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Voted DJ Mag’s Underground Hero in 2022, DJ & producer Lauren Flax has been a fixture in Brooklyn’s electronic scene for two decades. On her latest project Liz & Lauren EP, she teams up with Liz Wight of shoegaze techno duo Pale Blue, whose sultry vocals explore questions of love and isolation to the tune of Detroit house and acidic techno.

Flax and Wight became fast friends in 2021 after being introduced by Pale Blue member & 2MR co-founder Mike Simonetti, who’d enlisted Flax to remix Pale Blue’s “Breathe.” Naturally, when Flax needed a vocalist for some tracks she was working on shortly after, she knew just who to call. “I was in my last year of grad school doing an internship in community mental health helping kids cope with the trauma of the pandemic,” Wight says of the time. She channelled this experience as she wrote and recorded the lyrics to Liz & Lauren EP from her home in Los Angeles.

As a result, the lyrics on Liz & Lauren EP are open-ended musings on connection, isolation, and convention. Lead single “Fix Everything” can be read both as an indictment of the trappings of marriage or, on Flax’s view, a rousing call to action, applicable to issues ranging from the degradation of the environment to the attack on LGBTQ+ rights in America. As the EP progresses, Wight’s airy vocals consider the pitfalls of love, from the destructive power of infatuation to the pain of outgrowing a relationship.

Sonically, Liz & Lauren EP feels like a natural progression from Flax’s first release on 2MR, 2021’s Out Of Reality, which saw her exploring a more minimalist production style for the first time in her work. “I Don’t Want To Hurt You” and “Fix Everything” pulse with bright, dynamic production, while slow burner “Return To Love” takes a sparser approach, anchored by a muted drumbeat and a simple, earworm synth refrain. “I’d Risk It All To Be With You” is a masterful balance of both; it even gets the club treatment on the EP’s closing remix, courtesy of Flax’s friends Mark Archer and Simon Neale (Shadow Child) of MASC.

Liz & Lauren EP is an impassioned collection that showcases both Flax and Wight’s artistry in equal measure. For both artists, it’s a testament to stepping outside the norm (DJing for Flax, performing in Pale Blue for Wight) and collaborating with others, the fruits of which are sure to be felt on the dancefloor for years to come.

E-Talking crashes onto Love On The Rocks with a 4-track EP that’s weirder, faster and harder than anything Paramida’s ever-evolving imprint has put out to date; pushing the label into new territory that’s simultaneously unexpected and unmistakably true-to-form.

The Berlin-via London-based French producer, one half of the duo & collective Nummer, released his studio debut on AD93 in 2018 and his first album on Going Good in 2021, with productions that are dense, intricate and intoxicating, overflowing with ideas and effortless finesse, qualities all on display on this EP in otherworldly abundance.

The ‘Cosmic Egg’ refers to our modern understanding of the universe as ever-expanding; extrapolated backwards in time, it implies a finite starting-time and a small starting-place, from which the entire cosmos metaphorically hatched.

‘Pads & Frogs’ finds E-Talking in the midst of this process; slowly awakening to find himself up to his eyeballs in a shimmering psychedelic rainforest, awash with swirling pads, lush percussion, tripped-out inter-species vocals and tribal rhythms, building and looping into each other in a joyous dance of life-giving. A cosmic field recording from the incubation of this special egg, recorded somewhere between whatever passes for a rainforest in Berlin and deep, infinite space, sat upon lovingly and diligently by Paramida and Alex while in the process of developing a close friendship with its birth-mother – the three of them keeping it collectively warm and preparing to hatch since early lockdown days.

The time, motherfuckers, is now. After a warm, fuzzy beginning, of course, comes a huge, shattering explosion: ‘Rise Up’ is the EP’s first big leap into new territory, turning up the pace considerably and wasting no time in serving up some seriously pounding cosmic techno, LOTR-style, with some unexpected twists and turns halfway through. It’s all in the switches and details here, and they are so good you will want to literally get naked and lick your speakers for momentary sonic relief.

Unfortunately for you, ‘Life Begins Now’ doesn’t let up, proceeding with the same intensity but a more house sensibility, with layers of percussion and grooves building off each other into a drop which could easily carry the track, but is really just a tease for another twist that sends this one off fully into intricate, exquisite orbit. ‘Neidan’ brings us slowly back to Earth for another slamming house workout with all the hallmarks of a future LOTR classic: sun on the horizon, cosmic energy to infinity, all your friends together on the dance floor. It doesn’t get better than this.

Previously, the universe was thought of as eternally old, with no start and no growth. Boring. This EP exemplifies just how wrong that is: an adrenaline-fuelled salute to the constant creative expansion of the universe, and all the weird beings who inhabit it.

Pauline Hogstrand's music – and Áhkká, in particular – is deeply inspired by both inner and outer influences, by the mystical as well as the rock-solid, by fictitious conversations and the queen mountain of Lappland (Áhkká).

Meaning "the old lady" in Lule Sámi, Áhkká is a barren, wild, exciting, beautiful, and sometimes grumpy mountain regardless of the season. Over the years, the mountain peaks, moss, birch forests, paths, streams, birds and people have shaped the surroundings, and the massif changed them in return - a reflection of a constantly ongoing development and emerging into greatness, surrounding and within. Speaking about why this mountain is so dear to her, the Denmark-based musician shares: "The nature there is harsh and raw and you can easily feel how it's so much bigger than you. Some people might feel overwhelmed or intimidated, but I feel that when acknowledging the greatness and the power nature consists, I can feel one with it. We come from the same source: I am a part of universe, and universe a part of me."

