'Anything in Return' is a more grown up record for Bundick, and he seems to have used this as an outlet for all the genres he's managed to absorb since his last full-length. Opener 'Harm in Change' takes a liberal pinch of classic house, 'So Many Details' has the James Pants-indebted West Coast neon shuffle everyone got so fixated on last year, and 'Touch' sounds like Bundick's been sipping a bit of James Blake in his off-time. This is hardly a bad thing either, rather than imitate each style to the letter, Bundick only nabs what he needs, pulling loose skeletons and refixing them to lie … Read more

Tortoise's Douglas McCombs pays homage to Ennio Morricone and Roy Orbison in his timeless style with the latest LP in his long-dormant Brokeback guise. "Brokeback and the Black Rock has the sound of a band playing. The arrangements were sweated over during the year and a half prior to recording, so the challenge was to capture convincing performances of the songs. McEntire has done a great job recording the band. The bass and drums sound natural and full. The guitars are clear and ringing with just the right growl. Oh, and this band likes reverb. There are moments that recall the… Read more

Drew Lustman weighs in his loved-up and lush third LP, arriving via Ninja Tune. The emphasis is firmly on house and romantic soul music here, as opposed to the fragmented kaleidoscope of jungle, R&B, and garage that made up its predecessors. That's largely attributable to the fact he fell in love during the creation of 'Hardcourage', which would definitely explain its aerated giddiness and almost pop-wise swerve. It's even got vocals, thanks to a very tidy cameo from Friendly Fires Ed Macfarlane on the bumping sophistication of 'She Sleeps', while the hook-heavy single 'Straight & Arrow' is t… Read more

**80-page deluxe hardback edition includes stills from the film and exclusive interview** Matt Johnson aka The The presents his soundtrack to a film by Nicola Bruce following photographer Steve Pyke on a journey to meet his childhood heroes - the men who went to the moon. Mixing newsreel samples of JFK and NASA's mission control with exquisite sci-fi electronics and evocative exotica atmospheres, the music on 'Moonbug' blends a sense of naive wonder with darker themes of peril and trepidation inherent to those pioneering space journeys undertaken by fearless astronauts. As the 2nd volume in the Cineola… Read more

'Motional Response' is Basic Soul Unit's long-awaited debut album of deep and rugged house functions. For the last ten years Stuart Li has issued dozens of 12"s both as BSU and Herman for fine labels including Dolly, Mule Electronic and Mathematics, shaping a richly expressive yet resolutely raw world of analogue electronics and house grooves. On his debut album, Stuart's joined by a vocalist for the first time, with Sacha Williamson flavouring the prowling groove of 'Breathe', while Jerome Derradji's remix of the same cut also features UR legend Gerald Mitchell on keys. The oth… Read more

Tim Gray channels six tracks of lushest ambient techno as Ethernet on his 2nd full length album for Kranky. Much like predecessor '144 Pulsations Of Light', his 'Opus 2' inescapably draws comparison with AFX's seminal 'SAW' volumes, which is never a bad thing in our ears. It's especially apparent in the pulse-through-the-pillow bass and gloomy melodies of 'Correction' or the haunting buried melodies in 'Cubed Sun', and to a darker extent on the sepulchral 'Dodecahedron', whereas the likes of 'Monarch' maybe shares more in common with BVDub's padded drifts and 'Dog Star' finds a serene sweet spot betwee… Read more

Clone do the world another favour, compiling the 3rd volume of remastered Drexciya classics and obscurities. Compared with so much grid-locked house and techno created during their decade-long lifespan, Drexciya offered an intuitively fluid solution, often recording and playing live to capture an abstract, soulful essence rarely witnessed in any of their contemporaries, harnessing and channelling electronic soul energy, rather than being dictated by it. Their treacherously non-linear edits have long tripped up many a DJ who was probably too boring to bother with anyway, and… Read more

Bell-fancier Hendrik Weber marks up his most ambitious project, marrying campanology and feathered techno on 'Elements Of Light' for Rough Trade. Collaborating with Norwegian musicians The Bell Laboratory, he created this symphony for electronics, percussion, and bell carillon - a three-tonne instrument comprising 50 bronze bells. There's an obvious resonance with the work of Steve Reich, also chiming with Moondog's rhythmic minimalism and the works of LaMonte Young, taking inspiration as they did from jazz, new music, gamelan and western sacred music. It's a sophisticated step forwa… Read more

