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High Focus Records are proud to present the latest collaboration from Verb T & Illinformed. ‘Stranded in Foggy Times’ both continues and completes the trilogy that began back in 2015, with ‘The Man with the Foggy Eyes’, before broadening the horizons with last year’s release ‘The Land of the Foggy Skies’. This final chapter returns to the same conceptual landscape as its predecessors, but also sees Verb T & Illinformed returning to a more classic approach to album making. In spite of its concept, the Foggy Trilogy is something of a personal outpouring for Verb T, with the original aim being to vicariously discuss the trials and tribulations that play a part in his life, including his struggles with chronic illness and the feeling of alienation from leaving his hometown, while also reflecting on the state of the world as a whole. Their approach to making the album meant taking it back to the most natural form, where the idea for the track would be outlined, Illinformed would make the beat, Verb T would write to it and then they would tweak and adjust accordingly. The result is 19 of the most finely crafted tracks to emerge from the UK shores this year. As with the previous albums, ‘Stranded in Foggy Times’ finds Illinformed moving away from the more rugged sound that has shrouded the British scene over the last few months, thanks to his collaborations with the likes of Datkid and Wish Master, instead providing Verb T with an arguably more mellow backdrop. From the string and piano driven introduction on ‘Legacy’, to the blissful head-nod vibes of the closing track, ‘Blind Faith’, the union between beats and rhymes sits at the perfect level. The album also boasts one of the most impressive guestlists of the year, one that is very much a product of both players’ worlds. Thanks to Illinformed’s Bristol connection, there are features from the likes of Res One, Datkid, Leaf Dog, Smellington Piff and Chillman, as well as some locally sourced cuts from DJ Rogue. While on Verb T’s side of the fence, we have features from Rye Shabby and Moreone, along with a collaboration that reignites the same creative spark he found in his early days, as King Kashmere steps into the booth on Feeling Strange. All in all, ‘Stranded in Foggy Times’ does exactly what it sets out to do, by drawing the trilogy to a close while also providing insights into Verb T’s personal world and the world at large. The fact that it also happens to be one of the strongest rap albums of the year is the icing on the cake

In an engrossing lattice of polyrhythmic beat science and deep atmospheric meditation, Samurai Music is thrilled to welcome Marco Shuttle to the fold for the Sumud EP.

Since his early years locked into the 00s London techno scene, Marco Sartorelli has developed as an artist entirely on his own terms. Through the rush of new ideas and cross-pollination that has characterised cutting-edge techno over the past 20-odd years, Sartorelli has travelled as Marco Shuttle from one considered stylistic concept to the next. On his own Eerie label and across expansive releases for respected outposts such as Spazio Disponibile, Incensio and Astral Industries, he's taken an exploratory approach to rhythm and spatial design while always drawing on intentional thematic frameworks, creating distinctive and immersive dance music in the process.

As Samurai Music continues to celebrate the rich seams of inspiration where deep techno and drum & bass intersect, Sartorelli's malleable, mysterious strain of drum work fits right in and sets a captivating tone for the label's operations in 2026. 'Sumud' is a steely drum mantra dealing in fractured patterns with the primal patina of the early Artificial Intelligence era, while 'Las Dunas de Taroa' leans on gently pulsing melancholia undulating at a half-time pace. 'Iso 50' taps into raw, analogue minimalism once more, evoking the sound of Roman Flugel's Ro70 records in their icy, alien formation. Completing the set, we're guided towards the tense electronica of 'Polylayering What I've Got', where uneasy melodic chimes interlock with intricately programmed drum machines.

There's a distinct sense of golden-era, mid-90s electronica coursing through Sumud EP, but Sartorelli shrouds the classic tools at his disposal in his subtle signature atmospherics, pushing towards a plain of expression that transcends time.

Are You Alien's first vinyl missive, a compilation style affair showcasing the work of four label affiliated artists, is genuinely packed to the rafters with cuts designed to be played loud on "deep dancefloors and late-night transmissions". HearThuG kicks things off with 'Relax', a post-punk/dark disco inspired slab of early morning hedonism inspired by DFX's 'Relax Your Body' (which itself borrowed heavily from the KLF's 'What Time Is Love'), before Light Blue File charges towards darkened warehouses on the tactile tech-house/stab-happy rave fusion of 'Guante El En Mic'. Over on side B, Briki opts for squelchy acid bass, trippy vocal snippets and spacey sounds on 'Droppin The Pressure', before Ahmet Mecnun adds spoken word vocals and French Touch flourishes to a deep tech-house groove.

Side A begins with CEM3340 & 2030’s “I Don’t Know”, a Detroit-inspired electro cut merging crunchy basslines, warm strings and raw energy, showcasing the nostalgic yet forward-thinking music crafted by two key figures of the Italian electro underground. Lake Haze keeps the electro narrative moving with “Modular Processed Data”, a melancholic broken-beat piece that balances softness and strength with timeless poise. Closing the side, 3KZ unveils “Step Into Light”, pushing the emotional range further through radiant melodic layers and harmonic clarity: high-impact, luminous, and built for those rare moments on a big system when everything clicks.

The journey ends with three shape-shifting cuts on the B Side that refuse to play it safe. Passarani 2099 (an alias of Marco Passarani) warps the frame with “Golden Valley”, channeling dubstep tempo, neuro-basslines, and haunting sequences into mutant rhythmic territory. Peryl’s “Res Affair” follows as a modular techno bomb—wobbling bass, broken patterns, alien textures, riding the edge between chaos and control with surgical intent. Finally, Nothus closes the compilation with “Tango”, an uncompromising finale of gritty rhythm work and experimental propulsion: the perfect full-stop to a decade mapped in sound.

Somewhere between krautrock, noise rock, decaying psychedelia, and pagan proto-punk, Dééfait makes music like one performs a ritual: in trance, on repeat, and without a safety net. From the chaotic arteries of Mexico City to the basement venues of the Paris suburbs, Dééfait sculpts noise rock in apnea. Their self-titled debut EP is a noise rite: a wall of guitars, incantatory percussion, and possessed voices. With Dééfait, sound twists, repeats, stretches, until exhaustion and ecstasy. Formed in 2023, Dééfait brings together the Valero brothers (Lucas on guitar / Pablo, ex-Pays P, on drums), Enir Da (bass - Temir Alcy, Dali Muru & the Polyphonic Swarm), Grégoire Couvert (guitar), and Riki Lara, a Mexican-born vocalist and performer whose lyrics _ chanted, whispered, shouted _ alternate in three languages: English, Spanish, and French. Active on the Paris underground scene since 2024 (La Mécanique Ondulatoire, Le Cirque Électrique, Nouveaux Sauvages_), Dééfait imposes a ritual tension, physical, almost hallucinatory. No choruses to hum along to, no comforting melodies _ just a dense sonic flow that seeps and vibrates. This debut EP, set for release in December 2025 on Ici, d'ailleurs (Zëro, Matt Elliott, Bruit Noir_), lines up six long tracks resembling pagan litanies. Six extended pieces forming a possessed monologue, as if a camera had been slipped inside a burning body. Everything pants. Everything overflows. From We Love Each Other So Much That We Won't Belong To Any Species Anymore, love exceeds expected forms and becomes an organic pact, a ritual of species departure: "Cut me like you want, in bloom your fire," "We scratch consanguinity / We don't belong to any species anymore." It quickly suggests a call to ecstasy, to trance. The EP as a whole navigates unstable zones where desire, sacrifice, and alienation entwine like serpents on acid. Molokh 8 chants an offering to a carnivorous deity, between severed tongue and chemical body. In Bondbondbond, voices entangle, seek each other in a delirious, sensual chiaroscuro where pleasure derails into compulsion. It's a dogma-free ceremony, a game of inverted masks. Alether _ a live-explosive track and perhaps the most powerful of this first project _ shatters frameworks: convulsive dancing, possessed rhythms drowned by waves of guitar. Finally, Ferreri, cook for us closes the EP as a dark farce: a deviant homage to Italian filmmaker Marco Ferreri, the track chews and regurgitates words as if digesting an overfed world. Recorded in the chaos of DIY and mixed as a raw work, the record captures Dééfait's electric discharge in its purest state. The sound is dirty, visceral, possessed. Think Terminal Cheesecake, Boredoms, Nick Cave-era Birthday Party on acid, but also CAN impaled on an autopsy table, or a Giallo under a strobe light_ Yet it emerges as a singular work.

Outdom Records returns with another dose of uncompromising underground material on wax. For its ninth vinyl release, Outdom presents: Latent & Retrolog, none other than the founders of the label themselves, for a special split EP: “Vertigo EP”.

Across four carefully crafted cuts, Latent & Retrolog deliver a record designed for adventurous dancefloors: sharp rhythm science, low-end pressure and mind-bending textures, all wrapped in a distinctly raw, UK-influenced and analog spirit.

A record for selectors who like their dancefloors groovy, unpredictable, quirky and slightly dangerous.

In an engrossing lattice of polyrhythmic beat science and deep atmospheric meditation, Samurai Music is thrilled to welcome Marco Shuttle to the fold for the Sumud EP.

Since his early years locked into the 00s London techno scene, Marco Sartorelli has developed as an artist entirely on his own terms. Through the rush of new ideas and cross-pollination that has characterised cutting-edge techno over the past 20-odd years, Sartorelli has travelled as Marco Shuttle from one considered stylistic concept to the next. On his own Eerie label and across expansive releases for respected outposts such as Spazio Disponibile, Incensio and Astral Industries, he's taken an exploratory approach to rhythm and spatial design while always drawing on intentional thematic frameworks, creating distinctive and immersive dance music in the process.

As Samurai Music continues to celebrate the rich seams of inspiration where deep techno and drum & bass intersect, Sartorelli's malleable, mysterious strain of drum work fits right in and sets a captivating tone for the label's operations in 2026. 'Sumud' is a steely drum mantra dealing in fractured patterns with the primal patina of the early Artificial Intelligence era, while 'Las Dunas de Taroa' leans on gently pulsing melancholia undulating at a half-time pace. 'Iso 50' taps into raw, analogue minimalism once more, evoking the sound of Roman Flugel's Ro70 records in their icy, alien formation. Completing the set, we're guided towards the tense electronica of 'Polylayering What I've Got', where uneasy melodic chimes interlock with intricately programmed drum machines.

There's a distinct sense of golden-era, mid-90s electronica coursing through Sumud EP, but Sartorelli shrouds the classic tools at his disposal in his subtle signature atmospherics, pushing towards a plain of expression that transcends time.

More unknown artist business from the Only Music Matters crew and it's a case of more essential minimal across three fresh cuts. The first manages to pair the sort of drive you need to keep you locked with some swirling, heady pads that encourage letting your mind wander. After that full-sided odyssey, 'BBB001B' stars the flip with tighter, more rubbery drums and bass and alien sounds weaving in and out. 'BBB002B' shuts down with some tech-y loops and a little more menace and mischief in the clipped vocals and wispy synth modulations.

Hot Creations latest Vinyl Sampler featuring four of the Hottest recent release on Hot Creations.

Fresh off his Paradise debut with ‘Way U Move’ alongside Jamie G, Manchester’s Goosey steps up solo on Jamie Jones’ Hot Creations with ‘Funky Shit’ featuring Dope Earth Alien, with wobbly subbass
pulses and Dope Earth Alien’s catchy vocals, sweeping you into a full-body groove!

Murphy’s Law return to Jamie Jones’ Hot Creations, joined by label debutant Sam Curran and Harry Unsworth,on the collaborative banger, ‘Proper Whopper’. ‘Proper Whopper’ brings booming low-end that demand attention while soaring sirens and charismatic vocals build the track’s energy and pave the way for a thundering bassline to command dancefloors.

London-based DJ/producer Sidney Charles is back on Hot Creations with ‘Disco Bumping,’ a slick House cut that blends Aleya Mae’s lush vocals with Sidney’s warping sonic textures and immersive synth work.

Brazilian nocapz delivers the huge anthem ‘Getting Heard’, driving forward with quick, bouncy
beats and heavy synths that build a wave of intensity to the dancefloor.

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?

Imagine it’s 1987.

The neon is glowing, the lasers are cutting through the smoke, and space synth is ruling the dancefloors. Laserdance just dropped their groundbreaking album “Future Generation.” Tracks like “Power Run” and “Humanoid Invasion” are setting clubs on fire, and every bedroom producer dreams of reaching that cosmic perfection.

And in this athmosphere Spacehawk appears shining like an alien spaceship.

Behind the name Spacehawk stands Swedish producer Anton Eriksson, a modern-day craftsman of analog dreams. In his vast studio, packed with vintage synths and drum machines, Anton creates electronic masterpieces so authentic, so rich in melody and power, that even Michiel van der Kuy himself, the godfather of the genre, decided to collaborate with him.

The result? “Space Patrol” – a landmark single that bridges generations of synth lovers.

On the A-side, you’ll find Anton’s stunning original version, pulsating, melodic, and bursting with energy. Flip it over, and you get a remix by Michiel van der Kuy that feels like a time warp straight back to the golden age of Italo-space glory.

“Space Patrol” has it all: soaring melodies, driving basslines, hypnotic rhythm, and that unmistakable intergalactic energy that makes you feel like you’re racing through the stars.

Fans of Laserdance, Rygar, Koto, Syntech, and all things van der Kuy will instantly recognize the DNA of true space synth excellence here.

To top it all off the single comes on a bright yellow vinyl, housed in a stunning retro-futuristic sleeve that looks like it beamed in straight from 1980s sci-fi.

It’s not just a release. It’s a revival.

And if space synth runs through your veins, this is one you simply can’t ignore.

