Buscar:still going

Over three years after the release of his latest record, Belgian singer-songwriter Bram Vanparys finally returns with breathtaking new music. His songwriting has often drawn comparisons to the music of Bob Dylan and Neil Young, but the new record 'Silent Days' reveals that Vanparys has been on a journey into new musical territory.

After 'Wild Flowers' (2015), which he recorded in Los Angeles with Ray LaMontagne's former live band, Bram Vanparys kept his guitars locked away in their cases for months. Too many questions had been bothering him and soon he found himself struggling with his musical direction and his artistic integrity. Partly so because he felt that his almost archaic approach on songwriting was pushing him down a dead end street and partly because his interest in rich and complex arrangements started to grow stronger. In 2016 he bought an old trailer and went living in the countryside to work on his new sound. A harsh winter and a tragic breakup with his wife set the mood for a new set of songs and soon Vanparys started recording again.

'Silent Days' comprises both classic songwriting reminiscent of the old masters such as Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan and on the other hand dark, complex arrangements that refer to late Talk Talk and even Radiohead. Guitars were played with kitchen knives and the heavily manipulated acoustic sounds reveal that Vanparys might have been listening to Kurt Vile. Bram's lyrics are deeply honest, touching, but never sentimental and his once so angelic voice now sounds hoarse and mature.

The Bony King of Nowhere is the pseudonym of Belgian singer-songwriter Bram Vanparys. He released his debut album 'Alas my love' to critical acclaim in 2009, which was followed by his second and most celebrated album 'Eleonore' in 2011. In the aftermath of 'Eleonore' he was asked to write the film score for the movie 'Les Géants', for which he was awarded by Les Magritte du Cinéma for best original soundtrack.










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Raw and aggressive techno/electro, Tar Hallow's first cassette release is a full length album by Thanos Hana.

Back on the Discos Panorama series we head once again to Colombia, this time pairing two Afro-cumbia dancefloor weapons from Afrosound and Wganda Kenya — two giants of the late-’70s and early-’80s tropical scene.

Around this time Colombian studios, particularly those connected to Discos Fuentes, were beginning to push things forward. Traditional cumbia rhythms were still at the core, but now they were being driven by electric organs, synths, drum machines and fuzzed-out guitars. The result was something raw, hypnotic and incredibly rhythmic — records that feel almost proto-electronic, long before anyone would’ve used that word.

The two cuts on PAN014, originally released in 1978 and 1981, capture that moment perfectly. Rolling percussion, locked-in basslines and swirling keyboards create grooves that just keep building. They’re party records, no doubt about it, but there’s something else going on too — repetitive, driving, almost techno in spirit, the kind of tracks that can run for minutes and never lose the floor.

The A Side is the anthem, the B Side feels like it was lost on an LP…

Part of PANORAMA’s Discos Panorama series, this one continues the label’s focus on bringing essential Colombian dance music back to DJs and collectors. Carefully remastered and pressed on 7inch, these are the kinds of records that instantly change the temperature in a room.

