Cerca:the grid

Colombian-born artist Juan Carlos Torres Alonso, aka OKRAA, presents his third sonic exploration on A Strangely Isolated Place titled, La Gran Corriente. This album marks a profound shift in Juan's creative journey, where themes of portals, the illusion of time, and the paradoxes of self-discovery converge into a powerful auditory experience.
Following a transformative visit to Bogotá in May 2023, Juan underwent an introspective journey that inspired a new direction in his music. This experience, which he describes as an encounter with "an infinite current behind or inside of everything," led to a complete reimagining of his work. Abandoning previous demos, Juan embraced a liberated creative process that was both challenging and exhilarating. 
La Gran Corriente is characterized by its innovative production techniques, eschewing fixed grids and BPMs in favor of fluid, organic structures and combining influences from Juan’s other production alias, ‘Laudrup’. This approach not only opened up new creative possibilities but also led to numerous "happy accidents," resulting in a body of work that is as unpredictable as it is cohesive.
At the heart of the album lies a poem written by Juan during production, a text that echoes the themes woven throughout the music. Translated loosely to English, the poem reflects on the nature of reality and time, with lines like "the land of oblivion is not real" and "the great current reminisces; time is an illusion." These words serve as both a guide and a reflection of the album’s deeper meaning.
La Gran Corriente is a record that invites the listener to unlearn and to immerse themselves in a sonic current that is both infinite and transformative. It’s a testament to the power of creative reinvention and the relentless pursuit of deeper truths through music.
Featuring artwork by Peter Skwiot Smith, La Gran Corriente is available on gatefold colored vinyl 2LP, mastered by Taylor Deupree / 12k Mastering.

Hybrid is a word used indiscriminately in our daily lives. This record isn't a hybrid; it's beyond hybrid, post-hybrid, so to speak. Does this phrase sound complicated to you, and are you never overly convinced by music theory and its caricatural aspect? Then forget what you’ve just read and listen to both sides of this record. You'll soon realise that these tracks are deliciously deft, drawing their essence from dub while leaving room for some skillful jazz writing. For those of you intrigued by melodies, the art of musique concrète or the exploration of dub music’s deviant angles, this record will easily find its place on your turntable.

The two sides of the record are cut with play, improvisation and effects, while leaving room for themes and ideas. If this record’s first chapter was born from a request to remix and pay homage to Jackie Mittoo, its themes tell another story. They have been declined and even reduced to an explosion point. The tracks are also driven by subtle details of musique concrète, giving the record the effect of an intimate musical production – but, above all, one of uncategorisable beauty.

In Androo’s case, this is hardly surprising. He is a craftsman who is unassailable in every respect, a poetic dynamiter and, for this reason, one of the most unpredictable musicians in Geneva (and beyond). His appetite for dynamite is perhaps an indication of his conception of music as, first and foremost, an experience. His highly personal and inventive tribute to figures from free jazz and contemporary music proves the point. But perhaps it is also an indication of his attachment to Jean-Luc Godard. You'd have to imagine Androo at his mixing desk without a pre-written script. The idea of editing infuses the record. The two sides are very much in this style and spirit: (un-)shot, meticulous, (ir-)reverent. In this respect, this record is a formidable proposition, and perhaps difficult to understand, but not striving to be understood.

Its combination of improvisation and composition is underpinned by a razor-sharp precision and dexterity that's hard to ignore, especially if you're curious about the art of sound mixing and the romantic accidents. It has a dexterity that transforms musical grids into romantic essays and sketches. A romanticism in which Androo takes us on a liberating musical experience that makes us forget the inertia of the ramping formatting of the record industry. In any case, this record is an invitation to (un-)think the category, and will delight any ear curious to wander into territories of intuition where the word hybrid no longer makes sense.

Text by Carl Åhnebrink

222 Units Ltd as F*K.

Abstract wonky vibes from the mountain peaks with Luv*Jam & Maria Slovakova

++Plus++ Ridiculously advanced reversions from the one and only Ruf Dug

(as Ruffy himself says “Detroit going off in ya caravan for the weekend”)

++Plus++ A spaced out to the high hills take from sound pioneer Special Characters


3000.10 is the 10th instalment of 14 highly collectable records.

Carnedd Dafydd (David’s Cairn) - 3425ft (1044m).

OS grid SH6628 6305.

As a complete artist, Luna Maria Cedron gently and melancholy brings together the influences and facets of her existence. Behind her alias, Fiesta En El Vacio, the artist summons a number of Latin musicalities that make her career: Castilian flamenco, popular ballads from Venezuela meet the new generations of urban music: reggaeton rythms and sharp electronics. The uncompromising texts leave no alternative: this record claims the emancipation of women, the fight against this order of things that no longer suits anyone. Fiesta En El Vacio is a cry from the heart for and an encouragement to hope.

2023 marks the 10 year Anniversary of Kyle Hall & Steven Julien's collaborative project "Funkinevil" on Wild Oats Music, now released as 2 LP on white vinyl.

Following the release of their recent collaborative LP “Crown” on Steven Juliens Apron Records, Funkinevil 2LP brings us back full circle to the origin of the enigmatic Detroit London Duo!

As the artwork on the EP depicts, "Darkest hour before dawn" is a dusky scenario representing the Dutch environment known as "the polder" in the lower lands. It questions all kinds of actions taken or not taken to protect, restore, conserve, innovate, or modestly leave the landscape to its own more murky outcome. The darkest hour, full of gloom, will be available around the spring equinox?

Portrait of tracks separately:


"Darkest Hour before dawn"

Is this piece supposed to be an ode to the ancient Dutch hardcore movement, that once and probably only then would be experienced to such intensity or is this still maybe just a little near reminder of it? Anyway starts this unlit track slowly and remains that way but maintains a fat-pumping pulse, possibly reminding of a soldier walking a death march. Settling up those launch pads further down the piece, near the bridge for shooting off some drum-fire 909 snares as if it rocketed. Then, suddenly, the extended delay of that snare turns into a psychedelic drone beside, attending to, or paranoidly chasing comrades soul in his journey throughout and above like a trustful partner?

Arp's LFO that is out of sync with the beat and is being outpaced by it seems to slow everything down even more; meantime creating a pulling, buggy-like effect to the due of all this.

