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Haino sings. Hasunuma plays. It’s a minimal framework, but what emerges is a boundary-blurring sonic exploration. Across the album, Haino’s voice threads through Hasunuma’s layered soundscapes built from analog synths, electric guitar, piano, field recordings, and more. Haino entered the studio with only lyrics in hand, improvising melodies in response to Hasunuma’s evolving arrangements. The result is a work of deep trust, intuition, and sonic tension.

Keiji Haino and Shuta Hasunuma’’s creative connection began in 2017 with an impromptu performance in Shibuya—Hasunuma on a Buchla modular synthesizer, Haino responding with the Japanese national anthem, “Kimigayo.” That moment sparked their unlikely collaboration.

In 2018 Haino appeared at the Hasunuma-organized event “MUSIC TODAY IN KYOTO” at Rohm Theater, alongside Nobukazu Takemura, Manami Kakudo, Elena Tutatchikova, Kukangendai among others. In September 2021 during the pandemic, the two performed "U　　　　　　　TA" for the first time at in Shibuya. They began planning the album soon afterwards.

For the recording of U　　　　　　　TA, Haino entered the studio with only the lyrics in hand, with no knowledge of what sounds Hasunuma would produce. Responding to Hasunuma’s music in real time, Haino composed the melodies and layered in his voice on the spot. With additional sessions at Hasunuma’s private studio and Haino’s preferred studio, the album was completed.

All melody and vocals by Keiji Haino
All instrument, written, played, arranged, mixed and produced by Shuta Hasunuma
Recorded by zak at st-robo studio, Shuta Hasunuma at Studio i.M.O and windandwindows
Mastered by Rashad Becker at clunk
Production Management: Eishin Yoshida, Kento Ono (windandwindows)
For Temporal Drift: Yosuke Kitazawa, Patrick McCarthy
Art Direction: Aiko Koike
Special Thanks to Toshihiko Kasai, Ryoichi Kiyomiya, zAk, Yumiko Ohno
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Abacus - The Relics E.P. - A Deep-House Masterpiece from 1994 Re-Released Somewhere around 1993 or '94, a quietly profound landmark in deep house emerged: The Relics E.P. by Austin Bascom, better known as Abacus, originally released on Chicago's Prescription Records (catalogue #006). With four tracks spanning roughly 26 minutes, this record has since gained cult status among DJs, collectors, and aficionados of the deeper, more soulful yet futuristic side of house music. Abacus crafted a quintessential deep-house journey: warm grooves, lush textures, scorched sub-bass, and a deeply introspective futuristic atmosphere. Bascom produced a record that never chased trends, but instead quietly built a lasting legacy. This record remained rare and highly sought after. In an era when house music was splintering into countless directions - even reaching the pop charts - The Relics E.P. planted its flag firmly in the underground, soulful terrain. Collectors and DJs continue to cite it as essential deep house, often describing it as ''one of the finest deep-house records of all time.'' Its scarcity and enduring emotional pull have only strengthened its legend. Decades on, The Relics E.P. continues to surface in DJ mixes and playlists, and as a touchstone for producers seeking that timeless balance of groove and emotion. Now, three Decades later, Clone Classic Cuts is proud to present a fully remastered edition of The Relics E.P., including previously unreleased material from the same recording sessions. Pressed on 140-gram virgin black vinyl, this edition restores and elevates a true cornerstone of deep-house history.

Cristi Cons makes his Crosstown Rebels debut with his latest EP, ‘Give Me Love’.

The three-track exploration of rhythm, tension, and hypnotic club craft lands on 16th January 2026.
Damian Lazarus’ Crosstown Rebels imprint opens its 2026 release schedule with a special label debut from Romanian favourite Cristi Cons, as he delivers a magnetic three-tracker in the form of his ‘Give Me Love’ EP. Known for his precise, minimal-infl ected approach and unwavering command of groove, Cristi’s arrival onto the label brings a release that distils his signature tension-and-release architecture into some of its most direct club form yet.

