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Signals is an absolutely beautiful new collaborative effort between the much beloved Finnish electronic artist Lau Nau, and the brilliant Swedish composer and pianist Matti Bye. These 8 gently melancholic and deeply sensitive tracks are a perfect antidote to the stressful times that we all find ourselves in. Let these soothing sounds from the light filled days and nights of the far north soften your cares during these all too dark days. As usual at the Time Released Sound label no effort or expense was spared here, and this lovely record comes with 180gm black vinyl in a super heavyweight, beautifully printed reverse board jacket.

Main Phase returns to Warehouse Rave with a four tracker 12" that shows the Copenhagen native take on both 2-step, grime and breaks. The release, Cool Down EP, sees the rising garagehead Main Phase explore the murky and dark areas of 2-step with direct nods to the grime scene generals as well as early rave sounds and euphoric breaks.

In the two years since the release of his critically acclaimed album “Love Songs: Part Two”, Romare—real name Archie Fairhurst—has spent his time almost solely on the road. Playing over 150 shows across the world, including stops at Berghain/Panorama Bar, Primavera Sound, All Points East, Dimensions, III Points, Printworks and The Warehouse Project. He joined both Bonobo and Nightmares On Wax on their US tours, playing iconic venues like Terminal 5 and Output in New York and Smart Bar...

Tape / Cassette
A peculiar recollection of a haunting hallucinatory experience, narrated through spectral harmonies. In what is best described as “horror musique concrète”, Polish multidisciplinary artist and musician Samutek (Mateusz Woś) has composed a 47-minute album that emits a distinctive, hypnotic aura — intricately developed and mastered over the years.

Ingrained with echoes of gongs, chimes, crickets, drones and a plethora of haunted sounds recorded and found, “Omamy” (Polish for “Hallucinations”) is the soundtrack of a phantasmagoric spiral, summoning an unceasing terror usually conjured in cinematic works like Ari Aster’s Midsommar and The Blair Witch Project.

A recent Masters graduate with a thesis on the paranormal, centering around 19th century spirit photography, UFO photography and thoughtography, Samutek continues this expressive exchange through sound. With a towering 31 albums under his belt, “Omamy”, his first official album release on a label, is his most distinguished and fully-formed piece of work to date. Each track serves as distinct chapters in a haunting nine-part anecdote.

The trek begins with an unnamed character engulfed in a metaphysical battle as depicted in “Samospalenie” (Polish for Spontaneous Human Combustion), paralysed with an inability to distinguish reality from an unearthly torment.
The title track and first single “Omamy” sets the pace for the rest of the album, as the character eventually reaches the gateway to a tunnel, its walls pulsating with death and desolation. “Pożeracz” (Polish for Devourer), a composition scattered with deformed growls and ceremonial bells, seals their fate. The album ends with a meditative closer, “Krąg” (Polish for Ring) as the character succumbs to this inscrutable creature, with predator and prey transmogrifying into one.

“Omamy” is an invitation to Samutek’s peculiar world of horror storytelling, a result of his personal explorations of the supernatural.
Be prepared for a strange and discomforting experience that will leave you spellbound.

Pump up the feeling is that true thing, a night out where you lose all grip on the middle world, where you let loose and let go. Entering the club, crossing a threshold into the unknown.That slap in the face, the overwhelming mass of people, sweat and funky vibrations that seem to permeate everything, a disorientating wobble that sends you spinning. You can stand at the peripheries or you can throw yourself at the mercy of the speakers. Your head splits open for a moment and eventually comes back together, the thoughts re-arranged into a new you, one not concerned for typical social norms, you and everyone else submitting to that insipid groove, the DJ watching for that perfect time to strike. A lull, a moment of silence, respite from the relentless otherworldly massacre of your primordial senses. You can hear the breathing, the murmurs the rapture, then as quick as it stops it starts again and your drawn into the fray, the melee the momentary telepathic melding of consciousness through shared sound. Together under a groove, lost in music.

As a producer you allways get inspired by a diverse range of musical genres and other producers. This ¦rst episode of “Twerk Life Balance” is initiated by the producer duo “Twerking Class Heroes” and it features three other artists (Meister Lampe, DJ Marcelle - Another nice mess and Candie Hank) with quite diverse production techniques. On the A side we have two Hip Hop oriented electronic bangers from the Twerking Class Heroes and Meister Lampe. Both tracks are inspired by either traditional arabic music or belly dance music. The B Side opens with a deep downbeat and electro song from the Twerking Class Heroes and gets followed by a kucek oriented acid game track from Candie Hank. The ¦nal track is a super distorted Club Banger made for a DJ Set like one of DJ Marcelle and produced by herself.

