Planet Mu Records

It's been five years since his acclaimed debut Severant'and time has proved it prescient; its futuristic trap influence is now ubiquitous. Slow Knife seems to return to where Severant'left off, but with the intricate sound design of last year's haunting EP Assertion Of A Surrounding Presence'subsumed into the compositions, making them more exacting and beautifully crafted.

Between albums Kuedo has been working as a sound designer and composer for hire and the application of intent and widescreen rigour that commercial work requires has definitely found its way into the new album. Slow Knife'has the subtlety, ambition and pacing of a brilliant soundtrack - a sense of an album of scenes, that easily lends itself to an impressionistic narrative. But, as with Severant', the title suggests relationship unease, with the slow knife being a metaphor for the building resentment in any close relationship.

Slow Knife'is almost two albums; the first half, according to Kuedo, invokes the seduction of the city, taking the music of Michael Mann's Manhunter'as a cue, with the latter half being inspired by the bloody starscapes and voodoo wilderness of films such as Angel Heart', Night Of The Hunter'and more recently the True Detective'series.

Both halves of the album are also in thrall to Mica Levi's inspiring Under The Skin'soundtrack, especially in the turbulence of the mid-section. The songs of the albums first half are synthetic and seductive, a gelatinous veil with shades of the pseudo-sophisticated trance of Enigma, of all things, underpinned with dusky unsettling shadows and atmosphere.

In Your Sleep', perhaps surprisingly, features the vocals of Hayden Thorpe from Wild Beasts, who settles his dark, whispered vocals into the moonlit shadowy atmosphere. Floating Forest'is the first track to allow back some of Kuedo's experimentation with the Southern rap template, which he explored before it became commonplace, with echoed drum splashes and a sinister repetitive motif, ending with a haunting growl.

The second half of the album enters wilderness territory with Approaching's slow descending notes, before Broken Fox - Black Hole'throws the record into the cathartic darkness, as undulating chords play hide and seek with riotous reeds and scratchy strings grown from challenging collaborations with cello player Koenraad Ecker (from Lumisokea).

Breaking The Surface'shivers and coils, before metal and strings dominate while In Your Skin'feels like being lost in a vast hinterland before Warmer Light'introduces some memories of sunshine, with its plucked bassline and spiralling dub. Halogen Light'opens with the sound of crickets and a clear piano, cleansing the soul before Lathe'brings things down to earth with a short, yet powerful coda. 

Tracklisting:
2LP: 
Side A:
1. Hourglass
2. Under The Surface
3. In Your Sleep

Side B:
1. Bending Moon
2. Slow Knife
3. Floating Forest
4. Love Theme

Side C:
1. Approaching
2. Broken Fox - Black Hole
3. Breaking The Surface

Side D:
1. In Your Skin
2. Warmer Light
3. Halogen Light
4. Lathe

CD:
1. Hourglass
2. Under The Surface
3. In Your Sleep
4. Bending Moon
5. Slow Knife
6. Floating Forest
7. Love Theme
8. Approaching
9. Broken Fox - Black Hole
10. Breaking The Surface
11. In Your Skin
12. Warmer Light
13. Halogen Light
14. Lathe

A collaboration between Aphex Twin (Richard D. James) and µ - Ziq (Mike Paradinas), Mike & Rich - 'Expert Knob Twiddlers'was made back in 1994.

Richard edited the tracks into shape later in 1996 with his new Apple Mac computer and it was released later that year on Rephlex, the label he co-owned and which released the first two albums by µ-Ziq.

This new reissued version has been carefully cleaned up, re-edited and remastered from the original DAT tapes, put into a more fitting order and, more excitingly, seven new bonus tracks and alternative versions have also been added. The album was recorded over a few days during the 1994 World Cup, back when Richard lived in a big shared flat in Stoke Newington.

Richard had tried to collaborate with a few other likeminded artists but something clicked when Mike and Rich worked together and the sessions have a unique feel; playful and at times actually drunk. These are fun experiments in the spirit of lighthearted moog pop and ripe 70s British TV themes, standing out from the po-faced electronica of the time with a garish glee.

