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2026 Repress

Oblique Records returns with its fourth vinyl-only instalment, Oblique 004, delivering a unique selection of groove-laden house and tech house cuts infused with UK garage flair. This VA release features standout contributions from Velvet Velour, Eli Atala, and Mtty, each offering a unique blend of rolling rhythms and infectious energy. From deep, bass-driven textures to crisp percussive elements, Oblique 004 is a freshly squeezed VA of club tools ready to perk up the dancefloor.

2024 Repress

Often the best music gets made when people get out of their comfort zone and venture into new territory. That is what I felt listening to these tracks from Ukrainian veteran Alexander Pavlenko. He has a long history in drum 'n bass as Sunchase, and as Na Nich, you might have heard him on Rhythm Buro or Semantica, but this release reveals another side of him that we haven't heard before.

The Karpati EP kicks off with "Manipulation". A rolling sub and punchy drums propel the track's momentum forward and make it dancefloor-ready. The sounds on top take inspiration from multiple genres for a track that finds a perfect balance between the deeper sides of both house and techno.

Next up is "Still There", a stripped deep house tune where filtered percussion, pads and vocals alternate each other, flowing in and out of focus.

Title track "Karpati", a hypnotic techno track, takes inspiration from the mountain region in western Ukraine, the melody reflecting a similar beauty as the Carpathian nature. Add Na Nich's expert sound design on top, and the result is a deep and captivating trip.

"Morning Habit" rounds up the EP by slowing things down for a dubbed out house cut. Chords playfully bounce over the beat for a tune suitable for either the early or very late mornings.

2023 Repress

New Oblique!

A different vibe from CRAIG ALEXANDER. A new twist on a old classic with "GROOVE YOUR BODY.""WELCOME HOME" provides a funky 2-Step beat with melodic chord progressions, while "SHORT CUTS" reminds us of a movie soundtrack. transformed into a house excursion.

Oblique returns with a highly personal project: 3 tracks from (or with) friends who all helped create/inspire/influence the sound of the label.

Ivano Tetelepta, Roger Gerressen and Ben Buitendijk already had loads of jam sessions when suddenly "Dilated Pupils" happened. It launched a project that consists of spontaneous studio jams in various formats (involving a dozen of befriended artists on multiple EP's, remixes and even an label). Six years later the original track, after which the project was named, will finally see the light of day!

Bas Amro's "Languor" shows that he, besides having an ear for reimagining classics, can also do his own ,)

Cyspe's "Reminisce" more than deserves the full B-side to close the EP off. A stunning 14 minute trip through the depths of what this incredibly talented producer has to offer!

2024 Repress

Rotterdam based artist ''Ben Buitendijk'' has been around for quite a while now. With a string of releases of labels such as ''Ogun Records'', ''Eshu Records'' and appearances on the mighty ''Field Records'', the time has come for Ben to launch his own imprint. Inspired by the city of Rotterdam and his love for anything architectural, Oblique was founded. A label that is designed to cater to Ben's vision on the overall electronic landscape and to display his love for well thought out drum patterns with dense long-stretched builds and strained atmospheres.

''Venomous EP'' comes in a package of three extended techno cuts with a certain corresponding theme. As the title might suggest, all cuts have a certain
touch of hazardousness to them.

''Black Mamba'' is best explained as the experience of poison slowly creeping through one's veins and leaving an irreversible trail of destruction.

''King Cobra'' feels more boisterous than it's predecessor. Again, a long repetitive build keeps on changing into a slightly psychotic state of being while razor-sharp bits of synthesis tickle the listeners brain like when undergoing acupuncture.

''Stingray'' is the final cut of this first ''Oblique'' effort. Whilst maintaining the corresponding ''Venomous'' theme, the last endeavour is a thumping outcry of muscular drums, a ponderous bass shot, and haunting pad sounds that together create a dystopian character. As an extra, Ben has thrown in an ominous locked groove that should be useful in adventurous club settings.

Black Truffle is pleased to welcome free jazz legend Joe McPhee back to the fold with Oblique Strategies, a wild trio recorded in Antwerp in 2018 in the company of Mette Rasmussen’s fire-breathing alto saxophone and Dennis Tyfus’s post-Fluxus antics on tape, voice, and percussion. Rasmussen and Tyfus have previously recorded together as Bazuinschal, and some similar strategies are on display here: mysterious metallic scrapes, extended tones in which voice and sax become indistinguishable, comic explosions of varispeed tape. With McPhee on board, however, proceedings are more sumptuous, with the two horns moving fluidly from expeditions into the extremes of their instruments’ registers to pointillistic note-splatter and Ayler-esque folk melodies; we even get to bask in some of the slow-motion free blues that McPhee has now been playing for half a century. McPhee is heard primarily on tenor, Rasmussen mainly on alto, but with Rasmussen doubling on sundry objects, and the whole trio contributing vocals, certainty about who is doing what becomes nigh impossible.

