Niko Tzoukmanis - Hope Is The Sister Of Despair

Have been waiting on these, along with some other gems from Libreville, for over a month now thanks to ongoing Brexit import/export nonsense, and now here they are, in our lives... Originally released under the Microphase moniker, Libreville are now bringing to vinyl for the first time Niko Tzoukmanis' perplexingly overlooked ambient techno opus from 2013, sounding absolutely none of its 8 years old. Which isn't to say that Hope Is The Sister of Despair is particularly new sounding - Tzoukmanis draws clear influence from the Berlin School, especially Edgar Frose, Ash-Ra and, most obviously, E2-4, and early Kompakt and 90s era Warp (defo an Other People Place feel in parts here) are not unfair touchstones. And yet, there's something almost timeless, or should that be out of time, about this sound. The label describes this as 'weltschmerz', and the eternal dancing-with-a-broken-heart melancholy is certainly rife with this one. And that's why this isn't just another time capsule jettisoned into our lives by some internet seeker - this stuff doesn't age cos computers expressing complex human emotions is now as timeless and authentic an endeavour as the singer songwriter with the acoustic guitar (better even, tbqh)... ConsiderTzoukmanis our new wordless troubadour of the infinite night.