Beats News

Including wanted vinyl tracks by Paul Kalkbrenner, Tori Amos, The Knife, Trentemøller, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Goose, Zombie Nation and Bomfunk MC's.

After Mischpoke #1 with BKGD Audio, Gras, Sonae and Lucrecia Dalt, this time Clark, Oval, Electric Indigo and Gudrun Gut are at the controls for #2. The Düsseldorf/Brisbane underdogs Tidy Kid, Pondskater, Ai and The Visitor provide the source material for their remixes. The music ranges from the living room to the club.

Using his royalties made through his Vinyl Fanatiks and Amen Brother releases, Lee X-Plode bought some new studio equipment and took time out to learn how to use it. When he reappeared some months later he sent me a zip of some insane acid breakbeat tracks, telling me this was the sound he always wanted to create. I was blown away by the quality of the tracks, the energy, the way the music took the listener back to the raves of old. It had everything, and more.

They couldn’t be left on his hard drive, the world needed to hear these tunes, so I set myself a challenge to create a new label that would accommodate this kind of music and to share it with likeminded souls across the planet. So Acid Boom was created, a label that deals with the raw acid vibes!

Acid Boom is a sister label to the Vinyl Fanatiks family. A vehicle to release that early 90’s acid sound that would later morph into rave. High energy 303’s, 808 and 909 drum machines, synced up to rolling breakbeats. Whether music from back in the day or new music that’s been created to emulate that early warehouse sound, Acid Boom is here to take you on a rush.

* The debut album from BCee gets a repackage for it’s 10th anniversary.
* All 15 tracks have been re-mastered for vinyl and combined in one place.
* Featuring the absolute d&b anthems Is Anybody Out There feat. S.P.Y, Generations and Captured In Time.

Ex Wiish is a fleeting dream. The new musical project of Ben Shirken, a sound artist and composer based in New York City.

Shirken is the founder of record label & performance series 29 Speedway which features improvisational electronic music, 4-point guerrilla sound installations, live multimedia performances and has hosted Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Poncili Creación, Debit, Pent, James K and various other New York-based artists. Shirken also produces for and plays modular synths in acclaimed free jazz group ‘Nu Jazz’ with Dan Orlowski of electronic hardcore staple Deli Girls.

Their debut record, “Shards of Axel'', is out on Incienso June 23, 2023. Born from a story-based video game composition; the listener finds themselves as the disoriented main player respawned into a harrowing, metallic landscape, wandering through cable ridden labyrinths, caught in progress traps as digital noises grind past submerged cityscapes.

Faith Discipline presents on the same release two of the proposals that best define its identity as a recording project. Two artists, or two bands, or a band and an artist, who coincide in some of their qualities and who also perfectly represent the sound line that the label has pursued since it was launched in 2015. German Army and Group have a lot in common, but their personalities are also unique, as are the objectives that influence their work.

German Army and Group coincide in several ways, both operate from anonymity and their approach to music production is also very similar. The style and sound of German Army and Group is mainly based on extreme and lo-fi treatments, and their music can be categorised as tribal, industrial, ethnic or experimental. However, German Army adds to their style a series of moral principles, as the project is based on a vindictive nature with continuous messages and appeals to the population and the rulers, the health of our planet is in extreme danger and with it the life and dignity of the underprivileged.

Red Vinyl pressing
Goldie – “These guys are at the top of their game”
Break – “One of the best labels in dnb, very happy to be involved”

Our next venture into the world of Utopia comes with new momentum gained from Elliot Garvey aka Quartz, who has delivered the incredible “Thorns” EP.

Rolling with the punches from his immense Resident Advisor podcast and the successful releases on Metalheadz, Samurai and Rupture, we’re proud to put his next body of work out into the world. This brilliant four-tracker has it all: deep soundscapes, crunchy breakbeats, hypnotic grooves, haunting samples and an intense dose of powerful sub bass weight. Support from: Break, DLR, Djinn, Doc Scott, Double O, Flight, Goldie, Hydro, Loxy, Mantra, Noisia and many more.

Mako: "Quartz is one of those rare producers who can make any genre of music incredibly well. He chose drum and bass and I am thankful he did. I don't hear much I like these days but every tune he sends me I rate in one way or another. These 4 tunes are special though and I’m very lucky to call him a peer, a brother and a Utopia artist."

• Press / Promotion: In house campaign from Utopia. Editorial sought in all UK music and dance titles (Mixmag (single of the month), DJ Mag review, Faye Magazine, Bassrush, Your EDM Resident Advisor) as well as national, online and regional daily and weekly press titles for review. Third party uploads on Youtube channels of over 100k subscribers (Drum & Bass Arena, District Bass, Most Addictive)

• Radio / Internet: Utopia Podcast - Award-winning podcast with over 10,000 subscribers, 15k+ individual downloads, YouTube - Utopia YouTube channel, Social Networking - Facebook: Mako/Utopia Music = 12k+, Soundcloud 9k+. Rene LaVice radio premiere on BBC Radio 1; Bassdrive – world’s largest internet drum & bass radio station.

An explorative sonic landscape with the beautifully eclectic sounds of drum and bass at its core, Sustance’s debut album is every bit as thought-out, polished, and innovative as we’ve come to expect from one of drum and bass’ brightest prospects.

Having grown up listening to seminal Shogun albums like Spectrasoul's 'Delay No More' and Icicle's 'Under The Ice', ‘Perceived Connections’ acts as a full circle moment for the producer, who now finds himself following in the footsteps of the artists who profoundly influenced his approach to creating music.

Written between London and Berlin across a twelve-month period, 'Perceived Connections' encapsulates both of the alluring sides of Sustance's sound. In the same fashion that the album's writing process pivoted between two capital cities, Sustance's debut album presents both deep and expressive tracks such as 'I Want You' and 'Sweet Relief', as well as showcasing heavy, sound system-destroying tunes like 'Undercurrent' and 'Ten Ton’.

“The album title comes from the Zen idea that everyone perceives the world through their own perspective. Two people can listen to a record side by side and have totally different experiences. I really liked that idea as music is inherently so subjective. Sustance

Accompanying Sustance on this LP voyage is a plethora of D&B’s hottest talent, with Pola & Bryson, Visages, Flowdan, Strategy, Duskee, T-Man, Catching Cairo & Zara Kershaw all sprinkling their own flavours across the album.

Traversing an array of sounds, styles, and genres throughout, 'Perceived Connections' is nothing short of an exceptional extended body of work from a producer whose razor-tight approach to music has seen him emerge with one of the crispest and most captivating sonic palettes in drum and bass music.

Summer 2021 sees the fourth in the Frigio Allstars series hitting all respectable shelves.



Jack Carel opens the 12” with the acid burning grunge of “Fuck This Shit” followed by Sons of Traders with the chugging 4/4 nastiness of “A for All.” A trippy, dark industrial streak runs in the snares and swagger of Rambal Cochet’s “Doomsday Scenario Interface” and in the powerful introspection of Daniel Holt’s “The Recluse.” Neud Photo arrives on Frigio with a menacing debut, “The Split” which pierces a haze of smoke in this late-night floor-filler. Honored Matres who appeared on the first volume of these series, returns with the blackest of the compilation. Machine gun percussion close the 12” with Chris Mitchell offering the chopped and gnawed “Alsina.

»Therapy« is a new experimental electronic music album by Alexandre Bazin that explores musical reasearch on the edge of ambient music, with a reminder of classical music. His instrumental music revolves aroun

»Dream Fiend« is the second release in the limited cassette series focusing on Ameel Brecht's »sleep« compositions.

Sinking deeper in the world of sleep, »Dream Fiend« strays into the glittering landscape of nightmares, of almost forgotten fears and dream re-enactment disorders.

No mandolins or steel resonators on these 4 tracks, but a farfisa and other electronic keyboards reflecting the shining eyes of animals and ghouls in the dark.

Blue Vinyl
If emptiness is heaviness is Godliness, Birds of Prey’s third full-length LP is an immaculate conception from on high. The record luxuriates in the spaces between. What’s left out says as much as what made it in. Deep, droning, and dub wise, “Vanishing Point” cascades in elegance. Its reference points call towards the sample manipulation of American tape music and the downward gaze of amniotic British bass music. It charts its own path nonetheless, building its own space for drifting off to. Unlike many peers operating in similar realms, Birds of Prey are a proper band, a foursome: Grant Aaron, Clay Wilson, Eric Holmes, and Camille Altay. Each are artists in their own right with a distinct practice. In Birds of Prey, their collaborations in studio take on a greater shape, whittled and edited into cosmic formlessness. Although borne of improvisation, you may never know that in the listening. “Vanishing Point” is a tight, coherent work, the sound of a cadre of talented musicians locked in flow. Rippling tones become glacial melodies. Cavernous drums emerge barely from the ether. Rhythms interlock, interpolate. Patterns repeat and dissolve whence they came. There is untold potency in simplicity, and Birds of Prey make it known.

DAWL is one of our new skool producers who is a master of capturing the sound of the early 90’s raves. A genius in the studio who is capable and competent to be able to navigate between genres with skill and finesse.

Returning for his second outing on the Vinyl Fanatiks sister label, Amen Brother, DAWL turns in 4 mega old skool tracks that take you on a trip. Every release we have put out by DAWL sells out (he also released a screaming acid 303 EP for our other label Acid Boom last year) as he has a fanbase that draws in the original ravers along with the younger generation who have embraced this sound with vigour.

Grab a copy, drop it on the deck and go four a journey with a master craftsman!

Pressed on Black & Blue 180g marbled vinyl.

DJ Pooch returns to Amen Brother with his third EP for the label. A popular artist on the label who sells out every time that we release his music.

A legend of the scene going back to the early 90’s, who played at all the big raves back in the day and released plenty of quality music during this era, including the Skrufneck series (Part One released on Vinyl Fanatiks in 2022 on green vinyl).

Here he returns to his roots and produces 4 massive future rave anthems, including a remix of one of his previous Amen Brother tracks. And to keep things authentic to the sound of the 90’s, Pooch produces all his music using outboard hardware including the legendary Akai sampler, to get that crunch on those beats and samples.

Enjoy the journey from one of the scene's original kingpins.

Pressed on Black & Blue 180g marbled vinyl.

Berlin based producer Estella Boersma announced themselves with a debut on Unknown to the Unknown's Dance Trax imprint and a string of appearances in the infamous HOR bathroom have followed - including one at Crave Festival - generating a positive stream count thanks to their varied DJing style; floating between techno, bass, breaks, electro and old school rave. Now capping a huge breakout 2022, Estella serves up four assorted club cuts that perfectly exemplify the energy felt frontleft at one of their sets.