The recording and production add to this hazy unclarity. Where much contemporary improvised music aims at dryly clinical hi-fi, the lively reverberant space of Oblique Strategies calls to mind the less-than-pristine sonics of classic free jazz artefacts like John Tchicai’s Afrodisiaca or McPhee’s own Underground Railroad. A further dimension of oblique unpredictability is added by subtle changes in the sense of space: at times merely a reverb tail glimpsed between phrases, at other points the whole mix seems to be momentarily swallowed up in slap-back, blurring the lines between acoustic instruments and the decayed fidelity of Tyfus’ tape playback. Spread across four pieces ranging from four to nineteen minutes in length, Oblique Strategies moves with anarchic swagger from explosions of clattering cymbals and bellowing horns to near-silent episodes of mysterious rumble and clunk. ‘Death or Dinner?’ opens the record with a lovely duet of climbing melodic patterns shared between the two saxophones, played with a buzzing oboe-like tone. A long, wavering note sung by Tyfus cues the first of countless changes of direction, eventually leading to a crescendo of watery splutters and duelling saxes. At points Tyfus’ keening resemble the signature moves of his friend and collaborator, Ghédelia Tazartès; at others, his tape-sped huffs and puffs possess a rawness reminiscent of Henri Chopin or Gil Wolman. The dialogue between wailing saxophones and vocal cries, punctuated by percussive thuds and crashes, can at times feel less like a musical performance and more like the calls of some mysterious forest creatures, possessing a primordial energy that might remind some listeners of the outdoor antics of Brötzmann and Bennink’s Schwarzwaldfahrt.

Oblique Strategies can also be delicate at times, as on the beautiful third piece, ‘Destilled Edible’, dominated by a slow, microtonal melody played with a breathy tone resembling a shakuhachi. The closing side-long ‘Light My Fire’ ranges across classic improv call and response, skittering trumpet blurts, inept cymbal clatter, mock-operatic vocals, and crude tape manoeuvres. Momentarily pausing at the ten-minute mark for an interlude of ghostly room sound and crackling texture, its closing moments unfurl a glorious dual saxophone finale, the almost epic tone subtly undermined by Tyfus quietly tapping out swing rhythms. Arriving in a striking sleeve adorned with Tyfus’ drawings, Oblique Strategies is an invigoratingly free-spirited blast of improvisation.
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2023 Repress

The Hague based producer ''Deniro'' is responsible for the 3rd installment in the ''Oblique Music'' series. This time around the 12'' consists of 4 club cuts that all showcase a different ambiance throughout. Label owner Ben Buitendijk is carefully curating the sound for his recently established imprint and Deniro's (extinct) Penguin inspired package definitely matches with the label's previous escapades. ''Kairaku 1'' is a dubbed out whirlwind which uses emotive drum patterns and hazy reverbs that blend together in the most perfect way and cause for a inspiring atmosphere to occur instantly. ''Kairaku 2'' is a more classic sounding cut which maintains originality through ''Deniro's'' signature drum patterns and the constantly changing chords that make this effort one of the more special ones. The B side opens up with ''Kairaku 3''. This is again a dubbed out cut that is drenched with percussive sounds that would suit perfect in the more adventurous settings. ''Kairaku 4'' is filled with interesting textures and progresses in a minor but riveting way.

repressed !

Soma present a special collaboration between label heads Slam and another of techno's top tier duos, Obscure Shape & SHDW. With both of these acts currently at peak form, Oblique Strategies is the culmination of a shared vision where both styles of production shine through on every track. Starting as a singular idea, shared between the pairings, each then took their turn to put their own stamp on the tracks. The results are plain to see as Strategy 1, 2 & 3 express the very best of what these renowned duos bring to Techno.

2022 Repress

Oblique Music is proud to present Polish wonder-duo Private Press. Through their debut EP on Technosoul, they made an immediate impression with their matured taste and signature sound design, subsequently followed by releases on Indigo Aera proving that it wasn't a fluke.

Here we have a diverse, yet coherent four-tracker. Blending inspirations from early 90's Detroit- and dub techno to early 00's UK tech house, the duo manages to offer an EP that respectfully winks at the past, while keeping an eye out to the future.

Hierarchy returns on A Sacred Geometry after more than 2 years, resuming the path of his previous EP. A rarefied approach leaves a clear footprint, delving into the layering process with ethereal modes and seamless perspectives.

'Oblique is one of only two quartet sessions the great vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson recorded for Blue Note (the classic Happenings being the other).
Both albums featured the seminal pianist Herbie Hancock and drum master Joe Chambers, with the only variable in the line-up here being bassist Albert Stinson. Hutcherson’s breezy opener “‘Til Then,” Hancock’s tremendous “Theme From Blow Up,” and Chambers’ adventurous “Oblique” are standouts of a session that, taken as a whole, is an incredible journey from hard bop grooves to exploratory sonic tone poems. Recorded in 1967, the album wasn’t first released until 1979.

Ben Buitendijk returns to his Rotterdam based label, Oblique Music with three stirring techno cuts entitled 'Alternative Hypothesis'.

After Buitendijk's quintessential 2013 'Promised land' track on Mosaic, his sound's transition into tougher territories, prevalent in his series of releases via Oblique that demonstrate a palette of space-induced modulations. The label continues to create
emotionally driven techno of a deeply layered nature, having also released music by Deniro, Koen Hoets, Emmanuel Top, Refracted, and more.

Kicking off with a journey enveloping 9-minute track, 'Contamination Zone' is delicately filled with synthetic ambience and undulating minimalism. The track's energy gently grows throughout as the bleeped synth line and looping percussion patiently rises in intensity. 'Stardust' follows, continuing to transcend visionary type melodies in symmetry with acutely composed drums.

'Alternative Hypothesis' adopts a left-of-centre drum groove, harmonising authentically with the uplifting, otherworldly swells constant throughout, keeping the force of the track totally balanced.

Baltimore's PJ Dorsey has traversed a lifelong journey delving into psychoactive music which can alter one's cognitive and conscious state. He harnesses his experiences to create music as Tarotplane. Using guitar, effects and processing he produces time suspending soundscapes - immersive music for merging the mind and body.
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358 Oblique is the follow up to First which was released on Aguirre Records in 2015. Find yourself adrift in the lapping waters of a slow unraveling sea of sound, a spectral vortex of shimmering tones and discrete samples guide the listener into an aural abyss, while plangent six-string melodies offer glimpses into a sanctifying
sensory space. The two exploration provide an evocative journey through a psychedelic continuum and beyond.

