electronic

Another plinky ploinky weirdo addition to the legendary AFX series, Analord. I’ve listened to this whole or in part so many times I’ve kinda forgotten what goes where. All I know, is that my brain loves this stuff. It instantly puts me in “get busy” mode (no, not THAT get busy, ya dirty fuckers) and has me inspired to do pretty much anything. I’m glad to be alive and to be able to hear stuff…

Shpongle’s debut album is a heady trip through pulsing electronic beats and samples. Whilst not as “far out” or as rich in its palette of colours as some of the later Shpongle offerings (this is a band that has really has gone all-out in some cases), there is something of a trippy and mesmerising quality in the more beat-focussed songs. It almost sounds binaural in some places, and with a good set on your head,…

Haraam can always be relied upon to bring the dense and horrible atmospheric noise. The electronics pummel you, yet almost fall into a rhythm here or there, which I find really exciting – where does techno end and noise begin? Where indeed! This effort from Haraam toes the line expertly, for a noisy head-scraping experience.

I was sold on Priest when I checked out “The Pit” single. Admittedly it was the art that got me, promising dark and sadistic techno, and whilst its not as sleazy as I would have expected from a single with a studded gimp mask on the front, it did deliver the stunning, dark techno pop I was looking for. Thankfully, the band is not a one hit wonder, there are tons of stunning tracks here,…

Music For Being is a lengthy, intense trip that I checked out off the back of the fantastic Sweetface EP, Mighty Atom. Ranging from atmospheric ambient tracks, beatwork akin to the more spaced-out Scorn output, and harsh explosions of power electronics, Music For Being is a mixed bag. I suppose its part of the fun, not knowing where its going to turn next, but I also can’t help but shake the feeling that the record…

I’ve always know that Atomck’s Linus created his own electronic music, but I never knew just how good that it was. Clear The Level is so good in fact, that I immediately shared the record with my good friend and LIW contributor Burra and we released it on cassette under our Two Man Tape Co. label (there’s one or two left at the time of writing, if you want one!). Expect fantastic synthesiser pop music,…

I can’t decide if this is genius or just downright awful. Either way, I respect the guts to pull off this kind of experiment, even though listening now in 2021, there is nothing futuristic about this album. If anything, it sounds like a relic from the past, from the days of proto electronic music, suffering the same fate as some of Miles Davis’ records from this era.

As good as any a subject to base a record around, Songs About My Cats – one of Aaron Funk’s first full lengths with Venetian Snares – is partly a homage to our whiskered friends and partly a breakcore mindfuck of the highest order. If I had the power to give out those little seals like the Queen does, I’d appoint Aaron Funk one for “purveyors of exceptional and finest Breakcore” or something. Cracking stuff.

I’ve long been a fan of Pilotredsun’s insane animations (my favourite of which I’ve linked below for your viewing displeasure), so it was an absolute pleasure to find out that the animator had dropped this full length album of bizarro electronic tuneage. Honestly, the “cartoons” are waaaay weirder than any of the tracks here, but its a wobbly and pleasant listen, like visiting old friends and familiar places for the first time in years, after…

A under-rated classic of synthesizer music, in my opinion, and one of the first electronic albums I heard of this nature. I love the stepping synth sounds and the real drums which accompany it. I also love the art, and I love that whilst visually it harks back to the past (as does the whole premise of this kind of album), the album doesn’t sound like it was recorded 40 years ago. Instead, it sounds…

Blue Sky, seemingly in some sort of weird knee-jerk reaction to how slow, creepy and difficult their original Jurassic Park adaption was, followed it up with this insane sequel where Dr. Grant is turned into a machine gun toting maniac hell bent on killing every solider or hired mercenary that moves. A new, just as pompous and ridiculous soundtrack was required then, and so this was dialled up to eleven. Its nowhere near as good…

Ah, good ol’ Libido Airbag. Testosterone Zone was a welcome return after a number of years in absence. If it could be compared to any earlier works then the closest would be the massive techno headfukk of Miss Melanoma. My own criticism of this thing is the crap cover art, but y’know, you can’t really complain in these circles. The production is honestly the best the duo has ever sounded, Sleaze Servant aside (or on…

