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BLACK RAIN
NOW I’M JUST A NUMBER: SOUNDTRACKS 1994-95
(BLACKEST EVER BLACK LP)

Dread-infused soundtrack material recorded by Ike Yard’s Stuart Argabright and Shinichi Shimokawa, originally for Keanu Reeves-starring debacle Johnny Mnemonic, and later featured on an audiobook edition of William Gibson’s Neuromancer and a now out-of-print CD album called 1.0. This 7-track selection from Blackest Ever Black [full disclosure: a label run by FACT’s Kiran Sande] cannily brushes the duo’s dodgier electro-punk offerings under the carpet and instead zones in on their deeply atmospheric, industrial-hued instrumentals, which could easily pass for contemporary productions by a Demdike Stare or a Raime. TP


THE BURRELL BROTHERS
THE NU GROOVE YEARS PART 1 (1988-1992)
(RUSH HOUR 2×12″)

After their efforts to make it as commercial R&B producers came to naught, brothers Rheji and Ronald Burrell focussed instead on crafting deep, soulful, impossibly stylish house music for New York’s Nu Groove, ultimately defining the label’s sound with their numerous releases under different aliases. The first of two vinyl anthologies from Rush Hour, The Nu Groove  Years Part 1 (1988-1992) features some of their most impressive and resonant work, including Rheji’s buoyant, brilliant ‘File #1’ (as Utopia Project) and Ronald’s none-more-silky ‘I’ll Say A Prayer 4 U’ (as Equation). TP


DAVID CAIN
THE SEASONS
(TRUNK LP)

The hauntologists’ holy grail. Ghost Box’s Julian House has long cited David Cain’s highly unusual music for the BBC Schools Radio Service’s Drama Workshop as an influence on the sound and aesthetic of his label, and he contributes to the sleevenotes of this crucial reissue from Trunk Records. Says Jonny Trunk of the hitherto rare-as-hen’s-teeth album, which also features poetic interventions from Ronald Duncan: “It is weird, spooky, unsettling, very British, has an unusual whiff of childhood to some, it comes scattered with pregnant language and is full of unexpected metaphors, pagan oddness, folk cadences and insane noises.Does it get any better? Considering this was an LP made for children’s education and improvised dance, I think not.” KS


DAVID SYLVIAN
A VICTIM OF STARS: 1982-2012
(VIRGIN 2xCD)

It’s hard to think of another artist of David Sylvian’s vintage, or any vintage for that matter, who can claim to have enjoyed pop success and so restlessly pursued the outré and the unknown, collaborating with the likes of Holger Czukay, Fennesz, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Derek Bailey along the way. Listening to this 2-disc compilation – released by Virgin to coincide with Sylvian’s upcoming tour – is no substitute for proper immersion in classic albums like Secrets Of The Beehive and Plight & Premonition, but as a neat précis of 30 years of extraordinary solo material, it’s invaluable. TF


EGISTO MACCHI
I FUTURIBILI
(THE ROUNDTABLE LP)

Egisto Macchi sadly never achieved the level of recognition enjoyed by his friend and collaborator Ennio Morricone, but if this marvellous library record he cut for the Italian label Gemelli is anything to go by, he was similarly inventive and intrepid, perhaps even more so. I Futuribili really is a revelation, its ominous electronic drones and sweeping strings arranged by Macchi with an icy, minimalist restraint that feels wholly contemporary. KS

LEGOWELT
THE TEAC LIFE
(STRANGE LIFE RECORDS 4xLP)

A 4xLP edition of Danny Wolfers’ superb album of “forest-techno”, which was originally released as a pay-what-you-like download. The album was a highlight of 2011, not least for its press release, penned by the Dutch producer himself, in which the music was aptly described as “autistic Star Trek 1987- Misty Forests- X-FILES,- DETROIT unicorn futurism”. AF


MAIN ATTRAKTIONZ
808s & DARK GRAPES II
(TYPE 2xLP)

Type Records boss John Twells is a real hip-hop/R&B aficionado, something you would never have guessed from looking at his label’s catalogue – until recently. Having last year given Clams Casino’s dazzling Instrumentals mixtape a lush vinyl pressing, Twells has now afforded Main Attrakionz’s cult smash 808s & Dark Grapes II – in which MondreM.A.N and Squadda Bambino’s skunk-hazed but street-tough rhymes are cushioned by the trippy pads and booming subs of Clams, Keyboard Kid, Friendzone and others – the same treatment. TF


PALACE MUSIC
LOST BLUES AND OTHER SONGS
(DOMINO 2xLP)

Will Oldham is such an annoyingly ubiquitous presence these days, vaunted by such a vast fanclub of middle-aged bores, that it’s easy to forget what a chilling, charming and quietly radical force he was throughout most of the 1990s. Domino have done us a great service by reissuing his five key Palace albums, variously credited to Palace Brothers, Palace Songs and Palace Music. Besides highlighting, through repetition, what a strange and seductive word ‘palace’ actually is, Oldham’s recorded work during this time is fascinating, navigating raggedness and polish with preternatural authority. 1997’s odds-and-sods compilation Lost Blues and Other Songs, essentially Palace’s last stand, remains my personal highlight. KS


SUZANNE CIANI
LIXIVATION: CIANI/MUSICA INC. 1969-1985
(FINDERS KEEPERS LP)

Barely a month goes without some previously unheard of electronic “visionary” being exhumed by a contemporary label, and for that reason I found it hard to greet the arrival of Suzanne Ciani’s Lixivation compilation with anything other than a groan. Within a few minutes, though, I was won over: perhaps because of her grounding as a commercial composer, Ciani invariably gets straight to the point, communicating potently and expeditiously. A good number of her Buchla-powered 1970s commercial commissions – for the likes of Atari and Coca-Cola – are included on Lixivation alongside more digressive experiments created just for the hell of it. TP


VARIOUS ARTISTS
THE MINIMAL WAVE TAPES VOL.2
STONES THROW

Having been the first, and for a long while the only, person of her generation to seriously champion “minimal wave” – her own term for the disparate DIY synth-pop explosion of the late ’70s and ’80s, and the name of her label dedicated to issuing the genre-not-genre’s finest work -Veronica Vasicka has had to watch while countless lesser diggers and curators have come up in her wake, reissuing any old shit with a broadly similar aesthetic and boring everyone to death in the process. Credit to her, then, for sticking to her guns, and continuing to release only the best, hardest-to-find, material and presenting it with a stylishness that her imitators can only dream of. The follow-up to the hugely influential The Minimal Wave Tapes Vol.1, Vol.2 is, if anything, the superior compilationt, with a darker, proto-techno feel.  TP

Tim Purdom, Trilby Foxx, Kiran Sande, Angus Finlayson

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