Beats News

After years of shaping dancefloors worldwide and carefully curating the sonic and visual identity of Up The Stuss, Dutch favourite Chris Stussy presents his most expansive and personal statement to date with his debut album, ‘Lost, Found & Forgotten...’. Landing on 3rd April, the album unfolds across three interconnected chapters - ‘Lost’, ‘Found’, and ‘Forgotten’ - each revealing a different side of his creative world across 19 tracks while remaining tethered to a singular wider vision.

At its core, ‘Lost, Found & Forgotten...’ is an exploration of creative freedom. Visually and conceptually guided by the image of a kite, the album reflects movement, perspective, and balance. Floating freely yet always anchored, the kite mirrors Chris’s approach to music: unrestricted in emotion and imagination, but grounded in groove, craftsmanship, and intention. It’s a symbol that naturally extends the Up The Stuss identity; pointing skyward, embracing openness, and encouraging curiosity.

“This album has been a long time in the making, and I’m excited to finally share it with you. The process behind it - exchanging ideas with other artists and creating music outside of my comfort zone - has been an incredible experience. It gave me a true sense of freedom, allowing me to not think about boundaries or expectations. I’ve never been more proud of a project than this one. It’s deeply personal, and it represents my sound as a whole. I hope you listen with an open mind and find something in it that resonates with you.” - Chris Stussy.

The ‘Lost’ chapter opens the album by giving new life to music once left behind. These are tracks written across different moments in Chris’s journey, ideas that never quite found a home until now. Rather than relics of the past, they emerge re-discovered, refined, and fully realised. ‘

Found’ represents inspiration in motion. Sparked by collaboration, digging, and shared creative exchange, this chapter captures the moment when ideas connect, and colour floods the sky.

The album closes with ‘Forgotten’ - a nod to the deeper cuts, the B-sides, and the moments that reward patience. This chapter is for the heads and diggers; tracks that may not demand immediate attention but reveal their value over time.

Matrix Music Arhiv (MMA) are proud to announce a re-issue of the highly sought-after album 'Resistance' by the seminal Yugoslavian electronic rock band Borghesia, originally released in 1989 on Play It Again Sam/PIAS (Europe), Wax Trax (USA) and Jugoton (former Yugoslavia). Available on 2Lp, 2CD & 1MC (MC original album only). The re-issue features a carefully remastered edition along with the exclusive bonus live album "Dal Vivo A El Paso", recorded in December 1988 during their performance in Torino, Italy, on one of their European tours. This recording features very different, raw and at times 'dubbed up' versions of their early tracks such as 'Naked, Uniformed, Dead', Am I? and Him (On). The historical perfectly captures the atmosphere and energy of their live appearances at the time. Borghesia (Italian for 'bourgeoisie'), who were formed in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in 1982, had always considered its art to be far broader than just sonic. Borghesia's transgressive, transdisciplinary alloy of film expression, distinctively physical performative practices, usage of new technology and conveniently abrasive EBM (electronic body music) musical production hasn't only been ground-breaking in terms of the holistic, visual/sonic presence of an art collective, but had a rather decisive influence on the general aesthetics of the immensely important Yugoslav subcultural landscape of the 1980s. Borghesia was one of the first bands from the East of the Iron Curtain who used the VHS video medium to distribute their art and was also one of few projects from socialist Yugoslavia to successfully penetrate the curtain itself, reaching international audiences. A series of their releases in the fruitful period between the years 1987 and 1991, including the Resistance album itself, was released by the legendary Belgian label Play It Again Sam (PIAS). The band dissolved in the mid-1990s and then continued their work in 2014. In line with Borghesia's unique social engagement, progressiveness and political criticism, Resistance is one of their most powerful statements. It's the ultimate fight the power manifesto, which makes punk and hip-hop albums of the time sound like children's songs. This is not music for nodding your head to; it's tactical broadcast for the nocturnal resistance to this very day. Borghesia didn't address control only - they sampled the political top, the secret police and explicitly connected authority with dominance. The production of the album isn't clean or polished. On the contrary - Resistance sounds like it was created in a bunker, using stolen military equipment and synthesisers. Borghesia's genius lies in their understanding that the relentless, mechanical EBM beat was the sound of the State - and by hijacking it, turning the system's own rhythm against itself they created the most powerful form of sonic insurgency. And since history repeats itself while the little man learns slowly, the re-release of 'Resistance' comes at the right time. The dark clouds of violence are already looming over Europe, they've never really left the Middle East, and the levers of power and capital ever so louder, not even covertly at all incite: war, war, war! In these times the only appropriate answer is: revolt, rebel, Resistance!

Matrix Music Arhiv (MMA) are proud to announce a re-issue of the highly sought-after album 'Resistance' by the seminal Yugoslavian electronic rock band Borghesia, originally released in 1989 on Play It Again Sam/PIAS (Europe), Wax Trax (USA) and Jugoton (former Yugoslavia). Available on 2Lp, 2CD & 1MC (MC original album only). The re-issue features a carefully remastered edition along with the exclusive bonus live album "Dal Vivo A El Paso", recorded in December 1988 during their performance in Torino, Italy, on one of their European tours. This recording features very different, raw and at times 'dubbed up' versions of their early tracks such as 'Naked, Uniformed, Dead', Am I? and Him (On). The historical perfectly captures the atmosphere and energy of their live appearances at the time. Borghesia (Italian for 'bourgeoisie'), who were formed in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in 1982, had always considered its art to be far broader than just sonic. Borghesia's transgressive, transdisciplinary alloy of film expression, distinctively physical performative practices, usage of new technology and conveniently abrasive EBM (electronic body music) musical production hasn't only been ground-breaking in terms of the holistic, visual/sonic presence of an art collective, but had a rather decisive influence on the general aesthetics of the immensely important Yugoslav subcultural landscape of the 1980s. Borghesia was one of the first bands from the East of the Iron Curtain who used the VHS video medium to distribute their art and was also one of few projects from socialist Yugoslavia to successfully penetrate the curtain itself, reaching international audiences. A series of their releases in the fruitful period between the years 1987 and 1991, including the Resistance album itself, was released by the legendary Belgian label Play It Again Sam (PIAS). The band dissolved in the mid-1990s and then continued their work in 2014. In line with Borghesia's unique social engagement, progressiveness and political criticism, Resistance is one of their most powerful statements. It's the ultimate fight the power manifesto, which makes punk and hip-hop albums of the time sound like children's songs. This is not music for nodding your head to; it's tactical broadcast for the nocturnal resistance to this very day. Borghesia didn't address control only - they sampled the political top, the secret police and explicitly connected authority with dominance. The production of the album isn't clean or polished. On the contrary - Resistance sounds like it was created in a bunker, using stolen military equipment and synthesisers. Borghesia's genius lies in their understanding that the relentless, mechanical EBM beat was the sound of the State - and by hijacking it, turning the system's own rhythm against itself they created the most powerful form of sonic insurgency. And since history repeats itself while the little man learns slowly, the re-release of 'Resistance' comes at the right time. The dark clouds of violence are already looming over Europe, they've never really left the Middle East, and the levers of power and capital ever so louder, not even covertly at all incite: war, war, war! In these times the only appropriate answer is: revolt, rebel, Resistance!