'The Wave' is the most quintessential Estella track on the release - brimming with acid, breakbeats and warehouse rave energy, channelling older XL Recordings-inspired sounds and modern-punk electronic aesthetics. 'Dial' is frantic, strippedback and raw - an angelic, colourful techno trip through pixelated palm trees and psychedelic sunrises.

'Transfer' drains the colour from its fabric as light turns to dark. Headsy, underground appeal blends with bouncy fun on a cut of wobbly 4x4 that sounds like something you might hear in a Chloe Robinson set, before high pitched-vocals and sped-up synths dazzle and delight with something that sits between techno, footwork and classic Chicago house.

UK Garage legends Groove Chronicles (Noodles & Dubchild) are back with the 'Soul 'N Mind' 12" featuring their highly sought after Brokenstep edits.
These have been on heavy rotation by the likes of Gilles Peterson, Charlie Dark, Bradley Zero, IG Culture and more. Limited hand-stamped and stickered copies, be quick!

Groove Chronicles have releases dating back to 1997 and are legendary in the world of UKG. Founded by Noodles, who is now working with longtime associate, Dubchild. Noodles has been working in the music game for three decades, from spinning at raves in Paris when he was 17, to serving it up behind the record shop counter, to running his own label, DPR. Responsible for bonafide classics like 'Stone Cold', 'Myron' & 'Poor Man's Break', his work serves as a blueprint for many sounds across the UK bass spectrum.

Leicester legend, Dubchild, stems from a musical background of reggae, hip hop, house, garage & jungle. He's released an array of dubstep & instrumental grime records through various labels since the early noughties, including Caspa's Storming Productions & Heavy Artillery, amongst others.

The duo also combine under the moniker Nu-Agenda with their own hybrid house style, and have had collective support over the years from stations such as 1Xtra, NTS, Kiss, Reprezent & Rinse, DJs such as Annie Mac, Zane Lowe, Mary Anne Hobbs & Ras Kwame, IG culture, Charlie Dark, Gilles Peterson, Bradley Zero, Marcia Carr, Afronaught and publications like iD, Fact, DJ Mag & Crack Magazine, to name a few.

Superb printed sleeve, and 2 colored vinyls, one red, one blue.
Coming with an A4 sticker selecta BONUS !

The music is again a weird Break/Hardcore Hip-Hop and Scratch tools melt.

Once again a DJ masterpiece !

The first Huerco S. album in 6 years, Plonk’s world does not wholly resemble anything Brian Leeds has made under any alias. His sound palette has broadened to absorb and refine trap’s un-smeared geometrics and drill’s taught rhythms amongst the gaseous bodies and soul-piercing ambience that has garnered such acclaim; Where those previous veins were rooted in the pre-Columbian civilizations of his native Kansas, Plonk reflects the mournful sodium glow of cities at night, street corners that light up with painful moments of clarity you wish would disappear.

"Days Gone By," the latest creation from Manuel Gonzales (MGUN), showcases his remarkable versatility inside of the contemporary musical landscape. This 9-track EP, released for 100 LIMOUSINES, is a vibrant mosaic of raw, gritty sounds that capture the quintessence of Detroit's musical heritage.

Each track on the album is an immersive experience that echoes the feel of street techno, rhythmic and driving. MGUN's ingenious use of the studio as an instrument is striking, as he shapes tracks that embody the essence of bedroom production. The album vibrates with deep sub-bass frequencies, eerie highs, and peculiar artifacts of found sound.

Gonzales, a name synonymous with raw and unadulterated music, brings his signature touch to the 100 LIMOUSINES catalog, a label rapidly gaining recognition for its bold defiance of genre constraints. "Days Gone By" is more than a mere collection of tracks; it's a deep dive into Gonzales' daily sonic experiments, a testament to his relentless pursuit of pushing the boundaries of techno music.

This album is an essential listen for those who value the fusion of Detroit's robust underground legacy with innovative, avant-garde electronic music. It's a journey designed for those who revel in the unrefined authenticity of analog production and the boundless potential of cross-genre exploration. "Days Gone By”, an absolute experimental body of music, a unique auditory adventure that defies convention.

For Listeners Who Enjoy: Rob Hood, A Guy Called Gerald, RZA, Autechre, UR

AUDIOBOOK, das neue Projekt des vielseitigen Multi-Instrumentalisten Sam Gendel und der bildenden Künstlerin/Filmemacherin Marcella Cytrynowicz, besteht aus 13 alphabetisch benannten Tracks, wie Botschaften aus dem Weltall oder ausgegrabene uralte Runen. An manchen Stellen melodisch und cartoonhaft, an anderen glitching und etwas nervtötend, ist es ein visuelles Werk und Instrumentalalbum in einem seltsamen Zwischenraum zwischen irdisch und Jenseitigem. Ein Puzzle, das nicht danach verlangt, vollendet zu werden, sondern zum Spielen einlädt. Cytrynowicz und Gendel arbeiten seit 2020 regelmäßig zusammen, wobei Cytrynowicz sowohl die Fotografie als auch Musikvideos und Bildmaterial, und Gendel die musikalischen Partituren beisteuert. AUDIOBOOK ist das Zusammentreffen von etwas eindeutig Analogem in einer Klanglandschaft, die auch in einem 90er-Jahre-Sci-Fi-Soundtrack zu Hause sein könnte, das parallele Spiel einer bildenden Künstlerin und eines produktiven Musikers, abstrakte Kunst und Klang, die sich berühren.

music’s most free-spirited mavericks. Combining the surrealist punk ethos of Scotch Rolex and the bass heavy psychedelia of Shackleton, Death by Tickling is ten tracks full of wild and unpredictable changes, incorporating odd time signatures, cosmic synth freak outs and dubbed out space vibrations. At times the album lulls the listener into a zoned out trance whilst at other times it startles with its ferocity, Death by Tickling has the whole range in its Helter Skelter approach.

Produced in their studio in Berlin, both artists’ sonic signatures can be unmistakeably recognised on this album. Scotch Rolex is best known for his work with Kampala based artists MC Yallah and DUMA's Lord Spikeheart. With releases on Nyege Nyege’s Hakuna Kulala label, Rolex draws on dancehall, trap, Japanese traditional music, gabber, grindcore, Gqom, and Kuduro to unique and exciting effect. The same energy permeates this new release, but with a new elements of shamanism and deconstructed rhythms.

Meanwhile, the founder of Skull Disco, Shackleton, has been carving out his own brand of esoteric ritual trance music for the best part of two decades on labels such as Honest Jon’s, Hot Flush and Perlon. This record sees him taking Rolex’s raw beats and devil may care trickery and exploding it through a dub effect rack into outer space.

It is an hour of out-there music which will appeal to those who like it challenging and adventurous. At the same time, you could get the impression that there is even a savage humour or a cosmic joke underlying the whole endeavour, hence the title, Death by Tickling. To round off the package, the brilliant artwork is courtesy of Zeke Clough who can always be depended on to bring the unexpected.

»Sound of Matter« is the debut album by Romanian sound artist and composer Simina Oprescu. The two pieces draw on research conducted with 15 historical church bells at the Märkisches Museum and the Stadtmuseum Berlin. After the artist had presented the results of her studies of the connection between matter and harmony in the form of a multi-channel installation, she has translated the underlying approach of this site-specific work into an album that unfolds slowly, consistently setting in motion subtle tonal changes that continuously change the mood of the two pieces. »Sound of Matter« is both minimalist and maximalist, creating an infinitely rich and multi-layered dronescape that modestly invites its audience to get lost in the sonic experience.

Oprescu has been fascinated by church bells since her childhood spent in Transilvania since the instruments were shrouded in mystery, as she explains in an in-depth essay that accompanies the album. Having received a Bachelor’s degree at UNArte in Bucharest and after studying at the Royal Conservatory of Mons in Belgium, Oprescu enrolled at Berlin’s Universität der Künste for an M.A. in Sound Studies and Sonic Arts. She started working with the archive of the Märkisches Museum, which included 15 historical church bells that were built between the 15th and the early 19th century.

Since every bell sounds different according to its shape, material, and density, Oprescu abstracted these qualities in the formula f = K1t/d^2√E/s(1-m^2). This enabled her to recreate the harmonic tone of the individual bells with Max/MSP. She then composed a piece with semi-overlayed tones, i.e. overlapping frequencies. Naturally, this resulted in a beating effect that provided the music with a sense of urgency, though the five second-long natural reverb of the Märkisches Museum’s Große Halle turned it into a »warm blanket of sound,« as the artist herself puts it. This is perfectly recreated on »Sound of Matter« due to the music being presented in mono, bringing out the intrinsic movement of the beatings with more nuance than a stereo version would.

»Sound of Matter« feels warm and welcoming even when different frequencies seem to create friction between each other or when the subtle beating effects turn into throbbing rhythms, like at the end of the record. It manages to explore both Oprescu’s personal fascination with church bells and psychological and psychoacoustic questions relating to them as well as philosophical issues connected with them. This music is profoundly physical, but also intellectually stimulating—perfectly at home in the catalog of the Swiss Hallow Ground label between records by Kali Malone, Lawrence English, or Siavash Amini.

The booklet features an in-depth essay on church bells by Simina Oprescu.

While 1995's Washing Machine LP moniker was a thinly-veiled jab at the corporate aesthetic ("no, you cannot turn Sonic Youth into a household appliance brand", the band even considered changing its name to Washing Machine but settled on the album title instead), their major label relationship was indeed a curious buzzpoint of talk on the street after their intake to DGC in 1990. It wouldn't be fair to say that this state of existence propelled the band to reinforce its independent mindset by releasing a series of opaque-looking, French-language-dipping, highbrow-looking releases on their own that focused on the more abstract improv/compositional side of the band; in all truths they had been heavily steeped in self-releasing spillover material prior to that. But after a pressure pot of the early 90's indoctrination into a new operational mode for the band and its visibility, and the forces around it attempting to shape their direction, it seemed like a good time to create a strong show of radical concept.

The Anagrama EP became the first in a series of the SYR label's Perspective Musicales releases seemingly cementing Sonic Youth's connectivity to an increasing public awareness in experimental composers of the 20th century (French or otherwise). The irony was that many of those original avant composers being rediscovered by the indie audience (Partch, Neuhaus, Reich, Messaien) often found themselves on major labels anyway! So, perhaps this reverse approach was a necessary concept/comment given the music biz climate of the 90's. Regardless of how apples and oranges fell in Xenakian probability/theory, it was clear that both Sonic Youth's stature in progressive music, aided by now unlimited taperoll time thanks to a home base studio downtown established after their Lollapalooza stint, gave the band plenty of trailblazing time for their self examination of untraveled avenues.

