Phara returns with a second project under his In Glass alias. In 'Scratching the Surface', we're light years away from the heavier, more instructive dance records that have become synonymous with Phara's style. In this EP, the Belgian artist reaffirms his celestial, delicate sound in four tracks that delve further deeper into the emotional soundscape proposed in the first EP.
'Sally' begins the project with the most dance floor oriented of the four tracks, proposing an intoxicating blend of styles that bloom throughout its six minutes. Soft pads and bright keys twinkle along a cradling rhythm as In Glass delivers a truly musical piece that sifts through memories. Percussion is then taken out of the equation as 'All Things (424 Version)' comes and lands softly on the center stage. Lush, ambient waves come lapping at the shore of 'Scratching the Surface', describing nothing but space and serenity - a breath from everything. The dreamy tone of 'All Things' oscillates along reassuringly into the B side, keeping the tempo low and the sound design organic. Here, we step into In Glass's world of dub techno and adjacent sounds that defined his first record last year. 'Plateau' rises slowly from the wax with a round low end and suspended chords that hover high above. Opening stabs over a harmonic bassline make a head massage of a track that sways along. The raw emotion behind In Glass's music is inviting, flashing by as ethereal synths open and close to install a personal, meditative experience of electronic music. The percussion remains discrete, allowing the harmonic information to wash over the listener into the last track of the EP. He concludes with 'My Idle Hands', pressing further into the dub techno sound that echoes through a cathedral of memories. Blurry shapes pass by over a more determined rhythm section, confirming the intimate nature of In Glass's music. The music wanders along, its head in the clouds but with a full heart, telling stories of being lost and finding home.
'Palle Mikkelborg (b. 1941) - a spiritual jazz legend, acclaimed composer, trumpet player and electronic music pioneer - is back in the studio recording his first solo album in more than 25 years. Working with him as a producer is Jakob Bro, with whom he has recorded the great ECM albums Returnings with Jon Christensen and Thomas Morgan, and Strands with Marilyn Mazur.
'"When Palle decided to stop touring and performing live, I suggested that we sit down together and listen through the many MiniDiscs and DAT tapes he had tucked away, hoping we might find a new direction for making music together. We went through everything - recordings of orchestras and choirs, soundscapes, and so on - material he had worked on throughout his career,” says Jakob Bro. “I can still remember the first time we said it out loud. Suddenly, it made perfect sense in my mind: a solo album. An album devoted entirely to Palle - his sound, his vision, his voice. It felt like something the world truly needed.”
'This final opus sees Palle Mikkelborg re-interpret and record his own orchestral works and two pieces by Per Nørgaard and Thomas Laub as 'meditations' on solo piano, trumpet and flugelhorn mixed with soundscapes and guest performances by longtime collaborators Helen Davis, Jakob Bro and Thomas Li.
'As a soloist his sound on trumpet and flugelhorn is both much loved and familiar after decades at the forefront of Nordic Music, but on Light one is struck by the weight Palle Mikkelborg has given his soundscapes and the grand piano. Forever curious on what's ahead, the album underlines his spiritual and ever-seeking approach to free improvisation, classical composition, choral works and experimental sound landcapes.'
Over the last decade and a half, Rotation Sound System’s annual gathering in the Staffordshire countryside has become one of underground dance music culture’s true success stories – an intimate gathering of like-minded friends and partygoers, powered by a custom-built six-way sound system, with music provided by a carefully curated line-up of dusty-fingered diggers, selectors and hand-picked live performers.
At the heart of the collective’s unique and much-loved approach lies a dedication to finding and sharing lesser-known gems and audio obscurities – fantastic records whose charm and quality has long been overlooked.
Last year, the core members of the crew – founders Dean Meredith and Ben Shenton (renowned for their productions as Mind Fair), and Wrekin’ Havoc trio Rob J, Stuart Robinson and Rich Hall – offered a snapshot of their unique musical approach via debut compilation Everything You Are About To Hear Is True, Volume 1, in the process introducing a global audience to some of the countless unknown mid-tempo classics nestled in their collections.
Fresh from another sold out edition of their acclaimed micro-festival, they’re back with volume two, another must-have collection of slept-on classics, loved-up shufflers and wide-eyed Balearic beats, all of which have played a part in Rotation’s story over the last 13 years.
Appearing on gatefold double vinyl with extensive liner notes telling the stories behind the tracks, Everything You’re About To Hear Is True, Volume 2 is full to bursting with music that sounds mind-blowing on the crew’s high-end sound system.
For proof, check the analogue-rich intergalactic shuffle of Paul Atreides’ 2015 jam ‘Arrakis Walk’, the relaxed boogie-soul of Rocky Winters’ Chaz Jankel produced ‘Vicious Circle’, the easy-listening-jazz-rock bliss of Vincent Maclin’s ‘Should’ve Took a Chance’, the 80s soul squelch of ‘Ecstasy (Centurion Mix)’ by Endgames and the immersive British dub drift of Sigma’s ‘Remember (Dub Style)’.
Everywhere you look, you’ll find eye-opening and ear-pleasing delights. There’s Pinky’s lightly acid-flecked, breakbeat-fuelled, acid house-era street soul classic ‘I Wanna Be The One (Instrumental Groove)’, the 1992 new age downtempo seduction of Linda Myers (‘Shine On Me’), the Clavinet-and-synth sporting jazz-rock/space-rock fusion of Wolfhound (1984 gem ‘Another Moon Song’), the Gallic colour of Buzy’s ‘Keep Cool (Version Maxi)’ and the guitar solo-laden electrofunk explorations of mid-80s UK act Lifesighs (‘Get Serious’, here presented in its extended instrumental form).
HIKARIGASASHIKOMU translates as ‘Light Shines In’, a Japanese phrase conveying a sense of hope in a difficult place. Opening new creative possibilities for Foodman, this astonishing album is an introspective yet hyperactive body of work, representing the clarity and light found after a period of self-exploration. While this is a deeply personal record, it also captures the now-universal sound of a brain stretched between 500 open tabs, multitasking into oblivion in a world in which attention deficit is a global media environment, not merely a privatized psychological malaise. Focusing more on the use of voice, the album incorporates Foodman’s own looped vocals, singing elements of Japanese children’s songs and playground rhymes, and his everyday thoughts. Despite its charm and innocence, this soundworld leaps around manically, fractures and dissolves. Foodman’s voice repeats, disassembles, speeds up and down and is bounced around deliriously, as sound elements call and respond around him. Structurally and vocally, influences are drawn from footwork, ghetto house, and baile funk, all of which are maximally abstracted into bursts of spiralling psychedelic effects.
Injury Reserve was originally a trio, consisting of rappers Ritchie With a T and Stepa J. Groggs and producer Parker Corey. Their mixtapes Live From The Dentist (released in 2015) and Floss (2016) earned them underground buzz, and they capitalized on the attention with their debut album in 2019, the eponymous Injury Reserve.
The group's momentum was put on hold when in June of 2020 Groggs tragically passed away. By the Time I Get to Phoenix was largely completed ahead of Groggs' passing with his contributions, and will be the first Injury Reserve music to be released since their eponymous debut album. Ritchie and Corey took the past year to complete the record, and the title has meaning past simply referencing Injury Reserve's hometown. It's an homage to a song that has been covered countless times, which is in line with Injury Reserve's ethos and approach when it comes to creating music. The group pulls from several styles and eras of hip hop, but runs each one through the Injury Reserve lens, putting their own distinct and cohesive sound across their references. Nowhere is that dynamic more present than on By the Time I Get to Phoenix.
