More good news for fans of Luke Vibert's Plug output. Hot on the heels of the Variety Magic album, released earlier this year, De:tuned returns to the vault with four more previously unreleased Plug tracks.
Following the hugely acclaimed 11-track Variety Magic, which saw Vibert unearth and hand-pick a collection of forgotten jungle and drum & bass gems from his original mid-90s DAT archive, Robotic Futuristic digs even deeper into the same treasure trove. Four more raw, playful and highly distinctive Plug cuts, all previously unheard and finally brought to light.
The EP takes its title from one of the tracks and opens with Luke Vibert's personal favourite: 'Bring A Fuckin' Army'. A full-on jungle workout driven by rolling breaks, heavyweight bass and that unmistakable Plug funk. Put the needle on the record and let it rip. Go 'Head - Do It!
Robotic Futuristic also marks the 17th anniversary of De:tuned, making this a particularly fitting release for the Belgian label.
Visualised by the Variety Magi. Stencil art by Pablo Fiasco and rewired by Openmind. Mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis. A separate digital release will also be available at the usual digital shops.
More good news for fans of Luke Vibert's Plug output. Hot on the heels of the Variety Magic album, released earlier this year, De:tuned returns to the vault with four more previously unreleased Plug tracks.
Following the hugely acclaimed 11-track Variety Magic, which saw Vibert unearth and hand-pick a collection of forgotten jungle and drum & bass gems from his original mid-90s DAT archive, Robotic Futuristic digs even deeper into the same treasure trove. Four more raw, playful and highly distinctive Plug cuts, all previously unheard and finally brought to light.
The EP takes its title from one of the tracks and opens with Luke Vibert's personal favourite: 'Bring A Fuckin' Army'. A full-on jungle workout driven by rolling breaks, heavyweight bass and that unmistakable Plug funk. Put the needle on the record and let it rip. Go 'Head - Do It!
Robotic Futuristic also marks the 17th anniversary of De:tuned, making this a particularly fitting release for the Belgian label.
Visualised by the Variety Magi. Stencil art by Pablo Fiasco and rewired by Openmind. Mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis. A separate digital release will also be available at the usual digital shops.
Revelling in adventurous, malleable synthesis and a strong melodic instinct, long-standing techno heavyweight Oscar Mulero brings his Trolley Route alias to Dekmantel. Across four rush-inducing cuts of studio exploration the Spanish veteran showcases a lighter side to his muse without sacrificing maximal dancefloor impact.
Oscar Mulero first debuted Trolley Route back in the early 00s through albums and EPs for Pure Plastic, Minuendo and others, offering a more playful strain of machine music to contrast with the steely output under his own name. Embracing dub textures and Detroit-coded synth leads, the recently-revived alias has become a haven for the looser styles that spill out of his studio. It just so happens these outliers are as crucial as any of Mulero's primary club smashers.
From the swampy chord sequence that dominates 'New Visual Order' to the meaty sub-bass and delay-soaked synth sweeps of 'Relativity Of The Vision', the whole EP is spilling over with madcap charm and a casual boss-level quality that can only come from a true legend letting their hair down.
In April 1963, The Beatles stepped into a formal lunchtime ceremony at EMI Studios, where they were honoured with their first silver disc, for Please Please Me. This event, attended by EMI staff and the press, was likely recorded for Radio Luxembourg’s Friday Spectacular. Just one month later, the raw energy of Beatlemania exploded at the Walthamstow Granada. The 9-minute newsreel from this show is a time capsule of wild, full-throated screaming—a stark contrast to the relaxed EMI ceremony.
Fast-forward to 1964 and we feature TV performances from Shindig & Blackpool Night Out plus a Tyne Tees TV Interview where the interviewer tried—and failed—to pin down the band’s voting intentions on 15th October 1964, the day of the UK General Election. Whether you’re a longtime fan or a newcomer, these performances offer a unique lens into the group’s early years.
This album features most of The Searchers’ early hits, along with a selection of album cuts and B-sides—which really come to life in these live recordings. The standout tracks are the ones they never recorded in the studio. What’d I Say was previously released from their 1963 Hamburg Star-Club recordings, but this live version captures even more energy. The album also features radio performances that were never studio recordings, including Memphis, Tennessee, Red Sails In The Sunset, and Let The Four Winds Blow. So, put this record on, sit back and relive the heyday of one of the UK’s finest and most enduring bands: Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you The Searchers!
Sleeve notes by Peter Checksfield
On March 1 2025, Kim Deal hosted a once-in-a-lifetime sold-out performance at London’s historic Barbican, playing special orchestrated renditions of songs from her acclaimed debut solo album Nobody Loves You More, followed by tracks from The Breeders’ back catalog and earlier solo work. The evening, culminating with a heartfelt standing ovation, was documented in full, to be released as a live record entitled Live at the Barbican on November 13 — arriving almost two years after Nobody Loves You More’s initial release (on November 22, 2024) and rounding out its celebrations.
Live at the Barbican finds Deal backed by a 25-piece ensemble, marking the first time in a decades-long career, that she has played with an orchestra. The idea for the performance came to Deal while mixing her solo album in Hackney: “I invited myself! That’s how I came to play ‘Nobody Loves You More’ at the Barbican. Years ago, I had worked with Chris Sharp at the 4AD label and I knew he was currently at The Barbican. So, I reached out to Chris and said I have orchestration on this record. I would love to be able to perform these songs with an actual orchestra. And Chris said yes, we’d love to have you.”
Alongside the orchestra and Shards choir, Deal was also joined by a band composed of Mando Lopez (The Breeders), Susan Voelz (Poi Dog Pondering), Lindsay Glover, Nick White (Phoebe Bridgers), and Rob Bochnik (The Frames), as well as special guest Raymond McGinley (Teenage Fanclub). The live record was mixed at Studio Black Box and mastered by Heba Kadry.
What makes a life well lived? Career, home, savings, family: these are the milestones that make adulthood legible as success. Friendship, meanwhile, is often treated as something that either endures or doesn’t, more a matter of luck than a relationship requiring its own devotion, maintenance, and care. When really, as the world becomes more isolated and artificial by the day, friendships may be the most important thing a person ever builds.
“A lot of times in life I feel like a late bloomer, like I'm still trying to get my shit together in a way that other people have already figured out,” says Chastity Belt drummer/vocalist Gretchen Grimm. “But then I reflect on my adulthood, and my top priority has largely been my friends, which I do not regret at all.” That priority feels like the guiding principle on the band’s sixth album, All My Friends. Not that they set out to make an album about friendship—during mixing the band's longtime collaborator and engineer, Samur Khouja, pointed out that a lot of the songs referenced the subject. Which makes a lot of sense.
