MUSIC

International man of dub techno mystery, Shinichi Atobe returns to DDS with a new double album of pensile steppers and lip-smacking, feathered swang, a good 10 years since first crossing paths with Demdike Stare’s label - a massive RIYL for any heads into DJ Sprinkles, Red Planet, Mike Huckaby, Sususmu Yokota, Convextion, NWAQ.

 

 

For years people were convinced that Atobe was a well known artist (probably German) working incognito. Thanks to a flowery twitter feed, plus some interviews, all that distraction has been finally laid to rest. Still offering little in the way of biographical factoids, though, Atobe lets the music do the talking in typically emotively nuanced and special style on his 7th album ‘Discipline’, offering further refinements of prevailing, salient ‘90s deep house, dub techno and ambient scenes cultivated and pruned to near perfection.

 

 

Hailing a sensuality and feel for spaced movement that’s been lost to club music’s EQ arms race over the decades, he comes poised with a near ineffable lightness of being, flush with a newfound effervescence that’s come to define his work in recent years. There’s a real electro-acousmagique in-the-mix that conveys beautifully at low or high volume, elegantly guiding bodies in motion like little else. 

 

 

Atobe’s grasp of deferred gratification and tempered gravitas is really the key thing, carrying from the fluttering 8-bit melodies and purring techno bass of ‘SA DUB 1’ to tender beatdown and blushing FM chords, then into flirtations with hair-kissing trance like Convextion and AGCG gone Goa in ‘SA DUB 2’, thru brisk Red Planet techno and a sort of shoegazing, acidic panorama in ‘SA DUB 5’, defining Terrence Dixon-esque levels of Motor City mechanical nous on ‘SA DUB 6’, and into the subaquatic, pearlescent dub house promise of ‘SA DUB 7’. 

 

 

Chef’s kisses, all the way.

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"This cassette is a promo mix that we originally sold in high school to promote the parties my friends and I did back then (The Witch Is Back); M.O.A. Productions, Frantik Party Productions, some of my earliest House crews.

We (Marky P, DJ Juice, DPC, James) did underground house parties in basements and around while in high school. The mix is a fusion of Chicago house, and also the European minimal techno that was coming into Chicago back then. A timestamp on our histories, early roots and what we love."

— Mark Grusane

Conna Haraway follows Spatial Fix with Shifted, a three-track 12” that turns toward propulsion and restraint. Where the earlier record sprawled in dense textures, this one explores sleek momentum and subtle form. Side A holds ‘Redirect’, an eleven-minute collaboration with XENIA REAPER. Built from a late-night Glasgow jam, her luminous synth line drifts against Haraway’s bass and loops, gliding into weight and pulse. On the flip, ‘Detach’ and ‘Duration’ channel a rediscovered love of 4x4 techno. Stripped and detailed, they balance home-listening depth with club-ready swing—poised, fluid, and adaptable. Fans of the Basic Channel axis, Deepchord, echospace [detroit] etc. should check this for sure. Matthew Kent's Short Span label never misses!!

人気作『風物詩』や『In A Landscape』といった実験的テクノの大傑作でも知られるベルリン拠点のサウンド・アーティスト、Sa Paの最新12インチ作品が新鋭レーベル〈Short Span〉から登場！この人の特徴である幻想的で重厚な音響が4つの新たな方向へと展開。サブベースと濁ったアトモスフィアが絡み合う8分間のビートレス・トリップ"Captigon"、グリッドレスなドラムパターンと断片的なヴォーカルサンプルが交錯する抽象的なリズムトラック"So Simple"、13分に及ぶミニマル・テクノのグルーヴに熱処理されたベースラインが絡む"Boredom Memory (Extended Memory)"（サブウーファーでの再生が推奨！）など、全体を通して、ダブ・テクノ、アンビエント、実験音楽の要素が融合し、内省的で深遠な音世界を構築した秀逸タイトル！

Long-hidden dub recordings from Nick Barber, better known as Doof and celebrated as a pioneer of ’90s UK trance, finally see vinyl release via esteemed imprint Mysticisms. Spanning four tracks brimming with immediacy and raw energy, each piece was captured through live desk dubbing and on-the-fly improvisation. Title cut “Love Dub So” reworks Augustus Pablo’s classic riddim into a fusion of ambient drift and heavyweight bass pressure. The variations that follow—“Mantra,” “Skunked On Planet Dub,” and “Sticks And Stones”—stretch across dub house, trip-hop, and breakbeat, channeling the fervor of the UK underground at its peak. Mastered anew from the original tapes, this release encapsulates the true essence of dub where tradition and experiment collide.

