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In his 1954 book The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley theorized that every person lives and experiences life on their own island universe. We can try to explain our experience to others using language, symbols, and art, but we'll never be sure that we're feeling something precisely the same as anyone else. This line of thinking has become a source of inspiration for many prolific artists. Now, Cincinnati-based producer Jason Grimez is inviting us to hear what it sounds like on an island of his own creation. The Island of Dr. Bionic is the third installment in Dr. Bionic's Terrestrial Radio series. Due out 5/2/2025 on Chiefdom Records, it's a collection of instrumental fusion for fans of hip-hop, jazz, funk, and beyond. Grimez is the producer, mixer, and mastermind behind Dr. Bionic. He's a Cincinnati-based creator with a deep understanding of 90s hip-hop and DJ culture, and he draws inspiration from music of all kinds. Grimez' ever-growing catalog is best described as organic groove. He calls on a rotating cast of veteran musicians to join him at his home studio to write, record, and try out new ideas. Long-time listeners will find some familiar names in the liner notes, for good reason. 'Life Span' (track 14) features a head-bobbing beat from Marvin Hawkins. Nick Brown is responsible for the dreamy Rhodes performance on 'Shell Of The Soul' (track 11). If Charlie Suit's unforgettable sax performance on 'The Path Of Stars' (track 16) is stuck in your head for more than 3 days, please consult Dr. Bionic. Once the recording sessions are complete, the real production work begins. "We get together and record a ton of stuff, and then I'll go back and cut it and mix it together," Grimez explained. "It all finds a home over time."

Bristol duo Pume Orenge unspool a world of spectral electronica from cassette loops and instrumental improvisation on their debut album Angel By Milo for Odda Recordings.

It is a world that opens draped in ferric hiss. A fog of sound, dense and yet not quite there, catching the light in strange shades and ambient drifts. Looping and receding, looping and receding, as pucks of static burst like faraway fireworks on a cold winter’s night. Sound sources obscured, ambiguous, not quite what they seem.

Angel By Milo takes its lead from the analogue process and textures by which it was made. Percussive and melodic loops were established, manipulated and responded to with instrumental improvisation, in a give-and-take with the materiality of the medium.

Across these seven intricately developed tracks, the sound fluctuates between the cinematic and the introspective, at times melancholy, at others verging on a kind of restrained anger, before the calm sets in once more. It is music for the small hours, awash with the grainy stuff of memory.

Embedded within Bristol’s independent scene, Pume Orenge’s quiet debut also speaks to the duo’s shared roots in the area, and like many of Odda’s previous releases, contains a sensitivity to place and atmosphere, even when these are no more than implied.

Angel By Milo builds on the DIY ethos of Pume Orenge's 2023 self-titled debut EP, whose tracks were recorded live in single takes, now honing a more intentional, purposeful approach to music making. It is one in which layers of meaning are allowed to reveal themselves, a way of composing that makes a virtue of its labour and the chance occurrences that can arise in the process.

This is music in praise of shadows. Of the things we can’t quite see, the feelings we can’t quite grasp. Heard through the haze, or maybe not at all.

PET NEEDS return with their fourth studio album ‘ELBOWS OUT! THIS IS CAPITALISM’ to be released on Xtra Mile Recordings on 27th March 2026. Recorded by George Perks (Enter Shikari, You Me At Six, Mogwai, Skindred) it follows the release of their Top 20 album ‘Intermittent Fast Living’ in February 2024. The album charts the exploits of the band buying a second-hand punk rock career at auction and trying (and failing) to make it work.

Over the course of the genre-spanning 12 tracks, the story unfolds with a mix of frenetic punk rock defiance; reflective melodic introspective and beat heavy party anthems as well as guest appearance by CJ Ramone, legendary auctioneer Eric Olson and friends The Whops and Jess Guise who help the story develop. The album is a satirical look at the pitfalls of trying to make it as a DIY punk band, delivered by a band at their most creative and bold as they continue on their own ascension of success.

PET NEEDS are a punk fuelled melodic rock fourpiece from Colchester who have toured the world since they signed with Xtra Mile in 2020. Their past three albums have helped catapult the band to the rising stars they are today. They regularly headline tours in UK, Europe and in America as well as huge support tours with Laura Jane Grace, Art Brut, Frank Turner, Flogging Molly, Skinny Lister, Bouncing Souls, NOFX, The Hives. The Lottery Winners, Spike & The Gimmie Gimmies and The Levellers. In the lead up to the album release the band will tour the UK’s regional towns giving fans exclusive listens to some of the new songs. And throughout week of release will perform instores and outstores to push for a high chart position.

