When I first glanced at a cover of Wurdskrieme I had an involuntary reaction… You see, I don’t really like lyrics and prefer instrumental music, painting the pictures without the words. That being said, I was relieved to see that it was not in English, and that perhaps the sound of a foreign language will add to [...]

Starting off from the very first track – the album name, the cover art, and Lisa Isaksson‘s lovely voice – everything suggests that I’m about to enter an epic story, a little medieval, a bit contemporary, and always unique. Defying all categorization, the eight tracks on Meadow Rituals, remind me of old-fashioned stories, lost antique [...]

I feel like 2011 was the year of collaborations. A year when two truly amazing artists combined forces to produce something even more beautiful than they alone could make. Bear with me, and let me demonstrate. There was the stunning collaboration between Ben Frost and Daníel Bjarnason, titled SÓLARIS, the minimally blissed out record by Taylor Deupree and Marcus Fischer, In A Place [...]

Imagine yourself riding through the country in your brand new convertible on a summer day… Imagine drifting above the stretching fields following the sunset towards the horizon with warm wind in your hair… Imagine floating above the clouds, climbing to the heights where the air is thin, and then diving off the coast towards the salty ocean… [...]

I somehow stumbled upon Sun Glitters in March and the album hasn’t left my player ever since.  Luxembourg based Victor Ferreira (also known as sug(r)cane) is quite prolific and seems to regularly add to his oeuvre with remixes and stand alone tracks popping up on his bandcamp on a fairly regular basis… Upon initial listening I raved to those who would listen, [...]

It seems like an awful long time since Rustie’s Jagz The Smack EP came out on Stuffrecords. Well, 4 years to be precise. Remembering to back then, his bass-heavy “aqua krunk” style of instrumental hip hop left chinstrokers unsure if this was dubstep or something similar. In 2008, I had the pleasure of seeing him [...]

Jamie Teasdale, formerly one half of dubstep duo Vex’d, is now working solo as Kuedo. Fittingly released on Mike Paradinas’ Planet Mu record label, it harkens back to the mid-1990′s Artificial Intelligence series of albums on Warp that led to the somewhat unfortunate genre name of “IDM.” There are certain keywords that appear to be obligatory [...]

As another year begins, I race to catch up on missed albums from my favorite labels. Israeli Aleph Zero Records has consistently put out some of the most interesting psychedelic, downtempo and IDM albums to date. Previous releases have captured the [hopefully coveted] spot on our Best of the Year lists, with Eitan Reiter’s Places I Miss [...]