quête:out up

Winter Collection arrives a little late, but it arrives right. Four tracks across two sides, drawing from Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, and Portland, mastered for DMM cut by Lawrie Dunster of Curve Pusher. The vinyl sounds like it means business.

The A-side opens with the Bryan Zentz Remix of Basic Analogue, originally written and produced by Mazi and Joshua Collins. Dunster’s remaster serves the synth work well, keeping the melodic lines clear and the low end present without overcrowding the mix. Zentz built something durable here, and the vinyl pressing confirms it.

Sound Whore by DJ Mes follows, and Mes doesn’t waste any time. The wah-wah guitar arrives early, the trumpet not far behind, and then the Latin percussion and vocal samples start stacking up. It’s a lot, but Mes holds it together with a groove that keeps pulling everything back toward center. You don’t resist it. You just follow.

The B-side belongs to the most requested track in the label’s catalog, and it’s easy to understand why. Mike Huckaby’s remix of Cesar Ramirez’s Congo Fury anchors itself to a conga line and then opens outward, synth lines drifting across the rhythm like smoke. Huckaby had a particular gift for this, the ability to make a moment feel like it could last forever without ever losing tension. Ramirez’s own keyboard solo survives toward the end, a subtle crescendo that feels earned. Dunster captures the whole thing with care.

It’s Time to Jack by Da Outlawz closes the record. 909 drums, cracking snares, chopped vocal fragments. Barebones Chicago house, designed for a sound system that can take the weight. Nothing complicated about it, and that’s the point.

Play it loud.

Track A1 written and produced by Maziar Namvar and Joshua Collins. Remixed by Bryan Zentz.
Track A2 written and produced by Jason Sutton.
Track B1 written and produced by Cesar Ramirez. Remixed by Mike Huckaby.
Track B2 written and produced by Gabriel Palomo & Geto Mark.
Mastered by Lawrie Dunster at Curve Pusher, UK.
Copyright Control
2026 Fresh Meat Records

Shorter Version

Winter Collection arrives a little late, but it arrives right. Four tracks across two sides, drawing from Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, and Portland, mastered for DMM cut by Lawrie Dunster of Curve Pusher. The A-side opens with the Bryan Zentz Remix of Basic Analogue, originally written and produced by Mazi and Joshua Collins. Dunster’s remaster keeps the melodic lines clear and the low end present. Zentz built something durable here, and the vinyl confirms it. Sound Whore by DJ Mes follows. The wah-wah guitar arrives early, the trumpet not far behind, then Latin percussion and vocal samples start stacking up. Mes holds it together with a groove that keeps pulling everything back toward center. You just follow. Mike Huckaby’s remix of Cesar Ramirez’s Congo Fury anchors itself to a conga line and opens outward, synth lines drifting across the rhythm like smoke. Huckaby had a gift for making a moment feel like it could last forever without losing tension. Ramirez’s keyboard solo survives toward the end, a subtle crescendo that feels earned. It’s Time to Jack by Da Outlawz closes the record. 909 drums, cracking snares, chopped vocal fragments. Barebones Chicago house, designed for a sound system that can take the weight. Play it loud.

Forever Records

Music springs eternal. Recognising the enduring power of timeless albums to guide us through life, Forever Records is a reissue series dedicated to rediscovering lost musical treasures from across the spectrum of head-feeding, heart-rending electronic music.

Established by Rush Hour co-founder Christiaan Macdonald and Delsin founder Marsel van der Wielen, Forever Records places heartfelt faith in a carefully curated sequence of seminal, largely forgotten records from disparate eras, scenes and spaces within electronic music history. Tipped towards the mellow and introspective, these are albums that stop time when the needle hits the groove, stirring only when it's time to flip over before you sink back into the experience. That's what albums were always meant to be about, back then, right now, always and forever.


The Release:
Dancing on the wildest edge of the 90s outsider techno zeitgeist while proudly independent of any so-called scene, Ov Biospheres And Sacred Grooves: A Document Ov New Edge Folk Classics is both of its time and out of time. Rooted in the experiments of electronic music pioneers, industrial culture and ethnic music from around the globe while responding to the house and techno explosion, Robbert Heynen, Reinier Brekelmans, Reinoud van den Broek and Tim Freeman's freewheeling masterpiece takes in lush electronica and murky abstraction on its singular voyage through parts unknown.

Forever Records presents an extensive reissue edition of the first 'fully released' Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia album. Originally released in 1992, this is the first time the full, previously CD-only, version of Ov Biospheres and Sacred Grooves will be pressed on vinyl. The original LP and CD artwork from the various editions released in the early 90s has been combined and designed by the band, and the audio has been remastered with their full approval. As well as a new LP edition of the album, there will also be a uniquely numbered, limited edition available housed in a gatefold sleeve that comes with a bonus 10" featuring two previously unreleased tracks.

Press response to Ov Biospheres and Sacred Grooves - A Document Ov New Edge Folk Classics:

“That’s Magick! The Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia are Holland’s best kept secret.”
Sherman, NME, UK 1992

“PWOG’s debut LP is an organic invocation rite — the soundtrack to a new world coming to life, an odyssey. Cross-cultural rhythms, ambiences and environmental samples segue into one another like a fluid relay, and unlike the majority of dance records, it never settles into a routine. It’s always evolving, always unpredictable, an indefinitely religious experience.”
John Selzer, Melody Maker, UK 1992.

"Grown men, who snorted their first ecstasy to this record, stammered with tears in their eyes about divine experiences and the cosmos, man."
Peter Erik Hillenbach, Marabo Magazine, Germany 1992.

Sacred Grooves’ introduces tribal dance music for the mind, body music leaning on the avant garde. Its ripples of sound drift through tranced out ritualistic beats into ambience and serenity resembling something akin to The Orb meeting Klaus Schulze at a brain tuning session.
Sherman, NME, UK 1992

"There's still dance for a moment, in the opening track "The Challenge," then Psychick Warriors roam the earth, where African drummers, tropical sounds, and science-fiction chords have found their place in a spiralling interplay of rhythms and sounds. A captivating, almost magical ritual." Corné Evers, Oor Magazine, Netherlands 1992.

"It's truly astonishing what these Dutchmen have come up with for their first LP. Their roots might explain the enigma, for Psychick Warriors are more in the tradition of Psychic TV than in the desolate temples of techno-house fetishists, to which they are wrongly relegated. Here, chromosomes dance, not instincts." CMK, Tip, Germany 1992.

"The transcendental essence of this album is spread throughout, with musical gravitations emerging unexpectedly from sonic experiments that are sometimes primitive, sometimes
futuristic in intention… But there is always an aura of cosmic magic that constantly puts all the parts involved in conflict and which, upon closer analysis, ends up being the main reason for the final result." Blitz Magazine, Portugal 1992.

2026 Repress

Alarico returns to Mutual Rytm with his 'Drops Of You' EP, packed with his mind-bending signature rhythms while focussing on a more minimal and atemporal approach than before.

Milan-based artist Alarico has firmly arrived on the world stage in recent years. Taking cues from the harder realms of techno of the 90s, he adds his own quirky rhythms and quickened sense of groove to showcase his modern take on the genre. Building on material dropping via his own Katana Records, with high-profile support from bigname DJs across the scene, he breaks new ground again here on this compelling new EP as he returns to SHDW's label Mutual Rytm with 'Drops Of You'.

Excellent opener '0 Kelvin' races out of the blocks with wiry synths and percussion that sounds like knives being sharpened, all over tight, punchy techno drums. 'One More' then gets more twisted with freaky synth line scurrying about the mix while hammering hits and bouncy drum programming races onwards into an unknown future.

'Asma' slips into a deeper but no less impactful groove - the tightly coiled drum funk is overlaid with soulful vocal whispers and militant snares that cannot fail to sweep dancers away. Next, the slick 'Sunburn' keeps the pace high and is another warp-speed techno excursion with bold drum patterns and dry hi-hats cutting up the beats. It's a fulsome sound fleshed out with great synth detail and euphoric vocal cries, before closer 'Drops Of You' layers broken beats, vocal snippets and psychedelic synth colours into an intense and emotional workout.

Alongside the vinyl cuts, three digital-only offerings are also loaded into this one as a trio of treats in the form of 'Sino', 'What For' and 'Erased', with each track harnessing pacy, energetic rhythms, a mix of bright and murky sonics, and tunnelling grooves crafted for maximum impact.

Alarico 'Drops Of You' drops via Mutual Rytm on 8th September 2023

/// First track, Symmetry, debuted on BBC Radio 6 New Music Fix, 10th February: "A beautiful, beautiful album" /// I got my life back. On 17 February 2025, 1024 rays of ultra sound converged at an operation table in Bern, Switzerland, and disconnected a noisy circuit on my brain. 90% of the manifestation ceased – of a disease that I no longer wish to mention by its name. During the same period, I completed my new album: Self Help Manual. I’ve read more current research about the nameless disease than my neurologist, who despite that I didn’t follow his advice on suitable treatment, called me after the successful operation: a brave, brave man. I have composed the music in the same way as in my previous album – Songs for the Nervous System – through layers upon layers of improvisations in dialogue with my synthesizers, most of which are the same age as me. I made the majority of the songs in my studio in the remains of Old Hagalund in Solna. I edited the recordings in my bed during the waking hours of clarity at night. Some songs – NAC, Ketosis, Overkill – were recorded in the basement of my childhood home in Skutskär, in Norduppland, where I’d returned to be nurtured by my retired parents – who during a night when I couldn’t turn over in bed, or pull the blanket over me – made a list of what would happen to my belongings. To my friends who have stood out with me despite my disease, I want to state: you will not inherit me yet. On the new album, the electric bass takes on a leading role. ESG and Liquid Liquid have been important when I reinvented my baselines, limited and liberated by my poor fine motor skills. Plasma is my homage to Summertime Rolls by Jane’s Addiction, that I listened to frequently in my youth. I guess that no one will hear the resemblance. In several songs, the Fender Rhodes plays an important role, a magical instrument that I bought shortly after my diagnosis over a decade ago, and for a long time didn’t dare to touch out of respect for Herbie Hancock and Fela Kuti. A couple of songs draw inspiration from the Horn of Africa – Inner Nile and Delta. At first, subconsciously in the reverb-drenched Inner Nile, then more consciously in Delta. I’m sorry it doesn’t swing the right way, but it was my attempt to return to the cradle of humanity. Longevity is possibly my favourite. The melody is played by an arpeggiator that I controlled by pressing down different keys in an exhilarating sense of freedom. One song in particular, the second track – One – has caused friends to associate freely: one thought it sounded like Patrick Cowley, another like Sly & Robbie meets Kraftwerk, a third like Air – Moonlight Safari. I made one song just before the surgery: opening track Symmetry. It’s the mightiest and most minimal song. I made one song after the surgery: finishing track Self Help Manual. My previous medication pump is heard through the microphone of my Ovation Magnum. It’s the most hopeful song on the album. I took the cover photos with my Hasselblad during walks in Tokyo suburbs of Ōmori and Kamata more than ten years ago. It was something about the faith of the traffic cones that fascinated me – born in the same streamlined form, they had over the years become increasingly individual and lovable. The mixing was finalized by Christoffer Roth in the newly built Studio Dubious in Nacka. Rashad Becker, who in an interview said that he listens as much with his mouth as with his ears, mastered the album at Clunk in Berlin. Right now it feels like anything is possible. My recovery is perhaps a small step for mankind, but a giant leap for me. I hereby leave the music to you. Joakim Forsgren

One year on from his first Samurai release, Vardae returns to plunge even deeper into his mesmerising strain of hyper-mobile drum mantras and textural intrigue. Cédric Arnous' prolific run over the past few years has rapidly positioned him at the forefront of a scene between scenes where the rhythmic intrigue of drum & bass collides with modern techno's hypnotic linearity. On The Energy Of Presence he relishes the flexibility afforded by this intersection to deliver four distinct, high-impact workouts made with his ever-evolving live set in mind. 'Grounded Attachment' leads with the sonar strafe and broken beat pulse readily associated with the Vardae sound, threading twitchy percussion and steely brushstrokes around the bedrock of low-end pressure. It's the slowly emerging drone sweeps that round out the character of the track, betraying a warmth encased within the metallic overtones that deepens the emotional weight immeasurably. By contrast, 'Magnetic Flux' swerves towards a more direct thrust with its high-tempo 4/4 undercarriage and a limber, acidic lead line that helps join the dots between Vardae's modernist sheen and the roughneck days of free party tekno. This is still charged, atmospheric dance music, but it has no problem showing its teeth, too. 'Electric Feelings' is similarly sprightly in its tempo, but as ever Vardae runs a tight game with the weight of his drums, finding lightness and dexterity even at 170BPM while the transcendental wormhole opens up around the rhythmic force at the centre. Ensuring there's no space for predictability on this release, 'The Energy Of Presence' plies its own trade in sumptuous dub techno chords and angular groove designed to make you move on a different kind of downbeat. The consummate title track, it's the most roundly melodic offering on the record, served as a crescendo to the whole listening experience comfortably nestled on the B2 of the physical edition. Capitalising on the hypnotic codes etched into the dub techno sound, Vardae dials up the delay feedback for a psychedelic release at the end of a record that covers a lot of ground without losing focus.

Now into its sixth year, NuNorthern Soul’s Summer Selections series has become a popular annual fixture. Like its predecessors, 2026’s edition showcases a variety of Balearic dancefloor workouts, sensual soundscapes and tracks tailor-made for poolside sun-down sets.

As usual, Summer Selections Six is a vinyl-first affair, offering wax enthusiasts a chance to cop killer cuts set to feature on a swathe of forthcoming NuNorthern soul releases – including some that would otherwise be unavailable on physical formats.

To begin, is It Balearic? label regulars and Rotation Sound System crew members Wrekin’ Havoc turn their attention to NuNorthern Soul favourite B.J Smith’s 2014 cover of Outkast’s ‘Prototype’. Their take, which will be featured on a forthcoming collection of reworks of Smith’s NNS material, places the long-serving producer’s beautiful, beguiling vocals atop lo-fi 80s electro beats, moody pads, squelchy synth sounds and far-sighted electronics.

Up next is label newcomer Sasha Foam, a fast-rising Lisbon-based DJ/producer whose Memoria EP is set to land digitally soon. ‘Curios’, his contribution to Summer Selections Six, is a propulsive and ear-catching affair, with joyful synth melodies, rushing piano riffs and cheerful TB-202 style acid tweaks rising above a crunchy, drum-machine driven mid-tempo groove.

Rounding off side A is ‘Call To Wind’, a rootsy, warming and sun-baked slab of Balearic dub gorgeousness from Strictly Dub Records founder Saimon AKA Roots Artefact. The track, which marks his first new material since last year’s NuNorthern Soul debut Different Perspective, is one of the many highlights set to be featured on the Estonian’s forthcoming Rocking Boat EP.

Turn to the flipside and you’ll find three more inspired, immersive treats. Dan Dub Lounge, Muzka and Simon Sheldon being their Visions of Light project back to NuNorthern Soul with the borderline genius ‘ReBorn Slippy’, an exotic, intoxicating and sitar-laden slow-motion instrumental cover of the Underworld favourite taken from their soon-come collection of ‘mild pitch’ takes of dance and electronic classics.

To complete another stellar Summer Selections 12-inch label founder Phil Cooper platforms two recent additions to the roster. First is Potteries-based producer Andrew Wright AKA Lonely Deckchair. Wright offers up ‘Adaflo’ from his forthcoming debut album. Atmospheric and magical, ‘Adaflo’ is a simmering, slowly unfurling fusion of poignant pianos, minimalist beats, shuffling bass and tumble-down chords.

Then there’s Aussie artist Perth Lewis, whose first two self-released albums (Moments In Time and Distance Between) were recently reissued by NuNorthern Soul. The Sydney-based producer is set to release a new EP, Cherry Moon, soon, and ‘Monolith’ is taken from that collection. Deep, dubby and beguiling, it sees Lewis pepper a head-nodding, effects-laden beat with spacey sonics, cascading piano motifs and some seriously sparkling synths.




d B1: Visions of Light -

Fresh Meat Records is proud to present the vinyl re-release of From Chicago With Love, a record originally produced and released by Mazi Namvar (aka Audio Soul Project) in 2004. Though it may have flown under the radar upon its initial release, the record has recently gained a cult following, with prices on the secondhand market steadily climbing. A single copy now fetches as much as $170, with a recent test pressing selling for $100. Recognizing the demand, Fresh Meat Records has gone to work offering a beautiful repress of the record—one that truly does justice to the original while adding something special for long-time fans and newcomers alike.

