Emotional Response

Played by: Juno Recommends Techno

Review: Emotional Response celebrates its 50th release with something special from label stalwart Roy Of The Ravers. Following 2019's magnum opus White Sunrise II is the accompanying Soliel, where our nom dee plume delves further into his archives of recently rediscovered disks. The music too is more expansive, with the ambient and techno signatures matched with touches of jazz keys, Balearic sampledelica and even acoustic outtakes, all with that Ravers humour included. The opening cinematic symphonies of The Smell Of Orange Peel and Kliszewicz Klopcic Klim highlight again a side not seen on his more acid / club cuts found on various labels. Expectations are confounded with the deep house meets techno melodics of City Limits, before the ever-expanding feel-good vibrations of center piece Feathers hooks all. Sometimes a simple groove and catchy vocal sample is all you need to create a classic. The second half then glides with 14 minutes of house dramatics via Versace 101624, a master of arrangement and beats, preempting the interlude of Clock House's return. To close, EL-9400's intense scatter percussion melds with anthemic acid undertones before its second half melts to a choral ambience, leading to the closing acoustic jam dub curiosity My Brother And His Mate and the curtain for another stage in the Roy sagas.

Played by: Juno Recommends Breakbeat, Juno Download

Review: A new philosophy as time enters a radical history of our evolution. Being and nothingness in one, creatures of habit, the angels of nature, we can herald a new humanity. DJN4 enters in homage. Optimus Yarnspinner. Edification through music bends, but does not break the untameable lost voices. This dissolution of ego, where culture exemplifies the principle of innovation through excess, the nocturnal brain sees only what it seeks. The order of time is more than a conspiracy of the people, this enforced interlude does not mean culture's end. Our culture, music's culture, acts as a genome, a graffiti of society. The psy, the rave, the sounds, the species, the food of the gods. Alpha Juno, Cyclon 303, mutable instruments and ideas collated, N4's modern mysticism to harness the Earth as a being of sound. This occult features an anarchism, offering us a collective immortality, allowing us, showing us, how to be more humane. Across eight tracks, our DJ weaves a journey to the inner and outer digi sphere, a two-year search, in to steppas, out of dub, evoking legitimate synthesis and sensibility. Look beyond Zamonia. The lost Chord. An alien dreamtime. Tales of Z.

Review: As with the first SchleiBen series, Emotional Response follows the success of the second set of split releases with a stand-alone album by one of the highlights, in Neil Tolliday.

Recorded over a 17-year period, the ambient, drone and noise pieces collected here offer a glimpse in to the depth of a supremely talented, thoughtful and at times, troubled musical mind.

As his love for house music and the success of his Nail moniker grew and waned during the ascent 90s boom, there followed his somewhat surprising success as one half of Balearic-pop combo Bent, propelling Tolliday in to a world of indie-charts and endless touring. The eventual unhappiness of this 'music career' and increasing need for personal escapism led him start experiment new musical forms of expression.

A thinker and oft-over drinker, success was viewed with a deep suspicion and introspection, drug use and later, depression. As his other music projects slowly imploded, this new, personal music was for many years, made purely for Tolliday's own absorption and comedowns.

Taken from an initial 4 track recording in Nottingham in 2000, more pieces were subsequently recorded around the globe on numerous devices - old portable cassette recorders, hand held digital stereos and even mobile phones. These heavily manipulated samples were slowed down, reversed, smudged and stretched before analog and modular patching, Mellotron, editing, programming and post production were added to the melting pot.

With hundreds of tracks collated, in the last few years Tolliday began putting them out via Bandcamp using different aliases, on made up record labels, with no press or mention to anyone. This would happen every 6-9 months - a new label was created with logo, band/artist names and a few albums worth of music, leaving it there for a few weeks before then deleting the lot.

Here then is a snapshot of those recordings, chosen to represent the depth of music, while trying not to think too much about in to the emotions that were used in making them. With special hand painted artwork by Sam Purcell, commissioned from the artist's own photographs taken from a adjournment at Homerton hospital, the hope is to do justice to such wonderful music and present Neil Tolliday, finally an artist, shorn of pseudonyms, in a broader light.

