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Rocko Garoni knows what a techno dance floor wants. He’s learned it through countless hours spent on the floor himself as a punter, and through DJing at some of the best clubs and festivals in his hometown Berlin and all over the world. He knows exactly the type of productions that thrill crowds, and he brings this wealth of knowledge and experience to his third EP for Second State, Ammoniak.

The title and first track ‘Ammoniak’ drags you straight into the zone; a pounding, take no prisoners cut laced with stormy synths creating a vague sense of paranoia. ‘Gece‘ cranks the energy up with trancey, bouncing synths and a cool, clipped female vocal. Instantly, you’re pulled into the very sort of club that Garoni knows so well. ‘No Border‘ is the kind of expansive track that seems destined for huge warehouses or vast festival dancefloors. There’s an insistent, brooding bassline, robotic repeated vocals and a mid-track shift in tone that will send the crowd to a heightened state of reverie. The blend of post-punk vocals and eerie beats on ‘It’s All Yours‘, a track featuring Cook Strummer on the vocals, is at once highly unusual and completely compelling. It’s the track to play when the crowd are losing themselves in the best possible way. Closing the EP is ‘Helio‘, another completely different track that showcases the extent of Garoni’s range. Faint, echoed chanting lends the track an almost holy atmosphere. Combined with tunnelling synths and spindly percussion FX, the effect is euphoric, acting as a delicious palate cleanser between heavier tracks.

Put simply, Ammoniak is another first-class EP from a dynamic act who’s fast becoming a Second State star.

2024 Repress

While during the 1990s - higher, faster, further! - the straight bass drum has been shooted around the globe, there arose a number of variations of more or less contemplative slow- and sacred music from all kinds of corners at the same time. In a sense, it’s the other side of the medal: Chillout, Lounge, Easy Listening, Trance, Muzak and elevator music, electronic music and intelligent techno… and of course and in particular: Ambient. In classical and new variations.

Beside the constant pushing forward of the so called „Sound Of Cologne“- Minimal Techno in the home of Kompakt, there was also a strong faible for ambient sounds. Not only because of the labels origin and its operator’s preference for the pop music of the 70s and 80s, there was evolving a variety of ambient music, that added the aspect of pop to the confusing diversity of genres during that time. Not pop in the sense of actual classic pop music: Pop in the sense of subculture, of Pop Art and, first and foremost, in the sense of pop as an attitude. This was how Pop Ambient was launched and the way it established its own authentic music with a high recognition value. Pop Ambient is indulging the beauty and the timelessness. Pop Ambient is a sonic cosmos of attitude for itself and has no fears of contact with adjoining genres nor with kitsch, art or carnival. It’s ambient if you do it nevertheless. ^

Während sich im Laufe der 1990er Jahre die gerade Bassdrum immer höher, schneller, weiter einmal um den gesamten Planeten geballert hatte, kamen parallel dazu etliche Spielarten mehr oder weniger kontemplativer Erbauungs- und Verlangsamungsmusik aus allen möglichen Ecken auf. Gewissermaßen die andere Seite der Medaille. Chillout, Lounge, Easy Listening, Trance, Muzak und Fahrstuhlmusik, Elektronika und Intelligent Techno… und natürlich und vor allem Ambient. In altbewährten und neuen Variationen.

Auch im Hause Kompakt gab es neben dem steten Vorantreiben des sogenannten „Sound Of Cologne“ - Minimal Techno ein starkes Faible für ambiente Klänge. Nicht zuletzt aufgrund ihrer popmusikalischen Herkunft und einer besonderen Vorliebe für die Popmusik der 70er und 80er Jahre, kristallisierte sich bei den Kompakt-Machern ab dem Jahr 2000 eine Spielart ambienter Musik heraus, die den vielschichtigen, unübersichtlichen Genres dieser Zeit den Aspekt des Pop hinzu fügte. Nicht Pop im Sinne eigentlicher, klassischer Popmusik. Pop im Sinne von Subkultur, von Pop-Art und vor allem von Pop als Haltung. So wurde „Pop Ambient“ aus der Taufe gehoben und etablierte eine genuine Musik mit hohem Wiedererkennungswert. Pop Ambient frönte hemmungslos dem Schönen und der Zeitlosigkeit. Pop Ambient ist ein Klang- und Haltungskosmos für sich, und hat dabei keinerlei Berührungsängste, weder mit angrenzenden Genres, noch mit Kitsch, Kunst oder Karneval. Ambient ist wenn man’s trotzdem macht.

Tiger Stripes follows up ‘Baby’ with a quintuplet of aces on Drumcode.

Death, taxes and Tiger Stripes crafting dancefloor weapons for Adam Beyer’s Drumcode and Truesoul labels. Not many things in life are certain, but we’ve always counted on Mikael Nordgren knocking it out of the park. Last year’s ‘Baby’ EP was a label highlight, while in March he released ‘Sneaking Hotdogs Into People’s Pocket’, which mined the spirit of ‘90s-drenched euphoria and was a standout on Truesoul. Now he’s back dropping heat on DC.

Taking the retro vibes of Hotdogs into more techno-orientated territory, he bunkered down with his family in the Swedish forest, setting up a makeshift studio in the kitchen. From this, the five-track ‘Into Desolation’ was born. Beginning with ‘Recluse’, it combines steely bass rumbles with old skool stabs and a heady vocal from Mikaela Rahmqvist. ‘Basshunter’ is propelled by galloping bass and a catchy undulating melodic loop and is brilliant in its effective simplicity.

‘Into The Early Night’ is a pearl, comprising deep compression-heavy bass stabs, perky percussion and a rousing vocal, making it a winner at festivals so far this summer, including Awakenings. ‘Ignition’ fires on all cylinders with a wicked arpeggiated hook and pounding drums. ‘Ride’ is a nostalgic nod to the past as trance-inspired chords marry deliciously with crunchy future-focused techno.

Veerus makes his Drumcode debut, after an impressive contribution to Truesoul's VA EP in 2017.

The Italian has built up an impressive discography over the last decade, dropping records on labels including Terminal M, Octopus, Filth on Acid and his own Le Club imprint. His collaborative with Maxie Devine 'My Train' was a highlight of Solomun's classic Boiler Room in Tulum, which has clocked 37 million views. In late 2017 he linked up with Brits OC & Verde for the fantastic 'Naaki' that featured on Truesoul's first Various Artists EP, ensuring he was an artist well and truly in Adam Beyer's sights.

His maiden outing for Drumcode mines 20 years of history, taking inspiration from classic trance and acid from the '90s, which he distils to create powerful modern techno works. 'Hypnosis' was a huge highlight of Beyer's Awakenings show at Gashouder during ADE. It's characterised by an engrossing call-and-response dynamic Veerus builds between the 303 acid warbles and the melodic stabs that run throughout. A track custom made for big moments. 'Apocalypse', like its name, is more menacing. Veerus constructs the work to mimic the dramatic theatre of a gladiatorial scene in a film, as heart-fluttering chord progressions, a piercing synth line and dystopian melody mark this memorable track.

(en) Following their much acclaimed surprise debut, VERMONT's sophomore longplayer presented "another set that rewards deep listening" (AllMusic) and "a mix of simplicity and richness" whose result is "a feeling of spaciousness and a thrilling sense of weightlessness" (XLR8R). Stripping away even more percussion than on its predecessor, "II" saw Marcus Worgull and Danilo Plessow zooming in on ambience, texture and sonic cohesiveness, allowing "each electronic voice to come into focus" (Pitchfork). Now, "II REMIXES" puts the beat back into the mix, thanks to iconic artists DIXON, I:CUBE and WASSERMANN who each develop their own irresistible groove out of the immersive source material. As one of the album's most highlighted cuts, DSCHUNA gets the royal treatment by Innervisions head and internationally revered selector DIXON who proves his strong command of the dance floor with a hypnotic ride that surrounds the soaring sounds of the original with tribal- esque vocals. The instrumental version drops the chants, but retains the enchantment, all elegant rhythm and gorgeous strings. Versatile's I:CUBE, legendary producer and DJ in its own right, brings a distinctly Parisian touch to the spectral SKORBUT, whose sci-fi-imbued widescreen aura gets reimagined as laser-gun-wielding space funk machine. Meanwhile, Wolfgang Voigt aka WASSERMANN condenses PARADIGMA's roaming synths into pulsating trance swells on his stomping KRAUTRAMATRIK MIX.
(de) Nach einem hochgelobten überraschungsdebüt präsentierte VERMONTs zweiter Langspieler "ein weiteres Set fürs Tiefenho¨ren" (AllMusic) und "eine Mischung von Einfachheit und Reichtum" deren Ergebnis "ein aufregendes Gefühl von Weitläufigkeit und Schwerelosigkeit" (XLR8R) ist. Auf "II" verzichten Marcus Worgull und Danil Plessow nahezu gänzlich auf Perkussion und konzentrieren sich auf Ambiente, Textur und klanglichen Zusammenhalt, erlauben so "jeder elektronischen Stimme, in den Fokus zu rücken" (Pitchfork). Nun bringen die "II REMIXES" den Beat zurück ins Spiel, dank des Kult-Trios DIXON, I:CUBE und WASSERMANN, von denen jeder einen ganz eigenen Groove im Klangbad des Quellmaterials findet. Als eines der aufsehenerregendsten Stücke des Albums erfährt DSCHUNA fürstliche Behandlung seitens des Innervisions-Chefs und international gefeierten DJs DIXON der den Dancefloor mit einem hypnotischen Trip im Griff hält und die aufsteigenden Flächen des Originals mit tribal-esken Vocals verziert. Die Instrumental- Version lässt die Stammesgesänge weg, behält aber den Zauber, durch und durch eleganter Schub und prachtvolle Streicher. Versatiles I:CUBE, legendärer franzo¨sischer Produzent und DJ von ganz besonderem Format, entwickelt eine ausgeprägt "parisische" Note für das leicht gespenstische SKORBUT, dessen Science-Fiction-getränkte Weitwinkel-Aura als Laserpistolen- schwingende Spacefunk-Maschine neu imaginiert wird. Derweil kondensiert Wolfgang Voigt auf seinem antrittsstarken KRAUTRAMATRIK MIX die umherstreifenden Synthesizer von PARADIGMA zu pulsierenden Trance-Schüben.

After more or less owning 2011 with a surprise album, a collaboration with urban crooner Colonel Abrams, an ahead-of-the-game reissue of Marc Kinchen and the all-conquering "Here's Your Trance Now Dance", FXHE don Omar S kicks off a new year with Wayne County Hills Cops Pt 2 (where, we ask, was Part 1?), a hook-up with the mysterious OB IGNITT. The eponymous A-Side is characterised by the kind of glistening synths last seen on "Here's Your Trance...", with a rugged analogue bass line giving the track with the requisite bump. A tired cliche it may be, but this could easily soundtrack an 80s cop movie: clearly Omar has this in mind given the 12"'s title and the fact the record's centre label features a doctored image of Eddie Murphy from Beverly Hills Cop! On the flip, Omar S provides his own remix, drowning the synths in dubby textures and showering them with shuffling hats for a more heads-down take. Another killer 12" - business as usual at FXHE, then.

Five years after his previous album, Khetzal returns with Nectar, a brand-new digital double album accompanied by a limited physical vinyl EP. Matthieu Chamoux, a name that needs little introduction, is the creator of Corolle, still considered a milestone of 21st-century Goa-trance. With Nectar, he once again delivers his unmistakable signature: spiritual, Eastern-influenced, blissful Goa-trance. With Nectar, he dives back into his signature world of spiritual, Eastern-tinged, blissful Goa-trance. The first CD weaves a brand-new fairytale-like journey, with four standout tracks also pressed onto vinyl. Alongside these, you'll find a second bonus cd, set of unique live remixes, complete with violin, breathing fresh energy into classics like Ganesha Pramana and Listening Winds. Enjoy the journey

A magus is a wizard…a sorcerer. Magus, the band, is certainly interested in such things (who isn’t), but the name is especially apt due to the band’s approach to alchemy, the blending of rock, gothic, proto metal, and psychedelic styles to create a sound that is, ultimately, unique. Part of that uniqueness comes from the instrumentation. While guitar is often a dominant instrument of the rock oeuvre, the Fender Rhodes generally plays a supportive role. Not so here, where Jessica Weeks’ deft use of the keyboard dovetails with Greg Weeks’ more standard six-string approach. Not standard is the band’s sound. Doomy yet inspirational, dour yet vibrant, the duo’s tunes map sinister realms whose subjects span metaphysical creatures to enigmatic portals. You know, the typical stuff that rubs elbows with a magus.

Formed in late 2024, Magus sprung from a desire by both artists to experiment with darker, heavier sounds. Long enamored of artists like Flower Travelling Band,, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple, the duo delved deeply into trance like riffs and euphoric solos to create the backbone of what has become their debut album, Music for Mandrax. This thirteenth Language of Stone offering features grounded, metronomic grooves, organic, lugubrious synth lines, and tandem vocals (supplied by both Weekses) that, in total, weave a heavy, trancelike spell sure to entice fans of bands as disparate as Sabbath is to Pink Floyd. Recorded at Weeks’ Hexham Head studio (to analog tape, of course), the band enlisted long-time counterparts Jesse Sparhawk (bass) and Ben McConnell (drums) to round out their sound and lock down the grooves that propel the album.

Mixed by Brian McTear and Amy Morrisey at Miner Street in Philadelphia, the band’s fully realized vision came to fruition, which left only the album art to contemplate. The band, wishing to further the gothic aesthetic of their sound, enlisted fashion designer and artist extraordinaire Hogan McLaughlin (Game of Thrones) to create the starkly beautiful line drawings of the front and back covers. The duo travelled to Salem, MA to complete the package with Courtney Brooke Hall, who shot the moody and evocative photographs that grace the gatefold release’s inner panels.

El Pulso del Acero: Shinkansen is Esplendor Geométrico's electrifying new album, blending trance-inducing industrial rhythms with bold voice and noise collages. Featuring 16 tracks, it revisits the raw power of their 80s classics while exploring futuristic industrial sounds, with recordings from Tokyo (2025) and a rare previously limited tracks now on vinyl for the first time. After over 40 years of continuous innovation, the influential Spanish duo continues to shape industrial, techno, and experimental noise music worldwide. Available on double vinyl and CD digipack. The raw power of their early work is also present here in some brilliant reconstructions of 80s tracks turning out very different from the originals (Rotorama, Trybuna V, Shinkansen, Héroe del Trabajo 2025, or Introspectivo). Songs such as Auto Reverse will be especially appreciated by the most avid fans of EG's early sound. Other tunes of futuristic industrial music closer to their previous album, Strepitus Rhythmicus, are also included (Experiencia AV, Isla, Por un Perro_) Ten tracks were recorded in 2025 in Tokyo, where Arturo Lanz (founding member of E.G.) currently resides. The other six were released, only on CD,in an ultra-limited edition shared with the group De Fabriek in 2023, long sold out, now finally on vinyl for the first time. Born in 1980 as a trio, and currently a duo formed by Arturo Lanz (founding member) and Saverio Evangelista (member since 1991), Esplendor Geométrico is an influential and international electronic cult band and also a rare case in the Spanish music scene, as they have developed their own independent path aside from tags, fashion or trends, in spite of being often classified as industrial music. Their career for more than four decades hasn't had interruptions. They haven't stopped composing, releasing albums or playing live.Their influence has marked many later artists, usually classified in the so-called industrial music or rhythm & noise, as well as artists from current techno and certain types of experimental noise music.

It’s a properly transcendent Kalahari debut as S.A.M. makes nods to ’90s Eurodance and deeper, spiritual invocations.

At the helm of multiple labels, but this marks a Kalahari debut for the Danish artist. Sometimes anthemic, sometimes operating from a more meditative space, but always serving as an outlet for ecstatic release. Rapturous big room ascension into more contemplative territory.

Channelling some divine NRG in the vocal hooks, like much of their work, an air of blissed intent cloaks the whole thing. This is a suite of tech and deep house that strikes a balance between the introspective and direct, the metaphysical and corporeal.

Pitting sonic immersion against forward momentum has almost become a blueprint for any Kalahari release, and here, we bear witness to a prime example. Heady stuff.

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When Acid becomre a song... trance effect with Tribe music. Story tellings, structured tunes.. Musical Tekno moment !

