Beats News

Recorded live during the 4th anniversary of Sagome at Cafe Oto, London - 20th January 2024 ( January Jenilek + Ottomani Parker Live)
Recorded in one straight take - no over dubbing.

"I don’t keep photographs, old letters, keepsakes or memorabilia.
I have sound-files, thousands of them, un-used, un-heard: folders of field recordings; sonic sketches;
experiments that failed but weren’t deleted. The files are saved on hard drives or the cards of obsolete
pieces of equipment replaced – bit by dusty bit – with something new, clean and shiny.
A remnant is what’s left over when the greater part it once belonged to has been used up, removed,
or destroyed. I think of my sound-files like this, the remains of ideas, of a time too.
Remnants"

When the ghost in the machine meets the breath in the reed, expect sparks. Electronic sound artist Robin Rimbaud – Scanner joins forces with acclaimed British bass clarinetist Gareth Davis to create an album where circuitry hums, wood vibrates, and the air between notes crackles with possibility.

This is no polite meeting of minds — it’s an elegant collision. Scanner’s intricate electronic textures weave around Davis’s deep, resonant tones, blurring the boundary between acoustic breath and digital pulse. The result is a sound world that’s at once intimate and expansive, familiar yet thrillingly unpredictable.

Think late-night conversations in abandoned buildings. Think fog rolling over neon. Think sound that slips through your fingers even as it takes hold of you.

The songlines in question , memories and distorted images of travels across various continents, form an imagined biography of places that might or might not have been but somehow seem to exist . Landscapes of blurred statements , lost words and echoes of meandering structures.

"If Miles Davis had been raised on shortwave radio static and midnight phone calls, it might have sounded like this."

Braiden, an artist synonymous with the UK’s underground continuum, makes a powerful return after his hiatus with Raindance, a four-track EP of original productions on his own Off Out imprint. First emerging during the post-dubstep era with standout releases on Joy Orbison’s Doldrums and iconic Dutch imprint Rush Hour, Braiden carved a unique path as both DJ and producer through long-standing residencies on Rinse FM and NTS, where his boundary-pushing selections became essential listening.

The record channels the energy of the club and the scene he emerged from, blending freshly explored influences into a focused yet diverse body of work.

The EP opens with its title track, an unruly and visceral cut that channels early grime’s skeletal power into a hypnotic techno landscape. Clattering claps, cascading strings and a guttural bassline drive it forward, shimmering with movement and wired with an unpredictable edge. Touch The Sky, featuring a vocal contribution from multidisciplinary artist KESH, follows as a meditative centrepiece — a weightless, emotional interlude hovering with restrained melancholy and awe. X5x ramps up the energy again, urgent, euphoric, and devastatingly effective, its acid-licked synth line and thunderous kicks recalling the vastness of late-night warehouse catharsis. Lagrangian Point closes the EP on a different axis altogether; a time-dilating drone that strips away the percussion entirely while retaining the physicality and ethereal tone that runs through the EP.

Also a visual artist and photographer, Braiden’s finely tuned aesthetic runs through the record, with him self-designing and photographing the artwork printed on a full colour sleeve. Raindance arrives as a meticulously crafted statement: fierce and cinematic, a notable evolution from his earlier single-led releases, with additional mix engineering support from friends Joy Orbison and Objekt.


b A2. Touch The Sky ft. KESH

Die besten musikalischen Außenseiter sitzen nie lange still. Sie mutieren stetig, verwandeln sich in neue Formen und weigern sich, in Schubladen gesteckt zu werden. Floating Points hat so viele Gestalten, dass es ohnehin nicht einfach ist, ihn irgendwie einzuordnen. Da ist zum einen der Komponist, dessen Debütalbum „Elaenia“ im Jahr 2015 begeisterte Kritiken erhielt, darunter als Pitchforks „Best New Music“ und Resident Advisor's „Album of the Year“ - und ihn von den Tanzflächen auf die Festivalbühnen weltweit brachte. Dann ist da wiederum der Kurator, dessen Plattenlabels gefühlvolle neue Klänge in den Club gebracht haben, und der auf seinem geschätzten Imprint Melodies International alte Klänge wieder zum Vorschein gebracht hat. Ferner ist da der Traditionalist, der Disco-Typ, der Maschinenmusik macht, der Digger, der stets auf der Suche nach unentdeckten Edelsteinen zwecks Wiederveröffentlichung ist. Und dann ist da noch der DJ, dessen offener und zugleich mutiger Umgang mit dem Genre ihn einst ein 20-minütiges Instrumental des Spiritual-Jazz-Saxophonisten Pharoah Sanders im Berghain spielen ließ.

