of hopes and paranoia, lust and despair.

I probably can’t prop this album up any more than the UK press did at the time (holy cow, the hyperbole!), but as one of the seminal trip-hop albums of the era, this “not trip-hop” record definitely earned its spot among the Blue Lines and Dummys. It’s confrontational compared to the others, but that makes it all the more intriguing as a whole, as you decrypt the angst within.

protoU - Lost Here

Cryo Chamber: 2016

Yeah yeah, another Cryo Chamber album. I’ve said before such is the result of a label splurge, and when said label offers such lovely bulk deals on their music, label splurging is easy indeed. Heck, remember when I covered that pile of Psychonavigation Records material earlier in the year? Or even all those Fabric and In Trance We Trust mixes? And it’s not like I haven’t gathered massive amounts of material from other labels either: Hypnotic, Waveform, Turbo, Ultimae… um, Columbia. Of course, the difference there is that music was gathered over a course of two decades before taking on this blog in earnest, spreading their entries more fluidly as I trek through everything now. If Cryo Chamber had existed prior to 2012, we wouldn’t have such an overabundance of albums now. Then again, I wasn’t as open to a dark ambient label either. It still stuns me how my interest developed towards Simon Heath’s print.

On the other hand, ProtoU provides the sort of sound that might have eased me into the genre if I’d preferred a gradual transition from my general ambient interests. The lady behind the moniker, Sasha Cats, is relatively new onto the scene, almost completely barren of information at Lord Discogs. Last.fm does provide a bit more background, touching on her prior influences (violinist, choir, traditional classical) and some dabbling in contemporary genres (d’n’b, ambient, noisy experiments). T’was not long before she found kinship with dark ambient sorts though, soon enough making her debut on Cryo Chamber in the collaborative album Earth Songs. A short while later, Ms. Cats made her solo debut with this particular album, Lost Here, one of the few records on this label to have so much white in its cover art. Ooh, contrasts!

The titular opener features field recordings of flowing water and open spaces, all the while a rather calm and reflective pad tone drones in support. Hey, wait, didn’t the last ambient album I reviewed (The Longing Daylight) also open in a similar fashion? In what must be attributed to complete coincidence considering the disparate musical worlds between Mr. Norris and Ms. Cats, absolutely yes! Still, I’m always intrigued by common links within genres, so that was a cute coincidence to behold with my listening arrangement.

Similarities end there though, Lost Here much more vivid in the portrait it paints – it really does feel like I’m wandering about an empty area, alone with my thoughts. An abandoned city? The rubble of ancient ruins? A foggy seaside beach? Who’s to say, but there’s something strangely comforting about the tones ProtoU guides you along. They’re spacious, but never so empty you feel lost in desolation. Final tracks The Sea and Believe even offer hopeful tones, inching closer to the reflective nature of ambient-proper, though with a layer of gritty soot in this case. Lost Here isn’t reinventing any wheels, but should serve as an easy entry point for those looking to dip their toes into dark ambient’s opaque waters.

Lee Anthony Norris & Porya Hatami - The Longing Daylight

Carpe Sonum Records: 2014

This is now the third alias of Lee Norris I’m reviewing, his seldom used eponymous pseudonym. Seriously, the scant few times he’s gone by his own name for an album is when he’s paired up with this Porya Hatami. He also put out a double-LP collection of prior works under his other projects (Nacht Plank, Autumn Of Communion, Moss Garden, plus others), a semi-retrospective titled Italian Works released through his own …txt print. Speaking of …txt, damn is there ever a lot of tasty looking music there, so much only available in extremely limited CDr if you’re a hard-copy connoisseur. Dammit, I’m breaking the bank buying from Carpe Sonum, Cryo Chamber, Silent Season, Ultimae, Altar, whatever stray Fax+ albums float my way. How many more nifty ambient prints can my finances take?

I’m not sure why Mr. Norris uses his own name solely for this collaboration with Porya Hatami, especially when he’s never shown fear in doing the Pete Namlook thing in creating a new project alias with every producer pair-up. Is there something in particular that makes Porya Hatami special? The Iranian has definitely been a busy chap these past few years, plying his trade in twee ambience and static-drenched field recordings across many labels (Dronarivm, Tench, Dewtone Recordings, Flaming Pines…ooh, Inner Ocean Records?). No surprise Lee would find a common vibe with Mr. Hatami, pairing Iran and Italy like no other ambient project before! Add Irish Mick Chillage, and they can form a super group called Triple-I (obscure Transformers joke).

Norris and Hatami first paired up for the album Every Day Feels Like A New Drug, initially on Unknown Tone Records, then again on …txt; good luck finding that one at a reasonable price anymore. A couple years after, they reconvened for The Longing Daylight on Carpe Sonum Records, a tidy five tracker of ambient music lasting less than forty minutes of runtime. Um, super-short much? I mean, it’s nice having a collection of pleasant, calming synth melodies that don’t pointlessly meander for unnecessary lengths – Norris and Hatami craft concise pieces that say all that needs saying within each. Just seems guys as prolific as these two would have more to offer than a quintet of tracks averaging around seven and a half minutes each.

Particulars, then. Opener Druid Liquid features field recordings of various flowing water sources as gentle, reflective pads play in support; towards the end, the water recedes, letting the pads shine on their own. Follow-up Rune Stoned gets old-school ambient with its soft piano work, lonesome pads, and night insects. Finally, Alchemy, The Longing Daylight, and Moon get all Planetarium Ambient in our ears – I can easily imagine watching shimmering stars slowly rotate while this plays. Rather preferred the reflective pieces early though. As far as this sort of ambient goes, they had more character, morphing as they played along, the rest mostly remaining static. Look, with this much ambient music out there, I can afford to be picky.

Randal Collier-Ford, Flowers For Bodysnatchers, Council Of Nine, God Body Disconnect - Locus Arcadia

Cryo Chamber: 2016

Scaling back from the super-mega-ultra concept of ‘ALL The Roster Work On Singular Label Project’, we have ‘A Few Guys On Label Work On Concept Album’. Not under a group pseudonym though, nor with any specific collaboration between each artist beyond working around the theme as laid out by Bruce Moallem (God Body Disconnect). Cryo Chamber's done something similar as this before, an album called Tomb Of Empires, and I can’t help but continuously marvel at how much creative freedom Simon Heath offers all these morbid musicians from across the globe. Still, despite each contributor providing a single (long) track to Locus Arcadia, this is more than a compilation. Applying the trusty ol’ ‘dark ambient as storytelling’ analogy, each piece is rather like a short story set within a specific setting, though whether we’re dealing with the same protagonist throughout, I’m not sure.

Locus Arcadia is the brain-child of Bruce Moallem, whose backstory I’ve detailed in the God Body Disconnect album Dredge Portals. Along for the ride is Council Of Nine, one Maximillion Olivier, whom I’ve also detailed to some degree with his two albums Dakhma and Diagnosis. Flowers For Bodysnatchers joins the haunted sci-fi party, though I didn’t get as heavy into Duncan Ritchie’s history while writing up his Aokigahara album (the forest history ate most of my word count). And finally there’s Randal Collier-Ford, who’s making his debut with this blog! Well, technically he did on the Cryo Chamber Collaboration of Azathoth, but who could tell where his portions of that jumbo project began and ended. Ah, maybe if I’d taken in some of his prior work, I’d figure out what his particular dark ambient attributes are. For now, all I’ve got to go with is the opening piece on Locus Arcadia.