Marc Romboy presents his upcoming album "Voyage de la planète' his first solo full-length production in over eight years. Released on his newly launched Hyperharmonic label, Voyage de la Plantète signifies an exciting new chapter for Marc as he experiments with his sound - pushing the boundaries between classical and electronic music to create both an emotional and atmospheric experience.


The first impression of this new sound can be heard on album opener forerunner 10" "Monde futuriste" (February 17th 2017) which blends together beautiful strings and soft flittering synths. "Jules Verne" named after the French science fiction writer, combines echoing arpeggios and a subtle woodwind harmony to create a cosmic soundscape. Whilst "Atome de danse", "Symphonie oblique" and "La machine du temps" use elegant strings to further enhance an unearthly effect, title track "Voyage de la planète" mixes the two mediums together with fluttering synths and somber strings before "La lune et l'étolie" builds introduces the bustling sound of the piano to create an upbeat melody.


Whilst there is a strong classical influence, there are tracks on the album that reference Marc's electronic background. This can be heard in

"L'univers étrange", which has an ambient sound, whilst pitched-down chords take "L'universe parallèle" to a dark and moody space.
"Phénix" is a bass-driven track, layered with crashing synths, taking the journey to a high before the celestial experience draws to a close on an uplifting note with "Nocturne" a laid-back soothing track that exudes optimism and wonderment.
Inspired by a concert with the Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra where he performed Claude Debussy works in a contemporary way, "Voyage de la planète' signifies the start of a new chapter for Marc Romboy. Combining the strange, fascinating sounds of electronic music with the sublime beauty of classical music to create an extraordinary sonic experience for the listener.

There are some elements in electronic music that make them timeless, elements that if melted together they can give an impressive result, to the mind and to the body. Sawlin - Ursprung is the first album of the career of Sawlin, after his debut in 2010 he evolved like a wonderful orchid, an orchid that never followed the flow of the other flowers around him, but found his own way to the music. Ursprung is the result of an interminable evolution in the mind of the artist, 8 elements that complete a circle built on a very mysterious atmosphere, like a film that you never saw, but you always had in your head, something more bigger then a memory, and something more deep then a picture. This 8 elements are the blueprint of the work that comes from the background of the artist, Deep raw imaginary pictures, mixed with oldschool wallpapers of a new wall based on an old concrete. Sawlin Mix the new to the old in a way that no-one can do, and probably no-one risked to do. This is the power of an artist that needs more attention and more time, you can feel at the first listening that there is something really big going on, but you need time to understand what he wanted to create, meticulous details that he wanted to paint, in a way that we cannot see them at first, but we find them quite impressive after. Sawlin present himself in the most modern way he can, no compromises, he don't want to please you, he want to paint the future. in the most Artistic way possible.

There are some elements in electronic music that make them timeless, elements that if melted togheter they can give an impressive result, to the mind and to the body. Sawlin - Ursprung is the first album of the career of Sawlin, after his debut in 2010 he evolved like a wonderful orchid, an orchid that never followed the flow of the other flowers around him, but found his own way to the music. Ursprung is the result of an interminable evolution in the mind of the artist, 8 elements that complete a circle
builded on a very mysterious athmosphere, like a film that you never saw, but you always had in your head,
something more bigger then a memory, and something more deep then a picture. This 8 elements are the blueprint of the work that comes from the background of the artist, Deep raw imaginary pictures, mixed with oldschool wallpapers of a new wall based on an old concrete. Sawlin Mix the new to the old in a way that no-one can do, and probably no-one risked to do. This is the power of an artist that needs more attention and more time, you can feel at the first listening
that there is something really big going on, but you need time to understand what he wanted to create, miticulous details that he wanted to paint, in a way that we cannot see them at first, but we find them quite impressive after.
Sawlin present himslef in the most modern way he can, no compromises, he don't want to please you, he want to paint the future. in the most Artistic way possible. This is Sawlin - Ursprung LP on ARTS.

Repress!

As Sure As Night Follows Day is Russell Haswell's landmark second album for London's Diagonal Records. Consolidating a quarter-century at the coal face of extreme computer music, techno and death metal in 19 tracks and 49 minutes, it's Haswell's most coherent yet varied burst of activity to date — zigzagging from improvised n0!se outbursts and asphyxiated R&B to a brace of thundering acid bullets that positively froth for the 'floor.

The album was extracted over a fast-working period in late 2014, and is best perceived as a sort
of fractured regression to his formative influences: you can hear the picnoleptic recollections of
grindcore shows in the Black Country, the refracted shades of mega-raves at Coventry's Eclipse,
the conflating toxic texture-memories of early Japanese noise, and the incandescent stomp of
Mills and Hood in that early 90s phase.

Fortunately for the ravers, this album includes some of Haswell's most direct dance floor attacks to
date. 'Hardwax Flashback', for instance, finds him in pure tekno panik mode — a four-to-the-floor
wrecking ball groove that someone, somewhere, may even be able to mix. 'Gas Attack' distils his
penchant for all things Belgium into a vicious strain of New Beat lactic acid. Haswell then doffs his
cap to Detroit electro legends Drecxiya on 'Underwater Electronic

Struggle' — a story goes that he once thrashed a jet-ski all over the Mediterranean while listening
to 'Wave Jumper' in his 'phones — before he does the salty freestyle electro flex 'ting on 'Industry
Knowledge (For Oscar)' while reminding his trusty apprentice, Powell, that he still has a lot to
learn. In between these 'floor-flexers, we find more freakish disturbances and intrusive drum-box
improvisations: the modular mind-floss of 'Rave Splurge Noise' or 'Noise Rave', for instance, or the
self-explanatory 'Improvisation #1'. 'In The Air

Today' investigates warehouse-ready electro-acoustic percussion, while the chaotic clusters
of 'Interlude' swarm and invade your senses with psychoacoustic incision. This is Diagonal and
Russell at their most f**ked up and fizzy, and an important reminder of the artist's stream-of-
consciousness genius — and the pressing need for more chaos and unpredictability in electronic
music today.