Julia Shapiro (guitar/vocals), Lydia Lund (guitar/vocals), Hunter Truscott (bass/vocals), and Grimm have been making music together for 15 years. Friendship has sustained the Chastity Belt project as its members have grown alongside one another, both as people and as musicians. Across a resonant catalog, they’ve moved from the raucous wit of their early records toward the lush, introspective moods they’ve refined on each album since via trademark intertwining guitars, meticulous rhythms, and double exposure of melancholy and optimism.
All My Friends comprises songs recorded across multiple years, time zones, and studios, including Seahorse Sound in LA, Way Out in Woodinville, and a centuries-old house on the Greek island of Hydra. The oldest track dates back to around 2018; the newest were finished within the past year. These days, the band spans three cities (Los Angeles, Seattle, and Chicago); less writing/rehearsal time means songs are often worked out in the studio, relying on the spontaneity and instinct that comes from knowing one another so well. The result is rawer and less polished than their last couple of records, closer in spirit to the band’s roots.
Sentimental Ultra marks DJ HEARTSTRING’s debut proper on Steel City Dance Discs, and their first album project, releasing November 13th 2026. Starting life as a mixtape before a happy accident or two took it down a different path, the 15-track album finds the pair chasing not just peak-time euphoria and what they can conjure in a club setting, but everything around it, too. The befores and the afters. The soft and the supercharged. What life felt like when they were young. Featuring collaborations with SWIM, Spriitzz, BAUGRUPPE90, Sam Gellaitry, Saidah, DMA’S, KennyHoopla, Monk, 3NDLES5, David Jackson and secret act, they fold formative years influences such as indie rock, rap, ambient and breakbeat into their sought-after sound, and balance them with contemporary-coded ideas.
This blend of worlds is at the crux of the album’s concept visually as well. Sentimental Ultra is an exploration blurring the lines of hard and soft, taking inspiration from subculture communities around football hooliganism and skateboarding. The cover is shot by iconic British photographer Ewen Spencer, renowned for his work around Skins, The Streets and more. The collaboration has seen DJ HEARTSTRING land features in Numero Berlin, Notion Mag and other cross-cultural editorial platforms ahead of the album announcement.
To date, the project has already received various milestones across international radio, including Arielle Free’s Big Whopper for third single ‘Another Year Alone’ and DJ HEARTSTRING landing a coveted BBC R1 Residency in November. Adding to this is the slew of digital looks and accolades for DJ HEARTSTRING’s set recordings including their closing set at Soenda Festival earlier this year which is on 115k views since being published in May 2026, their Melbourne Boiler Room published in 2025 with +1 million views and their Belfast Boiler Room published in 2023 with +1.1 million views.
Since DJ HEARTSTRING’s 2021 debut, when they rollicked through the club door with their Destiny of the Moment and Eternal Euphoria EPs, alongside a slew of self-released, pop-and-R&B-indebted edits, DJ HEARTSTRING have followed their hearts and won over legions more with an emotional dance music style that’s fast become synonymous with their name.
There’ve been big releases such as 2025’s You Are The Sun, I Am The Sky EP, and buzzy collaborations with fellow synapse-igniters like SWIM, Narciss, southstar and S.C.D.D.’s KETTAMA. The past few years have also seen remixes for Charli XCX and Sam Smith, Romy, Sugababes and Empire of the Sun, sets everywhere from Berghain to London’s 3000-capacity Roundhouse, their own Teenage Dream parties and a must-listen contribution to the BBC Radio 1’s Essential Mix series, which showcased just some of the sonic inspirations behind their signature, like Eurodance and trance, plus heaps of DJ HEARTSTRING material.
And now, Sentimental Ultra arrives off the back of DJ HEARTSTRING’s busiest summer to date with landmark festival plays at Awakenings in the Netherlands, Lost Village and Maiden Voyage in the UK, We Love Green in France, Lost Paradise in Belgium, Movement Festival in Detroit and Arc Festival in Chicago. Hot off the heels of their festival run, the Berlin duo show no signs of slowing down with a 3-date Australia tour at the end of September whereby they sold a cumulative 15,500 tickets across Melbourne, Sydney and Perth shows, all on presales. In addition to some pop-up in key markets around album release including Ireland, Scotland, Berlin and London, the Sentimental Ultra official tour also encompasses a European hard ticket run including Belfast’s Telegraph Building (2,000 cap), Brussels’ Braindance (2,000 cap), Paris Phantom (3,400) and DJ HEARTSTRING’s biggest London show to date - Brixton Academy (5,000) - an apt follow-up after selling out Magazine (4,000 cap) weeks in advance in February 2026.
There’s plenty still in store, and plenty of places to catch them throughout the rest of what’s set to be a landmark year. Shows from Miami to Manchester (for the sold-out KETTAMA presents Steel City Dance Discs WHP takeover) to Dublin’s District X, a hometown Teenage Dreams event and 2 colossal ADE headlines at Dockyard and Sugar Factory - with more plans bubbling behind the scenes. DJ HEARTSTRING season is well and truly upon us.
Roman Norfleet aus Portland (Cosmic Tones Research Trio, MerKaBa Brotherhood) und die Be Present Art Group setzen ihren unglaublichen Schaffensschub an spiritueller, befreiender Musik fort. Saxophon, Keyboard, Elektronik, eine kraftvolle Rhythmusgruppe und eindringlicher Gesang treiben Songs wie die erste Single ,Headed On To Freedom" voran - wirbelnde Klangreisen für Fans von Pharoah Sanders, dem Art Ensemble of Chicago und dem Sun Ra Arkestra. ,The Remembering" ist ein klangliches Trankopfer für diejenigen, die vor uns da waren. Ausgehend von der Geschichte der schwarzen Amerikaner, revolutionärem Denken und dem ungebrochenen Geist des Widerstands verwebt die Musik Anklänge an die Persönlichkeiten, Bewegungen und Ideen, die Generationen geprägt haben. Sie ehrt die Vergangenheit und trägt ihren Geist gleichzeitig in die Gegenwart.
Hier ist das definitive Beat Konducta-Box-Set: 7 LPs, die alle sechs Teile von Madlibs legendärer Instrumental-Serie vereint - erstmals gemeinsam erhältlich in einem hochwertigen, schweren Deluxe-Schuber. Zusätzlich enthalten ist Vol. 0, eine zuvor offiziell unveröffentlichte Promo-LP mit weiteren Tracks. Das 7-LP-Box-Set umfasst alle sieben Teile von Madlibs "Beat Konducta"-Reihe aus den Jahren 1994 bis 2008. Die Volumes 1-2, 3-4 und 5-6, die lange vergriffen waren, erscheinen hier erstmals als Doppel-LPs im klassischen schwarzen Vinyl und im aufklappbaren Gatefold-Cover. Exklusiv in diesem Set enthalten ist zudem Vol. 0: Earth Sounds, gepresst auf grünem "Northern Lights"-Vinyl. Die Tracks auf Vol. 0 entstanden im Zeitraum von 1994 bis 1996 und wurden dann ursprünglich 2001 als streng limitierte Promo-LP veröffentlicht. Die musikalischen Einflüsse reichen von Library-Musik aus TV und Film der 70er Jahre bis hin zu Bollywood-Soundtracks und weiteren Produktionen aus Indien (aus den 60er bis 80er Jahren) und gipfeln in einer Hommage an seinen verstorbenen, großartigen Freund und musikalischen Weggefährten J Dilla. Essentiell, keine Frage.