The title track, ‘Give Me Love’, unfolds with subtle vocal refrains, shadowy atmospheres, and a rolling, elastic groove built for late-night momentum. On the B-side, ‘Can You Hear Me’ channels a sleeker, more hypnotic pulse, with dubby textures, restrained bass pressure, hooky vocals, and a snaking groove to keep dancers moving. Closing the EP, ‘You Ain’t Got Nothin’ brings vibrant synths, tight drum programming, and more captivating vocal use into a head-down trip that leans into Cons’s innate ability to craft late-night and early-hours journeys.

A longstanding architect of Romania’s influential underground, Cristi Cons has carved a reputation through his solo work, his collaborative SIT project with Vlad Caia, and their shared imprint, Amphia, which now stands as a true force within the minimal landscape. Alongside regular appearances across Europe’s key institutions and collaborations with revered names, including Raresh as part of their Verico project along with Caia, Cristi continues to evolve with each release - and ‘Give Me Love’ delivers yet another side to his diverse sound as he steps into the Crosstown Rebels fold to open the year.

Ezekiel presents No More, a 4-track EP on 12-inch vinyl. We dive into a powerful journey filled with pounding drums that shake the room, subtle resonances, and hypnotic bells. Close your eyes and let yourself be carried away by the minimalist details woven into every beat--a dramatic sequence crafted for the perfect mental journey.

Lapalux (Stuart Howard) is a UK-based experimental electronic music producer known for his emotionally charged sound design, intricate textures, and immersive sonic storytelling. With releases on Brainfeeder and widespread critical acclaim, Lapalux has built a loyal global following and earned consistent airplay on BBC Radio 1, BBC 6 Music, and NTS. His work has been championed by DJs including Mary Anne Hobbs, Benji B, and Tom Ravenscroft, and praised by outlets such as The Guardian, Resident Advisor, XLR8R, and Clash. Lapalux's music occupies a unique space between IDM, ambient, and leftfield electronica — rich in atmosphere, detail, and feeling.

On the Grid is Lapalux's latest EP — a deeply intricate, hardware-driven exploration of rhythm and emotion that fuses fragmented IDM with warm analogue tones and deep dynamics. The EP showcases Lapalux's continued evolution as a producer, balancing intricate sound design with powerful melodic undercurrents. It follows years of refinement in the studio, drawing on his signature use of modular synthesis, Digital and analogue hardware and organic imperfections. With a limited vinyl pressing and strong fan demand, On the Grid stands as a key release in Lapalux's catalogue and a compelling addition to any store's forward-thinking electronic selection.

January 2025. Serra Grande, Bahia.
The sound of the forest dampening the steps of weary travelers. The air dense with the song of the Araponga. In the distance, amidst the rustling leaves and tropical raindrops, a distant voice howls: “P… Cara… A…zing”. A child’s soul, expressed through the body of a Japanese man, plays ‘Gishiki’ for the first time with the innocence and wonder of a young alchemist that just turned a rock into gold. We were captivated by the elegance of the composition. A friendship was struck and months of work followed.

Fast forward, and we find ourselves down by a familiar Portuguese lake. Rushing towards another Floresta just in time to hand over the test press before a spellbinding set. ‘Suiryuu’ plays and everything magically falls into place.

We hope this record touches you the way it touched us and reminds us all how life can really be Pra Caralho Amazing.

Métron Records announces Mycorrhizal Music, the forthcoming album from composer and multi instrumentalist Ess Whiteley. Currently a PhD candidate in Composition at the University of California-San Diego, Whiteley’s practice spans recordings, installations, performances, and scores, a body of work as diverse as the fungal webs that inspire it.

Across seven tracks, Whiteley explores interconnected sound worlds shaped by mycelium networks, rhizomatic structures, and other unseen systems that sustain life. Rooted in experimental electronics, minimalism, ambient and IDM, the record imagines sound as ephemeral connective tissue capable of reshaping how a listener might experience time, memory, and futurity.