Nach der Veröffentlichung seiner Zusammenstellung von funkelnder, analoger Ambient- und Atmosphärenmusik für die geschätzte „Late Night Tales“-Reihe, stellt Floating Points' erstes Album seit vier Jahren, „Crush“, alles, was man über ihn zu wissen meint, wieder auf den Kopf. Nicht minder als ein knallender Donnerschlag elektronischen Experimentalismus’, dessen Titel auf den langsam überkochenden Schnellkochtopf anspielt, den die aktuelle politische Gemengelage in der Welt suggeriert, in der wir uns derzeit befinden. So hat Shepherd einige seiner bisher härtesten und treibendsten Tracks produziert, mit Blick auf die britische Bass-Szene (aus der er in den späten 2000er Jahren selbst hervorgegangen ist), wie beispielsweise die zuvor veröffentlichte markante Lead-Single „LesAlpx“ (Pitchforks „Best New Track“). Auf „Crush“ sind allerdings auch einige seiner ausdrucksstärksten Songs zu finden: seine charakteristische Melancholie ist in den erhabeneren, sanfteren Momenten des Albums oder im Buchla-Synthesizer zu finden, dessen unheimliche Modulation das Album prägt.

Sein neues Album fühlt sich augenblicklich an - und lebendig. Es ist der Klang der vielen Seiten von Floating Points, die schließlich miteinander verschmelzen. Es bezieht sich auf die „explosiven“ Momente während seiner Sets, die normalerweise auftreten, wenn er unerwartete Genres zusammenwirft, aus dem ganz einfachen Grund, weil er sich darüber freut, diese Platte „jetzt wirklich laut hören zu können“ und dann die Nadel aufsetzt. Es ist „genau wie das, was passiert, wenn man zu Hause mit seinen Freunden Musik spielt und diese sich überall im Raum ausbreitet.“, erklärt er.

An abstract painting with expressionist hues and futurist echoes, a mix between action painting and informal art: this is the first impression from Grischa Lichtenberger's live performance recorded at the Pino Pascali Museum in Polignano a Mare. The artist, based in Berlin, makes the rhythms creak, cuts them with a laser, weaves imaginative harmonic coils, smoothes with electric razors and draws figures with echoes and industrial clangs.

Then he uses ferrous materials that, with a precision lathe, are abraded and cause sparks. Suddenly steel springs fall to the ground, generating a cascade effect. In the distance, you can hear the roar of speeding cars and the ringing of bells.

Lichtenberger pulps, compresses, dilates, mixes, electrifies, heats up, liquefies: he does all this in just less than forty minutes, treating the sound material with violence, transforming it from time to time, shaping it and succeeding in the arduous task of controlling its effects. It is as if Luigi Russolo, Alva Noto and Thomas Brinkmann were closed in a workshop on the edge of a highway, parodying the famous definition of techno.
Giosuè Impellizzeri

Hybrid Minds are back with their fourth studio album, Atmosphere. Comprised of 12 tracks, and an amazing selection of featured vocalists, Atmosphere solidifies Hybrid Minds as one of the UK's best liquid Drum n Bass acts. Collaborators include: homesick, Ashley Singh, Songer, Master Peace, Emba, Catching Claro and Brodie just to name a few. Hybrid Minds have a huge summer ahead of them, playing 11 more shows, having just come off an Ibiza run, WAH show at SilverIsland Works and Glastonbury. 2025 has been an enormous year for Hybrid Minds, and shows no signs of slowing down just yet.

Plaque is a young Bristol label which knows what’s what; always worth checking.
Tiny runs so look sharp.

