King Tubby meets Jacob Miller: In a tenement yard (Motion) - CD
It was the cover that got me initially. Looking more like a prog rock album with it's collage of Minimoog V keyboards arranged into a speaker. Then Karl from Soul Jazz Records of Soho mumbled about it being incredibly 'rare'. I assume the staff always said that about every other release, just so they could flog stock to the next Japanese / Swedish tourist that passes through.

But after reading the excellent sleeve notes by David Katz (author of the sublime 'Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee Scratch Perry') I was convinced this was something special. Luckily for you dear reader (and for Soul Jazz), it didn't disappoint. Fourteen tracks of precision dub, laced with a subtle layer of space-inflected synth work.

Biosphere: Dropsonde (Touch) - CD
Having just had the pleasure of meeting the man himself when I was his DJ support at some industry shindig in Central London the other week. I'd decided to backtrack and revisit this, his last album for Touch. Those first few albums for R&S Records were deceptively dubbed 'ambient', but I'd found them to be anything but. More propulsive statements in isolated techno.

In short 'Dropsonde' is pretty amazing. The opening snow drift of 'Dissolving Clouds' lends an abstract, disengaged feel that's reminiscent of earlier work before the shuffling jazz drums of 'Birds Fly By Flapping Their Wings' sets the tone for the rest of the album. And despite his meteorological association with winter, I found this to be a warm, accessible, beautifully presented and inviting piece of contemporary electronic music.

AVVA: Gdansk Queen (Erstwhile) - DVD
This takes Toshimaru Nakamura's organic, feedback ridden loops generated from his 'no-input mixing board' technique and sets it to visuals. Billy Roisz's jittery, moire-infected patterns aren't really meant to be studied, just like Nakamura's music isn't meant to have focus.

Certainly not ambient by nature, with frequencies taking sudden, dangerous routes into intolerable thresholds. Matched visually by stark colour contrasts and oscillating shifts. Investigating areas that we've learned to reject: distortion, feedback, noise....visually as well as sonically.