We're thrilled to present a very special vinyl release that's sure to bring back some amazing memories. It's been exactly 20 years since the 2 Black scored an incredible hit in Italy and abroad with their unforgettable track "Waves of Luv" - you know, the one that takes us “in alto mare"!
To celebrate this milestone, we're releasing a commemorative vinyl that's packed with goodness. On Side A, you'll find the two most-played original versions: the Soulstatic Radio Mix and the Mattara Vs Vtraxx Extended Mix. These are the classics that made us fall in love
with the track in the first place.
But wait, there's more! Flip it over to Side B, and you'll discover three brand new, super-fresh remixes that bring "Waves of Luv" right into 2024:
This vinyl is the perfect blend of nostalgia and contemporary sound. It's a must-have for any dance music enthusiast, and it'll be the perfect addition to your summer playlists. Don't miss out on owning this piece of dance music history!
Get ready to ride the "Waves of Luv" all over again!
Season Two continues with its fifth edition - a shift south this time, from KiF's English hedgerows to the island of Lutruwita, Tasmania, and the work of Soda Lite.
A gooseberry plant took root in the sand between the bricks of Alex's back patio - nutrient-deficient leaves and all - and fruited regardless. That's most of the appeal: "I'm drawn to species that survive in the interstices of human industrialisation." The husk itself carries the same idea, shielding the berry until it's ready to be let go.
Past Soda Lite records - Earthbound, Aqua Solar Cura, Vale & Stone - built outward from field recordings first. Here that flipped: you can't field-record a plant, only the noise around it, so only two tracks (Vibrant Matter and An Sí Gaoithe) carry field sound at all. The rest came from narrowing to a single species instead of the wider non-human world, and "trying to create and replicate sound and energy on the level of the plant and its perceptive world."
Two more things worth knowing. ‘Bryn Celli Ddu’ takes its name from a Neolithic burial chamber in Wales, aligned so the summer solstice sunlight reaches its back wall - the sun turning up again as its own recurring character. And ‘An Sí Gaoithe (Return)’ is a reworking of a Vale & Stone title, old fragments reprocessed into something new - "a bit like composting."
Soda Lite is the recording project of Alex Last, a gardener and composer working from Lutruwita on unceded Palawa land. Their music moves through field recordings gathered directly from the island's own biomes - coastline, forest, alkaline lake bed - alongside slow, warbling synth work, built less as backdrop than as document: proof of a specific place, at a specific time, being listened to closely. Past records have taken their titles and themes from geology and land relationships as often as botany - Aqua Solar Cura, Earthbound, Vale & Stone - so a plant with its own mineral-adjacent etymology (soda, found in dried alkaline lakebeds; lite, from the Greek for stone) suits the pairing.
A timeless classic - coming up on nearly 20 years since the original 12's were released and the very first time this LP has collectively been available on wax. (over 15 years since last in circulation) This edition was remastered to analog perfection from the legendary Stefan Betke (POLE) sonically sculpting the original work into a true masterpiece - this album has never sounded so alive! This is truly a multidimensional sound experience; it's like taking a swim in an analogue ocean and being immersed into the deepest end of the Marianas Trench. This edition features two cuts, "A Night To Remember" (as featured on Richie Hawtin's ENTER: Ibiza 4XCD mix) & "Under The Ocean" from the original 2009 edition of the album. The remaining tracks were selected from CD2 including "Tswana Dub" (Phase90 Restructure) as featured on Deadbeat's classic mix "Radio Rothko" on NYC's theAgriculture. Also included is a "live" (recorded from the house booth) performance at "dub echoes" in NYC (a screening for the feature film).
a A1. A Night To Remember Remastered 11:07
b A2: Ocean View Remastered 5:30
c B1. Kingston’s Burning Dub live in nyc 8:08
d B2: De Lion’s Den Remastered 4:20
e C1: Never Forget Remastered 9:06
g D1: Love In Lofi Remastered 13:00
Remastered 4:44
a A1. A Night To Remember Remastered 11:07
b A2: Ocean View Remastered 5:30
c B1. Kingston’s Burning Dub live in nyc 8:08
d B2: De Lion’s Den Remastered 4:20
e C1: Never Forget Remastered 9:06
g D1: Love In Lofi Remastered 13:00
Remastered 4:44
Since starting Bytes in 2019 we’ve fielded a lot of messages along the lines of, “Is this ever going to be released on vinyl?” The bulk of these requests have concerned remixes of artists on Bytes done by Andy Bell (RIDE/Oasis) under his electronic alter-ego GLOK. And on realising that he has done four for us now (Franz Kirmann, Steve Queralt & Michael Smith, Herrmann Kristoffersen and Seagoth), it seemed silly not to compile them all together on a four-track 12” EP. The super limited edition 12” is on black wax and comes in the original Bytes house bag with a vinyl sticker containing all the release info signed by Andy. Edition of 250. No repress.
A1. SOLITARY (GLOK REMIX) - FRANZ KIRMANN
The first remix Andy ever did for Bytes was a radical reworking of ‘Solitary’, the towering ambient closer to Franz Kirmann’s ‘Madrapour’ album, which was released on Bytes in 2019. Andy’s remix is a heartbreaking, melancholic 3am banger. This is one for fans of Four Tet and Jon Hopkins, a slowburner with billowing plumes of distortion that builds towards an ecstatic rush of a finale.
A2. CHALDEAN ORACLE (GLOK REMIX) - STEVE QUERALT & MICHAEL SMITH
In 2023 Andy took ‘Chaldean Oracle’, a track from the collaboration between his RIDE bandmate Steve Queralt and the writer Michael Smith, down the K-Hole, eschewing Michael’s vocal almost entirely and turning in a Detroit dub-techno monster with echoes of Bandulu and Carl Craig in its shimmering melodies, eerie distortion and pounding drums.
‘Gone Gold’ was the title track of the excellent second album by ambient-techno group Herrmann Kristoffersen (2021). Andy taps deep into the dub at the heart of the original, with echoes of John Carpenter's soundtracks and his own extended electronic excursions under the GLOK moniker.
B2. ETERNITY (GLOK REMIX) - SEAGOTH
It was Andy who brought Seagoth to the attention of Bytes when he played ‘Eternity’ on his Soho Radio show in 2020. It all came full circle when Bytes released ‘Eternity’ as a single in 2021, with a stunning remix by Andy in his GLOK guise on the flip. Andy strips the track back to showcase the resonant vocal in all its glory before the blissed-out outro that makes full use of the track’s dancefloor-friendly drum break.
Die größten Hits des Freestyle-Künstlers auf Vinyl!
Mit „Hit Collection Vol. 2“ präsentiert Stevie B eine Auswahl seiner beliebtesten Songs und lässt die große Zeit des Freestyle-Sounds wieder aufleben. Der US-amerikanische Sänger, Songwriter und Produzent steht wie kaum ein anderer für gefühlvolle Melodien, eingängige Beats und romantische Dance-Hits.
Die LP enthält unter anderem den Welthit „Because I Love You (The Postman Song)“ sowie weitere beliebte Titel wie „I‘ll Be By Your Side“ und „Children of Tomorrow“.
Ob für eingefleischte Stevie-B-Fans, Liebhaber des klassischen Freestyle oder Vinyl-Sammler. „Hit Collection Vol. 2“ bietet nostalgischen 80er-/90erJahre-Sound und jede Menge musikalische Erinnerungen auf schwarzem Vinyl
Earlier this year, Blue Hour released his debut album Selva, a record steeped in the imagery of lost and forgotten worlds. Now, rather than let that world stand still, Blue Hour opens it up, inviting a handpicked crew of fresh talent to step inside and make it their own.
