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Mike Paradinas, veteran producer and Planet Mu label owner has written a new album called ‘Grush' and it's full of weird bangers that reclaim the 'dance' part of the woeful term IDM. A back-to-first-principles record, inspired in part by the group of artists IDM was coined for; melodic dance music that didn't come out of urban scenes, but interpreted them from a distance. The tracks on ‘Grush’ are all road-tested live favorites developed with feedback from Mike's touring partner and visuals guy Mora (Jan Moravec). It's a detailed and energetic journey which replicates the flow of a live gig. A lot of the tracks have been made in hotel rooms in response to shows, ‘Imperial Crescent’ is named after a Japanese Hotel, as is ‘Belvedere’ in Prague, while some tracks such as ‘Hyper Daddy’ were created specifically to play live. Drums are confidently at the fore here and the album feels like it traces Mike's musical history and interests neatly around his sweetly nostalgic melodies, with atmospheres and structures which twist and turn with a charming softness which contrasts with the tension in the drums. Take ‘Hyper Daddy’s’ spiralling notes and twinkling piano which remind one of early Black Dog or Omni Trio rushing alongside splashy jungle drums, or the aquatic acid footwork of the title track with its drums softly bubbling and kicking. Elsewhere there's territory which harks back to his Tusken Raiders pseudonym, like the heads down Drexciyan funk of ‘Windsor Safari Park,’ which transforms from moody electro into a sunny hardcore track midway.

The album is interspersed with Reticulum A, B and C at the start middle and end of the album which suggest a theme which carries across the music in an effortless and joyful way. ‘Grush’ is a strong album that works both for listening and DJing and a great snapshot of where Mike Paradinas musical head is at in 2024.

Zdehvedo Gob is a collective of musicians who all hail from various cities around the world. It consists of Udacha label head Alexey Kalik as well as drummer Roman Shestaev and Gamayun associates Anton Dvoenko and Stas Mitrofanov and they all got together in the studio in summer 2023 and the results are now presented on this new album. It's a gorgeous mix of world, jazz, spiritual percussive, experimental music that ride son nice loose and vibrant rhythms with a great mix of synthetic and organic sounds all offering plenty for the mind as well as the body to get excited about.

Yukako Hayase released her debut album on Sixty Records in 1986. Yasushi Akimoto handled the lyrics and production for all but one of her songs. With her laid-back voice, worldly-wise attitude, and European-inspired sound, this album has gained renewed appreciation in recent years for its ahead-of-its-time vibe.

The hidden history of Japanese electronic music, where contemporary music and cyber-occultism converge, makes a reappearance on a special edition LP! Reproduction of the print pattern of the flyer for the "Ikebukuro Cyber Cafe" event held in 1991 on the cover, a center hole on the back side, a reproduction of the original cassette index of "Computer Cafe Music" and an IC board for electronic devices (the real one) are pasted on the front cover. The disc was mastered by D&M and cut at 45 rpm. An insert is included. Standard black vinyl pressing.

The new release from Zouen Keikaku, an independent label that has released works by Ooyamada Daisanmyaku and Yaryu, among others, that made a splash at last year's RSD and Record Day Japan. This is the second collection by Tokyo electronic musician, Yo. The sharply polished post-industrial sound tangles the feet that line the dance floor and interrupts their dance steps. The dub-derived heavy bass swings aimlessly, crawling around like a snake with bizarre sound textures that cannot be enclosed in any musical genre. A DL code for "B," a special collection of remixed and unreleased sound sources, is included along with a mini booklet that resembles a sightseeing pamphlet.

Limited 10 year anniversary repress with black/white artwork. In May 2014, Icelandic producer Yagya released his fifth album, Sleepygirls, across three slabs of vinyl on Dutch label Delsin. It's a deep, spacious and dubbed out affair that stays locked at a pleasingly sedentary tempo throughout. Since 2002 Yagya has been crafting lush electronic albums and always manages to find pure bliss and beauty and his simple, nature inspired soundscapes. "I wanted to create an album that's atmospheric, repetitive, and easy to listen to over and over again," says the man himself. "Something that works well in the background (e.g. when concentrating on work), as well as up close in a big sound system. I also wanted to learn how to make my music sound better than before, since I'm a huge sound-nerd, so that was a part of the goal for me personally." The album is a fine fusion of tropes from Yagya's earlier albums, features jazz instrumentalists that improvise beautiful melodies over monotonic, almost drone-like, techno beats and also uses live recordings of Japanese vocals, saxophone and guitar to counter the repetitiveness of the rhythms. Right from the rolling bliss of the opener, you're suspended in a womb like pillow of sound that is soft, warm and serenely beautiful. As tracks roll on, the pace stays the same but themes vary from upright and summery to more elongated and insular. This is natural, organic dub that is a delight and a pleasure to listen to. The vinyl versions of each track have been specially mixed with random LFOs, sonic quirks and unique fingerprints making them the subtly different to the CD version, but overall this is a brain soothing and mind melting album that can soundtrack lazy days, long summer afternoons and warm winter evenings in equal style.

