Highlights
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Audiopile Review: Every new Biosphere LP demands to at least be considered for the inestimable honour that is Audiopile Record of the Week Status. How many electronic music projects could you say that of, let alone ones in the fourth decade of their existence? But here’s Norwegian ambient veteran Geir...
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Audiopile Review: Dutch producer Dave Huismans adopts ex_libris as his new moniker, dropping two EPs to help launch a new imprint of the same name. Probably best known as either A Made Up Sound or 2562, Huismans was a mainstay of the Tectonic imprint during their impactful years at the...
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Audiopile Review: Dutch producer Dave Huismans adopts ex_libris as his new moniker, dropping two EPs to help launch a new imprint of the same name. Probably best known as either A Made Up Sound or 2562, Huismans was a mainstay of the Tectonic imprint during their impactful years at the...
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Audiopile Review: Big Hands, the pseudonym of Italian-born/London-based producer Andrea Bonalumi, might not be an instantly recognizable name, but if you’ve dug into the more esoteric corners of our dance 12” section, then you’ve probably come across something of his. Labels like Blank Mind, Trule and his very own Baroque...
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Audiopile Review: Three years on from his last entry into the Acid Dub Studies series, Om Unit returns with a third volume, rounding out his heady exercises into a tidy trilogy. With each release, Om Unit still seems to find new corners to explore, revealing the endless uses and timeless...
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Audiopile Review: We associate Norwegian duo Deaf Center with the early 2000s drone scene. This was a time when Fennesz-style glitch and Sunn-y post-metal met the New Weird America uptown. It’s a dark, underappreciated corner of recent music history, so it’s a tonic to hear ‘Reverie’, Deaf Centre’s first album...
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Audiopile Review: There’s been plenty said about the post-Hype Williams scene that’s emerged out of the UK, one that’s warped hip-hop, R&B, jungle, ambient, and noise into something foggy, nocturnal, and emotionally resonant. Few artists fold it all of the above into their music like Rainy Miller. Since 2022’s arresting...
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Audiopile Review: Prince Far I is perhaps best known as the Voice of Thunder that graces so many On-U Sound releases. He is surely the most distinctive deejay in reggae history, and his commanding tones could be heard echoing through On-U releases long after his tragic death in 1983. Of...
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Audiopile Review: Who are the true English originals? Syd Barrett, Kate Bush, Mark Hollis, and of course the godlike Peter Hammill… But the great folk singer Shirley Collins MBE predates them all. Significantly, her newly reissued debut album, ‘Sweet England’ was released in 1959. There’s an invisible but highly audible...
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Audiopile Review: EM Records dusts off a gem from the lusted after Vanity Records imprint, SAB’s Crystallization, one of the earliest releases from the infamous Japanese imprint (#2, in fact) and one of the few full lengths not yet reissued after rarities from Aunt Sally, Tolerance, R.N.A. Organism and BGM...
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Audiopile Review: After a string of collaborative albums crafted alongside a sole producer—Maps with Kenny Segal, Church with Messiah Musik on the boards, and the Preservation-helmed Aethiopes—billy woods calls on what feels like the whole Backwoodz crew to mount one of the most impressively dense and masterful rap records of...
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Audiopile Review: Is it possible to be legendary and yet still underrated? Sure, look at the godlike Peter Hammill blah blah etc. etc. And then you have Mark Ernestus of dub-techno originators Basic Channel and Rhythm & Sound. In the almost two decades since the last new Rhythm & Sound...
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Audiopile Review: The second release from Ultraääni this week is from Ville Valavuo, a veteran of the Finnish punk and noise scene with a stacked resume ranging from guitarist, recording technician and visual artist across hundreds of releases. With little indication of his involvement in the world of jazz prior...
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Audiopile Review: A pair of new releases in from Ultraääni Records this week, the Finnish imprint keeping their undeniable hot streak alive. Largely made up of Finnish improv/jazz vets, plus the introduction of the fresh-faced hotshot drummer Veeti Hietala, Phardah further cement the Ultraääni signature of chaining improvisatory free jazz...
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Audiopile Review: To call Kara-Lis Coverdale a Canadian ambient music producer is not entirely inaccurate. But it does also sell her more than a little short. Coverdale is, in fact, a legit composer with global scope. Her latest album, ‘From Where You Came’ was recorded at two legendary electronic music...
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Audiopile Review: The 12” single is mostly associated with dance music. But, to some of us, the format is also closely linked to the wave of neo-psychedelic avant rock groups that came out of the UK in the late 80s and early 90s. Groups like Loop, whose ‘Twelves’ compilation makes...