Few artists arrive as compellingly yet elusively as did Stuart Moxham upon the startling debut of Young Marble Giant's sole studio album, Colossal Youth. Initial excitement was thrust upon the young Alison Statton, who sang songs written by Stuart with a couple of exceptions. The unaffected tone of her voice was in steep contrast to the typical goings-on in that still quite punky time, but it was what she sang that fully sold it. Moxham's lyrics were both intensely personal and woefully oblique. There seemed to be a sort of story in there. Confusingly, that story often felt like it was Alison's rather than the fellow who'd penned it. The unexpected miracle a deal with Rough Trade and the album's subsequent success had the band stymied for a second act and it wasn't long before the group disintegrated, although circumstances often brought members and a few of their peers - among them Debbie Pritchard, Spike Williams, and a third Moxham brother, Drew. - Phil Moxham was the band's bassist - together in odd combinations and pairings. None of the three YMG members have been especially prolific, but it's Stuart's career that has seemed the least straightforward, as if he'd wondered, "What to do when your debut is a nearly perfect artefact?" In the case of his first "solo" full-length in thirty years, Stuart took the unusual step of entering an alien studio with American producer Dave Trumfio (who's also the leader of Pulsars and bassist for Mekons) and allowing him to decide what tracks (of a large number submitted by Stuart) to record, and how they'd be orchestrated. Or not. In this case - save for the writing and composing - it's really Dave's album as much as Stuart's. The tracks went with Dave back to LA, where they were mixed, a few parts added (including subtle backing vocals from the incredible Linda Smith) . . . then later unmixed and reworked by John Henderson and Roni Ayala back in Valencia. Both versions will be made available, and both have a compelling cohesion missing from some of Stuart's work since YMG. Stuart's minimalism is quite intact, the range of emotions quite wide. There are few artists operating today like Stuart Moxham, a composer of the upper echelon of innate talent who combines avant-garde ideas with deceptively forthright personal lyrics, solid hooks, ambience and vaguely off-centre instrumentation which defies the casual marketplace as confoundingly as it ever did to the underground, whatever that is these days. His songs have been admired and / covered by everyone from Lush to Kurt Cobain, adaptations in Japanese and even a French-language hit by Etienne Daho, adaptations by Hole, Galaxie 500, Magnetic Fields, Belle And Sebastian and many others - but a new Stuart Moxham album is a special kind of joy.

Back for round two on WOLF Music, Toronto Hustle & Sean Roman present their ‘Social Narcotics’ EP. The deep house dons from Canada don’t disappoint with a hard-hitting slammer, and a suite of remixes courtesy of some of the scene’s most-respected producers.

The A-side starts with none-other than Byron The Aquarius on the remix. You see that name on a record and you know it’s going to be a hot 12”. Just look at some of the labels he’s released on; Sound Signature, Wild Oats, Eglo, Axis; that’s the only stamp of approval you need. His remix of ‘Social Narcotics’ is deeper than deep. Moody, musical and packed with detail. Proper house for those that know the good stuff.

Then POW! - you're hit with a legend of the game. Calling Nick Holder a legend isn’t hype, it’s just fact. Active since the early ‘90s and head of DNH Records, with releases on labels like NRK and Poker Flat Recordings, his influence runs deep. Any serious head will have some of his jams in their collection (‘Summer Daze’!!!). Teaming up with Tyrone Solomon under their ‘Trackheadz’ guise, the Canadian duo have delivered a trademark peak-time remix. Driving and groovy, this is tackle for proper dancefloors.

For the flip we have Toronto Hustle & Sean Roman's original track and a rather tasty dub version. ‘Social Narcotics’, blends sharp social commentary with a late-night, low-slung thumper of a soundtrack. With its warm, rolling and hypnotic feel, it has echoes of a prime 90s deep house cut, yet still sounds fresh and very much of the now. The dub mix turns the lights down even lower, stripping it back and letting the groove bubble away with a more heads-down sound.

This EP is a strong follow-up that keeps things deep, soulful, and club-ready. Exactly what you want from Toronto Hustle & Sean Roman, and another solid addition to the WOLF Music catalogue.

‘Confession' is an album of quiet upheaval. An album about closeness that arrives late and unexpectedly. About stability rubbing up against desire. About the way friendship can suddenly tilt into something charged — and how that charge unsettles everything around it. Where earlier work often observed from a distance, Confession turns inward. The voice is closer, warmer, less shielded. “This wasn’t the album I intended to make,” says Carla dal Forno. “I originally wanted something veiled and abstract, but I realised I couldn’t hide behind abstraction — the songs only worked when I leaned into emotional truth.”

This is dal Forno’s fourth LP, written and recorded over several years in a small country town, in a studio housed inside a partially abandoned hospital. Long corridors, humming lights, emptied rooms — a place built for care and waiting, now quiet enough for thoughts to echo. That stillness shapes the record: intimate, watchful, unadorned. “I live in a small country town that offers a stillness my life didn’t previously have,” she explains. “In that quiet, feelings I might’ve ignored in a busy city grew loud.” Dal Forno sings plainly and conversationally, with an emotional precision that sharpens the everyday into something quietly unsettling.

