Swedish visionary Boko Yout is releasing their long-awaited debut album GUSTO, out via Hoopdiggas Recordings.
GUSTO is Boko Yout’s debut album – a kaleidoscopic journey through memory, trauma, humour and healing. Framed as a fictional therapy programme led by the eccentric Dr. Gusto, each track represents a confrontation with a different shadow of the self: unspoken fears, inherited burdens, or unresolved inner conflicts. But GUSTO is not just about darkness – it’s also about hope, longing and the light that makes those shadows visible in the first place.
Boko Yout weaves together raw emotion, spiritual symbolism and bold experimentation. Referencing vodun philosophy, Jungian archetypes and post-genre production, they draws inspiration from artists like Yves Tumor, Odd Future and LCD Soundsystem. The result is a debut that feels more like a sonic manifesto – driven by love, intention and a deep commitment to artistic freedom.
Deep, deep stuff on the debut album from K Wata. Long and dubwise, dark and detailed. With bass that fills and warms a space.
All noir. Cast shadows against the wall. Weight being shifted and distributed with singularly delicate poise, like a knife being balanced on the end of a finger.
There’s a silvery, loose flow state to this record that maybe reveals the way some tracks were first written to be deployed live at Sustain Release 2025. Then taken back to the lab and tightened up further into the album’s final form, with beautiful mixing work between Kenzo and Chris Botta.
With that in mind, Give U Space unfolds slowly and fluidly, giving the listener the chance to access and open up to the deepness of the sound, being led down a path. It rolls and builds momentum and groove, and ratchets tensions up toward peaks of energy "Whisper Dub" and "There Will Be Love".
The tunes feel architectural. Rooms to be in and settle into. Simultaneously stripped back and then etched with neat little details and characterful or atmospheric sound choices. The silhouette of slo mo Memphis and Houston trap is a leading influence, especially with the drums. Mixing with bits of click’n’cut sampling and psychoacoustic tricks, the penumbra of dub techno and drowsier dubstep, and SG’s soft vocals rising in the ether.
The presence and inspiration of the sound system is obvious in all of Kenzo’s work, the music can rattle when spun up louder or blended into the club. But K Wata’s uniqueness and signature comes from an often equally inward facing quality, touched by distance and longing and a sort of chiaroscuro incandescent light set up.
Written and produced by K Wata.
Mixed by K Wata and Christopher Botta at Fer Sound Studio.
Norwegian folk artist Juni Habel's latest album Evergreen In Your Mind is largely an ode to letting go, and at it’s inquisitive heart can be found ‘Pearl Cloud Song’. An instrumental four-and-a-half minutes, it came from a guitar tuning that Habel stumbled upon, the song tumbling out of the discovery on its own accord. Lush and vibrant and bristling with life, it’s a beautiful backdrop to stepping into nature, bringing together a simple drum machine pattern, steel-string guitar, pedal steel, considered effects, and the flicker of a voice somewhere in the far-off distance. Juni says "it gives the sensation of flying." With such ingredients it was rife for a remix.
'Pearl Cloud Song Reformations' is a very limited 12" (also available digitally) which features two remixes/reformations from Tom Sharkett and Minotaur Shock and also includes Juni Habel's original version. There will only be 200 ever made.
Tom Sharkett is a producer from Manchester, now based in Todmorden. Having cut his teeth as a founding member of synth-wave band W. H. Lung. Tom has gone on to forge his own path as an electronic artist with music on Optimo Music, DFA and Test Pressing. His work leans towards dark, wonky and psychedelic electronics and his edit of LCD Soundsystem’s ‘Home’ grabbed the attention of James Murphy which led to an official DFA release. The cosmic choogle of his 'Pearl Cloud Song Reformation' is Sharkett's first remix committed to vinyl since.
Minotaur Shock is the long-standing electronic project of Bristol-based producer David Edwards. With a discography spanning labels like 4AD, Melodic and Bytes, Edwards balances pastoral charm with IDM sensibilities, creating soundscapes that are as much about the heart as they are the head.
"Cloud Collision" is the first transmission of Open Water and also the debut from it's founder - Berlin DJ and producer OTEE. Born and raised in the city, he has spent a long stretch in and around its club environments and in the studio, absorbing the way techno functions on Berlins dancefloors before committing to a record of his own. In his productions, he likes to build from rhythm first. His techno is hypnotic in the truest sense — drum-driven and loop-led, powered by groove and atmospherics, chasing movement over spectacle but always with an eye on the occasional melodic line. The 5-track EP runs on rhythm and space — hypnotic, loop-led techno built on power, movement and emotion. Five tracks that push from dream to pressure to flight and back to earth, restrained and physical throughout, made for the deep end of the floor.
Blume presents two pieces composed in 1970 by the American pianist and composer David Tudor (1926-1996), one of electronic music's most important pioneers, for the Pepsi-Cola Pavilion, a unique artist-designed and programmed space for Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan, created by Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.). Pepsibird and Anima Pepsi deploy electronic technology as a means to experience sound in ways that are anything but matter of fact, rendering liberated environments within and through which one might democratically express and commune. Viewed through the lens of what was, is, and might have been, they offer the tools for time travel: an unmediated encounter with radical, optimistic ideas that gave way to the complex cultural landscape of our time.
Initially trained on organ and then piano, Tudor emerged as a leading figure within New York's musical vanguard after his groundbreaking 1950 performance of Stefan Wolpe's Battle Piece and the American premiere of Pierre Boulez's Second Sonata. Within less than a year he had joined the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as its accompanist, a role he kept until his death, and began one of his most lasting creative relationships with John Cage, who would state that his entire output between 1951 and the end of the 1960s was written with Tudor in mind. Christian Wolff, Earle Brown, Morton Feldman, Sylvano Bussotti, Mauricio Kagel, and Karlheinz Stockhausen all wrote works for him during the 1950s and '60s. Through indeterminacy and chance-based methods, Tudor was noted for radically intervening with the works he played, often making them entirely his own, and it was this same singularity of vision that led him to gradually abandon the piano in favor of electronic process, through which he began working as a composer in his own right.
His engagement with electronics dates to the early 1950s and Cage's Project for Music for Magnetic Tape. By the following decade the pair had moved to live electronics, with Tudor rendering works like Cartridge Music and Variations II through contact microphones and complex systems of feedback and amplification. Before modular synthesizers existed, he designed and built his own electronics, often with engineers from Bell Laboratories, producing dozens of unique instruments and processing tools that helped lay the groundwork for the technological needs embraced by most electronic musicians ever since. A clear marker of his emergence as a composer came in 1966 with 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, where he premiered Bandoneon! (a combine), turning the cavernous performance space into a feedback instrument and a total environment. The event led directly to the founding of E.A.T. the following year by the engineers Billy Klüver and Fred Waldhauer, alongside Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman.
Among the most ambitious of E.A.T.'s projects was the Pepsi-Cola Pavilion, for which Tudor composed four pieces between March and April 1970: Pepsibird, Anima Pepsi, Pepscillator, and Microphone. Together with Forrest "Frosty" Myers, Robert Whitman, the sculptor and filmmaker Robert Breer, and the architect John Pearce, he was tasked with the design and function of the building: a 120-foot diameter steel and polyvinyl dome, shrouded in mist and fog and lit in the evenings by a square of intense blue-white xenon light. Tudor worked with Gordon Mumma and Fred Waldhauer on a unique sound system capable of processing and variable distribution through 37 speakers, controlled both by automated means and by the performer, and with Lowell Cross on a sound-activated laser deflection system inside the pavilion's mirrored performance hall.
Both pieces are an advanced form of musique concrète: libraries of tape recordings, live mixed and processed through the pavilion's sound console and distributed through 8 channels of stationary and rotating patterns designated by Tudor's instructions (small circle, great circle, large rhomboid, spiral, small triangles, small ovals). Pepsibird is focused upon a physical interiority, its source tapes being recordings of the brain wave activity of humans and animals: cat's eye, nerve firing, bats, EKG, alpha waves, a modified nightjar. Recorded in situ in 1970 and mixed down to stereo, it retains a striking sense of the space and ambience that Tudor achieved in performance. For more than eighteen minutes he merges subtle textures and pulses, at times resembling birdsong, within a blanket of vast, resonant ambience of subaquatic density, foreshadowing the relationship to the natural world of later works like Rainforest IV (1973).