The ascending and descending ghost-pad drawing into the grid of the (tone) key, thereafter parking in them for a while and cycling out again, creating a spatial flow of disturbance and anxiety.

Finishes it with a mountain-big reverberation of organized destruction and chaos. What at first sight seems like simply an innocent route appears to actually be a bit more complex one.


"Lovely memories"

The quite monotonous structure of Lovely memories catchy and groovy song is scanning through your brain files; revisiting, memorizing, and purposely lacking these few "dots above the I" that in some cases you'd gladly be feeling like to square fit it in yourself, of course, when necessary. Connecting the puzzling, dazzling flashbacks together to finally wrap up and perpetuate the pictured events for good, leaving traces of melancholy, loveliness, and perhaps even faith to it.


"24 hours"

Dinginess of 24 hours supposes to be felt in the guts.
The beat, steady with that snare on the 4 & 12, might not be one of the greatest inventions. However, the TR-08's drum line here lays a solid and fertile foundation for a reasonable house track.

Slightly detuned synths weave a scarf pattern around your upper body, and the lower layers carry a warm blanket for the underbelly, providing you with that cozy sense of consolation. Acidy pokes wring itself sneaky and penetrable around, slicing through the song's already solid flesh. Therefore, balancing its bitter sweetness throughout with these soft-hard saw-tooth drops of sourness.

"24 hours" conveys a dispatch or intercommunication that there is little time left to take actions/charge to fix and restore. Something big is about to come if it hasn't arrived already...


"At night"

This remarkable story is a bit out of ordinary.
At night appeared in the artist's dream just the night before his sick father was raised from death in the hospital and got just another year to live before actually passing away completely and anyway. ; ))
And thus also dedicated to the man.

Polyverse is the new debut album of the very exciting and fresh sounding Kosmogonik. Nine driving and atmospheric tracks that vibrate all the way from heavyweight techno to cosmic ambient.

Presented together for the first time, American composer John McGuire’s Pulse Music series (1975-1979) blurs the popular narrative that Minimalism was a reaction against Europe’s angular, intellectual, inscrutable high-modernism. McGuire, born in California, studied at Occidental College in Los Angeles and UC Berkeley before going to Europe to study with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Gottfried Michael Koenig. His compositions lock serialism’s warped geometries onto an evenly spaced grid, perfectly preserving serial music’s multi-dimensionality while smoothing its wildest disjunctures and sharpest angles. If serialism is Montreal’s Habitat 67 modular housing complex, McGuire’s Pulse Music compositions are the primary-colored grids of Le Corbusier’s L’Habitation apartment complex — an exuberant expression of the same materials and principles.

Every layer of pulses is made distinct through its timbre, register, and tempo. We hear them as a plurality, organized like stars in the sky. Every so often the sky rotates and the stars appear in a different arrangement. Our ear naturally starts to draw connections and, as it sweeps between one layer and another, what was discrete becomes continuous. Pulses become flows; quantitative reality becomes qualitative experience.

Soma proudly presents Functional Designs, the latest collection of nocturnal environments from Deepchord, marking his first full length album release on Soma in 5 years. The enigmatic Detroit based producer once again transports us into his sonic realm via night-walks through numerous cities before being transmuted into aural excellence through field recordings, holographic synth tones, cosmic sounds and the hiss of electric wires. All swimming around in filtered 4/4 beats and subterranean basslines. The album is a perfect example of electroacoustic techno transmitted from undisclosed locations, the amalgamation of swirling tapestries of sound, deeper than night and lifeforms moving around underneath the grid.

The album glistens into existence with the beatless Amber breathing life into the project before the eventide of Darkness Falls offers a beautifully subtle and contemplative atmosphere. The guiding light of Transit Systems continues to offer up melancholy with echoing percussion and drifting soundscapes. The highly processed acoustics of Strangers brings a sense of intrigue to the album's journey as Modell works in the most percussive track so far. Panacast is exotic dub techno at it's finest, with warping and perfectly crafted synth work building gently over the top of sub heavy beats, glued perfectly together by the hiss of the collected found-sounds. In a slight rise in tempo, Cloudsat, makes a journey skyward, collecting mood and feelings from high altitude with its emotive synth work. The reverberating halls of Pressure again work as a testament to Modell's sonic crafting - honing in on specific artefacts from his field recordings, imbuing them with deeper purpose. The perfectly titled Ebb and Flow drifts effortlessly on a tide of evolving, blissful sound waves crashing to shore as each one overlaps the other. Beginning the descent into the final part of the album, you begin your ride across a cosmic plain, lit by the glistening and ethereal Sun. The meditative Memories opens a conduit to other realms as the album closes out with the elysian melodies of Drassanes.

Deepchord once again proves he is a producer like no other. A true sonic sculptor who uses his real world experience to create vast, unparalleled soundscapes that captivate and enthral the listener.

Infinity is the new release by Melbourne-based Leo James, and the second Patience production. Leo scratches a longstanding itch and delivers two sidelong excursions that inhabit a similar sonic space but spin off in opposite directions on the continuum.

Desert Nightflower hums with vitality in a seemingly lifeless landscape. Impressionistically tracing the lifecycle of a flower’s bloom in the desert night – from the searing afternoon sun through dusk’s chill, the midnight blossoming and symbiotic relationship with travelling bats, through the blue hour comedown to first light – Leo employs vibrant, buzzing electronics, plaintive strings and levitating clarinet to illustrate beauty’s brief conquest of nature’s harshest environment, with vividly evocative and deftly moving results.

After Desert Nighflower floats completely off the grid, an ever-present kickdrum drives Infinity’s near 20-minute trip into timelessness. Sharing Side A’s subliminal synthesised hum and free-form clarinet, Infinity moves fast and firm down a dub techno dirt road towards the end of time. As elements drop in and out of the mix, Infinity builds momentum to a pulsing, cathartic peak of poignant piano, ethereal keys and lucid clarinet expressions.

As an avid nature enthusiast, spatial awareness looms large in Leo’s work. His solo releases on Berceuse Heroique, Neubau and his own label Body Language have been inspired incarnations of techno, EBM, industrial and wave.