"Anagrama" unfolds into nine minutes of delicate textures, starting with thick drone segueing into moments reminiscent of the post-crescendo flutter/comedown of "Marquee Moon's" trail-out; Thurston, Lee and Kim's guitars all circling round each other taking delicate pokes and stabs before drifting into some post-rock rhythmic moves tapered with delicate percussive guidance from Steve Shelley. "Improvisation Ajoutée" reaches further out into dissolve with whirring oscillations, guitars hissing and clanking radiator-style in a short blast format that continues into "Tremens" and a spooked-out landscape of gelatinous notes snaking up slowly. The sparseness of attack is colorful, textures emit and linger, silent spots shine, all flanked by tasteful drumming that provides the thread to all the abstraction. Shelley's approach here is interestingly sideways to any kind of usual rock action, it's tempered, mutant and metronomic simultaneously. The finale track "Mieux: De Corrosion" is a real pedal-palatte showcase. Here, Plutonian guitar wash flanges upwards to buoy a myriad of colorful eruptions of amp-spuzz, chopped up tone blasts and general confusion. Out of the blue, some metallic one-note choogle kicks in and threatens to explode into some Judas Priestly motion, before it all sputters into aural glass showers, clang, and finally a ferocious wave of more flange hiss that crashes down on a dime.

This initial foray into SY's Perspectives Musicales series continued onward with releases featuring other co-conspirators, peaking with the ambitious 2CD Goodbye 20th Century that finally connects the band into full-on interpretations of other composers' pieces (as well as displaying their own new ones). The whole series is not so much an outlet for another "side" of the band, but a run that went hand in hand building new approaches of songcraft onto their own, more overground direction which included Jim O'Rourke (who hopped on during SYR3), adding additional density to A Thousand Leaves and other LPs of his era. Fans of the '86 Spinhead Sessions as well as the recently-exhumed later jams of In/Out/In will take in the sounds of SYR1 with glee.

The title of Staś Czekalski’s debut translates as ‘Adventures’. It’s fitting for an album that invokes feelings of exploring, roaming, ambling through bustling cities and changing seasons, around castles and swaying fields, down the pixelated paths of old computer games, and all the way home.

We get the sense of being on some carefree yet critical quest, with Staś taking on the role of narrator as much as composer. Part fable, part Moomins, part seek and you shall find, these boppy, wide-eyed and reflective tracks set imagination in motion.

These are sonic adventures in a more literal sense too, at once quietly bold and intricately arranged. Bouncing around a playful gamut of references, from the whimsically lo-fi electro-acoustic pop of Anne Laplantine through trip-hoppy bedroom ambient and indietronica, Staś sets this blend twinkling with his singular form of magical thinking.

For this uniquely personal retrospective spread over twelve vinyl discs, Sven Väth takes us back to the early days of his DJ career. On What I Used To Play we meet great pioneers of electronic music, gifted percussionists, obscure wave bands, and innovative producers of a bygone 'new electronic' era. Rough beats and irresistible grooves from the identification stage of house, techno, and acid remind us not just how far electronic music has evolved over the past four decades, but how great it was to dance to EBM, techno, and house for the very first time.

If there is one protagonist of the electronic music scene who has remained curious, innovative and at the very cutting edge of music for over four decades, it's Sven Väth. His multi-layered artist albums and Sound of the Season mix compilations have been defining the genre for over two decades, and even today, he is constantly on the lookout for the next top tune to add to the highlights of his next set. At least, that's the case when he's not producing them himself as an artist or remixer. "Actually, it's always been part of my DNA to think ahead," and nothing had been further from his mind than looking back at his past, but when in spring of 2020 the international DJ circuit had to be scaled down to virtually zero, the 'restless traveler' suddenly had time. Time to stop and reflect on "how it actually was back then, at the very beginning of my career..."

"It was a great trip and with every track, beautiful memories came flooding back".
In the London apartment, he had just moved into, Sven has set up a "little music room", where he cocooned himself for several days, "to look way back for the first time and review my musical journey through the eighties, so to speak."

The interim result was six thematically oriented playlists with a grand total of 120 tracks from 'early 80s' to 'Balearic late 80s', together with excursions into afrobeat, European new wave, and EBM sounds and a few epochal techno/house tracks from the USA in between. From these 'Best of Sven Väth's favorites', the project What I Used To Play crystallized. Sven remembers how the Cocoon team reacted to his proposal: "They found the idea of making a compilation out of it MEGA from the beginning and everyone said 'Sven, go for it', but then, of course, the work really started, namely, to clear the rights and to get clean sounding masters of the up to 40-year-old tracks. There was also disappointment, of course. We couldn't clear certain titles because the rights holders in the USA had fallen out with each other or simply disappeared from the scene. In short, it wasn't easy, but now I can safely say we got the most important tracks."

Finally, after two years of research, curation, design, and administrative fine-tuning, the "little retrospective" from 1981 to 1990 is available. The exquisitely packaged, and three-kilo heavy box set is not only physically impressive, WIUTP is also the definitive record of Sven Väth's musical development. On each of the twenty-four sides of vinyl, you can trace track by track, what influenced him during which phase, and how he took off as a DJ from his parents' Queen's Pub straight into the spotlight at Dorian Gray. There and at Vogue (later OMEN), Sven became the style-defining player in the DJ booth that he still is today.




1981 - 1990: Future Sounds of Now

In the early eighties, the crowd in clubs like Vogue and Dorian Gray danced to what nowadays we call 'dance classics' - mainly disco, funk, soul, and chart pop. It was up to a new generation of DJs, including Sven Väth, the youngest protagonist in the Rhine-Main area at the time, to create their own club-ready music mix. Good new tracks and potential floor-fillers were rarities that had to be sought out and found, in order to prove oneself worthy.
Without MP3s, internet streaming, or other digital download possibilities, music didn't just gravitate to the DJ, instead, it had to be tracked down. In well-stocked record stores in Frankfurt and Wiesbaden or even in Amsterdam, London, or New York, Sven and friends sourced the material for countless magical nights. On WIUTP we can follow Sven's very personal journey through this wild, innovative era in which synth-pop, funk, hip-hop, and disco were successively replaced as 'club music' by house, techno, acid, and breakbeat. By the end of the decade, it was clear to see that these once exotic 'fringe' phenomena would soon become 'mass' phenomena.



Early 80s

Dirty Talk by the Italian-American duo Klein & M.B.O. represents the most innovative phase of the Italo-disco genre in the early eighties like no other track. Mario Boncaldo (I) and Tony Carrasco relied entirely on the original synthetic drum and percussion sounds of the Roland TR-808, coupled with the raunchy vocals of Rossana Casale and guitar accents of Davide Piatto. Of course, other tracks from this period were also influential in style, most notably Unit by Logic System, which worked as the perfect soundtrack to the laser lighting system at the legendary Dorian Gray club. With stomping beats and robotic rap interludes, Bostich by Yello also belongs on Sven's eternal playlist - after all, it caught the attention of Afrikaa Bambaataa, who invited the Swiss duo to perform at the Roxy in New York in 1983.



EBM Wave - Mid 80s

From today's point of view, the almost ten-minute-long, downtempo track Giant by Matt Johnson's band project The The, would probably not be considered an obvious club classic. However, a closer (re)listen reveals the rhythmic intricacies of the percussion overdubs by JG Thirlwell (aka Foetus) on Johnson's composition, and it becomes clear why this exceptional piece of music is one of Sven's absolute favorites. Other classics from this phase include Kaw-Liga by the mysterious The Residents, the hypnotic-synthetic Our Darkness by Anne Clark (and David Harrow), and last but not least, the somber, monotonous anthem Where Are You? by 16Bit, one of Sven Väth's projects together with Michael Münzing, Luca Anzilotti from 1986.



US House - Late 80s

You certainly can't talk about Chicago house without mentioning Frankie Knuckles. The resident DJ at the Warehouse not only gave the name to an entire genre, but also produced epochal floor fillers on the Trax label like the timeless Your Love, sung (and moaned) by Jamie Principle. Acid house protagonists Phuture also hail from Chicago, and on We Are Phuture (also released on Trax) we hear the chirping acid sounds of the legendary Roland TB-303 in full effect. Another featured classic is No UFO's by Detroit's Model 500 aka Juan Atkins, who is rightly considered the 'Godfather of Techno' even if the genre-defining track from 1985 still breathes with the spirit of hip-hop and electro from the first breakdance era.





Afrobeat

Le Serpent, by Algerian-born Abdelmadjid Guemguem, is a track that sounds completely different from everything else on WIUTP. Made in 1978, it's a monumental, rousing groove created without bass or synths, just with five congas! Even though Guem sadly passed away in 2021, his immortal, acoustic beats are understood all over the world and will continue to enrich many thousands of DJ sets for years to come. Another classic that not only Sven appreciates beyond measure is Hugh Masekela's Don't Go Lose it, Baby. In addition to being one of the most important jazz pioneers, the trumpeter and freedom fighter from Johannesburg was very experimental, integrating electronic sounds into his music in later years, in a similar vein to Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. Dutch jazz pianist Jasper van't Hof's afrobeat project Pili Pili has also aged well. The trance-like, almost sixteen-minute-long track of the same name, manages to fill a whole side on the seventh of twelve vinyl discs in the WIUTP box.



UK-US-Euro - Late 80s

Time for a change of scene, in the truest sense of the word, and from a musical perspective, this section is like landing on another planet. First up is Andrew Weatherall's classic remix of Primal Scream's Loaded, featuring the iconic Peter Fonda sample (lifted from the 1966 biker film Wild Angels) that came to personify the mood triggered by the British Second Summer of Love in the late eighties: "We wanna be free to do what we wanna do, and we wanna get loaded...". This period also saw the emergence of M/A/R/R/S whose only single, 1987's Pump Up The Volume, became a club classic with support from DJ legend CJ Mackintosh. In this most eclectic of sections, we also encounter New York house and reggae producer Bobby Konders and his seminal Nervous Acid.