Anima Pepsi is centered on the exterior: field recordings that Tudor made of animal and insect sounds (mosquitoes in a jar, a fly on flypaper, a wasp chewing, a beetle walking) and a mix of human and animal sounds that he called the "funny tape". Where Pepsibird deploys interior sounds in ways that allude to the natural world, Anima Pepsi pushes the sounds of nature and humanity toward the otherworldly through the clear presence of electronic sounds and processing, moulding detailed, pointillistic patterns of abstract sonority into gauzy blankets of ambience and space.
The collaboration did not last: less than a month after the opening, Pepsi withdrew its support, fired E.A.T., and disregarded Tudor's tapes, which according to accounts had to be smuggled out by staff, playing its own soundtrack in the pavilion for the rest of the Expo. Heard today, Pepsibird and Anima Pepsi anticipate many territories of later electroacoustic practice, from field recording to live processing, while the terms on which they were made, radically unpredictable, indeterminate, and experimental to the core, reconfigure what we've come to expect from electronic process, making one wonder if the past was ahead. Issued by Blume in a highly limited vinyl edition of 300 copies on red vinyl, with a 20-page LP-size booklet containing You Nakai's essay and newly commissioned liner notes by Bradford Bailey.
KKYV10 is a four-track EP by Bulgarian producer Loopdeville, currently based in Spain. The release explores a flexible space between minimal, breakbeat and house, shaped by groove-led structures, textured sampling and a slightly twisted, off-centre energy. Built to move through different moments — daytime light, peak pressure, late fade. The EP opens with "The Bizz", a track built around jazzy elements, vocal cuts and a jackin low-end. Its warm, rolling groove sets a natural tone for the record, balancing playfulness with reflections. "Shmuck Norris" follows with a heavier, more direct approach. Driven by raw drums and a rolling bassline, the track leans into a big-beat aesthetic while maintaining a stripped structure. On "Rashford", the EP shifts into a breakbeat framework. The track carries a deeper, more introspective mood, with subtle background movement adding acid tension beneath it’s surface. The closing track, "Septimo", draws from UK-influenced minimal with garage elements. Focused on sub frequencies it is designed for systems that favour depth and clarity in low parts. Together, the four tracks form a cohesive yet varied release, reflecting Loopdeville’s recognisable sense of tension and detail while staying totally aligned with Kooky’s sonic direction.
Gasba fire drawn from Ahlem Édition, the Oran-based label founded in 1992 by Abdelkader Haci.
Hypnotic flute melodies laced through hard-grooving, synth-led raï rhythms, heavy drum machine workouts, throbbing basslines, and slow-burning, hyper-soulful witness.
Hotly recommended.
Released by Polydor Records on April 1, 1972, Mandrill Is is the second album by Mandrill, the Brooklyn seven-piece led by brothers Carlos, Lou, and Ric Wilson.
Recorded at Electric Lady Studios during the winter of 1971?72, it finds the band refining the adventurous blend of funk, soul, jazz, rock, and Latin rhythms established on their acclaimed debut. With its powerful horn section, deep grooves, percussion-rich arrangements, and flashes of psychedelia and jazz-rock, Mandrill Is sounds both tighter and more ambitious than its predecessor. "Ape Is High" and the horn-driven "Git It All" deliver the album's most immediate funk, while "Cohelo" and "Kofijahm" explore Latin and Afro-diasporic rhythmic traditions. "Children of the Sun" and "Lord of the Golden Baboon" stretch further into expansive, progressive territory, revealing a band as interested in atmosphere, arrangement, and instrumental interplay as in the groove itself. The album's strength lies precisely in that refusal to settle into one category. Mandrill use funk as a foundation for moving freely between soul, jazz, rock, Latin music, and psychedelic textures, creating a sound that is unmistakably their own.
Mandrill Is captures the group at an important early peak: more focused and confident than their debut, yet still willing to follow the music wherever it leads. Pressed on 180g vinyl.
‘Finally’, the forthcoming new record from Catz ’n Dogz, belongs to the latter.
There are albums you listen to, and there are albums you live with. ‘Finally’, the forthcoming new record from Catz ’n Dogz, belongs to the latter.
Across sixteen tracks, Voitek and Greg have created their most creatively ambitious and emotionally open work to date. An album about relationships, friendship and the people and places that shape us. At its heart is a simple idea: music should make you feel something, and sometimes the most meaningful moments are the quiet ones when you finally have time to yourself.
Finally is rooted in the emotional contradictions that make memories so powerful. Inspired by classic American Folk and Soul, its songs are happy and nostalgic; hopeful without pretending that the past doesn’t exist. There is melancholy inside the euphoria and warmth inside the sadness, a constant interplay between looking back and moving forward.
The album begins with the soulful breakbeat glow of 'We’re Gonna Be Alright' featuring Ajii, before moving through the smoky jazz and piano-led intimacy of 'Dance For You' with Miller Blue and the bass-driven energy of 'Sun Goes Down' featuring Charlotte Haining. Closing with the reflective 'Miss You' featuring Mateusz Krautwurst, the record takes in a rich cast of vocalists, musicians and producers, alongside a series of deeply personal Catz ’n Dogz solo productions.
Those collaborations are central to Finally. The album is, in many ways, a celebration of the creative friendships Voitek and Greg have built throughout their journey. Relationships that have allowed them to step outside their comfort zone and rethink what their music can be.
Written and recorded between Madrid, New York, Warsaw and the road, the album finds the duo placing renewed emphasis on songwriting, chord progressions and musical craft. Rather than simply chasing the next track, they took the time to learn, experiment and create something with a sense of permanence.
This is an album for driving without a destination. For watching the sun go down. For remembering somebody you haven’t thought about in years. For those rare stretches of time when there is nowhere else you need to be.
The Malian virtuoso, indisputably one of the most creative talents of his country, deserved his solo career decades ago. In May 2026, we released his debut solo album SOBRA DANCE featuring his wife Mariam Kouyate on vocals. The groovy and variated electric album, went straight to the top lists of World Music Charts Europe and Transglobal World Music Chart as well as selected for TOP OF THE WORLD by SONGLINES. Gaoussou's solo debut got several 5 star reviews.DJANGO BLUES is a tribute to Gaoussou's father and childhood teacher, who's nickname is Django. On this album the talented guitarist and composer goes deeper into the roots of Malian Dessert Blues, with the variations from the Arabic soundscapes from the north.In Senegal, Gaoussou is nick named "The new Ali Farka Toure". But even though Ali Farka was one of Gaoussou's greatest inspirations, Gaoussou has developed an unmistakable style of his own. He breathes music and goes to his studio every day to work. He uses his composing to reflect, and as a ventilator when things are hard -they often are in his country of contrasts- and as a love declaration to life itself. He is a true Mandingue, a Griot, peaceful and kind, as the philosophy preaches.Accompanying such legends like Toumani Diabate and Kasse Mady Diabate, Gaoussou Kouyate, with his beloved village 'Sobra' as his middle name, has long proven his level. Yet his name has been relatively undiscovered. The trio performed a memorable concert at Dakar Music Expo, led by their producers, Dudu Saar and Lucy Duran. What started being noticed internationally through this exceptional trio was Gaoussou's composing skills.The electric SOBRA DANCE album was released first, to contrast and give space to the acoustic GUITARI BARO album. Now comes the time for DJANGO BLUES. This great album features Gaoussou's band as well as an exceptional Moroccan Ribab- Amazigh violin master and singer, Aziz Ozouss.
This compilation took almost four years to come together. For the residency, the band Alexander Flood composed three new pieces, which they developed with the ensemble over two rehearsal days before performing them across three concerts. The core ensemble - Lucy Liebe, Franka Fairy, Tara Sarter, Raffaelo Visconti and Nonny Smith - remained together throughout the summer of 2024, growing into something far greater than just a band. This compilation not only documents the music played by the Residence Band, but also captures the wider story of the other bands that we recorded while they were on tour and who came to the studio with me the following day. Kai appears here after performing at Holidays in 2024. Sonic Interventions recalls a special milestone: the band's first concert outside Berlin, which took place at Holidays in 2023. Sasha Berliner performed at the Jazz Klub, which is illustrated throughout the comic included in this booklet. Benedikt Montiel Mathews joined the Jazz Montez project through a year-long internship and a record we released together. Hind Ennaira led the successor to the Residence Band during a weekend at El Barrio in 2024. However, her recording was not made in Frankfurt, but in Essaouira, Morocco, during a spontaneous late-night session.