Matrix Music Arhiv (MMA) are proud to announce a re-issue of the highly sought-after album 'Resistance' by the seminal Yugoslavian electronic rock band Borghesia, originally released in 1989 on Play It Again Sam/PIAS (Europe), Wax Trax (USA) and Jugoton (former Yugoslavia). Available on 2Lp, 2CD & 1MC (MC original album only). The re-issue features a carefully remastered edition along with the exclusive bonus live album "Dal Vivo A El Paso", recorded in December 1988 during their performance in Torino, Italy, on one of their European tours. This recording features very different, raw and at times 'dubbed up' versions of their early tracks such as 'Naked, Uniformed, Dead', Am I? and Him (On). The historical perfectly captures the atmosphere and energy of their live appearances at the time. Borghesia (Italian for 'bourgeoisie'), who were formed in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in 1982, had always considered its art to be far broader than just sonic. Borghesia's transgressive, transdisciplinary alloy of film expression, distinctively physical performative practices, usage of new technology and conveniently abrasive EBM (electronic body music) musical production hasn't only been ground-breaking in terms of the holistic, visual/sonic presence of an art collective, but had a rather decisive influence on the general aesthetics of the immensely important Yugoslav subcultural landscape of the 1980s. Borghesia was one of the first bands from the East of the Iron Curtain who used the VHS video medium to distribute their art and was also one of few projects from socialist Yugoslavia to successfully penetrate the curtain itself, reaching international audiences. A series of their releases in the fruitful period between the years 1987 and 1991, including the Resistance album itself, was released by the legendary Belgian label Play It Again Sam (PIAS). The band dissolved in the mid-1990s and then continued their work in 2014. In line with Borghesia's unique social engagement, progressiveness and political criticism, Resistance is one of their most powerful statements. It's the ultimate fight the power manifesto, which makes punk and hip-hop albums of the time sound like children's songs. This is not music for nodding your head to; it's tactical broadcast for the nocturnal resistance to this very day. Borghesia didn't address control only - they sampled the political top, the secret police and explicitly connected authority with dominance. The production of the album isn't clean or polished. On the contrary - Resistance sounds like it was created in a bunker, using stolen military equipment and synthesisers. Borghesia's genius lies in their understanding that the relentless, mechanical EBM beat was the sound of the State - and by hijacking it, turning the system's own rhythm against itself they created the most powerful form of sonic insurgency. And since history repeats itself while the little man learns slowly, the re-release of 'Resistance' comes at the right time. The dark clouds of violence are already looming over Europe, they've never really left the Middle East, and the levers of power and capital ever so louder, not even covertly at all incite: war, war, war! In these times the only appropriate answer is: revolt, rebel, Resistance!

Vieri Mura wuchs unter der intensiven Sonne Sardiniens auf. Seit vielen Jahren reist er in den Norden der Insel, um die berühmte Sängerin Maria Teresa Pirrigheddu (geb. 1942) zu besuchen. Was als musikalisches Interesse begann, entwickelte sich zu einer tiefen familiären Bindung. ,Rundinas" (,Schwalben" auf Sardisch), von Vieri mit tragbaren Geräten aufgenommen, dokumentiert diese Beziehung sowie die Klänge der Insel und den Rhythmus von Maria Teresas Alltag. Maria Teresa singt mündlich überlieferte ,Cantos a chiterra" zu Vieris minimalistischen Kompositionen für Gitarre (Seite A, in ihrem Garten) und Orgel (Seite B, in der Kirche, nur wenige Schritte von ihrem Zuhause entfernt). Schwalben ziehen durch die Aufnahmen, Symbole für den Wechsel der Jahreszeiten und die vergängliche Jugend. Maria Teresa, mittlerweile 84 Jahre alt, deren Stimme zugleich agil und vom Alter gezeichnet ist, verleiht diesen alten Gesängen neue Bedeutungsebenen. Eines der tief bewegendsten und mitreißendsten Musikstücke, die wir je gehört haben - aufgenommen in der Gegenwart und doch Hunderte von Jahren zurückreichend, ein musikalischer Dialog zwischen zwei Künstlern verschiedener Generationen und dem Land, das sie geprägt hat. Eine Quelle der Hoffnung und Schönheit in einer verarmten Welt.

XKatedral ist stolz darauf, ein neues Album in voller Länge von Label-Mitbegründerin Maria W. Horn zu präsentieren. ,Melting Pillars of Snow" ist eine Sammlung neuer Kompositionen der renommierten schwedischen Komponistin, geschrieben für Kontrabassblockflöte, Sho, Percussion, E-Gitarre, Gesang und Elektronik, gespielt von Horn zusammen mit einem Kammerensemble bestehend aus Anna Petrini, Mattias Hallsten, Magdalena Meitzner und Mats Erlandsson. Das Album enthält außerdem eine Erzählung von Horn sowie einen Gastauftritt von Michael Gira auf der ersten Single ,Scythe of Saturn". Für ,Melting Pillars of Snow" ließ sich Maria von W. G. Sebalds Roman ,Die Ringe des Saturn" inspirieren, einer poetischen Reflexion, die einem namenlosen Erzähler folgt, der an der Küste von Suffolk in England umherwandert. Während sich die Landschaft allmählich verändert, thematisiert der Text auf vielfältige Weise den Lauf der Zeit und die Distanz zwischen Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft und spiegelt dabei sowohl weitreichende zeitliche Maßstäbe wie die Zyklen der Jahreszeiten und die tiefe historische Zeit als auch mikroskopisch kleine Momente und Fragmente wider. Mit den Kompositionen auf dieser Veröffentlichung beschwört Maria ein ähnliches Gefühl der Stille herauf - eine Umgebung, in der die Bewegung der Zeit selbst beleuchtet und beobachtet werden kann. Das Instrumentarium auf diesem Album ist Horns bislang ambitioniertestes: Sie ergänzt ihre gewohnte Palette aus maßgeschneiderter algorithmischer Synthese und elektronischer Bearbeitung um eine komplexe Auswahl an Perkussionsinstrumenten, Blasinstrumente, die an beiden Enden des musikalischen Spektrums spielen, sowie E-Gitarre, um so einen spiralförmigen, spektralen Klangteppich durch den gesamten Frequenzbereich zu weben. Die Perkussionistin Magdalena Meizner spielt spezielle Techniken auf dem Obertondreieck, dem Dubachi, den Pauken und dem Tam-Tam sowie auf gestimmten Weingläsern und gestrichenen Crotales. Die von Anna Petrini gespielte tieftönige Kontrabassblockflöte und das von Mattias Hallsten gespielte hochfrequente Sho fügen kontrastierende Akkordarrangements hinzu, die in strengen metrischen Strukturen eingebettet sind. Das Ensemble wird durch Mats Erlandsson vervollständigt, der auf E- und Akustikgitarren spielt und dabei von sanften Arpeggio-Figuren zu düsteren Drones und Feedback-Heulern wechselt.

