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2026 repress :)

The long-awaited repress of "Baby EP" - Ricardo Villalobos's first solo single on raum...musik under the Villalobos moniker - is finally here. Featuring two tonally and energetically distinct cuts of dancefloor minimalism that are undoubtedly Ricardo. "Baby EP" sounds as cutting-edge as when it was initially released 12 years ago.

From the slightly euphoric and light-hearted atmosphere of 'hansup' (A) to the emotionally charged groove of 'Baby' (B), "Baby EP" travels through a world of intricately layered micro/macro percussions, eloquently programmed synths, and Ricardo's own vocals spread across the frequency spectrum - an added human touch to his usual machine funk. And while rhythm seems to be at centre stage here, in usual Villalobos fashion, both tracks resolve into pure jazzy melancholy. After dragging the listener into a world of (very) human feelings so uncommon in electronic dance music, "Baby EP" makes it very clear you are listening to Villalobos.

The story of each re-release begins with the original. In the late 90s, Uwe Zahn (Arovane), along with Robert Henke (Monolake) and Stefan Betke (Pole), began releasing music on Torsten Pröfrock’s (Dynamo) newly launched DIN label. This was a very inconspicuous undertaking, but fans of the flourishing IDM, glitch, and constantly evolving abstract techno genres quickly picked up on the quality of sound coming out of Germany. After a few successful EPs, Zahn began working on his debut full-length, Atol Scrap. The release was a success, at least in the underground circles, where followers of the melodic harmonies, stuttering off-beat rhythms, and, most importantly, advanced sound design feverishly consumed the imprint’s output. There was only one thing missing – the album was never pressed on vinyl, and for decades remained in the digital domain. The fans, of course, inquired. There were multiple offers on the table, but Zahn retained control until he was assured that it was properly attained. “I thought of taking everything into my own hands and releasing the record myself,” says Zahn, “but at the end of last year, Matthias from Keplar asked me to re-release Atol Scrap on vinyl.” The label and its owner revolve in the Morr Music universe, and so it made sense for Zahn to trust the platform to treat the record right.

Listening to Atol Scrap over twenty years later it is inane not to admit how well it has held up. Where other genres clearly aged, becoming stale, bland, and dull, the music on eleven tasty tracks still keeps the neurons tickled with each note. More than an echo of the past, the bottled sound truly has matured. Many of the newly evolving techniques are recognizable on the album. “I created the digital artifacts with a digital multi-track recorder, the Fostex D80,” recalls Zahn. “The thing had a scrub wheel with which I could achieve wonderful glitch effects by winding through the audio data. I have sampled and further processed these artifacts.” And this approach is still embedded in Zahn’s sound design. “I still use my 24-track analog desk from Tascam to mix my audio. I love to use hardware synths and samplers. I’ve definitely built upon my studio experience in the 90s.” From this debut to the most recent output, Arovane’s sound has evolved to become more intricate, detailed, and pronounced. “My music has become much quieter and much slower. But that’s probably also due to the noise in the world.” And just as Atol Scrap reminds Zahn of the past, retaining charm preserved in a container traveling through time, it also jitters memories of long ago, when we were twenty years younger, less experienced, and bold. For me, among the many records of the time, this album held a special place in life, my heart, and many CD boxes moved across the world. And now I’m only happy to restock the vinyl space, where Atol Scrap belongs among the beloved records. Welcome home. - Mike Lazarev

Remastered and cut to vinyl by Kassian Troyer @ D&M. Cover art by Jim Kühnel based on a photograph by Uwe Zahn.

The unconscious element to the conscious process.

The practice of dub techno and its tendrils is a fundamental for me, both aesthetically and from an engineering perspective.

I start every recording session with a dub inspired jam, the first piece I ever recorded in 1996 was an effort to recreate Phylyps Trak with only a Korg X3 and an Ibanez PUE5 (borrowed from Gary Howell). It was an awesome introduction to jamming, and the footing stones of noise, delay and saturation were explored with my foot hard on the enthusiasm pedal.

These practice jams are in some sense cathartic, the first step taken again & again, which helps me move forwards each session and additionally helps to 'warm the circuits' both of myself and the machines.

After realising the genius of Basic Channel is akin to the genius of peasant food, using every ingredient with nothing left to waste, (up to and including the oft maligned working noise of the machines themselves), this was a watershed moment for my own subjective progression. No longer tied to just emulation of something inspiring, but taking these learned tools into other areas of music helped to break free from a strong current of influence and also to progress into other areas with the new toolbox.

Dub:

The importance of the dub pioneers should never be understated, in modern music and my own practice. Yet with my initial inspiration being two german dudes issuing extreme techno variants with obscured label designs, who then signposted their listeners to their own inspirations (via their Wackies re-issues or nodded to on their Rhythm & Sound/Burial Mix sub-labels), meant that I started late and travelled backwards.

Learning to notice the live mixing of Mikey Dread or Lee Perry when the faders are bleeding through even when turned down, (echoed in BC's Quadrant Dub), or the brash send effects literally thrown into the mix also taught me that 'rough' mixing can inject a recording with life, uniqueness and the most right wrongness. Looking back Basic Channels very few elements helped me realise that the rules to be understood, are also the best ones to be broken.

Push the mixer into the red.

Amp that noise up from the tape delay cos it sounds sick.

Pseudo side-chain effects cos the kicks are way too loud and the mixer can't sum it nicely.

Spam the send knob into the delay units now, now and now.

Carelessness.

Noise:

Once I wrapped my head around the intrinsic 'noise' element that set those records apart, this became a torchlight into the alt noise movements which I was tentatively exploring at the time, and also is evidently a connection or thread into them.

Whether the Industrial/Post Punk UK scene (This Heat, TG, A Tent, F.E.) or the prolific output of the US Noise scene (Wolf Eyes, Live & Shave in LA, and subsequently following the lineage all the way back to Chrome's Alien Soundtracks), I had finally discovered a connection from techno to this 'free for all' corner of music.

This input from the Noise arena of sound is, in my experience, an all important step for a sonic artist, taking it's roots and extending out from Stockhausen/Pierre Henry and utilised/warped/mangled by thousands of adventurous pioneers ever since, I now see the line separating the high brow and the low brow is actually an artery carrying information from the head to the heart.

Vault is a selection of these jams that precede each of my solo recording sessions, for 30 years I've recorded hundreds of these 'workouts'. They are never intended as serious statements, just moments of naive enjoyment, yet most importantly they are time & space captured as practice.

The objective is always a warm up exercise, but sometimes those exercises turn a different corner, with a certain focus or direction dependent on what random samples are left in my machines from the previous session, instead of conscious choices, these unconscious elements can facilitate those 'positive mistakes' that make a piece of sound retain a different feel or colour and thus become special, or at least special to the creator.

I am quite conscious that the 'record everything' aspect of my ethos has been invaluable in cataloguing and saving these jams, while the attitude of carelessness during this process (after all, it's only a warm up jam) invites more enjoyment than seriousness ever could. Even if you don't feel the piece at the time, record it, because some years later it may well fit, or become relevant in a way you never intended.

