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Pete Lambrou, the visionary composer and multi-instrumentalist behind VLMV (pronounced "Alma"), is one of the most singular voices emerging from the ambient, post-rock, and experimental scenes in the UK. With a career that spans atmospheric solo work, film and television scoring, and evocative live performance, Lambrou has carved out a distinctive sonic universe he describes as "ambient-ish post-something" (Pete Lambrou) a playful yet accurate summation of a sound that is at once genre-fluid and deeply immersive. The album takes its title from Sara Teasdale's 1918 poem and Ray Bradbury's later short story, both of which imagine a world continuing quietly after humanity's disappearance. This idea became the gravitational centre around which the record formed. Written during a period of deep engagement with climate fiction and ecological thought, `There Will Come Soft Rains` reflects on humanity's legacy, its technological ambition, and its uneasy relationship with the natural world. A century on from Teasdale's poem, the balance of power feels less certain, and Lambrou's music inhabits that tension with remarkable subtlety. "The initial ideas stem mostly from chaos, randomness or sound exploration and then get shaped as I go. Typically, and certainly for this album. It's evolved since album 1, which was more song / chord based. It's a fun process of finding the sound and then working out whether it's speaking to me - or merely just a cool noise. That's fun, but it sometimes can't evolve or progress, so then begins the long journey of shaping it into some sort of song format - which doesn't have to be a-typica,l but whatever feels right to me. The subject matter and overall theme is important too - it's got to all make sense within itself. There's no point having a slowly creeping theme and then rush the music." (Pete Lambrou) VLMV embody an emotional honesty that works with patience and nuance. Whether you're encountering his music for the first time or returning to its quiet depths, VLMV offers an aural space that resonates long after the final note fades. Lambrou's singular sonic language sits at the intersection of ambient, post-rock, modern classical, and experimental electronic music, while remaining unmistakably human at its core. "Instrumentally it's far more synth based - as soon as I had the concept, I wanted to make sure technology clash and marry with traditional instruments (at different times) in a sort of slow-moving dance I suppose. One is nature, one is human development and technology. Sometimes working together and sometimes in opposition. On my previous albums I'd say that at least half of the tracks started life as songs, whereas with `There Will Come Soft Rains` I think the majority (if not all) started as experiments in sound." (Pete Lambrou) Sonically, the album is VLMV at its most cinematic and textural. Warm, intimate piano figures and elegiac string arrangements are set against unstable modular synthesis, fractured rhythms, and evolving sound design. The organic and the artificial are locked in a slow, shifting dialogue, mirroring the album's central themes. At times the music feels tender and nostalgic, at others unpredictable and mournful, yet it never tips into despair. Instead, a quiet resilience runs throughout the record. "The album is slightly unusual in that it was mixed in Dolby Atmos before being mixed down to stereo. Most, if not all, do it the other way round. That's because I got to work with a superb mix engineer who just happens to live opposite. It was extremely random and lucky, moving to a tiny hamlet in the South of England and there being a Dolby Atmos studio opposite with a genius of an engineer. We had in mind that we would do it this way round and enjoy the mix process and give everything its own space - it still had issues when folding down to stereo, but overall a more pleasurable mix!" (Pete Lambrou) There Will Come Soft Rains has a geological sense of time: themes creep, expand, erode, and reform, resisting conventional structures in favour of something more patient and immersive. Each sound exists because it needs to; they move, recede, and emerge with a three-dimensional clarity that enhances the music's cinematic quality, giving each element room to breathe while maintaining an enveloping sense of cohesion. Lambrou's unique voice is Intimate and fragile, his vocals hover above the instrumentation, a guiding thread through the expansive soundscapes, drawing listeners closer into the emotional core of each piece. "Long time vocal collaborator Anja Madhvani did lots of harmonies on the album - I wanted to include her voice as much as possible on this album. In terms of string players - 3/4 have been long term collaborators with me. Marie Schreer actually recorded all strings on my first album ALMA, and Fraser & Clodagh have worked on every album (and occasional live shows) since Stranded Not Lost. In terms of art - Joel Cammarata designed the cover, and accompanying art - he designed Sing With Abandon and I absolutely adore his work, but also - he's so great at understanding and developing and capturing the concept." (Pete Lambrou) Layered harmonies drift through the music like distant signals or half-remembered voices. Madhvani's presence adds a human fragility to the album's vast soundscapes, reinforcing the sense of memory and longing that runs beneath the surface. The strings, performed by a close circle of trusted collaborators, further ground the record in warmth and physicality, acting as a counterweight to the synthetic elements that threaten to unravel it. "Despite the heavy subject matter, I wanted to create an album that imparts hope and optimism, marrying traditional instrumentation as nostalgia, with technological innovation through the randomness of modular synths." (Pete Lambrou) The partnership with Pelagic Records feels both organic and significant. Known for championing artists who value emotional weight, sonic ambition, and artistic integrity, the label provides a natural home for VLMV's work. Lambrou's music shares Pelagic's ethos: immersive, patient, and unafraid of scale whether intimate or vast. With There Will Come Soft Rains, Pete Lambrou has crafted a work that feels timely without being didactic, expansive without being overwhelming. It stands as a quiet, but powerful statement that lingers long after the final notes fade. FOR FANS OF Sigur Ros * Olafur Arnalds * Radiohead * Keaton Henson * This Will Destroy You

