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Unusual Traxx second vinyl release is finally here.

The label returns on wax with a fresh 4 tracks VA, featuring standout cuts from Paolo Mosca, Charlie Iapicone & Fosk, Mark Shadow, and A. Naranjo. Each artist delivers their own unique vision, from warm and groovy rhythms to playful synth work and rolling basslines. A versatile package that captures the Unusual sound in full.

Born-and-raised Detroit staple DJ Holographic unveils her album, House In The Dark LP via her newly launched label, Through The Veil.

The LP taps into the core of Afrofuturism that defined the foundation of Detroit techno but reimagines it in a femme, queer, and conscious way. The project draws from her deep-rooted relationship with astrology and shadow work—a therapeutic practice used to explore and heal repressed parts of the self. These transformative inner journeys serve as the creative bedrock for the album, which navigates themes of self-discovery, healing, and empowerment.

“Through healing practices like shadow work, astrology, and more, I’ve found a profound sense of arrival while writing House In The Dark. I’ve stepped into who I’ve always wanted to be as a creative and so much more. ‘Pisces’ is a journey through the depths of illusion, where the home becomes both a sanctuary and a mirror for our inner world, revealing what’s real and what we choose to believe.” — DJ Holographic

A celebrated DJ whose talents have taken her to Berlin’s Panorama Bar to Pitchfork Music Festival in Mexico City, Holographic has upcoming stops at London’s fabric, New York’s Public Records, Circoloco’s opening Ibiza party, and more. Her work has been covered by PBS, CRACK Magazine, Ransom Note, Billboard, DJ Mag, Resident Advisor, and more.

Born-and-raised Detroit staple DJ Holographic unveils her album, House In The Dark LP via her newly launched label, Through The Veil.

The LP taps into the core of Afrofuturism that defined the foundation of Detroit techno but reimagines it in a femme, queer, and conscious way. The project draws from her deep-rooted relationship with astrology and shadow work—a therapeutic practice used to explore and heal repressed parts of the self. These transformative inner journeys serve as the creative bedrock for the album, which navigates themes of self-discovery, healing, and empowerment.

“Through healing practices like shadow work, astrology, and more, I’ve found a profound sense of arrival while writing House In The Dark. I’ve stepped into who I’ve always wanted to be as a creative and so much more. ‘Pisces’ is a journey through the depths of illusion, where the home becomes both a sanctuary and a mirror for our inner world, revealing what’s real and what we choose to believe.” — DJ Holographic

A celebrated DJ whose talents have taken her to Berlin’s Panorama Bar to Pitchfork Music Festival in Mexico City, Holographic has upcoming stops at London’s fabric, New York’s Public Records, Circoloco’s opening Ibiza party, and more. Her work has been covered by PBS, CRACK Magazine, Ransom Note, Billboard, DJ Mag, Resident Advisor, and more.

Following a breakout year that saw them torch the Sonora Stage at Coachella, storm Europe on the HONEYPAQQ TOUR, and rack up co-signs from Carl Craig, LSDXOXO, Jamie xx, Crystalmess, SHERELLE, TELFAR, Tinashe, Smino, Nia Archives, Earl Sweatshirt, and Denzel Curry, HONEYPAQQ VOL. 1 captures HiTech at their most ambitious: unfiltered, explosive, and impossible to pin down.

Across a stacked track list, the trio bring together the raw DNA of Detroit techno, Chicago house, rap, and punk, honouring the roots of Black electronic music while taking the scene to new global heights. Features include boundary-pushing collaborators like George Riley, ZelooperZ, and Na-Kel Smith, adding warped soul, razor-edge bars, and unruly energy to the HiTech universe and demonstrating how HiTech are the only act straddling underground chaos and mainstage euphoria while unifying global scenes across electronic, rap, and rock in one breathless body of work.

Yosuke Yamashita, Itaru Oki, Yuji Ohno, and Kimiko Kasai. An astonishing jazz workshop with a never-before-seen encounter. Japanese jazz was so sharp and original.

Yosuke Yamashita Trio, Itaru Oki Trio, Yuji Ohno Trio, and Kimiko Kasai. Three trios and one vocalist, Trio by Trio Plus One. This is a live recording of a jazz workshop held in 1970, and the original was released as part of Victor's "Japanese Jazz" series. Just looking at the lineup of musicians gives off an extraordinary atmosphere, making this a special work.

Yamashita was a leading figure in the scene as the darling of the times. Oki came to Tokyo from Osaka in the mid-1960s and attracted attention. Ohno was a man of supple musicality who played everything from modern jazz to new jazz. And Kasai is just about to blossom. Needless to say, each performance is powerful and fascinating, but this album also features a performance by a unique seven-person group consisting of the Oki Trio, Ohno Trio, and Kasai. This is a two-disc set of super-class that reminds us once again just how original Japanese jazz was.

Text by Yusuke Ogawa (UNIVERSOUNDS / DEEP JAZZ REALITY

Several years after a 12” for the Unrelatable imprint, Marco Passarani opens a new chapter with F.F.O.M., a work of extra-terrestrial tales that feel grounded, where the hard, dirty work of the people continues on a different planet. The scenery changes, but the story stays the same: broken dreams on arid ground.

Linking back to his early Nature Records releases, Passarani blends experimentation with an unshakable sense of groove, weaving a more abstract narrative without losing the dancefloor pulse. While distinct from his Studiomaster output, the project shares the same DNA, fusing digital and analog textures until the boundaries dissolve.

True to the raw spirit of pure techno and imbued with the unmistakable nuances of the Roman school, F.F.O.M. is both a nod to the past and a step into uncharted territory, where Martian dust meets earthly sweat.

Each track paints a fragment of this imagined frontier: Tales Of Truth reveals shadowy landscapes hiding the real nature of the so-called new promised land; Alone in the Depth drifts through liquid scenery, a classic TR-808 pulsing deep beneath unknown oceans; Clouded Shore distills the numeric essence of groove in a subtle nod to Kraftwerk; Dominion erupts into the fierce struggle for supremacy over the new territories; Passione Orbitale tells of love for the unknown and voyages toward otherworldly sunsets; Exploration Noises echoes the spirit of Ixora from Passarani’s first Nature Records release, with manic, melancholic SH-101 lines riding electro rhythms.

The digital edition includes two exclusive miniatures, fleeting transmissions from the edge of this Martian settlement.

Since the 1940s, Library Music has lurked in the shadows, peripherally touching our lives through TV and film. Among the stalwarts of the industry was UK's Studio G, with cues heard on Doctor Who, and sampled by the likes of The Chemical Brothers, and Tyler, the Creator. Jazz Dispensary's Dream a Dream with Studio G: Cratedigger's Archive (1970–2009) culls some of their most sought-after cuts, with liner note commentary from Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley, and illustrations by Ivan Minsloff.

