Beats News

Repress

2x10" smokey vinyl / incl. dl code

Second release from bore hole, Russian label associated with the now infamous Клуб (Kisloty Club). The release continues the label’s DIY philosophy with four trippy lo-fi cuts from an obscure Moscow artist balancing different in genres and tempos ranging from 120 to 160 BPM.

Then Again' by Orson Bramley is the second release on the Memory Box label. Orson is the founder of British electro funk pioneers Transparent Sound, one of the UK's longest running electro acts. This is his solo work under his own name. Orson has been playing some live Acid House shows at Memory Box parties and this release is the fruit born from the live show. The A side includes the original mix which is an acid electro crossover, plus a four to the floor mix and a beautiful ambient strings mix. The B side sees two remixes from acclaimed producer and Memory Box head honcho Robin Ball, who is also known for his work as Resonators on his recently re-launched Groovepressure label. The first is under his new breakbeat rave alias Robin Beats and the other under his own name which sees him take in a deeper house, techno, electro vibe more akin to his Groovepressure label.

Until Here For Years is the 11th studio album from Proem, and the first since 2010's Enough Conflict that is in the more experimental electronica style Richard Bailey is most known for.
Until Here for Years is being released just a month before the 20th anniversary of his debut album Burn Plate No. 1 and Until Here For Years has all the hallmark Proem components, that are still as prominent as they were 20 years ago.
Malfunctioning drums, the fat rounded basses (this time out doubled on fretless bass), and those heartstring pads. Oh, the pads! This is where Proem has always differed from his contemporaries. Scholarly enough for the chin scratchers and sufficiently cerebral for those that could care less how the sounds might have been conceived. It's a fine line Bailey has always walked with ease.
Every part of Until Here For Years, including the artwork, utilizes an esoterically obscured source. JSON documents, synthesizer schematics, hex values, and even SVG files are used as a basis for his creative input. In other's hands, it surely would sound like an academic exercise, but Bailey makes emotively arresting music from such abstruse sources. Until Here for Years is undoubtedly a return to form and ultimate treat (and thank you) to Proem fans the world over.

Thundercat drops his new album ‘It Is What It Is’ on Brainfeeder
Records.
 The record, produced by Flying Lotus and Thundercat, features
musical contributions from Ty Dolla $ign, Childish Gambino, Lil B,
Kamasi Washington, Steve Lacy, Steve Arrington,
BADBADNOTGOOD, Louis Cole and Zack Fox.
 A unique voice transcending style and genre: “This album is about
love, loss, life and the ups and downs that come with that,” says
Thundercat.
 Thundercat has previously worked with the likes of Kendrick Lamar,
Pharrell, N.E.R.D., Erykah Badu, Childish Gambino, Mac Miller,
Anderson .Paak, Little Simz, BADBADNOTGOOD, Moses Sumney,
Kamasi Washington and many more.
 For fans of Kendrick Lamar, Childish Gambino, Flying Lotus, Kamasi
Washington, BADBADNOTGOOD.
 Album photography by Eddie Alcazar.
 CD in softpack.
 Deluxe 140g picture disc LP housed in a 6mm spined gatefold sleeve
with gold foil detail and OBI strip. Includes digital download code.
 Deluxe 140g pink clear vinyl LP housed in a 6mm spined gatefold
sleeve with gold foil detail and OBI strip. Includes digital download
code.
 Red 140g vinyl LP housed in a 3mm spined sleeve with OBI strip.
Includes digital download code.
 Thundercat will play his biggest UK shows to date in April.

* TNO Project is widely known and respected for his heavy beats, sinister strings, and his ability to mesh dark and light combinations with perfect precision. His 2nd full Knitebreed EP continues to build on his legacy, with a strong underground vibe and deep bass lines. Like his label mates, Ant To Be and Wislov, TNO has a wonderful old skool feel, made more remarkable by the fact that TNO, at 18 years old, is really too young to be this talented. "Eradicating Deviants" tricks you into thinking a full happy anthem is about to happen before bringing the darkness, while "Oneirology" is a more uplifting slice of proper old skool that would have been perfectly at home on Homegrown Records back in the day. “Exitus Letalis” keeps to a similar vibe with a lovely traditional sound, and the whole EP is rounded off with the stunningly beautiful, if titley challenged, "Mendacium & Spem"!

Part six of Hivern Discs' Fragments compilation. While compilations tend to look backwards, 'Fragments' is far from being a retrospective. Since its launch in 2008, Hivern Discs has favoured a documentary approach, capturing the most vital and exciting sounds within its orbit at each particular moment. In keeping with the ethos of the label, this extensive compilation, comprising 29 new tracks across six 12?s, offers a panoramic glimpse of Hivern's present and gives indications as to its near future. The artists featured comprise both fresh and familiar faces; some of them have been a foundational presence since the beginning (John Talabot, Pional, Marc Pinol), others are recent acquaintances (Epsilove, Fantastic Man, Inga Mauer, Samo DJ). Together the compilation makes for a snapshot of Hivern's current identity, with a wide array of names and projects connecting the dots between the sounds, moods and ideas that continue to inspire and move the label today. Hivern was born a decade ago as a platform to celebrate a shared sensibility beyond any semblance of categorization. And that's what this collection of music is all about.

"A Western Circular" is Will Archer’s debut under his new nom-de-plume, following early EP's- and an Album under the now-retired Slime moniker. Within ‘A Western Circular’ lies an exciting- and varied crew of guest artists including MF DOOM,Samuel T. Herring (Future Islands), Sudan Archives & Laura Groves, all contributing vocals to his rich, dexterous compositions!

An Album that’s been in the works for the past half-decade, ‘A Western Circular’ is a bold, reflective piece that directly relates to Archer’s personal experiences of life and death, centred on one particular week where they breathed with equal intensity. Ostensibly, it’s a poignant reflection on the duality of the human condition.

Tracks include ‘Can’t Hide’ the title track and unofficial cousin of last years 'Little Pieces'and ‘Make Time’ – two truly stunning and timeless soul beauties. We also see an appearance from Monty with his intricate rework of the duos much loved ‘Too Close To See’ bringing his unique and hypnotizing edge to the imprint for the first time.
Mark your calendars now with June ** as the official release of Zero T & Steo’s Can’t Hide EP.

Attraktors are JFlower: Antronhy: Jhon:

Former members of Six.BySeven: Bivouac: Julian Cope: The Selecter: Nectarine No9

Inspired by Minimalism: Fripp: Eno: Marcel Duchamp: Krautrock: Proto-Punk: Soundscores: Sci-Fi: Computer Science.

Best known for his field recordings or his work on Eliane Radigue archives, Emmanuel Holterbach reinterprets a classical opera in three short but intense pieces.

Mikkel Metal returns to Copenhagen's Echocord this May with his new mini LP 'Just Enough Light', comprising six originals from the Danish artist. Copenhagen based producer and DJ Mikkel Metal has been a beacon of light in the Danish electronic music scene and further afield for nearly two decades now, with the Dub Techno imprint from his hometown, Echocord, being the predominant home for his output, whilst also releasing material on Cologne's Kompakt, Tartelet, Semantica and Avant Roots, a telling sign of the quality embodied in his work. Here though we see Mikkel deliver a mini album concept in the shape of 'Just Enough Light' and opener 'Awake' perfectly sets the tone with emotive, dynamically unfolding atmospherics, tension building bass drones and spiraling dub chords subtly easing us into the project. 'Bregnan' then stirs in some classing Dub-Techno tropes with billowing stab sequences, lumpy subs and off beat high hats carrying the hypnotic groove for six and a half minutes. 'Jech' then strips things back to an almost beatless amalgamation of murky chords and modulating synth whirrs. Opening the flip side of the release is 'Include' which embraces a brighter feel via ethereal pad swells, jazztinged synth melodies and bumpy 909 rhythms before 'Konkin' edges back into the eerie, brooding aesthetic with bubbling echoes, broken drums and menacing bass swells at its core. 'Restore' then closes the package on a stripped-back vibe, laying focus on an ever- eveolving singular dub chord to ebb and flow around thunderous subs, kicks and bright hats.

'Hold Your Colour', the debut album from Pendulum gets a one off limited Vinyl repress (1000 copies worldwide) on Breakbeat Kaos of it's original 2005 pressing, with original artwork and features 6 album cuts (one track per side as DJ friendly vinyl)
Breakbeat Kaos celebrates its 15th Birthday in 2018 with this limited repress and a brand new compilation 'Junglesound: Revenge of the Bass (15 Years of BBK)"
'Hold your Colour' was originally released in July 2005 on Breakbeat Kaos and went on to gain Pendulum worldwide critical acclaim and festival headline slots. This vinyl pressing comes with some of the more club friendly tracks from the album.

If you know Dervaig is actually a small village in Scotland you begin to understand why the openingtrack of Sigward’s Balmung Beam EP sounds a bit eerie and dark. Long, long ago the Vikings came ashore at Dervaig (the word means ‘small inlet’ in Norwegian) but in the winter of 2019 Dutch producer Sigward uses it as a passage way to lead us into his new record. Balmung Beam is Sjoerd Sigward’s second EP for SoHaSo, the follow up for the well received Black Mambo-single from 2014. In the meantime Sjoerd moved from Holland to Germany, where he now resides in Berlin. This step has provided him with a cinemascope view on dance music, as his new EP clearly illustrates. Italo-esk flavors on the title track, meditative pulses on the beautiful Woodland Wells Inc and spacious Andy Stott-like tension on Jettison. DL/MS take Balmung Bean to new wave territories on their slumbering arpeggio-driven remix. You might just stick around in this small inlet.

XXX starts 2020 fresh with catalog number XXX008. A diverse EP with four original tracks by Stijn Sadée, who had a killer release on Kitjen in 2018. It’s not the first time we see Stijn Sadée releasing on XXX, but this time he delivered a proper EP. Manfredas is on remix duty on the b-side. When Stijn was playing his live set on a festival in Amsterdam Manfredas saw him play. They clicked soundwise and a remix idea was born. Artwork was made by artist Thomas Sadée in collaboration with Stijn himself. Already played and supported by massimiliano pagliara, il est vilaine, nuno dos santos, dave harvey, curses and many others.

