Suche:mu

Ekoplekz returns with his fourth album for Planet Mu, in the shape of 10-tracker "Bioprodukt". The unique lo-fi, woozy sound of Bristol's Nick Edwards stays intact while he veers towards the nineties for inspiration: the bleep and bass sound of the north of England is one touchpoint and the acid gurgles of the 303 are another. While the murky lo-fi production levels and evocative melodies remain, they are now bolstered by a more muscular rhythmic chassis. Snappier kicks and snares mingle with dense layers of percussion and deep undulating sub-basslines adding a funkier edge, as typified by opening track "Elevation" where playful beats interlock with breezy keyboard flourishes to create something uncharacteristically upbeat. Similarly, the gentle, fluid motion of "Slipstream" and "Calypzoid" represent some of the most appealingly chilled grooves in the Ekoplekz canon to date. But the darker-edged material remains. "Expedition" has a pensive, percussion-heavy feel whilst "Acrid Acid" is a dirt-encrusted slow-mo techno meltdown. "Transcience" displays the Ekoplekz trademark dub-fx in full flight over a driving lo-end, before "Descent" leads down to the final section, where the beats fade out, replaced by rippling layers of spectral ferric ambience on the epic "Low-X Over", before finishing with the radiant looped stasis of "Denier Daze". The albums shifting, mperfect patterns and muted colours are visually mirrored in the beautifully realised sleeve by the Print Project.

Planet Mu are very excited to announce Jlin's long awaited second album Black Origami'. A percussion-led tour de force, it's a creation that seals her reputation as a unique producer with an exceptional ability to make riveting rhythmic music. Black Origami' is driven by a deep creative thirst which she describes as this driving feeling that I wanted to do something different, something that challenged me to my core. Black Origami for me, comes from letting go creatively, creating with no boundaries. The simple definition of origami is the art of folding and constructing paper into a beautiful, yet complex design. Composing music for me is like origami, only I'm replacing paper with sound. I chose to title the album "Black Origami" because like "Dark Energy" I still create from the beauty of darkness and blackness. The willingness to go into the hardest places within myself to create for me means that I can touch the Infinity.' Spirituality and movement are both at the core of Black Origami', inspired largely by her ongoing collaborations with Indian dancer/movement artist Avril Stormy Unger whom she met and collaborated with at her debut performance for the Unsound festival - 'There is a fine line between me entertaining a person and my spirituality. Avril, who collaborates with me by means of dance, feels the exact same way. Movement played a great role in Black Origami. The track "Carbon 7" is very inspired by the way Avril moves and dances. Our rhythms are so in sync at times it kind of scares us. When there is something I can't quite figure out when it comes to my production, it's like she senses it. Her response to me is always "You'll figure it out". Once I figure it out it's like time and space no longer exist.' Similar time shifting/folding/disrupting effects can be heard throughout the record - especially on Holy Child' an unlikely collaboration with minimalist legend William Basinski. She also collaborates again with Holly Herndon on 1%', while Halcyon Veil producer Fawkes' voice is on Calcination and Cape Town rapper Dope Saint Jude provides vocals for Never Created, Never Destroyed . Jlin will be touring extensively this year and is currently lining up appearances including Sonar festival. Later this year she will be collaborating in London with acclaimed UK choreographer Wayne McGregor who played her music recently on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs and described her music as quite rare and so exciting".