The result is a remix companion that reimagines Selva through fresh eyes and ears. Each remix artist brings their own sonic fingerprint to the source material, some peeling back the original's dense atmospherics to expose skeletal rhythms underneath, others pushing further into the album's dreamlike haze. What emerges isn't a simple tribute, but a genuine dialogue: new talents in conversation with an album that was already asking questions about memory, erosion, and what gets left behind when a world disappears.
It's a fitting extension of Selva's original premise: if the debut album conjured ruins and jungles swallowed by time, this remix project treats those same soundscapes as living, mutable spaces, ready to be excavated, reinterpreted, and given new life by a new generation of voices.
(remastered classic incl DL card) Environ is proud to present the Metro Area 15th Anniversary Edition, Metro Area's eponymous debut album, meticulously remastered using the original source tapes and generously spread across three slabs of vinyl. The12-track triple LP and digital package combines all the songs from both the original US and licensed European releases, and features new commemorative artwork unique to this edition. In the late nineties, the budding producers Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani bonded over their shared love of slower tempos and '70s and '80s NYC club culture. Obsessed with record digging and the sounds they heard on late-night "club classics" radio shows—and turned off by current releases they saw as artlessly "updating" sublime disco by sampling, filtering and subjugating them with huge kick drums —the duo set out to discover how their favorite old 12" records were made. They naturally gravitated towards extended dubs of songs—full of strange mistakes and echoing backing tracks—instead of the better-known vocal versions. Lacking the big budgets and gear that made so many of their favorite classic records come together, they were forced to take a guerrilla approach. They reprogrammed their techno-oriented arsenal of secondhand synths and samplers, using novel digital recording technology to capture live instrumentation and prioritizing mood over hooks, and the resulting music was just wrong enough to sound unlike anything else being released at the time.After just four underground 12" releases, the duo—now well-known as Metro Area—released their first and only album, Metro Area, in the fall of 2002. Fifteen years later, it's time to celebrate the culmination of their shared history and inspiration once again. Environ is proud to present the Metro Area 15th Anniversary Edition, Metro Area's eponymous debut album, meticulously remastered using the original source tapes and generously spread across three slabs of vinyl. The 12-track triple LP and digital package combines all the songs from both the original US and licensed European releases, and features new commemorative artwork unique to this edition.
Dark Entries is ecstatic to announce Terminal Fascination, a retrospective release of the music of Camille O’Grady, subversive artist, leather witch, punk poet, and gender saboteur. O’Grady cut her teeth in New York’s burgeoning punk scene at clubs like CBGB’s, where her band Leather Secrets would share the stage with acts like Television. She became one of the few women to be welcomed into the Mineshaft, Wally Wallace’s legendary Manhattan gay BDSM club. Towards the end of the 70s, she would trek west to San Francisco to be with her partner, performance artist and gallerist Robert Opel, who was tragically killed in 1979. O’Grady would pass away from COVID in 2020, with her voluminous works across various media - text, image, and sound - having been unpublished during her lifetime.
Working with O’Grady’s estate, Dark Entries has assembled thirteen of her finest recordings, including instant classics like “James Dean to the Rescue,” “Tourniquet,” and, of course, “Toilet Kiss.” Two songs, “Angel with a Key” and “Love Comes Like a Cutthroat,” were recorded at a studio in Los Angeles for a 7” release that never materialized, while the rest of the material was recorded live in 1979 at The Ambush, a San Francisco leather club. O’Grady’s songs, often written from the perspective of a gay man, explode like a genderfuck version of Patti Smith, like Buffy St. Marie in leather, like the hedonic utopianism of the 1960s dragged (blissfully) through the broken glass of the 1970s. The release of Terminal Fascination coincides with the publication of ‘A Cross-Worlds Angel,’ a 300-page book of O’Grady’s work by Phillip Zimmerman. The record includes an insert featuring liner notes, lyrics, and photographs. Celebrate Camille O’Grady, the artist Jack Fritscher described as an “earth mother, a leather lioness of the arts.”
Subject Sue is an Amsterdam-based artist creating dystopian nightclub music at the intersection of darkwave and ethereal techno. Inspired by queer club culture and the fragile edge between euphoria and estrangement, her music unfolds into a cinematic nocturnal haze.
Music has always been part of her life. As a vocalist and keyboard player, she performed in various projects and studied Visual Arts, where she explored themes of alter egos, personal realities, and the tension between subjectivity and objectivity in storytelling. Over time, she shifted from being an observer of these themes to embodying them herself. What began as an alter ego gradually evolved into something more personal.
Through Subject Sue, she explores desire, identity, and the strange beauty of the night, transforming fragments of her subjective inner world into cinematic club music. Drawing inspiration from Amsterdam’s queer nightlife and fleeting moments of intimacy, she creates music that inhabits the space between desire and isolation.
Debut EP Details In The Dark explores the blurred boundaries between lust and romance, intimacy and alienation through six tracks rich with pulsating synthesizers, textured soundscapes, and haunting vocal harmonies.
Aetheria marks the second chapter of this journey, where Egyptian Greyhound explores an emotional landscape shaped by house, trance and progressive influences.
Each track reveals a different facet of the same ever-evolving experience, gradually unfolding into a world of its own. Intimate and introspective at times, expansive and euphoric at others, the music moves through shifting atmospheres, hypnotic rhythms and melodies that linger long after they fade.
Rather than following a fixed path, Aetheria invites you to surrender to the moment and discover where the sound takes you. From its first breath to its final echo, the journey unfolds through emotion, movement and an immersive sonic atmosphere, leaving space for something new to emerge.
VUO14 delivers a journey through spacey deep techno moods, guided by Kirill Matveev. Side A features two tracks seamlessly blended into one continuous flow, inviting you to either focus on each part individually or let the narrative unfold as a whole.
On the flipside, Rasmus Hedlund takes the listener further into the night, raising the tension with a hypnotic dub excursion. Closing the record, Tm Shuffle reshapes the atmosphere into a bass-heavy, reverberated and house-tinged version - best experienced in front of a powerful sound system.
A versatile record for deep techno selectors and sonic explorers alike.
For the last decade and change, Lazarusman has steadily worked his way towards becoming a seminal voice in electronic music. In that time, he has left no genre untouched, bringing his brand of metaphysical, pun-heavy, imagery-driven, uplifting poetry to audiences across the globe.
These exploits have earned him a 2021 Grammy nomination and countless chart-topping records with some of the most remarkable producers in the industry.
His debut album, Skin, is an exploration of identity. Lazarusman questions his place in the world, reflecting on growing up in a now-free South Africa. The album touches on colourism, racism, faith, love and the existential crisis of existing in a divided world.
The album is also a celebration of the many genres that inspire his poetry from deep, tech and Afro house to breakbeats and jazz. But it is equally a celebration of the word, and the power it carries.
“A man is only as good as his word.”This quote epitomises Lazarusman’s honest approach to an album that reflects the last 15 years of his career. With productions from FKA Mash, Stimming, Dwson, Boogie Vice, Zitow Mowa, Axone and Johannes Brecht, Lazarusman presents a kaleidoscope of sounds.
DJ support by Keinemusik, Stimming, Acid Pauli, Xinobi, Stavroz, Xique Xique, Paco Osuna, and many more.