2020 Repress

Joy Orbison has been celebrated for finding a sound that marries elements of house, two-step, jungle, techno and dubstep. Alongside the release of the gargantuan "Hyph Mngo" (released on Hot Flush in late 2009 and has topped the end of year charts across the globe) and material on his own imprint Doldrums, notorious mixes for Radio 1 have only served to cement Joy Orbison's renown. Both ‘The Shrew’ and ‘So Derobe’ pick up where ‘Hyph Mngo’ blasted off… devilishly catchy melodies and basslines, full of feeling and soul, evolve and grow as the arrangement develops to leave you on an almighty high. Big drops, super heavy drum programming and grooves that sound like only Joy Orbison right now. There’s shades of garage, shades of funky, shades of old school R&B. Pete wears his influences on his sleeve yet re-wraps them in his own unmistakable and truly unique style. Actress’s Neu Haus refix is the perfect foil for this package. A raw, almost unconstructed tool that in the right hands will create huge tension on the floor. Actress, aka, Darren J. Cunningham has in the last 5 years of running the Werk label set himself apart as one of the hottest A&R scouts within his field, having discovered and released some of the most widely talked about artists of the emerging bass generation, namely Disrupt, Zomby, Lukid and Starkey. As actress he produced the exceptional "Hazyville LP" drawing cries for a Mercury Award Nomination. He's remixed the too cool for school Various Production, written for the seminal techno imprint Soma and has recently confirmed an album deal to record on Honest Jons, the British Independent record label created and founded by Damon Albarn.

Drawn from the tape archives of Kuniyuki, this is the first part in two volumes that will shine a light on some of the Japanese producers early work.

One year after its release, Quartet Series proudly presents the remix EP of Nachtbraker's successful debut album When You Find a Stranger in the Alps. A collection of remixes by some serious talent. These three producers were carefully selected by Nachtbraker because of their impeccable reputation and ability to bring something unique to the world of music.

Humble Danish maestro Central (Help, Dekmantel) flips "Flambo" into a Jori Hulkkonen'esque summer anthem with a highly addictive bassline. Preacher of wonkiness Frits Wentink (Wolf, Heist, Bobby Donny) took "LOL" and brought it some serious keys on a solid breakbeat while maintaining its jolly character. Flipping the record, Nachtbraker brings us the evolution of "Just Doing My Thang" turning it into a quirky dance floor tune whilst also showcasing his ear for detail. Up and coming talent Nemo Vachez (Forest Ill, Opia Records, Rakya) dives deep into "Horsepony" as if he's cruising the depths of a rainforest in a submarine. His surreal dub mix is the perfect final track of this fine piece of wax

The world has found itself in a significant hurry. We have also found ourselves in the most distracted period of time in history; finding it tremendously difficult to remain in a moment of stillness, quietude, or allow time for self-reflection. Conversely, our vast universe continues its expansion into infinite development; a climate of deafening silence in a boundless four-dimensional continuum. It remains mesmerizing with a quiet allure that freely suspends in space-time; a true account of the beautiful unknown that sparks hope, reverence, and an awesome realization of impenetrable mystery.

"Stasis Sounds For Long-Distance Space Travel" is audibly rich in its delivery with an array of tranquil billows and patient tones. It is a journey and soundtrack that commences at Earth's thermosphere, gently moving towards the untraveled parts of space, lushly floating on forever.

These arrangements represent a group of celestial transmissions that are delicate in nature and intended for the listener to embrace moments of stillness, quietude and reflection, of which are on a trajectory of extinction at a place we call Earth.

Given the respective outputs of committed ambient explorers and sound designers zake (best known for releasing no less than five fine albums in 2019) and 36 (most recently seen on A Strangely Isolated Place with the superb album "Fade To Grey"), you'd expect this trip into aural deep space to be rather good. It is of course, with the four tracks mixing echoing sonic tones and drifting sound effects with slow-burn electronic melodies and the kind of immersive, sustained chords that were once the preserve of German maestro Pete Namlook. The third track in the suite, appropriately titled 'Stage 3', is little less than stunning, in part because of its grandiose, almost classical intent. No surprise to discover, then, that after a stretch of being out of print it's back via a reissue, this version being a limited clear vinyl edition.

Given the respective outputs of committed ambient explorers and sound designers zake (best known for releasing no less than five fine albums in 2019) and 36 (most recently seen on A Strangely Isolated Place with the superb album "Fade To Grey"), you'd expect this trip into aural deep space to be rather good. It is of course, with the four tracks mixing echoing sonic tones and drifting sound effects with slow-burn electronic melodies and the kind of immersive, sustained chords that were once the preserve of German maestro Pete Namlook. The third track in the suite, appropriately titled 'Stage 3', is little less than stunning, in part because of its grandiose, almost classical intent. No surprise to discover, then, that after a stretch of being out of print it's back via a reissue, this version being a limited clear vinyl edition.

Kniteforce and Just Another Label (owner of the Bear Necessities Sub Label) have been friends since the early 90’s, so when JAL wanted to remaster and repress some old and much sought after classic EPs, it was only natural for Kniteforce to take on that roll. Here we have the fifth of those EPs, and its perhaps the rarest of them all, often changing hands second hand for over $200. A big one for the old skool collectors worldwide…

Club / DJ Support
Billy Bunter, the Fat Controller, Glowkid, Slipmatt, Dj Jedi, Dj Luna-C, Dj Brisk, Clayfighter, Jimni Cricket, Bustin, Sc@r, Doughboy, Saiyan, Dave Skywalker, Ponder and many others

Constant Sound's electro arm, Infiltrate, calls upon the considerable talents and technical heft of London Modular Alliance for a bruising EP of body-popping exploration strapped to a tough n' funky beatdown. "Crack Fox" is as nervy and nimble as the title might suggest, while "Regular Customer" takes things in a hyper-detailed direction compatible with the kind of advanced machine funk you expect from Silicon Scally. "Blinky" follows suit with another artfully woven web of twitchy synth hooks and deftly sequenced drums, and then "Other Worlds" switches things up with some seriously hefty bass pressure pivoting around a dubstep attitude towards space and moodiness.

Full length by Abdul, delivering on ever-changing consumer demand. Tax Free did it again.

'Sometimes life can kick you in the nads,' says Dominick Martin (aka Calibre). 'When life does do that, I need to make music like this. With its tones of hope and gospel-level layers of self-recorded vocals. Raw, uplifting, soulfull... Even to the most ardent of Calibre follower, ' Grow' sounds like nothing else he's done before. Yet it's not actually on the album it gave a name to. Partly because its ultimately positive veneer (even though it was written in the midst of two toxic relationships - one personal, one with the bottle) doesn't quite complement the deeper, more contemplative aesthetic of the album. But also because this is the start of a whole new story for Calibre...

'A part of Dominick is a poet and a part of him is a man who's lived through Northern Ireland at its worst,' observes Craig Richards . 'There's a gentleness and a tension to him and his past and his experiences. Somewhere in that middle ground is his music.'

Taken from a interview by Dave Jenkins for DJ Magazine.

Colundi Interception @ 56.911976, -2.196734 84963 84963 84963 84963 66358 97510 14798 70651 12674 84963 84963 common purpose. consideration of data. colundi every0ne.

Despite building their careers out of strikingly different musical places, both dBridge and Radioactive Man have taken influence from the field in which each other operate. dBridge (Darren White) was part of the iconic drum & bass outfit Bad Company and he helms one of the scene's most solid and quality imprints in Exit Records and Radioactive Man (Keith Tenniswood) was born from the acid house scene and the off kilter electronics of his Two Lone Swordsman projects (alongside Andrew Weatherall) which led him to create his decidedly UK take on Drexciyan electro. It's by no means a stretch to learn that both producers have crates that contain their favourites from each genre but they've also found a mutual respect and connection in the studio over the last few years, leading to the dBRm moniker for Craig Richards' The Nothing Special label.

The wicked intensity of Toronto's E-Saggila takes on novel limits for her new album for Northern Electronics. Constructed out of her live works, there's a lack of restraint on 'My World My Way' that could only be forged in the moment. Following on from last year's album for BANK Records NYC, E-Saggila has put together something that addresses the club and the headphones in equal measure. Taking the approach of a documentarian of our virtual landscape, there's a deep motive that underpins the heavy digital signal processing. With plenty of storming mechanical rhythms that embark from gabber's chaotic neighborhood, the samples of voices, conversations, and phone calls, all wind the listener around the desperation that's embedded in the digital world's seamless mediation of our lives. Owing as much to power violence and industrial as to Rotterdam, E-Saggila's affinity for the extremes is as conceptually critical as it is stylistically present. Riding the BPMs high, and binding this all together with ambient music's sensibilities, 'My World My Way' moves in sharp strides between a political statement and a dancefloor assault.

Juni is the first joint release by Charly Schoeppner and Sascha Demand, two seasoned veterans of experimental and improvisational music. They call themselves Giraffe. Their longstanding friendship has now propelled them into making Juni. Juni contains 11 short pieces that effortlessly flow in and out of each other. Intuitive, yet controlled, subdued, yet at times nervously ritualistic, percussive elements drive the tracks with melodic and harmonic impulses weaved around them. The record references abstract jazz and contemporary experimental music. It is an original snapshot of what makes contemporary experimental music tick.

A limited edition 7” release by Roy Ayers – taken for the first time from the Change up the groove LP.

DYNAMITE CUTS give you a super fresh loud 45 cuts of these wonderful jazz and funk dancer First time on 45, don’t miss out x500 only.