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Audiopile Review: After gifting the world ML Buch’s 2024 breakthrough, the decade-defining Suntub, Copenhagen’s 15 Love imprint return with the debut LP from Raisa K, who might be best known as a member of odd-pop phenoms Micachu & The Shapes, (currently going by Good Sad Happy Bad). Affectionately...
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Audiopile Review: Remix albums can often feel redundant and easy to skip, even for fans. So when we heard Astrid Sonne's Great Doubt, one of our favourite releases of 2024, was getting the full edit treatment, we were a little apprehensive. Those nerves faded fast once we saw the roster—and...
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Audiopile Review: Somehow missed this Norwegian duo’s debut on XL four years back, but a new album on Escho, who are now required listening ‘round here, is one way to catch our attention. Indeed, the Copenhagen label has had their finger on the pulse of the underground alterna-pop scene of...
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Audiopile Review: Glasgow label co:clear follows up last year’s highlighted release from chantssss with the second full length from French producer Jonnnah, a relatively new name to us but someone who has been circling close in recent years (see their contribution to the 2022 Vapordub comp) before making this lateral...
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Audiopile Review: Tokyo’s DJ Trystero is a long-time store fave. We’ve been following his analogue-leaning dub-techno since his earliest releases on The Trilogy Tapes. Trystero’s latest album, ‘Cantor’s Paradise’, comes to us via Felt, the label we most associate with the moody ambient grit of Civilistjävel! Appropriately, ‘Cantor’s Paradise’ is...
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Audiopile Review: French digi-dub cosmonauts Froid Dub return with a new mini-album after their brief move to soundtrack work last year. With a few years lapsed since their last release proper, 2023’s towering Synch Unity, the duo have been sharpening their craft, each track is like a deployment of their...
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Audiopile Review: Kevin ‘The Bug’ Martin has always had eclectic interests. But some of his recent projects have been downright eccentric. We’re thinking mainly of ‘Black’ a Kevin Richard Martin album that deployed dark ambient soundscapes in tribute to (checks notes) Amy Winehouse. And while that album turned out to...
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Audiopile Review: Incredible new comp from House Rules, a rarely used sub-label of the long-running Goaty Tapes, a carefully curated set of new age and adjacent rarities hand-picked by label-head, experimental musician, visual artist and tireless digger Zully Adler. Comprised of impossibly rare tracks culled largely from cassettes privately issued...
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Audiopile Review: Who’s the greatest emcee of hip-hop history? Any answer is going to be considered controversial. But for our money, nobody’s done it better than the Wu-Tang Clan’s Ghostface Killah. He’s as at home with gritty crime narratives as he is with strings of bizarre non-sequiturs and baffling pop...
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Audiopile Review: Titling an EP ‘The Grand Designer’ might suggest the artist has a bit of a god complex. But then, On-U Sound’s Adrian Sherwood (for it is he what done the titling) is undoubtedly one of the truly godlike figures to emerge from the UK’s punk-straddling, genre-inclusive 1970s underground....
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Audiopile Review: Longtime readers of the weekly emails might recall us highlighting Manchester duo Celestial and their 2021 debut, I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night, an ethereal ambient-folk album that made subtle nods towards both Woo’s playful synth noodling and Durutti Column’s shimmering productions. If you were as...
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Folk, Highlights, Psych, Rock
Audiopile Review: After a couple limited expanded pressings, we finally get a long overdue standalone reissue of Would You Believe, Billy Nicholls’ incredible 1968 debut. This’ll be buy-on-sight for a few of you out there already familiar with the album’s lore but who maybe missed the small-run reissues. But the...
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Audiopile Review: Guitarist Mary Halvorson is one of the most vital jazz musicians working today. To an extent, she fits in with the atmospheric vibe of today’s ambient jazz revival. But she’s way too militant to fit any given template or produce anything that settles on being straightforwardly meditative. On...
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Audiopile Review: From an outsider’s perspective, the New York minimalism of Philip Glass and Steve Reich has only kinda been admitted to the classical music canon. Composers from Chopin to Schoenberg are constantly being reinterpreted by new hotshot soloists and conductors. But Glass and Reich’s seminal work remains tied to...
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Audiopile Review: There are legends and then there are legends. Like you, we love the godlike Peter Hammill. He’s a hooj ledge, obviously, but he’s also fundamentally a music nerd, who’s major influence has been on other music nerds. Only a handful of cult musicians have had an impact that...
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Audiopile Review: In horror, the most memorable figures are often the ones that take their time—creeping slowly, seeping into the audience’s psyche. Let Me Out, the latest from Fatboi Sharif and producer Driveby, channels that same slow-burning dread. It’s an album that unfolds at a steady pace, built on industrial...