**LIMITED 500 UK COPIES ON BLACK VINYL** VINYL ONLY RELEASE for RSD: Rival Consoles, UK producer Ryan Lee West, shares his original score for MindsEye, the highly anticipated narrative-driven game from Build A Rocket Boy, the studio led by visionary game director Leslie Benzies. The industrial techno score doesn’t just accompany the game, it’s embedded in the code of the world they have created together. The full score sees its debut on vinyl for the first time as a limited-edition Record Store Day 2026 release.

Set in Redrock, a sprawling desert metropolis ruled by surveillance and automation, MindsEye follows Jacob Diaz, an ex-soldier haunted by fractured memories. As his personal mission escalates, he’s forced to navigate a world shaped by rogue AI, militarized tech, and a fragile grip on control, all while confronting the truth about his past. "In MindsEye, sound is a critical storytelling layer, from ambient detail to emotional drive, every element is designed to shape how players feel inside the world," said Craig Conner, audio director at Build A Rocket Boy. "Rival Consoles’ tracks brought something truly special to that vision. Ryan’s music adds a distinct emotional charge and texture that elevates key moments. It doesn’t just accompany the game, it sharpens its edge, deepens its atmosphere, and perfectly complements the world we’ve built." The score was produced over the span of three years in his London studio, and contains some of West’s most ambitious and heaviest compositions to date.

To coincide with today’s release of the game, the 10-track score is now available to stream in its entirety. MindsEye follows West’s previous scoring work, including bespoke music for 2019’s Black Mirror episode Striking Vipers, featuring ‘I Love This, I Love You’, 2022’s Netflix feature doc El Caso Figo about the legendary football player Luís Figo, and Alexander Whitley’s contemporary dance production Overflow, which was released as a studio album with the same name in 2021. The most recent Rival Consoles album, Landscape from Memory, was released in July 2025 to critical and fan acclaim. A world tour continues into mid-2026.

A hushed and intimate reimagining of a landmark indie classic, Grandaddy’s The Sophtware Slump… On a Wooden Piano—originally released in 2011—returns in a limited Eco-Mix “Tangelo” vinyl pressing. On this version, Jason Lytle transforms the album’s lush, synth-driven arrangements into stark piano meditations, highlighting the fragile humanity at the core of the songs.

Laurel Halo returns with an album of original soundtrack music, composed for the film Midnight Zone by visual artist Julian Charrière. Following the path of a drifting Fresnel lighthouse lens as it descends through the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone — a remote abyssal plain in the Pacific Ocean, rich in rare metals and increasingly targeted for deep-sea mining — the film traces a descent into one of Earth’s last untouched ecosystems.