A) “Fikisha” (to help some one arrive) another monster from the Roy ayers Ubiquity camp, vibe tastic - BANGER!!!!
B) Boogie back (breaks and samples, Djs tools) deep vibes groove, classic

Shanghai’s game-leading Svbkvlt cru drop a vinyl edition of the Aphex Twin and Kode 9-backed ‘Cache 01’ set, brimming with forward club zingers by Tzusing, Gooooose, 33EMYBW, Gabber Modus Operandi, Zaliva-D and many more ‘Cache 01’ speaks to the abundance of prism-pushing electronic mutants presently at work in the Far East. Where too many Western artists right now are caught in the retro-vintage, shabby chic trap, every one of the artists featured here embrace the here and now, and what’s to come, with a fervently infectious alacrity and directness that’s hard to ignore and has seen the label showered with praise from all corners of the worldwide music media.
We’re all spoilt for choice with the highlights, but a few really stand out. The wildly ricocheting 808 proprioception of Gooooose’s ‘Arp Kicks’ is right up there with the best we’ve heard in recent years; Swimful impresses with the hard-ass, keening grime designs and descending sirens of ‘Nailz’; Indonesia’s Gabber Modus Operandi send us reeling with the mix of wailing traditional horns, gamelan and gabber kicks in ‘Sangkakala II’; Hyph11e precogs the deathly march of the robots with the reconfigured D&B and noise of ’Sinking’; MIIN strikes a class fusion of dembowdancehall and IDM in ‘Metagame’; and Zaliva-D exert a powerful sidespin with the rugged battery of ’Synthetic Sin’ inna Low Jack style.
Hands-down it’s the most vivid and thrilling showcase of new electronic music from the Far East,or anywhere else for that matter, in years. A real no brainer.
Flexing arm emoji. Fire emoji. 100% emoji.

Declassified militarist ambience from Vatican Shadow, finding Dominik Fernow (Prurient) donning his desert fatigues for a mesmerising follow-up to his technoid outings with Ostgut Tonand Ancient Methods. It’s also the last in a series of first-time vinyl editions of previously tapeonly releases.
‘Opium Crop’ makes a return to what we’d term a vintage Vatican Shadow sound, steeped in nods to Muslimgauze and modern geopolitics and fringed with an aura of clammy, atmospheric terror, just how we like it.
The title piece pushes off across the front with a sort of stately, waltzing rhythm and druggy synth pads recalling John Foxx and DJ Screw as much as Bryn Jones. ‘Hellfire Hidden Tribes’ sinks into the B-side with lagging Dabke rhythm embedded in oily black backdrops, occasionally lit up with
vaporous synth stabs mirroring the arc and flash of distant artillery, and leading to an exquisite ambient devotional, ‘Loyal To The Deceased’.
Unmissable.

Multidisciplinary Portuguese artists Calhau! return in 2020 with a new album and their first release on Discrepant.

It’s quite possible you’ve never heard about them. They’re not that famous in Portugal or anywhere. Calhau! is formed by couple Alves von Calhau and Marta von Calhau, not their real names, but they’re their real names in the artistic reality Calhau! have been working in the last 15 years. But now that you’ve read their name, you must dig in. They’re one of a kind.

They’re not musicians, painters, illustrators, sculptures, visual artists or performers. They’re all the above but without manifesting their work specifically in any of them. While listening to “Tau Tau” – or any of their other releases – that translates quite well: their sound is quite visual, the voices translate into movement and the arbitrary use of sounds reveal a strong sensibility to the architecture of aesthetic.

“Tau Tau” manifests the voice element in Calhau!’s music as their main element. It’s been present in previous releases, but it’s the centerpiece here. All the words/phrases you hear are wordplays, with Portuguese words and their sounds, but also associations and co- relations. It’s done with purpose and meaning, it’s tailored work that carries meaning and – like in “BÓFIACULT” – a social critique.

The sounds and how Marta plays with her voice expose some other areas of work in Calhau!’s domain, like their continued interest in Portuguese folk traditions, not just with music/sound but also with objects. Objects that, ultimately, you can listen in “Tau Tau”. If you’re a fan of both our “Antologia De Música Atípica Portuguesa” compilations (they’ve of contributed with one track for our first volume “O Trabalho”), you’ll find “Tau Tau” as a good complement of how 21st century musicians understand and recreate Portuguese folklore.

"Degs" hit single ‘Poveglia’ and 8 track ‘Mixtape Sprayout’ has made him a drum & bass fan favourite, now he takes centre-stage to unveil his highly anticipated debutalbum, ‘Letters From Ndgewa’.

As well as producing, writing andsinging on his tracks, Degs has brought in an all-star collective with S.P.Y, Logistics, Unglued, LSB and Pola & Bryson. His unmistakable charisma isinjected across
14 tracks, including his previous singles ‘Levitate Your Mind’, featuring Unglued and ‘Killer’.

‘Sleepless’ showcases Degs versatility as a vocalist. This deep, atmospheric number, produced by Shogun Audio’s Pola & Bryson, wields the art of spoken word and unique lyrical flow for a mesmerising late-night stepper. Degs bittersweet soul shines through on ‘Head Trip’ with the production finesse of Phil:osophy.

Haunting piano work serves as the foundation for Degs silky flows, tear-out rap and snappy hooks. Hospital heavyweight Logistics, a master of liquid D+B, joins the fray on ‘Colour My Soul’ for a sublime track that takes youback to the original Hospital loungecore sound.

Degs meteoric rise has taken him worldwide, performing alongside his touring DJ, Lens, at huge summer hotspots like Audioriver, Sun & Bass and Hospitality In The Park. He continues to shine when hosting for some of D+B’s biggest names - London Elektricity, Hybrid Minds, Danny Byrd - and has already received support from BBC Radio 1’s Rene LaVice, Kiss FM’s Andi Durrant, Charlie Tee and Mollie Collins, and Worldwide FM’s Laurent Garnier.

‘Letters From Ndegwa’ is a culmination of life experiences and thoughts since signing with the Hospital family back in 2018.
For me, it represents the unpredictable nature of life. I’ve been blessed to work with some of my heroes on this project and having my little brother feature on this is the icing on the cake, he was the catalyst to all of this happening in the first place.” - Degs.

When Henners debut EP A Reason for Living was released through Phantom Limb in February 2019, it became quite clear that there was more to discover than what the record made us listen to. Electronic Sound Magazine described it as “an ambient delight” and in September that same year he returned with his second EP Stormbird Brother in the Dusk, featuring the Trinidadian steel pan maestro Fimber Bravo. Besides his own work, Dylan Henner remixed other musicians such as Oliver Coates and edited Josquin des Pres’ La Déploration de Johannes Ockeghem.

Henners unique sound emerges from field recordings, which form the foundation in most of his work. Combined with analogue synthesizers and tuned percussions on vibraphone, each piece carries its proper development and colour but still fits together as one coherent sound. This doesn’t seem to change when listening to his new album Flues of Disappearing Sand.

Watching the tide and water streams at the South Indian coast, it became clear what his approach would be for his new record. The title gives away a fraction of what the record essentially is about: a miniature of a sad reality. “The music”, Henner writes, “is based on the environmental & ecological despair happening in front of us”. He describes this record as “this little moment of aching tenderness between me and nature, sitting powerless on the sand and watching it disappear into the water”.

Artwork by Femke. Mastered by Ian Hawgood.

Los Angeles based artist Evan Caminiti returns with the follow up to 2017’s Toxic City Music.

Living in the wrong timeline, dreaming of possible utopias; Varispeed Hydra beams in like a collection of broken transmissions, terrestrial sounds melting into the abstract and rising again as vaporous specters. Three years in the making, Hydra was recorded utilizing a variety of electroacoustic processes and honed in live performances ranging from the sound art setting of NYC’s Issue Project Room to the future-club environment of DOMMUNE in Tokyo. While thematically following Toxic City Music, it moves past that album’s emphasis on superfund sites and the proverbial rat race to turn an ear towards more rural environs.

With a focus on some of the sounds we stand to lose if we continue on our current trajectory of ecological destruction, birds, insects, and water are most often found among the glowing synthesizers and warped electric guitar that comprise the album’s melodic and rhythmic core. Connecting a thread between musique concrete and dub, these sounds are atomized and diffused before being woven together with a sense of urgency, a colorful and restless haze. Phasing percussion and blurred melodies are wrapped in a fog as they tumble and glitch, occupying a space where ominous rumblings and bucolic bliss blur together. An offering of cautious optimism in the age of anxiety.

Written and produced by Evan Caminiti, featuring electronics by Lisa McGee.
Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studios.
Artwork by Michael Vallera and Zane Morris.
Vinyl cut at Dubplates and Mastering Berlin.

Laurin Huber is a prolific figure in the Swiss underground for experimental music and arts. He has been active as a musician and producer in a slew of projects like Wavering Hands, Frederik or legendary Swiss institution Krankenzimmer 204. Having just released his first solo release under the R.E.R. moniker on the label Edipo Re, co-founded by Huber and frequent collaborator Rolf Laureijs in 2016, he now presents his first album under his given name.

Thematically, "Juncture" is perfectly in line with Huber's approach of thinking globally and acting locally. Highlighting the singularity of specific musical concepts while embedding them firmly in a collaborative network has been the crucial guiding principle in his work for Edipo. The four tracks on "Juncture" aim to work with "superimpositions, interactions, interferences and modes of coexistence." On a musical level, this means working with overlaps and interfering layers, field recordings as well as synthesizers and the experienced drummer's knack for intricate rhythms. Over the course of more than half an hour, the producer brings together dreamlike synthesizer pieces with stripped down mid-tempo techno pieces, feverish echoes of industrial music and swelling sounds that are juxtaposed with subtle rhythmic counterpoints.

In a world in which dualities reign and polarisation increases both socially and culturally, "Junction" serves as an invitation to deconstruct binary thinking by affirming the coexistence of allegedly opposed elements.

Elite level lost grime dubs used in legendary Wiley/Ghetts freestyles on Westwood, Wiley’s Tunnel Vision 5, and a whole host of grime clashes.