The record was made on what is now seen as pretty primitive gear - an Atari, Roland MKS-80, Memorymoog, Roland R8 and a handful of samples on a Casio FZ-10M - but it's to their credit that it resonates well with the hardware workouts coming out today.

There's a broadminded but sloppy funk to the record, even whistling, singing and harpsichord in 'Reg' and wonky beat pile-ons in 'Jelly Fish'. There's latin piano and wheezy drunken techno in Vodka', or the sleepy spaced out ambience of Bu Bu Bu Ba' with its barely contained laughter which seems to reflect the absurdity.

The new versions and bonus tracks are an absolute delight - from a trancier version of Vodka' to the wonky bounce of Portamento Gosh', The 3/4 dub of 'Waltz,' the banging door bass of' Brivert and Muonds', the creepy seasick atmosphere of 'Clissold Bathroom' and finishing with the strangely graceful and serious 'Organ Plodder'. A generous and welcome return to the racks.

3LP: 
Side A:
1. Mr. Frosty
2. Reg

Side B:
1. Jelly Fish
2. Eggy Toast
3. Vodka

Side C:
1. Winner Takes All
2. Giant Deflating Football
3. Upright Kangaroo

Side D:
1. The Sound Of The Beady Eyes
2. Bu Bu Bu Ba

Side E:
1. Vodka (Mix 2)
2. Portamento Gosh
3. Waltz

Side F:
1. Brivert & Muonds
2. Clissold Bathroom
3. Jelly Fish (Mix 2)
4. Organ Plodder

2CD:
Disc 1:
1. Mr. Frosty
2. Reg
3. Jelly Fish
4. Eggy Toast
5. Vodka
6. Winner Takes All
7. Upright Kangaroo
8. Giant Deflating Football
9. The Sound Of The Beady Eyes
10. Bu Bu Bu Ba

Disc 2:
1. Vodka (Mix 2)
2. Portamento Gosh
3. Waltz
4. Brivert & Muonds
5. Clissold Bathroom
6. Jelly Fish (Mix 2)
7. Organ Plodder

Tom Konx-om-Pax'Scholefield's Caramel is quite a different record from the dark, mould-pocked ambience of his debut Regional Surrealism'. Although it's primarily a beatless album, it's one with a big smile on it's face.Scholefield started making Caramel'after his last record in 2012, 'My surroundings have a direct influence on the mood of what I make.

I made Regional Surrealism when I was living in a big empty flat on my own in Glasgow town centre surrounded by concrete and junkies. Moving next to the park, closer to friends and getting to tour the world had a positive effect on the feel of the tracks.' Caramel'has a lightness and energy, an unrepentant joyful cheesiness even - like the rave piano and spiralling arpeggios of Cosmic Trigger'or the big beatless build up of the title track.

'A lot of the tracks are very simple, that's quite an important theme.' He adds 'I remember the Human League talk about how you can play their songs using only a couple of fingers on the synth, or Boards Of Canada saying its important to be able to hum their melodies really easily.' There's also a strong element of rave memory in this ambience.

It's influenced in some ways by touring the world with Lone doing visuals and DJing, but also from simply listening to old rave tapes and taking in the warmth and energy. As he says 'Some of the tracks are like photocopies of photocopies of rave tracks, where the drums have dissolved and its just the melodies that have survived.' You can hear this distinctly on Perc Rave'.

Other tracks are more or less drones that build into melodies, like Beatrice's Visit', as he says 'I'm always trying to find the most ecstatic and basic loop and just let it run and do it's thing. I heard a funny story about Basic Channel popping out to get a kebab and letting their machines run while they were out.'

Other tracks approach the pastoral melodies of prime nineties IDM such as At The Lake'and Rainbow Bounce'which almost seem like a homage to Planet Mu's Mike Paradinas at his most beatific. Dive in.

