Enrico Crivellaro aka Volcov marks 25 years of the Neroli label with a twelve track comp, put together to demonstrate some of the breadth of music the label has covered over the years, as well as providing a little nod to the future. It’s also a companion piece to the previous First Circle release, while that one had a very ambient focus, this new selection uses that as a base and builds out the tempo as the album progresses while still holding true to that first record’s theme.

It’s always great to see an artist go in the face of familiarity, Claude Young for one, starting the album with a deeply hypnotic, dreamscape of ‘Aquatic Collage’. There is no rush to up the ante, and the first half of the record continues its stately procession through the gears. Molinaro’s ‘Sabtal’ is full of almost choral elements as it soars, then OL provides some more ethereal twinkle and subtle guitar during ‘Energy (Replenished)’.

Jordan GCZ steps in with the first more obvious beat driven track, but there’s no hurry to get too busy. ‘I Said What I Said’ is a simple enough melody and rhythm track on the surface but kind of infectious. EDB introduces some subtle acid touches with ‘Dream Rivers’ and Volcov himself jumps in to calm it down again via ‘The Pavillion’, sounding like some lost sci-fi soundtrack piece and it provides the perfect palate cleanser for Joe Claussell’s ‘A Gentle Gesture Final’. Rarely one to do things by halves, check his forthcoming mixes for Patrick Gibin, it’s an 8 minute plus sound voyage full of musicality, lightness of touch and that soul which is a given in anything by him. Magic stuff.

The final few tracks provide a super nice bookend, Lars Bartkuhn can’t really do much wrong at the moment and doesn’t disappoint with ‘Born Again’ full of spacious keyboard work and warped spaciousness. Meanwhile Stephen Lopkin chops synthy sweeps and jagged electronics to create the icy ‘Pigment (Part 1) ahead of Nu Era’s restrained but still climactic ‘Lost Seven (version 2)’. A quarter of a century in but Neroli clearly has more than enough in the tank for the next 25.

Seond Circle is released on 1 December via Bandcamp