Into The Maw Where All Men Die certainly is an auspicious title to kick off a dark sci-fi outing, and the music within is suitably apt. Menacing drone, mechanical breathing, claustrophobic mood, with a touch of wonderment at the end as you take in the grandeur of whatever deserted, orbiting super-structure you’re wandering about. Flowers For Bodysnatchers opts more for a pure ‘haunted house’ vibe with his piece, Black Echo Of Morgues And Memory: lots of distant clanking across empty halls, creepy sounds clawing at metal chambers nearby, all leading to an unleashed cacophonic fury of whatever horror lurks erupting on your senses. Mr. Ritichie’s use of natural instruments definitely plays a crucial role in his piece. Council Of Nine, meanwhile, brings things down to a steady ambient drone, Pale Sister Of Sanctuary Lost an almost calm and soothing respite from FfB’s intense outing. He still maintains the desolate space drone that permeates Locus Arcadia though, for God Body Disconnect must take us out in an incredibly cinematic piece. Using a Death Star-tonne of sci-fi sound effects, Prisoner’s Sacrifice Facing Arcadia could be a mini-movie in its own right, complete with soaring score and gentle piano denouement at the end. How Spielbergian of Maollem.

Dopplereffekt - Linear Accelerator

International Deejays Gigolo: 2003

Dopplereffekt is Gerald Donald (and a rotating partner), a darn important person in the world of techno. Mostly for his contributions to Drexciya and Underground Resistance, though this project is held near the same reverent breath from Detroit electro disciples. Heck, some could even point to this act as a precursor to electroclash, the minimalist, sleazy Pornoactress from the 1996 single Infophysix oozing all sorts of detached, deadpan cool. DJ Hell must have thought so, signing Mr. Donald to his International Deejay Gigolo print. Instead of more Dopplereffekt material though, there was Virtual Geisha as Japanese Telecom, a kitschy electro album at the height of electroclash’s kitschy dominance. Then there’s Der Zyklus’ II, which contained some classics of the electro revival in its own right (d’at Discogs Market price, tho’!).

For all intents though, it seemed Mr. Donald was done with Dopplereffekt after making his debut on Hell’s label with the 1999 retrospective Gesamtkunstwerk. But maybe there was enough demand from the Gigolo faithful to hear more under that particular guise, hence the eventual LP we have here. That, or ol’ Gerald was contractually obligated to provide a proper album of new material as Dopplereffekt before moving on. I mean, it’s mighty suspicious this is his last release with Gigolo. It would go a long way into explaining why Linear Accelerator is a rather challenging record.

For sure earlier Dopplereffekt had a hard sci-fi element to it, a fascination with lab experiments and high-end technology. Linear Accelerator takes that to the extreme though, with track titles like Myon-Neutrino, Higgs-Mechanism, and Niobium Resonators. And the music? It’s a long wait for anything resembling a tune on this album. The opening track Photo Injector is over twenty-one minutes of clanking machinery, miniscule bloops, and all sorts of musique concrete abstraction. Niobium Resonators follows, nearly fifteen minutes of clicks, pops, and blast-processing noise. Third cut Graviton runs an additional fourteen minutes, has a muffled, garbled synth running through it, while clicks, pops, and static do the experimental glitch thing that was increasingly in vogue around this time with artsty techno sorts. In case you haven’t kept tally, that’s a whopping forty-nine minutes of this album spent experimenting with electronic sounds. Linear Accelerator has a runtime of seventy minutes, mind you.

The final three tracks do offer some melodic yin to the difficult yang of the first three. Myon-Neutrino has a groovy acid bassline with a haunting sci-fi hook, Z-Boson goes more spritely in its choice of synths, while Higgs-Mechanism offers the closest thing to an electro cut out of anything on here, though significantly muted compared to Donald’s other works.

Obviously Linear Accelerator isn’t an album for the faint of heart - only those who thrill at the intense potential of electronic experimentation need apply. I’m just confounded at how such an abstract release found its way onto Gigolo. Either DJ Hell was aiming for a trendy Mille Plateaux rub, or Donald was having a pisstake with the whole electro revivalist thing.

Aveparthe - Landscapes Over The Sea

Cryo Chamber: 2014

Time for my favorite type of dark ambient, that which gets geographical up in the house. Looks like this one’s got it all: cool coast lines, groovy ground carved by glacial processes, fluvial flows, probably all hanging out in some northern fjord too. Man, fjords are just awesome, all wavy and curvy and shit. They add so much coastal perimeter to your nation, several hundred or even thousands of kilometres of traversable landmass, all with impossibly steep hillsides plunging strait down into the deep black of cold oceans. Sure, the Oregon Coast may have some nifty dunes and eroded lumps of large rocks dotting its path, but there’s so little of it in total. Vancouver Island’s many fjords easily give the region a complete advantage in eroded lumps of large rocks. Look, it’s important for the lucrative postcard and wallpaper trades!

Okay, enough of the silly. While it’s true the concept of ‘untamed wasteland drone’ does appeal to me, it’s more for that sense of urban displacement than any sort of geographical porn. As with dark ambient focusing on deep space, there’s something captivating about unshackling your psyche from any and all human influence, losing oneself in the desolate emptiness of your surroundings. All from the comfort of my home, that is. Sure, I could make the actual trek to the Yukon tundra or alpine snows of the Coastal Mountains if I wanted a true isolation experience, but I like having a choice of six sushi restaurants within walking distance too.

The group Aveparthe hails from a fairly remote region of the world though, so they have some inkling of what it’s like having few ties to civilization at large. While info on Sádon is scarce, not so is the case with the other portion of this project, the charmingly named Astral & Shit (Ivan Gozikov). Hailing from the Russian city of Nevyansk, an administrative town on the eastern side of the Ural range, Mr. Gozikov has idled his time away making copious amounts of experimental noise and drone pieces under the A&S guise, some eighty-plus releases in the past half-decade alone. Throw in an additional eighty-plus releases as Demiurge Urizen, and you’ve got one ridiculously prolific producer. How nice of him to make time to collaborate with ol’ Sádon for a new project like Aveparthe.

Landscapes Over The Sea is their debut, on Cryo Chamber and in general. It consists of five tracks, two lengthy pieces breaching the seventeen minute mark (Nimbostratus, Full Of Sun), two shorter compositions running about three-and-a-half (Fog Machine, 1600), and a final eight minute track titled Turn. These are all straight-forward as far as ambient drone goes, growing and escalating with layers of pads, synths, field recordings, reverb, and timbre. There’s an ethereal quality to them all, especially Full Of Sun which utilizes chants as well. 1600 has a sparse tone going for it, Fog Machine obscures distant sounds, while Turn comparitively sounds luminous. Quite an abrupt ending though. Floating Points would approve.

ACE TRACKS: October 2016

I know I’ve said it a few times now, but I’m still gobsmacked in how much of a backlog I accrued over the summer. Granted, a fair chunk of it was purchased during the previous backlog trawl as well, making my current queue sort of a double-length one. If this one’s taking so long, by God the backlog I’m currently building must be all sorts of ginormous by now. Ah, no, not really. Kinda’ cut back on music buying for a while, in part because finances dictate as such. Besides, I’d like to make some actual progress with my regular alphabetical cue at some point before the year is out. Dammit though, so many cool new releases coming out. No, no… control, I must learn control. Ah, who am I kidding? Better spending spare money on this than booze, I guess. On that cheery note, here’s a nice little Playlist ace tunes covered for this past month of October in our dread year of 2016.


Full track list here.