Around since the mid-80s, Yo La Tengo have been a constant on the indie horizon, working within their own framework and transcending scenes and trends with the greatest of ease. 'Fade' teams the band up with Tortoise's John McEntire who takes their hazy psychedelic pop to new levels with his economic production techniques. Not that this is a new direction from Yo La Tengo, but 'Fade' sounds more pointed than they have for a while, with jangly guitars soaring over dusty drums (McEntire's speciality) and just a smart hint of the kind of avant gardisms the band made their calling card. Sure they make pop… Read more

'Natural Order' is a companion piece to 'Natural History - The Very Best of Talk Talk' It's the 'other' side of Talk Talk in comparison to the more commercial tracks on Natural History. It is the first career spanning compilation to include tracks from the Verve/Polydor era 'Laughing Stock'. Mark Hollis has curated the tracklisting, running order, mastering and artwork. Here's the tracklisting: 1. Have You Heard The News 2. Renee 3. For What It's Worth 4. Chameleon Day 5. April 5th 6. Wealth 7. John Cope 8. Eden 9. After the Flood (Outtake) 10. Taphead

Exotic Pylon issue a followup to the Simon Reynolds-championed 'Poundland' from West Country retrogrades, Hacker Farm. It marks a weird highpoint in the maiden 18 months of Jonny Mugwump's helplessly, brilliantly eclectic imprint, presenting ten pieces of make-do-and-mend 'tronica crafted on obsolete technology and discarded, post-consumerist debris rewired and soldered back to purpose. Like a feral adjunct to Ekoplekz, an autistic elder cousin of Vessel's, or a telepathic pal of Suum Cuique/Miles Whittaker's, 'UHF' kneads and sparks all manner of virulent melodies, strobing pulses and stray, morphing … Read more

The Broadcast soundtrack to Peter Strickland's award-winning 'Berberian Sound Studio' has finally been given a release via Warp and credited to both James Cargill and the much missed Trish Keenan. Working closely with the film's supervising sound editor, Joakim Sundstrom, James Cargill started work on the material with Trish prior to her untimely passing in 2011, realising some of the uneasiest, phantasmagoric themes and atmospheres in their immaculate oeuvre. In so many ways it's the perfect vehicle for Broadcast to explore their nefarious influences and interests intersecting Italian… Read more

Ron Morelli's L.I.E.S. finally deliver the immense 'American Noise Volume One' compilation featuring 23 tracks ranging from Bookworms' amazing 'African Rhythms' shakedown to the surfer house of Bonquiqui and Jahiliyya Fields' sublime synth ragas - it more or less defines the intersection of raw, analog house and new age electronics which the label has worked towards since 2010. On disc 1 we're sequenced through the expansive drift of Steve Moore's epic 'Frigia' to Legowelt's 'Sark Island Acid' bubbler via Maxmillion Dunbar's tripping EBM jack 'Cassette Arabic' to Torn Hawk's … Read more

Fresh outta Maccie D's, William Emmanuel Bevan aka Burial drops his 2nd solo EP of 2012 'pon Hyperdub. Much like his 'Kindred EP', he focuses on long-form composition with two tracks hovering around the 12 minute and 14 minute mark respectively, taking license to really stretch out into fragmented, impressionistic and cinematic scapes strafed with elements of vintage hardcore, heartbreaking vocal samples and murkiest atmospheres. Of course, you already know that, but it's great to hear him really running about as far from the club as he's ever done, leaving us with something to dance to in … Read more

**Edition of 100 hand-stamped CDr and sleeve with hand-made wrap-around** Slip Discs' 3rd micro-run edition is the debut release by Larry Goves. 'A Crèche for the Lonely and Peculiar' offers three compositions stemming from live recordings made in Manchester last summer. They employ concrète source textures, phosphorescing electro-acoustic harmonics and field recordings arranged and rendered with a hazily haptic, cochlea-shmushing quality. They're very delicate pieces, and quite polite with it. But there's also surreal, soporific sensuality, especially to the first two pieces… Read more