LP Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Video Club
2. Perc Rave
3. Last Jam Forever
4. Manhunter
5. Oren's Theme
6. Frozen Border
7. Mega Glacial

Side B:
1. Caramel
2. Radiance
3. Beatrice's Visit
4. Stay
5. Cosmic Trigger
6. At The Lake
7. Rainbow Bounce

CD Tracklisting:
1. Video Club
2. Perc Rave
3. Last Jam Forever
4. Manhunter
5. Oren's Theme
6. Frozen Border
7. Mega Glacial
8. Caramel
9. Radiance
10. Beatrice's Visit
11. Stay
12. Cosmic Trigger
13. At The Lake
14. Rainbow Bounce

As the popularity of Footwork has continued to soar, the range of sounds within the genre has expanded. From the angular, minimal beats of RP Boo to the widely admired sound of sadly departed DJ Rashad, the genre has lovingly seeped into hearts and feet worldwide whilst continuing to innovate. Until now most of the focus has been on the male DJ/Producers, but that is about to change.

Gary based producer Jlin, who some of you might remember for her track 'Erotic Heat' (Bangs and Works Vol.2 - Planet Mu 2011), or from her moment in the mainstream light providing music for fashion designer Rick Owens'FW/14 Paris runway show, is stepping further into the light with a stunning eleven track debut album 'Dark Energy' showcasing her unique and bold new sound.

Gary, Indiana, a neighbouring City to Chicago, is one of those towns people overlook or perhaps expect the worst of. It's famous for the Jackson 5 and its Steel Mills, one of which Jlin works long shifts at. She says her sound and 'the themes behind my tracks are all based off what my creativity absorbs, whether it be bad or good', and the music certainly shows that intent. It's forceful, yet ripples with colour; it's an intense, monolithic sound with rugged rhythms that stop and breathe and roll out in unusual staccato patterns. It's a sound unlike any other out there, one that's fiercely unique. Her track titles are as evocative as the music is intense and hint at deeper themes - 'Black Diamond', 'Guantanamo', 'Abnormal Restriction'.

She notes 'The titles I chose are based off failing and learning.' Album track 'Expand' also features a vocal from another important female artist - respected experimental West Coast producer Holly Herndon whom Jlin has been quietly collaborating with. Her album 'Dark Energy' is so called because of where it came from and how it came to be; the dark monolith on the cover also perfectly encapsulates it - 'This album took my entire life to make.

Every moment in my life lead up to this album. My musical sense of expression comes from sadness, and anger. I can't create from a happy place. It seems pointless in my opinion. I don't make the tracks as much as I feel them. Creating for me is about feeling and impact.'Jlin has been supported by all the key players in the Footwork scene and says she is 'thankful to many.'

2015 feels like the year people are ready for a new voice in Footwork and Jlin is a true original with a hard, yet infectious style and an album that showcases it brilliantly.

2LP
Side A:
1. Black Ballet
2. Unknown Tongues

Side B:
3. Guantanamo
4. Erotic Heat
5. Black Diamond

Side C:
6. Mansa Musa
7. Infrared (Bagua)
8. Ra

Side D:
9. Expand
10. So High
11. Abnormal Restriction

CD:
01. Black Ballet
02. Unknown Tongues
03. Guantanamo
04. Erotic Heat
05. Black Diamond
06. Mansa Musa
07. Infrared (Bagua)
08. Ra
09. Expand
10. So High
11. Abnormal Restriction

Scotland's Claude Speeed first came to our attention via his epic 2012 remix of Kuedo's 'Work Live & Sleep In Collapsing Space'. With a history in various bands such as RUSSIA and American Men, his work draws from Scottish post rock, 90s and 00s electronica, American minimalism, noise & drone. After a significant time travelling abroad he relocated to Berlin and released his debut album for LuckyMe, entitled 'My Skeleton'. Now he is releasing his follow-up EP 'Sun Czar Temple' on Planet Mu - an epic set of songs that distort emotional songwriting with textured synthetic ambience and computer noise. Dreams on hard disk.

