DONNIE & JOE EMERSON - Still Dreamin' Wild: The Lost Recordings 1979-81

The archival sequel to Light In The Attic's original reissue of the Emerson brothers' lone private press effort, Still Dreamin' Wild manages to be both more cleanly produced and arguably slightly stranger than its predecessor (and certainly more synth-laced); consider it the Tusk to Dreamin' Wild's Rumours.

"Still Dreamin’ Wild: The Lost Recordings 1979-81 presents that secondary stage of reissue culture, culling demos in the years after the younger Emerson graduated high school and began traveling to Los Angeles in the hopes of realizing his teenage dreams. Older brother Joe was already turning his attentions to the family farm, his presence only heard on two of the album’s twelve tracks. Donnie’s polymath musical skills are on full display, from drums to poly-Moog synth, and his ability to mimic the more popular hits on the radio of the day remains uncanny." - Pitchfork

ALEXIS TAYLOR - Await Barbarians

Some of us on staff here were bigger-than-expected fans of Alexis Taylor's first solo album Rubbed Out when it was released back in October 2008, and Await Barbarians makes for another good-humoured, heart-on-sleeve sleeper set of songs teetering between thoughtful, singer/songwriter-ly tunefulness and gleeful electronic abandon.

"Taylor lays bare the heart and art always faintly detectable beneath the happy grooves. His high, thin vocals, careful diction and formal lyrical style are well suited to the more traditional role of sensitive singer-songwriter. Framed by wonky and at times extremely minimalist electronica, with ambient noises and odd glitches, his songs strike a balance between a kind of country folksiness and offbeat futurism. Lyrically, preoccupations include mortality, relationship problems and general anxieties about life but leavened by dry humour that is more playful than melancholy." - The Telegraph

MAX RICHTER - Retrospective (4CD)

The success of Max Richter's Recomposition of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, our best-selling classical release of the past five years by a significant margin, has resulted in this repackaging of four of his earlier releases in a stunning box set by Deutsche Grammophon. A beautiful hybrid of ambient, classical and electronic styles.

"Whether it be the Haruki Murakami readings and subtle piano arrangements with the broken synapse electronics flickering in the background on parts of 2006's Songs From Before or the more mechanical effusions that emit a dystopian glow from 2008's 24 Postcards In Full Colour, there is a restless energy percolating beneath the elegance and the elegiac. 2010’s Infra closes out the set, an album that fuses the electronic, the orchestral and the ethereal like no other piece this reviewer’s heard before or since.

By corralling all of Richter's fine works of this period together, Retrospective firmly underscores the belief that music can transcend all boundaries. From the soaring wonders of On The Nature Of Daylight right through to the mournful violin that sees out Infra 8, Richter beckons for the listener to close their eyes and jump into the nebulous abyss of their own imagination. That ability is truly magical." - TheMusic.com.au

MELANIE DE BIASIO - No Deal

Tasteful, subtle and inscrutable, Belgium's De Biasio and band have made one of the few modern vocal jazz records to've caused our heads to turn and ears to perk up!

"No Deal was recorded in 3 days and we adopted a basic, old-way approach to this with everyone in the same room except the vocalist, separated by a transparent window. The placement of the microphones and musicians were really important, so the whole of the first day was used to do this. We wanted it to be perfect. Over the next two days we created the textures and colours of No Deal. Once we finished recording, I took my time to really extract and distill the essence of the album." - Melanie De Biasio, as told to Q Magazine

DJANGO DJANGO - LateNightTales

Eclectic without sacrificing form and flow, Django Django deliver a LateNightTales mix that effortlessly flits from jazz-funk to contemporary bass tracks to sunshine psych to yacht rock and back again, while also introducing us to the stunning "Poor Moon," what must be the most entrancing Blind Owl-sung Canned Heat song we'd never heard.