-Miles

Ethos Records returns with it’s 4th release. Chicago legend Specter delivers a deeply immersive EP, while maintaining his signature sound. 4 tracks that reveal themselves gradually creating a hypnotic flow from the beginning to end. The release will be a limited pressing with each record featuring a hand-stamped number on the label.

opo’s 666ridims (2020 - 2026), compiled by J.TRIPP, brings together tracks from his 666ridims netlabel, reflecting on the singular sound worlds of some of his solo work. Like a discovery made by neutrino sensors, opo’s tracks research the transformation of rhythm, swing, and structure, aiming for a new grid. Sketchy and raw, processing emotions and experiences, regaling stories, and asking questions, opo relates in trance verse. All tracks here breathe his focus on improvisation, experimentation, and collaboration. Some of the beats featured on 666ridims (2020 - 2026) are outlines for freestyles and songwriting ideas, a practice formed during a long-distance music conversation with illustrator, printmaker, painter, designer, and maker Billy Bigwood. Other tracks are more club-oriented, like speculative genres programmed in odd meters. Japanese Barcelona-based DJ Hanakito contributes to one track, using samples and chops sourced from her vinyl imports.

Through Afroelectronic experimentation and diasporic narratives, opo encodes his soul's past and future through his music. Encoded, activated, returned. Initiate only when you receive permission from all your mental fragments. Keep transmissions in mind and dislodge and follow the command cluster's trail. Strongly influenced by sci-fi, ancestral afro musics, jazz, performance art, and food, as musical lines and shards of meaning cascade, 666ridims (2020 - 2026) is a minimalist dive into strange meters, polyrhythm, and the transcendence of ideas. Fast, slow. Exhilarating. We don’t discover physical laws; we just collaborate on them.

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.

Crafting another beautiful experience in sensorial delight, fleet.dreams returns to Vinezza with the label’s 3rd offering “A Voice Without Color” - born from an ever-deepening practice of groove-powered depth tech melded with realms of dubwise kineticism, enchanted cognition, and expressive, dreamlike synthesis.

“A Voice Without Color” finds fleet.dreams’ music in its most rave-activated mode yet, crafting 4 pieces of infinitely mixable spectral matter - all part of their own universe beckoning to be heard under the glow of stars in the night sky, or floating amidst the mesmerizing fog & lights pumping out of the system on your favorite dancefloor.

Awash in kaleidoscopic splendor and psychedelic intrigue, “A Voice Without Color” finds kinship in everything from the best of expansive dancefloor kineticism, time dilated wonder, and the vivid reverbations of the natural world floating in the mix. At once quintessential, contemporary, and ubiquitous is fleet.dreams’ own remarkable production technique, each track unfurling in seemingly endless swells of simmering rhythm and hypnotizing atmospherics - new memories of circadian entrancement in their molten essence, designed to blissfully guide you deeper and deeper towards the primordial exhilaration of movement. Undulating with vivid pulsations and clarion calls for the hips and mind echoing across a spiraling gyre, the sprawling waltz of “A Voice Without Color” glides through dazzling chroma and effulgent radiance greater than the sum of its parts.

Painting with bold, prismatic strokes of iridescent friction amidst the listless gray of our increasingly dispassionate timeline, fleet.dreams delivers another EP of style, substance, and vision for the dancers and DJs alike - a future classic of a possible world ready to be activated together.

*words by Kiernan Laveaux

Early support from: Kiernan Laveaux, Daniel Rincón (NAP), Scott Zacharias & Amelia Holt

Uncompromising Italian DJ/producer The Southern makes his vinyl debut on Mutual Rytm's sub-label, Spectra, with remixes from Alarico, Temudo and Sciahri. An EP marking an impressive label debut, Carmine Portarulo, aka The Southern, lands on Mutual Rytm’s sub- label Spectra with a powerful showcase of his much-loved sound. With the lead track featuring as one of label head SHDW's most requested IDs of the year so far, and packaged alongside outstanding remixes by close label associates Alarico, Temudo and Sciahri, the EP comes having established himself with a sound rooted in old school value and pure techno, favouring energy and authenticity over hype. The track’s backstory comes from the moment Carmine and his partner found out they were expecting a child and went for their first ultrasound appointment. Overwhelmed by the emotion of the moment and the beauty of what nature is capable of, he returned home and poured those feelings into the music. The result, ‘Ultrasound’, is an anthemic, punchy techno cut with euphoric energy rising up through the synths and its catchy lead melody. Joyful melodies sparkle amid vocal groans, adding a raw emotional pull as the warm, driving drums march on. Berlin-based artist Alarico is the first to remix on his return to the label, and his ‘Sad Mix’ has a more melancholic mood, with dark chords and tightly programmed drums that bring lo-key funk. Hayes Collective founder Temudo also returns and flips the vibe on his ‘Neuro Interpretation’ with a more psyched-out, twisted tune featuring trippy synths and booming drums for peak-time impact. Italo-Iranian Sublunar Records head Sciahri then drops his trance- inducing, hypotonic ‘Tunnel Vision Mix’, followed by two digital bonuses: ‘The Stripped Mix’, a bouncy workout with futuristic melodies, and Temudo’s ‘Neuro Interpretation 2’, which is raw, textured, and dark.

2026 Repress

Symmetry is proud to announce the arrival of Solid State Vol. 1 - a special vinyl release from Break. Due to popular demand, we’ve compiled four standout tracks, including some fan favourites that until now were only available digitally.

The EP brings together a serious collection: Release Me, which hit number 1 on Beatport; Overstayed, Symmetry’s highest selling tune on Bandcamp; alongside two more heavyweight cuts, All You Gotta Do and Zodiac.

Pressed and presented in physical form, Solid State Vol. 1 is both a collector’s piece and a must-have for DJs - and this time it’s something you can hold in your hands.

Gnod's now twenty year journey through spiritual and audial exploration has been driven by relentless curiosity, magpie irreverence and a fierce countercultural imperative, their project has always refused to acknowledge all or any rules and boundaries, internal or external. The latest adventure of this band may never have been intended to celebrate their two-decade anniversary, but in true Gnod fashion by, what began as a trip into a residential studio setup in Hellfire Studios with producer John `Spud' Murphy (Lankum, Black MIDI, Caroline) for six days, resulted in more potent material than anyone bargained for. The end result has been three studio albums to be released over the next year. "This trilogy revealed itself to us in the studio" says Paddy. "We were hoping to get a good album out of the session and lo and behold we got three of the fuckers. It's interesting that we did pretty much capture the full spectrum of the Gnod sound across all three". In fact, this intrepid first instalment of the `Chronicles Of Gnowt' trilogy covers an alarming amount of sonic territory all on its own. Driven as always by the power of repetition as well as Gnod's alchemical marriage of the maximal and the minimal, this album is imbued with a vivid focus that's testimony to the chemistry of the sessions, coupled with a detailed and spacious production from Murphy that brings out the psychedelic sound worlds of the band in vivid colour. This is a travelogue which delves into pastoral tranquillity (as on `Three Trees Parts 1&2') just as adeptly as expansive Earth-tinged riff monoliths (`All Tunnel No Light') and just as formidably as the closing epic `Ekstasis' - a hallucinatory vista where kraut-tinged experimentalism meets Swans-style intensity. Yet all the while, truly sounding like no one but Gnod.

2026 Repress

25 years after this cult UK label first emerged, we're very happy to present some of their most sought after releases...
Primitive represented a stripped down and sonically heavyweight series of essential DJ tools, winning wide support from Techno an House DJ's alike & enduring - perhaps due to their raw, basic construction - way beyond their original inception.

