quête:boundaries

Hustler Records announces THE DON as its debut release; a beast of a track, leaning more towards heavy breaks with a Ragga vocal and emotive strings. THE DON is all about remembering you are THE DON of your own life and you never walk alone.

THE RAGGA TWINS:
The Ragga Twins started out on London's Unity sound system, and are regarded as pioneer s of the scene. AllMusic called them "crucial cogs in the development of U.K. dance music.

LUSINDA:
One of the female DJ’s actively pushing boundaries and scenes forwards. Her eclectic taste in music overspills into her sets; ranging through anything bass heavy; House, old skool, Techno, Drum & Bass, UKG and Grime. She focuses on the raw end of the sound whilst still being both accessible and innovative. For more than 16 years DJ Lusinda has been djing around the globe; South America, Europe and USA.

microCastle's final offering of 2023 welcomes Colossio and Luke Garcia to the label for their debut EP. Colossio has been a rising force across the Indie Dance spectrum for the better part of a decade. Based in Mexico and taking inspiration from krautrock, psychedelia and the golden age of Mexican cinema, the Monterrey resident has continued to open up endless creative avenues and furthered his boundless appeal with releases via Borders of Light, Calypso Records, Duro and Exit Strategy. Meanwhile, Spanish artist Luke Garcia has enjoyed similar success across his decade-long career. The Madrid resident has been praised for his borderless approach to production, in turn landing standout projects for Diynamic, Innervisions, Sum Over Histories and TAU. As occasional studio partners since the beginning of 2023, Colossio and Luke made their collaborative debut via Engrave Ltd with ‘Let Go’, a release which would precede a recent contribution to Innervisions ‘Secret Weapons’ Part 16. Now, continuing to build on their creative partnership, Colossio and Luke end the year with their microCastle debut ‘Amen / Ryen’.

Played by Ame during the summer season, EP opener 'Amen' finds Colossio operating in solo capacity and taking square aim at the dancefloor. Full of rejuvenating energies, the Monterrey resident cleverly blends robust kick drums and electric grooves with swerving chord stabs and chanting vocals. Colossio’s creative attitude reveals itself further across the main break; with a hyperventilating build dropping out into a rush of main room alchemy, all laid out over a bed of percolating acid. Selection two ‘Ryen’ finds Luke Garcia crafting a feel-good indie-dance excursion that’s nicely suited for those uplifting club moments. Booming yet dreamy, its colourfully cruising hypnotism instantly commands your attention, through snatches of vocal fragments and siren-like synth flares, eventually culminating in a finale of rave-inspired euphoria.

The EP’s halfway point is marked by the behemoth sized vibes of ‘Situation’. Here, Luke and Colossio masterfully synthesize their talents while breaking down boundaries to serve up a melting pot of hard-edged dance. Its pneumatic energy turns over quickly, flowing through a brutalist maze of mutated vocal gates and fiery rhythmic fractures, before reaching a hyperspeed collision of sonics for the ultimate high-octane drop. Rounding out the release is ‘My Body’ which once again finds Colossio and Luke combining their extensive forces. The cross-continental duo drive each other forward beyond their individual comfort zones for a mature club-effective record; one where thunderous beats, weighted rhythms and looping vocals prelude a collection-closing melodic finale. Artwork: Mauricio Seidel.

“Owelle”: frenchified word derived from the English expression “Oh well”. Repurposed by Valérie Siron as her pseudonym to reflect her work ethos: serious, but without making a fuss.

Surfacing from Geneva’s club culture with a graphic design background, Owelle’s drive to synergise the audio and the visual power her expression of creative identity. Her compositions are imagined and built without boundaries, albeit replete with nods to previous genres ranging from early 2000s breakbeat, braindance and broken beat techno.

Intrigued by sensory immersion, Owelle further laces her art with interactive tools including programming, sound spatialisation and installation. Diving into a spatiotemporal journey, subtly incorporating their uses into her musical works. By blending her passion for diligent sound designing, field recordings and psychedelic vocals is how Owelle presents her approach to experimental music. Owelle’s creativity offers an intrinsic connection of her tailored rhythms and melodies to birth an original hybrid of sound and visual art.

The music within this record questions the importance of sound in relation to the individual’s environment. To blur the border between noise and aesthetically pleasing. To ride the waves between discomfort and delight and to find the potentially hidden role of situational awareness and relating it to musical endeavours derived from the emotions within.

This extraordinary vinyl release showcases four original tracks that push the boundaries of complexity and sonic exploration with a mind-bending remix from Anthony Linell. This EP invites listeners to embark on a captivating journey through intricate soundscapes.

