The first release of Sub Culture, Puzzle by Gregory Shiff, is a tech house masterpiece with both delicacy and an innate strength. The original release came out in 2003 on the American label Matter/:Form Records and immediately caught the attention of lovers of the genre. The release features four versions of Puzzle, including an “Unreleased mix” produced in 2003. A highly respectable repress for record bags, not only for those who love tech house.
Siccar Point is the second album release from Intertoto, and is a study of the geographical extremes on the east coast of his native Scotland. The eight pieces of music on the album serve as vignettes portraying this ancient headland, while also acting as an allegorical reference to the pioneering work of Scottish geologist James Hutton, who proposed that geological features are not static but undergo continuous transformation over indefinitely long periods of time.
With this theory — and the striking landscape — in mind, Jamie Coull, aka Intertoto, imagines tectonic forces through tension, space, density, and texture. Divergent and convergent boundaries are realised in different moods throughout. Siccar Point opens with the irregular drift of Raw Lunar Concrete, a track that undulates asymmetrically, pulling you off balance before settling into the pulse of Condor Launch and Cloud Chamber — the more veiled club moments of the album.
Further into the strata, Siccar Point mines deep into the dense textures of Metallic Veins and Redox Dub, before closing with the cascading outro Foraber, shimmering with tones that imagine a view outward from the rocky promontory — beyond the vanishing point.
This time around Michael Melchner dishes up three top-notch house tracks for us.
Horsemen make their debut on Small Great Things with Southbound, a warm and colourful EP made to ease the winter blues.
Drawing from a wide palette of house influences, the record showcases the duo’s versatility and depth beyond a single formula. The release follows Horsemen’s first year as residents at Small Great House, the label’s monthly party at OXI Berlin, including its beloved summer open airs that helped shape the sound of this EP. Southbound also introduces their first collaboration with vocalist Guya.
While the A-side sets a relaxed tone with disco and jazzy influences, perfect for those summer open-airs, the B-side shifts firmly into club territory, delivering two dancefloor-proven cuts for the night.
The A-side opens with Make Me Feel Excited, an almost disco-tinged summer anthem driven by a distinctive sample. It is followed by Napoliballa, featuring Guya on vocals, a sun-soaked jazzy track with playful rhythms. The side closes with Lighter Days, a moody piano-led track that adds a deeper, more dreamy tone.
The B-side moves into club territory, with Running offering a driving, floor-focused cut led by a bold organ hook, followed by a faster, more club-oriented version of Napoliballa.
Basically Ugly Edits 001 marks the debut edit collection from Basically Ugly Covers, the Rome-based half of the Pizza Club project. Zouk, afro, disco and funk—your dancefloor good vibes have served!
Berlin-based producer and DJ KaioBarssalos returns to Smile Sessions with his most visceral statement yet. 'Whale' is a six-track EP built for bodies in motion : obsidian grooves that pull you under, primal percussion that speaks directly to the hips, and a low-end surge that turns a dancefloor into a ritual.
Old-school in its bones, stripped back to what matters: the kick, the groove, the trance of it all. Repetitive, hypnotic, communal. The bark of a drum that doesn't ask permission. No distractions, just tools honed for the floor, weapons a DJ can reach for at peak time and trust completely.
The anonymous Only Music Matters crew serve up another EP of smoking sounds for discerning crowds. It's the smart sampling of a classic motif from jazz-house great Saint Germain that makes the opener 'AAA001A' so enchanting as a bluesy vocal drifts in and out of a dry, dubby, minimal tech beat. 'BBB001B' is more driving and gritty, a clipped tech cut to keep things moving in the dead of night, then 'BBB002B' brings another supple groove, this time with rays of synth rising out of the mix like the morning sun. Quirky sound designs and a skipping rhythm make it irresistible.
A year or two back, original Nottingham deep house don Gavin Belton (famed for being part of Smokescreen and Drop Music-adjacent duo The Littlemen) returned to the UK after living in New Zealand. One thing led to another and soon he was back in the studio alongside former creative partner Steve Lee for the first time in 15 years. Featuring heady spoken word vocals from Hector Moralez, the result is 'House For Change', a lightly electrofunk-fired slab of classic East Midlands deep house. Raising funds for homeless charity Help The Framework, this surprise EP also includes 2004 classic 'Tell Me' (a free party deep house classic) and two fresh reworks: a TB-303-bass-driven revision of 'House For Change' by their old pals Inland Knights, and a squelchy, spacey take on 'Tell Me' by Lee under his solo alias, Positive Divide.
The crew behind the freshly minted Secret Vault imprint are keeping their cards close to their chests, with the accompanying press release loosely explaining their desire to prioritise dancefloor "heat" over spoon-feeding information to buyers (and in this case, Juno reviewers). The secrecy makes sense, though, because these uncredited cuts are heavyweight disco edits - and fantastic ones at that. Our shadowy heroes first extend and (we think) lightly speed up a slap-bass-sporting slab of disco-soul gorgeousness full of dewy-eyed female lead vocals, extended breakdowns, glistening guitar solos and punchy. Over on the flip, our scalpel-wielding fiends turn their attention to a bouncy, energetic and infectious disco-funk gem topped off by expressive male lead vocals.