Inlcuding: Pressed on high quality 150g vinyl, the record comes packaged in a beautiful cover, designed by artist Verena Mack. It features a 20 page booklet that includes a fictional comic on the making of a Jazzklub.
Includes unlimited streaming of Jazz Montez Presents Vol. III via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
For their eagerly awaited third album, the Parisian trio Howlin' Jaws have teamed up with Swedish producer Kalle Gustafsson Jerneholm (bassist with The Soundtrack Of Our Lives and producer for Foals, The Hives, Jose Gonzalez and Junip) and have taken a major step forward, affirmingthe universal appeal of their explosive yet elegant psych-rock. This new album, Living The Dream, crystallises just about everything we'd ever dreamt of hearing from Howlin' Jaws. Here, more than ever, their dreams take the form of unifying choruses, transforming grief ("Troubled Mind") or separation ("Do What You Gonna Do", "So Sorry") into genuine bursts of hope. Rich in texture (with the Omnichord and Mellotron featuring on the spellbinding "Miss You" and the twilight-tinged "Up On The Roof" respectively) and in wit (led by the biting "Living The Dream"), the eleven-track album is equally diverse in its range of influences. Disco looms large on "Terminal Buzz", country creeps in on "Sunset Laundromat", whilst the fiery "Maximum Speed" is a joyful reminder of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard's trippy flights of fancy. The trio are stunning when they're in full swing, but just as impressive when they slow the tempo down. Behind its layers of cosmic keyboards, "Time Has Come" immediately sets the scene and subtly invites introspection. Like an echo at the end of the journey, "That Kind of Pain" rubs shoulders with the stars of the French Touch (the Air school), letting the strings of the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra burst forth amidst its melancholic swells. All in all, whether he simmers his albums like an omelette or a beef bourguignon, Howlin' Jaws proves he's never short of imagination.
For their eagerly awaited third album, the Parisian trio Howlin' Jaws have teamed up with Swedish producer Kalle Gustafsson Jerneholm (bassist with The Soundtrack Of Our Lives and producer for Foals, The Hives, Jose Gonzalez and Junip) and have taken a major step forward, affirmingthe universal appeal of their explosive yet elegant psych-rock. This new album, Living The Dream, crystallises just about everything we'd ever dreamt of hearing from Howlin' Jaws. Here, more than ever, their dreams take the form of unifying choruses, transforming grief ("Troubled Mind") or separation ("Do What You Gonna Do", "So Sorry") into genuine bursts of hope. Rich in texture (with the Omnichord and Mellotron featuring on the spellbinding "Miss You" and the twilight-tinged "Up On The Roof" respectively) and in wit (led by the biting "Living The Dream"), the eleven-track album is equally diverse in its range of influences. Disco looms large on "Terminal Buzz", country creeps in on "Sunset Laundromat", whilst the fiery "Maximum Speed" is a joyful reminder of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard's trippy flights of fancy. The trio are stunning when they're in full swing, but just as impressive when they slow the tempo down. Behind its layers of cosmic keyboards, "Time Has Come" immediately sets the scene and subtly invites introspection. Like an echo at the end of the journey, "That Kind of Pain" rubs shoulders with the stars of the French Touch (the Air school), letting the strings of the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra burst forth amidst its melancholic swells. All in all, whether he simmers his albums like an omelette or a beef bourguignon, Howlin' Jaws proves he's never short of imagination.
Mit „Tranquilo II“ schlagen In Extremo ein neues Kapitel ihrer beeindruckenden Erfolgsgeschichte auf. Am
23. Oktober 2026 erscheint das außergewöhnliche Akustikalbum mit 17 Songs, die mehr als drei Jahrzehnte
Bandgeschichte in überraschend neuem Klang präsentieren.
Statt ihre Klassiker lediglich leiser zu spielen, haben In Extremo Stücke wie „Spielmannsfluch“, „Frei
zu sein“, „Störtebeker“, „Liam“ und „Feine Seele“ komplett neu arrangiert. Swing, Rockabilly, Ska, Reggae und osteuropäische Einflüsse treffen auf historische Instrumente und den unverwechselbaren Sound der
erfolgreichsten Mittelalter-Rockband der Welt. Eingespielt wurde das Album in einem kleinen Studio in
Dornbirn – live, unmittelbar und mit viel Raum für spontane musikalische Ideen.
Unterstützt werden In Extremo von hochkarätigen Gästen: Metal-Ikone Doro Pesch verleiht „Feine Seele“
besondere Intensität, Jan „Monchi“ Gorkow und Max Bobzin von Feine Sahne Fischfilet sorgen bei „Störtebeker“ für eine ebenso ungewöhnliche wie mitreißende Begegnung, während Faun-Sängerin Laura Fella
den Klassiker „Liam“ bereichert. Mit „Heute wird der Himmel brennen“ enthält das Album außerdem einen
brandneuen Song.
Ein besonderes Highlight für Fans ist die exklusive Bonus-EP „Sternhagelvoller“, die der Deluxe-CD sowie
dem streng limitierten Vinyl-Bundle beiliegt. Das Herzstück bildet eine sechsminütige XXL-Version des
Partyklassikers „Sternhagelvoll“, aufgenommen mit zahlreichen Weggefährten aus der Mittelalter-Rock- Szene – darunter Mitglieder von Feuerschwanz, d’Artagnan, Faun, Tanzwut, Subway to Sally, Versengold,
Fiddler’s Green und Corvus Corax. Ergänzt wird die EP durch den exklusiven neuen Song „Amontillado“
und eine besondere Version von „Ave Maria“ mit der kroatischen Vokalformation Metaklapa.
Im November und Dezember bringen In Extremo „Tranquilo II“ auf große Akustiktour. In ausgewählten
Spielstätten wie dem Berliner Admiralspalast, der Hamburger Laeiszhalle, der Alten Oper Frankfurt und
dem Circus Krone in München stehen Nähe, Atmosphäre und musikalische Feinheiten im Mittelpunkt.
„Tranquilo II“ ist weit mehr als eine Reise durch die Vergangenheit: Es ist ein mutiges, vielseitiges und
überraschendes Album, das bekannte Hymnen neu entdecken lässt und zugleich eindrucksvoll zeigt, warum
In Extremo auch nach mehr als drei Jahrzehnten musikalisch unberechenbar bleiben.
Soon after their 1978 debut on the Brian Eno-produced »No New York«, a compilation that defined the No Wave scene, James Chance's group Contortions had already evolved – getting sharper, tighter and just plain faster. Despite the loss of keyboardist Adele Bertei and bassist Geoge Scott (who refused to sign a new contract demanded by Chance and his then partner, band manager Anya Phillips) Contortions were firing on all cylinders, and their first full-length album, 1979's »Buy«, is a marvel of hot-wired energy.
Led by the brash yelps and free-sax squawks of Chance, Contortions spit out fiercely rhythmic tunes charged by the wiry guitar lines of Jody Harris and the dizzying slide guitar of Pat Place. With drummer Don Christensen slipping in pointillist beats and David Hofstra's infectious basslines, the songs on Buy crackle with both precision and abandon. Opener »Designed to Kill« shoots sparks of sound in all directions, while »Contort Yourself« is a nihilistic dance number wherein Chance instructs listeners to twist into knots, physically and mentally. "It's better than pleasure, it hurts more than pain," he snarls, later imploring, "You better try being stupid instead of smart."
Heavily influenced by the showman funk of James Brown (whose »I Can't Stand Myself« the band had covered on »No New York«), Contortions coined a downtown dance-punk sound that had immediate influence on subsequent No Wave bands – including Place's Bush Tetras and Bronx trio ESG – as well as the burgeoning disco movement. On »Buy«, Contortions' self-invented template is imprinted so hard into the grooves that it sounds like they're about to break, capturing a combustible band in all its fiery fury.
Blume presents The Days Pass Quickly Immersed in the Shadow of Eternity, a new work by Lea Bertucci commissioned by the ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and premiered in Karlsruhe in November 2025. Written for, and created in collaboration with, the flutist Norbert Rodenkirchen, it draws on his collection of Renaissance, Medieval, and Neolithic instruments, harnessing sounds that have been largely absent from the modern world. What does it mean to employ one of humanity's oldest known technologies, the flute, appearing in human hands tens of thousands of years before the advent of the wheel, within an experimental, electroacoustic composition that is inherently forward-thinking?