The White Chief project has been defined by her creator as the background character for self_sabotage deconstruction. Deeply inspired in early Industrial, Noise and Power Electronics taking, musically and conceptually some development model acts like Throbbing Gristle or Whitehouse, and certain complex lyrical compositions like could be some Fad Gadget tracks, Maria Barros, a colombian dj and producer known as Gatasanta delivers 5 dense, raw, noisey and dark cuts with the aesthetical connotation of the violent modern times, created among other analogical sounds with multiple Moog bass lines. This record includes also, two tracks from AMAS, Gatasanta's first live project with artist performer Ivana Ray Singh, both artists based in Barcelona. These two tracks appears on the EP as a tribute to the duo's early years of electronic production and performance tours around. All tracks has been produced 100% hardware.

When Leng Records founders Paul ‘Mudd’ Murphy and Simon Purnell marked the imprint’s 10th birthday, they did so via a celebratory compilation that mixed classic catalogue cuts, remixes and exclusives. Five years on, and with the label’s 15th birthday upon us, they’ve decided to look to the future via a compilation made up entirely of fresh productions from Leng’s roster of current and new artists. Presented on limited-edition gatefold double vinyl with a bonus 10” single, the collection offers an updated showcase of Leng’s much-loved trademark sound, a distinctive fusion of mid-tempo sleazy-disco, Balearica and chugging house interspersed with elements of electronic psychedelia and synth-powered space disco. Fittingly for a compilation that wholeheartedly looks to the future, you’ll find first contributions from a handful of label newcomers.

Fast-rising duo Flying Mojito Bros give their spin on ‘Smoke Signals’ by label debutants Joe HarveyWhyte and Bobby Lee, turning in a heady and inspired revision that sits somewhere between dusk-ready cosmic disco and flash-fried desert blues. There’s also an appearance from Swedish producer Bo Wosticz with the dreamy and ultra-deep nu-jazz of ‘Bs As’. Naturally, you’ll also find plenty of heat from those who have already proved their mettle through prior releases on Leng. Danish duo Liminal, who made their debut earlier this year with the much-played ‘Keep Coming Back To Me’, open proceedings with the tactile, slow-disco flex of ‘Tzatziki Bay’ where sweet synth melodies and a heady electric piano riff ride a warming groove.

Roberto Intrallazzi and Dario Piana from Italy’s original Afro-cosmic movement return with ‘Plutos’, a typically deep dubbed-out cosmic chugger. Then there’s Rose Robinson AKA Tigerbalm, whose ‘Mexicana’ featuring singer Joi N’Juno is presented across the package in two different forms. Pete Herbert, who contributed to some of the earliest Leng releases, drops a driving dub disco take on the main compilation, while Robinson’s original mix – a more organic, percussive and horn-heavy affair blessed with plenty of hallucinatory intent – opens the bonus 10”.

There’s a welcome return to Leng for the brilliant Payfone, whose ‘Dime Algo’ is a typically classy, analogue-rich affair in which attractive Rhodes riffs, atmospheric female vocals and pitched-down house pianos rise above shuffling drum machine beats and a slow-motion bassline. Long-serving label contributor Lex (Athens) delivers the loose-limbed nu-disco breeze of ‘Stolen Dance’, while the imprint’s San Francisco connection – the ever-brilliant 40 Thieves collective – drop the dubbed-out Bay Area brilliance of ‘Such A Great Trip’.

Then there are the contributions of the label’s most storied artist, Andrew Meecham AKA Emperor Machine with ‘Eumig’, a deliciously slow, synth-rich chugger full of colourful chords, bubbly electronic melodies and jaunty electronic bass. Then, to round off the bonus 10” single, Meecham joins forces with Paul Murphy (as Mudd) on ‘Road To Nikko’, an extended, Japanese musical culture-influenced slab of pitched-down alien-funk packed to the rafters with squelchy synth sounds, effects-laden percussion, chiming melodies and rubbery bass guitar.

East Kilbride’s Scott Fraser finally comes good on a 25 year promise to his younger self with his debut solo album on his own label DX Recordings out of London. This record represents the closing of this chapter and the opening of a new one.

A truly international and collaborative project pulling together the help and talent of friends around the world with mastering by Radioactive man Keith Tenniswood, cut by Frank Merritt at The Carvery and world class US visual art and design legends, Tim Saccenti and Nick Martin on photography, artwork and design.

Limited to 300 solid red heavyweight vinyl copies, brown kraft sleeves; individually hand stencilled and numbered by the artist, printed inserts feature a collection of moments and images from the last 25 years - the studio, the equipment, the people and the places that came together to make this release. Japanese rice paper inner sleeves.

Limited edition hand printed screen print by Niall Greaves at Newbridge Print Studios in Newcastle on the first 30 copies exclusively available via the DX Recordings Bandcamp page.

Musically diverse, crossing styles, flavours and moods, threaded meticulously with razor sharp Roland TR606 programming and glued together with a Space Echo, Expanded opens with the sub aquatic funk of ‘Eden And After’. Side one takes you through banging electro on ‘Energy In Constitution’, the dark dub techno of ‘To The Letter Of My Oath’, leaves you disappearing through a black hole on ‘The Path Of Helium Rain’ and the sound of aliens talking through FM synthesis on ‘Collected Stills’. On side two: a slice of dark, heavy instrumental hip hop gets things started with ‘Where Is That Perception? ‘. Next we get into some straight 4/4 club techno with cut up drums and bumping baseline in ‘Mi Dominante’ before moving through some blissed out Detroit vibes on ‘Earth Looking Inwards’, a rough as you like TR606 driven experimental electro groover ‘Object of Life’ and finally closing out with the Ectomorph inspired stark electro of ‘Steel (NB_BLOOD cut)’.

Mastered by: Keith Tenniswood at Curve Pusher, Hastings

Cut By: Frank Merritt at The Carvery, London

Distributed by: Rubadub, Glasgow

Artwork by: Timothy Saccenti, Nicholas Martin, Scott Fraser

Photography by: Kate Green, Javier Gonzalez, Scott Fraser, Timothy Saccenti

Solid red vinyl (300 copies), 30 coming with a limited edition screen print designed by Timothy Saccenti, Nicholas Martin and Scott Fraser, hand screen printed by Niall Greaves at Newbridge Print studios in Newcastle.

Carefully arranged jazzy cuts circle the first appearance of the enigmatic Edrift. For sure a future classic to fill your colorful afternoons, or to serve as a tapestry for late night conversations, will most likely end up on your forever loved records. Lovely melodies drift in perfect balance on top of some of the coolest beats. Unpack, throw it on the turntable, and enjoy it in the most relaxed way, as it was intended.

It's time for a new compilation in our house and we have some good music to fill it up. This collection of talent is going to be served in two flavours, the physical one a four cut vinyl EP featuring previously only digital tracks and the second one a ten track selection from our back catalogue featuring some of the best producers in our family.

Asier Morillas ( A4 ) is probably one of the most original sci fi specialists out there and he's been part of our sound since his first steps into production. His track Kynosoura is a perfect example of hi tech jazz.

David Reina is also a science fiction specialist, also featured with a full length work in our catalogue, our pick for this collection is Autoscopy, a mental and complex sonic voyage into the best outer space techno.

From Mod 21 we have selected one of his most played tools, Escalation of Violence, the perfect hypnotic drill to boost your mixes properly.

Vertical Spectrum brings us to hyperspace in BALN006 combining a distorted groove with floating alien bleeps in a sci-fi techno masterpiece.

This four cuts will be pressed on wax, let's talk about the next eight:

From his Idle Ep we have chosen Temudo's Spiritual Song, a merciless floor weapon heavily tested on the best clubs and big stages out there.

Next comes BiiBii by Null Forms approaching a more abstract and sci-fi terrain, maintaining the danceable pulse and well-managed distortion. The result is more mental and synthetic. A kind of controlled chaos.

Axial Rotation from Translate starts with a fast paced groove, heavily bass fuelled with a continuous synth line moving across the basement. All sound elements are constantly mutating and evolving although the mood is linear and loopy.

Eight cut comes from Dutch veteran Dimi Angelis, the third from his
A Journal of Impossible Things EP from 2023. The hypnotic bleep penetrates your mind while the dirty sound of the old drum machine sets the pace for your feet. Special mention to the occasional resonant sweep that appears from time to time creating the required tension.

On the ninth, Ruman's Lizard from Where The Ring Ends LP, mental and hypnotic, perfect for adding tension to a mix, again heavily tested on the best dancefloors extensively.

Closing the release, CONCEPTUAL with Red Sun a magnificent closing anthem, no more words needed here.

With this collection you get a tiny snapshot of the sonic palette of Warm Up Recordings sound. Check our full catalogue to get the proper picture.

DJ Support: Midland, Craig Richards, Vladimir Ivkovic, Benji B, Emerald, Cici, Darwin, Jossy Mitsu, I JORDAN, Daria Kolosova, Alienata, Carl Craig, Paula Tape, OK Williams, Hammer, Kassian

Kilig Unveils New Era with Air In The Dark / Back To Sofa Surfing

Elusive leftfield electronica producer Kilig emerges from the shadows to unveil a new era on Cross Country with Air In The Dark and Back To Sofa Surfing—two tracks that signal a matured, exploratory sound, balancing introspective ambience with subtle rhythmic propulsion.

In a celebration of London’s enduring spirit of community, experimentation, and unity - fabric resident Bobby. and FOLD’s own Voicedrone join forces to rework Air In The Dark. Bobby. crafts an epic, psilocybin-inspired reinterpretation; Voicedrone - a hard-hitting high BPM electro reinterpretation; and cult favourite RAMZi offering a warm, deep ambient cut.

Back To Sofa Surfing receives its own forward-facing treatment from Manami and Dufraine — two voices at the cutting edge of London’s bass and electro underground. Hailing from a shared studio space , the remixes are infused with raw dub, bass, acid, and electro infused energy.

T H E E L E K T R O N I K Z O O
F E S T I VA L J O U R N E Y VA . E P

The new various artists compilation launches with a seismic opener from none other than Gregor Tresher, a true legend whose influence has shaped the sound of techno for decades—"Bonegrinder" is a raw, hypnotic masterstroke. Following is Marco Bailey, our iconic label founder and relentless force in the scene, delivering a bold Electro cut with "Arcane". The journey continues with deep melodic trips from Works of Intent & Voltaire and Tom Hades & Soren Aalberg, gritty Electro from Ian O’Donovan, raw techno heat from Eddie Merced, and ethereal Electronica by Alienna—each artist contributing their unique voice to this powerhouse compilation.

Oversized custom cut LP jackets (13” / 33.02 cm width)
Silkscreened with bespoke iridescent citrus green ink by Mark Rice
Short story by Natalia Zuluaga

Flexi 7”:
steaming mescaline (extended mix by bad lsd trips)
Citrus green metallic foil stamp
Pressed in full stereo
Edition of 150

I.

bad lsd trips is the collaborative duo of makers doris dana and domingo castillo flores. Respectively the two have fostered practices that have sprawled out through various approaches and, whether in the lanes of the musical or the contemporary arts, the phenomenology of the social and inclusive prevails. On ultrafest, this motif continues through the psychedelia of its eight time-defying recordings, welcoming the listener into an open temporal architecture of the stereo field as a signifier of environment. It is worth noting that the group began collaborating in Miami, Florida with longer form improvisations recorded to a stereo cassette deck. In these recordings, the paved geographical sprawl and oceanic view permeated the approach to amassing long swaths of sound material. Listening back on that work at the time of this writing, each track feels as though one is walking into an active space, arriving to an event already in full swing and finding your place inside of it. On ultrafest (this album) something different occurs. The space and events are built around you as you move through the record.

II.

The name of the album is ultrafest, which should effectively provoke your mind's eye the imagery of young people dancing, salivating, grinding, and imbibing chemical compounds to the perversely formalized musical genres of “Electronic Dance Music” and latter-era Dubstep often heard in European Uber rides and energy drink commercials. A far distance from the icy and machinic reverie of Techno’s finest rave eras or the notable historical contributions of Miami’s cerebral producers to IDM’s global output, ultrafest is a libidinal catharsis as festival scaled to a multinational corporation of hedonistic excess. The festival has been a hallmark of Miami cultural industry production and optical enticement for tourism, purportedly bringing in nearly a billion dollars in revenue to the city since 2012. Scores of documentation exist wherein this decadent escapism leaves the concertgoer, usually in some neon garment on a near nude body potentially adorned with fluffy faux fur leg warmers, facing a comedown from the combination of volume, sun, dehydration, and methylenedioxy-methylamphetamine. This MDMA experience characterizes an aspect of the way bad lsd trips employs vocals and pitch on this album. The detached, high octaved longing of a high pitched vocal is decoupled from its typical auditory body of song. High-pass clicks and pops touch the (h)air on the back of the neck, promising goosebumps and teasing towards euphoric rushes of dopamine, yet also exist decoupled from the body of song. As the dopamine depletes and the sun imposes itself, Miami’s downtown of skeleton real estate is your company as you meander towards your parked vehicle to rest your fatigued senses, elevated heart rate, and quench the need for air conditioning on your skin. The immediacy of bombastic social immersion to architectural alienation palpable here.

III...

- Nick Klein

Afterhours. continues its quest for exquisitely crafted minimal dance music and welcomes young talent Aron for its seventh release. "Limbic" features three original dancefloor cuts and a groove-focused remix by Arno, Pressure Trax's head honcho.

The "Limbic" EP starts with 'Prawn Repetitions' (A1), immediately locking the listener into a seemingly endless loop of stomping sub-bass, slippery drums, snipped chords and a mantra-like vocal stating "I'm a Shrimp" just enough times to hypnotize. 'Inverse Perspective' (A2) strips down the sonic space to focus on micro/macro rhythms, leaving just enough room for its haunting atmospheric pads to cut through. The track title "Limbic" (B1) is as wacky as it is catchy. Its sound design feels alien, not only in its wobbliness but also in the type of vocal snippets used and overall aesthetic graininess; yet, it remains highly stomping and dancefloor appropriate, with its second part elevated, and humanized, by (very) human melodies. Arno's Remix of "Limbic" (B2) deconstructs its every element, grounding the alien elements into a groove-centered, drum-machine-driven composition that embraces the harmonious aspects of the original without ever losing pace on its (very) insistent bass pattern.

