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" A very limited 7” for the tropical heads, beat travellers and cosmic cumbia astronauts on the new imprint Sun Of A Beach — the free-spirited daughter of Editions de Lux, who skipped town, fell in love somewhere between Kingston and Cartagena, and came back glowing, barefoot, and heavy on the bass.

At home in the steaming rainforest as much as the urban jungle of the Chapinero district of Bogotá, Colombia’s psychedelic groove pilots Ácido Pantera deliver a double-sided tropical weapon aimed straight at late-night sweatboxes, boat parties, and sun-soaked terraces.

"Te quiero, te amo” is a declaration of love at 132 bpm, bouncing along like a low-rider over cobblestones while neon synths float in the humid air.

Flip it for “Pájaro cantor”, a sound system destroyer that will lock the floor in an acid trance that feels both ancestral and futuristic in the same breath. This one’s featured on the FC26 soundtrack and will have you shimmying like Luis Díaz right before he bangs one into the top corner!

You know what to do!"

Delve into the quirky and psych-tinged world of Brazilian pianist, composer and multi-instrumentalist Mauricio Fleury.

With more than a hint to Brazilian jazz greats like Azymuth, Deodato and CTI Records in their prime, Revoada is a groove based jazz-framed record, primed with other transitory musical vignettes which touches on Turkish psych and soul-jazz born out of the 70's film soundtrack genre.

Revoada is a 6 track album and storyboard of Mauricio's migration and travels through Brazil's geographical oddities , its rural and urban enclaves. Recorded in Brazil, it's the result of numerous treks through funky flea markets, soaking up old vinyls and vintage cultural artefacts combined with a new life led in Berlin since 2022.

Mauricio, as well as a founding member of Bixiga 70 (google Brazilian Afrobeat pioneers), a band he fronted for over 12 years, is also an in-demand collaborator and musician who as a pianist, guitarist and even percussionist has shared stages and studios with the likes of Brazilian greats including Gal Costa, Emicida, Lucas Santtana, João Donato and Liniker.

In 2007 he had a life-changing experience meeting Tony Allen, at the Red Bull Music Academy. After hanging out, chatting music and life, Tony insisted to Mauricio to participate with Tony in a jam with blacktronica and soulful house music pioneers Ron Trent, Theo Parrish and Steve Spacek. Mauricio sums it up, "From that moment on, I was never afraid to collaborate musically with anyone, no matter who's playing. It also brought me to researching the connection between Brazilian music and Afrobeat which is something that still means the world to me".

Another unforgettable session Mauricio undertook happened alongside João Donato and Marcos Valle, playing Donato's classic album Quem É Quem, live, a record seen as a blueprint for second generation bossa nova. Mauricio has worked with Gal Costa on two albums, Estratosférica Ao Vivo and her last studio album A Pele do Futuro. Fabio Sá and Vitor Cabral (bassist and drummer on Revoada) were playing with Gal at her last concerts, including in Berlin in 2022 before she passed.

In contemporary music, Mauricio was part of Toy Selectah and Mexican Institute of Sound's Compass project. He's worked with Colombia's Los Pirañas and has even recorded a mysterious and unreleased album with Quantic.

Revoada shows signature traces of Thelonious Monk, Ramsey Lewis' swinging soul sound, Deodato's drama, and styles from further afield, spreading into Turkish psych and Ethiopian jazz, when the time is right. Each track, led always by Mauricio playing multiple instruments with a choice selection of guests and core members on bass and drums, highlights Fleury's meticulous approach to finding the right timbre, utilising his arsenal of organs and effects pedals to set the mood, taking the listener to a specific place or memory that has shaped him.

A vinyl DJ for over 25 years and someone who is immersed in digger and collector's culture, Mauricio places a lot of emphasis on the importance of the complimentary relationship between two artforms (DJ and composer/producer) in the sense of having a broad repertoire of musical knowledge, references and perhaps predictably, being a Brazilian, understanding the connection between rhythms. This is an impressive debut album that struts itself right into the runout groove.