*Special 10th Anniversary Edition, Includes bonus CD of remixes by Mr. Oizo, DJ Koze, Plaid, Recloose, Dave Aju, Nobukazu Takemura, Matmos, Richard Devine** Since redefining the funk as Dr Rockit with his seminal releases for Clear, Matthew Herbert has continually pushed boundaries and amazed listeners with his inimitable brand of natural electronic mischief. Following the recent 'Hear Me Now' single comes a new album full of wonder and magic. From the opening 'It's only' you just know that this has the makings of a classic record. Herbert has managed the unthinkable, he has re… Read more

Sabina Plamenova morphs from Subeena into Alis for her 1st self-released LP of raw, rickety-wired techno-pop. 'Hybrids In The Attic' is a haunted blend of her own vocals and gritty electronic experiments adopting elements of dubstep, UK A.I. styles and technoid outernational themes - a singular and unusual style perhaps best compared with the likes of Leila or Björk. From the distanced house of 'Kalim's Revenge' to the Massive Attack-gone-techno styles of 'All It Takes Rmx', to the dreamy London ethno-futurism of 'It All Goes' with shades of Maria Minerva about it and the bleeping house strut… Read more

No Hats No Hoods do the business with a 22-track collection of Ruff Sqwad's finest instrumentals. Whittled down from some 50 classics produced by Bow, E3's legendary Rapid and Dirty Danger, 'White Label Classics' scans their raw-to-the-bone output circa early-mid 2000's - a stripped down, sinuous body of work almost solely crafted on Fruity Loops software and dating to when they were both barely finished senior school. The riddims were fuel for their own talents as MCs - perhaps most notably Tinchy Stryder, who's gone on to score number ones and all that jazz - but they'll be best recog… Read more

**Upfront exclusive. Features Big Youth version not included on the LP!** Stockport's Alan "Breadwinner" Redfern and The Breadwinners dub up an authentic niceness on King Spinna's 2nd issue - ranking highly in Steve Barker's end-of-year chart for The Wire magazine. Starring a guest vocal from none other than Big Youth on the seven minute discomix of standout 'Joy', 'Dubs Unlimited' is a dub album done in reel-skool style at Breadwinner's all-analog Bakery Studio. Composer, producer, and recording/mixing engineer Al Redfern also mans the majority of instruments - drums, bass, keys, guita… Read more

Sublime newness from the architect of that Cocteau Twins sound, now flying solo on Darla. You know what to expect with a Robin Guthrie record and our expectations are paid in full with 'Fortune'; ten tracks of trademark painterly guitar expression from a true master craftsman. Imagine necking a handful of valium and riding a flying segway with Raymond Briggs' snowman over xmas-time Yorkshire and you've got the gist of his magic here.

**Numbered edition of 1000 housed in die-cut and foil-blocked jacket with insert** Doom rock pioneer, influential drone-master, occultist and professed anglophile, Dylan Carlson ov Earth comissioned by the Southern studios on 16th April, 2012 to record six covers and one original song, found on his latest Drcarlsonalbion issue. Accompanied by Teresa Colamonaco on vocals and Jodie Cox on guitar, 'La Strega and The Cunning Man In The Smoke' continues a progression from his ace instrumental recordings for The Tapeworm to the more recent, collaboration-oriented wo… Read more

The latest from microsound pioneer and LINE boss Richard Chartier is a re-imagining of probably his best-known work, 2000s ‘Series’, which incidentally was the inaugural LINE release. Since 2011 Chartier has worked on revisiting elements of ‘Series’ and reworking them into ‘Recurrence’, which was intended to be able to be performed in the live environment. One of the drawbacks of ‘Series’ was that its character left it almost ‘unperformable’, so this re-visitation of the source material was out of necessity more than anything, but the results are nothing short of breathtaking. Opening with … Read more