At the core of Whiteley’s work is an excavation of what lies beneath perception, the felt but unspoken currents of emotionality and subtle experiences that dwell in the unconscious.

Mycorrhizal Music channels these hidden threads into a speculative ecosystem of kinship and exchange, where joy, play, and spirituality interlace like branching hyphae beneath the soil. Mycorrhizal Music has been conceived as kinetic ambient music, designed to move with the listener while walking, riding trains, driving, cooking, where everyday rhythms align with shifting sonic textures, reminding them of hidden, interconnected, mycelial webs of spiritual vitality beneath the surfaces of daily activity.

Guided by a vision of speculative ecology and interspecies resonance, it thrives in contrasts: tracks like Rhizomatic Harpists and Whispered Messages in Tapestried Fields of Fluid Motion pulse with fluid momentum, while Kaleidoscopic Patterns of Emptiness Dancing drifts into fragile stillness.

With artwork by Kenta Senekt and mastering by Brandon Hocura, Mycorrhizal Music extends Métron Records’ ethos of cultivating subtle, interconnected sound worlds.

DGM & Panegyric proudly present…

One of the highlights of the King Crimson 50th anniversary CD/Blu-ray editions to date has been King Crimson producer David Singleton’s series of Elemental Mixes as he utilises the full spectrum of available studio sessions for each album to produce very different takes on the familiar songs and pieces.

This is especially true of Lizard where the ambition of the material, the much-expanded line-up of musicians - the background of many of them in the jazz rather than the rock world - and the number of takes recorded, resulted in a large amount of material to be considered for this album.

There was enough material for David to be able to mix and produce alternate takes for every piece from the original album.

As well as giving great insight into the recordings, the nature of Elemental Mixes allows for different takes from individual musicians to be included – sometimes alongside one another - in a way that would never be considered in the formulation of the original album.

David comments that “When I was working on the Elemental mixes, I jokingly described them as ‘Lizard for those who don’t like Lizard’. They were a complete revelation. Lizard is the one album which, in its initial incarnation, never quite convinced me. And yet these Elemental mixes, with their opportunity to look ‘under the hood’ of the album, revealed something fresh, wonderful and astonishing. So, if you are a King Crimson fan, who like me, has never quite taken Lizard to your heart, then these are essential listening. And hopefully equally fascinating to those who already love the album”.

Presented as a single 200gram LP and including the complete album in Elemental Mixes form, running in the same sequence as the original album, this release showcases Lizard in a very different manner to how it’s previously been heard.

Lizard’s reputation has grown, deservedly so, in recent years as old and new audiences alike rediscovered the album, initially when it was first remixed for new Stereo and 5.1 Surround Sound editions in 2009 by Steven Wilson and then as much of it was performed live for the first time in concerts by the most recent King Crimson line-up between 2016 and 2018.

Tricks that never fail to amuse at parties

Vinyl Only.