“For Today” is a timeless album—a sonic journey that seamlessly blends electronic influences, Trip-Hop, Folk, Indie Rock,
and Psychedelia.
It unfolds like an immersive soundscape, rich in complex atmospheres, experimental textures, and a deep emotional
undercurrent. Agosta has envisioned a record that transcends trends and market conventions, crafting a cinematic, soulstirring experience that fuses the intensity of trip-hop, the purity of folk, and the swirling colours of psychedelia.
The result is music that stimulates the intellect as much as it stirs the heart. With a delicate, refined touch and melodic
depth, Agosta combines contemporary sounds with vintage warmth, pairing poetic lyrics with themes of love, introspection,
and the human experience.
A standout element of “For Today” is the presence of five tracks featuring female performers and writers. This
intergenerational collaboration brings a richness of perspective and emotional range to the album. Far from a simple gesture
of gender inclusion, it serves as an authentic integration of diverse voices, offering new layers of sensitivity and storytelling.
Where Agosta’s previous work leaned more toward instrumental composition, here the inclusion of female voices adds
lyrical nuance and depth. These contributions explore themes such as love, identity, relationships, and personal liberation—
offering a poetic yet grounded lens through which to experience the album’s contemporary sound.
In essence, “For Today” is a mature and cohesive work that defies the boundaries of traditional genres, creating a unique
and resonant sonic world.
Each track explores a different emotional and musical dimension, with meticulous attention to sound design and a clear
desire for emotional experimentation. The album balances the introspective depth of trip-hop with the lightness and
spirituality of folk, weaving in modern pop elements and touches of psychedelia and groove.
The result is a compelling, emotionally charged, and genre-blending experience—one that invites listeners not only to hear,
but to feel.
An absolute must-listen!

Nine Inch Nails returns with over 70 minutes of new music for the motion picture TRON: Ares, the first soundtrack / score work from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross that will live under the Nine Inch Nails moniker; consisting of all original music, complete at 24 tracks. Reznor and Ross bring their Grammy and Oscar-winning sonic vision to the Grid, crafting a soundtrack that hums with menace, melancholy, and momentum. More than an album, its architecture in sound: pulsating synths, distorted textures, and haunting melodies that rewire the TRON universe from the inside out. It is the collision of analog soul and digital dread—a score that doesn't just accompany the film, it possesses it.

First things first, I want to thank Nectax for his patience, because he's been regularly sending me his music for well over 2 years & I was so swamped with other music being sent to me on a regular basis from other people, that I never made the time to actually check most of what he was sending me or to properly get back to him in response to the tracks of his that I did check. It's hard making time for listening to demos submitted for Future Retro London, amongst all the other commitments I have to take care of on a day-to-day basis, but he kept at it until I was finally able to realise what I had been sleeping on for so long.

Now that's out of the way, I was first made properly familiar with his music through his release on Over/shadow, as well as seeing some of his sets in London and hearing other people supporting his music, which made me more vigilant towards any music he'd send to me.

He sent me "London Bridge" and I really liked it, so much so that it gave me some ideas that I wanted to add to it & we turned it into a collab. He also sent me "Akaizen" which to me, is my favourite track of his that I'd heard of everything he'd sent me (that I actually made effort to check!), which Harmony has done a great job remixing. And then to complete the release, he met up with Champa B (who's based near him) to work on "Prisoners Of Psilocybe", and like that, it all came together in the end!

Big thanks to Nectax for his music (& again, sorry for being so consistently slow to respond!), to Harmony for his quality version of "Akaizen" & to Champa B for collaborating on "Prisoners Of Psilocybe".

With "Modern Way", Teddy Lasry delivers one of his most accomplished albums, where analog
synthesizer mastery meets a distinctly modern vision of instrumental music. Originally released in 1981,
this rare record embodies both the elegance of jazz-fusion and the boldness of electronic
experimentation.
Known for his key role in Magma, Teddy Lasry established himself as a discreet yet essential pioneer
of French cosmic music. A saxophonist, flutist, and keyboardist, he began developing a rich and
personal body of work in the 1970s, blending film scoring, sonic science fiction, and synthetic
dreamscapes.
On Modern Way, he explores a new path, at the crossroads of space funk, futuristic library music, and
cinematic synthetic landscapes. Each track evokes a scene: a race against time, a machine-city, a
digital dream... An imaginary soundtrack for an era that still believed in tomorrow.
Reissued on vinyl for the first time, Modern Way is a key work for fans of rare electronic gems,
atmospheric jazz, and avant-garde music long left in the shadows.
Limited edition – The future won’t wait.

Just when you thought every holy grail must have been unearthed by now, here come Basic Unit with their deep cover late 90s masterpiece Timeline, the dankest darkcore-electronica-tech step album you've likely never heard.

Ben England and Rick Dallaway formed Basic Unit and debuted on Moving Shadow in 1997. They also moved on Nocturnal, a cult label that reached beyond D&B to platform some more experimental sounds. It was a short-lived label with some ominous footnotes — 'Several people involved with Nocturnal have vanished or are dead' reads the label's Discogs description. But in 1998 Nocturnal put out Timeline, a CD-only album from Basic Unit that cut a sharp, scathing figure against most D&B of the era. England and Dallaway embraced the album format as a chance to go deep, inhaling their inspiration from early days Autechre as much as Source Direct and boiling down the results to a steely, minimalist framework.

The likes of 'Resolution' are desolate, stark workouts that feel fractured and raw enough to align with early grime, complete with the strings, but the rhythms move in mysterious formations designed to confound like the most bloody minded electronica artists of the late 90s. Blown out bass and scattered flurries of machine gun breaks, squashed tundra drones that sound like they were pulled from 10th generation VHS b-movies and bit-crushed animal grunts fit for a Mega Drive beat 'em up. The sonics are redolent of the times, but Basic Unit chisel them mercilessly into their spartan vision, deploying brain-frying beat science with a stern restraint.

It's the kind of record that gives so much while holding so much back — a deadly tease that has flown under the radar for too long. This is the sort of shock reissue material that gets us gassed at Sneaker, and we're proud to be giving it a re-boost and a first ever outing on wax, all the better to shock you out.

»Reise der Schatten« (»Journey of Shadows«) is the soundtrack to the eponymous debut feature-length animation film by Swiss artist Yves Netzhammer. Composed by Anthony Pateras and released as a stand- alone album through Hallow Ground, the 29 pieces are based on »weird folk melodies ornamented with electro-acoustics to give the film a more fantastical, fairy-tale feeling,« as the composer puts it. His extensive international recording sessions with a slew of guest musicians results in a record imbued with a sense of mystical surrealism, otherworldly and haunting.

»Reise der Schatten« tells the abstracted story of a genderless being coming to terms with its identity and place in a world full of conflicts and systems of control. »The film was made with old animation software that only works on Mac OS 9. So already, we are in a very hermetic, unique space,« says Pateras. Having tried (and failed) to compose something »typically experimental,« he went for long walks in the Australian bushlands and came home with something else: the idea to create a soundtrack that would create »a kind of distance, or perceptual shift, but also a narrative drive and emotional context which is not always clear.«

While recording the album, the tētēma co-founder did not use digitally generated sound, instead workingwith live instrumentation whose sound palette was enriched by the use of feedback, tape delay, analogue synthesizers, and samples from vinyl records. Wanting to work primarily with acoustic instruments suchas the clarinet made Pateras embark on a complicated journey of his own. The initial recording sessions took place in Basel on metallophones that were designed by Domenico Melchiorre’s Lunason company and laid the foundation for everything that came after.

