Rafael Anton Irisarri – The Shameless Years [Umor-Rex]
Forged within the chaos that was the crossover between 2016 and the present year, Rafael Anton Irisarri’s The Shameless Years is an unabashed picture of emotion and feeling. Abandoning gentle subtlety in favour of gargantuan musical movement, the record is an extremely powerful portrayal of drone – ebbing and flowing in a way that will instantly strike a chord with fans of artists such as Tim Hecker.
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Sandy B – Amajovi Jovi [Invisible City Editions]
Canadian imprint Invisible City Editions comes back with another superb reissue in the form of Sandy B’s mid-90s ‘Amajovi Jovi’. The six track EP is awash with sounds of the era, seemingly taking particular inspiration from the G-Funk sound – the flute melody of ‘Student Mind’ and guitar flecks of ‘Party Time’ providing the strongest examples. Sitting comfortably around the 100BPM mark throughout, lumbering bass lines and airy synth pads provide a solid base for each songs more individual traits.
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Money Morning – Corporate Karma [Acting Press]
Recent weeks have seen two new releases from the much lauded German imprint Acting Press. All Rest No People, now with multiple production, writing and technical credits across the label’s back catalogue, again have a hand in two further releases: Accelera’s Surplus and Money Morning’s Corporate Karma. Glistening ambient soundscapes and frenetic, minimal percussion are the focal point of the latter, and make for an absolutely wonderful record six-track record. Having drawn comparisons to Likemind Records and Artificial Intelligence, and with Discogs prices already skyrocketing, Acting Press are seemingly well on their way to semi-cult status within electronic music folklore.
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XI – XI [Going Good]
Brian Not Brian’s Going Good imprint are the latest to secure the services of much sought after SUED and Sex Tags regular XI. The eponymous release is a dreamy, deep, loopy and distorted affair much like the rest of the producer’s work. Great stuff as always from the producer, never one to release a half baked record. As with all of XI’s work this will most likely fetch a pretty penny once it sells out so buy it quickly if it tickles your fancy!
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Kris Baha – Autora [Cocktail D’Amore]
Australian born Kris Baha brings a wealth of classic, 80s inspired sounds to Berlin based label Cocktail D’Amore – a five-track EP loaded with a wide range of industrial synth sounds. The aptly named ‘Happiness Disaster’ could easily feature in a B movie or the Stranger Things soundtrack, while the more techno focused title track ‘Autora’ and ’10ways’ provide the EP with a club focus readily associated with present day Berlin. It’s not all dark though; final track ‘Start Over’ is full of gorgeous melody and closes off the EP with the same mechanical 80’s feel, but with added hope.
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