A collection of vinyl and limited digital releases, curated by Millsart, an alias of Jeff Mills, of his most eclectic and transcendent compositions that derive from his Every Dog Has Its Day project as well as new unreleased works. Vernacular creations that fall off from the "other side" of the Electronic Music tree, this project is designed for the experienced Techno music listeners, and its goal is to reflect upon the pure artistry of the craft of storytelling. A realization between music and life. Whereas "dancing" is the goal of Dance Music, the goal of this music is about "reflecting on the complexity and simplification of life".Soundtracks for people in their evolutionary process.
This release 'Drifter' is about 'Hype'.
Hype
An animal that prowls on the vulnerable - it excites those who might be looking the other way or with their eyes and minds wide shut.
What is life without hype?
As a transitional tool, hype can be most effective especially when impulse reactions are at play. Something of a psychological currency, there is a lot to gain by giving people what they want - the rush that comes with taking part in a process of making something bigger, more successful and more preferred. Even if there is nothing there.
What's wrong with getting exciting about something?
There are only a few rare masterclass cases that have lasted a lifetime.
As Andy Warhol proclaimed that "everyone will be World famous for 15 minutes" rings darkly true in an era when each one of us can be the talent scout, artist, critic, audience.......and then a revisionist, hoping to bring hype back again by reminding people how great the first round felt.
We are all free to use our attention and time anyway we please. This is the freedom we have, right?
In most cases, we wake up and at some point, the question of justification becomes a debate between those who found unconditional solace and those who re-discovered the subject of substance and "kicked the tires".
Should I care if others like or dislike something?
For some, the hype of something never ends. It hardens and becomes part of a foundation like a cement podium. Something to be stood on to speak over all dissenting voices.
The Kraftminded EP is a premeditated sonic assault on your Deep House sensibilities. Jerome Sydenham, Kyle Hall, Fatima Njai, Theodor Luv, Kyle OBR, Jovonnn and E-Man all get strapped for the execution of this DJ friendly club excursion. Highly recommended for DJ's and House music lovers!
TORRE return to Musiq Voyage with Phocaea Vol. 2, a new chapter in their ongoing Mediterranean journey. The Aix-en-Provence duo, Jean-Marc and Patrick Torre, deliver two original tracks, Sormiou and Les Sirènes du Frioul, inspired by Marseille, its coastline and the deep connection between the city and the sea. Blending disco, house, boogie and Balearic influences, TORRE once again shape a warm, hypnotic and distinctly Mediterranean sound.
The EP is completed by two remixes from leading figures of the Italian underground. *Gigi Testa, one of the most respected names in Naples’ deep house scene, brings his signature soulful, deep and groove-driven approach to the TORRE sound, while **Giovanni Damico* delivers a refined rework infused with funk, cosmic textures and dancefloor energy. Together, the four tracks offer different perspectives on the same Mediterranean landscape, moving seamlessly from sunlit afternoons to late-night club atmospheres.
With more than two decades of musical exploration behind them, TORRE have built a distinctive sound between disco, house and electronic music, earning support from artists such as Carl Craig and releasing underground favourites including Corps à Corps and Baleora. With Phocaea Vol. 2, Musiq Voyage and TORRE continue to explore their own Mediterranean mythology — from the turquoise waters of Sormiou to the mysterious shores of Frioul — with a release that feels equally at home on a Balearic beach, a Marseille terrace or a late-night dancefloor.
Esoteric Ears is a new label from Barcelona’s Conor Brophy.
Its first release comes from an unsung hero of the early 00s: Julian Foddy. As Katakana, Foddy released a string of now sought-after EPs, with a signature, brooding sound in the sweet spot between progressive, breaks and tech house. EARS 01 represents Katakana’s first release in over two decades, archival tracks forgotten for 20 years but that sound like they could have been produced yesterday, perfectly tuned for contemporary dance floors and listeners.
Side-long A1 ‘Incline’ is a driving but patient percussive progressive groove: heavy but spacious. On side B the stabs and bass pressure of ‘Xii’ are primed for peak time play; B2 ‘Fear of the Unknown’ is more heads down and pensive, with gradually unfurling hopeful melodies, perfect for mornings and after hours.
For the third release on Earthbound, Mihail P steps into a slightly different frame of mind with Silent Mirrors — an EP that pulls his atmospheric, emotive sound toward the rougher edges of 90s tech house, breakbeat and electro.
While Mihail P has become known for spacious productions, warm pads and mellow melodic detail, Silent Mirrors is about merging that side of his sound with something more direct and club-focused. There is a clear nod here to the halcyon days of UK tech house and labels and artists such as Primitive Urges and Pure Science, but filtered through Mihail P’s own sensibility rather than treated as an exercise in nostalgia.
Of course everyone knows Kurt Hauenstein aka Supermax. He was one of the few Austrians to shape the sound of late-1970s disco, performing and selling records around the world. Not many know his daughters Judy and Nicola, however, and the fact that they in 1987 wrote a song that they recorded together with their father. Well, here it is: Cracy Coconuts, “Rubberdub Dance” – a true Hauenstein family affair. We are proud to re-release this super rare 7” that proves, once and for all, that Austrians can excel at digi-dub. Timelessly tropical and beautifully bouncy, its vibe is quite different from the iconic Supermax productions. Here, Judy and Nicola’s sweet yet confident vocals replace the moustache-driven sotto voce singing that we love Supermax for. The result is oh-so-catchy and bound to be a hit.
French producer Moar is back with a brand-new, 100 per cent Boom Bap project, surrounded by his trusty old MPCs and SPs, just as he does so well!! An album infused with soulful and jazzy sounds, featuring top-class MCs such as Rasco, J-Live, El da Sensei (Artifacts), Awon, John Robinson, Napoléon da Legend, Dumi Right, Mikal and his Beatmatics colleague DJ Vince on the cuts!!
This record is a real treat for fans of 90s hip-hop, with samples that really pop on a beautifully marbled vinyl!
Already a boom bap classic…
“What Robot Says L” on What Robot Says Records is a deeply immersive Dub Techno journey crafted for demanding listeners who seek atmosphere, precision, and emotional depth beyond conventional dancefloor music. Across four carefully sculpted tracks, the release moves through shifting moods and textures, balancing raw energy with subtle elegance while exploring the deeper and more hypnotic side of techno.
A1. Nicolas Barnes – Dusted Maze opens the EP with a smooth and introspective approach, combining delicate textures, refined grooves, and floating harmonic layers that capture the timeless spirit of classic Dub Techno through a modern lens.
A2. Continuing the journey with TM Shuffle, Monoder – Vihreesametti delivers a warmer and more fluid interpretation of the genre, blending rolling grooves, dub-driven chords, and sophisticated sound design into a deeply immersive experience.
On the B-side, B1. Denizo – Versus follows with dark dub pressure, stripped-back rhythmic architecture, and evolving ambient detail, creating a hypnotic late-night atmosphere filled with tension and movement.
B2. Closing the EP, The Open Circle – Shinkai dives into deeper and more mysterious territory, emphasizing submerged atmospheres, minimal rhythmic tension, and profound spatial depth that slowly unfolds with every listen.
WRSL1 – “What Robot Says L” is not designed for casual listening, but for those who appreciate Dub Techno as an evolving exploration of mood, space, and sonic detail — a refined and highly immersive statement from some of the genre’s most skilled contemporary artists.
but wait a minute.. Does anybody know What Robot Says?
Arno E. Mathieu returns with a new EP on Musiq Voyage
A Mediterranean horizon in motion.
