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Accomplished trumpeter, composer, bandleader and educator, Kamal Abdul-Alim has been actively involved in creative music for decades. He has toured Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and the United States. He has recorded with all kinds of bands, large and small, and performed in festivals all over the world. “He takes the postbop of the 50s and free-form jazz of the 60s and turns it into an even balance of fine textures. Alim, who is highly underrated, has one of the most beautiful tones and concepts of jazz. A master of improvisation, he knows the art of weaving different ideas, whether they stem from Manhattan’s lower East Side or Europe” (Hugh Wyatt, New York Daily News). “Dance” was recorded in 1983 but first released on vinyl in 1987. Rhythm section includes drummer Idris Muhammad. Original pressings are extremely rare and expensive. “Brotherhood” is a much sought after track on the jazz dance scene. There is a high demand for this title again on vinyl and pressings are limited to 1000 copies, all individually hand numbered.

Following the instant success and subsequent repress of its inaugural release, Stones Taro’s self-release experiment "Foglore" returns with its second installment, further expanding the captivating universe built in Part 1. Rooted in the same core concept—a seamless blend of dubby, fog-laden sound design and a timeless aura reminiscent of ancient folklore—this four-track EP solidifies the very definition of "Foglore." On the A-side, "Weather Wheel" sets an energetic tone as masterfully mixed, chopped breakbeats seamlessly dissolve into hazy, atmospheric pad sounds. It is followed by "Moss Pulse," a track whose precise sound design acts as a natural hub bridging the worlds of Dub Techno and Dubstep. On the flip, "Whorls Of Smoke" delivers a fresh, hypnotic dance cut driven by an intricate interplay between a half-step groove and tam strikes. Closing the EP, "Acid Fog Ritual" combines sticky acid basslines with a deliberate, low-tempo beat to generate a deeply immersive psychdelia. Expanding on its predecessor while boldly redefining its own boundaries, Foglore#2 stands as a brilliant testament to Stones Taro’s evolving sonic vision.

Since its original release, Aging has taken on an interesting wider significance. OCA’s music came to the attention of Kelela, who featured the duo in her Aquaphoria mix before later working with Yo van Lenz and Florian T M Zeisig in their Berlin studio. Those sessions would go on to play an important role in shaping the sound of her acclaimed 2023 album Raven, on which both artists are credited.



2019 Press Release:

Berlin based duo OCA present Aging, their sophomore album and first for Métron Records. Following up last year's Preset Music (recently featured in Kelela's Aquaphoria mix) Aging is an album that focuses on memory, experience and the passing of time.

A collaboration between producers Yo van Lenz and Florian T M Zeisig, OCA formed after the pair met and became friends while studying in Berlin. Originally from small towns in Bavaria, the duo now live and work in the German capital.

Through a series of 10 vignettes, Aging transports the listener on a trip across a series of life events that retain a special personal importance to both of the artists. These emotional touchstones range from the profound to the prosaic - the discovery of something new, the relief from annoyance or the familiarity found in an old companion - and have been fully explored with playful sonic introspection.

Whilst the concept retains a certain ambiguity, it is the sound palette, created solely on an Alesis QS6 synthesiser - that brings these experiences to life. OCA blend and weave classic dance music motifs with shimmering synths, Japanese wet ambient, and even anthemic 80s rock to create a soundscape rich with texture and sensation.

The bass notes and tentative lead of ‘Baby’s First Blade of Grass’ reference the memory of first consciously or subconsciously experiencing something new, whilst the decaying ripples of ‘Stretching in Water’ paired with sounds of flowing streams conjure up images of tranquil pools. Their most developed work to date, Aging showcases OCA as rising stars of progressive pop and modern ambient.

Hanne Lippard and Renato Grieco's Today's Special is a suite of language works synthesising melody and diction that integrates the literary and the audible in a repertoire of songs that bask in the melody of voice and the punctuations of structured composition. Working with methods of reduction rather than opulence in both tonal composition and rhetoric, each piece pegs the poetic to the musical with compositional schematics and methods. It is important to state that there is little to none improvisation here, instead, the duo set up matrices, rules and structural links that facilitated meaningful locus of exchange between their two practices. Lippard's texts are a collection of new and previously completed works. In these, as is typical for her work, she enjoys the easy pleasure of wordplay, iterative language, and decontextualised anecdote, as in opener Portrait of a Betrayal, a piece about the loss of a phone and the way it haunted the owner who dropped it, based on a lived experience. Grieco's instrumentation works with Lippard's language art as a form of acoustic typography. "I studied graphic design and I think about how you can express typography through voice," she says. "Renato's use of the viola da gamba becomes like an underline, or a font's brushstrokes, in ways that feel typographical." In this, the classically-trained composer Grieco often finds and echoes the pitch movements of Lippard's voice, intonation mirrored and revealed, linguistic meaning doubled and shadowed by plucked, strummed or bowed strings. His main instrument is the viola da gamba, the instrument considered closest to the human voice for its tonal range and ability to mimic inflections and timbre, and here he brings it even closer to the voice, building systems by which it moves with and around Lippard. He also plays piano and Wurlitzer, and joins her in speaking on Receiver and in conversation for final track The Black Rose. "Hanne's voice is an artist's voice, embodied as the artwork itself," he says. "But where my approach is from the perspective of a composer, hers is around rhetoric and language. We worked towards each other in this sense, Hanne finding a space to welcome my voice, and me designing an acoustic space to enhance her vocal persona." In some tracks the structural connections are obvious - the matched tumbling delivery and stepped pitches of voice and piano in Aficionado sounding like two tipsy friends descending a staircase. In others, like the triptych of tracks Three Rungs Ladder, structured with rules derived from nursery rhymes, or cumulative song (akin to the 12 Days of Christmas). For the Colour 1 and Colour 2 pieces, the duo worked from palettes of colours connected to clusters of harmonies, which underlined the power of the word and its articulation. The absurd Labradorable personifies a people pleaser, A Story About Being Blue is an imagined playful monologue from the Deep Blue supercomputer - requesting in sing-song stop motion to be called Debbie, and Larry - as Grieco echoes in factual reportage. Hurtbeat unpacks and recomposes a tweeted non-apology by a Russian art collector about owning a piece of racist art, Grieco shadowing Lippard's generating a third `drop-shadow' performer from the resonances between the duo, typographic re-articulation of the source material. The Receiver includes lines from Robert Ashley's Improvement (Don Leaves Linda), Ashley existing as a spiritual parent of sorts to the practices contained on Today's Special, and here interpolated as if he is being quoted and written through within the audible world of the piece in a palimpsest of borrowed sentences. Closing track The Black Rose contains its own self-aware comedy, a lightly distorted conversation sourced from a Reddit thread about whether black roses exist, recorded as if it were an internet radio or a low budget podcast, the casual exchange stilted in the delivery of platitudes as scripted speech. Today's Special was developed in person over the course of a series of small residencies - at Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo, Rome; Fondazione Morra, Napoli; Callie's, Berlin. In these limited periods that rarely stretched beyond a week, Lippard and Grieco developed strategies for the works, keeping tightly locked to musical concepts. This, for Grieco, is about maintaining a solid, meaningful connection within the compositions, and committing to everything having a purpose for existing within the work. Each element pulls its weight; has something to say, literally and metaphorically speaking. In the same way that Lippard's work leaves nowhere for her to hide, he wants the music to exist with its own naked purpose: "It's is about exposing nudity via reduced materials," says Grieco. "This is a form of courage we want to embrace. Once we take off everything, it needs to be extremely precise to maintain a connection with the audience. We have a lot of tools to hide behind now, to protect ourselves and our identities as artists, performers, and in life more generally. It's something I don't want to do. I want extreme reduction: no hiding."

Futurismo are proud to present DEVO’s NITROUS NIGHTMARE, Halloween Live ‘75. Never before released, or heard in it’s entirety, this legendary live performance is presented here in it’s full chaotic glory on limited edition 2xLP and 2xCD. The live release all hardcore Devo fans have been waiting for, Nitrous Nightmare demonstrates a band harnessing their artistic greatness in the purest of forms. This mythic performance captures Devo perfecting some of their most iconic concepts in the raw. Expertly restored, this live recording makes for a thrilling experience, it also captures Devo as a lightening rod for hostility. On Halloween 1975, Devo took the stage at the WHK Auditorium in Cleveland, in a supporting capacity for jazz legend Sun Ra, to perform for a raucous crowd dressed in the finest of Halloween cliché. Already riding high on Nitrous Oxide and booze supplied by the sponsoring radio station, this unaware horde was expecting to see a slick cover band churning out renditions of Bad Company hits, only to be subjected to an act of subversive performance art that would send the growingly aggravated crowd into eventual meltdown. Physical threats ensued, but Devo played on. Acting as a live companion release to Futurismo’s much lauded Art Devo, the tracklist featured here showcases the origins of de-evolution theory in a live setting. These songs would become some of their most famous material, with this recording believed to be the very first time ‘Jocko Homo’ was performed in front of a live audience; the full 12 minute version documented here is sure to please fans, even if it displeased the urban hippies and horror masked onlookers that evening. Whilst Devo may have felt they were trapped inside a negative energy vortex during that era, it is clear in retrospect that the band was using this energy to carve out the genesis of a sonic and visual art that has truly stood the test of time. The music performed that evening would mutate culture for decades to come, long after the denizens of the auditorium packed away their cheap vampire costumes and returned to their day jobs. Spanning 2xLP’s of unreleased live material, most of which has never been heard before, this wondrous performance draws purely from that integral early history. Mixed and mastered directly from recordings kept in the bands personal vaults, this live collection showcases why Devo was, and still is, one of the most important bands in American history. De-evolution is real. The art of DEVO is real. Here is the evidence. This 2xLP is housed in a gloss laminated wide spined sleeve. It has a tracklist that has been sourced directly from the archives, and contains colour inner sleeves and a fold-out containing archival imagery and liner notes by Gerald V Casale.