DYING VICTIMS PRODUCTIONS is proud to present MIDYRASI’S KULT’s highly anticipated debut album, Italian Dark Sound, on CD and vinyl LP formats. MIDRYASI'S KULT are revolutionary and uncompromised. Featuring veterans from such Italian doom stalwarts as Doomsword, Midryasi, Agarthi, and Fiurach, their unique blend of elements from the NWOBHM, doom metal, and early black metal – all fused in their distinctive national dark-sound tradition, which includes such cult legends as Black Hole and Death SS – results in an obscure, hypnotic, and exciting formula. In March 2025, after just one week on Bandcamp, MIDYRASI’S KULT were intercepted by Caligari Records, who released on cassette their debut demo, Mountain Devil. Featuring three songs in a concise 15 minutes, this demo reaped international acclaim for its originality and attitude. But that was but a foretaste of darker delights to come. Witness the first full-length of MIDRYASI’S KULT, Italian Dark Sound.

Truly titled, Italian Dark Sound is an intoxicating spelunk into catacombs both idiosyncratic and indefinable. Totaling 32 time-/mind-expanding minutes, the eight primary tracks here – the outro is titled “The Lost Son of Sylvester Anfang,” which should offer an obvious clue to the black-metal-minded out there – each offer something different from the next, and yet all add up into a shadowy experience that’s both rocking and atmospheric. In fact, if one were to single out an aspect between the demo and album, it’s that MIDYRASI’S KULT exude more energy on this full-length without sacrificing any of their occult aura. But, just like that demo, Italian Dark Sound features supremely pro production – gritty, earthy, and yet kaleidoscopic in texture – under the guidance of Gabry "The Way" Strada, head of RDF Studio and who’s now collaborating on the upcoming Doomsword new album. In the vein of an open artistic project, all the artwork is made by vocalist / bassist Geilt himself, and up to 11 musicians have been involved in these recordings

It’s 5 AM, the world is still quiet as dawn begins to rise. While most are asleep, a few of us are in the final stretch, finishing last edits or easing into the day, surrounded by scattered notes in the living room with a sleepy cat nearby.

5 AM Study Session is a tribute to the early risers and the night owls. This collection of 34 tracks carries early-morning focus and momentum, guiding you through the quiet and setting the tone for the day ahead. Sunlight slowly peeks in as the melodies play, creating a soundtrack for productivity and peace.

The physical edition captures the warmth of a fresh cup of coffee: pressed on double "Morning Latte" marble vinyl, the swirling beige and brown tones mirror the cozy, studious atmosphere of the artwork. A tangible reminder that the best work often happens when the world is still.

Slip on your headphones, pour a hot drink, and let the sunrise guide your workflow.

After that album, in addition to an intense schedule of headlining shows, she was invited to support prestigious artists such as experimental folk paladins Heilung and the historic gothic rock band The Cult on their extensive tours across Europe and the United Kingdom. It was during her performance at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, as part of the tour with Heilung and Eivor, that the album "Live in London" (2024) was recorded -- a testament to her overwhelming performative power, a cathartic ritual capable of transcending genres and styles.

Blending folk metal, dark ambient, pagan ritual, psychedelia and operatic elements, and entirely composed, performed and sung by Lili Refrain, "Nagalite" combines in its title two words: "Naga," from Sanskrit, meaning "serpent," bearer of ancient knowledge; and "Lite," from the Greek lithos, "stone," something that endures beyond space and time, embodying earth, world and family. From this fusion emerges a symbolic being -- a stone- serpent -- the living body of metamorphosis, emblem of an imaginary transformation through four serpentine alchemical states, the four tracks that make up the suite. It is a sonic reflection on an era marked by war and horror, in which the artist traces a possibility of resilience and new life.

After that album, in addition to an intense schedule of headlining shows, she was invited to support prestigious artists such as experimental folk paladins Heilung and the historic gothic rock band The Cult on their extensive tours across Europe and the United Kingdom. It was during her performance at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, as part of the tour with Heilung and Eivor, that the album "Live in London" (2024) was recorded -- a testament to her overwhelming performative power, a cathartic ritual capable of transcending genres and styles.

