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Baby Buddha is David Javelosa and musical partner Charles Hornaday playing instruments and providing their own whacked-out vocals. Baby Buddha really was less of a band than a project; a side project in fact, for some members of another group, Los Microwaves. Baby Buddha would eventually record and release an album, 1981's provocatively-titled Music for Teenage Sex on Robbie Fields' L.A.-based Posh Boy label.

Happily, the project's guiding creative light, David Javelosa has recently seen to a vinyl reissue of the now-40-year-old record, mystifyingly retitled Music for Teenage Sects. Definitely among the stranger releases of the new wave era, Music for Teenage Sex/Sects could perhaps only have been created when and where it was made. But on the occasion of its 40th anniversary, the music sounds as weirdly wonderful as ever. "We Are Not" sounds like Human League stuck in a car with The Residents. And their cover of "All Shook Up" sounds like a musical kin to those inscrutable eyeball guys too; it wouldn't be out of place on Meet the Residents. "Little Things" is a house-of-mirrors, scary track, with spoken-word vocals by Los Microwaves' Meg Brazill and label head Fields.

The album cover is slightly different as well: it displays a bedroom scene like the original LP, but with the young female model absent. The new release (on Javelosa's own Hyperspace Communications label) is pressed on beautiful translucent blue vinyl and comes in a gatefold sleeve with a lively collage of photos, buttons, gig posters. Limited to 500 copies.This playfully titled release features David Javelosa (on synth and vocals) along with Meg Brazill (on bass and vocals) plus drummer Todd "Rosa" Rosencrans. Side One features five studio tracks, none of which were included on the band's 1981 Posh Boy LP, Life After Breakfast. Three of these tracks were recorded in '82; there's no information regarding the provenance of the other two songs. The records' second side collects five live recordings, capturing Los Microwaves onstage in New York City (The Peppermint Lounge) and Boston as well as at San Francisco's own I-Beam, a venue that often played host to the band. Those tracks date form roughly the same ear, 1980-83. Sonically the songs variously recall Blondie, Flying Lizards, Gang of Four and a far less dour Human League. Importantly, the band rocks, even when it's employing a spare drum kit, solid but elemental bass, and monophonic analog synthesizers. The stripped down aesthetics of the group – necessitated by its minimalist instrumental approach – are nonetheless thrilling. Even if you weren't there in 1980, this'll take you back.

Aerials live, dials tuned, Transmission Towers broadcasting. On either side of the river Mersey, transcendental communications are traded back and forth. Two late-night revellers, one firing messages filled with music, the other returning them laced with lyrics. The result, a dopamine hit of oddball machine soul, melded with a highlife, Afrofuturist touch. Wonky and murky yet deeply emotional, Transmission One, is a debut album that also marks the first release on Luke Una’s É Soul Cultura label, encompassing expertly the off-kilter atmosphere the label sets to orbit.

A synthesised landscape with a Northern charm, Transmission Towers marry the musical worlds of two artists that last collaborated over a decade ago. 10 years have passed, lives have been led, but a gravitational pull has placed Mark Kyriacou and Eleanor Mante back in each other’s spheres on opposite sides of the city of Liverpool. Energised with a newfound desire to strip it all back to the sounds that influenced their formative years in the late ‘80s and ‘90s - astral travelling, intoxicated on Motor City techno, Black Dog IDM and mystical Sun Ra.

Mark half Irish, half Greek Cypriot, Eleanor half Nigerian, half Ghanian, the music contained within is an alchemy of those roots and the pivotal acts that buried deep into their minds. A cosmic contrast, part machine-made, part distinctly human. Take the opener ‘UP’, an ESG-channelling, sci-fi punk beatdown or the polychromatic hyperspace anthem ‘Roller Skater 23’.

Transportive throughout, you ride the solar waves, pace and emotion ebbing and flowing. Tracks like ‘Go Slow Heart’ and ‘Cosmic Trigger’ step to a slower beat but hit with a punch. The former, a slo-mo blast of celestial tenderness, the latter an otherworldly, chugged-out lunar excursion, micro-dosing on whacked-out Wah Wah and Eleanor’s ethereal vocals. Beaming love letters to space and back, ‘Sparse’ marries the organic with the artificial, pianos and percussion circling around synth pads and broadcasting bleeps.

Elsewhere, vibrations move faster. ‘Mega’ strikes, fusing sonic tribalism with psychedelic swirls, as ‘Everything’ sweeps you up in its extra-terrestrial new wave grip. Synth stabs and basslines fizzing from every angle.

Demos of Transmission Towers music surfaced on Luke Una’s radar, making him stop in his tracks. Something magical was emerging, perfectly aligned with the E Soul guardian’s tastes. Guidance followed, quickly turning into conversations about Transmission One becoming the first release on Luke’s own label.