Cristi Cons makes his Crosstown Rebels debut with his latest EP, ‘Give Me Love’.

The three-track exploration of rhythm, tension, and hypnotic club craft lands on 16th January 2026.
Damian Lazarus’ Crosstown Rebels imprint opens its 2026 release schedule with a special label debut from Romanian favourite Cristi Cons, as he delivers a magnetic three-tracker in the form of his ‘Give Me Love’ EP. Known for his precise, minimal-infl ected approach and unwavering command of groove, Cristi’s arrival onto the label brings a release that distils his signature tension-and-release architecture into some of its most direct club form yet.

The title track, ‘Give Me Love’, unfolds with subtle vocal refrains, shadowy atmospheres, and a rolling, elastic groove built for late-night momentum. On the B-side, ‘Can You Hear Me’ channels a sleeker, more hypnotic pulse, with dubby textures, restrained bass pressure, hooky vocals, and a snaking groove to keep dancers moving. Closing the EP, ‘You Ain’t Got Nothin’ brings vibrant synths, tight drum programming, and more captivating vocal use into a head-down trip that leans into Cons’s innate ability to craft late-night and early-hours journeys.

A longstanding architect of Romania’s influential underground, Cristi Cons has carved a reputation through his solo work, his collaborative SIT project with Vlad Caia, and their shared imprint, Amphia, which now stands as a true force within the minimal landscape. Alongside regular appearances across Europe’s key institutions and collaborations with revered names, including Raresh as part of their Verico project along with Caia, Cristi continues to evolve with each release - and ‘Give Me Love’ delivers yet another side to his diverse sound as he steps into the Crosstown Rebels fold to open the year.

In 2016, a year after the 50th entry in the long-running series, none other but the iconic Detroit artist, DJ and producer Moodymann stepped up to helm the next landmark edition of DJ-Kicks, his first ever multi-artist DJ mix compilation. Following !K7's 40 th anniversary, this classic DJ-Kicks mix is now being repressed on coke bottle clear vinyl.
Born Kenny Dixon Jr., Moodymann is a one-of-a-kind electronic music icon, hailing from, and wholly synonymous with the Motor City. He is an outspoken, impossibly charismatic artist who has been putting a distinctive and soulful stamp on house and techno since the early 90s. Melting together jazz, funk, soul, blues and rock in captivating ways, he is responsible for some of electronic music’s most definitive tracks, EPs and LPs on labels like Planet E, Peacefrog and his own KDJ and Mahogani Music imprints. As able to serve up the sweetest and most sensual sounds as he is the darkest and most depraved grooves, his own unique voice and stream of conscious musings infuse expertly sought-out samples for music that is decisively alive and authentic.

Across 75 minutes and 30 tracks, Moodymann does not disappoint: despite being a notorious vinyl fetishist, Dixon’s aim is to present music of quality, not to one-up fellow collectors. Rather than serving up ridiculously rare or hard- to-find records, he instead focuses on creating a libidinous, blues-drenched mood that takes in heart-breaking soul, gorgeous hip-hop and love-fuelled house.

In addition to cuts from his own creative circle, the mix features 11 exclusive Moodymann edits. Like everything Kenny Dixon Jr. touches, his DJ-Kicks showcases the taste, skill, and soul of a dance music original.

High-definition audiophile pressing - 180g premium vinyl - the complete album plus bonus track from the same session, but not included on the original LP

This special edition presents the complete Grant Green LP 'Gooden's Corner' (1961) with an additional track recorded at the same session with saxophonist Ike Quebec joining the quartet on the seldom heard standard, Count Every Star by Bruno Coquatrix and Sammy Gallop. Grant Green - guitar Sonny Clark - piano Sam Jones - bass Louis Hayes - drums Ike Quebec - tenor sax (on 'Count Every Star' only) Rudy Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, December 23, 1961. Original sessions recorded by Rudy Van Gelder & produced by Alfred Lion. "This is an album of real beauty and synergy between Green and pianist Sonny Clark, who along with Sam Jones on bass and Louis Hayes on drums rounds out the quartet. Green, an expert with standards, offers 'Moon River', 'What Is This Thing Called Love?', and 'On Green Dolphin Street'." - ****1/2 Michael Erlewine, All Music