Futurismo are proud to present DEVO’s NITROUS NIGHTMARE, Halloween Live ‘75. Never before released, or heard in it’s entirety, this legendary live performance is presented here in it’s full chaotic glory on Super Limited edition Deluxe cassette format!
The live release all hardcore Devo fans have been waiting for, Nitrous Nightmare demonstrates a band harnessing their artistic greatness in the purest of forms. This mythic performance captures Devo perfecting some of their most iconic concepts in the raw. Expertly restored, this live recording makes for a thrilling experience, it also captures Devo as a lightening rod for hostility.
On Halloween 1975, Devo took the stage at the WHK Auditorium in Cleveland, in a supporting capacity for jazz legend Sun Ra, to perform for a raucous crowd dressed in the finest of Halloween cliché. Already riding high on Nitrous Oxide and booze supplied by the sponsoring radio station, this unaware horde was expecting to see a slick cover band churning out renditions of Bad Company hits, only to be subjected to an act of subversive performance art that would send the growingly aggravated crowd into eventual meltdown. Physical threats ensued, but Devo played on.

2026 Repress

Ribe & Roll Dann serve up potent techno on Mutual Rytm with 'Virtus Occulta'.

Built around concepts of unacknowledged work and enduring merit, the release marks their first EP on SHDW's widely
respected label.

Based in Toledo and Madrid, Ribe & Roll Dann are exciting residents at Laster Madrid and Lanna Club, two of Spain's leading venues. Emerging as driving forces in their national techno scene, they have also made an impact on the global landscape, making wider moves through collaborative releases on Klockworks, and individual outings on a number of other influential labels. Having previously featured in the label's Federation of Rytm IV compilation, the pair make their full EP label on SHDW's Mutual Rytm imprint to open March with a deep dive into their expansive sound.

Opener 'Sub Terra' is a pure club tool that is direct, physical and rooted in the underground with a seriously heavy low end. 'Extra Lumen' is more restrained but still built on a steady, forceful rhythm with controlled energy that prefers to operate in the shadows. 'Ars Non Placens' stays true to the idea that music is not made to please, but to exist on its own terms with hunched drums and dubby undercurrents. Next, 'Meritum Negatum' fizzes with static electrical charge and minimal drum funk and is a direct reflection on overlooked skill and unacknowledged work, before closer 'Virtus Persistens' delivers a continuity and a steady pulse rather than an explosive ending, keeping you locked throughout.

In addition, three digital bonus cuts come alongside the vinyl package. 'Labor Inauditus' speaks to hours of technique, production and booth experience that remain invisible. Next come the taught, rubbery rhythms and unrelenting atmosphere of 'Silentium Testium', while 'Sine Aplausu' - which means without applause - brings a ghostly late night vibe that you will never want to end.

This November, Brownswood Recordings will release Mek Do & Mend, the debut album from self-taught producer, multi-instrumentalist, composer and artist Wonky Logic. Although his name may not yet be familiar to everyone, Wonky Logic (AKA Dwayne Kilvington) has spent the past two decades quietly becoming one of the UK's most respected musical collaborators. His career has moved comfortably between London's jazz, electronic and contemporary music scenes, performing and recording with artists including Nala Sinephro, Yussef Dayes, Nightmares On Wax, Shabaka Hutchings and Emma-Jean Thackray. Alongside his work as a producer and composer, he's been musical director for projects with Eddie Chacon, John Carroll Kirby and I.G Culture's LCSM, scored the feature documentary Zandra With A Zed, contributed music to A24's The Smashing Machine, and continues to lead music workshops with young people, refugees and people experiencing incarceration.

Far more than a collection of compositions, Mek Do & Mend is a deeply personal reflection on the people, places and experiences that have shaped Kilvington throughout his life. It's the story of growing up on a Leeds council estate, where music became both a creative outlet and a way of understanding the world. Making music often meant working with whatever was available: a second-hand keyboard, a makeshift studio desk or ageing equipment that simply had to last a little longer. The title itself came from a conversation with his mother, capturing the resourcefulness that defined his upbringing and continued into the making of the album itself, which was written and produced to a tight deadline around touring, family life and Kilvington's work as a musician and educator.

Built from material spanning more than fifteen years, Mek Do & Mend brings together some of Wonky Logic's earliest compositions alongside brand new pieces written during the making of the record itself. Childhood ideas sit alongside music conceived only months before recording, creating an album that draws together a lifetime of writing rather than documenting a single moment. Running throughout are voice notes from family members, teachers, friends, mentors and collaborators—not simply as interludes, but as a reminder that no creative life is ever self-made. Rather than telling his own story outright, Kilvington invites listeners to discover him through the people who've shaped him: an aunt remembering him playing in church as a child, lifelong friends recalling early experiments making beats together, fellow musicians from different stages of his career and his mother describing him in her own words. Together they reveal the invisible network of relationships, philosophies, communities and experiences behind the music. "The album exists somewhere between being a biography and an autobiography," says Dwayne. "The biography is in the voice notes and how other people see me. The autobiography is in the music."

That same philosophy extends to the musicians who appear on the record. Every contributor has played a meaningful role in Wonky Logic's life beyond the studio. Long-time collaborator Luke Wynter, Steam Down drummer Benji Appiah, partner Vanessa Rani, Jonathan Enser, Joe Bristow, Brother Portrait and Nubiya Imani all feature not simply because of their musicianship, but because they form part of the album's story.

Across its fourteen tracks, Mek Do & Mend moves effortlessly between dynamic jazz arrangements, pulsating broken rhythms, delicate, twinkling piano passages, interstellar synth textures and elegant brass lines. Album opener and first single 'Strange Attractor' begins with a shimmering introduction before unfolding into an exhilarating surge of rhythm and momentum. Named after the mathematical concept of the same name, it serves as the conceptual point of origin for the album. Written when Kilvington was just seventeen, the composition reflects the idea that even the most unpredictable lives are guided by hidden patterns that often only become visible with time. Second single 'A Thousand Hands' features the unmistakable vocal tones of Brother Portrait, whose cerebral lyricism drifts over a low-slung, constantly shifting groove as woozy synth lines ebb and flow overhead. At its heart, the track celebrates the family, friends, mentors and collaborators whose often unseen influence shapes who we become, echoing the album's belief that every achievement is, in some way, a collective one. LP focus track 'BAME (Beyond All Marginalised Expectations)' is a lush, spiralling composition, brimming with both emotion and resolve. Reclaiming an acronym long imposed on racialised communities in the UK, the piece transforms it into a statement of possibility rather than limitation: a defiant rejection of stereotypes and a refusal to let identity be defined by other people's expectations.

The album itself only exists because other people believed in it. Isabel Gracefield made the RAK sessions possible, Rick David brought the record together with his characteristically thoughtful mix, and Gilles Peterson committed to releasing it on Brownswood before hearing any of the music. Away from the stage, Kilvington works with the charity Finding Rhythms, writing and producing original records with people experiencing incarceration, while also leading workshops with Arts Train and Dovetail Orchestra.

Recorded live in a single day in Studio One at RAK, Mek Do & Mend was mixed by Rick David through an analogue Cadac console before being mastered by Stuart Hawkes at Metropolis. The aim wasn't nostalgia or audiophile perfection, but to create a record people could return to throughout their lives, discovering something new with each listen.

As Dwayne puts it: "I don't want this body of work to be reduced to a jazz record. It's more like a novel about life told through music."

There was nothing in contemporary music like Chris Isaak’s Heart Shaped World when it hit shelves in June 1989. More than three decades later, the singer-songwriter’s third album still sounds unique — and claims a backstory nearly as fascinating as the retro-leaning material and standout performances that propelled it to sales of more than 2.5 million copies. Home to the Top 10 smash “Wicked Game,” the set remains a masterful mood piece that invites you to pour a late-night drink, sit in a dimmed room, and relish Isaak’s elegant albeit raw ruminations on love, relationships, and questionable decisions.

Sourced from the original master tapes, pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing, strictly limited to 3,000 numbered copies, and featuring the bonus track “Diddley Daddy,” Mobile Fidelity's UltraDisc One-Step 180g 45RPM 2LP box set of Heart Shaped World unearths the staggering inner details, saturated tones, and brilliant atmospherics of the crisp production. It brings you up close and personal with Isaak’s spectacular singing — impeccably controlled, tense, brooding, steamy, smoldering, haunted — situated amidst stripped-down backdrops that allow every note to fully bloom and decay.