XKatedral ist stolz darauf, ein neues Album in voller Länge von Label-Mitbegründerin Maria W. Horn zu präsentieren. ,Melting Pillars of Snow" ist eine Sammlung neuer Kompositionen der renommierten schwedischen Komponistin, geschrieben für Kontrabassblockflöte, Sho, Percussion, E-Gitarre, Gesang und Elektronik, gespielt von Horn zusammen mit einem Kammerensemble bestehend aus Anna Petrini, Mattias Hallsten, Magdalena Meitzner und Mats Erlandsson. Das Album enthält außerdem eine Erzählung von Horn sowie einen Gastauftritt von Michael Gira auf der ersten Single ,Scythe of Saturn". Für ,Melting Pillars of Snow" ließ sich Maria von W. G. Sebalds Roman ,Die Ringe des Saturn" inspirieren, einer poetischen Reflexion, die einem namenlosen Erzähler folgt, der an der Küste von Suffolk in England umherwandert. Während sich die Landschaft allmählich verändert, thematisiert der Text auf vielfältige Weise den Lauf der Zeit und die Distanz zwischen Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft und spiegelt dabei sowohl weitreichende zeitliche Maßstäbe wie die Zyklen der Jahreszeiten und die tiefe historische Zeit als auch mikroskopisch kleine Momente und Fragmente wider. Mit den Kompositionen auf dieser Veröffentlichung beschwört Maria ein ähnliches Gefühl der Stille herauf - eine Umgebung, in der die Bewegung der Zeit selbst beleuchtet und beobachtet werden kann. Das Instrumentarium auf diesem Album ist Horns bislang ambitioniertestes: Sie ergänzt ihre gewohnte Palette aus maßgeschneiderter algorithmischer Synthese und elektronischer Bearbeitung um eine komplexe Auswahl an Perkussionsinstrumenten, Blasinstrumente, die an beiden Enden des musikalischen Spektrums spielen, sowie E-Gitarre, um so einen spiralförmigen, spektralen Klangteppich durch den gesamten Frequenzbereich zu weben. Die Perkussionistin Magdalena Meizner spielt spezielle Techniken auf dem Obertondreieck, dem Dubachi, den Pauken und dem Tam-Tam sowie auf gestimmten Weingläsern und gestrichenen Crotales. Die von Anna Petrini gespielte tieftönige Kontrabassblockflöte und das von Mattias Hallsten gespielte hochfrequente Sho fügen kontrastierende Akkordarrangements hinzu, die in strengen metrischen Strukturen eingebettet sind. Das Ensemble wird durch Mats Erlandsson vervollständigt, der auf E- und Akustikgitarren spielt und dabei von sanften Arpeggio-Figuren zu düsteren Drones und Feedback-Heulern wechselt.

Recorded in 1997, upon The Shadow Ring’s return from their final US tour, Lighthouse captures the group at their most stripped-down and visionary. Graham Lambkin’s fractured texts conjure Folkestone’s haunted coastline—Vikings, the Morgawr, a fading Britain, the pull of the sea—under the sway of Alternative TV’s Vibing Up the Senile Man (Part One), the mechanical vernaculars of Robert Ashley and Mark Perry, and the deflated humor of Dad’s Army and It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. Originally issued in 1999 on Scott Foust’s Swill Radio, this lost masterpiece—a stark, lo-fi world of home recording and concrète capture—is once again available on vinyl. For fans of Alan Titchmarsh, David Croft, Harry Pussy, and Idea Fire Company.

For their fourteenth installment, FELT look once again to their city of Copenhagen, specifically to more alumni of the Rytmisk Musik Konservatorium (Rhythmic Music Conservatory). Following soon after Ginte Preisaite’s debut for the label, this long player from Vincent Yuen Ruiz is a grand departure from Preisaite’s experimental electroacoustic pop compositions, instead offering an elegant and pensive suite of late-night, wide-eyed ambient jazz works centred on piano, double bass and percussion; “I seek a dramaturgy of restraint, where silence, space, and collective attention become structural elements of the music.” (Yuen Ruiz)

Originally forming in Copenhagen in 2019, the group's language sits at the crossroads of contemporary jazz, improvised music, and experimental sound practice and deploys a non-hierarchical collective approach. Taking harmonic cues from Bach and Ravel but expanded into a dialogue between players that is repetitive, spacious and informed by minimalism as much as ECM chamber styles, the resultant four pieces move between precise formal structural rules and spontaneous improvisation. Silence and restraint is as important a device as timbre and unity. The group are concerned with dispelling the traditional jazz trio model, e.g. three unique displays of virtuosity, instead exploring how each player may help add to the overall emotive atmosphere the use of ambient space provides. To borrow a quote regarding the hard to classify music of Czech duo Irena & Vojtěch Havlovi, this interplay strikes at times like the shadows contrasting with the light.

More intimate than Yuen Ruiz’s Le seul salut que je connaisse (2021), an album recorded with a 6-musicians ensemble, this latest album Trio continues the composer’s research and moves towards a more focused, condensed writing style and a clear statement of intent.

All music by Vincent Yuen Ruiz

Following the release of the single Maqlab, the Marseille-based duo Caïn و Muchi presents their debut full-length album Dounia دنيا.

This takes listeners on a journey through a rich tapestry of industrial gloom woven of dubstep, grime, and contemporary hip-hop. In this album, these ‘labels’ matter as much as they don’t, given the heavy mutations they undergo, in a That’s Hara Kiri fashion (RIP Sd Laika).

At the heart of this record lies a dense yet harmonious sound palette, featuring meticulous vocal processing of lead singer Vanda’s voice, which engages reflection on their shared and individual lives.

As the album progresses, the lyrics reveal layers of stress and trauma linked to colonial experience, intertwined with multiple references to North African ghost stories and legends.

The result is a resonant experience, where the wraithlike and glacial instrumentals crafted by the duo encapsulates the introspective act of witnessing the turmoil of our current world.

Shoal corrals three original solo productions into ISOTOOP’s fourth record, each demonstrating refinement of the artist’s sound and technique, finished by a fitting retelling of ‘Interlocking’ by Antony Linell.

It begins with helical hypnotism; ‘Strange Blue Knots’ drives directly forward on muscular bass, but pointillistic synthwork creates an aural illusion of a spiral aperture tightening; the landscape remains broad, but focus is drawn down to the loci of motion. All containment is blown away by the incomparable force of ‘Roxellana’. Here, the forward motion is not illusory but the irrefutable command of hurricane tailwinds. Thunder heralds full-band waves of unbridled sound, and though the rudder is surrendered to the billowing storm, no part of the weapon is directionless chaos.

Shoal’s tale concludes with ‘Interlocking’, a step back from the monstrous energy of the preceding track (anything and all would be); attention is built again on guile and quiet magnetism, commonly felt attributes throughout the artist’s repertoire. This concept of restraint as force receives a sharpening by Antony Linell, whose sonic influence is present throughout the record, like fossilised footprints. In the calm, sheltered lee of the mountain, the slope behind the wave’s punching crest, Linell’s calmer, stripped-back version feels like a fireside retelling of a myth; still full of the magnitude of the original events, the space surrounding the action is foregrounded. 

Every tale may be reduced to the same core elements: the hand; the knife it holds; vivid silence presaging the moment of action. Fitting that the tale of three parts is summarised by a fourth, wider perspective.

2025 Repress

“In stark contrast to the stress-makingly staccato assault of your average 'ardcore rave, Telepathic Fish was a wombeldelic sound-and-light bath"

Simon Reynolds (Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music And Dance Culture)

The first-ever illustrated compendium recounting the seminal underground South London ambient party that surfaced at the axis through which the likes of Ninja Tune, Warp and Rising High flowed. Telepathic Fish shared fertile waters with Megatripolis and The Big Chill, moving the early 90s London back room chill-out space into the kaleidoscopic spotlight.