Yesterday it started to rain…

The smell of damp tarmac rising up through open windows, a smell which is uniquely evocative for us all depending on our individual histories: a suburban pavement, a school playground, a basketball court.
The rain cut through a band of low pressure that had been lying over the city for days, pinging rhythmically off metal, causing rolling tyres to hiss and spit.

The music that soundtracked this meteorological shift was the debut full length from Rain Text (Giuseppe Ielasi & Giovanni Civitenga), simply titled III. Scattered throughout the nameless eight tracks there are moments of low-end pressure relieved by the fizz and clatter of metallic rhythms; there is static, there is discord, there is release.

The individuals comprising Rain Text have a long history of manipulating sounds for evocative ends, Giuseppe Ielasi has been making music as one half of Bellows for many years, each album stretching and destroying their sound in beautiful increments. He has also released reliably inspirational music either solo or in collaboration for the likes of Editions Mego, Shelter Press and Faitiche. His sensitive ears are also in high demand as a mastering engineer. It is worth perusing the 800+ releases he has technical credits for on Discogs: from classics of the avant-garde to the freshest faces of the Swedish underground, the chances are some of your favourite albums are included.

Giovanni Civitenga helms the SKYAPNEA long-running NTS show. Joining him, you can enjoy the fruits of a lifetime of deep listening through shows that flit between the industrial and the devotional, a space that is fully explored on III.

The album was recorded quickly over three fertile days in Ielasi’s studio in Monza, but of course results like this can only be achieved at such a pace by spending a lifetime obsessing over the mechanics and possibilities of sound.

Those who are enamoured by the rain—who are returned by it to the surfaces, smells and sounds of a lost and idealised youth; who feel themselves restored—are known as ‘pluviophiles’. Their response to rain may well have a biological explanation: when rain hits tarmac negative ions are released into the air, which are thought to result in feelings of wellbeing and positivity. All the more reason, then, to return to the vivid ecosystem that Rain Text has so carefully cultivated for III."

Words by The Dengie Hundred – August 2024

Alan Vegas selbstbetiteltes Debüt-Soloalbum kam 1980 raus, zur gleichen Zeit, als Suicide ihr zweites Album "Suicide: Alan Vega and Martin Rev" veröffentlichten. Während Suicides Plattenlabel ZE Records das Duo in Richtung eines synthetischen Disco-Sounds drängen wollte, der von Moroders Produktion von Donna Summers "I Feel Love" inspiriert war, zog es Vega in eine andere Richtung. Er wollte tiefer in die Wurzeln seiner eigenen musikalischen Identität eintauchen, die von Blues, Rockabilly, frühem Rock ,n' Roll und seiner anhaltenden Liebe zu Elvis Presley geprägt war. Vega nutzte die Zeit zwischen den Aufnahmen mit Suicide, um seine selbst geschriebenen Songs auszuarbeiten, begann mit der Produktion seines ersten Albums und trat live auf, um diesen Sound weiterzuentwickeln. Wie auch in seiner bildenden Kunst schichtete Vega Klänge auf minimalistische, dynamische und bewusste Weise. Das Ergebnis war ein einzigartiges Album, das aus rohen Materialien entstand und tief in Vegas künstlerischer Vision verwurzelt war. Tracks wie die klassische Hymne "Jukebox Babe" mit ihrem schwungvollen Rhythmus und ihrer minimalistischen Selbstsicherheit fingen diesen Ansatz perfekt ein und wurden in Frankreich zu einem Hit. "Kung Foo Cowboy" hat einen südstaatlichen Touch und lehnt sich stark an den Blues an, während der goldene Pop-Glanz von "Ice Drummer" mit melodischem, aber klagendem Gesang, marschierenden Trommeln und einem geschmackvollen Mundharmonika-Solo überzeugt. "Bye Bye Bayou" ist ein eindringlicher Mutant-Rockabilly-Song, der den Rock der 50er Jahre mit Vegas exzentrischem Performance-Stil verbindet und später in der Coverversion von LCD Soundsystem aus dem Jahr 2009 neu interpretiert wurde, wodurch Vegas Solowerk einer neuen Generation vorgestellt wurde. In ähnlicher Weise würdigte die Coverversion von "Ice Drummer" durch The Flaming Lips Vegas Außenseitergeist. Jetzt von Josh Bonati anhand der Originalbänder neu gemastert und erstmals auf Streaming-Diensten verfügbar, wurde Alan Vega von Sacred Bones Records originalgetreu neu aufgelegt, wobei die rohe Intensität von Vegas Originalaufnahmen erhalten blieb und sie gleichzeitig für Hörer auf der ganzen Welt neu zugänglich gemacht wurden. "Alan Vega" ist mehr als ein Solo-Debüt, es ist eine Erklärung der künstlerischen Unabhängigkeit und Freiheit eines der einflussreichsten und kompromisslosesten Künstler New Yorks. Ohne die intensive Elektronik von Suicide, aber mit Vegas Außenseiter-Energie und Schärfe, übersetzt das Album den frühen Rock 'n' Roll durch einen Art-Punk-Filter, der sich als eigenständiges Kult-Meisterwerk bewährt hat.