"At one end of the Django spectrum there's James Last, the terminally unhip Teuton, whose 'Inner City Blues' shows you can never underestimate the Germans, while at the far reaches of the mix, they manage to sneak in Ramadanman ('Bass Drums') and Hudson Mohawke and Lunice collaboration TNGHT's 'Bugg'n.' You can hear the echoes of influences in some of the selections, like The Beach Boys whose peerless 'Surf's Up' makes a welcome appearance halfway through, while Seals & Crofts' 'Get Closer' show what sun-drenched pop can sound like when it's done well.

And because it's Late Night Tales there's a sparkling cover version of 'Porpoise Song,' the theme from The Monkees daffily brilliant Head, an admirably lysergic termination to this waltz through pop's nooks and cranberries. "You should never be afraid to make a fool of yourself for art," Dave Maclean once said. Let's raise a dram to Scotland's favourite fools on the hill." - LateNightTales

K. LEIMER - A Period Of Review: Original Recordings 1975-1983

Whether conjuring up electronic art-rock atmospheres à la Cluster & Eno or sample-laced, funkily abstract workouts in the vein of Material and My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, K. Leimer's output has been impressively constant (he continues to self-release in the same manner in which all these tracks were originally made available, via his Palace Of Lights imprint) but little-known up to now, making this RVNG set (an archival sequel of sorts to the label's 2012 Sensations' Fix collection Music Is Painting In The Air) all the more appreciated.

"The tape-manipulated serenity Leimer experienced with Cluster II was a key revelation. Leimer realized the potential to compose with minimal training and scoured pawnshops for cheap instruments and recording equipment to transpose his wayward musical instincts. Leimer’s sound palette and composition soon refined and heightened with the accessibility of dynamic equipment such as the Micromoog and TEAC multi-track tape machines." - RVNG

LEWIS - L'Amour

Just over two years after Weird Canada's Aaron Levin first posted about this peculiar, gently creepy record, Light In The Attic have finally reissued it, out now on CD with a vinyl edition soon to follow on July 8th. Anyone looking for some whispered new-age L.A. loner synth-folk to file near (but not too near) their Jandek and Arthur Russell records should look no further.

"In 1983, a man named Lewis recorded an album named L'Amour, which was released on the unknown label R.A.W. And that’s about all we know..The ingredients are simple: smooth synthesizers, feather-light piano, ethereal, occasionally inaudible vocals and the gentle plucking of acoustic guitars, but the effects are arresting...L'Amour is a true discovery of the blog age, uncovered in an Edmonton flea-market by collector Jon Murphy, passed on to private press fanatic Aaron Levin, shared on the internet and speculated over by lovers of curious LPs. There’s almost no information about Lewis or the album on the internet...Lewis remains a ghost, a total mystery, but the music will be heard." - Light In The Attic

INVENTIONS - S/T

Meditative washes of guitar, electronic treatments, samples, stripped-back beats and the occasional vocal mark this debut full-length collaboration between Eluvium and guitarist Mark T. Smith of Explosions In The Sky.

"Inventions is the new band formed by longtime friends, tourmates, and labelmates Matthew Cooper of Eluvium, and Mark T. Smith of Explosions In The Sky. It began in earnest in 2013 when Cooper invited Smith to collaborate on a song for Eluvium's otherworldly double album, Nightmare Ending. The track, 'Envenom Mettle,' was a standout on an album full of them, and just like that a longstanding friendship blossomed into a full-fledged creative partnership. There are plenty of talking points here: the fact that Cooper hasn't been in a 'band' of any sort since he was a teenager; no member of Explosions In The Sky has released an album outside of the context of EITS since their inception in the late '90s; and, of course, this is a dream duo for anyone familiar with the unparalleled emotional resonance of Cooper and Smith's respective day jobs." - Temporary Residence

METRONOMY - Love Letters

A carefully casual-sounding recording, with off-kilter retro signifiers (analog synths, plenty of old drum machines, the odd horn arrangement) bolstering their setup and often sending things slightly out of whack (but never cloyingly so), and Joe Mount's knack for strong falsetto hooks kept fully intact, Love Letters never sacrifices a catchy pop tune for experimentation's sake, letting these two tendencies unshowingly inform each other and resulting in a formidable follow-up to The English Riviera.

