Downbeat | Electronica | Leftfield 303 Items

“It’s just too easy to make a standard dance track,” Aphex Twin said of his mindset back in 1992. “You’ve got to put a bit of thought into it to get something a bit different.”

‘Digeridoo’ was released on the Belgian R&S Records label in 1992, and originally peaked at #55 in the UK singles chart in May of that year. Over the last 32 years the track has become one of the essential Aphex Twin tracks in a gargantuan catalogue that continues to amaze and inspire.

“I wanted to have some tracks to play to finish the raves I used to play in Cornwall, to really kill everybody off so they couldn’t dance,” Richard D James, AKA Aphex, told Select magazine back in the 90s. “Digeridoo came out of that.”

Released as a 4 track EP that also included early Aphex productions (now classics) including the industrial, acidic clang of ‘Flap Head’ and hyperbolic futurism of ‘Isopropanol’, the release cemented a relationship with the R&S label that went on to release the ‘Xylem Tube’ EP and the pivotal album ‘Selected Ambient Works 85-92’ in the same year. The label’s owner & A&R Renaat Vandepapeliere reflected “When I first heard Aphex Twin’s music I said, ‘This is it!’, and everybody else said, ‘You’re crazy!’ …a lot of the hardcore R&S fans dropped us. To them it wasn’t music.”

‘Didgeridoo’ (Expanded Edition) is the first time the EP has been re-issued with extra material. Whilst digging in his DAT archive (allegedly stored in an airtight military ammo box), Richard James revisited the recordings, encoding them through a Nakamichi CR7e cassette deck, using the customised deck with vari-speed to encode at speeds “felt right at the time”. Alongside these CR7e versions, the original mixes have been remastered by Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven Mastering, offering a dilated insight into one of electronic music’s most endearing releases.

‘Didgeridoo’ (Expanded Edition) by Aphex Twin is available on R&S Records from 31st May 2024.

This classic Massive Attack album finally gets an official reissue.

Limited to 1000 copies on clear vinyl in occasion of HHV's 20th birthday.

20 years HHV: our team has selected an album from each of these years that is particularly relevant and precious to us. On a monthly basis, we release exclusive and limited pressings of these records in collaboration with some of our favorite labels.

The Late Night Tales compilation is a bit of a ‘stealth’ project for me personally. I’m very proud of it, but at the time, I probably didn’t appreciate it as much as I do now because there was so much going on. You do these things in-between touring and you don’t really have time to reflect on them because you’re immediately onto the next thing. It’s nice to know that it’s getting re-released.

On vinyl for the first time, ‘Random Album Title’ is a seminal body of work in electronic music from Canadian producer deadmau5. The vinyl includes “Not Exactly,” “I Remember,” “Arguru,” and more. This award-winning, chart-topping album is arguably the most sought-after physical piece of work from deadmau5’s impressive catalogue - this is ‘Random Album Title’.

Best coverartwork ever! And the track isn't too bad either.

After selling 2.8 million copies in the last 12 years it was time to kick out a remastered version for 2012. Jazzy stuff for the dancefloor and your couch ...

Originally released via the R&S Ambient sub-label Apollo in '92 and repressed more times than anyone could even begin to keep a count of, Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 85-92 is not only one of the most important releases in both the Aphex catalogue but also electronic music as an entire entity. A richly woven tapestry of blissful sounds that offer the listener new surprises, twists and turns no matter how many times they venture through its cosmos. The techno equivalent of mainlining serotonin, Selected Ambient Works 85-92 should be prescribed on a daily dose twice a day for any and everyone reading this...

Finally, this Portishead classic is back in print!!

Tosca's second album 'Suzuki' (Studio K7) takes a lighter, airier approach to the trip-hop terrain that Opera explored. The spare, shimmering title track's delicate synth textures, minimal beats, mellow rhythms, and breathy vocal samples set the tone for more moody musical fairytales from Richard Dorfmeister, this time with Rupert Huber under the guise of Tosca. Suzuki is--like his releases with Kruder and Dorfmeister--a sublime work that manipulates emotions through sound. Soft and sweet, subtle and supple, Tosca's tracks drift, sifting from one dream to the next. Though they patch hip-hop, jazz, ambient, and techno together, you can't hear where one begins and the other ends. "Annanas" pairs sneaky, squeaky scratching with a lusty female vocal and bossa-nova-inspired hip-hop breaks, while "Orozco" loops a playful riff, running it through reverbs and filters, creating something like pure bliss for the ears.