Charrière’s film reveals the deep not as void, but as a luminous biome teeming with fragile life: bioluminescent creatures, swirling schools of fish, and elusive predators. The suspended lens becomes an abyssal campfire, attracting species caught in the tides of uncertainty, their futures hanging in the balance.


Echoing this tension, Halo’s compositions evoke a sensory freefall, where gravity falters and light and sound flicker in uncertain rhythms. Midnight Zone is a sonic drift through the space between what we seek to extract, fail to understand, and must protect.


Halo’s score evokes the life that exists beyond our physical airbound capacity. The material features long, subtle passages of electro-acoustic ambient, drone and sound design, slowly flowing and unfolding with rich detail. The music, composed largely on a Montage 8 synthesizer and Yamaha TransAcoustic piano at the Yamaha studios in New York City, possesses an uncanny quality: that of synthetic waveforms being amplified and sung through the stringboard of the physical body of the TransAcoustic piano. Combined with stacks of violin and viol da gamba, the music on Midnight Zone possesses trace elements of a human hand in an otherwise sunken landscape. Patient, submerged, and alive. The album will be the third on Halo’s imprint, Awe.


The film is central to Charrière’s current solo exhibition Midnight Zone. The exhibition engages with underwater ecologies, exploring the complexity of water as an elemental medium affected by anthropogenic degradation. Reflecting upon its flow and materiality, profundity and politics, its mundane and sacral dimensions, the solo show acts as a kaleidoscope, inviting us to dive deep.

Somewhere close to Manchester’s ever changing city centre, as the sun fades and peeks through the newest glass facade, you’ll find Shaking Hand. One part in shadow, the other basking in prisms of light as they sketch out their own sonic landscapes in the dusty redbrick mill they call home. One that is just about clinging on from the encroaching developments that surround them.

Against this back-drop where buildings are constantly torn down & built back again, the three piece craft away. Pulling from early post-rock, and 90s US alternative rock, crafting their own brand of Northwest-emo. Assembling something new, yet nostalgic. Looking ahead towards the transforming horizon. Shaking Hand’s music is built on tension and release – quiets that stretch, louds that overwhelm. Repetition that feels both hypnotic and destabilising.

The band’s musical DNA runs through experimental guitar outfits like Women, Slint, Sonic Youth, Pavement, and Ulrika Spacek, balanced with the melodic sensibility of Big Thief and the dynamic intimacy of Yo La Tengo. Their compositions push against structure: sudden jolts of tempo, polyrhythms that almost fall apart, and riffs that unravel into something fragile or ecstatic. Yet, as Ellis notes, there’s an underlying warmth too: “Like walking through an empty city late at night but catching flickers of life in the buildings you pass.”

Early ideas like ‘Night Owl’ and ‘Sundance’ grew out of George’s lockdown “bedroom years,” where new tunings (open E, drop D, and stranger Pavement-inspired set-ups) opened up uncharted textures. Later, in grim rehearsal rooms, the murky epic ‘Cable Ties’ and the hypnotic ‘Mantras’ absorbed the gloom and grit of the band’s surroundings.

The album was recorded with producer David Pye (Wild Beasts, Teenage Fanclub) at Nave Studios in Leeds, housed in a converted church. “The live room was huge and perfect for capturing our sound,” says George. Determined to bottle their onstage energy, the band tracked the foundations live, layering vocals and guitars later. Soviet-era microphones, odd mic placements, and even phone-recorded demos fed into the mix. “You’ve got to watch out for David though,” Freddie laughs. “He made me play four tambourines in one hand, really hurt, man.”