This is the first compilation EP, featuring some favourites from the catalogue, remastered & repressed on limited, hand-stamped vinyl...


Despite serious demand, we will only be able to access limited quantities of these special 21st century repress editions, so buy or cry !

There are some first times you never forget. The first time one hears Syd Matters’ captivating voice is one of them.


From “End & Start Again”, his first single in 2003, Jonathan Morali’s warm, soulful vocals and timeless melodies revealed an artist in a league of his own. Success in France and abroad was immediate and has never waned.
Four albums followed between 2004 and 2011, along with a host of unforgettable songs: “Black & White Eyes”, “Obstacles”, “To All Of You” or “I Might Float” left their mark on an entire generation, racking up nearly 200 million streams and 100,000 physical sales. Drawing equally from the songwriting of the 60s, the creativity of the 70s and the modern synthetic era, Syd Matters has developed a unique musical universe, building a loyal and ever-growing audience over the years.


On stage, accompanied by his band, audiences recall intense concerts where the artist and his musicians deliver performances that were at once epic and intimate. Lush and spectacular on stage, their music never lost its center of gravity, gaining even in depth. Syd Matters toured France and Europe (England, Germany, Scandinavia...) for nearly ten years, as well as in the United States and Latin America. In 2011, the tour for his album Brother Ocean culminated in Paris at the mythical venue l’Olympia.
Jonathan Morali then took a step back from the spotlight but remained just as prolific, writing for film, theater, radio, and television and collaborating over the years with directors such Éric Rochant, Rémi Chayé, Thomas Litli, Patrick Mille, and Mélanie Laurent to name but a few. When scoring for films, the musician gives free rein to his desires and intuitions. He works with the very fabric of sounds and their underlying emotions, as if freed from the constraints imposed by the song format.


Between 2015 and 2019, he also composed the soundtracks for the remarkable video games Life Is Strange and Life Is Strange 2, which were massive global hits. Several Syd Matters tracks appeared in the game, and the success was such that it revived the band’s career, introducing their music to a new audience.


After an extended hiatus, Syd Matters will make a major comeback with a new album - their fifth - set for release in September 2026 on Créature - also home to Flora Fishbach and Chassol. They will then tour France and Europe, returning to the legendary stage of the Olympia on November 17, 2026, where they will perform their new songs. And others that we know by heart and haven’t forgotten.

Trá Pháidín are a mutable collective of musicians who are geographically, culturally and mentally torn between Conamara Theas, Cathair Chorcaí, Ciarraí, Uíbh Fhailí, Sligeach and Port Láirge, active in one form or another since 2019. The music they make, which to date has mostly been self-released, is of an ambitious breadth, embracing traditional Irish absurdity, jazz, folk and krautrock influences, whilst remaining tantalisingly beyond any one specific understanding of either the world around them or even themselves. More defined however, is their overall conceptual approach, focusing upon original Gaelic music and what lies beyond simply “conas atá tú?”.

Cloch ‘s Claí (trans. Stone & Wall), their first record to be released by World of Echo, develops their established interests into more adventurous waters (and walls!) than ever. Based on the historical significance embedded into dry-stone walls, the album presents a satirical view of Éire’s relationship with her native tongue and the Gaeltacht (regions where Gaeilge - Irish Gaelic - remains the primary language). Constructed of ten tracks, each representative of a stone in a metaphorical stone-wall, Cloch ‘s Claí draws from styles of improvisation in Irish traditional music, exploring avenues of ornamentation and accompaniment in the tradition. As such, the arrangement changes in every performance, a new stone-wall articulated each time - the recording on this album represents just one such arrangement in one such performance. Inspired by Myles na gCopaleen’s An Béal Bocht, the wall comes to embody a variety of themes scattered across the landscape and psyche of na Gaeltachtaí - tokenism, housing, gentry politics, ribbon developments and so on. The result is a music expressive of regional styles in traditional music, krautrock, free jazz, post-rock, minimalism and drone presented in a way that feels instinctively fluid and reflective of a hushed existentialism from the west of Ireland.

On Cloch ‘s Claí, Trá Pháidín are: Conal Ó hAinmhuighe, Ultan Ó Labhradha, Peadar-Tom Mercier, Micheál Fitzgerald, Pól Ó Lionáird, Ruairí De Búrca. Cloch ‘s Claí will be released digitally and as a limited edition LP on 25th September via World of Echo. This record was created through the support of the DEIS Recording Grant & Ealaín na Gaeltachta.

Montréal-based sound artist Steve Bates expands his strategies and stylistic influences on An Infinite Antenna, his second solo album for Constellation, giving freer reign to melodic components and textural dynamics: leftfield synth work, deconstructed drum machine, pointillist electric guitar, and radiostatic blur are all part of the new brew swirling around his bruitist signal-bending and field-recording sensibility. Arguably a more ambient album than his acclaimed 2022 Constellation debut, An Infinite Antenna is at the same time more densely packed with ideas, dynamics, evocations and earworms. Coming out of the anarcho-punk scene of the Canadian Prairies in the 1990s, Bates founded Winnipeg’s experimental sound festival Send + Receive in 1998 before moving to Montréal to become Sound Coordinator at Hexagram (Concordia University), delving further into sonic research and theory, tape-based composition, and installation work. Alongside the curatorial arc of his own sound art label The Dim Coast, Bates released several solo and collaborative albums on ORAL_records leading up to All The Things That Happen, the 2022 Constellation debut praised by Boomkat for its “grittily iridescent ambient billow rendering maximalist panoramas” and by Backseat Mafia as “extraordinary soundscapes of unstable, destructive cacophony and tender calm, echoes of the threat of power.” Where that album was noisier and single-minded, made with the self-imposed limit of a Casio SK-1, Bates plays more widely with instrumentation and atmospheres on An Infinite Antenna, also drawing on his post-hardcore roots in seeking a sort of track-by-track concision nonetheless driven by the album’s coherence as a seamless work. “I was trying to set durations I associate with punk rather than the longer, sprawling music coming from more ambient styles (that I very much love), and while I wasn’t able to quite pare it down to Minutemen durations, I had that reduction to essential elements as a sort of whisper over my shoulder.” Incorporating source recordings made throughout 2023-2025, including at artist residencies and site-specific sound installation visits in Bosnia and Herzegovina (the album’s cover photo was taken in Sarajevo), Austria, Greece, and Saskatchewan, An Infinite Antenna combines Bates’ “idea of slowly scanning a radio dial” with a soundworld of recurring timbral and textural touchstones that forge an integrated whole.

The album’s 12 tracks work effectively as stand-alone pieces, replete with shifting undercurrents, buried melody, and stuttering kinetics, and as a sequential flow where the brief interstitial silences between them are like short pauses to flip the next page in a sketchbook of perspectival studies of a wide but singular tableau. The glistening atonal synth expressionism of opener “Pink pink pink pink…pink pink” drifts gently toward submerged ambience, darkened by the noised rumble and static interference of “Green as a ghost”, which introduces broken beats and piano chords in its denouement. Tracks like “Battles and sieges and street trees” and “Easier sad than done” work the foundations of low-end field-recording resonance, but dappled with lovely melodic droplets of treated guitar and synth. “Waste, songs of the world” and “Disaster loans” are among the album’s most explicit stylistic references to posthardcore, with distorted ambient bass and gently abrasive drum sampling. Closing track “Swamps and factories”, the album’s longest piece, is perhaps most reminiscent of Bates’ previous record with its sustained dissonant glimmer-drone, but the journey An Infinite Antenna traces to get there is Bates at his most dynamic, diverse, distinctive, and engaging. Thanks for listening.