While Isaak’s ever-steady baritone remains the anchor, the contributions of his trusty backing band, the aptly named Silvertone, come across with just as much cool, command, and realism. The indispensable playing of guitarist James Calvin Wilsey particularly emerges with superb clarity and dimensionality. The character of his 1965 Fender Stratocaster, shivering twang of his spring-coiled fills, and his signature use of reverb, delay, and vibrato seamlessly match Isaak's patient deliveries and the band’s unhurried rhythms. Experienced on UD1S with ultra-black backgrounds and a nearly invisible noise floor, Heart Shaped World is in every regard a demonstration disc.

The premium packaging of this UD1S pressing befits its elevated status. Housed in a deluxe slipcase, it features foil-stamped jackets and faithful-to-the-original graphics. Aurally and visually, this reissue is for discerning listeners who desire to immerse themselves in everything involved with the album, not the least of which is the cover art depicting a lost-in-thought Isaak staring ahead and sitting in what appears to be an efficiency apartment. The image epitomizes the record’s lonesome temperaments and pensive themes.

Of course, if not for director David Lynch hand-picking two cuts from Heart Shaped World for his 1990 film Wild at Heart, the record would’ve probably suffered the same fate as Isaak’s prior efforts and gone unnoticed by the mainstream. Despite receiving raves from outlets such as NME, Chicago Tribune, and Rolling Stone upon its original release, the album stalled in the lower quadrants of the Billboard charts and, after a few weeks, dropped off.

Cue the ear of Lee Chesnut. Then the music director for a large Atlanta radio station, Chesnut heard the instrumental version of “Wicked Game” on Lynch’s soundtrack and started airing the album rendition at all hours of the day. Aided by a sensual video featuring Isaak and supermodel Helena Christensen, the song found its way into the public consciousness by early ‘91 and helped make Isaak a most unlikely mainstream star in an era where his techniques had little to nothing in common with popular tastes.

Despite its vintage vibes and shared DNA with legends such as Roy Orbison, Chet Baker, and Glen Campbell, Heart Shaped World transcends nostalgia, rockabilly, and throwback tropes. For all the melodrama and sadness at hand, Isaak’s gorgeously transparent singing dives deep underneath emotional surfaces. He mines subtleties that indicate his feelings go beyond heartbreak and anguish, and occasionally suggest frustration, menace, and anger. You can hear it in his quivering falsetto, and the slow and methodical ways he allows delicate whispers to break into shadowy phrasing that crosses over to the darker sides of romance and desire.

That approach bolsters the title track, which suggests calm yet moves on ominous currents — its simmering pace and snare-drum snappiness foreshadowing Isaak raising the volume and urgency during the coda. The southwestern-tinged “Wrong to Love You” plays with similar concepts of hesitation, unease, and discord, Isaak careful never to fully erupt and give anything away. His poised deliveries offer a master class in the art of insinuation and hurt on “Nothing’s Changed,” sent up with a wordless backing chorus and crackling guitar lines straight out of a Memphis blues joint.

Heart Shaped World further boosts its merit via its abundant stylistic variations, from the upbeat country-and-western trot of “I’m Not Waiting” and Spanish acoustic shimmer of the jazz-based ballad “Blue Spanish Sky” to the swinging horn-accompanied grooves of “Don’t Make Me Love You” and desert smokiness of the understated “Kings of the Highway.” On the latter, Isaak comes across as resigned and absolute. His singing and pain worm their way into your soul, and echo akin to the way the music prepares to strike when you least expect.

“Trouble going 'round,” Isaak croons right as the album begins. “Trouble going down.” Damn straight.

In 2023, Kraków-based composer Martyna Basta and Los Angeles-based sound artist claire rousay were invited to Poland by Unsound for a short residency, where they spent a few days trading ideas and concepts, and brainstorming their first collaboration. Initially motivated to create lengthy, expansive pieces together, they also ended up experimenting with shorter vignettes, and ‘hotel room’ expresses these two extremes, featuring three long-form tracks and three brief, euphoric songs. “It wasn’t something we specifically planned,” explains Basta. “It just unfolded that way.” The most important stage of the process, however, was the period that followed the residency, when rousay and Basta began working on their sketches in isolation, trading drafts and sculpting the sounds independently before rousay handled the final mixdown. In the comfort of their own bedrooms, they were better able to reflect their individual creative routines, organically reaching a junction where their music felt truly unified. Even while they were in Poland, the duo joked that it might have been easier if they’d been holed up in separate rooms emailing each other.

Both artists have had an energetic few years: after steadily building a reputation for her diaristic and candid concrète experiments, rousay signed to Thrill Jockey in 2023, releasing the acclaimed ‘sentiment’, ‘a little death’ and the more eaze collaboration ‘no floor’; Basta, meanwhile, followed up 2023’s hallucinatory ‘Slowly Forgetting, Barely Remembering’ and her debut for Belgium’s Stroom imprint, ‘Diaries Beneath Fragile Glass’ with a studio album on !K7’s 7K sublabel: ‘Winged in Collapse’. The title of their collaboration reflects rousay and Basta’s hectic touring schedules in the wake of these releases, the constant feeling of displacement and the emotions that emerge when the environment is in flux. “I know we aren’t the only musicians traveling and creating work at the same time,” says rousay, “but being able to speak about that experience and all the things that come with it was comforting.” And the music itself, assembled from hypnagogic field recordings, spectral voices, electronics and filtered instrumental improvisations, sounds bewitchingly unmoored, not tied to a specific location but hovering around the uncanny space in-between.

Scratchy ASMR sounds introduce us to the opening track ‘zoom’, initially obscuring the duo’s elegiac harmonies. They are careful to let the various elements evolve at their own pace, with the fictile guitar drones melting into the foreground while Basta’s dissociated whispers and rousay’s illusory synths pick out the subtlest subliminal shades. It all builds to the piece’s dramatic third act, when layered chords ring out like organ blasts, enveloping the negative space. The shorter, more anxiety-provoking ‘denim’ is remarkably divergent, a dismantled folk memory pieced together from skeletal piano notes, vaporous choral echoes, haunting string plucks and pulsating feedback. Where the music aligns is in the mood itself, capturing a feeling that’s neither completely abstract nor fully referential. Not ambient exactly, ‘hotel room’ is a suite of soundscapes that gesture towards structure while repeatedly folding in on themselves.

On ‘Lost and Found’, wordless Autotuned ad-libs spiral around delicate guitar plucks and washing waves, coalescing into a faded Polaroid of opiated Americana, and on ‘Where Are You Now’, operatic squeals and corroded orchestral scrapes are juxtaposed with nauseous low-end tones. Evaporating until only industrial whirrs and music box chimes remain, the latter encapsulates the entire album’s chilling liminality, smudging saturated voices with casual electro-acoustic interjections before it erupts abruptly, transforming into a dense, pitch-skewed hymn. ‘hotel room’ plays like a surreal travelogue, teasing listeners with airy familiarities as it humidifies dry, awkward spaces. More a labyrinth of catacombs than a single, fixed chamber, it’s Escher-like – cryptic and seductive – and decked out with personal asides and intimate details that reward the most patient, curious listeners.

Kercha’s debut album ‘Open The Door’ arrives this April via DNO Records. The Black Sea artist’s mystical, disorienting style has set the tone for the label since he dropped the inaugural release six years ago. Now, across 16 tracks — including collabs with Mystic State, Congi, NST, Khromi and Finnoh — his smoky sampledelic dubstep is tighter, heavier, and more curious than ever, with a new sense of danger and bubbling rage that feels fit for our chaotic times.

Themes of movement and change course through the LP. On the opening gambit ‘A Path Into The Unknown’, twinkling arpeggios emerge from the gloom like stars lighting the way. Tracks like the eponymous ‘Open The Door’ and ‘Mind Extraction’ deliver that classic Kercha sound, where left-field samples dart in at right angles. ‘Dangerous Road’ weaves between the call and response action of grotty stabs and devilish subs. ‘Take A Break’, featuring Mystic State, goes on the attack with searing acid. ‘Can’t Wait For Today’, though lethargic in its pace, sees San Francisco-based rapper Finnoh deliver stream-of-consciousness bars that skewer our present and nudge us to revolution.

Work took place over the course of several years, during which Kercha relocated with his family from Russia to Georgia, where he now resides in the capital, Tbilisi. “Sometimes I wrote music while travelling on a bus, sometimes late at night while my family was asleep, sometimes just sitting on the grass in a park, and of course in my home studio as well,” he says. “By the time the album was finished, it included music from different periods, and it may vary in sound and concept.”

Any major upheaval in life will result in moments of hardship, but also hope. Both can be found throughout ‘Open The Door’. There’s times when the darkness threatens to envelope everything: during the cold, crackling ‘Disclosed’ and the eerie, dystopian ‘Infection Of Lies’; on ‘Trigger Activation’, with its grunting lows and broken glass hook, and ‘Ballistics’, where a wall of sub-bass is pierced by shrapnel stabs.

The balancing light comes on ‘4 AM’, featuring Nottingham duo Congi, when clashing swords and cinematic strings, meet a soft Rhodes piano — the juxtaposition between heavy low-end and floaty keys and vox reflecting those moments of transcendence often found in the early hours. From the injection of garage energy on ‘Bubs’, with Edinburgh’s Khromi. And on with ‘My Feeling’, featuring South Russian vocalist NST, which closes the album on a deep but expansive note, bookending the experience with more starlight synth tones.