Arno E. Mathieu returns with a new Balearic journey where electronic disco grooves meet funky guitar, atmospheric synthesizers, mystic chants and driving percussion.
Rooted in the warmth of the Mediterranean but built for movement, the EP unfolds like an endless landscape — from the coastline to the distant horizon. Organic guitar lines, hypnotic bass and percussive rhythms lock into spacious electronic textures, creating a sound that feels simultaneously earthy, cosmic and deeply danceable.
Balearic in spirit, disco at heart, house and psychedelic in atmosphere and driven by a strong sense of place.
After releases and remixes connected with labels and artists including Compost, Real Tone, Earthrumental, Joe Claussell, I:Cube, Mark E, Beanfield and Max Essa, Arno E. Mathieu continues to build a body of work where dance music becomes a form of landscape painting.
Sun on the water. Bass beneath the feet. Guitar in the distance. The horizon keeps moving.
Hackney based Hidden Sounds Records launches – with support from Emotional Recordings – it’s Dark Times label by diving in the the music of Alkahest, a short-lived project from Canadian brother-production duo Lex and Rew MacCrimmon.
For the second EP, the Twisted Up release is re-examined, with a tweaked track list to represent the times and how their sound continues in relevance today. Released in 2 years (1994-1996), Alkahest was the darker side of the MacCrimmon’s productions and allowed them to focus on twisted, psychedelic electronics, away from their main Legion Of Green Men project.
Self-described music obsessives from a young age – lying under a home-made harpsichord, with their heads in the resonator box was an early indication of a love outside the norm. Experiments with forks and pencils on strings – totally unaware of the likes John Cage – highlighted an interest in sound from unusual places.
Anything with a synth notably grabbed their attention, going to the public library to take out BBC Sound Effects and Morton Subotnick albums, sat alongside contacting European mail order catalogues, to grow their knowledge and record collections.
As early productions formed, working under the sound production name of Incarnate, their love of art was just as influential as music. The likes of M.C. Escher, Salvador Dali, Bridget Riley and the Op Art movement, was all part of brothers in their progression to form the Post Contemporary label in 1992.
Following the DIY ethos of the music they had long been buying, their “indie ethic” influences all coalesced in the label, not conforming to one sound or tempo, placed them within the electronic music coming from Canada, but also, out on their own.
Twisted Up expands the Alkahest sound, the title cut a stomping anthem, it’s unrelenting drums and lifting strings a call to arms. The compelling Shake arrives, acid techno rewiring synapsis, dub static between the beats.
On the flip, Twisted Another is just that, a reversion excursion, pushing the psychedelic synthesis to the forefront, stabs call and respond. Closing the EP with the perfectly titled, Kiss My Acid, a journey of industrial bang, reflexed, Alkahest showing their sound is pulsating, widescreen overtures.
At the foot of the mountain. Our gaze is inclined toward the summit.
Toward the ascent. The destination that awaits us.
From the valley, we look up at the summit: our destination. But also the path: the true destination.
We can already trace our route, and we are already imagining ourselves walking up there. Along the small ridge, just above the tree line. There, we take a short break and look for the exact spot in the valley where we were standing earlier. It is strange to grasp that we have actually climbed this mountain. To look down from up here at the place where we were just moments ago – the same place we looked up from, toward the place where we are standing now.
And now, knowing what it is like to be up here, we remember what we imagined it would be like back then. What we believed it would mean to stand here.
Along the way, our gaze wanders back and forth. Up toward the mountain, down into the valley, sometimes only at our shoes. We keep walking, one step after another. Our thoughts detached. Our body functioning purely mechanically.
Step left. Step right. Step left. Step right.
Our mind has completely detached itself, and our thoughts race at an immense speed. They summon the most different moments. Moments from our lives. Moments that shaped us, that made us who we are. Or are we perhaps simply trying to understand who we are and how we got here?
It is strange that reaching the summit and looking down could make us believe that we have finally reached, or are striving toward, some superior, triumphant position. When in fact, it is really only about looking at the path we inevitably have to take. Processing impressions from a certain distance. Reconsidering what we have experienced, without losing sight of what lies ahead.
Our gaze turns back toward the summit.
Is there a destination?
An ascent? A summit? A descent? The return?
Or is it only about the insights we encounter along the way?
Am Fuß des Berges. Unser Blick ist zum Gipfel geneigt.
Auf den Aufstieg. Das Ziel, das uns erwartet.
Vom Tal aus blicken wir auf den Gipfel: unser Ziel. Aber auch den Weg: das wahre Ziel. Unsere Route kann man jetzt schon abstecken, und wir stellen uns bereits vor, wie wir dort oben laufen. Über den kleinen Grat, leicht oberhalb der Baumgrenze. Dort machen wir eine kleine Pause und suchen genau die Stelle im Tal, an der wir vorhin noch standen. Es ist verrückt, zu begreifen, dass wir diesen Berg tatsächlich hinaufgestiegen sind. Von hier oben auf den Ort hinunterzusehen, an dem wir eben noch waren – an denselben Ort, zu dem wir hinaufgeblickt haben, als wir noch dort unten standen. Und jetzt, da wir wissen, wie es ist, hier oben zu sein, erinnern wir uns daran, was wir uns damals darunter vorgestellt haben. Was wir geglaubt haben, es würde bedeuten, hier zu stehen.
Unterwegs wandert unser Blick hin und her. Hinauf zum Berg, hinunter ins Tal, manchmal nur auf unsere Schuhe. Wir gehen weiter, einen Schritt nach dem anderen. Unsere Gedanken losgelöst. Unser Körper funktioniert rein mechanisch. Schritt links. Schritt rechts. Schritt links. Schritt rechts.
Unser Geist hat sich völlig losgelöst, und unsere Gedanken rasen mit einer ungeheuren Geschwindigkeit. Sie rufen die verschiedensten Momente herauf. Momente aus unserem Leben. Momente, die uns geprägt haben, aus denen wir geworden sind, wer wir sind. Oder versuchen wir vielleicht einfach nur zu verstehen, wer wir sind und wie wir hierhergekommen sind?
Es ist schon seltsam, dass das Erreichen des Gipfels und der Blick nach unten uns glauben lassen könnten, dass wir endlich eine überragende, triumphale Position erreicht haben oder anstreben würden. Dabei geht es doch eigentlich nur um den Blick auf den Weg, den wir zwangsläufig beschreiten müssen. Eindrücke mit etwas Abstand zu verarbeiten. Erlebtes noch einmal Revue passieren zu lassen, ohne den Blick nach vorne zu verlieren.
Unser Blick wendet sich wieder dem Gipfel zu. Gibt es ein Ziel? Einen Aufstieg? Einen Gipfel? Einen Abstieg? Die Rückkehr? Oder geht es nur um die Erkenntnisse, die uns unterwegs begegnen?
If it's extreme, leave it to us. Challenging the sound, playing with the sound, laughing at the sound. A docking of debut recordings from the most talked-about street artists and "sound collages & sound gags" by pro musicians with eccentric ideas. An exciting, bold, and humorous "bright" New Wave omnibus album. Featuring artists like: Kaoru Sato (EP-4), Masumi Hara & BANANA, Shingo Tomoda, Chinju, Mammy, MUZEUM, and more.
Blume presents two pieces composed in 1970 by the American pianist and composer David Tudor (1926-1996), one of electronic music's most important pioneers, for the Pepsi-Cola Pavilion, a unique artist-designed and programmed space for Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan, created by Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.). Pepsibird and Anima Pepsi deploy electronic technology as a means to experience sound in ways that are anything but matter of fact, rendering liberated environments within and through which one might democratically express and commune. Viewed through the lens of what was, is, and might have been, they offer the tools for time travel: an unmediated encounter with radical, optimistic ideas that gave way to the complex cultural landscape of our time.
