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Back in 1999, well-respected and long-established synth musician Ian Boddy launched the DiN label in order to stretch the boundaries of contemporary electronica, and he has now issued a series of exceptional limited edition releases, including several of his own solo and collaborative albums. DiN was possibly not the most obvious of label names to pick for the amazing music the company produces, but it is now one that would rapidly become synonymous with some of the finest meetings of synth and ambient styles to date, sometimes fusing styles, sometimes content to let synths dominate, sometimes more one than the other, but always with richness, textures, quality production and nothing less than riveting music. From rhythm-less space music of Protogonos through to the melodic, atmospheric sound of Boddy/Reuter, via the sprightly chunkiness of Dub Atomica, the dark ambience of Boddy/Carter, the sublime, magnificent soundscapes of Centrozoon and the early seventies influenced, powerhouse Kraut-synths of ARC II, DiN has finally proved to be a major force (more so than Germany’s Fax label) in uniting ‘Synth’ & ‘Ambient’ fans in one common cause – The pursuit and discovery of excellent, accessible and heart-felt electronic music.

This album is deep - It totally sucks you into its charms, and by the time you reach the end of track 3, you actually feel as though you’ve been listening to it for a lot longer than you actually have - and that’s a complement! There’s so much happening, and you just get lost in it! The atmospheres tread a fine line between warm and stark, starting with the crashing synth chords of ‘Gravity Well’ and moving into the ‘space’ music realms of the ten-minute pieces ‘Ecliptic’ and ‘Vox Lumina’, with expansive atmospherics that linger in deceptively open soundscapes. Occasional rhythms and spiraling textures poke through the canvases as the ten-minute ‘Zero-G’ passes by, but it’s still largely ‘space music’ that you’re hearing, albeit a lot more interesting, organic and commanding than the genre often is. You are drawn in more and more by the minute, as the becomes almost as riveting as the mighty ‘Continuum’ CD, and indeed, this music is performed in a similar vein to that older Boddy work, certainly in terms of the overall feel of it. However, the thirteen-minute ‘Escape Velocity’ completely breaks the spell, as a percussive-driven passage of synth soundscaping drives forward, with deep bass drones, Ligeti-like backdrops, multi-percussive electronic rhythms and an assortment of lead layers are exposed. These push the piece on, whilst magically maintaining the overall feel of the earlier sounds; even the emerging familiar sound of a sequencer does not intrude much into this new and unique musical universe. The amazing thing about Boddy’s current Din label output is his incredible ability to compose and play sounds that are so accessible, and yet, at the same time, they seem to possess very little in the way of what you would call a ‘real’ tune or melodies. Bar the aforementioned track, ‘Aurora’ is essentially an album of predominantly atmospheric ‘space’ and spacious music, and certainly one of his best Din releases to date.

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Weight: 150.00 g

ARC comprises of two of the UK’s top synth musicians: Ian Boddy & Mark Shreeve. Many will know Mark Shreeve from either his solo albums on Centaur (‘Assassin’, ‘Legion’ & ‘Crashhead’) or his more recent Redshift project, but in this, his second collaboration with Ian Boddy, there is a distinct shifting sideways to the sound of a more ambient feel. 'Radio Sputnik' is a recording of a concert the duo played in Holland in 1998, and It includes live versions of 4 tracks from the fist ARC album ‘Octane’, as well as 4 new tracks, including the sequencer track to end all sequencer tracks 'Arc-Angel', where Shreeve wheels out the ‘Big Moog’ just to please fans of the ‘Berlin School’ Tangerine Dream sound. However, in the main, ARC is a project that allows the pair the freedom to improvise and experiment with sounds and textures not always associated with their individual solo works. The near 67-minute album features 8 musical improvisations that weave spectacular, spacey, rhythmic, atmospheric, full-sounding layers and textures, designed to demand the listener’s full attention. It’s got all the sound elements normally associated with the duo, but they have diversified quite a bit, and created something exciting and new. The music starts out with all the vital components required to keep a smooth electronic motor ticking-over quite nicely (choral Mellotron waves, swirling space synths and a hint of some melodies), but as it draws to a close, more of the heavy duty gear is brought on board (powerful bass rhythms and TD-styled sequencers) and it becomes a finely tuned, formula one style beast that has to work at maximum efficiency. In between that you pass through eerie atmospheric landscapes, with dense dark experimental effects and Mellotron strings/male choral voices that head the music toward musical meltdown. This is real killer of an album that is fundamentally unlike any of this duo’s individual recordings.

