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XKatedral Anthology Series II (An Anthology Of Slowly Evolving Timbral Music), featuring exclusive music from Kali Malone, Jessica Ekomane, Mats Erlandsson, Theodor Kentros, Wilma Hultén, and Maria W Horn.

"XKatedral Anthology II is the second instalment in a series of archival releases dedicated to presenting music by composers affiliated with XKatedral working within the realm of slowly evolving harmonic and timbral music. This double-vinyl set contains an array of pieces dating from 2018 - 2020. This collection of pieces focuses on the use of synthetic sound and algorithmic composition languages as tools for precise work within the realm of spectral exploration. In addition to this, the electronic instrumentation in many of the pieces is augmented by acoustic instruments.

The first piece on side A is Kali Malone’s Music for Low Quartet. This piece is an adaptation of the composition “Rose Wreath Crown” originally released on The Sacrificial Code in 2019. In this iteration, the music is scored for two double basses played by Vilhelm Bromander and Zach Rowden, and sine tone electronics performed by Malone herself. The recording of this piece was made at EMS in 2019.

Closing side A is Jessica Ekomane’s ‘First Light’. This computer music piece focuses exclusively on digital sound, layering razor sharp synthetic textures into an otherworldly dynamic weave. The music heard here is a reworked version of a piece originally commissioned by Semibreve in 2020.

Side B contains the work ‘Hands Melt In The Sun’ by Mats Erlandsson. This composition is built from electronically processed tuned zithers and synthetically generated tones arranged in a series of chordal inversions over a sustained fundamental tone. This music, written as a love-letter to the localized drone tradition of Stockholm in the years 2008-2012, was composed and recorded in seven days while in residence at Ställbergs Gruva in Bergslagen, in the summer of 2018.

Opening the second half of the collection is Rough Draft v.7 by Theodor Kentros. Kentros’ compositional practice usually combines acoustic and electronic source material and in this piece he molds the sound of the Buchla 200 and a collection of recorded wind instruments into a molten mass of sound. In its original form, this music was presented as a multichannel immersive work and even in the current stereo configuration it retains some of that enveloping sense of depth.

The second piece on side B, Inertia, is by Wilma Hultén, who makes her debut on record here. An exclusively synthetic piece, Inertia utilizes internal digital feedback in a sealed synthetic system to manifest a harmonic field that swells and abates throughout the length of the piece, interspersed by small gestural elements.

Closing Anthology II is Maria W Horn's work ‘Dies Irae’ for female vocal quartet, pitched glass and synthesis. ‘Dies Irae’ uses a modified form of traditional tonal harmonic language to invoke an uncanny and restless middle ground between the classical western polyphonic vocal tradition and contemporary electronic music. The version heard here is a live recording from Eric Ericssonhallen in Stockholm on May 30th 2020. Performing the piece here are the vocalists Katarina Henryson, Lisa Holmgren, Vilma Ogenblad and Paula Wegmann, as well as Maria herself on glass and electronics."

After a six-year hiatus, Efdemin returns with POLY — his fifth studio album, released on the recently revived Berghain-affiliated label, Ostgut Ton.

As the title suggests, POLY explores multiplicity: of rhythm, texture, style, and emotion. Across eleven meticulously sculpted textures, the album weaves a multidimensional web of sonic references, nodding to the origins of techno while pushing resolutely into uncharted terrain. POLY feels like an afterglow—of decades on the dancefloor, of restless sonic exploration, and of a profound connection to the spaces and communities that have shaped Efdemin’s sound.

Over the course of 60 minutes we are taken through different territories and landscapes of sound. Mysterious and swirling, abstract and droning textures over at times fast and stoic rhythmic concepts. Sometimes the sunlight breaks into the opaque and mysterious soundscapes before the pulse is taken over and sucks us back straight into the club.

The overall tone of POLY is mild and playful, introvert and at times dreamy. The music is rich in sonic expression and breathes the spirit of musical concepts that have been refined over the course of decades. What Sollmann has condensed here feels like a culmination of his multilayered and polyphonic personality situated between Club, Museum, Studio and Academy.

The album cover features a striking photograph of a human ear by renowned German artist Isa Genzken. Known for her radical visual language, Genzken’s work here functions as a metaphor for deep listening. The ear symbolises the layered complexity and immersive quality of the music on POLY — an invitation to perceive sound in all its depth, fragility, and force and unlock it’s potential to unite different voices in a distorted reality.
Nach einer sechsjährigen Pause kehrt Efdemin mit POLY zurück – seinem fünften Studioalbum, das auf dem kürzlich wiederbelebten Label Ostgut Ton, dem in-house Label des Berghain erscheint.

Wie der Titel vermuten lässt, beschäftigt sich POLY mit Vielfältigkeit: von Rhythmus,Textur, Style und Emotionen. In elf Stücken webt das Album ein multidimensionales Netz aus klanglichen Referenzen, das auf zurückliegende Ansätze der Klubmusik verweist und gleichzeitig entschlossen in neues Terrain vordringt.

POLY wirkt wie ein Nachglühen – von Jahrzehnten auf der Tanzfläche, von unermüdlicher klanglicher Erkundung und von einer tiefen Verbindung zu den Räumen und Communities, die Efdemins Sound geprägt haben. Im Laufe von 60 Minuten werden die Hörer*innen durch verschiedene Territorien und Klanglandschaften geführt. Mysteriöse und wirbelnde, abstrakte und dröhnende Texturen über teilweise schnellen und stoischen rhythmischen Konzepten. Manchmal bricht das Sonnenlicht in die undurchsichtigen und geheimnisvollen Klanglandschaften ein, bevor der Puls wieder die Oberhand gewinnt und uns direkt zurück in den Klub saugt.

Der Gesamteindruck von POLY ist mild und verspielt, introvertiert und manchmal verträumt. Die Musik ist reich an klanglichem Ausdruck und atmet den Geist musikalischer Konzepte, die im Laufe von Jahrzehnten verfeinert wurden. Was Sollmann hier verdichtet hat, fühlt sich wie eine Kulmination seiner vielschichtigen und polyphonen Identität an, die sich zwischen Klub, Museum, Studio und Akademie bewegt.

Das Albumcover ziert die Nahaufnahme eines menschlichen Ohrs der renommierten deutschen Künstlerin Isa Genzken. Genzken´s Arbeit wirkt hier als Metapher für deep listening. Das Ohr symbolisiert die vielschichtige Komplexität und immersive Qualität der Musik auf POLY – eine Einladung, Klang in seiner ganzen Tiefe, Zerbrechlichkeit und Kraft wahrzunehmen und sein Potenzial zu erschließen, widerstreitende Stimmen in einer verzerrten Realität zu vereinen.

Following the critical success of last year’s ‘Cold Feet’ LP, producer, DJ, and multi-instrumentalist Alek Lee returns to Isle of Jura with his most introspective work to date, the ‘Blue Bird’ album. Across eight tracks, the Athens-based artist explores what he describes as a "Peculiar state of minds & Dub Orientated Feelings," blending his signature guerrilla style production with deep, organic soul.

The album’s centerpiece and title track, ‘Blue Bird’ features the haunting vocals of singer-songwriter Keren Ilan. It is a raw, heartfelt exploration of the aftermath of a breakup. The lyrics speak of a "desert heart" and a "loss that grows tall and loud," eventually finding a path toward healing as the "blue bird sings the dawn." Musically, the track is anchored by hazy, sun drenched guitars, a central instrument that weaves a consistent Balearic thread throughout the LP.

The journey through ‘Blue Bird’ is one of shifting shadows and unexpected textures. ‘Treasures’ is a standout instrumental, leaning into a grit-flecked, bluesy "twang" reminiscent of Duane Eddy, while ‘The Beach Road’ sees long time collaborator and ‘Shame On Us’ bandmate, Yovav, lending his magical bass and guitar work to a track that feels like a slow drive toward the horizon.

Side B shifts the energy toward the dancefloor and the sophisticated leftfield pop of the 80s. ‘First Rain’ is a subtle house leaning gem underpinned by a kick drum and lush, synth heavy emotive chord progression. ‘Thanks to Sade’ is a seductive downtempo groove with epic guitar lines shifting through, while ‘Remember the Good’ brings a subtle reggae skank and a French-influenced organ sound into the mix. The LP comes full circle with a smoked out Dub version of the title track ‘Blue Bird’.

A 180 gram pressing in a 3mm spine full colour sleeve and sticker designed by Bradley Pinkerton.

Following the digital release of the single “Meu Canto” in early February 2026, Gerardo Frisina and singer Luzia Dvorek return to Brazilian music with a new and compelling interpretation of a timeless classic, “A Lenda do Abaeté” by Dorival Caymmi; the release of this 45rpm single brings to a close a special project entirely dedicated to Bahia, the beating heart and symbol of Brazilian culture.