A vinyl soundtrack for GQuuuuuuX (Geku Axe) is now available!

"Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX" is a new Gundam series, a collaboration between Studio Khara, the creators of the "Evangelion" series,
and Sunrise, the creators of the Gundam series. The pre-release theatrical version was released in January of this year, becoming a huge hit,
grossing approximately 3.4 billion yen and attracting over 2.06 million viewers.
The TV broadcast began in April, and it became one of the most talked-about anime titles of the spring.
A vinyl record featuring a selection of the soundtrack from "Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX," including the music used in the pre-release theatrical
version, is now available. The music was co-produced by Junsei Terui, known as a member of the bands "Haisui no Nasa" and "siraph" and
Masayuki Hasuo, also a member of "siraph," and composer of the anime "Jujutsu Kaisen" series and the live-action film "Showtime Seven"
The music, which includes pop, electronica, and minimal music that fits the worldview of the work, will allow you to experience a new "Gundam"
sound. The LP label side is colored vinyl (splatter disc) and it is a set of two discs!

Mit Secret Love legt die Londoner Band Dry Cleaning ihr bislang reifstes Werk vor. Das dritte Studioalbum, produziert von Cate Le Bon, ist eine konzentrierte Momentaufnahme der besonderen Chemie zwischen Florence Shaw, Tom Dowse, Nick Buxton und Lewis Maynard. Aus intensiven Sessions in Peckham, Chicago, Dublin und schließlich im Black Box Studio in Frankreich entstand ein Werk, das Vertrauen und Verletzlichkeit ins Zentrum stellt - die Bande zwischen den vier Musiker*innen ebenso wie das fragile Verhältnis zwischen Nähe und Manipulation in der Gesellschaft. Musikalisch schlägt Secret Love eine Brücke zwischen den paranoiden Untertönen des frühen US-Punks, dem coolen Strut der Stones, Stoner-Rock, No-Wave-Experimenten und zarten, fast pastoralen Gitarrenfiguren. Die Stücke atmen gleichermaßen Schärfe und Verspieltheit, immer getragen von Shaws unverwechselbarem Sprechgesang, der präzise auf die dynamischen Soundlandschaften ihrer Band reagiert. Damit knüpft sie an eine Tradition von Spoken-Word-Künstlerinnen wie Laurie Anderson an, erweitert sie aber um eine ganz eigene Mischung aus Absurdität, Empfindsamkeit und lakonischem Humor. Die erste Single "Hit My Head All Day" zeigt exemplarisch, wie Secret Love gesellschaftliche Themen - etwa Desinformation und Einflussnahme - mit persönlicher Unsicherheit und existenzieller Fragilität verknüpft. Doch trotz aller Schwere bleibt das Album von einer spielerischen Offenheit geprägt: Ideen wurden ausprobiert, verworfen, neu zusammengesetzt - bis ein Sound entstand, der gleichzeitig roh, elegant und unerwartet warm klingt. Secret Love ist ein Album über das Vertrauen - in Freundschaften, in Musik, in sich selbst - und über die Risiken, die damit verbunden sind. Es markiert für Dry Cleaning den Schritt zu einer Band, die ihre avantgardistische Energie zu einem unverwechselbaren Ausdruck verdichtet hat.