From Chicago With Love Reprise is a celebration of a classic with a new dimension. The record includes a fresh fourth track, “Murmurs Low,” which features the saxophonist Jimmy Tripp and a spoken word performance by Mazi. Together, they add a soulful and atmospheric touch to the original, expanding the sonic palette while retaining the deep, intimate energy of the original release.

The tracklist remains faithful to the original with the standout “Tattoo Of You” leading the way on the A1 side, sounding better than ever thanks to an impeccable re-cut by Lawrie Dunster at Curve Pusher. The deep grooves of “Tattoo Of You” still deliver their deep and mesmerizing house vibes, setting the tone for the rest of the release. In the A2 position, “Murmurs Low” provides a captivating, subdued moment, with the saxophone adding a melodic layer to the evolving rhythm that makes this track truly memorable.

On the B-side, “Down” takes its rightful place as the first track, maintaining a dubby soulful drive and emotional call to action. Closing out the record is “Let Me Know,” a track that brings the journey full circle, providing the perfect outro for the reissue and reminding us why this record is still beloved.

In creating From Chicago With Love Reprise, Mazi Namvar has ensured that every detail is accounted for, from the masterful cutting by Lawrie Dunster to the selection of 8 different color sleeves, offering something for both collectors and music lovers alike. The reissue ensures that this classic can now be enjoyed at a reasonable price, far more accessible than the inflated prices on Discogs. This new pressing is a labor of love, showcasing not only the timelessness of the original tracks but also the care that has gone into its revival.

Whether you’ve been following Mazi Namvar’s work for years or are just discovering this release for the first time, From Chicago With Love Reprise is a powerful reminder of the depth and beauty of house music’s rich history, as well as the enduring passion that drives artists to continue creating for the dancefloor. Get ready to experience this iconic record in a whole new way—one that honors the past while looking forward.

Written, produced, performed, mixed, and arranged by Maziar Namvar.
Additional keys on A1 by Joshua Collins.
Saxophone on A2 by Jimmy Tripp.
Vocals on B1 by Lori Reigler.
Copyright Control
2025 Fresh Meat Records

The trilogy is finally complete as Deep Dish make their monumental return to Global Underground, following up the seminal Moscow and Toronto mixes with #GU49 Dublin. The legendary duo has delivered a masterclass in mixing. This isn’t just an album, it’s a legacy.

Straight outta Bristol, the Toaster Soul Project serves up four heavyweight cuts of mental lofi jungle.

DJ Support: Mousse T, Todd Terry, Young Pulse, Angelo Ferreri, Melvo Baptiste, Richard Earnshaw, Micky More & Andy Tee, Dr Packer, Hatiras, DJ Rae, Mark Picchiotti, Birdee, Shaka Loves You, Yasmin, Saison, Michael Gray, DJ Spen and Hatiras

A Touch Of Love goes from strength to strength with EP8 in the vinyl series. Label boss Seamus Haji reps the A side with his latest faves ‘Fire’ with his good friend Mike Dunn serving up the unmistakable vocals on a funk fuelled Firestarter followed by his collab with the New York diva Kathy Brown over the sexually charged disco chugger ‘Dancing’. On the AA side new kid on the block from Barcelona Osner hit big with his outing ‘It’s Good’ with a nod to the 70’s with a modern twist for peak-time dancefloors whilst Italy’s fast rising underground hero Gledd continues the theme with the blues & soul injected thumper ‘Move Me’.

Next up for release number 8 - and Outside In’s first release of 2026 - comes from talented DJ, producer, and close friend of the label, Nicolás Amaro, with his debut full EP.

Originally from Uruguay and now based in Barcelona, Nico has been steadily refining his sound over the last few years. The Holistico Records co-founder, delivers a direct and diverse 4 tracker for his first full release, made with late nights in mind.

2025 Repress

(remastered classic incl DL card) Environ is proud to present the Metro Area 15th Anniversary Edition, Metro Area's eponymous debut album, meticulously remastered using the original source tapes and generously spread across three slabs of vinyl. The12-track triple LP and digital package combines all the songs from both the original US and licensed European releases, and features new commemorative artwork unique to this edition. In the late nineties, the budding producers Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani bonded over their shared love of slower tempos and '70s and '80s NYC club culture. Obsessed with record digging and the sounds they heard on late-night "club classics" radio shows—and turned off by current releases they saw as artlessly "updating" sublime disco by sampling, filtering and subjugating them with huge kick drums —the duo set out to discover how their favorite old 12" records were made. They naturally gravitated towards extended dubs of songs—full of strange mistakes and echoing backing tracks—instead of the better-known vocal versions. Lacking the big budgets and gear that made so many of their favorite classic records come together, they were forced to take a guerrilla approach. They reprogrammed their techno-oriented arsenal of secondhand synths and samplers, using novel digital recording technology to capture live instrumentation and prioritizing mood over hooks, and the resulting music was just wrong enough to sound unlike anything else being released at the time.After just four underground 12" releases, the duo—now well-known as Metro Area—released their first and only album, Metro Area, in the fall of 2002. Fifteen years later, it's time to celebrate the culmination of their shared history and inspiration once again. Environ is proud to present the Metro Area 15th Anniversary Edition, Metro Area's eponymous debut album, meticulously remastered using the original source tapes and generously spread across three slabs of vinyl. The 12-track triple LP and digital package combines all the songs from both the original US and licensed European releases, and features new commemorative artwork unique to this edition.

The Parade imprint returns for its seventh outing, keeping the mystery alive with a four-track heater from a nameless contributor. The Neo Piano EP is a masterclass in dancefloor nostalgia, expertly blending the euphoria of the early 90s with modern, punchy production.

On the A-side, "Everyday" sets the tone with soaring chords and a breakbeat foundation that feels both fresh and familiar. It’s followed by "Angelite," a shimmering roller that leans into the lighter side of rave, balancing celestial pads with a driving rhythm section.

Flip the wax for "Somebody 2 Love," a high-energy edit that reconstructs a classic vocal into a peak-time breaks anthem. Closing out the record is "Da sweetest Ting," a bass-heavy, old-school leaning cut that lives up to its name with infectious hooks and a soulful finish.

Pure dancefloor functionalism with a sentimental heart—strictly for the heads.



>>> comes in different marbled colored 12 “ Vinyl and ONLY on Vinyl <<<

p:m is delighted to welcome Kumarachi to the fold - a Nottingham-based artist with a deep catalogue steadily built over the past 11+ years. For the label’s first 10” vinyl cut, Kumarachi teams up with his old friend, the wonderful Liam Bailey, for some rudeboy pressure on the a side, while flying solo for the b.

Tracklist:
A. On Sight: snappy snares, snarling bass, and shifting percussion meet the dulcet tones of Liam Bailey, who turns in a different kind of original dancehall style vocal that gets people skanking and swaying.

B. Cast No Shadow: a heavy-hitting track of pummelling breaks and beats, heavy bass, dub fx, and synth stabs, reminiscent of Star Wars’ X-wings in space.

In Kumarachi’s own words: “On Sight was just a loop when I sent it to Liam, then arranged and built around his vocals. I played it to a couple of people for feedback and to test out, it luckily found its way to DJ Flight via Sweetpea, so a big thanks to her too. Both myself and Liam felt play:musik is the perfect label for On Sight, with what Flight stands for musically and culturally, there’s a definite alignment within the lyrical content aswell. It’s a perfect fit. Cast No Shadow was written later and specifically for this release to contrast and complement the flip. It actually came together quite quickly - referencing classic combinations, whilst hopefully sounding fresh for 2026.”

Returning from an 18-month hiatus, Companion resurfaces with its long-awaited ninth offering – a six-track EP that beautifully distills the label’s devotion to patient tempos and deep immersive moods. The Garden is the result of a remote, cross-border dialogue between London and Belfast: a project born from a seasonal fatigue with the dancefloor and a collective turn towards our most inner states of being. The debut collaboration between Serenity Complex (Wigs) and Aika Mal, the EP is a meticulously detailed exercise in restraint, trading industrial harshness for a lush, subterranean hush.

The production breathes with a tactile, low-slung urgency: gritty, compressed drums and haphazardly recorded beatboxed percussion captured on a patio beneath the Devon sun provide a raw counterpoint to the EP’s cinematic sweep. Steered by narcotic basslines imbued with the brooding, early DNA of Massive Attack, these undulating pulses coil around the listener with a subtle, magnetic pull. They create a state of suspended momentum where tension never fully resolves and instead becomes the point of return. Aika Mal’s voice acts as a spectral anchor – mellifluous and transfixing as it moves in and out of each carefully curated element.

Drawing from the gossamer, reverb-drenched landscapes of Love Spiral Downwards and the gothic opulence of The Golden Palominos, the tracks lean into a slow, deliberate pace. Dub-influenced low end and trip-hop structures form the backbone, while fractured, gritty breakbeats bring a sharper edge. The release traces low-lit excursions into limerence, thriving in the heavy humidity of the afternoon just as easily as in the blue light of the pre-dawn or the apricity of first light.

The Garden celebrates togetherness by blurring two distinct artistic outlines into a single, prismatic whole. It is an invitation to submerge – a descent into the overgrowth.

TECH040, titled INTRO, is a functional exploration of electronic music’s most delicate moments. The concept was born from Nastia’s personal experience as a globally touring DJ, identifying a distinct gap in the modern market: a scarcity of sophisticated, atmospheric tracks specifically designed to set the tone during the first minutes of a performance.

This compilation is more than just a collection of tracks; it is a professional toolkit. From deep hypnotism to restrained energy, each contribution has been meticulously selected for its ability to prepare the space and the audience for the journey ahead.

Conceived as a functional extension of the DJ set, the Intro / Outro series explores the moments that frame the dancefloor experience. Focused on beginnings and endings, each release navigates the subtle tension between anticipation and resolution – from the first pulse that opens a space, to the final echoes that dissolve it. Stripped of excess and driven by intent, the series reflects a deeper layer of Techno: not just as a peak-time tool, but as a language of transition, atmosphere and control.

The record, bringing together techno legends and contemporary tastemakers around the art of the "opening set," featuring the long-awaited production debut of the label head herself.

ROCK JUSTICE is a new hard rock/metal act featuring singer Maggy Luyten (Ayreon, Beautiful Sin, The Prize, ex-Nightmare) and guitarist Bas Maas (Doro, After Forever).

The upcoming debut album, You’ve Been Served, is the result of Bas Maas’s long-held dream. He teamed up with Maggy Luyten to shape the powerful, driving sound of ROCK JUSTICE. The album blends varied song styles, tied together by a nostalgic vibe and well-crafted production.

“The idea came to life when I was still playing in After Forever, where I didn’t get a serious chance to contribute to the songwriting. I had written a couple of songs that didn’t make the cut and realized that if I wanted to get my own music out there, I’d have to do it myself, or at least with other people,” says Bas. When he decided to form a band, he had two rules: he wouldn’t sing himself, and it wouldn’t be a female singer. Finding the right guy proved impossible and after several try-outs, one name kept coming up: Maggy Luyten. “Mag’s voice completely blew me away. I thought, ‘This chick sings like a dude and she delivers.’ Not long after that, we met at an Ayreon album presentation in Utrecht. She wanted to hear my songs to see if they inspired her. They did.” The rest is history. Maggy recalls with a smile: “When Bas came over to hear what I’d worked on, we both knew we had something. I still picture him driving back home: window down, our demo blasting, arm out, metal horns up, huge smile!”

Boogie Vice & N-You-Up Return to Definitive Recordings with 'Decadisco EP'

Definitive Recordings continues its run of forward-thinking house releases with DEF2603, the new four-track 'Decadisco EP' from Boogie Vice and N-You-Up. Following their 2025 collaboration 'Come On Closer', the duo returns to the label with a fresh collection of groove-driven club tools that balance modern energy with classic house foundations. Recent releases on sister label Get Physical Music further underline the duo's strong creative momentum.

Boogie Vice is a French DJ and producer known for his groove-led house sound that blends funk, soul, and percussive club energy. With releases on labels such as Get Physical, Rekids, and Definitive Recordings, he has built a reputation for warm, dancefloor-focused productions supported by tastemakers worldwide. Now based in Cape Town, Boogie Vice has expanded his creative work into film scoring and executive production, adding new depth to his already rich musical palette.

N-You-Up, Southern France native Nick, brings decades of DJ experience and a deep-rooted love for jazz, funk, and disco. Formerly known as The Beatangers, he now channels those influences into a refined house fusion under his N-You-Up alias. Alongside Boogie Vice, his collaborative releases have appeared on labels such as Nervous Records and Get Physical Music, with their joint productions receiving support from key artists including Solomun, Dennis Ferrer, Jamie Jones, Pete Tong, Laurent Garnier, Radio Slave or Mita Gami, firmly establishing the duo as a reliable source of dancefloor-ready house music.

The EP opens with 'Game Concept', a driving house cut built on percussive drums, a rolling classic house bassline, and catchy vocal samples. Dreamy, deep synth chords float above the groove, creating a hypnotic yet energetic opener. 'Wurkin Like Dat' follows with a disco-infused house vibe, stacking groove upon groove as vocal snippets and disco elements take center stage, delivering pure dancefloor momentum. Rounding out the EP are two DJ-focused versions of 'Wurkin Like Dat'. The Invasion Tool strips the track back into a flexible club weapon, while the Drumapella isolates the rhythm and percussion, offering maximum versatility for creative mixing.

With 'Decadisco EP', Boogie Vice and N-You-Up once again showcase Definitive Recordings' ability to deliver modern house weapons that honor the genre's past while pushing the sound firmly forward.

“Dancing is immediate. It happens in infinitely small blips of the present, strung together one into the next, direct and spontaneous. And as each moment fades out of the present and into the past, these blips coalesce and ferment and refract into memory.

Play is the first album from Sam Hall’s new project, Spinbeat. Sam has previously released glitch-inflected bedroom pop under the name Ghost Orchard, putting out albums on Orchid Tapes and Winspear. Spinbeat comes with a turn towards rawer sounds and something like the dancefloor.

The tracks on Play linger in the space between music for dancing and music for listening. They are the memory of a dancefloor- sounds, feelings, moments of darkness and color. In contrast with other recent music to come out of the dubby post-club zone, Play is marked by its lightness and warmth. Fragile, intimate moments come bubbling up from underneath the surface, glimmering in plain view for a moment before sinking back into the fog. These pockets of earnestness lend depth and substance to the mystique of the murkier stretches.

Dance music for post-rave romance, for August haze, for the frogs in the pond out behind the warehouse party.

Mastered by The Bastard.”

dgoHn (pronounced “John") is the moniker of John Cunnane, who hails from somewhere between London and Essex. ‘Tessares,’ his fourth album but his first for Planet Mu, is playful, unconventional drum & bass that contrasts sparse effects and melodic elements with complex drumfunk and breakcore. He often uses unusual time signatures and head-spinning polyrhythms inspired by jazz and math rock, sometimes within the same track. Somehow he makes it sound effortless, and occasionally pretty as well, keeping a fine balance that never feels punishing; exploratory without getting lost.

He's built a name for himself over the last two decades performing live at festivals and events around the world, while collaborating with fellow artists such as Macc, Nic TVG, Jodey Kendrick and Badun as well as solo releases.


The album opens with ‘Waiting For’ which combines complex breaks with melodic fills, spacey effects and dubbed out vocals that feel like snatches of lost conversations - a combination he uses throughout the album giving it an eerie touch of humanity. Lead single ‘I Couldn't Remember So I Made Something Up’ is in 15/8 time. It feels like a conventional melodic drum & bass track, but the time signature disrupts the listeners’ expectations, while the detuned melody eases its sense of dislocation. ’Whistling On A Tuesday’ opens with a light echoey piano countdown into bass stabs which introduce heavy whirling amen breakbeats that switch between 180 and 120 bpm. ’Holly Can Swim But She Doesn’t Really Like It’ is the most rhythmically challenging track here. It feels hard to hang on to as its knotty breaks play out over bell chimes, like something Autechre might make if jungle was in their DNA. The album ends on the dubbed-out drumfunk of ‘7 Years Or More,’ with an arrangement that builds a filmic, dusty atmosphere of chimes and electric guitar, layering in vocals, vinyl crackle and echoing synth giving way to tough drums, before all that is taken away so that just a voice remains.