Good ol’ fashioned 90s-style bleeping blooping electronic music, from the days when this kinda thing felt all fresh and interesting. Autechre is, of course, more than this movement, although some of the warmer, soft synth sounds do remind me of AFX-related musics. LP5 is perfect however, right through there are stunning beat compositions and busy electronic works. I particularly like the repetitive first few minutes of the final track, which has a heavy industrial feel…

What a trip! What a mood! Bringing nothing but good vibes through the medium of electronic music, George Clanton excels in this gorgeous and snappy synth pop outing. I only ever stumbled across this due to Pad Chennington’s 107 vaporwave albums you must hear list, and whilst this is not strictly lodged in that genre, there are a lot of tropes from that world, including nostalgic synth sounds and the occassional wobbles as if you…

The Pit is my favourite track by this electronica project, and its easy to see why they decided to release it as a 7″ single (or the label decided, either way). Dark, broody bass and spooky synths are led by a banging beat and a 80s influenced vocall performance, whilst not being the greatest singing performance ever, lends itself excellently to the vibe and flavour being achieved here. If you never listen to Priest, at…

Perhaps I bit off more than I could chew by reviewing the Analord series as seperate entries. I tend to chain them, and they start to bleed into one for me. Even when reviewing seperately, I quickly run out of words to describe them. Guess my limited writing skill actually shows when it comes to this kind of complex electronic music haha So let me be brief then, Analord 04 is as good an entry…

This was a special listen. I’ve come across Telepath a few times in my forays into vaporwave, but this is an earlier record. I had the pleasure of listening to somebody’s glorious double cassette upload, which contains a number of additional bonus tracks. All in all, this is a lo-fi journey through dense atmospheres (similar to genre-mate HKE) and chilled out, laid back beats and sampled tracks. It’s 90 minutes long, but its worth every…

I picked this up from a self-promoting post on Reddit. In what the artist describes as their 5th album, CD cobbles together chopped and scratchy Japanese samples in the true vaporwave / plunderphonics style. I’m not really clued up on Japanese culture at all, so I am not sure what the sources are for these sounds, in my ignorance I could take a guess at TV shows, commercial themes, and fuck knows what else. All…

Ultra pitch-shifted, slow and reminiscent of a bad acid trip. Disconscious is the soundtrack to wandering that abandoned mall in the recesses of your mind. Think of any mall today, and compare it to the glory days that you remember for that mall in the 80s or 90s. This is the soundtrack to those thoughts, which is a lot darker than its palm tree and classy car covered artwork would make it seem.

This is one of my all time favourite Genesis / Megadrive soundtracks. I found the game impossibly hard as a child (I don’t think I ever completed it), but its soundtrack will stick with me until the end of time. It is upbeat and jaunty, and other times slow, melancholic and pensive. It is often simplistic, yet other times unfolds into glorious chiptune pomp. Really, this has it all, and its a long one, too….

This is just glorious in every conceivable way. The legendary Floral Shoppe by Macintosh Plus is “re-imagined” in this recent reworking from the (I’m sure intentionally) similarly-named MACマイナス. That may undersell this record however; this is not just a re-hashing, although some themes from the original do get a reprise. This is much more, this is a record with its own life and its own vibe, although I have to agree that it does carry…

Heavy, dense, dark electronics meet droning, rumbling guitars in this 26 minute oddysey. I’ve had this on my to-do list since about 2014, and I’ve listened to it a 100 times since. Finally then, it gets committed to the Lines In Wax site. How simple yet unsettling is that art? Especially when placed alongside the title of this record? Interesting stuff.

Sketches Vol. 2 is the 2nd volume (you don’t say?) of tunes created using a Teenage Engineering PO-33 device. I’ve recently been checking out YouTube tutorials on these little bits of kit, and stumbled eventually onto Gar Hoover’s compilation here. Honestly, this is really cool and really chill, and a great example of how the device can be used to make beats. I look forward to checking out Vol. 1 one day. Cheers!

