Beats News

Five Again is a striking debut from Mi Ya that spans just six tracks but makes a lasting impact. The album was crafted at Space Talk and reflects on childhood not as a stage to abandon, but as a spirit to protect. Its delicate compositions echo fleeting memories, candles that won't blow out, naps of escape, the quiet joy of rain. Mi Ya describes the work as a refusal to let go of the child within, a reminder of innocence that still whispers. Hazy ambient synths and delicate melodies shine on tracks like 'I Forget Things', while the understated beauty of 'Tickle & Naps' stands out with its sparse, intricate detail. 'My Mom Left Me At The Train Station' is all pensive chords and shimmering percussion - it's musically light but emotionally profound.

'a masterclass in hardcore dancefloor and bittersweet feeling...Alex Crossan is both acclaimed and not feted enough' **** The Observer

Available on his own Pond Recordings, Curve 1 is a love-letter to club spaces, and the music and people who fill them.

Mura Masa’s forth album is a full-circle moment. Departing from the pop-leaning narrative and who’s-who guestlist of his most recent records, Curve 1 heads back down the rabbit-hole of club music that’s alternately euphoric, introspective, nostalgic and future-facing. Full of tension and release, ambiguity and playfulness, the significance of Curve 1 is left up to the individual: whether enjoyed solo or in the sweat of a packed room, here is music as enigmatic and layered as its author.

Mura Masa himself introduces Curve 1 as 'a manifestation of an attitude I’ve been cultivating in my personal life; ignore everything. All the content, all of the attention economy, all of it. In doing that, the really meaningful and vital parts of what’s around you make themselves known and unignorable, demanding your energy. It’s my first offering as an independent artist through my own record label, and as such I wanted it to be as free and anti-narrative as possible. Impressionistic. Music as entertainment has in many cases, to me, become very advertorial and excessively sentimental in terms of creating narrative around albums and artists. I wanted to strip this away as much as possible to leave room for the music to create its own meaning in the lives of people who form connections with it. It's hard for me not to explain away the intricacies and ideas contained within these records after having theorised and tolled and executed them over the course of nearly three years, but I think it’s far more fitting of the album’s intent to say simply: listen to it in the dark.'

Curve 1 pulls Mura Masa into focus as one of this generation’s most influential figures. Aptly reflecting his rare standing at the heart of youth culture, Mura Masa recently co-wrote long standing collaborator PinkPantheress’ single ‘Turn It Up’, as well as creating a series of remixes for Troye Sivan’s ‘Honey’. From producing global hits like ‘Boy’s a liar Pt.2’ to seminal records like Shygirl’s Mercury-nominated Nymph, it’s a juncture that has also seen Mura Masa embark on a new chapter of his own. He has set up his label and a creative hub and arts space - The Pond - in Peckham as a base for emerging artists and likeminded creatives, which will launch officially next year. Across his three critically-acclaimed solo albums, Mura Masa has built an audience who will follow wherever his genre-defying work goes next; with 2 billion streams, headline festival sets around the world, and live shows ranging from Alexandra Palace to Warehouse Project.

Curve 1 marks a back-to-your-roots approach whilst also highlighting the trailblazing young star’s recurring theme: to capture ‘that’ curvature in pop culture, to make it Mura Masa’s own, and to push things forward.

'Curve 1 has a club focus, no f—ks attitude and production that’s mature, lush — simply put, it’s just cool.' billboard

'a scintillating love letter to club culture and sounds' Wonderland

'the Grammy-winning producer throws a total curveball. Ditching his usual dreamy pop, Mura goes full hardcore dance. From techno to vintage rave' **** The Mirror

'Get sweaty as Mura makes it messy' **** The Sunday Express

'a total curveball...intense but full of hooks' **** The Daily Star

'Mura Masa has always been ahead of the creative curve, but with his new album, the tenured producer is consciously forging a path inspired by his newfound independence.'

'a grab-bag of sounds from a brilliantly restless mind' Rolling Stone

Electronic pop music superstars Röyksopp present their extraordinary ‘Profound Mysteries’ project, released through Dog Triumph. Röyksopp worked with a cast of global visual and musical collaborators to create an incredible 30 tracks, 30 artefacts, 30 visualisers and 30 films that have been revealed throughout the year.