The music appearing on Áhkká (the album) simulates the dualities of ascent and descent, tension and release, inhale and exhale. Through implementing extended structures for analog and digital synthesis and processed acoustic instrumentations – strings, recorder, pipes and field recordings – Hogstrand expertly navigates these dual motions across two side-long pieces.

The opening "Herein" is slow, difficult, at times jagged and unwelcoming; just like climbing up a mountain early in the morning. Hogstrand shares that this piece is "about surrendering and letting go of control", especially during the last 10 minutes of the track which consist almost solely of an insistent and pulsating drone leading you to no man's land. "Magnitude" offers a release, glimpses of beauty, a softer, easier presence; descending, you're able to see beauty where previously you saw obstacles, perhaps the sun is up, breathtaking views in every direction... This piece is "about all that becomes available after letting go. Suddenly sight clears up in front of your eyes," shares the Swedish composer.

The magic ultimately lies in Hogstrand's perception and portrayal of contrasts – she does not view the two as opposites, but as one reality. "One greatness is not compromised by another greatness." In fact, the opposite is true – one without the other loses meaning, depth and context.

You never have to guess what Tink’s thinking. The Chicago-born songstress and rapper says it all in her music. She spits, speaks, and sings straight from the heart without filter or apology. At the same time, she breaks boundaries, dropping off bars with uncontainable charisma and belting out hooks with show-stopping range. She can be romantic in one crescendo before getting raw in a bout of wild wordplay. This versatility consistently affirms her as a force in her own lane. Following her 2011 debut mixtape, “Winter’s Diary,” she dropped projects at a prolific pace, including “Alter Ego,” ‘Blunts & Ballads,” and “Boss Up.” 2014 saw “Winter’s Diary 2: Forever Yours” arrive to widespread critical acclaim, landing on year-end R&B album lists from Billboard and Rolling Stone. It also yielded “Treat Me Like Somebody,” which gathered 64 million Spotify streams and counting. A year later, XXL touted her among its coveted “Freshman Class.” Following a stint in the major label system, she embraced independence again with “Winter’s Diary 4” 2016, “Voicemails” 2019, “Hopeless Romantic” 2020, “A Gift And A Curse” 2020, and “Pillow Talk” (2023).

Composed, produced and arranged by Evangelia VS, the artist behind Abyss X, Freedom Doll is the culmination of a year of emotional unloading through songwriting, offering an introspective journey into the ocean of her mind. Produced and recorded between an artist residency near the Mayan jungle in Mexico and her Berlin home, the album chronicles transformations the performer tackled mentally during the writing process, tracing the rollercoaster of falling in love during the pandemic, as well as the pleasures and tribulations of womanhood.

Freedom Doll encapsulates the romantic escapade between her voice and the guitar. The amalgamation of seduction, sexual tension, vulnerability and assertiveness pulses throughout the entirety of the album, spiralling out of the cracks spawned from her vocal chords. From the twirling dance between her lush harmonies and the progressions of the acoustic guitar in tracks such as Ascend and From Hot to Cold, to the explosive confrontation between the metallic and operatic qualities of her voice, the searing sound of the electric guitar in industrial rock / psychedelic anthems such as Torture Grove and Banyana and the cathartic momentum found in the gospel inclined chants in A CHEW - Freedom Doll untethers the dramatics and theatricality that defines Abyss X’s vocal performance and music production, while maintaining the sensual vibrations of her creative essence.

Freedom Doll is the encapsulation of the Minoan woman, the elusive harlequin tiptoeing her way through the “circus of terror” that is living and loving her way through womanhood. With this visual reference, Abyss X pays tribute to her ancestors and their groundbreaking ancient artistry. The back cover of the vinyl features a reiteration of depictions of bulls leaping found in Minoan frescoes; an inherently male cultural act that in the ancient Minoan times presumably gave expression to a tension that underlies man's somewhat tenuous mastery of nature. Freedom Doll’s artwork challenges this preconceived notion through an eco-feminist approach, bringing the Minoan woman slash Gaia in the seat of the bull leaper, taming the unhinged and predominantly male earth - threatening human force.

Having released several solo projects, numerous collaborations and a series of LP's, EP's and singles with his band Ruby Rushton that centred on original compositions, he wanted to take a moment to focus his energy on exploring the classic jazz material that has inspired him over the years.

Players like Jackie McLean, Duke Pearson, Clifford Jordan and Wayne Shorter have all played significant roles in Tenderlonious' life and provide a constant source of inspiration for his development as a musician and composer. 'You Know I Care' is a tribute to those musicians and for this reason a landmark album - his first recording that purely delves into the American jazz songbook. Plus it's a way of encouraging a new generation of jazz listeners to explore some of the most significant contributors, and in some cases unsung heroes, to this everevolving genre.

This long player clearly follows in the footsteps of Tenderlonious' spiritual jazz hero's, paying particular attention to the original performers of these six masterpieces - Jackie McClean, Clifford Jordan, Wayne Shorter and Duke Pearson. This is also the first time that Tenderlonious has recorded on alto saxophone, a more recent love affair for this talented multi-instrumentalist, and hopefully the first of many.

There is something for everyone on this album, from brooding ballads to fullsteam ahead modal delights - and an opportunity to enjoy a fresh take on these timeless compositions.

Tenderlonious: alto saxophone, flutes
Hamish Balfour: piano
Pete Martin: bass
Tim Carnegie: drums