MISSING ALBUMS:
Various - Hed Kandi: Deeper
Omni Trio - The Haunted Science
enCAPSULAte - Fetal Position
Shaded Explorer - Empatia
Cosmic Replicant - Landscapes Motion

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 0%
Percentage Of Rock: 5%
Most “WTF?” Track: Floating Points - Peroration Six (seriously, that ending, tho’)

Fairly straight-forward collection of tunes here. Lots of deep vibes, chill vibes, jazzy vibes, groovy vibes, plus some euro dance and metal too. Unfortunately, a couple of the truly intriguing items I reviewed this past month aren’t practical for a Playlist such as this. I mean, how can I select just a few indexed pieces out of 70 Minutes Of Madness when Coldcut’s mastermix opus is best served as a whole. Same goes for a couple of those dark ambient, the sum integral to its whole. And why on Earth isn’t Omni Trio’s Haunted Science on Spotify? I know old Moving Shadow is essentially in streaming limbo these days, but poor form losing that gem to such nonsense.

Cosmic Replicant - Landscapes Motion

Pureuphoria Records: 2015

Cosmic Replicant was a wonderful surprise when I took a chance on his Mission Infinity album, offering up psy-chill tunes with a way-retro ambient-bleep aesthetic unlike anything else I’d heard from Altar Records. I’d have splurged on the entirety of the chap’s discography shortly after if the rest of his material wasn’t restricted to the digital realms. Yes, it’s been over a decade since buying MP3s became big business, but I’m no closer to buying into the practice. If anything, with the advent of streaming services like Spotify, I’ve grown less interested in parting with personal finances for specific downloads. It may be a pittance, but at least something is being paid back to the source with streaming, and that music is available nearly anywhere within the omnipresent nebulous Cloud That Be. I download a paid digital album to my computer, however, and she’s stuck there – heck, I can’t even play them on my main stereo, unlike those sexy CDs proudly displayed within shelves and towers.

However, turns out that Mr. Pavel Shirshin has a couple EPs available at the always awesome free download site Ektoplazm.com. Well shit, son, that’s a price I’ve no problem paying for. What are these, older demos before signing with Altar Records? No, wait, they’re in fact released around the same time, Landscapes Motion in particular coming out just this past year on Pureuphoria Records. Seems Mr. Shirshin made his 2012 debut with the print, a tiny netlabel that doesn’t appear to have much going for it beyond the positive attitude that come with the psy scene. Sometimes that’s all you need, but yeah, I can see why the Cosmic Replicant brand has more releases on Altar. Well, that’s mighty decent of Pavel, coming back to them for a mini-album. Still, I wonder if it was done because this EP doesn’t quite fit the Altar vibe.

Not that I couldn’t see DJ Zen’s print taking a small chance outside its comfort zone, but Landscapes Motion ventures into realms seldom tread by the psy scene: dub techno. For sure there are a few successful crossovers, most prominent in recent times the Son Kite/Minilogue expedition. And Mr. Shirshin’s sound has had elements of dub and techno anyway, though never in such an explicit manner as on this EP. The titular opener suggests we’re in for a groovy, minimalist affair, lacking the psychedelic baggage commonly associated with this scene. Second track Modern Renaissance strips all psy pretense away, hitting you with a steady techno beat filled with pulsing synths and flowing dub treatments. Third cut Flash In The Mist gets back to the downtempo beat action, but is no less clinical in its dub designs, while final tracks Evening Reflections and Layers Of Perception get back to the deep techno rhythms.

Tickle me stunned by Landscapes Motion, this EP nothing like what I was expecting. It likely won’t amaze Deepchord disciples, but Cosmic Replicant certainly holds his own with that scene’s heavyweights. Now, more physical releases, please!

Laurent Garnier - La Home Box

F Communications: 2015

It’s been a long time since Laurent Garnier’s released a new album, and we’re technically still waiting on that too. La Home Box is more a gathering of various singles he produced throughout 2014, with a few additional unreleased items rounding things out to LP length. This has given it a ‘compilation’ label from most, but listen, son, that shit wouldn’t fly back in the day. Hell, when Monsieur Garnier first made his mark in the world of techno music, a dance album was just a bunch of prior singles lumped in with a few unreleased items. That makes La Home Box a retro album! Ain’t nothing old-school about the deluxe box set version though. Four slabs of wax, each a different color, with extra tracks not included with the CD (ten minute long Drifting In Midwaters, ten minute long Confused, additional remixes of a few tunes), all bundled within a pizza box. Hot damn, that’s going to bat for the Black Crack collectors out there. Makes getting the lone piddling CD kinda’ lame, but what need have I for all that vinyl? Besides, I get two versions of The Rise & Fall Of The Donkey Dog, so “haha!” on you, vinyl enthusiasts. Wait, the CD’s also included in that quantum singularity box set? Well, fu

Whether you’re thrilled or disappointed that La Home Box isn’t a new album-proper from Mr. Garnier will likely depend on what you expect out of his music. Say what you want about his adventures into genres unexplored, but you cannot deny he has big French balls indulging his musical kleptomania, turning away those who just want more techno weapons in their arsenal. They like Man With The Red Face, but going full jazz? Not so much.

Such folks should then be pleased with La Home Box, as it’s a no-nonsense affair of various dancefloor tools, artistic indulgences be damned. I mean, what else could it be, given this is a ‘compilation’ of scattered singles, where leftfield genre dalliances just aren’t done (save the occasional B2-side). Instead we stick to the thumping heads-down techno (Psyche-Delia, I’m Going Home, M.I.L.F.), the Afro-beat techno (Boom (Chakalok) (Traumer African Remix)), the “techno with some house elements but not quite tech-house” techno (Enchanté, Bang (The Underground Doesn’t Stop)), and the “this is not techno, it’s deep house, you goof” techno (And The Party Goes On). Interestingly, though hardly surprising, the CD exclusive cuts find Mr. Garnier bucking the techno in favor of something different. The Rise & Fall Of The Donkey Dog has something of an electro-rock build going for it, while the Husbands Remix does the French chill-pop thing you’d expect of AIR and the like. Oh, and Revenge Of The Lol Cat sounds like Garnier having a pisstake with epic G-funk boogie. LOL indeed.

So overall a satisfying collection of tunes from ol’ Laurent – his craftsmanship around an escalating techno groove remains as sharp as ever. Wouldn’t mind a real album for his next outing though.

Various - Journeys By DJ: Coldcut - 70 Minutes Of Madness

Music Unites/Journeys By DJ™ LLC: 1995/2002

It’s rare that a DJ mix series is hijacked by a contributor to such a degree, they become solely associated with it. For sure you have game changers, as James Holden and Joris Voorn did with the Balance series. Or some jocks become synonymous with a series due to endless entries into its canon (the forever Nick Warren & Deep Dish show that Global Underground became). Journeys By DJ already had six volumes under its belt by the time Coldcut came along with their seventy minutes of madness, including entries from John Digweed, Paul Oakenfold, DJ Rap, and Danny Rampling. Heck, even Judge Jules beat More and Black to the “30+ Tracks Set” when he put out his mix for the series. Yet these days everyone always assumes Journeys By DJ was a Coldcut one-off, future entries by Gilles Peterson and Jay Chappell even less remarked upon. So impactful was this mix, that it alone received the re-issue treatment in 2002. Oh come on, Billy Nasty’s set wasn’t bad, was it?

Still, you can’t knock the result, 70 Minutes Of Madness easily earning its Classic Status as a DJ mix CD for the ages. They didn’t just rinse out a pile of similar tunes, but studio-mashed tons of disparate sounds, styles, and genres into a megamix of their super-deep crates. Junior Reed hangin’ with Newcleus! Harold Budd pallin’ about with Photek! Plastikman getting funky with Jedi Knights! Air Liquide trippin’ balls with Bob Holroyd! The Dr. Who theme just being all awesome-sauce no matter who’s around it (Red Snapper, The Sabres Of Paradise, and Jimmy Cauty, if you must know). Not to mention a shit-ton of breaks, beats, pieces, scratching, cross-cutting, and acapella action littered throughout. Coldcut were already regarded as masters of the one-n-two, but typically translated their skill into producing DJ tools and sample-heavy songs. This was the first time they got into the studio for a commercial mix CD showcasing their DJ trade – well, second, if you count Tone Tales From Tomorrow a year prior – knocking it out of the park so hard, they practically abandoned this particular market forever after. A shame, as I’d love to hear what another 70 Minutes Of Madness might entail with over two decades worth of gathered new weapons within their coffers.

