Sciahri and Sublunar are proud to present Kameliia's first solo EP on the label, Dont Be Naive. After debuting on Sublunar with the various artists release Veil of Echoes I, she now returns with a record that fully embodies her artistic identity. With a distinct sound shaped by releases on SK11, Token, and Unterwegs Records, Kameliia continues to carve her own path.The journey begins with "MM6", a hypnotic and forceful track driven by sweeping strings that expand and contract like a living entity. "Aspects" follows, a piece of refined minimalism where every element feels meticulously placed.
On the B-side, the title track "Dont Be Naive" sets a relentless pace, steadily building tension with masterful restraint. "Eventide" introduces eerie, spellbinding vocals that weave through the track like an incantation. Closing the EP, "Keepers of the Secret" slows the tempo, its haunting female vocal etching itself into the subconscious.
Buscar:dr res
Swedish artist Martinou crafts deeply immersive electronic music, seamlessly balancing weight and delicacy. His productions oscillate between hypnotic intensity and introspective warmth, always evoking a visceral response on the dancefloor.
After releasing on acclaimed labels like Nous’klaer, Turbo Recordings, and Mule Musiq, the Malmö-based producer now makes his long-awaited debut on Stockholm’s Studio Barnhus. His Linked EP showcases six meticulously layered compositions, where intricate rhythms intertwine with luminous melodies – ethereal synths drifting in and out of the grooves, shaping an atmosphere that’s both expansive and deeply personal.
With Linked, Martinou further refines his signature approach, crafting music that feels at once free-flowing and deliberate. It’s a record that invites deep listening yet remains primed for the floor – a testament to the Malmö maestro's knack for blurring the lines between club functionality and sonic storytelling.
Brussels-based artist Adja Fassa releases her debut album, two years after her well-received EP IRONEYE - and it is promising to be quite a ride.
This contemporary body of work showcases 11 stories, each telling their story of the impact our capitalistic society has on our most intimate moments: from dystopian neo-soul tales of Deliveroo-drivers being stalked by telemarketers (both of them selling/delivering literal 'hope and dreams'), to re-imagined jazz standards and classical songs about conditional friendships, based on time and money. We even get her take on the 'stick-it-to-the-man-sing-along-rock-song', which she called 'Sucking on my Emphatitties'. And then we have the title song 'Golden Retrieve Her' which is as much an accumulation of feelings as of musical curiosities
" 'Golden Retrieve Her' is a wordplay on wanting to retrieve my kindness in a violent social system. Simultaneously, it is criticizing the fact that we, the masses, are often asked to either be naive or pretend we are. All of this accumulated in a visual image of what our social system considers 'the perfect, obedient nuclear family': a kind couple with 2.4 children, a house in the suburbs and... a Golden Retriever." ~ Adja
Serious and concrete topics, wrapped up in a symbolic package, as Adja values both straightforwardness, critical thinking and, paradoxically, a bit of mysticism. For her visual artwork, she created four, self-made tarot cards, that represent the four themes on the album:
'The Wheel Of Fortune', embodies the desire to get the upper hand in a system that doesn't align with your values. 'The Mirror', represents projection and likeness within lost connections (whether with strangers or with friends), 'The Dark Wheel' embodies the turning point of the wheel of fortune, where one is completely surrendered to their own moral demise and 'The Cave' stands for the - sometimes painful, sometimes blissful - return to one's own mind and heart.
Musically, this album contains as much variety as song titles, as Adja continues to explore her own depths as an artist and musician, together with her partner-in-crime, guitarist, composer and jazz-arranger Alexis Nootens. She collaborated with music producer Adam Scrimshire, who was featured in the Guardian as UK's one of three most significant soul music producers alongside Swindle and Inflo, and renowned Belgianproducer, mixer and musician Koen Gisen, who both mentored her into deepening her own productional skills. Last but not least, she gathered 13 musicians to deliver the sound she brings to her album, among them her 5 steady band members and 8 studio musicians from all over Europe. As we said: it promises to be quite a ride.
LIVE:
09/05 : Ancienne Belgique, Brussels
11/05 : Jazz à Liège
More tba.
