quête:remo con

KITCHEN. LABEL is proud to present AGATE, the latest album by Japanese artist MEITEI, marking a deepening of the world he first shaped through his Kofū trilogy released between 2020 - 2023.

Named after the mineral agate, a stone formed through slow accumulation, pressure, and time, the album reflects MEITEI’s patient approach to sound. AGATE brings together extended and newly rearranged works from across the Kofū cycle alongside new compositions and passages, refining material developed through years of performance and sustained practice.

The album presents seven tracks:

HAŌ (Previously unreleased track)
SHIN-OIRAN (Remodeled from Oiran I, Kofū 2020)
SHIN-SADAYAKKO (Remodeled from Sadayakko, Kofū 2020)
SHIN-WAROSOKU (Remodeled from Wa-rōsoku, Kofū III 2023)
KYŪGEKI (Remodeled from Shinobi and Akira Kurosawa, Kofū II 2021)
SHIN-OIRAN II (Remodeled from Oiran II, Kofū 2020)
SHIN-EDOGAWARANPO (Remodeled from Edogawa Ranpo, Kofū III 2023)
Across these works, MEITEI expands the musical vocabulary first introduced in Kofū, a sound he once described as “lost Japanese mood.” While Kofū drew from fragments of folklore, theatre, ghost stories, and forgotten urban memory, it was never an act of historical reconstruction. Rather, it reflected a sensibility of the past observed from the present. With AGATE, this worldview is clarified as Shinpu, a process of discovery in which historical awareness becomes a foundation for contemporary creation rather than a constraint.

During five years of Kofū tours across Japan, Europe, and Asia, MEITEI performed this material in a wide range of spaces, from underground live houses and listening rooms to culturally significant sites. These environments influenced pacing, dynamics, and structure, shaping how the material evolved over time. AGATE is therefore not only a studio album, but the result of material refined through repeated performance.

If the Kofū albums were windows into forgotten eras, AGATE explores what lies beneath, sediment and strata formed through time and pressure. MEITEI’s approach to sound mirrors the nature of agate itself. Grains become texture. Texture becomes narrative. Voices drift through decaying layers of sound, while ancient instruments are used in non-traditional ways, forming distinctive percussive rhythms and melodies that appear and vanish without fixed resolution.

The album’s visual materials were developed under MEITEI’s direction through physical art-making processes. The cover artwork originates from a letterpress print created by Kamisoe, a Karakami atelier in Nishijin, Kyoto, using Kyo-karakami paper. The original artwork, produced through traditional woodblock techniques on handmade washi, was subsequently reproduced on print for the album edition. Kamisoe continues to reinterpret this historical Kyoto craft with a contemporary sensibility.

The title calligraphy was created by Bio Xie, whom MEITEI personally invited to participate in the project. During his performances abroad, MEITEI encountered in Taiwan a lingering atmosphere reminiscent of “Shitsunihon” — a sense of old Japanese memory that quietly endures beyond time. He was deeply drawn to Bio Xie’s distinctive use of Chinese characters, which resonated with this experience, and asked him to contribute to the visual expression of AGATE.

In parallel, MEITEI continues to reinterpret Japanese sensibility through his concept of “Shitsunihon,” presenting it as a contemporary musical language. The refined Kyoto motifs envisioned by Kamisoe and the distinctive calligraphic expression by Bio Xie intersect with MEITEI’s singular artistic direction, weaving together a newly articulated worldview.

The accompanying visual imagery, including the liner photographs, was created by photographer Hiroshi Okamoto, who was also responsible for the visual direction of MEITEI’s previous work, “Sen'nyū.” It draws from MEITEI’s lived experiences of winter seas, solitary cliffs, and breaking waves. These scenes symbolize the inner conflicts of the ten years he spent living in Hiroshima, and his confrontation with solitude and the sounds he creates.

AGATE will be released on 17 April 2025 via KITCHEN. LABEL on 180g vinyl, CD, and digital formats. The album is mastered by Kelly Hibbert, known for his work with Flying Lotus, Madlib, and J Dilla.