On the 25th August, Burna Boy will release his brand-new album ‘I Told Them…’. It will be available to stream everywhere as well as on CD & Vinyl. The Pre-order will go live alongside the album announce on the 28th July. ‘I Told Them…’ features Burna’s newest hit singles ‘Sittin’ On Top Of The World (feat. 21 Savage)’, ‘Talibans II’ & ‘Big 7’ as well as a whole host of album features.



Burna Boy was born Damini Ogulu in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria, in 1991 and began making music at just ten years old. As a teenager he honed his craft on Nigeria’s southern coast, delving into dancehall, reggae and Afrobeat’s. In the early 2010s Burna Boy emerged as one of Nigeria’s fastest-rising stars, combining influences from his Nigerian heritage with hook-filled pop stylings to create unforgettable tracks. His 2012 single ‘Like to Party’ broke into the global mainstream and paved the way for his full-length debut L.I.F.E, a year later.



Over the next five years, Burna Boy released two more albums and collaborated with a long list of high-profile artists including J Hus, Skales, Fall Out Boy and Lily Allen. African Giant was released in 2019 followed by his fifth album Twice as Tall in 2020 (which featured collabs with Chris Martin and Youssou N'Dour), both charted in several countries across the globe andgarnered worldwide acclamation, with the latter winning a Grammy Award for ‘Best Global Music Album’. Breaking cultural boundaries, he became the first Nigerian to headline a show at New York’s Madison Square Garden, he released his sixth album, Love, Damini, last year (featuring collabs with the likes of Ed Sheeran and Khalid). It deservedly became the highest-charting Nigerian album in history and currently holds the record for the only African artist to earn a no. 1 on iTunes in 16 countries worldwide.

Hot Creations Winter 2025 Vinyl Sampler featuring four of the Hottest recent releases on Hot Creations.

First up Jamie Jones marks Hot Creations’ 15th Anniversary with solo return with this year’s anthem: “Murder Mystery. His first solo release on Hot Creations since 2022’s ‘Bionic Boy’ EP, it’s a track designed to move, mesmerize, and captivate with every listen. Rolling basslines, intricate percussion, and a subtle tension pulse beneath the playful surface, making it a record built for late nights, festival main stages, and intimate spaces alike. It’s a statement of intent, and a reminder of why Jamie’s groove-driven productions continue to set the standard for house music worldwide. Next up Darius Syrossian returns to Hot Creations with ‘Bass In Ya Face’, featuring Cortez Walls is a driving, bass-fuelled floor-filler that combines weighty low-end grooves with hooky vocals.

On the flip, Joe Rolét makes his Hot Creations debut with this summer’s underground anthem. Enter: ‘No Hesitating’, the definition of a bassline mover. Stacked with rave-ready pressure and designed for full dancefloor impact, it’s a cut that has already been road-tested to devastating effect by Rolét himself alongside names such as Chris Stussy, Max Dean, and the Hot Creations head honcho himself, quickly becoming one of the most sought-after IDs of the year. Finally Manchester’s AJ Christou is back on Hot Creations with the incredibly infectious: ‘Bang Bang’, which leads with crisp percussion, slinky grooves, and a hook that’s been igniting AJ’s sets worldwide.