It's been five years since his acclaimed debut 'Severant' and time has proved it prescient, its futuristic trap influence is now ubiquitous. 'Slow Knife' seems to return to where 'Severant' left off, but with the intricate sound design of last year's haunting EP 'Assertion Of A Surrounding Presence' subsumed into the compositions, making them more exacting and beautifully crafted. Between albums Kuedo has been working as a sound designer and composer for hire and the application of intent and widescreen rigour that commercial work requires has definitely found its way into the new album. 'Slow Knife' has the subtlety, ambition and pacing of a brilliant soundtrack - a sense of an album of scenes, that easily lends itself to an impressionistic narrative. But, as with 'Severant', the title suggests relationship unease, with the slow knife being a metaphor for the building resentment in any close relationship. 'Slow Knife' is almost two albums, the first half, according to Kuedo, invokes the seduction of the city, taking the music of Michael Mann's 'Manhunter' as a cue, with the latter half being inspired by the bloody starscapes and voodoo wilderness of films such as 'Angel Heart', 'Night Of The Hunter' and more recently the 'True Detective' series. Both halves of the album are also in thrall to Mica Levi's inspiring 'Under The Skin' soundtrack, especially in the turbulence of the mid-section. The songs of the albums first half are synthetic and seductive, a gelatinous veil with shades of the pseudo-sophisticated trance of Enigma, of all things, underpinned with dusky unsettling shadows and atmosphere. 'In Your Sleep', perhaps surprisingly, features the vocals of Hayden Thorpe from Wild Beasts, who settles his dark, whispered vocals into the moonlit shadowy atmosphere. 'Floating Forest' is the first track to allow back some of Kuedo's experimentation with the Southern rap template, which he explored before it became commonplace, with echoed drum splashes and a sinister repetitive motif, ending with a haunting growl. The second half of the album enters wilderness territory with 'Approaching's slow descending notes, before 'Broken Fox - Black Hole' throws the record into the cathartic darkness, as undulating chords play hide and seek with riotous reeds and scratchy strings grown from challenging collaborations with cello player Koenraad Ecker (from Lumisokea). 'Breaking The Surface' shivers and coils, before metal and strings dominate while 'In Your Skin' feels like being lost in a vast hinterland before 'Warmer Light' introduces some memories of sunshine, with its plucked bassline and spiralling dub. 'Halogen Light' opens with the sound of crickets and a clear piano, cleansing the soul before 'Lathe' brings things down to earth with a short, yet powerful coda.

Hello listeners, blunt heads, fly ladies and prisoners..... This is the future of the music industry. Not the music, just the idea of the artists writing their own PR faffle. Next year I'll probably have to carry my own bags on tour too.......tragic. I have had a few years of working on other projects and shuffling about in loose trousers, but now I feel the time has come to release some more music for feet and floors. What I should say is that every time I tried to write techno/house/moonbeat in the last couple of years, everything came out as shitty tech-house.....The brain was just in an alternate mode, a mode for classical music and melody, but now it seems to have come back to techno so I here present some of its recent outpourings. It belched out Polka the first night I got back to Scotland, having left London. BabaYaga is named after a sinister-as-hell witch from a Russian story book we had as kids (check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Yaga) clearly designed to traumatise young minds. My traumatised mind made this tune, so it has come full circle. Mu is slower, for lazy, emotional dancers. I hope you will enjoy them and the excellent Sons of Tiki mix of Polka that accompanies them..... Send all hate mail to Vakant, I don't read it. Alex

repressed !

Repress

RAWAX proudly welcomes Gigi Galaxy aka Gary Martin to the family! We are more than happy that Gary liked the idea to present his past treasures back on vinyl from the beginning. The first release on our "Motor City Edition" is the "Lemuria EP" from 1994. Originally it came out on Gary's own legendary Teknotika label - enjoy the trip to lemuria!
W+P by Gary Martin 1994 in Detroit U.S.A.

Cochemea Gastelum is coming home to connect with his roots. After nearly 15 years of touring the world with Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings, the saxophonist offers a deeply personal album of jazz and indigenous-influenced rhythms. All My Relations¸ out February 22 on Daptone Records, is 10 tracks of mesmerizing and spiritually ascendant instrumentation. The first single 'All My Relations' is available now.

'All My Relations is a way for me to explore my roots through music. Some of it is a memory that is imagined from a time and place I've never been ('Sonora') or a musical impression of ritual ('Mitote'),' Cochemea says. 'I felt compelled to add the way I feel when I go to ceremony, when I feel connected with my ancestors, to the musical narrative.'

A California native with Yaqui and Mescalero Apache Indian ancestry, Cochemea grew up surrounded by music but without knowing much about his heritage. Both his parents were musicians, and they gave their son a heavy name meaning 'they were all killed asleep.' Cochemea has spent much of his diverse musical career - as a soloist, musical director, composer and ensemble player - exploring and iterating on roots music, and All My Relations is a capstone meditation on his own ancestry.