Phaedra is possibly the most well known Tangerine Dream record. Its appearance as a path-diverging choice in the mindfuck that was Bandersnatch (Black Mirror’s feature length choose-your-own adventure) has no doubt contributed to its resurgence. Over the last few months I have listened to an original mix and then the Steve Wilson remaster, including the additional outtakes and alternative versions that were presented in that remaster package. I’m not too fussed on the extra takes,…

News At 11 is now something of a legendary release in the ever growing and evolving world that is vaporwave. Evoking somewhat more of a sad nostalgia rather than the warm yet melancholic lost futures of regular mall vapor, News At 11 treats us to a treacle-paced retrospective back to a morning when the world changed forever.

Reset is the sophomore Tower Of The Sun record, and showcases the gorgeous expansion that the project has made with its sound. Like an unusual fungi growing across a dirty crystal on a far away planet spinning around an even farther away star, Reset does not so much as press restart on the group’s sound, but instead represents a delicious mutation instead.

Jurassic Park for the Genesis was a slow, clanky mess of a game, but one that had its own kind of bizarre, dark atmosphere. A lot of that lives on today in this minimal and bassy soundtrack. From the groove of the tectonic “Jungle” theme, the anxiety of the “Pumping Station”, the abstract “Volcano” or the balls-out rock of “The Visitor Center”, the music of Jurassic Park for the genesis is a unique and haunting…

A back to basics approach is given on this early release from Imminent Starvation. I’m enjoying the “end of humanity” vibes on offer here, which are always good fun. Tops. All in all, pulsing, no nonsense electronic music for those who like it to hit that little bit harder.

Skeng is one of the best Bug tracks, so of course it deserves its own dub. The original is cut, chopped, mangled, and turned into a new beast all of its own. 6 minutes of genius.

Find Candace is one record from what I like to call the “spooky” era of Venetian Snares. Unsettling samples, child-like doll artwork and an overall air of menace permeates these scatterfuck breakcore compositions. To write Venetian Snares off as pure chaos though does do the man a disservice; the beats and tracks in general here are meticulously created to provide you, the listener, with an uncomfortable electronic music experience.

Don’t you just love it when you pick something random to listen to and it blows your head off? Galactic Edge is a strange release, coupling tracks from the Galactic Supermarket album and mixing them with a few new ones, but this doesn’t really matter to me as I am new to this artist and instead am more focussed on just how good this is. I guess it would class as some sort of thinking…

I look at the sleeve art for this record and I look at the name of the project and all I get are intense Annihilation vibes. Which is furthered by the project’s Bandcamp, where each release is augmented with a cryptic message for its listeners. Similarily, the music too has its own fractured, futuristic feel. Discogs has this classed under vaporwave, but I would class it as such in the loosest sense; Anomalous Planet sounds…

Stratosphere begins in ways that I would expect from this glorious project. Yet, it twists and weaves away through a whole different tapestry of sounds, some of which are an aural treat for the senses, and some of which are a bit tedious. On the whole however, this is a good album and worth a listen.

What a noisy little fucker this is, falling more into the harsh noise camp rather than the harsh techno camp. Is this techno? Fuck do I know about electronic music? Not much, thats for sure. What I mean is, Tollund Men has that pulsing body-moving hypnotic throb to a lot of their stuff, but its buried under 16 layers of grime on this cassette.

This bizarre project has been on my to-do list for a very long time. Today I finally listened, and was taken away on a wonderful musical experience. Chanelling aspects of both dungeon synth and vaporwave (my favourite niche electronic subgenres no less) and filtering them through the worship of an old RPG, we have some glorious low-key compositions that creep and crawl with the right amount of emotional leads over the top. Like, that sounds…

Another one that has been on the to-do list for about six years. I can’t even remember where I picked this one up, maybe some sort of Vice end of year list? I forget. Either way, there is a lot of interesting instrumentation and electronic work here, but those are dragged down by a vocal performance which is interesting at its best and fucking irritating at its worst. Not for me.

