89:Ghost Vinyl & CDs

Review: Neil 'Nail' Tolliday's 89:Ghost label continues to deliver the goods, this time reaching out to Scandinavia and the considerable talents of Vesa-Matti Kivioja. The Finnish producer has been producing high-end electronic music for many years, not least in the ambient field, but here he's mining a particularly inventive style of dub techno that draws parallels with the mighty Porter Ricks in terms of sound design. Across all four tracks the drums act as a subtle counterpoint to dense thickets of texture and tone writhing with organic intent around the groove. As dancefloor friendly as it is brain-teasing, this is a seriously classy slice of dub techno immersion.

Review: We've not been able to get to the bottom of who Kenny Burns is (or at least this one - there was a famous Nottingham Forest footballer of the same name in the dim and distant past), and 89: Ghost main man Neil Tolliday is keeping tight-lipped. Either way, this label debut from the man of mystery includes some genuinely impressive moments. Picturesque closer 'Crease', where dreamy chords and kaleidoscopic synth sounds rise and fall atop an unfussy dancefloor beat, reminded us of Nail's own 1993 cut 'Cassiopeia', while 'Crank' is a thrusting slab of early morning techno peppered with squelchy acid motifs, chiming electronics and loopy, mind-mangling riffs. Elsewhere, 'Croak' is an angular slab of warped techno intensity, and opener 'Creak' is a hypnotic neo-trance number.