Faitiche presents a long-lost vinyl album: for the last 14 years, Jan Jelinek's Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records, originally released in 2001 on ~scape, existed only as a download. Now the landmark album is available again on vinyl, as a double LP with two bonus tracks (B-sides from the Tendency EP, 2000).

Edition on 180g.

Another reissue slammer form Warp's Nightmares On Wax back cataloque!

/ the hoe - 2 remixes

This classic Massive Attack album finally gets an official reissue.

Classic Aphex Twin 12" with four nice mixes!

One of the all-time classic ambient albums finally available on strictly limited edition 180gr vinyl. 

Responding to popular demand, Warp Records is repressing its seminal Boards of Canada catalogue on vinyl for the first time in over five years. Each Warp reissue comes with a download code and an original BOC sticker design from the era.

Another Aphex Twinclassic back in print! Pressed 180 gram wax, download code included!

First vinyl reissue, available on LP for the first time in 20 years - Completely remastered audio and restored artwork - Side D lunar vinyl etching art // After leaving London in 1999 for the sleepy seaside retiree town of Weston-super-Mare, Coil co-founders John Balance and Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson set up shop in a palatial eight-bedroom estate to pursue the outer reaches of the group's heightening cabalistic chemistry. Among the staggering string of late-era masterpieces they produced is lunar opus Musick To Play In The Dark, widely hailed as an artistic zenith upon its release. The sessions that birthed it were in fact so fruitful that a second LP took shape during the creation of the first one. Aided by the recent addition of Welsh multi-instrumentalist engineer Thighpaulsandra, Coil mined further into the recesses of surrealist eldritch electronica Balance termed "moon music" - post-industrial spellcasting at the axis of narcotic and nocturnal energies. Musick To Play In The Darký spans a full witching hour of bad acid sound design, synthesizer voyaging, opiated balladry, Luciferian glitch, and subliminal hymnals, alternately ominous, oracular, and absurd. Scottish gothic icon Rose McDowall guests on vocals for two tracks but otherwise the album is a hermetic affair, tapping into the group's limitless insular synergy. Opener "Something" is stark and incantational, a spoken word experiment for windswept voids. "Tiny Golden Books" unspools an aerial whirlpool of cosmic synth, both whispery and widescreen. "Ether" is an exercise in funeral procession piano and intoxicated wordplay ("It's either ether or the other"), while "Where Are You?" and "Batwings - A Liminal Hymn" lurk like liturgical murmurings heard on one's death bed, framed in granular FX and flickering candlelight. As a whole the collection skews more muted and remote than its predecessor, as if having grown accustomed to the nether regions of these darkening seances. But music box hallucination "Paranoid Inlay" captures the group's oblique comedic side, always glimmering beneath: over a warped, wobbly beat Balance intones an opaque narrative of serenity, Saint Peter, and suicidal vegetables, accompanied by spiraling harpsichord and stuttering squelches of electronics. "It seems concussion suits you," he repeats twice, like a macabre pickup line, before dictating a dear diary entry about risks and failures, finally concluding with as close to a self-portrait as Coil ever came: "On a clear day I can see forever / that the underworld is my oyster."

1st studio produced album by the New Zealand group from 2005. The album utilized the band's trademark dub, reggae, soul and funk influenced sound, and has been successful both in terms of sales and of critical reception. 7 times platinum in New Zealand!

Are you sitting comfortably? Artificial Intelligence is for long journeys, quiet nights and club drowsy dawns. Listen with an open mind.

Back in 1992 when Warp released the Artificial Intelligence compilation it almost instantly changed both the course of Warp as a label and arguably what many would consider club music as an entity to be. Artificial Intelligence came housed inside a prog rock styled gatefold sleeve depicting a cover image of a robot blowing smoke rings whilst reclining on an armchair. Its extra long rolling papers and tin of tobacco just out of reach, whilst a high-end stereo plays out the sounds of Kraftwerk's Autobahn and Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, their LP sleeves lay strewn across the floor. This image along with the above text that as printed on the sleeve acted as a guide for the listener on how to best experience this new mode of techno music, one that was designed for those nights when your body stays in but your mind steps out.