“Meu Canto” takes shape from an original composition by Gerardo Frisina, who signs both music and production, crafting a soundscape that is suspended between delicacy and depth upon which Luzia Dvorek - joined by songwriter Toco, whose refined backing vocals further enrich the song’s emotional dialogue - has drawn the melodic line and written the lyrics. A journey into roots and origins that tells the story of Luzia’s family, deeply embedded in the warm, fertile land of northeastern Brazil. “Meu Canto” sees also the participation of Alfonso Deidda on flute, whose airy timbre introduces new shades of color to the composition.

In “A Lenda do Abaeté”, the 45rpm B-side, Gerardo Frisina weaves an elegant and immersive rhythmic framework, evoking soundscapes that feel both deep-rooted and timeless. Within this setting, Luzia Dvorek’s voice unfolds with emotional intensity, balancing expressive strength and subtle delicacy as it narrates the ancient legend of the Abaeté lagoon. A place steeped in charm and mystery, suspended between myth and reality, whose stories have been passed down through generations in Salvador, in Brazil’s north-eastern region.

The project is further enriched by the acoustic guitar of Francesco Borrelli - who also took care of the tracks mixing and mastering - and Toco’s distinctive vocal contributions, which add depth and nuance to the overall sound.

Legendary dub techno artist Paul St. Hilaire (AKA Tikiman) announces new collaborative album, marking 10 years of Kynant Records



Building on the success of Paul St. Hilaire’s landmark solo album for Richard Akingbehin’s label Kynant in 2023, w/ The Producers switches up the formula to pair St. Hilaire’s with a different producer on each track. Referencing fellow dub techno pioneers Mark Ernestus & Moritz von Oswald’s acclaimed album w/ The Artists as Rhythm & Sound, St. Hilaire flips the concept to feature as the lone vocalist.



Over the album’s nine tracks, St. Hilaire offers a range of conscious song-writing and headtop musings, such as the spoken-word dread of “What’s This” or the sparse call-to-action of “Send Them On”. The record weaves through all shades of contemporary dub evolutions, showing the vocal range and versatility of St. Hilaire. w/ The Producers is yet another essential record in St. Hilaire’s unmatched discography.



The producers were curated by label owner and DJ Richard Akingbehin to give the new album a future-facing feel and mark 10 years of Kynant Records. Akingbehin sourced beats from luminaries such as Digital Mystikz boss and dubstep trailblazer Mala or elusive Chain Reaction artist Shinichi Atobe. They sit alongside some of the most exciting names in recent electronic music - Batu, Gavsborg, Azu Tiwaline, Priori, Cousin, Russell E.L. Butler, Aurora Halal and DJ G - all of whom bring different elements of dub techno into their productions.



w/ The Producers finds Kynant Records bridging the original voice of dub techno with the genre’s new wave. It’s a statement of intent from the label, which began 10 years ago with deep, hypnotic techno and has veered gradually towards more dubwise sounds

After a decade away from new music, Jill Scott returns with To Whom This May Concern, a soul-stirring body of work rich with texture, rhythm, and emotional truth. Rooted in community, reflection, and sonic exploration, the album weaves melodies, horns, and rhythms into an immersive listening experience that invites audiences to feel deeply, reflect freely, and take exactly what they need.

Wah Wah 45s present a limited edition vinyl special from Afro-dub masters, Soothsayers. With a history that goes back three decades, having released two classic LPs (Tradition and We Are Many) and numerous EPs and remixes on the imprint, the band deliver two brand new and exclusive versions of one of the highlights of their new LP, entitled Fly Higher.

Love Will Find a Way features vocalists Maia Avery and Akin Soul, both former members of Youthsayers - a South London based music performance and education group, taught by Soothsayers band members. With new mixes by acclaimed Sao Paulo based producer Victor Rice, it's a stepping reggae vocal duo piece with a strong, universal message asserting that despite the current divisive political rhetoric and the championing of greed over human empathy by those in power, love will always be a more powerful force than hatred and division. Maia and Akin Soul's distinctive voices blend and weave beautifully over a hypnotic groove with a fresh and poignant emotional energy contributing to what should be a future steppers classic. These previously unreleased mixes are available in both vocal and dub versions on hand-stamped 7-inch vinyl and Bandcamp only. "We are so proud and happy to be able to feature Maia and Akin on this beautiful song. Both are former members of Youthsayers, the youth music education organisation set up by Soothsayers in 2016. Maia (from recent Wah Wah 45s signings Kotoa) and Akin are now great artists in their own right and it feels very satisfying to feature them on this new Soothsayers release." Robin Hopcraft (Soothsayers)

a A1: Love Will Find A Way (Light Still Shines Version) [feat. Maia Avery & Akin Soul]
[b] B1: Love Will Find A Way (Victor Rice Dub) [feat. Maia Avery & Akin Soul]

[a] A1 | Love Will Find A Way (Light Still Shines Version) [feat Maia Avery & Akin Soul]
[b] B1 | Love Will Find A Way (Victor Rice Dub) [feat Maia Avery & Akin Soul]

Worldwide Connexion (JGRVWAX007) is the seventh vinyl release on Junked Groove, bringing together five artists from four countries on one deep house / house record.

Side A opens with BMB SpaceKid, delivering an explosive cut driven by swinging percussion, vocal chops, and a heavy low-end. His beat-making roots are front and center, resulting in an undeniable dancefloor mover. Next up, DFRA & Nick Weaver take things into a more hypnotic territory: jazzy, minimal, and smooth, with flowing harmonies and subtle synth movements that quietly reveal a solid classical foundation behind the music.

On Side B, Detroit’s own Javonntte offers a raw house anthem. Pure groove, timeless energy, and that unmistakable feeling of being locked inside the track from the very first synth line. Closing the record, Junky Palms brings a UK-rooted groove built around classic house chords, layered with psychedelic and slightly tense synths. Cold Manchester air and rave nostalgia drift through the mix.

One record, four countries, five perspectives, one groove.

DJ Support: Laurent Garnier, Dennis Cruz, Girls Of The Internet, Horse Meat Disco, Stacey Pullen, Elliot Schooling, Solomun,Marco Carola, Joseph Capriati, The Martinez Brothers, Dam Swindle, Soul Clap, Luke Solomon, Riva Starr, Franky Rizardo, Archie Hamilton, Silvie Loto, Fouk, Austin Ato, Salomé Le Chat, Blackchild, Jean Pierre, Black Loops, Kassian, Seamus Haji, Melvo Baptiste, Rimarkable, Sophie Lloyd

In-demand Amsterdam-based duo Makèz step into new ground with the release of their album ‘Arriving Home Elsewhere’, via ANOTR’s No Art label. A kaleidoscopic project that moves between deep house, cosmic jazz, R&B, broken beat, and club-ready energy, the record is both a declaration of identity and a dissolution of boundaries - proof of the duo’s rare ability to merge worlds without diluting or compromising their true essence.

Where most albums that span electronic realms lean on functionality, ‘Arriving Home Elsewhere’ reaches for something much more expansive. The project is a true hybrid: half shaped for the intimacy of a headphone listen, half designed for the electricity of the dancefloor. together forming a seamless continuum between reflection and release. Tracks like ‘REARRANGE YOURSELF’, ‘BE REAL’, and ‘LOOKS LIKE IT (SPACE TALK)’ are stripped to the core of house music’s driving pulse, made for bigger systems and peak-time release. In contrast, ‘Dreams’, ‘Fruits of the Universe’ (with douniah), and ‘Without The Sun’ (with Oliver Night) explore lush, textured arrangements where live instrumentation and improvisation carry equal weight to rhythm and groove.

Collaboration is at the heart of the LP, with Makèz inviting a constellation of voices who each expand the project’s palette. Ben Westbeech, Liv East, and SANITY bring soulful intensity; 30/70 and dreamcastmoe connect Amsterdam to Melbourne and DC; Cor.Ece and Oliver Night weave delicate threads of emotion; Goya Gumbani and Javonntte guide the production with their vibey, groove-led performances; while Life on Planets reprises his role as a core creative partner, appearing across the album on tracks including the standout ‘BE REAL’ and the previously released ‘ILLUSIONS’ alongside rising Amsterdam talent AVA LAVÁ. Together, these contributions shape an album that feels less like a singular statement and more like a living, breathing ecosystem.

For Makèz, ‘Arriving Home Elsewhere’ is as much about philosophy as it is about music. The title encapsulates a tension central to their art: the feeling of belonging to multiple worlds without ever being confined to one. Jazz, house, soul, and experimental club sounds are not separate influences but parallel languages, and in merging them, the duo has created a record that mirrors the fluidity of contemporary identity and expression. And while it may speak in many voices, the LP tells one clear story - that of Makèz, arriving, again and again, home elsewhere.