The first half of Zeit is somewhat disappointing. There appears to be a prevalence of some sort of bending organ sound or even a theremin, and whilst that is cool for about 2 minute, its irritating after 15 or 20 minutes. Zeit however starts to form into another beast all of its own around the 40 minute mark, where bubbling samples evolve into pulsing electronic sounds and are augmented by gorgeous flourishes of synthesizers and…

I can’t remember where the hell I got this 7″ from. Anyways, its my only foray into the word of Ladyscraper, who (on this EP at least) play mental speedcore with lots and lots of frenetic sampling. A lot of speedcore just hits the ground running and doesn’t stop, but Ladyscraper at least seems to have all sorts going on with the sampling. The drums are all over the place. Pure chaos. I love it!

Whiskertwister doesn’t seem to do subtlety. Which I suppose, is a good thing when it comes to this brand of early 2010s dubstep. The beats pound you in the head, and the bass slaps you in the dick. Over and over. Forever. Or, for a few tracks, at least. This kind of music hasn’t aged well, but it reminds me of a time and a place when it was exciting to watch a whole new…

Neptune Towers is super under-rated. Transmissions… is a stellar electronic composition, heralding styles all the way from dungeon synth to something in the peak-period of Tangerine Dream’s synthesizer output. Its a mesmerising listen, and one of great enjoyment.

What a trip. Balanced between elements of harsh noise and creepy atmospherics, Haraam’s awkward, lurching electronics transcend out of the audible mire, writhing into shapes of pulsating body music. Hypnotic, danceable, weird and unsettling. I’m in love.

Mullah Said is my first taste of the prolific and highly revered sound art of Muslimgauze. I find something about this deeply unsettling; dark, meandering soundscapes are the order of the day, steeped and drenched and plunged over and over into dense Eastern weavery and instrumentation. I shall be returning to this project, that is for sure.

I fell in love with Priest’s debut single, “The Pit”, and the album which followed it. Unfortunately, the kinship with their cold and awkward techno pop ends there. 2020’s sophomore effort lacks in just about every attribute that made the original so interesting, which is a true shame. I hear there may have been line up changes in the band? Either way, this is pretty disappointing, truth be told.

The Thought Gang moniker has cropped up here or there on Twin Peaks soundtrack records (and the show itself, lets not forget). From the bizarre, softly spoken offerings on the FWWM OST, to the frenetic jazz given to The Return, it was awesome to finally listen to an album’s worth of material from this Lynch / Badalamenti collaberation project. As perhaps predicted, this is a mixed bag of tunes, more of a collection than a…

I was very sad to hear that Cookie Monsta passed away. Whilst not so much a part of the original gestation of the dubstep sound, he was part of the original wave of artists pioneering this new, dirty style. This early EP, on Circus Records, is a perfect example of that. Cookie’s bass work is massive and interfering, and thats how it should be. Great stuff.

HKE’s HK record lies somewhere on the more spaced out, introspective end of vaporwave. Few and far between are the tropes of nostalgia and the repurposing of 80s and 90s music (at least, any that is immediately recognisable). Instead we have swathes of crushing ethereal ambience; soundscapes that seem to live their own life with analogue flutter. Its deep, moving stuff, and a listen that I would strongly recommend.

This record haunted me. There’s a reoccurring motif that I just couldn’t place. It hit me after a while, it was a sample used by Gorillaz for the track “M1 A1” on the self titled record, which was the first album I really spent any decent amount of time with when I was a kid. I’ve also seen the Day Of The Dead film so I have no idea how didn’t put this together before….

Jim Kirkwood is something of a father to the dungeon synth world. His compositions bridge the gap between electronic soundtrack music and even – dare I say the buzz word – Berlin school kinda synth fuckery, but its the Tolkien inspired backdrop to these fantastical compositions that really is the icing on the cake. Middle Earth is a long album. I took it out with me and walked a few miles with my dog, burnt…

Stunning, gloriously dense synth works that unfold and meander through spaced-out worlds and atmospheres. It’s not a million miles away from something that Tangerine Dream would put out, but retains that unique Jean-Michel Charrme (lol, sorry). I picked up a copy of this on chrome/metal tape (ferric eat my dust!) and although the quality isn’t as clear as I would have expected (I have regular cassettes that sound better), playing this on the Walkman, warbles…

Eternal is rather dancable for such a cold and industrial take on black metal. I suppose the black metal element is dialled back quite a bit, but nevertheless, Eternal is a classi of the crossover genre that happened a lot in the 90s. Some great beats here, which drive these misty compositions. Plus, any album that has “Supra Karma” on it is a winner in my book.

