Helios - Hollie (Type, 2008)

Utterly divine dreampop beauty.

I've got a couple of albums by the mysterious Helios thanks to regularly raiding Boomkat's sale stock for Type releases.

Helios - aka Keith Keniff aka Goldmund - deals in elegant, austere dreampop instrumental loveliness and 'Hollie' is no exception. Think the most candyflossy of AR Kane's output or a restrained, inward-looking version of Cocteau Twins. Without vocals, obviously.

Download Helios 'Hollie' (shoegaze mp3) (Divshare)

David Sylvian - Home (Virgin, 1986)

Loop-y instrumental moodscaping.

The 'Gone To Earth' album - a double album, no less - saw David Sylvian really cut loose with the instrumental moodscaping. Most of the second record leaves songs and lyrics behind to play with space, ambience and what sounds like the work of a loop pedal. Not sure if they had those in 1986.

Tracks like the lugubrious, gorgeous 'Home' are drenched in reverb and atmosphere and allow you to get lost in them.

Download David Sylvian 'Home' (ambient, post-rock, mp3) (Divshare)

Aphex Twin - Tha (Apollo, 1992)

Dreamy ambient electronica.

I have to admit that the definition of 'indie' is often somewhat stretched on this blog. However, the burbling, subterranean lo-fi of Aphex Twin's 'Selected Ambient Works 85-92' surely qualifies as indie techno. It doesn't gleam like chrome-plated futurism of Derrick May or Model 500 or have the precision of Carl Craig's minimal funk.

'Tha' is almost murky, with a fug or background noise and an indistinct putter of kick-drum buried in the mix.

Spellbinding stuff though.

Download Aphex Twin 'Tha' (Ambient, Electronica, Techno, mp3) (Divshare)

Chapterhouse - Delta Phase (Blood Music Global Communication Remix) (Dedicated, 1993)

Ambient reprocessing of shoegazer's forgotten album.

Chapterhouse's 'Blood Music' is - IMHO - not one of the great sophomore albums but it did come with a rather innovative 'retranslation' of the whole album by Global Communication.

It bears little resemblance to the original but is a rather pleasant hour of ambient noodle soundscaping in a similar vein to their ground-breaking '76:14' album.

Download Chapterhouse 'Delta Phase (Blood Music Global Communication Remix)' (Shoegazer, Ambient, mp3) (Divshare)

Grab the whole Chapterhouse 'Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis' album over on archive:live+rare