Patience is a new outlet for exploring further beyond the break than usual. Inspired by the music perpetually on rotation at HQ – with E2-E4 representing the format’s high tide mark – each release will be one artist’s deep dive down one inspirational wormhole spread across two sides of vinyl, or two side-long sojourns making full use of a round 12” piece of plastic. Set and forget, zone out to tune in.

The label owners of Enough! Music will tell a story with their music project. The following releases are bind together witch each other through the same story. Each release gets you closer to the whole story. Enjoy listening to the invited first artist Ilario Liburni.
Four trippy, groovy and pumpin tracks from mastermind Ilario
Liburni behind Cardinal / Invade Records and Enough! Music
labelhead Danilo Schneider. A - Piece Of Each EP' is a stunning
liaison between Danilo and Ilario. Enjoy our journey !

Barcelona-based Rob Clouth returns to Leisure System with the Deep Field 12', a stomping showcase of his focused sound design and knack for memorable melodies with additional remixes from Kowton and Vessels.
Deep Field is Clouth's Leisure System follow-up to the Clockwork Atom EP, which was named one of the top EPs of 2014 by Bleep and introduced his electronic wizard by to a wider audience following prior releases as Vaetxh and under his own name. Debuted on Max Cooper's Boiler Room and appearing again on his Essential Mix, 'Deep Field' is tactile and threatening, with disorienting glitches weaved into the 4/4 structure. The belching low-end brings to mind a talkative machine that's been muzzled, eager to burst from its restraints.Livity Sound boss Kowton inverts the original into a gelatinous mass, adding jackhammering drums to the cloudy atmosphere and creating a spacious and stuttering lesson in tension and release. Fresh off the release of their LP Dilate, Leeds band Vessels put their own euphoric electronic magic to work with a housier take, drawing out Clouth's propulsive percussion with an added dose of lush melodicism that
should make it a new favorite for house DJs looking for a spirited twist on the typical. Deep Field is the third in Leisure System's new GRIDLOCK series, melding the freaky and functional
for modern dance floors.

Six years after their last full-length release, Satoshi & Makoto return with Mirage Café, the highly anticipated new album on 8mm Records, in collaboration with Standart Magazine.

A carefully crafted and long-awaited work, Mirage Café is more than an album — it is a fully immersive sensory experience. The Japanese duo expand their signature sound into deeper and more cinematic territory, blending refined electronica, ambient textures, subtle jazz inflections and understated groove with remarkable elegance and control.

The title evokes an imaginary café — a space of contemplation, connection and inspiration. The partnership with Standart Magazine reinforces this conceptual layer, bridging music and coffee culture into a cohesive narrative that feels both intimate and international. The result is an album that unfolds like a slow ritual: warm, enveloping and meticulously detailed.

Throughout the record, Satoshi & Makoto demonstrate a mature and confident songwriting approach. The production is rich yet restrained, atmospheric yet rhythmically engaging — balancing introspection with forward motion. Lush harmonies, delicate arrangements and immersive sound design create a listening experience that rewards both focused attention and late-night drifting.

With Mirage Café , the duo not only meet expectations after a six-year silence — they surpass them. This is a masterwork of nuance and vision, poised to become a defining chapter in their discography and a standout release in the contemporary electronic landscape.

Mystic Arts brings you two essential cuts from Gary Irwin (The Vendetta Suite / Hell YeahRecordings). Dating back to 1994 and 1995 respectively, both tracks were originally released on David Holmes' Exploding Plastic Inevitable label.

Waveforms In Wonderland is a bubbling, acidic brain-melter - inspired, as Gary recalls,by Richie Hawtin, Conemelt and falling out with a friend at a Primal Scream gig. Diary of aMicrochip moves further off-grid: an unplaceable hybrid where Detroit techno, electro, funk and ambient house intersect. Thirty years on, both tracks remain remarkably intact. Timeless.

Mental baile future-funk.
Impossibly, round two ratchets through higher gears than round one. The cutting and scratching skills are brutally imperious, by turn eviscerating in split seconds a trembling flock of far-flung musical prey. Out of the wreckage looms the apotheosis of apocalyptic Techno Scratch terror; the ebulliently vengeful prophesy of forebears like Grand Wizzard Theodore and the Knights of the Turntable.
Blisteringly hot.

'A sequel. An escalation. Pressure spikes from bar one: future facing, low-latency. A firmware update for the body.
'Cuts bite into cuts. Fragments swarm, collide, die out. Drums stumble untile they speak; samples crop up without names and leave without warning. Momentum is the one and only rule. Unpredictable, gridless, post-genre.
'From Tik-Tok feed to vinyl: born digital, cut for the floor. The glitch grows a body, develops a nervous system.
'Match it or get out of the way. Damned be the ones that are stuck on tradition.'

Francesco Skip's debut EP delivers a focused, club-ready sound that draws from contemporary UK club music while embracing the simplicity and raw energy of early 2000s techno and dubstep. Each track explores a different underground electronic direction and highlights include 'Ocean Explorer' with late-90s techno vibes and swingy dub stabs, 'Kronplatz', which is a dark, bouncy bass journey, 'Hondra B' a stripped-down jungle and drum & bass tool, and 'Wrong Glidez', a post-dubstep homage with 2-step drums. This great debut is also well mastered with bass depth and mid and high texture for loud deployment on peak-time systems.

Niagara return to Discrepant with Buxtehude, a new work bending the legacy of Dietrich Buxtehude into their own fractured, electro-organic language.

Rather than a tribute, Buxtehude feels like an abstract dialogue with the Baroque composer’s sense of structure and flow—reimagined through Niagara’s raw synth work, off-grid rhythms and subtly warped melodic cycles. The trio let the music grow from the inside out: patterns expand and contract, harmonies tilt slightly off their axis, and small details accumulate until each piece reveals its own internal gravity.

There’s a clarity to Buxtehude that feels carved rather than composed. Tracks move with a quiet insistence, like mechanical organisms finding coherence through repetition and drift. Melodic fragments surface briefly, disappear, then return transformed, lending the album a strange balance between austerity and warmth.

With Buxtehude, Niagara continue to refine their unmistakable approach—playful yet rigorous, minimal yet full of life— remaining entirely their own.