Madlib ist der Beat Konducta - oft kopiert, doch nie erreicht. Neuauflage der essenziellen Beat-Konducta-Reihe, hier die Volumes 1 und 2 als Siren Split Edition Beat Konducta Vol. 1-2: Movie Scenes & Movie Scenes, the Sequel waren die ersten offiziellen Veröffentlichungen in Madlibs Beat-Konducta-Reihe (Vol. 1 Ende 2005, Vol. 2 im Jahr 2006). Bei beiden handelt es sich um Instrumental-Hip-Hop-Produktionen von Madlib, die im Stil von TV- und Film-Library-Platten der 70er Jahre gehalten sind und zusammen eine Stunde voller instrumentaler Klanglandschaften bilden. Nachdem sie lange vergriffen waren, erscheinen diese beiden Volumes von Madlibs legendärer Instrumental-Reihe nun erstmals als farbige Doppel-LP auf Vinyl, welches zur Hälfte rot und zur Hälfte blau gefärbt ist (50/50 Split Vinyl), und verpackt in einem aufklappbaren Gatefold-Cover.
Neuauflage der essentiellen "Beat Konducta"-Reihe, hier Vol. 5-6: "Dil Cosby & Dil Withers Suite" (Steady Metals Edition) - Madlib zollt J Dilla Tribut! Auf "Beat Konducta Vol. 5-6: Dil Cosby & Dil Withers Suite" (ursprünglich 2008 als zwei separate LPs veröffentlicht) würdigt Madlib seinen verstorbenen Freund und musikalischen Weggefährten J Dilla - unterstützt durch Features von J. Rocc. 42 soulige, atmosphärische Instrumentals bilden den Abschiedsgruß an Jay Dee. Nachdem sie lange vergriffen waren, erscheinen beide Teile von Madlibs legendärer Instrumental-Reihe nun erstmals gemeinsam als farbige Doppel-LP auf metallisch schimmerndem silbernen und goldenen Vinyl, verpackt in einem aufklappbaren Gatefold-Cover.
Tony Price returns with NAME?, a new LP on his Maximum Exposure label delivering 10 tracks of red-hot house music realness.
Following two releases in 2025, the brutalist cybernetic jazz reveries of Requiem for the Ontario Science Centre and the ferocious machine funk of Street Theatre, NAME? keeps its crosshairs aimed straight at the dancefloor.
NAME? showcases Tony’s undying affinity for the sound of New York City and New Jersey house: Tony Humphries’ cybernetic gospel dubs, the crude, Todd Terry-style 12-bit hip-hop explosives, the cracking garage swing of early Strictly Rhythm, Mood II Swing and Masters At Work, the psychotic bleep-funk bombast of the Bomb Squad, and the deep, ecstatic machine soul pioneered by the likes of Blaze and the Burrell Brothers.
Produced in his Greektown studio in Toronto using an array of drum machines and samplers, these recordings are pure Tony: rude, crude and elemental. House music stripped down to its core principles and defining primordial textures. No nonsense, no junk, no varnish, no nothing. Just the funk.
With »The Future Is Futuristic«, the fifth album for Haleiwa (and third with Morr Music), Stockholm’s Mikko Singh draws from a deep well of nostalgic feeling, while making music that feels razor-sharp, on point, and full of hazy dream-pop pleasure. After 2019’s »Cloud Formations« and 2022’s »Hallway Waverider«, which imagined psychedelic post-shoegaze and mantric pop songs into being, »The Future Is Futuristic« feels like both consolidation and magnification; the noise-drenched songs feel thicker, heftier; the electronic interludes playful and kinetic; the rhythms boundless. It’s as though Singh has truly found his metier, his voice, a place from which he’s comfortable to indulge in the kind of home-recorded worldmaking that has always marked Haleiwa out as something special.
»The Future Is Futuristic« passes by in a rush of whiteout tones and scurrilous energy; the whole thing is over within half an hour, Singh ensuring his songs say exactly what they need to say – no more, no less – before bustling through into the next ecstatic pop moment, pushing the music further into the zone. While his music often has a similar, drenched quality to shoegaze, on »The Future Is Futuristic«, Singh seems to be settling in alongside other spirits – there are touches of the experimentation of both A.R. Kane and Flying Saucer Attack here; the more motoric tunes recall New Zealand’s Snapper; the glitchtronics have a City Centre Offices sensibility, while the sparkling folksiness of the melodies can recall Bristol bands like Light or AMP.
But it’s ultimately not about influence, beyond perhaps Haleiwa nestling alongside some like-minded souls in perceptive listeners’ minds. Instead, thrill to the rush of rhythms that float between jungle and punk on »Flourishing« and »96«, the latter a reference, from Singh, to moments of early revelation – »it’s about being thankful for having found punk rock and skateboarding at a young age, in 1996.« There’s also the hypnotic dream-rush of the opening »Smoke Will Rise«, the beautiful Cure-esque guitars swimming through »Sunset Street« and »Strange Notes«, the tumbling rhythms and heady, elated chord changes that grant lift-off to »Wave Chaos«… A real panoply of pleasures, in fact.
»The Future Is Futuristic« was recorded solely by Singh on four- and eight-track in his home studio, with a quick trip to Telefonstudion to record drums. Recording at home grants a certain intimacy to »The Future Is Futuristic«, even as the songs, at times, bliss their way off into the skies; there’s something both expansive and intimate about the music here, as though Singh is grappling immensities into intimacies. It also feels deeply personal for Singh, a summation of much of what he’s done over the years; as he says, simply and clearly, »The album is in my interpretation a mix between punk, electronic music, and dream pop.« The threads that connect these creative phenomena? Energy, texture, melody, tone, sensuality; pure pop pleasure.
Metabolising 20-plus years gorging on the hardcore continuum, Luke J Murray returns to Sneaker Social Club with the first album under his Liquid DnB-Like Ambient Grime 2 alias. As the first self-titled EP in 2024 demonstrated, with this project Murray applies a hauntological supplement to his life-long diet of rave's codes and signals. These 11 tracks could be embraced as dank bangers in their own right, but the ghostly shroud that lingers is no accident. It's an evocative expression of the hinterland places that frame the pursuit of the dance as much as the energy spikes in front of the bass bins — a diaristic reflection on trudging puddle-peppered streets to find little black doors or staggering home, ears ringing, as dawn comes to chase down the street lights.
