Ljudverket celebrates its tenth release with this characteristically skilled, open-air blend of field recordings and organic, dubwise techno in the tradition of Basic Channel, filled with keen senses of its own particular natural terrains and atmospheres.
‘The thunder and rain of Bas Emfas passes to blue skies above shimmering water, in Luminös Klang. The cerebral jam Konflux Sekvens gives way to the deep emotions of Sonisk Morgonsyn, to close the journey.’
Hyvää syntymäpäivää.

‘Recorded across East London, South-East Kent and Snaresbrook Crown Court during what is described as “the UK media’s attempt at divining integrity from the orchestrated turbulence of Brexit”, with the record setting out to “juggle the documentation of this particular moment with the desire to discern motivation from despair”. World In Action takes in field recordings, woodwind freakouts and percussion from Valentina Magaletti amongst other elements’ (The Quietus).

Exhilarating, box-fresh ghettotec from Detroit. Hotly recommended.

Heartically dubwise, rugged and raw essays in classic grime, UK garage and dubstep from a new London-Berlin collaboration, with stuff like Horsepower’s In Fine Style galloping through its nervous system.

‘Combining steppy dance music, lush detail and a diaristic tone, Jack Chrysalis’ debut album dials between music that is destined to catch the ear of the club-goer and the heart of the dreamer.
‘His signature propulsive mutations of organic techno and UK garage sound strongly in tracks like Another Year and Coldharbour, but Chrysalis threads in more introspective moments, which llend a sense of atmosphere and a deeper running mood to the album’s overworld, heightening endorphin hits from the garage swing and affording a little more bittersweetness to its textures and secrets.
‘Whether in rush or retreat, each track on this album emerges with its own emotional resonance. There’s a sense of seasons turning, or a twilight quality that’s hard to fully pin down. “Owl music” became shorthand for Jack’s tunes, a way for Mana to capture a prescient, nocturnal flight within their environment.’

A gospelized, autobiographical collage of raps, beats, modern jazz and songs, featuring the in-demand drummer alongside an expansive roster of collaborators bringing together artists from his hometown of Houston (vocalists Corey King, Lisa E. Harris, Fat Tony, Jawwaad Taylor), those he became close to over several years living in LA (Sam Gendel, Zeroh, Mic Holden, Josh Johnson, fellow International Anthem artist Carlos Niño), and other creative partners from his life-long journey in sound (Chassol, Svet, Kenneth Whalum).
‘Rooted in his faith, Jamire opens the album with Hands Up, a devotional hymn cut against the stark reality of the modern world that sounds like an apocalyptic middle-grounding of Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly and Merry Clayton’s Gimme Shelter. Whether in the rousing, spiritual Just Hold On or the fluid verses of Fat Tony on Safe Travels, the music exists in the tension between higher realms and social realities — what Jamire calls the “duality of a personal thing and what I’m seeing in my community, in the Black community, as a Black man.” ‘

‘Imagine the opposite of a snake shedding its skin: slithering among the debris of 21st-century music, a porous body, its viscid skin picking up bits and pieces along the way. Rusty, discarded remnants; scraps. Amongst them the jewels of crowns, unglued and fallen from grace, now recovered by this makeshift form. Where does a body end? Does it end where these prostheses begin?
‘This Soma — ‘body’ in Greek — is a palimpsest. Up close you can trace all sorts of DNA microarrays across its surface. Bristol voices, Detroit electro hums, the amen break, an all-encompassing dub haze. As with all palimpsests, they are simultaneously one and a multitude. The body lives, its prostheses live. The body moves.’ 

A new label from Stefan Schwander (out of Harmonious Thelonious) and his mate, cooked up during their deejay sets at the Salon Des Amateurs in Dusseldorf.
Johenson chips in an infectious, glitchily dubwise, somewhat sacrilegious crossing of ska and Rhythm & Sound.
On the flip, Leroy Versions clops squelchingly East, bleeping and bubbling, with minor keys and stately, trombone-led brass.
Good fun and beautiful looking, too.

Bumpin’ citizen JFM knocks back some bleep before trumping his FXHEs with two sides of rough, get-loose house like we like it. Warmly recommended.

A new album by one half of the mighty Pilotwings crew. Guillaume Lespinasse convenes a sublimely alluring, ambient seance, invoking the spirits of Jon Hassell and Terry Riley, as befits the soundtrack of a dreamt Jacques Rivette movie. Imagine an impossible, questing collaboration between Les Disques Du Crepuscule and deep ECM. Imagine the long-awaited return of Berceuse Heroique and pinch yourself.