Proto Droids – Sequential Dreams
[woe, 2021] Proto Droids is the side project for Correlations’ main synthesist, Neil Hale. If you haven’t yet heard of him, I highly suggest picking up any of the releases…
BUNKR – Graveyard Orbit
[VLSI Records Ltd., 2021] BUNKR is James Dean, a producer in Brighton, UK and co-founder of Cookshop. He’s previously recorded under the moniker, Lost Idol, and has released a couple…
Leah Kardos – Bird Rib
[bigo & twigetti 2020] I’m admittedly a bit late to the game with Leah Kardos. This is the first release I’ve had the pleasure to hear from her, and it…
Patrick R. Pärk – Sports Themes for Psychonauts
[Ethereal Mother Tapes, 2021] Patrick R. Pärk’s newest release, Sports Themes for Psychonauts, is a self-described alternate theme for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. But this isn’t some background noise…
Kl(aüs) – Kl(aüs)
[Castles in Space, 2016] Kl(aüs) is a project from Australian friends Stewart Lawler and Jonathan Elliott. I’ve just recently stumbled onto this group’s debut album, and took to this album…
Negative Response – Submersion Therapy
[Negative Products, 2021] Negative Response, the minimal synth group which began in 1980, is back with its first new material since 1983. And it’s quite an achievement! The nine tracks…
John Carpenter – Lost Themes III: Alive After Death
[Sacred Bones, 2021] If you love John Carpenter’s past work as much as I do, you’ll already be aware of this album. If you are new to John Carpenter (dear…
Imaginary Softwoods – Annual Flowers in Color
[Mineral Disc, 2020] As a fan of late 2000s/early 2010s ambient/electronic group Emeralds, I was somewhat familiar with John Elliott’s work in Outer Space. Somewhere in the aftermath of Emerald’s…
Protomartyr – Ultimate Success Today
[Domino, 2020] Protomartyr is back with another blistering take on the current political climate, our failures as a species, and our dreary future. This feels intensely apt in the age…
Leif – Loom Dream
[Whities, 2019] Found sounds, droney backdrops, natural elements, ethereal woodwinds, and sequenced chimes. Leif Knowles creates a feeling of pastoral mystery—the feeling you get when dusk hits, the fireflies come…
Kate NV – Room for the Moon
[RVNG Intl., 2020] Russian musician Kate NV’s new album, Room for the Moon, expands on the minimalist synth pop from 2018’s для FOR. As with that album, analog synths garble,…
Tokyo Shoegazer – Crystallize
[299 Japan Records, 2011] This long lost gem of shoegaze has finally gotten the vinyl release it so much deserved by Light in the Attic. The music here is quintessential…
Kosmischer Läufer – The Secret Cosmic Music of the East German Olympic Program 1972-83, Volume 4
[Unknown Capability Recordings, 2018] The fourth installment of the, supposedly, lost secret music of Martin Zeichnete, written to provide the East German olympic team music to train to, is once…
Polypores – Flora
[Castles in Space, 2019] With Flora, created under the moniker Polypores, Stephen James Buckley crafts beautiful ambient electronic, surrounded by field recordings of bubbling springs, rustling trees, and bird chirps.…
Talk Talk – The Colour of Spring
Mark Hollis and Talk Talk went through a sea change after the synth pop successes of their earlier albums, The Party’s Over and It’s My Life. Colour marked a shift…
The Chameleons – Script of the Bridge
What’s recorded here is extremely tight, virtuosic, and while subsequent albums would prove this band contained heaps of talent, the debut album caught lightning in a bottle, and attained heights…
Cluster – Zuckerzeit
If you reach your hand into a box full of Cluster albums and select a random record, you’re bound to come out with something either pretty good to fantastic. Zuckerzeit…
Yellow Magic Orchestra – Technodelic
“This must be the ugliest piece of bread I’ve ever eaten.” -YMO And with that, begins Yellow Magic Orchestra’s fifth—and arguably best—album, Technodelic. As opposed to the object of their…
Manuel Göttsching – E2-E4
“When I played it back I thought, ‘This is OK actually, maybe I should release it.’ All the technical aspects of the recording were just right, too, not a single…
Franco Nanni – Elicoide
Released in limited quantities in 1987, Elicoide is a beautiful example of minimalism in the tradition of Philip Glass, Steve Reich, John Cage, or Daniel Lentz, but with synths. It…
Mariah – Utakata No Hibi
The long-running project of saxophonist Yasuaki Shimizu, this album represents in most listeners’ opinions (and mine) the pinnacle of his craftsmanship and the height of Mariah’s artistic endeavors. Each track…
Desert Planet Music 