Moo is the first wide release on my new label MUP! When I decided to make a new record, it only seemed right to go back to what brings me the most joy, which is, Rock & Roll music. I got my Tascam 388 fixed, the same tape machine I had used to record my first album, King Tuff Was Dead. It had been sitting in my parent’s house in Vermont for the past 14 years, but I had finally dragged it out to LA. I stopped caring if there were mistakes. There’s not enough mistakes. I played my old, blue, Gibson SG, Jazijoo, and she spewed mangled electrified gold. For once, I sang and I didn’t hate my voice. I played the drums badly and bounced them in mono to one track and it sounded like glorious shit. I wish it sounded even worse. Rock & Roll is the music of rodents and bugs. It should sound like it crept from a decrepit trashcan or a crypt or a toilet. It is not chill or vibey, autotuned or on the grid. It is not perfect, which is why it’s perfect. And I don’t care if it’s dead or alive, cool or uncool: when I hear it, and when I play it, as a chubby and balding 43 year old punk weirdo, I FEEL ENERGIZED. All in all, MOO is a full circle moment. A return to form. A return to rock. A return to Vermont. A return to myself. Reconnecting the dots. Restarting the engine. Plugging in the stack. Finally letting King Tuff be King. Fucking. Tuff.

Moo is the first wide release on my new label MUP! When I decided to make a new record, it only seemed right to go back to what brings me the most joy, which is, Rock & Roll music. I got my Tascam 388 fixed, the same tape machine I had used to record my first album, King Tuff Was Dead. It had been sitting in my parent’s house in Vermont for the past 14 years, but I had finally dragged it out to LA. I stopped caring if there were mistakes. There’s not enough mistakes. I played my old, blue, Gibson SG, Jazijoo, and she spewed mangled electrified gold. For once, I sang and I didn’t hate my voice. I played the drums badly and bounced them in mono to one track and it sounded like glorious shit. I wish it sounded even worse. Rock & Roll is the music of rodents and bugs. It should sound like it crept from a decrepit trashcan or a crypt or a toilet. It is not chill or vibey, autotuned or on the grid. It is not perfect, which is why it’s perfect. And I don’t care if it’s dead or alive, cool or uncool: when I hear it, and when I play it, as a chubby and balding 43 year old punk weirdo, I FEEL ENERGIZED. All in all, MOO is a full circle moment. A return to form. A return to rock. A return to Vermont. A return to myself. Reconnecting the dots. Restarting the engine. Plugging in the stack. Finally letting King Tuff be King. Fucking. Tuff.

A label long synonymous with raw, off-centre electronics and uncompromising club tools, Bjarki’s bbbbbb recors welcomes a producer whose approach feels cut from the same cloth, London’s Henry Greenleaf. In an era where functionality often outweighs feeling, ‘Brawn’ is a record that doesn’t court approval; it insists on impact. Built for high-pressure systems and low ceilings, it channels force not as spectacle, but as design.

Greenleaf’s catalogue to date, spanning labels such as Par Avion, YUKU, and ARTS, sketches a restless trajectory between precision and collapse. His productions operate where rhythm becomes architecture: kicks land like poured concrete, subs buckle and flex beneath shifting percussive grids, and textures are stretched until they fray at the edges. Sound is treated as a physical material, layered and stress-tested, reshaped until the familiar mutates into something tactile and strange.

Across the EP, that philosophy takes full form. A1 ‘Brawn’ sets the tone with dense, piston-like drums and tightly coiled low-end pressure, balancing brute force with meticulous spatial control. ‘Jump Up To Be’ follows with a more fractured swing, percussive shards ricocheting across a framework that feels perpetually on the verge of rupture. On the flip, ‘Gawk’ strips things back to skeletal components, carving negative space between distorted pulses and menacing, warped rhythmic figures, before ‘UNTUNTUNT’ closes the record in driving fashion, delivering a raw, functional workout that reduces the groove to its bluntest, most hypnotic form.

True to the label’s ethos, ‘Brawn’ doesn’t chase trends or smooth its edges. It folds air and pressure into motion, pares club music down to its working parts, and leaves room for spontaneous chaos to erupt within the grid; moments where structure splinters, energy misbehaves, and control gives way just enough to keep things volatile. Engineered yet unpredictable, utilitarian yet unruly, the EP embodies the tension, unpredictability, and uniqueness that have long defined bbbbbb recors.

Strut Records presents a fresh look at Oblivion Express, the 1971 album that marked Brian Auger’s shift into a new musical frontier. After years spent shaping the sound of British jazz-soul with the Trinity, Auger stepped into the new decade with a leaner, electrified ensemble and a renewed sense of purpose. This record captures the moment that transformation took shape.

Oblivion Express introduced a sound that was distinctly Auger’s own. Rather than echoing the fusion emerging in the United States, Auger developed a language rooted in the UK’s jazz underground, culminating in a spaced out jazz- rock / prog-fusion album awash with larger than life drum fills and Auger’s virtuosic organ playing. Between bassist Barry Dean and drummer Robbie McIntosh the album moves effortlessly between tight, articulated phrases and broader, improvisational passages. The trio’s interplay forms the backbone of the album and sets the tone for the sound that would define the early years of the Express.

Album opener “Dragon Song” launches with a restless drive that immediately signals Auger’s new direction. Auger chose to record this version of John McLaughlin’s piece (his friend and former bandmate in 'The Niddy Griddys') after hearing McLaughlin’s album Devotion during its mix at New York’s Record Plant Studios. Auger was blown away, recalling, “Oh my god, this is amazing. I wanted to record that myself - and I did!”. Pieces like “Total Eclipse” demonstrate the Oblivion Express’ command of dynamic contrast, and title track “Oblivion Express” explores the cinematic and compositional prowess of the group through stripped back, building moments vs. explosive melodic breakdowns. Riff-heavy “The Sword” later became known through Madlib’s usage in 2014 tracks “Yeti Movie” and “Parodies”.

In retrospect, Oblivion Express stands as a jazz leaning, prog-rock masterpiece and foundational moment in Auger’s catalogue. It captures the starting point of a new sound that is more focused, more urgent, and fully committed to the possibilities of jazz-rock at the dawn of the seventies. The album remains a vivid document of a band discovering its identity and setting the stage for the further array of influential releases that would follow.