Originally conceived during Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings' final year of touring, Cochemea and Daptone's Gabe Roth cast a varied but familial set of New York musicians to bring All My Relations to life. A large portion of the album was created through improvisation and collective writing, where its 10 musicians created a melodic, percussive conversation. 'It was a beautiful experience - people would start playing and we'd work up these arrangements on the spot, then record it.'

'In a sense, this record is a prayer for unity, love and the recognition that we are all part of a web, and everything we do effects everything else,' Cochemea says. 'These days there's so many lines being drawn, I wanted to focus on what unites us.'

Cochemea has a long history of uniting multiple genres with his powerful polyrhythmic sensibilities. His roots in jazz, Latin, funk and rock led to multiple tours with funk-jazz organist Robert Walter's 20th Congress, and connected him with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings for their 2005 Naturally tour. Cochemea also played tenor sax with The Budos Band and Antibalas, and Baritone sax on the Amy Winehouse sessions, before becoming a full-time Dap-King in 2009.

In between marathon tours, Cochemea recorded a critically acclaimed solo album of soul, funk, and afro-Latin jazz, The Electric Sound of Johnny Arrow, all while doing session work for the likes of Mark Ronson, Rick Rubin and Quincy Jones. He's performed alongside Archie Shepp, Beck, David Byrne, Public Enemy and The Roots. Cochemea was also a featured soloist in the award-winning Broadway play Fela!, which led to historic performances in Lagos, Nigeria.

Killer trip into unknown South-East Asian Melayu & Pinoy Funk -
Rare Groove - Deep Soul - Disco & AOR!

In 2006 Salvador Breed and Stijn van Beek met while studying Sound Design and Music Technology at the Utrecht School of the Arts. Ever since then the pair have been beavering away behind an arsenal of blinking banks in Amsterdam. The musical fruit of this twelve year friendship Breek. A partnership that smears the boundaries of styles and sounds with festive flare. For their vinyl debut, a candy coloured cornucopia of elements are swirled and whirled. Braindance, electronica and neo-classical are festooned with dubby tones and underground grit in a unique sound of diverse textures and deep tones. Faster works, like the swooping joy of "Yokai", are countered by more contemplative "Ama." "Hang" is a whimsical dreamscape of squirming acid lines, crisp drums and angular notes that combine to produce a brilliantly bright piece. "Mu-Onna" and "Oiwa" are more abstract works that melt vocals with sweet strings before the final piano swells and ambient rains of "Burabura." A daring and dynamic vinyl debut from this eccentric duo with stunning artwork from Warren du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones (Massive Attack, Bjork en UNCLE).

Selected East African Recordings From The 1970s & '80s !

On this confusing ball of mud we call Earth, where things sometimes appear to be drifting apart, it's refreshing to see things coalesce. MindTrip is pleased to announce F Method, which sees label boss Pfirter present 4 brand new tracks - rich in variety and very firmly stamped with his hallmark. This is MindTrip.

2015 Vinyl reissue incl CD

A surprisingly unified fusion of classic psychedelic rock, Krautrock rhythms and proto-hip hop beats.

UK pals Andy Riley and Laurence Ritchie have been Drop Music mainstays since before the turn of the millennium. They put out a veritable ton of house music and this EP first dropped back in 2004, but has long been ripe for a reissue. 'Already' sits somewhere between tech, new jack swing and deep house and is assembled from chopped-up samples, jazzy stabs and a rigid mix of drums that all get held together with a warm, swinging groove. 'Amber Gambler' on the flip is another collage made from distinctive patches - gun shots, MJ vocals, crashing hits, wiggy synths, minimal percussion and bursts of synth strings. The result is a busy, characterful groove that never stops grabbing your attention.

Second chapter in the Alkaline series. Five electro cuts and one techno excursion, crafted by two artists with decades of dedication to electronic music.

On Side A, Raakel Bloody Raakel brings decades of discipline and formal training into a sharp, uncompromising sound. Active since the late 90s and rooted in both classical education and underground culture, his work reflects precision, intensity and structural control.

