Disheveled : Phantom Touch :

An introspective record that uses ambient and extreme flashcore beats — calmly exploring your inner self and finding a lot of intensity in it, beauty, trauma, complexity. If the cover inspires you, so should the music.

“Starting in 2020 and lasting through 2023, I began using Virtual Reality as a means to help overcome my personal struggles with Sexual Identity, Gender Dysphoria, CPTSD, Anxiety, and Depression. I spent countless hours in VRChat, establishing a safe space in which I could comfortably communicate with new people, alleviate my chronic loneliness, and navigate through my anxieties and emotions. This album is a curation of Modular Synth based performances, inspired by my life altering experiences during that period.” — Disheveled

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM
▷ Atomcyber on Cara (visual artist who made the cover)

Jonah Yano : & the Heavy Loop :

This sound makes me instantly feel good. Aquatic, warm, rather peaceful with piano, sometimes saxophone, and Yano’s beautiful androgynous voice. “Romance ESL” uses heavily satured electric guitar and saxophone, bringing dissonance and swing to the mix while keeping the piano and intimate production on top; the title track is very long but doesn’t even feel like it.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Steve Tibbetts : Northern Song :

Subtle and understated, beautiful and comforting — ECM jazz can sometimes feel a bit overpolished but not here. I’m not sure how to describe this album really, as instead of evoking anything exterior, it feels more like an inner state of being: serenity and curiosity mostly. Like the way a pleasant walk outside with a nice breeze feels when gathering your thoughts and managing to make everything fit just right somehow.

(I love the cover art with its missing, blanked out, damaged parts; you could read it as mysterious, strangely nostalgic, or something else yet.)

▷ Official website
▷ RYM

Thomas Köner : Nijiumu : Pauline Oliveros & Randy Raine-Reusch : Paul Schütze : Driftworks :

Four albums, each one with a different take on strange, minimal ambient. I thought they were exclusive but two of them (Köner’s and Schütze’s) were also released individually.

Thomas Köner’s Nuuk is the best thing here to my ears; dark and minimal, very elegant, yet expansive and immersive enough to be super pleasant to listen to. Some of Köner’s works are a bit too austere and disjointed for me, his best are great though.

Nijiumu’s disc is a long live session which sounds a bit like freeform ritual ambient featuring Keiji Haino’s characteristic vocals; it bites but is still atmospheric enough. My least favourite of the four, still good though.

Pauline Oliveros’s record, a collaboration with Randy Raine-Reusch (who I’m not at all familiar with), is beautiful and striking drone — could be among my favourites by Oliveros actually, and a good reason to get this box set. She always plays accordion while Raine-Reusch plays different instruments on each track (khene, sho, đàn bầu), the interplay is nice, feels like there is peace within the tension.

Paul Schütze’s Stateless is a strange one; it’s winding, taking oblique paths, perhaps sounding less focussed than some of his other albums which are more striking and immersive (The Surgery of Touch especially). David Toop is also present here, another tribal ambient artist I like very much.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ Discogs

GusGus : 24/7 :

(Yeah, watch me attempt to review this 00s record no one cares about anymore a third time lol)

Perhaps the only GusGus albums you want are Polydistortion and This Is Normal. Cool quirky and dreamlike trip hop with deep bass on the former, acid and sexy/quirky songs on the latter — I love these. I stuck with the band for longer than that but I can’t deny they lost a lot of their charm when most of the original band left ship and the remaining members turned to electro house; what followed was hit-and-miss, often forgettable save for a couple of good cuts (“David”, “Hold You”, “Moss”).

But then came the financial crash of ’08, the mood changed and 24/7 came out — a misunderstood album that feels more relevant now than it ever did. It’s the only GusGus record that feels bitter, cynical, dark and voluntarily cold, while still being very much a dance album.

“Thin Ice” opens with frigid synths and a slow one-note repetition, Daníel Ágúst’s singing being the only thing that provides melody and humanity until the pressure builds up and the ice finally breaks towards the end of the track, releasing a blissful groove in the cold and ghostlike soundscape. Then comes “Hateful”, brooding and bitter — Ágúst’s voice sounds theatrical as ever (and is drowned in ridiculous reverb, yes) but this is the first time I’ve heard him pissed off and confrontational. The song was co-written with house artist Aaron-Carl, whose version came first on Detrevolution — arguably more powerful, because when a gay black man living in Detroit sings about “fighting fire with fire” against those who “rewrite our history” and “tear down our future”, it has a different meaning and impact as when white Icelandic clubbers sing it. But the two versions have completely different moods (Aaron-Carl’s sounds weirdly quirky and upbeat) and both are great. Tired and angry and set on revenge — could be a relevant song for any of the fascist dystopic shitshows happening everywhere right now. Follows “On the Job” — minimal and so cynical, all about work and alienation, Ágúst sounds like he’s on the verge of losing it as the synths sound more shrill and dissonant than ever. It’s a weird track that sounds like malicious compliance to someone asking for a dance beat; I like it, but it tastes sour and if there was anything you disliked or didn’t get in the previous tracks, this one is sure to turn you off. Moving on to “Take Me Baby”, hard to describe, almost surreal with its weird deep monotone vocals singing things like “love me on our way to a dark star”, seguing into pure wordless techno cruising on “Bremen Cowboy”. The tone changes dramatically on the album finale, “Add This Song” — like a warm light after spending hours in the cold rain. Gone for a moment are the brooding and cynicism, the dark, squelchy synths are left outside and it’s all about relief, empathy and pleasure… until the song seems to near its end and you realize the track is only halfway through. Then you realize the darkness is still waiting for you outside.