Since her emergence within New York City's Noise scene during the early 2010s, Bertucci has balanced a fierce dedication to the DIY ethos and immediacy of the underground with a refined sense of creative rigor and ambition, moving from brittle, challenging compositions for saxophone, electronics, and tape toward investigations of acoustic phenomena, site-specific resonance, and complex harmonic interplay. Following her return to the rural environments of Upstate New York where she was born and raised, her work has entered a more introspective phase, with an expanded instrumental, technical, and vocal palette that has found her increasingly composing for others, as on 2023's Of Shadow and Substance and on Fata Morgana, a work for organ released earlier this year.
The piece grew from a meeting with Rodenkirchen after a performance by the early music ensemble Sequentia, to which he belongs. Struck by his ability to conjure "spirits from deep within human memory, as a clarion call into the present", Bertucci began a series of conversations that led the pair into the studio at ZKM in the summer of 2024. Conceived for ZKM's 42.4 speaker system, grouped into 8 discrete outputs before being mixed down to stereo, the work aligns with the collaborative process she has honed alongside her solo efforts, in duos with Ben Vida, Lawrence English, and Olivia Block: a dialog with personal and responsive agency offered to both musicians.
It carries forward her inquiry into the fundamentally human aspects of listening ("I am looking for sounds that call from somewhere deep within the listener and that tap into archetypal human knowledge and feeling") and her investigation of psychoacoustic phenomena and otoacoustic emissions through a meticulous alignment of pitches and timbres. Where many of her most celebrated efforts played, and played with, the room, this one is rooted in an implied space: the flutes recall and blur the boundaries between the eras and environments in which those instruments were originally played, from acoustically engineered Renaissance and Medieval halls to the naturally reverberant caves of the Neolithic, and those of the present.
Bertucci is not the first to bring ancient sound sources into experimental music: Harry Partch's instruments drew on Greek, Chinese, and Japanese precursors, Alvin Curran regularly plays a conch shell, and Walter Maioli has spent decades working at the borders of experimental music and archaeology. Her piece occupies a more rarefied position through its hybridity, combining advanced technology with archaic sound sources while sidestepping the exoticism and romantic primitivism that can hobble such efforts. Compared with its closest cousin, Phill Niblock's Four Full Flutes, where the instruments are manipulated beyond clear recognition, here the flutes remain recognizable and embrace the layers of history they carry. The result is an electroacoustic work that largely forgoes the auditory signifiers of the idiom: it could easily pass for a live ensemble, and only attentive listening reveals that it could only have been made through advanced technology.
As Rodenkirchen's playing interweaves with Bertucci's computer-facilitated arrangements of flute samples, ranging from pulsing clusters to dense combinations of sustained tones, timbres, and distances, the piece draws connections with folk and spiritual traditions across human history: Medieval polyphonic ecclesiastical music, Sardinian canto a tenore, Pygmy vocal music, Buddhist chant. By conjoining one of our earliest known technologies with our most advanced, Bertucci proposes that our tools are not the message, but rather the unending continuum of humanity itself. Issued by Blume in a highly limited vinyl edition of 300 copies on transparent light blue vinyl, with newly commissioned liner notes by Bradford Bailey.
Ever-evolving Amsterdam duo ANOTR continue their forward momentum with the release of their highly anticipated third studio album, ‘Withness’, out via their own imprint No Art. Rooted firmly in dance music, ‘Withness’ sees the pair refine their sound into their most dance-floor focused and cohesive project to date.
Born during their global tour, ‘Withness’ was shaped in real time: written, tested and refined on dancefloors across the world. Following the expansive, genre-blurring approach of their 2025 LP ‘On A Trip’, the duo felt a pull back toward the club - not as a limitation, but as a unifying space. “We really wanted to have a wide variety of songs that we can play out and create moments,” they explain. “Every track needed to make sense wherever people come together to dance.”
That intention sits at the heart of ‘Withness’. A title that reimagines the idea of “witnessing” into something more active and collective. ‘Withness’ is an album about experiencing life with others. It’s about the moments you share, the people who shape them, and the energy that becomes real only when you’re fully present. The album captures the collective high of friendship. Whether in a packed club, at a festival, or in a living room with friends, the album is designed to soundtrack moments of connection.
“The memories you make with people, they’re the witness of those moments. Withness is about being in it together.” - ANOTR
Sonically, the album marks a clear evolution. Drawing from their early club roots while building on the songwriting confidence developed on their previous records, classic drum machines and 909 samples sit alongside warm, 80s-tinged textures, layered vocals and modern production techniques, creating a sound that feels both nostalgic and forward-thinking.
A key part of the process was spontaneity. The duo embraced a free-flowing, collaborative studio environment, often working with a rotating cast of contributors. Their now-signature “open mic” approach encouraged anyone in the room to experiment with melodies, lyrics and vocal ideas. This energy translates directly into the album’s standout moments. From the euphoric pull of ‘Withness’ to the groove-led ‘Do It With Ya’, the uplifting ‘Paradise’, each track is built to live beyond a single setting.
The LP comes at a timely moment, as their single ‘Talk To You ft. 54 Ultra’ has become the biggest global breakout dance single this year. Sitting firmly in Spotify’s Global Top 200, it has surpassed 175 million streams, and is currently No. 21 in the UK Singles Chart. Spotify have tipped it in their much-coveted global ‘Sound Of The Summer 2026’ list and other highlights include peaking at No. 7 in Shazam’s Global Chart, No.1 on Beatport Top 100 and gaining over 600M UGC views so far.
CER015 sees Celestial Echo bring back one of the great modern soul 45s, Ramsey & Company – “Love Call”.
Coming out of New York in the late ’70s, Ramsey & Company was led by Mainor Ramsey, with the group originally playing the Catskills supper club circuit. Their only single was released privately on Ramsey’s own Ramco label, with copies sold at shows and barely making it into wider distribution. Like so many great soul records, it found its real afterlife much later, becoming a favourite across the UK modern soul and rare groove scene.
“Love Call” is the reason this record has carried such a reputation for so long. A beautifully arranged modern soul dancer, it has that perfect late ’70s balance of groove, song and musicianship. On the B-side, “Leg Grease” brings the funk.
Original copies are now almost impossible to find, often selling for serious money when it turns up and even the Lotus Land reissue has become expensive in its own right. This Celestial Echo edition puts the track back into circulation properly, cut loud and ready for the DJs and soul heads who have been waiting on a clean copy.
Celestial Echo is here to put proper soul records back into circulation — respectfully cut, properly pressed, and ready to play.
Longtime Do It Now favourites Club Squisito are back alongside vocalist Fre Monti for a warm, emotionally-charged deep house cut that will soon worm its way into your affections. The original is an unhurried blues ballad that builds into a thumping groove with Monti's haunting vocal work threading through with real feeling. Emiliano S. remixes it into something jazzier and hard-swinging, complete with a clever half-speed breakdown, while Nutty Nys opens the flip with a tasteful, vocal-led broken-piano hook. Pigsie closes things out with a four-on-the-floor banger that taps into early-2000s deep house energy.
The fifth edition of Meganesia’s annual vinyl release, this year featuring AWHM & Shugo Noss, two leading forces in the fast trance and psytek scenes.
Striving to imagine these two artists as creatures inhabiting the same environment and imbuing it with their sonic identity, we arrived at the idea of a tidal zone in which AWHM’s sound inhabits and defines the warmed, sunlit state of low tide, while Shugo Noss’ sound inhabits and defines the submerged, watery state of high tide.
The resulting release creates a trance-focussed environment inhabited by both the deep, multi-textured, audio-hallucinatory sound of Shugo Noss and the driving, energising force of AWHM.
This release comes out on vinyl and digital on October 27, 2026.
Mastering by Chris Scholz and Dave Miller at Audiosculpture NL
Artwork the THEAJM
Vinyl distribution by One Eye Witness
SHUGO BIO
Shugo Noss is a producer/DJ from Naarm who explores the intersection of sound and form through a blend of hypnotic rhythms, eclectic soundscapes and sonic experimentation. His work aims to exist outside genre binaries, weaving through a multitude of emotional experiences that both relate to, and contradict, one another in an attempt to formulate their own identity. There are no limits that restrain these journeys.
AWHM BIO
A dedicated consumer and creator of trance music, AWHM’s production style draws clear influence from old school goa, psytrance, jungle breaks, and tekno, most easily recognised by his ability to combine driving basslines, hypnotic rhythms, and scattered percussions to transport audiences through uncharted psychedelic realms of fast trance music.