With AGATE, MEITEI returns to the material of Kofū with greater focus and discipline, continuing an ongoing process of working forward with inherited material.

Ever since the late 1950s bossa-nova revolution, Brazil’s influence on French music has been undeniable. Pierre Barouh, Georges Moustaki and a vast array of lesser known artists, all made the Musica Popular Brasileira (MPB) an axis of promotion at the service of a cool and metaphysical, modern and mixed Brazilian lifestyle. Some were seduced by the poetic languors of the bossa, some were looking for fun, and others just loved the American hybridization of jazz-bossa, jazz-samba.



What is bossa nova? One of its creators, Joao Gilberto said: "Its style, cadence, everything is samba. At the very start, we didn't call it bossa nova, we sang a little samba made up of a single note - Samba de uma nota so .... The discussion around the origins of bossa nova is therefore useless”. It is nevertheless useful to remember that these magnificent Brazilian songs, which the guitarist describes as samba, were shifted and balanced around improbable chords. "I like things that lean, the in-betweens that limp with grace," said Pierre Barrouh, quoting Jean Cocteau.



With emotion, arrangements for violin and supple guitar licks, bossa nova rapidly changed. A transformation that can be heard in the Tchic, tchic, French Bossa Nova 1963-1974 compilation, the result of a cultural reappropriation, which traveled through the United States and supplemented itself in France.

A musical revolution that has remained significant, bossa nova was born in Rio. From 1956 to 1961, Brazil lived through its golden years. In five years, the country had invented its modernist style. Elected president in 1956, Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira, an elegant man with a broad forehead, brandished a promising slogan: "Fifty years of progress in five years". He quickly got to work. Not worried about increasing debt, he launched the project for a new federal capital, Brasilia, designed by the communist architect Oscar Niemeyer. Volkswagen opened state-of-the-art factories and created the “fusquinha”, the Beetle. In Rio, the Vespa made its first appearance. The Arpoador Surf Club crew run into the “girl” from Ipanema, Helô Pinheiro - the tanned garota ("chick"), between a flower and mermaid, who at 17 walked by the Veloso bar, where the fiery author and composer, Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, were getting drunk on whiskey. From then on, bossa symbolized cool.

In 1958, Joao Gilberto recorded Chega de Saudade, which the directors of Philips denied, calling it "music for fagots". The marketing director, who believed in it, secretly pressed 3000 78-inch vinyls and distributed them at schools around Rio, creating a tidal wave.

American jazzmen then took over. In particular, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and guitarist Charlie Byrd. In November 1962, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs funded a "Bossa-Nova" concert at Carnegie Hall in New York, inviting the genre’s pioneers. Unprepared, the show soon turned to disaster. But the troupe was invited to the White House by Jackie Kennedy. The first lady loved "the new beat" and in particular Maria Ninguem, a song by Carlos Lyra, later covered by Brigitte Bardot.

In Brazil, the 1964 military coup quickly ended this euphoria. The destructive atmosphere that ensued pushed many Brazilian musicians to leave, if not to exile. Thus, Tom Jobim, Sergio Mendes and Joao Gilberto arrived to the United States. In New York, Joao Gilberto met saxophonist Stan Getz. At the time, he was married to the Bahianese Astrud Weinert Gilberto, who had a German father. She had never sung before, but she knew how to speak English. Getz therefore asked her to replace her husband on The Girl From Ipanema. The Getz/Gilberto record with Tom Jobim on piano, was released in March 1964. Phil Ramone, the "pope of pop" was in charge of sound.

Bossa nova arrived in Paris through the classic “guitar-voice” channel (Pierre Barouh, Baden Powell, Moustaki…) But France loved jazz and Paris had already welcomed its American contributors. All these good people were to pass through Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The cabaret l'Escale became the Mecca of Latin American sound where one could find Pierre Barrouh and his friends, such as the Camara Trio, samba-jazz aces, whose only record was published by the Saravah label. With a band strangely called Les Masques (a band that included Nicole Croisille and Pierre Vassiliu, among others), the Camara Trio recorded an interesting Brazilian Sound, including the track Il faut tenir which is present on this tasty compilation of rarities.