Lyrically, the record drifts between abstraction and lived moments. George’s words often spill out instinctively, words falling into place before their meaning becomes clear. “A lot of the lyrics look like they’re buried in abstraction,” he says, “but when I look back I can see what they were about — whether that’s an emotional response at the time or just an observation of what was happening around me”. There’s contrast at the heart of it all – optimism vs. doubt, the lightness of youth vs. the monotony of work, a city in constant redevelopment vs. the people drifting through it.

The album artwork is taken from unused plans for the 1970s redevelopment of Los Angeles by architect Ray Kappe, entitled ‘People Movers’. Hypothetical buildings for real people, it feels a complement to the band’s own constructions. One thing’s for sure, Shaking Hand’s debut is built to last.

Cranes is a dream pop/shoegaze band formed by siblings Alison and Jim Shaw, who rose to stardom following a world tour with the Cure in 1992. After the influential Dedicated label folded in 1998 they went on a two-year hiatus after which they set up their own label Dadaphonic. On Dadaphonic, they released three studio albums between 2001 and 2008, of which Future Songs is their first.

Between 1986 and 1997 Cranes released a steady stream of records on Bite Back! and of course Dedicated, and when the latter folded, the Shaw siblings took a relatively long break from recording. Then, in 2001 they returned with a different bassist and drummer, their new Dadaphonic label and a fantastic new record to go along with it. A breathe of fresh air,

Future Songs acts as a bridge between their somewhat brusque approach to shoegaze from the 90s and electronica-infused sound from the zeroes. A remarkable effort, especially considering the Shaws recorded almost everything on their own.

Future Songs is available as a 25th anniversary edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on yellow marble vinyl, and includes an insert.

Isle Of Men is the band led by guitarist Dirk Fryns, featuring Gunther Verspecht (Stash) and all-round keyboard maestro Tom Van der Schueren, Herman Temmerman (bass and production), Niels Delvaux (drums) and Sara De Smedt (backing vocals). They made an impressive debut in 2015 with the album ‘Voluntary Blindness’.

Here is what the press had to say at the time:
De Morgen ****: “Subtle night music that inhabits the same world as David Sylvian, The Blue Nile, Ray Lamontagne… an excellent debut.
Focus: *** “A fine Belgian debut with an album that willingly lets itself be enveloped by the quiet twilight of the night.
Het Nieuwsblad/GVA ***: “Refined, intimate songs carried by the deep voice of Gunter Verspecht”.
RifRaf: “An impressive nocturnal record for fans of, say, Talk Talk, Tindersticks, Nick Cave or Nick Drake. Welcome to the fragile world of Homo Melancholicus”.
Now, at last, there is an equally atmospheric and impressive follow-up with the album “The Soul Of Kindness”.

Sem is the first album by Victor Negri under his own name, after a decade making music as Arubu Avua. Released via Stray Signals (Berlin) in partnership with Mutum (Portugal/Brazil), the album was composed between late 2023 and early 2025 during a prolonged period of compounded grief and relocation, and is built upon layers of guitar in irregular loops, alongside samples, experimental electronics, and field recordings.

Begun in Lisbon and finished in Campinas, Brazil, Sem (meaning “without”) deals with loss by juxtaposing new material with unfinished recordings from previous years. As the process unfolded, catharsis emerged as much through editing as through raw expression. The album became a symbolic attempt to glue together fragments and memories from a world that ceased to exist, in order to move forward.

Across its eight tracks, some pieces gradually unfold while others crumble or explode into distortion and feedback, while some seem almost suspended, as if unsure of the next steps. There is a loose trajectory from disorientation and collapse (“Voçoroca”) through astonished frustration (“Não”) and numb acceptance (“Obrigado”), toward a fragile optimism on the closing tracks “Os cacos” and “Boa continuação.” Negri’s first fully instrumental album, Sem contains no vocals at all. That absence emerged gradually after fruitless attempts at songwriting during the period; overwhelm and speechlessness ultimately prevailed. The result leaves room for ambiguity, wandering, and the unfamiliar.