Like its cover, Nicolas Remondino's Hìeratico plays in the rich shades of crepuscular spaces. A night-tuned, percussion led album where prepared drums are accompanied by flickers of spoken word, acoustic instruments and muted electronics,

The title translates to 'hieratic', for Remondino a "black and gold" term laden with dualities and complex connotations. A sense of teetering between sparkling light and richly coloured darkness imbues the music, the compositions simulating a sense of heightened acuity as they convey us through a spooky elemental soundworld. The opening title track begins with a metallic shimmer, a drum skin activated in a way that sounds like it's being smelted. A cushioned rhythm enters, a smothered timbre akin to hearing something lurking around the garden. On "litho non-danse", percussion cracks like branches and dried foliage under foot.

Remondino recorded initial outlines for the pieces at Giuseppe Ielasi's studio in Milan, before fleshing out these ideas with his own additional instrumentation and contributions from a globe-spanning network of collaborators. On "blue hymne", chiming percussion equal parts jubilant and sinister heralds spoken word from Limpe Fuchs. "Tombal" opens with Massimo Silverio whispering in the Carnic dialect, a minority language from the Carnic Alps. Around, Marco Baldini, Pierre Bastien and Remondino construct a somber soundscape that cranks and sighs in the crevices.

Hìeratico is an album of hybrids. Diverse voices, accents and dialects deliver its lyrics, the instrumentation underpinning it crosses idioms. The drumkit at its core is modified to amplify its resonant tones and harmonics. Inspired by natural substances and phenomena: stone, wood, wind, earth, metal, grass, rain, clouds and bark, Remondino explores how percussion could evoke their materiality, treating drums as lucid textural instruments as much as rhythmic timekeepers. It gives the album a finely shaded depth and clarity as it conjures the vibrancies that reside in darkened corners. Hìeratico dwells in a sensation that crosses borders, the speckles of light in the oblique night sky. Listening is an aural equivalent to stepping into a pitch black forest and waiting for your eyes to adjust, a lightless void turning into a spectacular tableau of shadows and glows. Daryl Worthington

After a critically acclaimed trilogy of albums and a 10-year hiatus, Romain Turzi, the underground pope of uncompromising French music, returns to the helm to compose and produce his new opus “Drop!”. He is joined on vocals by his longtime friend Oliver Gage, whose autobiographical and melancholic writing brings to life an intimate and redemptive musical epic, woven with oblique pop songs and club tracks that reconcile punks and dancers.



An album of diverse influences, it draws on the masters of film music (Goblin, Angelo Badalamenti), the titans of electronic and techno music (808 State, Dopplereffekt), the hedonistic spirit of ’80s Brit rock (Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses), the finely crafted melodies of timeless folk singers (Woody Guthrie, Neil Young), and the sonic power of My Bloody Valentine or the productions of Andrew Weatherall.



A record born of friendship and fearless creative freedom, “Drop!” is an invitation to escape the heaviness of the present and brush against a form of utterly necessary ecstasy.

2026 Repress

London based composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Akusmi announces 'Lines', an exhilarating new collection of works born from the desire to take where the acclaimed debut album 'Fleeting Future' left off - in search of new forms.

" 'Secant', I must have listened to this tune 3 times in a row, this one soundtracked my night drive through the winding roads" - Benji B, BBC Radio 1

'Lines' is presented as a Limited edition clear vinyl (500 copies only worldwide), printed in heavy-weight reverse board sleeve with a hand-numbered edition sticker. The vinyl edition also features 'Oblique' (A2), an exclusive version for the vinyl format, plus the now revered 'Longing for Tomorrow' - (Brandt Brauer Frick Remix), previously unreleased physically and now pressed on vinyl format, ending side B. The cover artwork features another collaboration with Dutch visual artist Sigrid Calon and design by label founder Adam Heron.

Formed with a sense of urgency and a reductive approach 'Lines' is almost entirely comprised of alto saxophone, clarinet and piano with embellishments of ambience and minimal percussive elements. Recorded in full at his home studio in London, Pascal Bideau speaks about the process:

"I wanted to go a bit more a bit more horizontal and ambient, work with layers of lines, might they be dotted or straight, and leave them to unfold and see where they would take me."

Akusmi uniquely finds the spaces in between experimental jazz, crossover classical and ambient music.

cLOUDDEAD's debut album, compiling six 10" EPs that appeared between 2000-2001, is aurally dense and obscured. A sprawling mass of miniature beat-suites and Dadaist lyrics, this strange and beautiful 3xLP would influence a myriad of sub-genres (cloud rap, hauntology, lo-fi hip-hop, etc.) in the two decades since its initial release.

Only the three members of cLOUDDEAD – Why?, Doseone and Odd Nosdam – can speak to the group's origins, but in the context of underground hip-hop towards the end of the 20th century, their arrival makes perfect sense. Cincinnati had a vital scene; home to Scribble Jam, an annual confluence of MCs, DJs, B-boys and graffiti artists. While the trio soon relocated to the Bay Area where they co-founded the Anticon collective, their Midwestern roots – in ramshackle basements of off-campus hovels, as the "cerberus of Southern Ohio" – would remain the atomic heart of their early recordings.