This release is an act of breaking out of conventional categories for Seismic records. Established boundaries of genres are completely dissolved into an unpredictable flow of sonic associations. It’s an unexpected collaboration, yet it makes perfect sense from the first kick. Two artists from seemingly opposite ends of the musical universe come together to create a project which fearlessly embarks on the synthesis of hypnotic trance-techno and utter sonic chaos. This project is anything but predictable.

The duality is noticeable from the very first moment. One side brings relentless movement forward in the project: a raw, hypnotic pulse based on rhythm and precision, locking the listener in the present moment and not letting go. Unpredictable textures and psychedelic ornaments are constantly weaving through the rhythmic framework.

A dedicated listener may recognize that the whole EP carries the legacy of David Lynch’s work. The sense of peculiar uneasiness and indecipherability, overridden by the desire to find out what comes next, are exactly what the artists manage to capture and what is so characteristic of Lynch himself. At one point, the EP even reveals a moment as if a red curtain parts in the depths of the track and the listener momentarily catches echoes from the town where owls are not what they seem. Hidden within is a playful nod to the iconic Twin Peaks soundtrack.

Mit Grumpy Pieces kehrt der Düsseldorfer Musiker Harmonious Thelonious alias Stefan Schwander mit einem Werk zurück, das seine langjährige Klangästhetik präzise destilliert und zugleich spürbar aufreibt. Wieder verbinden sich Pan-Afrikanische und Nahöstliche Rhythmuskonzepte, minimalistische Wiederholungsstrukturen und reduzierter Elektronik-Einsatz zu einem hypnotischen Sound - diesmal jedoch rauer, trockener und offener für Brüche als zuvor. Die acht Stücke wirken wie unter Spannung gesetzt: Melodien schaben über kantige Bassfundamente, scharfe Snare-Schläge durchschneiden das Gefüge, und trotz des klaren Groove-Fokus ist ständig ein nervöses Knistern präsent. Grumpy Pieces reflektiert eine Gegenwart voller politischer und gesellschaftlicher Reibung - ohne explizite Kommentare, aber mit einer Musik, die Reibung selbst zum Gestaltungsmittel macht. Während die A-Seite vergleichsweise direkt beginnt, öffnet sich die B-Seite zunehmend dem kontrollierten Zerfall, bis der finale Track "Dissolving" den Titel programmatisch umsetzt. Entstanden ist das Album in Schwanders Düsseldorfer Studio - intuitiv, unmittelbar, ohne große Bildschirm-Arrangements, eng verwoben mit seiner live-erprobten, tranceartigen Arbeitsweise. Grumpy Pieces ist kein Bruch, sondern eine Zuspitzung: ein kraftvoll verdichtetes, körperliches und zugleich unruhiges Album, das die charakteristische Handschrift von Harmonious Thelonious schärft. Tanzmusik mit Widerstand - und Biss.

Mit Taiga Trans legt das schwedische Kollektiv Fauna ein Debütalbum vor, das unmittelbar in seinen Bann zieht: ein hypnotischer Mix aus krautrockender Motorik, psychedelischer Ritualenergie und der pulsierenden Wucht eines nächtlichen Raves. Die neun Musikerinnen und Musiker erschaffen einen Klangraum, der gleichzeitig archaisch und hypermodern wirkt - ein Ort, an dem traditionelle Instrumente und elektronische Texturen ineinandergreifen und ein multisensorisches Musikerlebnis formen. Elektronische Windgeräusche, feine perkussive Muster, das sirrende Schnalzen einer Maultrommel und die flirrenden Linien des türkischen Saz treffen auf verzerrte Gitarren, tiefen Bassdruck und vier-Viertel-Grooves. Fauna verbindet diese Elemente zu einer energiegeladenen Soundreise, die sich jenseits kultureller und zeitlicher Grenzen bewegt. Die Wurzeln des Projekts liegen in freien Jams des Gitarristen Tommie Ek und Bassisten Ibrahim Shabo, dessen syrischer Hintergrund ebenso in die Musik hineinwirkt wie die französischen, finnischen, polnischen, schwedischen und türkischen Einflüsse der anderen Mitglieder. Vocals in gebrochenem Arabisch, Schwedisch und Französisch verstärken die tranceartige Wirkung der Kompositionen, ohne sich in eindeutige Bedeutungen zu drängen. Taiga Trans destilliert die improvisatorische Live-Energie der Band in acht verdichtete Stücke, die gleichermaßen clubtauglich wie spirituell aufgeladen wirken. Ein Album zum Abtauchen, zum Loslassen - und zum Wiederhören.

oDYSea returns with a fresh EP from rising Brazilian DJ/producer Trajano, known for his intelligent, moody grooves blending a wide range of vintage influences on a contemporary canvas.

This EP is no different, with Trajano’s three originals — the tense psychedelic acid of opener ‘Sp!re Dub’, the liquid wormhole of ‘Portal’ and the rolling trance-techno of
‘Just Feel’ — all harking back to the golden years of Spiral Tribe. Closing the EP out, French powerhouse DVDE takes ‘Spire Dub’ in a tribal-meets-EBM direction on his remix: a true dancefloor stomper.

DFR is back with a rather mysterious alias first appearance. Signal Priest delivers four dance-floor workouts that intersect between techno, trance and electro with admirable sense. TIP

As Nathan Fake rises from the nocturnal subterranea and rave catharsis of his previous records, on Evaporator, he resurfaces into the domain of daylight, bringing a tangible sense of air rushing against your face, of big skies, and endless landscapes.

The idea of pop accessibility that trickled into 2023’s Crystal Vision is refracted here through the prism of sweeping ambient, deep electronica, and trance uplift. Evaporator is Fake’s idea of “airy daytime music”, with each track a different barometer reading across the album’s varying atmospheres, which range from vibrant sunbursts, bracing rainscapes, and fine mists of clement melodics. “It’s not overtly confrontational electronic club music,” states Fake. “It’s quite pleasant, it’s accessible. As I was progressing through making the tracklist, I called it a daytime album. It doesn’t feel like an afterparty album.” For the past decade Fake has been gingerly introducing collaborations with heroes and friends alike into his lone, idiosyncratic working process.

Border Community alumni Dextro AKA Ewan Mackenzie transmutes his ferocious drumming for Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs into the blurred choral thump of ‘Baltasound’. ‘Orbiting Meadows’, meanwhile, is his second collaboration with Clark, an eerily idyllic duet where microtonal 18EDO piano clangs slowly twirl around wailing pads. Evaporator marks the junction point of old technology and ever fresh creativity for Nathan. The trusty “dinosaur” age software, particularly Cubase VST5, that has powered two decades of music is rarely updated. “I used to sort of feel a bit ashamed of using such old software, and then I kind of had an epiphany – that’s just how I work”, comments Fake. “That’s just how I play. I’m very fond of these old tools, and I get the most joy out of them, but now I’ve incorporated new technology too.” When an artist accumulates so much synergy with their instrument, music making becomes instinctual. By Fake’s account, much of Evaporator just fell into place. The album title arrived randomly in his head (“it felt completely perfect. Airy.”), ideas looped and developed until things locked into place and just felt right. ‘The Ice House’ is a fleeting glimpse of the sonic world he taps into in this creative state, its glassy FM synths built around a counterpoint between rough-hewn crystalline arpeggios and sparse yet gravitas-bearing bass. “That riff I just wrote out on the keyboard, I just played it forever and ever and ever.

The original track ended up being really short. Here you go, and it’s gone!” These unplanned channellings of sound call forth records from Fake’s past while he looks ahead, perhaps getting at the very essence of his musicianship. The opener ‘Aiwa’ (“the breeziest,” he muses) reminds of the introspection that characterised Providence, excited by the fire and grit of Steam Days’ textural experiments, its chunky slams and clatters surging into a flood of harmonic buzzing as they reach out for old wisdom. ‘Hypercube’ stampedes in a similar chronological confluence, infusing an incessant synth line reminiscent of the golden age of rave with the crackling, ecstatic energy of modern festival anthems. Like the vaporisation of liquid to particles, everything that Evaporator presents has a mutant desire to be amorphous. Sounds rarely settle; the irradiated garage beat of ‘Bialystok’ is pitched downwards to driving, rebounding effect, while ‘You’ll Find a Way’ warps static into shivering energy, cinematic synth strings building anticipation into a gradual gush of chords. This translates into a more expansive stereo field than Fake has explored before.


‘Slow Yamaha’ saves the wildest, most kinetic transformations for last with a cornucopia of crispy melodies and fried drums; a sibilance of cymbals on the left, a susurrus of shakers on the right, and kaleidoscopic lasers pulsing and fizzing all around. Evaporation culminating in pure excited atoms.

Glispy Records follows up its first vinyl with a second release, bringing together Rydeen, Yamoc, Gauvain, and Roman Khropko. Four artists, four different approaches, connected by a shared focus on club-ready, forward-leaning electronic music. This release continues the label’s vinyl series with the same hands-on, DIY spirit and attention to detail that shaped its debut.

Numbered 150 copies on green vinyl.

The duo Sławek Pezda & Witek Ryć is a project by Krakow-based musicians, a hybrid of ambient, noise, experimental music, jazz, trance, electronica, and ethnic music. The two musicians' musical paths were united by the practice of meditation, which also significantly translates into their musical language and the need to share the peace that flows to the listener through sound.

In their recordings and live performances, the musicians utilize tenor saxophone, modular synthesizers, electronics, drums, flutes, drum pads, Tibetan bowls, gongs, and a wide array of percussion instruments. They have played together in improvised concerts, relaxation concerts, chamber sessions, and even spiritual jazz.

"Kardamon" is the result of one of the live sessions, where the rhythm, based on a simple pulse flowing from a frame drum, accompanied by Ankle Bells (Indian janissary bells played with the foot), is enriched by Sławek's tenor saxophone. In addition to the aforementioned instruments, a synthesizer and a Roland HPD 20 drum machine were also used, accompanied by various percussion instruments (shaker, chimes, bells, etc.), as well as a fragment of Witek's own field recordings from the Polesie National Park.

The remix on the B-side was created by DJ PLASH, who gave the duo's original sounds a completely new dimension. Plash (Marcin Przeplasko) is arguably one of the most sought-after DJs playing for b-girls and b-boys worldwide, a feat culminating in his official performance behind the turntables at the last Summer Olympics. PLASH is Witek's neighbor from Krakow's Nowa Huta district.

The front cover artwork is a painting by Witek Ryć, and the entire album was assembled and framed by Animisiewasz. Mastering was handled by Eprom. The single is limited to 150 copies and is being released by Funky Mamas and Papas Recordings, a label specializing in seven-inch singles since 2008.

That time of the year has arrived! The next Various Artists is the prefect blend between old and new generations, including 2 new addition to the label and 2 familiar faces.

Opening the EP is MikeroBenics with “Julika (Original Mix)”. This track was officially released in 1994 on Harthouse and through the years on other labels in different versions. The version we are publishing has never seen the light before today. A deep melancholy trance journey characterised by driving acid lines and club-oriented rhythms. Followed by the return of Noboot with “Drive Control”. Made in 2022, this track bring us back to the sound of his first release. An immersive electro-acid track with a 303 melody that moves with punchy rhythms, letting our bodies move and our brains fly.

On the B side, Periferico is back with a new production made in 2021. “2804 A DEF12MIX” is an engaging journey into Livio progressive house world. Closing the VA, we welcome our dear friend CRL with “Breathe”. Composed in 2024 while trying new techniques and samples, characterised by its ethereal pads and a slow unfolding vortex of acid bassline, brings the minds into a deeper conscious state.

Y-TRAXX'S "MYSTERY LAND" RETURNS ON VINYL WITH NEW REMIX BY ROY ROSENFELD:

The legendary trance anthem Mystery Land by Y-Traxx returns to the spotlight. First released in 1995, the track achieved iconic status after featuring prominently in the 2000 box-office No. 1 movie Kevin & Perry Go Large. The original track is now being reissued on vinyl. The release includes the Original Mix, the classic Sickboy Courtyard Mix, the Søluna Remix - winner of the Beatport Remix Contest - and a brand-new remix from Roy Rosenfeld. Available from 3 April via Serious Beats Classics.

With its hypnotic melodies, driving beats, and mysterious atmosphere, "Mystery Land" became a symbol of the 90s trance scene and grew into a cult classic. The track was picked up worldwide by influential DJs, including Paul Oakenfold, and featured prominently on his mix album Perfecto Fluoro (1996).

The new remix by Roy Rosenfeld brings a fresh, modern take to the iconic track, preserving the emotion of the original while adding a powerful peak-time, sunrise energy. Rosenfeld comments: "Remixing Mystery Land was an honor for me. I've loved this track for many years, so the process was very natural and fun. The vision came quickly, keeping the emotion of the original and pushing it into a peak-time, sunrise energy."

ABOUT ROY ROSENFELD:

Roy Rosenfeld is a leading DJ and producer in the house music scene, known for his warm, melodic, and instantly recognizable sound. Since 2009, he has built an impressive international career with releases on labels such as All Day I Dream, Lost & Found, and Rumors, and with iconic tracks like Epika and Kala. His music receives worldwide support from top artists including Solomun, Black Coffee, and Keinemusik. Alongside his studio work, Roy is a highly sought-after performer at clubs and festivals around the globe and the driving force behind the successful No Drama event concept in Tel Aviv.

This release combines nostalgia with contemporary trance production, offering both longtime fans and a new generation the chance to experience this timeless classic in a refreshed form.

Le Futur c’est la drogue, which should here be translated as The Future Is the Drug, is not to be read as a promise, but as a statement of fact. The present is no longer an experience, but pure consumption. Life itself has taken the form of a dependency.

With this sixth album, Christophe Clébard goes straight to the point, driven by a free and repetitive form of writing, stripped of any syntactic rigidity. Words strike like balls against a wall, revealing darker zones of his mind where guilt, fear, and existential anxiety coexist.

The sound composition, equally minimal, sustains a dense and obsessive mental space, a vortex in which trance appears as the only escape. Driving drum machines, relentlessly hammered electronic loops, and a battered synthesizer, his music unfolds within a physical, strangely hypnotic synth-punk aesthetic that hits viscerally.

The Future Is the Drug is his sixth album.