Between the acoustic and the electronic, the four-by-fours and the breakbeat, Aron's tracks are as trippy as they are soulful: dense and detailed tracks with enough forward momentum to keep any room moving.

The first contact is a common science fiction theme about the first meeting between humans and extraterrestrial life. The theme allows authors to explore a variety of philosophical concepts by adapting the anthropological topic of the first contact with extraterrestrial cultures. But then what are the Topics of a possible “Second Contact”? What would have happened to civilization if the extraterrestrial life force returns. Are they ready to greet it?

In this case, the second contact comes in the form of SEELEN. Label head and part-time intergalactic traveller Janein’s second full EP on the Imprint. And he hasn’t returned to take prisoners.

The Title track takes you for a wild ride from the second one. A warbling, acidic texture marks the foundation of what is an absolutely destructive and fiery cut. One of Janein’s heaviest percussion tracks to date takes the mood to an absolute frenzy while the acid-textures and metallic Chords can almost singe your eyebrows off if you get too close to the speaker.

In comparison, Gaja tones it down somewhat with mellower synths and an absolutely funky Bassline. But do not underestimate this track in comparison to Kobald M. This track will ensnare you into its hypnotic chokehold. It is the kind of cut you can play in any situation and not a single person will leave the dancefloor.

Meeting the Alien for a Parlay, translating its transmissions on this record are musical linguists Somewhen and Peryl.
While Somewhen has leaned into Kobald M’s destructive potential, adding a chaotic, out-for-madness kind of energy, that is sure to bring insanity to any warehouse, Peryl, known for his cathartic breakbeat excursions, has absolutely deconstructed Gaja making it into a track that sounds like the moment an unknown flying object enters the atmosphere of the earth.

Holly Lester’s Duality Trax Label has quickly become synonymous for its blend of future facing sonics and mind-warping melodies, served together with a healthy dose of nostalgia. A label just as focused on making dancefloor destroyers as it is exploring left-leaning, personal projects, it’s within this duality where the label has found its success, never afraid to shy away from b side oddities or tracks edging more towards good-old-fashioned-fun.

DUALITY5 steers towards the latter, with Manchester based DJ & producer Aiden Francis providing the serotonin on tap with three lively dancefloor cuts, including a huge remix from Italy’s Matisa. Aiden had a big 2022, releasing music on Magic Carpet, Gestalt and beloved music platform and label Houseum, solidifying himself as one to watch in the euphoric unity of house, trance and techno.

Title track ‘Plastic Fantasy’ is the star of the show, a suitably sassy roller that places everyone's favorite blonde icon front left of the speakers. Subtle old school strings contrast with alien electronics, providing familiarity in an otherwise unfamiliar world. A bubble-gum vocal then rolls in cheekily over a driving bassline and dynamic percussion - used in a way I’m not sure the original creators had in mind. ‘Future Proof’ meanwhile demonstrates Aidens’ knack for contemporary progressive house music. With warm pads, swirling sonic textures and moments of blissful euphoria, it’s energetic enough to move a dancefloor, but gentle enough for home listening too.

The record comes to a close with ‘Aquamarine’, with Aiden opting in favour of free flowing breakbeats and mind expanding synths, together radiating a feeling of warmth and hope for days to come. Italian DJ and producer Matisa is on hand to round the EP off with a bass-heavy rendition of ‘Plastic Fantasy’ a no-holds-barred speed garage licked stomper, with the power to lure smokers back inside the club with their feet firmly planted on the dancefloor.

Mathis Ruffing’s Transatlantic debut cuts to the chase. This is getaway music, music designed to vaporise your long-dormant adrenal glands. ‘Skybox’ is made up of tracks that surge like quicksilver through veins, pulsing, flexing, relentlessly disciplined in execution. These tunes are crystalline and shimmering, eight sleek and streamlined club constructs rendered with what feels like the precision-engineering of some advanced alien DAW.

Opener ‘Ultranova’ hits like a cyborgian headbutt and refuses to let up. It’s followed by the one-two punch of the title track and ‘Hitherto’, which install cooling, gaseous pads and synths within breakneck drum&bassian exoskeletons. ‘Crater Edge’ and closer ‘Raytraced’ offer cryochamberesque respite from the cold-blooded fury enclosed within this release — well-earned breathing room in an album that takes hold with crisp and calculated force. Pure focus.

Charlotte de Witte takes charge of her KNTXT label's 15th release with the new Universal Consciousness EP. It comes after Amazingblaze - Venture EP and features four more powerful and psychedelic techno cuts.

Charlotte is soon to be playing her biggest ever KNTXT party in mid April. It shall take place in her hometown of Ghent and see her play a historic 10 hour set to a vast crowd of people who shall go on an all night long journey. Also in April, Charlotte returns to London’s iconic Printworks for the first time in five years, this time with her KNTXT concept and once again is set to raise the roof. While staying busy on the road, she continues to curate the Apple Music x KNTXT page while cooking up ever fresh sounds in the studio. This latest EP is another subtle evolution in her signature style.

Says Charlotte of the EP, "following up on my latest Asura EP in September, I decided to delve a bit deeper in the world of psychedelia. All the tracks of the EP are psy inspired, some more than others. I’ve been playing these tracks for a while now in the clubs. It’s been a real pleasure to see the crowd’s reaction and see the amount of track ID requests online. This one is from me to you, I hope you enjoy my Universal Consciousness EP!"

Opener 'Satori' is dark and heavy. The chunky, raw drums hit hard and flat as the squelchy acid synths pan about the mix. An enchanting middle eastern vocal wail brings an extra trance-inducing element that is sure to lock in the hearts and minds of the crowd. The super 'Kali' is a slick and high speed piece that shows the love relation between psy trance and techno. The video game style synths peel off the groove next to alien sound effects, and the subtly evolving acid line burrows deep into your brain.

Then comes the dynamic, bouncy and acid laced-title cut ‘Universal Consciousness’. It's a fulsome tune with rubbery kicks and visceral 303 loops that will melt the mind as dancers fall into its hypnotic and tripped out spell. Last of all is 'Ahimsa' with its bright, lashing acid synths and hammering kick drums. It's the perfect mix of physical groove and psyched-out synth work, and is perfect for both sweaty basements and vast main rooms alike. When the mystical flutes come in, it takes things to another level entirely.

This is another all consuming EP of innovative techno from Charlotte de Witte.

Modularz is back once again with a stellar release this time from seasoned producer Paul Ritch. The French native is here to deliver five tracks of pulsating techno
breed for the club and another project that adheres to the flagship. The Modularz sound has become so distinct and this EP showcases those rhythmic bouncing basslines and deep riding kick drums. Nuit Blanche is four tracks of punchy dancefloor driving kick drums that are coupled with eccentric modulations and synths. Expect underground crevice hidden chords deep textured and dripping sounds. Some cuts deliver sci-fi alien beeps and stabs that would make any martian jealous. The hi-hats are icy and the snares hype inducing: no matter the pace each cut is a weapon.

KUf debuts in our platform and we are more than glad to share his incredible skills in this Ep / Mini Album, four cuts on wax and seven on zeroes and ones.

Rock exactly honours the name, rocking the place with fast BMP, carefully distorted sequences and sharp rhythms in a relentless arrangement.

Feedback Rhythm runs fast as well, with a cleaner approach in the drums, alien and tribal at the same time. The synth lines are dynamic and dirty, appearing randomly until take over the main part, cyber funk at its best.

Spand metalizes the feel, with hard industrial reverberated hit over a continuous sequence, no mercy in this one. Hard Hitting beats

Kvallsloop, turns the balance with subterranean beats, alien sinoidal arpeggios and subtle hats, a perfect epilogue for the physical version.

On the digital offer, three more tracks, Famlar i mo rkret comes first, slowing down the pulse, deepening the approach and going classy and attemporal. A modern vision in Detroit's traditional sound.

No skool brings the bleep to the floor, spiced with old school 909/808 beats.

Parafras closes this extended work, in one of the most original percussive exercises released to date, an absolute floor destroyer for those who know.

Chins For Lefty is the debut album and first recording by Gichard, a new duo chronicling the absurdities of end-stage capitalism and mouldering social rituals from their vantage point in Glasgow, Scotland. Recorded primarily in the band’s home studio straight to tape, Chins For Lefty combines gorgeous, ramshackle melody, DIY kosmische punk, drum machine + synth and, in vocalist/lyricist Lisa Jones, an absurdist commentator on the human condition as it navigates the anxieties of the modern world. Instrumentalist Chas Lalli’s swirling music accompaniment stitches an evocative mix of musical styles, the ragged wind beneath the lyrics’ wings.

Although the duo first collaborated in their previous group Dragged Up, their disparate musical and artistic backgrounds make for an alluring mix in Gichard. Lalli has spent the last 20 years in the Glasgow underground, most notably in the noise rock group VOM, while Lisa Jones’s practice was in poetry and spoken word. Beginning as co vocalist in her previous band, in Gichard her lyrics are centre stage; the vision concocted alongside Lalli amounts to a total world-build.

Chins For Lefty scans almost like a novel, with each track elucidating a skewed universe that bears only some resemblance to the one you and I partake in. Like all works of fiction Gichard’s songs are rooted in reality and the lived experiences of its authors, but here characters are exaggerated, social mores and habits are pulled apart to reveal their inherent alienness. Universal emotions are laid bare, the bright light of anxious examination searching out every hairline fracture in our relationships. Distorted and cracked, the mirror that Gichard hold up to our world is also pretty damn funny.

Opener Cholesterol Test launches an expansive, cosmic guitar and synth intro that belies the Tascam-tape recorder it was recorded onto, like a Chromatics cut substituting anxiety for overt sexuality. Here Jones intones an apology to a non-responsive recipient, in the medium of a long voice note forensically deconstructing an interaction from the night before. Over punk guitars and shuffling, lo-fi drum machine splutters, the narrator in Asking The Apes “prefers things to people” before being taken hostage in the city zoo to confess an obsession which consumes the protagonist, ending with the immortal two liner “I sleep in a cocoon of old newspapers at the end of your street / And I think I have been fired from my job,” On album standout Posthumous Hologram, the narrator is faced with a human simulacra, in this case an undead pop star; the face of the encroaching technological singularity. Yes, it does requests, it can do My Way in 200 different language options. But what are the implications? While you’re left pondering, the alternating deadpan verse delivery and undeniably catchy chorus keep you company.

By the time Break Up With Johnny Dogbirth rattles into view, the band are satirising a suburban inanity blown up to cartoon proportions, soundtracked with a drawled musicality that recalls Rowland S. Howard’s post-Birthday Party balladeering. This approach is furthered on Human Resources: over an angular guitar+bass track, Jones’s short story recalls Dry Cleaning’s erudite lyrical post punk. On Soft Face, Lalli’s guitar and drum machine are swathed in echo and delay, as Jones dissects dating rituals with a west of Scotland drollness. Hamming It Up brings a porcine perspective in a short story that begins with the line “I was breastfeeding discreetly in the service station. She didn’t mind.” What follows is a passage punctured with canned laughter and a narrative involving tribute acts, modern farming techniques.

Brilliant first single Your Private Hell closes the album, the closest the group get to earnest perhaps, filtered through a surreal central Scottishness. While Your Private Hell might seem like a sardonic take down of romance, perhaps it’s the very distillation of love in all its awkwardness, selflessness and weirdness. Here there’s a distinctive Glasgow-ness to this doomed romance: the protagonist falls for an outsider, offers them cheap jarred hot dogs and carbolic soap (the infamous, excoriating soap dished out in schools and government buildings throughout Scotland), offers to cover up a murder, stalks them in the all-night Spar. It’s a short story of intrigue, murder and the irresistible pull of self-sacrifice to share in someone else’s suffering. If that’s not love, what is it? You can see this vision mapped out in black and white on their video for 'Your Private Hell'.

Just as you were getting your head straight coming off the 21st Trip … Brown Acid dose # 22 drops, continuing to fry your mind in a revolving trap-door Twilight Zone alternate world of early hard rock… populated by real life characters so far out they can look like a cheesy wedding band but sound like Blue Cheer! Uncanny! This music comes at you from many angles. Teens in a garage colliding with booze, drugs and girls for the first time, lounge lizard hustlers with snazzy stage clothes and fuzz boxes… gnarly backwoods troublemakers meet blow dried glam rock wannabes here, seamlessly clobbering your head with sound rather than each other! An electric post-psychedelic bar brawl for your mind awaits, unfasten your seat belt, crank it up and fly! Sounds Synonymous "Babylon" out of Flint, Michigan 1969 rip the devastating Blue Cheer classic a new one, immediately swarming you with organ swells and distortion before collapsing into a tuff funk groove, a psychedelic James Brown vibe shot through with dirty howling fuzz guitar, vocals nailing the messed up but confident relaxed sneering attitude of the original Cheer eruption. The Bumps "Shining" from Seattle 1969 resides right at the transition of ‘60s psych into early prog, well constructed, no diluting things artsy fartsy style, a compelling heavy riff, spacious vocal harmony hook floating above a turbulent take on getting your shit together and shining like a star. Fat chance, but you can dream, the band did and their dreams kick ass across time to right now or you wouldn’t be here.