‘Profound Mysteries’ brings together some of the most talented music artists in the world, including Alison Goldfrapp, Pixx, Susanne Sundfør, Astrid S, and Karen Harding.

Electronic pop music superstars Röyksopp present their extraordinary ‘Profound Mysteries’ project, released through Dog Triumph. Röyksopp worked with a cast of global visual and musical collaborators to create an incredible 30 tracks, 30 artefacts, 30 visualisers and 30 films that have been revealed throughout the year.

‘Profound Mysteries’ brings together some of the most talented music artists in the world, including Alison Goldfrapp, Pixx, Susanne Sundfør, Astrid S, and Karen Harding.

After almost a year Innervisions is blessed to have Toto back with a package of four tracks showing why they are in love with his productions.

5 Years of Nerang !!!!

Based in Queensland, Australia, Nerang Recordings has put out music from Interplanetary Criminal, Subjoi, DJ Swagger, DJ Bowlcut, J. Albert, Cassettes For Kids, and many more since its inception in 2016. Reaching five years of the imprint, head honcho Dj Whipr Snipr curates the second ‘Freaky Friends’ compilation, featuring contributions from a host of label associates and hotly tipped producers for six fast-paced, heavy-hitting tracks

Leading the release, Shall Not Fade and E-Beamz affiliate DJ Swagger’s ‘Hoticewater’ blends deep oscillations with skipping breaks and shimmering pads, with Low Tape’s ‘So Delicious’ following, keeping the energy high.
Striking vocals meet trippy FX and electro-tinged drum patterns across the track, a continuation of the DJ/producer’s releases on the likes of X-Kalay and Of Paradise.
Fresh off the back of their recent ‘Sportsgoth’ EP, Brazil’s Nørus and Dj Whipr Snipr collide once more on ‘Molecular Collision’, bringing classic 808 kits, acid lines, and squelchy synthesisers together.

Classic electro sounds meet modern production techniques on LA-based Ole Mic Odd’s ‘In The House’, as robotic vocal lines meet heavy arps. Ramping up the tempo, Berlin-based Nasty Enterprises boss Nasty King Kurl returns to the label with a fast and powerful off-kilter jam, leaning on freaked out vocals and tough percussion.
Rounding out the release, Cologne’s Turk Turkelton offers up ‘Offenbachs Father’, delivering a track complete with razor-sharp drum workout and expressive synth work.

2025 Repress

Searchlight Moonbeam is the new narrative compilation from Time Is Away (Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney) whose eponymous monthly NTS Radio shows, tinctured fusions of fugitive sounds and reverie-inducing archival speech, have won them an ardent following. It follows from the London-based duo’s Ballads, a remarkable driftwerk released on A Colourful Storm in 2022.


Searchlight Moonbeam is an autumnal dreamscape, intimate and vespertine, pensive and irresolute. An imagined community where differences drop off and resonances emerge – between Maher Shalal Hash Baz affiliates Kasumi Trio, Taiwanese score composer Chen Ming Chang whose ‘Rainwater’ (written for Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s 1986 film Dust In The Wind) is exquisitely heartbroken, and the plangent improvisations of self-taught French pianist Delphine Dora.


Revelations are frequent: the bedsit isolationism of Bo Harwood and John Cassavetes’ ‘No One Around to Hear It’ (from The Killing of a Chinese Bookie); the narked minimalism of Klang (an early 2000s band formed by ex-Elastica guitarist and featuring prize-winning experimental novelist Isabel Waidner on bass); the etude-grooves and echoic wobble of below-the-radar French avant-gardists Omertà ; the beautiful, plaintively dubby ‘Is It You?’ by Slapp Happy; a psych-tinged reimagining of PiL’s ‘Poptones’ by Simon Fisher Turner (one half of Deux Filles, and here, recording for él as The King of Luxembourg) that's as perverse as the cover of Throbbing Gristle’s 20 Jazz Funk Greats.