Haunted House, Garage & Grime walks the line between atmospheric scene building and straight-up beatdowns with a relaxed swagger. 'The Ginnel In SK4' paints a vivid picture of urban malaise with its bleak synth warps and punk-dub splashes, not a drum sequence in earshot. It's flanked by the Caustic Window-meets-Mark One 'The Flats On Belmont Way' on one side, and low-slung electro-creeper 'Hollywood Park' on the other. As the titles hint, this is music tangibly attached to very specific places locked in Murray's memory — unmistakably UK locations that reflect back the half-hollowed out echoes of late night soundtracks, glancing off red brick and pebble dash concrete at odd angles.
There is space on the album for full-chested amen tear-outs like 'Pete's Gone Mad With The Axe' , but for the most part the mood remains downcast and pensive. The sparse approach affords you space to tangibly hear the (not-so-silent) name-checked rain pattering in the background of 'The Crown Under The Viaduct, While Rainfalls Silently Into The River Mersey' , or imagine the crunch of litter and dead leaves underfoot that snakes its way through minimalist stepper 'Bowerfield Lane, After Dark'.
Murray's vision is sharply realised, and his stated inspirations slot logically into his shelves of ordered ideas drawn from disorderly memories. From Mark Leckey's O' Magic Power Of Bleakness to the Ghost Box records alumni, Hatcha's seminal Dubstep Allstars Vol. 1 and Laura Grace Ford's Savage Messiah book, Haunted House, Garage & Grime is the logical product of a deep thinker making tracks with decades of rave in his bones and the sense that it all means something, even if it's not always clear what.
Few tracks carry the weight of techno history quite like Dave Clarke’s ‘Wisdom To The Wise’. Created in a damp basement flat in Brighton in the early ’90s, the track was produced on an Atari 1040 and micro-sampler, drenched in dubbed-out reverb and shaped by a young Clarke still honing the sound that would soon make his name.
‘Wisdom To The Wise’ became the centrepiece of Red 2, the second instalment of Clarke’s seminal three-release series. With Red 1 already making serious waves, it was Red 2 that sent interest in Clarke into overdrive. Within a year, the series had helped propel him from underground producer to global techno force, culminating in a major-label album deal and international recognition.
The track’s influence has endured ever since, earning celebrated reinterpretations from techno heavyweights including Robert Hood, Marcel Dettmann, Boys Noize and Steve Rachmad. Now, Spectrum adds another chapter to that lineage with a very special remix from label boss Joris Voorn.
Staying faithful to the spirit and unmistakable character of the original, Voorn brings his own weight to the classic, reinforcing its impact with a heavier kick and the subtle production touches that have become his signature. Originally created as a weapon for his own sets, the remix has been road-tested on dancefloors and is now ready to be unleashed beyond the booth.
For over three decades, Berlin-based DJ, producer, and curator Marcel Dettmann has remained a central force in electronic music, continuously pushing the boundaries of the craft. Deeply rooted in early influences ranging from post-punk and industrial to synth-pop, his dynamic DJ sets and expansive discography, including seminal releases on Ostgut Ton and Dekmantel, effortlessly weave together raw techno, Chicago house, electro, and avant-garde soundscapes.
Far beyond club booths and releases on his own imprints, MDR and Bad Manners, Dettmann’s multidisciplinary ethos has led him into artistic territories spanning gallery soundscapes, ballet compositions, and cinematic film scores. This relentless creative curiosity defines a career built at the intersection of dancefloor functionality, collaborative experimentation, and perpetual sonic evolution.
Dettmann introduced My Own Shadow last year, a project where music, visual art, and photography converged in two EPs, Approaching (2025) and Faultline (2026) prior to the release of the full album this coming Autumn. More than just a name, this project lets sound, image, and vision blend organically, reflecting his intuitive process of deconstruction, resonance, and emotional discovery.
Speaking about the project Marcel says “My Own Shadow wasn’t born from a big concept. I simply liked the idea of working under another name and started following it. Different things I was doing - music, photography, visual work - slowly began to connect.
It happened quite naturally. My Own Shadow is me - just seen from another perspective.” Neither an alter ego nor a departure, My Own Shadow: Album is an intimate reflection of the artist; a transient, ever-shifting form that dances with the light and subtly reshapes its contours to reveal new depths.
My Own Shadow: Album is built with textural minimalism through rhythm, tension and release, embarking on a path through the recollections and experience of the dancefloor. This space remains the ultimate proving ground where history, instinct, and transcendence collide, guiding Dettmann through his musical interests.
My Own Shadow - Album is driven by rhythm, texture, space and tension. Across tracks such as ‘Gravitational Scar’ and ‘Resolution Vector’, these elements are constantly reshaped, connecting Dettmann’s past with a sound that remains firmly in motion.
This November, Brownswood Recordings will release Mek Do & Mend, the debut album from self-taught producer, multi-instrumentalist, composer and artist Wonky Logic. Although his name may not yet be familiar to everyone, Wonky Logic (AKA Dwayne Kilvington) has spent the past two decades quietly becoming one of the UK's most respected musical collaborators. His career has moved comfortably between London's jazz, electronic and contemporary music scenes, performing and recording with artists including Nala Sinephro, Yussef Dayes, Nightmares On Wax, Shabaka Hutchings and Emma-Jean Thackray. Alongside his work as a producer and composer, he's been musical director for projects with Eddie Chacon, John Carroll Kirby and I.G Culture's LCSM, scored the feature documentary Zandra With A Zed, contributed music to A24's The Smashing Machine, and continues to lead music workshops with young people, refugees and people experiencing incarceration.
Far more than a collection of compositions, Mek Do & Mend is a deeply personal reflection on the people, places and experiences that have shaped Kilvington throughout his life. It's the story of growing up on a Leeds council estate, where music became both a creative outlet and a way of understanding the world. Making music often meant working with whatever was available: a second-hand keyboard, a makeshift studio desk or ageing equipment that simply had to last a little longer. The title itself came from a conversation with his mother, capturing the resourcefulness that defined his upbringing and continued into the making of the album itself, which was written and produced to a tight deadline around touring, family life and Kilvington's work as a musician and educator.
Built from material spanning more than fifteen years, Mek Do & Mend brings together some of Wonky Logic's earliest compositions alongside brand new pieces written during the making of the record itself. Childhood ideas sit alongside music conceived only months before recording, creating an album that draws together a lifetime of writing rather than documenting a single moment. Running throughout are voice notes from family members, teachers, friends, mentors and collaborators—not simply as interludes, but as a reminder that no creative life is ever self-made. Rather than telling his own story outright, Kilvington invites listeners to discover him through the people who've shaped him: an aunt remembering him playing in church as a child, lifelong friends recalling early experiments making beats together, fellow musicians from different stages of his career and his mother describing him in her own words. Together they reveal the invisible network of relationships, philosophies, communities and experiences behind the music. "The album exists somewhere between being a biography and an autobiography," says Dwayne. "The biography is in the voice notes and how other people see me. The autobiography is in the music."