Coulda been a hit back then, definitely a hit now. Riverside "Farmer" explodes out of Austin, Texas 1974, economical but brilliantly structured riffs and power chords, intense dynamic tension/release, fantastic screaming leads over shifting angles of attack during the middle break… it’s all here with a detached confidence in the vocal that swaggers back in time to the late ‘60s in its proto-heavy psych adjacent assault. Cincinnati Joe & Mad Lydia "Get It Together" for real in Cincinnati, Ohio 1970. The song says everything you need to know: “You may think that you’re the very best, miles and miles ahead of the rest, but be sure when you’re put to the test you get it together!” These words are deployed in a manner similar to Peter Green’s “Oh Well”, intermittently stated between killer gnarly guitar and gushy organ attacks. Bar band heaven and hell rolled up into one big ball, the vocals get all the way out there! Straight Up "Fire" takes the monster 1968 Crazy World Of Arthur Brown hit into faithfully executed but surreally minimalist territory, Minneapolis, Minnesota 1974. Genius version of a key song that presciently cuts to the chase regarding Brown Acid’s incinerations of psychedelic idealism, you’re gonna burn, burn, burn… as that moment climaxes you can gawk at their preposterous flashy lounge band stage outfits and realize side one must end because everything is totally scorched into eternity. Scrap Iron "Poopsie" is a primitive two chord stomper with spiraling fuzz and organ riffs, singer marking his territory caveman style. “Poopsie, you’re my woman” he commands, but gets weirdly insecure she’ll blow him off at the altar by the end of each verse. Snarly wah-wah ices this toxic cake out of Carteret, New Jersey 1973. Focused delivery so single-mindedly crude it creates an inescapable instant brain-worm. Lady "Live Show Tigers" is amongst the most potently life affirming trash rockers you’ll ever hear, one outrageously triumphant but fiercely sloppy anthem about living it up like a star, strutting the stage glammed up New York Dolls drag style but with a Dictators sense of humor. Tasty slightly off kilter guitar leads all through, going serendipitously berserk on the fade. Picture disc single out of L.A. 1980. Fantastic fun rock star rock at a very raw local street level where any time is party time.

Killer Frog "Hard Times" on Masochist Records from Chicago, Illinois 1972 takes less than two minutes, an action packed James Gang style bar band rocker with a bit of punky sneer in the face of misfortune. These guys never even heard of flower power. They are killer frogs. Good Humore "Killer" does kill in stripped down hard rock trio style, Warren, Michigan 1976. No frills guitar, bass and drums groove tight, snaky primordial riff, snarly licks. “She’s a killer of a woman, knows just what she’s doing…” The singer knows she’s a femme-fatale roadhouse predator but she’s so hot the inevitable wreckage seems a bargain. Ride it out like the extended jam on the fade knowing she’ll be back for more! Sarawest "Space Rider" winds up the 22nd Trip lost in a twisted two chord space adventure from the point of view of an alien visiting our planet seeking knowledge but finding out we are stupidly destroying ourselves, so he gotta split sneering back at us like we wasted his time “I got no time for loving… I wanna be a space rider, space rider”. Toronto, Canada 1974, a vibe lurking in some strange but funny void between late ‘60s outsider garage psychedelic rock complete with reverb-y acid guitar leads and late ‘70s retro-futuristic D.I.Y wisecracking from inner space… taking the piss out of outer space!

Just as you were getting your head straight coming off the 21st Trip … Brown Acid dose # 22 drops, continuing to fry your mind in a revolving trap-door Twilight Zone alternate world of early hard rock… populated by real life characters so far out they can look like a cheesy wedding band but sound like Blue Cheer! Uncanny! This music comes at you from many angles. Teens in a garage colliding with booze, drugs and girls for the first time, lounge lizard hustlers with snazzy stage clothes and fuzz boxes… gnarly backwoods troublemakers meet blow dried glam rock wannabes here, seamlessly clobbering your head with sound rather than each other! An electric post-psychedelic bar brawl for your mind awaits, unfasten your seat belt, crank it up and fly! Sounds Synonymous "Babylon" out of Flint, Michigan 1969 rip the devastating Blue Cheer classic a new one, immediately swarming you with organ swells and distortion before collapsing into a tuff funk groove, a psychedelic James Brown vibe shot through with dirty howling fuzz guitar, vocals nailing the messed up but confident relaxed sneering attitude of the original Cheer eruption. The Bumps "Shining" from Seattle 1969 resides right at the transition of ‘60s psych into early prog, well constructed, no diluting things artsy fartsy style, a compelling heavy riff, spacious vocal harmony hook floating above a turbulent take on getting your shit together and shining like a star. Fat chance, but you can dream, the band did and their dreams kick ass across time to right now or you wouldn’t be here.

Coulda been a hit back then, definitely a hit now. Riverside "Farmer" explodes out of Austin, Texas 1974, economical but brilliantly structured riffs and power chords, intense dynamic tension/release, fantastic screaming leads over shifting angles of attack during the middle break… it’s all here with a detached confidence in the vocal that swaggers back in time to the late ‘60s in its proto-heavy psych adjacent assault. Cincinnati Joe & Mad Lydia "Get It Together" for real in Cincinnati, Ohio 1970. The song says everything you need to know: “You may think that you’re the very best, miles and miles ahead of the rest, but be sure when you’re put to the test you get it together!” These words are deployed in a manner similar to Peter Green’s “Oh Well”, intermittently stated between killer gnarly guitar and gushy organ attacks. Bar band heaven and hell rolled up into one big ball, the vocals get all the way out there! Straight Up "Fire" takes the monster 1968 Crazy World Of Arthur Brown hit into faithfully executed but surreally minimalist territory, Minneapolis, Minnesota 1974. Genius version of a key song that presciently cuts to the chase regarding Brown Acid’s incinerations of psychedelic idealism, you’re gonna burn, burn, burn… as that moment climaxes you can gawk at their preposterous flashy lounge band stage outfits and realize side one must end because everything is totally scorched into eternity. Scrap Iron "Poopsie" is a primitive two chord stomper with spiraling fuzz and organ riffs, singer marking his territory caveman style. “Poopsie, you’re my woman” he commands, but gets weirdly insecure she’ll blow him off at the altar by the end of each verse. Snarly wah-wah ices this toxic cake out of Carteret, New Jersey 1973. Focused delivery so single-mindedly crude it creates an inescapable instant brain-worm. Lady "Live Show Tigers" is amongst the most potently life affirming trash rockers you’ll ever hear, one outrageously triumphant but fiercely sloppy anthem about living it up like a star, strutting the stage glammed up New York Dolls drag style but with a Dictators sense of humor. Tasty slightly off kilter guitar leads all through, going serendipitously berserk on the fade. Picture disc single out of L.A. 1980. Fantastic fun rock star rock at a very raw local street level where any time is party time.

Killer Frog "Hard Times" on Masochist Records from Chicago, Illinois 1972 takes less than two minutes, an action packed James Gang style bar band rocker with a bit of punky sneer in the face of misfortune. These guys never even heard of flower power. They are killer frogs. Good Humore "Killer" does kill in stripped down hard rock trio style, Warren, Michigan 1976. No frills guitar, bass and drums groove tight, snaky primordial riff, snarly licks. “She’s a killer of a woman, knows just what she’s doing…” The singer knows she’s a femme-fatale roadhouse predator but she’s so hot the inevitable wreckage seems a bargain. Ride it out like the extended jam on the fade knowing she’ll be back for more! Sarawest "Space Rider" winds up the 22nd Trip lost in a twisted two chord space adventure from the point of view of an alien visiting our planet seeking knowledge but finding out we are stupidly destroying ourselves, so he gotta split sneering back at us like we wasted his time “I got no time for loving… I wanna be a space rider, space rider”. Toronto, Canada 1974, a vibe lurking in some strange but funny void between late ‘60s outsider garage psychedelic rock complete with reverb-y acid guitar leads and late ‘70s retro-futuristic D.I.Y wisecracking from inner space… taking the piss out of outer space!

Cathartic avant-rock, literate DIY folk & experimental composition exploring displacement, love, climate change, belonging & the places we call home - RIYL Jim O’Rourke, Richard Youngs, This Heat, Richard Dawson, Flying Nun. ‘Real Home’ is the new album by the Manchester-born, London-based artist Kiran Leonard. His sixth album proper (not including innumerable tour-only CD-Rs and short-run cassettes), since his precocious debut in 2013, ‘Real Home’ finds Leonard invigorated by inspiration and experience, making passionate, literate, and mercurial music that explores displacement, love, memory, climate change, connections to home and more. Encompassing songs recorded after moving to South London, ‘Real Home’ reflects on ideas of belonging and domesticity through folkloric, stream-of-consciousness songwriting. Across nine tracks, Leonard traces lived impressions of the household and the city, expressing sentiments of dislocation, alienation and stasis, but contentment too. Infusing the avant-rock effervescence, terraced dynamics and visionary lyricism of his music with what he defines as a greater sense of openness, Leonard is as versatile, fervent and imaginative as ever on ‘Real Home’, yet his music is somehow more intimate, affecting, and acutely expressive. Shaped by dual considerations of simplicity and formalism, ‘Real Home’ is by turns beautiful, allusive, and ruminative, an album on which Leonard considers what his songs have resembled in the past and what they mean now. In recent years, Leonard has crafted eloquent chamber music inspired by the likes of James Joyce and Clarice Lispector (‘Derevaun Seraun’), responded to contemporary politics and communication breakdown in the digital age (‘Western Culture’), and compiled solo works and ensemble recordings for a longform ode to Jonas Mekas and to one of Leonard’s enduring themes; home (‘Trespass On Foot’). On ‘Real Home’, Leonard reiterates this abiding thematic focus yet ascends to new, different heights, in music of cathartic delicacy and dissonance where all the myriad dimensions of his work to date seem to crystallize. There are sinuous songs about struggle and defying the pace of city life through drift and diversion (‘Pass Between Houses’), stirring songs of intense feeling and crescendo, described as a form of speculative detective fiction (‘Theatre for Change’). There are touching solo piano ballads (the title track), symbolic contentions with carbon capture and climate change (‘Utopia of Bog’), modes of experimental minimalism (‘Void Attentive’), and other profuse feats of compositional range, embroidered with wild tendrils of narrative and lyrical depth. A record to pore over, and get lost in. Exemplifying the vast aesthetic scope of Leonard’s music, lead single ‘My Love, Let’s Take The Stage Tonight’ is inspired by country lodestar Hank Williams, Russian poetry and a late period love poem by William Carlos Williams. Yet for Leonard, the song signals a sense of accessible materiality, and is the product of a more linear approach to writing songs: “My imitation of the great Hank Williams, in spirit if not in substance…This is one of the best efforts on Real Home at a song-as-object. Looking at it now I realise I was trying to write a song that made itself known as a song to the listener, and I wonder whether that’s crucial if you want a song to transcend its context. And that this is either accomplished through a total openness – by being inviting, by laying the tricks of the song out plain to see, as Williams and his many ghostwriters did so well – or by adopting a knowing aloofness, positioning oneself against the listener but letting it be known that that’s what it’s doing. In this song I try both, but mostly the former: as in, I wanted to write a song where every line follows on from the next.” Imbuing the endlessly elaborate and inventive qualities of his music with a newfound streak of candid, clear-cut melodicism, Leonard has reached a special place in his artistry, on a record that feels familial, and expresses closeness. Assembled with affiliates including Lauren Auder, Otto Willberg, Jasper Llewellyn (caroline), Tom Hardwick-Allan (Shovel Dance Collective), Magda McLean (caroline, The Umlauts), Alex Mckenzie (caroline, Shovel Dance Collective), Isabelle Thorn (Dear Laika) & more, the recording process had a significant influence on the subject matter of ‘Real Home’, in sessions defined by close-knit camaraderie and artistic eccentricity: “The theme of the home obviously recurs throughout the record; the album was mostly recorded in domestic spaces with friends, and the name of the album is Real Home. I like the qualifier ‘real’, like you’re getting past the cloak of the word and towards the thing-itself…also nearly all the percussion in this record was recorded on items from my dad’s shed (jam jars, sandpaper, blocks of wood, etc). Real home record!” ‘Real Home’, like anything by Kiran Leonard, is a record of dazzling multiplicity. Yet it’s a companionable prospect with a central premise; a collection of songs where listeners old and new can find a home. An album led by a scene; of Leonard standing at the threshold, ready to welcome you inside. “Exceptional songs that linger” - The Guardian // “An autodidact of amazing talent & energy” – Pitchfork // “A ridiculous amount of talent…confrontational, celebratory, provocative or perverse – he manages all of these emotions & more” - The Quietus /

Technokunst Records returns for a second chapter in the Split Series, pairing long-time friends Reeko and Claudio PRC for a package of highly effective grainy Techno excursions. This meeting is a perfectly weighted exchange with two originals and two reinterpretations shared between them.
The opener ‘Grainphase’ is a slowly morphing textural work building towards a masterfully executed release of energy in the latter half of the track. Reeko’s version reshapes the main elements and reveals a harder spine beneath the original’s fluid architecture. Flipping the record gives way to Reeko’s original, a tour de force in sound design. ‘Tierra De Nadie’ paints a desolate and hazy surface filled with glitched recordings of alien language. Finally, Claudio’s rework is built in a similarly dark tone but with an increase of visibility, drifting aboveground.

Mastered by Artefacts Mastering and cut by Simon at The Exchange. The artwork is based on a digitally scanned painting on canvas by Technokunst’s own Dorka Berkes.

180gr pink & blue mixed coloured vinyl in poly sleeve w/ art print insert, LTD — 200 copies.

Technokunst Records returns for a second chapter in the Split Series, pairing long-time friends Reeko and Claudio PRC for a package of highly effective grainy Techno excursions. This meeting is a perfectly weighted exchange with two originals and two reinterpretations shared between them.
The opener ‘Grainphase’ is a slowly morphing textural work building towards a masterfully executed release of energy in the latter half of the track. Reeko’s version reshapes the main elements and reveals a harder spine beneath the original’s fluid architecture. Flipping the record gives way to Reeko’s original, a tour de force in sound design. ‘Tierra De Nadie’ paints a desolate and hazy surface filled with glitched recordings of alien language. Finally, Claudio’s rework is built in a similarly dark tone but with an increase of visibility, drifting aboveground.