Volcov, the Veronese founder of the Neroli record label, returns to the BBE fold with the third compilation in his majestic series 'From the Archives' and once again this new installment is another collection of overlooked gems and unreleased beauties that are set to entice the discerning listener. As with volumes 1 and 2, 'From the Archives volume 3' features cherry picked songs that focus on melodies and weave a thread between eras and genres. From the Archives volume 3 is a genre free journey into authentic grooves which features music from the enchanted tones of Carlo Nino & Friends, an exclusive from Collettivo Immaginario, uptempo moments from remix kings Kaidi Tatham and DJ Spinna as well as two unreleased songs from Fred P and J2 Fusion feat. Javonttee and DJ Genius. From The Archive 3 represents another accomplished work of love from Volcov aka Enrico Crivellaro, who has a long list of albums and compilations under his belt as well as being involved in productions, edits, releases and projects with artists such as Dego, Theo Parrish, Phil Asher, Gerald Mitchell, Domu, Kaidi Tatham, Kirk Degiorgio, Patrick Gibin, Lars Bartkuhn, Ian O’Brien and many more. From the Archive volume 3 is released as a vinyl double LP and a digital download and is a compilation in which the music lover will be guided hand in hand through a collection of unreleased and hard to find songs that shift effortlessly between jazz and house, broken beat, ambient and soul.

Krope is a six-part conceptual album by Belarusian sound artist and producer Anton Anishchanka. Rooted in archival folk songs recorded between the 1960s and 2000s, it transforms fragile voices of the past into living, cinematic sound worlds. Created in collaboration with ethnographer Iryna Vasilyeva, the album weaves Belarusian traditional music with field recordings, acoustic instruments, and analog synthesizers — an immersive journey where memory, landscape, and resilience converge.

Flowing as one continuous suite, Krope unfolds like a film: memory re-emerges, fragile yet persistent, shaping an emotional narrative of displacement, loss, endurance, and hope. The archival voices at its core — songs of love, exile, and mourning — resonate across decades, echoing the urgent realities of today. The album flows as a single, immersive sonic odyssey. From the tender rejection in Krope (Dill) to the grief carved in Dubrovuška (Oak Grove), it traces an arc of human experience that is both deeply personal and universally shared. By reimagining traditional music through contemporary sound art, Anishchanka preserves endangered cultural heritage while revealing its timeless relevance.

Credits:
Produced by Anton Anishchanka
Engineering by Tenzor
Mastered by Alex at Quitfish Mastering
Lacquer cut by Tim Xavier at Manmade Mastering
Cover Art by Sasha Zeliankevich
Graphic Design by Ihar Yukhnevich
Creative Direction by Nadzeya Burmistrava

Archival materials courtesy of the Institute of Art History, Ethnography and Folklore named after K. Krapiva, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.

Special thanks to Iryna Vasilyeva for her assistance with archival selections and ethnographic material.

Shatkavalka 2025

Stepping up for Punctuality number 8 is the dynamic duo of Ciel and Matthis Ruffing. Needing little introduction, both artists are prolific producers and collaborators across tempos and genres. Toronto-based Ciel has released music on labels like NAFF, Peach Discs, and !K7, while Berliner Matthis Ruffing’s work can be found on International Chrome, Infinite Drift, and Strictly Strictly, to name just a few.

Bonding over a shared love for the techno stylings of Claude Young and early 2000s tech/prog house from labels like Future Groove and Slide, the duo’s collaboration began with a spontaneous jam in Ruffing’s Berlin studio during the summer of 2022. With an organic studio chemistry, the pair continued to jam over the following years. Hot Squid is the result of these studio experiments: five tracks of sleek, muscular, contemporary tech house that fluidly distill the creative visions of both artists—slick, shimmering grooves, heavily weighted for the dancefloor.

The title track, Hot Squid, weaves dubbed-out waves of FX and low-end sonics around metallic, staccato drum bursts, sci-fi pads, stuttered vocals, and syncopated snares that flit and flicker around a rolling bassline reminiscent of golden-era UK tech house from the late ’90s. Roza Terenzi’s remix flips the original into a modern, low-stepping tek roller—a mind-bending re-fix that puts more focus on the snaking vocal groove and a sparser percussion arrangement, filled out with lustrous textures and razor-precise sound design.

On Little Voice, glossy synths and spiraling atmospherics cascade around a mesmeric vocal line, while tightly wound, minimal drum loops give way to a swaggering bassline that barely relents throughout the track. The result is a satisfyingly boshy, groove-driven roller, fit for the dancefloor at any time of day.
Late Summer maintains the EP’s high-grade production standard in the form of a dreamy, electro-leaning tech house number, resplendent with deep, pummeling kick drums, woozy low-end, and organic sonics. Its plucked melody and introspective pads nod to halcyon-era IDM and the Detroit techno that inspired the duo in creating Hot Squid.

The release culminates in Bong Bong—a meditative dancefloor tool suffused with ASMR-like nature documentary samples that lend the track a psychedelic intimacy. Careening percussion lines and swooning chord stabs anchor the rhythm, while the title’s “Bong Bong” mantra hums beneath the surface, carried along by barely perceptible sub fills and ultra-processed percussion. A cohesive, unique, and enduring take on seminal tech house and Detroit techno from Ciel and Matthis Ruffing.

Born Bad Records knew exactly what it was doing when it signed this Nantes-based trio, whose sharply defined sound and raw authenticity stand out. With Rage Blossom, Île de Garde unveils an EP charged with palpable tension, somewhere between dark pop and psycho-wave. A catalogue of modern misdeeds, a David Lynch-like backdrop where Sylvia Plath’s poetry might cross paths with the controlled excesses of Fever Ray.



The EP opens with “Fear The Sun,” its Mike Oldfield-esque soundscapes plunging us into an apocalyptic and unsettling world. “Homicide Volontaire” follows with meticulous narration, a technical exercise evoking the anger and defiant lucidity of a Virginie Despentes. The hallucinatory hit “To Death” snaps like an anthem to collective dancing in the face of the inevitable. Since we’re going to die, let’s dance! On the B-side, “Ageless Woman” weaves together a half-mythological, half-mysterious text, carried by haunting backing vocals. “Birthday Girl,” featuring Kuntessa, radiates an ironic and joyful riot-grrrl energy, an uninhibited celebration of women’s liberation. Finally, “Boy,” a small post-punk jewel, closes the EP with an ending as surprising as it is delicate.

The group’s genius also lies in the complementarity of its musicians. Morgane Poulain anchors the drums with a dynamic that is both subtle and narrative, airy yet jagged. Cécile Aurégan, the architect behind a multitude of synths, builds powerful sonic landscapes, layer upon layer. Klara Coudrais, the band’s poetic figurehead, elevates her texts with a rich and plural vocal palette, giving life to several characters who vibrate with intensity. The band’s writing, hovering between darkness and light, echoes a kind of visceral poetry, exploring the seasons of the soul with authenticity and force.



With this EP, Île de Garde establishes itself as a band to watch closely, capable of translating on stage both the raw energy and the fine craftsmanship that define their music. An immersive journey, full of tension, urgency, beauty, and electric flashes.



Île de Garde, a Nantes-based trio with sharply drawn sonic contours and raw authenticity, unleashes its full arsenal on Rage Blossom, an EP radiating palpable tension between dark pop and psycho-wave. A catalogue of modern misdeeds, a David Lynch-like setting where Sylvia Plath’s poetry would meet the controlled excesses of Fever Ray. An immersive journey of tension, urgency, beauty, and electric sparks.

Opening track “Fear The Sun” plunges us into an apocalyptic and unsettling landscape. “Homicide Volontaire” continues with meticulous storytelling, a crime vignette evoking anger and the fierce lucidity summoned by a situation with no way out. The hallucinatory trance of “To Death” snaps like an anthem to collective dance in the face of the inevitable. Since we are going to die, let’s dance! “Ageless Woman” blends a half-mythological, half-mysterious text, carried by hypnotic backing vocals. “Birthday Girl,” featuring Kuntessa, releases an ironic and joyful riot-grrrl spirit, an uninhibited celebration of feminine liberation. Finally, “Boy,” a small post-punk case study, closes the EP with a simple, sensitive truth.



The three musicians propel and relay one another in this breathless race. Morgane Poulain drives the drums with a dynamic that is both subtle and narrative, airy yet staccato. Cécile Aurégan, architect of multiple synths, builds powerful sonic landscapes, layer after layer. Klara Coudrais, the storyteller, elevates her texts with a rich and multifaceted vocal palette, giving life to all their characters, both mythical and ordinary. The band’s writing, between darkness and light, proclaims a visceral poetry, exploring the seasons of the soul with authenticity and strength.