Somewhere between the after-hours haze and the first flicker of sunrise, Nebraska re-emerges - this time with a twist in the signal. Long respected for his deep-cut sensibilities and dancefloor intuition, Ali Gibbs returns to Delusions Of Grandeur not just as Nebraska, but with a handover to his new alias: Dubl Drat. The Alter Alter Ego EP plays like a transmission from both sides of his creative psyche - one rooted in warm, groove-led house and disco mutations, the other drifting deeper into dubbed-out, heady abstraction.

The A-side opens with Alter Alter Ego in its Nebraska OG Mix form - a crunchy, funked-up mid-tempo burner. Chopped Rhodes solos flicker in and out of the mix while a rolling bassline locks into a low-slung groove - equal parts party-starter and late-night dancefloor hypnosis. Next, The Teckel Track slides the tempo down into a proper slo-mo four-on-the-floor bumpy groove. Fat stabs punch through layers of glitchy FX while a melodic bassline snakes underneath, forming a hazy, infectious earworm tailor-made for those early-night mood-setting sessions. Closing the A-side, Olive (Dubl Drat Dub) signals a shift. Here, Gibbs leans fully into his Dubl Drat persona, dissolving structure into a blissed-out dub excursion.

Chopped breaks scatter across the stereo field, chiming melodies echo into the distance, and granulated percussion parts build a dense, immersive landscape - one to get lost in rather than dance through. Flipping over we have Alter Alter Ego (Dubl Drat Remix) which reconfigures the title track into a stripped-back boogie workout. The groove is leaner but no less potent, driven by a killer bassline and punctuated with signature Rhodes licks - pure, understated club pressure. Finally, Olive (Nebraska Version) offers a gentle comedown. This alternate take softens the edges, introducing additional guitar textures that drift into Balearic territory. It’s nostalgic, introspective, and quietly expansive - a closing chapter that lingers long after the last note fades. The Alter Alter Ego EP isn’t just a new release - it’s a dual-state exploration, a conversation between rhythm and space, between Nebraska and Dubl Drat, and marks the last ever Nebraska release as Ali closes the chapter and the alias for the final time.

Featuring rare- and first-on-vinyl tracks from beloved producers such as 2000 And One, Stasis, and CiM. Remastered by DMX Krew and with an accompanying online essay by Oli Warwick.

Across eight carefully selected slices of starry-eyed machine soul, Cold Blow presents an exquisite tour through backroom techno and downtempo electro. With a focus on thematic flow and an immersive listening experience, the London-based label explores works from leading lights of the 1990s and previously unreleased cuts that celebrate the human heart that can be discovered in synthetic sound practices. The development of techno in the 1990s saw the music evolve in different directions across the world. From the expressive blueprint laid out by the Detroit pioneers, a wide range of tempos and energies emerged. Techno's evocative synthesis and intricate drum machine programming was especially potent for deeper explorations away from the dancefloor. Documents Of A Different Reality casts back to when technology was steering quantum leaps in communication and creativity and the future was shot through with naive optimism. It was also a time when the media and industry hadn't caught up with the music to box it into distinct categories. As such, there's a sense of creative freedom that informs the older tracks on the album, from 2000 And One and Sandy Huner's sparkling example of early Dutch techno to London-based LA Synthesis' detailed take on braindance and the majestic night sky vision of cult legend Stasis. There's also space for rare, late 90s machine funk from Icelandic outlier Thor alongside Connective Zone's charmingly fractured bleep dream and a more contemporary offering from Barcelona-based duo Permutation. Meanwhile Mind Control and CiM both capture the spirit of stylistic fusion with twitchier rhythms that take influence from hardcore and jungle as much as techno. With an atmospheric through-line of melancholic pads and harmonious leads, this small but perfectly formed collection naturally follows on from previous, equally thought-out compilations on Cold Blow, and adds a distinct perspective on the history and continuing legacy of pioneering early ambient techno.

Cut The With The Cake Knife was recorded by Rose McDowall in 1988/89 following the break up of her group Strawberry Switchblade. Produced with the aid of several musicians in several studios, the album features songs written for the fabled second Strawberry Switchblade album. More importantly perhaps it showcases the honest, direct and life-affirming songs of one of the greatest unsung songwriters of the modern pop era at a tumultuous time in her career.

Tibet opens the set and could be one of the best pop songs you've never heard. The innate sadness of the songs' content - the loss of a friendship, impending sorrow - is heightened to heart-melting level by McDowall's pop nous and melodic sensibility. Choruses and hooks are everywhere on Cake Knife, from the outsider take on stadium 80s pop in Wings Of Heaven to the spiraling, ecstatic So Vicious, a glorious anthem that highlights the human fragility in McDowall's vocal performance, an instrument that has never lost the naïve purity it first exemplified in Strawberry Switchblade's early 80s recordings. The centerpiece of the album, the title-track, is the greatest Switchblade pop chart hit that never was. Like the veiled melancholy of her former group's hits, Cut With The Cake Knife hints at a darkness beneath the gloss, a darkness that saw McDowall delve into more esoteric territory with her subsequent recordings and collaborations. Cut With The Cake Knife serves as the bridge between the pop music McDowall had been making with her friends Jill Bryson, Lawrence from Felt and Primal Scream to what became a more extreme, deep sound informed by neo-folk and post industrial music.

Rose McDowall's role in the canon has always been one of an outsider. Beginning in Glasgow's East End in the avant proto-noise group The Poems, achieving fame briefly in the 80s and then disappearing into counter-cultural folklore, the emphasis in the internet-age has been skewed towards her image and cultural significance. Unseen to many, her solo work, her groups Sorrow and Spell and her collaborations with a whole host of underground luminaries have still touched lives. As McDowall elucidates: 'They're real sad songs, about real life. I've had people come up to me to say I'd connected with them and helped them. I remember a gig in America when we made a whole room cry. It was bizarre. A couple at the front of the stage started crying and then these two boys beside and suddenly everyone was crying. And I thought, "that's power."

Night School's issue of Cut With The Cake Knife includes unpublished photographs, extensive sleeve notes from Rose McDowall and 2 bonus tracks culled from the bootleg 7' 'Don't Fear The Reaper.' First vinyl pressing is Clear w/ Black swirl; 500 only / has DL card and booklet, with a poster
CD has extensive booklet and is packaged in anO-Card.

Detroit producer, Shawescape Renegade, comes to Tresor Records with Exoframe, a five-track EP of pure techno and electro, including a remix by Arpanet.
As with so many forerunners and peers in the Detroit techno world, Shawescape Renegade, is a deep thinking and a world-building story teller and Exoframe uses the traditional sci-fi narrative to explore recent thought Shaw has had on the potential hidden costs of technological
evolution: what happens when overspecialisation leads to a dead end; when inflexibility means a return to the old forms becomes difficult.
The EP opens with 78 Light Years From Earth, an effects-laden slab of electro that pulls the percussion into other dimensions. Mechanus 9 brings a techno edge before Terraformers Warning unleashes a bass-driven beast.
A fast-paced remodel of Terraformer’s Warning from Gerald Donald’s Arpanet project follows, before the EP is closed out with another bassline-forward track, Ignition One, an updated version of the Shawescape cut that soundtracked the section of the Black To Techno
documentary focussed on the Detroit’s Jit dance scene. The strong symbiosis between Jit and Techno is a foundational part of Detroit’s culture and a community tie and suggests that while technology may lead to stagnation, the cultural muscle memory offers a path back to
authenticity.
In a thoughtful nod to the praxis of the DJ, the vinyl versions of A1 & B1 are five BPM slower than the digital, moving the music to between 128BPM and 151BPM on a standard Technics turntable and opening it up for play in a greater range of club environs.
It’s this deep respect for the artistry and traditions of Detroit’s longstanding music and dance scenes that mark Shawescape Renegade out as one of the true inheritors of the city’s heritage.

Limited Silver Vinyl. The Rapture wurde im Frühjahr 1998 von Vito Roccoforte und Luke Jenner gegründet. Mit einem scharfen Ohr für Visionäre wie PIL, Television und Chrome erlangte die Band unter ,Kennern" im ganzen Land schnell einen Ruf für ihre energiegeladenen, oft chaotischen Live-Auftritte; wobei Jenner wie ein auf Steroiden stehender Trottel herumhüpfte, während die Rhythmusgruppe ihren patentierten ,sonic deathfuck groove" zum Besten gab. Im Herbst desselben Jahres wurden zwei Alben aufgenommen: eine LP mit acht Titeln, die auf dem wegweisenden Art-Punk-Label Gravity Records aus San Diego erschien, sowie eine Single, die bei Sonny Kayes Gold Standard Laboratories veröffentlicht wurde. Nach diesen beiden Veröffentlichungen nahm die Band ihre ,Make-it-fucked-up"-Philosophie mit auf Tour und tourte mit Sunny Day Real Estate, Gogogo Airheart und Nuzzle. Im Mai 1999 zog die Band nach New York City um. Matt Safer, der kurz zuvor aus Washington DC zugezogen war, übernahm den Bass. Mit einer solideren Besetzung als je zuvor stürzte sich die Band in die Erforschung von Dance- und Popmusik und erweiterte ihre bisherigen Einflüsse um Chic, The Byrds, The Happy Mondays und Timbaland. Auf der darauf folgenden EP - Out Of the Races and Onto the Tracks aus dem Jahr 2001 - festigte The Rapture ihren ikonoklastischen Stil wild-energetischen Rocks, der sich ebenso sehr an Dance-Musik wie am Post-Punk orientierte.

R&B outsider Zsela joins forces with inc. no world's Daniel Aged and film composer Taul Katz on '4 Dreams', a billowing ambient-neoclassical hallucination that'll tickle fans of Mary Lattimore, Malibu, Nala Sinephro, Gigi Masin. If you only know Zsela thanks to her dramatic 2024 debut album 'Big For You', the mostly beatless, fully reflective '4 Dreams' might come as a surprise. But look a little further back in her catalogue and things will fall into place; remember 'Angels Pharmacy' and Remembrance' from Actress's 'Karma & Desire'? That was Zsela on vocals, so she's got priors. '4 Dreams' started life as the soundtrack to 'Seven Heavenly Senses', an art exhibition from last year at Paris's Hôtel de la Marine, but has since taken on a life of its own. Zsela's breaths are stretched and sculpted into warm, washing biomechanical pads on the opening dream, left to weather tinny arpeggiated FM synths and muggy bass drones. So far, so predictable. But Zsela muddles proceedings with her confident delivery, layering her voice into jazzy, R&B inflected key changes that keep you guessing. Imagine an astral plane answer to Dawn Richard's ambient-inflected pop and you'll have some idea of where this is headed.

Then 'Dream 2' takes an unexpected diversion, the vocals replaced by swirling harp flourishes and the kind of floating synth stabs that draw a core logic from classic Ambient - Harold Budd, Laraaji et al - then adding extra colors just where necessary. And on 'Dream 3', faint, almost folk-y strings enter the frame, calling out from beyond the horizon, almost blotted out by a synth part that's in the thrall of Gigi Masin's legendary 'Clouds' - the track that ended up being repurposed by Björk on 'It's In Our Hands'. Zsela, Katz and Aged keep that momentum for the final track, too, letting cinematic strings echo around subtle synths and vanishing rhythms, hitting those hypnagogic, tranquil notes that so much contemporary ambient music seems to avoid. 'Cause at its heart, '4 Dreams' is deeper than that, a record that's entrenched in jazz, soul and classical minimalism rather than throwaway numbing music, of the contemporary variety.

- Die allererste Vinyl-Neuauflage und definitive Ausgabe von Nancys Album ,Movin' with Nancy" aus dem Jahr 1967 - Wunderschön gestaltete und erweiterte Gatefold-LP mit 20-seitigem Booklet sowie eine CD-Ausgabe mit 32-seitigem Booklet - beide enthalten ein neues Interview mit Nancy und dem GRAMMYr-nominierten Co-Produzenten Hunter Lea sowie bisher unveröffentlichte Fotos aus Nancy Sinatras persönlichem Archiv - Mit Audio, das vom GRAMMYr-nominierten Toningenieur John Baldwin frisch von den originalen Analogbändern remastert wurde - Enthält 4 bisher unveröffentlichte Bonustracks: ,It's Such A Pretty World Today" (Movin'-Version), ,Let's Get Movin'", ,This Town" (Film Intro) und ,RC Cola" (It's A Mad Mad Cola) - Mit Gastauftritten von Frank Sinatra und Dean Martin - LP gepresst auf violettem ,Some Velvet Morning"-Vinyl Beschreibung: Light in the Attic präsentiert stolz Nancy Sinatras Album ,Movin' With Nancy" aus dem Jahr 1967. Diese definitive Neuauflage und erste Vinyl-Wiederveröffentlichung überhaupt feiert Nancy auf dem Höhepunkt ihres 60er-Jahre-Coolness. ,Movin' with Nancy" ist eines der ambitioniertesten kreativen Projekte in Nancy Sinatras Karriere. Das einstündige Fernseh-Special von 1967 und das dazugehörige Soundtrack-Album fangen die kreativen, groovigen und schönen Zeiten der 1960er Jahre ein. Das Projekt wurde von RC Cola finanziert, aber das war kein reiner Geldsegen. Es war ein Herzensprojekt für Nancy, die ihren Vater, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. und andere Familienmitglieder und Freunde bat, im Film mitzuwirken. Sie nutzte auch ihre eigenen Autos, Kleider und ihr Haus und schminkte sich selbst. Eine echte DIY-Produktion. Auf dem Album ist Frank Sinatra mit ,Younger Than Springtime" zu hören und Dean Martin im Duett mit Nancy bei ,Things". Produzent Lee Hazlewood singt mit Nancy im Duett bei ,Some Velvet Morning" und ,Jackson"; außerdem steuert er die Songs ,I Gotta Get Out Of This Town", ,Friday's Child", ,This Town" und ,See The Little Children" bei. Zu den Bonustracks gehören der bisher unveröffentlichte Outtake ,It's Such A Pretty World Today (Movin' Version)", zwei unveröffentlichte Musikstücke aus dem Film und der unglaublich eingängige Werbespot ,RC Cola (It's A Mad Mad Cola)".













[m] 13IT'S SUCH A PRETTY WORLD TODAY (MOVIN' VERSION) [PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED] LET'S
[n] 14GET MOVIN' [PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED]
[o] 15THIS TOWN (FILM INTRO) [PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED]
[p] 16RC COLA (IT'S A MAD MAD COLA) [PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED]

ALUNAH says: "Embers of Belief" features the first Alunah recordings with vocalist Daisy Savage and continues our long-standing relationship with Heavy Psych Sounds Records. We are both excited and proud to present our contribution to this split release - two brand new studio tracks that give a glimpse into where this new chemistry as a band is taking us creatively, alongside two live recordings which document and acknowledge the incredible job Daisy did in stepping up to tour and promote our previous full-length. This significant release is part of our "VINGT" celebrations, marking 20 years of Alunah with both new music and festival appearances, including Bloodstock Open Air and Desertfest London. To everyone who's stood by Birmingham, heavy rock, and doom through the years_this one's for you! SAMAVAYO says: Creativity _ it burns deep inside, demanding to be heard and when it wants out, ist has to get out. So here we are! Longing, recklessness and hope_three themes that couldn't be more human or more relevant right now. Samavayo present three exceptional tracks on their split release with Alunah: BAVAR is a crushing heavy piece built on the Fibonacci sequence, featuring Persian lyrics inspired by a poem from Siavash Kasraie. It stands as a defiant cry against grief and mortality_the narrator refuses to accept the death of loved ones, clinging instead to love, shared tears, and the breath of life as proof that loss can neither truly be believed nor surrendered to. Mottainai, the 2nd song takes aim at a reckless, consumption-driven mindset_the relentless pursuit of instant gratification and shortcuts. The song warns that this culture of excess and selfishness will ultimately leave a devastating legacy for future generations. California Sky is a psychedelic, acoustic ode to Samavayo's 2025 US tour, captures a paradoxical longing for the American desert landscape. It evokes a sense of spiritual belonging in the vast emptiness of Joshua Tree, while reflecting a deep yet helpless emotional connection to the United States and all its contradictions.