Montréal-based sound artist Steve Bates expands his strategies and stylistic influences on An Infinite Antenna, his second solo album for Constellation, giving freer reign to melodic components and textural dynamics: leftfield synth work, deconstructed drum machine, pointillist electric guitar, and radiostatic blur are all part of the new brew swirling around his bruitist signal-bending and field-recording sensibility. Arguably a more ambient album than his acclaimed 2022 Constellation debut, An Infinite Antenna is at the same time more densely packed with ideas, dynamics, evocations and earworms. Coming out of the anarcho-punk scene of the Canadian Prairies in the 1990s, Bates founded Winnipeg's experimental sound festival Send + Receive in 1998 before moving to Montréal to become Sound Coordinator at Hexagram (Concordia University), delving further into sonic research and theory, tape-based composition, and installation work. Alongside the curatorial arc of his own sound art label The Dim Coast, Bates released several solo and collaborative albums on ORAL_records leading up to All The Things That Happen, the 2022 Constellation debut praised by Boomkat for its "grittily iridescent ambient billow rendering maximalist panoramas" and by Backseat Mafia as "extraordinary soundscapes of unstable, destructive cacophony and tender calm, echoes of the threat of power." Where that album was noisier and single-minded, made with the self-imposed limit of a Casio SK-1, Bates plays more widely with instrumentation and atmospheres on An Infinite Antenna, also drawing on his post-hardcore roots in seeking a sort of track-by-track concision nonetheless driven by the album's coherence as a seamless work. "I was trying to set durations I associate with punk rather than the longer, sprawling music coming from more ambient styles (that I very much love), and while I wasn't able to quite pare it down to Minutemen durations, I had that reduction to essential elements as a sort of whisper over my shoulder." Incorporating source recordings made throughout 2023-2025, including at artist residencies and site-specific sound installation visits in Bosnia and Herzegovina (the album's cover photo was taken in Sarajevo), Austria, Greece, and Saskatchewan, An Infinite Antenna combines Bates' "idea of slowly scanning a radio dial" with a soundworld of recurring timbral and textural touchstones that forge an integrated whole. The album's 12 tracks work effectively as stand-alone pieces, replete with shifting undercurrents, buried melody, and stuttering kinetics, and as a sequential flow where the brief interstitial silences between them are like short pauses to flip the next page in a sketchbook of perspectival studies of a wide but singular tableau. The glistening atonal synth expressionism of opener 'Pink pink pink pink_pink pink' drifts gently toward submerged ambience, darkened by the noised rumble and static interference of 'Green as a ghost', which introduces broken beats and piano chords in its denouement. Tracks like 'Battles and sieges and street trees' and 'Easier sad than done' work the foundations of low-end field-recording resonance, but dappled with lovely melodic droplets of treated guitar and synth. 'Waste, songs of the world' and 'Disaster loans' are among the album's most explicit stylistic references to posthardcore, with distorted ambient bass and gently abrasive drum sampling. Closing track 'Swamps and factories,' the album's longest piece, is perhaps most reminiscent of Bates' previous record with its sustained dissonant glimmer-drone, but the journey An Infinite Antenna traces to get there is Bates at his most dynamic, diverse, distinctive, and engaging. Thanks for listening

The Montréal psych-ambient synth-droners return with Sequence Three, their first album in five years and the final instalment in the group's opening trilogy of records that began with Sequence One in 2019. The spectral supergroup co-founded by Stephen Ramsay (Young Galaxy) and Jace Lasek (The Besnard Lakes), usually joined in some capacity by Lasek's Besnard bandmate Olga Goreas, deliver another dose of its trademark longform slowburn jams, forged from restored vintage synths and analogue electronic gear. Lasek and Ramsay don their seasoned producer hats to apply rockist sound design to minimalist tracks, saturated with tube compression, drenched in pink and brown noise, all queasy modulation, sparse beats, and languorous melodic lines. Evoking a humid dawn on a gas giant, these alien drone anthems meld the numinous transcendentalism of Spiritualized and Cluster with the eroded grit of William Basinski and GAS. Light Conductor has been tagged "heavyweight analogue synth nirvana" by Uncut Magazine and praised for its "fabulous, epic, shimmeringly radiant kosmische" by Electronic Sound, among other accolades. Sequence Three consolidates these strengths, while leaning into the darker disquietude that has always been an undercurrent of Light Conductor's aesthetic. Opener "She Glitters The Dust" fades up slow with intertwining detuned synth loops, a languorous lullaby beat dropping at the 3-minute mark, accompanied by insectoid shimmers and a tease of melody that's eventually given free reign over the song's second half. Aptly titled, it's as if a transmission captured within a cosmic dust cloud has provided the raw material for the band to jam on, tease out, and terrestrialize. An echo of that beat sets the tranced pulse for "Omenize", the centerpiece of Side One and the fulfilment of Light Conductor's one-vocal-track-per-album directive. With layered harmonies by Goreas and Lasek, this is the group at its ethereally anthemic best, the devotional floating-in-space bliss attenuated by another gently warped denouement. "Ghost City Radio" closes out Side One with the band's most overtly anxious tune to date, deceptively stolid in its simple bass guitar riff and filter-swept hi-hat: groove stripped to its minimum as the foundation for an extended spokenword sample of a doomsaying prepper/preacher, a sort of homage to that early hallmark of their Godspeed compatriots, done up through the lens of Light Conductor's inimitably destabilized celestial ambience. (Lasek mixed the most recent two GY!BE albums.) Side Two offers up "High In The Orange Air", a beatless, squelching, bubbling ostinato drone and the album's most orthodox ambient kosmische track. This provides the set and setting for 15-minute closer "Supercontinent", which starts off in similar territory but gradually yields to a submerged and reversed techno pulse pumping through coruscated chordal drone, gaining in woozy mesmeric psych intensity over its inexorable hypnagogic trajectory. Sequence Three rounds out a satisfying trio of full-lengths that Light Conductor has released on Constellation, featuring vibrantly minimal geometric cover art designed by label co-founder Ian Ilavsky that integrates the trilogy as a visual series as well. In keeping with the previous two albums in the set, the Deluxe 180gLP includes a 12"x24" art poster. Thanks for listening.