“It’s a reflection of my life journey and the changes connected with emigration and overcoming various difficulties,” explains Kercha. “This period means a lot to me, which is why the album includes tracks from the time of preparing to leave up to adapting to a new country.”

Still, he wants listeners to be able to derive their own understanding. “I think the essence lies in the ability to contemplate, not in any predetermined meaning,” he says. “I can only say one thing: thank you for appreciating what I do and for your support. I hope it inspires you to make the same firm decisions to change for the better as it did for me.”

Out via 4 x 12” vinyl, ‘Open The Door’ is a captivating artistic statement, showcasing the journey of an artist with a truly original signature sound — a rarity that should be treasured and celebrated.

Rhythms of postmodern realism at the very bottom of the DNO.

LP,180g, 2027 REISSUE - REMASTERED FROM ORIGINAL TAPES, CAREFULLY REPRODUCED ORIGINAL ART

The 'vivid contemporary sounds for a fresh visual image' make up the now canonised Synthesis from Alan Hawkshaw and Brian Bennett. These two greats go deeper than usual on this collection, and the end result is a synth concept record of sorts. Released in 1974, it's an essential companion piece to
their Synthesizer and Percussion LP, released on Themes International Music in the same year.
Like most of our favourite library records, Synthesis has that gloriously funky, 'weird electronic music' vibe without ever being inaccessible. With the awesome ARP Odyssey at the fore, Hawkshaw and Bennett have created a blissed-out soundscape that, whilst laid back in all the right places, somehow remains heavy on the funk. It's a sort of throbbing, proto-G Funk sound and you can fnd it on many of these low-lit basement workouts.
Take the ice-cool 'Alto Glide'. It's a sunset-funk highlight with an electro-fute refrain that conjures those dreamier Dre / DJ Quick instrumentals from '91 to '92.
Stereolab, Koushik (again) and all those Ghost Box artists were clearly listening very closely in the years since. The equally relaxed 'Mermaid' glides efortlessly with soft, shimmering piano, understated percussion and kaleidoscopic synths.
It's a really beautiful piece.With these two soft-focus closing tracks allowing the LP to foat away over the horizon, the preceding ten tracks have a more insistent, neck-snapping rhythm
section to back the synth overload. Highlights include the head-nod funk of 'Getting It Together' and the synth break in 'The Executive', which informed classic video game soundtracks.
For once Be With really is stuck for words to describe just how good this record is.
Best just to listen. As with all ten re-issues, the audio for Synthesis comes from the original analogue tapes and has been remastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis. We've taken the same care with the sleeves, handing the reproduction duties over to Richard Robinson, the current custodian of KPM's brand identity.

Extinction Burst! is the new invocation in album-form by Guttersnipe, Leeds’ premier and pre-eminent XFCER (XFCER: Xenofeminist crisis-energy rock)* duo. Slamming at full speed to multi-dimensional oblivion, Extinction Burst! is the most full, hidefinition lurid dream-mare yet spewed out by Uroceras Gigas & Tipula Confusa. Engineered and mixed by Ross Halden at Hohm Studio in Bradford and mastered by Rashad Becker, Extinction Burst! follows 2018’s My Mother The Vent, which garnered universal critical adoration. Nevertheless, this long-awaited follow up is more extreme: it is wildness beyond reason, splitting new tears in the reality gauze, ultimate hallucination through sound ecstasy. 2026’s Guttersnipe are evolved, mutated by 8 years of touring together and with the labyrinthine network of groups both Guttersnipe members are involved with - Tristwch Y Fenywod, Nape Neck, Petronn Sphene, Yexxen to name a few. On Extinction Burst!, as with previous material, the duo are heavily augmented with technology. Tipula Confusa's drum kit triggers chasm-causing synth pulses with thumping low end attack.. Strafing from all over the stereo field the constant shatter of the cymbals and toms feel like Sunny Murray or Rashied Ali in full flight during a John Coltrane session in 1967. Uroceras Gigas’s guitar + synth storm is by-now similarly an instantly recognised tool kit in underground music. Switching from screeching guitar atonality to intricate riffs from the black metal/Voivod hinterland to ultra-distorted synth meltdown, it’s an utterly overwhelming, essential and vital pouring-out of the full emotional spectrum. Both artists vocalise, ecstatic and primal, drawn out or yelped in pain or pleasure or panic. Alive On Tuesday begins with some of the only space on Extinction Burst! Digital crackles and tight-delays blow out into a fullthrottled death-dive into sweet opaqueness, offset by the duo’s vocals. There’s a popular believe that Guttersnipe is chaos, but over 9 mins here the group are clinical in their control of the simulated entropy. Mincing while the Maelstrom Churns’s guitar is modulated into jagged atonal atonement, duetting with the virtuoso drum patterns before it thuds into gear at quadruple the speed. Threads Of Radical Unaliveness veers close to the extreme Metal influences with blast beats and guttural vocalisations until the track exhausts itself into unaliveness. Keep Honking summons a demonic digital panic, with the duo reincarnating in real time as haunted versions of themselves, almost translating the lurid, ultra vivid, simultaneous hell+heaven of being alive in this dimension. Primordial Invagination harnesses No Wave’s dissension of normality before the structured collapse of Skra¨ckblandad Fo¨rtjusning, in which Tipula Confusa’s accelerating drums simulate a bouncing barrel of brimstone descending into a primordial gunky ooze, a respite in the middle before the record splutters to a stuttering finale, both members’ vocals out there in the neon realness, alive with crisis energy. There is nothing on this cursed earth like Guttersnipe. For over 10 years they have whirled in a wiggliness both woebegone and wonderstruck on a mission of radical mutant exaltation using rock music weaponry loaded with a queer hysterical ammunition to rupture the fabric of the known Rock universe and unleash a tendril-soft hallucinatory violence; thrumming with the bracing vividness of insect bodies, crazed with alien synaesthetic emotions, harnessing jagged excoriating illogic as a face meltingly snazzy affront to redundant macho mediocrity with the hope to break minds, squeeze hearts, explode pelvises and maybe even reset the parameters of reality. Addendum: xenofeminist : proposing and creating a world defined not only by sexual/gender equality, queer empowerment and the toppling of the racist heteropatriarchal hegemony and it’s tyranny of phallogocentric signifiers, but a philosophy of radical queerness that explodes the basic notion of embodied existence itself beyond even the human, where we see bacteria, invertebrates, reptiles, marine life, animalia in general, inanimate objects, quantum phenomena and as yet inarticulated bodies and minds as social and political equals that may inspire and inform our concepts of self, feeling and meaning as we labour to build a collective reality that doesn’t completely suck!! crisis energy : a term borrowed from the weird fiction author china mieville to describe a type of extreme concentration of power which emerges when a system or organism is pushed to it’s absolute limit; the point of rupture, chaos, entropic overload, just before it all breaks apart. rock : Rock ’n’ Roll, rock music, the devil’s music, sex, guitar, drums, voice, rhythm, riffs!

An’archives presents 'sensitive', a new album, and the first solo vinyl release, by Japanese keyboardist and synth player, Mitsuhisa Sakaguchi. A deftly assembled suite of glistening electronic tonalities, 'sensitive' is the latest in a lengthy run of excellent, idiosyncratic albums by Sakaguchi. A low-key yet productive artist, Sakaguchi has released banks of solo titles via his own Bandcamp page, and is also an in-demand improvisor for electronics: see, for example, recent collaborations with Yoshiki Ichihara ('TO(R)RI INFRANTA', 'Ftarri', 2025), Tatsuhisa Yamamoto ('non equal mad', self-released, 2020), and the - trio with Yamamoto and Uchihashi Kazuhisa ('self-titled', Modern Obscure, 2023).

'sensitive' is a startling album for many reasons, not least its rich attention to detail. Sakaguchi’s ear is sensitized to the complexity of electronic sonority, something he’s developed through decades of performance and improvisation, though he’s not limited to that language. “I mainly use multiple synthesizers and process the sounds with effects,” he clarifies, detailing his approach to his music. “I also use a lot of acoustic sounds such as field recordings and percussion; sometimes I also use sounds such as prepared piano.”

Indeed, you can hear this see-sawing balance between the electronic and acoustic written across 'sensitive' – see the activated cymbals that twist and stutter through the first half of “metatoxic”, which are soon replaced by a similar stream of burbling synth-flow. The opening “sensitive rot” folds field recordings into Sakaguchi’s electronic kit to such a degree that the differing forms dissolve into each other; on “green shrine”, the field recordings are more present, yet still poetically framed, taken as they are “from the mountains of my hometown, Yawata City, Kyoto,” Sakaguchi explains.

The tender balance achieved by Sakaguchi as he moves between practices, tonalities and temporalities helps manifest the guiding conceptual force behind 'sensitive', where Sakaguchi explores a cleansing reverie. “What I wanted to portray with this album was to create an album of sounds that shattered and reassembled my current ‘sense’ and ‘toxins’,” he nods, “along with the ‘nature’ around me. Electronic sounds, our bodies, the environment around us, and nature all blend.”