Balearic - Late 80s

Those who know him, know that Sven had already lost his heart to the 'magic island' of Ibiza as a teenager, so with that in mind, the WIUTP project couldn't end without a Balearic chapter. Inspired by Manuel Göttsching's E2-E4, the immortal, eponymously titled Sueño Latino belongs in there without question. Equally popular on the island was, and still is Break 4 Love by Raze, which thinking about it, would also fit perfectly into the house chapter. Last, but not least, there's an overdue reunion with Sven Väth himself, in his role as frontman of the successful Frankfurt trio OFF. Together with Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti (later of Snap!) this 'Organization For Fun' created the off-the-wall club hit Electric Salsa in 1986 which incidentally turned into an international chart smash, putting Sven in the enviable position of having to decide between pop stardom and a DJ career. Well, we all know how that decision turned out and the rest, as they say, is history. A not insignificant part of his story is What I Used To Play. Enjoy!

2x12" Vinyl Only Repress

Two legends from the 90s Enrico Mantini + Dem2 feature on Entity :London's next Various Artist release Entity VA 002. Alongside a host of up and coming producers Ease Up George, Harry Wills, Perception, Ingi Visions, Christian Jay + Zero FG with different styles of House and Garage to round up the London crews second various artist release

The Tapeworm celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2024. Its first tape was 2009's "Spool" by the much-missed Philip Jeck. To honour his memory, Jay Glass Dubs unwinds "Spool" in a new hour-long composition using Jeck's tape as his primary sound source. This tape was commissioned for "The Worm Rose Of Athens", two evenings of performances curated by Stellage, 1-2 March 2024, Athens. Written, recorded, produced and mixed by Dimitris Papadatos, Athens, 2024. With special thanks to Mary Prestidge.

Companion is proud to announce 'Chances', the debut album from Naarm based trio, Acopia due for release on 7th March, 2022. Acopia is the collaborative project of Kate Durman (Purient), Lachlan McGeehan (Liluzu) and Morgan Wright; an intimate excursion of ultra-emotive dream pop.

Written over the course of two years, 'Chances' serves as a shared confession of all three members' personal journeys. It captures the melancholy and mourning of breakups, the thrill of finding new love, and the experience of learning to love yourself just as others do. Delivered in a moment of new beginnings, the album offers both blissful hope and sonic escapism. It is a familiar plaintive and joyous journey - a heady swirl of emotion drawing us in, bleary-eyed and pensive.

"L'idée nous est venu lors d'une conversation un peu arrosée dans un pub du sud de Londres avec Philippe du label Tapeworm" dixit François Kirmann Gamaury alias Franz Kirmann alias Dj Salinger – producteur français établi à Londres depuis plus d'une vingtaine d'années.

"Voyage voyage voyage" est une mixtape. Mais pas dans le sens traditionnelle du terme. Kirmann l'appelle une mixtape subjective, où les morceaux ne sont pas joués tels quels mais présentés tels qu'ils sont ressentis par l'artiste.

Un peu comme le DJ Vladimir Ivkovic qui ralentit certain morceaux sur ses platines pour en révéler un autre aspect, Kirmann zoom dans l'étoffe même des enregistrements, étire les notes et les sons à l'infini, pour en mettre à jour un sens caché, altérer notre perception de ces chansons qui peuvent parfois sembler un peu désuètes. Ici elles sont transformées en nappes fantomatiques et envoutantes qui évoquent un souvenir d'une période de sa vie, une trace sonore d'une époque un peu naive, qui revient aujourd'hui sous forme d'echo, une musique nostalgique trempée dans la reverb et la distortion.

Kirmann a grandit au Sénégal pendant les années 80 et il se souvient des étés de son enfance passé chez ses grand parents, les chansons à la radio, dans le bus du centre aéré, dans un Prisunic en Dordogne, où une fête de camping en Alsace: Catherine Lara, Elsa, Veronique Jeannot et bien sûr Desireless et son fameux tube "Voyage voyage".

Les chansons sélectionnées pour la cassette ont toutes en commun une incitation au départ, une recherche de l'ailleurs, un amour perdu, un souvenir, les thèmes de predilection d'une certaine pop française que l'on nommait variété.

Ces idées d'évasion sont accentuées ici par le traitement sonore qui leur est appliqué. Les chansons sont paralysés dans le temps, figées dans le son, comme si l'on avait souligné certain passages dans un roman pour les détacher du texte intégral.

Distortion, écho, réverbération et autres effets sont appliqués et donnent à la musique et au son une qualité rêveuse et distante. Certains passages reconnaissables se dévoilent et sortent de la brume sonore, ils se révèlent plus net, d'autres sont noyés dans un brouillard imprécis, une musique proche de l'ambient qui enveloppe l'auditeur.

Kirmann: "Chaque track est basé sur une chanson de variété française des années 80, je voulais re-créer une impression de distance, quelque chose de lointain. Les morceaux deviennent des sortes de tapisseries sonores mais dont l'essence de la chanson originelle est toujours présente. Il y'a un roman de Patrick Modiano où les personnages lancent des avis de recherche pour la France à partir d'une station de radio d'un pays lointain. Le son est brouillé, les voix étouffées. J'avais un peu cette idée en tête de faire quelque chose de similaire, comme si les chansons étaient entendus sur un vieux poste de radio mais émises d'une station lointaine et d'un autre temps."

Le résultat est un voyage nostalgique, une musique ambient et nébuleuse façonnée à partir de tubes synthétiques 80's. Imaginez Fennesz ou My Bloody Valentine jouant des reprises de Laurent Voulzy et vous y êtes presque…

Loveless non, Desireless oui!

DJ Salinger. Voyage Voyage Voyage – Disponible en cassette uniquement. 100 exemplaires sur le label Tapeworm.

—

Franz Kirmann is a French music producer living in London. He has made albums for various labels including Denovali, Bytes, Mercury KX. He also writes music for film and TV and is a lecturer in music production at Point Blank Music school.

We’d spent our whole life in a dance of fear. And when we examine that, we realise that very often the thing we were frightened of wasn’t nearly as frightening as the fear.

Eira Haul returns to Edition Akasha to launch us into the ether by way of the “Star Vertigo” EP. Moving across a luminous range of otherworldly atmospheres, five tantalising original cuts strike a spellbinding balance between body-shaking euphoria and meditative mind-healing.

On the A-side, the garage shuffle and ultra-deep bass wobbles of “Ceramics” corrode beneath its hypnotic strings, while the fast-paced acid lines of “Anthracite” bubble and squeak over a choir of fallen angles. “Memory Rush” captures a similar tension as the engulfing dub chords at its centre ebb and flow on-top a muscular four-to-the-floor pulse to illuminate the darkest of nights.

The B-side is equally captivating: Like a gravitational collapse, the stellar melodies of “Incense Trip” break down into a void of razor-sharp percussion only to shine again in full effect thereafter. Lastly, Eira Haul sheds the black holes to ascend to catharsis with “Star Vertigo”: “We wanted to try to understand what the fear is ... and whether that energy is something we can transform – is it our friend, is it our foe?” muses the voice on-top the tender bounce of the title-track’s lush framework, leaving us with a lofty sense of hope transcending this exceptional sophomore EP.

Onset Audio proudly presents their first vinyl release from enigmatic duo Esthetic & Reac-Zo. As a label that has long been in the trenches of abstract bass design and cinematic soundscapes, The Torii EP encapsulates the Onset aesthetic through four tracks of deconstructed jungle and hypnotic halftime experimentation.

Following his highly acclaimed 2021 album "Atotal" (Aesthetical) and 2022 "Magnetoscope" (Raster), Vigroux returns with eight heavyweight tracks composed in 2023 and 2024. Vigroux states about his current work: "I am not very talkative about my music unless I am specifically questioned, the immaterial dimension of music partly spares us from the major questions which are the prerogative of theatrical forms for which I am also very active, in this sense for me music is a real outlet where things are done intuitively, for pleasure". Always pushing forth and expanding his now classic rigidly cold analog sounds and rhythmic structures entwined with lush atmospheric synth compositions, "Grand Bal is another milestone in his ever growing discography.

Utilising a mammoth bank of saxophone samples, Shmuel Hatchwellpresents his new alias hoyah with an engrossing album captured in tape and digital form on Bruk.

The process leading to Set + Setting started out with a need for limitations to provide some focus for long-serving sound engineer and producer Hatchwell. He set out the following guidelines to accompany the overarching idea of 'set + setting':

No 'beats'
Saxophones are the voice
Stay away from the computer for as long as possible

Hatchwell took a deep dive in search of every saxophone sample he could find, threw them all into his MPC and then proceeded to weave together a variety of pieces. The focus on a particular instrument brings cohesion to the album, but equally the limited sound inspired freedom to experiment with other techniques and tools. At times one or two sax voices sound naked and undisturbed, while elsewhere you might only hear jagged shards or distant ghosts as they pass through aggravated processing.

Beyond the sound itself, the name hoyah was born with the flippancy of the 21st Century and ratified by ancient tradition. After the music had been made, After the music had been made, Hatchwell plucked the name out of thin air as a play on the TikTok meme 'can I get a hoya,' and subsequently discovered on a dive into his Jewish heritage that in old Hebrew hoyah means, 'to be, become, come to pass, exist, happen, fall out.' This distinction between Jewish concepts and modern political conflations is important to Hatchwell, who finds himself consistently having to separate Judaism from the situation in the Middle East and its ongoing genocide.

Subtly calling to mind the understated cosiness of real-life sax players like Sam Gendel as well as the fragmented sample manipulation of Matmos and Tim Hecker's approach to processed noise, hoyah's debut album absolutely manifests an idea and musical practice as something new and intentional

music’s most free-spirited mavericks. Combining the surrealist punk ethos of Scotch Rolex and the bass heavy psychedelia of Shackleton, Death by Tickling is ten tracks full of wild and unpredictable changes, incorporating odd time signatures, cosmic synth freak outs and dubbed out space vibrations. At times the album lulls the listener into a zoned out trance whilst at other times it startles with its ferocity, Death by Tickling has the whole range in its Helter Skelter approach.

Produced in their studio in Berlin, both artists’ sonic signatures can be unmistakeably recognised on this album. Scotch Rolex is best known for his work with Kampala based artists MC Yallah and DUMA's Lord Spikeheart. With releases on Nyege Nyege’s Hakuna Kulala label, Rolex draws on dancehall, trap, Japanese traditional music, gabber, grindcore, Gqom, and Kuduro to unique and exciting effect. The same energy permeates this new release, but with a new elements of shamanism and deconstructed rhythms.