Finlay Shakespeare is an electronic musician working from the UK and across Europe. A childhood obsession with his parents’ record collection led him to both create his own music and build his own synthesizer equipment throughout his teenage years. After studying audio engineering, he was invited to become in-house engineer for the Moog Sound Lab UK, leading to collaborations with acts as diverse as Suicide, Charlemagne Palestine, The Grid and Mica Levi & Eliza McCarthy, both in live and studio environments. In 2017, Finlay began recording a series of monthly “Housediet'' releases - all improvised and captured at home utilising drum machines, modular synthesis and processed vocals. After several encounters with Peter Rehberg of Editions Mego, a compilation of the Housediet tracks was drawn up by Rehberg and Shakespeare, culminating in the release of “Domestic Economy” in early 2019. “Solemnities' ', a second album for Editions Mego appeared the following year. In the period since Rehberg’s untimely passing, Finlay has recorded for Superpang, Modulisme and his own GOTO Records imprint. “Illusion + Memory”, meanwhile, continues on from where “Solemnities” left off, with Finlay once again aiming to work at the fringes of electronic pop. Alter is proud to present “Illusion + Memory”, the third full length physical LP of Shakespeare’s utterly unique and sophisticated output. Shakespeare’s obsession and knowledge of late 70’s and early 80’s electronic pop music is once again at the forefront of this intense and dynamic release. Alas, this is not some retro throwback. Shakespeare’s deep understanding of his machines breathes new life into a genre of music once defunct. Supporting the likes of Blancmange bolstered his reputation for sublime synth hooks and dark lyrical content. Building on his previous work in the field “Illusion + Memory” is an unabashed pop record, as joyous as it is intense, moving from the brooding opening ballad “Your Side of the River” through the punchy “Theresa” which could be read as a love song to Throbbing Gristle’s United. Elsewhere “Climb” unleashes the opportunity to the dancefloor as wild electronics snake into all manner of schizophrenic shapes. There is a romantic side to this music. In its homage to electronic pop of the late 70’s and early 80’s but also in the emotional punch Shakespeare injects into every second of every track. Shakespeare’s reboot of these musical forms is technically impressive, one rich in feeling and deep in emotion, atmospherically and vocally. The two come together to create a unique visceral sonic experience… today!

defaultbox returns with its 20th release entitled "020".

This various artists compilation brings together five carefully selected tracks by Karenz, Gockel, TIKOA, 10.000 BC, and aem.aze, each rooted in a shared vision of deep, functional techno rhythms and subtle dub-infused textures.

The release comes on a limited run of 50 transparent blue splatter copies alongside the regular black pressing.

Chaos is fundamental for creating something powerful. It teaches us to be at ease with how things are, to listen to ourselves, and find our own order’. (Enrico Sangiuliano)

Pioneering, avant garde yet chart-storming sound designer/producer/live performer Enrico Sangiuliano drops EP ‘Order In Chaos’ as release #1 in his self-destructing countdown imprint ‘NINETOZERO’, out 20th November. The EP’s three tracks respectively represent a triptych of sound exploring tension, release, and dissolution, with violinist and composer Vito Gatto joining Italian techno/melodic maestro Sangiuliano for tracks 1 and 3. The EP blends electronic, classical and electro-acoustic genres, resulting in a fresh, unique product that defies typical techno expectation, as Sangiuliano and Gatto explore the concept of disorder as a creative playground.

‘With this chapter, we dive into chaos – something that can be uncomfortable, but is the place in which you can find unexpected or new ideas. Chaos is fundamental for creating something powerful. It teaches us to be at ease with how things are, to listen to ourselves, and find our own order’. (Sangiuliano)

The ‘Order In Chaos’ EP continues a momentous year for Enrico Sangiuliano, and heralds his upcoming all-night-long SOLO show at Nitsa in Barcelona (Nov 28th, tickets here). His highly acclaimed NINETOZERO label has also previously featured Charlotte de Witte, Antonio d’Africa, Mattia Saviolo, GMS, Alex Lentini, STOMP BOXX, Zimmz, Secret Cinema and About Sofiya.

Vito Gatto is a Milan-based violinist, composer and sound explorer. He is the founder of label/collective NeMu (‘Neutral Mutation’) producing Italian projects at the interface of electronic and organic sound. His self-description as ‘Making sounds, looking for silence’ makes him the perfect collab partner for ‘Order In Chaos’, which ‘embraces the paradox: chaos births order, and order dissolves back into chaos.’

‘Whilst classically trained, I have always been fascinated by the world of electronic music, in all its expressive forms’ Gatto says. ‘I use real instruments and natural sound sources processing them through electronics to enhance their unpredictability, always remembering that the core of music - whether classical or electronic - is communication and storytelling. This philosophy guided our creative synthesis on this release.’

The collaborative workflow combined remote and in-person studio work over roughly a year, culminating in these three key tracks reflecting different musical and conceptual layers.

‘Order In Chaos’ EP tracks:
Enrico Sangiuliano & Vito Gatto ‘Adaptation for Strings and 909’: A cinematic overture built from the raw intimacy of Vito Gatto’s violin, processed and layered with unquantized 909 drums. Out of grid, out of rules. Drama and turbulence surge until thunderous kicks strike like sudden storms. ‘This track symbolises both of us. Vito sent the strings, I added the iconic Roland 909. It has no structure and no grid, the arrangement is not precise, it’s a very pure track and a great example of disorder and freedom.’
Enrico Sangiuliano ‘Order in Chaos’: The title track is a pure techno weapon and dancefloor igniter: rolling, stripped, euphoric. A shape-shifting lead synth constantly mutates, flirting with disorder until the kick restores gravity. Chaos becomes dancefloor order.
Enrico Sangiuliano & Vito Gatto ‘Dissolution’: The closing moment. Strings and drums dissolve into a weightless drone. Beatless and infinite, it invites surrender into space. ‘This cinematic track slowly melts ‘Order in Chaos’, adding processed organic sounds and field recordings from the mountains.. coming back to nature, and silence.’ (Gatto).

Still #0 to go in the NINETOZERO countdown… And then what? With Sangiuliano, it’ll be something unexpected and brilliantly innovative.