On Side B, Roi delivers three focused electro pieces forged through years of experimentation and dancefloor experience. His approach blends coherence, tension and forward motion, driven by a continuous commitment to evolving the language of electronic music.

Two trajectories. One alkaline framework. Built for those who understand the craft.

Cosmic Tribe · Research & Development in Sound.

DJ DIE SOON is the apocalyptic alter-ego Daisuke Imamura, whose performances of masked malice have been a fixture in the Berlin underground for the past decade. His latest record My Brothel The Wind takes inspiration from Sun Ra at his most grotesque, conjuring a distorted phantasmagoria with an eclectic crew of compatriots like Rully Shabara, Sara Persico, and longtime collaborator Kiki Hitomi. Film director Hiroo Tanaka’s visual contributions in the album art, poster, and music video complete the album’s narrative, telling a story not of villainy but of phantom caprice in a dying world.
My Brothel The Wind shows DJ DIE SOON as an alchemist of distortion, transmuting the club-forward beats of his 2020 debut Kappa Slap and the seething horrorscapes of DIEMAJIN, his 2022 collaboration with Tokyo vocalist MA. Imamura’s obsession with noise stems from his upbringing in Tokyo, where he grew up hearing the deafening roar of trains every day. “The buildings were really tall, so the sounds reflected so much and it was so loud that you couldn’t even have a conversation on the phone. Hearing this noise every minute when living in this flat, it became a normal thing,” he says. While most would content themselves with avoiding loudness, DJ DIE SOON seeks to unpack its visceral potential.
DJ DIE SOON’s subterranean productions form a monstrous gestalt with the eclectic contributions of his network of co-conspirators. “Unfinished” and “Directions” are pulsating chimeras that highlight animalistic vocalizations from Hitomi and Shabara; Italian MC Franco Franco’s verses snake underneath the noisy onslaught. The tectonic textures of “Dandelion Crackers” are courtesy of multi-instrumentalist Laure Boer’s handmade stone synth. Sara Persico’s mangled vocables hang as fleshy reminders of human fragility on “SAQ4IME”; in the Hiroo Tanaka-directed music video, the track’s sonic uncanniness is made cinematic, with an ambient dread that references Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1964 psychological thriller Woman in the Dunes.
While Sun Ra’s intergalactic Moog reached for the stars, DJ DIE SOON plunges into the depths of hell. “Everybody, Shake Your Body, We Chill At Party” feels like the sonic equivalent of a wax museum burning to the ground, rigid smiles melting into the fire. Rather than a vision of the future, My Brothel The Wind is a laugh-cry of despair in the face of a Hadean present. DJ DIE SOON confronts the world with a new hand-made mask, reborn in the ashes.

2026 Repress

Symmetry is proud to announce the arrival of Solid State Vol. 1 - a special vinyl release from Break. Due to popular demand, we’ve compiled four standout tracks, including some fan favourites that until now were only available digitally.

The EP brings together a serious collection: Release Me, which hit number 1 on Beatport; Overstayed, Symmetry’s highest selling tune on Bandcamp; alongside two more heavyweight cuts, All You Gotta Do and Zodiac.

Pressed and presented in physical form, Solid State Vol. 1 is both a collector’s piece and a must-have for DJs - and this time it’s something you can hold in your hands.

UK house mainstay Hodge releases his long-awaited second album, eight tracks of high-calibre house and club music with a focus firmly on the dance floor.

New Time is an ode to musical innovation, a captivating fusion of nu jazz, nu funk, and soul that captures the essence of the contemporary era. Mr. Thruout's skillful production combines with Sandro Lilliu's masterful guitar work, creating a unique sonic experience.
New Time is a work that redefines the concept of contemporaneity in the music scene, offering a unique and engaging experience for enthusiasts of nu jazz, nu funk, and soul. With the signature of Mr. Thruout and the collaboration of Sandro Lilliu, this vinyl is destined to become a modern classic.