So, yeah. Perhaps it was a hard sell then because of its tone and meaning, and perhaps it is now because its sound — does anyone still like 00s electro house? Even if you do, I’m sure many listeners would be turned off by the vocals or long stretches of cold, plastic beats. Fair enough. Still sounds special to my ears though.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Two Shell : NEW TWO SHELL 24HRS :

Not sure what this was meant to be — a teaser for their album IIcons that’s longer than the actual release, with the inclusion of a 45-minute mix at the end? Anyway, poppy and catchy UK bass, it’s my thing. Better than both their self-titled and IIcons to my ears, which (ironically) lack album dynamics, with tracks sounding a bit shallow in context; the sequencing here is better. Icons (the 2022 EP) is still my favourite thing by them though!

▷ RYM

José Carlos Somoza : Clara y la penumbra :

I never really looked into detective novels but perhaps I should!
This was great. And horrible. A guilty pleasure I guess.

Heavy content warnings: graphic murder, torture, abuse, rape, imprisonment, predatory behaviour, including on minors. Also one short instance of animal cruelty, and arguably fatphobia.

Basically: the novel was written in 2001 and set in 2006, and the new big thing in the art world of these uchronic 00s is “hyperdramatic art” = models wearing body paint, holding poses for hours as living sculptures under the supervision of the artist. This is taken very far, way too far, including illegal variants such as models acting as furniture for rich people — and worse. One day, a model is killed in a gruesome — but artistic — way. Lothar Bosch, an aging ex-policeman who now works for an art company, is sent to investigate the murder, which his employers only present as the destruction of a valuable work of art by genius Bruno van Tysch. The novel also follows the story of Clara, a promising young model who dreams of being painted and exposed by the same artist.

The book gives food for thought — but it’s less about art itself than it is about dehumanization and normalization. How easy it is to turn a blind eye to the humanity of others. How people can sell their own dignity for money and fame, and how few people really act against something once it’s been normalized; gruesome as the murders in the story are, they’re only one horror in a sea of horrors. The novel left me with the notion that the word “art” can be a mere thought-stopper — an argument I’d already seen in Pourquoi la musique? by Francis Wolff (best book about music I’ve read so far).

If I had read this book in the 00s, I would have thought Somoza has gone too far just to shock the reader, but now, in 2025, I’m not even sure he exaggerated that much. Too many parallels with real life come to mind. I will, however, say that the accumulation of human furniture gets a bit too much over 500-600 pages, and no other forms of art being mentioned at all feels a bit unrealistic.

Other than that though, the book is great. It’s thrilling, Somoza takes his time setting up everything just right, playing with the readers’ expections, and adding some nice flourishes (basing each chapter in the first part on a specific colour was a really good idea, too bad the idea’s abandoned later on).

(I read the French translation, titled Clara et la pénombre; the English translation is… oh come on. They titled it The Art of Murder. I hope they were more faithful with the text itself.)

Guillaume la Tortue : Salinas :

Techno/trance. When that spacey trippy ambient loop comes in ♥ ♥ ♥
(Also that metallic percussion that sounds like things rattling in a steel can)

Thanks to Valentina for the recommendation!

▷ Discogs
▷ RYM

Colin Stetson : The Love It Took to Leave You :

Colin Stetson’s got a pretty unique sound (sax/reed + circular breathing) I really like, and the bass-heavy sound with distortion and evil/occult notes on this album are a very good fit for it! It does sound a bit like the cover art.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Polykroma : Radiaphane :

Airy and transient, some distant echoes of dream pop and of near-industrial rhythms. a ghost in the interstices. Reminiscent of Seefeel a bit, but lighter, lo-fi and more focussed on the sound than on individual tracks.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Aaron-Carl : Detrevolution :

As club-oriented as it is warm and personal, with Aaron-Carl singing on most tracks. “Hateful” is a strangely very effective hate song that belies its upbeat quirky beat; “My Stranger” is probably my favourite on the album, a wistful but very catchy track that sounds close to R&B, with ambiguous lyrics that may refer to intrusive thoughts.

Also, lots of gay sex.

Recommended if you’re into deep / garage house!

▷ Discogs
▷ RYM

james K : Friend :

Heartwarming beats and dreamy vocals, blissful nostalgic retrofuturism that combines elements of dream pop, trip hop and ambient in a way that never really happened in the 90s nor 00s as far as I remember but could have had in a better world. I love this trend of feel-good music (did it start with Doss?)

A huge step up from her previous albums (which were also a different style — weird ethereal pop with post-industrial elements, I always felt like she was up to something without being completely there yet, she definitely made it this time!)

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Ashley Ninelives : Cheshire Days :

Quirky and rhythmic and colourful and queer and cool. Also a bit messy but it fits!

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Kaizen Game Works : Paradise Killer :

Slightly flawed but very cool synthwave murder mystery game! There’s only one very complex case, but piecing it together is very satisfying (yes it does all make sense in the end). The mood reminded me of Suda51 a bit, only much more upbeat and shocking pink (still fucked up though).

Kinda bummed that I had to accuse Akiko, she was one of my favourite characters along with Shinji and I can sorta get why she acted the way she did. (Of course the whole Syndicate is evil though)

▷ Official website
▷ Glitchwave