The second chapter after “neverlost”, “closer” blends samplebased production with classic songwriting – like a sonic mosaic of warmth and groove. Lyrically “hippiesque,” Sepalot explores natural beauty, unity, equality, and self-determination. Guest features shine: Blu delivers sharp lyricism, and Illa J surprises
with soulful vocals on “My Own Way.” For fans of The Avalanches, Caribou, and Madlib – Closer is lush, human, and unforgettable.

Sepalot is one of those rare artists whose sonic palette refuses to be boxed in. His music exists in the fertile space between multi-layered sophistication and playful unpredictability – a quality rooted in his eclectic upbringing. From skate-punk beginnings to soul all-nighters, from obsessive vinyl digging to
deep immersion in hip-hop’s golden era, Sepalot has carried the art of sampling like a badge of honor. His beats are mosaics – meticulously pieced together fragments of sound forming an intricate whole. Beyond the studio, he’s explored these influences as DJ, producer, and live performer, leading the
Sepalot Quartet across Europe’s jazz festivals, and more recently with his experimental band Tikhet alongside Angela Aux

With “closer”, the upcoming second chapter following his 2023 album “neverlost”, Sepalot distills his broad musical world into a sample-based yet song-driven statement. The production feels warm and tactile – think needle-on-vinyl crackle meeting modern songwriting clarity. Lyrically, it’s “hippiesque” in the best
way: themes of natural beauty, unity, democratic awareness, equality, and spiritual introspection weave through the tracklist.

The guest list is just as inspired: legendary wordsmith Blu delivers razor-sharp verses, while Illa J – brother of the late J Dilla – steps away from his signature rap to surprise with soulful vocals on “My Own Way.” Together, they amplify the album’s humanist core, balancing groove-heavy production with
lyrical depth.

Fans of artists like The Avalanches, Caribou, DJ Shadow, or Madlib will find plenty to love here, but Closer carries its own unique fingerprint – a testament to Sepalot’s ability to merge hip-hop grit with songwriting grace. If “Neverlost” was a map, “Closer” is the destination: lush, thoughtful, and deeply human.
Highly recommended for anyone ready to hold hands, open their mind, and let the beat guide them.

Another DINTE tape curated by cult WFMU show and blogger Bodega Pop; Gary Sullivan's long-running project rooted in a passion for digging for music in bodegas and cell-phone stores across NYC's boroughs. This edition focuses in on late 1990s and early 00s hip-hop & rnb from across Southeastern Asia.

"While on a work trip to Chicago in the mid-2000s, I was craving a bowl of pho. A bit of sleuthing led me to hop on the red line "L" up to Argyle Street, ground zero of Chicago's Little Saigon. In the 1960s, Chicago restaurateur Jimmy Wong invested in property on Argyle Street with a vision to build the city's new Chinatown, a kind of mall with pagodas, trees, and reflecting pools. In 1971, the Hip Sing Association, a labor/criminal organization, established itself in the area, and along with Wong, they bought up 80% of the buildings on a three-block stretch of the street. Wong reportedly broke both hips in an accident, leaving his dream to wither; in 1979, Charlie Soo of the Asian American Small Business Association brought it back to life.

Soo expanded the area into a vibrant mix of Chinese, Vietnamese, and other Southeast Asian businesses, pushing for renovations, including an Argyle station facelift and the Taste of Argyle festival. At the time I exited the station and crossed the street to get a better look at a shop with a poster for A Vertical Ray of the Sun in the window, the area was home to some 37,000 Vietnamese residents.

Opening the door, I was gobsmacked by a cavernous Southeast Asian media store, bigger than any I'd been to in Dallas, Montreal, New York, or Seattle. I spent some time at the bins, pulling out collections by some of my then-favorite singers — Giao Linh, Khánh Ly, Phương Dung — before approaching the register to ask the young woman behind the counter if the they carried any Vietnamese rap. It was a longshot, I knew, but if such a thing existed on physical media and anyone carried it, it would be this place.

'Have you heard Vietnamese rap?' she replied, her tone of voice and facial expression betraying a comically exaggerated level of distaste. I admitted my ignorance but assured her that I had long cultivated a high threshold for cheesy pop music of all kinds and genuinely tended to like hip hop from around the world.

She rolled her eyes and pointed to an area I had missed. I walked toward a far corner of the store and knelt over a small box on the floor sparsely populated with CDs, VCDs, and cassettes. I pulled out half a dozen Vietnamese hip hop compilations and a strange-looking CD with a cavalcade of odd typefaces in a queasy multitude of colors: THAILAND RAP HIT, it boasted, with 泰國 "燒香" 勁歌金曲 below it. The information on the back provided an address in Kuala Lumpur and the titles in Thai and English translation. The first track included three simplified Chinese characters after the English-language version of the title, "The Chinese Association": 自己人.

WTF was going on here? Walking back to the register, I waved the CD, asking "What's up with this one?" She gave me a look. I placed it on the counter so she could bask in the cover's full glory. She shrugged. "I'm guessing it's Thai rap?" She looked disappointed in me when I said I'd take it.

It turned out to be a Malaysian pressing of half-Chinese Thai hip hop artist Joey Boy's third album, Fun Fun Fun from 1996, and it completely changed my sense what the genre could sound like. The rapper's self-assured, effortless, silly-but-cool rapid-fire delivery weaved in and out of the most bizarre, antic beats I'd ever heard. The six Vietnamese hip hop CDs were a mixed bag, mostly "serious" sounding mimicry of US rapping over predictable production, but the highs were very high. When I got home and listened to it all, I made a point to find as much hip hop from this part of the world as I could.

The tracks collected here provide a limited but potent reflection of the two-decade ascendency
and ultimate world-takeover of hip hop, as it displaced rock and its endless variants for millions of listeners. This not a fair and balanced overview of regional production: I've only included tracks from Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Nor is this a biggest or most important artists collection; instead, I've tried to recapture the pure visceral thrill of that first time I heard Joey Boy, choosing bangers that sound like nothing else, from nowhere else."

—Gary Sullivan

Seeking out the inspirational intersection between free improvisation, rave and ancient mysticism, Plants Heal deliver an album of kaleidoscopic, organic beatdowns to Quindi.
Plants Heal is a collaborative project between Dan Nicholls on synths, Dave De Rose on drums and Lou Zon (aka Louise Boer) on visuals. The roots of the project are entwined with Dan and Lou's London-based event Free Movements, which began in 2018 to explore how instrumental music could merge with live electronics and DJ sets. Dave and Dan found themselves playing together frequently at the event and as part of Dave's free improv project Agile Experiments, with their accomplished track records as multi-instrumentalists reaching across many layers of music culture. The particular synergy of their partnership taps into the subliminal, surreal and transcendental soundscapes, but they're reliably anchored by instinctive rhythms and driven by a natural flow-state.
From the tentative steps of their first collaborations, Dan and Dave coalesced Plants Heal as a more pronounced project with Lou's live visuals, culminating in a first self-released album in 2021 and since organically fed and watered through continued performances across adventurous festivals and intimate club spaces. Every incremental step along the path of the project yielded new surprises and the deepening sense of a unique, powerful energy. The trio opted to pour this energy into two days of studio sessions at Sonic Playground Studios in Athens, maintaining their unplanned approach and letting the music and visuals unfold in the moment. The end result is Forest Dwellers, a sincere document of truly free music that uses the rhythmic structure of dance and trance music as a springboard into heightened consciousness.
Throughout the album you can hear hints of the familiar - dub techno shimmers, trip hop boom-bap, kosmische momentum, snarling bass modulation, new age ambience and even the odd sizzle of disco. But none of these references are explicit, and they weave in and out of less placeable expressions deeply bedded into Dan and Dave's sonic practices. The end result is a swirling tapestry of unspooling groove, wide open and agile enough to shift gears mid-flow - just as comfortable letting the propulsion melt away as locking into a four-to-the-floor throwdown. From the slippery syncopation of 'Avena Moon' to the angular bait-and-switch of 'Alien Hardware', 'Yarrow's starry-eyed reverie and the rolling, warm-hearted funk of 'Space Ballad', the Plants Heal sound world is expansive and equally enthusiastic for immediate musical motifs as much as wild abstraction.
Lou's visual practice is an intrinsic part of the project. During performances she improvises with analogue footage from her library run through video mixers and synthesisers, focused on medicinal plants such as yarrow, hawthorn, nettle and thistle. All those plants feature in processed form on the cover of the record, which was designed in collaboration with Lou's brother Arthur Boer. Meanwhile, Lou recorded additional footage in Athens during the recording sessions to feed into the continued cycle of the project's live evolution.
Forest Dwellers' meaning honours this cycle and its reflection of the eternal undulations of the natural world. It's also a sincere tribute to the spiritual importance and radical potential of the dancefloor, drawn from the freedom taught by jazz and dedicated to reclaiming lost ideas about community, agency, bodies and the enduring allure of the unknown.