As Chris Martins writes in the liner notes, "The only reason we know their names today is because of how loudly and curiously they aired their insularity. They rewrote the entire world as they knew it through their own fucked perspective, and when those mysterious 10-inches started popping up in record shops, it wasn't just a puzzle to investigate: there seemed to be a whole cosmology hidden in those grooves."

Each side of the album represents one of those elusive 10-inches, each embodying a universe unto itself. Opening salvo "Apt. A" and "And All You Can Do Is Laugh" are perhaps most emblematic of the cLOUDDEAD experience. Why? and Dose create a new language through boundless non-sequiturs, sing-song non-choruses and call-and-response hooks, while Nosdam's dexterous production shifts from crackling ambience of Flying Saucer Attack to tight Ohio Players drum breaks and oblique film samples.

Taken all together, cLOUDDEAD is an original interpretation of hip-hop in the surreal Y2K glow – a bizarre meeting point between William Basinski's Disintegration Loops and MF DOOM's Operation: Doomsday. All it took was a Dr. Sample SP-202, Tascam cassette eight-track and cheap RadioShack mic. There's truly nothing like it.

This edition has been faithfully restored by Nosdam. European exclusive version comes on clear vinyl, incl. fold-out poster and liner notes insert.

For two decades, Gun Outfit has been a band defined less by genre than by continuity, patience, and a commitment to making music that reflects their lived experience.
Formed in Olympia, Washington in 2006 but long since rooted in Los Angeles, the group has evolved from a raw duo into a quietly formidable five-piece, their sound growing from scrappy post-punk beginnings into something spacious yet intimate, and always underpinned by an experimental edge.
On Process & Reality, Gun Outfit return with their most ambitious and immersive work to-date, a sprawling 80-minute double album shaped by time, environment, and philosophy. Recorded over the course of a single month in the late summer of 2020, on an 80-acre ranch in Pine Flat, California, while a massive forest fire burned less than ten miles away, the seeds of these songs were stark and strange.
Its title, Process & Reality, draws from the central work of philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, whose philosophy places intuition, experience, creativity, and relationality at the center of existence.
The band’s current lineup reflects both longevity and openness. Sharp and Keith remain the band’s primary architects, joined by longtime drummer Daniel Swire, multi-instrumentalist Henry Barnes, and bassist Kayla Cohen. Additional collaborators include Chris Cohen, Warren Lee, and Danny Sasaki all of whom add further depth, leaving subtle fingerprints across the album.
Musically, the album expands the band’s palette without abandoning its core sensibility. Dulcimer, autoharp, sitar, melodica, keyboards, homemade electronics, and a wide range of acoustic and electric textures appear throughout. The sound is mellow yet expansive, songs move between fragility and hefty atmospheric passages.
Influences surface obliquely rather than overtly. Elements of reggae and dub inform the production’s spatial sensibility. Echoes of long-form European jam bands coexist with sharp post-punk. British folk traditions, American country, and classic West Coast songwriting drift in and out of focus; the band is never afraid to lead or follow.

With this new chapter, Blackwater Label presents an EP exploring the frontier between ethereal, electronics and sonic horror. Two tracks move like ambiguous presences, evoking atmospheres suspended between dream and nightmare, body and shadow. "Hypnoptera" is a journey through dense textures, oblique frequencies and subtle pulsations that seep into the listener, keeping alive the tension typical of the label's most radical productions. A work that does not seek comfort, but disorientation: a sonic ritual digging into the dark matter of imagination.

The A-side opens with "Gomma", a sonic mass that deforms, viscous and elusive. Gomma moves through dry hits and elastic reverbs, a living organism mutating at each beat. The atmosphere oscillates between tribal and industrial, like a ritual dance seen through distorted lenses. A track that fascinates with its physicality and hypnotic nature, suspended between attraction and unease. "Dulcis in Fungus" descends into a humid and cavernous sonic landscape where sweetness and decay coexist. It layers ethereal drones and underground pulses, creating an environment that feels both organic and alien. The piece develops like the growth of a fungus-silent yet unstoppable, seductive and corrosive at the same time.

LIMITED QUANTITIES TO 100

CAY unveils his personal side on Another Life, a debut album rich in melancholic euphoria

The expressive, multi-faceted 10 tracker comes on Mind Against's HABITAT label in January 2026

Cologne-born producer CAY explores beyond the dancefloor with Another Life, a debut album that trades peak-time pressure for an ambitious and artful exploration of self. Far from being rooted in one genre, the record weaves his own honest vocals with a wide range of powerful rhythms that pull from progressive, broken beat, techno and trance.

For CAY, making music has always offered refuge and a place to calm his mind, process life’s chaos and channel personal experiences into sound. His journey started in the clubs of Cologne, in illegal forest raves and with trips to Berlin to soak up big room techno. His search for more purpose, away from mental demons and the darker side of the party lifestyle, led him to production. DJing followed after a push from his brother turned Manager, and while those experiences around Europe shaped his understanding of dance floor dynamics, he was never in a rush to release his early experiments.

Instead, CAY took private time to evolve into an accomplished artist with his own musical voice. Label heads Mind Against were so impressed when they heard what he sent to their demo inbox, they both reached out to collaborate, and he has since released on their label HABITAT.

With Another Life, he is making music that is multilayered and rich in narrative, rather than defined purely by big moments. It is drawn from years of writing, with more than 60 tracks whittled down to one concise, impactful statement. "There wasn't one big concept,” says CAY “but there was direction. It's a big risk for me, but I wanted to introduce people who like club music to something deeper. I want the music to say something real.”