Documenting the sights and sounds of South London’s seminal Telepathic Fish ambient parties. Hosted by Chantal Passamonte (aka Mira Calix - RIP), David Vallade, Mario Aguera and Kevin Foakes (aka DJ Food) - collectively named Openmind. With the help of Mixmaster Morris (The Irresistible Force) and Matt Black (Coldcut), they put on some of the earliest chill out events in London.

Rooted deep in the heart of the electronic underground they started DJing and decorating house parties or squats with mind-blowing installations and wholly idiosyncratic design, hosting the likes of Aphex Twin, Andrea Parker and Tony Morley (The Leaf Label). Within a year they were playing VIP after shows for the likes of Orbital and illegal New Year’s gatherings at the disused Roundhouse whilst guesting on Coldcut’s Solid Steel radio show on London’s KISS FM.

Whilst collaborations with legendary club nights such as Megatripolis saw them share bills with Autechre, Higher Intelligence Agency, Scanner and Global Communication, they also created their own ambient fanzine - Mindfood – to document the scene evolving around them. A 20-page history of their parties is included in the release, richly illustrated with personal photos, artwork and memorabilia from their adventures between 1992-95. The gatefold sleeve also features their Telepathic Fish logo, mirroring an original T-shirt design they sold in Ambient Soho, a record shop three of the four worked in at different times.

The selections featured here are all personal favourites that were played at the Telepathic Fish parties during the 90s. Picked and arranged by Mario, David and Kevin who combed their collections for key pieces they associate with the time and Chantal’s music tastes. Over a hundred tracks were selected, totalling nearly 11 hours of playing time, before being whittled down to the essentials by the trio, forming a snapshot of their world back in the day.

KEY POINTS:

* Features long deleted and hard to find tracks by Caustic Window (Richard D. James aka Aphex Twin), Tranquility Bass, Spacetime Continuum and Global Communication (Mark Pritchard and Tom Middleton).

• Pressed on DJ friendly double black vinyl

• Includes A 20-page history of their parties is included in the release, richly illustrated with unseen personal photos, artwork and memorabilia from the Telepathic Fish crew’s adventures between 1992-95, as well as detailed liner notes courtesy of founding members Mario Ageura and Kevin Foakes.

• Cover includes horizontal obi sticker with quote from Simon Reynolds' book Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music And Dance Culture, describing the Telepathic Fish parties' place in the dance music landscape.

• Lacquer cut by Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven Mastering

"Multila" was the third album by Finnish producer Sasu Ripatti under the moniker Vladislav Delay. It compiles the "Huone" and "Ranta" 12"EPs Ripatti released on Basic Channel's Chain Reaction label in 1999 and 2000. The album features six hauntingly murky dub ambient tracks and the impressive 22-minute techno odyssey "Huone."

More than 20 years after its original release as a full-length CD album (Chain Reaction), these iconic recordings of modern electronic music are now available again as a double vinyl edition, featuring a revised artwork by Marc Hohmann that matches the new design of the "Whisteblower" and "Entain" reissues.

"Life films us exactly. Our experience of it, though, lies beyond images and descriptions. Emotions, coming in irrational flashes, are non-figurable. We lose our little connection to them very quickly. We look for forms which promise to take us to our own experience. We construct forms with this in mind: that they can take us to meet the subconscious. Multila's construction is principled this way. Fragments of experience, moments without definition or localisation are captured within tiny fragments of time and then within one's mindspace. We can look into it and see that experience has left some of its data to us. As we receive it, again and again, we are connected and reconnected to certain indefinable moments. Both during and after its recording, Multila is a tool to learn about the unintentional states of us. It is a way to see our own emotional loops. Multila is a soundtrack for vision." - Vladislav Delay in the year 2000

First ever vinyl release of Jodey Kendrick's first album from 2007 by his +10 moniker, "Grace" was thought out with a Chicago vibe in mind in the hope that Ron Hardy might play some of it but mostly showcases Kendrick's already distinctive braindance skills. Selected by Aelfric Michael Avery from 500 tracks given by the prolific artist, each of these timeless picks was already foretelling of a budding talent on the rise. To be (re)discovered without further ado.

We’ve always been careful not to call Balmat an ambient label, because we like having the freedom to move, to drift, to morph. But with our 11th release, we turn our ears—proudly, blissfully—to a strain of ambient at its most timeless. The appropriately titled Dreams & Whispers comes from Warsaw’s Bartosz Kruczyński, who has recorded under a number of guises, Earth Trax, as well as his own name. Over the years, he’s touched upon deep house, breakbeats, acid, techno, electro, IDM, and more; often, the throughline running through a given album is simply the refusal to remain in any one place for long—well, that, and his unusually nuanced ear for harmony and texture.

Those qualities come to the fore on Dreams & Whispers, which might be the most focused encapsulation of Kruczyński’s atmospheric sensibilities to date.. Across 14 stripped-down tracks for shimmer and pulse, Kruczyński evokes overlapping styles in ambient—warm vibraphones, taut arps, massing strings, lonesome delay chains —but always with his own twist. Fitting the album’s title, the album is loosely divided into two distinct moods: The A-side, “Dreams,” is charged with subtle movement, rhythms spreading out like rings around skipped stones, while the B-side, “Whispers,” plunges into a zone of shadows and hush. The two complementary moods flow into one another like the faces of a Moebius strip, yielding an album that’s intuitively shaped and rich in emotion.

Neil McDonald's love of the outdoors is a constant feature in his music, hence his Lord Of The Isles moniker, a direct reference to the Highlands and islands of his native Scotland.

His vivid, effervescent and blissfully cinematic sound paints a soundtrack to unmade films, building imaginary worlds inspired by his childhood passion for science fiction. It is therefore no coincidence that the closing track 'Subtle Thoughts' samples the inimitable voice of Carl Sagan and is also the name of his forthcoming album on Lapsus Records.

Subtle Thoughts' is an album of sumptuous melancholic electronica that, like all his previous works, avoids being pigeonholed. In it we find ambient and IDM, but also breaks and down-tempo 4x4 beats with deep ruminations, and even passages akin to new age and Balearic. In Neil's own words, the real concept behind 'Subtle

Thoughts' is "The spaces in between. Listening to the quiet voices. Freedom of expression and being open. It also contains my hopes and fears for the future of our world, but mainly hope and love".

Subtle Thoughts' will be released on 8 December with two advance singles: 'Open Mode' accompanying the album launch on 7 October; followed by 'Return to Yourself' on 4 November.

Balmat began our journey in 2021 with the release of Luke Sanger’s Languid Gongue. Now, three years later, we turn an important corner as the Norfolk musician rejoins us with Dew Point Harmonics, the first repeat appearance on the label. Sanger’s new album feels like a natural extension of his inaugural record for Balmat: It’s a bewitching collection of esoteric synth sketches that slips unpredictably between consonant repetition, poignant melodies, and gnarled bursts of noise that catch in the ear like burrs in hiking socks.

That natural metaphor is perhaps not accidental. Despite having been composed on Sanger’s diverse array of hardware and self-written software, many of the tracks were first conceived while Sanger was hiking in a particularly wild and isolated section of the Norfolk coast. The field recording that opens the album, on “6am Beach Walk,” was taken on one of his many early-morning walks there, in which he and his dog might go for miles without seeing another soul. The album’s title was inspired by the overnight condensation covering the long marram grass in the dunes, glistening in the early light (and drenching everything coming in contact with it) before evaporating in the morning sun. Indeed, the concept of dew point—the temperature at which water vapor condenses into a liquid—feels like the perfect metaphor for Sanger’s music, in which foggy ambience is distilled into glistening quicksilver orbs, transient spheres of perfection eventually absorbed back into the atmosphere.