Transparent orange vinyl, limited to 300 copies. ALUNAH says: "Embers of Belief" features the first Alunah recordings with vocalist Daisy Savage and continues our long-standing relationship with Heavy Psych Sounds Records. We are both excited and proud to present our contribution to this split release - two brand new studio tracks that give a glimpse into where this new chemistry as a band is taking us creatively, alongside two live recordings which document and acknowledge the incredible job Daisy did in stepping up to tour and promote our previous full-length. This significant release is part of our "VINGT" celebrations, marking 20 years of Alunah with both new music and festival appearances, including Bloodstock Open Air and Desertfest London. To everyone who's stood by Birmingham, heavy rock, and doom through the years_this one's for you! SAMAVAYO says: Creativity _ it burns deep inside, demanding to be heard and when it wants out, ist has to get out. So here we are! Longing, recklessness and hope_three themes that couldn't be more human or more relevant right now. Samavayo present three exceptional tracks on their split release with Alunah: BAVAR is a crushing heavy piece built on the Fibonacci sequence, featuring Persian lyrics inspired by a poem from Siavash Kasraie. It stands as a defiant cry against grief and mortality_the narrator refuses to accept the death of loved ones, clinging instead to love, shared tears, and the breath of life as proof that loss can neither truly be believed nor surrendered to. Mottainai, the 2nd song takes aim at a reckless, consumption-driven mindset_the relentless pursuit of instant gratification and shortcuts. The song warns that this culture of excess and selfishness will ultimately leave a devastating legacy for future generations. California Sky is a psychedelic, acoustic ode to Samavayo's 2025 US tour, captures a paradoxical longing for the American desert landscape. It evokes a sense of spiritual belonging in the vast emptiness of Joshua Tree, while reflecting a deep yet helpless emotional connection to the United States and all its contradictions.

Big Crown Records is proud to present Adult Themes, the latest full length offering from El Michels Affair. This album takes the band's "Cinematic Soul" aesthetic literally and sends the listener on a journey through a whirlwind of moods and energies. With their 2005 debut album Sounding Out The City, EMA spearheaded an instrumental funk / soul movement that inspired a slew of bands and even lead to the creation of a few independent record labels. El Michels has since lent his signature sound to artists from Adele to Dr John, Lana Del Rey to Aloe Blacc, and a who's who list of others. In 2016 he co-founded Big Crown Records and has since produced the lion's share of its output. A short stint as the touring band for Wu Tang Clan in 2007 led to the cult classics Enter The 37th Chamber (2009) and Return To The 37th Chamber (2017). Adult Themes marks the long awaited, highly anticipated return to an album of original compositions from El Michels Affair. In 2017 in between producing, playing, and recording on other artists' records Leon Michels began creating compilations of short interludes intended to be sampled by hip hop producers. Some of these wound up becoming songs by Jay Z & Beyonce, Travis Scott, and Don Toliver. These minute-long snippets were inspired by the dense moody work of `60s composers like David Axelrod, and Francois de Roubaix, as well as Moondog's brand of classical jazz. Michels was having so much fun creating these instrumental / orchestral nuggets that he decided to expand on some of the ideas and create what would become the soundtrack for a movie that has yet to be made, an imaginary film entitled "Adult Themes." The album plays like the colors on an artists pallet. Songs like "Rubix" and "Villa" are densely orchestrated with the hard-hitting drums that El Michels Affair is known for. On "Life of Pablo", Leon's son makes his first appearance on record and intros a song with an epic arrangement and a moving mood. "Hipps" is a drum heavy ballad that could've easily fit on EMA's debut record, Sounding Out the City. Other compositions like "The Difference" and "Kill The Lights" are bare, melodic mood pieces with sparse drums and sophisticated chord movement. All of these tunes come together to make perfect backgrounds for dialogue and action. One of the beautiful things about instrumental music is that the listener can decide what the narrative is. With Adult Themes El Michels Affair has created a "choose your own adventure" in musical form.

Thrill by name, thrill by nature, Will Howard christens a new alias on his Kalahari debut.

Spitting venom straight out of the gate, this is boisterous sci-fi dramatixxx delivered with chest-out conviction. Dancefloor accelerators built for big rooms and planet-ending cataclysm. Fully letting the handbrake off.

An unfurling odyssey with noirish narrative and cybernetic detail woven throughout. Triumphant and exhilarating, yet an ominous thread runs beneath. The end times are nigh but we dance to ignore the coming storm.

Not your cookie cutter stuff. This is proper character – raw, fronted up and packing vigour for days. A boiling tempest throughout.

Turbulent velocity, but brimming with nuance and explorative detail. Afterburners deployed as we escape orbit at the last possible moment. Pure rocket fuel.

Assault & Battery is the second studio album by Australian hard rock band Rose Tattoo and was released in 1981. Like the first album it was produced by the Vanda & Young team, who are most known for producing AC/DC's classic 70s albums).

Rose Tattoo (or The Tatts, as they;'re affectionately called) play peerless, street-level heavy blues with the emphasis on slide guitar and strident lyric statements.

After years of touring in Australia, Europe and America opening up for acts like ZZ Top and Aerosmith, the band started writing/recording their second studio album, Assault & Battery.
It includes fan favorites:"Out Of This Place" & "Rock n Roll Is King" & "Suicide City"
The album is noted for its "hard as nails," no-prisoners approach, described as a mix of AC/DC's power-chord style with a faster, punk-infused intensity.

Assault & Battery is available as a limited numbered edition of 1000 copies on black/white swirl vinyl.

Newly signed to indie heavyweights Heist or Hit (Westside Cowboy, Her’s) EP two: ‘Marionette’ has been produced by Daniel Fox (Sprints, Melts, Psychotic Monks, Naked Lungs, Nerves, Ronan Group) and it’s set to be seminal. A set text for future musicians with aspirations of innovation. “The theme of the marionette is present throughout each song, involving some aspect of a power struggle and a lack of control within oneself.” Opener ‘Chocolate’ bounces in on a synth line as slippery and hyperactive as anything Aphex Twin ever cooked up. Crispy offbeat electronic cymbals play counterpoint to atonal guitars and pugilistic drumming before the track dry-wretches its way into a nauseating cacophony of euphoria. It’s a tale of crippling social anxiety and a preference for an unflattering, lonely reality. The muted guitar pluck in the intro to ‘Crows’ is the sonic equivalent of biting one’s nails. An anxious, involuntary tic that speaks to the theme of guilt, especially surrounding digital culture: “children can watch what they please, just with viewer discretion.” The track lurches between textures, weaving themselves in and out of focus. Guitars blare like sirens, interrupting paranoid urban centres at 2am, while the bass sounds like the inside of an insomniac’s head on day four of a REM drought.

The metallic intent of ‘Discipline’ squats on the chest as though Steve Albini is your sleep paralysis demon. The pain of accountability spews from the industrial regularity of the beat, apt to the narrative of a soldier coming to terms with the lies that made him commit atrocious, violent acts. EP closer ‘Servant’ starts like a Spectrum loading screen. Dial-up modem-coded, it pauses for moments of white-noise-vomit and existential bloops. Fitting for a more abstract take on the idea of the power struggle filtered through religious imagery and self-awareness of one’s own actions, coupled with an inability to exert control over them. The band pile on the textures with sadistic glee until the evil is exorcized and the modem melts. Connection severed. Across the EP, vocalist Joseph has a tendency to hyper-fixate on themes of control and unhappiness. Creating rooms in which doom and isolation ricochet. Not that it’s all bad news “we like to think that by shedding light on the negative, it commands a sense of hope.” Influenced as much by the liminal-space horror and uncanny dread of Silent Hill as the existentialist theatre of The Twilight Zone or the absurdity of Twin Peaks, they occupy a space between unease and impulse. Makeshift Art Bar are not a band interested in being liked. They’re a band interested in being necessary. There’s so much eating and drinking in their work that multiple listens simply don’t satisfy; something new reveals itself on each return visit. Audacious. Idiosyncratic. Vital. A young band carrying identity, defiance and an uncompromising vision as if it isn’t a rare cargo.

Newly signed to indie heavyweights Heist or Hit (Westside Cowboy, Her’s) EP two: ‘Marionette’ has been produced by Daniel Fox (Sprints, Melts, Psychotic Monks, Naked Lungs, Nerves, Ronan Group) and it’s set to be seminal. A set text for future musicians with aspirations of innovation. “The theme of the marionette is present throughout each song, involving some aspect of a power struggle and a lack of control within oneself.” Opener ‘Chocolate’ bounces in on a synth line as slippery and hyperactive as anything Aphex Twin ever cooked up. Crispy offbeat electronic cymbals play counterpoint to atonal guitars and pugilistic drumming before the track dry-wretches its way into a nauseating cacophony of euphoria. It’s a tale of crippling social anxiety and a preference for an unflattering, lonely reality. The muted guitar pluck in the intro to ‘Crows’ is the sonic equivalent of biting one’s nails. An anxious, involuntary tic that speaks to the theme of guilt, especially surrounding digital culture: “children can watch what they please, just with viewer discretion.” The track lurches between textures, weaving themselves in and out of focus. Guitars blare like sirens, interrupting paranoid urban centres at 2am, while the bass sounds like the inside of an insomniac’s head on day four of a REM drought.

The metallic intent of ‘Discipline’ squats on the chest as though Steve Albini is your sleep paralysis demon. The pain of accountability spews from the industrial regularity of the beat, apt to the narrative of a soldier coming to terms with the lies that made him commit atrocious, violent acts. EP closer ‘Servant’ starts like a Spectrum loading screen. Dial-up modem-coded, it pauses for moments of white-noise-vomit and existential bloops. Fitting for a more abstract take on the idea of the power struggle filtered through religious imagery and self-awareness of one’s own actions, coupled with an inability to exert control over them. The band pile on the textures with sadistic glee until the evil is exorcized and the modem melts. Connection severed. Across the EP, vocalist Joseph has a tendency to hyper-fixate on themes of control and unhappiness. Creating rooms in which doom and isolation ricochet. Not that it’s all bad news “we like to think that by shedding light on the negative, it commands a sense of hope.” Influenced as much by the liminal-space horror and uncanny dread of Silent Hill as the existentialist theatre of The Twilight Zone or the absurdity of Twin Peaks, they occupy a space between unease and impulse. Makeshift Art Bar are not a band interested in being liked. They’re a band interested in being necessary. There’s so much eating and drinking in their work that multiple listens simply don’t satisfy; something new reveals itself on each return visit. Audacious. Idiosyncratic. Vital. A young band carrying identity, defiance and an uncompromising vision as if it isn’t a rare cargo.

Fenomenon are a trio hailing from Stavanger, on the west coast of Norway. Throughout their career they have released four full-length records, effortlessly moving between future jazz, downtempo, soul, and broken beat.

Their lush debut 12" Pacific Memories on Nuphonic made considerate waves and made the ears of many DJs perk up. As a result, the tracks "Pacific Memories" and "Solara" were featured on many big-name compilations and mix CDs such as Tom Middleton's The Sound Of The Cosmos, Hed Kandi, and MTV Summer Lounge. The latter was also featured in Michael Bay's sci-fi thriller The Island, featuring Scarlett Johansson. The follow-up single visjon.nord was only released as a white label promo due to the unfortunate demise of Nuphonic in 2002.

Pacific Memories: The Early Tapes collects tunes from both these EPs complemented by songs recorded around the same time. Originally released on CD only in 2006 by the Norwegian label Beatservice, it's now available on vinyl for the first time for its 20th anniversary. If you're a fan of Jazzanova, The Cinematic Orchestra, Kinobe, and Blue States, you can't miss this.

Pacific Memories: The Early Tapes is available as a 20th anniversary edition on black vinyl.

Fenomenon are a trio hailing from Stavanger, on the west coast of Norway. Throughout their career they have released four full-length records, effortlessly moving between future jazz, downtempo, soul, and broken beat.

Their lush debut 12" Pacific Memories on Nuphonic made considerate waves and made the ears of many DJs perk up. As a result, the tracks "Pacific Memories" and "Solara" were featured on many big-name compilations and mix CDs such as Tom Middleton's The Sound Of The Cosmos, Hed Kandi, and MTV Summer Lounge. The latter was also featured in Michael Bay's sci-fi thriller The Island, featuring Scarlett Johansson. The follow-up single visjon.nord was only released as a white label promo due to the unfortunate demise of Nuphonic in 2002.

Pacific Memories: The Early Tapes collects tunes from both these EPs complemented by songs recorded around the same time. Originally released on CD only in 2006 by the Norwegian label Beatservice, it's now available on vinyl for the first time for its 20th anniversary. If you're a fan of Jazzanova, The Cinematic Orchestra, Kinobe, and Blue States, you can't miss this.

Pacific Memories: The Early Tapes is available as a 20th anniversary edition of 250 copies on turquoise and yellow vinyl.

Red and Black Galaxy Vinyl. Kmoe is a young Canadian artist who emerged from the 2021 SoundCloud/Discord scene. Kmoe blends hyperpop and glitchy production with catchy indie-pop melodies and pitched up vocals. His sound is characterized as a "modern-day romantic" take on electronic music, heavily influenced by shoegaze, hip hop and experimental pop.

Vinyl Only!
250 copies, no repress!

Following on from the instant sell out release we had for our joint 13th release with Pirate Cutz, we’re back with number 14 featuring the +98 stalwart Ease Up George, alongside a remix from our very own L&F.



Don’t sleep on this one !

WRWTFWW Records unleashes the first ever release of legendary post-disco, funk, soul and electronic UK trio Imagination's cult album Night Dubbing in (well deserved) double LP format. The limited edition full-length comes with pristine audiophile treatment and luxurious packaging : a 45rpm and Half Speed Mastered DLP housed in heavyweight silver cardboard sleeve.
Imagination's singular 1983 album Night Dubbing is a refined deconstruction of black British soul and club pop, filtered through the deep studio and mixing techniques of dub music. Elegant, restrained, and, in its very own subtle way, radical, the record reshapes choice selections from the group's stellar catalogue into an immersive and out-of-this-world listening experience.

The special mixes on Night Dubbing are built on time and space. Basslines elongate and dissolve. Vocals appear, vanish, and reappear like ghosts. Drums fall away into vast silences, while echoes, tape edits, and precise engineering manoeuvres smoothly slide across the stereo field, revealing themselves like magic over repeated listens. Far from simple extensions or 12" versions, Night Dubbing treats the studio itself as an instrument, opening new dimensions of sound.

Often cited as a foundational record in the genesis of the house genre, the album also features the historic Larry Levan remix of "Changes", a Paradise Garage anthem that helped shape the direction of club music for decades to come.

More than 40 years on, Night Dubbing remains a seminal work. Its influence continues to echo through contemporary dance music, offering a blueprint for how pop could be transformed into something darker, stranger, more physical - a timeless sound that drifts effortlessly from the dancefloor into space.

Important note : it sounds amazing played on 33rpm too !

Laid Back in Top Form: New Music Flowing After 47 Years
After 47 years together, the iconic Danish duo Laid Back continue to defy expectations, entering a new and remarkably productive creative phase.
Their upcoming album, Born to Fly, captures their unmistakable sound while showcasing a renewed sense of energy and inspiration

“We feel like we are meant to make music. And when we play music, it feels like we’re flying,” says John Guldberg, reflecting on the album’s title and spirit.

Long known for their unhurried approach to releasing music, Laid Back now find themselves in unfamiliar territory. Guldberg describes a surge in creativity that has
turned their process on its head.
“It’s kind of funny — Laid Back has always taken its time making records. We’ve been behind schedule for most of our career. Now it’s the opposite:
I’m actually starting to worry about whether I’ll have time to release everything I’ve got in me,” he says.

Their current workflow reflects this momentum. Guldberg develops initial ideas,which he shares with Tim Stahl, who then brings them to life with vocals and instrumentation.
“When he sends me something and I start singing and playing on it, that’s when it really becomes Laid Back,” says Stahl.

The duo’s creative output has accelerated to such an extent that even ahead of the release of Born to Fly, they already have enough material prepared for more than a double album for their next project.

