by Ben Hogwood, with text lifted from the press release
Electronic musician BUNKR, the project under which James Dean operates, has announced new album Signal for release on 24 April 2026. The long player is prefaced by the release of two new tracks, 96 Refraction and Eyes Like Mirrors.
96 Refraction channels a drum and bass beat similar to what you might have heard in that year, with some deeply appealing widescreen musical movement, BUNKR’s music projecting into the distance. Eyes Like Mirrors covers a similarly large space, with washes of ambient sound that drift like spray.
On his Bandcamp page, BUNKR sets the scene for the new album. “It began with a flash of light over the Surrey Hills. A phosphorescent sphere pierced the night sky above Pitch Hill then promptly vanished as quickly as it had appeared, witnessed by a group of friends and later reported in the local papers. Stranger still was its proximity to the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, tucked deep in the woods nearby. Whether cosmic or coincidental, the moment left its mark — a signal from elsewhere, fleeting but unforgettable…”
The new album “is shaped by these formative encounters with space, sound, and the unknown…” while musically it “expands BUNKR’s world of detailed, immersive electronics. Shimmering ambient textures drift against polyrhythmic patterns and breaks; synth lines pulse like coded transmissions; fragments of rave energy flicker and dissolve into wide, cinematic soundscapes.”
As James says, it promises to be “a record rooted in the landscapes of youth, but tuned to the infinite possibilities of the horizon.”
Midnight Zone is a film by visual artist Julian Charrière, and its plot is described in the accompanying text to this release on the Bandcamp site of Californian musician and producer Laurel Halo.
“Following the path of a drifting Fresnel lighthouse lens as it descends through the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone — a remote abyssal plain in the Pacific Ocean, rich in rare metals and increasingly targeted for deep-sea mining — the film traces a descent into one of Earth’s last untouched ecosystems.
Charrière’s film reveals the deep not as void, but as a luminous biome teeming with fragile life: bioluminescent creatures, swirling schools of fish, and elusive predators. The suspended lens becomes an abyssal campfire, attracting species caught in the tides of uncertainty, their futures hanging in the balance.”
Laurel Halo has the unenviable task of representing these remarkable scenes in music, though her previous sonic excursions suggest she would be the right composer for the task! She composed the soundtrack was on a Montage 8 synthesizer and Yamaha TransAcoustic piano at the Yamaha studios in New York City, to which she added stacks of violin and viola da gamba.
What’s the music like?
Very deep – and remarkably evocative of the film itself. This accuracy of description is felt from the outset of its first track, Sunlight Zone, where drones suggest the vast emptiness of the ocean, but where there are glints of light and unexplainable life forms, some with shapes fully revealed but others with hidden depths.
Halo’s compositions suggest an uncertain journey of no fixed destination, the music drifting but through richly coloured waters. The end goal is not clear, but there is nonetheless a contentment in the time and place, in spite of a great deal of surface tension.
Not surprisingly the music travels slowly, with no discernible rhythm, though Sunlight Zone does build with ominous power. Midnight Zone is a mixture of longer form pieces and shorter interludes. The bigger structures have remarkable depth – Oreison hangs in suspension but evokes a vast space, with ambient industrial noises that gradually take hold above the big drones. Twilight Zone exists in a similarly huge space, but the shorter Fracture, Abyss and Polymetallic Nodule show Laurel Halo’s capacity for a wide variety of drone-driven musical pictures.
Hadal – a word relating to the deepest parts of the ocean – is an appropriately formless, dark track, yet one teeming with mysterious activity.
Finally we return to Sunlight Zone, this time in the company of strings, a feeling akin to returning to the surface after a big dive.
Does it all work?
As an accurate description of its subject material, Midnight Zone could not be more appropriate, yet you will have realised that appreciation of the music depends on the listening conditions. Sitting in a stereo picture in a quiet environment brings the most reward – as does accompanying reading about the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone, and its breathtaking natural qualities.
Is it recommended?
It is. Midnight Zone offers deep contemplation, and the overwhelming hope that the riches under the surface of the ocean are maintained and not destroyed. Richly coloured and thickly scored, it has an ambience that is equal parts comforting and awe-inspiring.