“The group has no niche, it doesn’t fit in anywhere,” explains Necessaries drummer Jesse Chamberlain in a 1980 Melody Maker interview. “We just state the facts about life in America, like The Clash did about England, but we’re not so heavy about it.” The Necessaries rose from the ashes of Harry Toledo & The Rockets, a little-known New York art-rock band playing gigs at Max’s Kansas City during glam’s metamorphosis into punk. —From the liner notes by Michael IQ Jones The Necessaries came together in 1978 and in the too-brief lifespan of the band counted among their members, Ed Tomney (Rage To Live, Luka Bloom), Jesse Chamberlain (Red Crayola), Ernie Brooks (Modern Lovers), Arthur Russell (The Flying Hearts), Randy Gun (Love Of Life Orchestra). First championed by John Cale on the strength of Tomney’s songs, Cale produced their first single for Spy Records (under the I.R.S. umbrella) which was released in 1979. With the forward momentum brought about by the single, the band set about tracking demos intended for Warner Bros., but The Necessaries ultimately would sign to Seymour Stein’s Sire Records. These rough demo basic tracks lacked overdubs, mixes and any finishing touches that would have made them viable for commercial release, but due to tour commitments, the band had to put the sessions on hold to hit the road. While on tour, the band was shocked to discover that Sire had issued the unfinished tracks as their debut album Big Sky (issued in 1981). The band had Big Sky withdrawn and replaced with Event Horizon (issued in 1982) which included half the original tracks from Big Sky and continued to record throughout 1982 aiming for a follow-up. It was not to be and their final studio sessions remained unissued until now. Completely Necessary (Anthology 1978–1982) is the first authorized collection of recordings by The Necessaries and includes 37 tracks, 28 of which are previously unissued. Completely Necessary represents the most accurate musical history of the band laid out across three albums. Disc one is the band-approved first album Event Horizon, followed by Pilots Facing North, a disc collecting studio recordings spanning 1978–1981 and disc three finally sees the release of their final sessions, Songs From The Blue Colony. Album notes by Michael IQ Jones trace the history of the band for this compilation produced by The Necessaries’ Ed Tomney and Cheryl Pawelski (Omnivore Recordings). The audio has been restored and mastered by Michael Graves at Osiris Studio, and both the 3-LP and 2-CD sets feature previously unseen photos across the package. Finally, an essential missing piece of the late ’70s/early ’80s New York scene that was just slightly ahead of the college alt-rock soon to come, is finally available to rediscover—this time it’s authorized and absolutely necessary. BUY! HERE’S WHY! • The first authorized and comprehensive anthology by The Necessaries. • Mid-’70s/early ’80s New York rock/punk/art scene band included members: Ed Tomney, Ernier Brooks, Arthur Russell, Jesse Chamberlain, and Randy Gun. • 37 tracks, 28 previously unissued. • Liner notes by Michael IQ Jones, plus unseen photos.

St. David is back on CHIWAX with a monster house retro banger!
Higly recommended!