“It’s about making the most of the time you have left. I used to feel there was plenty of time and no need to rush. Now time feels much more valuable,” Guldberg adds
.
Alongside their creative resurgence, Laid Back are also seeing a shift in their audience demographics. Streaming data and live performances indicate a growing younger fanbase — a development that has taken the duo by surprise.
“I’m really looking forward to getting back out on stage. We still have the urge to perform, and we love making people happy. That’s what our music is for,” says Stahl.
Born to Fly is set for release across CD, vinyl, and digital formats. Laid Back will also perform in selected cities across Europe later this year 2026.

“We hope people can hear that we’ve grown — and that it still makes sense for us to make new music,” says Guldberg.

Gorizont Sobytiy (Event Horizon), the duo of veteran electronic musician Nocow and his wife, DJ Designer, mark the project's debut with an album worth of material of 'frogg-step' / Pankratov Step. It's safe to say this is an intriguing proposition for even those well-initiated into the world of the contemporary Russian underground. What is perhaps most immediately obvious across the 11 tracks is a clear appreciation for golden-era Rephlex records, as if the duo are reflecting on how the iconic label was perceived in the Eastern bloc at the time. There's a nostalgic touch tugging at the heart strings with the warm ambient tones of 'Bananoivy Twist' or even the ballroom-esque organ melodies of follow up 'Chacha', both swiftly followed by a switch back into frantic gabber style kicks that recur across the album.

To give a little more away in terms of a background story, Nocow and DJ Designer draw influence from a film called Winter Evening in Gagra, a somewhat distant feeling artefact of late-Soviet cinema about a tap dancing champion's late nights spent gallivanting across the glitz of Moscow's pop music scene in the 1980s. Maximalist in its sound design, Pankratov Step draws its name from actor-protagonist Pankratov, not quite an out-of-time soundtrack as such but at the least a wry nod to the former world in which the film takes place. The cascading, brittle synthesis of 'Cemetry's Boss' forms an icy cinematic fusion again with a gabber influence at play whilst a fierce acid line works alongside myriad glitch rhythms and repeating keys on 'Octopus Werk'. Influenced by the local humour and sentimentality surrounding the film, a melodrama with themes of lost art and a kind of old-world transcendence the young circus performer yearns for, the duo use it as a vessel to describe the projects sound - a coalescing of vintage Soviet soundtracks, early IDM, Jake Slazenger and Expert Knob Twiddlers album. 'Pankratov-Step' becoming their own fictional genre. The LP marks another avant-garde chapter in Nocow's long back catalogue, as well as a fully formed collaborative debut for the currently enigmatic DJ Designer. Pankratov Step is the second release on GOST ZVUK sub-label MEMONT, curated by Kuzma Palkin.

2026 Repress
One of the greatest gospel disco records of all time from Detroit’s Elbernita "Twinkie" Clark gets its first ever 12 inch pressing courtesy of South Street Disco. Formerly of the Clark Sisters, Elbernita went solo in ’79 and after a debut album she let loose the ’81 follow-up ‘Ye Shall Receive Power’. ‘Awake o Zion’ is the jaw-dropping, gospel disco dancefloor destroyer cut of choice from the album and now rightly receives a full length, 6 minutes of joy, loud and proud, 12 inch pressing. Favoured by the likes of Hunee, Antal, Sadar Bahar and Motor City Drum Ensemble to name only a handful.

On the flip the truly epic, organ-led, body slammer, ‘Power’, sure to convert any naysayers out there. Heavenly goodness for your ears, eyes and mind.

The world of discovering Soul music and artists can lead to sheer moments of jubilation. The thought of igniting a long lost sound, reviving the energy of a once exuberant individual . But not every story that's told is filled with joy. Some are peppered along the way with struggles and heartache. Over time artists have battled with over powering label owners, record executives who just don't back what you do. The story of Tommy Hill is one such story. Tommy along with friend and longtime collaborator Ricky Tarbo had a deal with Motown records back in the early 1980's which turned sour very quickly. His release "Flame"/"Super Star Of Love' was dropped pretty quickly with no promotion and record boss Sylvia Rhône calling the shots within the duo questioning skin colour within the group and even trying to get vocals wiped off the release to sabotage it.

This said the single didn't amount to much and nothing else was recorded for Motown records. The duo did record some 4 demo's in LA before Tommy headed to re-record them again in New York circa 1982.

The A side has never been released until now, which is such a crying shame as the quality is so damn good. It's an uptempo boogie cut called "All My Love" which we gave a sexy 45 mix so you get some slamming synth work half way in. Tommy Hill's vocal range is nothing but astonishing. Just check out the 2 step ballad of "Can't Get Over You", which was recorded and released back in 1980 by The James Simpson penetration Band written by Tommy Hill, who went back into the studio 2 years later to give the song much more depth not only within the production but also to his vocal range. Tommy Hill headed back to LA after not securing a record deal and a few years later tried to get this singing career back on track. Like many of the artists who have moved on to a higher place Tommy succumbed to his own mental health issues and took his life. We hope this record does you proud Tommy Hill

Mercurial Swede Axel Boman debuts on Aus Music with four spellbinding deep house beauties

Swedish artists pbeatgirl and Joakim Åhlund & Jockum Nordström feature on one track each
Axel Boman has brought playful charm to the underground for nearly two decades. His colourful, emotive sound marries melodic whimsy with warm, cuddly grooves and is underpinned by invention and experimentation in sound design, rhythm and mood. The Studio Barnhus co-founder is an artist who can make you laugh and cry at the same time, as continually shown across more than 20 EPs and four full-length albums on a tasteful array of labels. He strides into 2026 with a first EP for Aus that embodies everything that makes him easy to love and hard to pin down.

First up is 'Night Blooming' feat pbeatgirl - a provocative figure in Sweden's post-pop underground. The sensual late-night lullaby has soft drums and even softer spoken words whispered in your ear. Add in the dreamy synths, and you have perfect house hypnosis. 'Someone Stop Me' slows the tempo but ups the texture with raw, tumbling drum loops, incidental guitar licks and sustained pads that help you zone out and gaze into the distance on a summer's afternoon.

'Svalor Radiosignal (Axel's Dub)' features Joakim Åhlund, who is currently on tour of Australia with his band Les Big Byrd, and is also a guitarist and lead singer in the Caesars band he founded, as well as being a prolific producer. World-renowned multi-disciplinary artist Jockum Nordström works across painting, sculpture and collage and also features. There's a signature Boman innocence and charming naivety to the melodies here. They leave wispy, painterly trails above the smooth, dubby groove and fill you with warmth and comfort. Closer 'Spooky' journeys later into the night with a more rickety, edgy mood, but beautiful, shape-shifting synths are like a tender hand guiding you into darkness.

This is Axel Boman at his most intimate and expressive, a quietly powerful EP for heads-down moments and after-hours warmth.

‘Batteries Not Included (Brain Sold Separately)’ EP Arrives Via No Static Automatic

No Static Automatic is proud to announce the new EP from UK Electro legend Phil Klein under his Mental Note alias. Titled “Batteries Not Included (Brain Sold Separately),” this release marks the dynamic follow-up to the acclaimed 2020 debut “Voices In My Head (Noises In My Pants).”

Few authentic Electro producers from the UK can wear the badge ‘legend’ with the same level of justification as Phil Klein, aka Bass Junkie. Active since the late 80s, Klein has tirelessly shaped his distinct vision of Electro, both as a solo artist and through storied collaborations with icons like Dynamix II, Keith Tenniswood (Radioactiveman), and Si Brown (Dexorcist). As a DJ, remixer, live act, and the driving force behind the seminal Battle Trax label, his influence is woven into the fabric of the genre.

With essential releases on labels including DMX Krew’s Breakin’ Records, Andrea Parker’s Touchin’ Bass, and Billy Nasty’s Elektrix, the Bass Junkie sound seamlessly bridges the old-school beats of Electro’s origins with a potent, borderline-industrial edge. As noted by Andy Barton of Bass Agenda: “From funky to ferocious, Bass Junkie’s discography is a must-have for anyone claiming passion for the genre – influential, individual, and infectious with every beat.”

Now, as Mental Note, Klein continues his exploration of electronic psychedelia. The new EP, “Batteries Not Included (Brain Sold Separately),” is a four-track expedition through the Electro cosmos:

“Brainwash” immerses the listener in swirling, hypnotic synths.
“They're Not Blue, They’re Purple” delivers a masterclass in crunchy, textured drums.
“Primordial Soup” showcases frantic, intricate programming.
“Kluster Funk” offers a moment of deep, sonic relief and groove.

Each track reinforces Mental Note’s signature: a journey that is cerebral, raw, and irresistibly rhythmic.


About Bass Junkie/Mental Note:
Phil Klein, operating primarily under the alias Bass Junkie, is a cornerstone of the UK Electro scene. For over three decades, his work has defined and evolved the sound, earning him a revered status among peers and purists. His Mental Note project is a focused outlet for a deeper, more experimental strand of his production genius, further solidifying his legacy as an electronic music innovator.

Andrew Azara returns to Cécille with four timeless underground house cuts on his highly anticipated third EP for the label.

Andrew Azara returns to Cécille Records with his third EP for the label, following two outstanding releases that have received incredible support across the scene. Remarkably, tracks from those previous EPs are still appearing in the Beatport charts 14 months after their release - a testament to the timeless quality of his music.

Now he’s back with The Quest EP, delivering four fresh cuts that pick up exactly where he left off. As a long-time member of the Cécille family, Andrew once again showcases his signature blend of groove, depth and understated dancefloor power, staying true to the sound that has made his previous releases so successful.

Another strong chapter in Andrew’s Cécille journey and a package that is sure to find its way into sets around the world.

Luke Lund is a self-taught producer and sound artist from Finland. Over the past eighteen years, his work has absorbed influences ranging from the darkest fringes of club culture and the most caustic strains of industrial noise, to the subtlety of musique concrète and the rawness of rock.

It all started when he discovered that abstract sound design could stand as music in its own right, a revelation that ignited his enduring commitment to noise, sound art, dub techniques, and experimentation.

“Peel the Scab” emerges from this premise as a visceral and frenetic immersion into his “lo tech” facet, a term the artist himself employs to define the album’s style.

Allergic to programming, these are pure dub-blooded sessions pushed straight to tape, twisted until they yield under their own weight. It is a work constructed upon dense, disjointed rhythms: brutalist grime infused with a suffocating mutation of dub.

Rafael makes a statement on his Crosstown Rebels debut with his latest two-track release, ‘Gotta Be Cool’. Out on 26th June 2026, the rising talent lands on Damian Lazarus’ imprint with one of the year’s most sought-after IDs, backed by a collaborative B-side alongside close friend N.O.Y. Long before its release, Rafael’s ‘Gotta Be Cool’ had already taken on a life of its own. Passed between dancefloors and the subject of track ID requests for months, the record became a recurring standout moment in Damian Lazarus’ sets, the kind of track that cuts through instantly without needing explanation. Now officially arriving via Crosstown Rebels, the in-demand DJ/producer’s highly anticipated label debut captures the instinctive approach that has quickly put him on the radar through releases on Beltools, Hot Creations, SZR, Planet X and Maccabi House.

Built around slow-blooming synth flourishes and vocal chants that evoke playful, almost childlike memories, it balances emotional weight with direct club energy - a combination that has made it one of the standout records in the label boss’s sets throughout the year.

On the flip, ‘Teder’ sees Rafael team up with close friend and studio collaborator N.O.Y. for a deeper, more understated cut shaped by layered percussion, fluid grooves, and loose, after-hours energy. ‘Teder,’ made together with my close friend and studio partner N.O.Y, represents a more underground side of the EP,” Rafael adds. “The track is named after the studio complex we work from, and it was actually the first record we created there together. I feel like both tracks showcase two different sides of me as a producer and DJ, with one more direct and euphoric, the other deeper and more underground.”

Curated by Brian d'Souza (aka Auntie Flo), Plants Can Dance is a forthcoming new compilation bringing together a global community of artists, exploring the creative possibilities of biosonification - transforming signals from plants, ecosystems and the natural world into sound. Out June 26th, the project marks the culmination of several years of d'Souza’s work across music, ecology and technology.

The album arrives at a time when more artists are turning toward nature as both subject and collaborator, such as Brian Eno’s Earth Percent, which formally recognises “Nature” as an artist. Plants Can Dance sits within a wider cultural shift, which is redefining the relationship between sound and the living world.

The project builds on several years of work by d'Souza, whose Plants Can Dance events have taken place across the UK, Europe, India and Africa, appearing in institutions including the V&A, Tate and the Design Museum. What began as a series of intimate gatherings has since evolved into a global platform, reflecting a growing appetite for work that reconnects music with the natural world.

The compilation features contributions from leading practitioners including Modern Biology (Tarun Nayar) in collaboration with saxophonist Zekarias Musele Thompson, OMMA (Olga Maximovam founder of Playtronica), Jason Singh, Dr Helen Anahita Wilson, Justin Wiggan in collaboration with celebrated Norwegian jazz musician Arve Henriksen, Lamine Touré, Bit Marten and Balam, alongside new work from d'Souza himself. Using a range of tools - from commercially available devices to bespoke modular systems - artists translate electrical activity, environmental data and organic processes into musical material.

The processes behind each piece differ - from interpreting plant biodata to translating wind patterns into compositional structures - and the results are as varied as they are compelling. The record spans ambient, jazz, electronica and modern classical, yet all pieces are unified by a shared intent: to reimagine music as a space of collaboration between human and more-than-human worlds.

At the core of Plants Can Dance is a question about how we define music, and how we choose to listen. Traditional musical forms, with their fixed tempos and predictable structures, give way here to something more fluid and less easily controlled. The listener is invited to surrender expectation and engage with sound as an evolving environment rather than a linear narrative. In this context, the compositions function as what d'Souza describes as “acoustic ecologies” - sonic systems shaped by biological, environmental and elemental forces unfolding in real time.

Accompanying the release is a printed zine offering reflections from each artist, and deeper insight into the ideas and debates surrounding this practice. Rather than presenting definitive answers, Plants Can Dance positions itself as an artistic exploration grounded in curiosity, experimentation and critical thought.

Ultimately, Plants Can Dance is less concerned with proving whether plants “make music” than with changing how we listen. By inviting audiences to engage with sound shaped by non-humans, it opens up new ways of perceiving the environments we inhabit - not as passive backdrops, but as active, dynamic participants in a shared ecological network. In doing so, it offers a quietly radical proposition: that by listening differently, we might begin to relate to the natural world differently too.

Soul Jazz Records journey into early 1990s ragga, drum & bass and jungle. The album features all-time classic jungle anthems such as General Levy’s ‘Incredible’ alongside some serious Ragga heavyweight tunes like Cutty Ranks ‘Limb By Limb’ and Congo Natty’s classic re-make of Barrington Levy’s Under Me Sensi’.
The renowned album tells the story of how Jungle developed out of acid house but with its roots in the UK Dancehall scene of the 1980s and comes with extensive sleevenotes, exclusive interviews and photography.

After finding their feet with a couple of remixes for Before I Die, Talking Drums ditch their sea legs and swap the pirate booty of their cult edit series for a five-track EP of original productions, each swimming in LinnDrums, digital chimes and synth-vox sunshine. Summer sounds abound as the crew refract house, disco, ambient and dub through shimmering sea glass, bringing the beach to the bar, club, garden or grotto.

Inspired equally by tropical Sceneries (but Not Songs), Ecco the Dolphin and Echoes of Wally, as well as a few tall tales about trendy whales, this 16-bit caper makes a splash from wave top to bikini bottom. Written and produced as a cohesive EP over three sun-baked weeks in 2025, and stitched together with field recordings and found sounds from Sicily, rural France, Japan and Singapore, Pier Pressure sees each track flow into the next: distinct seas that make up one larger ocean.

Opener ‘Fashionable Whale’ surfaces with mystic motifs and dreamy pads arcing above the spray before a purring low end and drum-box shuffle plunge us into Balearic house depths. A rippling breakdown, bookended by insistent arps, provides respite from the rhythm before the low-tempo pulse returns to take us home. Sticking with Zone 2 cardio, ‘Salmon Hats’ serves wonky disco at Valium pace, its beatific vox and glittering sequences underpinned by a hip-swivelling bassline and topped with a future-primitive melody. After drifting into dream house for a sunset lull, it’s back to the beat and the enduring question of how best to dance on a lilo.

