Public Information At Juno Download

Review: Having previously released music from the likes of Bristol's Ekoplekz, British electronic music pioneer F.C. Judd and Brooklyn's ADR, Public Information continue their survey of the outer fringes of avant-garde electronics by shifting their focus to USA's West Coast, presenting the debut record from Austin Cesear. Even in terms of America's rich underground of contemporary producers Cesear seems like an outsider; where his contemporaries are content to rework well worn tropes into bright retro pastiche, Cesear's music is warped and decayed, existing in a dark, parallel version of Chicago and Detroit's musical past. Cruise Forever is an album of two halves, combining dense techno in the vein of Actress or Andy Stott and digital, tape looped ambient that is somewhere between Daniel Lopatin, Fennesz and Steve Reich. Far from being a pretender however, Cesear puts his own bold stamp on these influences, reconstructing them with his own rusty building blocks and delievering an album that is one of best debuts we've heard this year.

Review: An imaginary recording studio that is a cross between King Tubby's on Dromilly Ave, Kingston, and the Radiophonic Workshop's Maida Vale studio in London, Dromilly Vale is the setting for the creation of Bristol producer Ekoplekz's excellent record on Public Information. It's a fascinating concept, and one that's pulled off with considerable finesse; intro "Dick Mills Blues" frames this idea with a cracked fog of soothing tones that could be considered sun-drenched, whilst the rest of the EP experiments extensively with the sonic qualities of the idea, with "Dromilly Vale" firing analogue bullets into an echo chamber and "Neutronix" sounding like a frantic 80s VHS ident caked in spring reverb. Far from being a novelty that wears thin, this is undoubtedly some of the producer's strongest work to date.

Review: Having already introduced the sandblasted electronics of Austin Cesear to the world this year, Public Information move east for the debut LP of Russian duo Love Cult. As is typical of all Public Information releases, Fingers Crossed is a dense and beguiling collection of tracks; swathed in tape echo, their decomposed loops have echoes of Basinski's Disintegration Tapes if they had been abandoned inside an irradiated forbidden zone, with the haunting folk of tracks like "Kantele" and "Backslide" sounding particularly heat-damaged. "Knowledge" rattles along like a lost no-wave classic, while "Place To Get Lost In" offers a piece of searing drone somewhere between Sunn 0))) and My Bloody Valentine But the centrepiece is the 10 minute long title track, a chamber pop masterpiece which offers a moment of clear calm in their confusing, lonely world.

Review: Since launching, Public Information have impressed with stylistically varying releases from contemporary artists such as Ekoplekz, Austin Ceaser, No UFOs and Gatekeeper's Aaron David Ross as well reissuing the work of the overlooked British electronic musician FC Judd. Tomorrow's Achievements: Parry Music Library 1976-86 sees the label indulge their archival tendencies with a compilation made up from an exclusive trip to the archives of the Toronto-based music institution. The bewildering 25 track selection covers proto-Balearic house, electronic disco, drone, and weird radiophonic electronica, most of which will be faintly recognizable to those of a certain age. Once again Public Information have excelled themselves with yet another esoteric release that illuminates the strange alternate reality their aesthetic occupies, and is easily the best collection of library sounds since Permanent Vacation's first Space Oddities collection was released in 2008.