A shapeshifting collection of richly detailed and deeply expressive electronic miniatures, Dew Point Harmonics is both a testament to the mysteries of transformation and an invitation to get lost in the wilderness of your own imagination.

When you’re running a label, a demo occasionally comes across your desk that makes you reconsider everything you thought your label was all about. For Balmat, such was the case with this stunning album from Stephen Vitiello, Brendan Canty, and Hahn Rowe. It sounds like nothing we’ve released so far—and that very otherness opened up a whole new world of possibilities for us.

Fans of ambient, experimental electronic music, and sound art will be familiar with Vitiello, a New York native, long based in Virginia, who has collaborated with a cross-generational list of greats: Taylor Deupree, Steve Roden, Lawrence English, Tetsu Inoue, Nam June Paik, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Pauline Oliveros, and many more. On labels like 12k, Room40, and Sub Rosa, he has explored a wide range of minimalism, microsound, lowercase, ambient, improv, and other styles. But this album is something different. It may begin in ambient-adjacent territory, but it quickly veers off, and it just keeps zigzagging, taking on elements of krautrock, post-punk, dub, and the groove-heavy interplay of groups like Natural Information Society and 75 Dollar Bill.

This stylistic turn is thanks in large part to Vitiello’s choice of collaborators. “We’re coming from three different schools,” Vitiello says: “sound art, art rock, and punk rock.”

Active since the early 1980s, Rowe—a violinist, guitarist, and producer/engineer—has played with, or manned the boards for, a frankly jaw-dropping list of musicians: Herbie Hancock, Gil Scott-Heron, the Last Poets, Roy Ayers, John Zorn, Glenn Branca, Swans, Live Skull, Brian Eno, David Byrne, Anohni, R.E.M., Yoko Ono, and many more. But he might be most closely associated with Hugo Largo, a one-of-a-kind New York quartet—two basses, vocals, and Rowe’s violin—that in the late 1980s helped lay the groundwork for what would eventually become known as post-rock.

Canty, of course, is the legendary drummer of Fugazi, the visionary DC post-hardcore group, as well as Rites of Spring before them, and, currently, the Messthetics, a Dischord-signed instrumental trio with guitarist Anthony Pirog and Fugazi bassist Joe Lally.

Vitiello’s trio first collaborated on First, a 17-minute piece released on the Longform Editions label in 2023. Second picks up where the freeform drift of First left off, channeling the trio’s exploratory energies into more intentionally structured tracks and—in a real first for Balmat—some almost shockingly muscular grooves. “Sometimes my projects are more conceptually driven,” Vitiello says, “but I think this was more musically geared. I just wanted to open up the references and bring in an incredible drummer, bring in some melodies, and I’m sort of the center.” But his collaborators, he stresses, are “vastly creative in making anything I might suggest better.”

Like its predecessor, Second took shape in phases, shifting between improvisation and collage. Vitiello laid down the skeleton of the music at home, sketching out initial ideas on Rhodes keyboard and acoustic and electric guitar; he then fed the parts through samplers and his modular system, recording 10- or 20-minute jams. Once he had edited them into more structured forms, he hit the studio with Canty, who added not just drums but also bass and piano; finally, Vitiello took the results of those sessions to Rowe, who played violin, viola, electric bass, and 12-string acoustic and bowed electric guitar, and assisted in some of the final structuring and mixdown.

A few more surprises along the way: Reanimator’s Don Godwin, the studio engineer where Vitiello recorded with Canty, contributed what he calls “resonant dustpan”; and none other than Animal Collective’s Geologist, who just happened to be in the studio that day, sits in on hurdy gurdy on “Mrphgtrs1,” the album’s gorgeous, stunningly atmospheric drone closer. “I love these chance encounters,” Vitiello says. “Somebody I admire, a group I admire—that was an unexpected gift.”

An unexpected gift is a great way of describing Second as a whole: three veteran musicians venturing outside their usual zones and finding a new collaborative language together. The results can’t be neatly slotted into any given genre; they belong not to any given category, but to the spirit of conversation itself.

Two years after he first appeared on Balmat with 1977, Mike Paradinas returns with 1979. The sense of continuity between the two records is clear, and not just from their titles. Both capture the Planet Mu head venturing into the wilderness, seeking something—half-formed memories, thoughts caught in midair—in some of the most abstract, searching music he has released.

Just like 1977, 1979 surveys a synth-heavy array of ethereal soundscapes, ominous crevasses, and strange, psychedelic fugues. Like its predecessor, the new album’s atmospheric cast sets it apart from much of the work Paradinas has released as μ-Ziq on Planet Mu. It’s not strictly an ambient record, but it’s close, as close as this famously mutable artist ever comes to inhabiting a particular genre.

Paradinas’ inspiration for the record began on visits to the Spanish cities of Ávila and Majadahona, where his family hails from. That might account for the sense that there are spirits flitting through this music, presences you can intuit if not quite grasp. But 1979 is also a record to meet on your own terms, and to find your own meanings in.

It’s a stunning record, every track a world unto itself: the mysterious contours of “Majadahonda at Dawn”; the playful melodic fillips of “Clari”; the airy melancholy of “Galletas”; the full-scale breakbeat abandon (yes, you read that right) of “Houzz 14,” the rarest of dancefloor detours for Balmat. There are echoes of classic braindance and isolationist ambient and golden-age IDM; there are easter eggs and recurring themes and hidden symmetries. Every time we listen, we discover something new. Despite what the title might suggest, it’s less a trip back in time than a portal to another universe, a destination for(to?) which only Mike Paradinas knows the exact coordinates. – Philip Sherburne, Balmat

"Music to be heard with ears. Through and through. Over and over. No coherence or meaning. A slow rotating dial of information. In and out of focus between benches, beams, buffs, busses, butter, bars, bees, bumps, beens and boons. Luminous eyes around a small fire. Waiting for something to happen. These two movements. With 10 eyes divided onto 6 faces. Making small sounds as they roll clockwise. Then over the table... stumbling into everyday ghosts"

2026 Repress

Ezra Feinberg's third album Soft Power sees the composer-guitarist enlist an impressive array of fellow musicians including Mary Lattimore, David Moore (Bing & Ruth), Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Robbie Lee and share the life affirming lead single 'Future Sand'.

Defined by its abundance of melodies, repeating figures and ecstatic improvisations, Soft Power exudes an enlightened and transformative spirit to empower the listener. Feinberg, a practising psychoanalyst and former founding member of the San Francisco psychedelic collective Citay (Dead Oceans / Important Records) resides in the artistic enclave of upstate New York's Hudson River valley. Initial recordings emerged in the late summer of 2020, before added synthesis with collaborator John Thayer (Arp, Sunwatchers) during early 2021. Soft Power follows previous albums 'Recumbent Speech' (2020) and 'Pentimento and Others' (2018).

Feinberg artfully transcends the listener to an enriched place, his compositions distinguished by the deep humanity that lies at their core, plugging the listener into a state of wide eyed being, open and alive. Soft Power then is Ezra's own mantra but also one of power giving - a colourful catharsis translated into music.