Final LP of a productive year for Feral Child is an absolute cracker. The latest of a long line of superb full lengths from Stephen James Buckley's incendiary Polypores project. This one is arguably his most adventurous outing to date, the undeniably psychedelic “Hungry Vortex”. Four extended pieces exploring polyrhythmic fixations and cosmic jazz-prog freak-outs. Percussion-heavy opener ‘The Body Is The Spaceship’ is a fine example of the sort of seamless organic growth we tend to see in Polypores’ music, with slewed synth blips and rolling polyrhythms gradually twisting into unrecognisable strands of melody and unconventional groove before your very ears.

The prog-heavy ‘Wizards!’ sees Buckley’s trademarked playful use of time-signature changes, providing such a wealth of emotional and stylistic variance and immeasurable enjoyment without changing key once (honestly, who needs keys). It’s brilliantly evocative too and could indeed perfectly soundtrack a mushroom-trip wizard march. As we flip the record over, the flutey flourishes and minimalist clicks of the title track draw the listener into a trancelike state, repeated movements spiralling like myriad creatures crawling over a candy-coloured horizon, echoing forth into an inviting sonic oblivion. It’s ostensibly electronic, yet somehow more natural organism than machine, with little concern for the grid, or indeed, the rules. Finally, we end on something a little more subdued - the reassuring classicism of the beautiful ‘Void High’, with washes of warm noise and wobbly delay lines whirring and twinkling away, closing the record with an experience that is undeniably emotional, spiritual and as always, uniquely Polypores. This is a wonderful record with which to close the year out, it comes in a magnificent, spot varnished Jake Blanchard sleeve. A superb record released as a one time only vinyl pressing.

Sydney punks Party Dozen (Kirsty Tickle and Jonathan Boulet) return with new single "Mad Rooter', taken from their upcoming AA-single 7" 'Mad Rooter / Ghost Rider' out Dec 5th via City Slang. The duo will be touring throughout the UK this November with shows in London, Brighton, Leeds, Bristol, Manchester and Glasgow.



On the new track, the band said, "It doesn’t always happen, but sometimes it’s your night. You feel like the maddest rooter. Every step you take is a step closer to glory. No f*cks left to give, the charisma of Jon Hamm. 'Mad Rooter' is 10 feet tall and can walk through a wall. Stuck here with all you rookies eating fortune cookies."



They added, "We didn’t record it with a click, so it has this sort of off-grid pull and push that gives it swagger. There’s a sax solo that’s giving David Letterman opening sequence. We recorded the sample with Jon’s guitar, which is old and barely hanging on. The electronics are shot, it’s missing strings, and it’s been sort of half-modified then given up on."

We are excited to welcome Rill for the fourth installment on our label!

Rill's sound is rooted in a deep appreciation for early-2010s techno aesthetics: atmospheric yet driving, detailed but never overstated.
His tracks merge spatial textures, rolling percussion, and carefully sculpted synth work - creating an immersive flow that balances hypnotic rhythm with creative, futuristic sound design.

‘Workaround’ is the lucidly playful and ambitious solo debut album by rhythm-obsessive musician and DJ, Beatrice Dillon for PAN. It combines her love of UK club music’s syncopated suss and Afro-Caribbean influences with a gamely experimental approach to modern composition and stylistic fusion, using inventive sampling and luminous mixing techniques adapted from modern pop to express fresh ideas about groove-driven music and perpetuate its form with timeless, future-proofed clarity. Recorded over 2017-19 between studios in London, Berlin and New York, ‘Workaround’ renders a hypnotic series of polymetric permutations at a fixed 150bpm tempo.

Mixing meticulous FM synthesis and harmonics with crisply edited acoustic samples from a wide range of guests including UK Bhangra pioneer Kuljit Bhamra (tabla); Pharoah Sanders Band’s Jonny Lam (pedal steel guitar); techno innovators Laurel Halo (synth/vocal) and Batu (samples); Senegalese Griot Kadialy Kouyaté (Kora), Hemlock’s Untold and new music specialist Lucy Railton (cello); amongst others, Dillon deftly absorbs their distinct instrumental colours and melody into 14 bright and spacious computerised frameworks that suggest immersive, nuanced options for dancers, DJs and domestic play. ‘Workaround’ evolves Dillon’s notions in a coolly unfolding manner that speaks directly to the album’s literary and visual inspirations, ranging from James P. Carse’s book ‘Finite And Infinite Games’ to the abstract drawings of Tomma Abts or Jorinde Voigt as well as painter Bridget Riley’s essays on grids and colour. Operating inside this rooted but mutable theoretical wireframe, Dillon’s ideas come to life as interrelated, efficient patterns in a self-sufficient system.

With a naturally fractal-not-fractional logic, Dillon’s rhythms unfold between unresolved 5/4 tresillo patterns, complex tabla strokes and spark-jumping tics in a fluid, tactile dance of dynamic contrasts between strong/light, sudden/restrained, and bound/free made in reference to the notational instructions of choreographer Rudolf Laban. Working in and around the beat and philosophy, the album’s freehand physics contract and expand between the lissom rolls of Bhamra’s tabla in the first, to a harmonious balance of hard drum angles and swooping FM synth cadence featuring additional synth and vocal from Laurel Halo in ‘Workaround Two’, while the extruded strings of Lucy Railton create a sublime tension at the album’s palatecleansing denouement, triggering a scintillating run of technoid pieces that riff on the kind of swung physics found in Artwork’s seminal ‘Basic G’, or Rian Treanor’s disruptive flux with a singularly tight yet loose motion and infectious joy. Crucially, the album sees Dillon focus on dub music’s pliable emptiness, rather than the moody dematerialisation of reverb and echo. The substance of her music is rematerialised in supple, concise emotional curves
and soberly freed to enact its ideas in balletic plies, rugged parries and sweeping, capoeira-like floor action. Applying deeply canny insight drawn from her years of practice as sound designer, musician and hugely knowledgable/intuitive DJ, ‘Workaround’ can be heard as Dillon’s ingenious solution or key to unlocking to perceptions of stiffness, darkness or grid-locked rigidity in electronic music. And as such it speaks to an ideal of rhythm-based and experimental music ranging from the hypnotic senegalese mbalax of Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga Rhythm Force, through SND and, more currently, the hard drum torque of DJ Plead; to adroitly exert the sensation of weightlessness and freedom in the dance and personal headspace.

