Origato Plastics

Right down to the hip, pleasant cover model, Buscemi's second album of groovy productions is a near-perfect match for his debut, 1998's Mocha Supremo. Producer Dirk Swartenbroekx flaunts his love of breezy, continental rhythms and late-night atmosphere. Though the scattered Latin-dance fusions bossa nova meets disco, salsa meets drum'n'bass, samba meets downtempo house aren't exactly pioneering ideas, Swartenbroekx is an able hand who knows when and how to freshen what could be a stale production.

The Sinfonietta Riga chamber orchestra was founded relatively recently, in 2006, and selection of compositions written for the orchestra and its conductor, Normunds Sne, are even younger. Ruta Paidere's Tempera is from 2012, Andris Dzenitis composed Euphoria in 2017, Aigars Raumanis and Sinfonietta Riga first performed the Temperature of Plastics concerto for saxophone and chamber orchestra by Platons Buravickis in 2019, and Linda Leimane's Ray-Bows also dates to 2019, although it premiered only in 2021.

A Greek band of the late '60s and early '70s, Aphrodite's Child scored only one European hit, "Rain and Tears." Though it was a big one, the group became little more than a trivia answer after keyboardist Vangelis Papathanassiou dropped his surname and hit number one with the theme to Chariots of Fire in 1981…

Second Nature is the album from Seb Taylor's electronic downtempo project Hibernation. With a distinct sonic palette that includes stand up bass, muted trumpet, brush drums, glitches, womps and warm subs the Hibernation sound is crucial listening. Seb brings a lifetime of musical experience to his production, composition and arrangements, and it shows. Listening to Second Nature conjures up future memories of dark smoky jazz clubs, Bladerunner cityscapes, parallel universes, dreams half forgotten and epic nights. This is music with spirit, narrative and detail.