Other enlightened musicians can also be found on the compilation, such as Jean-Pierre Sabar (songwriter for Hardy, Auffray, Leforestier ...) and the French pop rock organist Balthazar. In 1975, Sabar recorded Aurinkoinen Musiikkimatka on a Finnish label, which featured the crazy Vai, Vai, included on this record. We are now following the footsteps of Brazilian electronic musicians such as Sergio Mendes, Eumir Deodato or Marcos Valle who created funk and disco sounds on their keyboards and synthesizers. A style that influenced Véronique Sanson when she wrote Jusqu’à la Tombée de la nuit in 1969 for Isabelle de Funès, the niece of Louis and a great friend of Michel Berger - Sanson did end up singing this track on her 1992 Sans Regret record.


The pinnacle of exoticism and travel, Sylvia Fels’ Corto Maltese includes bongos, sea mist and ocean sounds. The title was taken from Jacky Chalard’s concept album written in 1974, Je suis vivant, mais j’ai peur (I am alive, but I am scared), based on Gilbert Deflez’s science fiction novel.


However, bossa nova extended the scope of popularity. "In the 1970s, I was a fan of Sergio Mendes, Getz / Gilberto. I fell in love with this music that I knew because I had been an orchestral singer, " explained Isabelle Aubret, who in 1971 delivered a composite record of covers by the very funky Jorge Ben, Orfeu Negro, Tom Jobim, Vinicius de Morais and Jean Ferrat. "I recorded this album for Meys Records in Paris, far from Brazil, with wonderful musicians, François Raubert, Roland Vincent, Alain Goraguer...". The latter wrote the arrangements for Casa Forte, a very percussive title borrowed from Edu Lobo, one of the initiators of the bossa who spent time in California. "Jazz and bossa came together and produced very rhythmic music. I love singing, it allows me to dream, to have fun, to feel a high on stage, and these songs brought me joy, made me swing, my singing felt like a dance.”


The world tours of French singers and their desire for the tropics, often brought them to Rio with its hills, forests, caipirinhas and tanned bodies. There are surprises though, like this Iemenja (Iemenja is the goddess of the sea in the Afro-Brazilian candomblé religion). Not unlike the composer and musician Jean-Pierre Lang, based in Sao Paulo, Claire Chevalier taught Brazil to Brazil. In 1970, the singer and painter published a 45-inch vinyl, Mon mari et mes amants (My husband and my lovers), under the improbable pseudonym of Clarinha (little Claire). She was then living in Rio, with her husband, Joël Leibovitz, who founded a band called Azimuth, and who owned a record label specialized in "sambas enredos" songs for samba school parades.


For its B side, she asked Pierre Perret to come up with lyrics for a song composed by Carlos Imperial: "Oh goddess of the sea, o goddess Iemenja, I bring a white rose to adorn your long hair ..." . "Perret came to see us, and we had fun, remembers Joël Leibovitz. We wrote Lemenja for fun, we recorded it at the Havaí studio, behind the Central do Brasil the central station. Erlon Chaves, the arranger who worked with Elis Regina, joined us" adding his share of Afro-Brazilian percussions and funky brass to the mix.

There is a common misunderstanding in Franco-Brazilian history: that bossa, admittedly hedonistic, is perceived as funny, even though the poets who wrote the texts are often philosophizing on the human condition. Its French interpreters pull it towards a carnival inspired universe, far removed from its fundamental essence. Thus, Jean Constantin covered the famous Samba da minha terra, an ode to the art of samba written by the classic Bahian composer Dorival Caymmi, renaming it with the enticing title of Pas tant de tchi tchi pompon: "On your pier there is no tchi tchi / when you arch your back, you know everything is alright ”(lyrics by Gérard Calvi). This expedited bossa aims for the absurd, but retains a certain elegance.