That same philosophy extends to the musicians who appear on the record. Every contributor has played a meaningful role in Wonky Logic's life beyond the studio. Long-time collaborator Luke Wynter, Steam Down drummer Benji Appiah, partner Vanessa Rani, Jonathan Enser, Joe Bristow, Brother Portrait and Nubiya Imani all feature not simply because of their musicianship, but because they form part of the album's story.
Across its fourteen tracks, Mek Do & Mend moves effortlessly between dynamic jazz arrangements, pulsating broken rhythms, delicate, twinkling piano passages, interstellar synth textures and elegant brass lines. Album opener and first single 'Strange Attractor' begins with a shimmering introduction before unfolding into an exhilarating surge of rhythm and momentum. Named after the mathematical concept of the same name, it serves as the conceptual point of origin for the album. Written when Kilvington was just seventeen, the composition reflects the idea that even the most unpredictable lives are guided by hidden patterns that often only become visible with time. Second single 'A Thousand Hands' features the unmistakable vocal tones of Brother Portrait, whose cerebral lyricism drifts over a low-slung, constantly shifting groove as woozy synth lines ebb and flow overhead. At its heart, the track celebrates the family, friends, mentors and collaborators whose often unseen influence shapes who we become, echoing the album's belief that every achievement is, in some way, a collective one. LP focus track 'BAME (Beyond All Marginalised Expectations)' is a lush, spiralling composition, brimming with both emotion and resolve. Reclaiming an acronym long imposed on racialised communities in the UK, the piece transforms it into a statement of possibility rather than limitation: a defiant rejection of stereotypes and a refusal to let identity be defined by other people's expectations.
The album itself only exists because other people believed in it. Isabel Gracefield made the RAK sessions possible, Rick David brought the record together with his characteristically thoughtful mix, and Gilles Peterson committed to releasing it on Brownswood before hearing any of the music. Away from the stage, Kilvington works with the charity Finding Rhythms, writing and producing original records with people experiencing incarceration, while also leading workshops with Arts Train and Dovetail Orchestra.
Recorded live in a single day in Studio One at RAK, Mek Do & Mend was mixed by Rick David through an analogue Cadac console before being mastered by Stuart Hawkes at Metropolis. The aim wasn't nostalgia or audiophile perfection, but to create a record people could return to throughout their lives, discovering something new with each listen.
As Dwayne puts it: "I don't want this body of work to be reduced to a jazz record. It's more like a novel about life told through music."
Following the critically acclaimed Fantômes… Futurs, praised by FIP, France Inter, Radio Nova, ARTE and International jazz press, double bassist and composer Kham Meslien returns with Vévés électriques, a deeply immersive second album where memory, landscape and improvisation merge into a singular sonic journey. Joined by Laurent Bardainne, Roger Raspail, Naïssam Jalal and David Neerman, Meslien expands the intimate language of his double bass with subtle loops and organic textures, weaving together echoes of Iceland, the Caribbean and imagined territories. Blending spiritual jazz, contemporary classical influences and ambient soundscapes, Vévés électriques is an invitation to drift beyond geography and into a profoundly personal exploration of emotion, identity and freedom.
Set upon an oil-smooth sea, an immense range of directions opens up before Kham Meslien for “Vévés Électriques”, his second album after “Fantômes… Futurs.”
With only his double bass and bow as vessel and sextant, a distant journey nevertheless begins to take shape. Vibrations and the striking of strings against wood quickly trace lines and winding paths across the surface of the water—so many routes to follow before leaving them behind, allowing the outward journey to become an inward voyage as well.
After an improvisation intended to shed light on the course ahead, isolated lands came into view: the shores of Iceland, the lands of the far north, places cut off from the rest of the world by vast expanses of water. Islands battered by a harsh climate that can only be endured by drawing warmth from deep within oneself.
Then the Caribbean arc appeared. The archipelago, a setting for joyful and unsettling experiences, takes Kham back to a childhood from which the passing years have carried him away. Rather than following the conventional channel of the music of these places, the West Indies emerge through memories whose colors are still vivid.
Through the morning mist, Roger Raspail’s percussion locks into the same frequencies of the groove. Double bass and struck skins then become companions on a road that intersects with Laurent Bardainne’s saxophone. Carrying a dreamlike message, David Neerman’s vibraphone also joins the narrative to write a few chapters of its own, while others are enchanted by the flute and voice of Naïssam Jalal, or struck by the metaphorical rhymes of rapper Rocé.
On the surface, through the themes along which the pieces navigate, landscapes slowly reveal themselves and change shape as the shore draws nearer or recedes. Straying from the marked course and allowing oneself to drift, breaking free from pure acoustic sound by adding loops first played live and then sampled, allows Kham to explore the depths. The depths of the ocean, as well as those of his soul. To enter a world of improvisation that reveals itself even as he explores it. Examined up close, feelings become shells to pick up and hold to one’s ear, so that they can be felt intensely until they take material form.
This sea, which had appeared peaceful, became the stage for a succession of stories and images, which then accumulated to give birth to a larger narrative.
Land of Talk is still here. That wasn’t always a guarantee. Over the multi-faceted twenty year history of their project, Lizzie Powell has drifted from and back to music, always interrogating their role as an artist. In the time since 2023’s Performances, they found themselves utterly worn down by the vicissitudes of the music industry and wracked with worry around their aging parents. Yet the music didn’t stop: Powell heard songs in traffic and in birds chirping, in their downstairs neighbor’s daily prayers and in the babble of children on the street. Melodies slowly cohered over time. “Life can become so unbearable, and music is where I go to metabolize it,” they explain. “I know the music was the only thing that was going to help me.” Soon Powell reemerged with the sixth Land of Talk album, LASTS.
LASTS is full of double meanings — both resilience and finality, acting as a noun and a verb. Though LASTS is haunted by crises including climate collapse, political upheaval, and genocide, the mangitude of global turmoil led Powell towards smaller, humane depictions of suffering and grief. As both their parents became ill, Powell reflected on the last time a person might walk, might talk to a loved one. Yet watching their parents near the other side of life’s arc also made Powell consider all they had survived across their own decades on this earth, their new songs channeling both gratitude and rage. LASTS became a phrase, honoring Land of Talk’s circuitous route and all Powell’s reckoned with through the years. “I think of this record as a love letter to life,” they say.