Moumneh (Jerusalem In My Heart) und Oberland (Oiseaux-Tempête) festigen mit diesem Debüt-Studioalbum als Duo ihre langjährige Zusammenarbeit: eine überzeugende Synthese ihrer jeweiligen und gemeinsamen Sensibilität. Durch die Verschmelzung von elektronischen Klängen mit akustischen Instrumenten wie Bouzouki, Rababa, Clarineau und Saxophon, ergänzt durch Moumnehs arabischen Gesang, entsteht ein Album, das von Empörung und Klage über unsere suprematistische und rassistische Gesellschaft geprägt ist. Das Album verbindet vibrierende Elektronik mit akustischen Instrumenten wie Bouzouki, Rababa, Clarineau und Saxophon, gewürzt mit Moumnehs arabischem Gesang, und ist geprägt von Empörung und Klage über unsere supremacistische und genozidale politische Gegenwart. Radwan Ghazi Moumneh und Frédéric D. Oberland wechseln zwischen Sinnlichem und Unterdrücktem und schaffen mit ihrem Debütalbum eine poetische musikalische Verkündigung der verwandelten Realität und sozialen Amnesie. Diese sieben Titel entstanden in zweijähriger Zusammenarbeit und begannen als eine Reihe von Duetten, die Moumneh im Sommer 2023 im Studio Hotel2Tango in Montréal initiierte. Der arabische Titel von Eternal Life No End lässt sich wörtlich mit ,Eine dunkle, verfluchte Nacht, wie die Suchenden selbst" übersetzen. Das Album ist ein Aufschrei inmitten der Ozeane der Ungerechtigkeit, die die SWANA-Region überschwemmen und das Leben und die Visionen der Suchenden selbst heimsuchen. Der arabische Titel von Eternal Life No End lässt sich wörtlich übersetzen mit ,Eine dunkle, verfluchte Nacht, wie die Suchenden selbst" und das Album ist ein Aufschrei inmitten der Ozeane der Ungerechtigkeit, die die SWANA-Region überschwemmen und das Leben und die Visionen großer Bevölkerungsgruppen verfolgen. Wie Dante und Vergil in Dantes ,Inferno" zeichnen die Kompositionen von Oberland und Moumneh einen emotionalen Strudel nach, während Traumzeit in tranceartige Percussion und hypnotische Melodien einfließt und kollektive Dringlichkeiten kanalisiert, die sich durch Radwans Stimme und arabische Texte ziehen. Oberlands Passagen auf dem Saxophon und der Klarinette beschwören schamanische Beschwörungen des Bösen herauf, während Moumnehs Buzuk oft durch elektronische Bearbeitung und Schwärme mit stürmischer Trauer über sich entfaltende Tragödien untermalt wird. Eine Reihe von Instrumenten vervollständigt die Klanglandschaften: Daf (eine Rahmentrommel aus dem Nahen Osten) und Bongos, eine modifizierte elektrische Rababa, bebender Bass und andere synthetische Filigranarbeiten von Oberland. Eine Reihe von Instrumenten vervollständigt die breiteren Klanglandschaften: Daf (eine nahöstliche Rahmentrommel) und Bongos, eine modifizierte elektrische Rababa, bebender Bass und andere synthetische Filigranarbeiten von Oberlands Buchla- und Deckard's Dream-Synthesizern. ,Es ist in gewisser Weise ein Heilungsprozess", sagt Oberland über das Werk. ,Seit Beginn des Völkermords hatte ich eine komplette künstlerische Blockade und war unfähig, das auszudrücken, was die Menschen durchleben", erklärt Moumneh, der schließlich ,die Worte der Opfer" in seine Texte einfließen ließ. ,Es ist in gewisser Weise ein Heilungsprozess", sagt Oberland über das Werk. ,Seit Beginn des Völkermords hatte ich eine völlige künstlerische Blockade und war unfähig, das auszudrücken, was die Menschen durchleben", erklärt Moumneh, der schließlich seine Instrumente und seine Ausrüstung zusammenpackte und im Sommer 2024 nach Paris flog , um mit seinem langjährigen Freund ernsthaft an dem Album zu arbeiten. Die beiden hatten bereits mehrfach zusammengearbeitet, mit Oberlands Hauptband Oiseaux-Tempête und durch Moumnehs Arbeit als Jerusalem In My Heart und als Produzent/Toningenieur bei verschiedenen anderen Projekten. Eternal Life No End baut auf ihrer langjährigen Freundschaft auf, während Oberland und Moumneh auf neue Weise mit Energien und emotionalen Veränderungen umgehen, ihre Sensibilitäten verschmelzen und tiefere Resonanzen entdecken. , Wir haben Tag und Nacht zusammengearbeitet und gemeinsam klare Entscheidungen getroffen", erklärt Oberland. Dennoch übernahm er auch die Führung, um Moumnehs Stimme in diesen Kompositionen zur Geltung zu bringen - vier der sieben Titel des Albums enthalten Gesang. Das Duo tauschte gewissermaßen die Rollen und wagte sich an neue kreative Prozesse, wobei Moumneh offen Anweisungen von Oberland annahm und seine übliche Rolle als Hauptproduzent von Jerusalem In My Heart beiseite ließ. ,Squeal of Swine" und ,Dagger Eyes" eröffnen das Album mit einem doppelten Schlag in die Magengrube, während Handpercussion, tiefe Synth-Klänge und abprallende Buzuq- und Rababa-Klänge die Bühne für Moumnehs klagenden arabischen Gesang bereiten, der ein Meer von Krankheit widerspiegelt, das derzeit den Zustand der Menschheit überschwemmt. Auf dem Instrumentalstück ,A Dream That Never Arrived" verankert ein Lo-Fi-Beat mit Dancehall-Einflüssen überirdische Melodielinien vor dem Hintergrund eines elektroakustischen Sounddesigns in räumlich-zeitlicher Verschiebung. Eternal Life No End wird von einem audiovisuellen Essay zum elektronischen (und vokalen) Song ,The Serpent" begleitet, der von Oberland zusammengestellt und mit einer Super-8-Kamera in Montréal, Paris und Beirut gedreht wurde, einschließlich Aufnahmen von Gaza-Protesten in Paris und von Oberlands Auftritt beim 25-jährigen Jubiläum des Irtijal Festivals in Beirut. Die libanesische Grafikdesignerin, Druckgrafikerin und Kalligraphin Farah Fayyad steuert ein talismanartiges Kunstwerk mit ineinander verschlungenen Schlangen bei, das ebenfalls von diesem zentralen Albumtrack inspiriert ist.

Northern Electronics presents NE112, a collaborative work by Anthony Linell and Evigt Mörker, entitled ’Ett anständigt liv’.
Marking the first alignment between the two artists, the record unfolds as a study in continuity, pressure, and sustained focus. Across four pieces, a steady and tensile sonic language develops, immersive in its repetition and controlled in its ascent. Subtle psychedelic inflections — recalling early trance states — surface within a darker, more restrained framework. The result is neither nostalgic nor decorative, but reduced, deliberate, and directed forward.
All tracks written and produced by AL & KL in Sofia, Sweden, during the winter of 2024 Mixed and mastered by Giuseppe Tillieci at EnissLab, Rome

Chris Liebing's first full solo techno LP, 'Evolver' is released on 27th March 2026, via his own CLR imprint. The German techno don's LP features a host of collaborators across music, images, and artwork. Luke Slater, Charlotte De Witte, Speedy J, The Advent, Terence Fixmer, Pascal Gabriel, Daniel Miller contribute to the music, while long-time collaborators Studio Bergfors deliver design, and legendary photographer Anton Corbijn shot Liebing for the project.

The Evolver LP is the sum total of Chris Liebing's three decades at the beating heart of techno. It's the record only someone whose first break as a techno DJ was playing five hours at Sven Väth's infamous Omen in Frankfurt - and who has ridden out every twist and turn of life and subcultures since, while remaining rooted in the true school, dark, sweaty techno sweat pits of the world - could have made. It's the result of deep introspection, but it's about utter immediacy. It's the sound of someone previously driven along by compulsion and happenstance at last finding the confidence to be utterly intentional about their practice, allowing them to take the most classic, familiar, proven elements from the past and render them completely new.

Evolver is also Liebing's first completely solo album. There are collaborations, yes: with old friends from the OG techno generation, Luke Slater, Speedy J, and The Advent, all on uncompromising form, and with new generation figurehead Charlotte De Witte, who provides a thrilling narration of total surrender to the moment on acid clarion call "Symphonie des Seins". But unlike all Liebing's albums to date, there's no co-pilot. Every structure, every mixdown, every choice serves his singular vision of how his untold immersion in the surging currents of the world's greatest clubs should sound. The elements are all those forged in the white heat of Omen and Tresor in the mid 90s - brutal repetition, titanium kick drums, industrial atmospherics, but also dark rave euphoria, ever present surging acid lines just on the cusp of trance, and just enough human voices to remind you of bodies on the dance floor - but rendered with all the extraordinary accumulated skill and technological developments since then.

It's Chris's vision entirely, his musings on sound, technology, and life birthing tracks like "Roy Batty." Inspired by thoughts of AI becoming sentient and hungering for more life like Rutger Hauer's titular Blade Runner character, it was one of the first tracks to emerge and a foundation stone for the album. And in pursuit of that vision, it's built like a "proper album". The anticipation and menace of intro "Unfold" tip over into the glowing hot high drama psychedelia of "Symphonie…" then the breathless headlong rush of The Advent collab and on through an unfolding narrative that goes deep, goes dark, opens out into grand vistas, takes strange turns before finally landing on the alien landscape of… well… "Endtrack".

Not everything is pummelling on Evolver - the dazzling title track feels like you've been welcomed into the courtly dance of a higher dimension civilisation, and the audacious Speedy J collab "Shaping Frequencies" is a beatless flow that tests the boundaries between signal and noise. But for all its complexity, conceptualism, and stylistic branching out, every last part unmistakably powered by that dark techno-cavern energy above all else. All of it positively radiates the qualities of Liebing's greatest work and sets to date - but somehow even more so than before. Whether you're listening for aesthetic inspiration, cerebral stimulation or just that raw physical power, this album will sweep you up into its momentum and won't let go of you until it's done.

In den letzten fünf Jahren hat sich Joe Westerlund intensiv mit der Clave beschäftigt, dem metrischen Muster, das zunächst die afro-kubanische und lateinamerikanische Musik geprägt hat und dann in fast alle Bereiche des Jazz und Rock Einzug gehalten hat. Was bedeutete es, dass eine Idee so flexibel war, dass sie so viele Formen annehmen konnte und dabei doch ihre eigene Essenz behielt? Das Ergebnis ist für Westerlund ein Sprung ins Unbekannte: Curiosities from the Shift, ein 12-Track-Spielplatz mit endlos verwobenen Beats und Melodien, auf dem Westerlunds Begeisterung für die Clave auf seinen experimentellen Umgang mit Texturen trifft und seine rhythmische Symphonie mit Freunden Hand in Hand geht, die diesen Raum gemeinsam mit ihm gestalten. Die dreiteilige Suite, die die erste Hälfte von Curiosities ausmacht, beginnt mit den Schrottplatz-Percussions und den entzückenden Bass-Splashes, die ,Tem" umrahmen, und endet mit dem surrealistischen Boom-Bap von Daumenklavieren und Shakers auf ,Can Tangle". Diese Stücke strahlen eine hart erkämpfte Freude aus, als würde Westerlund sich in Echtzeit daran erfreuen, eine potenzielle Sackgasse zu entdecken, aber trotzdem seinen eigenen Weg nach vorne zu finden. Diese Songs wurden zu einer Art Arbeitsplan für das Terrain, das Westerlund auf Curiosities erkundet, vom glorreichen Call-and-Response-Opener ,Nu Male Uno" bis zum unheimlich amorphen Schlussstück ,Felt Like Floating". Alle diese Songs zeichnen sich durch einen erkennbaren Rhythmus aus, wie den galoppierenden Gang in der Mitte von ,Midpoint" und den kopfnickenden Puls, der sich durch ,Persurverance" schlängelt, dessen Name augenzwinkernd falsch geschrieben ist, um seiner Aussprache aus North Carolina via Wisconsin zu entsprechen. Aber das sind nur Sprungbretter für andere Texturen, Stimmungen und Ideen, wie die New-Age-Anklänge - schimmernde Metallophone, zwitschernde Vögel, zurückhaltende Flöten -, die ,Midpoint" durchziehen, oder die Dub-artigen Delays und Gamelan-Hymnen, die ,Persurverance" durchziehen. Dies ist zutiefst vielschichtige Musik, deren treibender Kern durch eine Reihe überraschender Entscheidungen ausgeglichen wird. Bittersüße und Freude, Trauer und Befreiung, Seufzer und Lächeln: All das ist hier vorhanden und verflechten sich bis ins Unendliche. In den Monaten nach den ersten Sessions wandte sich Westerlund an Freunde - darunter Tim Rutilli von Califone, den Saxophonisten Sam Gendel, den Trompeter Trever Hagen und die Violinisten Libby Rodenbough und Chris Jusell. Es waren seine am gründlichsten komponierten und präzisesten Werke, aber er wollte hören, was passierte, wenn seine Freunde in Echtzeit darauf reagierten. Sie lieferten Anmut, Tiefe und Gefühl, wobei ihre Parts den Vorhang zu verborgenen Winkeln rhythmischer Welten öffneten. Westerlund gibt bereitwillig zu, dass er von der Betonung des Grooves und des Metrums des Albums überrascht ist, die sich von abstrakten Klängen abhebt. Nachdem er so lange mit Bands gelebt und gearbeitet hatte, ging er davon aus, dass er mit grundlegenden Metren fertig war. Diese 12 Songs verschmelzen so viele von Westerlunds Leidenschaften zu endlos faszinierenden Stücken, die mit vertrauten Elementen seine Abenteuer ins Unbekannte übertragen. Verspielt, aber zart, wehmütig, aber wundersam, von Beats angetrieben, aber nicht an sie gebunden - dies ist Westerlunds bisheriges Vermächtnis, das Soloalbum, das einen Blick auf eine musikalische und emotionale Landschaft eröffnet, die vielleicht sogar noch reichhaltiger ist, als er es sich jemals hätte vorstellen können.

REISSUE

Originally released in 2000, World Of Love caught the spirit of the balearic progressive house of that time and the trance epic new coming movement. Being the second single from Clublanders and performed by Irene Cesar (top italo sabadell sound singer) is still today one of the most wanted tracks from the band.

A true hidden gem from the early days of the internet, TRANCEFELD’s “Love Song” finally resurfaces more than twenty years after its creation.



Originally composed in 2002 by the underground German producer, this cult deep house track, defined by its unforgettable bassline, psychedelic vocals, and delicate violins, now receives a long-awaited official re-release. It arrives alongside a brand-new single, “Echoes Within Silence,” a hypnotic tech-house journey that immerses listeners in a world of rhythm and emotion. TRANCEFELD’s timeless, Berlin-infused sound is back.

Boutique-pressed 7" vinyls A-side: "Wonderin'" / B-side: "Dream"

Drawing influence from the likes of CAN, Faust, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and David Vorkhaus, Shakti Soundsystem traverses the borderlands of psychedelic rock, Krautrock, jazz fusion, and ritual improvisation. But this isn't a retro trip—this is future folklore.

Each track is a trance in motion, built on hypnotic basslines, spiraling melodies, and moments of ecstatic dissonance. The instrumentation is as unconventional as the process: Bulbul Tarang, modular synths, guitars, drums, and vocals that oscillate between invocation and surrender.



Their first singles have already made waves across tastemaker blogs and listener-curated Spotify playlists, includingNeo-Psychedelia, Psych Rock Melting Pot, Rock for when 26 King Gizzard albums aren't enoug and Psychedelic & Space Rock.

"Wonderin',"described by Analogue Trash (UK) as "an absorbing, psychedelic jam that thrives on hypnotic repetition and a raw, live energy,"introduced their trance-infused sound to a wider audience.
"Silver," hailed by RMAS (Mexico) as"a hypnotic journey between Krautrock and spoken word... a sonic delirium that recalls CAN and the free spirit of the European underground," cements their place in the modern psych scene.

2026 Repress !

Originally released in 1995 on Loop Records, ‘More Love’ by Agent Orange aka Cari Lekebusch is a warm and intimate Acid Techno/Trance record that has been in high demand for over 25 years. Now the original tracks have been remastered backed by a remix from label head Blue Hour.