The frankly ridiculous Burnski is back as Instinct with more face-melting garage and bassline slammers that update the classic sound with just the right amount of evolution. All of these on his latest for his self-title label are 10/10 weapons: 'Halt' is hurried, swinging and syncopated to perfection. 'Choose One' is less streamlined; instead, there are warped and squelchy lines, bursts of static and a more futuristic twist getting you going. 'Crazy' brings brilliantly chosen and well-deployed samples to the fore over a beat that harks back to percussive UK funky at its finest. The flip side offers a trio of slick bouncers, body-popping movers and brightly lit vibes. Superb.

REPRESS ALERT!: Dub techno dons Lempuyang are back with the first double LP from the revered JS Zeiter, an assured artist whose early 12"s merged Chain Reaction's energy with deepchord's immersive depth and made him a modern-day great. Since then, he has spent years refining his craft into a consistently exceptional and sought-after sound across various aliases. Context Collapse marks a significant new chapter with eight expertly designed sounds that offer dub for all occasions, from those zoned out early mornings after a long night at it to more airy and uplifting dreamers like 'Interplay' via cosy, cuddly and introspective gems such as the smooth and seductive 'Open'. JS Zeiter is a true craftsman, as this double pack shows once more

Swiss sound artist Zimoun returns two long-form works sculpted entirely from the Wind Dynamic Organ (Prototype III) in Bern. Built by Daniel Glaus and his team at the Bern Academy of the Arts, this one-of-a-kind instrument transforms air into something palpable and tactile - wind pressure, airflow and tone are all fluid while shaping sound that shimmers between breath and vibration. Zimoun spent years recording and experimenting with it, coaxing warm, resonant tones, and what results is immersive and uncanny. His vast reverberations and slow-moving harmonics seem to breathe and explore a new frontier in acoustic minimalism.

Outer Heaven Sound is a brand new label from Outer Heaven that makes a big impression from the off with Coventry artist going big. His A-side offering 'Badboy Sound' is just that - it has a muscular, rugged low end and freewheeling siren-like sounds with devastating sub bass and rude vocal musings. It taps into jungle roots with unrelenting bass pressure that demands to be played loud. On the flip, 'Droideka' gets even more dark with a minimal take and crushing breaks that are atmospheric and dystopian with real low end broodiness and plenty of smoky atmosphere. A superb first outing.

Childhood Intelligence 20 / Vinyl Only / Incl. RISO OBI strip, Sticker, Hand-numbered & Hand-stamped. Part Of The “OTHERWORLDS” Capsule project.

Our 20th official record release DAWN OF THE UNDERWORLD - “BLEEP CHRONICLES: OTHERWORLDS” presents a spooky sci-fi Bleep SAGA. A haunted otherworldly journey, resurrecting sounds & scenes from an era long gone. Emerging from an ongoing process of revisiting old DAT tapes from the early 90s, rediscovering forgotten grooves, constructing new fragments / sequences and building sonic bridges between the past-present, time & space.

Mike Majkowski makes his debut on Hands in the Dark Records with Invisible, a selection of six moody and mysterious pieces produced between 2019 and 2025.

The prolific Australian double bassist and music maker has been involved in a diverse array of contemporary, improvised and experimental music since the early 2000s. This time, the Berlin-based artist is venturing deeper into downtempo, meditative and hypnotic minimal electronic realms.

While time and space are constraints, they also define our identities, creating inexplicable bonds with others flowing through shared moments and shared places. The state of being invisible obliterates these confines, allowing one to return to their pure essence. In this setting, Majkowski’s compositions display a discreet and profoundly emotional language characterised by vulnerability, darkness and confusion, while also embodying hope, soothing and resilience. A dim light, transcending love, space, memory and time.