Indeed, Jean Constantin was not an idiot, the rather large man had a huge mustache and liked fantasy, (Les pantoufles à papa, Le pacha, inspired by cha-cha-cha-cha, salsa and jazz) but he was also the lyricist of Mon manège à moi interpreted by Edith Piaf, the composer of Mon Truc en plume by Zizi Jeanmaire and the soundtrack of François Truffaut’s 400 Blows. Le Poulpe, published in 1970, from which this bossa is extract, was arranged by Jean-Claude Vannier, an accomplice of Serge Gainsbourg’s Melody Nelson. In short: "There is enough of samba / By looking at the parasol / Because my poor cabeza / Is going to die in the sun".

Even the American actress Marpessa Down, who was at the heart of the bossa nova revolution with her role as Euridyce in Marcel Camus’ film Orfeu Negro, winner of the 1959 Cannes Palme d'or, fed the clichée with Je voudrais parler au petit cuica - "Tell me how you manage to always make people want to dance / It's true, I must admit that I cannot resist your magic" - in consequence, once can hear the cuica, a little drum inherited from the Bantu.


But bossa nova had many angles. Societal, of course, pushing actresses who were symbols of women's liberation like Brigitte Bardot, Jeanne Moreau, or Sophia Loren to engage in the exercise of accelerated bossa. In February of 1963, Sophia Loren made a record in French in Rome, Je ne t'aime plus, featuring the song De jour en jour, a bossa written by two Italians, Armando Trovajoli and Tino Fornai, which was released a little later by Barclay. Bossa accompanied the 1960s, a decade of moral liberation. Ann Sorel, who interpreted La Poupée des favellas, caused a sensation with L’amour à plusieurs, a provocative song written by Frédéric Bottom and Jean-Claude Vannier. As for the actress Andrea Parisy, she displayed her bourgeois cheekiness in Marcel Carné's Les Tricheurs before interpreting Les mains qui font du bien. And Magalie Noël, the friend of Boris Vian, who sung Johnny fais-moi mal, was hired to sing Une énorme Samba, composed by Alain Goraguer (arranger to Gainsbourg, Bobby Lapointe and Jean Ferrat) with lyrics by Frédéric Botton.

But in the end, of what wood is bossa nova made of? The answer is given by Christianne Legrand, daughter of Raymond the conductor, and sister to Michel the composer: "With me, with jà" - jà means "immediately" in Portuguese. In 1972, the singer, an expert in vocal jazz and a member of the Double Six, published Le Brésil de Christianne Legrand. Two songs included on the Tchic Tchic compilation that demonstrate how bossa, jazz, funk, rock, etc. work like a swiss army knife: the music is used to denounce broken systems, or miracles, HLM et ciné roman, Cent mille poissons dans ton filet, two songs from the O Cafona soundtrack, a successful telenovela broadcast, at the time in black and white, on TV Globo. The first was adapted in French by the fighter and friend of the Legrand tribe, Agnès Varda. The second is content with a play on words, jostling them into a summer fun.



Véronique Mortaigne

In just five years, The Spy has gone from underground newcomer to one of the most talked-about names in the European electro and EBM dark electro scene. Early releases on Osáre Editions and Mechatronica quickly placed him on the radar of forward-thinking clubs and selectors across Europe. Now landing on Oráculo Records, he presents his most wave-driven and club-oriented material to date: pure, physical electro built for dark rooms and late hours. Driving basslines and sharp machine rhythms—infused with subtle, classic post-punk tension—define a sound that connects the dancefloor with the shadows, drawing clear parallels to artists like L.F.T, Credit 00 or Gesloten Cirkel. This is music made to move bodies without sacrificing attitude—raw, confrontational, and far removed from formulaic club clichés. Five years in, the message is clear: this is not hype, but momentum—an artist fully in command of a modern electro language built for the underground. Presented in ONE-OFF truly limited edition of 300 copies lacquered pressed on 180 gr. high quality solid BLACK vinyl. All tracks have been specially remastered and mastered for vinyl by Daniel Hallhuber at Young and Cold Studios (Germany).

