quête:sen

House of Harm are proud to announce the forthcoming release of their new album Playground, out December 1st, 2023. The new record builds and expands upon the three-piece’s enthralling shadow-pop sound, a mix of midnight atmospherics, 90s era jangle pop, and contagious synth drenched hooks that further elevate the transcendent vocals of lead singer Michael Rocheford. Rounded out by Cooper Leardi (guitar / synths) and Tyler Kershaw (guitar / synth), House of Harm have amassed an impressive following as something of a best kept secret among their growing fanbase, leading to sold out shows on both coasts by the power of word of mouth alone.

The band members have been drawn to music for as long as any of them can remember, and the drive to be around like-minded artists and make their own noise drew them all to Boston after high school. There they all quickly enmeshed themselves, playing in other bands before meeting each other. Ever since, House of Harm have been quietly making a name for themselves among music fans with darker pop persuasions via a steady stream of releases in single, ep and album form.

That attention to detail and workmanlike approach at the expense of chasing instant gratification seems to be paying dividends after years of steady effort. The journey of their new album Playground saw House of Harm stay true to that ethos. The band painstakingly narrowed the record down to an efficient 10 tracks that they felt made the most sense, both standing on their own as well as fitting into an LP that built a cohesive world for the listener to get lost in. The album’s name also reflects the experimentation and happy accidents that came about during the writing and recording process.

On “The Face of Grace” they set out to explore different dynamics by writing a song entirely without drums, but couldn’t help themselves from putting emphasis on the song’s 6/8 waltz time signature. “Two Kinds” is another first for House Of Harm in that it’s predominantly driven by acoustic guitar. That aforementioned vulnerability shows up in other areas of the songwriting process as well with “Two Kinds”, one of their most revealing songs to date from a lyrical standpoint, written from a place of reflection and weakness and tackling feelings uneasy to be put on display for public consumption.

Taken as a whole, the end result is an album representing a collection of the band’s most raw and expressive songs yet.

Two musicians, two different folk music traditions, two soundscapes hundreds of miles apart and one nightingale song. Nightingale melodies inspired this intoxicating folk album by Slovakian flautist Michaela Antalová and Norwegian double bassist Adrian Myhr. The Oslo-based duo’s album follows their meditative 2021 debut Zvony (Bells), which featured harmonium, field recordings of crickets and a Slovak male choir.

Sing Nightingale is a translation of ‘Zaspievaj Slavicku’, a traditional Slovakian song. The duo experiments with this theme of the songbird; exploring instrumentation from around the world and its rich tonal textures. On ‘Night Singing’, Michaela plays a Slovakian fujara, a tall, upright wooden bass flute originally played by shepherds. The fujara’s smooth, deep tones are laid over a recording of a nightingale by musicologist Tomáš Šenkyřík, with Michaela’s flute mimicking the bird’s nocturnal chirps and warbles to attract a mate. Michaela is carefully imitating the bird, who is in turn improvising his melody. In ‘Worm Moon’, named after the springtime full moon in March, when nightingales return from Africa where they have spent the cold winter, Adrian’s slow and resonant double bass is brightened by the sweet trills of a real nightingale and Michaela’s fujara.

The Norwegian Hardanger fiddle or hardingfele, features on two specially written songs; ‘Lament’ and ‘Rosenhave’ (rose garden) which bring together the nightingale’s symbolic associations with undying love, sacrifice, deep sorrow and loss. Celebrated Hardanger fiddle player Helga Myhr plays alongside Adrian’s double bass and Michaela’s seljefløyte or willow flute. Helga also plays on ‘Flagre’ (Flutter) and ‘Dance Nightingale’. The seljefløyte is very similar to the Slovak overtone flute koncovka. By using this Norwegian instrument, Adrian and Michaela’s new compositions are reminiscent of both countries’ folk traditions. Folk music often comes from unknown sources; the original writer may not be known and the melodies are typically passed down orally. Michaela and Adrian’s project merges the different folk musics from their respective countries, finding common ground in the sonic qualities of instruments and evolving a new hybrid folk style, authentic in its own right.

For the stunning adaptation of the traditional Slovakian fujara song ‘Dolu Ovce Dolinami’ (‘Sheep down the valleys’), Adrian’s friend Javid Afsari Rad plays the Iranian santur, similar to the traditional Slovak string instrument cimbalom. By coincidence, Iran’s national bird is the nightingale, making another unexpected connection to the symbolic bird. These 11 tracks are a beguiling fusion of traditional folk styles, approached by musicians from an avant-garde, improv and jazz background. The album pays tribute to a hugely expressive bird and finds a strange, soothing universality in the folk sounds of different countries.

