Paul Ellis is one of the two brains behind Dweller at the Threshold. It’s immediately clear that this is a professional musician who knows what he’s doing from the way the fragments are glued together, smoothly leaving no trace. The sounds he uses are perfect for the atmosphere he has in mind - and there are a lot of atmospheres on this album. The title is divided into three parts, all clocking in at around 15 minutes. The way the three parts float together is very listener-friendly; no fear for disturbance of a break in the special atmosphere Ellis has left you in. Whatever you want, it’s here; heavenly choirs, broad outstretched symphonic planes, cosmic fascination and killer sequencers. At times Jarre-esque, but with more effects, at others surging Dweller-patterns full of wondrous complexity…

"Ritual Ground" (1993) is the collaboration between Steve Roach and Elmar Schulte.
The album is a spontaneous sonic combustion, rich in cinematic overtones, deep atmospheres and tribal-electronic grooves. Steve Roach's musical explorations have taken him into many different realms, always touching a primal nerve and evoking brilliant mindscapes for the listener. A respected and much followed solo artist, Roach has also embarked on many collaborations in which the interplay between musicians nourishes the creative process. "Ritual Ground" is the result of one of those instrumental partnerships and stands as an important landmark in the development of tribal music. In 1993, Roach went to Europe for his first series of concerts outside the United States. While there, he met German synthesizer artist Elmar Schulte, whose own work has appeared on several different European labels…

The German sound-pioneer Schiller is a household name in the world of electronic music, particularly in the fields of ambient and chill out music. In the past he has produced chill out mixes for artists such as Rammstein and Mike Oldfield. Now he presents a full-length album packed with chill out versions of his gold-selling #1 album Sun. Sun - Chill Out Edition includes chill-out mixes of the best tracks on the regular Sun album and sets a new precedent in the world of ambient and chill out music. Inspired by electro classics from the likes of Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, and Jean-Michel Jarre, Christopher von Deylen creates visionary sounds that are ahead of their time.

Proof that punk was more about attitude than a raw, guitar-driven sound, Suicide's self-titled debut set the duo apart from the rest of the style's self-proclaimed outsiders. Over the course of seven songs, Martin Rev's dense, unnerving electronics - including a menacing synth bass, a drum machine that sounds like an idling motorcycle, and harshly hypnotic organs - and Alan Vega's ghostly, Gene Vincent-esque vocals defined the group's sound and provided the blueprints for post-punk, synth pop, and industrial rock in the process. Though those seven songs shared the same stripped-down sonic template, they also show Suicide's surprisingly wide range. The exhilarated, rebellious "Ghost Rider" and "Rocket U.S.A." capture the punk era's thrilling nihilism - albeit in an icier way than most groups expressed it - while "Cheree" and "Girl" counter the rest of the album's hard edges with a sensuality that's at once eerie and alluring…

Angst is a unique soundtrack for a documentary film about judicial scandal in Austria. The music came first and the film was edited to fit the soundtrack, so the score drives the film. Klaus Schulze called upon his many influences to build this project. The primary style is Berlin school, but Schulze uses his symphonic synths, his classical training, and his atmospheric sensitivity as well. For the most part, it does work as a stand-alone musical event, but loses some of its impact with the rhythmic pieces. They have drama and mystery and are, undoubtedly, important to the score - they just don't stand alone.

Antarctica is the soundtrack to Koreyoshi Kurahara's film of the same name. Vangelis composed and performed all of the music. It is a very dynamic and dramatic set, but does not convey the iciness that listeners would expect. Conveying feelings of angst, isolation, and even desolation, it is actually very good music. It just does not feel like, well, the Antarctic.

Ever since the early days of the Beatles, Paul McCartney has known the value of a pseudonym, famously registering into hotels under the surname Ramone and pushing the Fab Four to act like another band for Sgt. Pepper. This carried through to his solo career, where he released a couple odd singles while flitting back and forth with Wings, but he never again embraced the freedom of disguise like he did with Sgt. Pepper until 2008, when he put out the Fireman's Electric Arguments. McCartney created the Fireman alias with Youth back in the mid-'90s when electronica was all the rage and Macca hesitated dipping his toe in the water on his own LPs. A decade after Rushes, he revived the Fireman moniker not to cut another electronic record but to put out what in effect was McCartney III: a weird clearinghouse of experiments, jokes, detours, and rough-hewn pop…

Ambient/downtempo is not the style primarily associated with conceptual symphonies, but the one-man project Schiller (Christopher von Deylen) pulls it off remarkably well on Atemlos (Breathless), mostly by a clever mix of different types of musical material. The atmospheric bits that form the majority of Atemlos are tempered by straight-on Europop recorded with the help of guest vocalists, all of whom recite their lines in slightly pompous half-whispers typical for new age, but still to good result: the otherworldly-but-catchy dance pieces - with the occasional bit of pop/rock instrumentation - go a long way toward explaining why the record charted in the German Top Three. Most of the vocal tracks have a fleeting kitschy vibe, but also the grace to never become earworms, which would have only been out of place here: the album remains a primarily downtempo affair…

Projekt re-releases Vidna Obmana’s classic the River of Appearance with a bonus disc, the entire album performed by Oregon’s Dreams in Exile. River was a high point of Obmana’s early compositional style, presenting a minimal and serene flow utilizing sparse piano lines which intermingle with drifting keyboard loops and organic rainstick sounds. There is an overall harmonic unity on these 8 pieces, stripping dense walls back to reveal a slowly changing sound configuration. The 2nd disc is not merely bonus tracks, but a complete re-creation of the original on traditional instruments. Re-experience the everlasting melancholy of the River of Appearance on this exceptional 10th anniversary 2-CD release.

LSD: Love, Sensuality and Devotion gathers over a decade's worth of Enigma's definitive tracks, including the song that started it all, "Sadeness, Pt. 1." "Return to Innocence," "Beyond the Invisible," and "Cross of Changes" are all featured as well, and though the collection ranges from the rock-tinged "I'll Love You…I'll Kill You" to atmospheric, electronic fare like "Shadows in Silence," since it's all essentially Michael Crétu's vision, it flows surprisingly well. Since Enigma's sound has varied fairly drastically over the years, LSD: Love, Sensuality and Devotion is the perfect starting point for anyone curious about Crétu's music, and the only Enigma album that casual fans might need.

Originally released in October 1989, the classic Erasure album Wild! is the band’s fourth album and their 2nd UK number one. Featuring the four hit singles 'Drama!', 'You Surround Me', 'Blue Savannah' and 'Star' the album is re-mastered and re-issued as a deluxe 2CD version in a hard back media book format with rare images, original photography by Pierre et Gilles and brand new sleeve notes. An exclusive bonus disc features five unreleased tracks including a brand new remix by Richard Norris (The Grid / Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve), a recently discovered unreleased mix of 'How Many Times?', rare 12" remixes by Mark Saunders, Gareth Jones and Mute supremo Daniel Miller (with Phil Legg), cover versions (including the fan favourite 'Supernature') and exclusive live tracks recorded at London Arena, Docklands in December 1989.

A group whose distinctly ethereal and gossamer sound virtually defined the enigmatic image of the record label 4AD, Cocteau Twins were founded in Grangemouth, Scotland, in 1979. Taking their name from an obscure song from fellow Scots Simple Minds, the Cocteaus were originally formed by guitarist Robin Guthrie and bassist Will Heggie and later rounded out by Guthrie's girlfriend Elizabeth Fraser, an utterly unique performer whose swooping, operatic vocals relied less on any recognizable language than on the subjective sounds and textures of verbalized emotions.