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Weight: 150.00 g

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Prior to this album, the debut release on DiN, this veteran of the European electronic music scene has produced 13 albums since the late 70s. By the end of this album you will be left asking yourself “if only there was more where this came from” – Of course we know now there was more to follow, but what a sensational start-up disc it was. Musically you get 7 tracks that offer up almost an hour of classy ‘Ambient’ meet ‘Synth’ music that takes in a whole host of varied sounds along the way. You’ll hear swirling arabesques of analogue synthesizer sounds, fractured rhythms and dense clouds of texture and grain. There’s masses of slowly building atmospheres, exotic synth lead lines, Mellotron flutes, distant choir effects, cascading percussive rhythms, haunting passages and there is plenty of dreamy atmospheric moments too. Infectious rhythms, wicked bass undercurrents and decelerated drum 'n' bass rhythms make the music modern, without ever becoming dance related. It also manages to get pretty melodic at times, with some beautifully delicate, crystalline floating synth backdrops helping form what can develop into really lush, choral musical landscapes. At times, the album enters ghostly atmospheric passages of real “out there” space music, and it contains a 13-minute track that is arguably one of Boddy’s finest works to date. It tends to peak at just the right times, one such piece being the album’s final, where a real belter of a track takes the form of a glorious slice of melodic/rhythmic grandeur, with a powerful multi-synth climax that’s built to thrill!  Overall, there’s not a bad second on this CD and it surely one of Boddy’s his best ever releases. When it was released in 1999, this was (and still is) essential listening for ‘Synth’ and ’Ambient’ fans alike - A classic example of ‘real’ ambient synth music.

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Weight: 150.00 g

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Chris Carter is very well known for his pioneering work in Throbbing Gristle as well as one half of the duo Chris & Cosey, and now, on his first collaboration with synth veteran, Ian Boddy the duo take you on 7 cosmic excursions through a stunning panorama filled with the vast empty echoes of lost, imagined cities, with a travelling time of nearly 58 minutes. But don't think for a moment that this is merely a collection of anonymous, ephemeral drifts and drones. Together they have produced a music of startling muscularity which fuses their concerns with form, timbre and space, forging a sound which appeals to the heart as much as the head. Stripped back to the sparse essence of accessible dance-savvy electronica, the pair have imbued on 'Caged' with a dense undercurrent of proto-dub, which will thump you in the chest and rattle your windowpanes. The sense of forward momentum quite literally carries the listener in a fast-moving aural travelogue where break beats slip and slide across time and space, tendrils of melody are twisted, subverted and converted into a kind of digital morse where the flotsam and jetsam of ghost-notes are swept in on an intense sonic tidal wave. 'Caged' plays around with chance and paradox - where a whisper becomes a crescendo, a beat becomes a tone, where everything is transmuted and nothing stands still.

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Weight: 150.00 g

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For this album UK synth music pioneer Ian Boddy has teamed up with German guitarist Markus Reuter, so you might guess that you can expect something different from the label yet again, and you would be right. Reuter is a member of Robert Fripp's Guitar Craft academy and a member of the eclectic Europa String Choir. He’s an electric guitarist, but not your normal electric guitarist - oh no - this guy creates huge flowing soundscapes that are a ‘Ambient’ or ‘Synth’ fan’s dream. Playing 8 string touch guitar, Reuter bends notes and blends tones with Ian Boddy's sublime atmospherics, and it’s a vast sounding music, full of multi-textured, multi-faceted layers of gorgeous sound textures that will take you to heaven and back. So, imagine a guy who can do all of this, playing 56 minutes worth of ‘Ambient’ music with someone of the calibre of Ian Boddy, whose emerging talents as one of the finest ambient music sound sculptors around, are gaining him ever more recognition, and you have an album that is nothing short of mind-blowing in its beauty, originality and accessibility. There are 7 creative compositions and improvisations on this set, all with an immensity of sound that is quite breathtaking - A complete album of truly original soundscapes and varied landmarks that is nothing else than a total success from start to finish. Just watch the goose bumps rise as dense dark cloudscapes give way to luminous bliss in this fascinating collaboration - More from this pairing please!