Blending folk metal, dark ambient, pagan ritual, psychedelia and operatic elements, and entirely composed, performed and sung by Lili Refrain, "Nagalite" combines in its title two words: "Naga," from Sanskrit, meaning "serpent," bearer of ancient knowledge; and "Lite," from the Greek lithos, "stone," something that endures beyond space and time, embodying earth, world and family. From this fusion emerges a symbolic being -- a stone- serpent -- the living body of metamorphosis, emblem of an imaginary transformation through four serpentine alchemical states, the four tracks that make up the suite. It is a sonic reflection on an era marked by war and horror, in which the artist traces a possibility of resilience and new life.

Undun is the story of a man, Redford Stevens, dying in reverse, rewinding from the moment he became a statistic and hitting the points in his life where he's at his most self-aware. That he's a criminal who got caught up in the familiar street-hustle trappings that the modern media's documented countless times is a pivotal detail-- it's hit at an angle that seems to emphasize the futile inevitability of it all. His life could be any number of misdirected narratives that ends with a toe tag, and what details listeners learn about him are hazy, buried under archetypal turns of fate and decisive struggles. That this protagonist is a fictionalized composite of a handful of real people, filtered through a matter-of-fact narrative that splits character ambivalence with journalistic impartiality, only makes his lack of direction and the failure of any real closure stand out even more. "Lotta niggas go to prison," Dice Raw states on "Tip the Scale", "how many come out Malcolm X?"

So the Roots' latest album isn't a sprawling, rise-and-fall crime story, not a condemnation or a veneration of a man living outside the law, not a bullet-riddled grand guignol heavy on explicit details of soldiers getting cut down. It's a character study of a man whose existential crisis ends only with his death-- a death gone largely unspecified, the glamor and tragedy washed over with a doomed resignation. That's a hard thing to pull off, even for a band as given to deep-thinking concepts as the Roots are. And when your main lyrical catalyst is Black Thought-- a man more given to allusions than direct statements-- it's likely that it'll take a while for the full scope of Undun to really sink in.

If and when it does, it might strike listeners as a bit skeletal: omit the mood-setting instrumental bookends, including a brief, four-part orchestral suite that builds off Sufjan Stevens' "Redford (For Yia-Yia and Pappou)", and you've got maybe a half hour's worth of material. By ?uestlove's accounts, writing Redford's story introduced the headaches and challenges that come with scriptwriting into their songwriting, and what's left on Undun is the end result of frequent revisions and rewrites that attempt to reconcile character, theme, and continuity. If it comes at the expense of nuance, it's not always obvious: There's an easy-to-trace narrative line from Redford's acceptance of his fate ("Sleep") to his acknowledgement of how close it's approaching ("Make My"), back through declarations of aggravated toughness ("One Time"), and celebratory fatalism ("Kool On"), along ups and downs that juxtapose motivation ("Stomp") and helplessness ("Lighthouse"). When the vocal portion of the album ends with two of the bleakest sets of verses in the Roots discography, peaking with the estrangement of "I Remember" and the desperation of "Tip the Scale", Undun reveals itself as a story where a man's actual death isn't quite as tragic as the circumstances that pushed him to it.

Solo 500 delivers another irresistible donut that takes the form of this 2-sided celebration of afro-latin & jazz-funk classics. GSC dusts off 2 deep catalog selections here — & part of the appeal is that neither side is a played-out sample cliché. This one is for heads who already burned through the obvious joints.

Side A digs into Manu Dibango beyond the endlessly flipped “Soul Makossa” universe. “The Panther”, from the 1973 album “Africadelic”, isn’t one of his commonly sampled tracks — & that’s exactly why it hits so hard. Low-slung Afro-funk, stalking bass & suspense-building horns that feel like a break record even if they haven’t been rinsed by every golden-era producer. Selectors who chase texture over recognition will understand the power here immediately. It’s the kind of cut hip-hop heads love not because they’ve heard it before — but because they haven’t.

Side B moves into Latin jazz-funk royalty. Ray Barretto is one of the most sampled percussionists of all time, but “Together” (from the 1969 album of the same name) sits slightly off the obvious break-beat path. Instead of a clean, isolated drum loop, you get rolling congas, warm keys & a communal groove that’s been DJ-tested far more than it’s been sampled. This is the type of Barretto cut that crate-diggers pull when they want rhythm to breathe — bridging jazz floors, disco-leaning sets & hip-hop selectors who think like musicians, not beat miners.