"Founder of KUMP and Meth.O tapes, Lyon’s Marc-Étienne Guibert (AKA Gil.Barte) awakens his new Mert Seger moniker for a shadowy Plaque excursion. Nine slow burners strike from the murk with venomous precision."

Originally commissioned by TBA during the COVID pandemic of 2020 as part of their Curfew programming O Morto, aka Mestre André now presents the full length version of his Lila composition, a collaboration with Moroccan musicians Ayoub ElAyady and Khalid Boulhamam.

Lila is the Arabic word for night and is also the name of the liturgic ceremony manifested in a trance, as a process of healing and therapy, through a ritual of sensory immersion conducted by music (gnawa), incense, colour and dance. From sunset to dawn, seven colours are revealed, associated with different rhythms and stages of ecstasy.

In »Lila«, Ayoub ElAyady, Khalid Boulhamam and O Morto summarily travel through the seven colours of the nocturnal ritual in all its scope – using both the form of tradition and electronic manipulation.!:

Soundsystem music built on soundsystems

Yellow, the vibrant color of our holiday house on La Palma provided the first spark of inspiration for this album. Some months later, a volcanic eruption turned the house and the entire village into an alien-like Malpaís landscape. The album is a tribute to La Palma - Isla Bonita. 
Yellow sets the mood of the album, like hitting the sweet spot on the mixer, not too hot and not too clean but in between. Tracks running hot like lava through an analogue mixer, morphing into new sonic landscapes. 

The album has been developed and performed live over 5 Dub&Dal gatherings. What better way to build soundsystem music than on actual soundsystems? The result is a live-recorded, continuous piece of music that captures the energy and vibe of a crowd dancing in front of a massive DIY stack. 

Eruption follows on a similar trajectory as the previously released Lemma(s). It takes the listener on a trippy, percussive journey through different musical styles and tempos, expressed and informed by polyrhythms and collaborations with live musicians. Collaborators from around the world and from diverse musical backgrounds have brought their own artistry, shaping the album into what it is today.

SDK is the collaboration between Stano and David Kitt. Stano, a post-punk pioneer from Dublin, is known for his strikingly individual work. A recurring collaborator with All City, Going Back to the Unknown marks his first new material for the label and his return to vocal work after many years.

The project began after a chance meeting at All City led to a connection with David Kitt. In Kitt’s studio, guitars, pedals, tape delay, and synths combined to form dense, dreamlike textures. The music moves between ambient atmospheres, layered guitars, and fractured song forms. Stano’s words appear only where the music calls for them:

“I just turned the pages until the right lyric appeared — I like when the music dictates what the words should be.”

On the collaborative process, Stano adds:

“There wasn’t a conscious decision, it was just a reaction to what David was playing. It seemed to happen organically, we were really on the same wavelength. At the end of that day I knew we had something really interesting.”

The result is Going Back to the Unknown, a collection shaped as much by intuition and chance as by design. The album is completed by Kitt’s contribution “Fireworks,” which seals the record’s arc.

Spiritual World's first archival 12" vinyl release from the UK’s free festival dub pioneers.

The Ullulators, an experimental dub and world music ensemble from Bath, UK, have long been associated with the UK’s free festival movement, tracing their creative lineage back to the mid-1980s. For the first time ever, two pivotal tracks from their early cassette-only discography—“Simply Conscious Dub” and “Eternal
Now”—are being issued on 12” vinyl, marking the first archival release on Spiritual World.

The A-side, “Simply Conscious Dub”, originally featured on the 1986 cassette Beyond the Gates of Ull, exemplifies the band’s signature fusion of weighty dub rhythms with expansive and euphoric electronics.
In contrast, the B-side, “Eternal Now”, drawn from the 1985 cassette Share a Calm with the Ullulators, ventures into more introspective sonic territory. Built on minimalist structures and ambient textures, it evokes the kosmische tradition and aligns with the spatial sensibilities of Manuel Göttsching’s E2-E4.

Together, these tracks not only showcase the group’s wide stylistic range but also underscore their forward-thinking approach to genre hybridity. This release stands as a unique document of a formative era in the
evolution of UK underground, dub, and ambient music.