Mastered by Artefacts Mastering and cut by Simon at The Exchange. The artwork is based on a digitally scanned painting on canvas by Technokunst’s own Dorka Berkes.

C.L.A.W.S. comes to Dark Entries with a new ripping LP, Splat City II. C.L.A.W.S. is the solo project of musical luminary Brian Hock, who has been a key figure in the Bay Area underground for over two decades via his involvement in projects like Bronze and The Vanishing, as well as helming the record labels Squirrels on Film and Immortal Sin. With C.L.A.W.S., Hock takes on the dancefloor, picking up cues from the Hague’s Giallo-dipped electro, the skewed minimalism of Chicago acid, and the mind-rending forays of San Francisco post-punk icons like Chrome and Tuxedomoon. Following 2019’s inaugural Splat City EP, Splat City II continues to map the psychogeography of a metropolis both alien and immediately recognizable, one where life is cheap, but so are the thrills. Previously released on Squirrels on Film in digital-only format, this expanded vinyl edition of Splat City II features two new cuts. Things kick off with “Route 505” and “One Tear,” a duo of rompers that vibe like Tom Ellard and Chip E locked in a room with a vial of liquid. Next up, Bay Area deckmaster Tyrel lends his editing chops to “Vigilant Slimy Monsters,” sculpting a moody space disco beast. Squirrels on Film co-founder Solar teams up with Hock for “Black Magic Carpet Ride III,” a cavernous downtempo banger. The slow-mo pace continues with “Wild Slugs United,” which features the no wave-esque clarinet work of Paul Costuros. Closer “Don’t Flip the Crystal Ship” pays homage to Bayview venue Bay Area 51 with melancholic strings and a quartz-solid electrofunk bassline. Splat City II comes in a sleeve with artwork by Bert Bergen, which features a vampiric cat and sci-fi cityscapes.

Few producers have had the same seismic impact on techno and rave music as Joey Beltram. Hailing from Queens, New York, Beltram was a key architect of the early '90s rave explosion and responsible for some of the most influential electronic records of the era - and it was Belgium’s R&S Records that gave many of these tracks their first home.

Originally compiled and released by R&S in 1996, Classics brings together the core of Beltram’s groundbreaking early output - namely the Beltram Vol. 1 (1990) and Beltram Vol. 2 (1991) EPs, alongside the legendary Second Phase productions ‘Mentasm’ and ‘Mind To Mind’ (1991), plus a selection of aliases and collaborative work from the same period, including tracks under Mental Mayhem, Open Mind, and Disorder.

Now remastered and reissued as a 2LP set for 2025, Classics is available on vinyl for the first time since 2006, offering a long overdue opportunity to own these timeless cuts in their purest form. Across the 13 tracks, you'll hear the sheer force and innovation that made Beltram a household name in underground techno.

Integral to this collection are ‘Jazz 303’ and ‘Psycho Bass,’ co-produced with Norwegian techno innovator Per Martinsen (aka The Alien), which stand out for their experimental, forward-facing sound - highlighting a futuristic edge even within Beltram’s already pioneering catalogue. Elsewhere, his Second Phase project with Mundo Muzique delivers the seminal ‘Mentasm’ and ‘Mind To Mind,’ two foundational tracks that introduced the infamous “hoover” sound to dancefloors worldwide. Rounding out the set are deeper cuts under his aliases Mental Mayhem, Disorder, and Open Mind, capturing the breadth of Beltram’s restless creativity and technical command during his peak R&S years.
Classics’ by Joey Beltram is available on R&S Records from 25th July 2025.

AOKI takamasa and Tujiko Noriko’s 2005 album »28« has become a cornerstone in the artists’ respective discographies. 20 years after its initial release, Keplar issues it on vinyl for the very first time. Three years in the making, »28« saw the sound artist and the avant-pop singer-songwriter combine their distinct aesthetics for an album that defied categorisation. Their combination of advanced electronic experimentation and pop appeal paved the way for a new generation of artists and turned »28« into an enduring fan favourite. Remastered by Stephan Mathieu, the reissue comes with a brand-new artwork by Joji Koyama and a changed track listing—authorised by Takamasa and Tujiko—for the vinyl version to fit it on a single LP, while the digital version remains identical to the original release.

Tujiko and Takamasa first shared the stage together after the turn of the millennium. Both were emerging solo artists, with Takamasa a mainstay on the Progressive Form label and Tujiko forging a connection with Mego in Vienna, Austria. »I simply liked Noriko’s voice and music, and since we often performed at the same events, it felt like a natural progression for us to start working together,« remembers Takamasa. They first collaborated in 2002 for two shows at the Fondation Cartier in Paris and at SonarLab in Barcelona, respectively. The first joint piece was a rework of Tujiko’s »Fly« from »Hard Ni Sasete (Make Me Hard)« by Takamasa, appearing as the album opener »Fly2« on »28.«

After that, the Paris-based Tujiko and Takamasa, still based in Osaka, worked sporadically and remotely on new material. For the first two years of their collaboration, the two met in the context of live events or Takamasa’s visits to the French capital to discuss their process and exchange hard drives while also occasionally sending each other CDrs in the mail. »Aoki made beats and sounds that complemented my music perfectly, building the foundation on which my voice could float,« Tujiko says today. Takamasa used hardware such as the Nord Modular, the Korg Z1, and the Korg ER-1, while also working with different kinds of software and plug-ins as well as Logic. Tujiko was using Cubase, her preferred piece of gear at the time being an AKAI MPC.

After Takamasa moved to Paris in 2004, this enabled the duo to finish the album together in person. Starting with its subtle use of glitches to the almost-anarchic way in which it deals with the structures of a song, »28« came to be an incomparably intricate album. 20 years on, it remains timeless because of its flawless synthesis of the cutting-edge avant-garde ideas of early 2000s electronica with an idiosyncratic but accessible pop sentiment. Both artists look back fondly—though not uncritically, with Takamasa noting a certain »youthfulness« in his contributions—to the album that was titled after their respective age at that time. »Maybe we should make ›51‹ now?,« quips Tujiko. See you in three years, perhaps.

Detecter returns with its third release, introducing Frakatek. An artist making his vinyl debut. True to the label’s mission, this record shines a spotlight on untapped talent with a bold first-time cut.

Detecter returns with its third release, introducing Frakatek. An artist making his vinyl debut. True to the label’s mission, this record shines a spotlight on untapped talent with a bold first-time cut.

Amsterdam label Spectral Bounce recruits French club stalwart Chris Carrier for SPEC06 — Perfect Encounter. Active since 1994, the Parisian artist has released a wellspring of records on Robsoul, Slapfunk and his own Sound Carrier recordings, parallel to his longtime career as a DJ. Characterised by swirling delays and progressive arrangements, Perfect Encounter shows the producer exploring the mesmeric corners of tech house, ideally fitted to the Spectral Bounce aesthetic.

Opener “XLR8” starts with rolling toms that make way for fluid, modulated tones; each bar ebbs and flows to the sweeping synths set in motion by Carrier. Processed with a multitude of delays, rhythmic FX boldly swish above the drums, making for an immersive soundstage. Second track “Light Side” retains the billowing echoes but moves more nimbly, cutting things back to make for a spacious and breezy number. Its croaking synths hop around the stereo field, accompanied by tight percussion and a walking bassline.

The hallucinogenic “Third Moon” sees Carrier step further into trance-inducing territory. The track’s pulsing, syncopated bass note thrums underneath an arpeggio that evolves into a heady prismatic drone. While the chugging beat is ever-present, melodic refrains rise up and evaporate like wisps of vapour, alongside a vocal that fades away as quickly as it appears. The EP’s eponymous “Perfect Encounter” dials up the tension and closes the record with a mysterious touch. Speedy 16th note patterns propel the beat, creating shifty rhythms that rattle and hiss. A rasping, gelatinous synth and squeaky detuned tones resemble extraterrestrial signals — alien morse code for an enraptured dancefloor.

Credits:

Heavy-weight club tracks! Activity FM launches with a bang. The first V/A EP sets a bold tone: four heavyweight cuts built for serious floors. DJ Hell leads with Scale, a pounding darkside anthem. Truncate follows with Where Do We Go - a peak-time acid weapon. Detroits DJ T-1000 delivers No Victims Only Volunteers, a fierce dose of machine funk mastery. Closing it out, UK legend Mark Broom unearths Nineties - an unreleased time capsule from 92-93, straight from the DAT vaults.
Artwork by Activity Vision.
Full support from Ben Sims, DJ Bone, Detroit In Effect, The Advent, Marcel Dettmann, Jerome Hill, Alienata, Slam, Sol Ortega, Om Unit.

Heavy-weight club tracks! Activity FM launches with a bang. The first V/A EP sets a bold tone: four heavyweight cuts built for serious floors. DJ Hell leads with Scale, a pounding darkside anthem. Truncate follows with Where Do We Go - a peak-time acid weapon. Detroits DJ T-1000 delivers No Victims Only Volunteers, a fierce dose of machine funk mastery. Closing it out, UK legend Mark Broom unearths Nineties - an unreleased time capsule from 92-93, straight from the DAT vaults.
Artwork by Activity Vision.
Full support from Ben Sims, DJ Bone, Detroit In Effect, The Advent, Marcel Dettmann, Jerome Hill, Alienata, Slam, Sol Ortega, Om Unit.

15 Years Of Dame-Music Vol. 3 marks the final chapter in a celebratory trilogy from the label, closing out a decade and a half of fearless sonic exploration.

True to form, Vol. 3 delivers a curated cross-section of techno, electro, and acidic dancefloor pressure, each track a statement, each artist a pillar of the underground.
From outer space techno to basement electro, this record is a testament to the label’s enduring influence and unrelenting spirit, with six standout cuts from across the techno and electro spectrum which inc. artists such as Dr Smoke (aka Oscar Mulero), DJ MELL G, Millimetric, Alienata, Delectro and label head Bloody Mary.

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?

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?

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?

2 bangin' big room house edits from the ALIENS ON MUSHROOMS crew. A-side features a cut up shuffley version of the WAILERS classic "COULD YOU BE LOVED." A vocoded STEVE MILLER will have dancers "spinnin round and round" with another classic, "ABRACADABRA" rounding out the B-SIDE

Recently appearing alongside Ibrahim Maalouf on the show “Improbox” (TSF Jazz), or as the opening act for Vulfpeck at Jazz à Vienne 2024, Sampling is Beautiful Trio is made up of: Zajazza on turntables and samplers (produced for Gaël Faye, HomeboySandman...), Yacha Berdah on trumpet and bass (Grand Corps Malade, Ibrahim Maalouf...), Japhet Boristhène on drums (Saïan Supa Crew, Chassol, Shibuuya).

Sampling Is Beautiful is: “A trio, a collective, a vibe, a freedom, ...”
These are the words of the artist Kaynixe in the introduction to this record.
Each “captured” sample is highlighted, cherished, reversed, modified… and finally used as a melodic or rhythmic basis to construct a new piece. With a certain black magic or piracy, this first album is a photograph of the Trio's musical moment, filled with homages to sampled composers, nods to Jazz and film music.
Yacha, Japhet and Zajazza, surrounded by many talented artists, share here this colorful musical picture of samples and each person's journey.

Like their previous output, the album features the duo’s unique mosaic of clicks n’ cuts style beat work, murky dubwise melodicism, and chilling otherworldly textures. However, there is a refinement on display on Battens.
Clay and Ian have accentuated their trademark elements to maximal effect. The beats seem to have a more brandish, near swagger that was only fleetingly referenced in some of their previous works. The melodies, which formerly have felt primarily of alien origin, almost feel a glint of humanity. Having such a unique ideology for nearly 25 years has allowed Loess to work at a pace and level of refinement evident on Battens.
Loess is a challenging project to describe, yet their ruminative style of experimental electronica sets them apart from their contemporaries and still sounds fresh today.

After a 30-year interstellar silence, the enigmatic producer Alien Signal—pioneering alias of Italian electronic composer Alex Silvi—reemerges with Whispers from Distant Suns, a transcendent odyssey that bridges retro-futurism and modern electronica. Hailed as a magnum opus, this album transcends genre boundaries, captivating ambient purists, downtempo aficionados, and even experimental listeners with its hypnotic fusion of analog warmth and digital precision.

Cosmic Tapestry of Sound
Drawing comparisons to Vangelis’ Antarctica and Alpha—but reimagined through a 21stcentury lens—Whispers from Distant Suns marries nostalgic synth textures with cuttingedge production. Silvi’s mastery of melody shines through in tracks like “Stardust
Memories” and “Fragile Eden” where shimmering arpeggios and celestial pads drift over robotic, glitch-infused drum patterns and sparse, meditative percussion. The result is a paradox: a retro-futuristic soundscape that feels simultaneously ancient and alien, familiar yet unexplored.

Listener Testimonials
Fans and critics have flooded forums with praise:

“An auditory revelation! It’s like Vangelis met Jon Hopkins in a nebula—vintage soul with a futuristic heartbeat.”
“The textures are gorgeously cinematic. Closing your eyes, you’re adrift in a Tarkovsky film scored for the Andromeda galaxy.”

The Vinyl Experience
Pressed on heavyweight vinyl, the album’s physical release amplifies its immersive qualities. The gatefold sleeve, adorned with surrealist astrophotography and metallic
foiling, mirrors the music’s cosmic ethos. Side A leans into Balearic serenity, with sundappled grooves and aquatic synth ripples, while Side B delves into darker, more
experimental terrain—think Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works colliding with the organic rhythms of Jon Hopkins.

Maturity in Motion
This album is a testament to Silvi’s evolution. Tracks like “Seeds Of Light” and “Message from Andromeda Galaxy” showcase his refined ear for dynamics, balancing silence and sound with surgical precision. Vintage drum machines spar with glitches, while field recordings of crashing waves and interstellar static blur the line between Earth and cosmos. The closing track, “The Star Charts We Shared” crescendos into a 6-minute ambient requiem, leaving listeners suspended in a state of weightless awe.