Pateras recorded with musicians such as guitarist Alexander Garsden, viola player Erkki Veltheim, clarinetist Aviva Endean, multi-instrumentalist Justin Marshall and Lizzy Welsh on the viola d’amore among other instruments. He recorded percussion and recorders with Rohan Rebeiro and Natasha Anderson in his hometown of Castlemaine, double bass with Benjamin Ward in Sydney, bass and flutes with Jon Heilbron and Rebecca Lane in Berlin, and electronics in Zürich with Netzhammer. »Reise der Schatten« was thus a literal journey, made with a »big, international electro-acoustic ensemble.«

As a stand-alone album, »Reise der Schatten« opens up a space of its own. Its stylistic diversity makes it atmospherically and emotionally multi-faceted. As its composer notes, »music for screen can be very virtuosic, sophisticated, and variegated!« His own work is a testament to that claim.

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2025 Repress

2025 Repress

Tobias Bernstrup is a contemporary musician and video artist born 1970 in Gothenburg, Sweden. He received an MFA from Royal College University of Fine Arts Stockholm in 1998. Using the visual language of pop culture, video games, sci-fi, classicism and gothic noir, he has created a stage persona with notorious live performances. Dressed in elaborate costumes of skin-tight rubber suits and fetish gear, Tobias' external appearance is androgynous. He raises questions about representation of identity, the body and physical space in both virtual and non-virtual realities. Between 1997 and 1998 he self-released two limited CD-R EPs. In 2002 his debut album 'Re-Animate Me' was released by Tonight Records followed by two limited 12' singles for the song 27' and the Italian version Ventisette'.
.
27' is a 5-song EP collecting 4 different mixes of the title track plus one unreleased song from the 'Re-Animate Me' recording sessions. The material on this EP is closely connected with the world of computer games which Bernstrup also inhabits. Bernstrup's music is influenced by 1980s Italo disco and synth pop, reminiscent of Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode and Ken Lazlo. On the A-side is the original mix at 115 bpm followed by the Lazer Mix set to an faster beat and additional arpeggiations and heavier bass drum beats. Lyrically the song tells the story of a good looking 27-year old boy from a small town searching for love with any man who can spoil him. On the B-side are both the vocal and instrumental of Ventisette', the Italian translation of the song 27.' Both versions of Ventisette' are stripped back compared to the A-side but keep the melodies in tact. Also released for the first time ever is the demo Dirty Money' a Pet Shop Boys influenced song about male prostitutes ready for a night out working the streets.

All songs have been remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. For the jacket Eloise Leigh transformed the original portrait of Tobias into a Warhol-like painted polaroid with a striking likeness to Liza Minelli with blue eye shadow and red lipstick. Each copy includes a photo postcard with lyrics and notes. I would rather create alternative routes to experiencing and understanding the world, understanding what it means to be human today,' says Bernstrup. We are more artificial than we want to admit.'

* Limited edition 2 x LP vinyl with full colour outer sleeve and printed inners.

* The sound of a D&B original. Carlito's debut LP blends timeless vibes with fresh energy and presents a masterclass in liquid funk.

* A long-awaited debut from one of liquid drum & bass's true pioneers, Fiesta En La Playa sees Carlito step out solo on Liquid V with a full-length that's been years in the making. Known for his work with DJ Addiction and iconic releases on labels like Moving Shadow, Creative Source, Hospital Records and Defunked, Carlito helped shape the early sound of soulful D&B, and here he refines it with maturity, depth and a forward-thinking touch.

* Includes the standout singles Fiesta En La Playa, Wide World, Savanna Rain and Take Me Down, plus a host of new tracks exclusive to the LP.

* An album that brings Carlito's classic touch into the present — deep, melodic and musical, with the weight and clarity to hold its own in any modern DJ set. Also featuring vocal contributions from V regular MC T.R.A.C.

* "I've always loved the more musical side of things," says Carlito, "and with this album I really wanted to stay true to my sound but bring it into the now."

* A personal and creative milestone, marking Carlito's return to the scene and celebrating the spirit of D&B culture past, present and future.

* Full support from Bryan Gee, DJ Marky, LTJ Bukem, Jumpin Jack Frost and the V family, with roots that run deep and a sound that continues to inspire across generations.

* Built around standout singles and brand new material, the LP is as much about feel as it is finesse, lush, rolling and warm, but with weight where it matters. From start to finish, it's the sound of a producer reconnecting with the craft: "I still get the same buzz turning the kit on, not knowing where a session might go."

* With a legacy that spans decades, Carlito delivers a record that speaks to both long-time heads and the new wave alike — soulful, confident and packed full of funk.



c A3. Sing It Now Swerve Mix

e B1. Fiesta En La Playa VIP

As 2025 unfolds, Frenzy wastes no time in unleashing its next chapter. For our ninth release, we welcome Ukrainian mastermind Gene Richards Jr.

Known for his raw, uncompromising energy, Gene delivers a blistering 4-track EP rooted in ghetto-driven rhythms and industrial grit. This is no-holds-barred techno - pure, percussive, and primed for peak-time chaos.

Titled Ride This D, the EP kicks off with four original tracks that showcase Gene's signature blend of punchy drum work and infectious vocal chops. The intensity only builds with two standout remixes: UK legend Mark Broom injects his classic mechanical funk into the title track, while Spain's rising phenomenon DJ Swisherman brings an electrified bounce that reimagines the groove through his distinct, playful lens.

From shadowy warehouse floors to open-air summer raves, Ride This D is designed to detonate.

Mary Yuzovskaya unveils the 'The More You Know' remix EP on her vinyl-only Monday Off imprint, releasing 6th June 2025. Featuring reworks from Spain's ORBE, 90s US Techno legend Mike Parker, Judas Records' JUDAS, and Duna founder CONCEPTUAL.

First up, Token and Mote-Evolver artist and Orbe Records boss ORBE remixes 'Ittiologia', maintaining the original's hypnotism by amplifying its eerie soundscapes for a loopy, deep space trip. JUDAS, shrouded in mystery yet known for his self-released EPs on his eponymous label and releases on ARTS, then revisits 'Micologia', completely reworking its tripped-out sequences into short bursts of droning synth work.

Tresor, Semantica, and Prologue's Mike Parker also provides a version of 'Micologia', with the US Techno lynchpin slowing down its rhythm while its weighted synthlines bubble up between its kicks and rides. Closing out this remix package, Italy's CONCEPTUAL reworks 'Ittiologia', building tension via the original's dark and shadowy atmospheres but switching up its low-end for an electric, late-night feel.

Mary Yuzovskaya is a storyteller. Through delicate, masterful curation and a deep knowledge of experimental, trippy Techno, she weaves together sonic journeys - with 'The More You Know - Remixes' making for another excellent addition to her Monday Off label.

The latest transmission on Samurai tunes into half-time intensity with a psychedelic edge courtesy of leading French practitioner Vardae. Applying techno hypnotism and cinematic atmospheres to his snaking beat constructions, the Lyon-based artist delivers a pitch-perfect exercise in mystical meditation that follows a natural path from the Ancestral Voices LP.