This year, Prohibition reissues their landmark 1996 album Towncrier on vinyl. A cult classic that once took them across Europe and onto the iconic French TV show Nulle Part Ailleurs, the record remains a defining moment in their career. To mark the occasion, the Paris-based quartet returns once again for a series of live performances at the end of 2026. "Prohibition is undoubtedly one of the most important rock bands France has ever produced." - MOWNO Formed in 1989, Prohibition emerged from the underground veins of the French post-punk scene-a time when the movement survived through a handful of fanzines, crumbling venues, and a sparse network of independent record stores. Their sound was raw, urban, and tightly wound, still reverberating with echoes of hardcore and skate culture. A jagged, abrasive form of rock, driven by atonal guitars, surgically precise bass lines, off-kilter rhythms, and biting vocals. What set Prohibition apart was its singular instrumentation: a saxophone unleashed and the hypnotic drone of a sitar cutting through the noise. Their reputation quickly spread across Europe and the United States, leading to relentless touring and shared stages with the likes of Blonde Redhead, Fugazi, David Grubbs, Condense, and Chokebore. The band came to a close in 1999, following the release of their fifth and final album, the enduring 14 Ups & Downs. In 2015, Prohibition reunited for a special tour marking the 20th anniversary of Prohibited Records, including a standout performance at the Teriaki Festival, later captured by Mowno. Celebrating 30 years in 2025, the band released a reimagined version of Cobweb-day, titled Cobweb-day (Revisited), and returned to the stage for a series of powerful, memorable shows. Now, in 2026, Prohibition reissues their landmark 1996 album Towncrier on vinyl. A cult classic that once took them across Europe and onto the iconic French TV show Nulle Part Ailleurs, the record remains a defining moment in their career. To mark the occasion, the Paris-based quartet returns once again for a series of live performances at the end of 2026. For fans of: The Ex, Fugazi, The Jesus Lizard

"The grass is greener_ elsewhere_" Brain Damage told us with their debut album, released in 2002. Yet here, they've reached full maturity. Rarely has a "made in France" dub album strayed so far from the Jamaican model while still harboring, in every detail, so many references and tributes to the inventors of the style (King Tubby / Lee Perry), as well as to many of the key figures in its evolution (Tikiman / Rhythm & Sound, Dub Syndicate, etc.). The recording studio, 7/11 Laboratory, is used here as a true musical instrument. The optimal use of three-dimensional stereo effects will immerse the listener in soundscapes ranging from classic space echoes and Mont Blanc tunnel-style reverberations to crackles, electronic interference, exogenous samples, and other parasitic noises coming straight from Babylon. For this album, continuing in the vein of his previous collaborations with the international dub scene (Zion Train, Alpha & Omega, Disciples, Spectre, Lab°_), Brain Damage traveled to London to record two tracks at Conscious Sounds Studio with Jamaican-born singer Tena Stelin. With the melancholic "Spirit World," one is reminded of the fruitful collaborations between Massive Attack and Horace Andy, while on "Genetic Weapon," the tone becomes more overtly assertive. Two vocal tracks, then, woven into these ten compositions, where the emotional moods and atmospheres will shift with each listen. "Always Greener (On the Other Side)" emerges as the manifesto of music conceived as cinema for the ear...

Modi Bardo, an alumnus of Moonshine Recordings, is another who on the surface appears to be at the nascent era of their sound experiments, but in truth is a longtime explorer of outer realms of Dub.

There is much to mention here which can be uncovered with the correct keywords, but one of the early bright points would be Spacelings and Bassheads, the Detroit-based Psych duo Modi Bardo was half of, who although seemingly limited in the realms of recorded output (with only a compilation appearance each via the Electro visionaries Interdimensional Transmissions and Booty bass / Techno orientated Intuit-Solar) where in fact not-so-limited in the era in the way of public performance, even performing at the renowned Packard Plant renegades in the 90's with UR on occasion.

Forward to now, and Modi Bardo has created something that reaches for unknown territory in Dub. With an establishing A side that is deep and primordial in tone, a' la Challenger Deep and Babe Roots releases, this proves to be merely a fantastic tone setter for the B side, which seems to find a zone where Dub Techno, Half Time, and Autonomic DnB have not quite gleaned yet. Truly a record unlike any other, while somehow being an invaluable tool for DJ's exploring the links between the aforementioned sounds and even Dancehall and Jungle in the mix.

A must for all those chasing the evolution of dub reflective arts, and the adventurous DJ in general.

The Montréal psych-ambient synth-droners return with Sequence Three, their first album in five years and the final instalment in the group’s opening trilogy of records that began with Sequence One in 2019. The spectral supergroup co-founded by Stephen Ramsay (Young Galaxy) and Jace Lasek (The Besnard Lakes), usually joined in some capacity by Lasek’s Besnard bandmate Olga Goreas, deliver another dose of its trademark longform slowburn jams, forged from restored vintage synths and analogue electronic gear. Lasek and Ramsay don their seasoned producer hats to apply rockist sound design to minimalist tracks, saturated with tube compression, drenched in pink and brown noise, all queasy modulation, sparse beats, and languorous melodic lines. Evoking a humid dawn on a gas giant, these alien drone anthems meld the numinous transcendentalism of Spiritualized and Cluster with the eroded grit of William Basinski and GAS. Light Conductor has been tagged “heavyweight analogue synth nirvana” by Uncut Magazine and praised for its “fabulous, epic, shimmeringly radiant kosmische” by Electronic Sound, among other accolades. Sequence Three consolidates these strengths, while leaning into the darker disquietude that has always been an undercurrent of Light Conductor’s aesthetic.
Sequence Three rounds out a satisfying trio of full-lengths that Light Conductor has released on Constellation, featuring vibrantly minimal geometric cover art designed by label co-founder Ian Ilavsky that integrates the trilogy as a visual series as well. In keeping with the previous two albums in the set, the Deluxe 180gLP includes a 12”x24” art poster. Thanks for listening.

2026 Repress

Still Music are proud to present the reissue of “A Message For The DJ” by one of Detroit’s finest, Delano Smith featuring the distinct vocals of Diamondancer. Featuring the now legendary remix by Jimpster, that has constantly been played since it’s initial release in 2005 by DJ’s across all scenes within the House spectrum.

Original copies of this Deep House classic are hard to come by on the second-hand market, regularly changing hands for close to £70, if you’re lucky enough to find one! Here’s your chance to get one over on those pesky Discogs sharks. Don’t delay!

Originally conceived as the solo project of Izio Orsini (Rancho Bizzarro), Bantoriak has evolved into a collective sonic ritual, bringing together an impressive cast of friends and collaborators from the Italian and international underground scene. Steeped in warm 70s inspired sounds, hypnotic grooves, expansive jams and heavy psychedelic atmospheres, Vol. II travels from the dusty landscapes of the Californian desert to more mystical and introspective territories. The album features special appearances by Sergio Ch. (Los Natas, Soldati) on "Blu Bus" and Dome La Muerte on "Ritualism" and "La Muerte". For fans of: Kyuss, Los Natas, Colour Haze, Yawning Man, Monster Magnet, Dead Meadow and Black Sabbath.

Founded in 2019 by Nick Whaley and Luca Tantari, Piss Drunk Records was born in Northern California from a shared passion for underground electronic music and the DIY ethos that has always driven independent scenes.

Rather than waiting for opportunities, the label was created with a simple philosophy: if nobody releases the music you believe in, do it yourself. Every release represents that independent spirit, putting artistic freedom before commercial expectations.

Nick Whaley has been an active figure in the Northern California underground electronic scene for many years, continuously releasing music, cutting lathe records, and performing live sets while keeping the local DIY spirit alive. Luca Tantari, originally from Italy, lived in California where the idea for Piss Drunk Records was born. After returning to Italy, he continued developing the label, expanding its international reach while preserving its original vision and underground identity.

Although founded in California, Piss Drunk Records has always maintained strong roots in both the United States and Italy, creating a bridge between two underground communities.

The label embraces a broad spectrum of electronic music, from raw industrial techno, experimental electronics and noise to old-school hardcore, gabber and more dancefloor-oriented productions. Style is never the priority—authenticity is.