Evolutionary by nature, he’s managed to leverage extensive experiences that led to a self-taught studio process which now stands out in one of the more niche corners of electronic music.
MEGANESIA BIO
Meganesia is an independent music label operating in the broad genres of trance and techno. Drawing its name from the continental plate beneath Australia’s landmass, Meganesia focuses distinctly on developing and platforming artists living and working in Australia.
Since the start of 2022 Meganesia has grown to a catalogue of 12 releases. Across these releases, the label has directly platformed over 40 individual artists on digital and vinyl gaining us recognition as one of Australia’s strongest and most dynamic electronic labels.
Killer Groove Records presents a new 7" by Electric Circus, pairing "High Fever" and "Ogres": raw, hypnotic funk built on obsessive bass lines, sharp horns, dub delays and wah-wah guitars.
Both tracks are taken from Rites, the band's second studio album, out November 27 on limited-edition LP, CD and digital. The 7" is limited to 500 copies worldwide and is out September 25.
On the A-side, "High Fever" maps Electric Circus's territory: '70s funk, Afrobeat and psychedelia meet in a steady build toward a climax of synths and groove. The track grew from a bass line written over one feverish weekend and runs as a single continuous rise in tension.
The groove takes its cue from The Meters, locking syncopated accents into place while a punchy horn section cuts through from the opening bar. Dub delays and layered textures then open the arrangement out, trading space with wah-wah guitars and a treated clavinet that sounds vintage without dating the mix. After a darker, nocturnal passage, the saxophone rises over percussion and synths for the climax.
On the B-side, "Ogres" was the first track conceived for the album and the last to be completed. It began as a bass-and-percussion ostinato in an Ethiopian pentatonic scale, modelled on a war march, and grew into a dense groove with psychedelic and trip-hop textures. Its rhythm conjures a twilight bestiary of dark, menacing or perhaps merely curious creatures, building to a tense climax before resolving into a smooth, dreamlike finale that suggests awakening, or re-emergence.
Like the rest of Rites, both tracks started in jam sessions and were recorded in stages: live takes of the core arrangements first, then dedicated sessions for synths, horns and overdubs. Marco Sirio Pivetti engineered at Metrò Rec Studio in Riva del Garda, Gio Solo at Sberdia Studio in Turin. Overdubs were reamped through tube amplifiers and analog outboard. The band co-produced with Pivetti, who also mixed; Riccardo Ricci mastered at Velvet Room Mastering Studio in Brighton.
Electric Circus are based in Turin. They released their debut album, Canicola, in 2018 and have toured the U.S. Scoring Contrecourant (2021), a documentary series shot in Senegal and Mali, led them to Sahel Roots, a duo from the north of the country. The two groups recorded On est ensemble (Mieruba, 2023) remotely between Turin and Bamako, each writing two pieces for the other to finish.
For fans of The Heliocentrics, Calibro 35, BADBADNOTGOOD.
New York-based Japanese jazz and electronic music polymath Takuya Nakamura presents his debut album Shape The Future - almost 35 years into his storied musical journey.
An expansive double album, the album’s first LP documents a spellbinding live performance by Nakamura recorded at fabric. A hybrid set combining DJing, live electronics, vocals, and trumpet, the set also features studio versions of special collaborations with Shigeto, Currency Audio and Tim Reaper. The second LP complements the first by assembling studio recordings of select album tracks. Altogether the two volumes make for a definitive display of Nakamura’s exceptional musicianship across jazz, DnB, jungle, broken beat, deep techno and more.
Across his career, Nakamura has played Brazilian music, merengue, salsa and straight-ahead jazz. He’s opened for Sun Ra Arkestra, performed with David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Wu-Tang Clan, and Arto Lindsay, appeared on sessions with Terry Riley, ASAP Rocky, Goldie, and TV On The Radio, and remixed the likes of Quincy Jones, Sun Ra, Billie Holiday, and The Streets. He’s also played under director and playwright Robert Wilson.
Although the musical past and present of the Tokyo-born, New York-based DJ and trumpet player is undoubtedly eclectic, Nakamura is abidingly steeped in the sounds of jazz and jungle. This’ll be obvious to casual observers who may have seen any viral videos of him. But there’s more to this. The depth of Nakamura’s engagement with these kinds of music, the way they’ve made him into the person he is, the decades-long path they’ve taken him on; to now arrive at the summit of a solo album is all truly remarkable. Shape The Future resonates with every chapter in this story.
In high school, Nakamura’s friends started listening to jazz and jazz fusion, which piqued his interest, especially when they started going to clubs to see it live, where they managed to see US legends like Sonny Rollins play. Eventually he began to play jazz every day and his musical skill emerged early. He soon became obsessed with getting closer to the source of this music, which led to his studies at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston with George Russell, an influential figure who had taught Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Nakamura drank it in: not only the technical aspects but the sense of a direct connection to “a music culture where Russell and his friends changed harmony forever. I wanted to know how that was possible!”.
This was a radical experience in itself, but then another revolution happened for Nakamura. He was playing in a venue called The Western Front, near Boston and discovered that the elderly owner had his own soundsystem and was playing what was then - in 1992 - only just becoming known as jungle. This was as freeing a musical revelation as his proximity to the giants of jazz was, and in that instant the two things fused. He understood that using technology to fill a dancehall with sound and a jazz musician’s reflexes are all working to the same ends: “You’re always making decisions,” he says, “but it doesn’t have to be really difficult. It’s the truth of the frequencies, and how they’re affecting people’s minds.”
From that moment on, his life path was set. Moving to New York City, he sought out jungle and its offshoot sounds wherever he could find them, gigging and collaborating relentlessly, and gradually developing his own live and hybrid live/DJ shows. Through regular appearances at New York fixtures Zebulon and CBGBs, and continual shows elsewhere in the city, Nakamura developed his live performance and DJing and it was in these environments that he gradually weaved together his twin loves without compromising either, building an international reputation in the process.
It’s only fitting then that his first album, almost 35 years after he first found his musical direction, should be a live one: a window into this never-ending process. Even here, he had to be persuaded that he should make a record. A member of the fabric team got turned on to his music after their daughter saw him play. Of course, as a jungle lover, Nakamura knew fabric – which has a special place in the history of jungle and drum’n’bass – and “had wanted to play there since I was very young.” You can hear the club in the record: this isn’t just a live show, in keeping with his jungle roots, it’s Nakamura duetting with the soundsystem, and you can feel how the emotions in the room would have ebbed and flowed.
This dynamic translates to a transfixing record. Setting the tone with lushly textured ambient and reverberant jazz, Nakamura segues into cinematic breakbeat and stellar fusion, infusing it all with intoxicating low end and hypnotic rhythms. The LP’s midway point locks into mesmeric percussion heightened by resonant echoes of piano and trumpet. There’s an endless pull to this music. Nakamura adjusts the levels for maximum impact throughout, and the overall effect begins to evoke some harmonious hybrid between a jazz ensemble, a classic Metalheadz 12” and a Theo Parrish DJ set. His electric form continues through surreal jazz, intricate electronics and rolling sub-bass velocity, right up to the subtly devastating final cover of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush’s ‘Don’t Give Up’, with Nakamura’s fragile vocal sitting in the heart of a huge sound.
From Tokyo jazz nights to formative studies and encounters in Boston to his artistic development in New York, Nakamura reaches another milestone with his monumental debut album. It’s a release that happened just the way a Takuya Nakamura record should. In the same way his instincts led him to musical revelations, taking his own sweet time has led him to make one of the most extraordinary debut albums imaginable, all executed in his own singular style. In Nakamura’s world, the universe finds a way.
The long-awaited 7-inch release of the live recording of "Unknown Happiness," the signature song by Maher Shalal Hash Baz led by Tori Kudo!
Coupling two live takes of their signature song with distinct arrangements, an essential release that offers a fresh perspective on the unique world of Maher Shalal Hash Baz!
"Unknown Happiness", the signature song of Maher Shalal Hash Baz, the Japanese experimental music project formed in 1984 and led by Tori Kudo. A piece that perfectly embodies the group's one-of-a-kind musical world?freely traversing folk, jazz, brass, classical music, and improvisation?its simple yet heartwarming melody continues to be cherished by indie and experimental music fans around the world.