Played by: Juno Recommends Downtempo

Played by: Chris Coco, Juno Recommends Downtempo, Kenneth Bager // Musicfordreams

Review: Emotional Response brings together two esteemed artists as they continue to celebrate five years of top-drawer releases. Alexis Georgopoulos and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma aren't necessarily household names, but their respective careers have touched on many a respected project in a variety of fields. Here, the pair turn in some wonderfully expressive compositions played out across all manner of organic instrumentation. The richness of the production and the highly developed ideas embedded within this gorgeous LP should resonate for a long time to come, not least because the pieces are all so easy on the ears. From Steely Dan precision to Balearic lilt, this is proper players music played by proper players.

Review: Gary Caruth's Sad City project has progressively attracted ever more praise, not least since his Shapes In Formation album landed last year. Straddling purest ambient and abstract rhythmical electronica with a unique approach that is all his own, Caruth is returning to Emotional Rescue with a 10" that revisits three of the tracks from Shapes In Formation and magnifies them as the longer form versions they originally were. "Music Removed" was a particularly strong track on the album, and this new extended version lets the pneumatic percussion and soulful vocal croon bleed together in the most captivating of ways. "Patterns" sounds even more elegant in its pagan ambient finery with a longer run time, and "Vexillations" flits between poised static and cascading chimes with the deft touch that has come to define the Sad City sound.

Played by: Lurid Music

Review: Emotional Response delivers a mini-album of ambient-equatorial enlightenment by Australia's mysterious Tropical Hi-Fi. The final record from an artist appearing on the label's SchleiBen series, this also points to the future. Based somewhere in the far flung Northern Territories, the music of Hi-Fi's pre-incarnation Electric Egypt was first discovered via the note-worthy airwaves of L.A's outstanding Dublab radio station. As the wonderfully diverse internet shows and project's dense, hip-hop inspired collages came to fruition with 2012's Exotica release, a dual awareness and sporadic contact was maintained whenever a signal could be established with Hi-Fi base camp. As the SchleiBen series was formed, the studio-DJ-cut-up-mix of Oceanic Mythology was warmly received as an inspired counterpoint to the dense offering from Don't DJ. These first real solo recordings from the Hi-Fi crew - whoever he/she/they maybe - moves on from the cut'n'paste of Electric Egypt to seek a meditative vision. Ambient, balearic and field recordings are all part of a drifting tropical flavour that encompasses the listener. Music truly inspired by it's surroundings, this is not some music journal, flying in to sample a life and it's sounds, but the real, living entity and it can be heard deep across the 8 short pieces. None is more typified than Tahiti Blue, where fellow traveller Mike Cooper layers his ubiquitous steel blues over simple, lilting drums. Enjoy.

Played by: Alvaro Cabana (Rotten City), Chris Coco, In Flagranti

Review: Having issued a mini-album from Fuxa earlier this year, Stuart Leath's tireless Emotional Response welcomes the Detroit band back to the label with an album recorded alongside Neil Mackay of Loop fame. Apollo Soyuz was originally released digitally earlier this year via bandcamp, but you can see why Leath would want to license it for a proper vinyl edition. The eight tracks form an exploration of the outer cosmos that is tinged with a deep psychedelia that will resonate warmly with fans of Emotional Response. From the space funk of the opening "Apollo Soyuz", Fuxa and Mackay lead the listener through galactic kosmische, spatial ambience and primal tape loop experiments and more with "Testz 1" a considered highlight.

Played by: Juno Recommends Experimental, Juno Recommends Ambient/Drone

Review: Schleissen 1 marks the beginning of a major, four-part project from Stuart Leath's Emotional Response label; an in-depth exploration of the "outer reaches" of drone and ambient. It's a grand scheme, highlighted perfectly by the grandiose scale of Serbian maverick Abul Mogard's opener - a hypnotic, 19-minute exploration of modular drone music that's as freaky as it is beautiful. Stefan Schwander dons his now familiar Harmonious Thelonious alias on the flip, laying down two brilliantly melodious synthesizer pieces inspired by the cyclical compositions of acclaimed minimalist composer Steve Reich. Both pieces are borderline stunning, and more than worth the admission price.

