Benji Vaughan – Even Tundra (Twisted)

• Release Date: 9/2013

So, here we are then. Benji Vaughan ditches Prometheus and de-orbits Younger Brother for a solo album which, apparently, represents what he really wanted to release and to sound like all along.

It’s an album with a lot of different styles, which is both a blessing and a curse. Even Tundra will challenge you; I should know because it’s been several weeks of listening that’s led to this review (including, it should probably be said, chaseup emails that have almost been on a par with Analog Pussy in 2003, which ended badly. I mean hilariously.)

Ursa Major gets things under way, and …

Shpongle – Museums of Consciousness (Twisted)

• Release Date: 7/

Museums of Consciousness is Shpongle’s fifth album, which by my reckoning makes theirs the longest trilogy in the history of music. It’s also one of the most hyped releases in the last couple of years; true, the promo machine is far from what it used to be but it seemed, for a few weeks at least, as though everyone was talking about Shpongle again.

All of which makes it more and more unfortunate that Museums is such a disappointment. The main beef is how disjointed it is; the tracks neither segue into one another, nor reflect a consistent vibe. If someone …

Ott & The All-Seeing I – Live At Terminal West (Self Released)

• Release Date: 7/2013

It is, ladies and gentlemen, ten years since Ott released Blumenkraft, the album that carved a firmly independent niche for a firmly individual style of music. We’d never heard anything like it: at the time, Psyreviews said that Blumenkraft “came along and made a whole new genre of music, all for itself” with a style that sounded like “a happy accident of circumstances and herbs that just seems to hang together like a spaghetti sculpture.” Frothy.

Fast forward to the present, and we’ve got a situation where mild-mannered Ott self-releases music, maintains a strong and dedicated following on social networks, and spends …

Various – Raja Ram’s PipeDreams (TipWorld)

• Release Date: 3/2013

Well lorks a lummy, as one might say, because it appears as though Tip are back again, or are they, with a new album, or is it, featuring a selection of “cherry picked sound nuggets from some of Raj’s best friends blended together seamlessly” (i.e., Lucas and Protools are behind the mix, and Raja himself probably isn’t).

Already we’re beset by is-it-or-isn’t-it, and the album hasn’t even started yet. Luckily, the opening strains of Wolfgang’s Tea Party from Sybarite has a bassline that channels a ridiculous amount of Massive Attack’s Safe From Harm, rendering it largely missable and frustration (although I …

Hedonix – Guerrilla Ontology (Electric Power Pole)

I’ve been super-enjoying this, especially over the six weeks or so I’ve been sat on it while the label patiently waited for me to get my act together and review it. The second album from Hedonix sees the Sydney duo settle into a sound that’s wholly their own, and a space that they and only they occupy.

This is in contrast to their 2009 album, Order Out Of Chaos, an impressive debut albeit one which invited comparison to other artists around at the time: post-Sensient, it was difficult to think of any natively Australian act in purely objective terms.

All this changes …

Various – Depth Charge (Interchill)

• Release Date: 4/2013

Fap, basically.

It’s a super awesome welcome back to Interchill, a label I’m personally delighted has weathered the multiple storms of dwindling sales, mp3 streaming, and Beatport. Depth Charge is their first compilation since 2009′s One Dub, and it showcases the newer and edgier sound — there’s dubstep, Naasko, but not as we know it.

Daega Sound’s Don’t Stop kicks off with a delicious sense of space between the sounds. Dub is shedding the step and we’re left with a syrupy new genre to get on and enjoy. Bakir’s Deep End spends most of its time, as the name might suggest, down …

Etnica – Live In Athens 1996 (DAT)

• Release Date: 12/7/2012

Well, what a jolly surprise this was. I had no idea there was even a recording of Etnica live from 1996 (although I was loosely aware of a bit of Brixton folklore that one night at the Fridge, when they were supposed to be recording a live set / jam / live PA, but that one of Etnica was too binned to hit the Record button.)

It is, folks, a genuine bona fide 1996 live recording, mastered deliciously, and it’s incredible. At first listen, I’d forgotten that it was actually something from back in time that somehow surfaced to the present …

OOOD – You Think You Are (Vertigo)

I was a bit shocked to learn of this, OOOD’s fifth album, at such a late stage in the day. For the last two (or three?) albums, I was much more plugged-in to the digital doofmatrix (or whatever) and was keenly aware of the progress and releases of more or less everything. I had no idea that You Think You Are was on the way, and that made it all the more  of a happy surprise.

You see, the thing is that You Think You Are is the album that OOOD have always been promising they could make. For years.

Don’t get …

Cosmithex – Aquarius EP (Joof)

Two things have changed in the time that Psyreviews has been on hiatus. One is that we’re back to a single-led musiconomy, similar to the days of the 12″, where a single track or a track and its flipside were enough to attract a purchase. The last five years have seen a perfect storm of CDs becoming unsexy, fast internet being everywhere, and mp3 players in pockets that have legitimised the digital download. As a result, artists and labels can establish themselves more quickly in the increasingly fragmented “scene”.

The second thing that’s happened in the last few years is Jon 00 …

OddWave – Signal To Noise (Spliff)

French act OddWave is a new one on me, but then fair enough I’ve been living under a rock for the past five years, and extremely nice it was as well thanks very much. This is sort of an Extended EP, an EEP if you will (but please don’t). Six tracks released on Spliff Music, who I always associated with gash fullon but who seem to be a little braver with their output now.

The melting pot has already melted, apparently, so things are reforming on the floor in sticky puddles. Signal To Noise brings in several elements and influences from …