Moving things a bit deeper AoW welcome Black Eyes for their fourth vinyl release. Alongside his own Lost Control 2097 label, Black Eyes has released records on esteemed labels such as Upstairs Asylum and Housewax contributing significantly to the underground house music scene in Berlin.
Mystic Aquazone EP features subtle smoky house grooves spread across 3 original tracks. Nico Lahs crafts a forward thinking remix to send things into the next dimension. Deeply authentic tunes for the dance floor and for the mind.

Out soon. EMBILTD013 - Daniele Casa/ Carmine - Frankfurt Affairs Vol 14 (12")

Both artists delivered here 4 functional minimal house cuts - not to be missed!

Across the cosmic boundaries via spiritual exploration and in the void between shimmer and shadow you will find the astral soundscapes of Birds Of Pandaemonium...

Emerging from Brooklyn's late-night music ecosystem, 'Hazy James' Armstrong and Tim Wagner met nearly 20 years ago through the city's DJ and club scene. Each with different but complementary musical backgrounds which included a mix of folk, guitar, DJing, synths, drum machines, country rock, disco, jazz, and rhythm-heavy club music (being just a few!), the duo began various musical endeavours together & "exploring the darkness while pursuing light" which eventually lead to the birth of Birds Of Pandaemonium.

It was only a matter of time that the stars aligned (via an introduction from Shane Watson of Causeway) to bring the Birds onto the musical radar at Sprechen which led to the release of 3 renowned E.Ps and ultimately, their debut album, Eudaemonia. Obscure covers including Idris Muhammed's Loft classic 'Could Heaven Ever Be Like This', the rave defining Born Slippy by Underworld and the post punk/new wave 'On Islands' by New Musik sit alongside original songs shaped by fresh reflections on life, grief, and love with elements of dream pop, shoe-gaze & gothic pop to give wistful and pulse-driven listening experience that is hazy, romantic, and deliberately genre-blurring.

A truly unique listening experience that delivers broad strokes of sunsetting psychedelia and bleary-eyed optimistic, astral dream-pop across all 8 tracks.

Is it balearic? Not really, it's pretty much a genre all on its own (answers on a postcard).

Some 15 years into the label's story, Japanese deep house minimalist Sasaki Hiroaki continues to offer up EPs rich in ultra-deep ambient chords, hushed and hypnotic beats, and the kind of beautiful musical touches that have always been a key part of Japanese deep house culture. Opener 'Geograph' sees him place echoing piano motifs and pulsing ambient electronics atop a sparse tech-house groove, while 'Projection' is a deliciously deep, dreamy and shuffling slab of ambient house excellence. Over on side B, 'Do It (repeat)' is a spaced-out chunk of minimalist dub techno goodness and title track 'The Last Bohemian' is a warming and meditative dancefloor drift.

Mark Funk and Danny Cruz's Cruise Music label continues to offer-up the best of its digital-first EPs via the popular Vinyl Jams sampler series. There's a real sun-splashed, dancing-on-the-terrace feel to much of the music contained on this 14th volume in the series. Mark Funk steps up first with the loopy, filter-rich disco-house release of 'Never Never', which rises and falls in all the right places in search of hands-aloft action, before Makito drops the vibraphone solo-laden deep house-meets-garage-house flex of 'Heavy Vibes' (think Masters at Work collaborating with Roy Ayers and you're close), Over on side B, Danny Cruz serves up 'Sugar', a tooled-up, house-style re-edit of a joyous disco gem, while Filth & Smell's 'Panama Sweet Spot' is an electric piano and sax-loop-fired slab of thickset house funkiness.

What began as a pandemic-era radio show on Openlab FM and Ralph Lawson's sonic escape hatch into distant electro worlds has since become a consistent home for the genre. Exit Planet Earth returns from hiatus with a new chapter, and Manchester's Jonny Strinati, aka Kalcagni, is the ideal artist to reopen the transmission. Already well-versed in the EPE universe through the radio show and releases on Cosmoba and Distrito 91, Strinati drops relentless machine beats, intricate synth programming that references all forms of electro from Kraftwerk to Drexciya, with dynamic bass and cinematic designs. It's an intergalactic mind trip as much as a dance floor workout and the production is next level. Welcome back!