‘Mangrove’ offers an intertidal intermission as tuned percussion finds a place among the cicadas and lapping waves, gently unfolding into an RPGambient ode to humid languor. Refreshed, albeit ailed by a sunstroke haze, we’re back on the dance floor with the optimistic motifs and jolly polyrhythms of ‘Flutti Di Mare’, an uptempo, Afro-adjacent house workout designed to inspire mile-wide smiles. Then the EP sails off into the sunset with the fathoms-deep delight of ‘Squid Dub’, a Cousteau-coded cod-reggae stepper with digi-dub bass, pound-shop marimba and all manner of THCtinged FX. Don’t be deceived by the loose and limber opening: a solid sequencer emerging at the midpoint sees the Squid squeeze every bit of bump out of the finale.

Forget ATOL protection - Talking Drums deliver your summer holiday directly to your stereo.

One of electronic music’s most sought-after names, producer and DJ KETTAMA today announces the release of his long-awaited debut album, Archangel, out 3rd of October. The announcement arrives in tandem with new single “Sort It Out” featuring Clouds, and a landmark moment in his career: his biggest ever London headline show, taking over Brixton Academy on Saturday, October 4th, followed by an expansive tour across Europe, North America, and Australia.



A decade in the making, Archangel is the definitive statement from KETTAMA (Evan Cambell), the Galway-born, London-based artist. The 15-track project is a powerful blend of hard-house energy, trance-inflected euphoria, hip-hop sample-based attitude, and unmistakable emotional depth—sonic signatures that have placed KETTAMA at the cutting edge of contemporary dance music.



The album showcases a curated roster of collaborators who reflect KETTAMA’s reach and relevance across today’s underground and mainstream scenes, including Interplanetary Criminal, Fred again.., Clouds, Prospa, DJ HEARTSTRING, Shady Nasty, SØLV and seantommy. Their contributions amplify the project's scope, offering a multi-sided view into KETTAMA’s musical universe.



Among its early singles, the Interplanetary Criminal collaboration “Yosemite” is a high-velocity anthem marrying speed-garage grit with ecstatic rave melodies, while his track “Air Maxes” with Fred again.. And Shady Nasty blends introspective vocal sampling with wide-eyed club emotion. On “If U Want My Heart” with DJ HEARTSTRING featuring KLP, the ensemble channels high-energy trance, breakbeats, and vocal euphoria into a soaring anthem that fuses emotional intensity with peak-time club energy. Meanwhile, his collaboration with Clouds, released today, “Sort It Out” dives headfirst into industrial-techno territory, conjuring a dark, cathartic energy destined for warehouse euphoria. And reigning as one of the undeniable anthems of the summer so far, “It Get’s Better (Forever Mix)” delivers euphoric waves of uplifting synths and relentless rhythm, bringing an irresistible surge of energy that’s become synonymous with this summer’s club moments.



Archangel has already found a home on the world’s biggest stages and radio airwaves, with early support from key tastemakers including Jack Saunders, Danny Howard, Sarah Story, and Tim Sweeney. Simultaneously, a grassroots groundswell continues to bloom across social platforms—where viral snippets and show footage capture the visceral reaction of a fast-growing, global fanbase.



This year, KETTAMA has elevated his status to a full-blown festival phenomenon, performing at major stages including Coachella, Glastonbury, Creamfields, Portola, Seismic, and ARC Festival, to name a few. In June, he played to 20,000 people in Belfast for a b2b with Chris Stussy—one of the UK’s largest DJ events in recent memory—and is currently mid-way through a 16-week Ibiza residency at Amnesia, playing every Monday night throughout summer. Full list of upcoming live dates can be found below.



Perhaps the clearest signal of his surging popularity is the jaw-dropping response to his upcoming Boiler Room live set, with over 15,000 fans signing up to attend— the set’s release is now highly anticipated as a time capsule moment in a breakout year for the artist.



KETTAMA’s rise to prominence has been anything but conventional. Eschewing the traditional gatekeepers of the industry, KETTAMA cultivated an underground following through the likes of SoundCloud and TikTok, where raw uploads, bootlegs, and viral edits generated a tidal wave of grassroots momentum. Over the years, these platforms became launching pads for a fiercely loyal global community, drawn to his unfiltered energy and boundary-pushing sound. This subversive path to recognition has made him not just a fixture of the scene but a symbol of how new-generation artists can forge success on their own terms.



From his humble roots in the Irish underground to the world stage KETTAMA is now pushing the limits of what a next-gen DJ-producer can achieve. With Archangel, he fuses the sound of his native ‘G-Town’ with a futuristic vision that’s unapologetically global—marking a creative milestone that cements his place among electronic music’s most compelling voices.

A dynamic DJ and producer, the Galway-born, Berlin-based artist is driven by mood not genre, gleefully scribbling outside the lines to craft rhythmic, high-vibration dancefloor cuts that make them a delicious match for the Chunkers. Just reference their pin-sharp releases on Radiant, Punctuality, Planet Euphorique and their own World of Worlds imprint. While anyone who’s caught their throwdowns at Draaimolen’s legendary forest stage, Horst Festival or London’s infamous queer party Club Are already knows what’s up.

Their contribution to the BSC catalogue is bang on. Lead cut ‘Track Like’ is a straight-up Chunker. Beginning life as an instrumental, it’s a pumping house cut marked by a grooving bassline, tight drums and a contained ravey energy, before Eoin DJ added that vocal that took the production into peak-time party territory.

A producer who requires no introduction – Jennifer Loveless join the Chunkers fold with a full-bodied remix of ‘Track Like’. Lock in for a funky maximal re-rub with the attitude turned up to 11. Back in Eoin DJ’s corner, the crisp ‘n’ punchy ‘Pure U’ is driven by fat kick drums, euphoric chords and a chunky rolling bassline. Exquisite stuff. A tight Dub version is included in the pack. The EP rounds out with the perky ‘Feel Deeper’, which channels ‘90s New York house and circuit sounds and is built around a hooky vocal line and rhythmic drums.

Eoin DJ follows BELLA, Eliza Rose, Papa Nugs, Paperkraft and remixes Peach and CARISTA in joining the Big Saldo’s Chunkers family as Sally C delights in growing the label via a carefully curated roster of artists.

“I loved the label already, so I was super stoked when Sally asked me to do a release. Chunkers is always

so on-point and consistent with its output. All of the releases are certified party starters – fat basslines, catchy vocals, full of energy and tuned to perfection to hit on the soundsystem. I used that as a jumping off point when making the EP. You could say it’s Chunkers – Eoin DJ style.” – Eoin DJ

“I was hooked on Eoin’s sound since they released ‘Ode to Beachball’ in 2024 on Punctuality Records. I love their ability to weave emotion and groove so seamlessly. It’s been a pleasure working on this EP – I’ve been endlessly rinsing all of the tracks. Such a great producer!” – Sally C

MAUROMUSICA first appeared in 1999, when DJ Maurizio Schmitz introduced the name as an underground party brand shaped by long nights, afterhours and a deep passion for electronic music culture. For almost two decades, the project lived through intimate events and dancefloors before eventually going quiet for a number of years.

Now, MAUROMUSICA returns - not only as a party series once again, but finally as the music label Maurizio had envisioned from the very beginning. A long-held dream, brought back to life through a carefully curated first various artists compilation.

The first release brings together six artists from different corners of the electronic music world: Egyptian producer Raxon, German/French duo RE-ST, Italian artists JA:CK and Fedele, alongside Romanian producers Radu Dracul and Sublee.

Moving between warm-up atmospheres, emotional techno, afterhour moods and timeless club sounds, the compilation reflects the musical vision behind MAUROMUSICA - honest electronic music with character, depth and longevity.

Artwork comes from internationally acclaimed artist Tobias Rehberger, while the label typography was kindly provided by Buero New York.

Special thanks to Sven Väth for his continuous support and for championing Raxon's "Based In Space" in his sets for more than a year.

P.S. The handmade coloured vinyl edition of Raxon's "Based In Space" - limited to 100 copies - sold out within less than two hours. The track is now exclusively available as part of this compilation.

MAUROMUSICA first appeared in 1999, when DJ Maurizio Schmitz introduced the name as an underground party brand shaped by long nights, afterhours and a deep passion for electronic music culture. For almost two decades, the project lived through intimate events and dancefloors before eventually going quiet for a number of years.

Now, MAUROMUSICA returns - not only as a party series once again, but finally as the music label Maurizio had envisioned from the very beginning. A long-held dream, brought back to life through a carefully curated first various artists compilation.

The first release brings together six artists from different corners of the electronic music world: Egyptian producer Raxon, German/French duo RE-ST, Italian artists JA:CK and Fedele, alongside Romanian producers Radu Dracul and Sublee.

Moving between warm-up atmospheres, emotional techno, afterhour moods and timeless club sounds, the compilation reflects the musical vision behind MAUROMUSICA - honest electronic music with character, depth and longevity.

Artwork comes from internationally acclaimed artist Tobias Rehberger, while the label typography was kindly provided by Buero New York.

Special thanks to Sven Väth for his continuous support and for championing Raxon's "Based In Space" in his sets for more than a year.

P.S. The handmade coloured vinyl edition of Raxon's "Based In Space" - limited to 100 copies - sold out within less than two hours. The track is now exclusively available as part of this compilation.

You wake up abruptly on cold floorboards, your body aching as if from a great fall. White light floods your vision. Where are you? Last thing you can remember you were hurtling through the Genesis Domain at breakneck speed, but this is definitely somewhere different. As your eyes come into focus you see the hall is grand, intimidatingly opulent. A full house of seated onlookers peers at you expectantly. You’re on a stage, you realize. Flames creep up the walls, engulfing the room and lighting the faces in the audience; the heat is oppressive, but nobody seems to notice. A voice booms out.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you’ve all been waiting for! Presenting: a performer of great renown all across the land, yours for one night only… introducing—”

Tiny bells jangle around your head as you shift your weight, obscuring whatever name the announcer just called out. You try to sit up. The jester’s hat tumbles off with a clatter. Not this again, you groan. Your head spins with vertigo. You grimace, trying to remember something. You had just gleaned an urgent and existential truth in the Genesis Domain, but it’s slipping away now… what was it?

Off to your left, a whip cracks. The impresario glares at you from the wings, fist clenched around a diamond-encrusted whip, mouthing at you to get up.

You try to run, but the weight of an incorporeal authority bears down upon you. The impresario cracks his whip again, an impish smirk forming on his lips.

With resignation, you begin to work the room. What else can you do? Tendrils of giggling and gossip creep through your periphery. The heat is suffocating and the smoke stings your eyes, but the show goes on. Remembering your bag of tricks as if from a dream, you raise your hands in the air, invoking the universal call to audience participation. The crowd goes wild. You feel the rush of a familiar thrill. Being the Fool comes naturally to you, you realize, as the palace burns around you.

DiscoGram's self-titled label is quickly becoming our disco dealer of choice. This third massive gets us further hooked on the groovy goods. After a Brazilian flex last time out, there is more of an Afro overtone to this 12": 'Africa Tribal' is a percussive sun-soaked sound with expressive horns and equally expressive vocals over a ton of percussion, hand claps and wiggly grooves. 'Chillin' Out' is more US-flavoured with a low-slung and breezy vibe and sunny vocals. 'Coconut' ups the pace and injects florid feels with Philly strings and stomping drums. 'Hi Tension' then keeps its foot down with a heavy but funky disco sound and irresistible double-claps.

Welcome back, hope you've had a good trip so far. While we're digging global tunes, let's not forget what's cooking in our own yards. No less then a new dub don has risen from the wastelands of bratwursts, nutcrackers and garden gnomes: Toni Wobble is looking back on over 20 years of roots in punk, free parties and political movements. From anti-nuclear activism to the Gaggeldub performances, Toni's dug deep into the Dub universe: from Dubstation to Rootsbase to Subardo. By 2012, Toni became a respected operator of Leipzig's Plug Dub Soundsystem. Soon after, he didn't hesitate to create the very own solarpowered Sunplugged sound. Toni's live dub sets hit with all depth and energy of low bass sound culture, shaking the foundations with refreshing freakuency adventures. After a guest spot on our 18th release, helping RUZ dubbing out a deep b-side, it's time to unleash the full Wobble fury on 45Seven!
Out In Da Streetz was born in a lockdown, when urban life got stall, opening space for experiments. Inspired by Juke and Footwork at nights such as Bassmæssage, Toni ventured into Jungle production - the genre him love from way back. The result is an opus of subs, breaks, skanks and dubs. Expect 30 Hertz bass, wobbly midranges, halftime snares and Jungle edits sharp like razor. Don't miss the Ini cameo and hand-made skank work straight from the lab. The result ain't just a track, it's a state of inner and outer emergency, a deep dive into groove, texture and creative chaos.
Irie Cruise rolls up like a cloud of green smoke riding through the streets with a sick ride in a surreal vibe. Rootsy rhythms meet subtle Jungle twists inbetween the twinkles of Dub and the flickers of breakbeats. When the hook drops, the impulse fires up, the lowrider bounces through the turns of skanks, throwing dub delays and gliding deep into the night. By the final tone, you didn't just take a ride, you're actually a bit closer to the sun.
Toni Wobble is giving the full hundred. Dub ain't just a genre, it's a portal to infinite spaces of sound. It's a culture, a process and an attitude, all about echo, bass and space. But it's also about experimentation, consciousness and transformation. Each delay loop is reshaping reality, tearing it down and rebuilding it from the ground up. D.U.B. equals to deep universal beats, the universal frequency... Deep, wide and open. Tune in and dub out!

For the decennial release on Punctuality Warsaw duo W.A.C., aka Private Press step up with their Forever W.A.C EP. Moving away from their more techno-oriented offerings, Forever W.A.C. keeps the tempo and energy of their earlier work but suffuses the mood with warm, glowing trance and prog energy. This is peak-time Punctuality business in its purest form– on time as ever. “No More No Show” comes in hot from the get-go: galloping snare rolls, raved-up breakbeats, uplifting pads, big basslines, acid licks, and the low-end wubs that have become synonymous with the Punctuality sound. One for that point in the night when the dancefloor has melted into sweaty, eyes-closed, hands-up amorphia.

Barely recognisable to its original counterpart, the Rhyw remix strips the A1 down to the bare essentials. Preserving only a few percussive elements, the euphoria of No More No Show is replaced with hazy, cinematic synth washes that drone around a skeletal groove loaded with bassweight, warping the original into a dubbed out psychedelic UK stepper. Shifting to the morning light, “Only Froggerz” is a shimmering roller that ebbs and flows around barreling kick drums, kaleidoscopic synth lines, and vaporous FX, with lustrous chord work driving the emotion dial to 11. Elegant and restrained but relentlessly pummeling, it’s early-morning club gear at its finest.

Rounding out the EP with an essential slice of modern prog, “Close” utilises all the good bits: skippy basslines, filtered squelches, tribal-leaning percussion, and a relentless groove that builds around the subtle interplay between the stabs and the vocals. An epic closer that feels as true to the Punctuality canon as ever.

Vinyl only: After a speedy sell out on the first release. Slam Duncs returns with its second offering, Home Is Where The Funk Is by Teak Makai. A fusion of out there sampling, sexy vocals, crazy jazz skills and dancefloor wonk, bringing the EP together to show something genuinely unique and “stand out”. When looking though the bag to shake things up this record will be winking at your from back.

UnOwn is back with a third outing of magical edits and this time the enigmatic Fava Luva is cooking up the heat. First up is an edit of 'Roze', a disco gem that gets pulled apart and rebuilt in slow, sensuous fashion. The drums are loose, the funk is real and the vocal is full of tease that will warm up any setting in any season. On the flip, 'Fishy' is just as much of an elastic and playful sound, this time with a sleazier vocal and some mad, cosmically inclined synth expressiveness and plenty of Parliament-style vocal oddness. A pure heater from this ever-more-vital label.