Played by: Kezokichi, Juno Recommends Breakbeat, Cristiano Balducci, NBMD, TREVOR JACKSON, Cannibal Ink

Review: Stories of Prison sees Timothy J Fairplay returns to Emotional Response having helped shape the identity of the label in it's infancy with the release of Somebody, Somewhere back in 2012. A lot of music has come from both artist and label since then, with Fairplay's reputation as a solo artist fully established thanks to releases on a myriad of labels. Stories of Prison is a mini LP rich in the musical intensity Fairplay has instilled in all his music to date, yet there is a daring sense of diversity at play too. From the effervescent dubbed out house toughness of opening track "The Quay", Fairplay veers into subaquatic breakbeat, deep synth Love From Outer Space chuggers, and other late night sonic treats.

Played by: Juno Recommends Downtempo

Review: When Juno Plus spoke to Emotional Response boss Stuart Leath recently, he talked excitedly about his latest time intensive project - trawling through boxes of old cassette recordings from L.A multi-instrumentalist Eddie "Secret Circuit" Ruscha to compile a follow-up to 2012's brilliant Tropical Psychedelics compilation. Predictably, the resulting collection is nothing short of brilliant. Typically eccentric, melodious, atmospheric and bristling with interesting ideas, Cosmic Vibrations delves deeper into Ruscha's archives and comes up with gold. Highlights are naturally plentiful, but keep an eye out for the psychedelic ambience of "Electric Brain", the analogue electronic explorations of "Nova Laser", and "Shockers", an acid-flecked chunk of chiming Balearic deep house with exotic, Arabic touches.

Review: The supremely talented William Burnett makes a belated return to Emotional Response, and this time he's got Brooklyn-based studio pal John Beall in tow. Those who enjoyed the duo's release on the L.I.E.S. white label series should lap up Shimmer. It hits hard from the off, with "Snaker Charmer" delivering a velvet-clad punch to the guts. It's techno right from the top drawer, with darting electronics and drawn out pads riding a thunderous groove. The title track is impressive, too, with surging electronics and throbbing synths riding a techno-tempo groove crafted out of an old hardcore breakbeat. There's some more considered fare on offer, too, with the shimmering ambience of "Hold Me Take Me Leave Me" completing a superb package.

Review: When released on the THISISNOTANEXIT label in 2008 to little fanfair, the Brain Machine by Brain Machine was 2 unknown producers delivering a unique take on the electronic, experimental climbs of the Krautrock sound. Now known to be Rome based Guido Zen and London's Jon Tye - aka one half of the Seahawks - the album soon spread through word of mouth and was backed with live dates from Scotland to Scandinavia. Handing the album to a selection of producers they admired resulted in remixes from Dusseldorf's Unit 4 and Musiccargo, London's Spectral Empire - aka George Thompson (Black Merlin) and Kyle Martin (Land of Light) - and from the USA, Jonas Reinhardt and both Steve Moore and A.E Paterra of space rock pioneers, Zombi. With the demise of TINAE in 2010, the remixes never saw the light of day. The Lost Machine EP collects these four remixes on one EP. A collection of percussive interpretations take the album's electronic kraut expanses towards a darker club sound that wouldn't go amiss on the more experimental offerings from LIES or Creme Organisation. All-in-all a welcome archival excavation from Emotional Response.

Played by: DIONIGI

Played by: John Warren (Aural Graffiti), Leri Ahel, DIONIGI, Dave Jay

Review: After the tense and dramatic soundscapes of Jason Letkiewicz's Nzambi LP under his soundtrack guise Alan Hurst, Emotional Response have put the tracks to the test for three appropriately oddball remixers. Fellow L.I.E.S. affiliate Terekke turns out a heavily sedated dub of "Nzambi" that rides a pacey house beat but buries everything in delay and reverb. Timothy J Fairplay brings some serious sleazy 80s electro tones to "Parallel Sensations", complete with predatory vocal and thick ladles of synthy goodness. Finally, Jonas Reinhardt cools off the intensity with a blissful ambient version of "Before The Dawn" which plunges headfirst into a warm bed of melodic drones.