Initially trained on organ and then piano, Tudor emerged as a leading figure within New York's musical vanguard after his groundbreaking 1950 performance of Stefan Wolpe's Battle Piece and the American premiere of Pierre Boulez's Second Sonata. Within less than a year he had joined the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as its accompanist, a role he kept until his death, and began one of his most lasting creative relationships with John Cage, who would state that his entire output between 1951 and the end of the 1960s was written with Tudor in mind. Christian Wolff, Earle Brown, Morton Feldman, Sylvano Bussotti, Mauricio Kagel, and Karlheinz Stockhausen all wrote works for him during the 1950s and '60s. Through indeterminacy and chance-based methods, Tudor was noted for radically intervening with the works he played, often making them entirely his own, and it was this same singularity of vision that led him to gradually abandon the piano in favor of electronic process, through which he began working as a composer in his own right.
His engagement with electronics dates to the early 1950s and Cage's Project for Music for Magnetic Tape. By the following decade the pair had moved to live electronics, with Tudor rendering works like Cartridge Music and Variations II through contact microphones and complex systems of feedback and amplification. Before modular synthesizers existed, he designed and built his own electronics, often with engineers from Bell Laboratories, producing dozens of unique instruments and processing tools that helped lay the groundwork for the technological needs embraced by most electronic musicians ever since. A clear marker of his emergence as a composer came in 1966 with 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, where he premiered Bandoneon! (a combine), turning the cavernous performance space into a feedback instrument and a total environment. The event led directly to the founding of E.A.T. the following year by the engineers Billy Klüver and Fred Waldhauer, alongside Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman.
Among the most ambitious of E.A.T.'s projects was the Pepsi-Cola Pavilion, for which Tudor composed four pieces between March and April 1970: Pepsibird, Anima Pepsi, Pepscillator, and Microphone. Together with Forrest "Frosty" Myers, Robert Whitman, the sculptor and filmmaker Robert Breer, and the architect John Pearce, he was tasked with the design and function of the building: a 120-foot diameter steel and polyvinyl dome, shrouded in mist and fog and lit in the evenings by a square of intense blue-white xenon light. Tudor worked with Gordon Mumma and Fred Waldhauer on a unique sound system capable of processing and variable distribution through 37 speakers, controlled both by automated means and by the performer, and with Lowell Cross on a sound-activated laser deflection system inside the pavilion's mirrored performance hall.
Both pieces are an advanced form of musique concrète: libraries of tape recordings, live mixed and processed through the pavilion's sound console and distributed through 8 channels of stationary and rotating patterns designated by Tudor's instructions (small circle, great circle, large rhomboid, spiral, small triangles, small ovals). Pepsibird is focused upon a physical interiority, its source tapes being recordings of the brain wave activity of humans and animals: cat's eye, nerve firing, bats, EKG, alpha waves, a modified nightjar. Recorded in situ in 1970 and mixed down to stereo, it retains a striking sense of the space and ambience that Tudor achieved in performance. For more than eighteen minutes he merges subtle textures and pulses, at times resembling birdsong, within a blanket of vast, resonant ambience of subaquatic density, foreshadowing the relationship to the natural world of later works like Rainforest IV (1973).
Anima Pepsi is centered on the exterior: field recordings that Tudor made of animal and insect sounds (mosquitoes in a jar, a fly on flypaper, a wasp chewing, a beetle walking) and a mix of human and animal sounds that he called the "funny tape". Where Pepsibird deploys interior sounds in ways that allude to the natural world, Anima Pepsi pushes the sounds of nature and humanity toward the otherworldly through the clear presence of electronic sounds and processing, moulding detailed, pointillistic patterns of abstract sonority into gauzy blankets of ambience and space.
The collaboration did not last: less than a month after the opening, Pepsi withdrew its support, fired E.A.T., and disregarded Tudor's tapes, which according to accounts had to be smuggled out by staff, playing its own soundtrack in the pavilion for the rest of the Expo. Heard today, Pepsibird and Anima Pepsi anticipate many territories of later electroacoustic practice, from field recording to live processing, while the terms on which they were made, radically unpredictable, indeterminate, and experimental to the core, reconfigure what we've come to expect from electronic process, making one wonder if the past was ahead. Issued by Blume in a highly limited vinyl edition of 300 copies on red vinyl, with a 20-page LP-size booklet containing You Nakai's essay and newly commissioned liner notes by Bradford Bailey.
The title of the fourth full‑length by A SECRET REVEALED already serves as a dark omen: "The Ruin I Summoned Forth" sounds powerful, oppressive, and inescapable. And that very weight permeates all eight songs of the album. The band from Würzburg crafts a sonic landscape defined by immense emotional force, urgent intensity, and a density that feels almost impossible to contain. Their wall of sound is never an end in itself, but the foundation of an existential expression that hits immediately and resonates long after. Stylistically, the quintet moves within the tension field of post‑metal - a sound that doesn’t deny its core roots, yet highlights more clearly than ever their affinity for black metal, melodic death metal, and modern, forward‑driving heaviness. Time and again, fragile, searching passages open up, giving the massive sound room to breathe, occasionally interwoven with subtle, almost folkloric accents. Fittingly, the opener 'Disheartened' sets an early exclamation mark: with Nikita Kamprad of Der Weg einer Freiheit as guest vocalist, the track gains additional depth and sharpness. "The Ruin I Summoned Forth" marks the band’s third release on LIFEFORCE RECORDS, following "Sacrifices" (2019) and "When The Day Yearns For Light" (2021). Their debut "The Bleakness" was released in 2015 via Bastardized Records. Across all four records, a clear narrative thread emerges: A SECRET REVEALED consistently strive to craft strong thematic arcs and a massive, uncompromising sound that grips listeners from the very beginning and leaves a lasting impact. Once again, the band presents a cohesive work in which individual elements rise into an overwhelming whole, until, in the end, the inevitable unfolds: "The Ruin I Summoned Forth".
Kay Slice’s music is more than meets the ear. He channels a movement. His sound moves beyond borders, blending highlife rhythms and poetic verses into a sonic force that connects the soul of Africa with its scattered children across the globe. Slice is rooted in legacy but speaks to the now. Bold, layered, and deeply aware.
This isn’t fusion. It’s ancestral alignment with a futuristic edge.
From the electrifying grooves of West Africa to the sharp truths of hip-hop, Kay’s music isn’t merely entertainment; it’s a cultural awakening. His performances are highlights: Ghanaian drums, balafon chants, and rhythmic prophecy shaking stages to their core. His storytelling is vivid, raw, and intentional. The immigrant experience reimagined through sound and soul. And as Kay says about this new single, “Moving with purpose, driven by the will to put in the work. The time is now to raise Mother Africa.”
Following his powerful debut From Back To Back (2022), Kay is stepping into full artistic clarity. In 2026, it all comes to a head with Kay’s next album, scheduled for autumn 2026, forged across borders, driven by the spirit of his Ghanaian ensemble and a love letter to highlife, elevated with modern energy.
No longer bound by survival, Kay is moving like a general of sound. Leading with grace, grounded in legacy, but always forward-moving. His shows? Think rituals. Think liberation. Think sweat, spirit, and rhythm. Kay Slice isn’t finding his voice. He is the voice of diasporic pride, ancestral rhythm, and future Africa.