As Nathan Fake rises from the nocturnal subterranea and rave catharsis of his previous records, on Evaporator, he resurfaces into the domain of daylight, bringing a tangible sense of air rushing against your face, of big skies, and endless landscapes. The idea of pop accessibility that trickled into 2023’s Crystal Vision is refracted here through the prism of sweeping ambient, deep electronica, and trance uplift. Evaporator is Fake’s idea of “airy daytime music”, with each track a different barometer reading across the album’s varying atmospheres, which range from vibrant sunbursts, bracing rainscapes, and fine mists of clement melodics. “It’s not overtly confrontational electronic club music,” states Fake. “It’s quite pleasant, it’s accessible. As I was progressing through making the tracklist, I called it a daytime album. It doesn’t feel like an afterparty album.” For the past decade Fake has been gingerly introducing collaborations with heroes and friends alike into his lone, idiosyncratic working process. Border Community alumni Dextro AKA Ewan Mackenzie transmutes his ferocious drumming for Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs into the blurred choral thump of ‘Baltasound’. ‘Orbiting Meadows’, meanwhile, is his second collaboration with Clark, an eerily idyllic duet where microtonal 18EDO piano clangs slowly twirl around wailing pads. Evaporator marks the junction point of old technology and ever fresh creativity for Nathan. The trusty “dinosaur” age software, particularly Cubase VST5, that has powered two decades of music is rarely updated. “I used to sort of feel a bit ashamed of using such old software, and then I kind of had an epiphany – that’s just how I work”, comments Fake. “That’s just how I play. I’m very fond of these old tools, and I get the most joy out of them, but now I’ve incorporated new technology too.” When an artist accumulates so much synergy with their instrument, music making becomes instinctual. By Fake’s account, much of Evaporator just fell into place. The album title arrived randomly in his head (“it felt completely perfect. Airy.”), ideas looped and developed until things locked into place and just felt right. ‘The Ice House’ is a fleeting glimpse of the sonic world he taps into in this creative state, its glassy FM synths built around a counterpoint between rough-hewn crystalline arpeggios and sparse yet gravitas-bearing bass. “That riff I just wrote out on the keyboard, I just played it forever and ever and ever. The original track ended up being really short. Here you go, and it’s gone!” These unplanned channellings of sound call forth records from Fake’s past while he looks ahead, perhaps getting at the very essence of his musicianship. The opener ‘Aiwa’ (“the breeziest,” he muses) reminds of the introspection that characterised Providence, excited by the fire and grit of Steam Days’ textural experiments, its chunky slams and clatters surging into a flood of harmonic buzzing as they reach out for old wisdom. ‘Hypercube’ stampedes in a similar chronological confluence, infusing an incessant synth line reminiscent of the golden age of rave with the crackling, ecstatic energy of modern festival anthems. Like the vaporisation of liquid to particles, everything that Evaporator presents has a mutant desire to be amorphous. Sounds rarely settle; the irradiated garage beat of ‘Bialystok’ is pitched downwards to driving, rebounding effect, while ‘You’ll Find a Way’ warps static into shivering energy, cinematic synth strings building anticipation into a gradual gush of chords. This translates into a more expansive stereo field than Fake has explored before. ‘Slow Yamaha’ saves the wildest, most kinetic transformations for last with a cornucopia of crispy melodies and fried drums; a sibilance of cymbals on the left, a susurrus of shakers on the right, and kaleidoscopic lasers pulsing and fizzing all around. Evaporation culminating in pure excited atoms. In a world where music has increasingly become background content, making albums remains lifeblood for Fake: “It makes me realise how long; twenty years is ages! It’s weird to see how much the world has changed. Release day back then you did fuck all, now you spend all day on socials. When I grew up the people who made the electronic music I was into were quite mysterious, and the artwork was very abstract. There was a massive distance between you and that music, and that was a key part of it, really. Now it helps to be an extrovert, and I'm just not, but the album marks the first time my face has graced the cover art. I’ve never wanted to do this before, I'm very shy, and generally I don’t like being seen,” he professes. “But, twenty years in, I supposed I could try something new. I'm very lucky that I'm somehow surviving in this world, where the media world favours extroverts and interesting looking people. It’s not my world but somehow I’m still in it.” Evaporator continues to prove Nathan’s necessary presence, with some of his most engaging, varied, and magical music yet.