From False Aralia—the cutting-edge dance imprint that branched out from leftfield powerhouse Peak Oil and has recently become a quiet obsession among core techno heads—comes the fourth entry in their series, a 4-track release by the mysterious electronic sound artist Iri.gram. Evoking the chaos of traffic in noise and grounded in glacial minimal electronics, the record interweaves staccato rhythms with subtle fluctuations. Traversing deep techno, dub ambient, and rhythmic noise, this is a striking experimental soundscape work not to be missed.

1993 debut album by the trio of Andrew Weatherall, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns. Unavailable on vinyl and CD since original release. Remastered from the original tapes by Matt Colton, contains “Smokebelch II (Beatless Mix)” for the first time on the 2LP edition.

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This is the second album after the transfer of the company, which was released in 1995, and is a compilation of songs created between 1990 and 1994. The album is a work that encompasses the dichotomy and diversity of the Aphex Twin, with acid, noise, and broken beats that could be described as "drill'n'bass," while following the ambient, IDM, and hardcore techno of the early days. The album contains 12 tracks, including the single "Ventolin," which is a strong industrial downtempo explosion, and "Alberto Balsalm," a song that is often mentioned alongside "Xtal. 180g vinyl.

Detroit dub techno and ambient dub legend Rod Modell returns with a reissue of his 2014 Deepchord masterpiece on Soma Quality Recordings. Across two weighty yet spectral cuts, the release embodies his lineage to Basic Channel while expanding into a uniquely immersive emotional space. Rarely has Modell so explicitly foregrounded spectral vocal textures, marking this as a work that broadens his expressive scope. A true masterstroke—poised between meditation and the club, equally attuned to the shadows of the midnight city and the depths of inner emotion.

For AI-38 Italian duo LF58 (Giuseppe Tillieci and Filippo Scorcucchi) present ‘Radials’. A site-specific concept piece that was recorded live on location in Venice, Radials showcases the powerful and transportive sound world which LF58 have become known for. Radials takes its name from the homonymous exhibition created by the Roman artist group Sbagliato, for the 2023 Biennale Architettura of Venice. Following a landmark renovation of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi by renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, Sbagliato proposed the spatial transformation of the historic sixteenth-century building that would blur the lines between fiction and the real. The concept, to create unexpected “voids” within the fixed order of architecture, prompts the observer to question the fleeting and subjective nature of the reality that surrounds us. The building’s main loggia – a series of five archways exposed to the Canal Grande – take on a theme of reproduction and multiplication, giving rise to infinite perspectives in a dizzying mise en abyme. Through the portal-like potentialities of the loggia, the visitor enters the gateway to a fluid realm of distorted time and space. LF58 arose to translate the visual concept of Radials into sound, delivered through a special quadraphonic concert performed at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in October 2023. Quadraphonics, with its four distinct audio channels, were used in direct correlation with the visual elements of the installation to immerse the audience in a dreamlike, multisensory experience. The opening scene of running waters and the cacophony of the bustling city streets quickly dissolves under the chiming of nearby bells, as hidden liminal spaces become revealed. It’s not long before all remnants of the ordinary are left behind, as the listener is submerged into the shimmering frequencies of parallel dimensions. A spatial soundscape of ever-moving forms and colours, Radials descends into ever-deeper waters. As the facade of what was once known falls away, a transportive journey of mind-body alterations begins.