Opal Sunn's return to Nick Höppner's Touch From A Distance is sort of a recap of 2019 - a year that proved pretty incredible for the duo of Alex Kassian and Oba Hiroaki. Their live show took them quite literally all over the world including Tokyo, Valencia, Ho-Chi-Minh-City, Hanoi, Fusion Festival, England's beloved Field Maneuvers and last but not least: Panorama Bar in Berlin, where they performed twice in 2019 as part of the Touch From A Distance labelnights. Their „Laika EP“ has been largely inspired by their first Panaroma-Bar-performance in january last year, which they - unassuming, yet assertive - took by storm. Eight months later their show in the Laika tent at the UK's best kept festival secret Field Maneuvers marked a second highlight in Opal Sunn's calendar. As a tribute, Opal Sunn have called the opening track to this record „Laika“. Their second ep for Touch From A Distance is picking things up, where their debut left off, meaning Opal Sunn's sound design is as pristine as a mountain spring and their arrangements are as tight and effective as ever. Having played numerous gigs in the meantime, there seems to be a new focus, though. All four tracks feel much more centered and balanced, aiming quite effortlessly at a heaving dancefloor. „Laika“, the ep's lead track, sees Opal Sunn at their most effective and peak time. A long build up and a rolling 303 bassline make for a total sureshot of a track. On „Minority State“, the duo let's their Electro inclinations run free, fusing razor sharp beats with icy melodies and abstract sound effects. On the b-side, „Holy Mountain“ is essential Opal Sunn: Glistening arpeggios, gliding melodies and floating beats create a psychedelic atmosphere predestined to lose yourself in. The ep ends with „Tangerine Blues“, an equally atmospheric and trance-y track embedded in a rather broken beat, going for a more cinematic vibe.

“In 1976, the Asociaux Associés (antisocial associates, TN) led by Philippe Doray (Rotomagus, Ruth, Crash), recorded the first of the two albums under their own name: Ramasse-Miettes Nucléaires. On synthesiser, Doray fires off his disturbing poetry over psychedelic pop, voodoo rock, off-kilter krautrock, approximate swing … But if the music is iconoclastic (bringing to mind as much Hendrix as Areski, Ash Ra Tempel as Berrocal…), one thing is certain: Ramasse-Miettes Nucléaires is one of the best albums of obscure experimental song ever recorded.

It is no surprise that, on the Nurse With Wound List that Steven Stapleton inserted in the first album of his legendary musical project, the name of Philippe Doray can be found between that of the Doo-Dooettes and Jean Dubuffet: his music is genuinely original and, what is more, ahead of its’ time.

It was in 1977 that the first album by Philippe Doray, Ramasse-Miettes Nucléaires, was published on Gratte-Ciel, a label created by the journalist from Rock & Folk Jean-Marc Bailleux and run by Jean-Marc Patrat and José Serré. Encouraged by his wild experience in Rotomagus, a formidable rock band which swept through Rouen, for sure, but also further afield – as Julian Cope was himself inspired, years later, by their explosivity – Doray brought a team to this album which was both untamed and ready to fight to defend it’s terrible (and trembling) poetry.

Backed by his ‘Asociaux Associés’ (antisocial associates, TN), our man from Rouen let his fantasy run wild and cried out again: “sing with me, and don’t be afraid to clap your hands!” And so, much of French popular music was shaken: the ball in Doray’s pinball machine had struck Jimi Hendrix then Alain Goraguer, then Ash Ra Tempel and onto Areski, then T-Rex followed by Jac Berrocal…

As far as the texts are concerned, just take a listen. Doray’s poetry is schizophrenic: nurtured in the Normandy countryside, it relates paranoid tales of booby-trapped towns, Levis jeans, Prisunic supermarkets and plastic dolls… Crumbs of reality which he sucked up to create the album that Souffle Continu and Thierry Müller, mastering (with Ruth, Crash, and Illitch too) spit out again fifty years later, with many good memories.

First ever vinyl reissue
Remastered from the master tapes
Obi Strip + Textsheet Insert”

“Between 1978 and 1980, the Asociaux Associés (antisocial associates, TN) recorded the second of the two albums which appeared under their name: Nouveaux Modes Industriels. Philippe Doray, with the help of his 'Associés', evermore iconoclastic and numerous, backs up his anguished poetry with customised krautrock, hallucinatory pop and rock Suicide. Much more than a memory of the then surprising (and disturbing) Swinging Rouen, this album is an intergalactic ambush.

Following the publication, in 1977, of the first of two albums under his own name, Ramasse-Miettes Nucléaires, on the label Gratte-Ciel, Philippe Doray didn’t waste any time before writing new obscure and experimental songs. As proof, between May 1978 and January 1980, with his Asociaux Associés (antisocial associates, TN), he recorded ten of them in the farm in which he lived (and shared) close to Rouen.

In 1980, Nouveaux Modes Industriels was published thanks to the support of Invisible, the label of the Société Coopérative d'Ouvriers-Producteurs Artistiques (S.C.O.P.A., the Cooperative Society of Artistic Worker/Producers,TN) run by, amongst others, the ex-manager of Crium Delirium Jacques Pasquier. This meant that Doray had free rein for his electric poetry, his personal delirium, to be heard. He had already shaken up French music with his mix of pop, krautrock and free jazz; a few months later he would undergo a change which would be the precursor of his future projects.

Before collaborating with Thierry Müller under the names Ruth and Crash, Doray let loose one last time, with his Asociaux Associés, his anguished poetry into the face of the urban labyrinth, his nuclear dynamite… It is no coincidence if the album cover is similar to those by Urban Sax, the spirit of the times was anguish as a creator of beauty. Doray’s version had the advantage of still knowing how to sing.

Never forgetting his interest for dance, the musician gets Cluster moving to a boogaloo, foments a Suicide on synthetic jaw harp or invents elevator music for tower blocks… All of which hotchpotch feeds into his Nouveaux Modes Industriels. If the last track of the album states “no after-sales service”, it is simply because there is no need.

First ever vinyl reissue
Remastered from the master tapes
Obi Strip + Textsheet Insert”

"Through A Vulnerable Occur" is the result of a dialog between the photographer Sophie Gabrielle and the musician Seabucthorn, initiated by IIKKI, between June 2019 and February 2020.

Seabuckthorn is an alias used for the solo work of English acoustic guitarist & multi-instrumentalist Andy Cartwright since 2009. He uses finger picking & bowing techniques combined with various open tunings to form a mixture of approaches, often with layered accompaniments. Generally the songs lean towards to the experimental genre, whilst on the edge of the ambient and folk. "Through A Vulnerable Occur" is his 9th releases.

Sophie Gabrielle is a Melbourne based contemporary photographer and curator working in both analog and digital mediums. Graduating from Photography Studies College, Melbourne in 2015, she has been one of the Lensculture Art Awards finalist in 2018, then Foam Talent winner in 2019. Her work has been exhibited in Australia, Malaysia, New York and the UK. Through her fine art practice, Sophie has channelled her interest in mythology, spiritualism and psychology to create poetic works that reflect our sense of self, place and the ambiguity of memory. Her works are an exploration into the world of the unseen, through optics, chemical interactions and the investigative processes used to photograph something invisible to the naked eye.

'Postlude' is the second release on Solitary Dancer's new imprint, Private Possessions. After having released on some of the world's most esteemed underground labels such as Dark Entries, Graded, and Optimo, Private Possessions was borne out of a desire to control all aspects of output pertaining to the development, creation, and dissemination of their music, video, and other media. Following their debut LP 'Rites Of Passage', 'Postlude' is a three-track affair which juxtaposes two of the album's floor-focussed cuts with an extended version of 'Test Dream'. The latter has been processed into a 15-minute "Devisualization" using degradation techniques that slowly destroys the piece over time, harkening the ever-changing lucidity and memories of our own dreams.

This is a 4 track EP which has the original 1992 mixes on one side remastered with 2020 VIP mixes on the other side. Written and produced by I. Clifton, J. Higgs & J. Emery. VIP's by S. McCutcheon & I. Clifton. Full colour sleeve with a nod to the original 1992 studio location on the cover, Bowes Lyons skate park and youth centre in Stevenage.

"A massive thanks to Mike and Blueskinbadger Records. When someone knocks on your door and tells you that your old tunes from over 20 years ago are still being played and appreciated and that they want to re release them again. What more can I say. Happy f###ing days, smash the s##t out of it ! - Iain Clifton"

Raggatek, high resolution sound ! A big dancefloor Weapon again. LIMITED !

Backwards presents the REISSUE of this amazing VOX POPULI! album originally released on cassette (1985) by Cause And Effect in the United States. Self-labeled as an ethno-industrial project, Vox Populi! is one of the most intriguing and original band emerged from French underground. These recordings were made between 1980 and 1985. The album presents 7 tracks of analog experimental ethno industrial music! Released in a luxurious edition of 400 copies only. Silkscreened cover with printed inner-sleeve.

Auf "Small Favours" - der 6–Songs Vinyl–Auskopplung des Albums "Favours", verbündet sich Elektronikmusik–Zauberer Wolff Parkinson White mit verschiedenen SängerInnen, unter anderem Norah Jones, Natalie Beridze und Pascal Leboeuf.

Wolff Parkinson White's typisches Maschinengewehr–Feuer aus manipulierten Audio–Splittern steht hier in krassem Kontrast zu der Wärme der menschlichen Stimme. Seine erste EP–Veröffentlichung auf Nonplace bedient sich an vergleichsweise bekannten Liedstrukturen und beantwortet die Frage, wie ein Projekt von Björk und Venetian Snares klingen würde, wären sich beide jeweils der Nachteile diatonischer Monotonie und der endlosen harmonischen Wüste bewusst.

Die 6 Tracks der EP wurden von Labelchef Burnt Friedman persönlich von den 13 Album–Tracks ausgewählt. Der Schlagzeuger Jochen Rückert, der hinter dem Spitznamen "Wolff Parkinson White" steht, spielt auf "Heaps Dub" (nonplace20) von Root 70 und "Coptic Dub" (nonplace27) von Hayden Chisholm's Projekt The Embassadors.

The Amsterdam based Modern Obscure Music label launches a new sub-division named MOMArchives. MOMArchives is a reissue label that will focus on electronic music. All releases will be available on vinyl and also digitally.