Escapist and futurist yet grounded and relatable. Transmission One is synthesis meets sentiment with a deep, spine-tingling soul at its core.

UK duo Wrecked Lightship debut on Peak Oil with a six-track slate of cyber aquatic alien bass music as placeless as it is precise: Antiposition. Comprised of Laurie Osborne (Appleblim) and Adam Winchester (Dot Product), the pair share a fascination with destabilized rhythm and retro-futurist dreaming, smudging dub, drum n bass, synthetic tribalism, and kinetic sound design into fresh electronic frontiers.

Antiposition both refines and refracts the project’s vision. From wobbly interstellar ascension (“Hex”) and cavernous industrial dub (“Bizarre Servants”) to junglist murk (“Sunken Skies”) and fractal shuffle (“Diminished Ark”), Wrecked Lightship move between haze and hyperspace, mythos and mystery. It’s less deconstructed than reconstructed, fashioned from galactic debris and congealed by the gravity of outer spheres.

The post-industrial Ruhr-Area has been an indisputable part of Germany's techno landscape since the very beginning. More than 30 years after techno's golden era and after a manifold challenging pandemic, the scene and its sounds are blooming like never before. Ahmet Sisman and his project The Third Room can be described as key factors for both the area's ongoing, sustainable dedication to electronic music and its current success, being more and more embedded in cultural contexts and society overall.

It's unsurprising that the first album of Ahmet Sisman, the multitalented artist and man of action, is a well-considered mix of familiar and pioneering sounds, enriched by countless influences within and beyond technos constantly evolving sub-genre scenery. With a sophisticated 50/50 mix of four on the floor strikes and innovative breaks, Sisman manages to hit a sweet spot between raw but groovy, experimental but subtle nostalgia, melodious but noisy.

All this is already worthy of a listen, but placed in context, it perfectly fits the musical approach of the Ruhr-Areas biggest transcendental techno project - The Stone Techno Series and Festival. Like the bound-breaking release series of the last two years, 'The Third Space' maintains the metallic and fierce sound vision of a coal mining tradition with everlasting impact. The time travel through industrialization and renaturation continues here with T3R008 and gains a whole new dimension from Sisman's skilled handwriting.

Hyperspace will be Beck’s 14th album, following 2017’s Colors, which won Best Alternative Music Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical at the 61st GRAMMY Awards earlier this year. Hyperspace’s new dimensions in sound are the result of Beck’s most collaborative efforts to date. Seven of the album's 11 tracks—including single “Uneventful Days” and “Saw Lightning” (as featured in the Beats by Dr. Dre Powerbeats Pro campaign and also included with pre-orders)—feature co-writing and co-production from Pharrell Williams. Elsewhere in Hyperspace, “See Through” is co-written/co-produced by frequent Beck collaborator Greg Kurstin, “Star” is co-written/co-produced by Paul Epworth, “Stratosphere” features back-up from Chris Martin, the album’s title track features guest vocals from Terrell Hines, and “Die Waiting” is co-written/co-produced by Cole M.G.N. with backing vocals from Sky Ferreira. Longtime Beck bandmates Jason Falkner, Smokey Hormel and Roger Manning Jr. feature on much of the album as well.

"Black vinyl issue - Features 2 x unreleased songs ‘Dark Places (Soundscape)’ and ‘I Am The Cosmos (42420)’
Brand new 2020 mixes of ‘Star’, ‘Hyperspace’, ‘See Through’ and ‘Die Waiting’
+ ‘Uneventful Days’ (St. Vincent Remix)
+ ‘Saw Lightning’ (Freestyle Live)"

Three releases deep now, Shadow Play transports us back to the nineties with this extra special collection of music from UK wizard Scott Edward. The Bristolian producer dropped a killer series of tracks from 1993 onwards, using a variety of aliases to explore the realms of the techno universe. It's an honour for Shadow Play to be able to rerelease one of Scott's classics, 'Access Activist', alongside three previously unreleased cuts from the same era. We hope you enjoy these classic examples of British underground techno...On the A-side it's the Scott Edward alias that handles matters, going straight in with the title track 'Access Activist', a mesmerising journey into analogue hyperspace. His flair for composition and arrangement really comes through on this opening track, and leads us nicely into 'All Is Lost', a nifty slice of paranoid techno with a jittery rhythm and a pervasive air of mystery.On the flip Scott's Ultra-Modern Art moniker is at the controls and the change in style is immediately apparent. Gone is the cosmic atmosphere and in its place is a funky, jazzy retro sound. The old equipment gives every sound its authentic identity, which filters through to the final track 'Brave New World' - a jaunty number, which uses acid licks, an optimistic b-line and sweet percussion to provide a delightful end to the project.