Because of that, Another Life introduces CAY the vocalist. For the first time, he sings on several tracks. The subjects are real, whether that's an important friend, a moment with his girlfriend or, on 'Runaway', the thought of giving up and escaping everything. The lyrics are honest but often slightly oblique, so they invite your own readings rather than spelling everything out.

Sonically, the album moves between optimistic grandeur and introspective reality. It's cinematic but personal and bridges the gap between dancefloor drive and vulnerable storytelling. There is a grand scale to many of the tracks, with arching synths reaching and heavyhearted drums anchoring a groove: you'll dance, you'll cry, maybe both at the same time.

Another Life is the sound of a producer granting himself permission to sing, turn inwards and risk audience expectations. It’s intimate without being insular, club-capable without being confined, and a compelling first chapter for an artist who has spent years building toward this moment of truth.

‘3' saw the core Lifted duo of Max D & Matt Papich unravel their visions of excess into their most divergent and wide-eyed collection to date. Presented here by Peak Oil in a vinyl edition featuring the painting of Jordan Kasey (yes, related to Martin Kasey, saxophonist on 2019’s LP 2) and packaged for a seamless listen.

First scene ‘Chefs’ places us squarely off-center, landing in a cinematic environment that feels a bit like steadycam Luis Bunuel , wine bottle whoo-ing and horn fanfare. Its music without a hard surface, defined more by its fluidity and characters, found sounds and performed dialogue. “Cymbecko” shifts gears into blissful ambient dub, and paves the way for a Luke Stewart led excursion into the uncanny that is ‘Trip Tongue’. Stewart’s upright bass never stops seeking, while Jordan GCZs Rhodes barely touches down before lifting back up into and out of Jacob Long’s (Earthen Sea, Esau) liquid tone sheets. An outside world of percussion accompanies.

The mood morphs and the scene cuts in hard with “Born in the Roof”, slacker techno that grows shimmering parts, Perlon for potheads. Voiceover slacks right with it, a half-convo caught in the billowing chorus of fx. “Macarena” snaps things into focus, working almost like an open window to airing out the heady fog. Simplicity in the vignette.

After “Mecha Perfume & Variety”, “Snow Dancing” reignites the drama, with burning guitar by Jonny Nash taking a plucky and sliding lead over wildly fused drums by Max D, we get a test of new depths for Lifted with the somber and exuberant “Whipped Cream”. Crackling like a radio but with modern propulsion in the form of richly evocative pads courtesy of Motion Graphics, it sounds like a dinner, a space trip, a storyboard, a scene, threaded together in bouncing, oblique ways.

"Bobby V" drops refreshingly, timed like a credit roll and leaving an afterglow that feels more tuned-in than ever.

Players on this album include: Luke Stewart (Irreversible Entanglements, Blacks Myths), Jeremy Hyman, Jonny Nash (Melody As Truth), Jordan GCZ, Matt Papich, Josh Levi, Mezey, Hirama, Dawit Eklund (1432 R), Motion Graphics, Max D, Jacob Long (Earthen Sea, Esau)




d 4.Born In The Roof Radio Mix
e 5.Macarena Radio Edit

Ian Elms’s cult isolationist synth masterpiece Good Night returns via Dark Entries. Originally released in 1982, Good Night blends Berlin school minimalism and BBC Radiophonic weirdness with the aesthetics of then-nascent DIY punk electronics throughout its fifteen short tracks. According to Elms, these pieces were composed in two broad but interrelated modes: pieces with voice and synthesizer, which are obliquely narrative, and instrumental synthesizer pieces that aspire to capture fleeting emotions. Ian met with producer David Hoser at Octopus Studios and they began constructing pieces using a Polymoog Keyboard 280a, sampled drum tracks, and Elms’s synthesizer. On “The Street Enters the House”, live drums lurch along with skeletal motifs while Elms’s elliptical lyrics evoke domestic discontent. “A Light Moves Across Curtains” features metronomic pummeling and icy strings buttressing the scant cryptic lines from Elms. Instrumental gems like “Goodnight” and “Surrounded by Trees” are built around detuned riffs in round-like structure, both drifting and static like the motion of waves. With original pressings fetching three digits – if you can even find a copy – this reissue is essential listening for fans of John Bender, Transparent Illusion, and the early 80’s DIY cassette scene. Each copy of Good Night comes with a postcard featuring a photograph and notes by Elms. “This record is intended for anyone who by accident or design spends most of their time alone (whether in the body or in the mind).” – Ian Elms.

Mister Water Wet returns to Soda Gong with "Things Gone and Things Here Still," an album that radically expands the project’s purview while preserving the homespun warmth and oblique tactility that have long defined Iggy Romeu’s work. Where earlier records tilted toward the dusty swing of sample-based beatcraft or spectral minimalist jazz, here Romeu opens the frame to a more ensemble-minded approach, inviting a stellar cast of supporting musicians, including SG alumni Memotone and K. Freund, into the fold.

The result is an album that feels both broader and more intimate, with live instrumentation such as piano, strings, and reeds woven into MWW’s signature lattice of hand percussion, production sleights, and slippery time signatures. Acoustic and electronic textures bend toward each other like plants angling for the same light: bowed strings blur into vaporous pads, brushed drums scatter under riffing guitars, a horn phrase lingers in the same space as a cracked cassette loop.

A tension between decay and presence - the “things gone” and the “things here still” - runs throughout the record. At times, the music evokes a chamber session refracted through waterlogged tape; at others, it recalls the afterimage of a hip-hop instrumental slowed into an oneiric haze. In the world of MWW, memory functions less as nostalgia and more as a living fabric - mutable and resonant. "Things Gone and Things Here Still" finds Iggy Romeu at his most expansive, offering up a generous record of open spaces and porous boundaries.

