Making a bold change of direction as he toasts 45 years working in electronic music, Steve Rachmad dials up the symphonic dimension of his musical practice for Light and Time a widescreen trip to techno's outer reaches. As one of the true originators of Dutch dance music, Rachmad brings a wealth of experience to his first album for Dekmantel even as he adopts new production methods to create his most ambient body of work to date. A strong melodic sensibility runs through all of Rachmad's work. His 1995 album The Secret Life Of Machines under his Sterac alias remains a landmark of lush, emotionally charged, deep-diving techno, while classic workouts like 'Helix' and 'Gnosis' (as Parallel 9) foregrounded powerful synth lines. Up until the upheaval of COVID, Rachmad's studio practice had been squarely focused on synths and drum machines, but when (along with the rest of the world) he was stuck at home reevaluating his situation, he found himself exploring the world of film scoring. Experimenting with Native Instruments' sampling software Kontakt, Rachmad taught himself how to arrange and layer orchestral instrumentation. Having rarely used sampling in his music before, the distinct fluctuations of recorded orchestral players opened up a new dimension that has become the foundation of Light and Time, the first of many albums Rachmad has ready to go in a more downtempo, home-listening vein. Throughout Light and Time, harmonious passages take centre stage as Rachmad audibly stretches out. At times the orchestral samples arrive in a pure, organic form, while elsewhere they merge and mutate into synthesised elements. His techno legacy manifests throughout, in abstract form. In lieu of strident beats, we're offered fractal, scratchy rhythms guiding uniquely shaped noise and natural sounding percussion with a human lilt. These fluctuations are no accident they're a result of Rachmad playing much more of the album by hand after years in thrall to the precise machine pulse of arpeggios and sequences. The album never feels restricted by one dogmatic approach. At times, Rachmad's embrace of moody soundtrack composition fills the whole picture, as on haunting string piece 'The Field Of Reality'. Elsewhere he dips into low-slung electro soul for 'Invisible Warriors Of Light' while 'Cosmic Memories' revels in alien synthesis with a dramatic bite. 'Encrypted Instructions' tweaks and processes string samples through angular prisms to close the album out with an experimental flourish. Rachmad's long and winding history in electronic music naturally folds into these new modes of expression, and the end result is a sumptuous, many-sided album that showcases the hidden depths of a techno legend's musicality.

Throttle Records

Public Possession

London Records (Because Ltd)

3XL

TRULE

Studio Barnhus

PAN

Ghostly International

Erased Tapes

Orizzontale is the first release by Nea, a multidisciplinary collective dedicated to experimentation in the fields of sound art, performance, and visual art. Inspired by the core principles of the groups Manifesto (https://nea-aps.net/#manifesto), the work explores the meaning of horizontalityintended as the absence of hierarchiesand authoritarian structutes. A value system that not only guided the artistic process but also shaped the interaction of the ensemble during the artist residency and the concert from which the entire work emerged. The tracks collected in Orizzontale arise from the coming together of twelve artists of diverse backgrounds and origins, united by a shared vision of collective practice. The work bears witness to and encapsulates the diverse personalities involvedoften very different from one anothercreating connections between worlds that do not necessarily converge: the spectrum ranges from free improv to heavy electronics, from jazz to echoes of traditional Mediterranean music, all the way to dub, noise, and elements of experimental theater. The result is an eclectic, unexpected, and evocative mix, free from boundaries and stylistic definitions: the fruit of an encounter as surprising as it is genuinely collaborative. To accompany the digital release, we have created a refined olive wood stamp containing a QR code to download the tracks in lossless format and access extra content.

The Ambient Institute

Planet Mu

PAN

Warp Records

SISTEMA

Music From Memory

Ilian Tape

Stratasonic

TraTraTrax