"With each album, Metronomy have steadily announced themselves as master craftsmen of the three-minute electro-pop stomper...It's refreshing then, though with an admitted dollop of apprehension, to hear the band shed their floor-filling roots in favour of a more stately sound, as Love Letters is their most restrained album to date.

Despite the record’s introspection, it never steers too far from the fanciful. Joe Mount is a deft Midas of sorts, lacing each lyric with subtlety, each cadence with playful restraint...Of course, on the occasion that the album does let loose, it really lets loose. The title track is a swirling psychedelic romp that the Mamas and Papas would be proud of...Some fans will be disappointed with the comparative lack of bona fide readymade chest-lighting bangers, but they’ve been spoiled enough on previous records. Instead, Metronomy have stepped up from the mantle of electro-pop, and matured into the sort of band that endures. Excitingly still, they leave us with no idea where they’ll go next." - The Line Of Best Fit

THE NOTWIST - Close To The Glass

Right from their initial announcement about this record, Sub Pop's excitement regarding releasing the next Notwist record was made clear, and we feel they had every right to be pleased, since Close To The Glass is an affably adventurous electronic pop outing by a group that's long been a standout in an increasingly crowded field.

"The Notwist have been around for long enough and have such a solid discography that it's easy to take them for granted. It's almost as if their consistency works against them getting the credit due for helping to create the electronics-meets-indie rock template followed by so many later bands. However, that shouldn't be a problem with Close To The Glass; the band's first album since 2008's The Devil, You + Me is some of their most accessible and attention-getting music yet. The Notwist blend the experimental side of their music and their undeniable pop skills into songs that are equally dynamic and haunting: songs such as 'Signals' are abrasive and hooky at the same time, marrying noisy percussion with a poignant melody and strings. The band's maturity shows in how easy they make this seem, and aside from the nine-minute instrumental workout 'Lineri,' their experimental expertise is in service of some of their strongest songs." - All Music Guide

ACTRESS - Ghettoville

Darren Cunningham's fourth (and possibly last, at least under this alias) finds him returning to his own Werkdiscs imprint (now P&D'd by Ninja Tune), and on more than one occasion here coming back to the sluggish slow-jam edit approach of his initially-incognito Thriller project with Lukid from going on five years ago now.

"Although it kicks off with the merciless industrial grind and pulverizing bass hits of seven-minute monstrosity 'Forgiven,' Ghettoville concludes much less predictably with 'Rule,' a beguiling fragment of sampled rap put on loop. In some ways, this is a representative moment: consider the repetitiveness that's less like a techno track and more like a hardware malfunction, or the cruelty of cutting the final loop off mid-word. But it’s still a shocking shift in tone from the aggressively soulless machine sounds of 'Forgiven,' a tonal shift that Actress has been subtly working toward for most of Ghettoville's second half via the (relatively, tentatively) warm, human feel of the record's three best tracks, 'Gaze,' 'Rap,' and 'Don't.'" - Pretty Much Amazing

VA - I Am The Center: Private Issue New Age Music In America 1950-1990

With such labels as EM, Numero and RVNG/FRKWYS having already issued solo and collaborative material (both old and new) from Iasos and Laraaji (both featured herein), and the post-noise/nu-new-age/neo-kosmische tape-trading heyday just having passed, what better time than now to honour the roots, peak and decline of this most earnestly transcendental (and unabashedly tacky) of American private-press scenes?

"Ever marvel at how much experimental indie music these days sounds like Enya? This smart, trippy, well-annotated archaeological dig helps explain why, connecting the dots between psychedelia, electronic music, yoga soundtracks, drone art and Muzak, showing how musicians questing for enlightenment through sound birthed a mainstream market niche, and then a hipster touchstone. Inspiring stuff." - Rolling Stone

"Though most new age music has rightfully been associated with the cynical postmodern business of sonic backdrop music of the 1980s, '90s, and early 21st century, it was originally an outgrowth of the spiritual adventurousness of the 20th, particularly during the late '60s and '70s. Light In The Attic presents the first overview of the genre from the private-press side—in other words, its most authentic expression, since the vast majority of the records surveyed here were released by artists who had no regard for economic remuneration. This set collects 20 tracks from both well-known and hopelessly obscure musicians and places them in an historical and qualitative context which focuses on musical adventure and/or spiritual intention—most of what's here was released long before the genre became an industry. This is the music of the true believers." - Allmusic

WILLIAM ONYEABOR - Who Is William Onyeabor?