Now, the live version that captures the song's charm in its freshest form is finally available on a 7-inch record. Side A features the distinctive ensemble of Maher Shalal Hash Baz, beautifully imperfect and filled with the unique atmosphere that only a live performance can convey. Side B presents a special live version with a piano-centered arrangement, revealing a new dimension of the song.
CFUNK 050 is presented as a special collector edition commemorating the 50th Cyberfunk release. The package celebrates more than two decades of the label's music, artwork and visual identity.
The accompanying booklet brings together artwork from across the Cyberfunk catalogue, including labels from some of Quest's biggest and most memorable releases, alongside a personal retrospective from DJ Quest looking back at the creation of the label, the artists who shaped it and the journey back to vinyl.
Dedicated artist pages introduce DJ Quest, Paket, Destroyers, Code BreakerZ and Groovebox, connecting the artists behind release 050 with the wider story of Cyberfunk and the international breakbeat community that continues to support it.
More than simply a four-track 12", CFUNK 050 is designed as a physical celebration of Cyberfunk: its records, its artwork, its artists and the people who have kept the sound alive.
Cyberfunk reaches release number 50. To mark the milestone, DJ Quest opens up the Cyberfunk archives for a special four-track vinyl release featuring new interpretations from Paket, Destroyers, Code BreakerZ and Groovebox.
CFUNK 050 connects the label's original UK Bassline Breaks foundations directly with a new generation of producers. Each artist has been given the freedom to reinterpret classic Quest material in their own style while retaining the character, bass pressure and dancefloor attitude that made the originals unmistakably Cyberfunk.
From Paket's reworking of Muffled Mayhem and Destroyers' take on Cybanet, through to two very different versions of Back To The Old Skool from Code Breakerz and Tech House maestro Groovebox, the release moves across modern breaks, heavyweight club production and rolling groove-led territory.
It is both a celebration of 50 Cyberfunk releases and a statement about what comes next.
A1. DJ Quest feat. Yoof - Muffled Mayhem (Paket Remix)
Spanish breaks heavyweight Paket takes on Muffled Mayhem, retaining the attitude and personality of the original while rebuilding it for contemporary dancefloors with heavyweight drums, powerful bass and the polished low-end pressure that has made him a leading figure in the new generation of Andalusian Breakbeat.
A2. DJ Quest - Cybanet (Destroyers Remix)
Destroyers turns his attention to Cybanet, pushing one of Quest's darker electronic productions firmly into modern club territory. Futuristic electronics, heavyweight rhythm programming and serious dancefloor pressure meet the machine-driven character of the original.
B1. DJ Quest - Back To The Old Skool (Code BreakerZ Remix)
Code BreakerZ completely re-engineer one of Quest's defining tracks for a new generation. Their acid-tinged, hard-hitting approach injects fresh energy into Back To The Old Skool while keeping the hooks and attitude that made the original such an important Quest record.
B2. DJ Quest - Back To The Old Skool (Groovebox Remix)
Groovebox closes the release with a deeper, tech house, groove-led interpretation. Built around movement, rhythm and rolling dancefloor momentum, his remix takes the original somewhere different while preserving the unmistakable old-skool spirit at its core.
After vocal-led 12”s featuring the likes of Razor and Sikka Rymes, Low End Activist pivots back towards purely instrumental territory for further explorations in the hybridised hardcore sphere. There’s an over-arching air of introspection to the five tracks assembled here, as LEA’s signature bass ructions and jagged, roughly-hewn drums offset with a widescreen line in melancholia.
It's fitting that Mike Jefford is both a photographer and a musician, his music career having slowly evolved like a developing photo coaxes Technicolor images out of the shadows. His sonic palette began taking shape in Medway, Kent with darker, grittier strains: teenage grunge and metal turned into drum & bass and IDM, following the Brighton club scene to Berlin as Positive Centre, until he made a nest in rural Portugal where Laguna Seca’s bright, expressive range would blossom.
A longstanding friendship with Chris Clark supported Jefford’s most pivotal artistic evolution yet, jumping from a decade of techno dusk to music practically overflowing with life as Laguna Seca debuted on Throttle Records.
“O tempo” can mean “the time” or “the weather” in Portuguese, two intensely changing powers whose many different connotations Jefford reflects in a highly varied tracklist. The breadth of climatic catharsis permeates through textural production and songwriting experiments, down into the very bedrock of the album’s engineering process where Jefford traces the long signal chain of time: the amps, desks, and tapes of Motown, the vinyl mastering studio’s intricacies, the Akai samplers that gave modern hip hop its “ghostly and impressionistic” sound, the software that drives electronic music today.
Much as 2026’s O Tempo was inspired by vintage tonality, retro aesthetic, and the likes of CAN, Kraftwerk, and Jimi Hendrix, it’s not an exercise in nostalgia; this is music that could have only been made with today’s technological advancements, revelling in anachronisms and collisions between hindsight and present tense.
It’s tempting to view Jefford’s projects as opposites, but they come from the same sonic values. Positive Centre’s “bleak” and “sinister” world is also incredibly detailed, constantly updating pile-driving grooves with microscopic flourishes and vast ambient swells. The flaring psychedelia of Laguna Seca is a continuation of those textural, material, and kinetic explorations, where plate reverb splashes, blistering and crunchy beats, vocal glimmers, and guitar swagger are all glued together by recurrent themes of memory and time. As each of his projects travel to the same destination, all of Jefford’s roads have eventually led to vibrant colour.
Cosmic Romance presents the debut album from Sua Galera, a vibrant 8-track journey shaped by friendship, late-night sessions, and a shared love for groove-driven music.
Formed in Dortmund, Germany, located in the middle of the multicultural region Ruhr, Sua Galera brings together nine musicians who first connected through the city’s jazz music scene. Led by keyboardist and producer Eskil Bauer, the collective channels a multinational identity, reflected both in its sound and its name: “Sua Galera,” Portuguese for “your crew.” With vocalists with Brazilian and Moroccan background at the forefront, the project naturally blends diverse cultural influences into a warm and cohesive musical language.
The album moves effortlessly between Brasil funk and Mediterranean-inspired grooves, all filtered through the timeless sound aesthetics of 1970s and 1980s studio productions. Recorded through countless nights spent both in the studio and immersed in live music culture, the record captures the spontaneity and chemistry of a band deeply connected through performance and collaboration.
Perfectly aligned with the Cosmic Romance universe, Sua Galera’s debut delivers an organic, soulful, and rhythm-forward sound designed for DJs and listeners seeking emotionally rich groove music.
Red w/ black splatter vinyl. Savage Grace return with Underworld, their fourth studio album and first new full-length since 2023's acclaimed Sign of the Cross. Led by founding guitarist Christian Logue and featuring a powerful new lineup of Sebastian Hauser (vocals), Cristian Blade (bass), and Marcus Dotta (drums), Underworld delivers classic high-speed power/speed metal intensity with modern fire.
Vokabularium returns with leksikon vol. 2, the second instalment of the label’s evolving VA series - a carefully curated body of work that reflects the deeper philosophy behind the Copenhagen-based imprint: emotionally driven electronic music built for introspection as much as the dancefloor.
Following the success of the first leksikon compilation, this new chapter expands the label’s sonic identity further, bringing together a diverse collection of artists whose productions move fluidly between melodic techno, leftfield electronica, deep house and experimental club music. Across the compilation, there’s a consistent thread of tension, atmosphere and storytelling - records designed less around fleeting trends and more around lasting emotional resonance.
Founded by Denis Horvat, Vokabularium has steadily established itself as a platform for detailed, synth-led electronic music rooted in analogue textures and cinematic depth. The label has become an extension of Horvat’s own musical language - one shaped by releases on respected imprints including Innervisions, Afterlife and Diynamic, alongside his increasingly distinctive output on Vokabularium itself.
Finnish-American guitarist Raoul Björkenheim and Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love join forces on their new album PING, released by We Jazz Records on 30th October on LP, CD and digital formats. Recorded in Helsinki, the album finds the seasoned duo firing on all cylinders and delivering a remarkable set of contemporary free music.
PING brings together nine excursions beyond “guitar + drums” and way beyond “free jazz”. That being said, those are still good touching points for the music that is wild, imaginative, raw, yet also at times delicate and introspective. Friends and collaborators for decades in groups such as the lauded Scorch Trio, Raoul and Paal have the history and the trust to create memorable and original improvised music that stuns and moves the curious listener.
