There is no sound in space, of course, and yet over the years certain conventions have grown up, especially in film, as composers and sound effects people have tried to provide aural equivalents to the sights of stars and planets moving through the void. By now, listeners "know" what space sounds like, and Jonn Serrie's series of albums, some of their material drawn from the soundscapes he has developed for planetarium shows, well represent these impressions. In the slow-moving patterns, bits of melody and rhythm are heard here and there, but most of the music is open-ended: if not formless, it nevertheless employs loose structures in which moods or themes can stretch or be abruptly terminated. Century Seasons is a two-disc compilation in which tracks from earlier Serrie albums have been remixed and woven together to create a lengthy journey through musical space…

Ambient pioneer, glam rocker, hit producer, multimedia artist, technological innovator, worldbeat proponent, and self-described non-musician – over the course of his long, prolific, and immensely influential career, Brian Eno has been all of these things and much, much more.

Three years after his solo album The Wildest Wish to Fly, pop producer and songwriter Rupert Hine came back under the disguise of the pseudo-group Thinkman. The three musicians who accompanied him in interviews and lip-sync performances were actors, the whole project becoming a concept revolving around media manipulation. The Formula, Thinkman's first album, sticks close to this idea (the title track begins with the lines "It's an interview/But it's a second take"). During the early '80s, Hine followed an evolution that led him from disturbing art pop to intelligent but more commercial songs. The Formula is pretty much middle-of-the-road but has a harder edge than the singer's previous LP. Songs like the title track "The Ecstasy of Free Thought" and "The Days of a Champion" are fueled by newly found energy and feature the hook-filled melodies that made Hine an important part of England's '80s pop music…

The birth of this project was in the early 80's. Koto was at first an italian synth group, founded by Anfrando Maiola and Stefano Cundari and published by Memory Records, Italy. Together they have created some great tracks like: "Visitors", "Dragon's Legend" "Chinese Revenge" and "Jabdah". In 1989, a German record label ZYX Music bought rights to all Memory Records catalogue, including the rights to "Koto" music and name. They have asked (well known from Laserdance project) Michiel van der Kuy to re-record and remix some of old Koto tracks. The result of this process was "Masterpieces" album. It contains remixed versions of Anfrando Maiola's tracks along with three new songs, entirely composed by Michiel van der Kuy. In 1990 Anfrando Maiola striked back with "Champion's Cue", but the single didn't gather much popularity.

Jim Kirkwood has been writing Electronic Music since the late 1980's when he stepped back from fronting a black metal band to explore a solo career in instrumental music. He has his own unique style of Gothic EM which moves easily between huge symphonic slabs of music, dark ambience and sequencer driven soundscapes. The music itself, inspired by Gothic and Symphonic Rock and Berlin School Electronica, is quite often a CD in length, moves and shifts in tempo and mood, sometimes dark and sombre, sometimes ethereal and melodic, yet the whole gels perfectly into a single experience that grips the imagination and brings you into a world of dark and exciting beauty.

Jonn Serrie proves on Planetary Chronicles, Vol. II a second time that in the genre of space music there are no limits to the imagination. Exploring the universe with Serrie - inner or outer - is like watching a plume of smoke twist and turn in currents of air then gradually disappear. This innovator of space music achieves an otherworldliness on Planetary Chronicles, Vol. II by discovering the uncharted possibilities of the synthesizer. This is not Big Bang Music; rather, it's the quiet exploration of the invisible matter of whatever universe you choose.

For Remixes JID020, the label has tapped a few of their favorite contemporary artists and producers to offer their own take on the music of Series 2. The album features a variety of dynamic personalities with remixes from London based artists Shabaka Hutchins and Theon Cross, New York tastemaker Melanie Charles, LA based producer Bei Ru, Brazil’s Dj Nyack, Detroit based producer Tall Black Guy, Bay Area producer Mophono and the LA based house duo LO & Diisko.

A more literal return to form, Blood Like Lemonade builds on the familiar downtempo grooves that filled Morcheeba's 2008 effort Dive Deep, but this time with original vocalist Skye Edwards back in the fray. Right from the opening dusty, minor-keyboard chord, the album is instantly identifiable for fans as stony, late-night grooves combine with melodies that are both pop-minded and soul-spirited. All the organic elements that sit on top of the slow, rolling drum machines are back, as is the sinister underbelly of their early material, although here it's amped up a touch. The title track references “drinking blood like lemonade,” while “Recipe for Disaster” begins “Wanna know why there's a dead guy in my dining room” before unveiling a story that's somewhere between the Jesse James legend and Natural Born Killers. The sweet tricks are Edwards using her velvet voice to make it all sound delicious, along with her ability to be equally effective on the breezy, positive numbers like “I Am the Spring.” Add “Crimson,” which would be the quintessential Morcheeba song if “Rome Wasn't Built in a Day” didn't exist, and Blood Like Lemonade exceeds expectations, coming in a close second behind fan favorite Big Calm.

Nowadays, the warm tones of a Berlin School EM style becomes more and more flooded in an enormous musical cornucopia where technologies and numeric (digital) equipments strip a bit the nobility of this art finely exploited in the 70's by artists innovative and extremely creative such as Klaus Schulze, Edgar Froese and his cult band Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre as well as Ashra Temple. Today, artists like Ian Boddy, Mark Shreeve, Remy, Marcel Engles, Gert Emmens, Mario Schonwalder and many more are still exploiting this sonority of former days, but with a mixture of new technologies, creating hybrid sonority where soft steams of a retro Berlin School are next to a more technical, more updated tone…

Remastered Deluxe Edition with bonus disc includes B-sides, rare mixes and 5 previously unreleased tracks.
Smarting from Dazzle Ships' commercial failure, the band had a bit of a rethink when it came to their fifth album - happily, the end result showed that the group was still firing on all fours. While very much a pop-oriented album and a clear retreat from the exploratory reaches of previous work, Junk Culture was no sacrifice of ideals in pursuit of cash. In comparison to the group's late-'80s work, when it seemed commercial success was all that mattered, Junk Culture exhibits all the best qualities of OMD at their most accessible - instantly memorable melodies and McCluskey's distinct singing voice, clever but emotional lyrics, and fine playing all around…

Hot Potatoes is the best available single-disc overview of Devo's career, hitting nearly all of the most significant moments from their first five albums, as well as including the non-LP singles "Be Stiff" and "Working in a Coalmine." "Whip It" and "Freedom of Choice" are here, of course, as are cult favorites "Jocko Homo," "Mongoloid," "Satisfaction (I Can't Get Me No)," plus many more. However, even if it's the best available, it isn't that widely available in the U.S.; plus, Devo's first three albums in particular all have at least a few fine songs that aren't included here. But if you only want one disc and don't mind hunting a bit, Hot Potatoes: The Best of Devo is superior to the American Greatest Hits, which for some reason does not feature "Mongoloid," one of the most obvious choices for a Devo hits collection.