Continuing his refraction of the rave continuum into pointedly dislocated, delicately bruising sound system meditations, Low End Activist returns to Peak Oil with a second instalment in his Airdrop series. This time around, he channels the ghosts of foundational tech-step and the quantum leaps of late-90s D&B to provide the inspirational fuel for his skeletal, astral constructions. A strong stylistic thread continues to weave through the LEA output from his earlier self-released EPs and Sneaker Social Club albums, where haunted atmospherics, blown out subs and snatches of breaks dart around each other in empty dancehalls, but the finer point of the sound design and synthesis makes very specific references to landmark moments in hardcore's evolution.

By weaving his own autobiography into the music, the Activist maintains a fundamental theme of his work to date. 'Colin's Golf', 'Smithy's Porsche,' 'Merv's Lazy Eye' and 'Brillo's Teeth' are all personal codes harking back to the formative Oxford rave scene. With the framework in place, he uses textures, timbres and studio tricks from scene-leading pioneers and local heroes of the era as ingredients in thoroughly modernist concoctions. None of the reference points are deployed as literal callbacks — they're waymarkers for the creative process and faint triggers bedded deep into Airdrop II's strange formations. Fleeting sonics might trigger latent memories for those who were there. For everyone else, Airdrop II is another step further along rave's eternally unspooling odyssey, guided by decades of precedents on a path into the future.

There are many reasons why summer always feels like the invincible season, and one certainly is its ability to sketch colorful pictures of life rife with options. Now Sebastian Mullaert and Layla Rehana are drawing one themselves. And they use solar paint for it.
Coming from completely different backgrounds - Sebastian, a sound explorer with a history of exploring musical textures and moving dancefloors while the work of vocalist Layla weaves intuitive healing and subconscious reprogramming - they were immediately ready to take creative chances as first improvised sessions already felt like everything is perfectly keeping up with their very own sensibilities.
The resulting LP for Bigamo offers a collection of patient and almost meditative tracks that feel as natural as breathing. Everything is interconnected. Glowing. Soothing. Like a memory, everything is now and then. It’s the equivalent of laying on your back and watching fair weather clouds as they gently transform and eventually disappear. It’s when you realize that love is all there is, is all you know of love. Although we’re slowly but steadily entering the annual phase of shorter and darker days, their sun clearly sets only to rise and shine again.

Cosmic Romance proudly presents "Amour Propre", the new album by Berlin-based multinational band Stella & The Longos and 5 release on the label.

Following the acclaimed 2022 release "Détends-Toi", the first electrifying collaboration between lead singer Stella Zekri and producer Ed Longo, "Amour Propre" crowns two years of relentless touring, growth, and evolution. On the road, the duo forged a powerful live ensemble of Berlin’s finest musicians. That synergy now explodes onto record, expanding Stella & The Longos’ sound into something more organic, daring, and deeply alive.

On "Amour Propre", Stella’s sultry, magnetic voice weaves through lush layers of live drums and percussion, funky guitar riffs, shimmering keyboards, intricate brass lines, and the unmistakable hi-fi production flair of Ed Longo. The rhythms oscillate in a melting pot of musical styles, where Afro-Caribbean influences overlap with vintage boogie beats and quelching synths flirt with smoky Parisian midnight moods. Stella’s voice remains the heart of it all, sensual, husky, and brimming with raw emotion. Her lyrics explore love, longing, and reflection, while also capturing moments of dancefloor euphoria and universal connection.
With The Longos as her powerhouse backing band, every track radiates the energy of a live performance: intimate, enchanting, and unforgettable.

Some records are answers to questions no one asked out loud. With Where is Acid Eric, Cornelius Doctor & Tushen Raï deliver a psychedelic missive from a parallel timeline — a time-traveling tribute to Goa’s golden age, filtered through their unmistakable signature.

Returning to their home base, Hard Fist, the duo steps into new territory with this release, and yet, it feels like they’ve been heading here all along. This isn’t a retro-fetishist trip, nor a copy-paste homage. It’s a reimagination of a sound, a space, and most of all, a spirit.

The EP is rooted in the mythic nights of late-80s and early-90s Disco Valley, where British acid house collided with Indian hedonism, where freedom wasn’t a pose but a necessity, and where dancefloors became temporary utopias. But in the hands of Cornelius Doctor & Tushen Raï, this past gets warped, stretched and reanimated with 2025’s tools and sensitivities.

Across three extended tracks, the duo summons a sound that’s dense yet breathable, tribal yet precise, nostalgic yet futuristic.

They weave Goa’s swirling trance lines with broken rhythms, analog squelches, and post-industrial textures. The acid lines are sharp, but never cliché — more mantra than gimmick. Voices float in and out like half-remembered chants. Basslines slide, hypnotize, and then vanish in a cloud of smoke. It’s not a flashback. It’s a vision.

The title, Where is Acid Eric, feels like a lost broadcast — part question, part invocation. Eric is a symbol. IS Eric a ghost ? The true legend of a forgotten raver on a dusty Anjuna morning. What matters is the search. The longing. The dance.

Hard Fist, true to its form, continues to blur the lines between ritual and rave, tradition and invention. And with this record, Cornelius Doctor & Tushen Raï don’t just revive a genre — they reconnect with an ideal: dance music as exploration, as transcendence, as resistance.

One foot in the dust, one foot in the cosmos. The answer isn’t important. The trip is.

Dive into our latest release, a tribute to the vibrant spirit of Guadeloupean music. This track, born from the improvisational magic of the '70s, weaves together the legacies of the Latour brothers and the soulful essence of jazz. With a rich history of collaboration and creativity, we honor the past while
breathing new life into cherished melodies. Experience the rhythm, feel the memories, and let the good vibes flow.
Play it loud!

Operating on the fringes of pure improv, organised chaos, minimal composition, lo-fi electronics and Italian spaghetti westerns, wide-eyed and with a healthy dose of DIY aesthetics lies the world of Jaan. It’s a poetic & cosmic universe, exploring “discreet music” whilst wandering on the edges of the Cat People soundtrack & Brian Eno’s more experimental output, in which you might yourself find floating, wandering or in the middle of a market place.

Jaan is a collective of one, a deliberately anonymous activistic unit with strong ties to the international art scene. Purposefully bypassing the know-it-all of the the internet & embracing the bygone mystery of dusty old archives and deep-dive searching, remarkably little is known about this project. Jaan is lead by veteran experimental sonic alchemist Jaan; they operate between Greenland, the Middle East and Europe, with frequent associates Lisqa, Mashid & Schneorr N. acting as local hubs for collaboration and exploration.

The purpose of this wilful obscurity: full focus on the actual music, whether live events or on recordings. Which brings us to Baghali, their first for World of Echo. It’s a deeply personal album, much like slowly browsing old family albums filled with vaguely remembered tales, some still very much present, some faded, leaving but a ghost-like reflection of what once was. Baghali was compiled over the course of a year on the road, trapped in snow storms, waiting for cancelled flights and stuck rides. It’s made up of snippets of diary, quick recordings on road sides, abandoned buildings, garden ruins, vast desert and focussed studio sessions, following a collage-like aesthetic and steeped in an exploration of non-lineair storytelling. There’s broken memories, a sense of displacement and an occasional yearning for what can’t be again, clouded in fever and unrest, but there is also hope, wonderment and bright colours seeping through the cracks in the wall. Jaan weaves home-made instruments, old tape loops, broken synths, beat-up reeds, dusty beat boxes and the occasional doom guitar squall into a tapestry of fractured sound, with tracks following their own inherent logic rather than following formats. Sounds crash in and out, field recordings placing the listener firmly in an environment then throwing several perspectives at once onto them, with individual elements - a wandering clarinet, a lone mandoline, a beat out of place yet perfectly in place - slowly walking in and out & doing their thing.

The whole album is alive, breathes, takes a wrong turn, gets lost, somehow finds its way again - effortless and with a unique sense of space and flow.

Baghali is released digitally and on vinyl in an edition of 300 on 3rd October 2025.

Bringing together the elder statesman of the Zulu guitar Madala Kunene and internationally acclaimed Sibusile Xaba, kwaNTU pulls two generations of South African guitar mastery into a single point of focus. Under-represented on recordings outside of South Africa, Madala Kunene (b. 1951), the ‘King of the Zulu Guitar’, is revered as the greatest living master of the Zulu guitar tradition. Sibusile Xaba, whose collaboration with Mushroom Hour Half Hour reaches back to his first recording in 2017 (Open Letter To Adoniah/Unlearning), has garnered international acclaim for his unique voice and virtuoso guitar stylings, which bring together multiple South African guitar lineages in an original, spiritualised fusion. Collaborating with Mushroom Hour and New Soil for kwaNTU, the two players come together to weave a filigree sonic fabric which reaches down to the heartwood of Zulu guitar music but moves resolutely outward, building on the past to create a deeply rooted statement about present conditions and future travels. kwaNTU – which can be roughly translated ‘the place of the life-spirit’ – is also conclave of teacher and student, as Xaba has been taught by Kunene for the last decade. Meditative, rich and sonically sui generis, kwaNTU finds these two musicians linking up within the inimitable space of sound and spirit that they share through Kunene’s teaching.

