Beats News

The long awaited third album from much loved vintage synth maestros Billy Bainbridge and Mike Johnston, finally finds its home on Ghost Box Records. This is unironically joyful and melodic electronica; informed by library music, music for children’s TV and a deep passion for the history of music technology.

Plone are very much part of Ghost Box’s DNA. They were a central part of the 90s retro-futuristic scene in Birmingham that included Broadcast and Pram and to which the label has always had strong ties through graphic designer and co-manager, Julian House. They are also cited by the label’s other boss, Jim Jupp, as a major influence on his work as Belbury Poly.

The band was formed as a three-piece in the mid-90s and their debut single, Press a Key, was championed by John Peel. The first album, For Beginner Piano, was released on Warp Records in 1999. Their warm, witty and unfunky music stood out from the crowd, almost in defiance of the moody and masculine post-rave electronica of their contemporaries.

A selection of bootlegged demos from the early 00s was rumoured to be the follow up album, but it never materialised. After that Billy went on to tour with Broadcast and later formed Seeland with another former band member Tim Felton (also of Ghost Box’s Hintermass). Meanwhile Mike formed the ZX Spectrum Orchestra, released solo singles as Mike in Mono and was a member of The Modified Toy Orchestra.

Twenty years on and Plone have reconvened as a duo with a third album, Puzzlewood. It’s compiled from material recorded at various points since the “lost album”, right up to the present day.

It’s a dark, moody affair, populated by 17 nuanced neon-noir synth score cues for a film not yet made. There are moments when this album flows like the Cliff Martinez-Makeup and Vanity Set collaboration that never was, and others when ’80s Vangelis shines through. There are other instances that tend to sound like something released on Burning Witches Records or, yes, like the work of John Carpenter. But it’s never derivative of any of those composers, instead somehow blending all their better angels into something rich and rewarding for the listener.

The entire world of Darkly Dreaming – disturbances that shift about like cold specters at night and which sit uncomfortably on our chests like anthropomorphised anxiety - manifests intensely through each haunting synth run, shuddering rhythm, and reverberated guitar part on the album’s 17 engaging, unsettling, and slightly hopeful tracks.

WAYS OF SEEING is a beautifully produced and melodically rich suite of electronic pieces from The Advisory Circle and was inspired by late 70s and early 80s melodic electronic library music.

The Advisory Circle is the work of Jon Brooks, melodic and often melancholic electronic music inspired in part by soundtracks and library music of the 70s and 80s. Brooks is a stalwart of the Ghost Box label and an extraordinarily prolific artist. He has released five albums and four collaborative singles as The Advisory Circle. He also records as The Pattern Forms with Ed Macfarlane and Edd Gibson of Friendly Fires.

He works with vocalist Tim Felton as Hintermass, and along with Ghost Box founder Jim Jupp he is half of The Belbury Circle. Under his own name and several pseudonyms, he has released albums on Clay Pipe Music and his own Café Kaput label. Before joining the Ghost Box family in the early 00s Brooks recorded for Lo Records as King of Woolworths.

As a producer and mastering engineer, Brooks is a contributing presence on most Ghost Box releases. He has years of experience as a commercial and library composer and his mastering and audio restoration skills are much in demand, particularly on re-issue labels such as Trunk Records.

The CD&LP packaging is designed by Julian House. Elegantly simple artwork and typography, reminiscent of 80s photographic manuals and magazines, is rendered on metallic gold foil packaging. The heavyweight vinyl LP includes a free download card.

The Art of Sleeping Alone marks somewhat of a curveball within Burning Witches ever-growing catalogue, and fans of the label's output may wish to look away now. But they'd be wrong to, of course, because nothing is that simple. Nothing!

Oh Baby are Rick Hornby and Jen Devereux - distant cousins, apparently, who met in unexpected circumstances and began creating exquisitely crafted bitter-sweet 80s-sounding pop songs (that in a parallel dimension would be sung by Carly Rae Jepsen and be soundtracking sweaty end-of-summer evenings across the globe).

The band cite influences ranging from Grace Jones, A Certain Ratio and Kraftwerk, to John Carpenter, The Police and Fun Boy Three, but I'm going to chuck HAIM in there too for a more modern reference point to what some of this music reminds me of, certainly on the fabulous 'Part of the 80's' anyway.