The album moves through paired states: going out and staying in, wanting and withholding, devotion and distraction. Domestic calm set against private unrest. A long-held relationship offers safety and routine, while a newer connection opens emotional fault lines — longing, jealousy, fantasy, self-exposure. “At the heart of the album is a friendship that became emotionally charged in an unexpected way,” dal Forno says. “That shift brought daydreaming, jealousy, tenderness, confusion, self-awareness — and eventually acceptance.”

The drama here is internal, incremental, lived. Musically, Confession feels lighter on its feet than its subject matter suggests. Melodic basslines anchor the songs while guitars, harmonies, and gently off-kilter rhythms move around them. There’s a looseness, even a playfulness — “like the sensation of tension lifting once you finally admit something to yourself,” as dal Forno puts it. The album traces a subtle arc: attraction blooming where it shouldn’t; obsession quietly taking hold; fantasy overtaking reality; clarity arriving slowly, sometimes painfully. Visually and emotionally, Confession returns to modest spaces: backyards, beds, night streets, overgrown paths. “The record exists in that contrast,” dal Forno reflects. “Peaceful surroundings, unsettled interior.”

Like all of dal Forno’s work, Confession resists clean conclusions. It doesn’t moralise desire or romanticise restraint. Instead, it lingers in the in-between — where love is stable but not total, where yearning teaches as much as it hurts, where solitude becomes a form of care. Plain-spoken but emotionally complex. Rooted and restless. Held together by bass, breath, routine, weather. An album about admitting what you feel —and living with what that admission changes.

GiGi FM is going back to her first love, Jungle. It’s one of the defining genres that shaped her journey into music. The DJ, music producer, dancer and poet is releasing her first jungle EP, Shelter Our Time on her label Sea-rène.



Following her 2025 techno EP Virgo Space Acid, GiGi FM turns inward on these 5 deeply personal, pop-infused liquid drum & bass tracks. It also marks the first time GiGi prominently centers her own lyrics and singing at the emotional core that thread the rhythm and movement of the music.



Written during a period of enforced stillness, the record became a form of transportation to imaginary realms; warm sunsets, liquid horizons and underwater dreamscapes that became portals to spaces where GiGi’s mind could still move freely.



Beyond its warmth, Shelter Our Time became a space of processing. The music acted as a catalyst – transforming experience into rhythm, memory into melody. For GiGi, music has always been a form of therapy, a way to metabolize life in real time. As she puts it, “It’s about learning to hold joy and pain in the same body and choosing to keep dancing anyway.”

"Birmingham hailing quintet Swim Deep announces their fifth studio album ‘Hum’, due June 19th via Submarine Cat Records. They also share first single ‘Pieces Of You’ — a defiant cut of alternative rock: roaring with clouds of distortion that bring a bite and rawness to its chiming melodies. Fresh and inspired from a sold-out tour across Thailand and China in December, and with an unexpected line-up change: ‘Hum’ is the work of a group rejuvenated, driven by their innate passion for music – even when the going gets tough – and sounding more confident than ever, whilst juggling the challenges of maintaining a grassroots indie band on their fifth album. Speaking on the track, lead singer Austin “Ozzy” Williams adds: “I had found a new writing partner at the full-time bar job: there stood J.J. Buchanan by the barrels of beer kegs we were hauling. A sharp songwriter and a soaring guitarist, who brought something fresh to this song and the whole sonic landscape that would shape ‘Hum’. Thematically, ‘Hum’ continues the life journey of ‘There’s A Big Star Outside’, which captured a transformational period for Williams – preparing for the arrival of his first child, but also the departure of his wife’s father. The songs on ‘Hum’ detail the aftermath of that spell, exploring loss, family and our responsibilities to those we build a life with. “I’ve now got someone to inspire,” he explains. “It’s like, ‘Yeah, your dad works at a bar to make rent, but this is what he actually does, this is what the dream is, and we’ll all live on it together. That’s the ethos on this album.” With ‘Hum’, Swim Deep turn struggle into momentum and personal upheaval into collective uplift. It’s the band’s heaviest, most adventurous, and most uplifting album in years – and the sound of a band still chasing the dream with conviction, but now with something deeper at stake."