Announcing the debut album from one of London’s most electrifying acts, New Regency Orchestra. An 18-piece Afro-Cuban big band, inspired by the musical melting pot of NYC in the 1950s, but with the punch and power of a whole host of London’s best Latin and jazz musicians. Blowing new life into these compositions, the album is a reimagining of some of the finest music from that golden era. From early 1950s René Hernandez and Tito Puente, through to the 1970s salsa of Rafael Labasta and Orlando Marin, produced and performed with fresh fire.
NRO is the brainchild of its artistic director, and the man behind Total Refreshment Centre and Church of Sound, Lex Blondin. Through a long-held passion for jazz, Lex discovered the explosive Afro-Cuban rhythms of mid-1940s NYC via the godfather of Afro-Cuban jazz, Mario Bauzá. A time when two musical worlds collided in a fusion of creativity and energy, jazz luminaries like Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker joining forces with Cuban greats like Machito and Chano Pozo. This vibrant sound was music to dance to and found a home at The New York Palladium, a formative space of freedom and expression that was key to the scene’s development.
Although dance-focussed in their makeup, those early recordings are not often heard in modern club environments and Lex dreamt of retelling their story with a contemporary dynamism. A slice of serendipity followed, as a slot at a new festival opened up and Lex jumped at the chance to make this idea a reality, an 18-piece big band breathing new life into these beloved songs.
Enlisting the expertise of some of the capital’s finest talent, Lex and co-captain Andy Wood, of Como No fame, put together a world-class line-up of talent. Bringing in Eliane Correa as musical director and bandleader, a fluid and interchanging 18-piece band was formed.
The album itself is a hand-picked selection of timeless Afro-Cuban jazz classics, reimagined with NRO’s unbridled energy. It contains ten incredible instrumental tracks including 'Pregon' with its anthemic horn stabs and the addictive head nod bounce of 'Mambo Rama', alongside two scorching vocal numbers in 'Papa Boco' and 'Labasta Llego'. Coupling a heavyweight rhythm section with a wall of horns, they provide a fresh spin on songs from Tito Puente and Chico O'Farrill, René Hernandez through to Rafael Labasta.
“Some of the tunes like Tito Puente’s ‘Mambo Rama’ and ‘Scarlet Mambo’ might sound like they went to a gym as extra drums and bass synth were added to them whilst the tune ‘Sahib & Tito’ is a mix of Tito’s ‘Mambo Buda’ and Sahib Shihab’s ‘Nus’. Our intention is to be both respectful to the innovators and inventors of this incredible music and to pay our dues, but also to add something special from London where the city’s new jazz scene connects with its Latin American musicians and the musical influences around us.”
This pure collective joy, shared experience and music you can’t help but move to.
The five-track ‘Touch The Vibe’ EP is the latest gem in the evergreen treasure trove of music from Australia’s CC:DISCO!. 'Feel It Peak' opens the release with two escapist minutes of slow-burning, gentle synth waves and Spanish guitar before 'Touch The Vibe' then takes off on warm analogue house drums with sugary chords and a classic bassline that bounces along at an infectious pace. Toronto-born DJ, producer and vocalist Jennifer Loveless also returns in fine form, providing heady spoken word vocals that wash over both cuts in an intoxicating fashion.
On the flip, 'Like This' is another absorbing and cinematic synth interlude while 'Me Gusta Is Dead (Period Pain Mix)' brings heavy late-night vibes with its punchy steel drums, fizzing pads and crunchy chords that make for a wild ride. Last but not least is the epic closer 'Yes Papi (Miami Daddy Theme)’, a glorious blend of prog, trance and techno with a 90s throwback feel featuring Loveless’ hushed vocals that showcases CC’s expert command of lower tempo, pumping grooves of the highest calibre.
Fresh off performances at Glastonbury and Love International, plus her debut Essential Mix for BBC Radio 1, it’s safe to say CC:DISCO!’s trajectory as an artist has risen to new heights in 2024. The Lisbon-based DJ, producer, radio host, and curator added a new string to her bow at the end of last year with the launch of her Miami Daddy imprint, which garnered critical acclaim from the likes of Resident Advisor, DJ Mag, and BBC Radio 1.
CC:DISCO! ‘Yes Papi (Miami Daddy Theme)’ and ‘Touch The Vibe’ drop via Miami Daddy on 21st September and 24th October, respectively, with the full EP releasing on 22nd November 2024.
