Various
Spaciousness: Music Without Horizons

boomkat: ...E B U joins imaginary dots between Delia Derbyshire, Black Zone Myth Chant and Tapes on a charmingly smudged debut for Ossia and co’s No CornerIn her own language of bittersweet, downbeat psychedelia, Bristol’s E B U speaks gently but directly to altered states of consciousness in a style she terms “swamp pop”. It’s not weird for the sake of it, but rather in a drowsy, hypnagogic way that feels effortlessly natural. All her melodies and harmonies shimmer with a lysergic, iridescent timbral thizz, radiating in rainbows and pink/blue hues on the back of your eyelids (because we almost guarantee you will be lulled to eyes shut, half-mast or rollin in backa skull by the end of 2nd song). Most crucially, though, for all the ‘60s connotations with LSD and The Radiophonic Workshop references, plus the label’s own nods to Alejandro Jodorowsky and Laurie Anderson, the music feels fresh, operating in its own liminal temporality, rather than being cloyed by cliché. That’s always high praise, and we’re sure many others will feel this, too.Properly hallucinatory bizz - bravo.

Efficient Space: ...3AM Spares is a new compilation of Australian Electronic Dance Music selected by Andras and Instant Peterson, encompassing the darker sounds and later nights of the 1990s and beyond. Following on from forerunner compilation Midnite Spares, this double LP draws from local 12” releases, CDRs and the archives of community radio station 3RRR FM to make a diverse and pumping scene audible once more. No longer confined to beer barns and back rooms, this generation of producers, DJs, clubbers and ravers spilled out into pavilions, warehouses and paddocks, embracing a new culture of machine-metaphor and chemical love.Future Sound of Melbourne’s warehouse triptych Resist The Beat embodies a time when the country’s youth united with juggernaut stamina, partying beyond the long arm of the law. Restored from the ARIA award-winning trio’s original DATs, this debut 12” incited label offers from Jeff Mills, Frank De Wulf and Carl Cox.Released by the likes of Clan Analogue, Creative Vibes, Volition, DanceNet, Juice and Psy-Harmonics, this era’s material has evaded sufficient digital documentation until now, some lost in the decommission of Angelfire, Tripod and Geocities websites. Often these bedroom experiments and one-off collaborations existed solely for compilation inclusions, a plausible scenario for the mysterious Inner Harmony. In the case of Tetrphnm, graphic artist Jeremy Dower’s glacial sub-bass was digitised from the only known CD-R copy, preserved by the 3RRR FM library.

EM Records: ...Roland P. Young is back for his fifth release on EM Records, back in the United States, back in San Francisco after sojourns in New York and Israel, back where he resided several decades ago. But despite all this talk of return, he continues to resolutely forge forward, combining his tradition-rooted horn mastery with an ever-expanding electronic palette, fusing wind with electricity, fusing American roots with an outward global vision. Recorded in his home studio, Young's expansive multi-instrumental mastery and studio skills have created a dense yet uplifting set of tunes, very melodic and groovy with a joyful sense of return and renewal. Roland is here, hear it on vinyl or CD.