NZO goes sick on a standout debut album for Demdike Stare’s DDS, distilling 2-step UKG, R&B and computerised funk within whirring mechanisms adjacent to mutant jungle and footwork - the proper good stuff.

On ‘Come Alive’ SoYo’s NZO bruks wild but tight on nine tunes chiselled from a distinctive percussive palette cut into fidgety, soulful samples. She dances in and around the cracks of myriad styles with a canny grasp of limb-animating, rhythmic diffraction; all stop/start rhythms and stuttering diva-vocaloids arranged with a rudely shatterproof, grooving pliability. More simply put: it’s dance music for those who like to get super loose and freaky with it.

Chopped up and stitched together over six months in Sheffield, it’s not hard to hear a lineage of advanced Afro-American rhythm science that also feeds into SND’s jerky-but-sexy angularities, and subsequently Rian Treanor’s rugged pugilism, now morphing back to the source, but heavily skewed with it. Her judicious sampling of R&B gems is offset in obliquely funked-up structures in ways that knowingly mess with conditioned anticipations yet never lose sight of the ‘floor, and we’re here for it.

Jumping in with the writhing darkside tekkerz of ‘Rolling Around’ and clocking out with a standout downbeat pearl ‘Looking For’, we hear her displace amapiano closer to halfstep D&B in ‘AXMM’, and decimate 2-step like Akufen on ‘CFML’, while ‘K-space baum bap’ appears to dart in the spaces between UKG and singeli, and the sloshing congas, bass motifs and dub chords of ‘Deadweight’ settle to a sort of aqueous UKF.

Fides Records continues its 10-year anniversary journey with X5. This instalment widens the emotional spectrum while staying locked to the club: dub-soaked pressure, sunrise euphoria, cinematic tension, and leftfield elegance: six tracks that underline the label’s taste for both functionality and narrative depth.

Side A opens with Jon Hester’s “Oblique”, a timeless cut where dubby undertones meet crisp percussion, crowned by a high-pitched saturated motif that results warm, powerful, and sharply functional. “Caballo Azul (Z.I.P.P.O Rework)” follows, reshaping Franzizca’s original through Z.I.P.P.O’s lens into a dub-infused, precise reinterpretation, layered with meticulous sound design and understated force. Closing the side, Pink Concrete’s “Now We Are” keeps the emotional momentum alive with euphoric tones and introspective energy that feel built for sunrise closings.

Flipping to Side B, Tal Fussman’s “Ghost” adds cinematic weight, driven by an organ-inspired chord progression and dynamic percussion showing his bold, colorful, and razor-precise creative process. Aasthma is the project of Swedish heavyweights Peder Mannerfelt and Pär Grindvik and land on FIDES with “The Love Bees”, a genre-defying anthem where disco and house flair shine through a peak-time techno skeleton. The record closes with Hiver’s “Restless”, an IDM-infused finale rich in harmonic complexity and breaky elegance, perfectly capturing the Milan-based duo’s distinctive, emotionally charged signature

“Sonically, the Swedish duo SHXCXCHCXSH distort the club context they work from by rendering functionality with an exceptionally refined and idiosyncratic palette. As logophiles, they contort the little descriptive context they afford audiences by imploding language into splintered and barely comprehensible character sequences. The impression is that each is the result of mutual process-driven experiments.

This is all true of '......t', their new album and debut recording for Northern Electronics.

However, working at this scale, SHXCXCHCXSH play with wider parameters and explore broader functions to produce their most comprehensive and focused work to date.

Across fifteen tracks, their bespoke dark matter is stacked with drone pyrotechnics, shredded vocals, and oblique, snatched sounds that eddy into frantic melodic storms. Sublime intensity is spiked with effervescent yet brooding intermissions throughout, staking '......t' as the most crucial volume of their catalogue as it gestures toward new references. ”

Black Zodiac is a science-fiction sonic piece in which the oblique movement of harmonies allows conversations with other existences. It is a galactic chant created by the words of Manah Depauw and the web of sounds of Ben Bertrand

We’re teaming up with ELUCID and Fat Possum for a limited edition of 300 copies of a Rush Hour black ice coloured edition.

E L U C I D, one half of the illustrious duo Armand Hammer, is here with the full-length follow-up to 'I Told Bessie'. Further experiments in the sonic, expanding on the 'live' side of music paired with the embracing of chaos. Something you haven't heard, or not so for a very long time. E L U C I D is here to reveal the bleakness of reality.



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''There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.''
James Baldwin

A raw, crackling urgency runs through rapper-producer ELUCID’s new album REVELATOR like an underground power line. There is no space here for sepia-toned reminiscences or indulgent self-mythologizing. Intellectual rabbit holes have been filled in with concrete and rebar ; there is nowhere to hide and no off ramp from the audio Autobahn that ELUCID has fashioned—a renegade Robert Moses with gold fronts, bulldozing the homes of the powerful and the complicit. REVELATOR brims with the energy of now, with a refusal to look away. Carpe diem in a murder one mask.

Born in Jamaica, Queens, ELUCID has been on the cutting edge of New York’s underground scene since the mid-2000s. From the beginning, he has defied both convention and expectation. He ran with Okayplayer darlings Tanya Morgan, but his own music eschewed their throwback charm for glitchy noise experiments and bass-swamped culture jamming. His 2016 debut studio project Save Yourself (re-released in a deluxe edition last year) announced him in earnest. But in recent years, his Armand Hammer releases with partner-in-crime billy woods have received significant attention and acclaim. Serving as a followup to his last solo album—2022’s comparatively balmy I Told Bessie—ELUCID hoped to “re-distinguish” himself with REVELATOR, setting himself apart amidst the increasing attention around the music he and his friends are making together.