Searchlight Moonbeam is the musical analog of an Italo Calvino novel or a medieval fable. Associative, intuitive, borderless. Emotional and mysterious. Endowed with the tactility of Braille. A private language that is both unknowable and understood. It is a record of the seasons, for the seasons.

2023 marks the tenth anniversary of Time Is Away’s first broadcast. Featuring an evocative essay by writer Jeremy Atherton Lin and disarming cover art by Penny Davenport, Searchlight Moonbeam showcases Rollo and Tierney’s still-unrivalled talent for gloaming melodies, disques du crépuscule, ensorcelled storytelling.

After its first year of existence, the young Madrid-based label Darkhorse Music takes a confident step into the physical format with "Foundation." A release that lays the groundwork for both the musical and aesthetic identity of the label, crafted by some of its most prominent members.

Tarek, Iron, Dreadmaul, and Offish are responsible for creating this intense journey with four stops through the universe of broken rhythms. Breakbeat, Jungle, Halftime, and Techstep are some of the genres that resonate between the grooves of this bomb. (ES) Tras su primer año de vida, el joven sello madrileño Darkhorse Music da un paso en firme al formato físico con "Foundation".

Un lanzamiento que sienta las bases de la identidad tanto musical como estética del sello de la mano de algunos de los mas notorios miembros del equipo. Tarek, Iron, Dreadmaul y Offish son los encargados de confeccionar éste intenso viaje de 4 paradas por el universo de los ritmos rotos. Breakbeat, Jungle, Halftime o Techstep son algunos de los géneros que resuenan entre los surcos de ésta bomba.

Good ambient will always been a comfort blanket during harsh times. Whether from a global or more personal perspective. This collection on Secrets of Sound brings together some real dons of the genre, from Mark Barrott - to Steve Roach, and sequences them into one soothing, calming trip that touches son all different sub-sound and styles from New Age to celestial. A spoken word intro from long-running ambient radio Jaroslav Kovaracek sets the scene before you're then cast adrift in supreme sonic lushness.

E23 Records is an independent label from Amersfoort that releases music moving between electro, wave, EBM, and acid—sounds that feel familiar, but not quite at ease. Each release is built with care, made to be both an object to collect and a small joke at the universe’s expense. Patterns appear where they want to, chance plays its role, and sometimes the numbers line up in ways that feel more than coincidental. Tune in, and see what reveals itself.

E23 Records launches its catalog with three dark electro transmissions from Amersfoort residents Son of 8-Bits, Mavanov, and Law Of Fives. Opening with Son of 8-Bits’ “Deliverance”, the record sets an ominous tone: heavy bass pressure and sharp machine rhythms push forward with a cold, driving pulse built for late hours. Mavanov’s “Dark Romanticism” drifts into sparse, hypnotic territory, where cold mechanics meet faint traces of emotion. Law of Fives’ “Primer” closes the trip with an urgent workout that turns rhythm into a labyrinth—metallic strikes, pulsing bass, and restless sequences coiling together, building toward moments where chaos threatens to take over but never quite does.

Together, the three cuts form a statement of intent: E001 is moody, uncompromising electro with just enough strangeness to keep the floor on edge. A first chapter that hints at many more signals to come.

Valby Vokalgruppe was initiated in 2008 by Anja Jacobsen, the Danish collective’s current line-cup is completed by Lil Lacy, Sonja LaBianca, Cæcilie Trier and Laura Marie Madsen. The group has written and performed a large number of cross-aesthetic pieces over the years, including an album Bah New Era released in 2012 on Eget Værelse.

Sharpened to its core, the group dives deep into rhythmical architectures built almost solely from the voice - think Platonic solids reimagined as sound objects. Think trance without electronics. These new compositions are compressed, sparkling forms — vocal geometries that spin, collide, and dissolve through repetition. From inside the circle: radical precision, soft dissonance, and playful intuition guide the way. The group explores the voice not as melody alone, but as material — vibrating, modulating, refracting.

Solids For Voices transcends into deep concentration calling for a clear state of mind, in recognition of an increasingly fragmented and incoherent reality. Valby Vokalgruppe endeavours a total absorption into the voice, the rhythm and the trance.