Roberto Intrallazzi and Dario Piana, two unheralded sons of Italy’s original Afro-cosmic movement of the 1980s, have joined forces in the studio for the first time. The result is the 99% Stories EP, a collaborative debut for Leng inspired by the formative years of the duo’s near 45-year friendship and their shared musical roots.
The duo both started DJing in and around Milan in 1981, drawing inspiration from pioneering contemporary Daniele Baldelli. Intrallazzi found international success following the birth of Italy’s distinctive house scene, collaborating with other like-minded producers as part of FPI Project and Cube Guys, while Piana continues to be a prolific solo artist whilst also working extensively with mentor and friend Baldelli.
The EP begins with ‘Out Of Control’, a dubbed-out cosmic disco chugger with guitar snippets, spoken word samples and sonic textures over a percussive beat and low-slung bass guitar line. Fellow long- serving Italian LTJ Xperience drops a remix that highlights the acid-flecked electronic sounds, rubbery bass and hypnotic beats in his trademark style.
Intrallazzi and Piana explore the middle ground between psychedelic, pitched down acid and cosmic- disco on ‘Lazise’, offering up a blend of percussion-enhanced beats, undulating 303 motifs and intergalactic electronics, before once more reaching for the bass guitar to drive the vibraphone, bleeps, keys and vocal enhanced midtempo shuffle of ‘Saocraffen’.
The digital version of the EP has bonus cut: ‘SP-15’. Named in honour of the Technics turntables used by Daniele Baldelli at the iconic Cosmic Club – where he first showcased his hybrid and decidedly psychedelic ‘Afro-Cosmic’ DJ style – the track is murky, immersive, trippy and picturesque in equal measure, with waves of glistening synth sounds and musical flourishes winding in an out of a charred, midtempo cosmic disco groove. We have no doubt that Baldelli approves!
Lance Ferguson (of The Bamboos, Menagerie and lately, The Ferguson Rogers Process) releases a newly scored soundtrack for the 1981 French film L'ocean de toi.
The romantic thriller was the debut film by enigmatic French director Leroi Alarie, long thought lost forever, but recently a 35mm print was unearthed that he has agreed to release after many requests and much negotiation.
Ahead of its planned restoration and subsequent re-release, Ferguson was asked to compose all-new music for the film personally by Alarie (now aged 69), as the original score was never to the auteur's liking - cobbled together at the time with a patchwork of sound library pieces imposed upon him by the film's producers in order to save money. He was in so much conflict with the producers throughout the shooting and editing of the film that upon completion he took the only existing finished print and refused to have it released.
Ferguson's score is a collection of languid, dreamy (mainly) instrumental Funk pieces that evoke the hazy, sun-kissed atmosphere of the film. Conceived and imagined to suit the aesthetic of the era, but with an inevitable twist of "la modernité". It's a fitting match for this new addition to the canon of early '80s European arthouse cinema, thankfully rescued from obscurity for 21st-century audiences to finally enjoy.
LKDNV 10 EP - Various Artists
More than a year after its last compilation, Amsterdam’s Locked-in returns with a glistening selection of club-ready tracks further anchoring the label’s progressive groove while opening avenues to different sounds and scenes.
Blending minimal techno and ambient aesthetics, Hamburg’s Rupert Marnie opens up the A-side with “Half-Baked Spel”, a mysterious yet dancefloor-ready cut elegantly setting the tone. Norwegian house and techno DJ and producer A:G (Asgeir Giskegjerde) follows up with an escape into trance influenced sounds, delivering a playful, ambitious and infectious bopper. On the flip-side, Barcelona-based Aniano takes things one notch deeper offering a dimmed light minimal groover. With its moody atmosphere and catchy samples, the track gracefully hints at Perlon's catalogue. To close the journey, Frog Dog Records crew member Slacks from Philadelphia takes the listener apart with a very subtle emotional break composition, crafting an intricate and moving piece of music reminiscing of good times.
With four tracks stemming from different parts of the world, Locked-In once again showcases the quality of its curation and the consistency of its sound and vision. This release is dimmed to resonate on both dark and sun-drenched dancefloors.
We’re very excited to kick off 2025 with a new face on the label. This is Masha Dabelka! She’s living in Vienna since the late 2000s and is involved in the local scene for a long time.