"Birmingham hailing quintet Swim Deep announces their fifth studio album ‘Hum’, due June 19th via Submarine Cat Records. They also share first single ‘Pieces Of You’ — a defiant cut of alternative rock: roaring with clouds of distortion that bring a bite and rawness to its chiming melodies. Fresh and inspired from a sold-out tour across Thailand and China in December, and with an unexpected line-up change: ‘Hum’ is the work of a group rejuvenated, driven by their innate passion for music – even when the going gets tough – and sounding more confident than ever, whilst juggling the challenges of maintaining a grassroots indie band on their fifth album. Speaking on the track, lead singer Austin “Ozzy” Williams adds: “I had found a new writing partner at the full-time bar job: there stood J.J. Buchanan by the barrels of beer kegs we were hauling. A sharp songwriter and a soaring guitarist, who brought something fresh to this song and the whole sonic landscape that would shape ‘Hum’. Thematically, ‘Hum’ continues the life journey of ‘There’s A Big Star Outside’, which captured a transformational period for Williams – preparing for the arrival of his first child, but also the departure of his wife’s father. The songs on ‘Hum’ detail the aftermath of that spell, exploring loss, family and our responsibilities to those we build a life with. “I’ve now got someone to inspire,” he explains. “It’s like, ‘Yeah, your dad works at a bar to make rent, but this is what he actually does, this is what the dream is, and we’ll all live on it together. That’s the ethos on this album.” With ‘Hum’, Swim Deep turn struggle into momentum and personal upheaval into collective uplift. It’s the band’s heaviest, most adventurous, and most uplifting album in years – and the sound of a band still chasing the dream with conviction, but now with something deeper at stake."

And here it is!
The third brand‑new vinyl on K.N.O.R. Records:
A pure underground throwback, pressed on wax for the real ravers and collectors who still feel the pulse of the oldschool days.
K.N.O.R. continues its revival, and Cardassia pushes the legacy even further​

Bill Withers was a modest, gentle, and yet towering musical figure responsible for some of the most important, universally known soul hits ever written. It’s no wonder that “Just the Two of Us” and “Ain’t No Sunshine” won him two Grammy awards and undoubtedly played a huge role in getting him inducted into both the Songwriters and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Live at Carnegie Hall is Withers' only live album, recorded on October 6, 1973 but not released until April 21, 1973. The fact that Bill got to play his heartfelt and honest soul at one of the most prestigious venues for both classical and pop music speaks volumes: his first two records Just As I Am and Still Bill were really that influential.

Bill Withers' Live At Carnegie Hall was recorded more than 50 years ago on a rainy Friday evening, but it is still regarded as one of the best live performances in the history of Soul music. Withers appears on stage with an ensemble of only the best session musicians the 1970s had to offer: Melvin Dunlap, Ray Jackson, James Gadson, Benorce Blackmon, and Bobbye Hall, at the time one of the few female session percussionists. They all had worked together on Still Bill and had the knack for expanding Bill's intimate songs to fit a hall of that size and stature. And as far as the recording goes, no corners were cut; it really feels like you're up there with them.

The set features evergreens such as "Ain't No Sunshine", "Lean On Me", "Grandma's Hands", but also tunes that are only available as part of this live set, such as "World Keeps Going Around" and "I Can't Write Left-Handed".

Bill Withers Live at Carnegie Hall is available as a limited edition of 5000 individually numbered copies on magenta vinyl, and includes printed inner sleeves and a 4-page booklet featuring liner notes on Bill Withers written by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and reflections by Aloe Blacc.

Madonna and Big Daddy Kane, Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss — Lord Wavo is back to keep the standards high with the follow-up to his previous Threesome EP. On this sequel Hus picks up where he left off and keeps the same soulful vibes going, still going solo apart from the hook by Miles Bonny and with the menage a trois vibes provided by Buckwild, Prince P, Macapella and Chin Beats.

ALERT: BIG 90s ITALIAN RAVE COMP - a lot of very in demand tunes on here.

Navigators

Franco Falsini and the Interactive Test Universe

There are musicians who follow their time.

