Jamael Dean
Black Space Tapes

Seance Centre: ...Muldrew, recorded on the northern Ontario lake by that name, is the culmination of several years of this collaborative tradition. Resisting their penchant for composition and arrangement, the duo embarked on this project with only an open framework that encouraged restraint. The result is a sparse and improvisational album, hung on enough structure for each song to evoke a distinct, albeit ambiguous mood. Space is paramount and even the most digital elements breathe with the resonance of the room and mingle with creaking floors. The resulting album is steeped in the placid stillness and northern ambience of a lake at dawn, and the emotive expanse of a forest at dusk. Imagine an ECM cottage-series, or Jon Hassell, Hiroshi Yoshimura, and John Martyn scoring a Bela Tarr film set in rural Canada. This is the future-proof music of metropolitan polyglot minds invigorated by nature’s mute refusal to follow a click-track.

Butter Sessions: ...Naarm (Melbourne) based collective Butter Sessions celebrate over a decade in business with an extensive glossary of talented friends and affiliates pressed on a three-part compilation series. The label has always held the community closest, as exemplified by the 20+ artists featured over the three releases. Each 12” presents a grand soundscape anchored into the tenebrous energy of the dancefloor, with its inquisitive electronics and fierce pulse. If there was a definition for the Butter Sessions sound of ten years in the making, the answer lies here.The final compilation in the series commences with Time, a masterful blend of mid-tempo digi-dub and two step. Mosam Howieson gifts us Influx, a thick and hazy wedge of techno and Canada’s D. Tiffany serves up the mechanic and restless techno on a knife's edge in Cast the Trance. Ben Fester delivers Tumbo Rumblin, a leftfield slice of intergalactic electronics. Meanwhile, Furious Frank presents the electro and acid charged Blue Light while Makeda plays with genre expectations with the experimental composition Fable. Finally, the record's conclusion is Doordrms by Ben Keynes; dipping in tempo with acid drops, resulting in thoughtful IDM nuances.