Final Transmission
Whispers from Distant Suns is more than an album—it’s a transcendent odyssey. Spanning time, space, and the artist’s own creative evolution, this immersive work invites listeners to lose themselves in its ebb and flow. Designed for moments both intimate and expansive, its balearic-tinged atmospheres resonate equally through dawnlit Mediterranean terraces or the solitary glow of headphones in darkness. These are compositions that pulse, morph, and haunt the air long after the final note fades. A living soundscape meant to accompany life’s quiet revelations and clandestine joys—a soundtrack to your most personal moments, crafted as what the artist calls ‘private dance music.’

Tailored for the Discerning Listener
Whispers from Distant Suns is designed with the true connoisseur in mind. This album is a must-have for:

Vinyl Collectors & Audiophiles: Those who value the warmth and tactile experience of heavyweight, limited edition pressings
Electronic Ambient and Downtempo Fans: Listeners who appreciate immersive soundscapes that merge retro analog charm with modern digital innovation.
Retro-Futurism Enthusiasts: Fans of pioneering artists like Vangelis, Boards of Canada, and early Warp Records who seek music that bridges nostalgic synth textures with futuristic experimentation.
Experimental Music Explorers: Individuals drawn to sonic narratives that invite deep, contemplative listening—perfect for both introspective moments and immersive listening sessions.
This release is not just an album; it’s a curated experience for those who desire music as a multidimensional art form, merging the vintage allure of analog sound with a contemporary, cosmic vision.

For fans of: Vangelis, Biosphere, Jon Hopkins, early Warp Records.

Cut-Line Records proudly unveils its inaugural release, featuring a collection of euphoric, minimal, and
breaky tracks that resonate deeply within the realm of house music. Launched by lifelong mates and
production partners Maják and Diego Knows, this label aims to capture the essence of dancefloor
energy while pushing creative boundaries across an endless soundscape of alien vibes.
Setting the stage, Pedro Goya’s “Celeste” opens the EP with a euphoric minimal groove that perfectly
encapsulates the magic of house, taking you on an emotional journey that sweeps you away into
sound. Next, we dive headfirst into "Alien Vision" by Francula & St. Xose—a gritty, breaky banger
loaded with gnarly vocals and a tight groove, punctuated by an uplifting euphoric break that keeps the
energy flowing on the dancefloor.

At the heart of this release lies the highly anticipated "Warning Bells" from Digital Pimps, which opens
the B-side. This classic '90s break track, once long lost and now reborn, roars back to life thanks to a
brilliant remaster that is sure to evoke nostalgia. Collaborating with the original artist, New York local
Fonseca 72, we’ve breathed new life into this beloved classic, ensuring it grooves on vinyl for a whole
new generation of listeners.

To round off this sonic journey, our label heads deliver their own signature flavor on B2. Expect pure
pumping grooves with a dash of funk, wrapped in their iconic psychedelic minimal vibe that will keep
you hooked. With this debut, Cut-Line Records invites you to embark on a journey filled with rich
textures, infectious rhythms, and the vibrant spirit of house music. This EP is an absolute must-have!
Grab it before it's gone!

She’s out of this world…

Maltese musician & producer Joon’s galactic debut arrives on our shores fully formed a decade after she first set sail. 12 cuts of uniquely addictive Synthesized Pop twist & turn on the rocky waters of life.

Her story begins after a life-changing car crash on the streets of Malta many moons ago. She was lucky to walk away in one piece. “That car crash was a wake-up call,” she says. “It made me realize how precious life is & I started living the life I felt was worth living.” Inspired to finally pursue her love of music full time, she began collecting instruments. Starting with a Stylophone& a vintage rhythm box, she started documenting ideas. Returning home to Malta after a few years in London, she only met one other woman making electronic music on the island. Driven by the desire to make music possible & accessible for the next generation, Joon co-founded the Malta Sound Women’s Network.

Ten years later, she sends us messages in a bottle from across the Mediterranean Sea. Armed with a Moog & her ethereal voice, she transmits hope & joy from a bedroom somewhere between Sicily & North Africa. Her music is right at home alongside outsider pioneers like Fever Ray, Grimes, Laurie Anderson & Molly Nilsson. Dream Again glides across heavy rhythms & eclectic electro. Telling stories of alienation with a throbbing heartbeat & space-age melodies, she lets us into her ultra-vivid world where anything is possible. Produced by Johnny Jewel, the album shines bright like comet orbiting the label’s dark sky, a much-needed vision of light on the horizon.

“Even if I’m sad or heartbroken, I remain optimistic. I want to grow old with no regrets.”

It’s time to Dream Again…

Repressed LP on Neon Orange Vinyl. “ESG's fusion of sweet soul and punk attitude with an intuitive understanding of dance music remains.” The Guardian “This is still funk with an alien otherworldliness the likes of which George Clinton never envisioned, stripped to its barest essentials for maximum impact.” All Music “ESG are as cool as ever.” The Guardian Pumping their way out of the South Bronx of New York in the early 80s, this rhythm and dance-punk outfit made unforgettable funk that was also unusually rooted in post-punk. This powerhouse of raw and cutting edge music ultimately made them ahead of their time. ESG enjoyed success sharing stages with PiL and Gang Of Four and have been heavily sampled as many musicians including TLC, Wu-Tang Clan, Beastie Boys and Liars.

Repress!

Defected’s vinyl series continues to commit the label’s biggest digital releases to wax, delivering the best house music previously unavailable on vinyl, and this nineteenth edition collates four unmissable releases from 2023’s incredible summer season. Opening the compilation, British house favourite Jansons delivers old skool vibes with ‘Hypnotic’, championed by 90s hip-hop and RnB inspired vocal vocals courtesy of Dope Earth Alien. Next up, LP Giobbi’s long-awaited Defected debut came in the form of ‘Giodisco’, a joyful, vibrant club cut that showcased the live musician and producer’s disco-adjacent sound. On the B-Side, the First Lady of Defected Sam Divine presents her long-awaited dancefloor release ‘Take My Hand’ featuring Josh Barry on vocals. After teasing the track for nearly a year in her live sets, the heavenly house release did not disappoint. Closing out this esteemed collection is the addictive collaboration between Parisian underground favourites and London singer-songwriter Camden Cox, ‘Lady Love’, which dominated the summer season with its undeniable energy and earworm vocal.

Gus Englehorn ist Bürger des Planeten Gus, eines unheimlichen Universums, entstanden durch die Urknall-Kollision zwischen heiterer Schönheit und apokalyptischem Chaos. Sein Hornbook verwandelt die Rock’n’Roll-Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts – die Golden Oldies der 50er, den Garage-Spunk der 60er, die glamouröse Extravaganz der 70er, die Indie-Transgression der 80er, die Lofi-Weirdness der 90er – in eine Alien-Übertragung aus der Zukunft. "The Hornbook" wurde in Montreal von Grammy-Gewinner Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire, Sophie Hunger, Basia Bulat) produziert, dessen Lebenslauf auch einen persönlichen Meilenstein Englehorns enthält: "Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?" (2003), die herrlich verlotterte Debüt-LP der Montrealer Kulthelden The Unicorns, die ihn sehr beeinflusst haben.

Repress!

Voodoos and Taboos first appeared in 2019. A mysterious outfit, their melting pot sound immediately caught the ears of the faithful; acid cut with house, electro beats shot through with a punk D.I.Y. attitude. Their escapades didn’t miss us here at Bordello.

Reversible Dreams collects four examples of this chameleon club style that Voodoos and Taboos have cultivated, the EP opening with the title piece. Cascading chords and whispered samples give way to rich bass strings as a playful piano melody transforms into squirming acid beams.

Claps and neat notes introduce “Unconditional Love”, vocoder lyrics mingling with spoken word and juddering space TB303 squawk. The flip adopts a darker hue. Off-kilter bars and stern beats introduce “Animae”, alien electro melodies descend as a fizzing late night energy takes hold. BPMs drop for “Destino Lontano.”

Warm basslines and Eastern scented synth-play weave their way through the piece, delicate strings and dawn sunshine leading to a close.

BRUK welcomes the daring shapes and inquisitive textures of ELLLL for her debut album, Earth Rotation. Across 13 scuffed cuts and grubby miniatures the Irish producer shapes out a distinctive sound world, steeped in sample science and powered by low-slung grooves. There's no direct message permeating Earth Rotation, but burning issues around embattled ecosystems hang in the air as ELLLL pushes her sound palette until it bites. Extended instrumental techniques lend the album an in-the-room tangibility, while dislocated micro-loops speak to less grounded atmospheres. Starting from densely packed collages and diligently chipping away until spacious, head-knocking arrangements remain, the end results of ELLLL's process call to mind the wayward sample acrobatics that made trip-hop and jungle so emotionally resonant and eerily alien in the same beat. There's rarely anything like conventional boom-bap or a cosily familiar break, but ELLLL finds compelling rhythms in unlikely sources of funk, whether plucked, bowed, sequenced or sculpted. Even when teetering towards techno on 'Titan', her particular approach is gloriously skewed and, by extension, innovative. No matter how serious the techniques involved, Earth Rotation is a celebration of the magic that happens when sound gets mistreated. If there are foreboding ideas lingering in the album's tendency towards dissonance, ELLLL also knows how to inject her work with a necessary mischief, making her a perfect fit amongst the maverick BRUK alumni.

Frenchie King is a veteran artist and producer from the world of Reggae music. He was born in Jamaica and moved to the UK at the age of 12, where he began singing in a church choir. In the late 1960s he formed a church band with two friends called "The Ressurectors". Their music caught the attention of Reggae star Alton Ellis. After meeting Alton a new band formed called "Black Stallion" and their first song on Venture Records was released entitled - "Love Power". Alton was mentor and guiding light for Frenchie and crew; enabling them to jam with a host of Studio One artists.

Frenchie went on to work with noteworthy Reggae arists like: Alton Ellis, Dennis Brown, Dennis Alcapone, Ken Parker, Tito Simon, Dave Barker, Bobby Davis (The Sensations), Ruff Cutt, Owen Gray and Akabu.We didn't tour with Dennis or John Holt but Alton would always call them to the stage to jam, but we did a few shows with Alton sister Hortense Ellis and few other too much to mention...

Moving into the 1980s, Frenchie started a solo career and switched to the label "M1" where he released projects like "Your Entitled" and "Poor Me Natty Dread". During this time he also worked with renowned producer Sid Buckner (Studio One), before taking a brief hiatus; returning to help produce artist Owen Gray. He also wrote the song "Blackbird" for the band Akabu which was released in 1995 on U-Sound. M1 recording produce yours truly under name countryman linkup with the man Ezekiel in Luton hence M1

Moving forward into the 2000s, along with other musical adventures the iconic album "People Had Enough" was released in 2017, along with singles, "Let Us Do Something" and "Dance Cork". On let us do something and dance (kark) is produce by Michael McNeil aka the original jah son , a good musical sou-jah.

Which brings us up to date. In 2023 Frenchie hooked up with The Blackstones. Through this came the opportunity to work with Iron Sound Records and producer Alien Dread. This is the first single on ISR, with a solid Roots vocal track backed by studio band: Alvin Davis, Asha B and Steven Wright. More to follow!

Sweet Nectar Tapes is proud to present the label’s first LP: »Fool or Genious« by G. S. Ruessler. Nine hardsoft cuts combining stubborn grooves and naïve melodies form an uncompromisingly honest album. Pursuing a genuinely straight-to-the-point approach, the tracks were recorded live from desk without any overdubbing. This record marks the departure point of G. S. Ruessler’s explorations in the sonic realm.

Pleasure you can’t measure!

Lili Holland-Fricke and Sean Rogan’s debut album “dear alien” is a constellation of radiant improvised impulses, imagined in lucent fragments of cello, guitar and voice. Spacious, tender and glistening with rich electronic distortion, the record melds a spectrum of processed and natural sound as the artists invite listeners into their dreamlike world of synergetic introspections.

Cultivated through a shared spirit of resourcefulness and play, “dear alien” emerges as an organic meeting place in the compositional output of British-German experimental cellist Lili Holland-Fricke and Manchester-born guitarist and producer Sean Rogan. Having studied their respective instruments at the Royal Northern College of Music, both artists have flourished in eclectic solo and collaborative projects, creating intricate and intimate spheres of sound with a deep appreciation for songwriting and improvisation.

Holland-Fricke’s transition from the classical world to writing her own material, and later vastly expanding her palette with electronics, first converged with Rogan’s distinctive flair for production in 2022 on her EP “birdsong for breakfast” and single ‘draw on the walls’. Now, the duo present an album envisioned through true ‘50/50’ collaboration during the summer of 2023, written across two intensive weeks of improvising and experimenting at Rogan’s Greenwich home studio. A convergence of the artists’ sounds and influences, the music was fostered by the idea of making an album with ‘no plan’ and their shared recent discovery of Arthur Russell, to whom the final track is dedicated.

“dear alien” assembles eight compositions that emerged naturally as the duo created sketches with cello and pedals, guitar, tape loops and poetic vocal musings, forming songs that explore themes of waiting, circling back around, and glitchy communication. Moments of drifting through pillowy layers of sound contrast with saturated visions of electronic modification, where the record’s glowing instrumental contours are pushed to the extremes.

The plaintive shades of ‘half blue’ and meandering deliberations of ‘slow thing’ are teased by the friction of static signals and a sense of ever-mutating sonic mass – a sensibility most acutely realised in ‘dawning’, where cello-vocoder eruptions grow in magnitude, the absence of sound between them burdened with something sinister and unspoken. As the artists expand on this piece, ‘It’s the sound equivalent of squeezing your eyes shut to shield against the brightness of something you don’t want to see, only to find that each time you open them again the world is not softening but getting more relentlessly overwhelming, to the point of being totally blinding.’