And then there are those who seem to move along a different trajectory—like navigators crossing sonic eras without ever truly belonging to any one of them. The story of Franco Falsini belongs to the latter. It is a story that begins long before raves, before techno, before the word “electronic” had even become a recognizable musical genre. A story that moves across continents, technologies, and sonic visions, eventually arriving at a small creative laboratory born in Italy in the early 1990s: Interactive Test. This compilation is a fragment of that universe. But as often happens with the hidden histories of music, understanding it requires going back. Far back.

The Beginning: Machines, Tape and Space

In the late 1960s Franco Falsini leaves Italy and moves to the United States. It is not merely a geographical journey—it is also a journey into a new idea of music. At the time, synthesizers are only just emerging from research laboratories. Multitrack tape recorders allow musicians to build entire sonic worlds on their own. Technology is still far from standardized: every studio is almost an experimental workshop. In Virginia, Falsini builds one of his own. Among cables, oscillators, electric guitars and reels of magnetic tape, a kind of music begins to take shape that resembles nothing else being made at the time. It is not simply rock, and it is not yet truly electronic. It moves somewhere in the space between the two. Out of these explorations emerges Sensations' Fix, the project through which Falsini releases a series of albums during the 1970s. Records that seem to come from a parallel dimension: cosmic landscapes, electronically treated guitars, synthesizers drifting like satellites. Many years later those albums would be rediscovered as visionary works. But at the time they were simply the result of relentless curiosity. A curiosity that would never fade.

The City That Never Sleeps

In the 1980s Falsini’s trajectory leads him to New York. The city is a sonic organism in constant transformation. In its clubs and recording studios something entirely new is beginning to take shape: music built from drum machines, sequencers, and samplers, created for the body before the living room. It is the dawn of modern dance culture. Falsini works as a sound engineer, producer and experimenter. From close range he observes electronic music transforming into a global language. Machines become more accessible, computers begin entering studios, and rhythm takes on an increasingly central role. Yet even in this phase Falsini does not simply follow what is happening. He absorbs. Observes. Reimagines. When he eventually returns to Italy, he brings back not only technical experience but also a clear vision: the conviction that electronic music is an open space, a territory still waiting to be explored.

Tuscany, Early 1990s

At the beginning of the 1990s something is happening in Italy as well. In clubs, abandoned industrial warehouses and clandestine parties, a new scene is beginning to form. It is rave culture: a spontaneous movement bringing together DJs, producers and listeners in a collective experience driven by rhythm, technology, and creative freedom. It is within this context that Franco Falsini, together with his brother Riccardo, creates Interactive Test.

The name almost sounds like a scientific experiment. In many ways, it is. Interactive Test does not emerge as a traditional record label. It begins as a laboratory—a place where ideas, sounds and musical identities can be tested and explored. Around the Falsini studio in Tuscany a small constellation of artists and DJs begins to gather, helping to shape the sound of Italy’s emerging electronic scene. Among them are Andrea Giuditta, Francesco Farfa, Gabry Fasano, Roby Mastelloni, Roby J and many others. Each brings a different musical sensibility. But they all share the same intuition: electronic music is not a genre. It is a language.

The Laboratory of Identities

One of the most fascinating aspects of the Interactive Test universe is its constant play with identity. Franco Falsini releases music under several different names: Open Space, Youth Wave, Agent Fylfoyt, Man Myth Magic. These are not simply pseudonyms.

They are different sonic perspectives, as if each project were a window opening onto a parallel musical universe. Open Space, for example, explores more atmospheric and visionary territories. Youth Wave moves between electronic groove and club-oriented rhythms. Other projects experiment with digital psychedelia or hypnotic techno textures. Interactive Test becomes something more than a label. it becomes an ecosystem.

Domestic Machines, Infinite Worlds

Looking back today at the technology used in those productions, one might almost smile. Many tracks were created on Amiga computers, MIDI sequencers and analog synthesizers wired together in home studios—tools that appear modest when compared to today’s digital possibilities.

Yet precisely these limitations became a creative force. Every sound had to be built, shaped and reinvented. Sequences developed slowly, almost like living organisms. The tracks did not always follow traditional dance music structures; often they felt like genuine sonic journeys. Music built from space.