Nuevos Ríos ist das neue Projekt, das aus der Zusammenarbeit zwischen der legendären kolumbianischen Band Canalón de Timbiquí, angeführt von der unverwechselbaren Stimme von Nidia Góngora (Quantic, Ondatrópica, The Bongo Hop), und dem in Toulouse ansässigen Trio Reco Reco entstanden ist, das für seine Erkundungen tranceartigen Rhythmen aus Südamerika und darüber hinaus bekannt ist. Als neueste Kreation der pulsierenden kolumbianischen Szene, die sich durch vielfältige Hybridisierungen auszeichnet, bietet Nuevos Ríos einen atemberaubenden Einblick in die afro-kolumbianischen Traditionen der kolumbianischen Pazifikküste, ergänzt durch elektronische und verstärkte Elemente. Das Ergebnis ist beeindruckend: eine Odyssee, die nie von ihrem Kurs abweicht, Grenzen überschreitet und die Zuhörer auf die Entdeckung eines neuen Flusses voller gewundener Pfade mitnimmt. In dieser Musik spüren wir tropische Hitze, die verkörperte Kraft musikalischer Traditionen und den Schweiß europäischer Tanzflächen in einem einzigartigen Cocktail - sofort süchtig machend, manchmal introspektiv und immer unwiderstehlich tanzbar. Das Projekt entstand an den Ufern des Flusses Timbiquí und nahm durch die Begegnung zwischen Canalón de Timbiquí - der Gruppe, die von Maestra Nidia Góngora gegründet wurde, deren faszinierende und sofort erkennbare Stimme Projekte wie Quantic, Ondatrópica und The Bongo Hop geprägt hat - und Reco Reco, leidenschaftlichen Entdeckern tranceartiger Musik, insbesondere aus Südamerika, Gestalt an. Weit abseits der ausgetretenen Pfade, im Herzen der kolumbianischen Pazifikregion, fanden die beiden Gruppen auf natürliche Weise im Dorf Timbiquí zusammen, dem Ursprung der Musik von Canalón und von Nidia Góngora selbst. Durch eine Reihe von improvisierten Jam-Sessions im Erdgeschoss von Nidias Haus wurde die Verschmelzung ihrer Musik zu einem offensichtlichen Weg - geboren aus dem gemeinsamen Wunsch, aufmerksamen Zuhörern die Kraft dieser menschlichen und musikalischen Begegnung zu offenbaren. Dieses erste Kapitel, veröffentlicht bei ZZK Records - einem Label, das dafür bekannt ist, südamerikanische Juwelen zu entdecken (Son Rompe Pera, Nicola Cruz, La Yegros_) - wird von der einzigartigen Komposition und Klangfarbe von Nidia Góngora getragen. In den Tracks findet jedes Element des Ensembles seinen richtigen Platz: Die Kraft der kolumbianischen Pazifik-Percussion und die Poesie der Marimba de Chonta fesseln uns mit einem würzigen Gitarrenriff, das nie weit von Westafrika entfernt ist; die Stärke der Stimmen wird durch elektronische Texturen noch verstärkt, während sich Schlagzeug und Bass zu einem doppelten Motor für das gleichnamige Schiff Nuevos Ríos verbinden. Die Texte erzählen vom Alltag in enger Verbindung mit der Natur, rund um einen Fluss, der sowohl eine zentrale Verkehrsader als auch ein Kanal des Austauschs ist - ohne die harten Realitäten einer Region zu verschleiern, die von den internen Konflikten Kolumbiens gezeichnet ist. Und vielleicht ist diese Musik bereits eine erste Antwort auf einige dieser Wunden, in Form eines Rituals der kollektiven Feier. Das selbstbetitelte Debütalbum bietet eine einzigartige Perspektive auf das afro-stämmige Erbe der kolumbianischen Pazifikküste - ergänzt durch die Kraft verstärkter und elektronischer Musik. Man spürt die Wärme der Tropen, die Kraft der perkussiven und vokalen Traditionen und den Schweiß europäischer Tanzflächen, was zu einem unwiderstehlich hypnotischen und zum Tanzen animierenden Ergebnis führt.

As Selofan's fifth studio album, Vitrioli, from 2018, is a testament to the tragedy of life. The Greek duo, Joanna Pavlidou and Dimitris Pavlidis, who recorded the album in the Fabrika Records home studio, continue on in their poetic, but heartbreaking, music set to a dance beat. Between languages (Greek, English, German, and Spanish), Selofan feels on the brink of mania with Vitroli. However, the madness is controlled, the songs are restrained hysterics that culminate into the alchemic perfection of the band's specific moody sound.
From synthpop to synthpunk elements, the twelve-track LP leads listeners through dark corridors and into haunted, empty beds. There is a resignation to a doomed destiny with Vitroli—a trait that connects all Selofan releases—as a bitter pain and loneliness that cannot, or will not, subside.

The album begins with "Give Me a Reason" whose lyrics feel universal in this day and age: Give me a reason, to get out of bed / I could just watch the ceiling instead. Its heartbreak is profound as bells and voice pads echo under Joanna's voice. The adjacent music video for the song was directed by Dimitris Chaz Lee, and the band describes the video as "depicting the fragile nature, conflicts, emotional demands, and vulnerability of each person in a relationship."
"Billie Was a Vampire" is a story about an undead creature who works at a nightclub followed by the urgency of "Black Box." Brass sounds moan against the fast beat and suggest a frenzied need to escape.

"I'm Addicted" became the second single for the LP. I am addicted, you are mine, Joanna demands of the lover. The music video, also directed by Dimitris Chaz Lee, depicts a clean, white photoshoot primed for the most beautiful creatures of the Athenian wave scene. Alex Macharias, from the legendary Greek band In Trance 95, acts as the photographer for the session, as the models pose and flail under the bright bulbs. The director states: "Addiction is a mental state, something inside all of us. It altered our perception and created a parallel world of avant-garde beings and flashy lights making us part of this everlasting bond."

As Selofan's fifth studio album, Vitrioli, from 2018, is a testament to the tragedy of life. The Greek duo, Joanna Pavlidou and Dimitris Pavlidis, who recorded the album in the Fabrika Records home studio, continue on in their poetic, but heartbreaking, music set to a dance beat. Between languages (Greek, English, German, and Spanish), Selofan feels on the brink of mania with Vitroli. However, the madness is controlled, the songs are restrained hysterics that culminate into the alchemic perfection of the band's specific moody sound.
From synthpop to synthpunk elements, the twelve-track LP leads listeners through dark corridors and into haunted, empty beds. There is a resignation to a doomed destiny with Vitroli—a trait that connects all Selofan releases—as a bitter pain and loneliness that cannot, or will not, subside.

The album begins with "Give Me a Reason" whose lyrics feel universal in this day and age: Give me a reason, to get out of bed / I could just watch the ceiling instead. Its heartbreak is profound as bells and voice pads echo under Joanna's voice. The adjacent music video for the song was directed by Dimitris Chaz Lee, and the band describes the video as "depicting the fragile nature, conflicts, emotional demands, and vulnerability of each person in a relationship."
"Billie Was a Vampire" is a story about an undead creature who works at a nightclub followed by the urgency of "Black Box." Brass sounds moan against the fast beat and suggest a frenzied need to escape.

"I'm Addicted" became the second single for the LP. I am addicted, you are mine, Joanna demands of the lover. The music video, also directed by Dimitris Chaz Lee, depicts a clean, white photoshoot primed for the most beautiful creatures of the Athenian wave scene. Alex Macharias, from the legendary Greek band In Trance 95, acts as the photographer for the session, as the models pose and flail under the bright bulbs. The director states: "Addiction is a mental state, something inside all of us. It altered our perception and created a parallel world of avant-garde beings and flashy lights making us part of this everlasting bond."

This fresh release fuses house, trance, and garage, showcasing the young producer's remarkable versatility and skill. Nomad seamlessly combines the best elements of modern house with a nostalgic, old-school touch-featuring euphoric breakdowns, captivating vocals, and thumping basslines. It's a standout creation that marks a pivotal moment in Shuffa's rising career in the dance music scene.

Originally released in 1993 on Full Motion Records, Tranvision by Optical Phase is a cult Italian progressive house / trance record from the early ’90s underground.

Produced during the golden era of Italian progressive, the track captures the hypnotic and melodic sound that defined many European dancefloors of the time, driven by atmospheric pads, rolling rhythms and uplifting synth progressions.

Long sought-after by DJs and collectors, the record has become increasingly hard to find in its original pressing.

Now finally back on vinyl, making this early ’90s Italian progressive gem available again for a new generation of DJs and collectors.

REISSUE

Originally released in 2000, World Of Love caught the spirit of the balearic progressive house of that time and the trance epic new coming movement. Being the second single from Clublanders and performed by Irene Cesar (top italo sabadell sound singer) is still today one of the most wanted tracks from the band.

On his second album for Bruk, hoyah חיה continues to take an unflinching look at his Jewish identity while confronted with the heinous actions of the Israeli state. Echoing the name of his Refuge Worldwide radio show, he examines the shared histories of the Jewish diaspora across the Middle East and North Africa — from Morocco to Uzbekistan and everywhere in between. Can I Get A Chayah? is an honest attempt to explore what Judaism could become at a time when the culture faces an existential crisis.

The sonic approach hoyah חיה takes on Can I Get A Chayah? is central to the album's theme, as hard-gated processing on every sound creates a disorienting effect aiming for a kind of 'functional transcendentalism'. From the opening strains of preceding single '808s n Trance Gates' the jagged stop-start intensity of the samples sets a head-spinning tone for the album. The source material comes from across the aforementioned Jewish diaspora, challenging the nationalist idea of the single Jewish state.

Balancing beauty and aggression, hoyah חיה also reaches to a strong cast of collaborators to round out his cultural explorations. Principle among these is the late David German, the US-born guitarist and songwriter behind Silver Jews, whose repeated, bewildered mantras on 'Shalom Aleichem' embody hoyah חיה's own struggles with faith in the face of current horrors. Internationally celebrated Turkish-descent German musician Derya Yıldırım graces 'Talmuds' with her haunting vocal — a tribute to ancient Jewish mysticism that gets passed through the album's unrelenting sonic framework. On 'The Lock' Muha tackles African transcendentalism, while Rael pulls no punches with the questions he poses on the barbed 'This Song Has A Different Title But It Can't Be Published Here Because Of "Reasons"'.

With further prayer recitals on 'Lekha Dodi' and 'The Nose' and videos examining the psychedelic nature of reading the talmud and repetitive prayer movement shuckling, hoyah חיה has taken his research deep into the spirituality of his heritage at a time of crisis for Jewish identity. Naturally, Can I Get A Chayah? is not an easy listening experience, but neither is it a bleak one. There is beauty, mystery, complexity and nuance woven within the stark approach — an intentional, considered statement on a culture much deeper and wider than the barbaric acts of an unrepresentative group of twisted ethno-nationalists.

Alice Kemp is a British artist working with noise, performance, fetish objects, installation and many other forms of media. Throughout her work, she articulates a broken and illogical syntax of the subconscious through trance states, dreams, and disturbances. She has performed extensively, occasionally as an associate to the Schimpfluch-Gruppe of Swiss extreme aktionists.

It is a rarified violence that the Kemp invokes on her 9 Dreams In Erotic Mourning. Something disfigured. Something fucked. Something left behind. The subject matter of her investigations are deliberately inscrutable as she grotesquely amplifies a moment of terror, or fear, of sadness through pockets of piano melodies broken by psychoacoustic noise, razor-cut silence, ghastly vocalizations, crushed acts of physical aggression, and buckets of high-pressure suspense. Cryptic and oblique by design Kemp's work reads perhaps as a seance gone awry, certainly as private ritual made public, and as a transfiguration of literary body horror turned into a sonic nightmare that runs parallel to the works of Rudolf Eb.Er, Puce Mary, Sewer Election, and Luc Ferrari.

9 Dreams In Erotic Mourning was originally published as part of the instantly out of print boxset, On Corrosion - a 10 cassette anthology from 2019 that was housed in a handcrafted wooden box and featuring full albums from Kleistwahr, Neutral, Pinkcourtesyphone, Alice Kemp, She Spread Sorrow, G*Park, Relay For Death, Francisco Meirino, Fossil Aerosol Mining Project, and Himukalt. The collection also stood as the 50th release for The Helen Scarsdale Agency.

I Made It All Up For You is the new record by Hugo Race Fatalists, their 6th studio album, set for release March 20, 2026 thru Gusstaff Records / Helixed on LP/CD and digital.
"In his 40-year career, Hugo Race has lived a thousand lives and played the role of songwriter, producer, musician, performer, head of a record label (Helixed). His music went from folk to lounge, from "trance industrial blues" to psychedelia, from world music to electronics. Starting from post-punk Melbourne in the 1980s, he took fascinating paths that led him from Africa to Turkey, from Berlin to Romagna…"
Hugo Race returns after highly successful collaborative albums with Michelangelo Russo (100 Years), The Church frontman Steve Kilbey (Speed of the Stars) and Gianni Maraccolo (The Vigil, winner of the prestigious Premio Ciampi) with I Made It All Up For You, an epic album with his Italian band Fatalists - existential songwriting framed by the band's signature fusion of roots music, electronica, Italian soundtracks and desert rock.
"I wanted to create something melodic and beautiful in defiance of our current reality. The songs started as bare acoustic sketches written in a remote mountain cabin in Italy where I had two weeks off during a solo tour. The weather turned into a raging blizzard, the days a struggle to keep the wood fire lit and the smoke out of the house. I wrote about twelve songs, threw them all away, started again with an unplugged electric guitar in front of that
damp fire, searching for the album's theme. When the smoke cleared, I was at the crossroads of a long term relationship unraveling under a blazing antipodean sun.
Fatalists recorded the basic tracks at the floating studio on the Puccini lake an hour out of Florence - Giovanni Ferrario (Scisma, PJ Harvey) on guitars and synth, Francesco Giampaoli (Brutture Moderne) on bass and Diego Sapignoli (Sacri Cuori) on percussion.
Violinist Massimiliano Gallo met me in Sicily for a short tour to learn the new songs, adding layers of his Calabrian magic to the mix. Jennifer Charles (singer of New York band Elysian Fields) and I had been talking for a long time about making new music and this was the occasion when we made it happen. Jennifer's distinctive voice graces this
album on the songs I Collide and Broken Love, the lyrics of which were written by author and designer Alannah Hill. My longtime road brother Michelangelo Russo also dusts the tracks with his otherworldly electric harmonica on Against The World, Born To Fly and Open Field. A lot of joy and pain and reflection went into the making of this album and I hope that comes across; this is about the darkness yes, but also the light. Everything changes and every ending is a new beginning but it's how we experience transformation that really matters. I hope you love this album. I made it all up for you."
Hugo Race, Naples, 2025

Born in Douarnenez, at the far edge of Brittany (France), Komodor has quickly established itself as one of the most vibrant names in the French rock landscape. Their high-energy rock, fueled by fuzz, sweat, and vocal harmonies woven in the spirit of MC5 and T. Rex, immediately drew attention: Rolling Stone, Rock & Folk, Libération and Rock Hard Germany all praised the fiery impact of their debut album Nasty Habits (which sold over 2,000 vinyl copies). Since then, the quintet has mostly lived on the road: a long European tour, followed by the larger-than-life saga of Komodrag & The Mounodor, carrying them to stages such as Hellfest, Les Vieilles Charrues, and the Francofolies de La Rochelle, among many others.

Their second album, Time & Space, reveals a band in full metamorphosis. Without abandoning the explosive force that defines them, Komodor widens its scope: volcanic riffs, more sinuous grooves, mist-laden harmonies, psychedelic flashes… The energy is still wild, but more inhabited, more liberated, almost ceremonial at times. The record opens with two telling bursts: Bliss & Joy, a libertarian charge with the feel of a manifesto, and Soul Tricker, a rock incantation where trance overtakes sheer electric assault. Two sides of the same coin, pulled taut between urgency and enchantment.

On stage, Komodor remains a true shockwave, forged across European festivals (Freak Valley, Motocultor, Fête du Bruit, and more) and now awaited at the legendary Desertfest London. Their music feels made for such spaces: a visceral, flesh-and-amp kind of rock, drawing from the seventies’ heritage to speak even more vividly to the present. A band moving forward at full volume, without nostalgia or calculation, carried by a simple conviction: as long as the amps are hot, rock can still burn.

In short: Komodor is the band of friends from Douarnenez bringing pencil-and-paper rock into the streaming age while preserving its analog soul (with the album mastered at the legendary Miraval Studios), the smell of warm tubes, the grain of vinyl. With this second album, they hit harder, truer, and more vividly than ever.
Time & Space stands as a “must-have French rock record”, a tangible piece worth cherishing in any collection.

Born in Douarnenez, at the far edge of Brittany (France), Komodor has quickly established itself as one of the most vibrant names in the French rock landscape. Their high-energy rock, fueled by fuzz, sweat, and vocal harmonies woven in the spirit of MC5 and T. Rex, immediately drew attention: Rolling Stone, Rock & Folk, Libération and Rock Hard Germany all praised the fiery impact of their debut album Nasty Habits (which sold over 2,000 vinyl copies). Since then, the quintet has mostly lived on the road: a long European tour, followed by the larger-than-life saga of Komodrag & The Mounodor, carrying them to stages such as Hellfest, Les Vieilles Charrues, and the Francofolies de La Rochelle, among many others.

Their second album, Time & Space, reveals a band in full metamorphosis. Without abandoning the explosive force that defines them, Komodor widens its scope: volcanic riffs, more sinuous grooves, mist-laden harmonies, psychedelic flashes… The energy is still wild, but more inhabited, more liberated, almost ceremonial at times. The record opens with two telling bursts: Bliss & Joy, a libertarian charge with the feel of a manifesto, and Soul Tricker, a rock incantation where trance overtakes sheer electric assault. Two sides of the same coin, pulled taut between urgency and enchantment.

On stage, Komodor remains a true shockwave, forged across European festivals (Freak Valley, Motocultor, Fête du Bruit, and more) and now awaited at the legendary Desertfest London. Their music feels made for such spaces: a visceral, flesh-and-amp kind of rock, drawing from the seventies’ heritage to speak even more vividly to the present. A band moving forward at full volume, without nostalgia or calculation, carried by a simple conviction: as long as the amps are hot, rock can still burn.

