Editor's Picks - Modern Music

AYN SØF - AYN SØF (Tombed Vision) Gnod’s Paddy Shine burps an intently-focussed album vacillating Phurpa-like throat music with airy cosmic ambience and folk drones in the 1st part, and segueing from languid raga-blues back to stereo-panned vocal meditations and calving cosmic noise in the 2nd part.

Chris Marker - La Jetee (Superior Viaduct) 1st ever pressing of Trevor Duncan’s enveloping OST, overlaid with French and English narrations, for Chris Marker’s award-winning sci-fi short, La Jetée (1962) - a main inspiration behind the classic ‘90s sci-fi, 12 Monkeys. Completely unmissable!!!

Gunnar Haslam - Lebesgue Measures (L.I.E.S) Gunnar Haslam mostly steers wide of standard 4/4 on a 3rd album of imaginative atmospheres and pointillist drum programming, entitled Lebesque Measures.

Konono N°1 - Konono N°1 meets Batida (Crammed Discs) Kinshasa, DRC’s Konono Nº1 fuse with Portugal’s Batida ensemble for a compelling, hybrid follow-up to Assume Crash Position (2010), but sadly, without their founder, Mingiedi Mawangu who died in 2015, aged 85. RIP.

Golden Teacher - First 3 EPs (Golden Teacher) Everyone’s favourite, funked-up weegies collate prime cuts from their trio of acclaimed early EPs for Optimo Music in one highly satisfying, party-stoking album - the only way you’ll own many of these on wax without forking out for 2nd hand original 12”s! A timeless, anachronistic synthesis of no wave punk funk, disco-no-disco and dubbed out tribalism, Golden Teacher distill the best traits of Liquid Liquid, Fela Kuti, Lee Perry and Arthur Russell to fulfill the exacting demands of Glasgow’s legendary party scene. Off their Bells From The Deep End debut, you’ll catch the infectious no wave disco jig Rashomon and the clipped boogie strut of Love Rocket rubbing up against aces from Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night such as the subbass-fuelled skank of Like A Hawk or the astral trajectories of Dringhouses, whilst the Party People / Love 12” provides big highlights in the Patrick Cowley-esque disco plumage of Love and the rolling, synth-fuelled breaks of Party People. Strongly recommended!

Kane Ikin - Modern Pressure (Type Recordings) With the unheimlich, anxious spaces of Modern Pressure, Melbourne’s Kane Ikin navigates a nightmarish variant of electronic music to provide Type with a cold, clammy come-down from the hardcore spills of Basic Rhythm’s Raw Trax. This imposed restraint has pared the artist’s aesthetic to a more vital, impending sound: rendering a world of glancing shadows and efficient, amorphous rhythms from an ever-decreasing sonic palette; pushing himself farther into an escapist’s abyss, but using streaks of electro-acoustic light, elusive field recordings and redemptive chord structures to keep us from falling off the rope. They’re not club tracks, but the sense of momentum is gripping...If you’re into ASC, Monolake, Raime, Pye Corner Audio or even 0PN, this one’s well worth checking out.