The first release is Neocrystal by Japanese producer Yoshihiro Sawasaki. It is a fantastic slice of mid 90s Japanese Ambient Techno that needs to be heard by a larger audience. Yoshihiro Sawasaki is a Kyoto based producer who has released music under aliases such as Naturally Gushing and Doctor YS & the Cosmic Drunkards on labels like Sublime Records, Apollo Records and V2. Neocrystal was originally released on Sublime Records back in 1994. Sublime Records is an important label in the history of Japanese electronic music. The imprint has released music by domestic artists such as Susumu Yokota and Ken Ishii, as well as foreign talent such as Global Communications. The B Side to Neocrystal is Magic Dome. This was licensed to Dave Angel’s instalment of the legendary X-Mix series on Studio K7!

The first MOMArchives release begins with the ‘On The Beach’ mix of Neocrystal. It is a dreamy ambient track with gorgeous key washes and reverberating synthetics. It is followed by Magic Dome, a spacey keyed cut with bright synth play, subtle percussion and hypnotic key work. This is a wonderful archive release from Yoshihiro Sawasaki and it is a great start for MOMArchives.

To screengaze we see the frenzy of the hyperreality; the chaotic and unending flow of info which serves as the composite of the idealworld as it’s presented to us. Projections of self-styled-life, illusions of societal norm, prescribed freedom, and omnipresent prompts for consumption embody this hyperworld which once zoomed in on becomes dissociative, overwhelming, and often unstable as its reflection is held up to itself.

While to windowgaze, we see a muted reflection of the actual. We see in such a way that allows us to view a still and serene world onto which we can project our own idealisms; romanticising the mundane with notions of love and beauty, while flirting with senses of meaninglessness and nothingness. Through windowgazing we allow ourselves to eulogise the actual in a “is-it-really-real” way.

Tears Voyuer is the debut LP by the duo All Times Now Nothing. Tears Voyuer is presented in two formats. The physical 12” LP is comprised of two 22 minute collage pieces. The digital format is made up of 14 tracks which form the basis of the collages as heard on the record. Digital download included with the release.

Romantic Fiction - the debut LP from Curses - is an honest musical expression drawing influences from his youth growing up in NYC in the 80s. References to new wave, post-punk, synth music and early EBM are skillfully merged with the DIY approach of punk and rock n roll angst. Brandishing an immersive sonic palette, all instruments throughout the album were played and recorded by the artist

Holding Hands is blasting off with a bang of cosmic proportions, featuring two cuts from Desert Sound Colony's dance floor alter ego 'DSC'.Far Reaching, as its name suggests, takes inspiration from the deep well of our musical past. Drum & bass, jungle, breaks, house and hardcore are all present. That being said, this is not just a revival record. These sounds combined take your mind out of the past and place it firmly in a previously unimagined future. Hard as nails to begin with, the track eventually builds to a glorious rapture.Too Hard is deep like the Mariana Trench and made for dance floor meditation. Kicks rock you back and forth as a soft canvas of pads drapes itself over your mind. Space is the place people, space is the place.Both tracks are produced and sculpted for the club. They want big sound systems and dark rooms.Close your eyes, hold hands and experience transcendental space flight... DSC Bio 2017 After several years writing and touring as the band Desert Sound Colony, Liam Wachs has decided to move back to his roots with a new dance music alias, 'DSC'. His previous releases on Scissor & Thread were informed by 60s psychedelia and his pastoral surroundings in the British countryside. Pulsating, and built on a core of slowed down club rhythms. Now with the advent of DSC and his own label Holding Hands, he is looking more towards London and Leeds where he spent his formative years. Small dark rooms with big sound systems are the inspiration. Beats and space are there for the exploration.Holding Hands Holding Hands is a record label with very simple goals. Put out banging tunes on black vinyl and get them to DJs who want to rinse them in clubs. We aren't interested in all the bells and whistles. Colour vinyl where you can't see where one track starts and another ends. Lovely artwork is nice but for our purposes it's unimportant. This is music that hits you in the gut and rattles your bones. Music that makes the end of your nose itch as certain frequencies come soaring out of the sound system. These are the tunes that you hear when your eyes are rolling back in your head with your best friends all around you on the dance floor.It is how it should be. In the club we are all holding hands.

Simon Scott (Slowdive) debuts his Index alias with a visceral new sound that absorbs and transmutes political, ecological and psychic dread into a caustic, dissonant style of noise sculpture for iDEAL Recorded 2016-2019 in Los Angeles, ‘Kainos’ sees veteran UK composer, field recordist, drummer and mastering engineer Scott explore ongoing concerns of his oeuvre via a prism of formative musical influences from the post-industrial music of Coil, Throbbing Gristle and early Black Sabbath, plus non-musical and conceptual inspiration from the turmoil of Brexit - including recordings of the Houses of Parliament - thru to the radical feminist scientific writing of Donna Haraway, and the conceptual vigour of Luigi Russolo’s
Futurist manifesto, ‘The Art of Noises’.
The album’s title ‘Kainos’, from the ancient Greek meaning “new” or “fresh”, characterises Scott’s efforts to glean something practical from this world’s current state of chaos. When taken in context of its use in Donna Haraway’s 2016 book, ‘Staying with the Trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene’, and its central tenet that “our task is to make trouble, to stir up potent response to devastating events on a damaged earth”, Scott’s enacts a tectonic shift from bucolic sonic signifiers to signposts of the post-industrial world that could hardly be more apt at at a time when electronic and ambient music are prized for their safe and sterile wallpaper qualities, rather than a potential to evoke and invoke more powerful feelings.
Based around modular synth-mangled live stream recordings of the Houses of Parliament during the prelude to Brexit, Scott’s compositions take these fractious debates as building blocks for the album’s caustic improvisations and compositions, ranging from convulsive clangour to pulsating tracts of strobing distortion and gutted, lurching post-dubstep rhythms riddled with the voice of Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell, before eventually resolving with a more spacious, textured sense of relief by the album’s close.
His results are chaotic and noisily abrasive in a way that holds up a mirror to the modern world, reflecting a putative state of unrest and agitation that resonates with the artist’s profound discontent with the lack of “equilibrium we have right now and how disconnected we have all become in relation to nature and each other.” In concept this is nothing new for Scott, as previous release have variously explored ideas of climate change in ‘Below Sea Level’ (2012) and ‘Flood Lines’ (2016’, but the product this time is far more pointed, even aggressive, in its noisy insistence.

Following six studio albums of funk-driven loungecore, Hospital Records head honcho London Elektricity embarks on the boldest musical adventure of his 30-year career with his seventh long-player Building Better Worlds.

It began in a Forest Hill cafe in 2017 where London Elektricity adoringly browsed through a series of Benjamin Beechs photography of perfectly untouched, derelict buildings and towns in Japan, Taiwan and China. Many of the images show what has been, what could have been and what will be. The duality of beauty and melancholia within appealed to me immensely. Each track was married to a photo, to join the sights to sounds from each of his tales of Building Better Worlds.

Leading the voyage is the orchestral masterpiece Final View From The Rooftops, that’s been 13 years in the making and is the most unusual piece of D+B he’s ever made, featuring the incredible operatic talent of Cydnei B. Build A Better World is a smooth drum & bass sonnet with the vocals of Hospital family favourite Emer Dineen. The beauty of this song lies in its simplicity, but also its duality. I'll leave you to work out what the lyrics are really about... They are some of the darkest lyrics I've come across in years.

Another special moment is the feature of London Elektricitys youngest son, The Secretary-General. The talented nine-year-old takes no Time To Think as he flawlessly flows through Injas lyrics with the ever-vibrant MC following suit, bringing the track full-circle across generations.

London Elektricity is the mastermind behind classic Hospital
albums such as Pull The Plug, Syncopated City, Are We There Yet? and Yikes. His latest body of work delves into uncharted depths for a very personal and expressive collection of tracks where drum & bass and live instrumentation meet. London Elektricity can be found showcasing this latest chapter with tours in China, Japan, the UK
and Europe throughout 2019.

Nikolaienko's "The Sounds Of Pseudoscience" LP from 2015 (originally released by Muscut/ Graphical Recording) gets 5 Years Anniversary Limited Edition on cassettes. 30 copies only. Includes 10 never published before pseudoscience illustrations.

’11 Items’ is the textured first album by Pontiac Streator and Ulla Straus for Huerco S and his pals at
West Mineral Ltd. The album sees the American duo expand upon the hazy mindset of their ‘Chat’
2018 EP across a flux of ambient interzones where they transmute fleeting, everyday feels into a
bouquet of ephemeral and organically unresolved scenes
The expanded 2LP palette of Streator & Straus’ 2nd release reveals a greater variegation of their
overgrown, verdant electronics and free rhythms in a gently perplexing style of ambient inception.
Each of the ’11 Items’ feels like an exploration of dreams within dreams in a way that beautifully
parses the poetic from the prosaic and cannily reflects a certain hyperaware yet hypnagogic state
of modern ambient music.
Recorded at 50 Wingz in Philadelphia, ’11 Items’ convects a cool, communal sort of psychedelia
from nose to tail, evoking the feel of friends in a room or a cabin communicating non-verbally. In
the process it conjures the type of moments that lead to comfortable silences between familiar
souls, and likewise has the capacity to stimulate and dissolve conversation with the babbling,
forgot-what-I-was-talking-about flow and quality of MDMA chat between relaxed but frayed and
buzzing minds.
In an ambiguous style that has become key to West Mineral Ltd.’s aesthetic, the music is neither
gloomy nor ecstatic but full of transitory sensations somewhere in between those poles. Each part
feels pulled in multiple directions at once, resulting in a sublime schism between jazzy hustle and
heavy-lidded electronics in ‘Item 1’, and a subtle underlying tension between layered dimensions
of humid, dusky acoustics and congealed electronics on ‘Item 3’, while ‘Item 5’ dices with urges to
dance/lean back, and ‘Item 10’ crystallises this idea of alchemic multivalency with an unmissable
mix of fine grained mentasms firing like synaptic surges in iridescent grey matter.