“For Today” is a timeless album—a sonic journey that seamlessly blends electronic influences, Trip-Hop, Folk, Indie Rock,
and Psychedelia.
It unfolds like an immersive soundscape, rich in complex atmospheres, experimental textures, and a deep emotional
undercurrent. Agosta has envisioned a record that transcends trends and market conventions, crafting a cinematic, soulstirring experience that fuses the intensity of trip-hop, the purity of folk, and the swirling colours of psychedelia.
The result is music that stimulates the intellect as much as it stirs the heart. With a delicate, refined touch and melodic
depth, Agosta combines contemporary sounds with vintage warmth, pairing poetic lyrics with themes of love, introspection,
and the human experience.
A standout element of “For Today” is the presence of five tracks featuring female performers and writers. This
intergenerational collaboration brings a richness of perspective and emotional range to the album. Far from a simple gesture
of gender inclusion, it serves as an authentic integration of diverse voices, offering new layers of sensitivity and storytelling.
Where Agosta’s previous work leaned more toward instrumental composition, here the inclusion of female voices adds
lyrical nuance and depth. These contributions explore themes such as love, identity, relationships, and personal liberation—
offering a poetic yet grounded lens through which to experience the album’s contemporary sound.
In essence, “For Today” is a mature and cohesive work that defies the boundaries of traditional genres, creating a unique
and resonant sonic world.
Each track explores a different emotional and musical dimension, with meticulous attention to sound design and a clear
desire for emotional experimentation. The album balances the introspective depth of trip-hop with the lightness and
spirituality of folk, weaving in modern pop elements and touches of psychedelia and groove.
The result is a compelling, emotionally charged, and genre-blending experience—one that invites listeners not only to hear,
but to feel.
An absolute must-listen!

Since his earliest days, Ben Frost has been fascinated by the cinematic qualities of the guitar. His output to this point has hinted at this, but with »Steel Wound« he makes a bold statement of intent.

Finding his way to a deserted stretch of Johanna Beach along the Great Ocean Road (Victoria, Australia) in early 2003 Frost set up a remote studio at a derelict cabin overlooking the icy waters of Bass Strait. With a constant wind flowing off the sea his only companion, Frost started work on a series of improvisations that would eventually become »Steel Wound«. A few months go by and Frost has made his way back to civilization. He begins editing the masses of treated guitar from the Johanna Beach improvisations and before long a theme takes hold - one that very much reflects the isolation of the environment where the tracks were created.

Each of the pieces on »Steel Wound« is a epic journey, coloured with a deep sense of filmic narrative and suggested dialogues. The textural quality of the works, laced with field recordings and lost vocal fragments, sketches out the emotional soundscapes Frost had unwittingly gathered during his time at Johanna Beach. Each piece is a splintered fragment in time – a forgotten memory beautifully rediscovered in a moment of introspection.

Continuing the percussive-driven and emotive themes from his previous EPs, CAIN reaches beyond the boundaries of experimental electronic and Celtic music from the Scottish Highlands. "Lineage" is the result of a life-long goal to combine his passion and experience in these respective worlds. The album includes Brighde Chaimbeul on Scottish small pipes, James Mackenzie on flute and vocals by Katie Mackenzie.

The common thread that connects his discography is the intense rhythmic and melodic elements that convey his love of ‘infectious rhythm, ethereal beauty, or an otherworldly strangeness’. His productions have garnered support from DJs like Ben UFO, Gilles Peterson, Peggy Gou, Hunee, Haai, Erol Alkan, Ame, Oneman, and Midland, amongst others. Balancing rhythmic precision with profound harmonic depth, CAIN weaves evocative builders that ignite dancefloors at peak time and reveal intricate sonic tapestries in the intimate confines of headphones.

CAIN's musical background is rooted in traditional Scottish bagpipe music, which evolved through his competitive performances on an international level. His experience and knowledge enhanced CAIN’s understanding of how regional folk music reflects specific environments and cultures. Through the competition circuit he met Brìghde Chaimbeul, out on the scenic games fields of Uist, Glenfinnan and many others. He also competed against James Mackenzie, an amazing piper and flautist. James is a former member of the band Breabach. His wife, Katie Mackenzie is a superb Gaelic singer.