The Texan-native, multi-instrumentalist and producer - Joe Corrales Jr – AKA Yppah has long been considered a top-tier artist by the industry and fans alike, owing to his releases on the iconic and respected independent labels Ninja Tune and Counter Records. His work has been used in high profile TV syncs such as ‘CSI’ and ‘House’ as well as video games such as ‘Alone In The Dark’.

Performing throughout the 1980s as Art Carnage to the gloomy hipsters of Portland, Attilio Panissidi III decided he needed a vacation. The result of his creative escape became Art Takes A Holiday, an album of fabricated FM synthscapes and MIDI environments that embrace elements of smooth jazz, new age, and pop.

Attilio had been playing in bands since he was thirteen, and had opened live shows for countless acts, from The Shangri-Las to Bruce Hornsby. The experience of producing, performing, as well as years spent writing for local music magazine The Downtowner, earned Attilio a gig to score a commercial film for a home security systems company. The opportunity allowed him to explore softer elements in his writing, and he created a suite of songs much deeper than the commission warranted. These instrumentals caught the attention of Marlon McClain (Gap Band, Shock), who invited Attilio to produce and release the music on his fledgling Nu-Vision label. Thus Art Takes A Holiday found its commercial release on cassette and CD in 1989. Although originally intended as soundtrack music, the album retains its own momentum, narrative and evocative imagery that betrays Attilio's years of crafting songs. Attilio found a perfect ambience on this mythic retreat, somewhere between William Aura's summer cottage on Half Moon Bay and DJ Alfredo's Balearic island getaway.

Italian electro-acoustic composers Giuseppe Ielasi and Nicola Ratti reconvene their unique Bellows collaborative project for a new album on Shelter Press.

Continuously drawing an hypnotic maze with albums on Boomkat Editions, Entr'acte, and Ielasi's cult Senufo label, Bellows offers their rst album on Shelter Press with Strand.

Clocking right under 40 minutes, Strand is direct and desorienting. With eight tactile but distant untitled tracks, the album convokes a complex sound palette between acousmatic sound and fractal beats.

Recorded in Milano at their very own Standard recording studio, Strand marks a shift in Bellows previous recording process, bringing more music gear on the table: tapes, modular synthesizers, effects and samples. Captured live over the course of a four days improvised session, the album oats between ghostly melodies, musique concre`te, and analog electronics.

Echoing with the artwork by Amsterdam- based artist Louis Reith, whose collages made of found black and white images are disrupted by bold geometric constructions, the album is disorienting and fascinating, seating right in between the challenging world of electro-acoustic and a more welcoming beat-oriented territory.

Strand is a fascinating body of work, growing over time and revealing more of its complexity at every listen.

Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi and cut at D+M, with artwork by Louis Reith.

Adoration is the restrained yet ravishing début album by Mélissa Gagné a.k.a. CECILIA, a Rome-based Montreal artist who previously lit up two songs on Rabit's Les Fleurs Du Mal album, released an EP for Yves Tumor's label and now makes a commanding and significant impression with one of 2018's most haunting LPs, a filigree dramaturgy of trip hop, ersatz film score music and ambient collage.
CECILIA wrote and produced Adoration, singing in English, French and Italian with accompaniment by mutual spirits such as her friend Jasmine Pisapia and the poet activist Griséldis Réal, who help to render a stark yet subtly gilded cross-section of her psyche, which places the listener as dark interpreter to a series of tumultuous inner dialogues. 'One is summoned to whisper truth, beauty, tragedy to demon ears.'
Incubated for 18 months between Montreal, Toronto and New York, Adoration reads like intimately diaristic pages recalling an amorphous lucid dream. In that phantasmagoric headspace she meditates on loss and romanticism, using a shifting backdrop of highly visual stimuli to frame her thoughts and bring them to life with an uncannily immersive effect perhaps not felt so strongly since Félicia Atkinson's Hand In Hand album last year.
Electronic bass and percussion are shadowed with traces of synth and guitar improvisations, but the one consistent element is the female voice. Sometime detached, glossolalic, and at others uncannily familiar, plaintive, that vocal presence is integral to the LP's quietly absorbing atmosphere, and even if the listener can't understand their direct meaning, they connote so much
more through abstracted inference and ambiguity.
Following her early forays made with the Charity Whore EP for Yves Tumor's Grooming label, and previous work as DJ/producer Babi Audi, along with her hybrid stage works, CECILIA ties all those strands into an illusive yet highly distinguished work set to resonate with listeners from myriad backgrounds and disciplines.