Since first emerging around 2017, Vardae has been determined to establish a sound unbound by genre restrictions. To date he's successfully moved between cult labels such as Non Series and Ooda while pivoting from linear 4/4 to crooked broken beat without disrupting his immersive, finely sculpted production style.
Alongside his releases, Vardae is also responsible for the ouroboros festival that takes place every year in central France. Last summer, after the dancefloor closed on the final night of the the event, fabled Dutch transcendental ambient group Son Of Chi made an acoustic concert around the campfire that cast a spell over everyone present. This experience formed the inspirational basis for Vardae's new EP, drawing on the instinctive power of insistent rhythm and the spiritual intrigue that lies behind subtly dissonant tones - shadows cast by refined, restrained synthesis flickering in the imagined light of the flames.

From the rattle of timbale on 'The Light Motion' to the laser-focused ripples that charge through 'Voices Of Dispossession', Vardae bends and shapes his drum work with exacting intention across this EP. Treading the line between 85 and 170BPM, he approaches fierce peaks in his tracks with an exacting patience, building to the arp-soaked climax of 'Flaming As A Cloud' and its ecstatic, melodic crescendo.
Proudly individual and drawing from the deepest of musical experiences, Vardae's latest statement promises similarly profound moments when these pieces come into contact with the right souls and the right sound in the right setting.

"Throughout all my time as a musician and producer, ever since Jack the Tab, I've been focused on developing a single idea: Blending psychedelic sounds and effects with rhythm." Richard Norris, Strange Things Are Happening White Rabbit 2024

Over the past few years Eskimo Recordings have invited some of thebest crate diggers around to curate compilations that don't just reveal the hidden contents of their record bags but something about themselves too. Now, following in the footsteps of the likes of Bill Brewster and Psychemagik, producer, musician, DJ, writer and more, Richard Norris, takes us on a globetrotting psychedelic journey with the epic 42 track collection, Mr Norris Changes Brains.

For over forty years Richard has played a part in many of the UK's most important music subcultures. Whether sharing stages with the likes of Tracey Thorn as a pubescent punk in St. Albans, or running freakbeat nights in Liverpool and working at the pioneering psychedelic label Bam Caruso, co-producing the UK's first acid house inspired LP with Throbbing Gristle's Genesis P. Orridge or riding the wave of creativity that the second summer of love unleashed all the way to the Top of the Pop studios as The Grid, Richard's career has continually seen him work to expand both his own and the public's musical horizons.

With Mr Norris Changes Brains it's the most recent part of his mercurial career that he's focused on. Drawing inspiration from his post 2006 adventures as one half of Beyond the Wizard's Sleeve, alongside Trash's Erol Alkan, this compilation shows how a more connected world has blown the dust off a paradoxically sometimes straightjacketed scene. The result is a dizzyingly wide-ranging collection that explores the further out there reaches of worldwide psychedelia and dancefloor mayhem.

"A lot of these tracks are fairly recent discoveries, things that I've discovered from around the time I started working with Erol and going right up to today," Richard explains. "Whether that's from going out to play and finding new records in places like Istanbul or just connecting with people online from all around the world. Psych can sometimes be a sort of narrow-minded field, with everything having to sit in its specific niche, but more and more people are open to new sounds and that's allowed for a much broader selection."

Despite their disparate origins what does unite these tracks is that they aren't just there to zone out to on a bean bag as projections of swirling coloured oils and psychedelic patterns wash over you. Mr Norris may change brains but his DJ sets also move feet, and whether it's their killer guitar riffs, oscillating synths floor shaking drums or soulful Hammond organs these are all cuts that from festival tents to underground clubs have proven time and time again to get people dancing.

"With a lot of these tracks there's a kind of fun element in them," says Richard. "It's still psychedelia, but they've also got these solid, funky grooves. They sound phenomenal on the dancefloor and as much as these records might excite old psych heads, this compilation is also for a new generation out there who might have never heard anything like this before and, just like when I was 18 and heard The 13th Floor Elevators for the first time, think 'Oh, my God, what on earth is this and more importantly what else is out there?'"

The Comfort’s sixth release comes from the Italian producer Cesare Muraca, aptly titled Calabrian Flow.

Spanning four tracks, the record maintains a fundamental structure and attitude towards the dancefloor: dynamic, immersive, and universally compelling. But as always, the devil is in the details. From the A-side to the B-side, these tracks traverse moods and emotional nuance with elegance, unfolding like a well-told story.

The title track, Calabrian Flow, is a hypnotic interplay of bleeps and enchanting melodies, walking the fine line between dramatic ambiguity and raw force. Cosmic Odyssey, on the other hand, carries a sense of urgency, shrouded in shadowy gloom yet punctuated by flickers of light—a delicate interplay of tension and fleeting luminescence.

On the B-side, the record embraces pure release. The cathartic and expressive energy of Dynamic Dance offers both freedom and propulsion, while Working balances maximalism on a blade’s edge. Cesare utilizes choral chants that reverse and morph, synthesizers that pulse like distant signals, vortex-like low-ends, and an extremely tight rhythm. The result stuns and pulls—lingering long after the kick fades out.

180 G. BLACK VINYL WITH LINER NOTES IN CREOLE, FRENCH, ENGLISH

Originally released in 1979, "Spiritual Sound" lives up to its name, a soaring, triumphant album, six tracks of spirit magic from Guadeloupe.

Telluric, intense, terribly alive, the gwoka drums of Guadeloupe carry the identity of a painful and fervent island. Marked forever by the crime of slavery, Guadeloupe's créolité cherishes the ka drums and their natural environment: the low-pitched boula drum with male goatskin, the high-pitched soloist makè drum with female goatskin, the chacha, ti bwa, triangle, calabash and other percussion instruments that surround them, and the voices - the fiery, proud, timbred, urgent voices of the gwoka.



This album is also a legend for its voices: in his then dazzling youth, singer Lukuber Séjor was one of the first gwoka artists to largely feminize the chorus of répondè, who converse with his text delivered in a straight and powerful voice.

And everything here sets new standards. In 1979, Mizik Filamonik - Spiritual Sound proclaimed a spiritual patriotism of ferocious intensity. The album by Lukuber Séjor - whose spelling alone is a battle - sets out to give Guadeloupe the intangible weapons of self-respect and self-knowledge, through a singular practice of traditional music.

The genesis of gwoka music is less straightforward than one might imagine... The drums performed the servile task of accompanying the work of slaves in the fields and during the “corvées” imposed by the administration, before being freely practiced by the common people after the abolition of 1848. At the heart of the conviviality of the Guadeloupeans furthest from the cities - geographically and socially - the gwoka drums come out for carnival, funeral wakes and neighborhood celebrations, but also during strikes, fits of anger and armed vigils of the riots and revolts that have punctuated the island's history. For generations, governors of the colony and then the prefects of the overseas department of Guadeloupe have been viewing the gwoka as a potential for turbulence and a threat to public order.

But as the Beatlesmania, “chanson engagée” and rock revolutions unfolded in Europe, young people turned to the drums of mizik a vié nèg (“bad negro music”, in Creole), which Guadeloupeans had learned to despise by following the “assimilation” process advocated by the school system and most of the political class. At the end of the sixties, in a Guadeloupe mourning the deadly repression of the May 1967 social movement, they played traditional music, refusing to wrap it up in tourist prettiness and madras folk costumes. Instinctively, they played a rough and contemporary gwoka, led by the incendiary Guy Konkèt. This was the era of decisive 45 rpm records such as Robert Loyson's Kann a la richès, which brought to light the fieriest words of union rallies.