10"

Do you know the moment when you catch the plague? Right. He also didn't know. Until it got to him. Out of nowhere, it took over his mind, his body, his soul. Nobody saw it coming. Make sure to have some garlic when you are around him. This plague is highly contagious.

You don't know what you don't know.

Asyncro Is A Record Label Launched By Moscow's Electronic Music Producer Ol In 2019. The Opening Release Is An Lp By Serwed - The Debut Collaborative Project From Ol And His Gost Zvuk Label-mate Flaty. This Record Offers Precise Cuts With A Wide Range Of Rhythmic Structures And Granulated Backgrounds, Based On The Duo's Explorations Of Free-form Generative Sound.

Slackk first came to the attention of most with an EP of roughneck UK house on Numbers, before a series of more emotive, melody-driven records on Local Action and Unknown to the Unknown saw him emerge as one of the most unique and influential artists working in the peripheries of grime - taking the genre's hallmarks and audio tattoos but placing them in a context that owed as much to Eastern mood pieces and the complex melodies of classic jazz records, hinting at other key influences on Slackk's music. His debut album Palm Tree Fire was a particular success: Resident Advisor calling it a 'beautiful glimpse into the mind of an under-appreciated producer'.

Slackk has since expanded the breath and honed the details of his music through a pair of EPs on R&S - first Backwards Light, a record that expanded on the themes of his previous releases while taking in the label's legacy of groundbreaking acid and techno, and then on the more abrasive Aviary. A Little Light, his first album for the label, is his most idiosyncratic and personal release yet.

Partially inspired by the upcoming birth of his first child, this album sees Slackk drop the tempo to an r&b 90bpm crawl on tracks like 'Spring Mist' and 'Zip Me Up', with the newfound space between his drums allowing his delicate melodies to grow and spiral like never before.

Although the LP looks forward, it's also nostalgic: 'Old Petchy Shows' is a reference to the last embers of UK Funky, arguably the final chapter of UK dance music to rely on traditional physical hubs like pirate radio and record stores, while 'Paper Santos' and 'Reasons' nod to early 2000s grime and house, both influences on Slackk in different ways. Elsewhere, 'So Far, The Sea' and 'And The Sun' are two of the most outright emotional songs that Slackk has written to date.

Although there are clear reference points dotted throughout A Little Light, more than anything - following several years of honing and developing a trademark sound - it simply sounds like Slackk; equal parts nostalgic and optimistic, delicate and clumsy, with an atmosphere that could either be sunset or sunrise depending on your vantage point. It's an album filled with uncertainty and individuality, utterly unconcerned with what's happening outside of its own world, and there's only one artist around who could have written it.

Electronic brutalist Somaticae distills a rage against surveillance software company ‘Amesys’ in his ferocious album of rhythmic digital noise for Mondkopf’s In Paradisum label, coming off like Pan Sonic using Takeshi Nakamura’s No Input Mixing Board in the process… Fuelled by a justifiable need to disseminate information about Amesys, a French company who have supplied discreet surveillance software to government organisations and dictatorships around the world - including Muamar Gaddafi’s Libya, the European Commission, and the French M.o.D. - Somaticae’s 3rd album for In Paradisum is framed around tense, weaponised sonics that act as metaphor for the relationship between France’s role as the 4th largest arms exporter in the world, and its emergent position as low key facilitator of “Big Brother”.
Finding Somaticae in his 13th year of operations, the project takes on a heavier meaning with its ‘AMESYS’.
In seven tense steps he affords scant relief from a raw, pulsating core of energy that he just about tames over the course of the album. Working right at the biting point of digital noise in patented style, he churns up squabbling patterns and sheer binary scree with a manacled grasp of loud/quiet dynamics that handles the listener from passages of gnashing tension to guttural spasms of bass and pelting, almost Frenchcore-style kicks.
Although recorded in the studio, the album’s livewire ruffness surely lives up to Somaticae’s notorious reputation for live, improvised performance in the European DIY scene to record. It’s a proper seat-edge listen that imparts its message in no uncertain terms, galvanising his audience to the struggle against deployment of facial recognition, and the inherent erosion of civil liberties, which are aided by Amesys and its offshoots, Nexa Technologies and AMES. The issue isn’t sci-fi any more; it’s real and impending

Sunny & Deck Hussy have quickly become firm favourites with almost everyone who hears them, because they have been making tune after tune, and each one of them has been stronger than the last. This EP continues their amazing run of big tunes, with Hayley's Comet being the standout on a standout EP. Absolutely brilliant in all respects, this EP is a winner and a half. And its only a taste of things to come, with an impressive remix for Hyper On Experience about to land, amongst other huge projects. So get on the Sunny & Deck Hussy train / comet before its too late...

Back to the hardcore, TALISMANN returns where it once started. Early rave in the land of Ecstasy, where synths saw deep and kicks shatter bones.

10" Green Vinyl

In our digital present world we'd like to keep the romance of vinyl alive. Sadly we can't just release everything on wax any more, however each year we cut 4 of the finest tracks we had released over the previous year.

Thanks for supporting us, thanks for supporting vinyl. XX.

* Walton kicks off 2019 for Tectonic with 4 cuts of pirate radio infused dancefloor orientated DJ tools. 'Inside EP' follows on from Walton's exceptional 'Black Lotus' LP, which dropped on Tectonic last summer, gaining widespread acclaim - even rated as The Guardian's 'Contemporay Album Of The Month'!

* What we have here is 4 tracks that all sit around the 130bpm mark, providing grime sonics to a techno compatible form. Built for those who don't really give a f**k if you call it techno, grime or bass blah blah so long as it bangs in the dance and moves those feet.

* Sampling snippets of MC's chatting between tracks, each track takes a mostly functional approach, building raw elements in a simple but effective fashion. 'Bullet #2' sets the scene, kicking off with a radio style wheel up - before dropping into rolling 4/4 square wave power moves. 'Inside' follows the mood, building towards a more rolling technoid construct. 'More Cowbell' bangs out like an old 4/4 grime anthem with a contemporary production sonic, while 'Gunshot Clap'
closes out the EP, with its swooping square wave stabs and background shouts from behind the mic.

Yak returns to 3024 for a widely varied EP of his signature percussive flavors. Kicking off the EP is the neo UKG flex of "Dire Hit", with its frantic drum programming and hypnotic themes. "Esper" is Yak in a 165bpm workout, and do not underestimate the spacey beauty of "Knothole", reminiscent of some of the 90s best Warp IDM. Tip!

Samurai Music kicks off 2020 with the debut Samurai 12” from another of Manchester’s rising talents - Antagonist. Mike has already joined the Samurai family with his notable contributions to the Hannya and Decade compilations, but here he claims his own catalog number with 2 crucial slices of deep, gritty half time. Spending years honing his craft to perfect an individual approach that is built to last, Shui and Escapism both see Mike matching razor sharp beat edits with ice cold menace. Shui revels in creeping, spiralling paranoia while Escapism steps loaded with call and response style break play.

Grimes releases her long awaited new album “Miss Anthropocene” on 21 Feb 2020 on 4AD. Includes the singles” So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth” & “Violence” and featuring collaborations with 潘PAN & i_o.

The release of Marc‘s album „Voyage de la planète“ in 2017 marked a new era of his career. With ten rather beatless tracks where he combined his definition of electronica with classical instruments like violine, cello, double bass and piano Marc began to walk the path of fresh sounding music for the brain.

The title track has been the most successful one so that Marc called no one else than Erased Tape‘s poster boy Ben Lukas Boysen from Berlin to contribute his very own interpretation. Ben created a typical and unique version which comes along with a, believe it or not, 4/4 kick pattetn towards the end. But listen yourself, it totally makes sense. And Bordeaux‘s best Ocoeur made a short but epic ambient version you also should not miss.

Raime's second album, Tooth, arrives June 10, 2016 on 2xLP, CD and digital formats. The widescreen melancholia of their 2012 debut, Quarter Turns Over A Living Line, gives way to an urgent and focussed futurism, in the shape of eight fiercely uptempo, minimal, meticulously crafted electro-acoustic rhythm tracks. The DNA of dub-techno, garage/grime and post-hardcore rock music spliced into sleek and predatory new forms.

No let-up, no hesitation. Needlepoint guitar, deftly junglist drum programming, brooding synths and lethal sub-bass drive the engine. The production is immaculate, high definition. No hiss, no obscuring drones or extraneous noise: the music of Tooth is wide-open and exposed. The seeds of its supple dancehall biomechanics can be found in the self-titled 2013 EP by Raime side-project Moin, an ahead-of-its-time synthesis of art-rock and soundsystem sensibilities, but Tooth pushes the template further, binding the disparate elements together so tightly that they become indistinguishable from one another.

If Quarter Turns was an album that confronted total loss and self-destruction, even longed for it, then Tooth is the sound of resistance and counter-attack: cunning, quick, resolute, calling upon stealth as much as brute-force. At a time when so many pay lip service to experimentation without ever fully committing themselves or their work to it, Raime return from three years of deep, dedicated studio research with a bold and original new music: staunch, rude, and way out in front.

"Aporia" is a New Age album from Sufjan Stevens and his step-father and record label co-owner, Lowell Brams. In the spirit of the New Age composers who sanded off the edges of their synths' sawtooth waves, "Aporia" approximates a rich soundtrack from an imagined sci-fi epic brimming with moody, hooky, gauzy synthesizer soundscapes. The album may suggest the progeny of a John Carpenter, Wendy Carlos, and Mike Oldfield marriage, but it stands apart from these touchstones and generates a meditative universe all its own. This is no mere curio in the Sufjan Stevens catalog - but a fully realized collaborative musical piece. Stevens and Brams recorded "Aporia" over the course of the last several years during Brams' visits to Stevens' home in New York with the help of several frequent Asthmatic Kitty collaborators, including Thomas Bartlett (Doveman), D.M. Stith, Nick Berry (Dots Will Echo), John Ringhofer (Half-handed Cloud) drummer and longtime collaborator James McAlister, keyboardist and trombonist Steve Moore (Sunn O)))), guitarist Yuuki Matthews (The Shins) and vocalist Cat Martino.