Meanwhile, the founder of Skull Disco, Shackleton, has been carving out his own brand of esoteric ritual trance music for the best part of two decades on labels such as Honest Jon’s, Hot Flush and Perlon. This record sees him taking Rolex’s raw beats and devil may care trickery and exploding it through a dub effect rack into outer space.

It is an hour of out-there music which will appeal to those who like it challenging and adventurous. At the same time, you could get the impression that there is even a savage humour or a cosmic joke underlying the whole endeavour, hence the title, Death by Tickling. To round off the package, the brilliant artwork is courtesy of Zeke Clough who can always be depended on to bring the unexpected.

Embark on a sonic odyssey with "Between Poetry and Catastrophe," a 15-year labor of love by Norwegian electronic artist Ars Dada. The title draws inspiration from the poignant words "Music lives in the span between poetry and catastrophe", of the late Norwegian composer Arne Nordheim.

In this album, Ars Dada delves into the extremes—where chaos intertwines with serenity, and violence meets the poetic. Every track is a meticulously crafted journey, featuring real instrumentation such as vocals, piano, and strings, including a grand collaboration with the chamber orchestra of the Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra. From intense breakbeat chaos to delicate neoclassical string pieces, Ars Dada invites you to experience the visceral beauty of this musical tapestry.

This isn't just an album; it's an exploration of the human condition at its most extreme.

Thank you to the performers and Arctic Philharmonic

Written and recorded with support from Fund for Performing Artists

All music written, arranged and produced by Erlend Bilsbak/Ars Dada
All strings recorded in Kysten studio by Sivert Henriksen

Violin on all tracks except Fjordyp, End of September, Skyggespill, and Du Må Ikke Sove performed by Brynjar Lien Schulerud

Violin on Fjordyp, End of September, Skyggespill, and Du Må Ikke Sove performed by Sander Tingstad

Viola on all tracks except Tjernet performed by Heidi Schulerud Bilsbak

Cello on all tracks except Tjernet performed by Håvard Bilsbak

Grand Piano on Fjordyp and Skyggespill performed by Yegor Shevtsov

Alto soprano on Fjordyp, End of September, Sub Luna Saltamus, Du Må Ikke Sove, and Grief performed by Marika Schultze

All strings on Tjernet by performed by Arktisk Filharmoni (Arctic Philharmonic)

Mastered by Julien Guillot at Electric Voyage Studio

Album photo and design by Erlend Bilsbak

Utter and complete FROG FRENZY on Studio Barnhus as Computer Station (label veteran Your Planet Is Next + label newcomer KABLAM) take you on a ribbeting ride, leaping right into a lily-pad-laden
wonderland where the basslines forever croak in unison. Club-optimised mixdowns, advanced computer graphics courtesy of Dennis Vera and not a BPM count under 149 guarantee that this record will make a proper splash in
the frogstep scene!

- Limited edition 12” vinyl of 300 copies

You don't know yet but you're about to discover one of Europe's unearthed diamonds: this is the shape of the industrial to come, where punk, noise, ebm and rave meet.

Minimalistic but full of detail and big dynamics with songs that take you on a journey, there's not a single second wasted on his first 12"". From energy blasts like ""De Internet se sale"" or ""Disforia"" to the dystopic and dissonant synth pop gem of ""Parking Tanatorio"", through the EBM punk of ""Foto de un Caballo"" or ""Captcha"" which was debuted at Tresor at peak time and made everyone instantly scream their lungs out!

BTW If he's coming to play in your town don't miss it, it's one of the best live shows we have seen the last few years.

Matti Bye, a renewed film music composer responsible for many of recent years most intriguing Swedish movie soundtracks presents his latest outing. Previously only featuring on NE trough the many collaborations with Varg2(TM), Between Darkness and White Snow is Bye's first solo LP on the Stockholm label. Melancholic tones for a dark winter landscape.

After last years „4 THA CULTURE“ and his collaboration with horsegiirL „My Little White Pony“ MCR-T releases his debut album „My Voice My Weapon Of Choice“. My Voice My Weapon Of Choice weaponises MCR-T ́s fierce Soul Power on the mic. This album being more personal than usual, MCR-T does not shy away from giving his listeners insights to his inner demons and personal battles over the course of making this release. Tracks that all tell deep and personal stories while staying true to their club functional nature. MCR-T pays homage to Grace Jones' opening statement on her record “This Is”. Realizing that the liberation of self starts with the paper and pen, the means to an end - therapeutic self expression. Bold statements backed by even bolder sounding rracks all across the electronic music spectrum to underline not only his versatility on the dancefloor but also in the studio. Different flavors for the deserving multifaceted raver of tomorrow.

Following on from the psychoacoustic concrète of Outside Ludlow / Desert Disco LP (BT075), Sam Dunscombe returns to Black Truffle with Two Forests / Oceanic. Dunscombe has been active in recent years on multiple fronts, including as a key member of the Berlin community of Just Intonation researchers and practitioners; working with composers like Taku Sugimoto, Mary Jane Leach, and Anthony Pateras; and the release of Horatiu Radulescu - Plasmatic Music vol. 1 (the result of many years performance research into the thought and music of this seminal Romanian spectralist). In parallel with these activities, Dunscombe has been deeply involved in research on the role of music in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, prompting these two side long pieces, composed using field recordings and digital synthesis. As Dunscombe explains in the accompanying liner notes, music plays a key role in psychedelic-assisted therapy, yet it is often restricted to stock forms of New Age, ambient and electronica. Taking seriously the potential for spatio-environmental sonic experiences to add to the therapeutic process, these two pieces are intended to suggest how ‘a music-as-environment approach may help to add options to the therapist’s toolbox’. ‘Two Forests’ begins in a central Californian sequoia grove. Bird songs and buzzing insect life are treated with a variety of time-based processing methods (slicing and recombination, primitive granular synthesis, delay, and so on), which strip the field recordings of their linear, documentary character, reframing them in an enchanted web of traces and echoes. Analysing the pitches found in the original recordings, Dunscombe used them to generate a large Just Intonation pitch set. These tones are woven slowly into the field recordings, gradually building in density and complexity until the forest has been transformed into an unreal space of infinite proportions. Emerging from this cosmic expanse in the final minutes of the piece, we find ourselves in the Amazon rainforest outside Manaus, Brazil. As Dunscombe writes, the piece creates ‘a sense of place-gone-strange, of space and time simultaneously expanding and contracting across octaves, miles, and minutes’. On ‘Oceanic’, several recordings of different beaches fade in and out to create a texture both homogenous and constantly shifting in both the rhythm of the waves and each recording's sense of depth and distance. Tones relating in simple ratios to the average rhythm of each beach float over each other, colouring the white noise texture of the field recordings with shifting hues. In both pieces, Dunscombe forgoes the easy consonance that bogs down much contemporary ambient music for a richer harmonic array informed by extended tuning practices and spectralism. The end results suggest a hitherto undreamt-of meeting of Radulescu’s undulating sonic masses and the discreetly processed location recordings of Irv Teibel’s ‘psychologically ultimate’ Environments. Looking beyond the insularity that can afflict experimental music culture, Dunscombe’s work is a moving argument for the healing power of expanded approaches to sound and music. Even outside of a psychedelics-assisted therapy, frequent immersion in Two Forests / Oceanic is almost guaranteed to produce beneficial psychological results.

Following on from his debut album release, Shadowman emerges once again, with a brand new four-track slab of jungle tekno dance-floor detonators!

8 jungle tekno dancefloor smashers from the Shadowman, brought to you on two slabs of the finest quality 12" vinyl!

‘Where is Agartha? What is the specific region in which it lies? Along what road, through what civilizations, must one walk in order to reach it?.’ Saint-Yves d’Alveydre in 1886

Agartha, the debut full-length album by Japanese producer Wata Igarashi, is a mysterious, divine thing. Named for the mythical secret kingdom, understood as a complex maze of underground tunnels, perhaps designed by Martians who colonised the Earth tens of thousands of years ago, it’s a similarly mystical, perhaps even cosmic trip – but this time, exploring an inner, deeply personal cosmos. Beautifully detailed and bustling with rich incident, it takes Igarashi’s music to new places, which still retaining his unique sonic imprimatur; in this respect, it’s perfectly at home with Kompakt, a label that’s always encouraged artists to make the visionary music they need to create, to take risks and make sideways steps into uncharted territory.

An eloquent producer and DJ, Igarashi has been releasing techno for eleven years now, appearing on such imprints as The Bunker NY, Delsin, Midgar, and Time To Express; he has also self-released his productions via his WIP net label. Throughout, Igarashi has consistently explored his unique approach to techno and electronic music, one that’s eloquent and poised, even when it shifts into more psychedelic terrain; he’s a master at balancing the sensual and the functional, and he has an unerring ear for the right texture, the right tone, at the right time. He brings all of this into Agartha, his most thorough-going expression of self to date.

For Agartha, Igarashi had a strong concept he wanted to explore. Visualising specific scenes from an imaginary film based on the titular secret kingdom, he created soundtracks for those scenes, spending time during the pandemic in his studio, working away carefully at the ten tracks here. Given his background in creating music for television and advertisements, Igarashi is well-placed to explore the marriage of the sonic and the visual in such intimate ways, but freed from commercial concerns, he let his imagination run riot. He also drew on a rich palette of musical influences – techno is in there, of course, but you can also hear the smoky, improvised jazz of the likes of Miles Davis (to whom the album’s title is an indirect nod), and the minimalism and systems music of Steve Reich.

The latter is particularly pronounced on the gorgeous, beatless drift of “Floating Against Time”, where an arpeggiated sequence lingers, lovingly, around your ears for nine blissful minutes, coasting across swooning drones and waves of ambient noise. “Ceremony Of The Dead”, originally composed as part of a Sony 360 Reality Audio spatial sound concert, is a deep pass into systems composition, with various patterns overlaid and interlocking, before a wordless vocal rises from the depths, a gorgeous counterpoint to the swarming textures that gather across the track. On the other hand, tracks like “Burning” and “Subterranean Life” nudge toward Fourth World territory, painting deluxe dreamscapes of uncertain provenance; the title cut is an abstract drift-world, Igarashi painting an alien tableau dotted by shape-shifting creatures.

Agartha’s conceptual framework means that everything on the album sits perfectly together; listening to it in one sitting is a dizzying, lush experience. Its imaginings of inner landscapes recall, in some respects, the nautical, aqueous mythologies of the Drexciyan universe, though from different perspectives. But the result is Igarashi’s own creation, a deluxe, enchanting trip through the visionary Agartha of this unique producer’s cinematic mind’s-eye.