From there, Sakaguchi attempts a transformation, or transmutation – an alchemical process of exchange. “I am attempting to explore whether it might be possible for the sounds to come closer to each other,” he concludes, “or perhaps even to interchange places.” On the five pieces that comprise 'sensitive', you can hear this fusing and exchange. Inhabiting similar spaces as the music of Nuno Canavarro, Asmus Tietchens, Omit, and other like-minded visionaries, 'sensitive' traverses curious, quixotic terrain between electronic composition, electro-acoustics, and improvisation.

DJ Support: BEN UFO, Solomun, Marco Carola, Damian Lazarus, Jamie Jones, Joseph Capriati, Ilaria Alicante, Michael Bibi, Paco Osuna, D'Julz, Groove Armada, Dennis Cruz, Chloe Caillet, Kettama and many more

Enzo Siragusa opens 2026 with his ‘Kilimanjaro Sound’ EP, a release that expands on last year’s standalone single. Marking both Enzo and FUSE’s first drop of the year, the EP delivers the latest instalment in his longstanding Kilimanjaro concept while reaffirming the label’s position at the heart of underground club culture.

Following the digital release of ‘Kilimanjaro Sound’ back in October, the full EP frames the title track within a broader narrative of rhythm, atmosphere, and movement. A long-time fixture in Enzo’s sets throughout 2025, the title track established itself as a fan favourite through its rolling percussion, weighty low-end, and expansive spatial design, and now it takes on renewed presence on vinyl. New cut ‘Liquify’ pushes deeper into Enzo’s rhythmic sensibilities, pairing fluid groove structures with subtle tension and release. Designed for late-night floors, the track unfolds patiently, allowing swing, texture, and space to do the heavy lifting. It’s a natural continuation of the Kilimanjaro language, less about immediacy, more about immersion, showcasing his refined understanding of how momentum is built and sustained in true club environments.

Completing the EP is a remix from Giammarco Orsini, whose Garage Dub Mix of ‘Kilimanjaro Sound’ offers a fresh perspective while remaining true to the original. Born in Italy and now based in Berlin, Orsini has quietly evolved into one of the scene’s most respected selectors and producers, with releases on Cragie Knowes, Mood Waves, and Shonky’s Stoned Pilot. His interpretation strips the track back to its essentials, reintroducing it through a garage-leaning lens that prioritises groove, swing, and subtle pressure.

As the first release following FUSE’s latest DJ Mag Best of British Award, marking their second Best Club Event win, the EP reflects the values that have long defined the brand: community, longevity, and music built for real dancefloors. Pressed to wax, the release extends one of Siragusa’s most recognisable concepts and sets the tone for the year ahead - measured, confident, and rooted in the underground.

To submit or to surrender? Robert Johnson resident Oskar Offermann doesn’t have the answers, and that’s kind of the point. Things change: one moment you’re touring the globe as a recognizable face of one of the greatest clubs in the world, the next you’ve started a new life as a teacher. How do you handle that shift? On this record, Offermann doesn’t offer solutions so much as trace his own way through it, reflecting the whole process in his music and creative work.

Whatever the story, whatever the case, Oskar Offermann can still produce some of the most emotive, bleepy, strange dance music out there and this 12 inch is the proof. Sonically and conceptually it leans into that precise, melancholic German school: at points drawing from 80s wave and experimental music, then flirting with trancey motifs and closing in divinely crafted breakbeat. In just four tracks it packs in a surprising amount of functional range, exactly what you’d expect from one of RJ’s longest-standing residents. The A- and B-sides mirror each other: they open at full intensity, tempos pushed well past the 130 BPM mark, easy to imagine ripping through a peak-time floor – and still both sides land on something far more personal and reflective.

Even inside a framework of high-intensity club tunes, Oskar’s character shines through loud and proud. Think the slightly disjarring yet melodically captivating winds in the middle of the B1 trance induced number “Accepting”, or the masterfully paced build of opener “Planet Interface”. The same goes for A2 “Televise Improvise” and B2 “Sei mal nur lieb”: on paper they should feel like breathers next to the two behemoths, but they don’t. Offermann crams so much substance and personality into them that they become quietly dangerous. There’s that magical mix of squelchy acid, rough low end and naturalistic melodies on B2, and the relentless emotional drive of A2 “Televise Improvise”. Oskar is really, really good at making dance music irresistible.

Character, skill and honesty in one record, meant for the attentive listener and the brave DJ. A rare combination nowadays, get it fast!

Underground mainstay and long-time melodic and progressive champion Guy Gerber is back on his own Rumors label with Every Time We Say Goodbye, a new EP that shows he continues to evolve his style without forgetting his signature.

Gerber has been a core part of the underground for years, heading the world's most revered clubs and festivals, bringing all new party concepts to Ibiza and serving up serene and synth heavy soundscape that move people physically and emotionally on labels like Cocoon, Italians Do It Better and of course Rumors.

Every Time We Say Goodbye (feat. Blanca) is light and melodic with shimmering pads and ethereal textures. Blanca’s treated vocals float effortlessly above rolling percussion and delicate synth melodies, delivering a warm, emotional energy that feels both modern and timeless.
The 18th Floor is a hypnotic journey built on dubby low-end grooves and fluid, meandering leads. Angelic, reverb-soaked vocal fragments drift through the mix, giving the track a dreamlike atmosphere that’s equally suited for peak-time or deeper, introspective moments.

On the flip is Under the same Moon, an introspective journey through deep emotion and atmospheric house. Under the same Moon is a sonic meditation, melancholic yet hopeful, with textures that evoke twilight memories and introspective dancefloor, lastly The Bigger Person takes a more laid-back approach, driven by warm guitar lines that showcase Guy’s instrumental finesse.

The electronic producer Franz Kirmann returns to Bytes for his eighth solo album. The “Almadies” are long wooden boats used by Senegalese fishermen. It is also the name of the neighborhood where Kirmann grew up, in the suburbs of Dakar, Senegal, near the Atlantic Ocean. "These new compositions are the result of sound experiments conducted over the past few months and reflections on the concept of mind-constructed geographies," Kirmann explains. "The way memories and souvenirs shape an image of a place or country that is part reality, part fantasy, part cliché, yet also deeply personal. This experience is influenced by education, social background, history, and other socio-economic factors. " The ten tracks are crafted from collages of electronic sounds blended with field recordings from various places Kirmann has visited — from Dakar to the Caribbean, as well as London and Paris. His aim is to blur the line between electronically generated sounds and real soundscapes, creating music where it becomes difficult to distinguish the real from the constructed. All the sounds on the album were produced using synthesizers and field recordings. No drum machines, percussion or traditional acoustic instruments were used. Influences include Brian Eno and John Hassell’s Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics (1980), described by Hassell as "a unified primitive/futuristic sound combining features of world ethnic styles with advanced electronic techniques" , which also works in the context of Almadies. Another big influence was Ariel Kalma’s Le Temps Des Moissons (1975) as well as artists including O Yuki Conjugate and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe to Susumu Yokota and Michael Banabila.

After a busy summer on the road, Silverlining launches Forgotten Chorus, a new imprint for deep, hypnotic and abstract body music. The idea was born at a festival, where low frequencies drifting through the natural filter of English woods prompted him to mentally fill the gaps of the higher registers. Three weeks later, he wrote ‘Salvaged Chimes (From the Rubble of Sound)’, an almost verbatim recreation of the track he’d imagined. For Silverlining, this moment of embracing discarded sound became emblematic of how overlooked voices, such as those of the oppressed and forgotten, can still resonate if we choose to listen differently.

This concept led to experimentation with flint-knapper John Lord and conceptual artist Antonia Beard, whose recordings he sampled of the ancient practice of striking flint, humanity's first technology. Those sounds were then cut and made into all the instruments, save for the TR-909, that comprise 'Attuned To Detune'. The EP’s lead track, ‘Folk Dust’, pushes high-tempo breakbeats through Silverlining’s own lens on UK broken techno, balancing raw energy with ethereal melodies.

Forgotten Chorus seeks to celebrate the beauty in sounds and stories that fall outside the dominant narrative. Its debut release, a fast-paced, three-track techno EP by Silverlining, embodies this spirit and marks another step in his evolving exploration of new sonic ground.

Avenue 66 opens Series 33 with a Düsseldorf–Lyon connection.
Jonquera first encountered Tolouse Low Trax a decade ago in a small Lyon club. That night, his hypnotic slow-motion set was cut short, yet it left a lasting imprint. The Düsseldorf artist’s mechanical psychedelia, and the influence of the Salon collective have been a constant touchstone for
Jonquera, even inspiring playful “Düsselcore” edits in his Tera Octe days.
After several LPs, Jonquera returns to the EP format with Cause & Utility / Tales of Decay. Built from improvised drum, bass, and vocal recordings, the tracks are reworked through heavy looping and acoustic treatment, a method inspired by his recent live shows. Cause & Utility revolves around the
abstract idea of two dogs as concepts, enriched by the earthy drone of a hurdy-gurdy. Tales of Decay paints a surreal image of a house losing its rooms like a body shedding parts.
The MPC sorcerer Tolouse Low Trax, aka Detlef Weinrich, brings his Düsseldorf circuitry and autobahn funk with two tracks of pure rhythm apparition. Amp is a quintessential Tolouse Low Trax cut, built on concealed rhythmic structures, swampy bass lines, and fragments of radio and voice
samples. The piece extends his exploration of how art can mirror the flow of inner-city traffic; drifting without a clear climax. Solid Rock echoes this idea, first conceived as a variation on Amp where particles repeat themselves. The result is distinct yet conceptually linked, evoking the
density of a crowded neighboring city: beginning in apparent disarray before locking into an abstract, hypnotic funk.
Series 33 begins with the convergence of Jonquera’s looping experiments and Tolouse Low Trax’s mechanical psychedelia, a dialogue between Lyon and Düsseldorf.