New Moon Recordings is an independent label with intent to promote new talented producers. The label crosses a range of underground genres to create an infusion of Deep Dubstep, Dub Techno, Idm and Drum & Bass. The Private Universe Ep by an upcoming polish producer Think includes two tracks influenced by dubtech sounds featuring beautiful vocals by Novika. On the flip you can find a soulful remix by Jack Sparrow. Dj support from Ruckspin, Jack Sparrow, BunZero, HxdB, Indigo, Hatti Vatti and many more.Limited to 300 pcs.

Clandestine presents Zuckell 12”. Unearthly mastering techniques. Couple this weapon with another. 2 Copies are recommended. The Original Looper Series Scratch Tool. Sparse Black 12inch rotational blade. Weighing in at 140gms. Price £9.99

DMC World Champion. DJ Fong Fong presents Vacarm Break. Limited edition BLACK 12" Vinyl. Produced by Fong Fong, Mart One and Tomfat. Both sides have non-skip loops and a 75bpm beat. Weighing in at 140gms; Price £9.99

The Belgian party organisation and record label De:tuned presents the final outing of their 10 year anniversary vinyl series. "DE:10.10" kicks off with a trippy Plaid remix of Humanoid's "sT8818r" track. The remix provides some more 3AM rave pressure for those sweaty basement parties. Erik Van Den Broek aka Shiver follows with a previously unreleased mix of "Primerose", an emotive late night acid track that was released on the 5 Years De:tuned box set in 2014. The B-side offers "Formulate", music straight from the soul produced by the physical embodiment of UK emotive techno and one half of B12, Steven Rutter. Lone completes the series with "Dream Ache", an exclusive track that graced Rustie's BBC Radio One Essential Mix back in 2012, finally pressed on wax.

Kevin Foakes (Openmind, DJ Food, Ninja Tune) created all the graphic work. Mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis Mastering. This 12" is pressed on 180 gr vinyl and is housed in a detailed silver foil sleeve to celebrate "10 Years De:tuned". Stay tuned!

Not to be sold in stores before 28th Feb 2020.
A window, a portal, a room.
A space one can see, but not enter.
A fleeting force burning the ether.

Following a well received string of releases on 'Analogical Force', 'Furthur Electronix' and 'Feel My Bicep' James Shinra makes his debut release on 20/20 Vision. Shinra displays his musical dexterity and diverse influences across this 4 track EP delving deeper into the realms of electro and techno.

'Route 909' serves up emotive melodies rooted down with a heavy kick before working the keys hard to maximum effect. 'Flyby' is a beautiful moment of electronic bliss reminiscent of the great Aphex Twin, while the acid soaked '1111' is a certified dance floor bomb.

Shinra isn't adverse to switching tempos and beats and can also deliver flawless techno. The cleverly structured and melodically complex 'On & On' rounds up the wax with a track that makes you want to drift away on the dance-floor, prepare to be transported to a future world where machines have emotions.

Fast-rising Lisbon-based DJ/producer PEDRO has shared details of his long-awaited debut album, ‘Da Linha’, which releases on March 20 via Enchufada. First teased with the release of bubbling lead single ‘Calores’ in January, ‘Da Linha’ crowns a defining breakthrough three years for PEDRO that has seen him establish himself as one of Portugal’s most vibrant and exciting new-school producers. His debut EP, ‘EP ‘Damaia’ (2017) – named after the suburb of Lisbon he was born in – immediately signposted a bright, borderless club sound rooted in experimentation, which has since been best emphasised by 2019 releases including the Buraka Som Sistema-sampling ‘Rapazes’ and a breathless collaboration with Nigerian MC, Magugu (‘Too Much’), both of which feature on the LP tracklist.

First inspired by his older brother, who would introduce PEDRO to the latest electronic music coming out of Portugal, he still references DJ Rolando’s ‘Knights Of Jaguar’ as a memorable early touch point – a record he still credits with influencing the melodies he writes to this day. Living and growing up in Damaia, PEDRO also went to school with friends of Angolan, Cape Verdean, Brazilian and Mozambican descent, exposing him to a whole patchwork of new sounds and genres like kuduro and kizomba from a very young age. With such a rich and diverse musical upbringing, it is perhaps no wonder that ‘Da Linha’ is bursting with energy and colour across all 10 tracks, melding together the hyper-specific sounds, instruments and voices that have sound-tracked PEDRO’s life so far. From the marching, militant rhythm of ‘Stuck On You’ ft. standout Ghanaian MC, Bryte, to the silky, bubblegum vocals and gloopy, earworm melodies of closing track ‘Para Ti’ featuring Xcelencia, you’d be hard pushed to find a debut record that captures a city so viscerally.

Following the recent critical success of his 101 Beats Per Minute collective project, Le Doux Nord LPs and Ribbon Works EPs, Ireland’s most prolific electronic composer and one of an exclusive coterie of producers who truly understands the occult language of the synthesiser, Dunk Murphy returns this spring with the release of his 7th album as Sunken Foal. Reflecting a lifelong infatuation with confectionery and a passion for synthesisers, Murphy’s latest suite, ‘Hexose’, features layers of thick harmony, flickering nano-sound design and extensive use of self generating melodies to conjure up a rich bio-mechanical soundscape. The end product is reminiscent of contemporaries like Lee Gamble and William Fields and the softer aspects of the 90’s WARP sound, blended with the work of visionary synth artists such as Laurie Spiegel, Suzanne Doucet, Enno Velthuys, and Vangelis. Whether you enjoy the cloying sweetness of the Caramac, the saccharine pleasures of the Instant Whip or the seductive charms of the Dark Bounty, you’ll find something in this mellifluous selection box to satisfy your audial cravings.

Bluff Records back at it!

After reissuing the first Voy-E EP, obviously the same had to happen with this one. Originally released in very limited quantities back in 2001, this is the second and only other Voy-E EP that has ever seen the light of day. It came out on 12” via Hoodwink Records, and was one of the last releases the label put out before shutting down. Due to its scarcity, the record has been selling on the second-hand market for crazy money (over £140!).

This EP (like the last one) is a product of the Florida Breakbeat scene which was pretty big across the US during the mid to late 90s – a scene in which the original label was heavily involved. The tracks have been sourced from the original master CD thanks to Hoodwink Records’ owner, and have been re-mastered and cut by The Exchange.

It took 3-4 months to track these guys down last year. Bluff Records finally reached the original label owner on LinkedIn - of all places - after trying many other avenues. They had no idea that the Voy-E EP’s were in such high demand and were absolutely stoked about doing the reissues.

Both Voy-E and the original label owner still live in the states in North Carolina, and haven’t done anything music related in nearly two decades. It really means a lot to them that people are still enjoying their work.

ELEH's Harmonic Twins is slow moving monophony tuned to the overtone vocalizations generated by a particularly beautiful sound sculpture made by Harry Bertoia.

These two pieces are inspired by early music, choral masses, motets, the cathedral reverberations of sacred geometry and deep bass. Harmonic Twins was originally debuted by ELEH at Unsound, Krakow in 2017.

Harmonic Twins was pressed in an audiophile edition of 500 copies and is packaged in a heavy duty sleeve printed with metallic inks.

An optimal listening environment is recommended in order to experience the low frequencies of Harmonic Twins.

In 2020 Lagaffe Tales will introduce more artists on the BROT series on which Felix Leifur started ever so memorably with a head-turning trilogy.

The first artist to follow in his tracks is one of the driving forces and founder of Lagaffe Tales: Jónbjörn. In this release, he offers diverse four tracks that showcase a variety of production styles that he’s known for.

Laurel Halo presents an album’s worth of score provided for the 2018 essay film Possessed, by artist collective Metahaven and Rob Schröder, produced by Dutch Mountain Film. The film was nominated for the IFFR Tiger award and the CPH:Dox New Vision Award in 2018. Her first foray into writing music for screen, the album provides a rich variety of sounds, from aqueous, subterranean drones, to plaintive folk pieces for violin and cello, to uncanny pseudoclassical piano mutations.

It’s fitting for Laurel Halo to move into the score world. Already known for her ability to craft evocative, emotionally charged music, the pieces on offer give shade and contour to the central questions of Possessed. We arrange our lives to impress the gaze of others and have become obsessed by our own image, we are looking for a new, personal way to relate to others, but how do we find new ways of being together, outside the self-surveillance we have created? The film’s sophisticated collage of live footage combined with found footage of makeup tutorials, smart phones melted by liquefied lead, facial recognition software, selfie risktakers atop cranes, and tourists filming their every move in Rome all point to the central question of the film: who is looking out for you?

The soundtrack traverses both the synthetic and acoustic, in keeping with the film’s tension between what is natural and unnatural. Opening track Hyphae unfolds like the titular fungal network, spreading and extending indelibly; the various Rome Themes all motivic in their romantic yearning; the surreal piano of Marbles pointing towards the recurrent image of void like black marbles, all knocking against one another, but never touching. Zeljava, named after the abandoned former Yugoslavian military air base featured in the film, is a central piece for it’s resonant, wrenching quality, like a perpetually arched back. In a nod to film music tradition a simple rendition of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater is also included in the collection.

Violinist Galya Bisengalieva and cellist Oliver Coates provide rich performances, and renowned engineer Paul Corley lends additional production.

Not to be sold in stores before 28th Feb 2020.
A window, a portal, a room.
A space one can see, but not enter.
A fleeting force burning the ether.

Tod Dockstader's Aerial series, an electronic/drone masterpiece, is cherished among fans of the artist's work and this first volume is available in an audiophile quality double LP edition of 500 copies.

15 years in the making, Tod Dockstader's Aerial series is sourced from his life long passion for shortwave radio. Dockstader collected over 90 hours of recordings, made at night, and comprised of cross signals and fragments plucked from the atmosphere.