Reissue of the highly sought-after 7” from 1979 by Chicago
reggae outfit Gypsy Fari.
Gypsy Fari was a project born in the south side of Chicago
after a chance meeting between St Kitts expat Leroy Webster
and local music grad Kevin Coleman. The pair set out to blur
the boundaries of genre with their unique brand of music,
spearheaded by Webster’s Caribbean roots and fused with
the soul and blues the midwest is famous for.
A striking stand-out of the band’s repertoire comes via their
debut recording, laid down at Curtis Mayfield’s legendary
Curtom Studios. The EP opens with Chi-Town Reggae - a
super-charged blend of reggae and disco, led by Websters
infectious vocal, steeped in soul and powered by a relentless
rhythm section. Hail Jah follows closely, written on the hilltops
of the outskirts of Kingston, Jamaica, it’s a deadly roots reggae
missile that pays homage to Websters beginnings.
Once dubbed by a local news outlet “Gypsy Fari are to
Chicago reggae what Muddy Water is to Chicago blues” -
now remastered, repackaged and made available again for
the first time since its initial release

After five years from "Cash On The Line" Admiral returns with some hot served distillate of his sweet psychedelic bliss. Admiral takes us on an acid soaked journey through the many realms of consciousness offering a unique and alluring soundscape that defies traditional boundaries."Do You Want To Sit On The Green" sounds like library music coming from a parallel universe where the familiar and the surreal seamlessly blend to create a musical tapestry that is both nostalgic and avant-garde.

After five years from "Cash On The Line" Admiral returns with some hot served distillate of his sweet psychedelic bliss. Admiral takes us on an acid soaked journey through the many realms ofconsciousness offering a unique and alluring soundscape that defies traditional boundaries.

"Do You Want To Sit On The Green" sounds like library music coming from a parallel universe where the familiar and the surreal seamlessly blend to create a musical tapestry that is both nostalgic and avant-garde.

Closely following a busy 2023, GiGi FM announces her brand-new record label, offering “Kiwi Synthesis Diary Vol. 2” to mark the debut. Sea~rène takes aim at dreamlike and ethereal electronic music to reconnect the subconscious and the cosmos through immersive storytelling. As the identity quote of the label says itself “We are Sea~rène swimming in-between supernatural tides, forever following the emotional waves of the universe”.

Already quite accomplished in her milieu through an acclaimed release on Bambounou’s Bambelabel, where she explored the relationship between bodily technologies and music, as well as through her residency on NTS Radio where she explores inter-dimensional sounds and shares her own musical palette, GiGi also continues to perform at strings of performances in the past years in settings like Berghain, Rural Japan, Draaimolen, Fabric, De School, Primavera, The Bunker New York, and Sustain Release. The French/Italian artist takes her productions further with this first release of her imprint. A continuation of her first self-released project, “Kiwi Synthesis Diary 21k,” in 2021, GiGi FM celebrates the exchange between her, as the owner of the journal, and its reader through euphoric soundscapes and vibrant psychedelia. Taking a step back from lockdown introspections, blurred lines between dream and reality like ambient and drony atmospheres, GiGi gives us a bent club record full of colors and life.

GiGi FM guides us through dreams of sonic environments and the adventures to be had through them. Some are characterized by evolving fractals and shifting landscapes like in the healing mushroom journey of ‘Amadamushies’ and the mythical Japanese Heron ‘Tsuru’. Combining steady rhythm and immersive ambiances, the result intends to soothe into a state of openness through kindly familiar territories. Sifting through the tracks, we find ourselves traveling fast through cosmic ecosystems like in the spiritual and cosmic teaching that “Tevora'' represents, as well as ‘Househopping (Keroppi)’ and “Sly Xupete Di Barcelona,” conveying the urgency to feel and create, even within difficult circumstances, while “Spazio Teletrasporto'' takes us on a hypnotic whirlwind trip into the depths of the cosmos and our inner consciousness. Through these chapters of a journey, a connection between the mind and the beyond is implied, and its importance is highlighted.

Deeply influenced by astrology, philosophy, and the cosmos; for GiGi, music is both a tool for expression and introspection. As a multi-hyphenate artist, she continues on her quest to push artistic boundaries and hold space for unique audience experiences. Whatever medium she may adopt, the result is a rich embodiment of the interconnectedness of sound, color, movement, and metaphysics.

Modern highlife luminary Rex Omar has been a force within
the Ghanaian music scene for over 30 years. Now Soundway
presents five of his premier cuts remastered for a new self-titled
EP.

Over his career Rex Omar has evolved the genre, pushing
boundaries and dazzling listeners. A definitive piece of his
repertoire comes via his Dangerous album: while it was selfproduced and recorded in London circa 1997, upon CD
release it saw success mainly within his homeland of Ghana.

An irresistible blend of street-soul-come-highlife, with elements
of bouncing 90s RnB/hip-hop, it was developed with help
from Ibibio Sound Machine’s Kari Bannerman and prolific
Jamaican producer Bill Campbell. From this album rising
London producer and DJ Aroop Roy revisits the four-to-the-floor
excursion ‘Dada’, repurposing for today’s dancefloor with the
addition of fizzing synth chords and stabs.

While Omar regularly raps on his earlier works, on ‘Kele
Ngele’ (taken from his 2004 album Ajala) we hear a yearning
melodic vocal over a more laid back RnB beat. This rounds out
the new Rex Omar EP for the discerning listener to experience
the full breadth of his inventive output.

