Yagya - Sleepygirls

The signing of Aðalsteinn Guðmundsson’s fifth album to Delsin Records is significant, not just for Guðmundsson, but for the genre he’s helped pioneer. Netherlands-based Delsin has been fostering well respected names like Mike Dehnert, Delta Funktionen, Redshape and Conforce for years, and has long been a beacon for techno’s elite. Despite the occasional leftfield signing (see John Beltran’s, “Amazing Things” last year), the label still very much caters to the DJ craft. This ensures plenty of deck-focused ears will be giving this record a listen and while the idea of mixing ambient-leaning techno is certainly nothing new, it’s been some time since we’ve seen it presented on this stage. With a decade’s worth of ground-breaking work under his belt, Yagya’s legacy will no longer remain quietly cherished by deep techno’s underbelly.

Sleepygirls brings forward some of the celebrated elements from Guðmundsson’s Rhythm of Snow and Rigning, revived with a fresh coat of low-end paint, live instrumentation and a couple of guest vocal performances. The album is entirely mixed and wastes no time immersing you in familiar warmth. There is such an effortless flow to Yagya’s sound and even though this challenges the album’s overall dynamic, there is a sense of reliable comfort in its consistency. Turn the album on and turn yourself off, it’s a wonderful escape.

Mid-way through we’re treated to some of Guðmundsson’s heaviest hitting material. This is still far from a club record, but there is a fresh, punchy energy to these tracks which is sure to please fans who were left longing for a bit more out of Yagya’s 2012, “The Inescapable Decay of My Heart”. There is also something about this genre and the world of jazz just seem to work so well. 8 tracks in, the pace plateaus allowing some tasteful improvisation to carry you effortlessly through. It couldn’t have been more perfectly timed and stood out as a highlight.

Fans are going to love Yagya’s fifth album. It doesn’t breakaway from tried and tested formulas of the past, but it refines enough of the edges to challenge its predecessors as the new favorite. It’s also the perfect introduction to his long line of work and fresh ears will undoubtedly be encouraged to go explore a discography many of us have been enjoying for some time.

Available on Delsin on 3xLP, CD and digital formats on 26th May.

Inventions - Inventions

This was easily one of the best surprises to emerge at the start of 2014. Matthew Cooper of Eluvium fame; hot on the heels of his amazing Catalin LP, and Mark T Smith, guitarist for the legendary post-rockers, ‘Explosions In The Sky’ announced that they would be collaborating on a new album together for Temporary Residence.

The album has been out for a while now and i’ve been in no rush to put any words out on it, as you can tell. Instead i’ve spent much of the past few months absorbing plenty of music, letting much of it wash over me and picking up some of the stellar pieces that stand strong weeks later.

The track ‘Entity’ was our first full preview of what to expect from these guys a few months back, and still remains my favourite. Distant guitar lulls wrapped in Matthews hypnotic ambience and a distorted, alien-like vocal. It’s a softly-softly approach and gently rocks you into the world that straddles these two musical minds.

‘Flood Poems’ is like an extended Explosions In The Sky intro, with Mark taking center stage over gentle percussion with a simple guitar melody. Five minutes in and the track has signature EITS all over it, slowly climbing into daybreak as the guitar layers grow.

The euphoria expands in ‘Luminous Insects’ as a synth takes the lead, contradicting the gentle rumbling and tinkering in the background and drowning out any improv the two may have been predicting in this track. It’s like they had a base and decided to layer on this trance-like synth to really stick it to us, should we be getting too comfortable with their sound.

Matthew’s processing comes to life in ‘Peaceable Child’ as the first track with any kind of beat. Delays, and echoes muddle a piano as the beat slowly preempts the layered guitars to follow. This prelude, a gentle and conceived attempt at disguising the power in ‘Sun Locations, Sun Coda’, as the incessant drumming builds into another slightly warped yet charming outro – sun reflecting off the tide as it retreats back into the Pacific.

The head-nodding and smiles which usually follow any EITS track come alive in ‘Recipient’. On the face, a raw drum, surrounded in distortion, locks you on to the subtle vocal and background melody changes. A perfect example of a track that needs to be listened to in it’s entirety – a crafted journey.

By the time you’ve got to ‘Psychic automation’, you’re in tune with what these two are doing. Their sound lies amongst a deep understanding of both genres at play – ambient and post-rock music, which are both built on very subtle changes, distant but engrossing melodies and above all, the ability to lose the listener amongst complex arrangements, story-lines and journeys. Intentional beginnings, middles and ends.

It wasn’t until I watched the below video that this all made sense. Jamming on the Oregon Coast, Matthew and Mark have taken advantage of the natural beauty, the slow-pace and the company of each-other to create a masterpiece true to them both. With Matthew’s style always hard to pin down, and Mark’s strong style threatening to over-shadow any kind of subdued intricacy, they’ve created a one-of-a-kind album that straddles the multitude of styles at play and it’s a beauty.

Available on Temporary Residence.

Purl - Behind Clouds

The man behind Dewtone’s very first release three years ago, Ludvig Cimbrelius, aka Purl, is back with another slice of ethereal electronica that once again sets both himself and the label apart from the rest.

Titled ‘Behind Clouds’, and with a stunning photograph from Denmark’s Christopher Landin, it’s easy to get lost amongst the lengthy journeys depicted on this album. Starting with the slow lull of guitars on ‘Is’, the track quickly develops into the signature warm, dubby sound we’ve come to love.