At his home in Sainte-Anne, Lukuber Séjor played with flautist Olivier Vamur and his brother Claude Vamur, who cobbled together a drum kit from tin crockery and became, a few years later, the most influential drummer in Kassav'.

These were the years of the Bumidom program, when young Guadeloupeans were encouraged to emigrate to mainland France. At the age of twenty, Lukuber Séjor embarked on the liner Irpinia, disembarking at Le Havre and taking the train to the Gare Saint-Lazare - the route taken by thousands of young West Indians who went on to study or looked for work, all the while trying to maintain a link with their homeland. In this case, it's at the Antony university residence, where Lukuber played the drum and participated in a thousand gwoka updates and aggiornamentos, while exile reinforced the need for a spiritual link with the native land.

In 1978, Guy Konkèt played at the Salle Wagram, a historic event for West Indian music. After serving as répondè - i.e. backing vocalist - on one of his home-recorded albums, Lukuber joined his live band. Little by little, he became one of the key artists on a circuit parallel to French show business. At a student party in Caen, he met a young woman from Martinique who, at the time, was more motivated by her ambitions as a visual artist than by her vocation as a musician. Her name was Jocelyne Béroard and, a few years before she plunged into the Kassav' adventure and became the greatest West Indian singer of her generation, she designed the cover of Lukuber Séjor's LP.

This ambition was obvious and imposed its will. A more or less regular band was formed, with Roger Raspail, Rudy Mompière and Éric Danquin on ka drums, Claude Vamur on ti bwa, Olivier Vamur and Françoise Lancréot on flutes and Annick Noël on keyboards. Lukuber Séjor is set on wanting to extend the gwoka palette to other instruments, as the jazz-rock revolution opens a thousand new doors. Annick Noël will play a wide range of timbres and textures on electric piano and synthesizer. Another novelty: the répondè are two men and two women, Roger Raspail, Olivier Vamur, Françoise Lancréot and Maryann Mathéus ...

Mizik Filamonik - Spiritual Sound is a self-production in which the singer and leader sank all his savings, allowing him no more than a single day in the studio. The first side is more of a musical manifesto, with the first two tracks, Éritage and Penn é plézi, being instrumentals. The third, Son, forcefully celebrates the need for Guadeloupeans to connect with the gwoka. In fact, Jocelyne Béroard's cover shows a tambouyé in the shadow of a cloudy sky, against which a radiant sun is rising and whose light will soon flood the entire landscape. The silhouette and face of this man strongly evoke the immense Vélo, master of the ka, rejected at the time on the fringes of society.

The second side of the LP is surprising. Formally, three tracks are explicitly linked like the three parts of a triptych. Primyé voyaj evokes the appalling tribulation of Africans deported as slaves to Guadeloupe; dézyèm voyaj speaks of the Bumidom program and the economic, political and social forces driving young Guadeloupeans towards the mirage of prosperity in France; twazyèm voyaj closes the cycle with the emigrants' return from Europe after years away from their island...

This gwoka, obsessed with the need to save Guadeloupe spiritually, appeals far beyond the politicized audience. Mizik Filamonik - Spiritual Sound instantly became a classic, although Lukuber Séjor never really made a career for himself as a musician.

After all, the album was released in 1980, with no promotional resources in France or Guadeloupe - and therefore no concerts. The thirty-two-year-old author, composer and performer made his own third trip back to Guadeloupe. He set up a small woodworking business, which he lost in Hurricane Hugo in 1989. His other activity, teaching in a medical-educational institute, became the core of his professional life. He continued to be an active campaigner - a campaigner for the Creole language, a campaigner for the reawakening of identity, a campaigner for special education, a campaigner for a thousand causes that he ignited with his generous and perceptive enthusiasm, such as the defense of breadfruit fries...

The echoes of his 1979 album have not died down. Of course, the use of Penn é plézi as the theme tune for Radio Guadeloupe's funeral notices from 1980 to 1992 kept him in the collective memory, but he continues to sing and compose sporadically, as with his all-female

vocal group Vwapoulouéka... Still convinced that music is a means of liberating the spirit, he continues the journey of a young man eager to deploy the power of Creole music and language.

Bertrand Dicale

Since its inception in 2020, Italo Moderni’s energy, spirit and inspiration has been the dancefloor. The darkened bunkers of Belgium, the trembling speakers of Valencia, the warming dawn of Rimini, these influences have been the lifeblood. Solidifying this tireless effort, Mellow Bangers Vol 2 is the label’s most ambitious collection to date.

In celebration of the imprint’s fifth anniversary, four artists gather with every single one united under a rallying cry. From across the globe, machinists have been drawn together to deliver a statement of acid and wave, of electro and synth with flourishes of italo. The shadowy fringes of the floor are well represented, audio artisans like Cyrk serving distorted drums and melodies dripping with menace in the twisted shape of “Double Crash.” The static haze remains with Fragedis’ “Disco Nicotina,” a lancing melody piercing the soaked speakers of this sweaty romp. Label boss, Adrian Marth leads the charge on the flip. “Modernism” is a stripped and playful two-stepper, a two-stepper that Marth beefs into bawdy proportions before balancing the track with crystalline chords. Amongst the litany of talent are musicians who have both inspired Italo Moderni as well as those who have appeared on the label. Antoni Maiovvi fits such a description, the sound sorcerer slicing beats through bittersweet bars in the immersive “Stopping Power.”

Mellow Bangers Vol 2 is a breathless expression of the floor. A contemporary imagining of the racing rhythms and addictive hooks of the 1980s and 1990s. Four works that summarise what Italo Moderni is and will continue to be