The Wrekin Crew is back for a seance outing on the peerless Is It Balearic? This new offering rather continues where the first one left off with two tracks of immersive sonics for sunny days. First up is 'Vapour Trails' which melds lush Italo disco melodies and nice emotinoal pop of the sort you would expect to hear in this duo's DJ sets. Goldsuite also step up with a remix to smooth the edges and lay down moon-lit Balearica then closer 'Broken Wings' has more meaningful vocals but this time over grooves more suited to a late-night setting. Cosmic arps finish it in style with plenty of dubby undercurrents.

Wice is back with a powerhouse of an album. Expanding on his sound, Wice takes his sonics into new directions and adds new and exciting textures to his arsenal. A must for all Cyberpunk and Darksynth lovers

Wice is back with a powerhouse of an album. Expanding on his sound, Wice takes his sonics into new directions and adds new and exciting textures to his arsenal. A must for all Cyberpunk and Darksynth lovers

Wice is back with a powerhouse of an album. Expanding on his sound, Wice takes his sonics into new directions and adds new and exciting textures to his arsenal. A must for all Cyberpunk and Darksynth lovers

Initial LP pressing on Yellowy Green Vinyl. The music of Washed Out has always levitated over a timeless frontier. You can sense it in his immersive, amorphous vocals, the expansive soundscapes, the wistful storytelling. It's a sweet spot where, says its creative force, Ernest Greene, "any sort of association or memory from the past can transport you instantly. I love that." Greene's transcendent output has earned him the moniker of "Godfather of Chillwave" by Pitchfork and a co-sign from Portlandia, which borrowed his track, "Feel It All Around," for its utopian theme song. His latest, Notes From a Quiet Life arrives after delivering more than a decade of distinct and disparate creative re-imaginations at a remarkably high level (five albums, two EPs). Notes is bold in its intuitiveness: Greene has left the treadmill of music-as-a-business, instead letting his artistic interests lead the way. "Each album," says Green, who also paints and sculpts, "is a world-building exercise." The Georgia native left Atlanta in 2021 to move back to the countryside he knew growing up. Where escapism once flooded his thoughts, today he is preoccupied with the universe of wonder in the reality around him. He named the former horse farm he moved to "Endymion" (after the pastoral John Keats poem about a lovesick shepherd - its opening line: "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever"), and it has shaped all that he's created there, from his music to his albums' creative direction to his planned large scale visual-art experiments. "I've read that every five, maybe 10, years, you're practically a different person - like literally, on a cellular level," Greene explains. "The things that you're going through will end up changing you, and you're kind of a different person. This album is a reflection of that. Experimenting with painting and sculpture helps my music. They influence each other. That was a kind of realization for me. I don't want to look back on my life one day, and be like, 'Oh, it was all about maximizing productivity,'" he says. "I want to enjoy this." That purity of vision is what makes Notes From a Quiet Life so potent. It's the first album Greene wholly self-produced, with some mixing assistance from Nathan Boddy (James Blake, Mura Masa) and David Wrench (Caribou, Florence + the Machine). "Early in my career, I had a lack of technical skill, and there were some things I wasn't 100% enthusiastic about," he says, noting Jean-Michel Basquiat's distinct, self-driven method as an inspiration. "Something that I was looking for was...I didn't want any illusion of anyone else's influences. I wanted to see this through to the end. And honestly, that was a big challenge. Illustrating that, Greene's list of influences for Notes From a Quiet Life are mostly sculpture icons: minimalist legend Donald Judd, abstract expressionist Cy Twombly, and modernists Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. Of the latter, he observes, "The majority of his working life was spent on his country estate, and he wasn't living a cosmopolitan lifestyle. He was focused on just making good work, you know?" Notes from a Quiet Life is Washed Out's fifth album.