Vinyl and digital reviews: Rothkamm and [a]pendics.shuffle & Dilo

Title: Alt
Artist: Frank Rothkamm
Label: Baskaru
Release date: Early 2010

Sounds like: A novice playing around with a home studio and keyboard from Cash Converters

High notes: Ok, this is coming out on Baskaru, the experimental music and sound art label, so you could be forgiven for abstract tones, obtuse composition and the rest - if the end product can be appreciated for interesting or moving electronica - but this doesn't happen here. Or at least not for this writer, who remembers telling a teacher that Philip Glass was their inspiration after a rather disastrous composition for Higher Music to cover up the lack of form. This perhaps requires a great deal more chin-stroking from art bods, and less listening from ambient electronic fans.

Bum Notes: The 'Alt' album, but admittedly 'AAA' has some potential outside 'the art world'.

Title: Vaquero
Artist: [a]pendics.shuffle & Dilo (Cascabel Gentz)
Label: Trapez
Release date: 8 Feb 2010

Sounds like: Green Velvet and Jamie Lidell making dubby techno with hooky melodies

High notes: When America and Argentina join forces you get tracks like 'Cowboy Flyers', with trippy, melting voices and an almost erotic kick drum making you relentlessly move to the beat; and the more forceful 'Never Beat' with Lidell-esque vocals over booty-wobbling techno. Across 'No More No Less', hints of tribal cross-rhythms and pscyhedelia mesh with manipulated interviews and a varied use of melody - sometimes difficult to do with techno without sounding too cheesy or too morbid.

Bum Notes: 'No More No Less' is available with digital downloads only, sorry vinyl enthusiasts!