The recordings with James and Katie were done on the island of Bernera, off the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides and recordings with Brìghde were made in Edinburgh.

Mastered by Sam at Precise, Design by Alexander Horne, Pressed and printed at Record Industry

Recital releases The Holy Restaurant, the new full-length album by Derek Baron, and their first solo LP since Curtain (Recital, 2020).

The album is built from years of miniature transcriptions of improvisations, functioning in many ways as a sister to Curtain. Half-thoughts and mistakes are revisited, gilded, and illuminated. The floorboards of the album are laid with piano, organ, string pads, while serrated accruements (distortions, flourishes, and recording interferences) step and drop overhead. The resulting conflux, as Baron notes in the accompanying booklet “becomes the point and the problem to explore.”

The second track “Oven Girls” opens with us galloping on a horse in some video-game meadow on a bed of MIDI strings. Abruptly, a helicopter soars over us and we transition to a latticed guitar and woodwind exploration. The album rolls on in this fashion, juxtaposing musical half-sentences within a museum of sounds rag-picked from history and daily life. Emotional interviews with Midwestern friars who build and sell caskets are set against gothic piano and guitar duets. On “Music in the Casket,” A disorienting and hilariously epic guitar solo erupts. The penultimate titular piece, “The Holy Restaurant,” sets a text written by Baron’s grandfather. A small chorus voices his words, echoing the humanistic storytelling of “Blue” Gene Tyranny’s A Letter From Home. Under sunlit piano progressions, a fleet of smokey trumpets emerges.

Running throughout the album is a series of “traces”: short melodic phrases painted over again and again with different real and MIDI instrumentation. The “luxurious asceticism of doubling” as Baron puts it. They explain, “Part of the allure for me is that the ‘original’ material is itself kind of thin, sketchy, meaningless, maybe calling attention to itself only by way of a felicitous mistake. Hearing, transcribing, and learning what was basically only ever played first on accident becomes the guiding concern.”

The album’s shifting, variegated forms and voices pass quickly; the record feels both comforting and elusive, suitable for any hour of the day.

The Holy Restaurant features guest players Ed Atkins, Lucy Liyou, Quentin Moore, Emily Martin, Dominic Frigo, Jacob Wick, and several of Baron’s family members. It is released in a limited edition vinyl pressing of 200 copies, accompanied by a booklet of effusive program notes by the composer, alongside an assemblage of photographs, scores, and artwork.

In a fusion of science and sound, Kalocain's debut vinyl release, "Genetic Memory," unfolds an eerie tale. "W.N.G." opens a portal to an ancient world, where forgotten tongues unveil cryptic secrets. "Genetic Memory" weaves ethereal connections between ancestral recollections and the present, warping the fabric of time. "Ivermectin" delves into the surreal realms of molecular melodies, as if sonic DNA deciphers sound's enigmas. Remixes from Normal 4, Patricia Kokett, and Jacques Satre reshape the auditory cosmos with a dash of the bizarre.

To amplify the weirdness, Evaldas Bubinas aka Hermandrowning, concocts mind-bending artwork, beckoning listeners into a realm where sound and art meld in uncanny harmony.

But that's not all! The digital copy unveils an additional original track, "Groove Drift," along with a wild array of remixes by Henry Greenleaf, Frankfurt Bass, and Dogpatrol.

"Genetic Memory" isn't just music; it's a transcendent odyssey blending the past, present, and the surreal future, with a digital twist that will leave you questioning the boundaries of sonic exploration.

»La Traversée« (»The Crossing«) is Matthias Puech’s second album for Hallow Ground and follows up on 2023’s »Mt. Hadamard National Park.« Profoundly inspired by re-reading »The Odyssey,« the French composer, instrument designer, and scholar used a Eurorack modular synthesizer to create four pieces that are by far the most intuitive and emotionally charged in his ever-expanding catalogue. Puech’s masterful command of sound comes to the forefront with even more urgency on this record. A wandering meditation on the human condition, »La Traversée« is an album that is constantly in motion—complex electronic music at its most gripping and evocative.