After releasing her sophomore album Inner Song in the midst of the pandemic, Kelly Lee Owens was faced with the sudden realisation that her world tour could no longer go ahead. Keen to make use of this untapped creative energy, she made the spontaneous decision to go to Oslo instead. There was no overarching plan, it was simply a change of scenery and a chance for some undisturbed studio time. It just so happened that her flight from London was the last before borders were closed once again. The blank page project was underway.

Arriving to snowglobe conditions and sub-zero temperatures, she began spending time in the studio with Lasse Marhaug. An esteemed avant-noise artist, Marhaug envisioned making music that would fall loosely in line with Throbbing Gristle. Kelly, on the other hand, had planned to create something inspired by Enya, an artist who has had an enduring impact on her creative being. They met each other halfway, pairing tough, industrial sounds with ethereal Celtic mysticism, and creating music that ebbs and flows between tension and release.

One month later, Kelly called her label to tell them she had created something of an outlier, her ‘eighth album’.

After releasing her sophomore album Inner Song in the midst of the pandemic, Kelly Lee Owens was faced with the sudden realisation that her world tour could no longer go ahead. Keen to make use of this untapped creative energy, she made the spontaneous decision to go to Oslo instead. There was no overarching plan, it was simply a change of scenery and a chance for some undisturbed studio time. It just so happened that her flight from London was the last before borders were closed once again. The blank page project was underway.

Arriving to snowglobe conditions and sub-zero temperatures, she began spending time in the studio with Lasse Marhaug. An esteemed avant-noise artist, Marhaug envisioned making music that would fall loosely in line with Throbbing Gristle. Kelly, on the other hand, had planned to create something inspired by Enya, an artist who has had an enduring impact on her creative being. They met each other halfway, pairing tough, industrial sounds with ethereal Celtic mysticism, and creating music that ebbs and flows between tension and release.

One month later, Kelly called her label to tell them she had created something of an outlier, her ‘eighth album’.

New World Science's Osmos (Movements) is a sincere foray into forth-world fantasy, where disparate synthesizer styles are tied together by harmonized saxophone musings. Comprised of four recordings/jams between Francis Latreille (Priori-mastermind behind the project), Adam Feingold (Ex-Terrestrial), and Emmanuel Thibau, and featuring appearances by Phoebe Guillemot (Ramzi) and Richard Wenger (R Weng), these multi-stream compositions float in the uncertain spaces between electronic and acoustic, improvisation and production, old and new. Beautiful, subtle, and entrancing compositions suited to suborbital meditations.

New World Science's Osmos (Movements) is a sincere foray into forth-world fantasy, where disparate synthesizer styles are tied together by harmonized saxophone musings. Comprised of four recordings/jams between Francis Latreille (Priori-mastermind behind the project), Adam Feingold (Ex-Terrestrial), and Emmanuel Thibau, and featuring appearances by Phoebe Guillemot (Ramzi) and Richard Wenger (R Weng), these multi-stream compositions float in the uncertain spaces between electronic and acoustic, improvisation and production, old and new. Beautiful, subtle, and entrancing compositions suited to suborbital meditations.

Lunar Disko is delighted to present a new release from cult soundtrack producer, Heinrich Dressel.

Five tracks of synthesizer beauty from a master of the modern Giallo electronic sound.

Perfection...for your late-night promenade excursion.

"Re-Calibrate", the companion piece to Donoso's 2018 acclaimed album "Calibrate" continues to obfuscate any clear definition of genre or style and continues to push his music into stranger, more complex and extreme territories. Equal parts tender and twisted, cynical and honest, beautiful and obnoxious, ‘Re_Calibrate’ shines through as a major point in the composer’s discography – and provides a glimpse into the new directions being taken. ‘Re_Calibrate’ is a challenging listen; void of any trendy tropes or appeal for consumers of watered down, homogenized and dogmatic electronic music.

“Quicksilver frequencies, gravelly formants and shimmering, mirage-like washes of tone. Sometimes his sounds feel like signals picked up by a radio telescope, or pure electricity poured through a sieve” Pitchfork

With its saturated sounds, clipped beats and spacey pads, Walk Again opens a portal to a place full of mystery and promise.

Across 11 tracks, John Lord Fonda confirms that he is not only capable of writing techno bombs like We Can’t Breathe and Race For Nothing, but also breakbeat-tinged gems like Little Jazz.