BONGO FURY wird 50! Die klassische Zusammenarbeit zwischen Frank Zappa und Captain Beefheart
im Mai 1975 führte zu einer Flut neuer Kompositionen, einer Tournee und schließlich zu einem Album.
Bongo Fury besteht hauptsächlich aus Live-Aufnahmen aus dem Armadillo Headquarters in Austin, Texas,
sowie einigen Studioaufnahmen aus dem The Record Plant in Los Angeles. Das Album ist eine denkwürdige
Ergänzung des Zappa-Katalogs und das letzte, auf dem der Bandname „Mothers“ zu hören ist, bevor dieser
1976 aufgegeben wurde.

BONGO FURY wird 50! Die klassische Zusammenarbeit zwischen Frank Zappa und Captain Beefheart
im Mai 1975 führte zu einer Flut neuer Kompositionen, einer Tournee und schließlich zu einem Album.
Bongo Fury besteht hauptsächlich aus Live-Aufnahmen aus dem Armadillo Headquarters in Austin, Texas,
sowie einigen Studioaufnahmen aus dem The Record Plant in Los Angeles. Das Album ist eine denkwürdige
Ergänzung des Zappa-Katalogs und das letzte, auf dem der Bandname „Mothers“ zu hören ist, bevor dieser
1976 aufgegeben wurde.

FUMU christens the promising new label Return To Zero (RTZ) with »Funeral Rites on Planet Saturn«, the surrendering sophomore album from Nigerian artist, self-described »negro-producer«, hedonist, and iconoclast LINTD. With production collaboration from Porter Brook and features from Samrai (Swing Ting), Porter Brook, Sam Scott Francis (GOMID), Rizmi, and Imani Jendai.

LINTD’s work emerges as a call and response between the tender, dynamic sounds of Black music across history and the surreal reality of contemporary, vulnerable Black life – a haunting dialogue. These themes are catalysed in the Black Impossible LP Trilogy, reclaiming Black utopia through sound technologies via »Smooch Soundsystem Live at The White Hotel« for Second Born (Kop-Z, Porter Brook), and »DOGTOOTH. And Other Such Tales of the Macabre« on The White Hotel’s HEAD II outlet.

While earlier works engaged with the mania, joy, and paranoia of this impossible experience, »Funeral Rites on Planet Saturn« arrives at a soulful conclusion, allowing grief to tell a truer story. In the vein of Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane, and Octavia Butler, LINTD introduces the speculative planet Saturn as a site where impossible Black being across the world can come and rest: a site for liberation and emancipation.

»This one is an act of care towards myself, and hopefully others like me. I have proven everything I want to prove this year; this one is my elixir from all the lonely grief, a place of rest.«

Repress!

Legendary NYC house label Strictly Rhythm is celebrating a mammoth 3 decades of cutting edge, roof-raising house music. Truly a benchmark. Originally founded in 1989 by the dynamic pairing of music industry man Mark Finkelstein and A&R expert Gladys Pizarro, Strictly tapped directly into the fertile New York underground and after hours club scene, helping to launch and bolster the recording careers of dance music luminaries like Armand Van Helden, Roger Sanchez, Ultra Nate, Todd Terry, Wamdue Project, DJ Sneak, Louie Vega and many more. Strictly Rhythm is easily one of the most recognisable and respected dance music powerhouses of all time.

Across 3 limited double vinyl offerings, the Strictly catalogue has been expertly picked over to present you with a snapshot of some of the most earth shattering house music to emanate from the streets of New York City. A who's who of producers and artists, all killer and no filler. End to end classics that help to tell the story of one of dance music's most well loved labels. Classic cuts and essentials from Danny Tenaglia (Code 718), George Morel, Kerri Chandler (KCYC), Louie Vega and more all feature on part 1 in their unedited, 12" mix glory.

Fully legit, remastered and selected with love courtesy of Strictly Rhythm and Above Board distribution for 2020. Happy birthday Strictly Rhythm!