For the 5th and final volume in the DUPPLATES series, the label welcomes back the Canadian heavyweight ColtCuts. Back in 2019 he made his debut through DUPLOC026 with the outstanding cuts "The Vihaan" and "The Phantom".

Considering DUPLOC claimed that release to be possibly their best one, a follow-up was destined to happen. On the A-side ColtCuts is coming through with two unique original 140 productions, while on the flip side he delivers two wild VIP masterpieces. Especially "The Vihaan VIP" has been in heavy rotation, receiving support from top tier dubstep DJs worldwide. The “DUPPLATES Vol. 5” is a more than appropriate record to shut down the DUPLOCv series.


Dj Support
TRUTH, J:Kenzo, Sicaria Sound, ENiGMA Dubz, Hebbe, Ternion Sound, BunZer0, Khiva +more

Roy Ritsma AKA Drummotive is a Dutch DJ and producer. Like Next Phase Records he is mostly known for championing Drum and Bass but much like the label he is not afraid to stray away from the beaten track and explore other areas of breakbeat driven music.

The Coral EP' is a unique fusion drawing in uence from styles that were early inspirations to the producer. Elements of jazz, 90's electronica and 70's soul can be heard on the EP enriched by Roy's trade- mark sound of ethereal atmospheres, crisp breaks and sublime bass rhythms. Each track delicately constructed to create a feeling of enchantment and wonder.

Mystical horns, captivating vocals and entrancing Rhodes compliment the rich drum work that delivers a truly mesmerising soundscape.

The EP features four tracks (three mid tempo and one drum and bass) and will be available on both digital and vinyl formats.

The vinyl release is limited to 300 copies worldwide and is supplied in a full artwork sleeve designed by label owner R. Peperkamp. Pressed by Record Indus- try the twelve inch was mastered by Macc at Subvert Central and cut by Beau at Ten Eight Seven maintai- ning the high standards Next Phase sets itself.

Two years in the works, ‘Baroque’ follows from the D&B-styled flux of Ena’s early 2019 collaboration with Felix K (F&E #1) to sound out more unorthodox areas of inquiry of abtruse, Chain Reaction-like sound design and algorithmic decomposition. In terms of the music’s boneless construction and roiling spectral nature, it surely ranks among Different Circles’ headiest and most psychedelic releases following the dread kinematics of Logos’ ‘Imperial Flood’ album and the cult acclaim given to their killer Raime and Szare 12”s in the past year.
Variously recalling the sound of stressed-out machinery or the sferic mystery of The Conet Project, ‘Baroque’ sees Ena transition further from recognisable styles into a richly enigmatic tonal and texturhythmic language. Over the album’s six tracks he uses this futurist-primitive mode to express a detached, meditative state-of-mind that speaks to paradoxical ideals of club music and domestic listening: of being simultaneously in it, yet out of it; of finding yourself lost in the crowd of noise.
It’s a sound that resonates with the short-circuiting AI convulsions of Logos, Mumdance and Shapednoise’s EP for The Death of Rave as much as the hypnagogic mulch of Thought Broadcast or the most abstruse Chain Reaction releases - think a rusted and sunken Dynamo or Porter Ricks in radioactive waters - and comes primed in artwork by Raime that perfectly highlights the music’s strange, semi-organic nature and austere yet psychoactive allure.

"I am sitting in a garden, I haven't left the property in weeks, someone is dropping off food once a week. I haven't seen a human being in ages, I feel like a reverse Schroedinger cat - do I exist when nobody sees me? I must be somewhere in France but I don't remember. I have lost my consciousness again. When I wake up I hear a broken record looping somewhere in the mansion. A washed-out opera. Behind the trees I see the dilapidated hermaphrodite sculpture in a field of verdant nettles and fern. I hear gunshots far afield, aeroplanes in the sky, sirens on the main road.
When unconscious I dreamt of sitting on the Concorde observing the scarab blue ocean and iridescent clouds from above, an erstwhile receding memory. Sometimes I hear the organ of the nearby Renaissance Cathedral merging with the Russian Church bells.
I am hallucinating again. Someone's humming in the kitchen? Singing? A Radio? I overhear two young women talking about art galleries in the neighbour's garden. Bees attack, again…..again and again. The hairspray finally intoxicates them. An amphoric japanese voice is whispering in my head saying I will die soon. Someone (something?) bangs on the vases. The fountain's water turns dark red.
Fleur calls and says mum died. The funeral will be televised on tuesday. We opt for the synthetic choir for the service. The call is suddenly interrupted. Mold is slowly taking over the house.
I go back inside."

