Icarus "Kamikaze"

This is the debut album for this duo, and its by far one of the most underrated drum n bass albums to ever to come out. Take Photek and make him an IDM extraordinaire, and you got the gist of this album. You can definitely hear the qualities in this album that made "Modus Operandi" such a great album for Photek, yet since this came out on a minimal label, it was sort of put in the background. I'm comparing this to "Modus" only because of the sound quality and same characteristics it has, yet so much more. I would call this IDM Drum n' Bass, sounds a bit redundant, but there's just much more on this. Skittering, offbeat panning of snares ala Autechre yet, then it kicks into the Photek sound...I would highly recommend to anyone that's into this type of shit!

Funkstörung "Appetite for Disctruction

I know the pair of Michael Fakesh and Chris De Luca are quite well known in the world of IDM, yet I feel this release didn't get the exposure it should've (But what IDM album did in 2000, other than something on the Warp label). Most people call these guys the German Autechre, yet I do see the similarities, but they feel they bring more of a hip hop influence and less experimental part to the scene. This being they're only proper full length album of original material, it saddens me to think this will be the only one, yet in history, this may stand out because of this factor. Highly recommendable!

Funckarma "Solid State"

I can hear it now. Josh, you have this all over the damn message board and its redundant as hell! But c'mon, this rightly deserves to be in this thread dammit! If you'd like more info on this, just check out the thread I made for it personally, because as I said, I don't want to sound too redundant!

Biosphere "Substrata"

Don't you just love the sounds of muffled voices on top of pure ambience? I do, yet some people find it creepy as hell, and for this reason, I don't know why. I would have to agree that Boards of Canada's "The Colour of the Fire" is a bit creepy with all the children singing "I love you" with reverb and distortion all over it tho.

Anyway, Geir Jensson is one of my faves in the ambient genre, and others that I would recommend would be "Microgravity", "Cirque", and "Shenzou"

Savath + Savalas "Folk Songs for Trains, Trees, and Honey

What do you think about when you hear the name Scott Herren? Most people think of Prefuse73, am I right? Sure the hip hop cut up vocaled songs of Prefuse are creative as hell, yet most people don't know about this "side project" that he has. He primarily records under Prefuse73, yet he's used this pseudonym and the Schematic label based Delarosa&Asora. I'll break it down for you.

Prefuse73 (the hip hoppish, cut up style "pre fusion 1973")
Delarosa&Asora (IDM click cutty type)
Savath + Savalas(jazzy as hell on top of drum programming)

Ok, that was probably idiotic and elementary, but if you guys have seen these names and didn't know who they were, well, there ya go.

Put out by Chicago's own Hefty Records and then licensed out to Warp, "Folk songs for Trains, Trees and Honey" is a soothing trip into a new jazz frontier it seems. Has a quiet, ambient texture about it, never too upbeat, yet satisfies just about anyone that would listen to it. If you haven't heard this, please do, for your mama!

Icarus "Kamikaze" is from Shadow Records, right? I have it on cassette somewhere... my friend taped it for me years ago

Shadow Records always have dirt cheap samplers, which costs about 5.99 to 6.99. I don't think they are all that obscure, but not as well known as Warp, of course.

yeah, its on Shadow I believe, I think its a great album man...

Shadow isn't too obscure as you said, but it's not really well known. DJ Krush, DJ Cam, Funki Porcini, Hedfunk, etc. have put out albums on this label, it seems to me they're pretty close related to Ninja Tune

well, from what I have heard, Ninja Tune used to have a lot of problems with Instinct Records. as you may know, Shadow Records is under Instinct Records.

Instinct Records used to release lots of ambient and techno stuff in the 90's. and they released some stuff from Ninja Tune's artists(Cujo, Coldcut, Neotropic, etc) in the mid 90's and I think they had some problems with the rights or profits or something. I am not very sure at this point. so I don't think they are all that close anymore.

well Cujo wasn't a Ninja Tune artist then Evil, was he, you know that's the alter ego of Amon Tobin

Cujo was/is Ntone artist, right? yeah I know it was amon's alter ego.

found this on ninja tune news:

12.01.01(not news anymore ) Shadowy Cheapskates

It has come to our attention that Instinct/Shadow Records is about to release a compilation entitled "Ninja Tune : The Shadow Years" in the USA. This release is in no way approved by Ninja Tune. Shadow Records acted as a licensee of Ninja Tune material in the US many years ago. In the short-time of the deal they released a few of our early titles. This deal ended in 1996 and since then they’ve felt the need tocontinue repackaging what little amount of our catalog they still own. We feel this is nothing more than a shameless way to cash in on our 10th Xen Anniversary of late last year."Ninja Tune : The ShadowYears" offers absolutely nothing new, nothing exclusive, and nothing that even a passing Ninja fan hasn’t already heard on our early releases or the endless stream of compilations put out by Shadow Records. Simply put we feel this cheapens the Ninja name, makes us look like a "compilation label", and it should not be considered a proper Ninja Tune release in any way. Stay tuned for more great "new" records on Ninja Tune.