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When House and Techno exploded out of America in the mid 1980s a whole generation was transformed not only musically but also culturally and chemically speaking. Peaking, quite literally, with a second ‘Summer of Love’ in 1988, millions of young people would experience the life-changing ups of a new world but with it of course came the downs; enter the concept of a ‘Chill-out’ room. Whilst early Chill-out rooms lacked a specific sound and were often sound-tracked by music such as reggae and soul, slowly young Techno and House producers themselves became increasingly interested in developing a futuristic ‘Ambient’ soundtrack to a world beyond the thud of the main room.

‘Ambient’ in this new age now though had sharper teeth than in Brian Eno's key text for ‘Music for Airports’, instead here the sounds were the mode of transport rather than the backdrop. While the melodies were pretty, the soundscapes steered away from the pastoral, often dreaming of outer-space and technology as opening up transformative new dimensions. Much like in the first Summer of Love; the musicians were again exploring psychedelic, mind-altering and transcendental possibilities of music. And also, much as in the first Summer of Love, a psychedelic visual language would accompany the music. Now though the tracks would be accompanied by music videos, often utilising early CGI techniques, and they would look almost entirely to the future: envisioning technology, nature and humanity intertwined in a new Utopia. These were the Virtual Dreams of a new world.

From Ambient and early Chill-out classics, to lesser known one-off projects, as well as Ambient deviations by some of House and Techno’s leading producers, Volume One of Virtual Dreams features tracks by Bedouin Ascent, David Moufang, LA Synthesis, LFO, Marc Hollander, Mark Pritchard & Kirsty Hawkshaw, Richard H. Kirk and more. – Music From Memory

Tom Jenkinson returns to the vintage hardware used in his early '90s works on ‘Be Up A Hello’ – his first project as Squarepusher following a 5-year hiatus. – Warp Records 

At the record’s best, tracks pelt off the starting blocks and hit top speed without ever looking back. Lead single Vortrack’s eerie, submerged acid is all blots and splatter like octopus ink, fathoms deep. Susurrous hi-hats slowly creep, disguising the imminent jetstream of drum breaks, cymbal crashes and screaming synths. There’s the thrilling toxicity of freaky acid cut Speedcrank, while Nervelevers, a glitch and breaks romp that never stops rolling with the punches, proves an album highlight. The opening tunes’ hooky melodics feel almost uncomfortably reminiscent of chiptune, and elsewhere there are pretty but unmemorable beatless passages, stretching the stylistic range of the record. Ultimately Be Up a Hello is a fun albeit bumpy ride through future-retroism, best felt in the moment itself. – The Guardian

Like many electronic artists, Ryan Lee West aka Rival Consoles spent his early years experimenting with IDM, glitch and dance, but one consistent element in his musical journey has been his desire to create a more organic, humanised sound.

Through these experimentations he has found a process of producing electronic music that feels close to this urge. West engages his hands directly with instruments and is very selective about what he then records into the computer. He reduces musical parts even further, leaving enough space around the sound for it to breath. Odyssey is a reflection of West’s quest to create atmosphere and space from minimal arrangements. ‘I don’t like music to sound overly laboured, so I restrict how much is going on. I’m kind of obsessed with the idea of reduction.’ This 5-track EP was mastered by Naweed.

Tobias. returns to Ostgut Ton with his third full length Eyes In The Center and expands the musical narrative laid out by his Helium Sessions EP (O-TON, 2016). The Berghain resident keeps exploring the vast modular synth-driven Techno, Experimental and Ambient territories on a journey in-between genres. 

In early 2008, age 18, Space Dimension Controller (R&S, Clone, Royal Oak) made his first album in his bedroom in Belfast, now set for a release on 27th May 2016 via Ninja Tune. Crunchy, tattered and enjoyably odd - “Orange Melamine” is a lovingly produced and deeply personal album that laces supernatural sounds and translucent synths with a sense of overflowing harmony. Washed in reverb and draped in hiss, the album draws influence from the old VHS tapes handed down to Space Dimension Controller from his older brother and cousins, as well as artists like Boards of Canada, Brian Eno and William Basinski.