The evolution of Andreas Tilliander's moniker TM404 has reached its third stage. The first TM404 album was a heavily self-restricted concept album, live recorded with classic Roland machines. The subsequent album had a more playful vibe, shaped by Tilliander's extensive live touring. This third TM404 album on Kontra-Musik simply tells the story of what he's been up to since. The third part of a musical diary, initiated in 2013. The TM404 venture might have started out as a dreamy acid dub project, more suited for the chill-out than the main floor. But by popular demand Tillander found himself touring big clubs around the globe and the TM404 sound adapted organically. As a result, the album features tracks like Vactro and Rymdeko: fast paced acidic techno tracks in the same vein as classic Plus 8 releases, but with more space echo. Much more. But never fear, fans of the classic warm and bubbling TM404 sound. You'll certainly get yours as well. A substantial portion of this album was recorded in a studio flat in Berlin as part of an artist residency. For obvious reasons, Tilliander could only bring a small portion of his studio gear to this German sanctuary. As a consequence, this album has a more stripped down vibe than its predecessors, which creates more space for Tilliander's glowing melodies. The last track on the album, a loving homage to Kontra-Musik's label boss, is a sublime example. And for the Instagram generation, here's the short version: The album is called Syra. That translates to Acid. You're welcome.

The recordings on Volume II were captured in Copenhagen, Denmark on January 18, 2020. Guided as much by human instinct as by musical intention, the ensemble moved through the evening with a shared sensitivity…listening, responding, and trusting the moment as it unfolded. Though Morten McCoy admits to having felt quite ill that evening, nothing in the music suggests restraint. Instead, what remains is a vivid, playful exchange, where McCoy and Johannes Wamberg carry both Part I and Part II as a flowing conversation, speaking through sound rather than words.

Part I begins abruptly, almost throwing the listener back in time to the exact moment the improvisation was born. Jonathan Bremer steps to the forefront, providing a solid, melodic bassline as Kristoffer and Eliel, perfectly in sync, lay down a steady foundation for whichever voice chooses to rise above the rhythm.

This is also one of the few I Am An Instrument recordings to feature two guitarists. Johannes Wamberg leads the way, shaping the harmonic direction, while Steven Jess Borth II adds subtle rhythmic textures through muted palm work, deepening the groove without ever stepping into the foreground.

Part II unfolds with Morten McCoy on his Moog One, delivering a beautiful, expansive solo. Using a carefully chosen patch, the sound pulses through the rhythm, moving with the groove rather than above it, riding the beat like a wave through the ocean.
Shaped by trust, presence, and collective improvisation, Volume II captures a group deeply attuned to one another, allowing intuition and momentum to guide the unfolding form.
——
Volume III was recorded in Copenhagen on March 5, 2020. Little did anyone know that only days later, the world would be placed on pause for years. Captured just before that moment of global stillness, this session carries a heightened sense of presence, a final gathering before silence reshaped everything. Recorded in a space more commonly associated with a club atmosphere, the music draws on a different kind of energy and immediacy. With Eliel Lazo unable to attend, the group invited Victor Dybbroe of Girls In Airports to join on percussion, subtly reshaping the ensemble while preserving its core spirit. Part I opens with Steven Jess Borth II calling out on tenor saxophone, answered by Morten McCoy on Wurlitzer electric piano. The piece gradually unfolds into a meditative groove, patient and expansive, carrying the listener through an eight-minute journey of layered rhythm and restraint.

Part II begins with Jonathan Bremer on stand up bass, slowly joined by the rest of the ensemble as each voice enters with intention. Midway through, an unexpected vocal melody from Borth emerges, drenched in reverb and delay, later reappearing as a melodic line on the tenor saxophone.

Part III is led by Morten McCoy on Wurlitzer electric piano. His signature melodic language sets the direction, guiding the ensemble while leaving ample space for the music to breathe and evolve through collective improvisation. Reprise returns to the closing moments of Part II, its title reflecting its origin. The familiar groove reappears, transformed into a distinctly Jamaican-influenced rhythm, over which Borth delivers a final tenor saxophone solo, bringing the conversation to rest.

Any questions about any of these products feel free to get in touch and we'll help you out!

[a] a1. Part I [Vol.2]
[b] a2. Part II [Vol.2]
[c] a3. Part I [Vol.3]
[d] b1. Part II [Vol.3]
[e] b2. Part III [Vol.3]
[f] b3. Reprise [Vol.3]

Expanding beyond the West Coast with release number three, Goodtunes invites master of the craft Rob Pearson for a dark & moody EP.
Opener “Odd Job Mischief” bends itself over dubbed out low end pressure as echoic LFOs rip through the groove. A2 “Dodgy Brass” doubles down, forcing hazy horns through truncated rhythmic cracks split from beneath its own weight.

On side B, “The Right Speed” is all gas, no breaks. A moody, stripped back weapon with detailed texture & the dark, tripped out aesthetics of Jayson Walker’s murmurs over the top. “Beautifully Mangled” wraps up the EP with a dark minimal groove & lush atmosphere that slowly builds into a warm driving force.

Third time’s certainly the charm on GT003, with Pearson pushing his productions into new territory with meaningful intention.

After ten years 12 Inch Lovers has become a household name not only because of their parties but also because of the fantastic vinyl samplers they released over the past few years, which were sold out in no time and have become true collector's items.

They now continue in the same vein and once again bring a fresh and contemporary mix of hard to find, original house classics or even classics that never had a vinyl release.

These samplers should therefore not be missing from any 12 Inch Lovers collection.

"Gregor Salto" is at it again! Sampler 6 opens with that other and hard to find classic of his "Your Friend". A club classic that has won the hearts of countless clubbers and house fanatics around the world since 2009. And speaking of hearts; Belgian dj-producer "DJ Wout" released this beautiful and emotional remix of "D. Van Horn's" "Somebody Now To Love". A true trance classic and typical in sound for that period that you can find on A2.

On B1 we find a more recent track but which you can already say is a future classic. "MZ" from "Sascha Funke" is still played to this day by top DJs like Solomun and very hard to find on vinyl. A must have! Dutch producer "Karmon" delivered this catchy deephouse remix of "Fabo's" "Where I Stand" in 2012. You can find it on B2.

On C1 we find the beautiful "Andain" classic in the "Gabriel & Dresden Unplugged Mix". "Beautiful Things" was picked up by "Tiësto" at the time and has made it a true classic. Hard to find on vinyl.

"Moko" "Fly" on C2 is a very catchy and quirky track from 2010 that never had a vinyl release! Highly recommended!

D1 brings the dreamy and highly sought after "Today" from "POB & Taylor" in the "Seismic" remix after which we close with D2 with a true classic.

"My Moon My Man" by "Feist" is probably that record which remix is better than the original. "Boys Noize" was responsible for this in 2007 and the rest is as they say history.

Collecting Orders For 2026 Repress

As Soul Capsule, Baby Ford and Thomas Melchior made some of minimal techno's most accomplished records. It has been many years since they stopped turning out new material - sadly - but their archive tracks are still in hot demand and undeniably relevant. While 1999's 'Lady Science' might be their most famous offering, this EP from 2001 on Aspect Music is no less vital and it will currently cost you well over L250 on second-hand markets. It is Ford's Trelik label who reissues it here in all its glory: the entirety of the a-side is taken up with 'Law Of Grace,' a delightfully deep and breezy minimal dub house roller with pensive chords draped over the frictionless drums. 'Meltdown' has a more experimental feel with brushed metal drums beneath a wordless vocal musing. The cult 'Lady Science' (Tek Mix) is also inched with the whole package being remastered by D&M to make this one utterly essential.

Epsie steps up on Secretsundaze’s 9FINITY imprint with ‘Any Colour You Like’, a four-track EP weaving trippy, techy, and subtly progressive elements juxtaposed with darker, electro-orientated moments for a heady dancefloor statement.
Built with a live-first mentality, his productions mirror the fluidity of his sets—intricate rhythms and elastic basslines ground the EP in pace and movement. The release oscillates from the sleek to the abrasive with punchy drums and otherworldly synths existing in tandem with deep tech house grooves. A distinctly European sensibility runs throughout: restrained yet exploratory, minimal yet richly detailed, all landing with understated psychedelia and deep functionality tailored for the heads.

Barefoot Beats drop two highly infectious Brazilian power jams for all the vinyl collectors and lovers of International sounds out there.

Regular contributor to the imprint Bernardo Pinheiro teams up with Zaidan to expertly craft a timeless Reggae classic into a pure Brazilian good times anthem.

Over on the flip, Rio based producer Joutro Mundo combines superbly with Dicky Trisco to produce a more late night inspired number which is ready to fuel your Carnarave and set that dance floor on fire.

All delivered on a beautiful, LTD edition 10inch vinyl pressing.

Words have never been my strongest point. I have many ideas in my head, often too many. I can talk a lot about them, but putting them on paper is not really me. I rather just work on my ideas. ‘cause whatever your thoughts are, as soon as it is out there and people start to listen it becomes theirs. What I might have thought up before, and have as concept behind the music, might not be how someone else listens to it. And that’s okay.
If we keep in mind that my music is time focused, and I love it when it isn’t polished too much, so small errors become part of it, the music should speak enough for itself.
“Continuation” is my first studio album since “En de stilstaande tijd” (2019), and shows a rougher sound staying closer to my live sound. I see this as a continuation of my live performances, though this time with various multi-track recordings brought together as a whole, all done in my home studio “Studio De Baviaan” over the course of 8 months.
--- Sietse van Erve / Orphax, Janauary 2026

A second cut was done and new viuals, that was needed for sound conveniance :)

Livesets from 1998.
Amiga set-up in parties.

A side at Concarneau "fête de la musique". June 1998. (12 minutes)
B Side at the Teknival from St-Goazec, Mai 1998. (15.30 Minutes)

This should have been released as Keltik 02, a label from Bretagne. But it never came out finally...

All sources are DAT, extracted at DK mastering in Paris.
Mastered by Fred in Rennes and cut at... DK Mastering in Paris again.

Peach’s Soak Vol. 1 is a cross-Canadian link-up with Mood Hut that moves through slower, deeper waters.

The mini-LP was written after a tour through Asia that opened up something new in how Peach approaches making music. The turning point, as she tells it, came during a visit to a neighbourhood sento in Tokyo, while surrounded by steam rising in suspended time, something clicked about the relationship between the body and the sounds she wanted to make.

She’d been learning about cycle synching and working out with the phases of her hormonal cycle, respecting energy fluctuations throughout the course of a month, and decided to apply the approach to writing music. She allowed shifts in energy to guide tempo, density, and emotional tone rather than strictly answering to the floor.

Soak came out of this exploration, sketched and layered with field recordings from her trips to Vietnam and the Philippines during a challenging time in her life. Fragments of heat, air, and shoreline are absorbed into the music itself. Vapourous pads, low-end weight, fractured percussion, and melodies hover at the edge of dissolution. Water runs structurally through the record in surges, in tidal pacing, in the slow accumulation of texture.

Wherever this music finds you, please enjoy the Soak.

Back on PANORAMA Records, we turn to a beautiful slice of under-the-radar Jamaican reggae with Horace Martin – “Me Rule.”

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Horace Martin was just 20 years old when he stepped into Channel One Studio to record the track in 1974. At the time he was building his name locally, performing in clubs and talent shows around the city while cutting sides in Kingston’s vibrant studio scene. “Me Rule” captures that moment perfectly — youthful confidence over a deep, steady rhythm.

This record earned its place among the deepest collectors: Proper rootsy dancefloor reggae that feels just as good today as it did when it first came out of Kingston.

On the flip, things open up with a dubbed-out version of the rhythm titled “Rule,” credited to Prince Huntly. Stripped back, the dub extends the track — echo, percussion, and bass doing the work.

As always, PANORAMA Records continues its search for overlooked gems from across the globe — records with history, character, and real musical weight. Carefully remastered and brought back on 7inch, PAN013 is another example of these records finding their way back to the turntable.

The A Side of course is just one of the biggest tunes from the grunge era and is given a Jazzy Funky Groovy version by Blue Mode of Nirvana's Biggest Hit. It turns out that they were influenced by everything from the Gap Band to Louie Louie and a fair smattering of 80's indie and this producytion by by Chip Wickham mixes together a Swinging '60's Blue Note Vibe with the Acid Jazz sound and brings it bang up to date with the Nu-Jazz Experience. First time on 45 and is already a DJ favourite after being included in the Paul Murphy set "Jazz Room" on BBE Records. Side 2 is a Boogaloo Latin Jazz version (produced by Paul Murphy Live in the studio in Budapest when he was living there) of the Lonnie Smith track "Hola Muneca" beloved of the Acid Jazz era DJ's and previously released on a now impossible to find 7 inch single that goes for crazy prices....

Phonica welcomes Mattias El Mansouri, a Swedish-born DJ and producer of Moroccan/Chilean descent who has been behind some of our favourite releases over the past few years on labels such as Aniara and Nous'klaer.

On the 'Sense Data' 12", El Mansouri expands on his atmospheric House and Techno explorations with three deep yet dancefloor primed pieces that hold personal resonance for him.

El Mansouri, who holds a degree in Theoretical Philosophy, explains:

"'Sense Data' are the immediate elements of perception; what is directly given to the senses before any judgment or interpretation. In vision, these appear as colored, shaped patches; in other senses, as sounds, tastes, smells, or tactile qualities. For example, seeing a brown table with a white coaster involves sense data of a brown patch and a white roundish patch, from which one infers the presence of a table and coaster."

On the record's flip, we have the beautiful "Cielo Vacío' and 'Ouzo Hallon' dub version of 'Sense Data'. El Mansouri continues:

"Cielo Vacío translates to “empty sky” in Spanish. The track serves as a eulogy for my brother, who passed away in December 2023. I chose this title because it resonates with the sonic and emotional atmosphere of the piece. Its ambiguity is intentional, carrying both the weight of grief that lingers after losing someone you love, and a strange, fragile peace you extend toward the departed. It reflects the hope that, wherever they are, whether or not one believes in an afterlife, they have found rest.

Ouzo Hallon translates to Ouzo (the Greek liquor)+Hallon (Raspberry). It’s a long drink that my (Greek) ex came up with last summer, mixing ouzo, raspberry syrup/raspberry juice and ice. It became a thing in our little friend group, consisting of mostly Greeks, and every time we all hang out we would all just drink ouzo hallon until we couldn’t stand straight. I always wanted to name a track Ouzo Hallon, just for the fun of it, and what better way to get the chance than now!"

we are super excited to present a brandnew artist straight out of France - Alik
the "Dans Le Club EP" is fully packed with 2 high-level pumping, jackin fast House tunes ranging from 136-140
BPM - the short french vocal cuts make it feel like a crossover between Ghetto Tech and Garage House.
To round it up the remaining two tracks are more soulful house tracks for the ladies.

Aspetuck has been steadily carving out a name for himself through releases on Never Late and Oslated, garnering a respected following for his DJ mixes and festival performances. Aspetuck’s latest record, Immersion, was sequenced and curated from dozens of ideas spanning a transformative few years in Griff’s life. The album is less a snapshot in time and more of a memory bank - flashes of fatherhood, loss, modular rabbit holes, late-night studio sessions, and long walks by the Hudson River with his daughter.
The emotional undertow of the album is immediate. Opener Hit Me With Your Pet Shark is one of the earliest compositions in the collection, created just months after the loss of Griff’s brother and during the sleepless swirl of new parenthood. Built around a single sound from Spectrasonics Omnisphere, found while rediscovering his brother’s studio gear, the track sets the tone: restrained yet searching, personal without becoming precious.
From there, The Printing Press captures the raw energy of a live jam in Griff’s upstate New York basement, running through a 1980s Tascam mixer like a lo-fi assembly line of synths, pads, and drum machines. REI, named after a spontaneous family mission to find a pink water bottle, encapsulates his knack for imprinting daily minutiae into sound. And title track Immersion- once known simply as Tuesday 303 Jam- emerges from a dinner break and a blender, distilling modular sketches and distorted drums into a powerful, slow-motion march.
Under, Under The Tree hits hardest. Built around a grainy iPhone voice memo of Griff’s daughter singing by the Hudson. And closing the album is Bobik, a collaborative studio session with Moon Patrol channeling the playful chaos of a close friendship and modular exploration. Named after a joke about their golden retriever and filled with alien textures from Griff’s beloved EMU XL7 gifted years ago by his late brother, it’s a fitting send-off to an album that straddles celebration and mourning with grace.
The artwork comes courtesy of Peter Skwiot Smith, whose textured analog/digital aesthetic resonated immediately with Griff’s original vision. Peter’s treatment draws on Griff’s personal photography and leans into motion, blur, and the layered nature of memory, echoing the album's sonic tone without overexplaining it.
Mastered by Sven Weisemann, Immersion is available on blue smoke colored 12”

The follow up to 2022’s ‘Return to the Island’ LP is a new 6 track EP influenced heavily by the evocative powers of incense and a deep sense of escapism. The EP has a more organic sound palette than its predecessor, from both the use of samples and appearance of various guest musicians. Lead track ‘Morning Star’ features long standing collaborator Mike Burn (Udaberri Blues & Mama Capes) who adds his trademark liquid gold lead and rhythm guitar lines with live bass from Fernando Pulichino.