PURE GARAGE RETURNS WITH A CAREFULLY CURATED SELECTION OF COLLECTIBLE CLASSICS.

Pure Garage, the best-selling UKG compilation of all time, returns with a fresh stack of high value collectible classics on DJ friendly vinyl.

With a host of gold & platinum selling compilation albums under it’s belt, plus countless sold out events across the UK, Pure Garage is known and trusted by both hard-nosed purists & the casual listener.

This latest foray coincides with an incredible resurgence in interest for the UK Garage sound, bringing together 8 high collectible infectiously funky cuts, spread across a DJ Friendly 2 slices of vinyl.

Pure Garage Collectible Classics Volume 1 opens with Buggin Me by garage pioneer Zed Bias alongside Al Brown, a groovy bassline, funky beats and a great vocal hook combine perfectly to showcase the mighty Zed Bias at his funky best.

Set It Off, by Chris Mack / Flavour, is a truly collectible record. Originally only available on vinyl as a limited white label press, copies of Set It Off have been trading hands on sites such as Discogs for as much as £130… It’s worth buying this compilation purely to get hold of this track on vinyl!

Another track that is going for big money on reseller sites is Romantic 2001 by DJ Deller. With this minimal 2 step riddim having sold for up to £120. This is definitely one for the collectors.

Funkaholics aka Jeremy Sylvester rounds off the first piece of vinyl on this album with the bass heavy Down 2 Da Ground.

Vinyl 2 kicks off with the sing-a-long classic from 1998, Anthill Mobs’s track Don’t Leave Me, followed hotly by the speed garage sounds of Body Grooving by M.F. Project.

Finally, Deep Impact drops My Fantasy followed up with a regular name of the Pure Garage live event line ups, Scott Garcia drops his soulful club classic Music Takes You, rounding out an impressive batch of tracks representing everything exciting about the UK Garage genre.

PURE GARAGE COLLECTIBLE CLASSICS VOL 1 will be released on double vinyl 16th December 2022!

Berlin’s Limited White Label presents the vinyl debut of New York City-based composer, producer, and drummer Zachary Berns. A fixture of NYC’s jazz and underground scenes, Berns has built a reputation through boundary-crossing projects (notably “zbeeez” and jazz/hip-hop collective “poetic thrust”), collaborations with rising artists across R&B, jazz, and electronic music, and acclaimed appearances at parties such as “Soul in the Horn”. With LTDWLBL011, he steps forward under his full name for the first time, delivering a statement that bridges his dual lineage in jazz and house/electronic/club music.

IDO returns with the second chapter of Transcendental Movements - a series dedicated to active meditation and deep listening. Active meditation is a practice of fully inhabiting the movement of sound. Instead of seeking absolute silence, it invites you to dive into textures, to be carried by frequencies, to follow oscillations like a breath. Every vibration becomes an anchor point, every resonance a gateway inward. In a world saturated with noise and anxiety, this approach offers a space to refocus the body and calm the mind. Here, listening is not passive: it's an awakened trance where tensions shift and dissolve, leaving only a pure sense of presence. For this second volume, Valentino Mora has gathered a new ensemble of artists exploring the frontier between intimate perception and sonic landscape. The compositions - slow and organic - unfold like micro-universes, at times ethereal, at times dense, designed to guide the listener on a sensory journey that transforms anxiety into movement, and movement into inner peace. Transcendental Movements Vol. 2 is an invitation to listen differently: not to escape, but to return to yourself.

Sticking a dirty thumb in the eye of fate, our third collaboration sees this marrow deep family malarky turn official as Pace Yourself teams up with YS’s own imprint ERF REC for a split release. As if our status as minor celebrities and footnotes of the underground could level off no further: the unification no one asked for is here. Sticking it to the man, handing your arse to ya on plate; cauterising infected suburban minds world over.