The euphonic tics of E-Saggila's music are typically found in symbiosis with the exacting intensity of her rhythmic arrangements, as meticulously deranged as they are. 'Gamma Tag' refreshes expectations by making more space for melodic conditioning and inculcation, whipping ultraviolet harmonics into uncanny plains for a wide range of tempos and cadences. While breaks remain staccato hammers, and kicks are cast to negate cardiac systems, E-Saggila's modulation of rhythmic dynamics is more pronounced, affording a resonance and balance that had previously been mentioned but not yet entirely explored. On more measured pieces, such as 'Amnesiac' and 'Tick', the searing digital signal envelops the horizon line, twisting the mechanics of the tracks until they burst with electromagnetic nectar.

A DJ, producer and significant figure in contemporary electronic music, Marcel Dettmann steps forward to contribute to Running Back’s ongoing Mastermix series. Whereas previous editions of Mastermix have taken an ear to the sound of lapsed, legendary clubs such as Wild Pitch and Front, Dettmann’s curation deftly captures the man himself in ongoing perpetual motion, raiding the vault for his own precision-tooled edits, long-employed on dancefloors to devastating effect. Alongside a continuous mix, this release arrives as a 3LP gatefold, and as a limited edition cassette. Closely associated with Berlin’s techno landscape, Dettmann was born and raised in the former GDR, then later immersed in the bleary-eyed counter cultural landscape of post-unification Berlin. Initially oriented by post-punk, industrial and new-wave music, Dettmann has been DJing since 1993, always expanding and perfecting his repertoire. He later began working behind the counter at the city’s tastemaking rave boutique Hard Wax, and a decade after he first dropped a needle, became (and remains) resident at notable local nightspot Berghain/Panorama Bar, where his instincts have helped sculpt the signature sound of both main dancefloors. Of course, you’re probably not asking, “Who is Marcel Dettmann?” More importantly, you might want to know; just what treats has he gifted us here? The trip begins with a simple pitch-shift skywards, transforming Identified Patient’s creeping ‘The Female Medical College of Pennsylvania’ into a peak-time freakout, before an alternate take on Toctronic’s ‘Bis uns das Licht vertreibt’ emerges from the vaults for the first time. Dating from 1995, and one of Dettmann’s all-time favourites, Cristian Vogel’s ‘Untitled’ clambers back into the box with respectable cuts, while John Bender’s ‘Victims of A Victimless Crime’ kicks off the flip sporting a new arrangement, transporting us back to the foundations of a confident, stripped-back sound. A few subtle edits to Clark’s perilously funky ‘Dirty Pixie’ takes us to Dettmann’s remix of Junior Boys. Produced in 2010, it transposes the Canadian duo’s sophisticated pop with our curator in his minimal prime, and has since become an irresistible prize for high-minded diggers. The same can be said for Experimental Products’ explosive proto-electro anthem ‘Who Is Kip Jones?’, empowered from pricey Discogs purgatory with just the slightest of tweaks. It’s deservedly sandwiched between the guiding influences of Chicago and Detroit in the form of Mutant Beat Dance’s raw ‘The Human Factor’ and a shimmering new version of previous solo production ‘Water’, featuring close friend and Ostgut Ton ally, Ryan Elliot. The second half of the Mastermix seamlessly connects the mechanical past and digital present of EBM and industrial in the dance, with Dettmann’s instincts as a guiding hand. Severed Heads’ iconic ‘We Have Come To Bless This House’ emerges with mere nips and tucks, while Nitzer Ebb’s ‘Shame’ is significantly reimagined as a highwire act of rhythm and tension, setting up a sensual second take on a 2017 remix of ‘Limbo’ from Swiss synth heroes, Yello. Core musical memories are shaken and stirred with a context-shifting take on Frank Duval’s emotional classic ‘Ogon’, while Ian North’s ‘Sex Lust You’ and Ford Proco’s notable Coil collaboration ‘Expansion Naranja’ effectively throb with only minor adjustments, respectfully imagined as “shadow versions”. Meanwhi le, a simple breakbeat lifts Albert Kuningas’s ‘Astraalprojektio’ in the direction of wide-eyed dancefloors, while a fresh take on K-Alexi Shelby’s ‘Season of The Real’ inexplicably emerges somehow even funkier than before. The conclusion of the compilation leads back to Das Tier from the prolific experimentalist Conrad Schnitzler, whose swirling synths and hypnotic vocals are duly tightened by Dettmann, but only as he puts it, “in conversation with the original.” Concluding three discs and thirty years of commitment to the dancefloor, this Mastermix not only offers us the opportunity to eavesdrop on this endless exchange, but to gain some sought-after material for our own record collections.