Masha describes herself as a cosmopolitan dj and producer. She doesn’t wear crop tops or clap her hands behind the DJ booth or while making music, but her tapping feet, dressed in colorful shoes, reveal her cheerful nature. She also loves juggling the aesthetics of different eras and musical subcultures. But her greatest inspiration and value lie in effortlessness, humor, and authenticity.
And this results in her brandnew EP ‘Dolphins In China’. This release will come out on march 7, 2025 on all download stores, streaming services and on vinyl.
MARTHIAL joins NECHTO with ‘NECH029’, a four-track vinyl release blending tradition and futurism. The record pays homage to a genre central to MARTHIAL’s imagination, drawing on its history to shape a forward-thinking sonic vision. The Milan-born and -based artist describes the EP as “a reflection on change: everything transforms, everything evolves, and we are tasked with finding harmony between what has been and what could be”.
Born Alessandro Vaccari, MARTHIAL is a DJ, producer, and founder of Milan’s independent cultural hub, the Tempio del Futuro Perduto. Through this unique space and his 24/H Records label, MARTHIAL has collaborated with influential artists like Stanislav Tolkachev and Fabrizio Rat. His music evokes ethereal atmospheres and hypnotic rhythms, bridging Detroit-inspired soundscapes with innovative, interstellar journeys.
The EP represents a personal journey for MARTHIAL, who describes the process of revisiting this sonic language as an opportunity to redefine himself and his perspective on the world. By channelling the past as a guide and embracing the future as a responsibility, he crafts a cohesive narrative that combines deep emotional resonance with forward-thinking energy.
‘NECH029’ is a cohesive exploration of these elements, delivering pulsating energy and emotional depth across its four tracks: ‘Don’t Wanna’, ‘Soul Groove’, ‘The Dancer Gift’, and ‘Infinito Imperfetto’.
Cosmic Tribe Records proudly presents XTRICTLY ELEKTRO, a groundbreaking vinyl series dedicated to the raw energy and precision of Electro. This debut release brings together a stellar lineup of artists, including EC13, 5ZYL, Nachtwald, Spectrums Data Forces, Wicked Wes, and Calagad 13, each delivering their unique sonic signature to craft a dynamic and immersive listening experience.
Merging the razor-sharp precision of contemporary Electro with the timeless essence of its underground roots, this compilation offers a journey through deep basslines, intricate drum programming, and futuristic atmospheres. The result is a collection that not only pays homage to the genre’s pioneers but also pushes it into new, uncharted territories.
After years of silence dedicated to side projects, DJENA makes a triumphant return with his solo EP, In Motion. A testament to his passion for eclecticism, this release seamlessly bridges house and breakbeat, enriched by a stunning remix from the legendary French producer DJ W!LD.
The journey begins with the title track, In Motion, a hypnotic breakbeat composition where deep pads intertwine with tribal vocal elements, evoking raw emotion and sonic depth. This track is designed to captivate both the ears and the heart. DJ W!LD then takes the reins, transforming In Motion into an irresistible dancefloor anthem. His remix injects a house-driven groove, elevating the track into an emotive yet club-ready masterpiece.
Flipping to the B-side, Thrust propels listeners into a deep tech-driven rhythm, gradually intensifying into a peak-time energy surge. Rounded arps, subtle vocal textures, and celestial pads craft an immersive, ethereal adventure—blurring the lines between introspection and movement.
Closing out the EP, Veer is a sublime after-hours gem. Its bouncy bassline and tech-house rhythm are complemented by atmospheric pads and haunting vocals, leading the listener into a space where both mind and soul find fulfillment
In Motion EP is a refined sonic exploration, balancing depth and energy in perfect harmony. DJENA’s return marks a powerful statement—one that will undoubtedly resonate on dancefloors and beyond.
The Deep Series imprint operated as a sub-label of Diaphan Music, both of which released material between 2009 and 2014, as can often be the way for many artists family life and other responsibilities stepped up on the priority list and the label was put on hiatus.
Now back to reboot things with a fresh perspective and a focus on Georgios’ music and music from artists he admires, Deep Series begins its new chapter for 2022, bringing fresh deep and dynamic cuts and an uncompromising approach with its future direction. Leading the release and following on from his recent debut album on Dial is XDB with his ‘Back To The Roots Mix’, the title tells all as this Greek Techno aficionado delivers a classic groove fuelled by loose, bumpy drums, chugging synth stab sequences and twisted resonant loops.