Feinberg's music always speaks to the listener, but Soft Power, in whispering, speaks loudest.

"Much like everyday life, I wanted to convey these very plain, simple, tranquil, nearly quotidian aspects, but each piece contains this arc in which that form expands, is broken out of, so what starts out like a painting of flowers in a seaside motel turns into a riot of color and sound, or you feel slipped into a dream that feels like it could go on forever"

Limen brings together two artists whose musical paths converge around a shared sensitivity to listening, resonance, and the evocative power of sound.
Recorded at Ritmo e Blu Studio during a five-day residency between spring and summer 2025, the album emerged from a series of spontaneous encounters free from predetermined structures. The pieces preserve their original form, retaining the immediacy and temporal flow of the dialogues as they first unfolded.
Subsequent interventions were conceived not as revisions, but as an exploration of the open spaces already present within the recordings—deepening what remained unspoken and extending resonances without altering the music's natural evolution.
The title, derived from the Latin word for “threshold,” reflects the nature of the project itself: a place of passage between improvisation and composition, silence and vibration, memory and imagination. Limen inhabits a suspended territory where listening becomes an experience of openness, presence, and transformation.
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Lino Capra Vaccina
Lino Capra Vaccina is one of the most distinctive voices in Italian experimental music. A percussionist, composer, and pioneer of minimalist and meditative sound practices, he first emerged in the early 1970s as a founding member of the influential group Aktuala, whose visionary fusion of ancient traditions, improvisation, and contemporary research anticipated what would later become known as world music.
Over a career spanning more than five decades, Vaccina has cultivated a unique artistic language centred on vibration, resonance, and the transformative power of sound. His landmark 1978 album Antico Adagio remains a touchstone of European minimalism, while his collaborations have included figures such as Franco Battiato, Juri Camisasca, Markus Stockhausen, Keith Tippett, Paolo Tofani, and many others.
Whether working with percussion, piano, electronics, or voice, Vaccina's music seeks a state of suspension and contemplation. His compositions unfold as immersive sonic environments whereancient echoes and contemporary sensibilities meet, inviting listeners into an experience that is at once intimate, spiritual, and timeless.
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Luca Formentini
Luca Formentini is an Italian composer, sound artist, and improviser whose work unfolds at the intersection of experimentation, atmosphere, and deep listening. Active since the late 1990s, he has developed a highly personal language in which guitar, voice, field recordings, and electroacoustic processes become tools for exploring memory, perception, and the expressive potential of sound itself.
His music resists easy categorization, moving freely between ambient, contemporary composition, improvisation, and sound art. Throughout his career he has released numerous solo works and collaborated with a wide range of internationally acclaimed musicians, including Holger Czukay, Robert Rich, Markus Stockhausen, Steve Jansen, Theo Travis and Steve Lawson.His recordings have appeared on labels across Europe, Asia, Australia, and the United States.
Rooted in a practice of attentive listening and sonic exploration, Formentini creates evocative musical landscapes that invite reflection rather than certainty, opening spaces where silence, texture, and resonance become as meaningful as melody itself.

maya ongaku has always been searching for what exists just beyond the edge of perception. Since forming in the seaside towns surrounding Enoshima, the trio has followed a path guided less by intention than intuition, allowing songs, ideas, and experiences to emerge through a process they describe as 自然発生 (shizen hassei), spontaneous occurrence. Nothing Space Music is the deepest expression of that philosophy to date.

Written in the aftermath of several years of international touring, the album emerged from a growing desire to reconnect with silence. As stages became larger and the world around them moved faster, the band found themselves drawn toward the quieter spaces beneath it all. What began as a reflection on stillness & silence eventually expanded into the idea of "Nothing Space". To realise the album, maya ongaku created an entirely new environment for themselves. Near a seaside shrine in their hometown, the trio transformed a large soundproof building into Nothing Space Studio, a space built specifically around the needs of this record.

Nothing Space Music: a meditation on presence, perception, and the possibility of rediscovering the world through attentive listening.

Forgotten electronic treasures by composer Ton de Leeuw rediscovered: first release in the Dutch Oscillation Series

Dutch Oscillation Series (DOS) proudly announces the release of a box set featuring the complete electronic works of Ton de Leeuw (1926–1996). This publication marks the first instalment in a new series that brings the history of Dutch electronic music to life for a broad audience. The official presentation will take place on Saturday, 12 September, during the Gaudeamus Festival for contemporary music in Utrecht.

Unique discoveries from the archive. For far too long, twentieth-century Dutch electronic music has remained hidden away in dim archives, only occasionally accessible under optimal conditions. Many compositions have not been heard for decades, perhaps after being presented to an audience only once. For this project, the original tapes were carefully traced in basements and archives, including the mysterious work Chronos, which was rediscovered in the collection of the Netherlands Music Institute (NMI). Even close collaborators of De Leeuw were unaware of the existence of Chronos. Another highlight of this release is the radiophonic oratorio Job (1956), which was awarded the Prix Italia radio prize by broadcaster Rai.

The recordings were digitised by experts at the Institute of Sonology and the Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid (Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision). The music was then meticulously restored and mastered in the studio of Jos Smolders (EARLabs), in accordance with modern standards, while strictly adhering to the composer’s original artistic intentions.

The edition includes eight works composed between 1956 and 1982. The collection is released as a deluxe LP and CD box set and is also available via streaming and as high-resolution downloads. For an optimal listening experience, originally four-channel works such as Elektronische Studie (Electronic Study) and Antiphonie (Antiphony) are available as special Dolby Atmos downloads, allowing listeners to experience at home the unique spatial sound world envisioned by Ton de Leeuw.

About Ton de LeeuwTon de Leeuw was one of the most influential Dutch composers of the twentieth century. A thinker with a distinctly cosmopolitan outlook, he immersed himself deeply in musical cultures from India, Japan, and Indonesia, among others. His work consistently sought to bridge Eastern and Western musical traditions and concepts.

In addition, De Leeuw enjoyed a distinguished academic career. He served for many years as senior lecturer and director at the Amsterdam Conservatory and was affiliated as a senior research fellow with the University of Amsterdam. His book Muziek van de twintigste eeuw (Music of the Twentieth Century) remains a standard reference work.

13 Jahre nach seinem letzten Longplayer "Drukqs" (2001) veröffentlicht Aphex Twin sein mit Spannung erwartetes neues Album "Syro", das mit einer fantasievollen Outdoor- und Online-Teaserkampagne häppchenweise kommuniziert wird. Musikalisch bietet der Aphex Twin elektronische Abstraktion in Perfektion. Glasklarer, präziser Sound, technisch auf dem neuesten Niveau, teils superfunky, immer hochintensiv. Es folgt dem Überraschungsrelease des bislang unveröffentlichten Albums "Caustic Window", das dieses Jahr Millionen von Klicks und über 100.000 US-Dollar per Crowdfunding und Auktion einsammeln konnte.

2026 Repress

To be far ahead of your time sometimes means that you have to wait a while for the right moment to be understood. The visionary approach of multi-instrumentalist Johnny Lamas led him to experiment with a world of hybrid jazz-funk, ambient and electronic sounds while keeping the rhythms of Venezuelan traditional music alive. From 1993 to today, small recognition has grown into true admiration for this so specific sound and his "Danza Cósmica" masterpiece.