You’ll find only subtle differences in tempo and melody amongst the first few tracks. Instead, you’re drawn to focus on the expansive washes and distant voices. Lush valleys touching the sky come to life as you peer through the detailed green landscape. Subtle bells, whispering voices and echoes of tribal-calls whisked away in times-gone-by amongst edgy dubs, tiny claps and soaring pads.

Whatever comes first, either the track-name or the music, you’re lulled into vivid stories with each one. The fifteen-minute title track ‘Behind Clouds’ is slow-burning, swaying and bubbling behind a skewed view as the light finds its way through breaks in the sky. ‘Mushrooms’ approaches with more power, perhaps to signify the rapid formation of unusual clouds, brought to life by a subtle swirling of wind throughout the 9 minutes.

Cutting through the rest, is ‘Eagles’. A simple, soaring combination of textures are all that’s needed to bring this beautiful beast to life. He’s in autopilot as the clouds above him swirl, casting shadows on the fields below – nothing else matters.  And like a rapid dive into the thriving lands beneath, ‘Forest Nightfall’ screams life, movement and agenda, as the beats pick up and more obvious elements come to the foreground.

Then, as the forest begins to sleep and the canopy opens, ‘The Stars WIll Have An End’ performs the final sing and dance of the day; an echoing kick-bass, the subtle reminder that you’re not alone down there, as you peer up into the washes of disappearing cloud.

Available on Dewtone through Bandcamp.

Segue - The Here And Now

Segue’s big announcement to us all came through Silent Season last year with ‘Pacifica‘ [review here]- one of my favourite albums of 2013 and probably my #1 when it came to the more dub-techno-orientated bunch.

It seems like Jordan is probably one of the only people I know who can add a slice of positivity into dub-techno nowadays. And by that I mean, it’s pretty easy to become very sad and reflective whilst listening to this kind of music. However, Jordan manages to combine a certain combination of pace, instrumentalism and uniqueness with his approach. Instead of peering out onto the world, I find myself peering in, thinking of good memories, summertime and friends.

As soon as that synth kicks-in off the first track ‘Turning Patterns’, i’m smiling. It’s like the smile you get from a euphoric drop in a big techno track, but this one is the paced-down, perfectly executed, mellowed-out younger brother.  And that unexpectedness seems to be the theme of this beautifully original album.

One thing that’s a little different to ‘Pacifica‘, or even his earlier work on ‘Blue‘, is Jordan’s confidence in letting the instruments play bigger parts within the tracks on this album. Instead of hiding behind washes of ambience, the looping layers and melodies form a much more defined electronica-style approach, with tracks like ‘Sometimes’ or ‘Flood’, echo-ing the colourful palettes of Milieu, ISAN or Freescha.

Their’s a multitude of approaches here and you can tell Jordan has done his best to keep each track a development from the last. New instruments are introduced at every opportunity and a slightly new vibe from each keeps you hooked throughout. From the grainy churning of ‘Flood’ to the searing washes and unsettling undercurrent in ‘Settle Down’, to the rolling dub-beats from ‘All At Once’, you never quite know where this album is about to take you.

‘The Here And Now’ is an evolution in Jordan’s sound and his confidence. Dub-techno often gets labelled as boring or formulaic and it’s people like Jordan who are pushing the boundaries and merging the lines between genres. And like I said before, he’s one of the only few producers that manages to capture the positivity of it all. I hate labelling music into genres and this is a perfect example of why – just absorb the brilliance that Jordan has to offer.

Available as digital and CD through SEM.

Kaito - Less Time Until The End

If you’re familiar with 2013’s ‘Until The End of Time’, you may have been witness to the undercurrent of colour in Hiroshi Watanabe’s music, but by no means would you have been thinking about stripping it back. Yet here we are with an album that has found another layer. By mistake? I very much doubt it. ‘Less Time Until The End’ works perfectly, without any of the beats that were present before, and now stands on its own as Kompakt’s latest ambient offering in the midst of the more notorious Pop Ambient 2014.

Maybe it’s because I’ve come into this relationship without a great deal of listens on the original version. Revisiting it now, I have no excuse as to why – it’s brilliant. But this ‘beatless’ version is in every way just as good, if not better.

The start, is slow. “Smile” is perhaps the one track from the previous album that sounds much better with beats – but it sits nicely as an intro into what’s to come.

‘Sky Is The Limit” and “I’m Leaving Home” immediately envelope you into dusk over city lights with calm twinkling sounds, and a sense of intensity brought to life through swirling synths. The laws of a ‘beatless’ album are broken straight away in one track, with thuds of bass, but just enough to entice and tease the former lives of these big, complex techno tracks.

“Run Through The Road In The Fog” stands alone, with hypnotising patterns, strings and keys which overlap, dodge and melt into one another, whilst “Behind My Life” takes a lesson from Thomas Fehlmann – notorious Kompakt sounding synths wrapped in Kaito space and expansiveness. ‘Dear Friends’ is just plain and simple addictive.

This record is packed full or colourful journeys, built around subtle melodies and lush synths. It’s albums like this that helped me appreciate ambient music in the first place. Coming from an electronic background, it isn’t until you strip back some of the more complex productions that you realise the real value of a piece – the purist iterations and the beauty of simplicity that form many of today’s great musical journeys. Emotion, which was once partly hidden, is given the space and time to express itself.

Release on LP, CD and Digital on Kompakt, or iTunes.