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Audiopile Review: Instrumental hip-hop specialist J. Rawls hits the archives for his newest, culling some unreleased material recorded back when he was just getting started. Anticon nerds might recognize the name, Rawls collaborating with a pre-cLOUDDEAD Doesone back in the late ‘90s, eventually going on to become a prolific yet...
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Audiopile Review: There’s a surprising medievalism to some of the 21st century’s most next-level electronic music. We’re thinking about the air of rarefied religiosity hanging like a veil over Akira Rabelais’ deconstructed choral loops or Sarah Davachi’s sad drones. For more evidence of this trend, behold our record of the...
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Audiopile Review: Charlotte Marionneau aka Le Volume Courbe is a UK indie legend, despite being French and largely unknown. For those who do know, she’s mostly associated with the Creation Records milieu, especially My Bloody Valentine and Primal Scream. She has also worked with Piano Magic and that most foundational...
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Audiopile Review: The Australian-based duo of Wilson Tanner (Andrew Wilson and John Tanner) dish their 3rd LP and first in (checks calendar) six years?!? In a way it feels that they’ve never left, their folk-fronted, not-quite-jazz, ambient wanderings seems more relevant than ever, with labels like Balmat, Tonal Union and...
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Audiopile Review: Swedish producer Martinou broke through in 2021 with his debut Rift, igniting the attention of seasoned electronic music enthusiasts with his meticulously crafted tracks that summoned equal parts nostalgia and clear-sighted futurism. Across his follow-up, Chiral, and a series of EPs, Martinou continued to display the chops of...
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Audiopile Review: Is Ilian Tape the best electronic label going right now? Italian producer Andrea, issuing his third full length for the German label, is making a strong case here. Alongside mainstays like Skee Mask, The Zenker Brothers, Stenny, MPU101, and Fireground, all of whom have been bowling us over...
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Audiopile Review: Chicago trio Lifeguard return to indie-rock stable Matador with Ripped & Torn, which, after five years of various singles, EPs and a comp, stands in as essentially their first proper full length. While the band’s initial set of EPs and singles hadn’t totally clicked with us, we did...
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Audiopile Review: Dig a few layers deeper into the Backwoodz iceberg—past Billy Woods, E L U C I D, and even Cavalier—and you’ll inevitably hit upon one of the label’s most essential voices: Premrock. A familiar name to many of our readers as the steady-handed half of ShrapKnel, who's dead-eyed...
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Audiopile Review: When the rave revolution really started to kick off, loads of people who’d just been hanging around the UK music scene got sucked into its orbit. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that people who’d been lost in the musical wilderness finally found their home. Released in...
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Audiopile Review: There’s an expectation that electronic music should be futuristic. This seems unfair given that, by our estimate, it’s existed as a form for three quarters of a century. But we feel it too. When a legit futuristic electronic music album comes across our desk, we’re all like: “Hell...
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Audiopile Review: Cuneiform Tabs, the cross-continental duo of Matt Bleyle and Sterling Mackinnon, shake off most of the buzzy coating of their debut from last year in favour of letting melodies bleed through the haze. Still trading their recordings back and forth across the pond, the duo are a little...
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Audiopile Review: Special one here for the Bardo Pond acolytes, their tremendous Volume 4 and 5 coming to vinyl for the first time, both initially released as CDr and pretty much only available direct from the band. For those just tuning in, their ongoing Volume series are comprised of freeform...
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Audiopile Review: Seven years have passed since Djrum shook the electronic underground with On Portrait With Firewood, an album so deftly constructed, intricate and referential that it made its eventual IDM tag fall short as a descriptor. Djrum signalled his anticipated return with last year’s Meaning Edge EP, a razor-sharp...
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Audiopile Review: You may remember us recently singing the praises of Australian composer Paul Schütze’s cinematic ambient masterwork ‘New Maps of Hell’. In truth, all the 90s albums Schütze made for Melbourne’s Extreme label are essential. And, wouldn’t you know it, Kontakt Audio seems to be releasing first-time-on-vinyl editions of...
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Audiopile Review: Few rappers sound as perpetually hungry as Fly Anakin—the man continues to pour everything in, even at his most laid-back. On (The) Forever Dream, that hunger meets vibrant, soul-soaked production shaped by the curatorial hand of executive producer Quelle Chris, whose signature warmth and ear for off-kilter beats...
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Audiopile Review: Singaporean singer/producer Yeule strikes a major breakthrough on their stridently trip-hop afflicted fourth album, shifting away from the glitched hyper-pop that they’d been solidifying and that landed them a plum spot on the Ninja Tune roster. Siphoning the pop essence of 90s chill out acts like Lamb, Sneaker...