TrueClass Records are pleased to present as their second release a complete restoration of this gem, beautifully remastered and redesigned, making it available now for the first time in fine audio quality on vinyl and digital formats.

Anthony Linell's Lundin Oil project suggests a politic and an aesthetic in one swift movement. We may make certain deductions about each, but we must work backwards from where they meet.
 
Through the brutalising industrial mechanisms to which titles cryptically allude, we are given an exponentially urgent image of devastation. This is projected, pitch-perfectly, into a rapacious and erosive aural demonstration that barely meet metrical demands.
 
Exploit Divisions, the first Lundin Oil release since 2016, redoubles this threatening realisation. The album pivots between seismic static waves and jagged rhythmic noise, seeking a wider vantage with melodic drone ensembles. A ferocious departure from his primary work, Exploit Divisions is a purposeful reminder of the savagery of brevity.


Recorded by Anthony Linell in Sofia, Sweden 2022-2024
Visual by AL
Mastered by Giuseppe Tillieci at EnissLab, Rome

Night is about to fall, the day slowly fades away, and it is this twilight time that Magda Drozd’s latest album inhabits. Divided by Dusk carries the promise of a crepuscular otherworldliness. Inspired by Drozd’s stays in Japan, its rich tradition in ambient and experimental music and a collaboration with Japanese flutist Rai Tateishi, as well as a renewed engagement with her roots in Poland and its folk and ancient history, her work is a form of sonic excavation. Layers of dark-ambient tones intertwine with field recordings, textured violin, and luminous folk motifs, invoking long-gone, unspecified rituals.

The album freely interprets traditional folklore, unleashing those ghosts of past cultures we inherit through music that has been passed down to us. Paired with experimental ambient sonic textures, the album carries a magnificent, wandering, melancholic air. The compositions take on an incantatory dimension, welcoming us into a liminal world—one filled with buried treasures.

Radically exploratory, Raphael Loher’s Figuren is an album shaped by process and experimentation. Guided by intuition, listening, and a deliberate distancing from his primary instrument—the piano—, the LP marks a decisive step in the Swiss pianist and composer’s artistic development, expanding his sonic vocabulary while maintaining a distinct and personal language.

Figuren draws on ten intimate concert recordings from Keemuun—Loher’s debut for Three:four Records—created during the pandemic and performed in his studio for just one or two listeners. This source material was subsequently developed during a residency in the Blenio Valley, where Loher deconstructed melodic elements, isolated individual tones, and extracted resonances, reassembling them into new configurations. The process generated around 30 initial pieces and also informed his sophomore album, Hug of Gravity, released by Hallow Ground in 2025.

In a further stage of transformation, Loher processed these fragments through a Revox B77 tape machine, subtly altering their pitch before digitizing and reshaping them once again. This iterative cycle of manipulation and recombination forms the core of Figuren’s sonic language.

Departing from the more structured frameworks of his earlier work, Figuren foregrounds experimentation as both method and aesthetic. The compositions range from finely layered rhythmic microstructures to sparse, evolving melodic fragments, each unfolding with a precise sense of restraint.

"Northern Electronics presents ’The Vanity Project’, the new LP by Vanity Productions.
Like a fractured reflection, images appear distorted and incomplete. A series of fragments revealing influences, methods, and decisions where life and work remain inseparable. Moving through the residual noise of contemporary media space, Christian Stadsgaard draws from social media remnants, dark web transmissions, and untreated human sound.
These elements are processed through noise electronics and tape manipulation, collapsing source and signal. ’The Vanity Project’ is constructed as a dense, uneven surface. A collage of found sound, environmental interference, and emotional residue. The result carries Vanity Productions’ characteristic melancholy, Nordic restraint, and accumulated debt, forming a quiet but insistent tale of romance and reflection from the source.”
Album credits:
All music recorded by Christian Stadsgaard in Copenhagen, Denmark 2025
Mixed by Christian Stadsgaard and Malthe Fischer
Mastered by Giuseppe Tillieci at EnissLab, Rome
Photos by Christian Stadsgaard
Collage by Anthony Linell
Sound contributions by Shredded Nerve, Jackson-Pratt, Ashley C, Hannes Norrvide, Malthe Fischer, Daniel Svanberg Bøtcher, Vagn Olsson, Yuri Umemoto, Lise Westzynthius, Qiuyao Ning, Peter Peter, Government Alpha and Merzbow – A big thank you to everyone involved.
“The Vanity Project” was kindly supported by KODA kultur, Copenhagen.

Fabricated and refined over the last few years, 'Cicada Burnt' is Leo's most kinetic offering to date, a suite of freewheeling percussive experiments that situate themselves furtively in the murky musical backdrop of northern England. Each track crackles and pulses with rust-caked post-industrial energy, shifting, shaking and convulsing from Sheffield through Rochdale all the way to Salford, merging hallucinatory polyrhythms with grimy bassline memories, overdriven D&B rasps with dembow syncopations and squelchy acid sequences with eerie cybernetic pads. 'Cicada Burnt' is, at its core, vintage electro for dancers, shaped from the remnants of 16-step drum machine cycles and neck-snapping two-note basses, but Leo works into that raw material by hand with the benefit of time and distance, tweaking and twisting the rhythms to blur the line between a spectrum of overlapping club expressions.

Leo's third album proper, the record follows a run of infamous deployments for Manchester's YOUTH and Tom Boogizm's $hotta Tapes that have already established him as a skilled sound designer who's able to bolt from spiky hardcore to Drexciyan techno without breaking a sweat. And 'Cicada Burnt' materialized as he sharpened his live set, playing routinely at cult Manchester institutions The White Hotel, N/OM and Impiety Hour (fka Peste) against visuals from Sean Clarke, who also handles the album's artwork. It's this context that lends the album its dynamic energy; long before Leo established himself as a producer he was a drummer, and there's a similar dexterity to his structures as twitchy sequences evolve into impromptu fills and veer off the expected grid. Live electronic music is too often bogged down by lofty concepts and technical limitations, so Leo beds the bullshit, zeroing in on the groove itself.

He unhurriedly presents his raw sounds on 'Qwershape', stressing swinging hits and doom-y bass smacks that echo through recent history. Filling the negative space with dubwise feedback trails and prickly melodic remnants, Leo establishes a tableau where rhythm is confidently in the foreground. And that mood is only cultivated further on 'Jetti', via a roll of unstable syncopated kicks and fractal Detroit-via-Sheffield pads that Leo smudges almost beyond recognition, creating a mercurial feet-forward techno hybrid that breathes damp Northern air. The title track meanwhile singles out D&B's most ominous qualities, retaining the retching distortion while rejecting the usual aggression. But it's on the two 'Spirit Level' tracks that Leo really gets to flex, using the slow-burning prescript to establish his unexpected Ligeti-like theme before introducing a whirring, constantly-shifting rhythm that bends in on itself like a möbius strip.

It closes an album that ties the UK's complex club music narrative in knots without ever ripping it from its roots. And at a time when the scene is being transformed and co-opted by malign gentrifying forces hell-bent on cheap nostalgia, 'Cicada Burnt' serves as a timely reminder of the lively and eccentric working class dancehalls and nightclubs where it all began.