BLACK/RED VINYL

A match made in heaven and hell, since forming in the cradle of Europe Athens, back in 2012, dark synth duo Selofan have paved their own perditious way, reinventing the modern Darkwave scene throughout the continent and worldwide with their prolific creativity and work ethic over the past decade. Through varied experimental synth-scapes conjured with keen ears for sound design, production, and theatrical aesthetics, Selofan rest not on the laurels of just creating highly danceable coldwave infused music, but with together with Joanna Pavlidou's haunting vocals, and Dimitris Pavlidis' throbbing bass guitar, and modular synth compositions, the pair conjure whole other worlds and narratives throughout each album and music video they create. Thus far the Selofan have released 5 studio albums, issued through their own legendary label they curate themselves: Fabrika Records. Through their Fabrika family, Selofan have championed such acts as Lebanon Hanover, and She Past Away, aiding these bands in becoming two of the most popular Darkwave acts worldwide. Drab Majesty even cameoed in a She Past Away video while being hosted by Selofan during one of the band's frequent stays in Athens, and Kaelan Mikla, a handpicked favorite of The Cure, were first championed by Selofan, through the release of the Icelandic Trio's self-titled debut in 2016. In the Spring of 2020, Selofan released the video for the hopelessly plaintive "There Must Be Somebody", the first single from their forthcoming sixth studio album Partners In Hell, the follow-up to 2018's widely popular Vitrioli LP. "There Must be Somebody" is a discordant composition, mimicking the startled song of birds after a disturbance in a wooded enclave on a mountainside, while a magick ritual unfolds. The album itself opens with "Grey Gardens", a menagerie of morose melodies setting a sombre tone for the rest of a bleak record whose sound design and dreamscapes evoke the best sounds of British and German post-punk of the 80s. "Almost Nothing" is a brooding bell-driven track with a dark and pirouetting melody that is the perfect soundtrack to a figurine twirling in a music box. The German language "Nichts" means No, and this song is both sinister and cinematic with sighing keys, shuddering drum machines, and German lyrics sung with sorrowful conviction. "Zusamen", is a word often asked if you are together, or separate, is a dark ballad whose shadowy keys weave a nightmarish delirium, evoking the soundscapes of a lullaby sung in a haunted dollhouse. "4am" is a restless rhythm, whose soft percussive melody tosses and turns alongside subtle bass and string accents overlaid with despondent vocals. "Happy Consumers" sounds like the swirling of a finger drawn upon the edge of crystalline glass, with vocals and drum machines coming emanating from an adjacent room with echoing acoustics, collectively evoking the sound like lingers when the somnambulist wakes from his dream. "Absolutely Absent" hums onward like a phantom train ride that is a one-way ticket to madness, and with the next track "Metalic Isolation" the locomotive beats gather more steam, propelled forward with anachronistic melody. The album closes with "Auf Dein Haut", which translates as on your skin, and the song is both tactile and tenebrous with sensuously dark synth textures amidst howling German vocals that take flight like witches during a sabbat. Partner's In Hell was mixed and produced by Serafim Tsotsonis, and mastered by Doruk Ozturkcan. Genre: Alternative / Post-Punk / Cold Wave

Jorja Chalmers enjoys a quiet life. The Australian born mother of two lives in Margate, the Kent coastal town that is turning into something of a cultural hub. Yet there’s another, shadow version of Jorja Chalmers, one that resides in a liminal realm; a saxophonist & composer, a brooding, vampiric, twilight soul who yearns for some sense of aesthetic transformation.

New album ‘Midnight Train’ comes close to severing the two. Constructed during the long winter lockdown, Jorja would put her kids to bed before closing the door in the spare room, building lengthy, undulating passages of cinematic terror, patching together European art-pop glamour with outsider electronics. It’s composed, intense, & challenging – but it’s also utterly exhilarating.

“I feel incredibly proud of this album,” she says. “It feels like a life’s work squeezed into one space. It feels like I’m saying something.”

Source of an all-time 'Breaks and Beats' classic, Mr Bongo reissue Herman Kelly’s timeless 1978 album Percussion Explosion!. Immortalised in hip-hop folklore, when the anthemic 'Dance To The Drummer's Beat’ was featured on the influential Ultimate Breaks & Beats compilation series in 1986.

Percussion Explosion! was the brainchild of drummer, percussionist, producer and arranger, Herman Kelly and his percussive disco-funk group from Miami, 'Life', that featured Aaron McCarthy, Oliver Well, John DeMonica, Michal Cordoza and Travis Biggs. The album houses a collection of disco, funk and Latin-inspired cuts that were destined for greatness. Nestled within the grooves is the B-Boy and B-Girl’s anthem, 'Dance To The Drummer's Beat’, which contains a now legendary break. A cursory glance at Whosampled will show that it has been sampled in over 125+ songs. These include Double Dee & Steinski on their groundbreaking 1985 production 'Lesson 3 (History Of Hip Hop Mix)', as well as by DJ Shadow, N.W.A, Masters At Work, Run D.M.C. and a whole host of heavyweights across hip-hop, dance and pop music.

When the album was released in 1978 it came out on two different labels, Alston Records and Electric Cat. Each label pressed different versions of 'Dance To The Drummer's Beat’, with the former featuring a 4:12 version and the latter a longer 5:09 version that has a different structure, crowd noise at the start and overdubbed percussion.

For this Mr Bongo reissue, we have chosen the classic 4:12 version from the Alston Records release, which would later find its way on to the illustrious Ultimate Breaks & Beats compilation. To make matters even more confusing the Alston version art on the back cover also states the track length as 5:09, whilst the centre label lists it correctly as 4:12.

Aside from the much celebrated 'Dance To The Drummer's Beat’, the album includes a range of other fantastic overlooked cuts. From the percussive soul stepper 'Share Your Love', to the beautiful Latin-flavoured 'A Refreshing Love' or the party disco-funk groover 'Who's The Funky D.J.?'.

This wonderful and inspirational record features an important piece of hip-hop heritage and deserves a place in every collection.

A bold reimagining of Scottish folk in a hypermodern soundworld, In a River Shadow blends prehistoric instruments, abstract electronics, and environmental recordings into a unique sonic landscape. The result is a futuristic, technoid sound that feels both organic and otherworldly, like a biomechanical artefact unearthed from a distant future.

In a constellation of influences including Yoshio Ojima, sunytty, and the hyperrealist work of Noah Creshevsky, "Birdhouse" is a dream of voices—human, non-human, and AI-generated—unfolding tranquillity into hallucinatory spectres. On "Star of the Sea," Poole confronts a complicated relationship with prayer by reworking the Catholic hymn "Hail Queen of Heaven, the Ocean Star," reformulating the prayer and stretching vocals to their limits, transforming the piece into a drum-driven, visceral interpretation.

Across this five-track EP, Poole combines personal exploration with collaborative influences, including a partnership with Considerate Digital, and collaborations with vocalist Celine Brooks and artist Gabo.

Music : Poole, additional vocals by Celine Brooks on Weila Waila, and Gabo on Selkie of Sule Skerry.

Roberto Musci, born in Milan in 1956, studied guitar, music and electronic instruments. From 1974 to 1985 he traveled the world studying African, Indian, Arabic and Oriental music, recording ethnic music “in the field,” studying and collecting ethnic musical instruments from all over the world. His self-produced debut album, “The Loa of Music,” is a seminal work of staggering originality and extraordinary beauty in which field recordings, musique concrète, electronics, synthesis and instrumentation are interwoven, drawing on the countless musics from around the world that he has recorded. The subsequent “Water messages on desert sand,” composed with Giovanni Venosta, was nominated for a Grammy in the UK in 1987. In the 1980s and 1990s he broadcast ethnic and electronic-experimental music from Rai and Radio Popolare radio stations. He has also composed and played music for videos, commercials, dance, poetry, theater, composed soundtracks and accompanied silent films live. From 1980 to the present, he has played with many Italian and European musicians: Giovanni Venosta, Claudio Gabbiani, Walter Prati, Giorgio Magnanensi, Massimo Cavallaro, Massimo Mariani, Moni Ovadia, Roberto Zorzi, Chris Cutler, Jon Rose David Moss, Steve Piccolo, Elliott Sharp, Keith Tippett and the Third Ear Band.

The theme of travel, ethnicities and mysticism are a pivotal point in this new album of his as well, demonstrating once again how music needs absolutely no sharp lines of demarcation. The music is one.