King of the house swingers (and shufflers, jackers, buckers) kicks off his bloodlines whitelabel series with two long sides of sweaty jams that act as a counterpart of sorts to that recent BLOOD LIVE tape, sniping groove-riding killers for the canny DJs.

The near half hour session portrays MJB deep in the flow in a way that seamlessly elides and blurs distinctions of his signature, jazz-taught and tracky studio and DJ tekkerz with mesmerising finesse.

Side A is a real killer, chopping out 15 minutes in transitional flux between multiple elements and nailing the in-the-blend, 3rd track effect as it snakes from salsoul hustle to a purring Motor City mode and riff-riding Prescription vibes.

Side B yokes back to big-boned, pendulous and tracky business glazed with glyding keys and pumping bass echoing Norm Talley, and switching up half way to a ruggeder offbeat tipping a cap at Theo.

“A mesmerizing Japanese ambient techno masterpiece that that completely rewires how you perceive music” Electronic Beats A Mountainous Masterpiece. A powerful testament to rave culture’s establishment and the birth of a new scene in Japan emerging in the mid ‘90s. One of Yokota’s most celebrated work that merges Japanese new age and minimal techno. Alex From Tokyo Prat (Japan Vibrations, world famous, Paris) On July 26th Susumu Yokota’s venerated 1994 classic ‘Acid Mt. Fuji’ is reissued in expanded, deluxe fashion, as part of the 30th anniversary celebrations of the label that originally presented it. Japan’s Musicmine – specifically it’s electronic subsidiary Sublime – released the album on June 29th 1994, simultaneously with Ken Ishii’s ‘Reference To Difference’, as their inaugural joint offering. ‘Acid Mt. Fuji’ is an enchanting mix of mystical ambient acid and futurist minimal techno, taking the listeners on a psychedelic pilgrimage, where 303, synths and electronic percussion are scented with reverb, echo and forest recordings. Merging Japanese new age and sparse electronica, the recording is free, organic, and energized – proffering a unique blend of early 90s western styles and the essence of his home country. Yokota originally planned an ambient record, but ‘Acid Mt. Fuji’ evolved into a concept work featuring the Roland TB-303, which he recorded live at home alongside a sampler, yielding experimental and innovative results. The long player found its muse in the famed 18th-19th century artist Hokusai’s red rendition of Mt. Fuji, known as ‘Red Fuji’ or ‘Akafuji’. Part of the painter’s renowned ‘Thirty Six Views of Mt. Fuji’ series from the 1830s, ‘Red Fuji’ depicts the iconic sacred mountain aglow in red at dawn, symbolizing spirituality and creativity. With references to Japanese folklore, nature and shrines, tracks like ‘Kinoko’ and ‘Meijijingu’ invite the listener to immerse themselves in the album’s spiritual depths. Yokota’s own homage-to-Hokusai drawing graces the record’s cover, and was inspired by the concept of wa (harmony) – highlighting his diverse skills not only as a musician, but an artist and designer too. ‘Acid Mt. Fuji’ is a powerful testament to the establishment of rave culture in Japan, which rapidly developed within just two years, from 1992 to 1994. Largely due to praise for the breathtaking originality of the LP, within this burgeoning national techno scene, Yokota rose to prominence as one of its key figures. He then became one of the most renowned artists to emerge from his homeland and enter the global electronic pantheon. He inspired a new wave of Japanese producers and DJs, contributing significantly to the growth of the techno movement in Japan. Yokota was a solitary figure, an artist who expressed his life through the continuous creation of music. For those seeking something different; mystical, soothing, pristinely ergonomic and uniquely Japanese, this record stands as iconic as Mt. Fuji itself. - This triple vinyl Deluxe Edition includes the original album’s eleven tracks alongside five raw and jacking rare gems, available on wax for the first time, which were previously included only in the Japanese 2016 Deluxe Edition CD. There are also two digital-only bonus tracks. One is a live performance by Yokota, titled ‘Live at Shibuya Beam Hall’, which was recorded at Sublime Records’ label launch party, held in September 1994. It was previously only released on the aforementioned 2016 Japanese CD edition. This event, titled ‘Sublime Records Presents New Style of Electronic Ambient Party’ featured performances by Susumu Yokota, Ken Ishii, Yoshihiro Sawasaki, Speedy J and DJ Wada. This ten minute long, rare live recording captures Yokota playing a dynamic, fast paced acid house live jam, using two TB-303s and a drum machine. The other digital only bonus track is an alternative version of ‘H’, which was discovered recently whilst excavating a DAT. The liner notes are written by DJ/producer Alex From Tokyo, who was a good friend of Yokota, and experienced the 90s Tokyo club scene first-hand as an insider. His compilation ‘Japan Vibrations Vol. 1’ captures this golden era, and features music by Prism (Susumu Yokota), Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono, Yasuaki Shimizu, Quadra (Hiroshi Watanabe) and more.