Victor Negri is a Brazilian musician and songwriter. Previously known as Arubu Avua, he makes music framed by noise, feedback, irregular loops, and field recordings.

Frizzell & Duque's A Sorrow Unrequited moves with suspended patience, each LP piece built from simple melodic figures, each of which eventually thicken out to quiet overwhelm. Working outside their Zake/City of Dawn aliases, the pair realise a more diaristic exposure here, drawing their inspiration and track titles from Julia Frizzell's poems of the same name. 'We Once Believed We Owned The Sky' tone-sets the vibe with long, tidal swells of strings and synth, dissonances sparing but weighted, while 'Closer, Always Closer' moves in similarly tidal cycles, with momentary swellings and torn cellos fissuring through the overall sadness.

Hey! Cabrera is back at Bordello. Following on from Italo Void, this time he arrives with two friends and fellow countrymen in tow: Marta Paradise, the duo of Paolo Ancona and Davide Pozzovivo. A shared passion for the analogue riches of the 1980s cements this new partnership, a passion fully captured in the bold synth‑lines and heady grooves of Go By Night. Bodies swirl in the fog of “Stasera No.” Glittering melodies float above clean beats, shifts swooping and tucking before the unmistakable vocals of Fred Ventura smoulder. The mood drops from disco to basement as “Go Ahead” takes hold. Those addictive hooks remain central, but now they’re teased by breathy samples, orchestral rinses and thick basslines.

Whistle blasts and cowbell rumbles introduce the flip. Bright and luminous, vocoder verses carry this late‑night rave straight into sunrise. Tempos fall for the close. Fragile drum patterns form a base from which machined and spoken words intertwine with bubbling 303 lines. A record that captures every moment of the night.

Michael Forzza unveils Obscure, a two-track EP navigating the darker edges of atmospheric techno with precision and intent.

A) Obscure is a peak-time weapon built on powerful percussive drive and a commanding groove. The rhythm pushes forward with controlled intensity, locking the dancefloor into motion. As the track evolves, the rhythmic pressure gradually recedes, allowing a shadowed melodic atmosphere to emerge in the final moments, adding depth and contrast without losing its dark identity.

B) Torture ventures into a more industrial realm. Dense textures, mechanical tension and hypnotic repetition shape its core, creating a sustained rhythmic strain. Then, when the pulse finally withdraws, the structure opens into a striking melodic finale, transforming the track into a suspended, almost cinematic closing atmosphere.

With OBSCURE, Michael Forzza explores the fragile line between impact and introspection, pressure and release. A release crafted for intense peak-time moments and the shadows that follow.


Français

Michael Forzza dévoile Obscure, un EP deux titres qui explore les territoires les plus sombres de la techno atmosphérique avec précision et intensité.

A) Obscure est un véritable track peak time, porté par une puissance percussive affirmée et un groove implacable. La tension rythmique s’installe et maintient le dancefloor sous pression, avant de s’effacer progressivement en fin de morceau pour laisser émerger une atmosphère sombre et mélodique, apportant profondeur et contraste.

B) Torture s’aventure dans une dimension plus industrielle. Textures denses, tension mécanique et répétition hypnotique construisent une montée intense. Puis, lorsque la pression rythmique disparaît, le titre bascule vers une finale mélodique surprenante, transformant l’énergie brute en une atmosphère finale plus immersive.

Avec OBSCURE, Michael Forzza joue sur l’équilibre entre impact et relâchement, puissance et émotion. Un EP taillé pour les heures sombres et les dancefloors exigeants.

The open skies of Ochre's new album, Oversail, replace the dense canopies of his last, Understory back in 2020. This time, UK-born, Netherlands-based talent Christopher Leary trades rhythmic intricacy for something more exposed and reflective on a record that unfolds in measured steps, with each passage revealing fragile melodies set against sparse, shifting frameworks. There's a tactile quality to the sound design, hardware elements clicking and sighing like ageing machinery still in motion. Tracks feel suspended and the focus is on slow revelation across the quietly affecting 'Casadastra', airy beauty of 'Meristem' and hopeful synth sequencing of 'Canthropa.'