Une Fille Pétrifiée is the debut album of new Black To Comm related entity Mouchoir Ètanche (after one recent 12" on Richter's own Dekorder label). Combining real and fake acoustic instrumentation, sampling, field recordings and excessive yet inaudible post production this is another sublime and ethereal statement. Influences are ranging from (French) Classical & Opera to the anecdotical compositions of Luc Ferrari, Chinese Opera, Chanson, Sacred Music / Church Music, JG Ballard and Surrealism.

Marc Richter records as Black To Comm for Thrill Jockey, Type and Dekorder and as Jemh Circs for his own Cellule 75 imprint. He also produces soundtracks and acousmatic multichannel installations for institutions such as INA GRM Paris, ZKM Karlsruhe and Kunstverein Hamburg.

Single-sided 12" with etched B-side.

Adriana Lopez and Klara Lewis takes the reins on 2nd of five remix 12”s for vintage gear by Pär Grindvik, boss of Stockholm Ltd and half of the Aasthma duo with Peder Mannerfelt.

Barcelona’s Lopez reworks ‘Front Row’ from 2017’s ‘The Game’ 12” with a brooding, hulking, monotone techno churn, leaving Klara Lewis to render ‘London Marble’ from 2017’s ‘Aged’ EP as a vast cloud of gaseous ambient harmonics that crystallise into a beautiful frost of icy ambient noise.

Sone Urbia is a collection of improvisations recorded live during the period of 2011-15.


A grainy meditative voyage into layers of field recordings, old sampled records, synthesizers, acoustic and non acoustic instruments.
This album works as a mixtape separated in two sides, two journeys; two soundscapes.

** The 12" vinyl edition comes mixed (with track separation)

REPRESSED !!

REPRESSED !!

Pop subversives Beth Roberts and Andrew Hargreaves (The Boats, Tape Loop Orchestra) pose their 2nd album as The Mistys with 'Pregnant Mannequin', following some five years on from their debut album 'Redemption Forest'. It basically sounds like an incredible, saccharine shoegaze/dreampop album recorded to a salvaged D90 tape that's about to disintegrate, warbling in and out of time.Referencing a wealth of pop archetypes via their uniquely claggy, recombinant filter to render a new vision for subversive pop music, Beth Roberts' sugary vocals are smudged and buried deeper in the mix, processed with fizzing textures that only add an extra poignancy and a sense of struggle to the classic pathos of her voice. In key, Andrew Hargreaves lends some of his most sharpened, devastating hooks, bringing their project closer to a polysemous conception of ambient-EBM-pop.
The formative experience and naivety of 2013's 'Redemption Forest' album has given way to a newfound complexity over the five year interim. It's there in the sense of gauzy ambiguity that
oozes through the record's synth, drum machine and vocal construction, with results that speak to a mix of uncertainty and determination, asking and answering ideas of imposter syndrome that can sometime undermine the urge to self-expression.
The diaphanous scale of 'Bite Marks' welcomes us into their distant, yet familiar world, where the tape worn cadence of Beth's vocals leave indelible marks on the mind in 'Womb', and 'Velvet Water' leads us down a pinched ginnel of darkwave pop, to arrive in the stately air of 'Heat Death'. At their most forceful, they're still a pair of tender souls, though, as in the push and pull of tempered rage and romance in 'Cut by Degrees', while 'Celluloid Skin' sees them offer a warm, fuzzy embrace of
shoegaze-pop akin to The Cocteau Twins heard underwater, and the dark blue swells of 'Blades and Boardwalks' and 'Metabolisms' reveals their natural affinity to what was once called Witch House, and can now be heard as a modern form of cold wave or gothic synth-pop - styles that take their pleasure from a feeling of negative ecstasy, an effective inversion of 'poptimism'.

ZEIT007 by Thee J Johanz features some real nice variety.