On his second album MUTANT, Moroccan producer Guedra Guedra sculpts irresistible rhythms and sounds from his analogue synths and drum machines, blending them with percussive fragments, field recordings from Morocco, Tanzania, Guinea and more, gathered while travelling across the vast landmass.

MUTANT explores themes of identity, Pan-Africanism, Afrofuturism, and decolonization, bridging the musical heritage of the continent with elements of techno, bass music and dub. “I created something energetic, where I could find my freedom to compose,” Abdellah says. “I wanted to have a cultural sound that explored innovation with African and diasporic music alongside the vibes of rhythm and the vibes of bass.” The songs on

MUTANT celebrate the wealth of African polyrhythmic forms and also challenge how this richness has long been marginalized by technological tools and systems of thought shaped by Western logic and models of standardization.

At the latest with the release of the albums "Zauberberg" and "Königsforst", in the mid-1990s, one associates GAS, Wolfgang Voigt's very own artistic cross-linking of the spirit of Romanticism and the forest as an artistic fantasy projection surface, with intoxicatingly blurred boundaries of post-ambient infatuation and the impenetrable thicket of abstract atonality. The distant, iconic straight bass drum marching through highly condensed, abstract sounds taken from classical music by the sampler or modulated accordingly, and the enraptured gaze through pop art glasses into the hypnotic thicket of an imaginary forest, manifested over the years this unique connection of audio and visual, which to understand fully, then as now, would be neither possible nor desirable.

Quite the opposite. The album GAS - DER LANGE MARSCH once again invites us to follow the deep sounding bass drum, to give in to its irresistible pull into a psychedelic world of 1000 promises. In the process, the journey leads us past stations of memories sounding from afar, from "Zauberberg" to "Königsforst" and "Pop", from "Oktember" to "Narkopop" and "Rausch", back and forth, now and forever.

Way. Destination. Loop. Forest loop.