Presenting the 3rd outing from the DMV crew, thank you for waiting patiently inline. On the A we have Busta Bus, flexing his lyrical flow all over Rick’s sweet Mary Jane. On the flip side, 90s underground stalwart “Red Hot Lover Tone” gives his approval to the Stars in Herbie’s eyes.

Our initial Prepared Piano & Percussion Duet Session was at Duval's in London on Friday, November 7, 2025.
It was raining . . . When we both started to work on the pieces - that are this album - (a couple weeks later,) from our Homes is London and Topanga, it was also raining .

For its second outing, Sonum invites Matteo Point, whose Acid People EP expands the label's catalogue with four cuts navigating the space between acid house, progressive textures and analogue-driven club music.

The title track, "Acid People," sets the tone with tightly wound 303 sequences, sparse drums and a hypnotic sense of momentum, landing somewhere between functional peak-time tool and late-night trip. "Fresh Morgen" follows with a rolling low end before gradually unfolding into darker, more melodic territory, recalling the subtle tension of late-'90s European underground records.

On the B-side, "Musika Progressiva" revisits progressive house without falling into nostalgia, reshaping familiar motifs through a contemporary lens while maintaining its analogue warmth. Closing cut "Vvvaneggg" shifts towards Detroit-inspired rhythms and understated machine funk, offering a stripped-back groove built for patient selectors.

Across four tracks, Matteo Point delivers a collection that feels both immediate and enduring—club-focused without sacrificing character. With Acid People EP, Sonum continues to carve out its own space, championing records that draw equally from the past and the future of underground dance music.

Raw deep house pressure from Sascha Dive, four cuts blending soul, groove, and late-night mood, with Roland Clark blessing the mic. Limited green vinyl for those who still move to the real sound.

DJ Feedbacks :


Laurent Garnier : Cool tracks
Josh Wink (Ovum) : Liking 'Im Inspired' the best here.
C-Rock : Those Nights for me, nice NYC dub House touch!
Radio Slave (Rekids) : I've always been such a big fan of Sasha's productions and "There Is No Tomorrow" hits the spot.
Fleur Shore (Undergrowth / Cuttin' Headz) : im inspired, beautiful track
Reboot (Cecille / Cadenza) : schöne tracks ️
Satoshi Tomiie (Abstract Architecture) : Solid release!
Alinka (Twirl, Classic, Crosstown Rebels, Batty Bass) : Nice one
PBR Streetgang : Invocation and Im Inspired are great
D'Julz (Bass Culture) : those night is the one for me here
Damian Lazarus (Crosstown Rebels) : Thanks for sending. Xx
Ben Sims : Now downloading... will check asap!
Archie Hamilton (Microhertz / FUSE) : Nice thanks
Eddie Fowlkes (Detroit Wax, Rekids, Classic Music Company) : thanks
Tim Sweeney (Beats In Space) : Lovely
Doc Martin (Sublevel) : Sascha on a good one,with the voice of house music Roland Clark no less!!!
Terry Farley : THOSE NIGHTS WORKS FOR ME
Chloe Caillet (Smile Records) : love this!
Oliver $ (Classic Music Company / Play It Down) : Sooo gooood!
Ame (Innervisions) : thanks
Danny Tenaglia : Downloading for Danny Tenaglia, thanks!
Robert Owens (Trax / Musical Directions) : Cool tracks
Kai Alce (Real Soon) : Nice deep tracks from Sascha
Mark Farina : dig them.
Lea Lisa (Phonica Records / Folklor Club) : Really good definition of House
Alexkid (Rawax / FUSE / NG Trax) : Phonogramme (and Sascha Dive) on fire at the moment...
Harri (Sub Club) : lovely stuff, will play and support

Phonogramme presents Sascha Dive’s inaugural EP, “My Definition of House.” This 4-track gem features the legendary Mr. V and arrives in a limited-edition marbled vinyl format. Dive’s deep understanding of house music merges seamlessly with Mr. V’s soulful touch, resulting in a captivating blend of classic grooves and modern flair. From infectious rhythms to rich, soul-stirring soundscapes, each track takes listeners on a unique journey through the essence of house.