The EP opens with the epic 'Traumzeuge', a piece for digitally obliterated piano and plugins taking its inspiration from territories of culture shock and insomnia. Starting with monolithic slabs of SOLAR PARALLAX distortion, the layers of intensity build until eventually dropping out, revealing gentle, warm guitar harmonics and tender vocals. 'Dr. Liz Wilson' begins with twinkling, bleeping arrays of electronics: implied interstellar communication. Warm sinewaves and rising tone clusters build up into a rushing wind tunnel of s||||ESCAPE TIME FRACTAL||ound.

Hidden drums, ghost choirs, and geometric cryptophasia arpeggios disappear into chaos. An Adrián Villar Rojas memory of terraforming and futuristic DMT ruins.'VIN', serves as an interlude, built on field recordings from a short trip into an empty forest, made with looped tape noises and crushed oneiric chords.'Fret' draws from a story about an abandoned palace, far away from anything. Initially composed entirely visually in Logic, sound muted, without any timing grid. Dense pitch shifted chords and multiple random effects building into strangely unearthly pop with Ryuichi Sakamoto 80s drums and obscured vocalvocalvocal loops.

The final track, and the EP's most epic, 'RU Sorry?' (CITY CASTLE VICTORIES) opens with simple synth 5th interval figures evolving slowly into an enveloping, rippling, cosmic fuzz. building up to near noise, then falling away into blocks of buzzing chords. Distortion appears gently until a smashed out post rock crescendo bursts through.

Afterlife / Angels.
Side A:
1. Traumzeuge
2. Dr. Liz Wilson
3. Vin

Side B:
1. Fret
2. R U Sorry?

Mr. Mitch is one of a group of producers who have re-envisioned Grime in the last few years, infecting the scene with a progressive and often surprising energy.

He's 26 years old and started his own Gobstopper label back in 2010 after having his debut release on Butterz. Last year he started the flourishing Boxed 'Instrumental Grime' night alongside producers Slackk, Logos and Oil Gang. For Mr. Mitch, Grime " - ¦has always been an experimental and progressive genre, taking elements of what came before it and pushing those boundaries to create something new". And so this four tracker, which drops before his debut album 'Parallel Memories', is a short but brilliant showcase of his delicate use of Grime's speed and sound and his ability to take it somewhere else.

The record starts with Boxed anthem 'Don't Leave' which chops and screws a repeated acapella, with spaced drum hits and light drizzly chords. It sounds extra sad and emotionally desolate, but within the Grime grid, it still feels tough. 'Be Somebody' elevates the mood, breathing in some much needed sunlight with a graceful twinkling melody and a hopeful but shy vocal refrain which complement each other perfectly over snapping claps and snares, all pivoting on a heavy sub bass.

'Padded' builds incredibly slowly, a tender melody snaking out across a simple kick and some exhausted sounding hand claps. The melody builds very gently and the track peaks midway with a contrasting noise that seems to shatter the track apart. 'Oh' finishes the EP, mixing slower criss-crossing drums with gently warping vocals that drift in and out of the mix while a soft marimba runs underneath.This is music that deserves to find a likeminded audience, progressive and not afraid of emotional depth.

Side A:
1. Don't Leave
2. Be Somebody

Side B:
3. Padded
4. Oh

Producer and boss of Mathematics records, Jamal Moss a.k.a Hieroglyphic Being is a one-off musical explorer. Jamal's music takes cues from the EBM and House that played a huge part in the city's musical underground in the late eighties and early nineties, notably Ron Hardy and Adonis, but also Industrial, Avant-Jazz and Noise. His tireless schedule of rough low-key releases over the last 12 years and his intense, very physical, psychedelic music, have made him a key exponent or maybe even a pioneer of what's recently come to be named 'Outsider House', although he prefers the more Sun-Ra like descriptors of 'Rhythmic Cubism' and 'Cosmic Be-Bop'.