Black Truffle is thrilled to begin 2025 with a rare solo release from Konrad Sprenger, alias of elusive Berlin composer-producer-instrument builder Jörg Hiller. A prolific collaborator, Sprenger has worked extensively with icons of American minimalism such as Ellen Fullman (with whom her recorded the gloriously eccentric song album Ort) and Arnold Dreyblatt (as a core member of the Orchestra of Excited Strings since 2009), as well as releasing their music on his impeccably curated label, Choose. As an instrument builder and installation artist, he has overseen the creation of a computer-controlled multi-channel electric guitar and, with Phillip Sollmann, a modular pipe organ system designed to be reconfigured from space to space. In much of Hiller’s work, a scientific approach to acoustic phenomena co-exists with a pop sensibility and a sly sense of humour. Nowhere is this unique combination more in evidence than in his slim body of solo work, beginning with the startling diversity of instrumentation and compositional approaches heard on the short pieces of Miniaturen (2006) and Versprochen (2009), followed by the more single-minded exploration of the computer-controlled electric guitar on Stack Music (2017). Set brings together these various strands of Sprenger’s work into a wildly infectious, playful epic, performed by the composer and the mysterious Ensemble Risonanze Moderne. On the LP’s second side, we are also treated to a guest appearance from longtime collaborator Oren Ambarchi, on whose recent solo releases Simian Angel and Shebang Sprenger has made key production contributions. Ambarchi’s signature stuttering, swirling harmonics weave through a sparkling assemblage of electric guitars, acoustic instruments, percussion and electronics—though, given the deft use that much of Sprenger’s recent production work makes of midi-controlled sampled instrumentation, it’s anyone’s guess where the acoustic ends and the digital begins here. As soon as the needle drops on the first side, we are inside a musical world that Set will inhabit for its 33 minutes: sparkling guitar harmonics and palm-muted notes, tuned percussion, crisp electronic drum hits, flashes of horns, and untraceable bursts of synthetic sound are arranged into a skittering polyrhythmic framework calling up the detail-rich percussive constructions of contemporary techno filtered through the pointillism of the post-serialist European avant-garde. Behind this shifting mist of particulate sound, winds and strings sound out held chords, reminiscent of Arthur Russell’s Tower of Meaning in their epic yet seemingly aimless drift. The relationship between elements is mysterious, appearing both carefully considered and almost random. Though never straying too far from where it begins, as the piece moves along, it spotlights increasingly bizarre instrument choices (shakuhachi and steel drums, anyone?) as well as momentary liftoffs into motorik propulsion. Set is a fascinating, mercurial thing: at once propulsive and fragmented, essentially static in form yet ever-changing in detail, unabashedly egghead in its construction yet sure to get the feet tapping.

Kohei Matsunaga aka NHKyx arrives on the Kasm wing of legendary Manchester label Skam with four cuts. Opening with the vibrant, joyous, intricate breakbeat techno of 'Filled With Vacuum' and a darker vision in the squirming 'Ancient Behave' on the A-side. Over on the flip, we get the melodic, squidgy 'Same Point Different Coordinate' propelled by flickering percussion, before the bubbling 'Formulated Rhythm 4s' rave signal from 20,00 leagues under the acid sea closed the EP in fine style.

“It’s just too easy to make a standard dance track,” Aphex Twin said of his mindset back in 1992. “You’ve got to put a bit of thought into it to get something a bit different.” ‘Digeridoo’ was released on the Belgian R&S Records label in 1992, and originally peaked at #55 in the UK singles chart in May of that year. Over the last 32 years the track has become one of the essential Aphex Twin tracks in a gargantuan catalogue that continues to amaze and inspire. “I wanted to have some tracks to play to finish the raves I used to play in Cornwall, to really kill everybody off so they couldn’t dance,” Richard D James, AKA Aphex, told Select magazine back in the 90s. “Digeridoo came out of that.” Released as a 4 track EP that also included early Aphex productions (now classics) including the industrial, acidic clang of ‘Flap Head’ and hyperbolic futurism of ‘Isopropanol’, the release cemented a relationship with the R&S label that went on to release the ‘Xylem Tube’ EP and the pivotal album ‘Selected Ambient Works 85-92’ in the same year. The label’s owner & A&R Renaat Vandepapeliere reflected “When I first heard Aphex Twin’s music I said, ‘This is it!’, and everybody else said, ‘You’re crazy!’ …a lot of the hardcore R&S fans dropped us. To them it wasn’t music.” ‘Digeridoo’ (Expanded Edition) is the first time the EP has been re-issued with extra material. Whilst digging in his DAT archive (allegedly stored in an airtight military ammo box), Richard James revisited the recordings, encoding them through a Nakamichi CR7e cassette deck, using the customised deck with vari-speed to encode at speeds “felt right at the time”. Alongside these CR7e versions, the original mixes have been remastered by Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven Mastering, offering a dilated insight into one of electronic music’s most endearing releases.