It goes from the search for deep meanings in a time spent in a Hindu monastery (Ashram) listening to mantras and studying Buddhist philosophy (The Principle Of Things) to space explorations and human settlements on the Moon or Mars wondering how man will live and what he will bring to the new worlds imagining that Sufism, an Islamic mystical religion, will accompany him in the discovery of new worlds (Derviches On Mars). In Goodbye Monsters, harmony and peace are sought. Memories Of A Piano Player is a tribute to Keith Tippett, a great pianist (King Crimson , Centipede, Mujician) with whom he played in several concerts and with whom I spent evenings talking about music, food and Italian wine. Quantum State focuses on how quantum mechanics is creating a revolution in the way of thinking and dividing reality into infinite Parallel Worlds. Panthalassa is the vast ocean that surrounded Pangea and blends South American marimba music and traditional Chinese music. Burn The Shadows is a tribute to the fascinating Indonesian shadow theater, from the stories told and the atmosphere created during the long plays told in the sacred Indian texts of Ramayana or Mahabharata. Shadows are also more or less pleasant memories to which one is attached, and to burn them is still to move on with one's life.

Torajan Funeral Chant: The Toraja are a people living in Sulawesi (Indonesia) who have a special worship of the dead. Funerals are festivals that last several days, the corpses are protected by Tau-Tau (small dolls that watch over cemeteries), and over the years, they exhume the corpses of their relatives and keep them in their homes with them for a time to remember them.

The experimentation goes all the way to modern Artificial Intelligence that 'interrogated' to create something new by inserting conflicting inputs joins them together but nonsensically creating interesting insights; hence A.I. In Confusion. Pangea, named after the continent that contained all the land that emerged between 540 and 200 million years ago, in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic periods, imagined as inhabited by man without divisions created by borders, wars, religions or ethnic groups, is also a tribute to Steve Reich, one of the fathers and a great musician of minimal music. Prophecies, a reading of sacred texts and religious songs from evangelical sects in the United States filtered into granular synthesis with percussion music from South India, closes.

Matthew Dear's Black City Can't Be Found On Any Map. It's A Composite, An Imaginary Metropolis Peopled By Desperate Cases, Lovelorn Souls, And Amoral Motives. Like Most Literary Gothams, Black City Is A Place To Love And Hate, As Seedy As A Nightclub's Back Room And As Seductive As The Promise Of Power. Matthew Dear, The Musician, May Live In New York City, But The Matthew Dear Of Black City Inhabits A Sound-world Unlike Any Other: A Monument To The Shadowy Side Of Urban Life That Bumps And Creaks, Shudders And Wakes Up Screaming In The Middle Of The Night. Black City Is Matthew Dear's Third Album On Ghostly International, And It's His Darkest And Most Engrossing Work To Date.

From The rst Notes Of Album Opener "honey", It's Clear That The Love-obsessed Matthew Dear Of 2007's Asa Breed Has Given Way To A More Existentially Paranoid Entity, As Creeping Tempos Dominate, Cavernous Atmospherics Envelop The Listener, And Strange Distortions Crackle On The Horizon. In Black City, Nothing Is At It Seems: Leadoff Single "little People (black City)" Is A Nine-and-a-half Minute Disco odyssey, subverting its gleaming electronic lead with eerily giddy backing vocals and cryptic, ominous lyrics ("a frozen wasted heart / has died", "love me like a clown"); "You Put a Smell on Me" is a sordid sex romp set to hysterically chattering percussion and a serrated synth line that will set your teeth on edge; "More Surgery" at rst recalls the barely-there Krautrock of Harmonia in its burbling minimalism, until Dear's chanted chorus of "Alter genetics / to make my body glow / I need more surgery / there's so much more to know" sends the track hurtling into a dystopian future.

And yet, for all the foreboding moods on Black City, it's the album's sweeter moments that illustrate Matthew Dear's growing maturity as a songwriter. "Slowdance" is a futuristic lullaby in which Dear articulates a lover's helplessness ("I can't be the one to tell you everything's wrong") over breathy, Arthur Russell-esque cello swishes; the album-closing "Gem" is an achingly simple, reverb-drenched piano ballad that ends with a long, slow fade. Even in Matthew Dear's Black City, there is hope.

In the intricate maze of Tokyos neon heartbeat, Yuki Takasaki, known as Altone, creates a world where time and sound dissolves into dub techno. Altones work, steeped with an old-school sonic palette, is a symphony of resonating bass lines, rustic layers and delicate synths, crafting a port rait that connects the fleeting with the timeless. Altones music t ranscends mere sound, offering an invitation to explore the shadowy corridors of consciousness and minimal dub aesthetics. Each original track unfolds like a tranquil journey through an urban nocturne, haunting and beautiful in its harmony. Brendon Moeller, a master of dub techno, reimagines Altones >Self Replication< In two distinct yet sonic territories. The first remix pulses with a futuristic rhythm, its syncopated beats dancing on the edge of awareness. The dub remix, by cont rast, plunges into a vortex where liquid acid intertwines with hypnotic bass lines, conjuring a dreamscape infused with laser guided drums and crystalline texture. Through these remixes, Moeller crafts a sonic voyage that weaves through the complex tapestry of the dub landscape and keeps reminding us that the territory is still vastly unexplored.

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Following his debut on Planet E Communications last year to release Art-O-Fact, New Jersey-born and-based house music legend Junior Sanchez now teams up with longtime friend, label boss and techno icon Carl Craig for a brand new Remix EP. “Art-O-Fact (Detroit Remix)” injects the futuristic sound of Carl’s hometown, the EP also includes a ‘Beatless’ mix and a ‘Bass’ mix, which split the new Detroit Mix directly in half, with one focused on melody and the other on rhythm.

Sanchez initially brought “Art-O-Fact” to Planet E with Detroit in mind. “I loved so many records by Carl Craig, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, and Juan Atkins,” he says. “I let my inspiration guide me, and I thought about that city—what it meant to me and what techno meant to my heart.” To fully connect the dots, Carl Craig has hopped on the remix, reinforcing the eclectic synth work with a heavy new groove, a gritty bass line, and subtle, shadowy synth melodies. The result is a fortified connection between two scenes and eras that sonically toes the line.

Music From Memory is thrilled to introduce Dead Sound, the collaborative project of Marco Sterk (aka Young Marco) and Berlin-based pop-auteur John Moods. Both artists are no strangers to the label; Sterk forms one third of the trio Gaussian Curve, while Moods released the 2022 album ‘Hidden Gem’ with The Zenmenn.

Their collaboration was both planned and spontaneous; Sterk initially reached out in 2022 expressing his desire to work with Moods. The pair finally got together in 2024 to produce ‘Into The Void’, an album that burst into life over the course of a few creatively charged days in each other’s company.

Moods’ dream-like, emotionally charged music wears its heart on its sleeve; its very human vulnerability makes it a perfect match for Sterk’s strong sense of melody and textural sonic visions.

‘Into The Void’ carries these psychedelic traits in its DNA, but they exist layered deep amongst the shadows. Painting on a wide canvas that effortlessly skips between genres, the pair weave anything that inspires them into a truly unique tapestry; a bold attempt to touch at the beyond.