Men in Love is a collaborative concept album by Irvine Welsh and The Sci-Fi Soul Orchestra, exploring the complexities of love, relationships, and the human condition. The album blends classic Motown and disco influences with contemporary electronic dance production, creating a unique and powerful sound that is both nostalgic and fresh.

From soaring anthems to intimate ballads, Men in Love takes the listener on a journey through the highs and lows of romance, celebrating the power of connection, vulnerability, and the enduring search for love in a chaotic world.

The album will be released concurrently with Welsh's new novel, also titled Men in Love. The book is a sequel to Welsh's seminal work, Trainspotting, and continues the story of Renton, Sick Boy, Spud, Begbie, and other beloved characters. The album serves as a sonic companion to the novel, with its themes, lyrics, and musical atmosphere reflecting the experience and inner turmoil of its characters. The album also introduces The Sci-Fi Soul Orchestra, a unique musical entity with their own unique music releases in the pipeline

Mary Yuzovskaya unveils the 'The More You Know' remix EP on her vinyl-only Monday Off imprint, releasing 6th June 2025. Featuring reworks from Spain's ORBE, 90s US Techno legend Mike Parker, Judas Records' JUDAS, and Duna founder CONCEPTUAL.

First up, Token and Mote-Evolver artist and Orbe Records boss ORBE remixes 'Ittiologia', maintaining the original's hypnotism by amplifying its eerie soundscapes for a loopy, deep space trip. JUDAS, shrouded in mystery yet known for his self-released EPs on his eponymous label and releases on ARTS, then revisits 'Micologia', completely reworking its tripped-out sequences into short bursts of droning synth work.

Tresor, Semantica, and Prologue's Mike Parker also provides a version of 'Micologia', with the US Techno lynchpin slowing down its rhythm while its weighted synthlines bubble up between its kicks and rides. Closing out this remix package, Italy's CONCEPTUAL reworks 'Ittiologia', building tension via the original's dark and shadowy atmospheres but switching up its low-end for an electric, late-night feel.

Mary Yuzovskaya is a storyteller. Through delicate, masterful curation and a deep knowledge of experimental, trippy Techno, she weaves together sonic journeys - with 'The More You Know - Remixes' making for another excellent addition to her Monday Off label.

When you’re running a label, a demo occasionally comes across your desk that makes you reconsider everything you thought your label was all about. For Balmat, such was the case with this stunning album from Stephen Vitiello, Brendan Canty, and Hahn Rowe. It sounds like nothing we’ve released so far—and that very otherness opened up a whole new world of possibilities for us.

Fans of ambient, experimental electronic music, and sound art will be familiar with Vitiello, a New York native, long based in Virginia, who has collaborated with a cross-generational list of greats: Taylor Deupree, Steve Roden, Lawrence English, Tetsu Inoue, Nam June Paik, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Pauline Oliveros, and many more. On labels like 12k, Room40, and Sub Rosa, he has explored a wide range of minimalism, microsound, lowercase, ambient, improv, and other styles. But this album is something different. It may begin in ambient-adjacent territory, but it quickly veers off, and it just keeps zigzagging, taking on elements of krautrock, post-punk, dub, and the groove-heavy interplay of groups like Natural Information Society and 75 Dollar Bill.

This stylistic turn is thanks in large part to Vitiello’s choice of collaborators. “We’re coming from three different schools,” Vitiello says: “sound art, art rock, and punk rock.”

Active since the early 1980s, Rowe—a violinist, guitarist, and producer/engineer—has played with, or manned the boards for, a frankly jaw-dropping list of musicians: Herbie Hancock, Gil Scott-Heron, the Last Poets, Roy Ayers, John Zorn, Glenn Branca, Swans, Live Skull, Brian Eno, David Byrne, Anohni, R.E.M., Yoko Ono, and many more. But he might be most closely associated with Hugo Largo, a one-of-a-kind New York quartet—two basses, vocals, and Rowe’s violin—that in the late 1980s helped lay the groundwork for what would eventually become known as post-rock.

Canty, of course, is the legendary drummer of Fugazi, the visionary DC post-hardcore group, as well as Rites of Spring before them, and, currently, the Messthetics, a Dischord-signed instrumental trio with guitarist Anthony Pirog and Fugazi bassist Joe Lally.

Vitiello’s trio first collaborated on First, a 17-minute piece released on the Longform Editions label in 2023. Second picks up where the freeform drift of First left off, channeling the trio’s exploratory energies into more intentionally structured tracks and—in a real first for Balmat—some almost shockingly muscular grooves. “Sometimes my projects are more conceptually driven,” Vitiello says, “but I think this was more musically geared. I just wanted to open up the references and bring in an incredible drummer, bring in some melodies, and I’m sort of the center.” But his collaborators, he stresses, are “vastly creative in making anything I might suggest better.”

Like its predecessor, Second took shape in phases, shifting between improvisation and collage. Vitiello laid down the skeleton of the music at home, sketching out initial ideas on Rhodes keyboard and acoustic and electric guitar; he then fed the parts through samplers and his modular system, recording 10- or 20-minute jams. Once he had edited them into more structured forms, he hit the studio with Canty, who added not just drums but also bass and piano; finally, Vitiello took the results of those sessions to Rowe, who played violin, viola, electric bass, and 12-string acoustic and bowed electric guitar, and assisted in some of the final structuring and mixdown.

A few more surprises along the way: Reanimator’s Don Godwin, the studio engineer where Vitiello recorded with Canty, contributed what he calls “resonant dustpan”; and none other than Animal Collective’s Geologist, who just happened to be in the studio that day, sits in on hurdy gurdy on “Mrphgtrs1,” the album’s gorgeous, stunningly atmospheric drone closer. “I love these chance encounters,” Vitiello says. “Somebody I admire, a group I admire—that was an unexpected gift.”

An unexpected gift is a great way of describing Second as a whole: three veteran musicians venturing outside their usual zones and finding a new collaborative language together. The results can’t be neatly slotted into any given genre; they belong not to any given category, but to the spirit of conversation itself.

Following on from the celebrated first instalment, the second part of The Male Body Will Be Next compiles an entourage of daring sonic experiments, composed in response to bell hooks’ landmark book The Will to Change. Prompting artists and musicians to envision cross-gender solidarity, Osàre! Editions founder Elena Colombi presents an enrapturing, narrative album, conceptualised around collective transformation.

Resonating with hooks’ challenge to men to reclaim the sensitivity that patriarchy denies them, the name of the record arises from a photograph by Peter de Potter and Rebecca Salvadori’s film of the same title. In these depictions, naked flesh is exposed, made vulnerable and trembles with emotion as the fragility of masculine bodies are examined through the queer and female oppositional gaze. Transforming this visual language into musical expression, The Male Body Will Be Next swirls with punk vitriol, electrified noise, acid, electro and free-wheeling encounters charged by love, lust and limerence.

Gently plunking chords signal Pose Diva’s reimagining of lover’s rock before Sissy Fuss smashes in with a heavy-weight instrumental version of their erotic anthem ‘No Restraint’.
Made up of Turkish musician Etkin Çekin and Belarussian songstress Galina Ozeran, God is God delivers a gentle lullaby, while Low End Activist flirts with dark and brooding bass, shattering penetrating frequencies into luminous fragments. Riffing off the 2020 documentary about female early electronica pioneers, Loma Doom crafts a slowly oscillating drone zenith, the ultimate climax. In line with the conceptual underpinning, there are plenty of collaborations – Daytripper’s Riva and Sitar player Tommy Khosla, Lebanonese experimentalist N R and Swiss-French producer John Silvestre (AKA Typhon), as well as Colombi herself and trans author/activist Juno Roche. Within these partnerships, new modalities come alive as mediums, practices and perspectives are ignited and pushed in otherworldly, metamorphic directions.

DJ Support: Jamie Cullum (BBC Radio 2), Huey Morgan (BBC Radio 6), Gilles Peterson (BBC Radio 6), Deb Grant (New Music Fix, BBC Radio 6)

On debut album ‘While I'm Distracted’, London-based New Zealander Arjuna Oakes draws inspiration from contemporary soul and jazz, touches of global folk, electronica, modern classical, and post-rock, with dynamic arrangements and production. ‘While I'm Distracted’ is an album about fighting for your innocence and right to be a vulnerable and honest human. Arjuna’s songwriting explores themes of identity, depression, existentialism, social media, loss of innocence, and finding hope for the future through artistic expression.

'I'm obsessed with albums,' says Arjuna. 'I've made seven EPs, but needed time to tackle a full length record. I was using the EPs to learn the craft of how to make a great album, much like a director will make short films before they make a feature. I wanted to take the listener on a journey and spark their imagination. Hopefully the album expresses complex emotions, rather than having an intellectual concept. I'd rather ask questions than answer them'.