Dare To Wonder is the new album by London jazz rap duo Summers Sons. Two brothers, surname Summers. Turt on vocals and Slim on production.

Dare To Wonder consists of 12 songs about love, life and connection. Compared to previous Sons’ albums, it’s safe to call Dare To Wonder a feel good album in its best sense. It doesn’t turn a blind eye to the madness of the world today. But it dares to take a step back and marvel at the beauty of the world around us. It dares to wonder. Wonder awakens our curiosity and leaving us thirsty for more knowledge. But it also humbles us – keeping us from thinking we know everything already.

Since 2018 Summers Sons have released five albums on Melting Pot Music (Undertones, Uhuru, The Rain, Nostalgia, Still Nothing Still) – which accumulated over 50 million streams to date – and a string of high profile collaborations with The Silhouettes Project, Twit One, C.Tappin, Nix Northwest and Frankie Stew & Harvey Gunn.


INFOTEXT DE

Dare To Wonder ist das neue Album des Londoner Jazz-Rap-Duos Summers Sons – zwei Brüder mit dem Nachnamen Summers. Turt am Mikrofon und Slim an den Beats.

Dare To Wonder umfasst 12 Songs über Liebe, Leben und Verbundenheit. Im Vergleich zu ihren bisherigen Alben darf man Dare To Wonder mit gutem Gewissen als Feel-Good-Album im besten Sinne bezeichnen. Es verschließt nicht die Augen vor dem Wahnsinn der heutigen Welt, aber es wagt die Perspektive, um die Schönheit um uns herum neu zu betrachten. Es wagt, zu staunen. Staunen weckt unsere Neugier und macht uns hungrig nach mehr Wissen. Gleichzeitig macht es uns demütig – und bewahrt uns davor, zu glauben, wir wüssten schon alles.

Seit 2018 haben Summers Sons fünf Alben über Melting Pot Music veröffentlicht (Undertones, Uhuru, The Rain, Nostalgia, Still Nothing Still) – mit über 50 Millionen Streams – und hochkarätige Kollaborationen mit The Silhouettes Project, Twit One, C. Tappin, Nix Northwest und Frankie Stew & Harvey Gunn veröffentlicht.

Alvorada is Montanha’s first long play: an ambient-leaning work, nocturnal in mood yet touched by electricity, tracing a journey from waking activity into dream logic. Recorded mostly in the late hours of the evening with windows open to the city, letting its air and sounds influence the music, it sometimes reached the early moments of sunrise. The title, meaning “dawn,” reflects both the liminal hours of its making and the band’s own renewal. These tracks are closer to drawings than songs: narratives written between instruments, moments of tension and release, fragments of memory and dream. The tracklist follows this nocturnal voyage with the patience of Eno, the disquiet of Uematsu, and the madness of Miles Davis’ Decoy, oscillating between streets and sleep, routine and reverie.

Montanha was formed in 2010 by André Azevedo, Nuno Oliveira, João Sarnadas, and Tito Silva, bonding over architecture school all-nighters on videogame soundtracks (Age of Empires, Super Mario). They began as a psychedelic rock combo and in 2013 released their self-titled EP which introduced a raw, improvised energy. But the album that was meant to follow was abandoned as the band entered hiatus. The four members turned their creative drive towards co-founding Favela Discos, where experimentation with media and form reshaped their ideas of music, and developed their taste, their way of playing, and a more personal sound that was more open and disconnected from a defined genre.

By 2017, Montanha had returned to the studio with new experience, no longer a rock band in the traditional sense but a project devoted to improvisation and electronic soundscapes. An ever gentrifying city forced them to abandon acoustic drums, and they embraced electronic beats instead, and became mobile; one guitar dissolved into full synths, leaving the other to converse with bass. Improvisation remained their compass. In improvisation there are no mistakes, only missed opportunities. Montanha found their opportunity in the routine of the studio to break routines of pop and experimental. The result is a body of nearly fifty hours of recordings, sculpted into an album.

Alvorada is not only Montanha’s first LP but also the dawn of their new phase. Improvised yet carefully sculpted, the record expands the territory of the song into nonlinear narratives, letting the language of night, dream, and city seep into its form.

The second release on Samurai Music sub label Saibai welcomes Italian sound-world-builder Pianeti Sintetici for a richly rendered foray into dynamic electronica that moves like a set of vibrant ecosystems.

