
New on De:tuned this month, Terrace with a new album hot on the heels of ‘Branches’, ‘Nodes’ is a double and I join Al White on artwork duties again although the front cover is all his own. Boards of Canada reissue their ‘Hi-Scores’ EP for the first time on Warp for its 30th anniversary and it’s still as peerless as ever, up there with the best of their albums. Robin The Fog just missed out on last month’s list with his ‘This House Burned Still’ release of two live Howlround tracks nipped and tucked into one self-released CD.
Having wound up the Ghost Box label for the foreseeable, Jim Jupp aka Belbury Poly has now put his back catalogue on Bandcamp, everything’s up there as well as his new album, ‘Sorcery’ but you could do worse than start at the beginning with ‘Farmer’s Angle’ and work your way through two decades of music. Luke Vibert never sleeps, hot on the heels of his triple ‘Variety Magic’ album here’s a 4-track 12″ with more unreleased vintage mid-90s DnB cuts, again on De:tuned. Also on art duties again is Pablo Fiasco who painted a number of ‘Robotic Futuristic’ pieces around London’s East End which I then massaged into a sleeve. Birmingham’s HALT. (very important full stop there) bring to mind classic 90s era Autechre or Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia on their ‘Slag Anthems’ album – genuinely refreshing dark electronica.
Jo Johnson‘s Silver Threads label has just announced its first compilation, ‘Filaments’ and on first three preview tracks alone it’s a must purchase. Actually, just the Cate Brooks track had me adding it to my basket to be purchased this coming Bandcamp Friday. Speaking of Cate, she had an album out in April that I’ve only just caught up with, ‘For Your Security’ reminds me of elements of THX1138, disembodied voices and electronics from CCTV monitors chattering away to melodic beats. There’s another artist I can’t keep up with and that’s Hieroglyphic Being, he’s put out seven albums in the last month, probably more by the time this goes live.
‘Premonitions: Underground Cassette Network 1989-90’ is a compilation of obscure experimental music from the pre-internet era of underground cassette releases put together by the makers of my new favourite podcast, Cassette Culture. The pod explores the web-like network of micro labels, lone music makers and fanzines that formed the ecosystem of a pre-streaming niche music scene via interviews and snippets from ultra obscure releases that are now under the microscope as yesteryear’s lost treasures. Listen to the podcast here, The The‘s Matt Johnson is the latest guest. In tribute to seeing possibly the greatest live performance in memory last Sunday – Steve Reich‘s ‘Music For 18 Musicians’ played by the Paraorchestra in the round at the RFH – I dug this version up by Keith Lo Bue. ‘Music for 324 Musicians’ takes 18 different performances of the piece, lines them up and presses play. Over the course of the hour + playing time things drift and wobbly, the differences and speeds of the versions push and pull at each other, often threatening to fall to pieces which is itself quite an experience.

































































































I’m very pleased to (finally) release the debut Duplokit album, ‘Warpdrive’, today on my 