On a remote gravel-covered spit of land on the east coast lie the abandoned buildings of a government facility for weapons testing and experiments with radar.
In the mid 1960s this site witnessed the construction of an over-the-horizon radar, a technological marvel bouncing signals off the ionosphere, built to covertly monitor the activities of other nations.
The reflectivity of the ionosphere is a function of frequency, time of day, time of year and of the solar cycle. In essence, a sympathy for the celestial was required to fully exploit this man made construction.
Plagued by noise that created false returns on the monitors, the intended performance was never achieved, and despite several investigations the system was shut down and eventually dismantled in the early 1970s.
The long dormant Cobra is now a nature reserve.

The process of making this mini-album “anaiis & Grupo Cosmo” was truly life-altering for me. It changed my approach to making music and really brought me back to the roots of what creation is about. I went to Salvador for a month-long artist residency in February 2020 and during that time, I not only fell in love with Brasil’s culture and music, but I also wrote “Toda Cor” with the wonderful Luedji Luna. A few years later, I reached out Biel who’d co-produced “Estrela Acesa” with Sessa to see if they’d be interested in re-developing “Toda Cor” with me. They were enthusiastic and we fully reproduced the record in December, remotely. The connection between us all was electric and it felt like there was a collective enthusiasm for creating more together so I flew out to Brasil in April 2023 to continue this exploration. The beauty behind this record really lies in the experience of making it. We all stayed together in Biel’s house in Ilhabela for a week with Cabral, who co-produced the record with us and plays bass. We would go to the beach, eat communally, share stories, be around the kids, but then spend most of the days creating and jamming together. Each day we would record our songs live to tape, not a computer in the room. By the end of the week we had this album. It was refreshing to make music in this way. The music and approach really held us in that moment and gave us a chance to create freely, in a big moment of transition in our lives in a way that truly embraces imperfection, spontaneity, just very human.

There’s no direct English translation for the word “hiraeth”. In the Welsh language, it describes a form of longing for an intangible something, somewhere or someone that no longer exists. Sofie Birch and Antonina Nowacka draw on the concept to guide their second collaborative album, a suite of vulnerable, open-hearted improvisations and reflections that attempt to grasp an image of the past that’s chimeric, dissolving almost as soon as it materializes. The duo’s process follows the same distant beacon; unlike Languoria, their critically acclaimed debut, Hiraeth is, at heart, an acoustic record, informed by in-person improvisations with voices and string instruments that gesture to an era before computers, AI and DAWs. It’s just as lush, but Hiraeth is warmer and more muted than its predecessor.
Nowacka and Birch conceived the album in the wake of a slew of collaborative live concerts, spurred on by serendipitous improvisations and an interest in paring down their setup. Unsound arranged a retreat in Sokołowsko, an idyllic village nestled in the verdant hills of Southern Poland, close to the Czech border. Sokołowsko surrounds a large ruined sanatorium that’s rumored to have inspired Thomas Mann’s 1924 novel The Magic Mountain, and has long been a magnet for artists. The two took the opportunity to rethink their approach completely, arriving with just a guitar, a zither and a portable Nagra reel-to-reel machine. Recording directly to tape, they sketched out ideas with just their voices and instruments, reflecting their surroundings without being distracted or mediated by modern technology.
“We wanted to get away from screens as much as possible,” says Birch, “to bring to the world something vulnerable and honest. Without advance preparation, every day we went out into the open air, finding places to sit, during sunset or the midday sun. We discovered new tunings on our instruments, picked up a melody, and started the machine, playing over
and over till we got a take.” In the autumn, they met again in a Copenhagen studio, sparingly and carefully layering old synths and organs to add more depth without muddying the mix.
Both Nowacka and Birch sing throughout, their voices threading the acoustic instruments and tangling with each other, almost becoming one. But it’s the environment of Sokołowsko, “the birds and the light, even the wind playing against the harps,” that’s woven into the music’s lining. Affected by time spent meditating and in nature, as well as the fact that Birch was pregnant whilst recording, the album feels alive and remarkably present. Even the sound quality of the tape machine gives Hiraeth a tactile, organic quality, as Nowacka puts it, “like being in a warm bath.”