The first five releases were issued as hand-cut lathe records and a limited cassette, reflecting the label's commitment to small-run, handcrafted formats. PDR006 marks Piss Drunk Records' first professionally pressed vinyl release, representing a new milestone while remaining true to the DIY philosophy that inspired the project from day one.

Piss Drunk Records exists for one reason only: to release music that deserves to exist—without compromise, without trends, and without waiting for permission.

Release description Chesster lands on Rutilance Recordings with a four-track EP rooted in classic deep house. Blending old-school influences with a modern touch, the project captures the essence of his sound: groove-led, warm, and true to its foundations. Originally from Italy and now based in Los Angeles, Chesster has been building strong momentum across the global house scene, with a run of standout releases and defining moments over the past year. This EP marks an important step in that journey - not only as his first on the label, but also as a more personal statement. After a run of highenergy, peak-time records, the project sees him step into a deeper, more refined lane. The EP also features a special contribution from Rutilance boss DJ Steaw, adding an extra layer of character and tying it closely to the label’s identity.

'La Proyección' is the debut LP by Jose María Lluch, featuring 11 compositions developed between 2015 and 2024. Recorded and assembled in his home studio, the album combines fingerpicked guitar, field recordings, tape manipulation, and ethereal soundscapes into a deeply personal listening experience. A reflection on memory, imperfection, and the freedom to create without external expectations. 'La Proyección', the debut LP by Jose María Lluch, an architect and musician from San Sebastián, emerges as a transition-a gradual shift that unfolded over time. Intimate and innocent, disconnected and erratic at times, the 11 compositions presented here are drawn from recordings spanning nine years, between 2015 and 2024. Humbly assembled in his home studio, the music invites listeners to let their minds drift as the processes of composition, recording, and editing intertwine. Field recordings from everyday life, fingerpicked guitar, soothing harmonics, tape manipulation, and ethereal soundscapes are combined with a naïve openness. The album reveals the joy found in imperfection. Rarely do we have the chance to glimpse someone's work in its most unguarded form, without a specific context, after years spent making music simply as a way to break away-not for anyone else, but for oneself. The songs on 'La Proyección' reveal that very essence, shaped by a shared memory.

Named after a now-shuttered nightspot that overlooked the beach on Italy's picturesque Tuscan coast, Maxime Denuc's 'Club Imperiale' is a work of speculative historical fiction, a record that imagines a point of creative symbiosis between the Catholic church and the ecstatic dancefloors of the early '90s.
Using a MIDI-controlled pipe organ, Denuc creates dense clouds of impossible-to-play notes that ricochet backwards and forwards through history, from Rome's reverberant cathedrals to the white, sandy beaches of the Balearic Islands.
Two years ago, the Brussels-based French composer was forwarded a surprising video by a Belgian fan. It was shot during a Wedding at a church in Menorca, where the organist was playing 'Infinite End', the lead track from 2022's 'Nachthorn'. Immediately, Denuc knew that this was the thematic backdrop he'd been waiting for; he imagined the aftermath of the event, wandering through small villages and teetering on a cliff's edge, finding a provincial nightclub and retracing his steps back to the beach to witness the
sunrise.

Japanese crossover and fusion are hot again now. As either an outgrowth of, or a spin-off phenomenon from, the global reappraisal
of city pop, Japanese fusion has been rapidly rising since around last year.
This is the 1978 debut album by Carioca, one of Japan’s leading Brazilian fusion units of the 1970s and 1980s.
The group began as the backing band for Kiyoshi Hasegawa, and on this debut release they used the name "Samba Calioca." True to that
band name, they were quite unusual at the time for presenting samba and bossa nova with a resort-flavored sound, and they also
produced specialists such as drummer Antonio Ishida and guitarist Masami Sato. This highly club-popular first album also features a
diverse lineup of guest musicians including Masayoshi Takanaka, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Shuichi "Ponta" Murakami, and Shigeharu Mukai.

Kenichiro Nishihara made a spectacular debut in 2008 with his first album ”Humming Jazz,” and is one of the most important figures in Japanese jazzy hip-hop, receiving high acclaim in the lo-fi hip-hop scene that continues the lineage of Nujabes.



a A1: Up All Night feat. SIRUP (DJ Mitsu the Beats Remix) feat. SIRUP
[b] B1: Heartless feat. Michael Kaneko (KAZUMI KANEDA Remix) [feat. Michael Kaneko]

[a] A1: Up All Night feat. SIRUP (DJ Mitsu the Beats Remix) [feat. SIRUP]
[b] B1: Heartless feat. Michael Kaneko (KAZUMI KANEDA Remix) [feat. Michael Kaneko]

[a] A1: Up All Night feat. SIRUP (DJ Mitsu the Beats Remix) [feat. SIRUP]
[b] B1: Heartless feat. Michael Kaneko (KAZUMI KANEDA Remix) [feat. Michael Kaneko]

A clerestory - a bright or "clear" level or "story" - is an upper section of wall, most often in a church punctuated by windows. It is a powerful image for grasping this luminous new music from Jules Reidy. Light casts shadows, of course, and logics of shadowing, mirroring, and distorted reflection - of key importance for Reidy"s work as a whole - inform the sumptuous surfaces of Clerestory. "Shadow Symmetric" is a string quartet commissioned and performed by the JACK Quartet as part of their JACK Studio program. The piece makes simultaneous use of two pitch sets, beginning from the same starting point but expanded using different scaling to produce what Reidy describes as "two offset spectral layers." "Clerestory Windows" offers up a distorted mirror image of the string quartet, arranged as a series of episodes that each remake the material in their own way. It begins with an arrangement of the string quartet material for MIDI strings and voices, repositioning its rigorous harmonic exploration somewhere between the Lovely Music Ltd universe and a 90s RPG soundtrack. This episode derives from Reidy"s installation Inside, Crystals and Circuitry, held in Stockholm in 2025. The piece moves into a lyrical 12-string acoustic guitar air performed at the installation opening, before the strings from the first side reappear. From this emerge flickering arpeggios, achieved by arranging the string quartet material for the RMI, an early digital synthesizer. Clerestory is a meditation on fundamental dynamics of human experience: orientation and disorientation, the hazy borders the hazy borders between the material and the spiritual, and the instability of identity.

A queer Black musician and daughter of Nigerian immigrants, Oladokun has become a vital cultural voice, writing songs that explore identity, faith, mental health, and social justice with honesty and restraint. Since her 2020 breakthrough, she has released two critically acclaimed albums, earned a finalist nod for Americana Artist of the Year, and saw her protest anthem "iseeamerica" named a finalist for the Recording Academy's Special Merit Award for Best Song for Social Change. Praised by The New York Times and Billboard for her ability to turn quiet introspectioninto lasting impact, Joy Oladokun has brought her music to national television on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, CBS Saturday Morning, and Austin City Limits, while her songs have been featured across major TV series. With collaborations spanning artists like Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, and Maxo Kream, she is entering her next chapter by bringing an even broader, bolder sound to the table, continuing to prove herself as an artist who not only bends genre but bridges culture.

A powerful new track arrives on 7-inch, marking a collaboration between MAJOR FORCE PRODUCTIONS and DJ KRUSH, featuring the gentle, soothing vocals of guest singer Kyoko Koizumi.

This joint production by MAJOR FORCE PRODUCTIONS-comprised of K.U.D.O and Kan Takagi, two key figures who have helped shape Japan’s music scene-and the internationally acclaimed DJ KRUSH results in a single that vividly captures everyday scenes and the deeper layers of human emotion through diverse beats and floating electronic textures.