Wo liegt Agartha? In welcher spezifischen Region liegt es? Auf welchem Weg, durch welche Zivilisationen muss man gehen, um dorthin zu gelangen?'

Saint-Yves d'Alveydre im Jahr 1886

Agartha, das Debütalbum des japanischen Produzenten Wata Igarashi, ist ein geheimnisvolles, göttliches Ding. Benannt nach dem mythischen, geheimen Königreich, das als ein komplexes Labyrinth unterirdischer Tunnel verstanden wird, die vielleicht von Marsmenschen angelegt wurden, die vor Zehntausenden von Jahren die Erde kolonisierten, ist es eine ähnlich mystische, vielleicht sogar kosmische Reise - aber dieses Mal erforscht es einen inneren, zutiefst persönlichen Kosmos. Wunderschön detailliert und voller reichhaltiger Begebenheiten, führt es Igarashis Musik an neue Orte, die dennoch seine einzigartige klangliche Handschrift bewahren. In dieser Hinsicht hat es bei Kompakt ein perfektes Zuhause gefunden - einem Label, das Künstler immer ermutigt hat, jene visionäre Musik zu machen, Risiken einzugehen und seitwärts Schritte in unbekanntes Terrain zu tun.

Der eloquente Produzent und DJ Igarashi veröffentlicht seit elf Jahren Techno auf Labels wie The Bunker NY, Delsin, Figure und Time To Express; außerdem hat er einige Produktionen über sein Label WIP net selbst veröffentlicht. Dabei hat Igarashi stets seinen einzigartigen Ansatz für Techno und elektronische Musik verfolgt, der kontrolliert und ausgeglichen ist, selbst wenn er sich in psychedelisches Terrain begibt; er ist ein Meister der Balance zwischen dem Sinnlichen und dem Funktionalen und hat ein untrügliches Gespür für die richtige Textur, den richtigen Ton zur richtigen Zeit. All das bringt er in Agartha ein, dem bisher umfangreichsten Ausdruck seiner selbst.

Für Agartha hatte Igarashi ein starkes Konzept, das er erforschen wollte. Er stellte sich bestimmte Szenen eines imaginären Films vor, der auf dem titelgebenden geheimen Königreich basiert, und schuf Soundtracks für diese Szenen. Während der Pandemie verbrachte er Zeit in seinem Studio und arbeitete sorgfältig an den zehn Tracks. Mit seinem Hintergrund als Komponist von Fernseh- und Werbemusik ist Igarashi prädestiniert dafür, die Verbindung von Klang und Bild auf solch intime Weise zu erforschen, aber frei von kommerziellem Dünkel ließ er seiner Fantasie freien Lauf. Er schöpfte auch aus einer reichen Palette musikalischer Einflüsse - Techno ist natürlich dabei, aber man hört auch den rauchigen, improvisierten Jazz von Miles Davis (an den der Titel des Albums eine indirekte Anspielung ist) und den Minimalismus und die Systemmusik von Steve Reich.

Letzteres ist besonders ausgeprägt in dem wunderschönen, beatlosen "Floating Against Time", wo eine arpeggierte Sequenz neun Minuten lang liebevoll um die Ohren fliegt und über schwelende Drones und Wellen von Umgebungsgeräuschen gleitet. "Ceremony Of The Dead", ursprünglich als Teil eines Sony 360 Reality Audio-Raumklangkonzerts komponiert, ist ein tiefes Eintauchen in eine Systemkomposition, bei der sich verschiedene Muster überlagern und ineinander greifen, bevor sich ein wortloser Gesang aus der Tiefe erhebt, ein wunderschöner Kontrapunkt zu den wimmelnden Texturen, die sich über den Track legen. Andererseits bewegen sich Tracks wie "Burning" und "Subterranean Life" in Richtung der Vierten Welt und malen luxuriöse Traumlandschaften ungewisser Herkunft; der Titeltrack ist eine abstrakte Scheinwelt, in der Igarashi ein außerirdisches Tableau malt, das von formwandelnden Kreaturen übersät ist.

Der konzeptionelle Rahmen von Agartha ermöglicht, dass alles auf dem Album perfekt zusammenpasst; es in einem Zug durchzuhören ist eine schwindelerregende, opulente Erfahrung. Wata's Vorstellungen von inneren Landschaften erinnern in gewisser Hinsicht an die nautischen, wässrigen Mythologien des drexciyanischen Universums, wenn auch aus einer anderen Perspektiven betrachtet. Aber das Ergebnis ist Igarashis ureigene Schöpfung, ein luxuriöser, bezaubernder Trip durch das visionäre Agartha dieses einzigartigen Produzenten mit seinem cineastischen Blick.

Artisjok Records is happy to announce the first release of XL Regular's album, "Store Duties". Hailing from the city of Rome, XL Regular is a young and innovative producer who seamlessly weaves together a tapestry of musical genres, including jazz, broken beat, house, and soul, into a mixed journey experience. The foundation of XL Regular's identity is grounded in a profound love for percussions and grooves. Drawing inspiration from global percussion traditions, XL Regular weaves intricate rhythms that form the backbone of his tracks. The result is a sound that is both dancefloor-friendly and artistically rich, showcasing his abilities producing over a broad spectrum of electronic music genres. You'll notice a rich fusion of traditional and contemporary influences. The jazz elements add a layer of sophistication and intricacy to the compositions, while the broken beat rhythms create a dynamic and ever-evolving sound. This blend is skilfully infused with the groove-inducing essence of house music and the timeless emotive power of soul. In the vast realm of the internet, where connections are not often strong and sometimes superficial, XL and AliA discovered each other in the world of music. It all began with a simple online exchange, a connection that would evolve into a profound friendship and a transformative journey into life inside and outside the music industry. "The album for me is an occasion to fullfill the need to express myself throughout every style of music I want to produce, without forcing myself into genres, something that felt natural for a label like Artisjok" - XL Regular

More Rice returns with their rst release of 2022, after a busy year of opening their Record Store with Thai artist Chalo.

Remaining true to his engineering background Chalo weaves between a realm of atmospheres in this latest release, Anemoia EP. Comprised of distorted snares, emotional roaring basslines and rolling breaks. Release comes equipped with a remix from Planet Euphorique’s D. Tiffany.

2023 Repress

Frank Maston’s Tulips is a sample-ready film score to the best 70s movie never made. Originally a super-limited self-release on his Phonoscope label in late 2017, Tulips has already become incredibly sought-after. Be With were introduced to Maston by mutual friends Aquarium Drunkard and it didn’t take long before we decided this modern classic deserved a reissue.

Inspired by the deep-grooving soundtracks of Italian cinema - think Morricone, Umiliani and Alessandroni - Maston conceived the entire Tulips project as a continuation of these revered works. Frank designed the artwork and made two 16mm films to accompany the music: “It wasn’t just the LP… it was kind of a whole vibe I was trying to create. Not really trying to emulate the things that influenced me but more trying to make something that could sit alongside those records on a shelf. I’m still very proud of the project.”

There’s a distinct library music feel too, with wiry organ, spacey keyboards and loping 60s guitar hinting at KPM and DeWolfe. Like the best library music, Tulips creates a cinematic universe through sound alone, evoking moving images in the listener’s technicolour imagination. It turns out that was accidentally on purpose: “I was discovering a lot of library music for the first time… listening to a composer’s entire catalog or finding all this obscure stuff. I wasn’t entirely conscious of the influence until I started making this music and realized I was channeling the vibe. That’s when I began focusing more on weaving melodic themes throughout the record to make it function more like a soundtrack”.

Tulips was recorded between 2015 and 2017 in a small studio in a village called Zwaag in Holland, during downtime from Frank’s touring duties with Jacco Gardner’s band. “Tulips” comes from the title of the very first demo he made in Holland, it was the first thing that came to mind. Makes sense.

Recording in Europe with some very European influences in mind, Frank wanted to eschew any American influences. But we can still feel the studio wizardry of the likes of Brian Wilson and Harry Nilsson in there somewhere. A psychedelic bedroom-pop song-cycle, full of hypnotic hooks and dusty drums, Tulips manages to sound charmingly homemade yet wholly widescreen.

Dreamy opener “Swans” is an exquisite soul instrumental and recalls the soft-psych of Koushik, which Be With loves of course. Tropicalia influences abound in the cool and breezy “New Danger” and the KPM-references are loud and proud on the lush organ pop of “Old Habits”. Fast-paced “Chase Theme No. 1” manages to be both tense and laid back, decorated by acid-drenched spaghetti Western guitars. The glorious Gainsbourg-esque melancholia of “Infinite Bliss” is all gauzy flutes and happy-sad vocalizing and the title is almost perfect: it’s bliss, no question; *if only* it went on forever. Side A closes with “Evening”, a subtle bossa nova beat thing. Gorgeous.

Side B opens with the heat-shimmer guitars of “Rain Dance”, evoking an unreleased Byrds or Buffalo Springfield backing track. Yes, it’s that good. “Sure Thing” is music to accompany an elevator ride you never want to end, but in a good way! The ornate “Garçon Manqué” is as beautiful as the instrumentals on Pet Sounds (think “Let’s Go Away For A While”) and the wistful “Turning In” starts like a stroll in the park before Maston introduces a scorched-Earth guitar solo that would startle if it wasn’t so pitch-perfect. “Chase Theme No. 2” is a briefer, more keening counterpart to what we hear on side A. The head-nod bass-drums-keys funk of “Hues” rounds out this staggeringly assured set; still opening each phrase with a plaintive strum, but using vibrato and heavy reverb to accent the electric organ melody. Sublime.

All these top drawer musical references might sound like just more of the usual release notes hyperbole, but there’s a reason that this still-young LP already changes hands for big money. It really is that good. Of course that first pressing didn’t hang around for long and Frank’s regularly been asked about a re-press pretty much ever since.

Re-issuing Tulips on Be With made sense to Frank “because the record would fit in so well with the catalogue”. Having already delved into the archives of KPM and Themes, and beginning to do the same with Coloursound and Selected Sounds, the collaboration “just makes sense and seems inevitable”. We agree.

Frank wasn’t sure a record of instrumentals with obscure soundtrack references would be an easy sell when it was originally released, and was surprised when Tulips turned out to be exactly what some people wanted to hear. We reckon its timeless beauty ensures that it’ll *always* have an audience.