While Luaka Bop recently stated that this compilation was five years in the making, it's been more like an eight-and-a-half-year stretch for anyone whose interest was initially piqued by the inclusion of "Better Change Your Mind" on the label's 2005 compilation of West African funk rarities, World Psychedelic Classics, Vol. 3: Love's A Real Thing. While the label's clearly been biding their time, since Who Is William Onyeabor? is still only Vol. 5 (with the Tim Maia anthology Nobody Can Live Forever the only other addition to the slim but immaculately-selected series in the interim), getting to finally hear such strange, synth-lead-laden Afro-disco dancefloor-filling workout warnings as "Atomic Bomb" and "Why Go To War" properly mastered at last has been well worth the wait. 

If Fela Kuti was a child of James Brown, fellow Nigerian William Onyeabor is something like the next-generation musical offspring of Parliament-Funkadelic. His songs are extended call-and-response disco-funk jams driven by the space-age sound of synthesizers and drum machines—very new tools when Onyeabor was recording in the late '70s and '80s, especially in Africa. After years of existing mainly as secret grails passed between electronic music DJs and other crate diggers, Onyeabor's handful of studio LPs have been licensed and boiled down to a killer compilation.

So, who is William Onyeabor? Part of the album's conceit is that even the compilers don't fully know. The liner notes, by veteran British journalist Vivien Goldman, note that Onyeabor is a crowned chief in his hometown village of Enugu, Eastern Nigeria, where he lives in 'a hidden palace in the woods' and is a booster of the local Christian music scene. But he essentially left his own music career in the '80s, in the wake of the recordings collected here, presumably when he became a born-again Christian—indeed, you can hear a moral, preacherly spirit on a lot of the tracks here." - NPR

GOLDFRAPP - Tales Of Us

Those listeners most partial to the ornately orchestrated aspects of Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory's work are in luck this year, as Tales Of Us sees the pair once again ditching the disco glam (with "Thea"'s trudging stomp being the closest they get to a dance number here) and returning to the folk-inflected feel of Seventh Tree and the sombre, soundtracks-influenced side of their debut Felt Mountain.

"While The Singles showed how diverse Goldfrapp have been over the course of their career, each of their albums has its own aesthetic. Tales Of Us' aesthetic is striking; noticeably starker than anything they've made before, its orchestral string arrangements nudge up alongside atmospheric, gently played acoustic guitars. Alison Goldfrapp's voice is given plenty of space in which to seduce. An immediate standout is 'Drew,' which sees those light, airy vocals complementing cinematic orchestral swells to create a romantic, sultry, and atmospheric song that sells Goldfrapp—not for the first time—as ideal candidates to make the next Bond theme song." - MusicOMH

"The delicate guitar and piano figures and the sombre languor of strings behind Alison Goldfrapp's breathy vocals create something akin to a cross between the dreamlike mythopoeism of old folk tales and the lush cinematic arrangements of Michel Legrand. Painted in subtle poetic strokes, the tales deal even-handedly with tragedy, desire and betrayal; the characters trapped in Gordian quandaries rooted in their own natures. Especially beautiful is 'Clay,' whose true story of a tragic wartime gay romance is blessed with a heart-stoppingly euphoric melody." - The Independent

ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER - R Plus Seven

Landing somewhere between the chopped-up samples of 2011's Replica and MIDI-synth simulacra of the sort that James Ferraro mischievously dropped with that same year's Far Side Virtual, Daniel Lopatin's first album for Warp alternately scrambles and soothes, with most of its ten tracks flitting from glossy hyperactivity to meditative, minimal nu-new age.