Conceived as a sequel to Kan Takagi’s 1997 release “LOVE THEME,” the track unfolds with a memorable melody expressing a sincere longing for love and freedom. Refined yet warm, it stands as a timeless piece of electric folk blues.

For this 7-inch edition, the track has been given a single edit, making it a special and essential release.

2026 Repress

The late sixties and early seventies spectacle of Jamaican Deejays taking their live performances out of the dance halls and translating them into hit records, not only marked the beginning of forty years of dance hall driven music on the island but also provided the original inspiration and template for the global dominance of rap and hip hop.
The art of deejay was now rightly recognised and the toasters or talk over artists advanced from introductions and interjections to stringing complete sets of lyrics together and riding the rhythm for the entire length of the song.
Deejays including U Roy, I Roy, Dennis Alcapone, Big Joe ,Little Joe and Prince Jazzbo who built their reputations working live on sound systems,now went one step beyond and moved on to become recording deejays with entire catalogues of hit singles and albums to their credit.
Throughout the seventies a whole host of mic men followed in their wake including Dillinger,Dr.Alimando,Clint Eastwood and Jah Stitch.
Talking records were not new, but 'talk over' records were...the repercussions of this uniquely Jamaican phenomenon would go on to reverberate worldwide...

Entre Nous is the debut album from Eden Aurelius. A beautifully poised collection for Short Span. A gorgeous showcase of her singular talent within a sparkling scene. Recorded in Brooklyn, NY, this is an innovative, and graceful body of music that feels truly contemporary.

This album felt important for us to have out in time for summer. Emerging out of the heat, a feeling brought alive with the sun. Music that evolves throughout seasons and carries a spectrum of emotional range.

Entre Nous is tight, but expansive. Its depth and complexity is languid but has gravitational pull. Like much of her work, this record feels so refreshing because its tracks are both sensory and illusory tones built in gossamer and transitory layers of satin. They have a remarkable sense of presence and pressure - floating rhythmically without sharp edges. There is guidance and gentle control that lead throughout the record.

The B side opens with “Ion” featuring Pontiac Streator. The song is formed out of a textural haze. A glistening, iridescent light appears, broken through fabric, projecting a blurred image onto the surface nearby. A hypnotic and evocative collaboration. The shared connection between the two artists’ command of rhythm and ambient language.

Mastered and cut by Mike Grinser at Manmade.

Art by Lucas Dupuy.

""Röntgen" is Ø's (aka Mika Vainio) subliminal, minimal techno classic, and was featured on the first Sähkö Recordings release in 1993. Spatial, silvery-sharp, and reduced yet frenetic, it's a blueprint of drum machine and synth work that helped redefine an era in techno. This special-edition 12" also features a full-side cut of a previously unreleased Ø track from 1995. The untitled B-side carries the same approach as the title track—minimal TR-808 and acidic synthesis—but in contrast to the hard-edged A-side, this track features a subtle, warm melody towards the end, a melodic approach also heard on later Ø productions. THIS 12" IS CUT WITH LOUD VOLUME FOR EXCELLENT CLUB USE!

Trance music fans, get ready to experience Push’s iconic anthem “Universal Nation” like never before with this exclusive 2 x 12" vinyl release repress.

Strictly limited to 500 copies worldwide, this special edition features a unique Inside Out cut pressed on stunning Starlight vinyl — black with striking coloured speckles, giving every copy its own distinctive look.

Featuring an array of incredible remixes, including Airwave’s Vocal Theatrical Version, James Harcourt’s remix, Gai Barone’s remix, and DJ Ghost & Danny C’s remix, this release is a must-have for any Push and trance collector.

Presented in it's original modern remastered artwork and pressed in the exclusive Starlight colour, this highly limited release offers a fresh way to rediscover the magic of “Universal Nation.”

Only 500 copies available — once they’re gone, they’re gone.

DJ Woody returns with the 4th instalment of Scratch Sounds, the only scratch library collection made with 100% original recordings tailored specifically for turntablists and scratch DJ’s.

Scratch Sounds No 4 (Rock Box), this time concentrates on the sound of hard rock. It features an extensive collection of killer vocals, electric guitar riffs and solos, electric bass as well as a large selection of live drum grooves, perfect for beat juggling and scratch drumming.

So, whether it’s a DJ battle, freestyle scratch practice, beat-juggling, jamming with other DJ’s or musicians, creating scratch music or sampling the sounds for your beats. Scratch Sounds 4 is an absolute must for all discerning scratch heads.

100% original recordings made specifically for turntablists.
Extensive collection of skip proof vocals, electric guitar riffs and solos, electric bass and live drums grooves.

Great for beat juggling and scratch drumming.

Side one programmed at 133.33bpm and side two at 100bpm

2 lock groove hi hat phrases for building tracks and keeping time

Smokey grey vinyl in a full colour reverse board sleeve

In the ever-evolving landscape of the underground music scene, few bands have made an impact quite like Selofan, an immensely talented duo of Joanna Pavlidou and Dimitris Pavlidis, has carved a niche for themselves within the international pantheon of darkwave, post-punk, and '80s synthpop, blending these influences to create a sound uniquely their own. Their journey, marked by a commitment to artistic integrity and evolution, has taken them from the cozy confines of local venues to the grand stages of international festivals, earning them a dedicated following and critical acclaim along the way. Their sixth album, Partners in Hell, released in October 2020, navigated the band through unprecedented times, testing their adaptability and resilience. Despite the hurdles to performing live and the global pandemic's challenges, Selofan emerged stronger, embarking on international tours with a newfound appreciation and connection with their global audience, during this period of introspection and isolation, Joanna Pavlidou embarked on a new venture, GIOVANNA, released under Selofan’s house label, Fabrika Records. GIOVANNA, which places Pavlidou at the helm of vocal and lyrical composition, represents a full on foray into synth-pop. showcasing a different facet of her artistic identity, with lyrics entirely in Greek. In 2023, Selofan hit the circuit hard, lighting up revered festivals with their presence. They stood shoulder to shoulder with heavy hitters like Molchat Doma and Lebanon Hanover at Grey Scale and performed with with the likes of The Sisters of Mercy, VNV Nation, and She Past Away at the Death Disco fest in their hometown of Athens. With each album they have released Selofan made significant strides in their evolution, deepening their engagement with their art. And their forthcoming seventh full length studio release, Animal Mentality, is poised to be their most compelling work yet. Animal Mentality unfolds as a labyrinthine journey through the elemental aspects of human emotion and experience, set against the backdrop of Selofan's signature darkwave sound. Each track on the album delves into different facets of the human condition, from the depths of desire to the pangs of isolation, encapsulating the duo's profound understanding of the intricate spectrum of human emotion and subjective experiences. The album kicks off with "Sticky Fingers," a track that melds cinematic scope with a haunting storyline, reminiscent of Jean-Michel Jarre's icy synths and a lyrical nod to Joy Division. This opening salvo revisits the tragic allure of classic car accident songs, weaving a tale of joy turned to sorrow amidst the snowy Alps. "Love's Secret Game" delves into the depths of forbidden desire, with vocals that echo the melancholy timbre of Xmal Deutschland, Lebanon Hanover, and Nico. It's a tale of passion and ephemeral connection, promising an enduring presence despite the inevitable fracture of time and distance. In "Lucille," sung by Dimitris Pavlidis, the plot is ensnared in the machinations of a tempestuous affair, with gothic undertones evoking the dramatic soundscapes of Ultravox and Clan of Xymox. The lyrics are steeped in danger and desire - a dance with the shadows. "Sacrifice Me" plunges into the abyss of despair, driven by a Bauhaus-esque bassline. It's a plea for release from the chains of alienation, a yearning for a final gesture of solace in the face of overwhelming darkness. "Bluebirds" offers a poignant reflection on solitude, with the fleeting imagery of bluebirds symbolizing the elusive quest for happiness. The song serves as a meditation on the internal struggle to maintain hope in a world shaded by sorrow. The narrative shifts with "Glassplitter," where German lyrics paint a portrait of deceptive allure and toxic entanglement. We are confronted with irresistible danger, masked by a veneer of beauty. "Ignoranz" continues the exploration in German, pondering the universality of misunderstanding. It's a reflection on the subjective nature of truth and the shared human experience of ignorance. "Behind My Eyelids" closes the odyssey, a contemplation on melancholy and metamorphosis. The phoenix rises from the ashes of betrayal to the brighter realm of renewal - a beautiful homage to the resilience of the human spirit amidst the often harrowing cycles of life. More than just an album, Animal Mentality is a milestone in Selofan's career, marking a decade of musical innovation and growth. It's a testament to their enduring spirit and a bold step into new realms of artistic expression. As Selofan continues to evolve, they remain at the forefront of their genre, pushing boundaries and exploring the depths of the human psyche through their haunting melodies and poignant lyrics.

