Music Reviews

Angels Voices is a polished new chill-out collection from Sequoia Records that is themed around the female voice.
You may know the Sequoia label for its Buddha Lounge or Hotel Tara chill-out albums. This set isn’t far off from those series, but the vibe is closer to new age than downtempo electronica.
The tracks on Angels Voices [...]

The Shukar Collective offers something a little bit different than the average electronica on their latest CD, Urban Gypsy.
Urban Gypsy features ursari music - Romanian bear tamer music - combined with breakbeats and dub effects. The tracks prominently feature folk instruments like spoons, wooden barrels and darabuka. Just as prominent, though, are drum machines, synthesizers, [...]

In Between, the latest artist album from Paul van Dyk, builds on his strengths both as a DJ/mixer and a producer.
The album is a continuous mix of new tracks, including collaborations with artists ranging from David Byrne of Talking Heads, to Jessica Sutta of the Pussycat Dolls to Ashley Tomberlin from Luminary. It also includes [...]

Adam Freeland turns in an progressive two-disc DJ mix set for the latest in Global Underground’s respected DJ mix series.
The two discs feature a wide variety of artists: Carl Craig, DJ Mehdi, Evil 9, Gui Boratto, Andrew Weatherall & Adam Freeland himself are joined by lots of new names. The tracks tend towards synth-heavy trance/house [...]

The Chemical Brothers are back with a new release, We Are The Night, and we’ve got it in heavy rotation.
If you’re into big beats and classic analog synth grooves, The Chemical Brothers deliver with We Are The Night. It’s a quirky album that manages to be sonically experimental within a dance-friendly rhythmic framework.
The CD kicks [...]

Butterflies, Zebras, and Moonbeam is an ambitious 2-disc set of moody downtempo tracks from Philadelphia band Nucultures. Nucultures is a project of lyricist/vocalist Ellie Perez, guitarist/producer Tim Motzer, and bassist/songwriter Barry Meehan.
The tracks on this CD are a solid collection of jazz-tinged vocal numbers. The tracks are primarily acoustic, but feature frequent use of loops, [...]

Altered Realities is a new album electroacoustic guitar music by Turkish composer Erdem Helvacioglu. On the CD, Helvacioglu makes very interesting use of electronics, recording all the compositions in real time directly to tape. No overdubs or post-processing was used on the material, so the CD captures ideal live electroacoustic performances.
The music is a collection [...]

Treasure is a new collaboration between David Helpling and Jon Jenkins on the Spotted Peccary label. Spotted Peccary a progressive electronic music label that has consistently been releasing solid ambient/new age/space music projects.
On Treasure, Helpling and Jenkins create music that moves gracefully between the worlds of space music and more rhythmic “chillout” style grooves. The [...]

 

 Spotted Peccary Music is Art Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

iiO has a new release out, Reconstruction Time - The Best of iiO Remixed.
For fans of DJ remixes, Reconstruction Time may offer the ultimate versions of iiO’s music. The CD features the remixes of iiO’s music that helped make iiO a name in clubs around the world.
You can view the video for iiO’s Rapture, below. [...]

 

 iio Rapture: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 iio Rapture - Starkiller's Remix [3:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Secret Voices, a project of producer Tim Motzer along with Italian electronics guru Enrico Marani, has a very eclectic and original new release, No Time For Silence.
When a album is truly original, it’s often hard to fit it into a set category or niche. This is certainly the case with No Time For Silence. The [...]

Former Enigma co-producer Jens Gad is back with his second album under the name Achillea, Amadas Estrellas.
Gad doesn’t stray too far from the style of Enigma, creating chillout world music grooves that feature a wide range of sampled sounds from around the world over programmed rhythmic backing.

Iris Nova is a great new vocal electronica release from Mudville, the duo of producer Ben Rubin and vocalist & songwriter Marilyn Carino. If there’s a bar in the next David Lynch movie, you might find Mudville in it, playing one of their off-center songs.
The first thing you notice with Iris Nova is Carino’s [...]

 

 Eternity [4:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Other Side: Los Angeles is the fifth in a series of CD/DVD combinations in Time Out’s Other Side series of audiovisual travelogues. Each release features a different destination, and has a CD compiled by a local DJ, along with a video tour.
We recently took a look at Time Out’s The Other Side: Berlin, which [...]

The Emperor’s New Clothes, the latest release by Klute (UK producer Tom Withers), is a blistering two-cd collection of drum and bass & techno originals.
Withers formerly was a drummer and vocalist in a punk band, and this rock background seems to inform his music. As Klute, his tracks explore the familiar drum and bass format, [...]

 

 Klute - The Struggle (Preview): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Anno Domini is a new Spotted Peccary release from Deborah Martin & J.A.Verner. Verner is a multi-instrumentalist and composer who’s released a series of recordings featuring his unique ambient guitar stylings. Martin also has several previous releases on the Spotted Peccary label, and contributes vocals to this cd.
The music is ambient music in [...]