They still have the raw recordings from Sokołowsko on old reels, physical souvenirs of their time spent making music in a “habitat for intuitive songs, a little ecosystem, alive and spirited.” The outmoded gear and remote setting helped the duo disengage from the modern world for a few moments and imagine an existence that’s been lost to time and nominal progress. With digital technology receding into the background, Nowacka and Birch had space to make “intuitive connections with frequencies and people,” as Birch explains. Hiraeth is a testament not to nostalgia, but to the power of kinship.

DJ Himitsu is a Tokyo-born, London-based producer and DJ, known for his understated approach and deep knowledge of Japanese vinyl and book culture. Following a debut EP of acid house on Australian imprint Lunatic Music in 2023, 'Exotic Animals' marks a new waypoint in Himitsu's artistic evolution.

On this debut full length, driving 303 basslines and kickdrums are traded in for obscure recordings and convoluted samples, which spiral and fuse to form shuffling, heady new compositions. Like shattered pottery reassembled into top-heavy sculptures with golden glue, 'Exotic Animals' shapes and juxtaposes opposing forms and fragments, with lolloping aplomb.

When not producing, DJ Himistu runs Caravan - a vintage Japanese record, ceramics and bookshop in London. It's with the same warmth, care and curiosity that he arranges his findings in the plunderous grotto of 'Exotic Animals'. In this way, stepping inside this work is like entering a remote trading post of instruments, memoirs and other sonic curios - as Himitsu stands patiently at the counter.

Recommended for fans of Jon Hassell, Giovanni Venosta, Discrepant.

Loud Ambient 2 picks up directly from where Loud Ambient left off. After picking the drum machines back up, we returned to the colourfield ideas that shaped the first record. Rothko remained a key reference, along- side a strong recommendation to spend time with the work of Josef Albers. We did exactly that, and it paid off.

Alongside the music, we created 50 new pieces of artwork for Loud Ambient 2. These became tools rather than decorations. Working this way felt open and rewarding, and brought a real sense of play back into the process. We already understood what a Loud Ambient track could be, so slipping back into that headspace felt natural. The tracks came together quickly, full of energy, movement and that familiar noodle quality.

The creative side landed easily this time. There is some- thing about working with colourfields that frees you up and pushes you further into abstraction. It removes hesitation and keeps the focus on instinct and response.

With the drum machines and synths loaded, we kept our heads down and made the kind of music we want to hear on a dance floor. Loud Ambient 2 is the result.

Baby T is a space away from her work as B.Traits in which Brianna Price can lean more into the junglist, drum ‘n’ bass and hardcore sounds which she loves so dearly. With BSHEE02, the second drop on Price’s own Banshee label, Baby T delivers a darkside masterclass of an EP. This record is a quartet of system blowers which doesn’t let up for a single second from start to finish.

Opener ‘Times Up’ is urgent from the off - the initial strains of this joint find sirens wailing in the monitors over a twitchy kick/drum/hats combo. From here on it’s distilled raver perfection, the drums taking us on a wild Wipeout-style ride as the subbiest of bass skulks at the bottom of the mix. Imagine a more technoid take on the classic breakbeat freerides of Skanna and you’re not far off the ‘Times Up’ sound.

A remix of ‘Times Up’ from man like Aloka leans with devilish glee into the murky underworld that lurks beneath Baby T’s original. Aloka’s version is extremely eerie in a manner which makes you think of the darkest corners of a DMZ party. When things really kick into gear, driven by an irresistible kick dembow, the effect is hypnotic - think the dubwise junglism of the UVB-76 cohort.

BSHEE02’s B-side kicks off with ‘Coercive Control’. This is a cut which delivers on its title in spades, putting the listener in a trance with an interplay of low-slung bass, whirligig synth tones and more of those perfectly executed broken beats. The acid starts to kick in around the minute mark, and it turns out to herald a total earworm of a lead melody.

There’s plenty of dimly-lit malevolence to BHSEE02 closer ‘Dense Dickwood’s grinding atmospherics and gurgling bass throbs. However, Baby T opting for a half-time drum break here gives the cut a vibe not dissimilar to the weightiest jams of classic Massive Attack - that is, until an absolutely remorseless switch-up occurs halfway through, delivering volley after volley of intense drum hits.