2025 REPRESS ON TRANSPARENT GREEN VINYL


Compiled by Philip King “And then came the rise of synth pop : blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese passing gas in a wind tunnel. Whoopee! This is the way the ‘70s ended : not with a blood-curdling bang bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.” NICK KENT, NME. All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 is a new compilation that charts the underbelly of the epoch-defining sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music. Compiled by Philip King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs, Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop Glam Discotheque), the music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts grappling with new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel Miller’s Mute Records. Featuring rare tracks of auto-didactic progressive pop music, proto-techno punk, shoot-for-the-stars-land-in-the-gutter chart flops and heralded, underground synth classics, School Daze paints a picture of beautiful failure. Complete with extensive sleeve notes written by King and never before seen imagery, all 24 tracks were remastered by RPM in-house engineer Simon Murphy, many from vinyl copies due to lost master tapes. The story told on All The Young Droids is one of the dawning opportunity presented by both the emergence to the market of cheaper analog synthesisers and the distribution networks plus indie labels that exploded with the advent of punk music in 1976. While the music that sprouted out all over the globe in the wake of these factors was decried as fake, plastic, a refutation of punk’s guitar-led revolution, it’s telling that much of the music on All The Young Droids.. was created in bedrooms, ramshackle studios and home-made set ups with often borrowed equipment. In the era of record labels jumping to capitalise on the success of The Sex Pistols, The Clash (both on major labels, of course) these artists struggled to stand out from a new gold-rush with next to no budget or PR team. With radio and labels desperate for the new Yazoo, what resulted was a testament to necessity being the mother of invention. At the time, the synthesiser was the music of the future, a shiny new machine that could paint like an orchestra with a single finger and a 4-track. In the hands of Manchester avant-pranksters Gerry & The Holograms it’s a pulsing, sardonic weapon.. the only instrument on the Messthetics classic lampooning of New Wave fashion. In Hamburg, a 16 year old Andreas Dorau used it to write and record (with his female classmates on vocals) a global smash in Fred Vom Jupiter (later licensed to Mute Records). The hard-to-find English version (Fred From Jupiter, natch) is included here. Many artists with alreadystoried careers caught the bug and recorded synthesiser-fuelled peons to space, computers, the future and, of course, love-interests. Harry Kakoulli, late of Squeeze, recorded a solo album in 1979 that included the incredible power-synth-pop smash-that-never-smashed I’m On A Rocket. Similarly, Ian North of Neo and American Power Pop stalwarts Milk ’n’ Cookies bought a Korg MS20 and used a tape machine to record We’re Not Lonely, an absolute lost-classic of minimal synth pop. We’re Not Lonely also features on the Junkshop Synth Pop sampler 7” twinned with John Howard unreleased track You Will See, released April 12th 2025. There are plenty of compilation debuts in evidence. Sole Sister were a mysterious trio who were featured on the Scaling Triangles compilation of female-fronted, queer-adjacent post-punk / underground music that also featured The Petticoats. Selwin Image were from San Francisco and featured members of the recently defunct power pop/punk group The Pushups. Their stupidly catchy The Unknown fizzes with New Wave energy - think XTC to Sparks but remains unreleased until now. Dream Unit’s A Drop In The Ocean is an early synth wave cut, positively teaming with Joy Division instrumentation, previously only released on a long-forgotten and super rare, self-released EP. Incandescent Luminaire’s Famous Names belies an archetypal struggle of a small-town trying to make it in a cruel industry but is a thrilling New Romantic-Synth Wave cross over with a OMD gloominess that’s a joy to hear. Feminist Minimal Wave track I Am A Time Bomb by performance artist Peta Lilly and Michael Chance is a revelation destined for new found cult status. It was released on 7” and lost until now. The flipside to the subterranean, never-made-it synth pop mentioned above are the ambitious, even fruity attempts at success that have a perennial elegance to their confidence. New Jersey-ite Billy London (real name Ed Barth) tried to cash in on the synth boom with Woman, released by a major label, a lurching new wave track built on the Louie Louie rhythm and a wonderfully camp Lou Reedstyle sleazy vocal before exploding in the synthesised chorus. The song bombed but with a chorus like this, you have to wonder why? Ex-Glitter Band member John Springate’s My Life is truly epic, with doomed chord progressions and massive sounding drums turning into at least 3 different songs in the course of the track. Before you wonder what’s going on the song resolves with a glorious return to the main refrain. The dry-ice-dressed dance floor is well catered for too. Design’s Premonition and Vision’s Lucifer’s Friend are stone-cold minimal synth bangers, well loved but given a new lease of life here. The Warlord’s The Ultimate Warlord was released in 1978, a homespun proto Hi NRG banger that was later re-recorded by The Immortals in Canada who had a club hit with it. One-man- band Disco Volante’s No Motion was re-issued by Synth wave label Medical in 2012 but makes its first vinyl compilation appearance here. Close your eyes and you can imagine what Lawrence of Felt would have sounded like with some cheap Korgs a little earlier in his career. Gibraltar-based trio The Microbes imagined a computer programming people to dance - how prescient - and ended up with a propulsive, robo-funk track with splendid rubbery bass playing over a tectonic drum machine. Previously picked up by Belgian label Stroom TV, Dee Jay Bert & Eagle’s heavily Euro-accented I Am Your Master demands the listener to “come to paradise!” In a frankly terrifying manner. All The Young Droids is the first compilation to peel away from the narrative that dour, Minimal Synth and Cold Wave were the only musical children of the first rush of synth pop. Philip King and School Daze Records describe a much more complicated world: along with the austere, Brutalist children of Daniel Miller (who produced Alan Burnham’s Bowie-Low-influenced Science Fiction here) was a plethora of desperate cash-ins, accidental mainstream hits, ambitious pop dramas and major label punts that went nowhere. Crucially, the compilation blurs the line between junk and treasure. What if the two things are interchangeable. What if it’s all science fiction?