‘Dark Path’ follows next, edging into dubby house territory with skippy percussion, expansive chords, choppy bass stabs and hypnotic vocal chants. Opening the b-side is ‘Distorted DRMS’, as the name suggest laying focus on raw, crunchy drums throughout while dreamy synth lines and heavy sub bass swells ebb and flow within. Lastly the original mix of ‘GR2’ rounds things out, stripping things back to hazy, ethereal textures, robust, low-slung drums and acid-tinged bass stabs.
Brazilian producer Diogo Strausz makes his return to RNT with an incredible pair of new tracks, each remixed to perfection respectively by Kai Alce and Lex Wolf. Canto Das Trés Raças is a classic of legendary proportions, and Diogo’s new cover version both honors the original and brings a fresh new take, entirely re-recorded and primed for the dance floor. Ever-reliable Atlanta deep house don Kai Alce turns in an incredible soulful remix that feels like an instant classic. On the flip, Diogo’s original tune Caramba strikes a lighter tone, with arpeggiated synths and a cheeky vocal, giving Kraftwerk meets Marcos Valle at the disco. RNT/Make-A-Dance stalwart Lex Wolf bumps the tempo up a few clicks, looping and filtering synths and an extemporaneous vocal sample into a hypnotic, driving club track.
“… it was dance music, it had lyrics, it had songs, it wasn’t all instrumental, it was basically uptempo soul music, to be exact.”*
This quote from Timmy Regisford already sums up everything you need to know about his remix of Basic Black’s “Don’t Make Me Fall In Love.” Signed to Motown during Regisford’s reign as vice president and A&R, their self-titled debut album from 1990 is a testament to the massive popularity of new jack swing at the time. In his remix, the co-founder, resident DJ, and key figure of Club Shelter reconfigures the song’s structure with the signature sounds of New York’s prime dance floor scene, while preserving the heartfelt storytelling of the lyrics and the group’s voices on top of an irresistible groove and a bassline to die for.
At the time, it was only available in the record crates of the Big Apple’s DJ elite and later on as a white label in specialist shops. This soulful, yet driving piece, however, never saw an official single release—until now. Lifted from a DAT tape in Tony Humphries’ archive and carefully and faithfully restored, it now even features a condensed, never-before-released instrumental version of the remix, as well as a bass-and-beats-only edit for mixing purposes by yours truly. New jack swing transformed into New York club music by a king. This remix is a testament to Timmy Regisford’s prowess in the studio, but also honors the roots of the music he loves and grew up on—serving as a perpetual piece of the city’s vast history in underground dance music.
Gerd Janson
Limited to 200 Copies
The debut release from Tensegrity Records brings together five tracks, each capturing a unique mood while staying grounded in the label’s philosophy.
"Tensegrity" introduces the label’s concept with sounds that intertwine to create a subtle yet strong balance. "Érase una vez" blends electro and new wave with a nostalgic touch, while "Meritocracia" shifts gears, offering lush melodies and reflective tones.
On the B-side, "Romi" takes a darker turn, with tribal rhythms and minimal grooves that resonate on the dancefloor. "Structural Stress" closes the release with a raw, personal energy, drawing from a challenging moment to deliver a track that feels direct and real.
- A1: Bo Harwood & John Cassavetes - No One Around To Hear It
- A2: Chen Ming Chang - Rainwater
- A3: Bhairavi Raman & Nanthesh Sivarajah - Bittersweet Reflections
- B1: The King Of Luxembourg - Poptones
- B2: Slapp Happy - Is It You
- B3: O.g. Jigg - Jesus Is My Jam
- B4: Klang - As It Is
- C1: Scala - Fuser
- C2: Soft Location - Let The Moon Get Into It
- C3: Gyeongsu - Yzobel (Feat. Croche)
- C4: Omertà - Moments In Love
- D1: Kasumi Trio - Cabbage Butterfly
- D2: Un - Fast Money Blues
- D3: Delphine Dora - V
- D4: Harry Plunket-Greene - The Hurdy-Gurdy Man
2025 Repress
Searchlight Moonbeam is the new narrative compilation from Time Is Away (Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney) whose eponymous monthly NTS Radio shows, tinctured fusions of fugitive sounds and reverie-inducing archival speech, have won them an ardent following. It follows from the London-based duo’s Ballads, a remarkable driftwerk released on A Colourful Storm in 2022.