The great masters of South African music have not all had equal exposure. For many years the generation of musicians who were exiled during apartheid took centre stage, as the regime made it very difficult for those at home to be heard. More recently, a new cohort of important voices, especially in jazz, has broken through to international consciousness. But for the generation of musicians in between – those who shone like beacons in the most difficult final years of apartheid and immediately afterward – international recognition has been slow in coming.

Madala Kunene, ‘the King of the Zulu Guitar’, is among this number. A revered figure for current generations of South African musicians, Kunene began his recording career in 1990, at the bitter end of apartheid, with a now classic self-titled LP for David Marks’ storied Third Ear imprint. Born in 1951 in Cato Manor, near Durban, he had determined to be a musician from early childhood, and by the time he first entered a recording studio he had already had a long career as a popular performer. His virtuoso absorption and transformation of the venerable Zulu maskanda guitar tradition and his richly spiritualised approach to music immediately marked him out as someone special, and in the years that followed, Kunene cemented his position as one of South Africa’s musical elders. He is without doubt the grand master of the Zulu guitar tradition, but his sound and sensibility ranges far beyond it into varied sonic terrain, and he has collaborated with a wide range of musicians both at home and abroad. Now in his mid-seventies, he remains a shining light for those that are making music in contemporary South Africa.

‘He is really an amazing person,’ says the guitarist Sibusile Xaba, who has been mentored by Kunene for over a decade, and now invites a collaboration with him on kwaNTU. ‘As a mentor, he's really powerful in showing us the way. For us to have this opportunity to make music together and have a project together is really a blessing to me.’

Xaba himself grew up in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal, where his mother had been in a band and his father sang in a church choir, and from early childhood Xaba played homemade tin guitars. He only later realised that music was his calling. ‘I just loved music. I was fortunate. My parents loved music. And when it was time for me to leave home and go to study outside Newcastle, I knew that music was what I wanted to do. There was no second option. It was just music.’ Moving to Pretoria to study music formally, Xaba committed himself to his craft, developing a unique style that draws on both US jazz masters such as Wes Montgomery and Jim Hall, and the rich and varied heritage of the South African guitar, from inspirational jazz players such as Allen Kwela and Enoch Mthalane, to the music of the Malombo groups and Dr. Philip Tabane (Xaba has previously collaborated with Dr. Tabane’s late son, Thabang), and the Zulu guitar tradition embodied by Kunene.

‘I was really in love with the jazz guitar, I really admired it, and I was digging a lot in that direction,’ says Xaba, recalling his first encounter with Kunene’s music, over a decade ago. ‘And then one day on my timeline, Kunene popped up, and I was like – “What's this sound?” I was so connected to it. It really touched me deep. I started checking out his records, and then I found out he's from the same region as I am, which is Zululand.’ After Kunene played a show at the Afrikan Freedom Station in Johannesburg, Xaba make contact with him, and visited him at home in Durban. They struck up a friendship, and Xaba became the elder’s student, as Kunene began to pass on his knowledge and his inimitable way of playing.

kwaNTU is a tribute to this relationship and the deep learning that has defined it. The album was recorded in Zululand in the town of Utrecht, at a cultural centre called Kwantu Village, which gives its name to the album. ‘It's such a broad word,’ Xaba says, ‘but the elders teach us that Ntu is basically an energy, almost chi, an energy, a force that all living beings have within them. It's a living energy, so kwaNTU is like, almost the place of this energy.’ The two men sequestered themselves for five days of jamming, improvising and planning, and then the session was recorded in one take over a single night, with Gontse Makhene joining on percussion and backing vocals and Fakazile on vocals. Other voices and overdubs were later added in the studio in Johannesburg.

The result is a rich and meditative recording that finds two generations in a deeply engaged dialogue. Teaching and passing on his knowledge, the elder Kunene has brought Xaba into a space of sound and knowledge that they now share; Xaba’s own practice of deep communion with nature and his dedication to his musical craft make him the perfect interlocutor for Kunene. The result is an album that foregrounds the two musicians engaged at the highest levels of responsive listening, sympathetic unity, and collaborative concentration. Bringing an elder statesman of South African music to an international listening audience for the first time in decades by pairing him with one of South Africa’s most important new voices, kwaNTU is a meeting of generations and a powerful demonstration of musical lineage and continuity.

‘Before music, there is sound,’ Xaba observes, speaking of Kunene’s unique approach to music. ‘And sound is like a common compartment…it's not restricted to particular people or particular geographic places, you know what I mean? It's sound. Everybody can hear it. So when he constructs that sound into music, I think everybody resonates with the energy behind his construction of sound into song. Here at home, we really love him for preserving our history through the guitar, through his stories as well the music, the songs that he writes. We really, really admire him.’

Tokyo producer Yusuke Iguchi aka RGL makes his long-form debut with Touzan, an album that expands on the soulful, groove-rich sound introduced on his inaugural EPs for Breaker Breaker.

Named after the Kawagoe Tōzan fabric woven by Iguchi’s mother and featured on the artwork, the record weaves together house, hip-hop and jazz-tinged textures into RGL’s most distinctive statement yet - a deeply crafted vision of modern Japanese house music.

WEorUS has long been synonymous with forward-thinking electronic music, and their upcoming vinyl release further cements their reputation for sonic innovation. Featuring four distinct tracks from Anushka, Dragosh, Fabrizio Siano and Kaitaro, this record presents a nuanced exploration of groove, minimalism, and jazz-infused experimentation.
The release opens with Anushka’s “LVOE” a track that radiates warmth and rhythmic fluidity. Built upon a foundation of deep grooves and hypnotic layers, it embraces organic textures that evolve subtly throughout the arrangement. Expect an inviting bassline, shimmering synth work, and a rhythmic interplay that beckons dance floors into motion.
Dragosh delivers “Lampone” a groovy minimal cut that balances intricate percussive elements with a refined sense of space. There’s an air of elegance in the way this track unfolds—tight drum programming meets delicate sound design, resulting in an immersive experience that feels both intimate and expansive. A staple for selectors who appreciate understated yet compelling compositions.
Fabrizio Siano’s “What is Jazz” a contemporary minimal jazz experiment that defies conventional genre boundaries. Jazz-inflected chords weave through delicate electronic structures, resulting in a fusion that feels both nostalgic and futurist. A celebration of improvisation and groove, this track adds a sophisticated touch to the vinyl.
Dark, introspective, yet strangely hypnotic, Kaitaro’s “Nightmare” introduces a deep minimal aesthetic that veers toward atmospheric intensity. Layers build with eerie precision, each element strategically placed to create an evolving soundscape that feels cinematic yet firmly rooted in club dynamics. This is minimal at its finest—moody, unpredictable, and meticulously crafted.

Mélange is a new community and online platform for young emerging artists based between Europe and Australasia.

The first of the label’s VA compilation album, just released,spans corners of electronic and world music and weavesbetween classical/ambient sounds and UKG, Jungle & Disco. It’s a commitment to multi-genre discographies and the need for more established career paths for young, gifted artists.

With early support on the vinyl from Four Tet and Haai, our goal is to help share and further establish European and Oceanic sounds with music lovers everywhere.

Across six tracks, a dream unfurls into sound – patterns emerging like scattered water droplets, a flowing dance of chance and texture. For Turmalin Dub, Tom of Terram (Hektisch Sprengen) teams up with Listensport. This EP flourishes in the fertile space between the organic and the synthetic, where textures breathe and rhythms pulse like living beings. It is shaped by five original creations and a ’90s-inspired French Dreamspell house remix by RAMZi, carrying the timeless spirit of the dancefloor. Turmalin Dub stands as a musical crystal, refracting light into deep colour and pulse; a fortress for the spirited and unconventional, an elegant tapestry of sound. The opening track weaves psychedelic hues with Balearic warmth, dubwise basslines, and whispers of slippery roots-reggae dub. Trance-inflected echoes flow together like water: from immersive ambient waves to intricate patterns and softly blurred dub techno. The release closes with Spirit, a track echoing the warmth and sway of trancehall, bridging introspective moments and the kinetic energy of a floor in motion.

Continuing the percussive-driven and emotive themes from his previous EPs, CAIN reaches beyond the boundaries of experimental electronic and Celtic music from the Scottish Highlands. "Lineage" is the result of a life-long goal to combine his passion and experience in these respective worlds. The album includes Brighde Chaimbeul on Scottish small pipes, James Mackenzie on flute and vocals by Katie Mackenzie.