SIGNEND EP is bassist Keisuke Taniguchi's first solo release under the pseudonym TURLCARLY. This EP took us almost a year of lots of discussion, ideas, and drinking to release. The majority of tracks on the EP were composed using a computer, but his contrabass playing is featured on the track titled Sontrium. There exists lots of music that combines elements from various disparate genre. But I believe this EP, with its juxtaposition of danceable vibe and experimental atmosphere, has a completely unique and original sound that will give listeners new feelings and inspirations.

Guangzhou-based producer and DJ COLA REN released her debut LP, 'Hailu' in June 2023, a fulsome ambient, balearic, and downtempo brew with a gorgeous sense of melody and spirituality that offers a soothing escape. To celebrate the release, we have invited 8 talented musicians to the enchanting realm of ‘Hailu'. This remix compilation serves as a metaphorical exploration akin to the "Chakras," symbolizing the diverse energy centers within the human body. Through the collective reinterpretation of Hailu's original composition by 8 musicians, each imbuing it with unique hues and symbols, the remix reflects varied spiritual essences and elemental qualities.

This is a work synonymous with the Aphex Twin, featuring one of the most popular songs of their career, "Girl/Boy Song".

Cortex of Light, a notable Italian trio that includes the leftfield techno genius Piezo and the experimental ambient genius xàr num, has released their debut album from 3XL, the label headed by special guest DJ uon! A futuristic therapy sound where environmental sounds and electronic sounds intertwine. Drone sounds, deconstructed rhythms, and grids of drowsy reverberation are sewn together, and the sound seems to trace the membrane of the city. It is the afterimage of a club, the architecture of a sleepless night, and an optical abstract sound image. While resonating with mysterious labels such as bblissss, West Mineral, and Motion Ward, the unconscious underflow that is characteristic of 3XL runs throughout the entire album, making this a prayer for modern sounds.

Al Wootton samples a museum-worthy haul of vintage drum machines on this sick Library Record for his Trule label - big one for anyone into his work in Holy Tongue, or curios from Tolerance, Freedom To Spend, R.N.A. Organism. Tip!

Wootton was invited to Melbourne's Electronic Sound Studio where he got to work sampling their collection of rare vintage drum machines. And it's those boxes that laid the groundwork to 'Rhythm Archives', the prolific producer's most satisfying full-length to date. Wootton's been at this long enough to realise that restraint is the key, and playing with Holy Tongue has no doubt sharpened his skills. There's not much going on here, but that's what makes it so enticing - Wootton lets the machines set the pace for each track, and adds only the sparsest additional instrumentation for colour. On 'March', the plasticky beatbox pattern is fascinating because it's so weedy compared to the sounds of more modern machines - the kicks are like fingers on wet cardboard, and Wootton shadows them with bone-rattling rim shots, filling in the silence with cinematic piano twangs, white noise and a snake-charming flute.

In the wrong hands, this material would creep towards cringe - there's more than enough artists making canned library music or hauntological slop. But Wootton vaults over the pitfalls, staying on the right side of kitsch. The dissociated voices on 'Slow Rock' that shiver next to his new wave-patented Roland CR-78 take us to the seedy world of 'Liquid Sky', not the postmodern sampledelia that followed, and the footwork-inspired 150bpm whirr of 'Shuffle' is sneakily anachronistic, only echoing the Chicago genre's polyrhythmic patterns, not repeating them to the letter. Wootton does a good job staying away from very obvious genre signifiers; there's the character of each machine that's present, of course, but he sounds like he's trying to subvert the application, wondering how these decaying rhythms might react to his various processes.

If there's any real reverence here, it's for dub, and the genre's influence on everything that followed: post-punk, bleep techno, industrial music, whatever - Wootton sounds right at home threading tape echo trails thru his stuttering cycles. It's a love letter to the drum machine, and it doesn't lag for a moment.