His releases, much like his music, have straddled House labels and the more leftfield avant garde electronic imprints with ease. However his deeply held Afrofuturist intent and the discipline of his radical designs set him apart from the pack. Always moving forward, his music is an ever-evolving transmission from his mind to our bodies, or as he sees it, a form of meditation that the supple, tuned listener will enjoy immensely. 'The Seer Of Cosmic Visions' is a collection of tracks from his back catalogue that have been selected to make this album.

Remastered by Michael Kuhn at Berlin's Dubplates and Mastering. The album is hugely varied within it's basic drum machine and synths template; from the psychedelic blowout 'The Seer Of Cosmic Visions' and the distorted, ruptured crunch of 'How Wet Is Ur Box', to more delicate meditations like 'Space Is The Place' or 'Letters From The Edge'. From the the shimmering rhythmic noise of 'A Genre Sonique' to the the woozy tribal funk of '134340 Pluto' or the rough darting strings of the off-kilter 'Calling Planet Earth' and finishing on the relaxing gaseous drones of 'Strange Signs In The Sky', the album never fails to transport the listener to another state of mind.

Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. The Seer Of Cosmic Visions
2. How Wet Is Ur Box

Side B:
3. Space Is The Place
4. Letters From The Edge

Side C:
5. A Genre Sonique
6. The Human Experience

Side D:
7. 134340 Pluto
8. Calling Planet Earth
9. Strange Signs In The Sky

CD:
1. The Seer Of Cosmic Visions
2. How Wet Is Ur Box
3. Space Is The Place
4. Letters From The Edge
5. A Genre Sonique
6. The Human Experience
7. 134340 Pluto
8. Calling Planet Earth
9. Strange Signs In The Sky

Vezelay is 30 year old Matthieu Le Berre who's from Clermont-Ferrand in France and this six track E.P. of short dreamlike electropop is his debut release.

The 'Lyre E.P.' simply and beautifully mixes stripped down simple pop structures with a dreamlike quality featuring Matthieu's soft falsetto singing. The feeling is quite lo-fi and hazy and with repeated listens reveals an austere depth and complexity.

The E.P. starts with 'Sedative' in which his vocals drift airily over soft arpeggios and a spacious kick drum. On 'Demure', the beat is buried in a hazy structure, with a light guitar figure as the instrumentals build and shine under his light vocals. 'Archetype's opening chords are reminiscent of Boards of Canada, building the track with guitar harmonics and hip hop drums, as a vocal line is chopped and pitched into a rhythmic loop. 'Lyre' is dreamy and dramatic, with whispered vocals, hazy string samples and a loping half beat drum. 'Homeboy' goes upbeat into a snappy kick drum and a big bassline, with Matthieu's chorused vocals and keys filling the space. The record finishes with the blanket-like slumber of 'Coma': crackles and oddly edited guitar are matched against helium vocals and airy synths.

Optimum is Malcolm Chen, a new producer from South East London. He's collaborated with Ikonika recently but Planet Mu are very happy to be releasing his first solo 12".

The lead track "Max Power" lives up to its name, mixing tight electro-soca drums with a barrage of ravey riffs that build up with strange transporting noises, creating an almost unbearable, driving intensity without ever having to reach for the wobbly bass or other cliches.

On side B "Crash Riddim" runs brazen, interlocking arpeggiated melodies which build and reduce against each other over a tight old-school electro drum beat while "Lily" is a soulful number with driving melodic bass, under lush waves of cold angular chords and tough grimey claps and bass kicks.

Numan Khan from Manchester is a new artist for Planet Mu with an original musical style that mixes dubstep and grime influences with an idiosyncratic take on rhythm to great effect.

This four track EP showcases his styles from the A side with the lush melodic accordian and snes melodies of 'Race Against Time', to the slower, disco influenced 'Photograph'.

The B side starts with 'Voodoo', which combines grimey bass and strings with offbeat drums to odd, driving effect and finishes with 'XX' which sounds like a long lost golden era 8-bit grime instrumental but with deft production tweaks and fx's that keep it interesting and effective.