Hot off the griddle, Cookin' The Books is the long awaited new album from Australia's kings of Hammond soul, Cookin' On 3 Burners. Their first studio LP in six years finds the trio in top form - deep in the pocket, wide in scope, and stacked with heavyweight collaborators. With a 27-year legacy, global tours, and over 2 billion streams (including the international smash This Girl), Cookin' On 3 Burners remain a defining force in vintage soul, funk, and groove.

Cookin' The Books features a collection of killer collaborators including electrifying live vocalist Stella Angelico, acclaimed soul artist Natalie Slade (Steve Spacek, Katalyst, Simon Mavin), hip hop mainstay Mantra alongside Jane Tyrrell (The Herd), rising alt-soul voice Wilson Blackley, and a sweeping string arrangement from composer/violinist Tamil Rogeon (Aloe Blacc, The Dandy Warhols).

Across the record, the group shifts seamlessly between gritty instrumentals and lush vocal cuts - from the cinematic funk of "Only Words", to the break-beat heavy title track "Cookin' The Books", the bumping bounce of "No Bread For You", and the introspective soul of "Phoenix". Every track reflects the group's deep funk DNA while carving out bold new territory.

With airplay from BBC6's Craig Charles, support from tastemakers (Wax Poetics, Dusty Groove, Rolling Stone Australia), and a world tour booked for 2026, this release is a must-stock for deep funk, soul, and cinematic groove audiences.

Slip is Paul Abbott’s response to his 3 day residency at OTO in 2023. It’s a continued exploration of the acoustic-digital hybrid drum setup Abbott has been developing for some time, which involves drum kit and synthetic sounds combined closely—through an entanglement of limbs and cables—in an intimate but strange relationship with each other.

Paul Abbott hasn’t had any formal musical training, but has a long history of making music, having collaborated for years with Seymour Wright, Pat Thomas, Michael Speers, Cara Tolmie, Anne Gillis and many others. Eventually, led by a profound suspicion of what is fixed or limited, Abbott began finding other ways to organise sound - or what he calls ‘material’:

“I wanted a way to 'persuade' or guide the possibility of something happening - my activity or the events of an algorithmic composition - for example, but without certainty or formalism. It felt to me, during playing, that certain ideas had a particular sort of shape, but more than the form of a line. I began to write alongside (before/after) playing the drums, and ‘characters’ began to enter the scene as a more wobbly, and therefore appropriate option to notation. Working with these characters allowed me to simultaneously approach body, imagination, language and music: without dividing things up or separating these aspects from each other. It allowed me to leave things messy and entangled, whilst trying to deal with form and specificity: wanting to have some things feel or respond differently to other things at other times.”

In approaching his residency, Abbott developed a fixed cast of characters - crystal, lleaf, reiy.F, reiy.C, strike, nee, qosel, sphu and aahn. They each communicate using different kinds of movement and drum kit/s, and Abbott choreographed them as ‘dances’ based on different feelings, or outlines of behaviours suggestive of ways of moving (body, drums, sounds). He then arranged these characters into ‘compositions’: one for each performance day, with each composition featuring multi-layered activity - options for behaviours, ways to move around the rooms, play drums, develop synthetic sounds, change the lights or re-distribute the sound in the space.

After the performances, Abbott took home 9 hours of recordings split into up to 28 multitrack channels for each day, and re-organised his cast once more into a performance for 2LP, CD and digital. It’s an enormous amount of work - but Abbott is activated by the process. For him, the pleasure of unstable edges, possibilities, slippages, is the vital attraction. Like all living organisms, Abbott’s characters have malleability and responsivity. They stimulate a bundle of possible behaviours, a tendency to act a certain way, a temperament, a boundary of respective limits or affordances.

It’s an affective way of working, inclusive of Roscoe Mitchell, Sun Ra, Nathaniel Mackey and Milford Graves. In ‘Pulseology’(2022), Milford Graves reminds us, ‘Breath varies, so cardiac rhythm never has that (metronomic) tempo. It’s always changing. All the alignments of the heart are determined based on the needs of the cells, specifically tissues and organs. The heart knows if it needs to speed up.’ In Slip, to slip, in a heartbeat, is to descend not into the grid of the even metre accorded to the heartbeat, but into a play of mutability and modality. To change is the condition of the heart.

Debt is a new album by Harvey Sutherland about the cost of doing business in the meme economy. In his first LP since the 2022 debut, Boy, the Australian artist reduces his fusiony disco repertoire to ten microhoused funk essentials. This is minimalism not so much as aesthetic conceit than pressurised container, shaken in the Escherised time and space unique to our overdriven, red-lining present. The album's title nods to the financial contortions necessary to strive/survive/thrive as an independent artist. But Debt is better understood as the ledger of what we owe, and to whom, in the course of a creative life. What's the ROI on being an artist, a son, a friend, a partner, a father? Have we been worth our loved ones' own investments? If that sounds transactional, this is merely the lingua franca of our overwhelmingly digital culture, a grifter's bazaar in which Bob Dylan tunes up over Salt Bae, and Wordsworth's pitch is opposite the Rizzler.

Debt came to life when Harvey Sutherland acquired a freightload of Y2K minimal cargo from Akufen, Ricardo and Baby Ford—courtesy of local Melbourne hero Martin L—which bent the album towards a moreish pointillism. The resulting music's eyes-down minimal gestures within expressive pop shapes feels apt for the apparently contradictory things we can't help craving: immediacy and craft, on-tap "authenticity," life lessons drawn from Reel nonsense. A few years after the "neurotic funk" of Boy, a thorough excavation of interiority that comprised Harvey Sutherland's first LP proper, Debt is his to-the-point response to pressures that manifest outside the self. But in its own way it remains a reflection of Harvey Sutherland's musical innerscapes, which stretch across the grit and glitter of private-press disco and the sensual grids of Metro Area.