The record was originally cut to be played at 45rpm, a technical quirk that grants the home listener the opportunity to go deeper, for longer. Played at 33rpm, the more languid unfurling of the tracks proves just as wonderful a trip. As a psilocybin-soaked case study from Aquarium Drunkard back in January of 2019 describes, some of the songs sound as if they were intended to be heard that way. The slower speed allowing the listener to step inside and perhaps even “crack the code” of the music’s meaning.

Mastered for this vinyl reissue by Simon Francis and featuring alternative burnt orange artwork from Maston himself, this Be With pressing is limited to just 500 copies. Hypnagogic it may be, but please don’t sleep.

”Vollsma is a metaphor for the world I end up in when I lucid dream.” - Velv.93

To understand electronic musics’ convention and its rules, is an aspiration many producers pursue. Persistence is a coherent theme in regards to making music. Attaining a musical identity is no easy feat, as it is fatiguing enough to create musical efforts. To create something of worth. Effort usually comes with the aim of rushing through it with the least possible resistance. In order to explore the depths in his sound, Velv.93 goes in another direction: lucid dreaming.

Velv.93 dedicated a phase of solitude to transcend into the sound of the album, which can be seen as a journal of Velv.93’s reflections. Defining a singular sound through an altered state is the foundation for what is ’Vollsma’.

This is a portrait of a period that was characterized by reflections of his inner self and isolation, something that can also be traced to the titles in the album. The experimental rhythms accord lightweight notes. Sceneries of synthesized sound and organic character. Sounds as small notations and detail, pull the listening experience further. Sometimes with a soothing immersive effect made for the calm mind.

Let the album guide you through a personal journey.
’Vollsma’ is a place where psychological experimentations and resulting thrilling dimensions are clear foundations.

ASA

Arturo Lanz Saverio Evangelista AtomTM

are the last three futurists on earth.

»Radial« is the result of a vivid creative merge between Esplendor Geométrico and AtomTM. A transparent diamond formed by a heavy implosion. Its underlying massive mechanics are covered by a crystal surface made to cut reality in half. Just one letter short of “radical”, this album is no less than exactly that – an orgy of powerful, blunt repetition and hyperbolic simplicity, a profound evocation of nothingness and its surroundings.

Ouxh joins Salt Mines for his sophmore EP, unearthing a psychedelic palette combining golden years prog, tech house & breakbeat in a singular style.

Just because a planet may be tiny, doesn’t mean it isn’t abundant with life. With the fourth time around its orbit, Tiny Planet vol. 4 is all about teaming up and bonding in synergy; personal and unified collaborations specializing in hi-tech quioxic explorations of electronica. With an all new/all star cast of artists, materializing in four sleek and sexy tracks shaped for outer space indulgence.

The Athenian producer Aggelos Baltas alias Anatolian Weapons captures on the album Earth the feeling of an optimistic future that grows on the soil of the sweet bitterness of the present and the past.

Under his pseudonym Anatolian Weapons, Baltas combines polyrhythmic percussion and wailing tones of Greek folk music with a thrilling and open Krautrock attitude. The album Earth takes us on a mystical journey through the northern Greek highlands, backed by Baltas’ unique machine-assisted folk, infused with psychedelic drones and exuding an aura that is neither then nor now, neither there nor here. Instead, it exists in a small pocket of its own cosmos. A crossroads of dimensions. A mystical offering to nature and the divinities.

Baltas has explored and reframed various Greek scenes of yesteryear in the past, such as with his Fantastikoi Hxoi project, which created Krautrock mutations from 60s and 70s pop, but Earth is an even more far-reaching expedition. It is a folk reckoning with ancient Greek musical traditions with a modern upgrade. The album reconstructs a sonic narrative of ancient traditions, enhanced with psychedelic and space-rock elements. In the reverb cycle, one hears a certain agrarian reinterpretation of the world, filled with harvest rituals and celestial incantations.

It is with great pleasure to welcome Anatolian Weapons to the label. During a longer stay in Athens, a friendship developed that led to a variety of musical projects and ideas. One of them is the release of the album Earth.

In 1991 Coil released the third of their early classic full-length albums “Love’s Secret Domain”, seemingly casting aside the gloom
and funereal beauty of its predecessors in favour of a painstakingly multi-layered hallucinogenic electronic beast, which unlike
some of their fellow ex-industrial contemporaries’ releases of the time wasn’t an attempt at easy accessibility or (the-godsforbid) danceability, but a vibrating psychedelic masterpiece unrivalled in their discography and still a landmark album.
To mark its 30 year anniversary Infinite Fog are beyond proud to present an expanded, fully remastered re-release of this fan
favourite available for the first time ever in its entirety on vinyl with 10 rare and mostly unreleased tracks and alternative
versions from the period added as a bonus to a luxurious 3LP/2CD set.
Love’s Secret Domain contains among its many highlights the Lynchian William Blake tribute of its title track and the
intoxicating single “Windowpane”, original versions of the later Coil live staple “Teenage Lightning” and the majestically warped
classicisms of “Chaostrophy”. Marc Almond guests on the typhonian “Titan Arch” and This Heat’s Charles Hayward provides
some amazing drum stylings.
This album is Coil pushing their sound ideas and probably their sanity to their very limits. Beyond the iconic Steven Stapleton
cover art here reproduced in unseen definition the doors of perception still open wide for both long-term Coil aficionados and
new-comers to this supremely innovative release to explore unknown depths. The long-overdue re-release illustrates how far
ahead of the curve Coil were with the sounds on this album, which still sounds as fresh and mind-blowing as it did back in the
early 90s.

The follow up to Deep Heavy Fear's Saâda Bonaire-produced single Dark Days, Doorway sees the group continue its hand-played versus programmed journey into the realms of dance pop. The title track takes a non-linear venture into 9/8 to the floor vocal Balearic/dub territory, via impressions, illusions and misrepresentations, to the reverse - Cherries delivers a simpler, but no less appealing cut, down a classic pop path with tolling guitars and striking percussion. Once again self-pressed & presented in a hand-printed & numbered multi-colour sleeve, designed by vocalist Chloe Grove.

Der Dark-Ambient-Pionier, die stygische Drone-Legende und das fast schon mythische Wesen LUSTMORD durchstößt mit "Much Unseen Is Also Here" einmal mehr den Schleier - die neueste Solo-Veröffentlichung des Künstlers in einer beeindruckenden, 40-jährigen kreativen Karriere an der Spitze der Industrial-Musik. Auf Drängen von Cosey Fanni Tutti und Chris Carter von Throbbing Gristle, Musik zu machen, die seine unverwechselbare Aura einfängt, übernahm Brian Williams 1980 Lustmord und begann mit Sounds zu arbeiten, weil die Musik, die er hören wollte, einfach nicht existierte. Lustmord veröffentlichte 1989 sein drittes Album "Heresy", das zu einem Meilenstein in der Industrial-Szene wurde und heute allgemein als Ursprung des Dark-Ambient-Genres gilt. 35 Jahre später führt Much Unseen Is Also Here" das Vermächtnis von Heresy" fort und knüpft an dessen fesselnden Erzählbogen an. "Much Unseen Is Also Here" besteht aus drei verschiedenen Teilen und ist dazu gedacht, in einer einzigen, ununterbrochenen Durchgang angehört zu werden; es entführt den Hörer in eine kompromisslose Parallelwelt, die nur in der Musik existiert, bevor es ihn am Ende für immer verändert wieder hinauswirft. Lustmord, der seit 1994 in L.A. lebt, hat auch als Komponist und Sounddesigner an der Musik für ikonische Film- und Fernsehproduktionen mitgewirkt, darunter "The Crow", "Strange Days", "From Dusk Till Dawn", "Underworld" und in jüngerer Zeit die FX-Serien "Fear The Walking Dead" und "First Reformed"von "Taxi Driver"-Autor Paul Schrader aus dem Jahr 2017. Immer noch entschlossen, die Grenzen von Sound, Genre und Medien zu erweitern, hat Lustmord auch zu den Soundlandschaften von Videospielen wie Assassin's Creed, League of Legends und, passenderweise, dem von H.R. Geiger inspirierten Survival-Horror-Spiel Scorn von 2022 beigetragen. Other Woes Are Yet To Come Edition (single colored (pink) vinyl, ltd to 220 copies ww)

Repress!

Club Glow co-founder Denham Audio is no stranger to linking up with friends. Running the label alongside fellow breaksmiths Mani Festo, LMajor and Borai, the rave-focused producer has established the imprint as one of a leading name in acid hooks, lairy basslines and whiplash-inducing breakbeats, and here - on Cheeky Sneakers - he readies the release of five varied cuts of lowend pressure and sky-high euphoria alongside Swankout, Thugwidow and Coco Bryce.

'Good Time' does what it says. A cut of happy-hardcore inspired breaks beamed straight from the Midlands; there is just enough headsy energy to keep the chin-stokers entertained, whilst inspiring an emotional, smiling release for those whose infatuations lie closer to ravey keys and Bangface Weekenders. Swankouts second collaboration - 'Keep On' - is a growling slab of screw-face electro and breaks, highlighting both producers' knack for finding the sweet spot between varying forms of UK music - fast, hardcore and dutty, it's a surefire party starter. Thugwidow is introduced on 'Testing My Patience'; the producer has been making a name for himself with some excellent releases on Sneaker Social Club and Circadian Rhythms, and here he and Denham Audio combine on a chugging steamroller of malfunctioning, soulful riddims.

It's a dreamy meet on 'Close 2 Me' - Coco Bryce recently collaborated with Amy Dabbs on an excellent jungle EP which received support from BBC Radio 1 and more, and here the Netherlands produce brings his native hardcore spirit to the surface on a pitched-vocal cut of jungle-techno.

Seeing out the release is a remix from emerging producer RAVETRX, who has recently enjoyed sessions on Rinse FM and NTS alongside Roni and Hooversound Recordings co-label head Sherelle.

eavily saturated, twisted, adventurous Breakbeat Techno explorer

Superb Jungle sound... Mental and clean. Limited up to 300 copies.

Evan Lindorff-Ellery is a visual and sound artist based in Kingston, New York, and co-owner of Notice Recordings. "No Water Recordings 2011" was created in Ravenswood, Chicago using a hydrophone against a bridge, above water, and a contact mike and ceramic insulator against a brick. The recordings were captured to cassette which was transferred 10 years later by Branic Howard. This album exists as an antithesis of much of Evan's recent fascinations with water, yet accommodates similar poetic endeavours.

New tape from Gabber Eleganza's Never Sleep imprint.
This time its a live recording of Drum & Bass legend / Critical Sound boss Kasra at Fabric with MC's GQ and Mantmast.