A Hidden Constellation

Many of the records released by Interactive Test in the 1990s remained for years almost invisible objects, circulating quietly among DJs, collectors, and devoted listeners. Yet it is precisely this underground existence that helped preserve them. Listening again today, one perceives something rare: the feeling of music that does not fully belong to its own time. Music suspended between different eras. Perhaps because it comes from a vision that both precedes and transcends trends.

Continuing the Journey

Looking at Franco Falsini’s entire path—from the electronic psychedelia of Sensations’ Fix to the rave culture of the 1990s—a surprisingly coherent line emerges.

A line defined by exploration.

Each project, each pseudonym, each record appears as a new route within the same great sonic voyage.

Interactive Test was one of its stations.

A laboratory.
A community.
A creative platform.

This compilation gathers some of its traces.

Not as a simple archive of the past, but as a map of a musical territory that continues to expand even today.

Like all true sonic explorations.

William Onyeabor was born outside Enugu, a small, rural town in Eastern Nigeria, he created his own genre of African electronic funk in the late 70s and early 80s, making music completely unique for his time. Today, he is reaching cult status among a growing list of admirers, including everyone from Damon Albarn and Hot Chip to Carl Craig and Madlib, with some likening him to the Kraftwerk of West Africa, or a precursor to LCD Soundsystem.

Among the crate-digging few that knew of him, he is considered a complete myth. While he has never performed live and almost never given interviews, his fantastical biography is scattered and has to this day not been verified. And, though he is still alive, he refuses to speak about anything regarding the past.

According to various rumors, he left home following the Biafran War and went to study cinematography in the Soviet Union, returning in the mid-70s to start his own film company and record label, Wilfilms. He then self-released eight remarkable records from 1978-1985. He wrote and produced everything on his own, and possibly played every instrument himself. Then, at some point of his life, he became born again and denounced his earlier music, deciding it is something he would never speak about.

LTD Edition, Artwork by John Frusciante

LP1 New album
LP2 Available on vinyl for the first time
LP3/4 Debut album on green vinyl
LP5 Second album on red vinyl

When I recorded the first 2 Trickfinger records, I had recently discovered that you could make electronic music in a room with a bunch of synced machines going at the same time, record it on a
CD burner and have a finished track. I've heard this process described as “overdubbing into the air”. It was as exciting to me as my first 4 track was when I was 14. I wasn't trying to be good, or
original. I was just excited that music could be made that way; it felt like I was a whole group of musicians playing together… or like I was jamming with ghosts of myself. This has actually been a
very common way of making electronic music since the 80s, particularly in the main pioneering genres like Chicago Acid and Detroit Techno, but anyways I didn't figure it out until 2006. In 2007,
I started doing it myself, which resulted in what was eventually released as Trickfinger, and Trickfinger II. I was just home from tour and was still in the middle of recording The Empyrean.

A couple of years later I started making music by overdubbing onto a computer, but using the same machines. I tried to make music that didn't sound like anything else. I saw a way of combining
Progressive Rock and Synth Pop which nobody had done. And I was combining my songwriting and guitar playing with these old machines in a way which I was sure was unique. I had reached a point
where it was more important to do something original than to do something good, whatever “good” means.

Some of this music did not get a proper release, and is compiled here as the vinyl record High Low. I don't think I have ever tried so hard at making music as I did during that period. This in contrast to
those two Trickfinger records, where I wasn't trying at all. There’s something to be said for both mental states. When you're in one, the other seems impossible. I was really pushing myself on High
Low. Looking back, it was as if I had an audience inside myself, driving me to go beyond my abilities, while at the same time I had a total disregard for any concept of an actual audience. It
was one of those periods in life where things come together in a certain way that feels natural at the time, but seems foreign in retrospect. It felt like I was going to die if I didn't do something musically
different.

