Japan’s cult, vinyl-only City-2 St. Giga label mark 5 years as one of the best-in-the-game with Ultrafog’s post-dub techno atmospheres following sought-after sides by Buttechno, Caveman LSD, Anthony Naples and more

Since 2017 City-2 St. Giga have been one of those labels to watch out for on the ambient-experimental-electronic rhizome, always presented with supreme attention to detail Japan’s Ultrafog maintains the label’s rep with his 2nd vinyl release after 2018’s long sold-out ‘How Those Fires Burned That Are No Longer’, serving four parts of radiant, head-cushioning ambient dub, flush with technoid pressure. It is the sort of abstract ambient thing that stokes the crackling embers of nostalgic memory and hypnagogic states of mind, with a level of seductive appeal comparable with Huerco S., Deepchord, or Chain Reaction.

The A-side is given to 10 minutes of sensuously unfurling dub chords, charred bottom end and frayed textures that feel like Hallucinator jamming with Romance. On the other side, ‘Fourty Four’ curls off into a gauzier middle distance somewhere between original environmental ambient and 0PN’s early vaporwave, with glistening new age pads suspended in amniotic bliss, whereas ‘Lenexa’ feels more like a coruscating, underwater echo of Nozomu Matsumoto’s chamber-like movements, and ‘Albino’ properly unbuckles into a laminal lather of textured thizz and choral pads.