Searchlight Moonbeam is an autumnal dreamscape, intimate and vespertine, pensive and irresolute. An imagined community where differences drop off and resonances emerge – between Maher Shalal Hash Baz affiliates Kasumi Trio, Taiwanese score composer Chen Ming Chang whose ‘Rainwater’ (written for Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s 1986 film Dust In The Wind) is exquisitely heartbroken, and the plangent improvisations of self-taught French pianist Delphine Dora.
Revelations are frequent: the bedsit isolationism of Bo Harwood and John Cassavetes’ ‘No One Around to Hear It’ (from The Killing of a Chinese Bookie); the narked minimalism of Klang (an early 2000s band formed by ex-Elastica guitarist and featuring prize-winning experimental novelist Isabel Waidner on bass); the etude-grooves and echoic wobble of below-the-radar French avant-gardists Omertà ; the beautiful, plaintively dubby ‘Is It You?’ by Slapp Happy; a psych-tinged reimagining of PiL’s ‘Poptones’ by Simon Fisher Turner (one half of Deux Filles, and here, recording for él as The King of Luxembourg) that's as perverse as the cover of Throbbing Gristle’s 20 Jazz Funk Greats.
Searchlight Moonbeam is the musical analog of an Italo Calvino novel or a medieval fable. Associative, intuitive, borderless. Emotional and mysterious. Endowed with the tactility of Braille. A private language that is both unknowable and understood. It is a record of the seasons, for the seasons.
2023 marks the tenth anniversary of Time Is Away’s first broadcast. Featuring an evocative essay by writer Jeremy Atherton Lin and disarming cover art by Penny Davenport, Searchlight Moonbeam showcases Rollo and Tierney’s still-unrivalled talent for gloaming melodies, disques du crépuscule, ensorcelled storytelling.
15 Years Of Dame-Music Vol.1 is an ode to the unmistakable sound of the TB-303, a core element of Bloody Mary’s widely respected sound and label. Above all, it celebrates fifteen years of quality dance music, set to continue across its three excellently curated volumes in 2025.
The first volume, releasing 28th March 2025, features a track from Bloody Mary and welcomes back Thomas P. Heckmann, E-Bony, and Hardfloor to the imprint.
15 Years Of Dame-Music Vol. 1 with label regular Thomas P. Heckmann’s ‘Days Of Buzz’ electrifying the dancefloor with waves of mind-melting acid over a resolute beat.
Label head Bloody Mary then drops ‘Fractal Waves’, playful, 303-licked, and comfortably switching between straight 4/4 and raw, crunched-up breaks; this is a raveready cut showing Mary at her best.
On the flip, artist E-Bony returns to Dame-Music after closing the label’s 2024 schedule with the ‘Machine Code’ EP. His ‘303 Elements’ builds from a low-slung groove to an intense climax as acid drips, oozes and rains over crisp drums while hoover sounds create an otherworldly atmosphere at its peak. Closing out the first volume is 90s Acid Techno duo Hardfloor with ‘I’ll Never Own A Helicopter’, providing a hands-in-the-air club track to work the dancefloor into a frenzy.
Mastered by Thomas P. Heckmann
Artwork by Philip Mercieca
(c) Dame-Music 2025, all right reserved
Unspecified Enemies, the project led by Louis Digital (Numbers, Counterattack, Arcola) present their debut album Romance in the Age of Adaptive Feedback.
Written and produced by Louis Digital, the album incorporates fragments of music data generated by long-time collaborator CiM (Ann Aimee, Delsin). Describing the title track, Louis Digital states:
“It’s the microelectronic sound of a city playing strange light games with itself, evoking bitcrushed desires and floating images, an urban phantasy stored on the broken circuits of an Ensoniq ASR-10.”
The origins of Romance in the Age of Adaptive Feedback trace back to 2006, when Louis Digital launched Diamond Sea, a series of events at London’s ICA that introduced the Unspecified Enemies project and a label called City of Quartz. The vision was to merge the hi-tech electronic textures of contemporary R&B with the sampling and sequencing techniques of pioneers like Anthony Shakir and Soundhack. However, the music was lost in time, and City of Quartz never released a single record.
Yet, the story took an unexpected turn. At one of these events, Spencer from Numbers received a CD containing early recordings. Years later, Numbers encouraged Louis Digital to reconstruct the lost music for an album. The result is a work resurrected from the past and reimagined for the future—retrieved in fragments from a broken Iomega Jazz SCSI Drive.