In short: Komodor is the band of friends from Douarnenez bringing pencil-and-paper rock into the streaming age while preserving its analog soul (with the album mastered at the legendary Miraval Studios), the smell of warm tubes, the grain of vinyl. With this second album, they hit harder, truer, and more vividly than ever.
Time & Space stands as a “must-have French rock record”, a tangible piece worth cherishing in any collection.

I Made It All Up For You is the new record by Hugo Race Fatalists, their 6th studio album, set for release March 20, 2026 thru Gusstaff Records / Helixed on LP/CD and digital.
"In his 40-year career, Hugo Race has lived a thousand lives and played the role of songwriter, producer, musician, performer, head of a record label (Helixed). His music went from folk to lounge, from "trance industrial blues" to psychedelia, from world music to electronics. Starting from post-punk Melbourne in the 1980s, he took fascinating paths that led him from Africa to Turkey, from Berlin to Romagna…"
Hugo Race returns after highly successful collaborative albums with Michelangelo Russo (100 Years), The Church frontman Steve Kilbey (Speed of the Stars) and Gianni Maraccolo (The Vigil, winner of the prestigious Premio Ciampi) with I Made It All Up For You, an epic album with his Italian band Fatalists - existential songwriting framed by the band's signature fusion of roots music, electronica, Italian soundtracks and desert rock.
"I wanted to create something melodic and beautiful in defiance of our current reality. The songs started as bare acoustic sketches written in a remote mountain cabin in Italy where I had two weeks off during a solo tour. The weather turned into a raging blizzard, the days a struggle to keep the wood fire lit and the smoke out of the house. I wrote about twelve songs, threw them all away, started again with an unplugged electric guitar in front of that
damp fire, searching for the album's theme. When the smoke cleared, I was at the crossroads of a long term relationship unraveling under a blazing antipodean sun.
Fatalists recorded the basic tracks at the floating studio on the Puccini lake an hour out of Florence - Giovanni Ferrario (Scisma, PJ Harvey) on guitars and synth, Francesco Giampaoli (Brutture Moderne) on bass and Diego Sapignoli (Sacri Cuori) on percussion.
Violinist Massimiliano Gallo met me in Sicily for a short tour to learn the new songs, adding layers of his Calabrian magic to the mix. Jennifer Charles (singer of New York band Elysian Fields) and I had been talking for a long time about making new music and this was the occasion when we made it happen. Jennifer's distinctive voice graces this
album on the songs I Collide and Broken Love, the lyrics of which were written by author and designer Alannah Hill. My longtime road brother Michelangelo Russo also dusts the tracks with his otherworldly electric harmonica on Against The World, Born To Fly and Open Field. A lot of joy and pain and reflection went into the making of this album and I hope that comes across; this is about the darkness yes, but also the light. Everything changes and every ending is a new beginning but it's how we experience transformation that really matters. I hope you love this album. I made it all up for you."
Hugo Race, Naples, 2025

For their fourth release, Australian label Lunatic Music welcomes Chris Stoker (UK) and Jamie Blanco (UK born, AUS based) to the fray for a dubbed out analogue synth workout that is indisputably Ess O Ess.
Fusion unfolds in Simply Nothing. Analogue synths intertwine with exquisitely programmed percussion and George Humes' chorus-drenched, draped in a veil of spectral vocals by Sarah-May Brown. The result is a retro-futuristic sonic whirlpool that is as memorable as it is delicate.
A waterfall forms in The Lotus & The Banksman. An otherworldly mutant breakbeat techno floor filler. Ethereal pads and dubby textures ripple across the surface whilst the resonant bassline churns below. Gentle currents give way to surging momentum as the percussion kicks in wth the repetitive chant of Time Travelling Man throughout, again by Sarah-May Brown.
On Remix duties, Hybrid Man applies their refined proto-trance formula to Simply Nothing, drawing out its hypnotic core.
Mayurashka fractures The Lotus & The Banksman, sifts through the pieces, and assembles a mind-melting, wonky techno drum work-out from the fragments.

From the depth of transient memories comes ‘Some Leaves Must Fall 聽其自然’, Temple Rat’s latest EP and the inaugural release for Martin Gilleshøj’s ‘Buttheads’ label.

Across 6 tracks Temple Rat distills fragments of spatial memory, merging conceptual ambience with the mystic, spatial, and driven edges of deep trance and hypnotic techno. A pensive and functional synthesis, one played out like an ode to the sustained.

Through 2024 while moving between Berlin and Sichuan, Temple Rat conceptualized and finished ‘Some Leaves Must Fall 聽其自然’. At its core, the work is an exploration of how the personal memory of cities and their particular acoustic environments can be transmuted in musical form. For these places, altered by the passing of time and the shifting of contexts, mirror the fluid and generative nature of sound itself.

Creatively this approach was borne out in a kind of archaeology of sound: by sampling and capturing auditory fragments Mei was able to preserve otherwise fleeting moments of experience. Sonics which not only embodied the emotions of the present but served too as a mechanism of recall, pulling memory back into focus even against the erasures of time.

In its method this project seeks to transform the sonic textures of urban and natural environments into high-energy dance tracks, exploring the tension between the certainty of space and the uncertainty of time. A tension operating not only within the structural logic of the sound itself, but so too as an affective experience, extending into the listener’s body and perceptual field.

For we are not the first to note that in a world of pervasive temptation and fragmented information, sustained listening has become rarified. Through this project, Temple Rat hopes to counter this tendency; to encourage a deeper mode of listening that restores attention, re-establishing our essential connection with the present.

All music is written, recorded, arranged, and produced by Temple Rat aka Yuxin Mei
Mastered by Giuseppe Tillieci at Enisslab
Distributed by One Eye Witness


As the title suggest, this EP reflects an ongoing musical journey of the artist, this time approaching a more abstract-cinematic atmospheres and soundscapes.

The release features a blend of prog-techno-trance and groovy disco, crafted by darker textures and detailed sound design

Lanzieri, the Uruguayan hero, once again elevates the sound of his nation with a solid release in which he clearly manages to narrate a story that unfolds across the 4 tracks of the EP.

The narrative is dense with dark atmospheres and unexpected twists; the flow is steady and the storytelling clear. The sound is harsh yet mellow, the background broad and diverse, with traces of trance, electro, and even trip-hop. A solid release on the new Auto Crash Test.

Mononoke is a Berlin band founded by Fabian Rösch and Benjamin Geyer. Their musical passion is improvisation with a sound that moves between experimental electronic music, jazz, beat music and ambient.
This LP combines their two recent EPs which have been released on the Munich based label tunnel.visions,
each on one side.

APARt
APARt was created in the field of tension between spontaneous improvisation and careful studio work, marked
by the lockdowns during covid and social isolation. It was precisely this physical separation that gave rise to a
new experimental approach.
Each track is a puzzle, whose individual pieces were put together, moved around, and placed in new contexts.
Instead of jamming and rehearsing together, musical ideas were exchanged online so that they could be freely
interpreted, altered and redesigned.


modular
Newly found vivid playfulness, fresh approaches and a tilt towards the unexpected marks these songs. Capturing moments in our lives full of challenges, developments and salvation.
The same new and unusual process of working separately, shaped the subsequent second EP modular which
followed the same working structure but with a new component: the modular synthesizer, which decisively reshapes the sound: a collection of analog textures, broken structures and a touch of raw intimacy.
Each song is an episode, each sound a reminder of how music connects us.?
Even when circumstances, such as a pandemic, can threaten to pull us apart.

Colombian-Argentinian label We Shine In The Darkness is back with a second serving, and this time they throw it back to 1996 to revisit a classic anthem. It's Julian Sanza and La French Toast who add their own 2025 spin to iconic trance cut 'Seven Days & One Week', maintaining its bleepy and bleary-eyed synth sequences but reworking them into a deep and breezy house groove. On the flip, 'Mad Vibes' is apparently an "homage to a local scene bar" and is an emo-licked post-disco chugger with moody lines and distant vocals tugging at the heart.

Eight years have passed since 8 regards obliques, the album in which Jaumet reinvented his spiritual jazz classics, letting them drift into other dimensions. Since then, an intense tour alongside Thomas de Pourquery and a new recording adventure with Zombie Zombie have taken him on the road. Yet it is in the inspiring calm of his brand-new studio in Bagnolet that he found the material for Du cortex à l’iris, his new album recorded for his label Versatile Records. Du cortex à l’iris continues this delicate balance that defines Jaumet’s signature: a constant tension between hypnotic abstraction and an almost animal groove. "To reduce the distance between my cortex and my senses, in order to compose mental images with sounds," he says. This intention runs through the entire album: a desire to make people dance, yes, but with echoes of EBM, bursts of cinematic landscapes, and that singular way of slowly inducing trance rather than declaring it. Saxophone, synths, analog drum machines: the arsenal remains familiar, but the approach is even more direct. Playing fast, composing in the moment, letting the hand run before the mind corrects. Capturing something primal, spontaneous, almost raw – as if the sound were really passing, this time, directly from the cortex to the iris.

B. Chamber (Stratum A), by B. Close, is the first full length solo release by Los Angeles-based multi-disciplinary artist Brian Close. The first of two volumes assembled from some thirteen hours of music produced by Close while residing in Connecticut from 2021-2025, B. Chamber (Stratum A) offers a vivid, fractal afterimage of a prolific, specific time and space in the artist’s oeuvre.

After leaving New York City early in the pandemic to a farmhouse in the countryside with dedicated spaces for multiple sound stations, Close developed an intensive daily practice of melding with the machines. The vast, pastoral backdrop of rural CT provided inspiration and contrast for his ongoing investigations into dynamic, poly-rhythmic electronic music. The sounds on B. Chamber (Stratum A) range from the machine-modeling of acoustic instruments and natural environments to the utterly unhuman, spinning on the axis between crystalline, pointillist precision and shifty blown-cone distortion. Close’s atypical interpretations of rhythm, noise and other undefined musics land in a hybrid zone of their own.

Throughout B. Chamber (Stratum A), Close’s productions are in perpetual motion. Foxtrot’s shifting hi-hats and disembodied voices rise like cicadas propelled by glitching machines and tangled rhythms, Many Drive draws momentum from dubby stabs and twinkling atmospherics. Character Community’s nimble, drifting snares and erratic static are uplifted by swelling synths, and Mpan’s modular mining forgoes drums but is no less propulsive for it. Acre Voices’ seasick pads and deft drum patterns tap an energizing nerve, and closer 5D Bow’s ambush of pummeling machine gun fire spirals into the tryptamine palace and emerges completely rinsed and refreshed.

Equally powerful in the club as in the outdoors, in the headphones eyes closed or on the move, B. Chamber (Stratum A) grants an immersive temporary trip on B. Close’s unique wavelength, with Stratum B to complete the picture in the summer of 2026.

RIYL - Mark Fell, muay thai, Vladislav Delay, gaming, Errorsmith, modular synthesizer.

+++++

Brian Close (b. 1979, NYC) uses the cold logic of mathematics to trigger states of total sensory displacement. Close co-founded multiple AV studios to explore the "hypnotic"—a ritualistic practice of motional-graphism and improvisational sound. His work is a study in synesthesia and the architecture of trance, using geometric precision to dissolve the sense of time. It is a digital-visceral experience built on heavy logic, designed for large-scale immersion and timelessness.

Close is one half of Georgia who have released records on Palto Flats, Firecracker Recordings, Meakusma, Youth, OOH-Sounds and EM Records, and have a long-running residency on NTS.

B. Chamber was written, produced and mixed by Brian Close.
Mastered by Rashad Becker.
Artwork by Brian Close.

Soft Echoes presents the first physical edition of ‘In a Few Places Along the River’ by Abul Mogard as a limited run of 500 vinyl copies. Originally released digitally in 2022, the album now appears in its intended form, marking the label’s second release.

Three long pieces, composed between 2019 and 2022, emerged from Mogard’s meticulous experimentation with analogue and digital instruments. Slowly evolving harmonic fields of layered drones and spectral textures drift across the record. They are enhanced by reverb from Scotland’s Inchindown oil tanks, which hold the longest reverberation of any man-made structure, giving the music a haunting resonance and a sense of suspended space.

‘Against a White Cloud’ and ‘In True Contemplation’ open the album with their nocturnal tones that gradually intensify into dense, immersive waves of sound. Side B is devoted to the 21-minute elegiacal piece ‘Along the River’, which flows between weight and silence, unfolding with reflective depth and moments of subtle transcendence. As one listener observed, “His music doesn't break the wilful suspension of disbelief: you stay in its trance.”

“Recording for this album began in 2019, when I was still living in London,” Mogard explains. “The first version of ‘Along the River’ was created at my studio near Brick Lane. It started with experimenting around a chord progression inspired by a classical piece I had once been recommended, though, strangely enough, I no longer recall what it was. Early in 2022, I revealed the identity behind Abul Mogard and wanted to mark this new period, so I decided to release it quickly, by myself, as digital-only.”

After returning to Rome, Mogard created the other two pieces, working with new digital instruments alongside his modular synthesiser, and integrated recordings from the London sessions. The music reveals a patient attention to texture and space, defining his usual restraint. Mogard adds, “I was trying to explore very subtle changes in the spectral characteristics of the music using extremely slow, intertwined tones.”

Described by critics as one of Mogard’s most melancholic and absorbing releases, the album maintains an austere beauty and contemplative weight, leaving a lingering impression that lasts far beyond the final note.

The music has extended beyond the album itself, with tracks appearing in films and contemporary artworks. Most notably, Swedish artist Peder Bjurman’s ‘Slow Walker’ audiovisual installation and French filmmaker Fleuryfontaine’s politically charged animated film ‘Soixante-sept millisecondes’.

Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri and cut to vinyl by Lupo, the record emphasises the clarity and depth of Mogard’s frequencies, with each layer precisely balanced. The cover artwork and design are by Marja de Sanctis, who has collaborated with Abul since his first cassette release in 2012.

Siren Selector presents the first voyage of Remy Solar, as the producer takes a break from composing sound system exclusive dubs to expand his horizons with this by-turns lush, textured, menacing and plaintive album.

‘Heavy Terrain’ emerges from the depths of a lifetime inside the dub fraternity: reared on a potent diet of Lee Scratch Perry and Augustus Pablo, The Disciples and Digital Mystikz, it’s an album which stuck its head in a bass bin in an abandoned bingo hall in north London before striking out on a musical road-trip to imbibe sounds and rhythms from further afield.

The album opens with the militant drums and ethereal pads of 'Sound in the East' before being bookended by two mixes of 'Star Trail', where unformed musical space and time cross uncharted distances to coalesce into the beginning of direction and rhythm. The lush deep house chords and drilling synths of 'Lila #3' summon ghostly presences, while in its counterpart 'Lila #7' layers of melody rise and hang like mist before dissipating in percussive heat. 'Dakhla's’ swelling and retreating drones fade into swirls of drums. In the eponymous 'Heavy Terrain', off-beat keyboard chops respond to each other from uncertain depths while electronic horns pulse across miles of open space. 'Empty City 'sees walls of sound coalesce and fragment, falling into bursts of white noise.

Remy Solar explores a deliberately constrained hardware set-up to create the primordial conditions of trance, locking down a rhythmic foundation while semi-improvised excursions form and reform above it. It’s an album that takes the listener on a journey between order and chaos, past and future, all the while underlaid by a counterpoint of cavernous bass lines and echoing percussion, yang and yin, shade and light.