Raoul Björkenheim (b. 1956) is a Finnish-American guitarist and composer who has been creating original music for the past four decades living in New York City and Helsinki, where he is presently based. Describing his on-going work as investigative guitarism, he is best known for an expressionistic and lyrical guitar style. Björkenheim’s eclectic discography numbers 50+ albums, ranging from ambient soundscapes to visceral free jazz, from duo to big band. His large-scale works for symphony orchestra have yet to be recorded, and he has also composed scores for over ten films and dance productions. Björkenheim has collaborated musically with Bill Laswell, Toshinori Kondo, William Parker, Mats Gustafsson, Hamid Drake, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, Gerald Cleaver, Henry Kaiser, Lukas Ligeti, Morgan Ågren, Paul Schütze, Edward Vesala and Juhani Aaltonen, for the labels ECM, Rune Grammofon, Cuneiform, Tum Records and Long Song records. Björkenheim has been awarded various prizes including the Emma prize for best jazz recording of the year, and been nominated three times for the Nordic Music Award.
Paal Nilssen-Love (b. 1974) is a Norwegian drummer, composer, bandleader, and producer known for his central role in Scandinavian free jazz and improvised music. Since the mid- 1990s, he has appeared on more than 280 albums, including 70 released through his label, PNL Records. He has performed with influential groups including Atomic, The Thing, Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet, Scorch Trio, and Frode Gjerstad Trio, and collaborates regularly with artists such as, Ken Vandermark, Akira Sakata, Otomo Yoshihide, David Murray, Arto Lindsay and more. Paal Nilssen-Love’s fascination with traditional and experimental music has taken him around the world. Since his first visit to Ethiopia in 2009, he has built strong connections with musicians and artists in Addis Ababa, leading to collaborations, performances, teaching, and artist exchanges with Norway. Since his first trip to Brazil in 2013, he has returned regularly, developing collaborations with artists and musicians across the country. His musical explorations have also brought him to Tsugaru and Aomori in northern Japan, where he has developed an interest in the region’s traditional music. Nilssen-Love is also an active organizer and educator. He started both Oslo’s all-Ears festival, the Blow Out festival and FRAM Kunstfest, and has led workshops internationally and in Norway.
Kalita presents the fourth and final instalment of their groundbreaking ‘Borga Revolution!’ series, uncovering another selection of essential recordings from the rich and far-reaching world of Ghanaian highlife. Spanning deep, hypnotic highlife through to the vibrant electronic productions of 1980s Burger Highlife, Volume 4 captures a period of extraordinary musical change, as Ghanaian artists absorbed influences from funk, disco, boogie, and new synthesizer technology. With previous volumes championed by tastemakers including Gilles Peterson, Antal, Tom Ravenscroft, and Hunee, this final chapter turns its attention once again to the music of the Ghanaian diaspora.
Volume 4 brings together rare recordings from artists such as Rex Omar, Nat Fredua, and CST Amankwah, alongside the elusive, deeply hypnotic and beautiful sounds of the Abibifo Dance Band of Ghana (led by the legendary bassist Ralph Karikari) and Baffour Kyei. Unearthing recordings that have languished in obscurity for over forty years, the compilation moves between deep highlife, rhythmic dancefloor cuts, and pioneering digital productions, revealing yet more musical ingenuity of Ghanaian artists both home and abroad. The final instalment in the ‘Borga Revolution!’ series, it offers another vital collection of forgotten favourites and hidden treasures for DJs, collectors, and anyone drawn to the endlessly inventive sounds of Ghanaian music.
The 1970s and 80s saw Ghanaian musicians begin to incorporate Western sounds like funk and disco into their music, reflecting the changing global musical landscape. However, the country's political instability and economic hardships, marked by military regimes and curfews, forced many artists to leave Ghana in search of better opportunities abroad. In Europe and the U.S., these musicians fused their traditional highlife roots with emerging digital sounds, using cutting-edge technology like the DX7 synthesizer and drum machines to create the genre now known as Burger Highlife.
With ‘Borga Revolution!’ Kalita offers a vivid exposition of this musical transformation, using rare interviews, archival photos, and detailed liner notes to bring to life the pioneering spirit of both well-known icons and unsung innovators of Ghanaian Highlife, one of West Africa’s most exciting musical movements.
· The final installment in Kalita's 'Borga Revolution!' series, examining the development of Ghanaian dance music in the 1970/80s, and focussing on the phenomenon of Burger highlife (a blend of Ghanaian highlife with disco, boogie and synths).
· 2xLP in gatefold sleeve, with printed inner sleeves examining the stories of the artists featured on the volume.
· Includes 10 highly sought-after and under-the-radar recordings, including those by the phenomenal Rex Omar, Nat Fredua, CST Amankwah, Baffour Kyei, Chief Kofi Sammy, and the Abibifo Dance Band of Ghana.
In late 2025, Manchester producer Psychederek established the Via Jupiter label as an outlet for his work.
For the label's fourth release, Psychederek returns with 'The Right Side Of The Ocean', a guitar and percussion themed record that drifts somewhere between balearic pop, new age and loose-limbed disco.
Danny Ward's percussion runs throughout, giving the record a warm, organic pulse beneath its hazy melodies.
'Saint Joan' sets sail with a nostalgic, guitar-led groove, easing us into the world of the EP.
From there, things get a little baggier on 'Aire Salado', a Happy Mondays-adjacent pop song built around Stan Lewis' catchy saxophone riff, with Lois Holmes' backing vocals adding another layer of laidback charm.
'In The Sun' settles deeper into the groove, built around repeating vocal and guitar hooks, dreamy synth pads and a deep, rolling bass line.
Then comes 'Central Drive', where the tempo lifts and the record heads towards disco territory. Its roto-tom driven breakdown takes its time, opening up the groove before eventually slipping back into the track's main synth riff.
Finally, 'Everything Settles' brings things back around, dissolving into an ambient reprise of the opening track. The guitars give way to synths, the vocals become a repeating mantra and the whole thing slowly drifts off into full new-age bliss.
'What feels like a dream, a portal between worlds, a shimmering of ideas – that liminal space is the departure point for Midori Takada and Jakob Bro’s ever-unfolding musical friendship.
'On their second outing From Such A Blue Sky / かくも青き空から, arriving on Copenhagen's Loveland Music in October, the compositions are transformative, and the sounds travel between immediate emotional and abstract planes.
'The classically trained Japanese percussionist Midori Takada, later dubbed an ambient pioneer for the landmark 1983 album Through The Looking-Glass (another portal), left behind her Western classical training and found her own paths, drawing on African and Indonesian drumming, minimalism, theater, environmental music and instant composing.
'Similarly, Danish composer and guitarist Jakob Bro creates otherworldly sounds and beautiful, delicate melodies through intuitive creation and collective listening.
'On From Such A Blue Sky the music is co-composed and created in the studio over three days, from early morning to sundown. The compositions are increasingly open ecosystems, and the range of sound sources expands significantly from the puristic Until I Met You, with Thai gongs, heavy drums, ceramic flutes, electric guitar and pedals adding to the sonic imagery of From Such A Blue Sky.
'From Such A Blue Sky is the second album in a trilogy recorded at AVACO Studios in Tokyo, a studio in Shinjuku renowned for its sound works in Japanese film since 1952. The trilogy is an ongoing continuation of their musical friendship, which has already led them to duo performances at World Expo Osaka, Tessenkai Noh Theatre Tokyo, Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin and Roskilde Festival.'
Naya Beat is incredibly excited to announce the release of an astonishing lost “holy grail”, Mohinder Kaur Bhamra’s 1982 masterpiece ‘Punjabi Disco’. Unknown and inaccessible to even the deepest of diggers, it is the first British Asian electronic dance album recorded and a true lost relic. A chance find of the original multitrack masters during the Covid lockdown led to ‘Punjabi Disco’ being rediscovered. Lovingly mixed down and remastered from these very studio recordings, the reissue also includes remixes by Peaking Lights, Baalti, Mystic Jungle, Psychemagik, and Danger Boys, as well as a cover by Say She She’s Piya Malik and Turbotito & Ragz and a previously unreleased track. It is available for pre-order and out on x2LP vinyl and all digital platforms on October 31st, 2025.
