Four of my reviews appeared in issue 7 of the digital magazine Electronic Sound, available for iPad or as a PDF file.

First up is the new Cabaret Voltaire album #7885 – Electropunk To Technopop (1978 – 1985) (Mute), the first Cabs compilation to bring together both their Rough Trade and Some Bizarre / Virgin periods. The album comes complete with revealing technical liner notes from Richard H. Kirk and longstanding fan and Mute MD Daniel Miller.

Richie Hawtin releases a new Plastikman album this month. EX (Mute) was recorded live at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York at the personal request of Dior head designer Raf Simons for the museum’s annual fundraiser in late 2013, and saw Hawtin offer an entirely new suite of Plastikman tracks. Fans of dark acid ambience recorded in highbrow surroundings need look no further.

Issue 7 of Electronic Sound also includes my reviews of two non-Mute bands whose work I’ve featured on Documentary Evidence over the past couple of years. Swedish darkcore electronic duo Fatal Casualties have released their debut album Psalm on the consistently interesting Seja imprint. A dark, cloying album filled with intricate Depeche Mode-isms and Downward Spiral-era vibe of Nine Inch Nails, Psalm is far from an easy listen but fully realises the aesthetic that the duo of Stefan Ljungdahl and Ivan Hirvonen have painstakingly developed on their previous two singles for Seja.

Also delivering their much-anticipated debut, electronic duo Spacebuoy (Howard Moth and Jez Allan-Smith) release Intoxicated this month. Erasure fans will recall that Spacebuoy were the support act for the veteran synthpop duo’s warm-up for the Total Pop forest tour, and since 2013’s Breathe EP the pair have been hard at work crafting the tracks for their first album. Intoxicated straddles both classic electronic pop and harder trance and techno-inflected styles, making for an interesting and varied debut release.

The iPad edition of Electronic Sound can be purchased through iTunes. The PDF edition will be available through the Electronic Sound website soon.

(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Electronic Sound