‘Composed during one of London’s endless dark and locked down winters, Fever Dreams is a fantastical, speculative take on high density living. From dark, mouldy rooms, subterranean depths, symbiosis and multi-species entanglements, it cloaks itself in the claustrophobia, excitement and despair of living in a metropolis. It is a work which both celebrates and fears the weeds, spores, vermin and grime of London. The dark fantasies, frustrations, and utopian aspirations of its urban survivors. Frozen plastic bags, cramped living quarters, the kindness of strangers, the desperate unfairness of who gets what and when. Almost getting there but not quite. Being overcome by emotion for no reason. Unexpectedly moved, inexplicably destroyed. The never still, forever unfolding moments which comprise living on top of each other. Sinking and swimming; together/apart.’

‘There’s a playfulness at the heart of Profondo Rosa that’s immediately charming, with a sense of scale and spatialisation in the sounds being toyed with, exploring the strange pleasures and satisfaction in her approach to delightful and fresh feeling sound design. Argentinian composer Aylu is known to be as likely to deploy the sound of a finger click, a fizzy drink being cracked open, or a fly buzzing past the ear, as she is drawn to sampling gorgeous strings or instrumentation. Her debut album for Mana constantly builds
territories that tug at your heartstrings and then have you grinning five seconds later. This versatility and acceleration has often resulted in her music being compared to Footwork…
These compositions give off an air of being very free, very experimental, despite being meticulously artful and studied arrangements on precise and nimble coordinates.’

‘Swooping, sub-heavy sci-fi from Riz Maslen, under a new moniker.
‘Heavy-lidded and ethereal, its balance of bass weight, mechanical metre, and darkly tinted new age feels like a cinematic re-approach to some of the textures, moods, and themes of her 1996 Laundrophonic maxi, under the alias Neotropic.
‘Stairway 13 folds in decades of experience in sound design and theatre, along with shards and elements abstracted from Riz’ more recent folk-like music, zoning into a deep, retreated, altogether dreamlike and expansive atmosphere. The scale and soundscape is reminiscent of Geinoh Yamashirogumi and their Ecophony album series, resonating to similar frequencies and exploring themes of chaos and rebirth in feature-length form.
‘The four parts spread and swoop as single extended sides across this double LP. Carried by waves of sub bass and heavenly chorus, and later punctuated with autonomic clicks of machinery, whirrs, and pulses, the work forms a gothic, otherworldly ambience. A subtle space opera.’

‘Combining steppy dance music, lush detail and a diaristic tone, Jack Chrysalis’ debut album dials between music that is destined to catch the ear of the club-goer and the heart of the dreamer.
‘His signature propulsive mutations of organic techno and UK garage sound strongly in tracks like Another Year and Coldharbour, but Chrysalis threads in more introspective moments, which llend a sense of atmosphere and a deeper running mood to the album’s overworld, heightening endorphin hits from the garage swing and affording a little more bittersweetness to its textures and secrets.
‘Whether in rush or retreat, each track on this album emerges with its own emotional resonance. There’s a sense of seasons turning, or a twilight quality that’s hard to fully pin down. “Owl music” became shorthand for Jack’s tunes, a way for Mana to capture a prescient, nocturnal flight within their environment.’

An oneiric, melancholic cross between ambient, soundtrack, and audio drama, conjured from recordings made in the middle of a forest in Lithuania, near the Devil Museum in Kaunas.
‘I listened to the door hinge and I recorded the river, with its small islands of ice brushing up against the banks like a pulse.’

‘Flits between eerie ambience, environment, and hermetic logic. The music’s timing and sequencing feel distant, the elegant constructions conjured and organised semi-consciously, drawing the listener deeper into the dream… Each neatly tuned conversation and clockwork assemblage harmonises, spinning tantalisingly just out of range and understanding.’

‘Here, again, it’s the odder and more elemental devotion to semi-narrative, ambient, and concrète sounds that we loved in Pomegranates — though Telas is more refined, with less sudden shifts and vignettes. An hour of self-reflective music is shaped incrementally; building and collapsing across the four sides.
‘Telas evokes a kind of monastic retreat. Where Pomegranates seemed epic in its scope and shifting scales, this album conveys images of quieter moments spent tending to a vegetable patch within a cloistered garden, perhaps, or the threading of a tapestry with filigree. Nicolás moves slowly and deliberately throughout, manipulating gauzy fibres and room-tone, or fluttering around his cryptic actors, so that when bursts of clarity and emotion appear they take on a deeper character.
‘There’s a greater sense of contemplation and patience in the album’s logic, pointing to a conception of art, melody, and sound which is continuously under construction. Together with sister-album Cenizas, and recent Against All Logic material, it feels like there’s a centre being defined and meditated upon.’

‘Developing a sound-world of drifting, otherworldly atmospheres and strange fusion, these Villalobos-Loderbauer collaborations evade easy categorisation, even compared to the former’s genre-twisting solo offerings. The Clouds Know pulls at their backbone, refining a deft and subtle musical noir built on ambient cues, sparks and claps of electricity, brushed drums, black voids and subterranean bass swoops. Erratic, submerged rhythms make way for expansive fields of crisp, uncanny detail; enchanting, humid environments, dense with the chatter of synthesised insects, the gentle rain of drums, whispering cymbals… There’s a twinkle in the eye and moments of deadpan levity, but the overall mood here is sober and introspective.’

Rie Nakajima and Keiko Yamamoto (co-founder of Cafe OTO in East London) are joined by violinist Billy Steiger and percussionist Marie Roux in a dozen deconstructions of Japanese folk music, for this pacy, intimately engaging debut album.
Rie’s baby orchestra of rice bowls, toys, clock workings, balloons and motors is by turns haunted, teased, adorned and laid waste by Keiko’s chanting, rumbling, whispering and stamping on the floor. The production by David ‘Flying Lizards’ Cunningham deepens and spooks the mix, which sparks with energy and wit, grace and mystery.

An ‘electro-acoustic’ approach to UK Garage, allternately banging and evasive, teeming with detail.​​​​​​​