Introducing Relik.

A new sub-division from Earth Dog Records, reissuing overlooked gems from the North American underground

The ‘90s to early 2000s saw US dance music experience a uniquely innovative gold rush. Records from that period narrate a burgeoning rave-obsessed sub culture, experimenting with the psychedelic sounds of tech house and progressive, with further flirtations with trance, breaks and beyond.

Many of those era’s artefacts have been increasingly difficult to find, and even rarer to hear out in the contexts they were constructed for. Relik exists as a means to preserve the legacy of this formative era, honouring the artists and labels that helped shape an ethos and sound unique to North America, and pivotal to the Earth Dog vision, while exposing this music to a new generation of listeners.

Each reissue will be released with permission and in collaboration with the original artists.

R001: The Vortex Archives

Volume one shines a light on Gainesville’s legendary Vortex Records.
Founded in 1996 by Boyd Westerman and Kyle Hogan, lifelong underground innovators (with Boyd remaining the undisputed king of the Discogs comment section). Vortex was home to a catalog of sounds that helped define a unique tech house and progressive flavoured corner of the North American underground.

Vortex Archives compiles four of our favourite cuts from the label’s discography, that for our money showcases their unmistakable sound best; a seamless fusion of progressive house, tech house, trance and breaks.

Nearly three decades on, these tracks (and the label from where they came) are as timeless and prescient than ever. We’re honored to certify their legacy by bringing them back into circulation.

A huge thank you to Boyd for trusting us with this release and helping to bring a sample of the Vortex catalog back into the world.

Endless respect to all the OGs who archived their catalogues, continued to make incredible music and subsequently paved the way for future generations. We wouldn’t be here without you.

Crush is Delian League’s debut release on Causal Chain, presenting a tightly constructed yet
exploratory take on contemporary club music. The record recontextualizes a range of dance music traditions – electro, grime, UK bass, techno and dub – through a controlled, megamix-like approach that prioritizes flow and transformation over genre fidelity. Tracks shift between lopsided rhythms, club motifs and washed-out pads, creating a sense of constant motion and tension. Unified by themes of intimacy and unpredictability, Crush reflects an
outsider’s perspective on club music and gestures toward possibilities beyond current trends.

Musek welcomes Shkedul, a long-time friend of the family, alongside Invisible Euphoria, an emerging name from the underground scene.

On the A-side, with Enter the Void and Concentration, Shkedul shapes a tense, hypnotic, and futuristic sound. Tight rhythms, synthetic sequences, and constantly evolving details create two deep, cerebral tracks built around tension and the perception of the dancefloor.

On the flip side, with To Ride Shotgun and Rodeo Fanatics, Invisible Euphoria takes the record into more elastic, off-kilter, and unpredictable territory. Broken grooves, electro and breakbeat influences, processed vocals, and psychedelic atmospheres give the B-side a more playful and surreal character.

'Museum Of No Art is the pseudonym of the artist and musician Mona Steinwidder. The pieces on the album A Serpent Called Emit document a two-year engagement with the clarinet and other woodwind instruments. In the search for simplicity, one encounters complexity. But the Museum discovers connections between the poles and lets them circle around each other. Impurities have found their place in it and hard cuts are intended to underline the volatility of the moment, to highlight and admire imperfection.'

The first transmission from Pink Dolphin arrives on a double-sided 12” – two
sides of music following the warmth, movement and possibility of an endless
day.
Night Wind moves with the ease of a warm summer afternoon – light, fluid and
quietly uplifting. Rhythm and atmosphere flow together with an effortless sense
of motion, like a breeze arriving from somewhere just beyond the horizon.
There is a feeling of open space throughout: sunlight on water, windows open,
landscapes slowly passing by. Nothing feels hurried. The music simply finds its
own pace, suspended somewhere between movement and stillness.
As the music unfolds, familiar elements seem to drift in and out of focus,
leaving just enough unexplained. It feels less like a destination than a moment –
one of those stretches of summer when time loosens its grip and the day
seems capable of continuing indefinitely.
Night Wind is a small escape into that space.

The unconscious element to the conscious process.