Three tracks with lyrics – ‘at first’, ‘dear alien’ and ‘seem asleep’ – refract the album’s wistful and melancholic colours into poetic imagery and metaphors, ushering in reflections on relationship tensions and someone close feeling unknown, with hints towards wider unsettled feelings about climate change. In the spirit of lyrical improv, ‘seem asleep’ compiles lone lines from Holland-Fricke’s journals into a cut-and-paste collage around hopeful patience or futile lingering – either way conjuring a softness that welcomes the hazy ambience of ‘for a. r.’, the final composition which soundscapes the summer days spent making the album. As the artists describe of this track, ‘The music kind of leads somewhere, but then kind of leads nowhere, and just meanders around where it is, content to just be walking in a circle back to where it started.’

Ardor or Entropy is Nzʉmbe's first album in nine years, following 2015's Titubeo. During this period, philosopher and artist Miguel Prado's sonic output has included synthesizing a sonic Gernika with his band HARRGA alongside Dali de Saint Paul, and crafting a hallucinatory sci-fi mythology for Lucrecia Dalt's latest album, ¡Ay!."
Rewiring the conventions of chamber electronics and postmodern songwriting. Here it is presented A Spanish' song cycle on love and cosmological redshift. The distant echo of Tristan‐and‐Iseult's smoking gun where lovemaking becomes an enactment of entropy, a transformation between the dynamic and the static, the human and the fetish, illustrating the inevitable decline into chaos and stillness.
A beached singing voice (beautifully processed by Rashad Becker) against electro-acoustic backdrops ranging from the caustic, viscous to the bonecrushingly dense worldbuilding shared by HR Giger, Ballard and Pynchon. Transcendental and psychotic vistas that boldly examine human fragility and the surrounding abyss of godlessness.
---------------------------------
Artist: Nzʉmbe Title: Ardor or Entropy Label: Drowned By Locals Catalog Number: DBL31LP Year: 2024
Side A:
Mirror Of TauromachyZone Of AlienationGreat Vitreous TactKarman Vortex Street
Side B:
Serpentine LinesThermocline Anake and EntropyErgosferaAsymptopia
Composed, arranged and recorded by Miguel Prado Casanova
Vocal processing by Rashad Becker Piano on "Anake and Entropy" by Michael PisaroPipes on "Mirror Of Tauromachy" and "Ergosfera" by Wojciech RusinAccordion on "Asymptopia" by Alfredo Costa MonteiroTrumpet on "Asymptopia" by Ruth Barberán Electric bass on "Asymptopia" by Dominic LashElectric guitar on "Asymptopia" by Daniel BennettPercussion on "Asymptopia" by Alex Lázaro
Premixed by Miguel Prado Casanova Mixed, Mastered and Vinyl cut by Rashad Becker
Artwork photos by Lúa Ribeira © all rights reserved, 2024Design by Giovanni Murolo
This album is dedicated to Patricia
Special thanks to Patricia Fraga, Dali de Saint Paul, Mattin, Lucrecia Dalt, Laith Demashqieh, Lúa Ribeira, Rashad Becker

In collaboration with Back Lot Music and Monkeypaw Productions, Waxwork Records is proud to present MONKEY MAN Original Motion Picture Soundtrack by Jed Kurzel. Monkey Man is a 2024 action-thriller film directed, co-written, and produced by Dev Patel in his directorial debut.

The film follows "Kid", an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a monkey mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city's sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.

Jed Kurzel is an award winning Australian singer-songwriter-guitarist and film composer. His scoring credits include The Babadook, Alien: Covenant, Overlord, Assassin's Creed, and others.

Waxwork Records proudly presents MONKEY MAN Original Motion Picture Soundtrack as a deluxe double LP featuring Blood Red, Black, and Metallic Gold A-Side B-Side colored vinyl, new artwork by Sajan Rai, exclusive director and composer liner notes, heavyweight gatefold packaging, and an 11"x11 insert.

"The seventh Various Artists release on Mary Yuzovskaya's Monday Off imprint arrives on vinyl in October 2024, with Viels, ORBE, D-Leria, and Yuzovskaya contributing tracks.
First up on the record, Italy's End Of Perception founder Viels conjures up a storm with 'Nero', a cerebral cut with crushing, low-end-heavy atmospheres and mysterious alien signals. It is followed by Spanish techno lynchpin and Orbe Records boss ORBE, whose hypnotic 'Rigging' explores the abyss with foreboding sonics and a continual beep sequence that guides the track forward.

On the B-side, Monday Off label head Mary Yuzovskaya presents 'Trouble'. A masterful bassline and bodied kickdrum starts the trip, providing an excellent foundation while alternating between rattling percussion, deep dub hits, and strangely familiar but indecipherable vocal snippets. Sound design wizard D-Leria then closes out the EP with the spellbinding 'Battito', complete with mind-blowing melodies and swirling effects, rounding off another top-draw psychedelic offering on Monday Off.

Lenske's 23rd release is a comeback by the undeniably talented Milo Spykers. With his fifth release on the label, the Belgian producer and DJ solidifies his strong presence within the Lenske family. This EP features his distinctive blend of harder techno and psy-elements, delivering an electrifying package and his most mature to date.

This four-track EP is a testament to Spykers' unique style and innovative approach, perfect for the sweaty dancefloor. It kicks off with the title track 'Thunderworld', bringing a stomping kick and a hard, rolling groove. The bouncing lead, reminiscent of a thunderstorm, paired with cinematic alien sound design, creates an intense atmosphere. A breakbeat section provides a contrasting element, heightening tension during the break. Following, 'Ghostrider' features metallic percussion resonating throughout the track, with a rolling bassline and a catchy groove that keeps listeners anchored to the dancefloor. The rising dark bassline adds an intimate
vibe, building suspense and intensity.

With a bouncy groove and a trancy bassline, 'Warp Drive' takes listeners on a mind-bending journey. The synth seems to rise from the underworld, pushed by a distorted bass evoking the sensation of racing through a neon-lit tunnel, akin to a Blade Runner-esque landscape. Closing the EP, 'Croton' showcases Spykers' producer-skills once again, delivering a rolling distorted bassline and saturated percussion that the Belgian producer is best known for. Dark leads dominate the scene, merging seamlessly with the fast-paced, aggressive cut, while delayed leads on the downbeat add color and atmospheric pads unify the composition, introducing a touch of darkness.

A new piece by minimalist / experimental composer PHILL NIBLOCK (1933 - 2024), co-composed and performed by ANNA CLEMENTI & THOMAS STERN. Intense, menacing layers of thick drones and alien sounds.

In summer 2022, within just a few weeks and by pure coincidence, 2 proposals regarding PHILL NIBLOCK albums arrived: one suggesting an overdue vinyl reissue of a CD release (more on that when the time has come for it), the other email was from ANNA CLEMENTI saying she and THOMAS STERN were working on new pieces that PHILL NIBLOCK has written for her … when "Zound Delta 2" was complete, PHILL sent photographs for the two artworks, we met twice to discuss details, but unfortunately he died unexpectedly early january this year so the album now is, sad as it is, a posthumous release … an intense goodbye from one of 20thcentury most iconic composers.

Phill Niblock

Phill Niblock (1933-2024, USA) was an artist whose fifty-year career spans minimalist and experimental music, film and photography. Since 1985, he has served as director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation for avant-garde music based in New York with a branch in Ghent, and curator of the foundation's record label XI. Known for his thick, loud drones of music, Niblock's signature sound is filled with microtones of instrumental timbres that generate many other tones in the performance space. In 2013, his diverse artistic career was the subject of a retrospective realised in partnership between Circuit (Contemporary Art Centre Lausanne) and Musée de l'Elysée. The following year Niblock was honoured with the prestigious Foundation for Contemporary Arts John Cage Award.

Anna Clementi

Italian-Swedish singer Anna Clementi grew up in Rome, where she first studied the flute and completed acting training before moving to Berlin and studying experimental vocal music and experimental music theater with the composer Dieter Schnebel at Hochschule der Künste (now UdK Berlin). Anna Clementi sees herself as an "actress of the voice" rather than exclusively as a singer. In this way she also articulates the diversity of her artistic expression, with which she is always searching for new connections between voice, gesture, language, dance and theater.

During her decades spanning career, Anna Clementi has performed at the most important festivals, has premiered numerous works, many of which have been composed especially for her, and worked with Fast Forward, Michael Hirsch, Rupert Huber, Christian Kesten, Alexander Kolkowski, Olga Neuwirth, Josef Anton Riedl, Iris ter Schiphorst, Dieter Schnebel, Laurie Schwartz, Elliott Sharp, and many others.

A special focus of hers is the work of John Cage, whose pieces she has performed worldwide.

Thomas Stern

Born in Bremen, Thomas Stern moved to Berlin in 1984 where he joined Mona Mur with Alex Hacke and F. M. Einheit (both from Einstürzende Neubauten, with which Stern also worked as live sound engineer for many years). Around 1987 he co-founded the Berlin set up of Crime And The City Solution (Mick Harvey, Alex Hacke a.o.). Over the years, he has has collaborated with artists like Ulrike Haage, Phew, Nick Cave, Ton Steine Scherben, Meret Becker, Nina Hagen, Jaki Liebezeit, Ben Becker, N.U. Unruh, Gry, Iris ter Schiphorst, Automat, Swans, Hans Joacxhim Irmler and many more, on the road or in his own Sternstaubstudio.
credits:

Anna Clementi: voice

Thomas Stern: slide guitar, bass and soundprocessing

Composition by Phill Niblock, Anna Clementi and Thomas Stern

Recorded and mixed by Thomas Stern at Sternstaubstudio, Berlin

Mastering and lacquer cut: Kassian Troyer at D&M, Berlin

Cover photography by Phill Niblock

Layout and design by kaidoh

"Vanatühi" by Kiwanoid is a technopagan concept album. Track titles refer to the word "nothing" in various languages.
The sonic landscape is crafted using deprecated tools: a first-generation 4-bit laptop, the DOS operating system, and a tracker program. Inspired by glitch aesthetics, the sound palette includes clicks, error noises, and low-bitrate techno sounds. Initially, the structures of the pieces may appear complex and chaotic. This electronic thicket might seem abstract, cold, and inaccessible, yet upon closer examination, it reveals a plethora of diverse species, coming across as somewhat nostalgic and warm, evoking surreal associations. From beneath towering sequoias peek pixelated ferns, LED eyes are blinking from below the undergrowth, and against the backdrop of a crackling campfire and cave paintings, a lively stomping of microchips unfolds.
Sudden contrasts, sharp cutting edges, a tachycardic bass drum engine, and irregular polyrhythms make themselves physically felt. Elsewhere, haunting lo-fi textures, hidden ambient drones, mysterious hums, and obscurely garbled samples offer introspective breathers. The dynamic range of the music is favourably extensive, and the raw imperfections of the sound are unmasked by reverb effects or other generic tools. Interwoven throughout are outsider rhythm loops, which could find a home at an alien rave party or a hobgoblin honky-tonk. Various human voice samples build a bridge to the listener, allowing them to embody a cyborg-like experience.

While each twist and turn remains unpredictable, these diverse approaches align in complementary patterns and stochastic regularities, making the whole surprisingly coherent, despite its chaos. The album doesn't bore the audience with intentionally irritating compositions or pseudocomplexity - it demands attention, but doesn't try to outrun its listeners.

Fera’s trajectory sticks out like a sore thumb, you need to invest time, carefully divided between body & mind, to truly take a deep dive into his audacious output. After the acclaimed ‘Stupidamutaforma’ and ‘Corpo Senza Carne’, Fera is back with ‘Psiche Liberata’, an oblique, imperfect and broken record, in other words, exactly the type of magical voyage you want to be on. The mind, finally liberated.

Fera is Andrea De Franco, electronic composer from Southern Italy now residing in Bologna, also known for his work as visual artist/designer and member of the Undicesimacasa collective. His musical cosmos is profound and imaginative, intergalactic atmospheres that condense fragmented IDM, scintillating textures, distorted synthscapes, crunchy technoid rhythms and swirling abstractions that weave gently, sometimes moody and stark, more often celestial and awe-inspiring.

Mixed in Berlin by Steve Scanu ‘Psiche Liberata’ encapsulates Fera’s dense and intricate thought process in contrast with his simple and direct approach to writing and recording that finds its more natural output in his rapturous live sets where a mono signal runs through a few analog pedals transforming instantly into menacing alien grooves and fluid ecstasis.

Like ‘Psiche Liberata’s artwork, hand-drawn by Fera, every detailed miniature leads to a single cell of sound, tracks collide against each other in a psychotic kaleidoscope where every safe space is confronted with subsequent noise, alterations or interruptions. The black terror of ‘Celestial Anacusma’ is followed by the space-jazz banquet of ‘Milk Tears In The Hug Chamber’ doped up cyber Sun Ra extravaganza featuring Laura Agnusdei and Luigi Monteanni (Artetetra) on saxophones and flutes; ‘Silenzio Solare’ sprinkles Mille Plateaux era minimalism all over hallucinations, while ‘Diluvia’ crosses industrial acid with perpetual motion; title track ‘Psiche Liberata’ murmurs mechanically, a downtempo drifter for the wide-eyed 7AM comedown: ‘Simulacrima’ melts Boards Of Canada’s mellow pastoralism with dystopian meta-level dreamland and ‘Riposa’ showcases an overwhelming melancholy executed with elegance in a slo-mo world where the ineffable transcends notions of ambient and becomes a warm embrace.

Created on a Monotribe, MS20 & Volca Sample/fm, ‘Psiche Liberata’s velvet heaviness was achieved by re-amping many of the instruments through a Leslie Rotary Speaker and a reel-to-reel Telefunken. Fera’s sonic tapestry is in constant flux, underlying themes of love longing and affection run through the record but in a turbulent, volcanic, unleashed fashion, almost on the brink of utter noise or complete silence, reminding us that this is an artist like no other amidst the ever changing electronic scene. These are transmissions from the gutter, where the inevitable meets the unattainable and collapses.