The Chromatics bring their unique, haunting brand of bubblegum dream pop to the Simon & Garfunkel classic. Ethereal, moody synths and breathy vocals take you on a trip well worth travelling. Not a groundbreaking cover, sure, but still a gorgeous listen.

Ooh, what an stomper. Putting most (if not all) pornogrind and digigrind bands to shame with an absolutely savage programmed attack of the senses. Everything is synthesized, from guitars to blasts, and honestly it sounds amazing. Gets a bit glitchy in parts, but this just adds to the chaos that unfurls. Its a shame that this appears to be a one-off release.

Oi oi, savloy! Donkey Rhubarb is a short but interesting listen, and includes some mad Philip Glass orchestrated reworking of “Icct Hedral”, which is worth the price of admission alone. “Pancake Lizard” is also a favourite of mine. Short but sweet!

Is it possible for a soundtrack to be OP? Like, there’s a mood for every occasion here. Are you exploring the wilderness, a dungeon, a desert, or a quaint village? Daggerfall got a tune for that, yo. My post on the game of Daggerfall will follow at some point, where I will go more in depth into what I think is the philosophy one needs to apply when playing a 24 year old RPG. But…

What a lush series of compositions! I got this cassette for literally pennies and was surprised to find out how much of a good condition it was in. The analogue depth lends itself infinitely to Mike Oldfield’s bizarre, arty, synth-led compositions. Admittedly, it gets a bit shit towards the end but up until that point I found myself lost inside these dense soundscapes.

Welcome to hell. Another series of 4 20-minute-plus slabs of terrifying ambient noise from The Caretaker marks the next step into the hell of dementia. Stage 5 is easily the most aggressive, opening with what is more or less harsh noise; the musical memories from earlier stages are now mangled into nightmarish visions that bear zero resemblance to their original form, instead present themselves as a collage of frightening… shit. It’s just noise, and its…

Haircuts For Men is one of my favourite “vaporwave” producers and 壊滅悲しみ is of no exception. Despite the title, the vibes are not quite so downbeat or depressing as some of the other records, but in general this is a morose and chilled out journey through some fantastic electronic music.

My first – and long overdue – foray into the genre of sovietwave. Can’t say I’m really sold on it just yet, but eery ambient electronics is the order of the day, sounds from the past representing a future that was promised.

Spooky, authentically exotic ambient music from this well constructed side project. I recently played the Daggerfall OST through and honestly some parts are eerily similar. All in all though, if you like your synthesizer soundscapes to have an ominous Eastern lean to them, I would heavily recommend you Call To The Deep.

Downward Spiral has never come across to me as an organised, coherent album. Sure, I’m not saying that it sounds like a series of disconnected tracks thrown together for a buck, or anything like that. There was obviously a deliberate creation process behind all of this. But, what I’m trying to say is, is that I’ve never found that Downward Spiral flows. At all. Now, I’m not an expert on NIN. Maybe this is intentional,…

This is, objectively, one of the worst things that I have ever heard. Its been saved on my Spotify albums list since 2014, where I was recommended it by some absolute arseclown it seems. So what we have here is beatdown music with techno elements. Everything about that sentence makes me want to die inside, but the techno elements are actually pretty good. As far as beatdowns and slams go, well, this isn’t dirty enough…

The fact that three of the four tracks on Stage 4 of this excellent examination of aural dementia are called “Post Awareness Confusions” should tell you a lot about where this project is going. I mean, I suppose we all know where this is going, its just we don’t know how its going to be interpreted into sound. This is one of the main things which has made this entire journey so exciting yet equally…

On my journey through the excellent world of the Analord series, 05 is probably the trippiest one yet. Sure, the point of this shit isn’t really to be “trippy” or “weird”, but from the opening effects on the acid bath that is “Reunion 2”, through to the laid back futuristic sprawl of “Cilonen” (and the additional bonus material), there’s just something about Analord 05 that seems to be in a whole other world.