Possibly the most outrageous thing about this set is how it bucks conventional set construction. The opening salvo including The Truper (Photek), Wagon Christ, and Funki Porcini (with Dillinja on the rub) features some of the most frenetic ragga jungle you’d ever hear in 1995, all within the first ten minutes! You’d think the set could only go down in energy from there, but tons of acid, funk, and breakin’ action maintain an even keel for the most part. Even with sporadic downtime throughout this set, Coldcut never lose the plot, coming back with a new avenue of music to explore. Throw in a final forty seconds of the needle riding out the last record grooves? Yeah, vinyl bliss.

Sash! - It's My Life (Special Edition)

Scandinavian Records: 1997

I got this for a dime. That alone is worth the price of admission for Ecuador, one of my all-time guilty pleasure anthems. And surely there’s something else across two CDs of Sash! music that will make my commitment of 0.10 Canadian dollars practical. Surely a better investment than getting the single, which features all the same remixes found in this special edition of It’s My Life. Two extra tracks of decent euro dance fluff, and I’ll have gotten plenty return on my 1.40 peso expense.

Eh, who exactly is Sash!, you ask? Oh come on, you know who these guys are. Even if you somehow missed the late ‘90s club boom, you’ve heard their tracks, or similar knockoffs of their sound. Really, Sash! was something of a knockoff themselves, aping the pluck-heavy riffs Rollo perfected with Faithless for their own use, as did many producers at the time. It was Sash!, however, that had the most commercial success with them, in large part thanks to aggressive marketing and licensing of their big hits off here (Ecuador, Encore Une Fois, Stay, and all those Future Breeze remixes), such to the point they’re the default association with plucking synth club anthems. And while the group has carried on in the commercial world to this day, nothing has replicated the undeniable impact Sash! generated prior to the turn of the millennium. Soccer highlight reels would never be the same.

But it all started somewhere, and that somewhere is their debut album It’s My Life, of which I spent six pence upon (and dropping!). A few versions with different track arrangements are floating about, but mine doesn’t waste your time, dropping the three main anthems in your lap right out the gate. The titular opener features the sounds you’d expect of Sash! (synth plucks, mild acid, standard euro club beat, looping vocal), but subdued compared to their heavy hitters. Encore Une Fois did much better, especially the trancy Future Breeze rub, but I’ve long been ambivalent to this hit – 2 Lips’ Je T’Aime did the same thing better anyway. Following that is Ecuador, and good luck getting that killer piano earworm and Sabine Ohmes’ glorious shouting out of your head for the rest of the day! (“Eh-QUAY-DORa!”)

As for the rest, you get a few club track retreads (MightyBreak, Cheating Twister, Sweat), a euro pop cut that I don’t remember but had a ton of remixes (Stay), and The Final Pizzi, another big epic pluck-anthem I thought was made by someone else. Hell, maybe it is, but I’m too stupid to recall who (they all kinda’ sound the same anyway). There’s also Hoopstar, a collaboration with d’n’b act Nonex, and sounding completely daft on an album like this as a result. Haha, now that’s worth the 0.51 Chinese yen spent.

Not that bonus remix CD though. A couple agreeable trance and house rubs of Stay aside, this one’s complete rubbish. It’s got Armand Van Helden doing speed garage, for God’s sake! Ugh…

Perturbator - I Am The Night

Blood Music: 2012/2015

The second album from Perturbator, and the dawning realization he could take his hot synthwave action out of the slummy homage backstreets, and into the brazen neon-glow of concept LPs. It wasn’t long either, I Am The Night coming out the same year as his debut full-length Terror 404. Throw in an additional three EPs, and you’re looking at one highly fruitful 2012 for Mr. Kent, further remarkable considering a lot of this was self-released. Strong buzz generated more than enough demand for something physical though, and Blood Music keeps coming through in latex-covered spades (um, ew?). This album saw two vinyl represses in 2015, plus another one this year, not to mention the various limited edition cassette versions. Oh, and a digipak CD as well. Yay! Kinda’ makes this either woefully neglected, or ridiculously scarce. Hey, remember when tapes held that status? Fun times.

While the idea of Perturbator as a night driving avenger first appeared in the Night Driving Avenger single, it fully crystallizes here with I Am The Night. There’s a world inside Mr. Kent’s mind, one he must release from his imagination and sent free-wheeling into your earholes and brain matter. Where the future is near, the streets are crime, and the rulers are wicked. Fortunately for the uninitiated, this album does offer a few pieces of dialog helping set the stage for Perturbator’s retro future-shock vision, including an opening piece called The New Black that sounds like it was cribbed from Robocop. It’s in fact Network, a 1976 movie that rather accurately predicted the cable news of this dire year of 2016. Say, just how far into the future did Perturbator intend these synthwave chronicles to be?

I Am The Night isn’t quite as focused on a specific narrative as future Perturbator records are, but it more than makes up for it in variety of tuneage. This is easily the most melodic of all his albums I’ve thus far reviewed, with shimmering synths aplenty throughout. Eclipse has a scorcher of a soaring riff, the titular cut sounds like it aped the ‘twinkle prog’ synths for a track wonderfully contrasted with a thumping low end, and Deviance with Arcade High is all kinds of retro chipper. Then there’s the pure synth-pop songs - ballads like Naked Tongues and Desire featuring vocalists, or beatless instrumental pieces like interlude Nexus Six and closer The Price Of Failure benefiting an actual movie for these to score. Throw in your mint pulse-pounding Perturbator cuts like Retrogenesis, Technoir, and Raining Steel, and you’ve got solid album covering all your synthwave needs.

If that’s still not enough, a few bonus tracks at the end round things out, including a collaboration with Dynatron in Volcanic Machinery - it’s surprisingly not as moody as you’d expect of these two working together. Meanwhile, Lilith’s rhythm almost sounds like futurepop (ooh, think of that pairing!), while slow-jam Girl In A Black Dress features a digital saxophone. Surprisingly comes off better than most saxophone recordings from the ‘80s.

Cities Last Broadcast - The Humming Tapes

Cryo Chamber: 2016

And finally I get to that oldest of dark ambient schools, the post-industrial class. Actually, calling it ‘post’ isn’t entirely accurate, this stuff developing almost concurrently with the warped sound experiments of early industrial. Once dark ambient started finding different ways of exploring the macabre side of drone though, its shared approach to the craft with traditional ambient dragged it out of the industrial scene into its own thing. Now you’ve got so many different styles of dark ambient, you’d almost need a Music Guide detailing it all; or not, this particular scene not as anal retentive about sub-genre purity as so many other electronic music scenes. For sure one could, if anything to help unsuspecting explorers differentiate from ‘space soul-crush’ from ‘urban decay doomcore’ from ‘Hell Dimension sadstep’ from ‘rainbow-sparkle drone’ (it’s an ironic micro-genre). But it’s not necessary, dark ambient connoisseurs content within their own interests, though perhaps with a shared smirk towards those who fear treading within.

