Vangelis - Blade Runner OST (Warner, 1994)

Blade Runner was an absolute mess of a film that through mishap after accident after mistake somehow became the blueprint for all modern science fiction; aesthetically, thematically, and of course sonically. To listen to the Blade Runner OST is to listen to most every other science fiction soundtrack made post 1982, from the bargain bin rip offs of the 80s and 90s, the synthwave homages of the 21st century, and videogames as diverse as Sonic The Hedgehog: all completely beholden to Vangelis's soundtrack.

To listen to it isolated for the first time is fascinating. Perhaps its because the soundtrack has become clouded in memory with the much dirtier, aforementioned synth revival music, but it sounds significantly and surprisingly clean. Separate from the film's exceptional mise-en-scene, the soundtrack can truly breathe, and becomes its own entity. Several of the tracks I could barely recognise, even though I've seen the film around thirty times. There's nothing fuzzy or messy about this album, and even the (perhaps questionable) use of vocal samples from the film is cleanly implemented.

The Breeders - Last Splash (4AD, 1993)

It is impossible to listen to The Breeders without considering their relationship to Pixies, both in terms of their shared membership and their shared sound. However, while both bands take a fuzzy slacker rock and filter it through increasingly inventive and irreverent concepts and ideas, The Breeders present a much more woozy and fleeting soundboard than Pixies. Songs typically will dissipate after a couple of minutes, with a few exceptions, and their delightfully disinterested approach to rigidly conventional pop structures gives their albums a wonderfully somnambulistic feeling that rewards a significant amount of repeat listens. Last Splash is not as willfully formless as Pod, but it's hardly a collection of traditional altpop bangers.

Fuzzy guitars with fingers hovering insouciantly on the fretboard, dreamy surf jangle permeating the drizzly haze of perfectly mixed vocals (just a pinch lower in the mix than their contemporaries).It's as wistful as it is insistant; noisy pop but definitely not noise pop.

It's perhaps disrespectful to keep comparing a sonically distinct band to their laziest analogue, but they really do sound like a more stoned and forgetful Pixies. And very much like early Deerhoof, but with less bursts of feedback and more Camel gravel. The bass dregs of Mad Lucas suddenly lurching in to the wistful sparkle pop glory of Divine Hammer is utterly glorious.

AFX - Hangable Auto Bulb (Warp, 2005)

The great thing about Aphex Twin and his various monikers is that there's always something new to discover that you overlooked first time through. This album was released in 2005 so I'm not entirely sure why I skipped it. It's actually a compilation of two EPs from 1995, when RDJ was getting in to densely sequenced computer music. So this release can be seen as a dry run before The Richard D James Album, which is a favourite of his. It's not quite as shrill and serrated as that release, and there's rather a lot of extended, spooky/annoying samples of children talking nonsense, but it's great stuff. Skittering drums, and pulsing synths, simultaneously cold and organic, simultaneously warm and creepy. It's way beyond the scope of what his contemporaries were doing with computers, and it's telling how it sounds like so many Bandcamp bedroom noodlers now.