Opening with airwave drones, Dockstader gradually allows elements to slowly come and go, summoning an ominous atmosphere of ethereal cloud clouds. Malignant placidity continues, giving the feeling of eavesdropping upon late-night audio activity not unlike discovering number stations while sweeping the dials. These sounds pull you in as their density and rhythms come and go.
Backward voices, deep echoing choruses of conversations flowing under the surface, ocean sounds, pulsing electro-rhythms, all seem to be created via the collaging of many hours of source recordings. A masterwork of collage and juxtaposition by an overlooked pioneer of American electronic music.

Artwork by John Brien (Imprec) is inspired by the propagation of shortwave radio signals throughout the earth's atmosphere.

"This return of Dockstader is something to cherish, not just because his output has been so limited and scarce but because what we do have is so intriguing, persuasive and cliche-free; the music of an inspired explorer who trails in nobody's slipstream." The Wire

"One of the great figures of musique concrete composition." Dusted

The Aerial project

I've written before of my interest in shortwave radio, in the notes to the Quatermass CD. Also, in the notes to the Omniphony CD (which has my first "Aerial" mix, "Past Prelude," in it), I mentioned "The Aerial Etudes," which was my working title for what became the three CDs you have. And, at the end of an interview with Chris Cutler (which can be found in the "Unofficial TD Website"), the piece I mentioned I was starting to work on at the time became Aerial.) When I was very young, people got most of their entertainment from radio. They called it "playing the radio," as if it were a musical instrument. That's what I've tried to do in this piece. About this time, a few people encouraged me to look into using a computer for this work.

I'd never used one, but I saw it would allow me to keep my mixes digital - no more transfer losses. So, at the end of 2001, I got a computer and an editing program for it, and spent what seemed a long time learning it. I began selecting mixes and loading them into the computer in late March, 2002. Out of the 580, I selected 90 "best" mixes - eventually reduced to 59, the ones on the CDs. Finally, in assembling the CDs, I followed David Myers' suggestion to allow each piece to flow into the next - making a continuous journey to the end. Tod Dockstader, 14 september 2003

About Tod Dockstader:
Dockstader moved to New York in 1958 and became a self-taught sound engineer and sound effects specialist and apprenticed as a recording engineer at Gotham Recording Studios. It was around this time that he started to use his off-work hours to experiment with mixing and manipulating sounds on magnetic tape (musique concrète). By 1960 he had amassed enough material to assemble his first record Eight Electronic Pieces which was released on the Folkways label in 1961 (this would later be used in the soundtrack of Fellini’s Satyricon). The last of the eight pieces was later re-worked into his first stereo piece.
In 1961 he applied to use the facilities at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center and was denied access by Vladimir Ussachevsky. Ussachevsky’s official reason was the “overstrained” scheduling of the studios, although many suspect that Dockstader’s lack of academic training was a factor in the decision.
He continued to create music throughout the first half of the 60s, working principally with tape manipulation effects. His last piece at Gotham was Four Telemetry Tapes in 1965, after which he left to work as an audio-visual designer on the Air Canada Pavillion at Montreal’s Expo ‘67. It was around this time in 1966 that some of Dockstader’s pieces were released on three Owl L.P.s, and his work became known to a larger audience. He achieved modest recognition and radio play alongside the likes of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Edgard Varèse, and John Cage.

Welcome to the Panopticon of darkness! With Unbroken, the German pioneers of European Gothic Metal, CREMATORY, dare to perform a tightrope act in the somber void. 15 energetic tracks within brutal riffs, deep growls and tight drum grooves prove the band’s diversity — even after almost 30 years in business. The concise influences of Neue Deutsche Härte turn Unbroken into a bravura-piece in an industrial guise. The opening track of the album takes the listener into a darkly-nuanced soundscape, appeals to the strength and self-determination of the band and their fans, and allures with a certain kind of hymn character. The most contemplative CREMATORY album to date closes with the final tracks "As Darkness Calls", a powerful first class offer, and the emotional ballad "Like The Tides”. The latter presents the fragile side of the band and symbolizes an ode of transience, love and pain. CREMATORY remains Unbroken!

”Are you ready to take your turn now?” asks a mischievous voice at the beginning of DJ Marcelle’s new album. But by this point you don’t have a choice: you better buckle up for a joyride through the wild, unpredictable imagination of a true electronic music auteur. ‘Saturate The Market, Now!’ is stuffed with the kind of raw, rhythmic workouts and playful humour we’ve come to know and love from the long-serving Dutch artist. Let’s start with the music: Marcelle pinballs between pumping outsider house, brilliantly weird acid and musique concrète experiments where anything could happen at any given time. Then there are her famous track titles, which take another aim at nightclub patriarchy (‘Technicians And Their Light Effects’, the successor to last year's 'Technicians And Their Smoke Machines') at the same time as displaying a keen sense of satire (‘I Fell In My Own Cesspit!’) and revealing a difficult relationship with the sour, massive rock that for her is ‘German Bread’. With artwork featuring a collage of puppets found in her Amsterdam house and Marcelle’s own on-the-road photography, this is yet another album that sets her a mile apart from the paint-by-numbers dance music producers - or “accountants” as she’s witheringly described them.

Marcelle arrived via punk, post-punk, avant garde and dub and lives by the independent, forward-thinking spirit inherent in those scenes. A sense of freedom is imbued in her work, unsurprising given that this album was written in two weeks and was made entirely on her own collection of machines (save a few choice vocal samples). It’s Marcelle’s eighth vinyl-only release for Jahmoni Music from Munich and follows on from last year’s ‘One Place For The First Time’ which swiftly sold-out and is now onto a repress. The vinyl is released alongside a 10” featuring extended and dub versions of triumphant album-cut ‘Everything Not Yet’.

So are you sitting comfortably? Well Marcelle would prefer if you weren’t. Because this is music for misfits to move to. The very opposite of business techno. A missive from a cult DJ with an enviable record collection and a fearless artist who couldn’t give a flying fuck about dance music norms. Saturate the market with pure energy – let’s do this!Seb Wheeler, Mixmag

East Man returns with a four track EP that explores his own Hi Tek take on Grime, stripping everything down to the raw, bare essentials.
Opening the EP is Fight For A Cause, a rough a fuzzy sub bass driven exercise in beat science that draws as much upon Dancehall as it does Grime. The second track, Selector, is a straight up DJ tool, utilising an alternating 32 bar pattern interspersed with splashes of pirate radio chatter.
The flip side opens with the storming Bandit Country.
The subdued intro lulling you into a false sense of security before the beats and bass are unleashed in full attack mode, the relentless onslaught pausing only briefly midway for you to catch your breath before continuing on it's devastating path.
The closing track, Darkage, is an ominous brooding affair that those of you familiar with East Man's sets will know well.

A real head nodding roller, it's definitely one for the technical DJ's.

Lurking in the shadows of the underground since 2013, subtly shifting trends and creating new bass cultures with a firmly understated frame of mind, Itinerant Dubs resurface with three new dance experiments that cross the boundaries and join the dots with brutal simplicity of thought. No tricks, cheap thrills or passing tastes; this is pure UK heat coming straight from the machines to your needle. The opener, "Dub This", lashes out heavy 808 percussion amid a blur of sparse, jagged licks of acid, while "Human Emulation" uses electro science as its platform for dancehall annihilation, leaving "Three Four" to linger more placidly in a hazy, mid-air smoke that we've come to recognise as the apex Itinerant Dubs sound. Murderous and iconic. The shadows resurface.

The history of Kahn's 'Dread' continues with these Dubkasm versions finally getting their official release!

Repress

First up is a reinvention from Coby Sey - the Lewisham, South London musician who's founded the Curl collective alongside Mica Levi and Brother May and collaborated with Babyfather, Klein and Tirzah, noted as one of the 50 best new artists of 2019 by the guardian. The tone and atmospherics of the original’s combination of synthesiser and woodwind are sliced into ghostly, mesmeric fragments and refitted in layers around loping, propulsive rhythms with something like UKG's steppiness - languid despite being uptempo, bright and almost gleeful despite the inescapable mournfulness of the source material.

Who’s The Technician? of Ireland's Wah Wah Wino label - turns in a remix that wrestles with the original over seven- and-a-half-minutes of relentlessly captivating deep digi-dancehall, less of a remix than a rebirth cycle, with the latent soul-splitting lament of Kolida Babo’s duduk copy-pasted onto a delirious mercurial lead rotating through hedonistic ecstasy and burnout, a snake-eating-its-own-tail of a version cracking open the third eye with a crowbar, plus a post- apocalyptic, ruthlessly space-invading dub that blasts the remix’s scale out to the starkest retreats of the universe in search of...

Kutmah closes off a series of 10 inches started back in 2010 from the cream opf L.A. Beatmakers. ... He was supposed to be on that batch of releases but for reasons well documented he had other priorities during that year.

We're delighted to finally welcome the esoteric beat wizard on board with "New Appliance" - as expected from such a singular talent this is a super strong ep, a diverse fusion of his classic beat styles and a signpost to a new departure using all his wave, noise & punk influences.

Cover photo by B+ // Mastered by Jonwayne //Mixed by Kidkanevil

Fully immersive electronic music by US composer Maggi Payne, inspired by the arctic winds. Maggi Payne's sound worlds invite the listeners to enter the sound and be carried with it, experiencing it from the inside out in intimate detail. The sounds are almost tactile and visible.

The music is based on location recordings, with each sound carefully selected for its potential—its slow unfolding revealing delicate intricacies—and its inherent spatialization architecting and sculpting the aural space where multiple perspectives and trajectories coexist. With good speakers, some space in your schedule, and a mind-body continuum willing to resonate with Payne’s electroacoustic journey, but then it will take you to places that other music can’t reach.

From the sounds of dry ice, space transmissions, BART trains, and poor plumbing she immerses the listener in a world strangely unfamiliar. Maggi Payne is a composer, video artist, recording engineer, photographer, and flutist and is Co-Director of the Center for Contemporary Music and a faculty member at Mills College, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Belgian artist Bernard Zwijzen, aka Sonmi451, has for over a decade now been quietly making some of the most luscious ambient we've heard here at AI-HQ. We are delighted to announce him as part of the Astral family with this six-track EP - Nachtmuziek - sit back, tune in and drift away.