The practice of dub techno and its tendrils is a fundamental for me, both aesthetically and from an engineering perspective.

I start every recording session with a dub inspired jam, the first piece I ever recorded in 1996 was an effort to recreate Phylyps Trak with only a Korg X3 and an Ibanez PUE5 (borrowed from Gary Howell). It was an awesome introduction to jamming, and the footing stones of noise, delay and saturation were explored with my foot hard on the enthusiasm pedal.

These practice jams are in some sense cathartic, the first step taken again & again, which helps me move forwards each session and additionally helps to 'warm the circuits' both of myself and the machines.

After realising the genius of Basic Channel is akin to the genius of peasant food, using every ingredient with nothing left to waste, (up to and including the oft maligned working noise of the machines themselves), this was a watershed moment for my own subjective progression. No longer tied to just emulation of something inspiring, but taking these learned tools into other areas of music helped to break free from a strong current of influence and also to progress into other areas with the new toolbox.

Dub:

The importance of the dub pioneers should never be understated, in modern music and my own practice. Yet with my initial inspiration being two german dudes issuing extreme techno variants with obscured label designs, who then signposted their listeners to their own inspirations (via their Wackies re-issues or nodded to on their Rhythm & Sound/Burial Mix sub-labels), meant that I started late and travelled backwards.

Learning to notice the live mixing of Mikey Dread or Lee Perry when the faders are bleeding through even when turned down, (echoed in BC's Quadrant Dub), or the brash send effects literally thrown into the mix also taught me that 'rough' mixing can inject a recording with life, uniqueness and the most right wrongness. Looking back Basic Channels very few elements helped me realise that the rules to be understood, are also the best ones to be broken.

Push the mixer into the red.

Amp that noise up from the tape delay cos it sounds sick.

Pseudo side-chain effects cos the kicks are way too loud and the mixer can't sum it nicely.

Spam the send knob into the delay units now, now and now.

Carelessness.

Noise:

Once I wrapped my head around the intrinsic 'noise' element that set those records apart, this became a torchlight into the alt noise movements which I was tentatively exploring at the time, and also is evidently a connection or thread into them.

Whether the Industrial/Post Punk UK scene (This Heat, TG, A Tent, F.E.) or the prolific output of the US Noise scene (Wolf Eyes, Live & Shave in LA, and subsequently following the lineage all the way back to Chrome's Alien Soundtracks), I had finally discovered a connection from techno to this 'free for all' corner of music.

This input from the Noise arena of sound is, in my experience, an all important step for a sonic artist, taking it's roots and extending out from Stockhausen/Pierre Henry and utilised/warped/mangled by thousands of adventurous pioneers ever since, I now see the line separating the high brow and the low brow is actually an artery carrying information from the head to the heart.

Vault is a selection of these jams that precede each of my solo recording sessions, for 30 years I've recorded hundreds of these 'workouts'. They are never intended as serious statements, just moments of naive enjoyment, yet most importantly they are time & space captured as practice.

The objective is always a warm up exercise, but sometimes those exercises turn a different corner, with a certain focus or direction dependent on what random samples are left in my machines from the previous session, instead of conscious choices, these unconscious elements can facilitate those 'positive mistakes' that make a piece of sound retain a different feel or colour and thus become special, or at least special to the creator.

I am quite conscious that the 'record everything' aspect of my ethos has been invaluable in cataloguing and saving these jams, while the attitude of carelessness during this process (after all, it's only a warm up jam) invites more enjoyment than seriousness ever could. Even if you don't feel the piece at the time, record it, because some years later it may well fit, or become relevant in a way you never intended.

-Miles

Barefoot Beats drop two highly infectious Brazilian power jams for all the vinyl collectors and lovers of International sounds out there.

Regular contributor to the imprint Bernardo Pinheiro teams up with Zaidan to expertly craft a timeless Reggae classic into a pure Brazilian good times anthem.

Over on the flip, Rio based producer Joutro Mundo combines superbly with Dicky Trisco to produce a more late night inspired number which is ready to fuel your Carnarave and set that dance floor on fire.

All delivered on a beautiful, LTD edition 10inch vinyl pressing.