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Weight: 150.00 g

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Release # 9 on DiN moves somewhere between the transient hinterlands of ‘Ambient’ and ‘Dance’, blurring the edges in swathes of lambent sonics, as layer after layer of shifting timbre and harmony coalesce into a music that’s expansive in its vision, and yet knowingly intimate in its detail. Fans of Ian Boddy's distinctive use of atmospherics and colour will not be disappointed by this music, as he combines forces with Markus Reuter’s heartfelt searing touch guitar and Nigel Mullany's innovative use of decks, where syntax and sound-pigments fall into forever. ‘Triptych’ is a perfectly magical 70-minute album that combines accessibility and innovation in equal proportions. It comes from a concert performance played with a unique combination of sound sources: Boddy's large analogue modular synth system - used extensively to filter and mangle the drum loops produced by Mullaney’ weird and wonderful turntable snatches, and the beautiful real-time looping of Reuter's 8-string Warr touch guitar. Together, they offer a seamless blend of improvisation and composition, featuring moments of real delicacy, robust experimentation and tangles of knotted rhythms with critical breaks and sequences. Whereas this is completely modern, contemporary and fresh sounding, throughout all of the musical invention on display, the trio never forget their musical roots, and indeed, there are parts of this CD that are guaranteed to have fans of traditional electronic music salivating! It features 6 tracks, the shortest of which is five minutes, and the longest is eighteen, and given that luxury of space and time, the musicians have the room required to expand and develop their compositions, as they travel through the varying musical worlds they have created. It is a relaxed, yet solid album, that has galaxies of chilled-out sounds, tonal light and shade, life bearing rhythms and echoed layers of deep space music, all working within one musical setting. They take in influences that span the work of the great 60’s innovators right through to the finest of modern day ‘Ambient’ players and producers. There are some melodic moments where layers of flowing keyboards meet up with deep atmospheric synth backdrops, and the trio of musical magicians even cast their spell over a passage of really cool ‘space-jazz’, using instruments and sounds such as: synthesizers, Chapman stick style bass, shuffling electro-percussive rhythmic splashes and some seriously good guitar work.

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Weight: 150.00 g

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German duo Centrozoon features Markus Reuter (on Warr Guitar and featured on ‘Distant Rituals’) and Bernhard Wostheinrich (on Synthesisers). The duo has created a sound world that is both intriguing and captivating. There are few signposts in the way of rhythms or solos to be found on this 62-minute journey - Instead each track is a collaboration of equals, where the pair meld their respective sonic palettes into a work of texture, and poise.  In this quest for balance, they display an almost painterly concern for the use of space, tone and colour. Each aspect of the album is assiduously compiled and compacted, with luminous motifs and phrases sweeping up through the rich layers and fading away. With so many amorphous and half-glimpsed events, it's their use of ambiguity that almost paradoxically lends ‘Blast’ its strength, ensuring that the listener remains engaged and part of the overall process. Don't be tempted to think this is tame ambient wallpaper - It's not! There is a sureness of touch that ensures the music resonates vibrantly throughout all of the 4 lengthy tracks id holds.

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Weight: 150.00 g

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This is the fourth DiN release, and it is one of the best of them all! Veteran of the European electronic music scene Ian Boddy in collaboration with beats-master guru Nigel Mullaney from Best Before. “Listen to the world within the world of sound as critical beats career and collide with ethereal vibes and tones to produce an eclectic, minimalist dance floor, chill out sensation”. Well, the 55 minutes of ‘Autonomic’ features 5 lengthy tracks (varying between 8 and 14 minutes) and most fall into the rhythmic category. It touches on ambient-dub at times, but it is an infectious style of the genre, with flowing hypnotic rhythms that beg further plays - The workouts are expansive, both in length and breadth and it’s the kind of music that hangs around in your head long after the disc has finished. The keyboard melodies and layers flow like wine, all encapsulated into fine atmospheric textures and addictive rhythms. There are elements of 70’s kraut rockers Can in there, and, we even spotted a sound similar to that of old 70's group Absolute Elsewhere at one point. The sensational 90's multi-rhythms are crisp and clean and the compositions are original, moving from relaxed ethereal space music through to vast soundscapes and on to bright lead lines and sprightly electronic rhythms. Here’s a few other critics comments: "Stripped down, minimal and expansive - A hybrid of Fila Brazillia and a sullen Brian Eno” - “An elegantly crafted electronic vision, awash with titanic tracks” - “The perfect balm to soothe away those early morning blues” - “Dub-wise vibes provide the cohesive thread through which you pass icy moodiness, minimalist futurist ethnicity, lilting hip hop, and mutating, phased reverb” - “As murky as its cover, as soothing and tranquil as a flotation tank”. No matter how you describe the music on this album, it exudes pure invention, class and quality from every pore and is the most non-dance oriented, home-listening, foot-tapping, spine-tingling, heart-warming set of infectious rhythms and synth textures that you'll hear anywhere right now.