Expanding on the album’s themes, Louis Digital reflects:
“By the late ’90s the cinematic image of Los Angeles and the sound of Detroit techno had crystallised a new style of living in time and space. In 1997 Mike Davis — the political activist, urbanist, writer and historian of Los Angeles — suggested that it all had “something to do with a microelectronic aesthetic of very transient and decaying states”. It was a romantic vision — one where the city’s glass surfaces reflected a musical desire for futurity not yet dominated by data-driven corporate life. These were strange days to live through. This album evokes the embers of this fibre-optic moment, when urban revolution in an age of digital reification still felt possible.”
The album features full sleeve artwork and a poster designed by Ben Drury. In support of the release, an NTS show titled Romance and Reification will explore the cinematic and electronic music influences behind the album.
Over the course of a decade, Wata Igarashi has risen as one of techno's most accomplished DJs and producers. His highly aesthetic trademark sound is as heavily psychedelic as it's driven by its stern kinetic energy. It's often overlooked that Igarashi is much more than a torch bearer of the raw hypnotic techno he became known for. He's also a very accomplished and versatile musician with a deep understanding of the cause and effect of sound design. His skills are fully on display on 2023's full length "Agartha", a film score to a fictitious movie about the mythical underworld of planet Mars. It was a rather obvious idea to cross the bridge between this epic deep listening album and Wata Igarashi's techno persona by having him remix himself. As you might expect, the "Agartha Sorcery Acid Mix" has turned out to be a masterclass in psychedelic designer techno. It's slightly slower in BPM as the usual Igarashi fare but every bit as captivating. The "Floating Against Time Shimmering Mix" shows another intriguing facet of Wata's spectrum. Let's call it: Psychedelic Deep House. KOMPAKT's very own Michael Mayer couldn't resist to turn the Godzilla soundtrack-ish "Ceremony Of The Dead" into a positively hysterical minimal disco operette. And then there's the "Fusion Mix of Abyss x Darkness" by Philipp Stoffel, a fresh Cologne DJ producer whose AKTE club nights just spawned a label by the same name. He's definitely one to keep an eye on in 2025.
Im Laufe eines Jahrzehnts hat sich Wata Igarashi zu einem der versiertesten DJs und Produzenten im Bereich Techno entwickelt. Sein hochästhetischer, unverwechselbarer Sound ist ebenso stark psychedelisch entrückt wie von einer strengen kinetischen Energie angetrieben. Oft wird übersehen, dass Igarashi viel mehr ist als nur ein Fackelträger des rohen, hypnotischen Techno, für den er bekannt wurde. Er ist auch ein sehr versierter und vielseitiger Musiker mit einem tiefen Verständnis für Ursache und Wirkung von Sounddesign. Seine Fähigkeiten kommen auf dem Longplayer „Agartha“ von 2023 voll zum Ausdruck, einer Filmmusik zu einem fiktiven Film über die mythische Unterwelt des Planeten Mars. Es lag nahe, die Brücke zwischen diesem epischen Deep-Listening-Album und Wata Igarashis Techno-Persönlichkeit zu schlagen, indem man ihn sich selbst remixen ließ. Wie zu erwarten war, ist der „Agartha Sorcery Acid Mix“ eine Masterclass des psychedelischen Designer-Techno. Mit einer etwas geringeren BPM-Zahl als bei Igarashis üblicher Musik, aber genauso fesselnd. Der „Floating Against Time Shimmering Mix“ zeigt eine weitere faszinierende Facette von Watas Spektrum. Nennen wir es: Psychedelic Deep House. KOMPAKTs Michael Mayer konnte nicht widerstehen, den Godzilla-Soundtrack-ähnlichen Song „Ceremony Of The Dead“ in eine geradezu hysterische Minimal-Disco-Operette zu verwandeln. Und dann gibt es noch den „Fusion Mix of Abyss x Darkness“ von Philipp Stoffel, einem jungen Kölner DJ-Produzenten, aus dessen AKTE-Clubnächten gerade ein Label mit dem gleichen Namen hervorgegangen ist. Er ist definitiv einer, den man 2025 im Auge behalten sollte.




