The fourth record in this box is me breaking in a new mixing console, making live-to-stereo music. The record is called Rotation, and it is all new music. These tracks are more in the “not trying”
category, since we're on that subject. I had just come home from tour, and was just really glad to be in the studio with my machines. Acid Test thought it would be nice to do a box set commemorating the 10th anniversary of the release of Trickfinger, and so we put together this box set, with homemade cover art.
John Frusciante 2026

Hekt's debut album Forever is released 1st May 2026 on Numbers, with the first single "Someday" featuring Valeria Litvakov out now.

Made with his friends Henriette Motzfeldt & Catharina Stoltenberg (solo and together as Smerz), Copenhagen-based composer/producer Fine Glindvad (who records as Fine), and Valeria Litvakov, Forever is built around juxtaposition: pop and bass brushing shoulders with dopamine fueled EDM. The record is a funhouse of mirrors where polystyrene arpeggios skitter underneath uplifting chords.

As Hekt describes the record: "Forever is desire and digital synthesis, car rides and lingering perfume. It’s missing someone who was never really there, holding on to something you didn’t want in the first place. The songs you hear when you’re falling in love on the dancefloor, and the songs you hear when you open your eyes and realize it’s just you alone with the DJ, the last one to leave. Songs to make out and break up to. A party so good you get depressed it can’t last forever."

Forever is a continuation of Hekt's work exploring the emotional core of pop music. "Someday" is the soundtrack to a hundred imagined futures with strangers in the club, as pristine arps and heartswelling chords skitter under Valeria Litvakov's ruminations, both lovestruck and terrified. Smerz add a level of fantastic to the slanted otherworldly pop of "Up in the Air, So" and "Forever." On both tracks, the melodies are squishy and impressionistic, the sound of all those memories we make in dance floors, taxis home, and in the blurry morning sunshine as we adjust to reality.

And while guest vocalists abound on Forever, Hekt also takes a turn at the mic himself. On "Without You" he shakes up a perfectly mixed cocktail of melancholy and beauty. And on "Promise" his voice is turned into another melodic accent against the fragile IDM sound design. Elsewhere he turns up the aggro. Dueting with Catharina Stoltenberg on Boys Noize's secret weapon, "Anytime Anywhere," the two trade bars across a compressed field of static and feedback while little hints of sub and wiry synths circle the edge of the stereo.

Hekt's music has always attempted to redefine what club music can and might be. This reimagining of the very basic building blocks of the dance floor is felt across Forever where he leans into the emotions of 2010s EDM. "What I loved about hardstyle and jumpstyle was the emotional intensity that kind of music can bring if you’re in the right setting. And I think that is what has stuck with me from EDM too. Emotional intensity," he explains. "It’s just been the soundtrack to some of the most fun moments in my life." On "But I Can't Really Show You," he compresses the EDM-era into 3-minutes. Vocal catharsis, dubstep womp, and soaring chords make it sound like the entirety of Tomorrowland being processed through MAX/MSP. This Skrillex-meets-Calvin Harris colossus is designed to destroy every sub woofer as it pulls on every last heart string.

And then there are the straight-up club stompers. "Baby" is UK club music reimagined with the steely lines of Danish modernism - think DJ Q going b2b with Errorsmith. It has a bassline made out of flubber with a vocal chopped beyond recognition as it bounces across chromatic synth lines. Even when he strips things down on the slinky garage-esque "Big Things," there are still unexpected twists and turns. The melody sounds like an Ibiza House compilation played in reverse, alongside drums that swing in and out of psilocybin bleeps and bloops. On other tracks like "Dream" and "You Won't Believe," the tropes of dance musics past, present, and future are dissolved in baths of synthesis and polished sound design.

Forever is a record where club music and Scandinavian EDM seamlessly mixes into avant-garde pop. Hekt has crafted singular and unclassifiable love songs alongside effortless bangers, making an ode to those eternal dance floor moments where time stops and you start hoping for something big.

Gi Gi describes his process as “dubwise sampledelia.” It begins with fragments and ends somewhere else entirely, destabilizing its source material until it stops pointing backward. A borrowed sound, looped and bent, eventually forgets where it came from; it stops referencing anything but itself.

This liquid sensibility shaped his earlier work, music that hovered between drift and propulsion, suggesting the dance floor without fully stepping onto it. Presence was implied, edges stayed soft. The center was always there, but diffused like mist on a screen.