Retro gaming is an absolute gold mine for decent tunes, and the original Streets Of Rage soundtrack is a fucking banger, and probably one of the best places to start. It’s basically everything you could ever want from music in this style; it captures a time and a place, yet is also quite futuristic and exciting. Top stuff. The OST finally got the treatment it deserves with an official release in 2015, making Yuzo Koshiro…

The first Selected Ambient Works record was the album that introduced Aphex Twin to the wider world. If you’ve not heard it, it’s not a collection of ambient tracks per se, but more of a collection of chilled musical electronic workings. There are plenty of beats and “actual songs” here, unlike Vol. 2 which went more full on into the introspective, meandering ambient soundscapes. Here, Aphex Twin takes the sound perfected on his EPs and…

Necro Deathmort are an incredibly underrated band. Music Of Bleak Origin is – I think – the band’s own origin, and they have come leaps and bounds since then. The records since this one float away in a dreamy yet claustrophobic hell of electronic and industrial music, but this debut album has more in common with Godflesh than it does to say, something like Scorn. There is an electronic backbone to this nightmarish journey, but…

Dreamy, otherworldly pop, which for all its ethereal atmosphere, is a touch devoid of originality. Once one track is done, I feel like I’ve scoped the vibe for the entire album. Every track is delivered with the same pace; that same valiumed-up-to-my-eyeballs vocal delivery, regardless of who is behind the mic. That being said there are some solid tunes here, including a great version of “Shadow” (in the online version) and the various iterations of…

The first Tangerine Dream full length is a fairly short affair and set the presidence for what the band would expand on in the coming albums over the early 70s. Don’t get me wrong, Electronic Meditation is great (how cool is that album name?) but there are much better examples of the band’s stunning synthesizer explorations that can be found in the same time period.

Coursing along on the pulse of the explosion of electronic and dance music in the 90s, Daft Punk introduce the wider world to their slick, sexy, and dare I say French approach to composing dance music. You hipster fucks can give this any ridiculous genre name you can care to pull out of your collective arses, but yes – this is dance music.

Tyler has come a long way from Goblin, that much can be said. Igor didn’t exactly blow me away, but it is a decent collection of tracks. I’ve always seen Tyler as a producer first and a vocalist second, and now that rapping as been almost completely removed from his repertoire, that opinion is even more tilted. This record is glorious, and the beats have bells on, but that’s about it.

When I was a teenager this record used to make want to go out and punch cars. Nowadays, I just like to sit and bask in the sheer audacity of the audio mindfuckery on offer. Like, this * shouldn’t * work, but it is just perfect. The way the synths and guitars just feed off each other in some bonkers loop, before you even get to the drumming and the hydra-headed vocal attack. If you…

This record is often at the top of – or at least included in – many album lists of patrician listeners from around the globe, and I can see why. What Psychic lacks in immediate urgency it makes up for in the detail. It is, after all, the little things in life which give us the most pleasure. Best enjoyed when equipped with headphones,  Darkside takes you on a mesmerising journey that defies to be…

Those that know me in person surely no doubt know my undying love for the worlds of the Elder Scrolls, in particular parts 2 and 3, Daggerfall and Morrowind. The creative community around these game worlds is alive and kicking today, and Tamriel Rebuilt is a 18 year old mod (yes) that still continues to add swathes of new lands and adventures into TES III: Morrowind, arguably the best open world RPG in its vanilla…

I don’t know if I’m reading more into that I should be, but my 3 month old son seems to love Tangerine Dream. He just sits there in his rocker, a pensive look on his face as the layers of meandering synthesizers unfold endlessly. It’s an expression of deep thought and subtle awe, and it isnt too far from my own as I travel through the 70s era of Tangerine Dream recordings. Rubycon is quite…

Prurient is fuckin’ great, JK Flesh is fuckin’ great. Then, of course, naturally, this split is fucking great. It’s a match made in heaven, where the more pulsing, driven body music of the Flesh meets the sheets of noisy experimentation of the ‘rient. Truly, madly, a good ‘un.

The first time I heard this I found it rather irritating. Maybe I’ve developed a penchant for samples shoe-horned and glitched into freaktastic breakcore musicals? It’s a possibility. I suppose that when life throws you a chocolate wheelchair, all you can do is get up and do a little dance, or something like that.