Blume presents The Days Pass Quickly Immersed in the Shadow of Eternity, a new work by Lea Bertucci commissioned by the ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and premiered in Karlsruhe in November 2025. Written for, and created in collaboration with, the flutist Norbert Rodenkirchen, it draws on his collection of Renaissance, Medieval, and Neolithic instruments, harnessing sounds that have been largely absent from the modern world. What does it mean to employ one of humanity's oldest known technologies, the flute, appearing in human hands tens of thousands of years before the advent of the wheel, within an experimental, electroacoustic composition that is inherently forward-thinking?
Since her emergence within New York City's Noise scene during the early 2010s, Bertucci has balanced a fierce dedication to the DIY ethos and immediacy of the underground with a refined sense of creative rigor and ambition, moving from brittle, challenging compositions for saxophone, electronics, and tape toward investigations of acoustic phenomena, site-specific resonance, and complex harmonic interplay. Following her return to the rural environments of Upstate New York where she was born and raised, her work has entered a more introspective phase, with an expanded instrumental, technical, and vocal palette that has found her increasingly composing for others, as on 2023's Of Shadow and Substance and on Fata Morgana, a work for organ released earlier this year.
The piece grew from a meeting with Rodenkirchen after a performance by the early music ensemble Sequentia, to which he belongs. Struck by his ability to conjure "spirits from deep within human memory, as a clarion call into the present", Bertucci began a series of conversations that led the pair into the studio at ZKM in the summer of 2024. Conceived for ZKM's 42.4 speaker system, grouped into 8 discrete outputs before being mixed down to stereo, the work aligns with the collaborative process she has honed alongside her solo efforts, in duos with Ben Vida, Lawrence English, and Olivia Block: a dialog with personal and responsive agency offered to both musicians.
It carries forward her inquiry into the fundamentally human aspects of listening ("I am looking for sounds that call from somewhere deep within the listener and that tap into archetypal human knowledge and feeling") and her investigation of psychoacoustic phenomena and otoacoustic emissions through a meticulous alignment of pitches and timbres. Where many of her most celebrated efforts played, and played with, the room, this one is rooted in an implied space: the flutes recall and blur the boundaries between the eras and environments in which those instruments were originally played, from acoustically engineered Renaissance and Medieval halls to the naturally reverberant caves of the Neolithic, and those of the present.
Bertucci is not the first to bring ancient sound sources into experimental music: Harry Partch's instruments drew on Greek, Chinese, and Japanese precursors, Alvin Curran regularly plays a conch shell, and Walter Maioli has spent decades working at the borders of experimental music and archaeology. Her piece occupies a more rarefied position through its hybridity, combining advanced technology with archaic sound sources while sidestepping the exoticism and romantic primitivism that can hobble such efforts. Compared with its closest cousin, Phill Niblock's Four Full Flutes, where the instruments are manipulated beyond clear recognition, here the flutes remain recognizable and embrace the layers of history they carry. The result is an electroacoustic work that largely forgoes the auditory signifiers of the idiom: it could easily pass for a live ensemble, and only attentive listening reveals that it could only have been made through advanced technology.
As Rodenkirchen's playing interweaves with Bertucci's computer-facilitated arrangements of flute samples, ranging from pulsing clusters to dense combinations of sustained tones, timbres, and distances, the piece draws connections with folk and spiritual traditions across human history: Medieval polyphonic ecclesiastical music, Sardinian canto a tenore, Pygmy vocal music, Buddhist chant. By conjoining one of our earliest known technologies with our most advanced, Bertucci proposes that our tools are not the message, but rather the unending continuum of humanity itself. Issued by Blume in a highly limited vinyl edition of 300 copies on transparent light blue vinyl, with newly commissioned liner notes by Bradford Bailey.
It’s rare for a hardcore punk band to make four full-length albums, and rarer still for the fourth album to be the band’s masterpiece. Yet Paratiisi, the fourth album from Helsinki punks Kohti Tuhoa, stands as the undeniable coup de grâce of a catalog overflowing with classic hardcore punk. If you’re already a fan, it’ll comfort you to know Paratiisi leans heavily on the strengths Kohti Tuhoa has possessed since their earliest releases: a timeless sound that combines UK82 drive and hooks with dramatic metal flourishes; a captivating vocalist with the perfect balance of grit and clarity, who can both howl like a banshee and carry a tune; and a particularly Finnish way with a driving, medium-fast tempo. But for all the continuities with Kohti Tuhoa’s excellent previous records, Paratiisi almost feels like the work of a new band. The riffs and choruses that anchor the album are impossibly catchy; Paratiisi bulges with huge moments that practically force you to air guitar and sing along (even if you don’t speak a word of Finnish), the band’s peerless chops and the rich and clear recording driving these climaxes to dizzying highs. But while the hooks are memorable, there isn’t a moment on Paratiisi that feels dumbed-down or overly familiar.
In fact, the album feels notably ambitious, pulling influences from across punk’s historical and aesthetic breadth and digesting them seamlessly into Kohti Tuhoa’s distinctive sound. The lyrics (don’t worry: English translations are included!) meet the same high bar as the music. They’re direct, assertive, and punk, but they’re also subtle and insightful, whether they’re tackling huge issues like microplastics or sharing a very personal account of a sexual assault and its aftermath. And then there’s Paratiisi’s most unexpected moment, “Eliitin Psykopatia,” a free punk freakout in the tradition of “Why (Reprise)” and “L.A. Blues.” If Kohti Tuhoa’s brief foray into free jazz tries your patience, though, don’t worry, because after three minutes of building tension, they reward you with what is bound to be the best riff of 2026, a clash of chords potent enough to blow holes through walls the world over. Paratiisi is the sound of one hardcore punk’s most exciting bands at the height of their powers.
After almost twenty years of releasing music, Sven Tasnadi finds himself circling back to some of the sounds that first drew him into house music. Explorer was written at home following a longer break from producing and after moving out of his studio, a change of setting that coincided with a shift in priorities. "The tracks on this EP came together at home after a longer break from music and after I moved out of my studio," he explains. "Musically they are very deep and minimal, at times almost meditative. They were inspired by a new chapter in my life as well as my never-ending love and connection to artists like Lawrence from Smallville and Frank & Tony from Scissor and Thread."
That sense of returning to something runs through the whole record. For much of Tasnadi's career, producing and DJing were closely connected, with many releases naturally shaped by the club. Things have changed. "DJing is no longer my main focus, so I can dedicate myself to these deep and minimal sounds again, free from pressure or expectations," he says. "In a way, after almost twenty years of releasing music, things have come full circle for me."
"Atlas (Chapter 1)" and "Atlas (Chapter 2)" grew from the same initial idea but followed separate paths during production. Chapter 2 came first, while Chapter 1 emerged later from a variation Tasnadi discovered while the track was still essentially a loop. "I was still looking for the right theme for the original idea when another version suddenly opened up," he recalls. He saved that variation for later so he could stay focused on the first version. When he returned to it, the two had developed distinct enough identities to stand independently. Their shared DNA is still audible in the restrained rhythms, slowly shifting details and the way small changes carry much of the movement.
The title track moves further into dub techno, another longstanding passion for Tasnadi. "Explorer is almost a classic dub techno track," he says. "Subtle movements within a constantly repeating pattern create a particular atmosphere. It feels like the track could just keep going forever." It is a patient approach to repetition that he connects to artists such as Moritz von Oswald and his friend Daniel Stefanik.