A mix of metallic doomgaze, epic gothic soundscapes and post punk attitude. Loud and crushing, yet sharp enough to stick in your head for days. There are two kinds of heavy bands: the ones that make a lot of noise and the ones that drag you somewhere you didn't know you needed to go. Cwfen (pronounced 'Coven') are the latter, and Sorrows is a record that doesn't just crush - it haunts long after the final note. The allure of Cwfen's sound lies in contrasts: the glacial ferocity of Amenra, with the velvet-and-razor vocals of King Woman, and the rotting grandeur of Type O Negative. It's as hypnotic as it is harrowing, but somehow even better than the sum of those parts. Since emerging from Glasgow's underground just 18 months ago, Cwfen's reputation is growing, selling out shows and pulling growing audiences into their doom-laden fever dream. Released in October, the band's debut single 'Reliks' was a hit with fans and critics, landing a spot on Kerrang!'s release of the week playlist. And rightly so. Their sound devours and delights in equal measure. "Cwfen have emerged from the darkest depths of the Caledonian underground with a beguiling blend of doom metal and gothic post-punk for those who like to live deliciously." Kerrang! Sorrows lives in the space around doom where the weight of the riffs is matched by the weight in your chest, where the lyrics and the songwriting are as important as the music itself. Loud and crushing, yet sharp enough to stick in your head for days. It builds, burns, collapses, resurrects. Big on riffs, bigger on feeling. The kind of songs you carry with you. Singer and rhythm guitarist Agnes Alder bears her claws one minute, then whispers the next, as the band follows like a storm front, rising, breaking, drowning you in the weight of it. From the guttural Penance to the lush Whispers, to the feral Wolfsbane and the insurrectionist Rite. It includes a long reworking of Embers and Bodies, the two self-recorded demos that launched them into the scene with a bang and their growing legion of fans already adore. Intricate vocal arrangements, heavy and harsh guitars, a mix of atmosphere and heft, it undoubtedly punches above its weight for a debut. As Agnes says: "When we stopped trying to fit into any one space, what came out was this beautiful mix of dark and light. Something visceral and cathartic." This is a band that sits right in the boundaries between the heavy genres, pulling in everyone from the young goths and to the die-hard metalheads alike and 'Sorrows' truly does deliver in spades. Make no mistake, Cwfen are set to be one of the names to watch in 2025. FFO: Chelsea Wolfe, Zetra, King Woman, Type O Negative, Alcest, Faetooth, Liturgy. Limited vinyl pressing, 500 copies in transparent red vinyl. Full colour Gatefold outer sleeve, with a full colour printed inner sleeve, Full download included as well.

Rotating Irish/international collective United Bible Studies (UBS) releases its 28th album, Strange is the Coastline, this Autumn (CD on Talking Elephant Records / LP on Hobby- Horse).
The album is preceded by the single ‘In The Arms of Lewes’ which was available on all digital platforms from 14th August.
'Strange Is The Coastline' is a collection of original folk-rock songs written by current core members David Colohan (co-founder of UBS) and Alison O’Donnell (Mellow Candle) in the company of multi-instrumentalist Steven Collins (The Owl Service). Melding and meshing classic folk, contemporary pop, and passionate tune-smithery in an inspiringly complementary way; disparate, yet delightfully cohesive, with themes of Albion myth and legend to Victorian-era murder ballads via tales of chilling contemporary stalkerss, and climate chaos.
United Bible Studies was formed in 2001 and over the last couple of decades has been home to a head-spinning array of performers in an ever-evolving merry-go-round of studio and live personnel. Drawing on the broadest community of musicians, the band have created an impressive catalogue of 28 albums of studio and live recordings.
Standard weight black vinyl LP in picture sleeve with lyric booklet. 300 copies for the World.

“...teems with bushy-tailed folk-rock about Albion and Ireland, as well as brutal, bracing songs about singer Alison O’Donnell’s experiences with a former stalker, such as the startling You Often Hid”. (THE GUARDIAN)

Far from being a nostalgic exercise, the record reasserts their daring artistry, merging legacy and rebirth. Known for melodic minimalism, elegant melancholy, and pulsing electronics, the band has often been compared to Depeche Mode, New Order, or Joy Division, yet their singular identity has always set them apart. On this new album, they reinvent their sonic language, blending vintage synths with classical textures and luminous modern production. The result is a sensory journey where light and shadow converse, where poetry meets pulse, reaffirming their timeless relevance. Their influence extends across genres: sampled by Madlib, reinterpreted by Tricky, reimagined by Theophilus London, and remixed by DJs such as Marcel Dettmann. Tributes, reissues, and appearances in cinema and fashion underscore their resonance, from Lucie Borleteau's Chanson Douce movie to catwalks by Chloe.

