bvdub
Us Again
Perhaps no other electronic musician mesmerises and delights like Brock Van Wey. The only “hindrance” [if you can even call it that] I can find with bvdub is the sheer amount of music he shares with the world, and then, this hindrance is my own. Because if you spend your time with the emotional authenticity of his sound, you will be forever changed. Thousands of loyal followers and fans already know this, so they hungrily consume everything he puts out. That also applies to me, even if I don’t get to write about every one of his new works. Us Again is a two-hour (!) recording of a live show, where, in a familiar bvdub fashion, layers of sound weave in and out among genre-defying rhythms, swelling and morphing melodies, and distant mutated vocals, in an immeasurable coating of emotion. With these constantly moving parts, I always feel like Brock is trying to cover up his century-old anguish by painting over a snapshot of time with broad brushstrokes of thick, viscous, dripping with emotion sound. And when you think you glimpse the unspoken truth between these laminations, you find a broken piece of mirror hidden in its depths. If you can’t get enough, there’s more unreleased material slowly seeping out of the archives, which Brock is putting out almost every month on his Bandcamp. There is a series of four-track EPs, released one month at a time, in an ongoing conversation with himself. “If I’m honest,” writes Brock in the release notes for the first instalment, “I think it is a conversation in which I will finally be unable to convince myself there is a road ahead. And will, at last, find that only the one behind remains.” In addition, there is a sustained release of music from his subscription series, which began with The Ghost Where You Used To Be. There is plenty to drown in on his pages, while I’m still floating through Us Again.
Mikkel Rev
Journey Beyond
Somewhere in the forests of Norway, where underground raves pulse beneath the towering pines, Mikkel Haraldstad has been quietly mapping out the evolution of contemporary trance. His return to A Strangely Isolated Place with Journey Beyond represents not merely a follow-up to The Art of Levitation (ASIP, 2023) but a deepening meditation on euphoria as a transformative experience. It began as two distinct EPs, with the first exploring a [much slower] contemplative 80bpm territory, and the second around a classic 130bpm mark of trance. This structural evolution reflects Haraldstad’s understanding that authentic electronic music operates beyond its rigid categories, inhabiting the liminal spaces where rhythm becomes the ritual. The Norwegian producer’s broader artistic trajectory is a testament to this versatility. From his high-energy Omformer collaborations with Filip Storsveen to expansive ambient work for the Sinensis imprint and his foundational role in the UTE collective, Haraldstad consistently demonstrated that genre boundaries are invitations rather than limitations. Journey Beyond impresses because it treats trance not as escapism but as a methodology for deeper engagement. The release is complemented by an hour-long continuous mix by the label’s founder, Ryan Griffin, as ASIP, where each track is a carefully constructed passage through varying states of consciousness. This progression mirrors the forest experiences echoed in Haraldstad’s work. Beginning in contemplative stillness, building toward moments of euphoria, and then resolving into reflective afterglow. The journey then becomes the destination. This is an essential reminder that the most profound [musical] experiences occur not in arrival, but in the voyaging itself. Griffin’s curation at ASIP continues proving paramount, his decade-plus commitment to identifying artists who push beyond conventional electronic territories ensuring that releases like this reach listeners prepared for genuine transformation. You can always count on it. Recommended for fans of Gas, Biosphere, and everything on Ultimae.
AES DANA
Leylines
In the above sound byte, I mentioned Ultimae Records and immediately remembered that this French label had a very recent remaster. In the ambient electronic music scene, few albums carry the mythic weight of creative destruction and rebirth like AES DANA‘s Leylines. Originally birthed from catastrophe, when a disk crash destroyed an entire year’s work, the album emerged as Vincent Villuis’ complete creative reinvention. When the unthinkable occurred, “Villuis entered a period of deep introspection before starting over. This shock led not only to emotional reckoning but also to a complete reinvention of his creative process.” This backstory transforms every listening session into an act of witnessing artistic resurrection, where each granular texture, rumbling bass, pulsating rhythm, and morphing pad carries the emotional weight of loss and renewal. As founder of Ultimae, Villuis has cultivated a unique fusion in the intersection of deep ambient, downtempo, and IDM. The album’s intoxicating cocktail of psybient [is it still okay to use this term?] and cinematic electronica is a perfect ear candy for fans of morning psychedelic expeditions. The conceptual framework of invisible energy paths connecting to sacred sites becomes a metaphor for how field recordings, analog synthesis, and digital processing interconnect across the album’s ten immersive tracks. This 2025 remaster of Villuis’s essential 2009 work reveals hidden details and enhanced spatial clarity in the already-familiar layers, revealing new emotional landscapes. For even more depth, get the 24-bit version. Listened on repeat all weekend.