"Megasektor", one of the first tracks Tasnadi made at home with a new equipment setup, brings the EP into deep house territory. "To me it's almost classic deep house, or at least how I define deep house for myself." Warm, compact and gently propulsive, it provides a natural closing point for a record that is ultimately less about changing direction than reconnecting with an instinct that has always been there.
Explorer captures Tasnadi at a point where making music has become more personal again. The four tracks come from following ideas for their own sake and from rediscovering the deeper, more minimal sounds that have stayed with him throughout his career.
Setting a high standard for its inaugural release, new record label Sounds of The Blind Prophet announces SBP001, a powerful 12” vinyl collaboration uniting label founder Blind Prophet with worldwide Dub stalwarts Fikir Amlak and Vibronics.
The A-side, “Now Is the Time,” pairs LA-based vocalist Fikir Amlak’s commanding lyrics on community and self-reliance with a high-energy steppers riddim built by Blind Prophet and Vibronics. The flip delivers two raw dub cuts mixed direct from the board by Vibronics at his legendary Dub Cupboard Studio in Leicester, UK.
Embodying the core essence of modern Dub culture—conscious lyricism, driving percussion, and chest rattling bass—SBP001 marks an undeniable opening statement for Sounds of The Blind Prophet.
Revisiting the sound and spirit of Jazzy Sport, rooted in Japan and carried forward by a new generation. Compiled by Nina Yamada, featuring Cro-Magnon and Grooveman Spot, with remixes by DJ Mitsu the Beats and Idjut Boys.
Founded in 2002, Jazzy Sport emerged at a particularly fertile moment in Japanese music. Beginning as an independent label and record shop, with its first store in Morioka and Jazzy Sport Music Shop Tokyo opening in Shibuya the following year, it became a home for artists including GAGLE, DJ Mitsu the Beats, Cro-Magnon and Grooveman Spot. Its releases moved freely between hip-hop, house, jazz, broken beat and live musicianship, helping define a distinctly Japanese strain of open-minded club culture.
But the music was only the beginning. Jazzy Sport developed into a network of record shops across Japan, alongside its label and distribution work, apparel and design, dance studios, and a Morioka record shop joined to a bouldering gym. These were not unrelated side projects. They expressed the same founding idea: that music, sport and everyday life could come together to create community.
PAST FORWARD: SILVER marks the first release on the Jazzy Sport London label, distributed by Time Capsule. Established in 2022, the London project first took shape through parties, radio shows and community collaborations connecting Japan and the UK. This compilation carries the Jazzy Sport archive and its values forward through a new generation.
At the centre is Nina Yamada, the daughter of one of Jazzy Sport’s core members. She grew up within the community that shaped the collective, and her selection is not a conventional greatest-hits survey, but an inside view of the catalogue and an intergenerational handover made audible.
The music moves naturally between hip-hop and house, electronic production and live performance. That openness has always been central to Jazzy Sport, where club music, musicianship and community are part of the same conversation rather than separate scenes.
DJ Mitsu the Beats’ remix of Cro-Magnon’s “Eclipse” brings the refined, soulful depth that makes him such an important figure in Japanese beat music. Idjut Boys’ deep, dubwise Cro-Magnon rework reflects the long exchange between Japan and the UK, while Grooveman Spot’s “Do The Dance” finds a sweet spot between acid-tinged 808 groove and warm soulfulness.
Elsewhere, Nubian Lady’s “In☆Flu☆Enza” draws on Detroit techno and Chicago house but sharpens those influences into something lean and distinctive. Physical Sound Sport’s “Magical Kalimba” captures the communal energy and openness of a live session. Bottom Fly’s “Rhyme Or Reason,” rooted in Morioka, pairs rough-edged beats with mellow samples and a quiet sense of nostalgia.
What comes through is not only the strength of the individual tracks, but the sensibility that connects them. That keeps PAST FORWARD: SILVER from feeling like a nostalgic best-of. For longtime followers, it offers rediscovery; for new listeners, a way into the breadth of Jazzy Sport; and for DJs, a selection made for the record bag, not just the archive.
LA-based producer Real Bad Man and multi-JUNO Award winning Toronto-based artist TOBi release their collaborative album The Perfect Blue via the producer’s own Real Bad Man Records. The album collects a diverse array of sounds,highlighted by the album’s two advance singles “When I’m Home, ” which Stereogum described as “a moody,graceful soul song with a serious groove, ” and the funk-laden “Over The Moon, ” released last week.
TOBi and Real Bad Man’s work together on The Perfect Blue encapsulates the producer’s mission for 2025, a year in which he released intricate collaborative albums with a wide swath of artists. His work with TOBi was seamless and began quickly after the two first met, finding kinship in their ability to push past their comfort zones in genre and familiar sounds. The result is eclectic and boundless, jumping from straightforward and unflinchingly personal rap moments, to the flared funk of “Over the Moon” and understated contemporary soul flourishes that prove the Toronto emcee can confidently make each of these sounds his own.
The Perfect Blue marks Real Bad Man’s fifth full-length collaborative album of the year, bookending a prolific 2025 that began with his collaborative album with ZelooperZ, Dear Psilocybin. Over a celebrated catalog spanning years, Real Bad Man, also known as Adam Jay Weissman, has cemented himself as a force in underground hip-hop, but his impact extends beyond work with contemporaries like Boldy James, Pink Siifu, Blue and more. Each of Weissman’s five collaborative albums this year showcases a different side of his craft, appeasing fans familiar with his gritty hip-hop production on his third album with Boldy James Conversational Pieces. He also surprised listeners with a bold turn in sonic direction, well outside of his traditional production palette, with his reunion with former Pollyn bandmate Genevieve Artadi on Everything Is Under Control.
Nigerian-born, Toronto-raised artist TOBi has carved out a distinct lane for himself with a celebrated discography of releases that explore themes of vulnerability, self-reflection and contemporary masculinity with a pointed nuance. His 2023 album PANIC swept the rap categories (Best Rap Album, Best Rap Single for “Someone I Knew”) at the 2024 JUNO Awards and his catalog has been praised by the likes of Billboard, Rolling Stone, i-D and more. Expanding on his ELEMENTS project series with the second volume released earlier this year to high praise, The Perfect Blue cements TOBi’s bonafides as an adept collaborator.
FROM THE HEART OF STAR TREK – 60 YEARS
From the Archives – Vol. 2 Vinyl Box
60 Jahre Star Trek – die Jubiläumsreise geht weiter! Vol. 2 der zweiteiligen Vinyl-Box-Edition widmet sich der großen Kinofilm-Ära von Star Trek: The Next Generation. Enthalten sind die Soundtracks zu Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek: First Contact und Star Trek: Insurrection – drei prägende Klangwelten zwischen Jahrhunderten, Kino-Geschichte(n) und Emotionen.
Ergänzt wird die Box durch TV Series Soundtracks, eine Compilation mit musikalischen Höhepunkten aus dem StarTrek-Serienkosmos.
Enthaltene Vinyls:
· Star Trek: Generations
· Star Trek: First Contact
· Star Trek: Insurrection
· Star Trek – TV Series Soundtracks (Doppel-Vinyl)
From the Archives – Vol. 2 ist eine besondere Jubiläumsedition für Vinyl-Liebhaber, Soundtrack-Sammler und Trekkies – ein weiteres Stück Star-Trek-Geschichte zum Auflegen.
![Intrusion - The Seduction of Silence - PART 2 [Remastered] (2x12")](https://www.deejay.de/images/l/4/1/1165441.jpg)