Having been in operation for three years by the time they compiled and released the Artificial Intelligence compilation, Warp had already proved itself as a worthy force within the world of quickfire 12 singles of acid house and the emerging hardcore scene. Starting as a predominant pusher of the new bleep 'n' bass sounds of their hometown Sheffield, Warp had enjoyed success with early anthemic singles from artists such as Nightmares on Wax, LFO & Richard H. Kirk's Sweet Exorcist project. These building blocks laid the foundations for what many would go on to define as the Warp sound but it was 1992's Artificial Intelligence compilation that cemented their place in music history.

Artificial Intelligence was notable for early appearances by people who went on to become pioneers of the hypnotic groove for both Warp and electronic music in its entirety. Artists such as The Black Dog/Plaid whose melancholic contribution The Clan (produced under the alias I.A.O.) bears long drawn out strings combine perfectly with the tear-drenched techno of Carl Craig with the trend for looped breakbeats to create a track that still resonates deeply every time it is played. Looking further out than most, B12's Telefone 529 with its recording of an automated incorrect phone number message carries an air of nostalgic puzzlement, while Preminition transports a diva vocal and hardcore piano roll into a zero-gravity soundtrack of space. Autechre's Crystel and The Egg offers the first steps towards the path of abstract oblivion that they would go on to travel throughout the post-AI years. Both pieces focus an acidic gurgle around some cut up vocals, its timeframe existing perfectly within a distinct hip-hop cylinder that brilliantly displays their roots within b-boy culture.

Aphex Twin appears under his alias The Dice Man, opening up the operation with a track that would become an alias in itself, Polygon Window in many ways formed the core sound of the Artificial Intelligence compilation and subsequent album series that followed it. Rolling post-acid dynamics, a strong knowledge of breakbeat techno and some serious subs keep the track in a full forward motion, Polygon Window still stands out as one of the most unbeatable techno tracks within Warp's discography. Elsewhere, chief ambient technologist Dr Alex Paterson put forward a four-minute cosmic ambient piece akin to his work as the central figure of which The Orb revolves around. Whilst Richie Hawtin made an appearance with his euphoric almost gabba track Spiritual High, produced under the name Up! his fellow Plus 8 producer Speedy J stepped in with De-Orbit, a track that you could say on reflection, almost helped shape the early steps towards what would turn into the deeper recesses of liquid drum & bass.

Warp co-founder Steve Beckett was quoted around the time of the Artificial Intelligence compilations release in 1992 as saying you started to hear tracks by B12 and Plaid and Speedy J that just didn't fit into any category, B-sides and last tracks on EPs. We just realised that they weren't meant for 12-inches, it was just that this was the only outlet for that kind of music. We realised you could make a really good album out of it. You could sit down and listen to it like you would a Kraftwerk or Pink Floyd album. That's why we put those sleeves on the cover of Artificial Intelligence - to get it into people's heads that you weren't supposed to dance to it!. This train of thought led to Warp putting together one of the most forward-thinking compilations to appear within the early 90s post-acid explosion, and many others tried to copy the formula but arguably no imprint ever came close to topping or even releasing anything that stands tall alongside Artificial Intelligence for its undeniably experimental, yet sheer futuristic scope and vision.

Listening back now, 30 years since its original release, it's striking how contemporary and fresh the music of Artificial Intelligence still sounds. While many tracks from those days still and will forever sound brilliant, many AI contemporary compilations have taken on the sheen of a more retro and throwback feel. When digested with a knowledge of what has been made within the last quarter of a century, the tracks that form Artificial Intelligence still carry a strong, almost outside of time feeling that's influence shines as strongly today as it did 30 years ago. A timeless record that will continue to point the way forward for electronic music for many years yet to come.

Finally reissued for all those that can't spend three digit amounts for the original pressing. A true gem.
“Lovage” is defined as “an herb that is said to be a benefit for relieving abdominal pains due to gastrointestinal gas…also touted to reduce flatulence when consumed as a tea.” But when placed in the able hands of sonic mastermind Dan “The Automator” Nakamura, recording under the guise of musical lothario Nathaniel Merriweather, the result is a concept album of “music to make love to your old lady by.” With the help of collaborators such as Mike Patton (vocals), Jennifer Charles (vocals) and Kid Koala (turntables), Merriweather serves as your personal guide to the sensual side of life, painting a satirical, darkly funny portrait of love and sex with left-field hip-hop and instrumentals as only he can do.

The Avalanches' Downbeat milestone back in print!

Damon Albarn's brainchild which includes the massive hit Clint Eastwood feat. Del!