2026 Repress

Gaudi’s Jazz Gone Dub is a masterclass in genre fusion, seamlessly blending the improvisational essence of jazz with the heavy atmospheric grooves of dub. Known for his eclectic approach to music production, Gaudi pushes the boundaries yet again, creating a sonic landscape that feels both nostalgic and refreshingly innovative.

Four years in the making, from the opening track it’s clear that Jazz Gone Dub is more than just a mashup of styles—it's a thoughtful exploration of the intersections between two rich musical traditions.

Gaudi’s multi-instrumental talents are on full display, and the presence of reggae royalty is palpable, courtesy of rootsy melodies from David Hinds (Steel Pulse), Jah Wobble’s iconic bass grooves, Ernest Ranglin’s intricate guitar lines and Sly & Robbie’s rhythmic genius. Add Sardinia’s Train to Roots band, Manu Chao collaborator Roy Paci, veteran guitarist Marcus Upbeat, Mr Woodnote and Tim Hutton’s brass work, Gavin Tate-Lovery’s sultry sax and flute, Horseman’s percussive flair plus Colin Edwin and Vlastur’s serious basslines, and the
result is a rhythmic foundation that’s both solid and fluid, allowing the jazz elements to float freely above the dub undercurrents.

Despite this star-studded line-up, Gaudi remains the glue that holds this gem together: his production is meticulous yet organic, allowing each track to breathe and evolve naturally. The use of space, delays and reverb—a hallmark of dub music—is expertly handled, giving the album a dreamy, immersive quality. Tracks like Susceptible and Alabaster Moon showcase Gaudi’s ability to create mood and atmosphere without sacrificing melodic and rhythmic complexity.

In Jazz Gone Dub Gaudi has crafted an album that feels both timeless and forward-thinking, a celebration of musical synergy where the free-spirit of jazz meets the deep resonance of dub. Whether you’re a fan of either genre or simply appreciate masterful musicianship and innovative production, this album is a must-listen.

Malta’s Human Safari returns to R&S Records, building on the momentum of his 2023 debut ‘Sax Paradiso’, with another EP of fast, physical club music on ‘Children Of The Sea’.

Propulsive opener ‘Children Of The Sea’, balances tensile strings and frenzied percussion fused around a high-tempo techno framework. ‘Jazz Affair’ follows suit but shifts the mood inward, pairing feverish, hypnotic drum programming with expressive instrumentation - layering drifting piano chords, fragile pads and a winding bassline that lends the track a kinetic pull.

‘Turbulence At The Orchestra’ draws from the raw spirit of ’90s warehouse techno, weaving in the sounds of sensationalist news reports on illegal raves of the time and overall diving into darker territory, led by a foreboding, spiralling 303 line and punctuated with dramatic horn flares.. Closing track ‘Lido’ locks into another deep, rolling groove, with pulsing low-end, reverberant horns and skittering, Latin and jazz-tinged rhythmic details threading through the mix.

‘Children Of The Sea’ by Human Safari is available on R&S Records from 13th March 2026.

"Hayalet Kırıkları" unfolds like a diary of fragmented memories, where voices, textures and distant echoes blur into something both intimate and unsettling.
Hilal Can’s luminous presence meets Tzii’s raw sonic landscapes, creating a music that feels suspended—between memory and invention, absence and desire.
With the spectral violin of Ruben Tenenbaum, the record shimmers like a fragile world on the verge of dissolving.

