Techno, Acid, House, Electronic, Experimental, Germany, Dark, Industrial, Electro; Double Vinyl LP - Ex Used Condition New Cult Fear, on Boysnoize Records, proves it through disciplined, focused craftsmanship. It's the type of no-frills production that deceives the amateur listener with its simplicity, while the seasoned listener knows that the simpler the elements, the harder it is to make a track that moves the dancefloor. Moving dancefloors it does, although there are few smiles to be had. This is music for dark rooms, for Nitzer Ebb's famous pairing of "muscle and hate". This is being electrocuted by a broken TB-303 -- only you find the feeling erotic, your exclamations recorded on a haunted reel-to-reel. And it's never sounded so good. The 11 tracks of the LP sit squarely in "the zone", that time in the club when time itself has stopped, when mind turns off and body takes control. Menacing acid lines, jacking bass, and harsh, reductionist production build the backbone to fragmented Latin percussion and vocals (including a feature by Miami's Cuban/German Otto Von Shirach), which nod to Cardopusher's South American roots and lend a sense of exoticism to its otherwise Detroit rooted aesthetic. This sense of geographic and temporal disconnection/reconnection permeates the LP; this is Detroit techno and Chicago acid, broken, fragmented, sent through antiquated and illegal P2P networks to Venezuela, burnt to CDr and snail-mailed to a Barcelona basement rave, recorded live, then blasted wide open in fractal bits over a global electronic network and reassembled here-and-now in a darkly crystalline execution. As the title New Cult Fear suggests, this is less the stuff of dreams and more-so of a paranoid nightmare. But let your body take control, and nightmares never sounded so good.

Electronic, Experimental, Noise, Harsh, Racoo-oo-oon, Ambient; Vinyl LP - Ex Used condition Secret Abuse, a project of Jeff Witscher’s, manifests this durable paradox in the most tangible, material way. Violent Narcissus periodically clumps up (earplugs!) but then disperse once more into Witscher’s shimmer-drone backwater.

Experimental, Ambient, Noise, Nate Young, Wolf Eyes; Limited Edition Translucent Purple Vinyl Re-issue (2019) - Ex Used condition You could neither classify Regression as a Noise record nor an Ambient one, instead the synth dissections and tape treatments more closely reference early electronic music. 'Trapped' offers little of the claustrophobia suggested by its title, although the continual woody knocking sounds and filthy oscillations do engender a sense of unease, while 'Dread' brings to mind the Desmond Briscoe soundtrack to Nigel Kneale's The Stone Tape.  'Under The Skin' returns to the more esoteric, intangible sound designs that characterised the album's opening, writhing around in a spluttering, tactile fashion that's at once sonically rather beautiful and deeply sinister, modulating through grisly synthesiser gestures while more textural, percussive sounds flood through dub-style tape delays.

Electronic, Dark Ambient, Limited Edition, Industrial, Experimental; Limited Edition Double Vinyl LP - Ex Used condition OAKE's music is easily placed on the experimental axis formed by Downwards and Blackest Ever Black.The Berlin duo's music proceeds with the same funereal elegance as Raime's and, like Kerridge, who collaborates with OAKE's Eric Goldstein as UF, it swarms with plunging basslines born at a point where jungle, dubstep and drone collide. But OAKE are nonetheless a distinctive presence. Auferstehung ("resurrection") often sounds like a contemporary classical ensemble scraping and thwacking its way through a score.