Across the album, Arjuna performs vocals, piano, keyboards, synths, production, and wrote the string arrangements. He’s joined by Harrison Scholes on bass, Jo Jenkins and Andre Smith on guitar, Sam Notman on drums, Louisa Williamson on saxophone, Nathan Haines on flute, Kate King on french horn, Leah Thomas on clarinet, Hilary Hayes and Emma Colligan on violin, Chris Van Der Zee on viola, Charley Davenport on cello, Zane Hawkins on percussion, James Macewan on trumpet, and additional production by Callum Mower.

Motion Detection is the first release of Atlanta–based VOSK Records. Founded by DJ and producer Andrey Ter–Grigorian aka Mawn Lower, the label aims to provide high–quality electronic music on vinyl that is unbound by genres and stylistic constraints yet shares a unified approach to sound with a strong emphasis on concept in every release. The EP explores themes of emerging from an concealed, invisible state under constant surveillance and consists of 4 tracks produced at different times over the span of 10 years.

FOXBAM INC is back to build on the momentum of their first EP with a second one that packs a mighty punch. This one kicks off with EBY, who this year has been cooking up acid for 40 years and here offers the warped low ends and garage-techno power of 'Goldtooth'. Foxtrot vs Ma Bla then mashes up old school samples with earth-shattering bass on 'Deep Down Inside' and bRz vs Stije is a double-time hard techno stomper with warped synths and twisted bass that is inspired by and named after ISCO, a concept from Einstein's general theory of relativity that makes predictions about the dynamics of black holes.

The discography of the phantom Gruppo Sound exceeds over thirty titles published in an undefined time frame between the Eighties and the Nineties. However, there is very little information about this curious pseudonym. it is possible to find a library music album by Gruppo Sound inside the Canopo, Deneb, Flower, Monosound Records and Teams catalogues, all managed by Flipper Music publishing group, but both the creators and the musicians have never been the same. Gruppo Sound is only a collective name, maybe to identify a certain number of 'new' productions characterized by an electronic background And, not by chance, the author of “New York City” is a single artist, the multi-instrumentalist Gabriele Ducros. Son of the prolific composer Remigio Ducros, he first followed his footsteps in the field of music libraries and soundtracks and then become the author of many tracks for television commercials of a certain relevance, winning some international awards.

“Some of these tracks may have been associated with a pornographic film. Others were, however, made as brief comments for a theatrical show, perhaps never made”, remembers Gabriele Ducros. What unites the thirteen pieces is the same musical language, which derives from a widespread funk and jazz matrix. Both genres are thus declined through a different approach and taste, in line with the fusion trends of the time, when the early synthesizers were used by few artists. A handful of electric guitar notes for a 'urban' mood, the acoustic ones from a dreamy morning awakening. Electronic keyboards to arouse a sense of nostalgia in the listener, while flute and saxophone always punctuate different atmospheres. A computer melody, a theme for children and a sophisticated ode to the fusion sound of the Big Apple, perhaps true source of ispiration of the work. “New York City” is not a concept album, but one of the best cross-sections of Gabriele Ducros' great creativity.

Danieli presents his new ep on Alpenglühen.
Berglüster is an emotional high-concept EP with 4 tracks that work well together or individually.

The artist from Aachen, owner of whispering signals, transports us into his sonic realm and offers us probably his most mature and honest work to date.

Berglüster is not typical club music, we actually found ourselves facing contemplative lab techno.
The hazy atmospheres, the lowpassed kickdrums and the cinematic pads reminds of the golden years of intelligent dub techno but with a more sophisticated and modern approach.
Those who love the music of Deepchord, GAS or Porter Ricks will find here a delight to be added to their collection.

As usual, this is an only vinyl release. 200 copies pressed.

Wisdom Teeth co-founder K-LONE returns with his second full length project, ‘Swells’: a kaleidoscopic and expansive record that looks to deep house, synthpop, leftfield R&B and beyond for a spellbinding masterwork of melodic electronica.

His debut LP ‘Cape Cira’ became the accidental soundtrack of the long strange summer of 2020 - its lush marimbas, hazy atmos and synthesised bird calls providing the ideal soundtrack for some much needed collective escapism. The record was widely deemed one of 2020’s standout electronic LPs, gaining glowing reviews in Pitchfork, DJ Mag, Mixmag and Resident Advisor, and ranking highly in end of year lists by Crack Magazine.

Approaching its follow up, the Brighton-based producer felt a fresh perspective was needed. Originally landing on the name ‘Swells’ as a secret pen-name to write the record under, the intention was to keep the project as separate as possible from ‘Cape Cira’ to avoid settling into familiar territories - but as the record took shape it became clear that it made perfect sense amongst his already diverse discography.

Like ‘Cape Cira’, there is a distinct and intentionally limited sound palette at play on ‘Swells’. Looping vocal cuts, rich cluster chords and undulating arpeggios sit front and centre here - as does the lo-fi plonk of of the CR78 drum machine. But while the record clearly takes influence from a range of vintage sound sources, its overall aesthetic is unmistakably contemporary. Sounds are not artificially degraded nor obscured under washes of sampled tape hiss. Rather, everything is processed with a gloss, hi-fidelity sheen. The record’s rhythms are bright, dry and snappy, and its melodies are processed with a neon poppy glow.

The producer’s unabashed love of contemporary pop music is most obviously exemplified by the appearance of British singer-songwriter Eliza Rose. The pair met for a session at a North London studio back in 2021, and the now Brit Award-nominated singer’s warm, emotive vocal takes became an immediate source of inspiration early in the record’s conception. As such, Rose’s voice is heard in various states of manipulation throughout its duration - initially as reduced and looped phrases, and then finally in full form on ‘With U’: a low-lit, dubbed-out slice of leftfield R&B that beckons comparisons with Tirzah, Little Dragon and even Erykah Badu.

Elsewhere, there are references to G-Funk (‘Oddball’), Autonomic drum and bass (‘Shimmer’), hip-house (‘Love Is’) and even Metronomy-era electro pop (‘Love Me A Little’).

As always, the true magic of K-LONE’s artistry is to present complex, subtle and original ideas in ways that feel familiar and immediate. Melodies are introduced as effortless earworms, only to be twisted out of shape into strange and unusual formulations. Looping rhythms unspool into washes of hazy, dubbed-out ambience before rebuilding themselves. Refined and endlessly creative, ‘Swells’ marks a captivating next step for a producer and record label that have both reliably positioned themselves at the very forefront of contemporary electronic music.

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever return in 2022 with Endless Rooms, the Melbourne quintet's third album proper. Described by the band - comprised of Fran Keaney, Joe White, Marcel Tussie and brothers Tom Russo and Joe Russo - as them "Doing what we do best: chasing down songs in a room together", Endless Rooms stands as a testament to the collaborative spirit and live power of RBCF. While initial ideas were traded online during long spells spent separated by lockdowns, the album was truly born during small windows of freedom in which the band would decamp to a mud-brick house in the bush around 2hrs north of Melbourne built by the extended Russo family in the 1970s. There, its 12 tracks took shape, informed to such an extent by the acoustics and ambience of the rambling lakeside house that they decided to record the album there. The house also features on the album cover. For the first time, the band self-produced the record (alongside engineer, collaborator and old friend, Matt Duffy), creating their most naturalistic and expansive document yet. The result is a collection of songs permeated by the spirit of the place; punctuated by field recordings of rain, fire, birds, and wind. "It's almost an anti-concept album," say the band. "The 'endless rooms' of the title reflects our love of creating worlds in our songs. We treat each of them as a bare room to be built up with infinite possibilities."

tested 'Then After' EP by New York duo Wild Dark.
'...Stemming from a partnership with two decades of experience behind them, Wild Dark takes on contemporary song-writing and gives it a unique, thoughtful, modern-take using a wide spectrum of electronic music to tell a story. The duo, comprised of brothers Corey & Ryan Negrin, stray from cold digital samples in favour of a warmer approach to writing music. This allows them to merge house, techno and natural vocal work into a cohesive concept that uses soulful yet charming songwriting to nurture a sophisticated palate of contemporary work...'
Then After EP includes two tracks featuring Alex Who 'When we first met Alex there was chemistry off the bat. With inspiration of being young and free, the lyrics and vibe to "Why Not"came together with ease. As the production progressed, the darker tribal elements came to life.
We wanted this track to resonate with the free spirited. This track tends to be a favorite of night.
"Born By The River", A Happy Mistake. The vocals, the elements, the soul, all stemmed from animpromptu recording and this beauty was born. With a list of organic household recordings,accompanied by a warm low end, we aimed to create a track that defied all genres.
"Talky Talkie" is the most club oriented track of the EP, with a persistent groove and synth elements that work perfectly on the dancefloor.
"I'll Wait" brings our bohemian flavour to shine, a track that's comfortable being played anywherefrom Burning Man, lost in the desert to the deep warehouses of Brooklyn's underground.
The digital release will include a special remix by Superlounge, a German duo known for their smooth house vibes. This is a must have release, available first on the label's shop online;

t r u e C o l o r s
A Brooklyn / London based record label that channels artist's most honest version of their
creations and shares it with the world through vinyl and digital platforms.