"Aesthetically, Lopatin's palette for R Plus Seven consists of familiar tropes: its 10 tracks are full of brash and staccato timbres, constructed upon repetitive, nonsensical, and dislocated samples, as if fast-forwarded through. He appears curiously preoccupied by reinventing only the most piercing of preset instruments. There are liberal helpings of dyspeptic cheesiness, and his MIDI-patch choirs put the 'phony' back in polyphony. But unlike Lopatin's preceding releases, a complex compositional strategy is afoot here. There is almost no formless wandering, and the album feels far more like a carefully constructed and well-paced narrative than a slapdash assembly of half-baked ideas." - The Quietus

"Lopatin is a composer who is primarily interested in the possibilities of splicing together synthetic instruments, subliminal frequencies, and the inherent uncanniness of everyday sounds. He's less interested in guiding his alien orchestras to a finessed crescendo than he is prone to hard cutting each melodic phrase, scrambling and twisting each rhythmic pattern, and running every chance of emotional catharsis into a strategically placed oblivion...The most commonly used sound across R Plus Seven is the human voice. It rampantly appears—singing, hiccuping, speaking, gasping, groaning, etc.—in all 10 of the tracks, but not a single syllable or vocal tone is 'real,' so to speak. Whether sampled or synthesized, every voice—which, it should be noted, is the most organic musical instrument there is—was altered or constructed in some digital fashion, never once performed or recorded 'live' for these compositions. There's something subtly dissociative about listening to appropriated voices for nearly an hour, and Oneohtrix Point Never knows it." - XLR8R

GIORGIO MORODER - Schlagermoroder Volume 1: 1966-1975

Giorgio Moroder has really jumped into public consciousness this year with his participation in Daft Punk's "Giorgio by Moroder," coinciding with a string of reissues. The most surprising one (for some members of our staff) has been Schlagermoroder Volume 1: 1966-1975, as it chronicles Moroder's early career as a bubblegum glam pop performer-songwriter. Moroder's early material has much in common with the Kasenatz-Katz stable of bubblegum bands, and he even netted a UK #1 hit when British glam group Chicory Tip recorded a version of his "Son of My Father" (his original version of the hit is featured in two parts on this compilation).

"Italian disco producer and recent Daft Punk collaborator Giorgio Moroder must have multiple vaults of material just screeching to be heard. Because not only is he uploading hours of rarities on SoundCloud, but he's now releasing a 51-track (!) compilation, cleverly titled  Schlagermoroder Volume 1: 1966-1975.

As the title insists, the release collects Moroder's earlier non-disco and film work, specifically tracks like 'How Much Longer Will I Have to Wait,' 'Doo-Bee-Doo-Bee-Doo,' and 'Son of My Father.' If these go over your head, it's probably because most of it was released under the pseudonyms Giorgio, George, and Snoopy—and were released in various languages over several territories." - Consequence of Sound

BRAIDS - Flourish // Perish

Now a trio following the departure of keyboardist/secondary singer Katie Lee, Braids' production and songwriting on sophomore effort Flourish // Perish sounds to these ears like a leap in the right direction past their Native Speaker debut, harkening back to such turn-of-the-millenium leftfield electronic pop touchstones as Kid A and Homogenic while sounding completely of this era (especially when they lay on the sidechaining, the occasional coats of which still somehow seem subtly applied).

"A lot of music is spoken about as being 'dreamlike,' but that tag can be used erroneously. Not all dreams are woozy, out-of-body experiences. Some are precise, and vital and unnerving at the same time as being otherworldly. Flourish // Perish is dreamlike, but in the sense that it reflects the true, bizarre and beautiful depths of the human brain, and dredges up sounds and lyrics that resonate with deeply felt emotional states.