Dettinger’s Intershop and Oasis have long been held, by many fans of ambient and electronic music, to be some of the finest albums in their field. Produced by the mysterious Olaf Dettinger, about whom not much is publicly known, they were some of the earliest full-lengths released by the then-nascent Kompakt, and in many ways, they both articulated and defined the sound that would come to be known as Pop Ambient, while also existing, somehow, to the leftfield of any clearly recognisable genre.

Beautiful, sui generis works, it is a rare pleasure to see them being reissued on vinyl for a new generation of listeners to embrace. Originally released on CD only in 1999, Intershop was Kompakt’s first artist full-length. The music here simmers and broods, with opulent banks of tone marking out territory for rhythms that seem to be built from the clacking detritus of technology – hisses, thunks, knocks. Bass is deployed carefully, each drop a dubbed-out depth charge; drones spin and spiral, warping and weaving between the beats.

Oasis, released in 2000, refined the palette that Dettinger had explored on its predecessor. A blurred crusade of ambient texturology, its unassuming patterns, and subtle, incremental dynamics, admit to real beauty, and a kind of abstract sensuality that you don’t often experience with music that is, perhaps, similarly tooled, but not as poetic. Through seemingly simple gestures – whether lushly expansive repetitions, hyper-acute tremolo tones, or ear-tickling rhythms – it builds complex emotional resonance. It’s no surprise to discover Oasis is held in high esteem by artists like Panda Bear of Animal Collective, who once said of Dettinger, “For us, he was the dude.”

There is, of course, other music to know Dettinger by, too – his three excellent EPs for Kompakt, Blond (1998), Puma and Totentanz (1999), the latter of which, Michael Mayer once argued, “invented dubstep.” There is also a small, yet graceful run of compilation contributions, many of which can be found on Kompakt’s Total and Pop Ambient series. All this music has plenty to recommend it, sharing a clarity of purpose, and a rare, human warmth and depth. But Intershop and Oasis are the releases that distil Dettinger’s singular vision, and allow him, should he wish, to claim his place as a modern master of ambient and electronic music.

re:discovery records proudly presents the first vinyl issuing of Off the Sky 'Gently Down the Stream'. Originally released in 2006 on the cult ambient label Databloem, it has grown over the past 15 years as one of the seminal releases in their discography. Fans of glitch styled rhythm based ambient like Shuttle 358, Mille Plateaux, Thinner, 12k records and later Force Inc to minimal and dub fans of the Cologne style should really be taken by this beautiful sounding album. Like the title suggests, expect to drift off to a desert island to this beautiful serenade. Off the Sky (Jason Corder) is a veteran of the ambiant scene. With over 25+ albums to his credits, come listen to one of hisearliest in his discography. A magical album to chill-out to. Bring back the chill-out rooms!

Kakusei (覚醒) is the fifth solo studio album by Japanese hip hop producer DJ Krush, originally released in 1998. Krush combines minimal beats, hip-hop, trip-hop and ambient to create an exceptional album. The album received critical acclaim and includes guest appearances by Esthero, A.S.A., DJ Sak, Mista Sinista (of The X-Ecutioners) and many more.

In 2014, Metro Weekly included it on the “20 Great Stoner

Albums” list.

This 2-LP set Kakusei (覚醒) is available on black vinyl and includes an insert.

Back for a limited edition, individually numbered 12” single from The Future Sound of London comes the iconic original ‘12tot17r’ collection of “Papua New Guinea” mixes. Mixes alongside the classic 12” Original include the full length Andrew Weatherall Mix, reissued here for the first time since 1992. Andrew Weatherall (1963-2020) was one of the key DJs on the acid house dance scene and this mix is one of his most highly regarded works next to Happy Mondays, New Order and Bjork. This edition is a limited edition to only 2000 copies only.

We are proud to announce a new edition of Door Open at 8 AM, Masami Akita's powerful masterpiece of melted jazz/noise, on red colored vinyl. This will be a limited edition of 300 copies Worldwide. Regarded as one of Masami’s best work, Door Open at 8 AM combines the harsh noise world into a jazz sample driven world, creating a blueprint of what experimental compositions could achieve.