Cities Last Broadcast, or Pär Boström to the Swedish Illuminati Division, has floated about the dark ambient scene for a while now. He’s probably better off known as Kammarheit, a project trending towards the reflective, melancholy side of dark ambient, and didn’t offer much exploration of unique recording methods. As an alias like Cities Last Broadcast though, you’re practically mandated to indulge industrial’s aesthetic of metropolitan decay. Crackling tape recordings, rusted grind of neglected machinery, billowing wind through burnt husks of buildings, warped records of a fallen culture - all that good stuff. For sure I’ve dealt with the post-apocalypse setting before, but most of those feature times significantly past the fall of Man, and often still using contemporary studio gear for recording. The Humming Tapes places us about as close to the initial action I’ve come across yet, feeling more like a Final Days Of A Victorian War than dealing with the after affects.

Well, the setting makes sense, given the crackling, droning analog tone that permeates this album. The actual content, however, focuses on the practice of séance, where a group of people sit together to communicate with spirits, a rather popular activity during the Victorian Era. Even Houdini getting in on that action, and grainy photographs of the sessions helped perpetuate the myth, but most séance mediums were considered frauds or hoaxes. Whether real or fake, The Humming Tapes presents itself as a recording from one such intense session, and I can’t help but wonder if ol’ Pär partook in a séance just for some authentic field recordings. Well no wonder that Glossolalia track sets my neck hairs on end!

Whether you believe in commune with the afterlife or not, The Humming Tapes definitely sells you on the atmosphere of a séance. It’s got the anxious waiting in the dark (The Sitting), the creepy contact (Glossolalia), a strangely forlorn discourse with the dead (Centennial), and that soul-emptying sense that you got more than you bargained for in toying with spirits (Electricity, Kathédra). A charming Halloween album, then.

High Contrast - High Society

Hospital Records: 2004

We’re hitting peak liquid funk with this one, folks. Hospital Records and its whole damn crew were flying high in the year 2004, their fast soul music cutting a hyper-uplifting path of critical and commercial success few others in the d’n’b scene could match. Then along came some Aussie group a year later, completely changing the scene once more, and earned a fuckton more critical and commercial success than the Hospital posse could ever have achieved – heck, anyone doing d’n’b at the time. That didn’t deter London Elektricity and his roster of liquid funkers from carrying on as they did before, in fact enjoying just as much commercial success as when they were the new hotness. They just didn’t have as many critics gushing over their sound anymore, many lamenting the label’s refusal in evolving with the times. Um, have these critics ever paid attention to jungle at large? Once a genre is established, it stays that way forever after. It’s why the scene’s filled with so many persistent micro-niche interests.

But let’s return to that peak, Hospital Records high and mighty after a string of highly touted records. One of those was London Elektricity’s Billion Dollar Gravy, which I covered way, way, way back in the day. The other was High Society, High Contrast’s highly anticipated sophomore effort. Man oh man, is this paragraph heavy on the ‘high’s. High can’t help it, this album filling my happy centers high with PLUR goo, that I high and high, hi-diddly-high dii-o. (hi!)

Yeah, we’re firmly entrenched in ‘don’t fix an unbroken thing’ territory with High Society. Lincoln Barrett’s debut was a mildly moodier affair; still honoring the ‘street’ vibe soul music came from and had been capably executed by jazzstep sorts prior. By this point though, the adoring public had spoken, demanding more divas, MORE tear-out, MOAR liquid funk! And who was High Contrast to deny these fans what they craved? Someone who didn’t want to get pigeonholed perhaps, but if that was ever the case, he sure hides that hope here. If you’re at all familiar with any of Hospital Records’ output, you’re gonna’ know what to expect on this album, Mr. Barrett keeping the d’n’b jams peppy with uplift to spare. It can get a tad corny at times, and folks who figure jungle are serious-step business will obviously scoff at such pleasantries, but you cannot deny High Contrast’s consistency as a producer throughout this album.

He does show some further development in his style though, making use of more vocalists rather than strictly relying on samples as with his earlier material. Dynamite MC is here! Spoonface is here! No Lay is here! Um, Tomahawk (4) is here. Right, aside from the first one, I’m not familiar with any of these names, but they provide nice flavor to the album regardless, especially No Lay’s grime spitting on Angels And Fly. And hey, is that a touch of the ‘trancestep’ I hear in The Persistence of Memory. Cheeky, cheeky…

Northumbria - Helluland

Cryo Chamber: 2015

I’ve covered so many forms of dark ambient from Cryo Chamber, I should take stock on whether I’m missing any. There’s space drone, for sure, and abstract drone near alongside it. Can’t forget the post-apocalyptic trip, nor the various excursions into realms of the occult. Moody synths, bleak widescreen dub, creepy field recordings, eerie musique concrete abstraction, cinematic sound design – that’s about all there is to dark ambient’s palette, right?

Not at all, as we’re still missing out on a pair of the scene’s classic components: old school industrial decay and sludgy doom metal drone. I touched on the latter one some two years ago now (!!), wherein metal’s morbid tendencies transplanted quite nicely into dark ambient’s domain, heavy guitar tones stretched out with reverb and feedback into a near-impenetrable fog of sound. And while some of the artists I’ve covered on Cryo Chamber have come from such backgrounds, none have made it their primary style, instead using synths and field recordings for their constructed soundscapes. Not this Northumbria duo though, fully embracing guitars for one of the least electronic sounding albums of dark ambient I’ve yet come across on this label. It only took me twenty-three CDs to get there.

Northumbria is comprised of Dorian Williamson and Jim Field, both of whom have floated around goth and sludge metal scenes for a while now. Jim Field even saw a little success with Sue Hotton as Rhea’s Obsession, their brand of darkwave finding them a home on industrial print Metropolis Records. Sometime in the recent past, the two met, discovering they had that all-elusive creative synergy so many musicians are in perpetual search of (other Holy Grails: the perfect beat, major label deals that won’t fuck you over). Their doom metal drone powers combined, Misters Field and Williamson started releasing music on a number of scattered dark ambient and post-metal prints. This included albums on labels like Consouling Sounds, thisquietarmy Records, and Altar Of Waste, plus compilation contributions to Futuresequence, Dipsomaniac Records, and Kalpamantra. Hm, seems a lot of Cryo Chamber guys have also released music on Kalpamantra. Are we looking at a sister print situation here, like Beyond and Waveform? Coo’ if so.

All these words spent on the background, and little left to detail Northumbria’s debut on Cryo Chamber, Helluland. Ah, well, that’s because there isn’t much to say. Guitar drone is generally vague and nondescript, all about the mood it conveys. And the mood be very melancholic indeed (Still Waters, Door Made Of Light, Song For Freyja, Catch A Falling Knife I); other times more sinister and foreboding (Sacred Ground, Maelstorm, Catch A Falling Knife II). Beyond these implied titles and moods though, I feel like these pieces could support nondescript art house films of chilly moors or foggy waterfronts. Or watching spiders weave their webs in the glow of dim street lights while waiting at a RAV line stop. Okay, that one’s super-specific, but damn if it didn’t suit the little scene I watched unfold.

Various - Hed Kandi: Deeper

Hed Kandi: 2001

With deep house getting commercial love again, I felt an itch. Not a deep itch, mind you; one nestled just under the epidermis. Still, a casual finger flick of a scratch would not suffice, a small amount of digging required. I tried and tested brand, catering to pop ‘n soul sensibilities without getting ultra-submerged in scene purity. Tunes suited for lazy-relaxin’ home times, lounge club wining and dining, nightmarish clothing boutique shopping, or soundtracking a promotional gentrified enclave vid’. A light vibe, a stylish vibe, a name you always know what to expect with just a glance of the track list. Unfortunately, there were no Naked Music or Om Records CDs in the used shop that day. Ah well, guess I’ll give this Deeper from Hed Kandi a shot. About time I got something from that label anyway.