This might sound like a stretch, but it's important to realise how brilliant Braids are at getting inside your head. The Canadian art-rock band specialise in twisting traditional song formats with electronic touches and out-there, often sexually charged lyrics. Raphaelle Standell-Preston sings with birdlike delicacy over skittering percussion, expressive bursts of electronic fuzz, and cascading keyboard melodies. She connects with the listener with the directness of Björk at her best, over backings that recall Radiohead's more successful electronic experiments." - Time Out London

VA - Theo Parrish's Black Jazz Signature: Black Jazz Records 1971-1975

Check out Sound Signature label head, unofficial ambassador of Detroit's long-fertile electronic music culture, and endearingly outspoken re-editor, DJ and producer Theo Parrish's mix commission for Snow Dog's ongoing CD reissues of the entire Black Jazz catalog, now featured in our listening post (and specially priced for a limited time)!

"Parrish, as would be expected, takes a low-key, backseat approach to mixing the tracks he loves; no Flying Lotus pastiches or potentially disrespectful attempts at taming grooves into linear house form. Instead, simple, quick transitions and deft choices keep the recordings entirely at the fore. The selections are astounding and the energy insistent from beginning to end. The majority of the pieces chosen by Parrish are hugely amorphous, the by-then elastic forms of the most adventurous modern jazz electrified into further flexibility. Black Jazz Signature captures a sheer flood of music, parts crashing and reforming around each other as they break away, jut out, drop back, or lace themselves around others." - FACT

"To get Parrish to do the mix, Snow Dog Records—a Japanese label that does licensed reissues and mixes of the BJR catalogue—sent a package of hard-to-find LPs to a PO box in Detroit. Some time later, Parrish sent back a few different versions of his mix, all of which sounded quite different—some more challenging, others more serene. The one that made the cut is somewhere in the middle: the whole thing is bright and upbeat, but a frantic, dissonant energy occasionally creeps in." - Resident Advisor

JULIANNA BARWICK - Nepenthe

Evoking the wordless ethereality of the Cocteau Twins and Sigur Ros, Julianna Barwick's new album is stunningly beautiful. It's not surprising to see she collaborated with Alex Somers, whose 2009 album Riceboy Sleeps similarly captures ambient sounds from the heavens.

"Over the course of her recordings leading up to this third album, Brooklyn-based solo musician Julianna Barwick's vaporous compositions were largely the product of infinite layers of her own voice, looped and processed into misty, near-cosmic realms.

Spreading out across a wide range of octaves, her mostly wordless vocalizations found a specific state of emotional transparency that could instinctively communicate by turns feelings of harrowing darkness, contemplation, fear, and confusion—or even an understated humor. No small feat, being able to say so much without any conventional language, and Barwick pushed her atmospheric songs to new places, adding subtle layers of guitar and piano to her walls of voices on 2011's The Magic Place. With Nepenthe, the depth of her sound expands even further, including more collaboration and experimentation than ever before, without ever losing the direct approach that guided her earlier work." - Allmusic

HOLDEN - The Inheritors

Effectively splitting the difference between an approach seemingly (perhaps moreso earlier in his career?) influenced by the likes of Four Tet and Caribou, and one a bit more grey-scale and rough-around-the-edges (comparisons could be made to both Geoff Barrow/Portishead/Beak>'s recent work, as well as The Knife's last album's instrumental offcuts), James Holden's second record sounds as strangely substantial as the ancient/otherworldly runestone on its cover.

"If Holden was already starting to push the boundaries on his debut, The Inheritors is techno music not so much fragmented as smashed into tiny pieces; rocks ground into sand and cast into the ether. The Inheritors draws as much on ancient Pagan rituals, the repetitions of Steve Reich, Elgar's pastoral majesty, prog-rock, krautrock and Aphex Twin at his wilful best, as it does from the output of Detroit's techno pioneers." - The Quietus

"Calling James Holden a producer might not be correct. He’s more of a playground engineer. Since putting out his first single at age 19, the English DJ has fallen in love with the work, play, and joy of making music. A serial remixer, he created the label Border Community as an arena for artists like Nathan Fake and Misstress Barbara to stab at the edges of what gets grouped under the 'electronica' umbrella. True to form, The Inheritors, Holden’s first LP since 2006′s The Idiots Are Winning, spills over with math, color, and life." - Consequence of Sound