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January: 18 albums you need to hear this month
Sven Väth, Fever Ray, Nabihah Iqbal, Björk and more
Kaukolampi 1 'Svart'
For Blade Runner 2049, composer Hans Zimmer created a dense electronic soundtrack that was ominously futuristic and hung over the film as a driving presence. Timo Kaukolampi, the frontman of Finnish space-trance heavies K-X-P, mines a similar vibe on his solo debut, but occasionally amps it up with a relentless Krautrock pulse. It’s compulsive and hypnotic: with three of its five tracks coming in around the 10-minute mark, the opening, closing and middle tracks are mood pieces, swamping the ears with synthesised portent, while the other two cuts are techno-flavoured journeys into space. If ‘1’ is Kaukolampi’s solo mission, let’s hope ‘2’, ‘3’ and ‘4’ soon follow. Thomas H Green
8/10