With In Lieu, that center comes into focus. Half written in Texas, half in Australia, the shift isn’t simply geographic, but internal. The record moves with a coiled, anticipatory energy; the drums arrive with more force and the bass organizes the room instead of melting into it. It's dense with the feeling of more bodies in the frame. Textures still smear and refract, but they move around a clearer axis.

Where past records circled their core, these inhabit it, pulling closer to the body. “Some Of” and “Arque” lean into low-end pressure without abandoning his instinct for drift. "Pink Dirt" circles around mechanical drums and dizzying vocal chops, head-down and visceral. Elsewhere, voices gain newfound contour, materializing in “Downswept” with intimate musings and nearly forming a lead vocal on the title track before dissolving again.

In Lieu moves with a newfound confidence, compressing inward, sounding closer to the source of its own pulse.

As often, it started with discovering a CD, leading to the depths of the Internet Archive. I still remember the excitement of going through B.L. Underwood's recordings for the first time and realising how unique his approach to electronic music was, every track had something powerful yet moving within it, as he could play around with genres and tempos yet carrying a very distinctive touch. After a short detective work to get in touch with the artist, and quite some time curating the content of this compilation (the hardest part by far), System Of Objects is proudly presenting the remastered version of 6 of his tracks that showcast B.L. Underwood talent and uniqueness.

Let's see now – you just love that hugely fertile foundation period of Jamaican pop music from the birth of ska, through the spectacularly brief two year heyday of rocksteady up to and including the arrival of the first incarnation of reggae a.k.a. early or 'boss' reggae. But you're also aware that the pioneers of these sounds (including The Pioneers!) won't be creating music in these styles or touring forever – so what do you do?

Well, if you're Neil Anderson, owner of Original Gravity Records, the creation bit isn't a problem. You put forth period-authentic style material from a 'roster' of acts – such as Junior Dell & The D-Lites - that in reality consist mostly of yourself (you are a multi-instrumentalist and lyricist after all!) and whichever extra musicians and session singer you rope in for a given track. In the case of Junior Dell & The D-Lites that singer was Adrian Dell – soon to be dubbed (no pun intended) 'Junior' - first appearing on 2021's uptempo ska tribute to Salvadoran retro-dancing internet sensation Aranivah, entitled Miss Aranivah. And you keep putting out stuff so profusely and effectively that there are clamours for you to tour 'the band' which - er - doesn't really exist. What a botheration! Still, maybe your session singer could become – well - a permanent singer? Maybe you can rustle up assorted bredren to become the rest of the band and...you know what? That might just work!

And so, in the blink of an eye, Junior Dell & The D-Lites becomes a bona fide actual live band fronted by a young Jamaican singer playing fresh 60s/70s-style Jamaican music with an energy last seen and heard in, well, the 1960s and 70s. And it tours so effectively that there are clamours for 'the band' – or more accurately, now – the band - to release an album. Wait...what now? And, by the way, you've got a European tour coming up in April wouldn't it be great if the album was ready to tour by then? Pressure drop? Pressure rise more like!

Then again, Junior Dell & The D-Lites have done so many sure-shot singles to date that assembling them along with a new cut, an extended version of one of the singles and re-recordings of two of the label's previous singles that were originally by 'label mates' The Regulators should be a cinch. So expect all the hits: bluebeat banger 20 Flight Ska, the euphoric ska bounce of the aforementioned Miss Aranivah and the title track, a de rigueur smattering of covers (opener Jump Around, midway markers Praise You and Just Can't Get Enough, and one of the re-recordings, closer Don't Look Back In Anger), early reggae groovers Cool Right Down, Last Night Reggay, Can't Stop The Reggae (in a new extended form) and crowd-pleasing new one Mi Try along with the other Junior Dell re-recording - the gorgeous Why Why Why which nods to the period of reggae between the sound of '69 and the arrival of roots.

Don't you brag and don't you boast but that's a Whole Lotta Skankin' going on! Do the ska, do the rocksteady, do the reggay, why– it's another scorcher!