Haircuts For Men are one of the most consistent projects that operate in the vaporwave style. Their records are more than that though, truly. Even so, I would go on to say, that they are often more than the sum of their parts, and 必要 is of no exception.  The music here invokes heavy nostalgia, a morose longing and a sense of the unknown. I’m reminded in part of Evanescence era Scorn with the slight…

In your poonani! My So Called Life is classic Venetian Snares, marring the frenetic mentalist approach of the early daze with the wanted or not calculated genius and finesse of the more recent experimentations released by Mr. Funk. Some quality sampling, some incredible beat programming / mashing, and some menacing electronics. A must-listen, IMO.

Having being slightly disappointed by Miles’ early 90s attempts at bridging into a more electronic music / hiphop direction (hey, just imagine what that could have done for popular music), I was a little anxious going in to this. As much as I would trust Bill Laswell with any band (except maybe Swans hahaha) I was indeed skeptical. But of course, my worries were quickly put to rest. What we have here is a gorgeous…

Cool, calm, relaxing vapor. Ah, its the musical equivalent of valium. †Nematophy has been in my online playlist for about a year, and I must have played it through now a number of times. Its time to delete it and let some other stuff shine instead, so here I am committing it to the site and filing it away. †Nematophy is another fantastic Windows 96 album, further cementing this project as one of my favourites…

My introduction to the world of plunderphonics happened the best part of 20 years ago, when The Avalanches’ ridiculously catchy “Frontier Psychiatrist” was all over the TV and radio. I didn’t really understand back then exactly what it was that was going on, but The Avalanches stood out to me as whacky and different, even alongside other big electronic acts dominating at the time, like Daft Punk and The Chemical Brothers. Unfortunately, that lead single…

What happens when you cross Godflesh’s Justin Broadrick, The Bug’s Kevin Martin and ATR’s Alec Empire? Well, you get Curse Of The Golden Vampire of course, and I assure you, this project is not the punchline to a shit joke. This self titled record is not a million miles away from some of the sounds and textures experienced on Techno Animal records, or even on Godflesh’s Us & Them record. Its an interesting, and rather…

Floral Shoppe is the oddity that defined the genre (or shall I say movement?) of vaporwave, which is still passed off as a meme by some. But hey, it’s their loss. Floral Shoppe hosts – or birthed? – many tropes of the style; pitchshifted beats and vocals, fluttering synths, a treacle-like atmospheric consistency, and a distorted window into the realms of either the past or the future. Am I dreaming about a past that I…

Space Is Only Noise is one of my favourite chilled out, down tempo, ambient kinda records. I’ve heard this described as deep house, and whilst I see where the bridges are built, I wouldn’t have ever classed it as such.  Being a genre Nazi aside, this is such a relaxing record. The sampling is on point, and with headphones the stereo stage is massively utilised to its full capacity. It is at once all encompassing,…

Another year (or thereabouts), another stage in Caretaker’s magnum opus. Stage 3 is where the changes are not so subtle. At this point I’ve kinda figured that the old, jaunty 30s-style tunes from parts one and two are supposed to be memories, and as we descent through each stage, the memories become more and more fractured and broken. Stage 2 introduced minute differences; small fractures and unsettling off-colour compositional changes. Stage 3 is a bit…

What Mega seemingly has over 0 and 1 is the instant glossy hit of electronic shine. Out of nowhere the record is in your face, all colours flashing, and from then on out you are enraptured in the world of the Blank Banshee, and have no choice but to go on the ride. Is it possible to improve on the cult status and legendary electronic work of the first two records? The answer, of course,…

Blank Banshee is another one of those projects that gets lumped in with vaporwave when in reality the sound reaches across several styles of electronic music. I’ll admit that 1 often gets overlooked by me, either by the sheer gloss of Mega or the instant classic status of 0. The compositions are glorious however, ranging from banging 80s pop to drawn out ambient soundscapes and synths. Lush. Blank Banshee 1 by Blank Banshee

I initially mistook this for a new studio release from Clams Casino. After shitting the bed and hitting play one morning at 5am as I watched the sun rise over the sea (it was fuckin’ great), I quickly realised that this was a compilation of older works, as well as the latest 7″ he dropped which sold out instantly. Maybe there is more to what is going on here, but I’m not a Clams expert….

