Luschn
Secret Keeper 001

It's fair to say Malta's Sound Synthesis is associated with spacey, acid-flecked electro. But here, on his first album for the UK-based Gated label, a deep vein of old-school influenced breaks comes to the fore.The infectious acid lines are ever-present - the hands-in-the-air breakdowns, the rolling basslines - but this is a different side to Keith Farrugia's prolific output that brings in influences from ambient to downtempo to bassbin-worrying bangers.Take opener Ambient Talk, which kicks into life with skittish drums, or the woozy vocal-led All Night, which makes sharp use of the Amen break, as does album highlight 90s Chords.Yes there are classic Sound Synthesis melodies throughout these nine tracks, but there's also a darker side, exemplified by the aptly-named 140BPMadness, which showcases Farrugia at his most ferocious.

New sounds are emerging from Kepler-129 as the Visolux saga continues. Prolific artist Elias Sternin brings his uruguayan touch to the label with a dark, hypnotic, yet elegant release, fitting those special moments when the atmosphere shifts to serious business.

Halvtrak returns to Cold Blow with techno-romantic rave escapism, riding Chi House-leaning rhythms and intergalactic Techno sculptures. If his previous “Images By Night” dealt with things nocturnal, Digital Dawn opens the curtains to a blue-eyed retrofuturism, bursting with colour and spark. The A-side shows Halvtrak at his most upbeat vibe to date. X-pressed and Rhythm Overture teleport us on a nostalgia trip to the acid, rave and breakbeat era which is re-imagined by an artist too young at the time but who parsed the ethos from the artefacts of its heyday. The B-side throws a deeper counterbalance to the release. Born out of studies in the Chicago house tradition, Phase Distorshun quantum leaps into a turning point in time where disco influence was long abandoned and sights set into the unknown deep space. The closing number, Doubt, does not relent on the 4-to-the-floor but turns the gaze inward, exploring our inner vulnerabilities while musically standing on the shoulders of New York-style house and the early UK-produced Detroit Techno a la B12, Stasis and the like.

The second release on Tonight’s Dream Records is delivered by Baltimore-based ambient and new-school Kosmische guitar musician PJ Dorsey, better known as Tarotplane. The Ektachrome Dawn follows on from the stunning Horizontology (12th Isle) and Light Self All Others (Impatience). He describes the album as a collage of work collated since 2017. Drawing in on inspirations from guitar-oriented psych and modern ambient music, using elements he values and revere in older 70’s head records and mixes it with modern techniques and influences. The tracks fuse traditional rock music, ethereal ambient textures and downtempo electronica, blended together seamlessly to create an engaging and unique listen throughout.The artwork has once again been designed by Tonight’s Dream Art Director Jonny Edmund-Jones. The circular sun collage was formed from various textures and curves collected over time—a similar idea as each of Tarotplanes tracks, starting as separate pieces. When the collage curves are viewed together, they create a whole/circle/sun, like the completed album. The album has been mastered by prolific producer and mastering engineer Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio who has worked on album for artists such as Inhmost, Juliana Barwick, Grouper, Steve Hauschildt, Loscil, Telefon Tel Aviv and Tycho amongst hundreds of others.

This new Ep is the symbiotic union between the human mind of 616 and his machines. These tracks have been controlled, created and recorded in real time directly to tape without the help of a computer and microchip…love transistor.

New Junes Dote