Exploring the space between perception (level of the mind) and the nature of the universe (actual level of reality) seems traditionally like an impossible task. But there’s gotta be a time and a space for the profound and this album invites the listener to go deep, letting go of concepts such as love and opening oneself up to one’s own authentic journey. This transformative force of healing is a central theme of ‘Into The Void’, a path that is lined with light and darkness in equal measure. But, as Moods says, “do not skip the darkness, let that door open and swallow you. And maybe you’ll find, it's not as dark as you perceived at first."

Sleeve art by Michael Willis.

Bringing stark dread bass vibes like no one before or since, Mars89 makes a welcome return to Sneaker Social Club with another four-track script flipper.

Since he first surged onto the radar with some incisive moves on Bokeh Versions back in 2017, Masayoshi Anotani has deployed a raw, non-conformist kind of bass music that's minimal in spirit but packing incredible weight where it counts. It draws parallels with weightless grime, but swap the woozy square wave synths out for fierce industrial textures and dystopian bleeps, and maybe you're halfway there.

Following on from 2022's Night Call and a collab LP with Seekersinternational on his own Nocturnal Technology, Mars89 is back with an EP which takes on new sonic dimensions without losing the persistent moodiness that makes his shadowy sonics so compelling.

'No Control' feels the most in line with the earlier Mars89 work, creating a back and forth between an upfront grime-y synth lick and blown out bass notes. The space around the notes is as vital as everything being played, creating a tension that doesn't let up no matter how much the brittle percussion rattles.

'Sonar Breaks' feels distinct as it drags a sticky drum loop through the dirt until it comes out positively caked. That leaves plenty of room for the bleeps up top to cut through the mix with devastating clarity, and Mars89 needs nothing else to make a taut piece of soundsystem Semtex.

'Hydra' continues to draw influence from jungle while taking a sideways approach to breakbeat edits, finding a curious groove in angular drum science before a stark arpeggio locks the track down. It's another hint at the different tools being reached for on this EP, brought into the Mars89 methodology and bent to his particular will.

'Still Dreaming' closes the EP out with an evocative sample from a sci-fi blockbuster and a spiralling sound bed of synth lines and break shards. While the track lands softer than its predecessors, the dense mix whips up a claustrophobic allure comfortably aligned with the overall intensity of the record — an intensity which is wholly unique to Mars89 and his maverick manoeuvres in the field of contemporary bass music.

2024 Repress

After 7 years and countless requests, Sneaker Social Club finally deliver a repress of Dream Cycle - Part One.

After a chance meeting at Gottwood in 2016 a bond was established between Dream Cycle (Robin Clarke) and label owner Jamie Russell over a shared love of 2 Bad Mice and Moving Shadow. It wasn't long before Clarke began channeling elements of that influence to produce his Dream Cycle Part.1 EP. Unfolding over 4 steppy tracks and an ambient closer, Clarke melds sharp snares, summery motifs, dense atmospheres and thick subs whilst keeping things suffused with a distinctly UK quality that marries his work perfectly with the Sneaker catalogue.

DJ Support: Ryan Elliott, DJ Die, The Blessed Madonna, Octo Octa, Bwana, Altered Natives, Noodles (Groove Chronicles), Liem (Lehult), Deejay Astral, LA4A, 2 Bad Mice, Fred P, Matt Karmil, Flori, Marco Zenker, J.Rocc (lol at comment!), Ajukaja, Gnork, William Djoko, Till Von Sein, Fold, ASOK, Gene Farris, DJ bwin, Seven Davis Jr, TRP, DJ Octopus, DJ Normal 4, Gerd, Dean Man s Chest, Poté, Doc Scott, Violet, James Welsh (Kamera), Konx-om-Pax, Etch, Raresh, Hrdvsion, Michael Serafini (Gramaphone), Frazer Ray, DJ Guy, Mak & Pasteman, Shenoda, Urulu, Mark Archer & James Zabiela, Zinc, Lehult, Jackie House, Mosca, Noodles (Groove Chronicles) & DJ Die.

Prolific visionary Yetsuby makes her debut on all my thoughts with a celestial concept LP that chimes into the deeper, inner emotions.

Yetsuby is the solo project of South Koren artist Yejin Jang. Since 2019 she has carved out a reputation as
something of a prolific visionary, with 6 albums, 7 EPsand a flurry of singles between her two projects to date. Her recent album “My Star, My Planet Earth” received the “best electronic album of 2023" award at the KoreanMusic Awards.

Beyond her solo work Jang is also one half of the critically acclaimed electronic duo Salamanda, which has been featured in Pitchfork, Crack Magazine, and Dj Mag. The duo also host a residency called “shadow dance” on NTS radio. Yetsuby’s debut release on Seb Wilblood’s all my thoughts label is a heartfelt and forward thinking mini LP.

Yetsuby’s debut release on Seb Wilblood’s all my thoughts label is a heartfelt and forward thinking mini LP.
The 6 track release effortlessly chimes into the deeper, inner emotions whilst providing a window into her
abundant breadth of skills through tantalising themes of sonic alchemy.

“I want to put comfort into the music and give some message to people who blame themselves” - Yetsuby

The resulting effect is a release that feels sincere and deeply personal but has a celestial magic about it that feels both kaleidoscopic and transcendent. It effectively creates a world for the listener to inhabit, whilst inviting them to connect with the album’s themes on a personal level.

Suburban Architecture are pleased to announce the fourth in their 'Architecture Dubs' series of limited edition 10" vinyl releases, which sees some of the most revered names active during the mid 90s golden era of Drum & Bass deliver remixes of Suburban Architecture material in homage to that most innovative of periods.

Following on from the now sold out release of Architecture Dub #001 (featuring remixes from Peshay and DJ Trax), #002 (featuring Blame and DJ Trace), and #003 (featuring Nookie and DJ Crystl), edition #004 enlists two further legendary names to put their stamp on the duo's material.

Ray Keith is a DJ and producer who requires little introduction. From his beginnings in the Acid House scene of the late 80s through to the present day via Hardcore and, of course, Jungle, Ray's output has been a steady presence in UK dance music for over 3 decades. From manning the counters of legendary record stores including London's infamous Black Market Records to masterminding bonafide dancefloor hits such as 'Terrorist' and 'Dark Soldier', Ray has touched every corner of the scene. For this remix, Ray brings some of his trademark Dread flavour to 'The Drifter' injecting some tough Amen and Bassline energy to the track.

DJ Harmony is another DJ who cut his teeth behind the counters of some of the scene's pivotal record stores, having worked in Lucky Spin and Section 5, while releasing music on some of the most important imprints in the genre, notably including Moving Shadow. Today Harmony is best known as the driving force behind the brilliant Deep Jungle imprint which delivers classic, new and unreleased music from Jungle's heaviest hitters. Recent releases have come from names including Adam F, Dilinja, DJ Trace and, naturally, Harmony himself. Harmony's remix of 'The Believer' takes cues from classic Jungle with a half time break down, giving way to a smashing Amen workout accompanied by the rousing vocal refrain of the original.

Pressed on 10" vinyl and housed in brown Kraft paper sleeves, the series makes visual reference to the exclusive dubplate pressings which introduced so many classic cuts to the UK's dancefloors in the 90s.