For those who’ve never ventured into a CD shop before, Hed Kandi carved out a distinct identity on the compilation racks, with super stylish cover art unlike anything else on the UK market. When the label first appeared at the turn of the century, said market was primed for a label like this one, capturing the interest of a maturing clubbing audience just coming off the first throes of superclub ecstasy bedlam. They were moving on from hard house and trance, thus sexy house tunes coupled with sexy artwork were an easy sell for the casual consumer. Flood the market with multiple series of various takes on your musical manifesto (Nu Cool, Disco Kandi, Beach House, Winter Chill, Twisted Disco), and you’ve cornered the compilation corner in every music chain store for years to come. Heck, I probably would have picked one of these up back in the day too, if it weren’t for those outrageous import prices (forty bones for two discs of decent house? Pass).

Deeper was Hed Kandi’s stab at getting deeper with their house offerings, which probably seems redundant on the surface but then the label wasn’t one to let any potential angle go untapped. CD1 sticks to deep house, with names like The Rurals, Miguel Migs, Lisa Shaw, Kevin Yost, A:xus, and New Phunk Theory getting repped. There’s more, but I honestly know nothing about Silent Poets, Aquanote, or Laid, though they do hold their own with the recognizable artists here. Predictably, the vocals are soulful, the rhythms groovy, and the piano/organ/saxophone solos tasteful. It’s exactly the sort of deep house I was expecting from this set, perfectly worth the used shop price I paid for it.

CD 2 was what initially caught my eye though – well, after the striking cover art. The deep vibes go a little tribal and proggy here, including a Deep Dish rub of Dusted’s Always Remember To Respect And Honour Your Mother (aka: lovely Rollo side project). Masters At Work show up too, as does Kings Of Tomorrow, Steve Lawler, PQM, and, um, Rui Da Silva (no guesses on which track of his). Not as consistent as CD1, but definitely more fun.

Omni Trio - The Haunted Science

Moving Shadow: 1996

The only Omni Trio album you’re supposed to have, even if you’re not an Omni Trio fan. Mind you, my sources for this proclamation is entirely predicated upon which singles have the longest legacy within Rob Haigh’s career. For sure every junglist worth their hoodie knows of Renegade Snares, the single that broke Omni Trio out of the darkcore scene. Who knew jungle could sound so calm and pleasant with charming piano hooks? More than enough to help kick-off the ‘atmospheric’ side of jungle. Which lead to ‘intelligent’ records, and refined tastes melding with ‘jazz’, while losing the frenetic rave roots in favor of a stripped-back ‘tech’ approach to the craft. All this, and drum ‘n bass too.

Though The Haunted Science technically isn’t Omni Trio’s first LP, it may as well be his proper debut album, prior The Deepest Cut more a collection of earlier singles and remixes. This one also features a number of tracks that would become workhorses in the compilation and DJ mix field, their only rival the aforementioned Renegade Snares (because obviously). Part of this probably was due to timing, The Haunted Science coming out in ’96, a very good year for d’n’b’s commercial and critical ventures. While Omni Trio didn’t get quite the same degree of praise and plaudits as your Goldies or Roni Sizes or Photeks or LTJ Bukems, he was always in the discussion of Very Important Drum ‘n Bass Guys, his records necessary weapons in any self-respecting DJ’s crate. Even the ardent ‘ardcore sorts would make room for an Omni Trio cut.

As for the big singles off The Haunted Science, we get three essential tunes: Trippin’ On Broken Beats, Who Are You, Nu Birth Of Cool, and Haunted Kind. Wait, that’s four? Sorry, personal perspective throwing things a little askew, that last one always slipping me by, probably because it’s more a trip-hop thing than d’n’b. Lord Discogs tells me Haunted Kind did significant compilation duty though, and who am I to dispute The Lord That Knows All?

The first three, however, were such major tracks in the Omni Trio canon, that we get two versions of each on this album! The jazzy Trippin’ On Broken Beats is easily the most famous of these singles, even appearing on Paul Oakenfold’s Live In Oslo mix when the trance jock was working a little jungle class into his sets. Who Are You is pure groovy bliss, but Aquasky takes it down de-e-eep tech-step roads with sub-bass to die for. Nu Birth Of Cool carries on the Renegade Snares tradition of funky licks, piano kicks, and peppy vocal samples, while the Rogue Unit Mix takes it into rougher jungle pastures.

The rest of The Haunted Science plays to Omni Trio’s established strengths: spacious elegant beatcraft, impossibly cool jazz vibes, and an atmosphere of endless ecstasy. Maybe not as genre-defining as other works of the time - you know what you’re getting with this album - but damn does it ever deliver.

Fear Factory - Genexus

Nuclear Blast Entertainment: 2015

I didn’t think I’d return to Fear Factory. Demanufacture is a bona-fide industrial metal classic that throws enough cyborg bones to my techno sensibilities that I can return to it plenty times over, and maybe I’ll pick up Obsolete should I find it on the cheap, but I had little need to dig further into the band’s material. Besides, general consensus is they’ve essentially fixated on their singular style that made them famous, all the while having personnel issues as members leave, return, and all the typical turmoil that comes with metal egos clashing. Not good developments if you want to stay relevant. They sorted their shit out though, eventually reconvening with most of the original band intact, and appear on the resurgence again. Not because they’ve adapted with changing trends to fit with modern times, oh no. They’re sticking to their phased plasma rifles, but sounding more confident in who they are and what their music entails.

Thus, taking a browse in what Fear Factory had been up to in recent years, I discovered a new album called Genexus, and that it was being hailed as their best since Demanufacture - some even claimed it better than that seminal record! It definitely has the same sonic markers: machine rhythms firing like gatling guns, vocalist Buron C. Bell doing his vintage growling verse/clean singing chorus thing, all marinated with electronic treatments from Rhys Fulber. The topics remain fixated on future shock industrialization, mechanical societies stripping away our humanity, resisting the inevitable cyborg apocalypse, and all that good stuff. I mean, if you’ve heard Zero Signal - and any metal fan or Mortal Kombat disciple should have by now – you’ve heard a good chunk of Genexus.

This is everything we’d want in a Fear Factory album anyway. The band carved out a unique niche, and despite a few metal groups co-opting it in the two decades since, nothing comes close to sounding like these guys when they’re firing on all cylinders. And while I haven’t taken in much of their material since Demanufacture, I’m told this is one of their most melodic records ever. It definitely sells the more melodramatic aspect of their style, tracks like Autonomous Combat System, Protomech, Anodized, Battle For Utopia, and especially Regenerate laying the supporting synths on thick. Hey, you won’t see me complaining about this – far as I’m concerned, Fulber’s contributions remain one the best parts of a Fear Factory tune, giving them their distinct character above so much death metal out there.

Though Genexus is nearly balls-to-sprockets thrash all the way through, they do mix things a little in terms of tempo, tracks like Soul Hacker and Church Of Execution going for more groove metal action instead. Meanwhile, final track Expiration Date offers an epic ‘ballad’, which I can honestly say I never expected from this band. I’ve heard creepy, industrial ambient sections from them, but a full track of Bell forgoing his usual growl? Wonders never cease! Genexus definitely deserves the praise it’s gotten.

enCAPSULAte - Fetal Position

Waveform Records: 2013

If I’m gonna’ splurge on new stuff from Favorite Labels, I might as well do the same for one of my first Favorite Labels. Only trouble is Waveform Records barely releases much of anything anymore, instead focusing on their Starseeds radio show. And even when they do put a record out, it’s almost always something from Sounds From The Ground or ZerO One - whom I do like but it’s nice hearing from other artists as well. Whatever happened to those heady, early ‘00s days, when Waveform was releasing material from all manner of names (Bluetech! Omnimotion! Phutureprimitive! Pitch Black [nz]! Skin To Skin!). I realize the record label business is a harsh mistress, and all things considered it’s remarkable Waveform’s endured for over two decades when ‘market domination’ or whatever was never on their minds. They could benefit from a couple more fresh signees though; maybe someone making dub beats lurking on one of their new Hawaiian island neighbours?