"Fera’s tarnished materials are destined for ruin; “Stupida,” full of longing and regret, sounds like an elegy for a fallen world." Pitchfork

"A cut of dark magic that fits like a glove to overcast days, wild winds and lashing rains. Insistent, the treacle-thick bassline oozes out, soaking the space between the melancholic synth lines." Inverted Audio

"The songs on Stupidamutaforma feel hypnotizing...it establishes De Franco as a composer who uses space and time to create a set of rich, immersive works." Bandcamp 'Album Of The Day'

Bristol's cultured Innate label is back with a first outing of the year and it returns to their various artists format with a mix of talents all making their mark. UK veteran Tom Churchill opens up with 'Unknown Unknowns (Edit)', which brings plenty of fuzzy and lo-fi aesthetic to jacked up drums and spaced-out pads. Rai Scott then shows her class with 'Suasion' that sinks down deep into immersive drums and is subtly lit up with simmering strings. Innate co-founders Owain K and Gilbert then hook-up under their brand new alias Curved Space and showcase their love of electro with 'Reverie,' a dreamy cut that glows with nice celestial melodies and will have dance floors in a zoned-out state. Last of all it's Lisbon mainstay Jorge Caiado who debuts with the chord-laced 'Floating Without Lifting,' a sophisticated and serene jazz-techno cut that takes you to the stars.


DJ Feedback

Richard Sen:
"Lliking the Tom Churchill and Curved Space tracks. Will try and fit them into the show and in the club."

Laurent Garnier:
"A lovely EP indeed!"

Jayson Wynters:
"This is a great release. Nice varied tracks for different moods. Will certainly be playing this."

Anna Wall:
"Lovely VA! Thanks so much for sharing :) Faves are Jorges track and Rai Scott. Really beautiful music!"

Ewan Jansen:
"Great listen mate - a good gang assembled too."

DJ Guy:
"The EP is gonna be incredible..."

Orlando Voorn:
"I like em all!"

Moy:
"This is another really wikid V/A!"

Hizou:
"Thanks a lot, so good music here!"

Appleblim:
"I love the Tom Churchill - very detroity and deep, beautiful!"

Baldo:
"Thanks for this release, I love your track with Gilbert and also Jorge's! pure class!"

Alex Attias:
"Sounding dope! I’m feeling this great ep, thank you so much."

Chris Duckenfield:
"Many thanks for sharing, it’s a strong EP for sure. B2 probably my immediate fave."

Adam Shelton:
"Wicked release! Love all tracks, thanks so much."

Alien Communications:
"Love the EP, really like all the tracks but your own, Reverie, is definitely the strongest for me."

Dan Curtin:
"Sounding so lush...really really great. "

Vine Watson:
"Sounding great!!!"

Pleasure Planet’s kaleidoscopic debut album has been a long time coming, but good things come to those who wait. Developed over years of late-night studio improvisations, ‘Pleasure Planet’ is an affectionate and colorful patchwork of the New York City-based trio’s knotted influences that’s suspended between the rave and the chill-out room, weaving glistening pads and chunky basslines into vocal earworms and warm, saturated rhythmic cycles. Bandmates Andrew Potter, Kim Ann Foxman and Brian Hersey enter into a lysergic dialog with their discrete personal musical histories, drawing inspiration from vintage EBM, ambient music and heady early ’90s West Coast rave sounds and launching these classic elements into a transcendent new sonic universe.

Celebrated DJ and producer Foxman was a lead singer of Hercules and Love Affair when she first ran into DC rave veteran Potter, and the two rapidly realized their musical interests overlapped. So when Potter was recording with his studiomate Hersey, a NYC underground club scene mainstay, and they needed to bring in a vocalist, the choice was simple. Working together was a refreshing, freeing experience for the three seasoned artists, and the more they experimented, the closer they became; Foxman ended up moving into the studio, and Pleasure Planet was manifested into existence. “We’re like family,” says Potter. “We’re always on the same page – we couldn’t make this music solo.”

For Foxman, the open-ended jam sessions provided her with a chance to try something new, a few steps from the dancefloor-forward DJ tracks she’s best known for producing. And as the trio pooled their adolescent rave memories, reflecting on them with more mature ears, they began to develop the signature sound that was first heard on the Throne Of Blood-released ‘Animals’ 12″. Pleasure Planet aren’t trying to re-capture the past, but suggest a poetic contemplation that layers their recollections and musical obsessions into a hypnotic sci-fi dream. Harnessing a self-described “Aladdin’s cave” of analog and digital gear that help galvanize the timeline, they bridge the gap between avant-pop and icy bleep techno, curving suggestive words through lattices of tightly-engineered electronics.

On ‘Endless’, Foxman’s voice is echoed into a glistening haze that hovers around ethereal pads and tense, electroid pulses. Slow-moving and evocative, it’s a track that capture the open endedness of post-rave euphoria, touching the afterparty but moving far beyond the material world. She’s more recognizable on ‘Alien’, the album’s most upfront track, singing in a glassy, upper-register coo over urgent bass bumps, taut guitars and florid electronic atmospheres. “Are you an alien, or are you an angel?” she asks, fractalizing the borders between genres. And the band’s sense of cosmic togetherness bubbles to the surface on ‘Saved by the Bells’, a meditative after-hours experiment that diminishes the pulsing beats for a moment to bring out a spectrum of interconnected, serpentine melodies.

Modular bleeps and echoing percussion anchor the swooning ‘Planet Love’, one of Pleasure Planet’s most recent compositions and one of the album’s most outwardly psychedelic cuts, while the urgent and anthemic ‘Go With Madness’ steps back towards the main stage, evaporating Foxman’s memorable calls into a thumping procession of analog drums and squelchy, acidic bass tweaks. But they save the best for last, tugging at the heartstrings with ‘Remember (In Dreams)’, a giddy spiral of blipping synth arpeggios and haunting, reverberated chorals. It’s the perfect way to conclude an album that cryptically gestures towards the vulnerability of friendship, celebrating the shared experiences that result in some of the most meaningful memories of all.

Finland has long had a uniquely progressive underground, with thriving punk, avant, jazz, and rock scenes with oversized output and impact. Jussi Lehtisalo’s (Circle, Pharaoh Overlord, Mahti, etc) label Ektro has been at the center of this activity for the last three decades, with a stream of excellent and conceptually bonkers releases covering music of all types. Here Lehtisalo joins up with Jan Anderzén (of Kemialliset Ystävät among others) for an album of absolutely fun and unusual miniature duets that sound like alien Library music beamed in from the outerlands. Tracks like “Luukku Yksi” and “Puistossa” use a charmingly retro synth-y sound palate and Cluster-like melodic sensibility to make accessible some deceptively “out” music. Some cuts (like “Kylpy”) have a vague hint of early ’80s post-punk / new wave vibes, bouncing along in a friendly way with odd interjections of sample debris and electronics jumping out of the mix to keep it weird. The surging “Hymy yössä” could be music for the credits of the world’s hippest newscast. Beautiful jacket by renown Helsinki-based artist Dylan Ray Arnold, bringing the die-cut techniques of their gallery pieces like “Growth of the Night Plants” to LP form.

Love's Command have been "riding the rocket of Brit funk" ever since day one says ROCit who now serves up a pair of new cuts from them. This record is designed to spread love and pace and it does that with feel-good vibes from the off. 'Aliens From Above' is an out-there funk sound with tight, quick drumming, plenty of neat guitar riffs and a cosmic feel from the lush synths. Add in vocoder vocals and you have a trip to outer space that you will never want to end. Flip it over and you get a more dubbed-out version that is no less of an adventure.

We're excited to unveil our inaugural vinyl release, introducing the first Neptune ‘Disc’ to the world. Trance-inducing progressive genres, which dive into the magnetic allure of '90s progressive sounds with a distinct tilt towards the club scene. Four tracks resonating through the depths of a festival ambiance, enveloped in an enigmatic mist and bathed under shimmering purple strobes.

A1 introduces Cybernet, an emerging force hailing from the vibrant scene of Aus. Delving beyond the sounds of the '90s Cybernet brings forth a distinctive sonic narrative, intertwining intricate vocal hooks before unleashing the pulsating acid-line. An instant classic unfolds, resonating with the essence of the dance-floor.

Glen S swiftly becomes a Neptune Disc regular with "Uh!" on A2. Tailored for the club, he infuses his signature alien scattered pulses and a rolling bassline. With a deft touch, he creates a surge of energy by cutting off all elements on the drop, leaving only the bass and kicks. Expertly crafted.
Aiden's "Fanks" on the B-side boasts a mesmerising appeal, again reminiscent of the 90s-2000s era, with its pulsating bassline and entrancing soundscape. It delves into the realm of trance, offering a hypnotic journey that echoes the allure of that bygone era. With its captivating blend of trippy elements, the track creates a nostalgic yet timeless vortex of sound, drawing listeners into an otherworldly experience that resonates with the spirit of classic electronic music.

B2 showcases Tourman's prowess as a versatile producer, seamlessly delving into different genres. Overflowing with progressive energy and adorned with scattered UFO sounds, this track stands as a testament to Tourman's evolving artistry—a dynamic force ready to command diverse sonic landscapes. An ideal opener for peak-time set.

ush's eighth studio album, Moving Pictures, was released in 1981 and features the Top 10 hits "Limelight" and "Tom Sawyer." 40th Anniversary Edition LP cut at half-speed on 180-gram vinyl and wrapped in a premium tip-on gatefold jacket with one of six hand-drawn lyric sheets by Neil Peart.
Released in 1981 at the dawn of the age of sequencing and synthesizers, Moving Pictures has one musical foot firmly in the 70's and the other stepping into the future of recording technology. This global smash includes the ultimate prog-instrumental, YYZ; the band's ode to live performance, Limelight; Witch Hunt, which explores socio-politics; and Tom Sawyer, which captures the feelings behind teenage alienation more succinctly than any song that has since followed, save Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. This recording is considered by many to be the absolute best Rush. - Jodi Lutz

Matching his signature melodic futurism with enduring club music structures, Pev brings the Pulse series to a natural conclusion with the Pulse Phase EP. On this third release he underlines the broader approach to tempos and styles he’s taken across this latest period of his output, soon to be coalesced into a new live set.

If there’s been a nostalgic streak detectable amongst the crisp modernism of the Pulse series, it comes through clearer than ever in the looped-up house jack and starry-eyed techno synth hooks of ‘Pulse IX’. ‘Pulse TEN’ pares back for a lean soundsystem workout driven by a strafing arp and fractured drums while ‘Pulse XI’ revisits 90s bleep techno with a deep, dubby intention. ‘Pulse XII’ completes the picture capturing the skeletal pressure of 2-step at its most slender and deadly.

There’s never a sense of over-familiarity — the exacting angles of the drums and alien hue of the synths maintain Pev’s distinctive sound first and foremost. But this series has also been an opportunity to hear some of his musical DNA more explicitly than before, cast in universal rave motifs propelled by the unrelenting pursuit of new forms for the dance.

Livity Sound is a label set up by Peverelist in 2011 as a vehicle for a raw and exploratory strain of UK techno, rooted in the heritage of UK dance music and sound system culture. It has since become one of the UK's foremost protagonists for cutting edge underground electronic music.

Arriving as the third album on Supreems ‘Sweet Sun’ label – an imprint gathering a reputation for future-facing, storytelling electronic music – Sloucho's 'NPC' explores the duality of his main character and non-playable lives. With a strong Irish artistic presence featuring Rory Sweeney, EMBY, Curtisy and more, Sloucho navigates through Cloudcore-inspired broken beats, bass-driven percussion, alternative dreamscapes and wubby fuck-steps on his most complete release to date, laying the foundation for an origin-story in the process.

Garnering support from Surusinghe, Roza Terenzi, Two Shell and more; some of the tracks on NPC have already been heard in clubs around the world - from Antwerp to London and Mumbai to Paris. ‘Mind Traveller’ offers an ambient introduction to ‘Athrú’, Sloucho’s home world, as the artist's pitched vocals act as the listeners guide into the island's core. ‘Mutant’ features experimental electronic artist Rhoshi on a track that follows the kaleidoscopic sonic-themes of Sloucho’s previous Cloudcore releases ‘Slow Feet’ and ‘Silver Veil’, before the Rory Sweeney-featuring ‘Come Around’ ignites the dance with its dutty screw-face two-step, balanced by moments of melodic contemplation before evolving into a techno-dancehall hybrid.

‘Brand New’ stays on the steppy aesthetic, and brings MCs EMBY and Zack Oke into the frame with a 3D Meta-human video created in collaboration with respected, exhibiting digital artist Aisling Phelan. Using a motion capture suit, they captured EMBY and Zack’s performance and imported it into Unreal Engine, using different environments scanned from around the Greek Islands as the backdrop. The result is mind-blowing; a complete digital realm, shot like a real-life rap video as EMBY and Zack spit bars across an elasticated garage riddim. Full video is on YouTube.

‘Super Maramu 2000’ is a cut of alien-club beamed directly from ‘Eile’, the afterlife of Sloucho’s Neolithic ancestors. A waltzer-ride through Latin-bass and techno with an oxymoronic blend of maximalist and minimalist futurism, it’s as silly as it is serious, before the stuttering, juke-influence of ‘Make It Work’ brings the album’s rapid first half (and a bit) to a close.

Sloucho seamlessly weaves from front left of the club to dark, fume-filled rooms on ‘Two Thousands’ (featuring EMBY and Curtisy), ‘Rocks’ (featuring Zack Oke, who sounds remarkably like experimental spoken-word artist Coby Sey here, and Chilean artist Vatican Jail) and ‘Lights On’ (featuring Yamagōchi), Sloucho explores a previously unseen side to his sound, meandering through alternative trap and hip-hop laden beats that are both dreamy and nightmarish, bringing NPC to its starry-skied climax.