The Beatless

The technically proficient guitar playing of John Petrucci elevated Dream Theater to the upper echelons of contemporary heavy metal. While its lineup has continuously evolved, the Long Island-based quintet has consistently delivered sharp-edged music…

The technically proficient guitar playing of John Petrucci elevated Dream Theater to the upper echelons of contemporary heavy metal. While its lineup has continuously evolved, the Long Island-based quintet has consistently delivered sharp-edged music…

Discerning an aesthetic thread through the Mark Pritchard discography was tough in 1996. Twenty years later, forget it. Around 2013, he evidently tired of thinking up a new alias with each expectation-confounding release and, under his birth name, initiated a trio of brief releases for the Warp label. Featuring drop-ins from Ragga Twins and Spikey Tee, the fully energized EPs moved through jungle, bass, juke, ragga, and grime. They provided no indication for the approach taken on Under the Sun, itself a stylistic manifold. The album begins with "?," a sorrowful and moving ambient piece. Given a low-key release in 2009, the track has been used by Mala to open DJ sets, and it serves a similarly cleansing purpose for its new home here, leading to a rolling Krautrock chorale that features the baleful, multi-tracked voice of Bibio…

The Drift Inside (1999). Following on the heels of The Ambient Expanse, the first solo effort by Vir Unis, after collaborations with Steve Roach and Ma Ja Le, consists entirely of ambient floats and drifts, putting aside the 'fractal grooves' of Body Electric. Naturally, the closest similarity would be with the co-producer Steve Roach, yet Vir Unis already has his unique voice, already a sure hand with subtlety and nuance. There are 12 pieces here, and as with many albums of textual nature, the divisions between tracks aren't always noticeable. At times, such as on the opener "Currents Beneath the Shine" or "Resonate and Glow", the sound is crystalline and ethereally positive, reminding of early Michael Sterns with the music's shimmering, mandala-like patterning…

The Café del Mar is perhaps most known around the world for its chill-out music compilations. The songs are described as balearic ambient, easy listening music. The collections of the music played at the café were first sold on cassette at the end of the 1980s. In 1994, the first official “Café del Mar” CD was released, which included works by world-renowned artists. Following the great success of the first release, a total of 18 volumes of the main compilation series have been published.

Though it's six volumes in and counting, Compost's Future Sounds of Jazz series just keeps on shining. Recruiting a cast of varied standout producers - Ian O'Brien, Fauna Flash, Tosca, Victor Simonelli, United Future Organization, Beatless - helps immensely, as does the sheer variety of productions. All are nominally jazz-based, but vary from downtempo to trip-hop to drum'n'bass with no lack of flow.