Davide Perrone has developed his Pianeti Sintetici ('synthetic planets') alias to explore the idea of creating imaginary worlds through teeming, densely layered arrangements of modulating synthesis. He's previously delivered spellbinding albums and EPs to respected labels like Astral Industries and Hypnus. On SAIBAI2, Perrone ably blurs the lines between percussive, textural and melodic parts, letting voices bend and warp as each sound evolves through the labyrinthe lattice of his constructions. This is electronic music so dynamic and ever-shifting, it sounds positively sentient, and yet there's a strong emotional sentiment that binds these fantastic visions together as sincere expressions from a grounded, human perspective.

True to Saibai's focus on deeper, mellower flights of fantasy away from the dancefloor, SAIBAI2 offers a kinetic, engaging listening experience dressed up in opulent tones that gleam, shimmer, bend and flex with hypnotising dexterity.

A record label born in Madrid in 2025, with the intention of physically producing electronic music, without pretensions of musical genre or trends. We seek to reveal unpublished talents and release with artists who share our sonic aesthetic. The purpose is to showcase a pure and authentic expression in every work. DEFENESTRE RECORDINGS presents its first release: ALARMA 2ØØØ, produced by RØBØT CITY (alias Salvador Rojo). The album consists of eight tracks, materialized in a 12-inch vinyl record that has been hand-treated and screen-printed on each copy, reflecting the project’s human and sentimental essence. Composed and produced entirely in analog by Salvador Rojo in Lugo (March-June 2025), the record is a journey into the artist’s sound universe: Side A delivers 4 tracks of pure, hard-hitting electro (paranoid, industrial, powerful beat), achieving a harmonious and emotional sound; while Side B presents cuts that take us from more ambient soundscapes to organic, astral, and liberating techno. ALARMA 2ØØØ is the first declaration from DEFENESTRE RECORDINGS, a label committed to hardware sound and pure, unfiltered expression.

“Godzilla just walked into the room. People just stood there with their eyes and mouths wide open.” To hear Randy Holden describe the audience’s reaction in 1969 to his solo debut performing with a teeth-rattling phalanx of 16 (sixteen!) 200 watt Sunn amps is about as close as one will get to truly experience the moment heavy metal music morphed into existence. However, at last Riding Easy have unearthed the proper fossil record. Population II, the now legendary, extremely rare album by guitarist / vocalist Holden and drummer / keyboardist Chris Lockheed is considered to be one of the earliest examples of doom metal.

Though its original release was a very limited in number and distribution, like all great records, its impact over time has continued to grow. In 1969, Holden, fresh off his tenure with proto-metal pioneers Blue Cheer (appearing on one side of the New! Improved! Blue Cheer album and touring for the better part of a year in the group), aimed for more control over his band. Thus, Randy Holden - Population II was born, the duo naming itself after the astronomical term for a particular star cluster with heavy metals present. “I wanted to do something that hadn’t been done before,” Holden explains. “I was interested in discordant sounds that could be melodic but gigantically huge. I rented an Opera house for rehearsal, set up with 16 Sunn amps. That’s what I was going for, way over the top.” And over the top it is. The six-song album delves into leaden sludge, lumbering doom and epic soaring riffs that sound free from all constraints of the era. It’s incredibly heavy, but infused with a melodic, albeit mechanistic, sensibility.

Troubles with the album’s release bankrupted Holden, who subsequently left music for over two decades. It was bootlegged several times over the years, but until now hasn’t seen a proper remaster and has yet to be available on digital platforms. “The original mastering just destroyed the dynamics of it,” Holden says. “They flattened it out. Now we got a really nice remaster that should be the closest thing to the original recording.”

The LP and CD are the first reissues of this album from 1976. The LP is re-issued in its original format due to demand that has driven the value of the pressing on All Platinum to in excess of £400. The CD is the first issue here in this format and comes complete with two preceding singles and a post album release of the 12' mix of My Man Is On His Way' in 1978, the only 12' release on all Platinum. This makes the CD the complete collection of Retta Young songs including her UK Top 40 chart hit (Sending Out An) S.O.S. which appeals to both northern soul and disco audiences. The complete album is a gem for connoisseurs of quality modern soul from the 70s.

Astropolis Records — the label born from the legendary electronic French festival — celebrates a decade of electronic devotion with a generous and deeply emotional anniversary compilation - a bit late, but never short on flair.

This double vinyl gathers the many faces of the Astropolis galaxy: in-house artists, long-time companions of the festival, and rising voices from a perpetually vibrant French scene. Across 18 artists, listeners are invited on a sonic journey where rave legacy, electronic dreamscapes, and collective fervor intertwine — true to the DNA of a festival that’s never known boundaries.