Memento Records’ boss Idriss D goes back to his more experimental side on this release, pushing the boundaries like he did on his first Lunatic EP, coming up once again with another Jungle-infused mesmerizing piece of Electronica that mixes breakbeat influences with melodic soulful vibes.

A very welcome follow up, aptly titled “Lunatic 2”, this tune is fiercely uptempo and energetic: the psychedelic melody swirls inside, outside and around your mind, while the fluid bass line counterparts the schizophrenic rhythm. On top of this, powerful emotional vocals take you into another dimension.

The prestigious remix comes courtesy of Gilb’R, founder of Versatile Records and one half of Chateau Flight: a slower downtempo piece with an infectious, almost improvisational synth melody, with vocals taking center stage here, full of atmospheric sounds all over that land into a deep dreamy break.

Tiella Sound is a project born in 2019 from the mind of Italian DJ Luca Bigote that started as a radio show currently airing on French LYL Radio, and now debuting in the record label ecosystem with its first official release, pressed in a limited edition of only 200 copies.

The vision and mission of the entire project are quite clear and based on the principle of musical eclecticism. Luca Bigote, in fact, from the very beginning has never wanted to set boundaries to his creature, which, following an open-minded approach, flirts with the most disparate sounds, not exclusively club-oriented ones, focusing on the quality and research that have always distinguished his path.

For its first release, Tiella Sound has chosen Perugia-born DJ and producer Daniele Tomassini, already known for his records under the Feel Fly moniker, who presents us with the first LP from his alter ego VAISA.
This work consists of unreleased tracks composed between 2014 and 2016, during the intense creative period that saw him involved in more experimental and alternative projects such as Palenque Pacal trio and Wunder Camera duo. This material finally sees the light, a few years after the inspiring live performance during the second edition of Esperimenti (January 2017), the music festival curated by Luca himself together with his friend and colleague Matteo Lieto in Gaeta, Italy.

“VAISA is a dense, raw, evocative project. A lo-fi maelstrom of field recordings, sound collage, mysterious vocal samples from ancient cultures, obscure rhythms and layered tribal percussions, ambient clouds, dub echoes, with the martial tolling of the kick drum beating out the slow electronic ritual” (Caveargento): a deep and timeless journey, ready to drive all the lovers of the most abstract and primitive sounds into ecstasy.

Bread & Butter Recordings gears up for their first release of the year, continuing their tradition with a various artists compilation, exclusively on vinyl, that exemplifies the label's commitment to quality and artistic integrity. Once more the label from the U.K. pushes the boundaries of electronic music uniting innovative talent and capturing a unique essence of minimal house.



Leading the record is the Romanian eminence Bryz, crafting a hypnotic journey "Behind Heaven's Doors" with profound melodies and magical atmospheres. On the flip side, the well-known Frenchman Lukea crafts "Euphoria", a track that features a thick bassline and dominant percussion without losing the deep sense of mysticism. To round up the record, "To The Sky" by Romanian Constratti brings an infectious rhythm through an expertly created soundscape for the dance floor.

More than a decade after the release of ´Land Lines', the mythical Humboldt County, California based duo of Brian Pyle and Merrick McKinlay reappears seemingly out of nowhere with 'Atheistsaregods'. With past releases on such cult-like labels as Root Strata, Weird Forest, Blackest Rainbow or Digitalis, Starving Weirdos were an indelible part of a sprawling and loose network of artists in Northern America whose DIY work ethic and extreme activity revolved around shoestring-budget constant touring, numerous limited editions on CDR, tape and vinyl and a relentless drive to push the boundaries of genre.

Out of that cauldron, Starving Weirdos stood out as one of the most persistent and visionary acts, developing a mind altering body of work that went from warm soundscapes through droney digressions, freeform improvisation and raucous noise summoned from a myriad of instrumentation and low budget processing - vocals, keyboards, violin, flute, percussion and an assortment of less identifiable sound sources. 10 years on their legacy remains a timeless and wildly under-appreciated one, but hopefully this new album will shine a light on their idiosyncratic approach. As time itself was never a constraint. This is music suspended outside of it.

Right from the start with the echoing percussion, dissonant keys and processed vocals of 'Haiku Nagasaki', 'Atheistsaregods' draws a continuous flux of psychedelic elevation that goes from the gloomy electronic motifs not unlike the early Cluster vibes of 'Invocation' into the dank percussive maze of the appropriately titled 'Barulho do Samba'. The self titled track induces a sense of post-apocalyptic vertigo via hallucinatory scraps of voice, suspended synth tones and reverberating field recordings, connecting into the droney mystics of 'Dudukahar (Reed Prayer)'. Coming full circle, 'For Vinny' brings back the echoing percussion amidst hypnotic cello lines until it drifts off into the unknown. With the same palpable sense of urgency, Starving Weirdos feel as vital as ever. And even if we didn't realize it we were in need of them. Welcome back.