Relatively speaking though, enCAPSULAte is a new signee, first appearing with the label in 2009. He still went by the name Capsula then, dropping the album Sense Of A Drop. Prior to that, he debuted with Ajana Records, the psy-chill and dub offshoot of Trishula Records. And holy cow, I can’t believe I’ve now gone Six Degrees Of with the dark psy print on this CD. I had no idea of this connection, simply picking up Fetal Position because it was one of the newer albums from Waveform (also, I like blue). Naturally the man behind the alias - Yosef Shamay – would find a new home after Trishula ceased operation, but on Waveform? The odds, mang!

Ah yes, psy dub, a genre this label’s often flirted with but never seriously committed itself towards. I can’t say it’s why I pick up Waveform CDs to begin with, though the few I took a chance on by whim turned out ace. I was leery about enCAPSULAte after first track Imaginary Gods though, very much in the Shpongle/Ott mold, and sounding incredibly digital and plastic as so much post-millennial psy does. And I freely admit that’s entirely my fault, what with having just indulged the lush sound quality of Ultimae, Silent Season, Cryo Chamber... who could live up to a run of widescreen sonics like that?

Once I got over my aesthetic bias however, Fetal Position warmed itself through sheer creativity. Some tracks like Loosey Goosey and Dark Blanket Of Night go too psy-dub hammy for my taste, but others like Guardians Of Sanity and Overall Pattern tickle my trippy groovy sensibilities just right. Mr. Shamay shows little fear in bucking conventions either, Alice In Spiral Land making use of honest-to-Shiva Amen Breaks, The Hoax a shufflin’ acid jazz outing (with heavy emphasis on the acid), and Krishna Krazy more of a breakbeat thing with a wonderfully daft sample that’d have Dr. Alex Paterson keeling over in glee. Plus finishing off on a pleasant piece of mysterious Indian ambient? I’ll take it!

Aes Dana Featuring MikTek - Far & Off

Ultimae Records: 2016

It’s been a while since the Ultimae ranks were active in any significant way. Between 2014-15, there were but three albums and three compilations. Wedged among them though, were also about a half-dozen EPs, three of which being Aes Dana collaborations with MikTek. If you don’t recall, he’s that new-hotness Greek producer that signed with Ultimae, released an album, and has appeared on nearly every compilation from them since. With such a roll-out for Mr. Aikaterinis, you’d think another album was promptly in the works following Elsewhere, but it’s been over three years since. And Far & Off isn’t a new MikTek album either; rather we’re dealing with a compilation of those three singles, from which Aes Dana gets the main credit, and MikTek has a featuring credit. What, couldn’t they have come up with a collaborative alias, like H.U.V.A. Network with Solar Fields? Say, whatever happened to that project anyhow? And Solar Fields in general, for that matter? It’s been so long since we’ve heard from Magnus, so very, very long…

So, those three records – literally, Aes Dana’s work with MikTek also Ultimae’s first foray into vinyl production - titled Cut., Alkaline, and The Unexpected Hours. These were released one per year, the final one coming out just this year with Far & Off shortly after. Talk about your long game, though given the glacial rate these were made, I wonder if Mr. Villuis had his mind focused on other business (those remasters!). Or maybe tales of backlogged vinyl pressing plants are as dire as I’ve heard. Hey, man, I know having such wonderfully mastered music available on the Black Crack format is super sexy and all, but it’s not that important. Besides, FLAC and DVD remains the superior audio source. Not that I should talk, mind you, remaining perfectly content with CDs ‘til the day I die.

Alright, enough dodging, pivoting, and tangenting. Let’s get to the music on Far & Off. Short review: there’s barely any music on Far & Off. Aes Dana and MikTek have crafted such minimalist dub techno and ambient drone here, I honestly feel like I’m listening to rice crackers. They’re absolutely delicious rice crackers, heady sub-bass tones, whispy piano chords, and even a little dalliance into glitchy-click microfunk rhythms, but still leaving me feeling rather empty after consuming them. Which Vincent claims is the intent, so aces on the execution, I guess.

I get the sense Aes Dana specifically made these tracks with the highest-end playback available, as I easily get lost in the vast, spacious sound design these tracks provide when playing them on my Senns. On anything else however, there’s barely anything there. Even cranking my main stereo (which, given thin-walled apartment living, is only adequate) didn’t provide much sonic depth, to say nothing of my laughable computer speakers. Hearing a few of these at a time, as proper singles, is probably enough; not for a full LP’s worth of run time when so little sticks to the mind after.

Shaded Explorer - Empatia

Silent Season: 2016

Shaded Explorer is Emanuele Pertoldi, a typically obscure person in the world of techno. Not that it’s his fault, mind you, as he’s released music only a few years now. He’s two LPs deep with Silent Season under the alias, with appearances on about a half-dozen compilations from such labels like Deep Electronics, Haar Records, and Ovunqve. Before adopting the Shaded Explorer moniker though, Mr. Pertoldi did put out a number of singles under his own name, across an equally eclectic list of labels (M_Grey, Subself Records, Evasion Room, I Cieli Di Orione). There’s more to Emanuele’s story (other scattered aliases), but this is about as much as Lord Discogs provided, and who are we to judge what information is divulged by The Lord That Knows All? Obsessive compulsive sorts who crave ALL the info’, that’s who!

Shaded Explorer may be obscure by regular techno standards, but as we’re dealing with Silent Season, the music on hand obviously skews towards the ambient and dub end of that spectrum. So I guess that wouldn’t make Mr. Pertoldi that obscure, as dub techno followers are a ravenous people, one that will consume almost anything that’s released within their scene. Me? Um, I just like supporting regional labels, that’s right. Speaking of, I really ought to get gathering more Nordic Trax tracks.

Anyhow, Empatia is the second album from Shaded Explorer on Silent Season, and as per the label’s manifesto, it features all the reflective moods one can hope for out of their dub techno. The first couple tracks (Resilience, Mental Decoupling, and Distant Connections later in the album) are pure ambient though, looping layers of meditative tones fed through a warm, dubby glow as best served while wandering the brisk dawn of coastal rainforests. Oof, that reads dangerously close to New Age bollocks, but the music most definitely is not. It’s, like, the cool meditation ambient music, that you’d find on all those cool compilations from the early ‘90s, when ambient and dub was first sexing things up in chill out rooms.

Actually, Empatia reminds me a lot of such two-decade old CDs, the music rather reminiscent of material coming out of Apollo and Beyond. For sure it’s significantly polished compared to the crusty ambient techno of days long past, but the songcraft is similar. Corresponded Serenity features a soft techno beat fed through dub effects as a pleasant pad hums in the background, When I Decided To Live goes more playful with spritely melodies, and Inner Treasures’ vintage shuffly rhythms and burbling acid is classic ambient techno to t’. Emanuele makes room for contemporary dub techno sounds too, Tomrum building upon a bouncy beat, L’Aura Marina more traditional Basic Channel dub, and Senza Fine allowing some experimental sound design in on the party. Overall, Empatia hits every Win checkbox I look for in this music, almost a too perfectly in fact, with little in surprises. Which is about the worst ‘criticism’ I can level at this album, but here we are.

Anthony Rother - Elixir Of Life

Fax +49-69/450464: 2003

I’ve talked Anthony Rother up a great deal, and for good reason. The man almost single-handedly gave retro electro a good kick in the arsch, among the leaders in the genre’s turn of the century revival. And yet, this is the first album I’ve actually picked up from the chap, but it’s not my fault. His seminal ‘90s work is just so darn expensive, cherished collector’s items that few are willing to part without handsome financial reparation. Yes, even his ventures into synth pop and electroclash, though honestly I can’t say that stuff interests me as much as the stark robot workout music he crafted prior.