The guest on ‘Savanna’ is frequent Jack J collaborator Linda Fox, who provides emotive and melancholy sax over a Dub House backing track with a particularly dreamy chord progression. The EP features Instrumental Dubs of both tracks, alongside two other new productions, the 80s leaning ‘Hands Across the Sea’ and ‘Wah Fix’, which rounds off the more Dub influenced B side with a 125 BPM bouncy Dub House excursion.

In 2026 the Jura Soundsystem project enters its 10th year and is the creative musical outlet of Isle of Jura founder Kevin Griffiths. All tracks produced at IOJ HQ in Moana, Adelaide between 2022 and 2025 with support from the incense gods of Cedarwood, Jasmine and Sandalwood. The 12” is housed in a 3mm spine full sleeve designed by Bradley Pinkerton.

F
ourth record already here, new Triptych being scooped out of the drawers. This one is heavily video game inspired and marks a turning point for me. I’ve somehow been very much drawn to what I call “boss fight techno”, this is the result of this cogitation.

Total Debauchery kicks off the record with truculence. The title says it all, we’re very far away from warm up time, all hell let loose, big energy discharge, weird stereo bassline, pure madness. Gate Middletone certainly is wonky. It sounds like an anesthetized telephone call. I don’t know if we can refer to this as techno, but who cares, groove is spotless. Absolute Buffoonery started off as a joke with hoover sounds in mind. Turns out it is very danceable and weird enough to be on the record. It still is a foolery.

The B side starts with Demonic Shine. This one is purely dedicated to zombie games. I’ve been thinking about how techno could be interpreted for this kind of stuff. Turns out you can shoot dead people and dance at the same time. Good time. Zany Ditherings is a hard drive that keeps crashing. It disrupts the track, making it spasmodic. You are in a convulsive loop of data being thrown out the window. dc11 accepted this remix operation. His work acts as counterpoint to the record, bringing flawless techno tunneling. Buckle up mate.

After he dropped his full debut with Sneaker back in 2024, Oxford’s own Silas steps back up to serve more crispy grime variations. With a deep affinity for the power of a 140 instrumental, his breakthrough streak continues to yield the toughest beats with a stripped back, steely resolve that could fold into all manner of dance situations.

Continuing the pressure laid down on the ‘Wot’ EP, the A side bowls in heavy with ‘Dimensions’, a cool and deadly whip-up of nervy string stabs and crooked, cubist drums. Meanwhile ‘Lost Souls’ amps up the atmospheric tension and lets the bass flex out behind the groove for a potent sidewinder joint to get the whole club shifting its stance.

‘Book Of Spells’ on the flip stretches the nervous energy out even further, leading in on the iciest ambience before locking into a devastatingly stripped down drop evoking the assured restraint of the weightless grime days. Making sure nothing feels too predictable, Silas pivots to a rugged, 2- step informed structure on final floor wrecker ‘Ritual Step’ . It’s another demonstration of the clear-eyed intention at the heart of everything this must-check producer puts out — a consistency of vision yielding some of the dankest workouts in the wider bass music sphere.

Music springs eternal. Recognising the enduring power of timeless albums to guide us through life, Forever Records is a reissue series dedicated to rediscovering lost musical treasures from across the spectrum of head-feeding, heart-rending electronic music.

Established by Rush Hour co-founder Christiaan Macdonald and Delsin founder Marsel van der Wielen, Forever Records places heartfelt faith in a carefully curated sequence of seminal, largely forgotten records from disparate eras, scenes and spaces within electronic music history. Tipped towards the mellow and introspective, these are albums that stop time when the needle hits the groove, stirring only when it's time to flip over before you sink back into the experience. That's what albums were always meant to be about, back then, right now, always and forever.



The Release:
Striking the sweet spot between sampledelic downtempo and earth-rooted deep house, Fila Brazillia's Old Codes New Chaos is a maverick patchwork of grooves and soundscapes. Crafted in North East England in the vibrant period before chill-out was co-opted by advertising, Steve Cobby and Dave McSherry's sharp-eared funk formula remains a cult classic suite of exquisite productions spanning deep house, broken beat and ambient shot through with wry humour.
Last physically released in limited quantities in 2002, Forever Records are revisiting this 1994 gem with an extensive reissue led by a triple vinyl pressing. As well as a new LP edition of the album, there will also be a uniquely numbered, limited edition housed in a gatefold sleeve that comes with a bonus 10" featuring two previously unreleased tracks.

'Chemistry' and 'Rankine', plus an exclusive print of Catherine Brennand's watercolour painting that graces the front of the album. All editions also features liner notes by veteran music journalist John McCready.

Press response to Old Codes New Chaos:
"The album that made the world finally sit up and take notice of the avant funk grooves coming from Hull's immaculately stoned tech funk magicians." Frank Tope, Mixmag, UK 1994.
"This album… stands out a mile from most of its peers as a work of untouchable genius." Bill Brewster, DJ Mag UK 1994.

"Fila works because they fit into that no man’s land, the space in your record collection where ambient seems too much like wallpaper and house seems just too braindead for your bedroom " Frank Tope, Mixmag, UK 1994.

"Having already created the perfect desert island disc, "Mermaids" and explored the darker side of sub bass on the 17-minute extravaganza "Fila Funk", Fila Brazillia have just unleashed their moving debut LP, "Old Codes New Chaos", and to be quite honest, you'd be fool to miss out this time around." Mandi James, Melody Maker, UK 1994.

“Where Cobby and Man rip up the rulebook on the four to the floor and probably make the greatest afterhours house album in the word”. Tony Marcus, Mixmag, 1996.

Music springs eternal. Recognising the enduring power of timeless albums to guide us through life, Forever Records is a reissue series dedicated to rediscovering lost musical treasures from across the spectrum of head-feeding, heart-rending electronic music.

Established by Rush Hour co-founder Christiaan Macdonald and Delsin founder Marsel van der Wielen, Forever Records places heartfelt faith in a carefully curated sequence of seminal, largely forgotten records from disparate eras, scenes and spaces within electronic music history. Tipped towards the mellow and introspective, these are albums that stop time when the needle hits the groove, stirring only when it's time to flip over before you sink back into the experience. That's what albums were always meant to be about, back then, right now, always and forever.



The Release:
Striking the sweet spot between sampledelic downtempo and earth-rooted deep house, Fila Brazillia's Old Codes New Chaos is a maverick patchwork of grooves and soundscapes. Crafted in North East England in the vibrant period before chill-out was co-opted by advertising, Steve Cobby and Dave McSherry's sharp-eared funk formula remains a cult classic suite of exquisite productions spanning deep house, broken beat and ambient shot through with wry humour.
Last physically released in limited quantities in 2002, Forever Records are revisiting this 1994 gem with an extensive reissue led by a triple vinyl pressing. As well as a new LP edition of the album, there will also be a uniquely numbered, limited edition housed in a gatefold sleeve that comes with a bonus 10" featuring two previously unreleased tracks.

'Chemistry' and 'Rankine', plus an exclusive print of Catherine Brennand's watercolour painting that graces the front of the album. All editions also features liner notes by veteran music journalist John McCready.

Press response to Old Codes New Chaos:
"The album that made the world finally sit up and take notice of the avant funk grooves coming from Hull's immaculately stoned tech funk magicians." Frank Tope, Mixmag, UK 1994.
"This album… stands out a mile from most of its peers as a work of untouchable genius." Bill Brewster, DJ Mag UK 1994.

"Fila works because they fit into that no man’s land, the space in your record collection where ambient seems too much like wallpaper and house seems just too braindead for your bedroom " Frank Tope, Mixmag, UK 1994.

"Having already created the perfect desert island disc, "Mermaids" and explored the darker side of sub bass on the 17-minute extravaganza "Fila Funk", Fila Brazillia have just unleashed their moving debut LP, "Old Codes New Chaos", and to be quite honest, you'd be fool to miss out this time around." Mandi James, Melody Maker, UK 1994.

“Where Cobby and Man rip up the rulebook on the four to the floor and probably make the greatest afterhours house album in the word”. Tony Marcus, Mixmag, 1996.

This is not a Ben Vida, Booker Stardrum, and Will Epstein record; it’s a Play Time record. That’s a subtle but important distinction, for a couple reasons. One, the sound of Magic Object—a polymetric blend of improv and pulse minimalism for saxophone, drums, and Moog—doesn’t really sound anything like any of their many other ensembles or respective solo projects. And two, it was only while making Magic Object, their debut album, that Play Time realized they were a band at all.

Let’s back up. The roots of the trio date to 2020-21, when Will and then Booker moved to the Hudson Valley, where Ben was already living. The three got into the habit of playing together at Ben’s house, and they soon realized that their hang sessions felt fundamentally different from making music in some falling-down studio in Bushwick. Where those experiences were rushed and cramped, a new sense of time and space now suggested itself. Where once they rat-raced the music, now they relaxed into it.

Early gigs yielded similar revelations. A booking at Tubby’s, the beloved Kingston venue, evolved into a kind of residency. Tubby’s is a small space, fitting around 100 people, with a bar in the front room and a stage in the back. Play Time decided that they didn’t want to play on the stage; they wanted to play in front, among the people in the bar. Rather than hogging the spotlight and overpowering the other voices in the room, they blended with the energy of their surroundings and emerged as a sort of minimalist-jazz-krautrock bar band.

Gradually, they discovered a newfound “elasticity”—Ben’s word—that reshaped the music from inside. “It’s this communal thing,” he says. “It’s vibes. And it’s embedded in the community up here, which feels really vital and nourishing.” They were jamming, but it wasn’t just a free-for-all; they found themselves listening to each other in new ways. “Ben and Booker joke that they’re always playing in different time signatures,” Will says. “We’re all going forward with our own ideas, but we’re open to each others’ as well, and they’re all sort of dancing together.”

“We all have our painterly solo projects,” Will says—where, Booker adds, “we do a lot of studio arranging and thinking and composition that takes shape over a period of time.” Play Time, on the other hand, is all about being in the moment. That spontaneity was key to the process of recording the album. They booked two days in their friend Joey’s studio, a converted wooden barn. “It’s just a live room,” Booker says. “There’s no separation or anything. So we’re all in the space together and it’s got this beautiful, woody sound, and that’s very much the sound of the record.” For two days, they just jammed, for seven or eight hours each day. When it was over, they went through, edited down the portions they liked, and added very judicious overdubs designed to enhance the original recordings without fundamentally altering them, staying true to the spirit of the sessions.

The result is something like a snapshot and a mission statement all rolled into one. “You’re hearing us discover the voice of the band in real time,” Ben says. “We finished those sessions and we were like, ‘Oh, that’s what our band sounds like now.’”

Now, with Magic Object, the rest of us get to find out too.

—

Balmat is a label with a cloudy outline. Jointly shepherded by Albert Salinas and Philip Sherburne, two friends living in Cardedeu, Catalonia, and on the Balearic island of Menorca, Balmat grew out of Lapsus Radio, a weekly show born almost ten years ago. Balmat’s mission is simple: to foster new ideas, expand upon personal obsessions, and put enveloping sounds out into the world.

“Balmat” means “empty” or “void” in Catalan. But quite apart from any negative connotations, we prefer to think of it in terms of possibility: a space waiting to be filled.

H- side is etched
The American cable-television industry exploded in the 1980s, pushing broadcasts of diverse programming and emissions of low-laying cultures into homes. Community stations piggybacked on the digital developments of the time, extending their existence through telephony and broadcast a iliates. For those growing up in this time, in locations such as New York City, the localized communications beamed into their homes exposed them to an impressionable array of disparate sounds and visions.
Move into the 1990s and New York was filled to the brim of emergent cultures drawing from this ebullition of communication. From Rammellzee’s shapeshifting to the late Judy Russell and Frank and Karen Mendez’s Nu Groove imprint fusing reggae, poetry and house, nascent ideas emanated from the city walls, from within stores such as Sonic Groove store and on VHS releases such as Stakker’s The Evil Acid Baron Show, a legendary technicolor psychedelic trip along the wildest frontiers of acid house. As scenes expanded and identities developed, such individuals weather the events of the visceral now, expressing themselves right into an unpredictable future.
Function’s long career has seen him uncover a vast range of sonic identities, a mainstay through house, techno and industrial with collaborations with the likes of Regis, Damon Wild alongside his highly influential Infrastructure imprint. With influences deeply tied to pop art, rave and gay scenes, and early memories of block-parties emitting Kraftwerk and Strafe, he found himself seeking out the undercover illegal nights of the 90s on a quest of sexual unearthing, mixing the ever-yearning escapology mission of disco with the influential DJ sets of Jeff Mills.
For his new album Existenz, he marks a clear step away from the corporeal techno of his recent releases. Pivoting around themes of religion, sexuality, trauma and healing, it is a work expansive and celebratory, a clear liberation from a deeply internalized past. Formed from a collection of recordings made in a period from late 2016 to mid 2019, Existenz takes the form of a creative outburst in reaction to a number of traumas - recent, childhood and throughout Function’s life. Life partner Stefanie Parnow assisted the production process in its entirety, providing inspiration, spiritual healing and featuring vocal contributions.
Cosmic synths soar and swoop in ‘Pleasure Discipline’ through towering stacks of rhythm that stutter and creak to a halt before rebooting, a firm robotic response to human intervention. ‘Zahlensender’ reflects a spatial tetris of urban life, as digitalization set within an XYZ matrix confronts the sprawling city. Constant arpeggiated meditations echo synaptic transmissions, e ecting a dissolution of boundaries. ’The Approach’ recalls the unification of the self, a state of delirium non-subjective and smooth, as all connections and functions give way to simple intensities of feeling, crossing the threshold into spirituality. ’Golden Dawn’, featuring Stefanie Parnow, marks a further elevation of dubbed-out euphoria, as once more positive rays emerge. His ode to the effortless short-trip urban navigation 'Kurzstrecke' finds Function in motion, upfront and bold, snapshots of conversation and flickers of light. 'Ertrinken' finds metallic bass jabs swamping snipped synthetic voices, with hidden stores of emotion set as a nod to the history of vocoders as a tool for encrypted military communication. House icon Robert Owens features on 'Growth Cycle' and 'Be', entrenching a celebratory atmosphere over Function's clubwise leanings. Closing track 'Downtown 161' reflects the unmistakeable filtered and squashed interjections of television, and sampled dance vocals - a sound for the curious, dreamers and dancers.
With Existenz, Function reveals an essential body of work, spread over 4LP - thought experiments on the role of identity and spirituality after a lifetime of upheaval and trauma. Leading up until the release date, Function will undertake an album promo tour with select dates - A/V shows at Berlin Atonal and Rural festival in Japan, and three dates as part of his Bassiani residency.

Undo & Casiowaves join forces to bend minds on their new EP “Chemical Eyes”. The Catalonian pairing, collaborators for the past five years, have built a body of work that’s conceptually rich and sonically sophisticated. The “Chemical Eyes” EP is a love letter to analog synths, taking us on a psychedelic trip through past and present, nostalgic but never mimetic.

Reality begins to warp the moment “Chemical Eyes” kicks in. The title track opens in post-punk territory, leaning into nostalgia both lyrically and sonically and with synth outro that lingers like a memory.

Parisian producer Chloé’s remix takes us firmly into the 21st century, chopping up the title track until it mutates into something more minimal and syncopated. This electronic take still retains the track’s post-punk mood, with contemplative loops and reverb-drenched guitar as we begin to move from the concert venue into the club.

B side “Trumpsky Beats” picks up the pace with neon-soaked synthwave that references the 80s synthpop icons in more than just name. Crisp, shimmering synths dance through warped bass lines and new wave drum patterns, creating a lush contrapuntal soundscape that thrives as much on nostalgic memory as it does on contemporary creativity.

Italo Brutalo’s remix amps up the intensity further with infectious snares and acid twangs. The German producer and synth enthusiast adds a tasteful complexity that pulls the EP fully onto the dancefloor.