Joachim Spieth is a musician who needs to keep composing, and the benefits of that urge are frequently passed on to his listeners. Vestige is the latest in a line of sonic explorations on his own label Affin Music, this time exploring “the dialogue between ambient atmospheres and dub-infused detail”.
What’s the music like?
As described…but the inference can easily be made by the listener that using dub leads to a relaxed rhythmic profile. Vestige proves that this is not always the case, for some of its tracks have a good deal of forward momentum, their profile supported by a solid and active rhythmic undercarriage.
Operating above this is Spieth’s trademark ambience, thick in texture but with a depth surrounding the listener – both reassuring and subtly inspiring.
A steady pulse runs through the ambient clouds of Residual, setting the pace and tone for the album, before the more immediately immersive Sonomorph. Iterate goes to similar depths, deeply textured and coloured, while Remnant shows off a satisfying rhythm track.
Does it all work?
It does. Spieth gets the combination of ambience and forward movement just right.
Is it recommended?
Yes. Jordan Spieth has a high threshold when it comes to making quality ambient music, and while Vestige is thoughtful in its language, it is a deeply satisfying, immersive experience.
Matt and Rich Cawte’s Octavcat project has yielded some very fine electronic music to date, and with Ailurophobia they deliver their second album for the VLSI label.
Ailurophobia is ‘an intense, irrational and persistent fear of cats’ – a title that was almost certainly applied to this album in jest. That would fit with the subtle sense of humour that Cawte have brought to their music, and also the feline that graces the cover! Here it is described as “a ten-track selection of woozy, playful electronic music, precision hewn from the finest hardware synthesizers.”
What’s the music like?
What it says on the tin! An entertaining selection of beats and electronic activity from the duo that is consistently engaging and full of good ideas.
Beats ricochet across their steadily evolving pictures, which are often descriptive and carried out on several speed levels. CV Behaviour, for instance, is an amiable collision of early techno percussion and nuggets, with broader thoughts spanning greater distances.
Some of the music has a slightly sinister edge, with the dubby trudge of Skjærgård especially strong. Set 22b is an appealing, easy jam, while the closing Wrong Gravity is really excellent, from the glowering depths of the bass to some seriously big vistas that open out beautifully on headphones.
Arguably the pick of the bunch is the strongly evocative Gibbous, upping the tempo with strong, busy beats and acidic riffs but with a majestic breakdown that seems to represent the night sky itself.
Does it all work?
It does – and repeated listening reveals extra layers within those you’ve already heard.
Is it recommended?
Enthusiastically – an electronic tapestry whose colourful secrets are revealed with imagination and flair. No need to fear Octavcat on this evidence!
Quiet is the new loud for Moby, who revisits his ambient roots for album no.23. The springboard for this appears to have been the appearance of When It’s Cold I’d Like To Die, the closing track from the 1994 album Everything Is Wrong, in prominent parts of the Stranger Things series.
That song opens Future Quiet, sung by Gabriels singer Jacob Lusk, while Moby works in a sequence of vocal and instrumental tracks that are mostly on the slow and ambient side.
What’s the music like?
There is little doubt that this is the style Moby does best, his slightly mournful take on electronic ambient music working a treat here.
The vocal guests acquit themselves extremely well, none more so than serpentwithfeet on the understated On Air, India Carney on Precious Mind, and Moby himself on the plaintive This Was Never Meant For Us.
Yet less is more in this area of music, and if anything Moby’s instrumental music speaks with greater clarity. Ruhe and Great Absence are intimate piano pieces that could easily be played in the same house as the listener, while Mott Street 1992 circles back to its main piano motif. Subtle, floated vocals from Elise Serenelle boost Estrella Del Mar, while Tallinn has a lovely solo violin.
Does it all work?
Pretty much. On rare occasions the music threatens to be over-produced, but in general the room Moby affords his music adds to its emotional reach and ambience.
Is it recommended?
Yes, enthusiastically. Moby’s response to a frantic, fraught world is to seek solace in ambient music, and that we can easily join him that says much for the content of Future Quiet. It speaks very subtly but leaves a calming imprint that lasts long after you stop listening.
Listen / Buy
You can explore purchase options for physical formats of Future Quiet at the Norman Records website
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