The end result is an album both lean and winding, allowing Powell’s words and melodies to take centerstage, uncrowded in visceral, shot-no-chaser arrangements. LASTS jumps right in with “Broken Tongue,” a wiry track built on thrumming electric guitar and ghostly synths as Powell rails against the lack of justice for victims of abuse. The trio’s interplay is readily evident in “Saffron” and “4:44,” two earworm songs that also allow themselves to unspool into extended instrumental codas. Early in the record, there are seething tracks like “Dogs” — “Just your basic instinct / Even dogs know better,” Powell growls in the chorus, before the song quiets into a plaintive plea of “Leave us alone now” — and later there are more vulnerable, wandering moments. In “Projections” and “Cedars,” Powell ventures deep into their head, inviting their co-conspirators and listeners alike to follow the songs wherever they meander.
YES is a genre-blurring blend of punk, electronic and rap from South Africa, released on limited edition White Vinyl
South African alt-rap trio Internet Girl have officially announced their debut album, YES, arriving November 13 via PACK. Records. Alongside the announcement, the group has released their new single “DA BUSINESS” featuring Kenny Mason.
A high-energy party anthem, “DA BUSINESS” opens with distorted guitar before chopped vocals briefly pull things back, only for an abrupt beat drop and howling synth to send the track into overdrive. As another synth melody sweeps in, TK cuts through the chaos with an introspective opening verse before Kenny Mason crashes in with a gritty guest verse. Live drums, distorted guitars, and surging synths continue to build around them, turning their vocals into something closer to rage-filled battle chants than traditional rap verses.
Partially written on tour last year, “DA BUSINESS” is the oldest song on YES and one of the album’s few guitar-led tracks. Kenny connected with the trio over DMs months earlier before joining them on the track, bringing Atlanta and South Africa together for one of the album’s most charged moments. “DA BUSINESS” follows the trio’s recent single “ALL THE SAME,” a swagger-heavy track built around a hypnotic Spanish-language vocal sample and live drums before a heavily distorted bass synth takes over in its final stretch, drawing inspiration from South Africa’s booming taxi rave scene. Together, the two singles offer an early look at the range of YES, moving between the rock, rap, and electronic sounds Internet Girl have made entirely their own.
Written largely during a week-long trip to South Africa’s Karoo region at the beginning of 2026, YES captures Internet Girl at a turning point. What began as an ad-lib TK would throw into his verses gradually became the philosophy behind the record: saying yes to an idea and committing to it completely, even before there’s any proof it will work. Across the album, that once-delusional confidence begins to feel real as the trio reflect on coming of age, growing more comfortable with themselves, and becoming increasingly assured in the music they make.
The new release arrives on the heels of a big year for the South African trio, who have brought their high-energy live show to stages around the world, including Pitchfork Music Festival Paris and Boiler Room Soweto, while co-headlining Kiss Kiss Festival in South Africa alongside Basement Jaxx.
There's Something Going On is the second studio album by Babybird, originally released in 1998.
The album is almost unrelentingly dark and mysterious, in much the same manner as his earlier lo-fi productions. Indeed, two of the tracks here, "You Will Always Love Me" and "There's Something Going On," were recorded straight to four-track. Jones' voice echoes out of lyrical valleys. "Take Me Back" is a horrific tale of an obsessive relationship, with lyrics about eyeballs scratched with rusty nails and a creepy chant of "dead, dead, dead" ad infinitum. It's a conceit that starts with the very first track, "Bad Old Man," where Jones sings of wife-beaters and a drowning in a duck pond. Musically, the album is more of a lean toward the baroque than Ugly Beautiful. One might describe it as stark, disturbed chamber pop. Beautiful melodies appear quite majestically out of Jones' psychological studies. "It's Not Funny Anymore" is bittersweet and touching, with Jones reaching for the album's emotional core over weeping, organic keyboards.
"There's Something Going On" is the tender conclusion, suggesting that Jones knows there's a better way of life than obsession and self-torture. There's Something Going On is definitely Baby Bird's most subtle album, and it's a fascinating listen from start to finish.
There's Something Going On is available as a limited numbered edition of 750 copies on turquoise vinyl and contains an insert.
Comfort with ambiguity, dynamic experimentation and melancholy are rife throughout Brody Price’s newest record, Leaf Miner’s Daughter. Classic alt-country at its core, this collection meticulously weaves together Americana into sluggish, heavy grooves; overdriven guitars, hook-laden acoustic dissonance - all bolstered by a songwriter full of heart and intention.
An integral member of the Dallas / Texas scene and national DIY touring community, Price has been quietly building a dedicated community of fans across the US since 2017, entirely independent and reliant on each other to build and shape the tours by word of mouth. Following a cassette recorded collection of country songs, ‘What’s The Point In Trying’ (2017), and the gorgeous and chaotic ‘Win A Trip To Palm Springs’ (2022), Price is tracing a sonic and narrative arc that feels specific, earnest and whimsical - not without its dark corners and deep questions.
The innate ability to find beauty among the rubble is rife throughout his newest, revealing an authentically tender desire to dig deeper to find relief and understanding. He invites us to empathize and sit alongside his turmoil in an effort to make ours more bearable. At home in his musicality and the discomfort of living, Price revels in the act of putting the pieces back together, giving us all permission to do the same.
When Index moves, it’s in lockstep, as a single, indivisible unit. Alan Creedon and Alex Lichtenauer (both ex-Control Top) started the project in the summer of 2025, and it quickly became clear that its sound would be an outgrowth of their close friendship. Eschewing the densely orchestrated compositions of their previous band, Index would instead focus on sweaty, visceral physicality, with Creedon’s guitar intuitively latched to Lichtenauer’s drum kit, navigating corridors of tricky rhythm as one. Creedon and Lichtenauer recorded Vis Inertiae in NYC with acclaimed producer Arthur Rizk (Power Trip, Show Me The Body). Despite a litany of freak injuries that befell Lichtenauer before and during the band’s studio time, they say it was the best experience they ever had in a recording session, and Creedon concurs. Rizk was brought into the process early on, when the band played him some bare-bones demos that impressed him, and he was critical in helping ferry the songs to their final forms.
Tony Reed is undoubtedly one of those artists whom fans of “heavy music” have, at least unknowingly, encountered on stage or on their turntables at some point. Bands like Pentagram, Mos Generator, Hot Spring Water, and the so-called supergroup Big Scenic Nowhere are just a small part of his discography, which he continues to expand as a producer and mixer.
CONSTANCE TOMB was Tony Reed’s first band, which he founded at age 19 and which was heavily influenced by the gothic movement of the early ’80s. There are recordings online from when they made “boombox recordings” or, later, when he recorded everything “hi-fi” on his own in the garage with just a microphone, preserving it all for posterity on cassettes. You can also find several solo cover versions released under the band’s name. It was a labor of love that Tony Reed never let go of, but there was never a real band that toured or released an album—until now!
Now Tony has breathed new life into his childhood love, CONSTANCE TOMB, and fused his fondness for dark ’80s bands with his heavy metal past. Bands like Southern Cult, Bauhaus, The Cure, Bowie, as well as Black Sabbath and Thin Lizzy have shaped his musical tastes. Now, a mix of old and new songs is being infused with fresh energy, reviving a solo project that had taken on a slightly artificial feel.