The record opens with grace and wonder courtesy of Rone, whose electronic touch channels both the intimate and the infinite. Between electronica and downtempo, The Dolphin Ambassador bathes in luminous melancholy, offering a moment of calm before the storm. In the same contemplative vein, we’re proud to unveil one of the first productions from Célélé alongside Théo Muller: Drum and Drift, a subtle blend of dubby vibrations and sunlit textures.


Astropolis has always thrived on happy collisions — and this compilation is proof of it. The unlikely meeting between Mézigue and Swooh sends house spiraling into a g-tech vortex on Broken Roll To Venice, a playful burst of groove, hybrid energy, and cheeky mischief. The same spirit of alchemy fuels Belaria & Madben, whose Into The Void burns bright as a 90s rave-meets-EBM anthem wrapped in hypnotic trance. Zaatar & Trunkline bring raw intensity to Come Into The Light, a sweaty, visceral banger at the crossroads of techno, dark disco, and EBM.


French techno pillars Scan X & Electric Rescue deliver a masterclass in elegant machine soul on Lost In Time. When Manu Le Malin teams up with Kmyle, the result is as sharp as it is cinematic: Little Big Man pulses with dramatic tension, balancing raw emotion and restrained fury. Elsewhere, Oniris & Benjamin Rippert reconnect with the melodic techno spirit of the label’s early days on Sonate, guided by a craftsman’s sense of harmony.
For the machine lovers, Legowelt & Cuften resurrect the spirit of early electroclash on Liar, a carnal fusion of analog synths and DIY attitude. And for the diehard dancefloor devotees, KiNK finally releases a cult track from his live sets: Give Me, a breakbeat-meets-vintage-house stormer tailor-made for those late-night sweats.

This anniversary compilation reaffirms the label’s openness to new generations and hybrid sounds, while paying tribute to the techno roots that shaped its foundation. Like the festival itself, it embodies sincerity and collective energy — a small manifesto linking generations, aesthetics, and territories, celebrating roots without nostalgia and the future without bending to trends.

Continuing the VA series with different artists from around the globe the fourth instalment has landed. The 9 track LP features already familiar to the label artists as well as many new faces unified by the idea of the love for the non-standard audio frequencies. With the dystopian artwork by the label’s visual guru Gkoner and the music by the nine talented artists the disc has obtain its shape. With the vast range of sound being present but all tied in the concept of the label’s musical ideology, the “Untitled IV” is born and armed for different settings where electronic music can be blasted loud on huge sound systems or in complete solitude does not matter at all. What matters is the love of music the listener brings making it all come together with a complete and fulfilled sense.

Hot on the heels of Luv (LuvLuv) comes a sublime new Drum Chums from midland's madlads Wrekin Havoc.
Over the years we've shared great tunes, fun times and A-grade dance floor debauchery with these permanent party people (our first encounter almost exactly like that Spiderman pointing meme) so it made more sense than we usually do to invite them aboard the V*nga bus for some Balearic-Disco edit excellence.

Things kick off with the sexy throb of 'Shine A Light', a stonewashed funk workout complete with Paisley guitars, Troutman bass grunts and some big time blue-eyed soul vocals. It's a bit like an extended and unheard collaboration between George Michael and Tears For Fears recorded immediately after a particularly heavy night at Future. Unsurprising perhaps that this one's been getting a whole lot of love from DJ Harvey.

'Mars Bar Party' grabs you by the hips from the first bar of its swaying Mediterranean house rhythm, then tugs at every single one of your heartstrings with melancholic pads and a silken vocal croon. Fuuuuuuckin' hell! Sorry, was totally bewitched by the primal power of piano house magic - it's like John Rocca was in the room for a second. Armed with an awesome arrangement and clocking in at ten massive minutes, this may be the ultimate Balearic house journey.

If all this wasn't enough to have you stocking up on 5-HTP and sinus rinse, those crafty cats close the set out with the shimmering disco euphoria of 'Leccy Meet Her'. The bottom end pulses endlessly, Cowley synths trill and a crystal clear Vox soar above, sending us far off into mirrorball orbit. If this isn't a hit at Horse Meat, we'll neck a bottle of poppers and never eat a tomato again.

Each and every track Wrekin Havoc touch is a pearler, but we're particularly chuffed with ourselves for snapping this top trio up.

100% Drum Fun Guaranteed. .

ASMR for Suicidal Thoughts' marks Varg2™ back in collaboration with Chatline, an enigmatic figure long in orbit of Northern Electronics. Recorded live to tape, the record resists comfort. Contained within are two harrowing demonstrations that drag on emptiness, anxiety, and abject pleasure. And though terse and severe, that very void becomes the vessel for its mottled meaning.