The common thread that connects his discography is the intense rhythmic and melodic elements that convey his love of ‘infectious rhythm, ethereal beauty, or an otherworldly strangeness’. His productions have garnered support from DJs like Ben UFO, Gilles Peterson, Peggy Gou, Hunee, Haai, Erol Alkan, Ame, Oneman, and Midland, amongst others. Balancing rhythmic precision with profound harmonic depth, CAIN weaves evocative builders that ignite dancefloors at peak time and reveal intricate sonic tapestries in the intimate confines of headphones.

CAIN's musical background is rooted in traditional Scottish bagpipe music, which evolved through his competitive performances on an international level. His experience and knowledge enhanced CAIN’s understanding of how regional folk music reflects specific environments and cultures. Through the competition circuit he met Brìghde Chaimbeul, out on the scenic games fields of Uist, Glenfinnan and many others. He also competed against James Mackenzie, an amazing piper and flautist. James is a former member of the band Breabach. His wife, Katie Mackenzie is a superb Gaelic singer.

The recordings with James and Katie were done on the island of Bernera, off the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides and recordings with Brìghde were made in Edinburgh.

Mastered by Sam at Precise, Design by Alexander Horne, Pressed and printed at Record Industry

In a fusion of science and sound, Kalocain's debut vinyl release, "Genetic Memory," unfolds an eerie tale. "W.N.G." opens a portal to an ancient world, where forgotten tongues unveil cryptic secrets. "Genetic Memory" weaves ethereal connections between ancestral recollections and the present, warping the fabric of time. "Ivermectin" delves into the surreal realms of molecular melodies, as if sonic DNA deciphers sound's enigmas. Remixes from Normal 4, Patricia Kokett, and Jacques Satre reshape the auditory cosmos with a dash of the bizarre.

To amplify the weirdness, Evaldas Bubinas aka Hermandrowning, concocts mind-bending artwork, beckoning listeners into a realm where sound and art meld in uncanny harmony.

But that's not all! The digital copy unveils an additional original track, "Groove Drift," along with a wild array of remixes by Henry Greenleaf, Frankfurt Bass, and Dogpatrol.

"Genetic Memory" isn't just music; it's a transcendent odyssey blending the past, present, and the surreal future, with a digital twist that will leave you questioning the boundaries of sonic exploration.

‘LE DON DES LARMES’, and was conceived and recorded during the artist's pregnancy — a time of deep transformation. It is a poetic offering to her newborn child, where the cycle of the seasons becomes a metaphor for birth, vulnerability, and renewal.

Her sound draws from the lullabies of her Kabyle childhood and the gentle melancholy of Algerian chaabi, carrying their echoes into a world entirely her own. LÉO LA NUIT is a Franco-Algerian writer and composer who weaves music as one might weave dreams — with tenderness, intuition, and a reverence for nature.

Through field recordings, intimate textures, and delicate pop melodies, LÉO LA NUIT invites us into her inner landscape. Her music breathes closely to the skin — fragile yet luminous — a collage of fleeting moments, stitched together with care. It is a world both grounded and dreamlike, where emotion flows freely, like tears given as a gift

A new Memory Remains journey on Wax: A Four-Track Vinyl That Captivated Dancefloors

After months of exclusive testing across diverse club spaces and underground venues, this much-anticipated vinyl release is finally available for all. Four tracks, each carrying its energy and narrative, come together to form a singular listening experience—crafted for dance floors, yet timeless in their emotional depth.

A1: Unknown – Naha Naha

A vibrant, hypnotic opener that merges the ethereal with the rhythmic. The vocal, a fusion of Bambara influences, drifts over the playful pulse of bongo-driven percussion, while the sitar weaves an entrancing melody. The result? A high-spirited, kinetic groove that invites movement and joy.

A2: Unknown – Haciéndome Drogado

A deep, sun-kissed journey infused with the warmth of Spanish vocals and a breezy, immersive vibe. This track captures the essence of carefree summer nights, where music, movement, and emotion become one. A deep house gem with a magnetic pull.

B1: Unknown – Mom, You Make Everything Beautiful

No words are needed—only feeling—a heartfelt tribute to the transformative love of mothers, where every touch brings beauty. Melodic, evocative, and steeped in emotion, this track resonates deeply with the soul, making it a standout moment on the record.

B2: Unknown – Whispers

Closing the journey is an enchanting, introspective piece featuring a haunting female vocal and a spellbinding solo guitar. Drifting between melancholy and warmth, this deep house masterpiece leaves a lasting imprint, wrapping the record in an aura of mystery and elegance.

Now pressed on vinyl, this collection is ready to be discovered, shared, and cherished. The wait is over—the music is yours.

Music by Kirik

“Mi Pez Murió Anoche” is the first full-length album by Brayan Valenzuela, marking a definitive shift in his sound from the raw, hard-edged techno of his early work toward a more intimate, textured, and emotionally charged form of electronic music. Released on the Detroit Underground label, the album is a deeply personal sonic exploration, inspired by the mutable and emotional energy of Pisces, shaped by fractured rhythms, ethereal melodies, and a sensibility that blends the introspective with the physical.

Throughout the album, Brayan weaves in elements of jungle, breakbeat, and ambient, maintaining an underground aesthetic while embracing a freer, more narrative approach to composition. The intention is clear: to craft a sonic experience that flows from beginning to end, but also includes moments built for the club. “Rav,” for example, stands out with its driving rhythmic structure and raw energy, designed for the dancefloor, while tracks like “All I Need Is Peace” and “Nancy, She Become a Groupie” explore more contemplative and emotional territory.

“Mi Pez Murió Anoche” is a statement of identity. A work where the visceral meets the cerebral, where nostalgia intertwines with rhythm, and where personal reflection opens into collective experience. It’s an album that resists categorization, aimed at discerning listeners and DJs seeking depth without compromising impact. For anyone following the evolution of forward-thinking electronic music, this is a vital release.

FIRST-EVER VINYL RELEASE OF CULT 1980 CASSETTE-ONLY ALBUM BY EGYPTIAN SINGER NAGAT EL SAGHIRA, CURATED AND ANNOTATED BY DISCO ARABESQUO. INCLUDES PRODUCTION BY EGYPTIAN FUNK LEGEND HANY SHENOUDA

Following the highly-acclaimed "Sharayet El Disco" compilation, Wewantsounds is delighted to team up with Disco Arabesquo for the reissue of Nagat El Seghira's cult 1980 album "Eyoun El Alb"

Originally released only on cassette on the Egyptian label Soutelphan, the album has since become a sought-after classic on the Arabic groove scene and this is the first time it is released on vinyl. Consisting of four tracks, the album features two tracks produced by Hany Shenouda whose group Al Massrieen is a reference on the Arabic disco funk scene.

Remastered for vinyl by Colorsound Studio in Paris, the album features the original cassette artwork plus a two page colour insert featuring liner notes by Disco Arabesquo.

When it comes to Arabic Divas, Oum Kalthoum, Fairuz and Warda usually take the lead in the poll list. But in her native Egypt, singer Nagat Al Saghira comes very close to this triumvirate. Born in Cairo in 1938, Nagat began singing when she was still a child gaining her stage name "El-Saghira" ("the young one") at this occasion as she started giving concerts at the age of seven, pushed by her father, the famed calligrapher Muhamad Hosny (Nagat's half-sister is the renowned actress Soad Hosny).

Nagat quickly rose to fame in the late forties and became an essential part of classic period of Arabic music, interpreting songs by such titans as Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Baligh Hamdy and Kamal Al Taweel. She also sang the works of Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani whom she introduced to a mainstream audience. Nagat started singing shorter songs but then upgraded to longer ones, often performing/recording them live as it was the trend in the 60s and 70s.

One such song is "Eyoun El Alb" ("Eyes of the Heart") which makes up the whole of Side 1 of the original cassette. Written by Mohamed El Mougy and Abd al-Rahman al-Abdouni, Eyoun El Alb is a love song made up of several distinct sections enhancing Nagat's hypnotic singing, accompanied by a percussion-heavy, traditional Egyptian orchestra.

Side 2 is the "diggers" groovier side featuring two floaters,"Bahlam Ma'ak" ("I Dream with You") and "Ana Basha El Bahr" ("I Adore The Sea") produced by cult Egyptian musician and producer Hany Shenouda, whose albums with his group Al Massrieen are highly sought after on the Arabic funk and Disco scene. One Al Massrieen track features on the "Sharayet el Disco" set compiled by Disco Arabesquo who notes that "Hany Shenouda had made waves with his new musical style that weaved in western funk and disco sounds into Egyptian music"

Both tracks feature an infectious slow-burning groove and incorporate funk influences with fat bass and lines of synth and clavinet that adds a funky tone to Nagat's soft singing. The third track "Fakra" ("Do You Remember") brings the best of both world with a syncopated rhythm and arrangements that are slightly more traditional than the Shenouda-produced tracks.