The latest transmission from Francis Harris' exquisite Scissor And Thread imprint showcases the many talents of Tokyo's Tomi Chair aka Tominori Hosoya. The DJ and producer goes by both names, and here presents five tracks of lush, emotional music veering between ambient excursions and dance floor heaters. The original version of title track 'Tropical Imagination' opens the EP, and is a deep and thoughtful dance floor number. Elegant chords set the tone while the percussion adds a silky funkiness that's impossible to ignore. The 'Dream Version' strips the track down to its pads and atmospheres. Next up is Tomi Chair's 'Heat Exhaustion' - an exceptionally beautiful beatless piece that drifts through droney pads and occasional fragments of minor key melody. Using the Tominori Hosoya moniker, side B begins with 'We Are Here' - another powerfully restrained piece that merges woody percussion with low key pads and field recordings to create a magical whole. Francis Harris adds his touch to 'Heat Exhaustion' with his respectful Reform version, adding skittering percussion and underpinning the piece with a leftfield ambient house edge that builds and builds. Another essential addition to the Scissor And Thread catalog

The sound sources in Klein's work are rooted in personal relationships. Klein worked for a New York church's audio ministry; she mixed the choir, recorded the sermons and services, and later, knowing who was shouting, put parts of them in her MPC. Klein interviewed intellectuals in person to extract deep house messages from the conversations. Klein brought a close friend's hypnotizing Detroit deep house beat to the patio of a Senegalese Sabar ensemble to ask if they wanted to respond to it. Having learned the piano and jazz theory in her youth, Klein composes all the keys on her records. If a sound feels right, let's go with it, is her position. Excellence of technique isn't crucial for selecting sounds. Klein was tempted to study jazz though she ended up studying art. Her sound is a reaction to living in a world in which words are said to be powerful when they are far from adequate to describe many relations. She was shaped by spiritual jazz, mostly from the 70s, polyrhythmic environments, and the Detroit sound at the turn of the millennium. On a scholarship in Detroit in 2005, she was welcomed by Aaron-Carl (R.I.P.) in his studio and witnessed studio setups used as tools for survival. Back in Germany, Klein missed hearing those forms of house on dance floors, so she started spinning as a kind of transatlantic communicator. Community centers were turned into one night clubs quite a lot under the Bring Your Ass name of Klein's celebration series, which brought the ambassadors of Detroit house in person. That's how she gives thanks for the hospitality she has received in Detroit since 2005. One guest told her all Saturdays should be like that. Klein is an unofficial pupil of David Mancuso's craft. We'll take care of the details - come as you are. Coming from Frankfurt, an early influence on her sound was her fellow student Frank Metzger, the former vocalist of Oval. After moving to Cologne in 1998, she was part of the record distribution Groove Attack for a couple of years. Stecken night club was the place for her regular DJ appearances. A-Musik is her adopted music family in her hometown Cologne. When Klein is spinning records, she is used to going from Don Cherry to Detroit's experimental house to Tama Walo to ESG to Jaco Pastorius to Wendy & Lisa to Aby Ngana Diop to a Salsoul Acappella layered on a rough bassline to Jaki Liebezeit to Justus Khncke to Hypnotic Brass Ensemble to Yusef Lateef to whatever she wants to say - she is definitely not holding back. Celebrating the openness of sound is what the new record and collaboration with Florent Kandety and Georgia Anne Muldrow does for sure. Like standing in a sound corridor between two or more clubs. Kandety gave a Senegalese sound expressing astonishment as well as his falsetto to Klein's Zoom recorder and a personal chant through a long-distance internet phone call. The US American Muldrow tests the range of our perception with her interpretation of empathy. Klein composes keys, plays and arranges organ, bass and drums to cherish the vocals sung for her.

For the third chapter of Refined Productions Aleksandra Grünholz aka We Will Fail delivers her third full length album entitled Dancing on her recently launched label with Jakub Mikolajczyk, head of MonotypeRec label and MonotypePressings. Here she tells the story:

'Taking a break from rationality, my first thoughts about the theme of this album were about the night, when our sight is limited and thoughts are corrupted by fatigue. I don't dance anymore, I don't party, I don't let myself go. Some time ago that part of life slipped away from me. This album is like silently entering into a place you shouldn't be in. A lot of rave inspired sounds were used on the album, dreamy pads, arpeggios, simple melodic structures; but this album is not easy and simple.

As head of a graphic design studio in Warsaw, last year was very hard for me, the amount of work started to overwhelm me; I started to feel stupid and possessed by the work, this is how the tracks 'Very Urgent' and 'Economic Maladies' were born. While the track 'Reason' is about losing rationality and how easy it is to do.

'Put Your Hands Up in the Air' encompasses the rave. It's also a kind of question, can music itself tell a story Very often in EDM or trance music there is a story and I like to call it catharsis. A moment, when the beat slows down and melody/pads become solo. I tried to extract this moment, without adding drops and aggressive rhythms.