Burn is the second YS album and written as a direct follow-up album to Brutal Flowers. If their first album was an exercise in the incremental, a construction of poise and patience, Burn, should be taken way the fuck at it’s word: it quite literally finds catharsis in twisted reverse. Birthed out the malignant kick found in deconstruction and chaos. Evil twin, psychotic younger sibling, call it what the hell you like. It might take you a moment to get the lay of the land in this darkly mutated world. Like a bug eye’d native first confronted with a zippo, the hit is radical and instant: a new way for the world to go up in smoke.

Splice the Seattle slacker scene with the spliffhead soundsystem culture of the 90s Bristol trip-hop scene, then cross-breed that with the DIY optimism and glee in creation found in the cut-and-paste worlds of skate, graffiti and hiphop, now run that through the skitzo basement mind of John.T. Gast and you’re close to the kind of scorched earth and spiked suburbia that birthed Burn.

Dunno quite what YS have been ingesting of late but this massively twisted LP touches on a host of gloriously fucked totemic underground sources while not sounding much like any of them. It has the ballsy swagger and hard flipping of the script as Massive Attack’s seminal Blue Lines. Indeed, the eponymous album tracks sound similar - the opener ‘Burn’ is like a hard nosed jammed out redux of ‘Blue Lines’. Getting into a kind of slow-spinning overdubbed maximal euphoria ending with mumbled downer vocals, struggling to conceal their tongues in their cheeks there’s an air of paranoia and proto-conspiracy theory. It’ll leave you scratching your head, feeling like you’ve stepped into a New World Order governed by a cacophony of drop outs, dope fiends and apocalyptic stoners. A cracked out world somewhere between Richard Linklater’s movie Slacker (1990) and Marc Singer’s Dark Days (2001).

The rest of the album parts like a tongue on a wine glass: Smith and Mighty, Bandulu, ambient Luke Slater records, Wah Wah Wino, Nurse with Wound, Land of the Loops, Placid Angels, Adrian Sherwood, Urban Tribe and DJ Shadow can all be heard in momentary splatters - but Burn like other works by YS, is its own ritual beast. ‘Moth’, a track which has been knocking about the underground deejai circuit for many moons, is a real raw chopped and screwed slice of stoner erotica that reeks of obsession and unrequited desire. Elsewhere, on tracks like ‘Switch’, ‘Trying’ and ‘Drift’ the throughline from Brutal Flowers can be heard. Underneath the driving heavy gravity the trademark emotional intimacies of YS linger: eternal recurrence, ghosts of static and shortwave, worn memories of the playful and painful sort. The brief moments where flashes of orchestral ambience get out from underneath the swagger are so pure, personal and unguarded that for a moment they leave you completely lonesome. In the album’s closer ‘End’, you can hear the fleeting promise and DIY possibilities of an analogue world and embers of ash that flutter in its wake: where it seemed, for a brief moment, that collective of DJs, engineers, rappers, graffiti artists and skate crews were emerging from the streets, giving the middle fingers to the system, before just as quickly disappearing back to the doldrums of obscurity. ‘End’ is a bittersweet ode to early soundsystem culture, MCs and pirate radio - an out of step time where for a moment the underdogs and weirdos seemed to be kicking on the door of something bigger.

A veritable teenage doof suite dosed with desire, claustrophobia and deviance. Burn is a good old howl at the moon: lonely, raw, and out for blood; basement style exegesis at its best. A thump to the gut, a stud through your blood. A dubbed-to-death classic straight out of the annals of nowhere. A perfect post card from oblivion. A bleak, bold and personally ferocious vision of tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

This is everything that record collectors skip dates for. Fuck the scene and keep that shit underground. That’s what it is all about. Know what I mean, if you do? You’re in…

Logbook. Exploration mission.

Day 1. The planet is dead. An anomaly is detected — the time flow is slightly distorted.
Day 2. Landed in the central crater. The clocks of our suits show different times from the clocks on the ship. The gap is increasing.
Day 4. Logs contain records of events that never happened. A report of tomorrow’s evacuation appeared in the system. No one wrote it.
Day 5. We found footprints leading from the landing site to the crater, identical to ours. The ship log was discovered nearby. Final entry: “Do not enter the crater.”

Log transmission terminated. The crew did not reestablish contact.