With Bo McConaghie on bass and Christian Roney on drums, the band has already played its first concerts in the northwestern United States to find their sound as a group. Joint rehe
Stitched together from organic percussion, field recordings, and textures gathered from across the globe, Vikmatic’s most recent TSoNYC EP, co-produced with label head Danilo Braca, plays like a love letter to New York City, penned in the language of friends and family scattered across its boroughs. Rooted primarily in house, jazz, and Balearic sounds, but pulling just as freely from the sounds of Brazil, Africa, and India, Neighbors moves to the rhythm of a city swept up in the collective pulse of its most lively season.
Playful and minimalistic, “W4 Street” is a jazzy house track that adds a scintillatingly smooth, beachy flair to a nostalgic New York energy for a combination that leaves us unsure of what is improvised and what has been rehearsed to absolute mastery.
The EP’s second track, “Flushing”, represents a dramatic departure from the airiness of the previous one. Haunting and mysterious, with a leaden kick and a capricious synth, there is no question that we are finding ourselves in an entirely different neighborhood.
Early in the track, “Sunset Park” transforms from a deep rumbling into a catchy warm-weather groove with satiny synth layers, textured rhythm, and unhurried guitar and synth solos, evoking a sense of pure ease and beach season contentment.
Sultry and dream-like, “Harlem River Drive” is the ideal send-off for Neighbors, an album firmly situated in the living memory of an iconic urban summer. Warm and bittersweet, with woodwinds comprising the heart of its instrumentation, it’s not hard to picture a sunset in Upper Manhattan.
Nearly a decade after the acclaimed 2017 release of Hometown, Victor, the mind behind Module One is back with his highly anticipated follow-up album, dropping early November.
Now settled in Berlin, Victor's sound deeply reflects his integration into the city's vibrant cultural cosmos. Moving beyond earlier blueprints, his music has matured into a nuanced, fully developed aesthetic based on the personal reflections, artistic environment of the city, and live performances played and heard. Adding an intimate, personal dimension to the project, Soela and D'Loive lend their delicate vocal touch, weaving seamless melodic textures into Victor's refined production.
The upcoming Album HOMETOWN II stands as both a personal milestone and a captivating new chapter for Module One. Vinyl Tastes Better…
Nalpas started triggering people into stroking bear(d)s with early releases on Alphacut Records around 2005-7 already.
Lately he kept fiercely digging into Ichneumon wasps and joined the honourable International Antimilitarist Insect Forces, just to return on wax with Aterrimus, Nalpas is firing his solo debut with two bony freetek junglecore tracks!
Roots 015 delivers 4 tracks of audio joy with Nenor (Classic, Heist, Quintessentials ) and Cory Wells (Robsoul, Guesthouse, Moulton) delivering the goods! "You Gonna Miss Me" is a primetime soulful vocal track that is both heartfelt and timeless. "We Love We True" is more of a dubby track that will sit perfect late or early. This is an ep that will be played multiple times in a night, just the way we like it
Jotel’s new EP on Warning calls upon long-time family and scene staples for a masterclass in stripped-back, high-impact dancefloor mesmerism. Shifting between rough-edged modular electronics and deep, organic aesthetics, the EP transforms the finest raw machine funk and 2000s-era progressive into mind-bending club anthems.
Opening the A side ‘Udo Suppi’ sets the tone with a rolling, space-infused groove. Driven by a buzzing, high-voltage bassline and fluid synth work it’s nodding to that golden crossover era where progressive house, early trance, and dark, driving techno collided. Followed by non other than the legend S.O.N.S, for many years a regular fixture behind the Warning decks, takes the track into his own sonic vortex, re-imagining the original with his signature deep-psy precision and intricate percussive drive.
On the flip, ‘Absolvere’ pushes deeper into trippy territory. A long-form, evolving journey built on rolling stabs, fluid arrangements, and an electric undercurrent. A track designed for special hours, late-night car rides, and fog-filled rooms. Closing out proceedings, Düsseldorf’s Trancesetter of Westphalia return to the label to rework ‘Absolvere’, injecting their trademark tribal energy and acid-laced, peak-time madness into the fold.
More than just a genre exercise, whether you call it Retro Goa for the club, Dark Progressive, or simply pristine, full-flavored dance music. WAR1211 is a celebration of long-standing friendships, raw hardware exploration, and strictly unlimited dancefloor fuel.
Over 10 years ago, Leon Michels released his first full length record, Sounding Out The City. It was Michels' first full length record under the moniker El Michels Affair. At the time, the budding retro soul scene consisted of mostly organ quartets a la The Meters and of course, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings were in the early days of their ascent to world domination. Leon Michels, who was 18 when recording Sounding Out The City began, had just released Thunder Chicken, the first record by his high school band The Mighty Imperials. At the time of SOTC, Michels was just discovering early rocksteady, afrobeat, and 60's garage rock, which inevitably crept its way into the songwriting. He purchased a Tascam 388, an 80's 1/4" reel to reel 8 track intended for home recordings, and began recording music in a 10x10 box with no windows that also doubled as his childhood bedroom. Along with fellow Mighty Imperials Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and Sean Solomon, and Michael Leonhart, Thomas Brenneck, and some of the musicians from The Dap Kings, Michels recorded the LP over a two year period. Upon it's release, it received some rave reviews and the small deep funk community ate it up, but due to the lack luster promotion and distribution the rest of the world was slow to catch on to the instrumental gems featured on SOTC, which Michels appropriately labelled as "cinematic soul". However, in 2005 it found it's way into the hands of the people who were organizing a series of concerts for Scion that paired bands with MC's. El Michels Affair was contacted about playing one show with Raekwon The Chef of Wu Tang Clan fame. The show was such a success it led to a tour, and then to another set of concerts that featured multiple members of the Wu-Tang Clan. This eventually led to the release of El Michels Affair's second record, "Enter the 37th Chamber" which introduced them to a much larger audience and has been their most successful release to date. Michels has since gone on to produce and co-produce numerous records for powerhouse soul artists like Lee Fields. He shares songwriting credits with Adele, Jay-Z, Ghostface Killah, Aloe Blacc, and has played on records by Ray LaMontagne, Lana Del Rey, The Black Keys and Dr. John.
To close out the year, Life In Patterns presents Spektrum II, the second installment in the compilation series curated by Ferdinger. This 16-track VA, scheduled to release in early December 2024, comes as a double vinyl with four digital bonus tracks and download codes.
Spektrum II ventures into the depths of dynamic techno, combining driving beats with intricate, groove-rich patterns. The compilation seamlessly shifts from deep, dubby tones to bright, euphoric moments, embodying the labels signature sound. Its a bold exploration of diverse sonic textures, blending harmonic and dissonant elements for an immersive listening experience.