On »Empty Room,« David Granström works with slow transformations, cyclical and isometric patterns as well as just intonation as a way to create harmonic stability, allowing his long-form pieces to develop their own unique temporal and spatial qualities. A prolific figure in Stockholm’s experimental drone scene and a collaborator of Hallow Ground label mates Maria W Horn and Mats Erlandsson, the Swedish composer navigates through moments of quietude and crushing volume on these five tracks. Sonically and atmospherically, the pieces on »Empty Room« simultaneously call to mind Fennesz’s most meditative work or the physical experience of seeing Sunn O))) live, blending guitar recordings and synthesised sounds with forceful effects similar to those of Mario Díaz de Leon’s Oneirogen project while still being as moving and delicate as Alessandro Cortini’s solo work. The album is marked by melodies and harmonies that are the product of a peculiar working process that turned the composer into an intent listener collaborating with, rather than simply using technology.

Having been invited by the self-organising artist group The Non Existent Center for a residency to Ställbergs Gruva, a defunct iron ore mine in Sweden’s Bergslagen region, Granström took his guitar as a starting point for his compositional work that heavily relies on real-time sound synthesis. »I seldomly use the instrument as a sound source in the final compositions and rather transcribe and orchestrate the harmonic structures using sound synthesis,« he explains. »On this album however, I chose to include the actual recordings of the guitar in order to extend the spectra between non-referential synthetic sounds and embodied referential sounds.« Working with precise tunings in order to blend the timbre of the synthesis with the harmonic structures of the composition, he created composite sound objects in which the harmonic elements blend into each other.

Through the re-amplification of synthetic musical materials from the inside of the abandoned mine, his original compositions were enriched with site-specific sound qualities before he further refined them in a singular working process. Granström works with algorithmic and generative processes, using the SuperCollider programming environment and thus blurring the lines between generative and creative forms of composition. »One of the things that I like about this way of working is that it creates a distance between myself as a composer and myself as a listener of the music that is produced entirely by the system,« he says. Granström’s technologically aided eschewing of the conventions of composing doesn’t make the end result any less personal, however. By listening again and again to the newly generated output, Granström simply took on a different role in the process of finalising the music, with the technology and the sounds becoming his co-authors.

By creating systems that generate music, he gains a new perspective on (musical) time, says Granström. »There doesn't have to be a fixed length to the music at all,« he explains. »And by writing music with this in mind, my focus tends to shift towards writing cyclical structures that gradually change and transform over time.« Simple parts, in other words, that emerge as the five complex wholes that form »Empty Room,« a record that itself seems to take on different forms with every new listen.

Flick Wilson's "School Days" album has long been one of our all-time favorite LP's through it's killer combination of super heavy Roots Radics rhythms, wild Scientist mixing, and the Flick's unique alternating falsetto style. Never widely available and only ever released in NYC, it's now deservedly reissued.

For a few years, Slovakian born & Czech-based artist pantata (Stefan Barcak) has been making music for himself, while running a record store slash coffee bar (called 25,2 rpm) in Prague. Over the course of a month in 2024 pantata made many songs with different analog machines and selected the favourite tracks out of this. His music is very laidback -almost empty- analog music that reminds of K. Leimer and Tara Cross mixed with Czech & Slovakian childhood memories and love and honesty of nowadays memories. "I was born on March 3, 1998, in a small town in eastern Slovakia. In the distance, you could see the Slovak mountains. That image of big mountains on the horizon still inspires my work today. In my early years, before my family and I moved to Prague, I was quite an outsider, I liked drawing and painting and I never stopped. Nowadays, I have a nice setup at home. A few synths: Sequential Circuits Six-Trak, Pro-One, Yamaha DX7, Roland Juno, JP-8000, S-1 (a small SH-101 clone), and classic Roland drum machines like the 909 and 707. I also use a few effect pedals, an old mixer, and a Tascam Portastudio where I record everything to tape. When I make a track, I usually need to finish it in one day. I start playing my instruments, and whatever feeling I have that day needs to be recorded. If I leave a song for tomorrow, I might lose the feeling and feel something completely different, so I prefer to start a new track instead."