Between 2023 and 2025, L.F.T. split his time between Hamburg and Berlin, slowly piecing together what would become his most ambitious work to date. The result is Hell Was Boring - a double album that plays like a fever dream, unfolding as a dark, mythical tale about life, death, and the strange spaces in between.


L.F.T. - the alias of German producer and multi-instrumentalist Johannes Haas - has always thrived on tension: between punk urgency and electronic precision, between raw emotion and mechanical repetition. On Hell Was Boring, those tensions are amplified. Drawing on the spectral drama of Bauhaus, the melancholic minimalism of Linear Movement, the futuristic romanticism of Gary Numan, and even the sly swagger of Falco, the album feels at once deeply personal and part of a much older musical lineage.


The sound is stripped down to its bones: drums snap and rattle from a Roland TR-808, TR-707 and Korg KR-55; basslines growl from a Roland SH-101 and Korg MS-20; shards of guitar cut through clouds of tape hiss. Everything was tracked to a Teac Tascam 80-8 reel-to-reel, giving each track a lived-in, imperfect warmth. Nothing is overpolished - L.F.T. wanted the listener to hear the edges, the grit, the moments when the music almost comes apart.


Along the way, he invited friends and long-time collaborators into the fold - Das Kinn, Rosaceae, Felix Kubin, Children Of Leir, and Konstantin Unwohl - each leaving their own fingerprints on the record’s world of shadows and static.


Hell Was Boring isn’t a mere collection of songs; it’s a narrative that drags you into its orbit and doesn’t quite let go. It’s music for the late hours when reality feels porous, and for those moments when you’re not sure if you’re waking up or still dreaming.

Good ambient will always been a comfort blanket during harsh times. Whether from a global or more personal perspective. This collection on Secrets of Sound brings together some real dons of the genre, from Mark Barrott - to Steve Roach, and sequences them into one soothing, calming trip that touches son all different sub-sound and styles from New Age to celestial. A spoken word intro from long-running ambient radio Jaroslav Kovaracek sets the scene before you're then cast adrift in supreme sonic lushness.

Der aus Wyoming stammende Troubadour Jeb Loy Nichols kehrt mit ,This House is Empty Without You" zu Timmion Records zurück, einer zeitlosen Sammlung von Songs mit Soul-Wurzeln, die Wärme, Weisheit und stille Intensität ausstrahlen. Erneut unterstützt von Timmions Hausband Cold Diamond & Mink, liefert Jeb ein Album in voller Länge, das sich nahtlos in die Reihe der besten Veröffentlichungen des Labels einreiht - geprägt von den Traditionen des Southern Soul, aber getragen von seiner unverwechselbaren Stimme und seinem lyrischen Touch.Vom sanft dahinschreitenden Opener ,First Night Away from Home" bis zum Schlussstück ,Time On My Hands" entfaltet sich das Album wie ein gutes Sommerbuch, das man am besten mit einer warmen Brise im Gesicht genießt. Nichols hat die Fähigkeit, alles mühelos klingen zu lassen - als würde er nur für Sie singen, von der Veranda oder aus dem Hinterzimmer -, aber wenn man genau hinhört, entdeckt man Songwriting voller Tiefe, subtil arrangiert mit Orgelklängen, knackigen Drums und tiefen Grooves.Neben dem luftigen Midtempo-Romantikstück ,Here With You" gehören zu den weiteren Höhepunkten der rootsige Southern Shuffle ,Good Morning Monday", das herzergreifende ,Coming Home Love" und ,Step In", ein sanfter Groove über Wiederentdeckung und Wiedersehen. Zusammen mit Nichols - und Emilia Sisco, deren gospelartige Hintergrundharmonien mehrere Titel zieren - haben sie ein Album geschaffen, das sich an klassischen Einflüssen orientiert, aber unverkennbar persönlich und präsent klingt. ,This House is Empty Without You" ist eine Meisterklasse in zurückhaltendem Soul und beweist, dass Jeb Loy Nichols nicht nur immer noch da ist - er wächst weiter, strahlt und findet neue Wege, die Wahrheit zu sagen.