As has been the case with a number of releases on Punctuality so far, Echo Chambered has already gained notoriety as a sleeper hit for those in the know. Fans of Evan Baggs and Rey Colino’s Radar stream from Dekmantel 2025 will instantly recognise Carousel, pulled from a white-label dubplate about half an hour into the set. Fast forward nine months and a flood of track ID requests later and PNCT011 is finally here: five expertly crafted rollers from a modern master of the craft, Bliss Inc.
It’s easy to see why there has been so much demand for Carousel. Its earworm vocal, delicate percussion programming, undulating low end and spacey sound design land it squarely in the sweet spot between the minimal, progressive and contemporary tech house that so many
diggers are seeking out.
While the A1 is an undeniable hit, each track truly sounds like a hard-to-find early 2000s gem—the kind of record a Discogs shark will flip for extortionate rates. Why? Maybe it’s the rolling basslines, the understated grooves, the organic but club-ready percussion, the vocal samples or the cerebral FX.
Maybe it’s the mature, floor-focused arrangements, or the way Bliss Inc. nods to different corners of the dance music spectrum while maintaining a distinct signature. Or more simply, perhaps it’s because each track is an expertly constructed club tool —built for DJs, but just as rewarding for listeners.
However you want to hear it, Echo Chambered has all the markings of a Punctuality classic. With all five tracks doing damage in equal measures, you know what to do…
In August 2022, Australia-based, French born fourth-world music legend Ariel Kalma was invited to participate in BBC Radio 3"s Late Junction series of special collaborations. The program pairs artists that have not previously collaborated to create new music together. Kalma was quick to suggest working together with two musicians whom he has never met - the International Anthem recording artists Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer, whose critically-acclaimed duo debut Recordings from the Âland Islands had been released just a few months earlier. Kalma sent an invitation to Chiu and Honer, which was received with great enthusiasm. Chiu had been a fan of Kalma"s work for a long time, even citing him as a major influence on his approach to electronic music composition. After meeting their goal of 20 minutes worth of music for the program (which was four pieces total), the three musicians were satisfied in what they would present, and sent along their work to the producers of Late Junction; but simultaneously they felt like there was much more to be said, more work to be done. There were several pieces that they had nearly completed that weren"t sent for inclusion in the radio program, and there were many ideas for refining those that had. The three musicians collectively agreed that they would continue work together and try to push the music further. The Closest Thing to Silence is the result of their efforts to take the collaboration further.
With nearly 20 albums & a similar amount of Eps & remixes, for labels such as Firescope, Exalt, Childhood Intelligence, Deeptrax, Fourier, Form@ out of Tokyo, Magnonic Signals and his own Spacetime Recordings, Darren Nye is one of the more prolific producers of the deep tech soul sound originated by B12, As One & Status in the early 90s Lunar Refraction is a 6 track exploration of intergalactic sounds, swirling pads, bubbling bass, analogue drum sounds & Detroit influenced synth riffs & stabs. Other influences shine through - the 70s Kosmiche Krautrock feel of Solar Drift, the Fingers style bass of Perception Shift & the ethereal acidic breakbeat What Is The Answer recalling early Plaid & Mo Wax era Stasis
Watch out for forthcoming radio show appearances on Kane FM & Soho Radio with Ross Allen. Radio spins from Colin Dale & Damo B.
Jamaica meets South Korea -- following his two BLESSYOU EPs, Turquoise and Journey Home, the Seoul-based artist returns with another stellar contribution, revisiting his early appreciation of reggae music: a 4-track EP by Korean producer and multi-instrumentalist Seungyoung Lee aka Mogwaa, immersing the listener in a rich blend of lovers rock, dub and reggae. The EP combines dreamy, dubbed-out atmospheres with warm basslines, lovers rock rhythms and subtle vocoder textures. Mogwaa approaches these Jamaican influences with a refined and distinctly personal aesthetic, creating a spacious and warm sound that feels both nostalgic and contemporary. Crucial for any contemporary music lover's record collection.
We’ve always been careful not to call Balmat an ambient label, because we like having the freedom to move, to drift, to morph. But with our 11th release, we turn our ears—proudly, blissfully—to a strain of ambient at its most timeless. The appropriately titled Dreams & Whispers comes from Warsaw’s Bartosz Kruczyński, who has recorded under a number of guises, Earth Trax, as well as his own name. Over the years, he’s touched upon deep house, breakbeats, acid, techno, electro, IDM, and more; often, the throughline running through a given album is simply the refusal to remain in any one place for long—well, that, and his unusually nuanced ear for harmony and texture.
Those qualities come to the fore on Dreams & Whispers, which might be the most focused encapsulation of Kruczyński’s atmospheric sensibilities to date.. Across 14 stripped-down tracks for shimmer and pulse, Kruczyński evokes overlapping styles in ambient—warm vibraphones, taut arps, massing strings, lonesome delay chains —but always with his own twist. Fitting the album’s title, the album is loosely divided into two distinct moods: The A-side, “Dreams,” is charged with subtle movement, rhythms spreading out like rings around skipped stones, while the B-side, “Whispers,” plunges into a zone of shadows and hush. The two complementary moods flow into one another like the faces of a Moebius strip, yielding an album that’s intuitively shaped and rich in emotion.
American Joe Babylon has been steering his Roundabout Sounds label through calming deep house waters for a decade or so. He has recently focussed on assembling this ongoing All Hands series (the name may be a nod to the analogue gear the tunes are made on? Sound-wise, it checks out) and volume three features another fine quartet. First up is DJ Honesty with a fine label debut in the form of the synth-laced swirler 'Walking Down Gratiot,' then label friend Mr. Hazeltinee aka John Tejada layers comic pads into an upright house rhythm on 'Zanzmatic'. San Francisco and more specifically Bay Area man Federsen offers super lo-fi and reserved deep house cuddle 'Sequential' while Babylon himself drops the slow burn shuffle of 'Play It By Ear'.
It is a real testament to the enduring quality of the early tech house blueprint laid down by Eddie Richards that whether he drops reissues of his early classics or more recent sounds, they always sell out. This EP arrived last summer and soon flew off the shelves os it is back once again on purple vinyl this time and sounding as fearsome as ever. 'Destiny' is roomy, with swung drums bringing a pendulous groove as twanging modulations and freaky vocals linger in the spaces. 'The Soul' is quicker and fleshes out with broad synth stokes and a bubbly low end. It's pure dancing tackle with a moody soul.
...of seminal Mr. Fingers album 'Amnesia', available officially for the first time in 32 years on Larry Heard's own Alleviated Records. This remastered collection of early Mr. Fingers works is an absolute must have.
![Plug - Robotic Futuristic [Printed Sleeve]](https://www.deejay.de/images/l/3/7/1267937.jpg)
![Plug - Robotic Futuristic [Printed Sleeve]](https://www.deejay.de/images/l/4/0/1267940.jpg)