The tape is in honour of Shaun Roberts, the sadly departed Fabric booker who was a pivotal figure in the UK's electronic scene. All proceeds go to Bowel Cancer UK

"Fabric played a huge role in shaping me as a music fan and years later became the London home for me and my label. This wouldn’t have happened without the help and support of Shaun Roberts, who left us far to soon in Dec of 2022 after an 18 month battle with colon cancer.

When the Never Sleep crew asked me to contribute to their mix series I knew id like to honour Shaun and help raise some money for Bowel Cancer UK.

Without Shaun and people like him taking chances on people like me the music landscape would look very different.

This is mix is taken from the Critical Sound 15th birthday event in 2017.

2nd strike from the PENG tings. Limited, vinyl only business.

Tony Boninsegna: Notes From The Underground 1986-1994 (Volumes 1 and 2) Cold Blow / Musique Pour La Danse

The story of dance music is littered with hidden heroes and underground activists whose immense contributions have been overlooked, ignored and under-documented. Tony Boninsegna, a producer who made and released countless classic cuts and forgotten gems during the acid house and rave era, is one such example.

Melding elements of all that was popular in underground clubs at the time to create his own dancefloor-friendly sound worlds, Boninsegna amassed a huge catalogue between 1986 and '94, while hiding his involvement via an array of oddball aliases and opaque pseudonyms. Boninsegna's story first came to light four years ago when he appeared in Join The Future: Bleep Techno and the Birth of British Bass Music, Matt Anniss's critically acclaimed alternative history of UK dance music in the rave era. Now Cold Blow has joined forces with Musique Pour La Danse to deliver a much-needed anthology of his greatest productions and
co-productions - many rare or hard-to-find - for the first time.
Featuring 24 restored and remastered tracks stretched across two volumes on vinyl and digital, including a handful of previously unreleased tracks and mixes, and accompanied by detailed sleeve notes by Anniss, Notes From The Underground 1986-1994 is a joyful celebration of one of British dance music's most under-appreciated artists. The full breadth and depth of Boninsegna's rave-ready catalogue, as well as an indication of
the sheer volume of aliases he utilised during the period, is explored in detail across the two-part compilation.

Fittingly, volume one features two previously unreleased recordings that mark his earliest explorations of the emerging house sound (both as The Rhythm Squad, with Richard Compton), alongside touchstone releases such as Zeco's 'The Witch Trials' (a 1989 production that marked his first outing on vinyl), celebrated workouts recorded with regular collaborator Mykey Tee (Lab Technicians' bleep-inspired 'We Gave U Life', Big Showdown's epic 'They're Here' and AEK's mind-mangling, bleep & breaks number 'Lick It'), and genuinely overlooked gems (the proto-tribal house of Pierrepoint's acid-smothered 'Tonnerre' and saucer-eyed rush of Estudiantes' 'Let The Music Into Your Mind').

It all adds up to the definitive musical retrospective of a genuine underground, rave-era hero whose time in the spotlight may finally have arrived.

Pablo Bozzi inaugurates his new label, Second Sight, with the various artists 'Unknown Prospect'.

The title says it all: boundless and vast, Second Sight's intent is to promote the talents of innovative producers who defy genres in the pursuit of their own idyllic aesthetic.

Andre Gough debuts on Aura Dinamica as Verge with a new album, Fluid Motion.

Channeling the same dense Ambient and Noise music derivatives now characteristic of the artist’s work, Fluid Motion offers a powerful snapshot of an artist in full control of their craft. Emotive and considered, the work presents as many delicate sound design intricacies as it does moments of caustic maximalism.

Cohesive and textured in equal measure, Fluid Motion arrives on cassette and digital formats mid 2021, with an accompanying zine featuring blown out imagery inspired by the music and shot during Winter 2021 in the industrial region of Eastern Finland and the countryside near the border with Russia.

Bella Boo is back on Studio Barnhus with her most direct and club-focused material yet. A veteran of the Stockholm underground, named “one of the most promising new artists not only on Studio Barnhus, but in house music in general” by Resident Advisor, Bella has channelled the energy of her recent DJ dates at Berlin’s Panorama Bar and London’s Phonox into this Looney Talks EP, a collection of four intoxicating dance trax full of intense rhythmic themes and inventive new takes on classic rave sounds.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce Down On Darkened Meetings, the first solo release on the label from the quietly prolific Giuseppe Ielasi. Recorded at Ielasi’s studio in Monza outside of Milan over two days in February 2022, the seven pieces presented here continue the renewed exploration of the guitar that marks much of his solo work over the last few years. Emerging in the late 1990s as an improviser working primarily with prepared acoustic and electric guitars, the instrument became less prominent in his work over the next decade, ceding to loop-based constructs that would eventually split into abstracted takes on club music and hip-hop (including his work as Inventing Masks), on the one hand, and spectral electroacoustic explorations (such as the stunning triple disc 3 pauses), on the other. Returning to the guitar in recent years, he has approached the instrument as a source of shimmering metallic glissandi (Five Wooden Frames) or as the vehicle of elegiac double-tracked lines that feel almost like Frisell playing Feldman (The Return). Here the focus is on electric guitar filtered, looped, and splayed out into fields of irregular echoes through a bank of pedals. Like many of Ielasi’s releases, Down On Darkened Meetings is structured as a set of short untitled pieces (here ranging between two and six minutes in length) that single-mindedly explore a single instrument or source throughout. The opening track immediately introduced the distinctive timbral world of fizzing, heavily filtered tones, chiming harmonics, and woozy looping bass figures inhabited throughout. At points it becomes near impossible to trace these sounds to the strings of an electric guitar; at others, as on the final two pieces, the instrument is unmistakable, as Ielasi builds up his shifting loops from snatches of almost unintentional sounding half-playing that give these closing tracks a hushed, private atmosphere reminiscent of Tolerance’s Anonym. While the repeating chords and hanging melodic figures present on many tracks call to mind earlier Ielasi classics like Gesine and Untitled, here the music feels less meticulously constructed than played: Ielasi’s lyrical guitar lines obscured by a battery of effects at times come across like a dilated take on the outer-fringe fretwork of improvisers like Henry Kaiser and Raymond Boni, and the muddy, asynchronous fields of pops and hiss at times wander into areas reminiscent of the hand-played dub techno of Vladislav Delay’s Multila. Like much of Ielasi’s work in recent years, these seven pieces perform a delicate balancing act: between abstraction and immediacy, austerity and abundance. Imbued with Ielasi’s distinctive lightness of touch, considered approach to pacing, and subtly psychedelic approach to the stereo field, Down on Darkened Meetings is a major new work from a quiet master of contemporary experimental music.

yellow marbled vinyl / full colour sleeve / incl. dl code
VISION proudly presents Icicle's third and final album 'Post'.

"Its been a long time since I announced any music let alone an album. Containing 12 tracks, it comprises modern production with raw 90's inspired tech dnb, some techno hybrids and a little brain-melter here and there. It's been a strange journey, writing it largely during the pandemic and hard to finish in near isolation. But I'm really proud to see it released and for it to be heard!"

After over a year since last contact, the foreplanes of the Challenger Deep are spotted emerging from the Bristol Channel. Two figures emerge, unbolting their helmets to reveal themselves as none other than Inner Echo. The duo return home as heroes, bearing treasure that the locals covet more than gold; two dubbed out cuts crafted for the soundsystem.

Limited run, hand stamped, available exclusively on vinyl.

Presenting the third volume of forward-thinking electronics and peerless Jungle / D&B expressionism from iconoclastic Bristol producer and DJ, Krust. An artist who has always been pushing the sonic envelope while keeping dancefloors fully locked.

Introducing 'Irrational Numbers,' a meticulously curated collection of five parts, available on both vinyl and digital formats. This compilation is a treasure trove of hand-picked records and archival gems from Krust's extensive discography, thoughtfully remastered and presented anew for both devoted fans and newcomers.

'Irrational Numbers' features a dizzying array of self-released 12" cuts, exclusive unreleased VIPs and dub-plates, alongside epic major label widescreen classics. It's an unmissable journey through the sonic output of one of the UK's most distinctive and forward-looking producers.

Volume 3 serves us a plethora of unmissable highlights from Krust's enviable back catalogue. From the raw jump-up chaos of 'Rukus', the early rolling business of 'The Resister' to the epic genre defying voyage that is 'Soul In Motion', no stone is left unturned on what is - once again - an essential purchase for any serious lover of electronic music.

For longtime Krust enthusiasts, this project serves as a fond reminder of the boundless creativity and originality that flourished during the early 1990s and beyond. For those new to his work, it presents an enthralling introduction to innovative electronic music that has comfortably set the tone for generations to come. Get ready to experience the evolution of sound and immerse yourself in the visionary artistry of Krust.

The composer, percussionist and instrument builder Limpe Fuchs has spent six decades exploring the outer limits of sound and its effects on the listener. Born in Munich in 1941, Fuchs is part of a generation of German artists who sought radical new approaches to art, music and social organisation in the period following the Second World War.

Alloa, Bavarian for alone. Limpe likes to be alone, because she is never lonely. When she is not on concert tours, she cultivates the garden in front of the door or playfully handles her instruments in the house. Among these has recently been a restored concert grand piano, which she found orphaned at a performance venue in Switzerland and rescued from being scrapped in Peterskirchen. Since then it has been the center of Limpe's attention, is played daily, and can be heard on the recordings of this LP.

The music alternates between free improvisation and impromptu compositions, played also around fragmented recited poems. Beyond the boundaries of jazz, art song and classical music lies the freedom Limpe takes at the piano, laughingly commenting on her unorthodox, even carefree way of making music with a quote from Friedrich Gulda: "From seventy on, all pianists are bad."

Well, so what, Limpe is not a pianist anyway, she is much more than that. She is the most vivid proof of a long-lasting, versatile and intrepid musical career, the next chapter of which will also consist of Limpe no longer exclusively traveling through Europe heavily laden with all her self-made instruments, but every now and then light-heartedly from grand piano to grand piano, to then make music for everyone, as always but not necessarily alone.

Aignish On The Machair
Neither Here Nor There
Blood Time
Future Musings
Keeping My Head Down
The Chalk
Cyren
You Put Me To Shame
Kibbo Kift
The Wind Picked Up
Having Been There

Back in print, note new price. San Diego's own The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble’s sophomore LP on Colemine Records! Cinematic soul is the order of the day from this west coast group. Covering a lot of soulful territory here: deep funk, soul jazz, breakbeats, and more!