The foundation for »La Traversée« was laid when Puech prepared a live set for a tour organised in collaboration with Hallow Ground in support of »Mt. Hadamard National Park.« Before writing the first three pieces—»Ennosigaios,« »Polyphármakos,« »Nekuia«—the 18½-minute-long »Ithâké« was composed in near-total isolation in the South of France at the end of 2023. Puech performed the material live several times before taking a step black from it for a while. He revisited the pieces when preparingthem for a release. »I was struck by how the technical process and the intention behind the music had completely vanished from my memory,« he says.

What remained intact, however, was Puech’s association of the material with one of the most influential texts of Western literature. Reading a graphic novel adaptation of »The Odyssey« with his two four-year-olds, he noticed the effect that it had on them and himself. »Its themes of longing, fear of and attraction to the unknown, unresolved quests, and the struggle for control felt topical,« he says. »I was completely taken. Every story ever told seemed contained in this ancient tale; every story I have ever tried to tell as a composer seemed inscribed in this framework.« This also extended to formal motifs such as the repetition of incidents, narrative developments, or dramatic effects that also mark »La Traversée.«

Puech says that he perceived Homer’s writing as musical, »like an old Delta blues or a Renaissance counterpoint,« which inspired his writing process. »With a couple of knobs on my Eurorack system, I could control the unfolding of a story,« he notes. »This made me pass through different emotional statesand led to moments in which everything made sudden sense—when you as an artist get a glimpse atsomething essential, can touch upon something universal.« This shines through »La Traversée,« a wildly imaginative album that is deeply personal while also telling a story far more wide-reaching than that of its creator.

WRWTFWW Records presents an ultra limited (100 copies !) vinyl edition of Meemo Comma’s Decimation Of I album, originally released digitally in 2024 on Mike Paradinas' Planet Mu label. The collector’s pressing is housed in a heavyweight sleeve.
Decimation Of I is the fifth album by Brighton-based electronic musician Meemo Comma. It's a work based on the Strugatsky brothers‘ 1971 novel Roadside Picnic, a book that was also turned into the Russian cult classic Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky. The inspiration came from reading the book alongside the backdrop of global climate disasters where an environment is rapidly becoming less habitable, all while powerful nations occupy and commit genocide.

The rough story of both film and novel is about a select group of characters exploring a land that has been transformed by alien visitors. We never meet the extraterrestrials, nor is it important to, we only have the artefacts left behind. The environment itself becomes the character, neither wholly Earth-like nor alien, but a surreal blend of both, inviting introspection on our insignificance amidst profound change. Within this land’s rebirth, our characters confront ego death, a necessary step towards the profound revelation, the discovery of one's true desire in the absence of ego.

The album opens with the innocent flutes of ’They, spoke,‘ and the disorienting electronica of ‘The Soldier‘ building towards the Terry Riley like undulating clarinets of ‘The Poet’, whose intertwining synth organ drones set the scene. Nods to the seventies electronica of Wendy Carlos and Eduard Artemyev can be heard with the use of Bach melodies in ‘P3Alpha Exotoxin‘ and ‘Area X,‘ however each of these songs draw the listener to primal noise undercurrents, their disintegrating melodies hinting at humanity's gradual dissolution, unveiling profound revelations beyond our comprehension.

As the album reaches its midpoint, ‘Spectral Alignment‘ paints a hazy morning prairie scene with Aaron Copland style French horn, restful woodwinds, spatial arpeggios and a warm drone culminating in an emotional pitstop as the soldiers wake in the dewy morning of this alien landscape, unaware the last of their humanity remains.

The last sentence in Roadside Picnic “HAPPINESS FOR EVERYBODY, FREE, AND MAY NO ONE BE LEFT BEHIND!” is the inspiration for ‘As It Is Written.’ We can either take from this the total annihilation of self has been filled with propaganda from their homeland, or the epiphany of their own autonomy in the war against a land and its inhabitants.