Born in Marseille in the early 1980s and led by Alain Seghir alongside Catherine Loy , Brigitte Balian , and Beverley Jane Crew , Martin Dupont left a mythic legacy with tracks like ' Inside Ou't and 'Just Because...' before dissolving in 1987. Rediscovered through Minimal Wave reissues, their music captivated a new generation of underground and electronic enthusiasts. Today, Martin Dupont are reborn. Seghir and Crew, joined by Sandy Casado, Thierry Sintoni, and Olivier Leroy, embark on a world tour that affirms their unique ability to move and inspire. You Smile When It Hurts proves that their visionary sound has never been more alive

James Ruskin's Blueprint Records continues its 30-year celebrations with a new EP by Kr!z who returns with his fourth EP for the label. Kr!z made his Blueprint debut in fine style with his "Neutrino EP" in 2022 and went on to deliver the "Revelation EP" in 2023 and "Horo EP" in 2024 so it's fitting that he's back to join in this landmark label anniversary.

Kr!z has been at the forefront of techno for more than a decade. Influenced by the hypnotic and energetic sound helmed by veterans such as Jeff Mills, Steve Rachmad and James Ruskin, he gradually but steadily developed his own identity in the international techno scene.

After making a name for himself as a skilled DJ with sharp focus and a quick mixing style in home country Belgium and the Netherlands, Kr!z launched Token Records in 2007. It has since been a leading outlet for heady, purist sounds. He rapidly established the label as a fixed value with a timeless and powerful sound and took it around the world with label nights on every continent. Token remains important in defining techno today - always straightforward, sometimes weird, often catchy - all under the helm of Kr!z as avid A&R.

After 12 years spent assiduously focused on curating the Token discography, showcasing artists he has nurtured and supported over this time, and incorporating the connoisseur's knowledge and experience he has cultivated in his work as a DJ, in 2019 he released his own debut EP "Mantra" on the label, earning high acclaim from both media and key DJs. Since then, he has continued to develop a strong body of work, regularly releasing on the influential Blueprint Records and SK_eleven alongside his own Token imprint, and producing aseries of notable remixes. This steady output has established him as a key figure within the techno landscape, recognized for both consistency and artistic depth.

Kr!z's latest Blueprint EP "Footprints" is released 13th March on vinyl and digitally.

Das bisschen Totschlag’s new LP 0dB Headroom drifts through a cathartic kind of vulnerability—telling stories of losing, larking, and feeling everything all at once. Its soundscape echoes the act of remembering: manipulated samples and floating guitars bent through distorted electronics embody memory not as a fixed archive, but as something alive: tender, fractured, shifting. Moments come back in flashes—sometimes radiant, sometimes aching, always familiar, yet blurred and distorted. A beautiful mess that you can’t ever fully capture.
(FFO: Alex G, Wednesday, Maria Somerville)

Diagonale des Yeux is the new band formed by two of France’s admired and adventurous artists. Laurène Exposito, we know as EYE, our longest regular contributor to the label — and friend Théo Delaunay, member and producer of Parasite Jazz, panoptique, De Klok & Violent Quand On Aime.

In Knekelhuis we have a particular fondness for artistic outputs that resist easy categorisation, and Diagonale des Yeux inhabits precisely that kind of territory.

Every aspect of the project is DIY/homemade. Their world drifts along the fringes of cabaret, strange 1980s French underground pop music to contemporary lo-fi scene — evoking the spirit of Nini Raviolette and The Residents — while delivering beautifully written songs that lodge themselves in your head almost immediately like a Cindy Lee ballad.

The tracks on Madeleine squeak and creak, wobbling on fragile hinges before suddenly opening onto moments of pure beauty.

Drums and guitars follow up synths and electronic percussions captured on tape between living rooms, studios and a concert space.

The band has a kink for choirs and playfully uses diverse languages. Their lyrics emerge through a homemade, patented four-hands cadavre exquis (Exquisite Corpse) process, where chance and dialogue shape meaning as much as intention.

Diagonale des Yeux is a singular project — equally strange and irresistibly pop-leaning. Music like weeds pushing through pavement cracks and, against all odds, turning into flowers.