Milan Vinyl & CDs

Review: Brady Corbet's latest film is brought to life by Daniel Blumberg's ambitious score, which perfectly complements its sweeping narrative and brutalist aesthetic. Blumberg, a British composer and musician, fuses large-scale brass orchestrations, intimate piano melodies and dynamic jazz elements. The film, which spans multiple decades and tells the story of Hungarian architect Laszlo Toth (Adrien Brody) rebuilding his life in post-war America, is mirrored in the music's broad emotional scope. Blumberg worked with a diverse group of avant-garde musicians from across Europe, capturing their performances on location to maintain a raw, organic sound. Collaborators like Axel Dorner (trumpet), Evan Parker (saxophone) and Sophie Agnel (piano) inject the score with an improvisational quality that contrasts beautifully with the meticulously crafted film score. One of the most memorable moments comes during the jazz club scene, where a quartet of jazz musicians, including Pierre Borel and Simon Sieger, deliver an electrifying live performance. The score's most striking shift occurs in the film's 1980s-set Epilogue, where Blumberg teams up with Vince Clarke, transforming the main theme into a synth-driven anthem. The score's breadth, from intimate jazz to grand orchestration, makes it as integral to the film as the visuals themselves.

Review: The late great Whitney Houston has many hits in her back catalogue and plenty of them are ripe and ready for club-ready reworks. J& E Project do just that here by reworking her belting diva classic 'So Emotional'. First off they extend it with more drums for the dance floor, some 90s piano house chords layered in and splashy cymbals to make it all the more immediate. The vocal remains iconic and is sure to be sung back whenever this one gets played. A radio edit and instrumental also feature on this flashy pink vinyl.

Review: There's no denying that Under The Skin was a cinematic triumph, and cemented Scarlett Johansson's status as a screen powerhouse capable of dynamic and highly varied performances of consistently high standards. The story of a young woman making her way through Scotland, seducing men and then doing horrific things to their bodies. An allegorical tale wherein the on-screen alien portrays the experience of immigrants and females trapped in a world of toxic masculinity, director Jonathan Glazer's long-awaited return to feature filmmaking is a bonafide classic.

Part of the reason behind its power is Mica Levi's incredible score. Taking inspiration from the work of Gyorgy Ligeti, a master of horror scores whose fleeting sounds and moments of near-silent tension can be heard on landmark such as The Shining and Lontano (both renowned for the effectiveness of their soundtrack), this isn't so much music as we know it, but aural motifs and movements designed to create a feeling of relentless unease.

Review: Ryuichi Sakamoto is making a very welcome return here with his first solo album since 2017's async. Milan Records are releasing 12 in January to coincide with the venerated Japanese composer's 71st birthday, and the timing is poignant given the album draws from musical sketches created while Sakamoto battled for two and a half years with cancer. Sakamoto himself describes reaching for his synths as a kind of therapeutic response to a big operation, and so the music carries an added depth of personal experience from one of the most profound ordeals a person can go through.

Review: There is just no stopping Vibez 93, one of the busiest and most relabel beat makers in the drum & bass world right now. This new EP, Punkrocker, is another hard-hitting one in several different ways. The opener 'Aquatic Rock' makes an emotional impact - the soulful sounds, ambient pads and delicate floating breaks get you in the mood before things get darker with driving bass and ragga vocals. 'Herault' is another one with jazzy melodies and warm, spring-day atmospheres over tumbling drums and the title cut then gets playful on broken beats, undulating rhythms and filtered melodic loops. 'Serious (Style & Niceness)' is icy and minimal and brilliant.

Review: Released to coincide with Japanese musical Goliath Ryuichi Sakamoto's 70th birthday, To the Moon & Back was almost inevitable. Even without worrying reports about the maestro's health, there's no way anyone can have such a significant impact on global music for so long and not have people wanting to pay tribute upon reaching septuagenarian years.
And what a tribute it is. Taking elements from a huge back catalogue that stretches back to the mid-1970s, contemporary greats including Thundercat, Alva Noto, Hildur Guonadottir, The Cinematic Orchestra, and David Sylvian offer new versions and remixes of the master's stuff, with each track here chosen by Sakamoto, which is about as significant a seal of approval as you could hope for. Like the man himself, it's widely varied, consistently innovative and just really, really good.