Contemplating the role of the album format in an attention-deficient society, Speedy J presents Walkman -- a constantly shifting, 90-minute soundtrack to a journey of your choice. Jochem Paap's first solo album in over 20 years is a freewheeling, 20-track testament to his decades-deep studio skill and sonic versatility, running from skewed rhythmic rabbit holes to exploratory tonal abandon. For Paap, the traditional idea of the album had become obscured by listening habits and the non-stop information barrage of our digital lives. Having moved on from his breakthrough years releasing LPs and touring off the back of them, he was more inspired to develop his many-sided STOOR project and feed into a bigger artistic body of work than the temporary shelf-life of a single release. As is natural for any artist, his perspective shifted over time and he found himself drawn back to the idea of an album, realising he connected best with longer releases while he was on a walk, out for a run or generally in transit one way or another. With an endearing call back to the humble Walkman, he selected an hour and a half of material created during studio sessions at the beginning of 2025, perfectly sized to fit on two 45-minute sides of a cassette tape. As has long been the case for his studio practice, there were no fixed intentions when sitting down in the STOOR lab to start making noise -- just a wealth of experience and an expansive set of tools to start exploring with. From hours of jams Paap pulled together standout moments and moulded them into a mixtape-like narrative ranging from two-minute beat nuggets to full-tilt techno workouts and immersive ambient drops. Every sound is intentional, but the overall delivery is instinctive and curious, showing multiple new dimensions to Paap's sound and offering unpredictability at every turn. 'Arp Amp Chasm' opens the album up in a thick blanket of humming, harmonic waves with an electric emotional charge, while 'Ctrssalms17 (Cold Render)' journeys through evocative blooms of melancholic, gritty pads and rugged, half-submerged tech funk. 'Modern Birds (Origin Edit)' reaches skywards with grand sweeps of dynamic, brilliantly rendered synthesis. From the dexterous drum science of 'Drift Vector' to 'Osc Hop (Slow Collapse)'s lurching, beatless swamp of synths, on Walkman even the briefest snapshots leave an impression that lasts beyond the quick-scan cycle of the modern music experience. With his return to the album format, Paap's message is clear --put your headphones on, get outside and lose yourself in the sound of an artist constantly committed to moving forwards.
Mysticisms’ Dubplate series reaches number 10 with the first in a series of specials, taking the genre blurring music of Persian and presenting updated remixes and versions by up-and-coming producers, as well as friends and family of the label.
Started as a sporadic offshoot of Mysticisms’ main releases, with the idea to highlight the wonderful sounds of dub influenced dance music, Dubplate has now become an integral part of the mission.
To start, South London’s Picasso joins the label, showcasing his declared abstract grooves and an EP of Dub and Tech House movers. While his productions aim for the dance floor, they are often characterized by complex rhythms and unconventional structures, prioritizing atmosphere and texture over traditional melodies.
Drawing inspiration from ambient, jazz, experimental influences and the heavy hand of dub, Sam “Andrews” McKay has crafted an EP of immersive “soundscapes”. Joining the legendary Persian (Peter Reilly) as co-selector, his retakes are all warped grooves, wide bass and dubby atmospherics.
Opening with Space Within Art, the street soul meets reggae rhythms are jettisoned, and a Dub House swing drives the track. The love, homage and vibration for Sound System culture remains, enchanting trippy reggae sampledelic vocals weaving in the brain.
Dunya 2 sees a shift, minds expanding. A jazz influenced breakbeat, harp, strings, building to a psychedelic swirl, driven by a dub bass in a clash, morph and glow.
The deep Digi Dub of D Dub Twist grows, warping the ‘JA riddim meets English hedonism’ in true Soundclash style. Touches of drone underlay, highlighting Sam’s experimental leaning, utilising Persian’s love of Eastern mystical samples to marry perfectly for a deep dub excursion.
The self-prescribed “odd-fellow” completes his versions, exploring his love of depth and abstract sound in closer, Jacob’s Dub. The warm roots vibrations in original form develop into a scatter gun House bumper. Dubwise, Lovers, Stepper, all merge around shuffling, trippy beats and skippy hats, Picasso’s groove is laid bare, driving the EP to finale.
Abstract the Mystery.
Portal Replica welcomes cult Australian duo, B(if)tek, onto the label with a first-time-on-vinyl release of their debut album ‘Sub-vocal Theme Park’ released in 1996 exclusively onto CD. The 2x12” release includes the original album, plus additional never-heard-before 'lost' tracks from the pair. The album has been mastered by Rashad Becker at Clunk Studios (DE) and pressed to 180g heavyweight vinyl.
Kate Crawford and Nicole Skelty’s pioneering electro-femme outfit ‘B(if)tek’ can be traced back to 1994 in Canberra, where lack of blueprint blossomed their playful and bizarre experimentations in techno — ‘feminism with a wink and a bleep’. Thirty years on, the uniqueness and ingenuity of B(if)tek’s deep analogue exploration endures.
“Monstrous clowns dressed as princes whose role is to laugh at themselves and entertain outlandish beings, suffocated by etiquette, conspiracy and lies, bound by confession and remorse … and beyond that, the auto-da-fe and silence.” – Ferdinand (Pierrot), from the film “Pierrot Le Fou” .
Photography by Kate Crawford.
Design by Jesse Sappell.
Mastered by Rashad Becker at Clunk Studios, DE.