-Boxset mit vier Alben featuring Drummer Neudi (u.a. Manilla Road, Trance, Griffin, Savage Grace…)

- Limited Edition mit handsignierter Autogrammkarte

Schon mit 8 Jahren entdeckte Andreas Neuderth, der seit Mitte der Achtziger nur noch den Spitzname NEUDI benutzt, sein Talent für das Schlagzeug. Sogar bereits schon etwas früher wurde er zum Fan harter
Rockklänge, die üblichen Verdächtigen wie Kiss, Status Quo und Rush. Mit 15 Jahren, im Jahr 1986, taucht sein Drumming erstmals auf einem Tape der Band SUDDEN DARKNESS auf, was 2026 zu einem Jubiläumsjahr für
den heute in Rheinhessen lebenden Musiker darstellt. Seine bekanntesten Stationen sind neben MANILLA ROAD (2011 bis zum Tod von Mark Shelton im Jahr 2018) und SAVAGE GRACE (2009/2010) aktuell TRANCE,
ROXXCALIBUR, ANGEL OF DAMNATION, IRONSWORD, JAMESON RAID und die Manilla Road-Nachfolgeband SENTRY. Das 1994er ECONOMIST Album „New Built Ghetto Status“ bezeichnet Neudi trotz all diesen genannten Namen als „eines der drei besten Alben, auf denen ich zu hören bin“. In der Tat darf man getrost sagen, dass es den Stil von ECONOMIST wohl nur einmal gibt. 1995 wurde die CD von Massacre/Intercord lizensiert, doch
mit dem progressiven Stil war man seiner Zeit einfach zu weit voraus.

Als Reissue, erstmals als Doppel LP mit dem unveröffentlichten zweiten Album „Mind Movies“ erschienen, erntete man nun endlich die verdient euphorischen Kritiken. VIRON (2004/2006 und 2008) war nach einer Zeit
der Experimente Neudis Rückkehr zum traditionellen Metal, den er als Fan auch zuvor nie verlassen hat. Die zwei hochgelobten Alben waren indirekt der Vorgänger der erfolgreicheren Band ROXXCALIBUR. SCROLLKEEPER
ist eine Band aus Texas, die für ihre EP „Wetico“ als Manilla Road-Fans mit Neudi zusammenarbeiten wollten. Neudi ist bekannt für sein „busy drumming“. Beeinflusst von Neil Peart (Rush), Randy Foxe (Manilla Road) oder Ian Paice (Deep Purple) bietet er nicht nur die genreübliche Rhythmusarbeit „im Hintergrund“, sondern bringt das Instrument teils auffällig in den Vordergrund. (Infotext von Michael Gresner, Januar 2026)

Extra Stars is Gregory Uhlmann"s solo debut on International Anthem. It"s a deep and gorgeous expansion of the LA-based multi-instrumentalist producer / composer"s rhythmic ambient side, as nascently explored in his much-lauded duo with Meg Duffy, his trio work with Josh Johnson and Sam Wilkes, and in the gentler of SML (the improvising trance-jazz unit of which he is a member).

Extra Stars is Gregory Uhlmann"s solo debut on International Anthem. It"s a deep and gorgeous expansion of the LA-based multi-instrumentalist producer / composer"s rhythmic ambient side, as nascently explored in his much-lauded duo with Meg Duffy, his trio work with Josh Johnson and Sam Wilkes, and in the gentler of SML (the improvising trance-jazz unit of which he is a member).

Mit Yenbett kehrt die mauretanische Sängerin Noura Mint Seymali eindrucksvoll zurück. Bereits die ersten beiden Tracks - zwei Versionen des Songs "Lehjibb" - zeigen die Spannweite ihres musikalischen Ausdrucks: archaische Klanglandschaften mit der traditionellen Harfe ardine treffen auf flirrende E-Gitarren, donnernde Drums und hypnotischen Gesang. Seymali verbindet die uralte Tradition der nordwestafrikanischen Griot-Musik mit modernen, elektrifizierten Klängen zu einem tranceartigen, kraftvollen Sound, der tief verwurzelt und zugleich zukunftsweisend ist. Als Tochter des Komponisten Seymali Ould Ahmed Vall und Stieftochter der berühmten Sängerin Dimi Mint Abba trägt sie ein musikalisches Erbe weiter, das sie mit eigener Handschrift neu interpretiert. "Die Griots sind Spiegel der Gesellschaft", sagt Seymali. "Wir bewahren Geschichte, feiern Kultur und schaffen Verbindung." Yenbett, ihr drittes Album und das erste seit 2016, wurde von Matthew Tinari (Drums) und Mikey Coltun (Mdou Moctar) produziert. Es ist roh, experimentell und voller Energie - ein Beweis für Seymalis Status als eine der kraftvollsten Stimmen der Weltmusik.

Since 2020, 12 Inch Lovers have been releasing new samplers every year, eagerly anticipated by collectors. These samplers have now become a staple and are easily added to vinyl collections across Europe. They offer timeless classics and rare tracks that are often hard to find elsewhere.

With Samplers 11 & 12, they surprise again with a mix of modern classics and tracks that have never been released on vinyl or are difficult to find. By adding unique and exclusive tracks, the 12 Inch Lovers samplers remain innovative and high-quality. They are a must-have for DJs, collectors, and fans of contemporary classics!

SAMPLER 11

A1) Paul Kalkbrenner - No Goodbye (2019)

Berlin techno producer Paul Kalkbrenner became world-famous with his 2008 hit Sky & Sand. Since then, he has released one record after another and performed all over the world in the biggest venues and at the most renowned festivals. No Goodbye is one of his more recent hits, released in the summer of 2019.

The track was created using an a cappella he received on a demo tape while on tour. He was immediately inspired by the vocal and built his own sound and production around it. Interestingly, Kalkbrenner rarely uses vocals, but for No Goodbye he collaborated with Australian singer Chiara Hunter, giving the track a unique and instantly recognisable character. The result is a stylish, dance-floor-friendly track with a rolling house groove that quickly became a modern classic on dance floors worldwide.

A2) Water World - Give Me Love (2000)

This trance classic by Water World appeared in 2000 on the French label Adequat Records and is the perfect tune for a sunny summer evening. Warm melodies and pulsing beats instantly create that beach feeling, as if you were dancing with your feet in the sand. The record recalls Beachball by Nalin & Kane, sharing the same dreamy, sun-drenched vibe.

Behind Water World were producers Laurent David and Frédéric De Backer-names well known to many trance fans. In the nineties De Backer was active with projects such as Global Trance Mission (Dream Mission) and Y-Traxx, the trio that released the 1997 classic Mystery Land.

Give Me Love clearly bears their combined signature: euphoric, warm and melodic, with a timeless build that perfectly balances emotion and energy. The track was released on vinyl as part of Trance E.P. Vol. 01 and remains a fixture in retro-trance sets to this day.

B1) Panoramic - Colors (1996)

Colors by Panoramic is a Belgian trance classic released in 1996 on the legendary label XTC Records, a sub-label of Bonzai Records. Panoramic was a collaboration between Belgian techno icon Marco Bailey and Mauro Mirisola. The duo, also known under playful aliases such as The Coke Man & Sniff, released an EP featuring two powerful trance tracks.

We chose Colors, a tune with pure Belgian trance DNA: driving rhythm, dreamy synths and a catchy female vocal. The combination of Bailey's production expertise and Mirisola's creative touch resulted in a timeless track that still appears in many classic playlists.

B2) Natasha Bedingfield - Pocketful Of Sunshine (StoneBridge Club Remix) (2008)

British singer-songwriter Natasha Bedingfield released the album Pocketful of Sunshine in 2008, featuring the title track as a single. The original pop version became a major hit in North America, reaching the Top 5 in the US. Swedish DJ and producer StoneBridge (Sten Hallström) reworked the song into a groovy house version, released in the summer of 2008.

StoneBridge gave the upbeat pop tune a club-ready beat and an infectious piano riff that made it shine on dance floors worldwide. It was not his first time transforming pop into house gold-he had already achieved global fame with his remix of Robin S - Show Me Love (1992), one of the greatest house anthems of all time. He also remixed Sia - The Girl You Lost to Cocaine in 2008, another club favourite.

The StoneBridge Club Remix of Pocketful of Sunshine appeared on a special remix EP in July 2008 and was played endlessly in clubs-by us too, in the venues where we performed. The result is a timeless, sun-soaked house classic thatmakes sitting still impossible.

C1) Y-Traxx - Mystery Land (Fred Baker vs Mr Sam's Magical Mystery Dub Mix) (original release 1995)

Y-Traxx was a nineties trance project by DJs Laurent David and Fred Baker. This trance classic first appeared in 1995 as a B-side but gained real attention when it featured on a Paul Oakenfold mix album. Thanks to that success it received an official re-release in 1998 on the respected French label FFRR (Full Frequency Range Recordings).

In 2003 an excellent remix by Mr. Sam & Fred Baker followed on the Nebula label. That version is highly sought after on vinyl by trance collectors, and we are proud to feature it on our new sampler.

C2) Weiss - Feel My Needs (2018)

Feel My Needs by British producer Weiss (alias Richard Dinsdale) is the tune with that unmistakable old-school piano and catchy vocal that instantly pulls you onto the dance floor. Released in May 2018on the UK label Toolroom Records, the track is pure feel-good house with a modern touch. From the very first piano riff, hands go up in the air.

Toolroom even called it a "future anthem" for the summer of 2018, and indeed Feel My Needs became a huge floor-filler. The record charted high on global dance lists and gained massive popularity at festivals and clubs that year. With its warm piano chords, tight beat and soulful vocal, this is a modern house classic that will stay in the collective club memory for a long time.

D1) The Killers - Mr. Brightside (Jacques Lu Cont's Thin White Duke Mix) (2005)

American band The Killers formed in 2001 and scored a massive hit a few years later with Mr Brightside. Taken from their debut album Hot Fuss (2004), it became their biggest and best-known track-a true rock-pop anthem.

In 2005 the song was given an electronic twist when renowned producer and remixer Jacques Lu Cont (the alias of Stuart Price) created an eight-minute dance version titled Mr Brightside (Jacques Lu Cont's Thin White Duke Mix). This remix replaced the raw rock energy with a more progressive and electronic vibe, driven by a steady beat and long build-up.

The track found a second life in club culture and quickly became a dance-floor favourite. For vinyl collectors it was an instant must-have, and to this day it stands as the perfect party closer. The Killers themselves loved it so much that they often used the remix live as an outro, followed by the original version. A remix that perfectly bridged rock and club culture-and has since become a genuine classic.

D2) Sia - Drink To Get Drunk (Different Gear Remix) (2001)

The legendary ice-cube sleeve says it all: Drink to Get Drunk was a huge club hit in the early 2000s. Released in 2001 on the UK label INCredible, a sub-label of Sony Music, it was a collaboration between British DJ duo DifferentGear (Gino Scaletti & Quinn Whalley) and singer Sia.

The producers took Sia's original song Drink to Get Drunk from her album Healing Is Difficult and gave it a complete transformation, keeping her distinctive vocal and placing it over a hypnotic progressive-house groove.

The combination of Sia's unmistakable voice and the deep, driving production hit hard: the track became hugely popular in Belgian clubs and turned into an anthem of its time. In Belgium it even reached number one in the dance chart in early 2001, and it also performed strongly in the UK and the Netherlands.

To this day it remains a nostalgic crowd-pleaser that perfectly captures the atmosphere of the early 2000s.

Little is known about the origins of this project, grasping the curiosity of many 90's trance diggers, this mysterious EP was originally released in 1994 on the now defunct London based label ITP Recordings. Presenting 3 tracks that dive deep into the trancy electronics of the time, going well into the 8 minutes marker on each track the producer takes the time to allow a pallet of atmospheric qualities to gently grow and layer themselves throughout. A very unique aural signature, almost as if fractals had a sound, organised in a highly effective manner for the psychedelic electronic music inclined dancefloor.

Having transitioned between London, Lisbon and back again as a DJ and producer, as well as across the world as the drummer in beloved pop group, Metronomy, Anna Prior remains an essential and independent force in alternative and electronic music culture. The current epicentre of this creativity is undoubtedly Prior’s own label, Beat Palace. Established in 2021, it has showcased the talent and diversity of FLINTA producers carving an esoteric space within alt-pop and electronic music.

Returning to the imprint for the first time since its inception, Anna Prior utilises this vital platform to refine her own craft across the five-track ‘Firefly’ EP, exploring new moods and styles, balancing playfulness with vulnerability, shadow and light. Prior describes ‘Firefly’ as, “a collection of moments - some fleeting and some stubbornly lingering.... Each track came together almost by accident, but now feels to me like they've always belonged together.”

Lead single ‘True For You’ pulsates with soft euphoria, as Prior weaves softly cascading synths with her own earnest declarations, composing a sensual, sophisticated drama about “letting other people's differing truths sit alongside your own” that nonetheless carries a distinct club energy. In contrast, title track ‘Firefly’, written alongside co-producer Matt Karmil, unfolds as a spoken-word piece, investigating memory, “the tricky mirror that reveals more than it conceals”. Throughout, Prior’s inquisitive, native Yorkshire accent anchors a wide-eyed soundscape that gradually, impressively escalates into the cinematic.

Centerpiece track ‘Silence’ turns this approach inside out, escalating the tempo and revealing a DnB-influenced shade of Prior’s work that is certain to surprise and impress, scattering elegant syllables amongst serious soundsystem pressure as Prior navigates the feeling of being ghosted; by friends, lovers and even her own work. ‘No More Drama’ returns to pop, presenting a bold cover of Mary J. Blige’s classic that inverts the original’s unmatched intensity for a more serene, but no less affecting rendition.

Finally, ‘Beside You’ delivers one last, sublime blend of Prior’s songwriting and sequencing instincts, a simple pop incantation that coaxes dancers into a soft trance while concluding with a reminder from Prior that “amid life’s unanswered calls and fleeting highs, there is always space to feel safe and unjudged.” Concluding this sublime EP, Prior finds new ground to settle into her talents.

After decades spent shaping the sound of southern Madagascar and becoming one of the defining voices of tsapiky, Damily returns with Fanjiry, his most intimate and focused record to date. Known for electrifying village ceremonies and carrying the fever of Toliara across continents, he takes a sharp turn — not away from trance, but deeper into its core.

Recorded in just three days at Studio Black Box with analog wizard Peter Deimel, Fanjiry strips the tsapiky band down to a single guitar and a single heartbeat. Damily plays alone, yet fills the space completely — bass, rhythm, melody, pulse, and breath merging into a dense and vibrating sound. Every riff is architecture, every harmonic a door opening onto memory, childhood landscapes, and nights where music heals, binds, and exhausts the dark.

There is no nostalgia here, no museum of tradition. Fanjiry is a new frontier for tsapiky: raw, precise, suspended between earth and sky, born from craft and necessity. The title — the last star before dawn — captures its essence: a quiet moment before the world awakens, where a single guitar can hold an entire history and still point forward.

Iñigo Medina aka M4 explores the profound convergence of two disciplines that share a common foundation: the manipulation of vibration and resonance to transform consciousness and space: Yoga and Electronic Music.
While Yoga balances the body's energetic vibrations through breath, posture, and meditation, electronic music employs sustained tones, slowly shifting sequences, and atmospheric textures that induce trance states and align with meditative brainwave patterns.
"Reset Series" is characterized by atmospheric, non-danceable soundscapes built on repetitive sequences and arpeggios that slowly evolve, often processed through delay and reverb. Both yoga sequences and M4 compositions (the full track is almost an hourlong, divided into two parts) unfold gradually over extended durations . Each practice invites a journey inward, guiding the practitioner or listener through layers of repeating motifs that subtly transform, revealing deeper states of awareness with patient attention.
Time becomes elastic; space becomes internal; vibration becomes the universal language connecting body, environment, and sound.

Nach dem Hoch Ende der Achtziger wurde es still um das Genre THRASH METAL, welches einst von Bands wie Metallica, Exodus oder Legacy (Testament) in den USA, dann auch von Sodom, Kreator oder Destruction
in Deutschland gestartet wurde. Erst in den Zweitausendern zeigten sich wieder Bands, die sich diesem Stil, der grob ausgedrückt zwischen Speed Metal und Death Metal liegt, wieder annahmen. Heute dürfte Thrash aufgrund vieler noch aktiver Acts aus den Achtzigern und jungem Nachwuchs so groß sein wie nie zuvor.

Diese Vinylbox enthält vier Alben, die zwar unterschiedlich sind, aber alle zum Genre gehören. Allen voran RAGING VIOLENCE aus den USA. Dabei handelt es sich um die Originalbesetzung von HIRAX, allerdings mit Sänger
Rob Perkins. Neue Songs und Neueinspielungen (unter Anderem der rare Demotrack „Born In The Streets“) konnten Fans und Kritiker begeistern. EXCESS aus Deutschland war eine Death-Thrash-Band, die es nie zu einem Alben gebracht hat. Nach drei Demos schwärmte man aber auch in erfolgreiche Richtungen aus: Crematory, Mystic Circle und Blood. Für

EXCESS war keine Zeit mehr… Die Demoaufnahmen wurden restauriert und remastert und erschienen bei Golden Core/ZYX erstmals als LP und CD. Auf dem Tape „Crucifixion“ hört man Drummer Neudi (Manilla Road,
Trance, Savage Grace, etc.).