Queens Of The Circulating Library stands alongside Time Machines and Nurse With Wound's Soliloquy For Lilith as a post-industrial pinnacle of sensory-warping long-form drone. Crafted by the distilled duo of Thighpaulsandra and John Balance, the 49-minute piece unfurls in swirling, cyclical waves, tidal as much as textural, channeling the spirit of levitational minimalism pioneered by La Monte Young. Touted as the first part in "a continually mutating series of circulating musickal compositions" upon its initial release in 2000, the album remains a compelling case study in Coil's exceptional capacity for mutation and extremes. The theatrical introductory monologue delivered by Thighpaulsandra's mother - a career opera singer, in her 80's at the time of recording - sets the stage for a grandiose ascension. Written by Balance, the text is declamatory but dreamlike, refracted through megaphone echo: "Return the book of knowledge / Return the marble index / File under "Paradox" / The forest is a college, each tree a university." As her voice fades, the lulling synthetic infinity deepens, congealing into transient crests of volume and haze, like slow-motion surf misting in moonlight. Thighpaulsandra describes their aesthetic intention as a "bliss out," static but shape-shifting, an amniotic drift towards an eternal vanishing point. A supreme sonic embodiment of the slogan on the sleeve of Time Machines, two years prior: "Persistence is all."

Having honed his craft across a set of EPs and albums (all remarkably released within 1996), DJ and producer Matthew Herbert solidified his reputation as one of electronic music’s greatest conceptual artists with 1998’s Around The House. Largely made from tones you’re likely to hear in the home; the clinking of glasses, the scraping of cutlery, the spray of an aerosol can. The humbleness of its musical raw materials belies the fact that it’s Herbert’s first great masterpiece.

A domestic scene is set from the off, as the listener is beckoned into the record by an apartment door buzzer and the sultry vocal of Dani Siciliano, who imbues the remainder of Around The House with a jazz sophistication. As it happens, the loft analogy is appropriate, given the funk and disco reference points in the liquid bass groove of ‘So Now?’ and ‘Close To Me’. Microhouse scrapes and scratches field the classy dance mood with a Detroit-style buoyancy, as the subtle rhythmic elements mingle and flirt with one another on charming cuts like ‘We Still Have (The Music)’ and ‘Going Around’.

Around The House is a cordial invitation to a house party, where Herbert is both esteemed host and house band.

/ 2 remixes

The release comes on 180g vinyl. The vinyl LP has been discontinued and second-hand copies of the original pressing are changing hands on Ebay and Discogs for upwards of £100! This vinyl only Simple Things re-issue will mirror the original release, cut over 4 sides and using the original artwork but now pressed on heavyweight 180g vinyl. Simple Things is a timelessly classic album and the essential soundtrack to any laidback summer chilling.

Finally, this Portishead classic is back in print!!

This classic Massive Attack album finally gets an official reissue.

Back in print after 10 years! Repressed on 180 gram vinyl incl. Download code!

Another Aphex Twinclassic back in print! Pressed 180 gram wax, download code included!

all their hits collected on this album

The blueprint for today's growing beatscene and a must-have from 2008. Appearences from Laura Darlington, Gonjasufi, Ahu (as Dolly) and more.

Released in 1999 on Taylor Deupree’s 12k label, »optimal.lp« was the debut album by Dan Abrams under his Shuttle358 moniker. For its 25th anniversary, Keplar presents it on vinyl for the first time with three previously unreleased tracks—the digital version also includes a alternative version of »Tank«—as well as a new artwork recreated by Daniel Castrejón and a remaster by Andreas [lupo] Lubich based on the original pre-masters that were been restored and cleaned up for the reissue project by Abrams. »optimal.lp« was inspired by the rich tradition of ambient music and the rhythmic complexity of 1990s electronica while also sharing many traits with the then-emerging clicks’n’cuts movement, making it a true sui generis piece of work—both informed by tradition and visionary, idiosyncratic and seminal for many artists after him.

Abrams developed an interest in ambient music when he was still a child, scouring through cassette tapes of environmental sounds, new age music, and world percussion. Discovering Brian Eno’s »Thursday Afternoon« as a young teenager marked a turning point for him. »It gave me the idea that ambient music could be an intentional creative act, that tone itself is a legitimate form of expression,« he says today. During the 1990s, he increasingly immersed himself in the electronica scene and the output of labels such as Instinct, where Deupree worked as an Art Director and released his first records as Human Mesh Dance. Abrams found a home on 12k after sending Deupree a demo tape that would later evolve into »optimal.lp,« released as the label’s fifth catalogue number.