Talk about “Find Of The Month”! Filmmaker… makes… dark, brooding electronic music that encompasses the stomp of early 90s industrial and the nostalgia and synth styles of the 80s, and more recently, the vaporwave trend. Honestly, it hits hard, in the best way, and has the right mix of sheen and nastiness. I absolutely love that record sleeve, as well. So many questions! Definitely keep a ear to the ground for Filmmaker releases. The Love…

This is probably the busiest and most involved ambient record that I’ve ever heard! Haha! I suppose its due to the sheer number of ambient producers who create a stunning custom patch and then just put a book on the lower end of the keyboard for 55 minutes and call the resulting dirge a new record. I’m being obtuse of course, but hopefully you get what I mean. Laswell has pulled together a small world…

I meandered into the works of Jean-Luc Ponty during my recent trips into the world of jazz. Jean-Luc’s Aurora however appears to be something completely different. This violin-led electric orchestra of madness is something that sounds so 80s that it hurts. Considering that it was recorded in the mid-70s, I can only attest that it was – actually – years ahead of its time. I don’t know enough about this kind of music right now…

I feel like I’ve been here before, and I suppose that’s exactly the point. Stage 2 of the gargantuan Everywhere At The End Of Time series on dementia sees mostly a rehashing of the themes and tunes of Stage 1. But, if you’re listening carefully, now and then Stage 2’s compositions will throw you out of the loop. Every now and then, through the record crackle and swinging 30s numbers, The Caretaker works in a…

Fuck, what a trip. Gabba techno at its finest! On We Are From Rotterdam, the Nightraver takes the gabba template and takes it to hypnotic, mesmerizing territories.

A relaxing and introspective journey through the bizarre world of Flying Lotus, Cosmogramma was my first introduction to this guy’s work. A lot of the sounds are jazz based; smooth, sophisticated, robust, but then fed through some bizarre electronic machinery, creating a distillation of both old and new. The swing of bop and the style of the saxophone meets mathematical beat composition and AFX-style synth trickery. A doozy.

Telekon is a diamond. I won’t claim to be versed in the history of Gary Numan’s career, but for me, Telekon is one of the early solo records that saw Numan continuing his dreamy, robotic synthesizer compositions on from his time with Tubeway Army. Following on from the excellent Pleasure Principle, Numan and his band channel Kraftwerk-inspiried sterility into more stunning rock-based pieces. 

Are you ready for a bleeping blooping analogue party? Of course you are. What can I even say about this? AFX is nothing short of legendary and this second entry into the Analord series is entirely a reason as to why that is the case. Press play, marvel at the genius at work.

What a journey this took me on. I can’t remember exactly where I picked up on Cluster’s music, but the idea of two men more-or-less battling with analogue synthesizers was right up my alley. This self titled record from 1971 is an incredibly forward thinking journey; a textual treat for those electronically-inclined. The tracks are long and sprawling, possibly even improvised, and I enjoyed every last second (admittedly with a good book and a cigar…

On Jesu’s debut we are faced with 8 monumental tracks of shoegazy goodness. Granted, this self-titled record is not as astral as records that would quickly follow, but Jesu instead relies on the intense weight and pressure of the riffs, coupled with the dark, drab and dare I say somewhat depressing nature of the songs themselves. On Jesu it seems that all hope is gone, and the morose synths gilding the tracks accentuates this feel….

Analord is another one of those series that I have given up hope on ever owning in a physical format. Thank heavens then, for the internet and for the lovely people who upload rare and hard to find gems for the rest of us to get a listen to. AFX is one of my favourite electronic producers in the world. I think I may even prefer it to Aphex Twin, but we are splitting hairs…

Well then, its been a good year or so for pure LDOH-worship goregrind. However, please do not write off First Days Of Humanity – they aren’t as typical sounding as you would expect. Yes, of course, it is heavy Last Days Of Humanity worship, but there is so much grinding goodness here. People (read: experts) on the internet profess that Pixel Death is far from the project’s best release. Considering how much I love this,…