The album is also steeped in audio and visual references from 80’s and 90’s sci-fi films and animations; from The Guyver, Short Circuit, The Gobots, and Ghostbusters through to The Fifth Element, Escape from New York and Power Rangers - also reflected in the album's visual identity created by Jacob Chabeaux. - Bandcamp

As mellow, warm, and welcoming as the day they patented the Ultramarine sound, the duo of Ian Cooper and Paul Hammond return after a long 15 years off with This Time Last Year, an album filled with enough high-grade, home-listening electronica to rival their beloved debut, 1992's Every Man and Woman Is a Star. The difference here is that big, hooky, Blue Room numbers like "Saratoga" and "Honey" have given way to smaller, more meditative music that reflects the indie, post-Boards of Canada world outside, but it's still sweater weather out there, and if Ultramarine have lost their "cute," they've certainly filled that space with grace and sophistication. Soft, broken beat gems like "Technique" are more complicated and artistically rewarding than the average Every Man cut, as that opening number suggests that Tangerine Dream's synths, Carl Craig's sequencers, and Prince's drum machines have all surrendered to Ultramarine's control. "Find My Way" anchors the album with some hazy, '70s-flavored vocals that represent the duo's equal love of the acoustic and the electronic, while all the analog moments give the album a nostalgic, wistful spin, as if these electronica spacemen have embraced home after years of orbiting Earth. The drifting here is all slowly downstream and not the weightless, otherworldly kind an astronaut experiences, so fans who always thought of them as a transitory, Orb-like, pre-club group should turn the car around and head toward the couch. It's best to trade those dancing shoes for comfy slippers, because This Time Last Year is the mature, delicious, and filling sound of the elder Ultramarine. - All Music

“Age Of, the tenth studio album from the electronic artist Daniel Lopatin, spills over many of the formal and conceptual boundaries set by previous OPN records. After working with Anohni on her debut solo album Hopelessness, Lopatin found himself drawn to the process of collaborating with other artists, a stark contrast to the cerebral solo labor that had driven his work to date. Instead of going it alone again, Lopatin looped in James Blake to co-produce and mix the album. Anohni and noise artist Dominick Fernow (aka Prurient) lent vocals to several tracks, while Eli Keszler supplied live drums and multi-instrumentalist Kelsey Lu played keyboards. Strikingly, Lopatin sings lead on four songs, threading his distorted voice through jagged electronics for the first time since 2010’s Returnal.” – Pitchfork

"Moments of heightened cacophony on “We’ll Take It” overwhelm as sampled voices crash into a fractured, slumbering beat and stilted keys. A slippery dynamic builds on “Still Stuff That Doesn’t Happen” as romantic keyboards offset a dragging jazz beat on the drums while multiple variations of Anohni crooning “release me” are layered on top of each other as a discordant plea with her operatic vibrato. The combination of these dissonant elements make for a truly haunting yet enveloping listen.” - Consequence of Sound

"Flitting through soundtrack-style pieces, pop songs and dense instrumentals spanning from post-kosmische to neo-baroque, it's a dizzying trip meant to shore up Lopatin's status as an avant-garde auteur while aiding his forays into mainstream pop culture. It'd be easy to see this album-as-prospectus approach as cynical. But whatever his motives, Lopatin has successfully broadened his scope. Age Of is the sound of an internet addict sifting through the digital ruins, part of a culture jamming legacy for future generations, should they exist." - Resident Advisor 

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Lapalux will release his third album, “Ruinism”, on Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder imprint, 30th June 2017. His previous LP, “Lustmore” was partially inspired by the concept of hypnagogia, a suspension of consciousness occurring between wakefulness and sleep. Throughout “Ruinism” the British producer takes this exploration further, journeying onward to the more ominous limbo space between life and death. In this liminal space where the finite and infinite intermingle, Lapalux sounds more at home than ever. 

Much of “Ruinism”’s inspiration was born out of a theatrical score Lapalux (aka Stuart Howard) wrote for the performance art piece “Depart” which was performed in an East London cemetery. The aptly named project served as genesis for a direction wrought with doom and melancholia. “Ruinism” is all sonic wreckage and rubble created using only hardware and real instruments. The sound simultaneously destroys and redeems itself across a tight and formidable forty-eight minutes. – Bandcamp

Though far less accessible than his previous material, Ruinism isn’t the clinical listen it could have turned into. Its performers are never spotlit and yet its textures never lack a human soul. It is the kind of album that tends to frustrate a fanbase while cementing its maker as an artist for that very willingness to alienate the faithful. You could say that Ruinism is Howard’s coming-out party as a composer, but even that incorrectly implies an adherence to tradition. With Ruinism, Howard sets out on a whole new path to conceiving his music. – Pitchfork

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