Idm 2015

Crossing styles and boundaries, Holographic Codex is a mixture of atmospheric ambience, IDM sequences and psybient textures; these cult Italian musicians create a blending of ritualistic soundscapes and technogenic landscapes. Alio Die has over 60 releases, some on America’s Projekt Records and others on his own Hic Sunt Leones label. Montana recorded 5 collaborations with Pete Namlook on Pete’s German FAX label, plus released 10 solo albums with various European imprints. On their first collaboration, Alio Die & Lorenzo Montanà create transporting and alluring aural sceneries of evolving, intimate sounds…

Verified electronic music legend Tom Jenkinson has been a pivotal force in his field as Squarepusher since the mid-'90s. Taking constant risks and shifting styles dramatically without batting an eyelash has panned out for him more often than not and has resulted in some of the most definitive moments in the evolution of IDM and electronic music as a whole. It hasn't all been unquestionable genius, though. Ufabulum follows a string of disappointing missteps in the Squarepusher story, namely 2008's fusion-funk meltdown Just a Souvenir; 2009's Solo Electric Bass 1, a collection of unaccompanied bass noodling/soloing; and 2010's half-baked experiment Shobaleader One: d’Demonstrator. Even the best moments of early albums were shelved between multiple phoned-in tracks or clearly less-inspired variations on the same theme…

Cool - calm - collected: chapter 15 of this superlative series, compiled by Compost’s head honcho Michael Reinboth. 21 tracks, 8 exclusive, previously unreleased tracks.
The exclusives by Aera (guess you all know his brilliant Innervisions release), Arnau Obiols & KAYYAK (recently featured by Gilles Peterson in his “watch out for 2021” top five list), Ron Deacon (officially belongs to the Workshop-Crew together with other artists like Move D, Even Tuell and Kassem Mosse), Class Compliance my gosh - what a killer tune, Mille & Hirsch (operators of the fine Polish Records), All Is Well (Fred Everything), Ben Sturm (watch out talent of Leipzig’s viral underground scene) and Oliver Kieser (best known as Kieser & Velten with their releases on G-Stone)…

Brainfeeder kingpin Flying Lotus has a talent for stargazing. The label's ranks include jazz fusionists (Thundercat, Austin Peralta), psych-rap futurists (Samiyam, Teebs), and the endearingly inscrutable (Matthewdavid) existing together in dazzling constellation. But when Baths signed to Anticon, Brainfeeder lost their experimental pop artist, the kind of producer who could marry head-swiveling beats to ghostly vocals.
Consider that niche filled. Lapalux, aka Stuart Howard, makes a similar type of sparkling deconstructed pop. He fits the Brainfeeder aesthetic perfectly, as he likes to envision his songs as aural paintings– a visual tie-in obviously appealing to a synaesthete like FlyLo. Lapalux's snares first started snapping on his remix of Thundercat's "For Love I Come"…

Counterfeit² is the first full-length studio album by Martin Gore, the primary songwriter for the band Depeche Mode.
Martin Gore's Counterfeit² beat David Gahan's Paper Monsters to the punch by just over a month; with some better timing - and, you know, a synchronous album from Andrew Fletcher - Depeche Mode could've pulled a Kiss. This first full-length from DM's principal songwriter follows an EP he released 14 years prior. On that EP, Gore covered some of his favorite songs and made them sound unsurprisingly like his group circa that year. As one can tell from the title of this disc, this is the same concept, and even some of the most ardent fans no doubt breathed another sigh of relief with the knowledge that he decided once again to let other people provide the lyrics…

On their 2016 full-length, The Digging Remedy, Plaid claim to have revisited their Detroit techno roots. While this might cause longtime fans to expect something similar to the duo's pre-Warp recordings, particularly the solo tracks recorded under pseudonyms including Atypic and Balil, the album isn't quite as danceable as the work they produced during the early '90s. In some ways, it's slightly darker and less playful than many Plaid albums, continuing with the cinematic flair of their previous decade's output. (The duo recorded a few soundtracks during that time, most of which were only available in Japan or digitally.) Opening track "Do Matter" trickles in with John Carpenter-esque synth melodies and creeping, suspenseful rhythms that skip a beat rather than sticking to a 4/4 pattern…

The project of experimental musician Daniel Lopatin, Oneohtrix Point Never explores how history, memory, and music intersect in retro synth reveries and more complex works. The flowing electronics of OPN's early albums - which were gathered in the acclaimed 2009 collection Rifts - suggested Lopatin was an heir to Tangerine Dream. However, he soon revealed other layers to his music with a string of releases that reflected his interest in high art as well as pop-culture artifacts including video games, science fiction, anime, and advertising (which Lopatin sampled cleverly on 2011's Replica). After signing to Warp Records, Oneohtrix Point Never only grew more adventurous with albums like 2015's Garden of Delete, an improbable yet moving fusion of metal, trance, R&B, and Top 40 pop. During this time, Lopatin also became an award-winning film composer…