Morikawa Seiichirou, vocals, bass
Yamagiwa Hideki, electric & classical guitar
Takahashi Ikuro, drums & percussion

je prie pour que la goutte ne tombe pas
(I pray that the drop does not fall) is the first international release by Japanese trio Chi To Shizuku. While they have released five albums and a 7” in Japan, their spectral, haunted rock songs haven’t yet reached a much wider audience overseas. With this album, then, a live recording taken at Koenji HIGH, Suginami, Tokyo on 23rd November 2021, the unique, quartz-like character of Chi To Shizuku’s music is writ large, the bleak bliss of their songs carved onto twelve-inch vinyl.
Perhaps the best-known member of Chi To Shizuku, at least for audiences with an ear turned to Japanese psychedelia, is drummer Takahashi Ikuro, known for his membership of almost every group worth a damn from that scene – Fushitsusha, Nagisa Ni Te, Ché-SHIZU, Kousokuya, High Rise, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, LSD March, the list goes on. But the core of Chi To Shizuku’s music is the collaboration between vocalist, bassist and lyricist Morikawa Seiichirou, and guitarist and arranger Yamagiwa Hideki. Morikawa is a member of long-running punk/goth group Z.O.A., and has also played with YBO , Zzzoo, and as collaborator with Takeshi and Atsuo of Boris in A/N; he’s also recently been performing with Mitsuru Tabata. Yamagiwa’s history takes in stints with Katsurei and Cock C’ Nell, and he also recently guested with la scene 裸身.

All this contextual information does relatively little, though, to prepare you for the unique vibration of Chi To Shizuku’s lustrous songs. They shimmer in the same half-light, perhaps, as Shizuka and the quieter moments of LSD March, sharing a similar poise and classicism, and there’s a tenderness and wracked poetry to Morikawa’s voice that reminds of the emotional intensities both of traditional Japanese folk, and of British folk music: on “Musuu No Nemuri No Naka De Kumo Wo Tukamu”, the combination of his singing, backed with gorgeously plangent guitar, reminds of no-one so much as it does The Pentangle or Spriguns Of Tolgus. Chi To Shizuku’s love for the ballad as form gifts their music an archaic, sometimes arcane resonance, and from what you can hear on this album, it’s clear they’re in love with graceful melancholy.

But this is not a folk album, by any means; it just shivers with the same eternal spirit. There are also hints of prog rock, and you can catch some passages of scratchy, distended free rock, on the extended spirit invocation of “Nanhito Hanhito”. je prie pour que la goutte ne tombe pas is an extraordinary album, a melancholy surprise, that reminds dedicated listeners of the seemingly bottomless well of great music to be found via the Japanese underground in its many forms. Perhaps Michel Henritzi says it best, though, in his liner notes, when he writes, “Chi To Shizuku’s music reminds us that our life is a dream that lasts only a season, and that oblivion will follow.”

Recorded at Koenji High Suginami, Tokyo, 23 November 2021
Mix & Mastering: Taku Unami, photography : Noriko Akiyama
Liner notes by Jon Dale Printed by Alan Sherry

Tucked in the heart of Koreatown, Los Angeles, lies The Libra Hotel—the titular architecture of Nick Malkin's new album and site of his musical and psychogeographic exploration. Unlike most musical "site-specific" studies, Malkin remains wholly ambivalent to the documentarian approach, instead sharpening an auteur-like focus on the site as a conceptual and highly expressive backdrop. The Libra is musically explored as a space that houses a noir fragmentation of identity—the exhausted trope of a complicated protagonist walking through rain-soaked street corners and fumy neon lights—where an inner monologue is rendered in both miniature and at a cosmic scale. Casting aside stifling tropes around field recording, ambient, and improvised music, Malkin's work finds its own unique fidelity and emotional core through the assembly and reassembly of memory. Nearly every sound on the album—from frayed saxophones, lambent pianos, and dissected jazz drum kits—are multiplied, shattered, and reconstituted into shapes that adorn The Libra in a motion-blurred fog. The narrative of the Hotel suddenly appears as if out of the mist, with intersecting characters interacting within its walls by happenstance. Adminst the languid set pieces, wraith-like sonic grains gravitate around wide subbass beams that give structural form to The Libra, a narrative tension like when a scene is shot from hundreds of different perspectives: an image both luminous and veiled.

Much like Frank Sinatra's own spatial residency immortalized on "Live at The Sands," "At The Libra Hotel" showcases an exuberant view of entertainment, hospitality, and a form of masculinity, one that can quickly detourn into darkness. Knowing this, Malkin extracts a melancholic core out of The Libra locale. The flickering shadows of American decadence are shown in their ephemeral honesty, lines that trace how even in everyday life virtue is tested, sanity is tested, even reality is tested within the confines of desire, within the night. The album is draped in fleeting textures, carefully arranged with a trance-like microtonality, the faint inflections and articulations of a jazz band cascading into dissipated stillness. Voicemails about changed locations and covert eavesdropping on guests' whispered conversations provide an atmosphere of missed connection and voyeurism—a purloined letter of desire receding into a vanishing point. Like the music itself, The Hotel, a chapel perilous at the intersection of desolation row, the center of it all, yet simultaneously at the edge of town, becomes a structure between libidinous virtuality and actuality—our inevitable half-light.

Ultimately, the pensive atmosphere of "At The Libra Hotel," powerfully asserts a plea for the kinds of intimacy only possible in transient spaces. Here, memory cascades into a force that feels like something supernatural, perhaps even religious, yet always subject to the infidelity of our imagination. Here, the album opens into its primary psychodrama, the transient nature of subjectivity itself and how this becomes fractured in the tumult between our commitments and desires. Within this nocturnal space, to quote Louise Bourgeois, "you pile up associations the way you pile up bricks. Memory itself is a form of architecture."