SCARECROW haben mit „Condemned To Be Doomed“ 1988 eine heute rare Eigenpressung veröffentlicht, die zu den wohl ungewöhnlichsten deutschen Thrash Alben gehört. Hier trifft Punkattitüde auf progressive Elemente,
während die Basis lupenreiner Thrash ist. Kein anderes Album klingt wie dieses außergewöhnliche Werk der deutschen Band. Aus Brasilien kommen oder kamen (mal sind sie aktiv, dann wieder nicht…) POSSUIDO PELO
CAO, die von D.R.I. und Suicidal Tendencies beeinflussten CrossoverThrash bieten. Bei den schnellen, kurzen Tracks bleibt kein Auge trocken…
und kein Genick verschont. Das deftige Werk von 2008 erschien damals nur als CD

Mute welcomes German synthesizer and producer duo Felsmann + Tiley to the roster with the release of their new album Protomensch. Out February 13, 2026 on limited edition black vinyl packaged in a special gatefold sleeve featuring a mirror foil lamination on the inner panel revealing a ‘self-portrait of the protomensch.’

On Protomensch (German for “proto-human”), Felsmann + Tiley blend shimmering synthwave, pounding trance, and introspective IDM with synth-pop-infused tracks featuring guest vocalists including London’s Pet Deaths and Australian artists The Kite String Tangle, Woodes, and Laius.

This juxtaposition between sentient beings and machines permeates the whole album – right from the duo’s manifesto introducing us the highly intelligent yet irrevocably shortsighted and downright tragic character of Protomensch – the cover artwork featuring turtleneck wearing chimpanzee, futuristic music videos, and stark social media aesthetics to seated, next-level live-shows involving collaboration with dozens of visual artists.

Despite their online ubiquity, sparked in part by their viral reinterpretation of label-mate M83’s “Solitude,” which has been used over 1 million times on TikTok and high-profile syncs on shows including Young Royals (season two), the BAFTA-winning crime thriller Top Boy (season three), and Amazon’s The Better Sister, Felsmann + Tiley have lingered largely on the periphery, their origins cloaked in quiet anonymity, until now. With the release of Protomensch, Felsmann + Tiley present their fully realized artistic vision and step into the spotlight.

After decades spent shaping the sound of southern Madagascar and becoming one of the defining voices of tsapiky, Damily returns with Fanjiry, his most intimate and focused record to date. Known for electrifying village ceremonies and carrying the fever of Toliara across continents, he takes a sharp turn - not away from trance, but deeper into its core. Recorded in just three days at Studio Black Box with analog wizard Peter Deimel, Fanjiry strips the tsapiky band down to a single guitar and a single heartbeat. Damily plays alone, yet fills the space completely - bass, rhythm, melody, pulse, and breath merging into a dense and vibrating sound. Every riff is architecture, every harmonic a door opening onto memory, childhood landscapes, and nights where music heals, binds, and exhausts the dark. There is no nostalgia here, no museum of tradition. Fanjiry is a new frontier for tsapiky: raw, precise, suspended between earth and sky, born from craft and necessity. The title - the last star before dawn - captures its essence: a quiet moment before the world awakens, where a single guitar can hold an entire history and still point forward.

repress Start 2026!

Celebrating 30 Years of Cherry Moon with this 5x12" vinyl box set, a collection of some of the most iconic tracks of the club. Dive into the history of one of Belgium's most iconic venues, the "House of House".

raum…musik welcomes Giuliano Lomonte for its 120th release with Moonlight EP — a three-track journey cross-sectioning house and techno with hints of 90’s progressive trance, combining precise rhythmic control, atmospheric depth, and club-focused energy. Tools built for tension, release, and maximum dancefloor impact.

The EP opens with “Drynation”, a ten-minute prog-tech-house roller built on hypnotic grooves, rolling low-end, and evolving percussive patterns and synth textures, locking the floor in with a steady pulse and a masterful play of tension and release. “Moonlight” shifts into deeper, proggy techno territory, weaving subtle percussive motifs over a simple interchanged kick-and-bass foundation. Fluid and restrained, the track unfolds slowly, with minimal drum variations and gently filtered synths, creating an elegant sense of forward motion. Closing the EP, “One Step Ahead” balances stripped-back tribal house energy with rolling grooves, detailed percussion, and warm pads, resulting in a deeper cut that is precise, functional, and full of understated character.

With Moonlight EP, Lomonte confirms his mastery of tension, texture, and subtle movement, delivering a record that reinforces Raum…Musik’s reputation for high-quality, dancefloor-ready music while highlighting his signature blend of rhythm, refinement, and subtle progression.

2026 Repress

Next year the iconic anthem Cafe Del Mar will celebrate its 30th anniversary, a landmark that will be celebrated with a series of brand new remixes alongside the finest existing remixes in specially remastered versions.
Launching the series of vinyl releases in September is a remastered vinyl-only release of the original mix, as well as the best-known version of this classic track, the iconic Three ‘N One Remix.
Nearly 30 years ago, Paul M aka DJ Kid Paul recording as Energy 52 unleashed a record onto an unsuspecting public that would go on to define club culture for an entire generation of dance music enthusiasts. Named as an homage to the legendary Ibiza sunset spot, Café Del Mar broke down boundaries between the underground and
the mainstream, charting in the UK singles charts on three separate occasions and named as the “best tune ever” by Mixmag at the start of the new millennium. In terms of cultural and emotional impact in dance music, it’s hard to find a record that comes close.
Café Del Mar has come to represent the most euphoric and hedonistic pleasures of dancefloors - in Ibiza and all around the world - and has been remixed by some of the biggest names in the industry. Now, 30 years after its original release, Superstition Records will be putting out a new series of releases, with brand new remixes as well as remastered versions of some of the many remixes from across the last three decades. The vinyl-only remastered version of the original and Three ‘N One mixes will launch the series, with further details about the rest of the series announced in the coming weeks.

In 2021 Paul Van Dyk’s Café Del Mar remixes launched a series of vinyl and digital re-issues on the Superstition Records imprint after an almost 20 years hiatus. From 1993 until 2003 Superstition Records was a groundbreaking Techno, Tech-House and Trance Label and released some of the biggest and most revered records of the early German electronic scene.

Born in Casablanca, Oum is a talented songwriter and melodist, whose songs are deeply rooted in the complex rhythms that can be found in Moroccan traditional music. Over the years, she has crafted a unique signature, with songs infused with sensual themes, carried by a voice that is both powerful and warm. While she sometimes borrows from jazz, soul or trance music, Oum defies categorization. Her music is that of a singular, free and universal artist.

A dedicated artist, Oum champions freedom, the rights of women and minorities, as well as an ecological and humanist vision of the world. As a UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador, she makes her art a space of resistance and sharing, where spirituality and poetry rise as a life force. With Dialddar ("homemade"), Oum takes on a radical approach: composing an album without strings or wind instruments, relying solely on voice and percussion. A choice that constitutes both a technical challenge and an artistic manifesto. The percussions used are mostly handcrafted in Marrakech. Their tuning, sensitive to variations in temperature and humidity, make each recording fragile, vibrant, and unpredictable. It is precisely this organic dimension that Oum wanted to preserve: music that breathes, escapes control, and finds its true expression in the moment. With Dialddar, Oum continues her quest for a universal, rooted, and visionary music that invites a sensitive listening to the world. TER004 - CD comes with a 44 page book.

Melbourne / Naarm strongholdButter Sessionsclock 15 years in the game with a trilogy of 12"s, sustaining their uncompromising streak of peak-form electronics. The family-style V/A binds friends, collaborators, former studio neighbours and DJ booth allies, capturing a label that exists as community as much as catalogue.



A new chapter in Butter Sessions' ongoing Japanese exchange sees Sapporo sound sculptor Kuniyukire-opening a 2015 tour collaboration with label heads Sleep D- a deep, spatial beatdown powered by dub pressure and percussive hypnosis. Shadow-lurking prodigy Mosam Howiesondrops in with his trademark scatterbrain techno, while Hasvat Informantlocks into joint-consciousness big-room radioactivity.


Opening the B-side, Fader Capfuses Balearic psy-ence with Mike Dunn-esque utilitarian jack, hovering somewhere between '80s memory and future vision. Tokyo's Mayurashkafollows with Survival Guide, big beat colliding with drug chug, before Albrecht La'Brooyreunite for a divine chill-out tent slowdown, magnifying sample detail with exacting flow. We're adrift until Sunju Hargunlights the beacon with スカイサーファ(Sky Surfer), Thailand's emissary of ritualistic minimal trance.


Whether taken alone or folded into the three-disc triptych, each instalment stands as a bag-ready constant, charged with Butter Sessions' curatorial finesse.

Belgian electronic duo schntzl, known for their fearless live improvisation and playful fusion of jazz, Dada, and ’90s trance kitsch, invite listeners to hear sound anew with their latest album.



On their new album Fata Morgana, an illusory trip of emotion and confrontation, Belgian duo schntzl conjure mirages of fleeting realities while diving headfirst into a trance-driven, confrontational digital sound.



Fata Morgana unfolds like a hyper-visual journey, constructing enveloping dreamworlds through trance-infused live electronica. Yet trance here is present not in form but in essence—an intensity, a state of being. It may stir the same emotions as club music, but schntzl express them in a language entirely their own. Kitsch loops, improvisation, and distortion bend their music into illusions that dissolve and reappear, creating sonic worlds that never settle into habitual patterns.

For the first time, all the 1978 recording sessions of Lino Capra Vaccina's legendary Antico Adagio - including Frammenti da Antico Adagio and Echi Armonici da Antico Adagio - collected in one definitive deluxe edition. Minimalism, and so much more. Sheets of resonance, stunning harmonic interplay, intricate rhythms rising as one. Sidelong works of pulsing, hypnotic, ritualistic drone built from vibraphones, marimbas, gongs, bells, and cymbals, threaded by the sustained vocal tones of Juri Camisasca and Dana Matus. A trance-inducing, meditative, cosmic world of sonic interplay - the world beyond, joined with that which lays within.

Before an aberrant idea of progress ludicrously sped up our daily lives, even in hectic Milan it was possible to "play slowly" - with no pressure, simply following the path your art was showing you. This music moves between modal fascinations, ritual evocations, and states of hypnotic trance, evoking the acoustic environment of Tibetan and Zen Buddhist ceremonies and the temporal structures of Noh theatre, from which Vaccina took the name of his original label, Nō. Now, fittingly, this complete collection appears on Ubi Kū, the label of the Italian Buddhist Union.

Lino Vaccina (1953) first gained note as a member of Aktuala, creating a hybrid of rock, avant-garde, and ancient musics while incorporating sonic traditions from across the globe. After leaving in 1974, he studied at Milano's Civica Scuola di Musica, collaborating with Franco Battiato and Juri Camisasca, and forming Telaio Magnetico in 1975. In 1978 he self-released Antico Adagio in a tiny edition and wouldn't be heard from again until 1992. From 1979 to 1985 he was percussionist with the Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala under maestros such as Abbado and Ozawa. His career has been marked by an incredibly high bar of quality and a tragically slim recorded output - a rigorous and sensual language fusing Oriental, Mediterranean, and African influences with ritual elements and a cosmic sense of time.

As Massimo Torrigiani writes: "Lino Vaccina's music captivates through its internal coherence and its ability to generate states of suspension and deep listening - through undulations, small melodic fragments, dialogues between acoustic instruments and resonances that seem to evoke a phantom orchestra. An example of personal exploration, discipline and openness that speaks across time to anyone willing to be drawn into its sound."

Frammenti da Antico Adagio and Echi Armonici da Antico Adagio contain material from the original sessions, restored and issued by Die Schachtel in 2014 and 2017. The new masters, prepared by Giuseppe Ielasi, are based on those restorations and the original material. The package includes previously unpublished photographs from the May 1978 sessions and liner notes by Mauro Radice in Italian, English, and French. Cover art by Dana Matus. Printed by Legno, Milano & Mother Tongue, Verona.

Personnel: Lino Capra Vaccina (vibraphone, marimba, tablas, wooden drums, darbuka, cymbals, gong, metal sheets, bells, bass drum, tom, snare drum, piano, voice), Dana Matus (voice, percussion, cetra), Juri Camisasca (voice), Mario Garuti (violin), Roberto Mazza (oboe). Original production by Massimo Villa & Lino Vaccina with Piero Cannizzaro. Recorded May 1978 at Circle Studios, Milano.

The heights of the Italian avant-garde, at their very best.

A rising and genre-defying figure in the French electronic scene, Goldie B continues her ascent with Who Says Night’s For Sleeping?, a five-track EP that asserts her distinctive signature: an instinctive blend of club energy, cinematic storytelling and UK rave influences. Conceived as the soundtrack to a night lived in full intensity, the record moves through the fire of the dancefloor, the collective trance, and those suspended moments where one floats between dream and wakefulness.

“I imagined this EP as the soundtrack to a night experienced in its entirety. From the first rush of adrenaline on the dancefloor to that floating walk home, still carried by the music. My influences range from Moby and Air to Floating Points and Joy Orbison, artists who know how to combine power and emotion. I love connecting the raw energy of the club with more dreamlike textures, because you can absolutely dream while dancing. Each track is an instinctive snapshot of my inner world.” Goldie B The EP’s opening act, “The Space Between” blends ethereal pads, organic strings and a steady crescendo, recalling the elegance of Air or Moby. It opens a suspended space, equally suited to inner drift or physical release. “I wanted it to feel like a threshold, a gentle hand pulling you into a trance state.”

On “U Make Me Feel So Good”, a sensual and narrative breakbeat track, a flowing bassline gradually tightens into trancier energy. Seductive female vocals weave through broken rhythms, creating a piece that is as tactile as it is hypnotic. “It’s about contrast, the softness and caress at the start, then a tension that rises and electrifies.”
Instagram | Youtube | TikTok | SoundCloudAt the heart of the project, “Rêve de Rave” channels 90’s breakbeat spirit with old-school samples, an euphoric central break and voices urging to move your feet. Urgent and liberating, it embodies the dreamlike essence of the rave. “It’s how I imagine the rave: a lucid dream where joy and collective energy feel almost unreal.”

Next comes the most incisive cut of the EP, “Purple FX”, driven by a grating central bassline that evolves relentlessly until its explosive drop. Minimalist yet implacable, it captures the sheer force of a peak-time track. “I wanted a track purely designed for the club, where the tension just keeps rising until it explodes.”

Closing in chiaroscuro, “Snake Waves” shifts from breakbeat into a half-house, half-techno 4/4 groove, carried by a sinuous, hypnotic bassline. The track plays on tension and release, with a rich harmonic break before fading like a suspended farewell, where the party recedes but the energy lingers. “It’s a farewell piece that keeps the intoxication alive, like a final vertigo before slipping back into the night.”

Goldie B is a multifaceted force on the French electronic scene. A producer, multi-instrumentalist, singer, MC, DJ, and co-founder of the label Omakase Recordings, her sets blend bass, jungle, UKG, and breakbeat, captivating audiences with their contagious energy. Based in Marseille, she has released music on renowned labels such as D.KO, Banoffee Pies, and YUKU, and has performed on some of the biggest French stages and festivals: Peacock Society, Astropolis, NDK, Marsatac, Delta, Le Bon Air, and even the Festival d’Avignon. In 2024, she was selected by Apple Music for its Women In Electronic series. Her new Who Says Night’s For Sleeping? EP confirms her status as an instinctive and distinctive artist to watch on the French electronic scene.