For ELUCID, this meant setting bold new challenges for himself. One of these was diving further into live instrumentation than ever before—”getting my Quincy Jones on,” as he puts it. The testing ground for this approach was Armand Hammer’s most recent project, 2023’s We Buy Diabetic Test Strips’ Möbius strip soundscapes, warmed with instrumental flourishes and skin-shedding beat progressions. With REVELATOR, though, ELUCID strove to create an atmosphere of chaos, embracing experimental electronics and atonal sample bursts. He worked on much of the album with co-producer Jon Nellen, who comes from a background in avant-garde and Indian classical music. “I wanted to get as freaky as I could at this moment. I wanted people to hear things, maybe for the first time, or in a way they haven’t for a long while,” the rapper explains.

ELUCID arrived at the studio with a collection of noise sources: non-referential samples, glitches and noises. Together he, Nellen, and others created forms out of them and, as ELUCID recalls, “just started playing drums with it.” Their fried, distorted sound was directly inspired by Miles Davis at his most uncompromising—specifically, the tone-clustering funk track “Rated X” from his 1974 double LP Get Up With It. At times, the pairing of rap with avant-fusion sounds also brings Emergency! from The Tony Williams Lifetime to mind, perhaps in an alternate timeline where the late drummer was listening to Ice Cube’s AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted.

“The World is Dog,” REVELATOR’s lead single, functions as the album’s aesthetic thesis statement. Like the Davis track, the textures are punishing, the tonality is in free-fall, and the driving breakbeat of a groove cuts in and out unceremoniously. Avant-jazz bassist Luke Stewart, who appears throughout the record, holds the whole thing together just long enough for ELUCID to tightwalk over the beat. This tension is exactly where REVELATOR sets itself apart; in a time of drumless loops, and safe soul samples, this is a high-wire act with no safety net. Similarly, the song announces the themes of the album within just a few phrases, evoking the way societies accept and adjust to new levels of debasement and brutality while suffocating under the weight of history: “Can’t clock the kill, all a mystery/Forced past will eating everyone eventually/The world is dog.”

Many of the songs on REVELATOR grapple obliquely with dissolution and disenfranchisement in America and across the world—the grim realities of our domestic sociopolitical climate and our involvement in foreign conflicts. “Much of my artistic and political sensibility comes from the Black arts movement here in New York,” ELUCID explains. “Recognizing the interconnected global struggles against oppression, artists and thinkers created works and actions in solidarity with freedom movements in South Africa and Palestine.” ELUCID cites intellectuals like Amiri Baraka, Kwame Nkrumah, Audre Lorde, Sonia Sanchez, and Nikki Giovanni among his heroes. (One track on the album is specifically inspired by Lorde’s work, “SKP,” citing the scholar’s paper “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power.”) Songs like REVELATOR’s insistent closer “ZIGZAGZIG,” find ELUCID applying up-to-the-minute messaging, making explicit reference to the conflict in Gaza: “Feed a war machine…from river to sea, in lieu of peace.”

Despite ELUCID’s preference for cacophonous system overload here, the rapper also provides moments of respite. Recorded at The Alchemist’s Los Angeles studio, the laid-back, wheezing “INSTANT TRANSFER” is a collaboration with billy woods, which crystallizes their shared sense of creative determination. “With much momentum behind us and even more on the horizon, I knew a purpose, and that every step was ordered to that purpose,” ELUCID said of the experience. Meanwhile, the jittery “HUSHPUPPIES” is a playful anomaly on the track list, providing a snapshot of ELUCID watching his grandparents in the kitchen while preparing for Friday night fish fry dinners.

“Love still rules over on this side,” ELUCID says. ”I’m raising a family. We are making meaning and finding joy in the midst of all the fucked up-ness of everything around us because the alternative is cowardice and slow death. We remain rooted. We celebrate our people and our wins. Struggle is necessary.”

“IKEBANA” is one of ELUCID’s strongest statements of purpose on the record, blending the record’s heaviest themes with its most hopeful sentiments. supported by a shoutalong refrain and an urgent prog-funk groove. Breaking away from images of dissolution and crumbling societal systems that populate REVELATOR, ELUCID notes that the only way to navigate life’s bleakest landscapes is to cling to love and believe in those around you—to look forward toward something better that may or may not be possible. For the rapper, one of the album’s most trenchant lines comes during a centerpiece of a beat drop: “Being alive/I must look up.”

“The lyric ‘being alive I must look up’ is important especially in the context of this album. Much of the album imagery is harsh and reflects the actual doom some of us experience. But still I/we exist,” ELUCID explains.

Every artist is, in one way or another, the product of their time, bound by life’s leaden gravity to operate within the space of that which is already known. But there are some who are able to shake free of these ties, to shape the culture as it unfolds, to make the present their own.
Revelation, as a concept, points to the scales falling from people’s eyes—something that has been hiding in plain sight becoming clear. “The revelator relates to things that have been talked about, things that have been forecasted,” ELUCID adds. “And now they’re really here, and everyone sees it. And there’s no escaping.” REVELATOR plays out with the unmitigated power of those storms, laying waste to any genre conventions in pursuit of a certain physicality. Here, ELUCID develops a wholly distinctive musical language to explore our fractured modernity.

REVELATOR's packaging was designed by longtime Armand Hammer / Backwoodz art director, Alexander Richter.