The soaring melodies of Antarctica and Creme bring a dreamlike intensity to the project, while new-wave wannabee Together Again (featuring vocals by Gabriel Afathi of The George Kaplan Conspiracy) enlarges the musical horizon, planting its flag as an evolved piece of techno not afraid to mix genres.

Calmer moments such as Walk Again and A Descent Melody continue our journey into the richest of techno landscapes, where intriguing, fascinating tracks like They Will Fight For You.

Dazzling and cold, brutal and soft, the album marries a fluid, coherent mix of cerebral techno and poetic melodies, both calm and calming.

Walk Again, dance again, live again.

Premium solo material from Jordan CGZ (Magic Mountain High, Juju & Jordash). An unbounded trip around the producers musical universe. Sounds ranging from icy futuristic soundscapes to crunchy melodica techno workouts, Other-wordly Jazz explorations to hazy Rhodes washed Deep house memories.

“I feel that Jordan’s album is an innovative masterpiece that will stand the test of time” Terrence Dixon

Pressed In Detroit, MI , Artwork by Karl -Otto von Oertzen

Tony Rolando's debut »Breakin' Is A Memory« could be your soundtrack. This worldbuilding album of electronic music leaves room for the listener to make big personal connections through subtly complex music resembling a sonic mobile which, as it spins, reveals new forms and colors. This is a collection of very human music with a deceptive simplicity and relaxed intensity. RIYL early OPN, Alessandro Cortini, Caterina Barbieri, Tangerine Dream.

These is cleverly assembled music that you want to flip over and play again, like Rolando's recent cassette on Imprec's Cassauna label. As with all Imprec vinyl releases, great care has been taken to ensure that this is a high quality pressing with low noise floor and loads of sonic detail.

On "Breakin' is a Memory" Tony Rolando invites the listener on tiny adventures questing insignificant treasures. Minimal percussion only suggests rhythm, allowing your mind to wander the crystalline lattices Tony weaves from handfuls of simple arpeggios. Soft analog bass frequencies make your travels more comfortable and the Strega instrument, a recurring recognizable character, is there to lead when you are too lost. The pace of "Breakin' is a Memory" oscillates from restless roadway motion to meditative exploration. The record closes with a celebratory decimation of the graphic memories of these tiny adventures. Play it again to rekindle them.

For more than a decade, Tony Rolando has composed electricity into musical instruments at Make Noise. When he collaborated with Alessandro Cortini in 2019 to create the Strega instrument, the experience rekindled Tony's love of composing and recording music. In 2021 he released "Old Cool Echoes" with IMPORTANT Records/ Cassauna. A third release of music composed entirely for the Shared System instrument he designed will follow later this year.

Bliue Vinyl

Yamila reveals her most intimate catharsis in Visions, an album that brings together and provokes the hallucinatory powers of music. Like an ancient herald, she announces the profound feminine mystique while crossing epic melodies full of pleasure and pain. This album is a journey that prodigiously unites baroque accents, Spanish folklore – such as flamenco – and contemporary electronic music.

Her voice and music – sometimes torn and others buoyant – could resemble the score for a biblical passage (ie. visions of the Apocalypse), for they are overflowing with physical ecstasy and sounds that one can touch. Visions is composed of different forms and rhythms. Pieces like "Visions V" evolve intensely with sharp and systematized hits –– powerful layers that bring us closer to Alessando Cortini's Forse era. "Visions II", for its part, shares intensity and power with flamenco ritual patterns, as if it were an old Andalusian scene dripping with oscillations and electric shocks. Yet there are luminous vocal pieces such as "Visions I" (featuring Rafael Anton Irisarri), inspired by Manuel de Falla's Suite Española composed in 1922. Here, an aural chiaroscuro with beautiful voices and choirs is deeply fused with daring drones. And it is in the ensemble of moments of Visions where Yamila's conceptual axis is rendered solid. Pain and glory, lacerating religiosity, feminism cauterized by power, and hallucinations as a source (or pretext/tool) to be heard.

Yamila exhibits a profuse aesthetic with her music that calls for a look at the far-past with romanticism and nostalgia. Visions is radiant, intense. A unique album.

All songs written and performed by Yamila Ríos (Spain), except “Visions I”, which features Rafael Anton Irisarri. Recorded between the Swedish winter and the Belgian countryside. Additional musicians: Simbad guitar on V-IV and V-I, Vera Cavallin harp on VIV. Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio. NY. Photos by Virginia Rota in Madrid. Design by Daniel Castrejón in Mexico City.