Nicaraguan-American artist Dagmar Zuniga makes music that feels both intimate and expansive: songs drift like disrupted signals, carried by harmony, tape hiss, and a strong sense of touch. Her debut solo album in filth your mystery is kingdom / far smile peasant in yellow music — written and recorded in New York, Norway, and Athens, Georgia over a period of five years on her longtime companion, the Tascam 424 — was uploaded to Bandcamp and YouTube in January 2025, quickly garnering over two hundred thousand views and the attention of artists such as Mount Eerie, who invited her to tour with them that summer. This year, what was once a jewel of tapped-in algorithms and message boards will meet the world at large, with in filth arriving digitally on March 4, and physically on April 10, via AD 93.

in filth is an atmospheric, devotional collage where one voice multiplies into a chorus of selves, sometimes delicate, sometimes severe; an effect created by Zuniga’s masterful layering of texture and complex harmonies. Synths glitter out like spears of sunlight from beneath clouds of moody, time-distorted guitars, and songs spin about themselves like tightly-wound music boxes, making use of a kind of hypnotic repetition, before melting apart into their components or slipping into the following track.

Zuniga began recording to tape as a teenager, drawn to the physicality of the medium — how a tape recording is fragile, mutable, and alive. Though her ethereal sound may draw easy comparisons to other female pioneers of psychedelic folk, she is influenced just as much by the darker sounds of Syd Barrett and The Fall. Like Barrett, Zuniga is a painter, and she is interested not only in recording music but in creating a full, self-contained artistic universe: she creates her own artwork, merchandise, music videos, and bootleg tapes of new and unfinished music that she exclusively sells at live shows (“If something is not material, it does not exist,” she insists). Her world has not gone unvisited, garnering her a monthly show on NTS Radio ‘World of Pain’, as well as a forthcoming appearance at Rewire Festival in April 2026.

Though Zuniga’s work explores themes of solitude and suffering, the suffering in her songs is not borrowed or displayed; it is held, then opened outward through empathy — an exacting practice of attention that insists on shared ground. Solitude, in her work, is not withdrawal but a starting point for connection. Likewise, over time, her recording process has become increasingly communal, with in filth featuring musicians Hayes Hoey, Austyn Wohlers (Tomato Flower), and Zach Phillips (Fievel Is Glauque). Newer recordings widen the circle even more. For Zuniga, collaboration is a way to “find a place between worlds,” echoing Badiou’s idea of love as a vision refracted through the prism of difference. Meaning emerges there — in the space between voices, between artist and listener. “I hope my music helps people work through difficult experiences,” she says. “The same way it helps me.”

Nicaraguan-American artist Dagmar Zuniga makes music that feels both intimate and expansive: songs drift like disrupted signals, carried by harmony, tape hiss, and a strong sense of touch. Her debut solo album in filth your mystery is kingdom / far smile peasant in yellow music — written and recorded in New York, Norway, and Athens, Georgia over a period of five years on her longtime companion, the Tascam 424 — was uploaded to Bandcamp and YouTube in January 2025, quickly garnering over two hundred thousand views and the attention of artists such as Mount Eerie, who invited her to tour with them that summer. This year, what was once a jewel of tapped-in algorithms and message boards will meet the world at large, with in filth arriving digitally on March 4, and physically on April 10, via AD 93.

in filth is an atmospheric, devotional collage where one voice multiplies into a chorus of selves, sometimes delicate, sometimes severe; an effect created by Zuniga’s masterful layering of texture and complex harmonies. Synths glitter out like spears of sunlight from beneath clouds of moody, time-distorted guitars, and songs spin about themselves like tightly-wound music boxes, making use of a kind of hypnotic repetition, before melting apart into their components or slipping into the following track.

Zuniga began recording to tape as a teenager, drawn to the physicality of the medium — how a tape recording is fragile, mutable, and alive. Though her ethereal sound may draw easy comparisons to other female pioneers of psychedelic folk, she is influenced just as much by the darker sounds of Syd Barrett and The Fall. Like Barrett, Zuniga is a painter, and she is interested not only in recording music but in creating a full, self-contained artistic universe: she creates her own artwork, merchandise, music videos, and bootleg tapes of new and unfinished music that she exclusively sells at live shows (“If something is not material, it does not exist,” she insists). Her world has not gone unvisited, garnering her a monthly show on NTS Radio ‘World of Pain’, as well as a forthcoming appearance at Rewire Festival in April 2026.