Remastered limited edition double vinyl with double-sided screenprinted poster-cover (sleeve folds out to be one huge poster). A real collectors item!

When Off Off came out around June 1984, one couldn’t speak of an independent music scene in Portugal. Warm Records’ vague existence didn’t have any impact and Dansa do Som’s inaugural release appeared only in December. 10 years after the revolution, after two IMF interventions, a lot of political instability (not to say turmoil, in the first couple of years) and the natural excesses of a sudden burst of freedom, the Portuguese consumer had more choices but a generally poor standard of living. There was no entrepreneurial culture and serious second thoughts about investing private money in risky ventures.

After many complaints about the whole music scene (institutions, critics and record label executives, popular and classical music alike), something that would continue well beyond the end of the decade, Telectu decided to finance, record, produce, release and sell an album with complete independence from outside structures. Their karmic reward was profit. According to Vítor Rua, Off Off was the only album fully payed by the duo and the only one that really payed off. Not an easy accomplishment for a double LP housed in a large (also double-sided) screenprint with complicated cuts and folds. The artwork was conceived by António Palolo, a friend and multidisciplinary artist. It was based on a collage of heavily saturated and xeroxed polaroids framed in shocking pink and green. Palolo was considered the third member of Telectu, regularly producing slides, video and other visual support for their shows. The inspiration for the type of cover came from GRM’s Gramme series.

Off Off is divided in four distinct sides, each one corresponding to a “theme” or “function” related to Telectu’s manifold artistic interests and interactions. The titles are also gateways to influences and a small portion of Portuguese cultural life:

- Side 1 / “Diagonale” is dedicated to Egídio Álvaro, art critic and gallery director (he opened Diagonale in Paris). Performance art was arguably his main artistic concern over the years, so the music on this side is suggested for use by one or more performers in live or playback situations. The three tracks segue into each other, linked by a synth arpeggio much in the same way as Telectu’s previous “Belzebu” álbum (1983);

- Side 2 / “Anarké” is dedicated to the composer Filipe Pires, one of Jorge Lima Barreto’s recurring invocations when asked about worthwhile contemporary music in Portugal. It is subtitled “concert music”, proposing «a new form of listening». Three tracks also, and these are separated by “clap interludes”, which basically consisted in the following: JLB and VR each had a pair of headphones on, and they clapped their hands according to the rhythm of the music each one was listening. Both musicians were interacting with a different Steve Reich piece: Vítor with “Music for Mallet Instruments”, Jorge with “Six Pianos”. The result is disjointed clapping, an awkwardly deliberate celebration of their own music. Telectu applauded themselves.

- Side 3 / “Cornucópia” is subtitled “music for theatre” and dedicated to Luís Miguel Cintra and Luís Lima Barreto (JLB’s brother), both connected to the Cornucópia theatre company. The side consists of several short pieces previously used as interludes in the Cornucópia staging of “Mariana Espera Casamento” (1983). Field recordings, mood pieces, ambience and a numeric poem (“Soneto Soma 14x”, by E.M. de Melo e Castro) read by João Perry, a quite well-known stage actor. His voice is treated with a flanger effect;

- Side 4 / “Palolo” is “video music”. It’s a one-take mix recorded from cassette sources (Telectu studio experiences) and done live while watching António Palolo’s Om film (1978) projected on the living room wall. It’s a deep, immersive, quasi-mystical 20-minute piece perfectly suiting the meditative, abstract, fluid images created by Palolo by mixing paint and water inside a bathtub. One imagines the Cosmos, hardly suspecting the technique. The film is 90 minutes long, so the music on the LP is of course edited.

The six titles on sides 1 and 2 evoke demons, all of them with conflicting symbolism, since it varies from culture to culture, religion to religion. No explanation is given and Vítor Rua has no idea where this imagery comes from. During virtually the whole stretch of the 1980s, Jorge was the one in charge of titles and concepts, and Vítor didn’t bother too much even reading the liner notes :) In any case, when you synchronize the listening experience with the imagery, a powerful impression emerges, a feeling of being in the presence of these entities while placing yourself inside the sonic narrative.

Off Off is undoubtedly a seminal album in the history of electronic music, as much Heldon as Fripp & Eno, jazz and American minimalism, cosmic out-thereness, mantric miniatures. Telectu at the height of their powers, still very early on, delivering an album-manifesto advocating intermedia art and the fierce independence of Portuguese musicians «from the scum of capitalist music industry monopolies. It’s a path to follow, albeit one that requires enduring hardships and retaliation from music industry gangsters.» Despite a few journalists deemed «capable of being free», the media are «enslaved by the dominant and fascist imbecility of the speculators of light music.» Off Off is addressed to those journalists «and to an audience angry at the cultural misery imposed upon us ..., certain that this music will open new horizons of musical pleasure in the conception of Portuguese avant-garde music, and in the open consciousness of us all. OFF OFF repeats Freedom.»

Those two words are a direct lift from Alberto Arbasino’s 1968 book Off Off, the basis of which is a critical analysis of Theodor Adorno’s and Dwight MacDonald’s ideas concerning the stratification of culture in different levels (high, mid and low) and the pervasiveness of mass culture in the form of a culture industry. In very simplistic terms, and that is precisely the point that inspired Jorge, Arbasino argued that it was possible and desirable to effect a revolution from below, cultivating alternative circuits completely cut-off from what he termed the in-in reality. Telectu’s record was a deliberate demonstration that it could be done, displaying Freedom in the face of all the gatekeepers and other human obstacles.

The Comfort enters the double digits of its catalogue with the label’s most ambitious release to date by Saudi Arabian artist Noboot, titled “Call and Pulsate”.

Fluid in genre yet wholeheartedly electro in spirit, Noboot’s creative output shapeshifts across the record: from four-to-the-floor acid-tinged propulsion to time-freezing illuminations, with neon-coloured synths, body-twisting low ends and piercing drum hits mutating throughout the album, and often within the tracks themselves.

Noboot’s capacity for sonic manipulation is on full display here with the pieces moving with a captivating direction and command. Sometimes gentle, sometimes dramatic, but always carried with a particular elegance and poise. To listen to the record from start to finish is to step into Noboot’s own conceptual world, one in which the artist has the confidence to take floor-oriented dance music and elevate it both in spirit and form.

There is composure and ambition in this approach. Tracks move the listener from one emotional state to another in the span of six minutes: not merely teasing transformation, but by fully taking the listener there. To deliver on that ambition requires control and idiosyncratic intuition. If “Desolated Delay” and “Timer Set” are striking examples of Noboot’s capacity for propulsion, “Meter Tired” shows the other side of their talent: the ability to make time feel briefly suspended in a weightless flux of cybernetic psychedelia.

To achieve this once or twice would already be impressive. To sustain it across an album of this scale is rare in electronic dance music, and makes The Comfort’s tenth release a defining moment in the label’s catalogue.

This is a concept record that reflects on events that have had a calculable effect on a generation:
‘’By 83 and 84, it felt that nuclear war was going to happen. Not could happen but was going to.’’
Stephen Brotherstone
"What would you do in the event of a Nuclear war?"
I remember having discussions about what we would do when we heard the four minute warning siren. We would raid the sweet shop. I was 8 or 9 years old. The absurdity of this vivid memory encapsulates the concept of the record. It would take at least four minutes to get to the shop!
The record starts with an early memory of circling a church on a Raleigh Budgie (the smaller lesser known iconic Chopper bicycle) in 1981 and ends with staring up at a clear sky on Oldham Lows in 1990.
The record identifies and plays with the effects of an underlying fear of oblivion on a generation of children, but also society as a whole: The pieces take in media and government propaganda. Machinery (nuclear submarines) and buildings (nuclear bunkers) but also everyday activities of the civilian population, activities such as shopping, clubbing and staring at the sky. Thematically, the record is made up of personal memories mixed with historical events.
Instruments are mainly from 1980s. DX7 and 808 feature predominantly. The pieces feature numerous melodic motifs that develop and intertwine underlying ideas of espionage and layers of secret messaging. It also mirrors the ways in which governments and civilians interact. Decisions being made in the name of defence whilst people go about their daily lives. I am exploring the everyday experiences of the masses whilst major political decisions are taking place. For example, shopping on a Saturday afternoon versus heated Cold War tensions in 1983.
Although taking place conceptually in the years 1979-1991, this record mirrors current events. History repeating. It also mirrors the helplessness or maybe some oblivious everyday normality state that we adopt as a community whilst major political decisions are being made.
The idea that life goes on oblivious to larger scale politics, or on the other hand, the idea that we are all very aware but in a state of unreal normality. Adam Curtis goes into great detail about such things in his film 'Hyper Normalisation'.

Dawuna’s latest mixtape is a muted hypnagogic R&B tour de force, pieced together while recovering from a traumatic head injury.

For »African Family Laptop Musick«, I was healing from a traumatic head injury that gave me a later amnesia diagnosis, so I don’t remember more than a couple small flashes of memory from the recording/construction of this project. I know I wanted to make a low-fidelity concept piece about my family life at the time, compositionally simple, but necessarily abstracted. This is the last lil offering from a very personal side of myself before I give y’all something big. Enjoy. – Dawuna