"Love it! Electronic wonkiness at its finest" - Richard Norris (The Grid)

TEA, CAKES AND THE (WO)MAN MACHINE

Curtain Twitcher could only have emerged from Sheffield.
A female electronic duo whose corrupted downtempo post Balearic chug pulses and wobbles, throbs and twitches - full of fat noises and bolshy Moogery.
It's human and appealingly analogue. More Delia Derbyshire's Radiophonic Workshop than DAF, More Tangerine Dream than Depeche Mode. Not your average bloketronica.

Frankly this music doesn't behave itself in any way you might expect. Plugged in post rave pop can be far too orderly. Music should be messy. Even on occasion revealing a tune your mum could hum.

"Leap The Dips" emerged from machine jamming with a creative freedom that only comes from friendship. That friendship is a musical one but it's also real and genuine: "We’ll talk about pretty much owt if you provide the tea and cakes".

Limited edition PLUTONIUM vinyl 1000 copies worldwide. Remastered by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service. Originally released in 1986 vinyl reissue includes 2 bonus tracks. "This is a bit different than previous records in that there's only a couple of songs with their distinctive bass licks and chunky melodies. So instead of bordering on redundancy, they prove their diversity by being more melodic, rockin', and even pop. This LP is more challenging than before and really great." - MaximumRockNRoll, April 1986 - // Naked Raygun were an extraordinary staple in the Chicago music scene - beginning in the early 80's and continuing until their quiet demise in the early 90's. Their music showed the world that punk rockers could play and be really good at it. Founded in Chicago in 1980, by Marco Pezzati, Jeff Pezzati and Santiago Durango, Naked Raygun released six albums during their eleven year career that would change the sound of punk rock indefinitely. The band is widely recognized as being one of the most influential punk bands of the 80's. Their anthemic style incorporated politics in a uniquely accessible way, melding pop and hardcore into one cohesive sound, that would later be dubbed, "The Chicago Sound". Shortly after their first release, Basement Screams, Durango left to join Big Black permanently, and was replaced by John Haggerty, whose unique style of buzzsaw guitar would define Raygun's sound for their next four albums. Additionally, Pierre Kezdy replaced Camilo Gonzalez and Eric Spicer took over drums for Jim Colao. In 1990, Haggerty left the band to start Pegboy. Bill Stephens joined the band for their final studio release entitled, Raygun...Naked Raygun.

Limited edition BROWN & BLACK SWIRL vinyl 1000 copies worldwide. Remastered by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service. Originally released in 1989 vinyl reissue includes 2 bonus tracks. "...one of the best examples of melodic hardcore just a step away from emo. The album is excellently played and is full of breathtaking anthems that, from time to time, even wink at metal soundscapes." - Debaser - // Naked Raygun were an extraordinary staple in the Chicago music scene - beginning in the early 80's and continuing until their quiet demise in the early 90's. Their music showed the world that punk rockers could play and be really good at it. Founded in Chicago in 1980, by Marco Pezzati, Jeff Pezzati and Santiago Durango, Naked Raygun released six albums during their eleven year career that would change the sound of punk rock indefinitely. The band is widely recognized as being one of the most influential punk bands of the 80's. Their anthemic style incorporated politics in a uniquely accessible way, melding pop and hardcore into one cohesive sound, that would later be dubbed, "The Chicago Sound". Shortly after their first release, Basement Screams, Durango left to join Big Black permanently, and was replaced by John Haggerty, whose unique style of buzzsaw guitar would define Raygun's sound for their next four albums. Additionally, Pierre Kezdy replaced Camilo Gonzalez and Eric Spicer took over drums for Jim Colao. In 1990, Haggerty left the band to start Pegboy. Bill Stephens joined the band for their final studio release entitled, Raygun...Naked Raygun.

Pruillip is a new Belgian band founded by Louis Evrard (Bert Dockx Band, Grid Ravage, Ottla) and Annelies Van Dinter (Echo Beatty, Takh & Naga Ghost). The duo started about 2 years ago after a request to play at De Nor, the open air sculpture park and venue of Dennis Tyfus. For this occasion Annelies and Louis decided to do a position switch and play each other's instruments: Annelies beating the hell out of the drums and Louis ripping up the guitar.

Pruillip: the record

Visceral meditation: that's what the self titled debut album of Pruillip is all about. Eight songs channeling elemental emotions, kickin' deep into the internal organs of the body. Low end frequency swagger droning up from Louis Evrard's amp, ready to slip into 'Place All Your Cards', slow burning sludge nugget, bolstered by the steady drum kicks of Annelies Van Dinter, where every note and strike seems to carry the weight of the world. Navigating through life, seducing you with her gloomy voice. Entering a quest into the unknown, a place you don't want to leave. A feeling increased by the abrasive and brutal 'Boterham': a punk sludge anthem for the hungry and the wild at heart, countered with the reverb-shrouded murmur 'Distracted Enthusiasm'. The lonely 'Zonnedauw' sets the mark of an apparently more resigned B-side, stretching the Pruillip universe with primitive, but so addictive, riffs in 'Mirrors', echoing vibes of 90's desert sessions while 'Offload' and the lucid state of Ataraxia seems to drift on raw emotions and a sweaty claustrophobic tension, which would fit perfectly in Wim Wenders Paris Texas movie. A whirlwind of a record, straight to the bone, leaving you flabbergasted and wanting for more.

Next up on Luke Slater's Mote-Evolver is Primal Instinct co-founder Chlär with the 'Topography' EP. It follows his debut album, 'The Architects of Shadows', which came out on Primal Instinct at the tail end of 2024, and sees the Swiss-bom, Germany-based artist deliver four more tracks of unmistakable, dance-floor-primed Chlär sound.

Chlär's 'Topography' EP embraces Mote-Evolver's tradition of deeper groove Techno with finesse, seeing 'Altitude' kick off proceedings as a heads-down slice of hypnotism featuring can't-miss Techno rhythm while otherworldly creatures add to the atmosphere. 'Serac' then delves even further, its effective bassline welded together with subtle sequences before we flip the record around for 'Lamin', a track rife with ghostly dub chords and remnants of a vocal sample. Closing out the trip is 'Phantom Grid', a clap riding its groove as it builds the intensity, dropping the pressure with hammering kickdrums and excellent, warped percussion for another lose-yourself club offering from the ever-promising Chlär.