Originally released in Egypt on Cassette in 1980 on the venerable Soutlephan label, the album is now making its vinyl debut on Wewantsounds annotated by Disco Arabesquo and remastered for vinyl by Colorsound Studio in Paris for the joy of Arabic funk and Global beats worldwide.

Iter, Calgolla's latest concept album, is an intense and layered sonic journey into the contradictions of the contemporary human condition.
With a musical language that combines alt-rock, post-rock, post-punk, spoken word and forays into performance art, the group constructs a complex work that defies any simple definition.
The record deals with themes such as migration, inner transformation, social alienation, ecological collapse and a sense of loss, layering lyrics and sounds into a coherent but fragmented narrative, like the time it tells.
The lyrics are taken and adapted from Viaticus, a graphic poem written by the singer together with visual artist Giacomo Della Maria, reshaped to adhere to tense, dense and visionary soundscapes.
The nine tracks of Iter thus form a journey that crosses different languages, styles and moods, like stages of an initiatory path that reflects the precariousness of modern life.
An album that refuses to offer answers, but invites immersion, surrender and transformation through listening. It is a meditative, multi-layered exploration of transformation, perception and resilience in the fragmented reality of modern life. With nine tracks and several languages, Iter (‘journey’ in Latin) traverses internal and geopolitical, sacred and profane landscapes, layering spoken words and sound collages into a deeply expressive experience. The guitars weave textures that are now ethereal and now abrasive, while the rhythm section builds a pulsating framework that supports and amplifies the evocative atmosphere of each piece. Iter does not merely recount the decay of our time, but attempts to bring it to life, immersing the listener in an emotional flow that blurs the boundaries between dream and nightmare, between meditation and chaos. An album that refuses to offer answers, but invites immersion, abandon and transformation through listening.

To mark a decade as one of Ibiza's most iconic musical sanctuaries, Hostal La Torre announces 'La Torre Ibiza Volumen Cinco', a new compilation curated by long-standing residents Pete Gooding and Mark Barrott. Released June 27 on CD and double vinyl, the 15-track collection captures the spirit of the venue that has come to define the golden-hour soundtrack ofthe island's west coast.

Since opening in 2015, La Torre has established itself as a bastion of Balearic culture-set high on the cliffs overlooking the sea, where music flows with the sun rather than the clock. The fifth volume in the celebrated La Torre series is a journey through Brazilian soul, ambient electronica, classic deep house, orchestral minimalism, and dusk-lit Detroit techno-an emotional arc designed to mirror the progression of an evening at the venue.

From timeless icons like Nina Simone, Mazzy Star, Talk Talk (with their Spirit of Eden closer "Wealth"), and Boards of Canada, to boundary-pushers like Auntie Flo, Eden Burns, and µ-Ziq (aka Mike Paradinas), Volumen Cinco weaves together deep-rooted classics and leftfield discoveries. Mark Barrott contributes a brand-new exclusive, 'When Devils Become Gods', while the compilation closes on a rare gem from Yellow Magic Orchestra's Yukihiro Takahashi. Also includedis Software's 'Present Voice', a quietly powerful tribute to the late José Padilla, the spiritual architect of Ibiza's sunset sound.

Volumen Cinco is more than just a listening experience-it's a tribute to La Torre's ethos: open-hearted, genre-fluid, rooted in place and time. Each track is carefully sequenced to evoke a feeling, a shift in light, or a shared memory beneath the fading sun.

Over the years, La Torre has welcomed some of the most influential names in Balearic and electronic music, from José Padilla, Alfredo, and Jon Sa Trinxa to DJ Harvey, David Holmes, Lovefingers, Heidi Lawden, Wolf Müller, Don Carlos, and Phil Mison. With each summer season and each release, the venue continues to build a musical legacy that has earned critical acclaim from Resident Advisor, Phonica Records, Juno, and Piccadilly Records, regularly featuring in their year-end lists.

As Test Pressing once wrote, "La Torre is not a party, it's a place of pilgrimage. It feels almost sacred." That spirit resonates deeply in this anniversary compilation-a celebration of music, community, and connection that spans a decade.

La Torre Ibiza Volumen Cinco is dedicated to the artists, friends, collaborators, and guests who've shaped its story so far-and to everyone who continues to gather, listen, and lose track of time as the sun slips beneath the horizon.

Welcome to Club Partenopea — a masterclass in understated elegance and deep, introspective grooves.
Side A: Sunset Sessions – The Soundtrack Toward Night
A1. “Smooth Rides”
An energetic yet fluid track, “Smooth Rides” blends warm analog synths with a swinging groove, creating an immersive listening experience. It invites the listener to drift into its layered soundscapes and lose themselves in the rhythm.
A2. “Hope Is the Refuge”
The ultimate soundtrack for relaxation and good vibes. This soft-textured piece weaves shimmering pads with subtle piano flourishes, while hushed, ethereal vocal samples float in and out—not as a lead, but as an ambient layer—adding to its dreamy, gently melancholic mood.
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Side B: Blending Into the Party-Time Pulse
B1. “Club Partenopea”
A deep house groove that shines with infectious piano riffs, acting like rhythmic exclamations. Joyous and unifying, it’s made for the dancefloor — pure, celebratory energy wrapped in elegance.
B2. “Timer Groove”
Your late-night companion. “Timer Groove” fuses the lush, immersive tones of deep house with a buoyant, uplifting bassline. It’s the perfect 1 AM tune—when the crowd gets intimate, the energy softens, and the music becomes a trusted guide through the night.

BUDDHA-BAR SUMMER SESSIONS - MONTE-CARLO BY RAVIN A MUSICAL ODYSSEY TO CELEBRATE SUMMER & THE 15TH ANNIVERSARY OF BUDDHA-BAR MONTE-CARLO Under the starry sky of the Riviera, lulled by the warm breeze, an invitation to travel rises. A beat, a melody... and the mind drifts away. Buddha-Bar, the temple of world music and sonic elegance, celebrates 15 years of magic in Monte-Carlo with an exceptional compilation: Buddha-Bar Summer Sessions Monte-Carlo by Ravin. Conceived as a musical odyssey, this double compilation weaves captivating atmospheres, blending ethereal lounge, organic electro, and world sounds, in an intimate dialogue between East and West, tradition and modernity. Each track (including more than a dozen unreleased tracks) has been carefully selected by Ravin, who creates a captivating and chic experience, a true invitation to dance and escape.

No Drama, the label helmed by Roy Rosenfeld, reflects his musical vision and personal philosophy, showcasing artists whom Roy respects not only as innovators of new sonic landscapes but also as individuals of character. The imprint proudly introduces its third release: a two-track offering by Khen.
Known for his groovy and melodic house sound, Khen has earned international recognition for his unique style.
The opening track, Back in the Days, introduces modulated deep vocals that stamp the composition with a signature sound. Intelligent, percussive, and hypnotically repetitive, the piece maintains a poised charm, deliberately breaking rhythmic expectations through carefully crafted and precisely timed shifts.
The second track, Usual Madness, stretches the emotional range, layering buoyant basslines with arpeggiated melodies and textured and evocative background elements that enrich the arrangement with thoughtful sonic choices. As the piece unfolds, sound effects and an evolving sense of joy coalesce into a meditative structure that seamlessly weaves musical elements with emotional nuance. After a brief moment of calm, the track builds into a commanding crescendo, delivering a final, cathartic release.
Together, these two works represent an essential addition to any discerning playlist.

Hologram Teen is the solo project (and anagram) of former Stereolab keyboardist Morgane Lhote. Her colourful playful songs are heavily influenced by disco and 80s French pop.

Initially from Paris, Morgane relocated to Los Angeles where she concentrated on her solo material. Captain Fluo is a disco-fuelled love letter to 1980s Paris and its underground nightlife, record store discoveries and the exhilaration of growing up as a gay teenager in a world of self-discovery.

Produced and mixed by Andrew Claristidge (Acid Washed) at Duca Sonora Studios in Brittany Captain Fluo is a vibrant fusion of propulsive beats, bouncy synths and funky basslines. Morgane’s signature keyboards weave through a constellation of guest vocalists including Sandra Zettpunkt, Maxwell Farrington, Eric D Clark and Alex Aikiu. From the euphoric pulse of ‘Lust Pill’ to the radio crooner nostalgia of ‘Fréquence Gaie’ each track is a portal to the dance floors and late-night airwaves of a bygone era.

Drawing inspiration from French pop icons like France Gall, Michel Berger and Louis Chedid alongside the sleek productions of Italo disco pioneers Kasso and the genre-defining touch of David Bowie, Nile Rogers, Quincy Jones and Depeche Mode, Captain Fluo is a heartfelt ride through an era when music was liberation.