'So Who's the Man' is about regaining the power, slowly but consequently. This album is a about feeling bold, monstrous and strong. Like looking insolently into someones eyes. You have to be patient with this one, because it builds up slowly. If you listen only for a fragment you miss the whole idea.

'Beasts from the East' was inspired by the thought of being a small peace loving person in a chaotic world that is dominated by stupidity.

The track '2018' epitomises the rave, but more complicated. Each of the layers are a but simplistic and could construct a dance track, but as there are so many sounds simultaneously, it can become disturbing in the perfect way.

'Diving in Plastic' was fit for the last track, I didn't want the album to have a perfect conclusion, I wanted to leave the listener hanging and ready for more.'

Moxie's On Loop imprint presents the debut EP from Avon Blume, 'Slowly Diving'. A mature three tracker sure to please club goers on the dance floor, and home listeners alike. All three tracks boast undeniable groove & musicality, with solid production to match.

June 2018, Amsterdam, Nl: 12 Months Ago We Concluded A Series Of Experiments With A Test Subject Named Ben Penn. A Year On, We Decided To Repeat This Experiment At His Tilburg Base. Once Again, The Results Were Starting.
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After Being Provided With A Sizeable Dose Of An Enhanced And Notably Stronger Derivative Of 4-ho Met (codenamed St011), Penn Not Only Reported Intense Hallucinations But Also Enhanced Music Production Capabilities. With The Aid Of Electronic Instruments And Hardware, He Worked Quickly, Producing Both His Trademark higher Level Inter-dimensional Funk' And Compositions That Defied Our Previous Expectations.

During The Early Stages Of His St011 Experience, Penn Completely Ignored The Provided Rhythm Composer And Instead Crafted A Colourful, Humid, Jazzy And Beat-free Track Entitled nix', Which Boasted Loose And Fluid Synthesizer Motifs. As His Hallucinatory Experience Intensified, Penn Giddily Tapped Out Tropical Rhythms On The Provided Beat-making Device, Smothering Them In Alien Electronics And Sticky Melodies. When We Asked What This Devilishly Good Cut Was Called, He Simply Replied: not Important'.

As The Test Went On And The Most Intense Symptoms Died Down, Penn Was Much Like His Old Self. Before The St011 Wore Off Completely, He Was Able To Finish Two Examples Of His Trademark inter-dimensional Funk': The Skewed, Introspective, Bassline-driven Wooziness Of ben' And The Mazy, Kaleidoscopic Goodness Of people'. The Latter Composition Was Particularly Potent And Ear Pleasing, Suggesting That His St011 Experience Had Finished On An Intense High.

Príncipe’s reign of fire continues with the shockingly heavy return of the Blacksea Não Maya trio after the label’s banner year of shellings from Nídia, DJ Nigga Fox, and DJ Firmeza.
In step with the more polished production advances of their label mates, Lisbon’s DJ Kolt, DJ Noronha, and DJ Perigoso - aka Blacksea Não Maya - arrive 5 years on from their previous showing with a remarkably darker, muscular take on mutated Angolan dance music. Fiercely technoid and blessed with a newfound sense of late night drama, the sound of ‘Máquina de Vénus’ is exactly how we imagine this sound in 2020; reflecting the march of the machines and cosmic events beyond anyone’s control in their slickly mechanised rhythms and infectiously brooding atmospheres.
Like the leaps and bounds in production values and intricate arrangements found on the DJ Nigga Fox and Nídia albums over the past year, Blacksea Não Maya keep pace in their own way,
working to ruggedly squashed variations of Tarraxho and Batida styles that come to recall the developments of the UK’s hardcore continuum during the ‘90s into the late ‘00s. But where that scene arguably ran out of energy a long time ago, Blacksea Não Maya boldly charge it into an uncertain future.
Kicking off with the beastly detonations and hulking slow techno of ‘Terror’, they swing hard off-the-bone in ‘Obscure’, and weave in hard trap and reggaeton nods on ’Tchiling District’ to set the tone on the A-side, before the lustrous cyber-noir licks and choral pads of ‘Horizonte’ open the B-side to the slow, dive-bombing synths and the industrial-tarraxho swag of ‘Bubadagash’, a bubbling technoid stepper named ‘Africanalidade’, and for terrific measure, the positive rave upswing of ‘Estranhos e Loucos’ with its speed garage-style vocal chops and head high jackers pressure.
Breathtaking, thrilling, outrageously strong gear for body music fiends and dance connoisseurs