American jazz keyboardist Hilton Felton, who also recorded a superb album as The Three of Us which is also being reissued right now, dropped his most classic full length A Man For All Reasons in 1980. It came on his own label and the reason it is so well thought of is that it has become a real staple of the rare groove scene thanks to how much of it get splayed by DJs and how many key collectors have it on their racks. This reissue, with an all new remastering, arrives via P-Vine with gems like the standout jazz funk gem 'Bee Bop Boogie' one of many of its tunes that are still rare groove classics.

Swiss sound artist Zimoun continues and transforms the material from his solo project 'One & Two' with Taylor Deupree on 'Wind Dynamic Organ, Deviations.' Both albums were created entirely from recordings of the Wind Dynamic Organ (Prototype III), an extraordinary instrument housed in Bern Minster and developed by Daniel Glaus and his team at the Bern Academy of the Arts. Unlike a traditional organ, this prototype allows the wind pressure and air volume of each pipe to be shaped in real time and produces tones that breathe and blur at their edges. On Deviations, the pair push these organic tones into new territory by layering, bending and re-contextualising them into evolving ambient structures. A quietly radical exploration.

Party Tricks is back with a new release in their reissue series! This time, they bring back to life a sought-after progressive house gem from 1993 by Phunky Torso.



'Tricks that never fail to amuse at parties'

Our beloved C.ru.z is next on Griffé with his Mechanical Wizards EP.
Argentinian producer & DJ, Barcelona based C.ru.z is the co-founder of the 22Recordings imprint. This EP reflects C.ru.z's love for 80's synth/electro music and cinematic experiences. These four tracks dive deeply into spooky moods and emotional melodies with a dark & melancholic touch.

Inspired by Sam Kidel’s ›mimetic hacking‹ concept, Berlin-based composer Jasminev Guffond pipes opiated brass and woodwind motifs into a reverb chamber modelled on an Amazon fulfilment centre.

»Muzak for the Encouragement of Unproductivity« is a poetic inversion of Muzak’s traditional role in stimulating seamless productivity in the workplace. Beginning as a pre-radio music distribution network (1934, U.S.), Muzak was transmitted along electrical wires with the intention of being at once ubiquitous and indiscernible, always present yet easily ignorable. As a pseudo-science the aim was to capitalize on the potential of music to have a psychological effect on listeners, and with the goal of maximum productivity, was employed as a sonic disciplinary force in the work place.

Previously installed for Dystopia Sound Art Biennial (2024), at the Amazon Packing Station located before HAUNT-Frontviews in Berlin, Muzak for the Encouragement of Unproductivity sonically addresses utopic notions of seamless, efficient productivity, inherent to capitalist cultures, and their very real dystopic effects from labour exploitation to the impacts of over-production on the environment. This poetic inversion, further developed as an album, is not meant as a kind of melodic control but rather a reflective space in which to consider the benefits personally, globally and environmentally, of slowing down.

Reverb, essential to the Muzak aesthetic, is programmed (using convolution reverb) with the dimensions of the Berlin Amazon fulfillment centre, DBE2. Amazon fulfillment centers are global contemporary factories, promising a consumer utopia of next day delivery of almost any product imaginable. Inspired by Sam Kidel’s concept of »mimetic hacking«(1), the reverberation characteristics of the DBE2 facility perform a symbolic sonic break-in to the guarded Amazon fulfillment center, a trespass to the flow of production.

Guffond’s ambient Muzak with its drifting horn, clarinet and synth-like modulations is just too down-tempo for upbeat spending. If this is Muzak it is possibly Muzak for the end of the world, thoughtfully seeking transcendence through implied questioning after all avenues for shopping have been exhausted.