Released the same year and into equal obscurity as ‘Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat’, Charanjit Singh’s acid house opus, the reissue of ‘Punjabi Disco’ is set to have similar reverberations in the world of dance music. Produced by Mohinder’s eldest son and legendary bhangra pioneer Kuljit Bhamra using a recently acquired Roland SH-1000 synthesizer and a CR-8000 CompuRhythm drum machine played by his then 11-year-old brother, the album was recorded at Roxy Music bass player Rick Kenton’s studio in London. The concept for a Punjabi disco album was subsequently stolen from the Bhamra’s by the very record label that had agreed to distribute the album. Eventually self-released with no label support, ‘Punjabi Disco’ vanished into complete obscurity.
A pivotal figure in British Asian music, West London-based vocalist and first-generation immigrant Mohinder Kaur Bhamra became the first woman to sing at Punjabi weddings and other community events in the UK. Her son, Kuljit, would accompany her, playing tabla at her events from the age of six. Wedding music was traditionally a tame, segregated affair: men and women seated and separated on opposite sides of the room. ‘Punjabi Disco’ was born out of a desire to create an unsegregated dancefloor and inspired by the sounds of disco from the era. A tapestry of electric drum rhythm, warbling bass, and psychedelic siren-like Roland synth melodies provide a vehicle for Mohinder’s powerful voice. Part disco, part funk, part acid house, and infused with Punjabi folk melodies, the sound of ‘Punjabi Disco’ is as mesmerising as it is undefinable.
Featuring an incredible gatefold package and exhaustive liner notes by the Guardian’s Global Music Critic, Ammar Kalia, the x2LP release has been cut to vinyl for the discerning listener and DJ by Grammy-nominated Frank Merritt from The Carvery, London.
This is Naya Beat’s ninth release in a series of reissues, remixes, and compilations dedicated to uncovering electronic and dance music from the subcontinent and South Asian diaspora.
Per Hammar returns to his own Dirty Hands imprint with the four-track ‘Ontario EP’, once again showcasing his raw, robust and groove-led style.
Swedish producer and DJ Per Hammar has steadily carved out a reputation as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary underground electronic music. As the founder of the acclaimed Dirty Hands imprint, Hammar has built a platform synonymous with deep, groove-led and uncompromising club music, while other productions have found homes on some of the scene's most respected labels including Sushitech, Kalahari Oyster Cult and Craigie Knowes. Here we see him returning to his own home and delivering stripped-back late-night tools, psychedelic excursions and deep, hypnotic dancefloor journeys. Hammar consistently balances functionality with personality, a quality that has established him as one of Europe's most respected underground talents.
Title cut ‘Ontario’ leads with Per laying down crisp, crunchy drums alongside dubby bass tones, fluttering stab sequences and intricate modulations, all delicately ebbing and flowing throughout the composition. ‘Off Disk’ follows, fusing organic percussive elements with weighty sub-bass, shifting synth flourishes and bubbling, delayed melodies that steadily unfold across the groove.
On the flip side, ‘Oops All Sixes’ shifts into more acid-tinged House territory, built around a squelchy acid bass hook and saturated drums, while sporadic, expansive delays and hypnotic reverberations drift atop the track’s raw, loopy foundation. ‘Airex’ concludes the release by diving deeper, stripping things back to oscillating percussion, a snaking low-end pulse and airy chords.
“Everyone Thinks” by A for Alpha.
Bristol-based DJ and producer makes her Neptune Discs debut via Jupiter’s Depth, landing with four stripped-back, bassline-led cuts with a garage-esque, tech-house lean. The B2 sees her link with two friends under the Groove Interrogation alias. A DJ as much as a producer, she’s moving across the planet this summer, with stops including EASTERENDERZ in Barcelona and Love International in Tisno. Weighty low-end, dubby chords and a focused groove throughout — a sharp debut on the sub.
Mysticisms’ explores the previously unknown Dub House, Digidub and electronic Street Soul of Manchester émigré Andrew Fitzgerald aka Atone on a 6 track EP, shape shifting from dark basements to summer fields, the music is wide-screen dreams, mixing psychedelic temperaments with ecstatic memories.
Dub Dats is a compendium of a life around or making music, beats, dubs; menageries of sound that encompass a love of reggae mixed with the influences of youth. Growing up in Thatcher’s then declining Manchester housing estates, Fitzgerald found escape first as a young roadie, just aged 15, sorting ‘cigarettes and alcohol’ for visiting bands. Rubbing shoulders with the likes of The Buzzcocks, Ian Dury and The Slits, was a great way to learn the ropes, while avoiding becoming another juvenile delinquent.
A love of Bowie, Kraftwerk, Motown, film scores and the emerging electronic and industrial bands like Throbbing Gristle led to a first studio, featuring the unique and faithful DR-55 Dr. Rhythm, soon followed by Sequential Circuits Pro One, Juno 60, Roland 303 (x 2), Roland 808 and Space Echo.
Working on music solidly, a release finally appearing on Robs Records, before losing all the equipment in a robbery. Manchester was shifting, gangs and “Gunchester” meant it was time to move on and when ‘an out’ appeared, Fitzgerald was landing in Sydney and settling into a new life.
Hooking up with Ali Omar, who he’d met while doing a stint in Brixton, London; the two worked solidly on music, gigging continuously, hanging with the likes Severed Heads and living a good life of that post acid-house party era. The loss of Ali to cancer, still young, hit hard and period “quite liked the madness” ensued. Rehab and starting again, Atone has been gaining some interest.
With 2 EPs of early works recently released on Tonal Oceans, Dub Dats looks deeper, with the dubbed house grooves of title cut, Dats and, the intriguingly named, Somewhere In France With Eric Random. Complimented by the electronic dub of Keep On, the soulful, slow breaks torch song, I Be There, the sample heavy Sound Of Soul and closing, trippy Unlike You, this is a multi-genre producer of considerable capability and talents.
Finally getting his due, Dub Dats perfectly fits the Dubplate Series, broadening its soundscape, while also standing out as its own, sonic release.
Electronic music legends Soft Cell release ‘Out Come The Freaks’, the very first single from singer Marc Almond and multi-instrumentalist and producer Dave Ball’s final album ‘Danceteria’. Download and stream the track, featuring vocals from the late Dave Ball and special guest vocals from Nona Hendryx.
‘Out Come The Freaks’ is a cover of Was (Not Was)’s mutant disco classic and sends Soft Cell into prime disco territory, conjuring the hedonist spirit of early 80s Manhattan and a Danceteria floor filler spun by DJ Mark Kamins. There couldn’t be a more fitting alternative disco banger to pull back the curtain with and beckon you into the world of ‘Danceteria’. The final album is a homage to the legendary nightclub where young Marc and Dave would party until the small hours after the recording sessions for their seminal 1981 debut ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’. The final flourish of glitter to Soft Cell’s ‘Out Come The Freaks’ comes courtesy of guest vocals from Nona Hendryx, the iconic singer, one third of Labelle of ‘Lady Marmalade’ fame, and producer of Lisa Lisa and Bush Tetras.
This is the very first material to be released from ‘Danceteria’, Soft Cell’s forthcoming sixth and final album. It is also the first time new music has been released since the sad, untimely passing of Dave Ball in October 2025. Almond led the tributes, describing Ball as a “brilliant musical genius” and the world’s media hailing Dave as an electronic music pioneer. Dave finished ‘Danceteria’ very close to his passing and it is in full tribute to him that the album release goes ahead as planned. More details are to follow very soon about the release date.
It’s been 10 years since ‘Love Over Will’. In that time I have been experimenting with music outside of the purely electronic, working with musicians, other tuning systems and the role of sound in healthcare, amongst other things.
Is With Us is a return to what I love most about electronic music: the combination of sound design, rhythm and emotion. It doesn’t fall into any specific category but is rather a reflection on those elements I find interesting within the context of beats-led music.
Where ‘Love Over Will’ was slightly brooding, ‘Is With Us’ strikes a more positive note, something which wasn’t a conscious decision. It is just a moment in time.
180 GR welcomes Vick Lavender for his first release on the label, presenting the two-track The Endless Possibilities EP, shaped by his distinctive approach to deep-rooted house music. Endless Possibilities moves through warm, hypnotic territories, balancing flowing rhythms with a spacious, reflective feel. Out Of The Fire takes a more direct route, bringing deeper pressure and driving energy while keeping musicality and depth at the centre. Together, the two tracks offer a focused introduction to Vick Lavender's sound: soulful, rhythm-led, and built for both the dancefloor and longer listening sessions.