Though Zuniga’s work explores themes of solitude and suffering, the suffering in her songs is not borrowed or displayed; it is held, then opened outward through empathy — an exacting practice of attention that insists on shared ground. Solitude, in her work, is not withdrawal but a starting point for connection. Likewise, over time, her recording process has become increasingly communal, with in filth featuring musicians Hayes Hoey, Austyn Wohlers (Tomato Flower), and Zach Phillips (Fievel Is Glauque). Newer recordings widen the circle even more. For Zuniga, collaboration is a way to “find a place between worlds,” echoing Badiou’s idea of love as a vision refracted through the prism of difference. Meaning emerges there — in the space between voices, between artist and listener. “I hope my music helps people work through difficult experiences,” she says. “The same way it helps me.”

A cocktail of rebellious queer vocal fragments, deceptive percussive granules and swaying hammered vibrations, upsammy and Valentina Magaletti's first collaboration trembles with suspense. The seeds of 'Seismo' were sown following a commission from Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum to soundtrack an exhibition of work from the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam and the duo didn't want to approach their collaboration flippantly. So, wandering the museum's maze of rooms, they recorded various improvised percussive sounds with their arsenal of microphones, using the space to inform various rhythms and textures that were sculpted later into electroacoustic vignettes. This was just the starting point, though; as Magaletti and upsammy began performing together, the project evolved and 'Seismo' began to take shape. The duo had struck on a salient aesthetic concept, using mostly digital and acoustic mallet instruments to blur the boundary between their roles and create friction between the synthetic and the authentic. And the finished record is a phantasmagoric push-and-pull between its various conflicting elements: harmony and dissonance, randomness and predictability, openness and constraint. 'Seismo' isn't the first time that upsammy has studied her environment in search of revelation. On her acclaimed second album, 2024's 'Germ in a Population of Buildings', the Amsterdam-based DJ, producer and multidisciplinary artist erected her complex, unorthodox rhythms and eerie melodies around a modernist frame of field recordings collected in various cityscapes, countering heavyweight basslines with subtle, microscopic sounds. London-based Italian vanguard Magaletti, meanwhile, has applied her unique logic to innumerable projects at this point, working with everyone from batida icon Nídia and hardcore-dub outfit Moin to French writer Fanny Chiarello and British bass scientist Shackleton. For years she's approached the drums with criticism, attempting to challenge any preconceptions, something that's most visible on 2020's 'A Queer Anthology of Drums'. And both artists' thoughtful perspectives are welded together seamlessly on 'Seismo', a dizzying suite of eight eccentric statements that's fragile but never insecure, gauzy but not indistinct. An unnerving sense of space characterizes 'It Comes to an End' as Magaletti's in situ improvisations herald for upsammy's microscopic glitches and chiming pitch-bent melodies. It's almost unbalancing to witness the track's impossible dimensionality, the interplay between reverberant marimba hits and bone-dry synths, or percussion that's been recorded and processed in consciously different settings. A new architecture emerges in the sound itself that the two artists scan and explore meticulously, testing its boundaries with undulating hybridized rhythms on the invigorating 'Superimposed' and offsetting the powdery drums with liquified smacks and alien voices. The duo's vibrations are knotted with piano flourishes on 'Hyperlocalize', balanced with artificial clanks and clangs that disappear into the track's sonorous atmosphere, replaced by whispers and half-hallucinated insectoid chirps. 'Seismo' is an album that feeds off the energy generated by its juxtapositions: the tension and anticipation that's melted by rapid, hyperactive movement and the finely drawn rhythms disrupted by a layer of indistinct, barely perceptible microsounds. It's a collaboration that sounds like two minds challenging each other but not wrestling, each peering from their own distinct vantage point and imagining a third landscape shaped by optimistic, queer vibrations.

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

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

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