Unopen to exploration, 'ASMR for Suicidal Thoughts' locks the listener into its own saturated atmosphere. Stripped back and unchanging, and suffocatingly cold at the best of times, funereal melodies pepper cyclical noise so brittle it can barely repeat itself. Disturbingly intimate glints of memories are passed over out of reach, yet with the alarming immediacy of déjà vu. The sensation amounts to no more than this.

Recorded live to tape in Västra Skogen, Sweden 2023–2024
Mastered by Giuseppe Tillieci at EnissLab, Rome

Filtrack’s Anxiety…My Old Friend is four cuts built from tight percussion, coiled basslines and a sense of unresolved pressure. Rather than smoothing the nerves, the tracks sharpen them and push physical tension and forward momentum on the dancefloor.

The A-side exhales a clenched drive, tension and power that keeps pressing forward. Flip to the B-side and Filtrack holds anxiety at its core with cuts that are raw, dancy and deep. The whole EP turns apprehension into techno, inviting you to sit with the discomfort, then dance through it.

A synthesiser sighs up and down the scale, a cool electro beat is wrapped in cotton wool and Fabian Drung aka JFR MOON sings about life in a bubble. "In a Bubble" is the name of this beautifully sentimental synth pop number, to which JFR Moon's new album owes its name. Although JFR MOON produces his music more professionally from album to album, the indie pop characterised by synthesizers and electro beats never seems too pleasing, remains unruly. Sometimes the pieces wander through curious psychedelic harmonies ("Silver"), sometimes they remind us of the Smiths ("Turn Around"), sometimes they stumble onto the dance floor ("Experience"). Blurred chords flit through "Stereo Tap", a yearning guitar melody wanders through "Ready", a nervous synth bass twitches through "Hun I Wish". Grooves meet echoing atmospheric sound textures. "I used to do folk where there was no rhythm at all," he says, "this time I wanted to write more uptempo songs, pay more attention to the drum machine." All tracks written and performed by JFR Moon. Mixed and produced by Thomas Zehnle (All Diese Gewalt, Levin Goes Lightly). Mastered by Enyang Urbiks. Additional vocals on ,In A Bubble" by Martha Rose. Solo guitar on ,Silver" by Dandy Deniz.

Recordings from the Åland Islands, the duo debut by synthesist Jeremiah Chiu and violist Marta Sofia Honer, is a truly unique series of pieces that marry acoustic and electronic sounds with field recordings, all captured on a trip to the titular Baltic archipelago.
By the time Åland Islands was released in 2022, Honer had already been working with Makaya McCraven and Daniel Villarreal, but this project brought her to the front as a lead artist. And Åland Islands was the label's first collaboration of any kind with Chiu, who has since released the solo outing In Electric Time and the genre-breaking debut of his co-led supergroup SML, in addition to a trio album with Honer and the late Ariel Kalma (2024's The Closest Thing to Silence).

Recordings from the Åland Islands is far more than its context within the world of IARC, however, and it’s certainly more than its context as a travel document. Here Chiu and Honer have created a new world out of an old one with work that sees them in dialogue with their own source material. Like early masterpieces by Franco Battiato or Alvin Lucier, Åland Islands repeatedly presents the listener with a palpable sense of place, only to pluck them up and drop them into an entirely new one.
“...so tranquil and beautiful...” – Jayson Greene, Pitchfork

Ten years after her first release, electronic musician Mor Elian presents her debut album Solid Space. Showing her full artistic range, the LP drifts between dream-like listening states and experimental club spaces. Written in a transitional time, these compositions arrived in emotional, unfiltered bursts. Solid Space brings together ambient textures, early IDM structures, and experimental electronics, with distant, hazy vocals converging into a single, subconscious flow. It is released by adventurous electronic music label topo2 on November 28, 2025. The record is pressed on 180 grams of ICCS-certified bio-vinyl, housed in a heavy full-colour sleeve, and comes with a download-code to the full release. Mastering is done by Ike Zwanikken, mixing by Gramrcy, artwork courtesy of Kees de Klein, and poetry written by Eelco Couvreur. Additional production and mixing on track 7 by Carrier.
—

in the half-sleep: a voice
not anyone’s, just sound.
what it touches, it mirrors
learning to name itself.

a throat opens —
to hum through bone
to say nothing correctly.

we coexist as opposites
in our mother tongue, dreaming
the things we were never meant to touch.

there is a channel
between pulse and sentence —
a being moving through
the being that once answered to me.

to feel and not own the feeling,
each of us made visible
by the other.