Everything here errs toward the “ambient” and “IDM”, rather than peak time pummelling and “panel beating”.
NEW 12s & LPs
The longest track from a fine EP care of New Yorker Alien D, on Sydney’s Theory Therapy, this blend of electronics and blissful slide guitar took me back to The Grid’s classic remix of Rainer’s Nod To N2O.
Geir Jenssen weaves samples from a 1950’s radio reading of Elizabeth Maddox Roberts’ 1926 novel, The Time Of Man, into a moving, mesmerising meditation on human kind, our species, and the individual’s, place in the universe.
San Francisco’s Cahl Sel started the year with a 12 that contained some cracking, sophisticated, dance floor techno and house, before following up with his far mellower debut long-player, Traces. Mixing classic 90s UK and Detroit influences with 21st Century deep listening.
Marshall Jefferson / Yellow Meditation For The Dance Generation
Ian Snowball and Marshall Jefferson create an epic soundtrack for Snowball’s Shibashi Qigong sessions, in the process tipping their caps to Jefferson’s more spiritual Chicago house moments. Magical. Joakim’s remix gave the track a more techno feel.
Hard to pick a favourite from this EP. When I came to put together end-of-the-year “best of” mixes, all of the tracks kept cropping up. Lovely laid back blends of IDM and dub techno.
A perhaps tongue-in-cheek – check track titles such as Radox – album of retro-not-retro from one of UK techno’s pioneers. A fun, lighthearted flashback of ethereal sighs, symphonic synths, plus the odd breakbeat.
Ess Whiteley / Mycorrizhal Music
A super interesting debut from Californian Phd student Ess Whiteley, where the music’s influences move, and join the dots, between modern classical and mid-90s techno.
REISSUES
Mixmaster Morris & Peter Namlook / Dreamfish
Nils Wortmann of Silent State has been diligently working to archive and reissue Peter Namlook’s crazy prolific back catalogue. Nils, however, has a proper job and can only really handle one project a year. In 2025 it was the turn of Dreamfish – a fabulous collaboration between Namlook and Mixmaster Morris. Honoured to help out, I got the chance to interview Morris for Ban Ban Ton Ton, and twice for Electronic Sound (the second instalment has yet to be published). That 2 hour Zoom was a personal highlight.
Polygon Window / Surfing On Sine Waves
When I got talking to John Matthews at this year’s Convenanza Festival, it turned out that we were both excitedly waiting on copies of this expanded reissue. Polygon Window’s Surfing On Sine Waves, therefore gave me a great excuse to ask John if he’d like to contribute to Ban Ban Ton Ton. The mellower moments on here, such as Portreath Habour and Quino – Phec were immediate winners with me. As was the broken, downtempo funk of Bike Pump Meets Bucket.
Terre Thaemlitz continues to look both backwards and forwards. Constantly producing new music while steadily reissuing her back catalogue, often for the first time on vinyl. 2024 saw 1994’s Tranquilizer appear as three 12s, and in 2025 the 1995 follow-up Soil came as a similarly weighty, expanded package. This one is proper “ambient”. There are no head-nodding beats. Instead, six roughly 10-minute tracks. Sound collages that move between symphonic drones and ethereal drifts. Always haunting. Sometimes disturbing. See Cycles’ descriptions and field recordings of domestic abuse, and the chorus of “motivated marines” chanting “kill, kill, kill” on Yer Ass Is Grass.
Apart from Thaemlitz’s music, I find her ban on digital / internet availability fascinating. Initially it was frustrating, because it meant that I couldn’t include any of her work in online mixes, or recorded sets. Then it made me question the nature of my vinyl habit / hoarding. I wasn’t used to owning records that I was only “allowed” to play at home. This made starker by the fact that now, more often than not, I am alone. However, during 2025, when discussions about Ai have been impossible to avoid – especially since the souped-up search engines seem to have stolen most of my freelance press work – I began to properly understand, and realise how smart, forward thinking, prophetic this bold stance was. Thaemlitz first published her concerns about copyright and control well over a decade ago.
Yasutaka Sato aka Virgo had his 1998 debut, Landform Code, finally pressed on to vinyl by WRWTFWW. Clearly influenced by the 90s pioneers of Detroit and UK techno, it nonetheless carved out its own unique sound and space, and is a sublime listen from start to finish.
Seefeel / Pure, Impure
This reissue was a real result for me, since the Seefeel sonic penny only really dropped, personally, a little while back – some 30 years after their seminal, groundbreaking sides were first released. Collecting together the band’s early EPs, Pure, Impure charted the development of Seefeel’s singular, and influential sound, progressing quickly from their shoegaze / Cocteau Twins roots to dense, dubbed out, looped and layered dissections. Ban Ban Ton Ton loved this package so much that both John Matthews and me reviewed it.
Susumu Yokota / Skintone Edition Volume 1
If you could afford it, this box set was essential. Years, close to a decade in the planning / negotiating, Lo Recordings began reissuing the back catalogue of Japanese electronica savant Susumu Yokota’s Skintone label. If you couldn’t quite stretch to the first batch of 7 LPs all in one hit, you’re recommended at the very least to cherry-pick. Beginning with Sakura.
A righteous reissue of some sought after but relatively under the radar mid-90s UK techno that came with smashing new remixes from Zugzwang’s contemporaries Nuron and B12’s Mike Golding.
Track-list
µ–Ziq – Radox
Alien D – Breather
Zugzwang – Arrest (Nuron Remix)
Cahl Sel – The Game
Ethereal Logic – Ono
Khotin – Druid Dance
Zugzwang – Arrest (Mike Golding Remix)
Khotin – On Heaven
Susumu Yokota – Azukiiro No Kaori
Seefeel – Time To Find Me
Cahl Sel – Call To Mind
Khotin – Oasis Biointerference
The Ullulators – Eternal Now
Ess Whiteley – Kaleidoscopic Patterns Of Emptiness Dancing
Susumu Yokota – Gekkoh
Virgo – Nostalgia
Polygon Window – Portreath Harbour
Susumu Yokota – Kodomotachi
µ–Ziq – Tente
Cahl Sel – Halflife
Marshall Jefferson – Yellow Meditation For The Dance Generation
Susumu Yokota – Genshi
Ess Whiteley – Music For Moving & Being
Kliche – Testing The Twin
Cahl Sel – Focus
µ–Ziq – Escorial
Susumu Yokota – Hisen
Cahl Sel – Panoptic
Ess Whiteley – Dancing Air
Virgo – Monochrome Sky
Seefeel – Plainsong (Sine Bubble Embossed Dub)
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