Look sharp, it's a brand new album from Cherrystones - his first such outing since 2010's Whatever We Want LP, My Snow Does Not Melt (as Godsy). The peerless digger and all-round sleaze connoisseur brings some of the seedy, manic energy of his Jigoku mix CD-Rs and "visual mixtapes" to bear on this beat-oriented, painstakingly constructed set, and each track has such a unique vibe going on that it makes more sense to highlight individual ones rather than generalise: 'Honeys Pot' weds stinging acid lines to a low-slung G-funk break, 'Dirty Washing' is a very Godsy collage of Easte… Read more

**Exceptional collection of fruity, futuristic West African disco heat. Housed in gatefold slipcase with liner notes written by Uchenna Ikonne** "Soundway Records present '24 Hours in A Disco 1978 - 82', 7 cuts of relentless disco grooves from the sublimely gifted Kiki Gyan. Hailed as Africa's answer to Stevie Wonder, Ghanaian multi-instrumentalist Kiki Gyan was a musical wunderkind who by 1975 had risen from the lowly status of high school dropout to being ranked eighth in a poll of the greatest keyboardists in the world (occupying the rarefied air of the top ten with heavyweight… Read more

*CD packaged in a deluxe slipcase including a 36 page booklet* It can't be easy following a record as beguiling as 2008's genre-defying 'The Drift', but pounding to life with the incessant woodpecker percussion of album opener 'See You Don't Bump His Head', it's clear that 69-year-old Scott Walker has shock and awe in mind. He's never been an artist who's struggled with originality, and 'Bish Bosch' takes his aural cubism even further than ever before with confusing instrumentation and some of his finest vocal work to date. Where its predecessor profited from a hoarse, growling electronic back… Read more

*Domino Reissue* How do you follow a near-perfect album? By edging even closer to perfection. Julia Holter hasn't allowed herself to be cowed by the success of her acclaimed 2011 album Tragedy, instead producing another pellucid, beautifully composed and sequenced LP for head and heart. On Ekstasis, her first album for New York's RVNG Intl., Holter's vocals are given a central role throughout. The arrangements are more open and "pop" than those of Tragedy, but not at the expense of musical complexity or eccentricity. By now you'll probably have heard lead single, 'Marienbad… Read more

We can't believe it's taken this long for Fabric to mobilise Zip into delivering a mix for their banner series. Here it is, anyway, and the Perlon co-founder's forensically detailed, keenly swung house sound is coming over as fresh and effective as ever. He was one of the true architects of noughties minimal, but to his credit, and wisely, he's always shied away from the limelight, happy to be known as the DJ's DJ; as such he's never really grown tiresome in the way that some of his peers and proteges have. Fabric67 starts out tougher than you might expect, with the stripped EBM-lite of Vedomir's 'Dr… Read more

The man jointly responsible for the Buddha Machine steps forth with a debut solo album exploring the space between ambient and neo-classical musics. Christian was born in Hong Kong, schooled and classically trained in South China and resides in Beijing, where he founded one of China's pioneering noise acts, FM3. 'Fistful Of Buddha' draws upon this experience and a worldly knowledge of outré sonics to meld Eastern and Western instrumentation with a contemplative sophistication. Slow moving repetition and incremental evolution is key to his sound here, opening expansive spaces where w… Read more

"The essential contemporary guitar anthology series continues. Since 2005, Tompkins Square label's 'Imaginational Anthem' compilations have featured some of the greatest acoustic guitarists in the world, with recordings spanning five decades. More than mere samplers, these albums have served as state-of-the-art dispatches from the front lines of the art form. The first three volumes, available as a low-priced box set, intermingled generations of American Primitive players - lost, forgotten masters next to contemporary players. Volume 4 saw a departure from that… Read more

Sasu Ripatti returns to Raster Noton, further engaging a world of fluid yet knotty rhythm experiments and spectral dub. It's a logical step forward, unzipping the breathless concatenations of 'Vantaa' and greasing his unfathomably sequenced beats until they slyp, slyde, glyde and roll in stunningly fluid, freeform syncopation. The emphasis of 'Kuopio' is corporeal, teasing and seducing the body with patterns that envelope, playfully calibrate and gratify the nervous system in a manner recalling Merce Cunningham's comments on the compatibility of electronic music and expressive dance. Of course, … Read more