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Weight: 150.00 g

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The third release on the DiN label has no Ian Boddy involvement!  'Strange Geographie' is the first release from this duo of space musicians based in Halifax, UK. Quoting the label: “If 16th Century renaissance man Francis Bacon was alive today, this is what he'd be playing - An alchemical blend of amorphous and swirling textures - Music from the sound houses where the maps don't go - Deep, dark and cosmic - music to float to infinity with (and back)”. I first encountered the group several years ago when they sent me a demo of their first cassette release for potential distribution. That cassette turned out to be one of the most satisfying examples of real cosmic synth music around at that time, and this set of 3 cosmic epics on their debut CD, are no less an amazing achievement. Again quoting the label: “Without a series of bright tunes or sparkling synth solos of baroque virtuosity, this can be an uncompromising collection - Dense and unforgiving, 'Strange Geographie' is not for the casual traveller or day-tripper. Anyone expecting a clean digitally brightened landscape should proceed with caution, because it has grit and buzz, with a cut and paste edge that makes it sound graphically organic”. So, there are no rhythms and there are no melodies, but it’s atmospheric qualities are second to none, giving a true representation of what space-tripping might really sound like!

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Weight: 150.00 g

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’Outpost’ is the first collaboration between British Synthesist Ian Boddy and American recording artist Robert Rich. Both have been involved in electronic music for over 20 years, but they have travelled very different musical paths. Rich is best known for his many releases on the USA based Hearts of Space, Hypnos and Relapse labels. Boddy's numerous electronic albums on his Something Else Records label garnered respect throughout Europe during the same period. Together, Rich and Boddy have concocted a mysterious blend of fluid electronic rhythms and impressionistic Sci-Fi soundscapes. With tools ranging from vintage and modern analogue modular synthesisers, prepared piano, metallic percussion, feedback networks and digital signal processing, the two musicians have crafted a sonic journey to the remote edge of a future, lost civilisation. Unlike most other "virtual" long-distance collaborations, this duo preferred to work together in the same space, allowing musical ideas to flow between them spontaneously. Full of surprising transitions and dynamic extremes, ‘Outpost’ shows these two veteran recording artists stretching their music into new vocabularies. Four sections of the album feature pulsing rhythms from Rich's MOTM modular synthesizer, while Boddy departs from his normally electronic voicings with abstract textural interludes performed on a 1925 vintage baby grand. Interwoven with NASA broadcasts, ionospheric radio whistlers, Boddy’s extreme meta-synth excursions, and Rich's signature steel guitar. ‘Outpost’ is an album that promises to take the listener to a new sonic terrain; it is wholly original and unlike anything turned out by either artist individually, but after a few airings it really does deliver!

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Weight: 150.00 g

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This Californian based composer’s influences incorporate a variety of musical styles ranging from experimental electronica to ‘Ambient’ to progressive jazz and beyond. , ‘In Vitro Tide’ follows the 1996 self-titled debut album, a CD which gained the Surface 10 name recognition in both the ‘Synth’ and ‘Ambient’ genres. Where that first release was a lush space music classic, ‘In Vitro Tide’, is a 74-minute, 9 track monster that couldn’t be further away from its predecessor if it tried!  According to its creator: “It is a sentiment of timelessness, filtered through a series of experimental approaches - As an edition to the electronic music world, ‘In Vitro Tide’ epitomizes the mystery of existence through technology - It is nothing less than a pulsing, reckless tour de force of spiky, punchy beats welded and fused with white noise, grunge guitar, dislocated voices and a swaggering disregard for somnolent sine wave culture that permeates much of today's Electronica”. The album is basically all about converging sounds, textures and layers together and morphing them in and out of various musical shapes and forms. The fractured style rhythms are from the techno-drum ‘n’ bass/ambient end of things, and to that extent, it could be described as ‘Industrial’ electronic music. With a glistening, extrovert production, the album is a cavalcade of ideas - It’s dynamic and solid in construction, but requires a few plays before the real subtleties show their face, and believe it or not, there are times where the dense layers of texture are frequently parted, to reveal astonishing knots of wry melody lurking deep beneath the surface. Each track slides from one oeuvre to another, with dazzling, almost precocious attention to detail, which offers much in the way of rewards for repeated listening. Far from being your average normal ‘Ambient’ release, ‘In Vitro Tide’ is a highly satisfying voyage of discovery in sounds and textures that the more adventurous listener will get a lot out of.

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Weight: 150.00 g

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Now, it’s the DiN label’s breakthrough to world domination with this amazing little sampler album, priced in such a way that allows you to enjoy all parts of the DiN repertoire for less that a couple of pint’s down at your local. The card cover is aesthetically pleasing and the enjoyable way the music has been put together provides the perfect atmosphere to introduce yourself to the music of the DiN label’s artists and discovering what a goldmine of music is within. To further enhance your enjoyment of this CD, the 15 tracks have been fused together to turn the sampler into a ‘real album’ in it’s own right, because Ian Boddy has painstakingly mixed and merged each piece so that they flow beautifully into each other, to create one massive seventy-three minute varied track that is made up of all the assorted constituent musical elements that make this label what it is, allowing the sounds to flow in a way that you simply wouldn’t have believed possible. So, drop any preconceptions, and investigate the world of DiN.

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Weight: 150.00 g