Shake Stew ist mehr als eine Band - sie ist ein Ereignis. Seit ihrer Gründung durch Bassist und Komponist Lukas Kranzelbinder umweht die Formation ein Hauch von Magie und Energie, der sich live in eine hypnotische Kraft verwandelt. Zwei Schlagzeuge, zwei Bässe und drei Bläser erzeugen einen Sound, der zwischen tranceartigen Basslinien, eruptiven Grooves und fragilen Klanggebilden oszilliert. Die Jury des Preises der deutschen Schallplattenkritik sprach von "etwas Kultischem", das den Jazz bereichert, während MOJO begeistert: "Shake Stew twists, blisters and burns like a fevered dream!" Ob im Club oder im Wiener Konzerthaus - die Band zieht alle in ihren Bann. Mit dem Jubiläumsprojekt TEN ONE TWO öffnet sich Shake Stew noch weiter: neue Klangfarben, freie Improvisationen, Kooperationen und eine Besetzung, die mit Yvonne Moriel eine aufregende Stimme integriert. Nach zehn Jahren, zahllosen Konzerten und internationalen Auszeichnungen ist klar: Shake Stew definiert Jazz als lebendige Kunstform - kompromisslos, visionär und voller Dynamit.

KIK is the new project of two core strategists of sonic enigma HHY & The Macumbas: Jonathan Uliel Saldanha & João Pais Filipe. Ditching acoustic instruments in favour of drum synthetics & tightly controlled sound design, the duo's debut album NIGHTSHIFT focuses on off-kilter club tracks that thwart 4-on-the-floor flavours whilst maintaining trance-inducing extended cycles. If the devil is in the details, this is all about the spectromophology of the details.
Beginning with moving morse code blips in an odd time signature We Can't Dance announces the characteristic unlife of the album's pulse. Once the kick enters, syncopations progressively accumulate into a weave of interacting rhythmic lines. Smoke Machine's groove is reminiscent of the riddims Saldanha explores in his HHY & The Kampala Unit, adding scintillating pads and snippets of blitzed out laughter.

The album's third track, Proff, hearkens back to the initial pulse, displaced and pitched down in register. Here's a more meditative temperament on display, where the regular geometries of the club have been moved into higher-order structures. Segments rise & fall into earshot. Deepening the meditative mood, Back Room explores a short melodic leitmotif anchoring the track's wander- lust.

The rhythmic assault continues in Tactical Gear, bringing further experiments into polyrhythmic contours exacerbated by preci- sion movements of echo & delay. Limping can be heard as a what-if sonic fiction taking Autechre-inspired abstractions through Durbanoid Gqom terrains. The album closes with its longest track, Night Shift, that segments into shifting sound worlds.

Drawing from industrial grit, cybernetic percussion and the eerie fluorescence of after-hours energy, NIGHTSHIFT exists in the liminal space between body music and abstraction——a soundtrack for phantom warehouses and malfunctioning machines. This isn’t just music; it’s an immersive sonic environment, a journey into the heart of deconstructed dancefloors.
For fans of Rian Treanor, Proc Fiskal, Jlin and Lorenzo Senni.

Most recently, HHY has been collaborating with Nyege Nyege through projects such as Kampala Unit and Arsenal Mikebe, performing live with the ensemble alongside Valentina Magaletti, and producing records for artists like Fulu Miziki, as well as collaborations with Phelimucasi, Rey Sapiens, Kingdom Choir and others. He also released Camouflage Vector: Edits From Live Actions 2017–2019 on the label, a live album featuring two tracks with Adrian Sherwood.

Previous collaborations include Tunnel Vision with Badawi (released on Tzadik), the HHY & The Macumbas album Beheaded Totem on House of Mythology, and Fujako (Wordsound, with MC Sensational), along with double-bill shows with acts such as Clipping and Death Grips.

Elfenberg nurtures four meticulously crafted progressions, a digital pet project draped in velvet grooves. Evolving with the patience of luxury craftsmanship and the addictive glow of a pixelated companion, feeding hypnotic cycles into transcendent dancefloor rituals. This is where underground devotion meets haute couture electronics. Press play, watch it grow, never let it fade, let it consume you.

Second vinyl release on our label, this time presenting what we consider a timeless piece. Light Blue File delivers three cuts steeped in jungle flavour, heat and red lights. Intensity and minimalism. intricate elements and details that fuel the tension and trance on the dancefloor.

DJ Support by Fabrizio Mammarella, Sean Johnston (ALFOS), Erol Alkan, Ame, Fango, Jaye Ward, SHMLSS, Camilo Miranda, Marco Passarani, Logan Fisher, Massimiliano Pagliara, Otto (Bordello a Parigi), Phil Mison, Giulia Gutterer, Pete Herbert, Franz Scala, Lauer, Pedro Bertho, Feel Fly ...

New music from legendary Adriatic DJ and producer Verdo is as rare as an MP3 in the golden age of disco. Which is why you should be hella excited for GRATIS CLUB, his first full-length album and a love letter to the iconic club he once called home in Senigallia.

A true Loyal Hell Yeah Recordings member and consummate musician, Verdo brings his signature piano melodies to Italo disco, hi-NRG, and trance magic across X cuts that are equal parts dancefloor propulsion and cosmic exploration.

GRATIS CLUB captures the energy, eccentricity and euphoria of the club Verdo played and directed, translating the pulse of a local institution into a timeless, high-voltage record. With previous releases on Danny Was A Drag King and this label, including his 2020 Symmetry EP, Verdo continues to prove he’s one of Italy’s best-kept secrets with this new album.

Opener and lead single ‘Let In The Light' is pure Italo disco adrenaline: shimmering arps soar over lush chords and retro analogue drums, igniting the dancefloor. Second single ‘Boulevardier’ is introspective yet radiant with rugged synths spiralling inward while shiny 80s chords inject colour and retro soul, all carried by supple, marching drums. 'Eyes Melody' is an ascent to a higher state with acrobatic drums and bass and more luminous synth magic, 'Ballad' has a more downbeat and late-night feel with pensive pads and sad vocoder, then the title cut is bold, bright and unabashed in its stomping disco brilliance. 'Our Love Come Back' has a sense of yearning that surely translates the sadness felt at the closing of Gratis Club, then 'Lest We Forget' is a reminder of how pumping and sweaty the main room got with Verdo in the booth. 'Little Blue's is the gentle comedown and comforting hand that leads you home in a reverie.

GRATIS CLUB is a pure hit of unbridled Italo disco joy.

Força Maior combines the vital saxophone explorations of Pedro Alves Sousa with the infinitely subtle electronic processing of Pedro Tavares. Sousa (aka Má Estrela) is known for manipulating his woodwind through guitar pedalboards & amplifiers, creating far-from-ordinary sonics rooted in unceasing curiosity. For his part, Tavares (aka funcionário) conjoins video & sound work to create space for the pensive wanderings where memory and imagination interlace.

The album Morte Lilás was recorded over a week in June 2023 in Pedro Alves Sousa's family farm, located in the village of Ferreirim, near Lamego, in Portugal. The partly abandoned farm served as the residency, studio, and inspiration for the album: it is a 400-year-old granite farm that belonged to a member of the "40 conspirators"—a group that led the revolution for Portugal's independence from Spain in the 17th century.

Morte Lilás is a remarkable album of committed meditation. Each day on the farm was a recording day for the two Pedros: Sousa on sax & electronics, Tavares on sampler & processing. Apart from slight sonic incursions from the surrounds—the birds on 'Quinta à tarde'—and the sporadic use of sine tones, the source sounds all start from the saxophone. It is then processed both by Sousa & Tavares. The album unfolds as a saxophonic tapestry that breathes with quiet intensity. Each piece invites close listening, revealing fine gestures and tonal shifts that shape a contemplative, ambient space. Força Maior move with calm precision.

The album opens with the unhurried overture 'Quinta à Tarde' a Portuguese pun on Eno's Thursday Afternoon that announces the textures at play. Sousa's breathy entrance is paired with a soft, delicately shifting, backdrop. As the track progresses, time seems to stretch. The arrangement resists urgency, favouring subtle evolution over dramatic turns. Pensive layers shift & drift, creating a sense of suspended motion that brings the listener into the environs of Morte Lilás. 'Quinta à Tarde' is a long-form fade, shifting emphasis from Sousa to Tavares.

'Cubos' continues the gauzy feel, but with a more up-tempo tilt. Rhythmic clicks & pings setup a swung time for the sax to interpose melodic lines that are fed back & bent with cascading delays. Força Maior in distilled form.

Força Maior is in top form on the title track 'Morte Lilás', a sprawling centrepiece that showcases their command of atmosphere & emotional pacing. By turning up the reverberation & leaning into a continuous format, they dissolve the gap between hypnotic trance & articulate reverie. Then, a moment of stillness. The track pauses, not abruptly but like a tide pulling back, revealing the contours beneath. What follows is a return to the album's more relaxed architecture: understated rhythms, softened textures, and a sense of spaciousness that opens space for reflection. It is a transition that feels organic, as if the song itself needed to exhale before settling back into its contemplative groove.

'Menta' is another short-form miniature of the band's signature contours: beautiful loops of air pressure gradients that carry an emotive weight & light.

The album closes with 'Cascata do Inferno'. The title suggests violence, but the music whispers instead—an atmospheric cascade of breath & tone that emerges in slow, deliberate waves. Short melodic cycles are matched by shimmering electronic chords. It's a piece that rewards patience, draws the listener in to drift downstream, eyes closed, into the serene turbulence of its current.

Logical Absurd is very proud to present the 20th Anniversary of the album "She And Me Fall Together In Free Death" by Nurse With Wound. "She and Me Fall Together in Free Death" is probably the most approachable, largely "musical" album that NWW has released since Rock N' Roll Station. It's also one of his strangest concepts, a marriage of trance inducing Krautrock grooves with a traditional jazz standard and some jarringly atonal musique concrete. Side A is the 20- minute title track: a slow-motion jam reminiscent of of one of Can's sidelong tracks on Tago Mago or the more avant-garde grooves of Tony Conrad and Faust's Outside the Dream Syndicate.

The propulsive Jaki Liebezeit drumbeat is the foundation for a long jam session with what sounds like a dijderidoo and layers of guitar feedback. It's a massive, heavy sound, the kind that Julian Cope would devote a whole chapter to in his "Kratrocksampler". Side B is one long piece with three distinct movements. Beginning with those familiar, World Serpent-trademark windchimes, the listener is quickly ushered into Staple- ton's singing debut (!) in a rendition of the oft-covered traditional jazz ballad "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair" This was a favorite of the recently deceased Nina Simone, and also of the avant-jazz screamer Patty Waters. Nurse With Wound's version is backed by cello drones, repetitive guitar strums and tambourine, sounding very much like The Velvet Un- derground's "Venus in Furs".

It's such a treat to hear Steven Stapleton's multitracked vocals cover this classic song, and this eerie version rates as one of my favorites. This song and the title track prove to the naysayers that Nurse With Wound is equally adept at rock n' roll songcraft as he is at demented sound collages. The creepy jazz cover seques into "Chicken Con- cret (For Missy E)", a truly warped tape-edit job that juxtaposes chicken squawks and sythesized birdcalls with random bleeps, speaker hiccups and gongs.

Sentimental Rave is a journey between melancholy and raw energy: bouncy, driving techno blending trance and hard techno, powered by emotional melodies and dancefloor-ready rhythms.

In der Rock-Mythologie traf Robert Johnson 1930 an einer Kreuzung auf den Teufel und begründete damit den Rock'n'Roll. Fast hundert Jahre später, im Mai 2024, steht Dirty Sound Magnet vor seinem eigenen Schicksal, als es an der Zeit ist, ein neues Album aufzunehmen.Zum ersten Mal in ihrer Geschichte hat das Trio nicht den Luxus, jeden Schritt des Aufnahmeprozesses sorgfältig zu planen. Seit 2022, nach der Veröffentlichung ihres vielgelobten Albums DSM-III, spielt die Band 120 Konzerte pro Jahr und managt alle Aspekte ihrer Karriere selbst. Daher ist es 2024 für das Trio die einzige Möglichkeit, ein neues Album zu produzieren und aufzunehmen, indem es seinem Instinkt folgt. Me and My Shadow ist das Album, zu dessen Entstehung die Band bestimmt war - ein Album, auf dem alles auf elegante Weise zusammenkommt.Wie immer in der Rockgeschichte war die Tragödie nie weit entfernt, und das Album wäre beinahe nicht entstanden. Zwei Wochen vorden ersten Aufnahmesessions entgeht Stavros nur knapp dem Tod durch eine versehentliche Vergiftung. Auf einem Krankenhausbett, halb bewusstlos und umgeben von aufgeregten Ärzten, tauchen die Themen des Albums in seinem Unterbewusstsein auf. Inmitten des Geflüsters der besorgten Ärzte, die um sein Leben fürchteten, wuchs in ihm die Gewissheit und Klarheit: ,Das kann unmöglich das Ende sein - wir müssen noch ein Album aufnehmen." Dieses Licht, das ihn aus den Schatten zurückholte, ist dasselbe Licht, das vor hundert Jahren Robert Johnson und seitdem unzählige Musiker inspiriert hat.

In der Evolutionsbiologie beschreibt der Begriff ,Spandrel" die Merkmale eines Organismus, die nicht fürs Überleben wichtig sind und keinen offensichtlichen Zweck haben. Das Wort kommt aus der Architektur und bezeichnet die dreieckigen Räume in den Ecken eines Bogens: kleine ästhetische Elemente, die für Symmetrie sorgen und Grenzen markieren. Die Musikerin und Sängerin Evita Manji stellt auf ihrem Debütalbum eine undurchsichtige Frage und fragt sich angesichts eines großen Verlusts, welche Teile von uns zum Durchhalten beitragen und welche vielleicht nur Deko sind. Ihre Tracks, die aus den Dämpfen zeitgenössischer Clubmusik, Barock-Pop und experimentellem Sounddesign zusammengesetzt sind, sind für Manji eine Möglichkeit, ihre Beziehung zur Welt im Allgemeinen und zu sich selbst im Besonderen zu untersuchen, Kontrollsysteme zu zerlegen und die Vernetzung hervorzuheben. Manji ist seit einigen Jahren eine ätherische Präsenz in der Szene und arbeitet als Soundkünstler und Kreativdirektor mit zahlreichen Künstlern zusammen. Letztes Jahr starteten sie ihre eigene Plattform myxoxym, wo sie zwei Singles aus ,Spandrel?" veröffentlichten und eine ambitionierte Fundraiser-Compilation mit Rainy Miller, Palmistry, Cecile Believe und anderen zusammenstellten, um Geld für den griechischen Tierschutzfonds ANIMA zu sammeln. Manji trat weltweit auf Festivals wie Unsound, Lunchmeat und Rhizom auf, spielte in Clubs in Berlin und London und wurde ausgewählt, die Plattform Shape+ im Jahr 2022 zu vertreten. Diese Erfahrungen fließen in ,Spandrel?" ein und helfen ihnen, ein komplexes künstlerisches Gewebe zu weben, das weit unter die Oberfläche des Daseins blickt und versucht, das Unheil des globalen Klimawandels mit Themen wie Selbstverwirklichung, Liebe und körperlicher Autonomie in Einklang zu bringen. Das Album beginnt mit dem Titeltrack, einer einleitenden Zusammenfassung, die die Zuhörer auf das vorbereitet, was sie gleich hören werden. Manjis Gesang schwingt mit einem eingestöpselten Gefühl kybernetischer Melancholie und filtert die Flut von Rhythmen und harmonischen Themen der Welt zu geschmeidigem, clubtauglichem Pop, der von ihrer fortschrittlichen Klangwelt getragen wird. Von dort aus werden wir in die Traurigkeit des atmosphärischen Klagelieds ,Pitch Black" hineingezogen, einer Meditation über den Tod, die tiefe Bässe unter Schichten von choraler Glückseligkeit versinken lässt und an die Kirche und die Tanzfläche erinnert, ohne die Kraft der beiden gegensätzlichen Elemente zu opfern. Ihre Dunkelheit wird in ,Oil Too Much" von innen nach außen gedrängt, einem Kommentar zur Ölindustrie aus der Perspektive des Tierreichs, der gleichzeitig als neonfarbener Ausdruck der zeitgenössischen Depression dient. Aber in ,Body/Prison" klingt Manji am offensten, spricht ehrlich über die dunkelsten Momente ihres Lebens und gesteht ihre tiefsten Gefühle über sengende, von Trance inspirierte Synthesizer und groteske Percussion. ,Spandrel?" ist ein Album, das Zeit braucht, um sich zu entfalten, und Manjis Themen hallen durch eine Geschichte wider, die älter ist als die Popmusik. Es ist tragisch, romantisch und poetisch und weigert sich entschieden, sich von den drängendsten Themen unserer Zeit abzuwenden.