Weirdos Inc. share five chuggy heaters from Glaswegian via London producer Adam Low, aka Pigeon Steve. Leave Some Trace traverses a cinematic palette across five tracks. Euphoric acid, palmy Balearic touches, prog heavy nods to Goa trance. All fused influences shape an original and unique take on club music primed for a proper basement session. Perfect material for any dancefloor moment.

Adam Low has been turning heads over the last couple of years with his DJ sets and finely dialled productions. This EP spins our heads a full 360 on itself. This marks Weirdos’ first release of the year. Hope you enjoy.

It's fair to say Malta's Sound Synthesis is associated with spacey, acid-flecked electro. But here, on his first album for Gated, a deep vein of old-school influenced breaks comes to the fore.

The infectious acid lines are ever-present - the hands-in-the-air breakdowns, the rolling basslines - but this is a different side to Keith Farrugia's prolific output that brings in influences from ambient to downtempo to bassbin-worrying bangers.

Take opener Ambient Talk, which kicks into life with skittish drums, or the woozy vocal-led All Night, which makes sharp use of the Amen break, as does album highlight 90s Chords.

Yes there are classic Sound Synthesis melodies throughout these nine tracks, but there's also a darker side, exemplified by the aptly-named 140BPMadness, which showcases Farrugia at his most ferocious.

"Walking On Rubber Eggshells" is Yanik Soland's second release on Futura Resistenza. It is a seven-track journey through bowed koto, flutes, and modular synths, essentially Japanese court music if it had a late-night fever dream, filled with strange characters and ghosts on repeat. The album also serves as the backbone for his solo show at Kunsthaus Baselland, Switzerland, opening in September 2026.

Quiet, from the Latin quies, evokes a state of being still. In its verb form, quiet means to clear so that something can gradually come into focus. Kind Stranger by Amedeo Cappelletti is where quiet materializes in a more transient, even foreign, way. Each track takes a step back from noise, borne out of a slow return to music, a different pace, and a familiar place left behind for years.

Kind Stranger, released on Aurora Edition on July 24th, is about the strangeness of a return. Cappelletti's melodic scores work their way between faint noise and disquiet, and sonically muse upon the familiar. That is, when given enough time and distance, the familiar can become unrecognizable, demanding stillness to resituate oneself within it.

The album began taking shape when Cappelletti performed at Aurora Edition at Silent Green, just after he had returned to music following a three-year hiatus. In one month, he wrote forty-five minutes of new material from scratch. Then Cappelletti left Berlin after eight years and returned to the Tuscan countryside where he had grown up, back into slowness.

The album develops as an atmosphere in the truest sense. Resampled voices, found sound, and years of sound design practice converge as compositions form by overlapping texture with spatial depth. Kind Stranger cultivates a quietude that envelops the listener.

Vocal recordings made with Matthew Walsh and Sarah McInerney, collaborators Cappelletti met by chance in a Berlin ice cream shop, appear throughout the album like a current, shaped during a residency at MONOM, Berlin's spatial sound institute. Thematically, the record moves through digital addiction, fragmented attention, and the grief of work done in the darkness.

Kind Stranger is an offering to whoever finds themselves here within the quiet, in this particular quality of sound between return and lingering.

Home is a powerful concept with an abstract definition. This solo album takes those subjective ideas and unifies them under one roof. Evolving from Jerve’s #dailypiano posts in 2019, ‘The Soundtrack of My Home’ relays thoughts and improvisations that trace his journey from childhood home to adult and now, father. Nurturing a mood or feeling, each song begets a sonorous story of someone close to him, expressed through the language of piano playing.

Jerve makes use of his hands as a human step sequencer, often programming two or more motifs of varying lengths in a polymetric fashion. These melodic patterns and arpeggios evolve at varying rates but grow around clear progressions with standard 8-bar forms.

The first track - ‘Kjetil’ enters with an earnest, gentle and endearing character - like a young river near its source. As with such a river, it will grow to varied sizes throughout the album but must begin as a humble expression from the source. The following titles sketch his interpretations of the people that have made up his home.

There is a theme across the album that unites the songs, so much so that differentiating tracks can at times be difficult. Though, Jerve punctuates this overarching mood with a few distinct structures, as found in tracks ‘Karoline’ (wife), ‘Espen’ (brother) and ‘Sven’ (father). ‘Turid’ (daughter) and ‘Jon Eirik’ (brother) seem less directive and welcome more intrigue, reminiscent of a curious child wandering through the dappled light of a forest.

‘Iben’ (daughter) and ‘Eivor’ (daughter) have a hypnotic, three-pointed melodic structure that leaves the listener suspended; transfixed - while ‘Sussi’ (cat) carries unique momentum and suitably feline autonomy. ‘Mette’ (mother) has a mood of ascending, like that of a child's upward gaze at their maternal carer. Utterly nuanced in structure, Jerve leaves ample space for subjective interpretation and allows the listener to weave their own life into the tones.

As expected from the founder of Dugnad rec - this album signifies a deeply personal sentiment. Sometimes we are forced to confront the music and other times, we are left to wonder. Here, we find a balance and unity that allows little thoughts and worries to drift away, bringing us warmly to rest in the present. The LP edition's bonus track features producer/performer extraordinaire Stian Balducci, drawing a line to the next chapter of piano-based music from Dugnad rec: TOKYO TAPES: PIANO RECYCLE.

Last Year's Altered Mind Opus, Sapa Inca Delirium, Showcased The Cyclist At His Most Eclectic, Spanning Ayahuasca Break-beat And Rave Jungle Pop, But His Latest Ep Returns To The Uniquely Kinetic And Shredded Mode Of Churning Electronic Rhythm He Both Named And Perfected: 'tape Throb.' Alabaster Thrones Collects Four Of Andrew Morrison's Recent And Most Vibrantly Blasted House Constructs, Tracked At His Home Studio In Birmingham, Uk During 'the Height Of Mania - A Time When I Had No Time.' The Context Translates: This Is Urgent, Accelerating Music, Shifting Gears At High Speed In Dim Twisting Tunnels. The Title Is 'a Deflation Of Grandiosity' Cribbed From Ulysses ('...a Noble Race, Rulers Of The Waves, Who Sit On Thrones Of Alabaster, Silent As The Deathless Gods'), Though Morrison's Meaning Is More Personal: 'it's A Reminder To Level Yourself And Think Of All Those Around You.' A Captivating Capsule Of Ravaged Forward Motion For A Ravaged Forward-moving Age. Mastered By Eric Hanson. Design By Britt Brown.

Born from a profound devotion to the piano and a reverence for the organic flow of life, byt’ surprises listeners by presenting paths of sand, a remarkable creation by Amsterdam- based composer xico, offering sound and soul to those willing to listen beyond the surface.

Through the magic of experimentation, xico captured the fleeting beauty of the muse of improvisation, as described by Nachmakovich, transforming the ephemeral into something lasting. Performances recorded on the same old piano during the 2023 Kaalstaart Festival in the Netherlands have since evolved into a fully realized work.

A journey of nearly three years of dedicated silence that began with Telva’s intuitive recognition of xico’s voice, starting with an invitation to her radio show and blossoming into a captivating fascination with what unfolded. This process led to the art of shaping the selected live recordings into a collector’s item, now materialized as a limited edition of 200 pressed vinyl copies, forever remaining as an artistic memento.

paths of sand unfolds as an intimate reflection of music’s ability to hold what cannot be held, to speak what cannot be said, and to embody what can never be described.