And truthfully, I wasn’t searching for Rother albums when I spotted this for a cheeky twenty – I was hunting about for Fax +49-69/450464 musics. That I found Elixir Of Life for such a reasonable price only sweetened the deal, because if there’s any name that seems totally at odds with the famed Pete Namlook print, it’s this German electro maestro. I’ll grant ol’ Anth’ has a muse that stretches beyond the limited palette of robot jams, but releasing music on a label known for old school ambient, nu-skool ambient, ambient techno, and ambient-noodlesoup? A most intriguing development indeed, one that yielded five albums worth on Fax+ before the label was forced into premature closure. Makes me wonder if Mr. Rother will end up on Carpe Sonum sometime in the near future.

If you’re heading into Elixir Of Life anticipating more electro or *gasp* electro pop, forget it. The title or artwork should give the hint: this is music with the ‘70s in sight, coming off like a long lost piece of classic experimental krautrock than anything intended with modern sensibilities. One track, Elixir Of Life (Part 8), does offer some robot beatcraft, but aside from that, the only sense of rhythm comes from simmering subdued sequencers the likes commonly heard in Berlin-School works (Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 7). There isn’t much melody on this album either, though some nice minimal pad work does show up towards the end, especially in Part 9. Other pieces go straight drone, letting an all-pervasive analog hiss dominate for the duration before moving onto another piece. Oh yeah, that hiss doesn’t let up throughout the album, actually growing more prominent as Elixir Of Life plays out. I guess it helps tie everything together into a continuous theme, though I’m at a loss as to what theme Rother had in mind here, beyond doing a take on crusty electronic experimentation. His musique concrete dalliance gets absurd with Part 5, where a kick gets warped, sped-up, bent, slowed, and stretched to all manner of weird abstraction.

Considering the Plastikman also appeared on Fax+, I can’t say Mr. Rother’s offering here is unprecedented, though fancying the deep end of this style of music is a must. Elixir Of Life will come off as one big disappointing whiff of droning nothing otherwise. Strictly a fans only album, this.

Floating Points - Elaenia

Luaka Bop: 2015

Another ‘Best Of 2015’ album? Sure, keep ‘em coming. Can’t have my finger on the pulse of what’s what if I ignore things that are now ‘n how. Sure, it’s comforting retreating to familiar names and sounds (‘member ambient techno? ‘member Aphex Twin? ‘member Fax +49-69/450464? Yeah, Fax Plus-Numbers… so great), but it’s always wise hearing the new hotness on the streets. Besides, with so much constantly recycled these days, all which is new is so very old, yet sometimes refined into something better. Not often, mind, but since we’re dealing with a chap who got his break with Ninja Tune, I’ll take a wager we’re dealing with the real deal regarding Floating Points.

The man behind this project is Sam Shepherd, whom I constantly think is the name of the Mass Effect protagonist. Fool, if I’m gonna’ mistake a ‘shepherd’, make it at least a real one, like actor Sam Shepard, of Black Hawk Down, The Right Stuff, and Swordfish fame. Or maybe Sam Sheppard, the infamous neurosurgeon who’s murder trial became the basis for The Fugitive. In what must be a coincidence of the highest magnitude, Floating Points Sam Shepherd has also spent time attaining a degree in neuroscience, though clearly that’s where his connection with that other Sam Sheppard ends. As Floating Points, he’s spent the past half-decade releasing music with a fondness of nu-jazz in his sights, hence the Ninja Tune love. He’s also released on Planet Mu and Border Community, though his own print of Eglo Records remains his primary outlet - all the while doing DJ tours, radio shows, and live performances with a full band as Floating Points Ensamble. So, y’know, if the brain science career doesn’t pan out for him, he’s definitely got that music thing to fall back on.

Elaenia is his debut album, and it’s an odd record for sure. I don’t know if I’d give it a “Best Of 2015” accolade (like I give anything that), but it definitely leaves a lasting impression, a rather remarkable feat for an LP that’s rather short. Second track Silhouettes (I, II & III), an extended jazz jam with the full band, runs nearly eleven minutes long, and that’s almost one-quarter the whole record! Another significant chunk of Elaenia comprises of minimalist ambient techno, much of which reminds me of music that came from Pete Namlook’s ‘90s output. Then again, it could be all those Dark Side Of The Moog sessions still fresh on my mind making the connection, but one cannot deny the Berlin-School influences on tracks like the titular track and Thin Air. Heck, the middle portion of this album kinda’ plays out as a singular sequence, each track flowing into the next so effortlessly.

But nay, the biggest talking point regarding Elaenia remains how it ends. Perotation Six gets the band back together, and builds to a rousing, cacophonous climax in





And you’re left wanting in silence, endlessly waiting for a denouement that never comes. Tricksy, these brain science guys are.

Alphaxone - Echoes From Outer Silence

Cryo Chamber: 2016

And now we return to Alphaxone, with his fourth album in half as many years. Man, when some chaps find that stroke of inspiration, they don’t hold back, though obviously we’re not dealing with Merzbow levels of ‘creativity’. Mr. Saleh generally comes in with a clear concept in mind with each album, even if the music within goes incredibly abstract, allowing more creative expression on his part. Thus one can keep knocking ‘em out if you’re not limited by conventional songcraft restrictions. Yes, even dark ambient has its notable markers and canonical concepts – like, I doubt we’ll ever hear an album based on My Little Pony in this scene that wasn’t a deliberate macabre parody.

On Echoes From Outer Silence, Alphaxone turns his muse further towards the unending black speckled with stars, a natural progression considering the trajectory of his album on Cryo Chamber. First it was living in a gray land – bleak perhaps, but still rooted in terra firma of a sort. Altered Dimensions explored sounds and moods of a possible outworld, or mayhaps a world within, parallel to our own; dimensional travel’s confusing that way. Following that, Absence Of Motion found us suspended within the ether between solid ground and space, so it follows that gravity’s relinquished its domain over us just a little more. Damn, am I ever feeling loquacious today.

Actually, the concept behind this album is less about traveling to the cosmic realm, instead hearing the faint murmurs from above. The droning thrum of the cosmos itself, whispers of ancient galactic civilizations, and all that good stuff. Hey, wait… might some of those implied ‘echoes’ from outer silence be actually ‘signals’? Like, obviously Sabled Sun is a post-apocalyptic tale of Earth, and I’m assuming Alphaxone loosely bases his work on the presumption of an earthly starting point, but how cool would it be if Echoes Of Outer Silence was in some way linked to a greater overall narrative within Cryo Chamber’s roster of artists? It’d take the label’s collaborative ideas to a whole extra level, where instead of a pile of ‘em build upon one album’s worth of ideas, they keep adding to a growing arc through a series of albums! Holy cow, that’d be one of the boldest things I’ve ever seen in electronic music, though probably not terribly commercially viable.

Echoes From Outer Silence is the most melodic album I’ve heard from Alphaxone yet, though that’s honestly not saying much considering it’s mostly his drone work for Cryo Chamber I’ve consumed. Still, after a two minute opener of field recordings, second track Resistance offers synth tones ebbing in and out as the cosmic hum dominates the ambience. Elsewhere, Departure presents a melancholic mood within its droning dub tones, and Altered Xone has a mysterious dirge echo off ancient halls. The rest of this album plays as you’d expect of dark space drone, where the sounds are sci-fi, the reverb distant, and the timbre infinite. Nothing like feeling lost in eternal emptiness, amirite?