Baby T is a space away from her work as B.Traits in which Brianna Price can lean more into the junglist, drum ‘n’ bass and hardcore sounds which she loves so dearly. With BSHEE02, the second drop on Price’s own Banshee label, Baby T delivers a darkside masterclass of an EP. This record is a quartet of system blowers which doesn’t let up for a single second from start to finish.

Opener ‘Times Up’ is urgent from the off - the initial strains of this joint find sirens wailing in the monitors over a twitchy kick/drum/hats combo. From here on it’s distilled raver perfection, the drums taking us on a wild Wipeout-style ride as the subbiest of bass skulks at the bottom of the mix. Imagine a more technoid take on the classic breakbeat freerides of Skanna and you’re not far off the ‘Times Up’ sound.

A remix of ‘Times Up’ from man like Aloka leans with devilish glee into the murky underworld that lurks beneath Baby T’s original. Aloka’s version is extremely eerie in a manner which makes you think of the darkest corners of a DMZ party. When things really kick into gear, driven by an irresistible kick dembow, the effect is hypnotic - think the dubwise junglism of the UVB-76 cohort.

BSHEE02’s B-side kicks off with ‘Coercive Control’. This is a cut which delivers on its title in spades, putting the listener in a trance with an interplay of low-slung bass, whirligig synth tones and more of those perfectly executed broken beats. The acid starts to kick in around the minute mark, and it turns out to herald a total earworm of a lead melody.

There’s plenty of dimly-lit malevolence to BHSEE02 closer ‘Dense Dickwood’s grinding atmospherics and gurgling bass throbs. However, Baby T opting for a half-time drum break here gives the cut a vibe not dissimilar to the weightiest jams of classic Massive Attack - that is, until an absolutely remorseless switch-up occurs halfway through, delivering volley after volley of intense drum hits.

Soda Stereo is a band that never made the same album twice. After the commercial success of Canción Animal, singer Gustavo Cerati went deeper into the art of sampling, electronic music, the Madchester scene from the UK, shoegaze and neo-psychedelia. This change in sound led to some confusion among fans, but also gathered a lot of praise for embracing modern genres. Up this day Dynamo is seen as an essential classic in the Soda Stereo catalogue and also a must have for 90s shoegaze fans.

Dynamo is available as a limited edition of 2000 individually numbered copies on transparent vinyl and includes an insert.

'Like the sharpshooting carnival contestant who knows that the winning practice isn’t to aim for the red star itself, but rather to shoot out a perimeter around the star and thus remove it, Old Saw have historically dealt with forms by tracing their boundaries rather than going for the target outright. If the first three records hinted at but never touched song-shaped forms, The Wringing Cloth makes at least glancing contact while retaining the layered haze and drawl that threads their sound together.
'Contrary to the often-used ambient tag, Old Saw shows up here in a markedly active and sculpted form — manipulating, unwinding, and pivoting with a strange and warped precision. What has always been uncanny about this music is that it arrives in a state at once familiar and obscured, like a memory weighed down with sensory information but no identifying details to place it.
'The Wringing Cloth walks off further into that geographical dream without time or language until it’s just a speck of light.'

Double 12" release

The Story — From the Streets of Rome to the Male Productions Label
In the early 1990s, Rome lived in a kind of suspended moment. The city was still tied to its historic clubs, yet in the outskirts—inside abandoned warehouses, quarries along the coastline, and the wooded parks north of the capital—something new was beginning to stir. A nocturnal, constantly shifting movement fuelled by a hunger for freedom and a sonic curiosity that reached far beyond the mainstream.

Moving through this ferment was Francesco “Chicco” Furlotti. First an organizer of unconventional parties and underground nights, he soon became one of the driving forces behind Rome’s itinerant rave scene. Furlotti sensed that a wave of change was about to sweep across the city. It wasn’t just about parties: it was the rise of a culture, a new way of thinking about music, community, and belonging.

It was within those nights—later held with official permits, properly built sound systems, and an ever-growing crowd—that Furlotti recognized the existence of a distinctly Roman sound, and the need to capture it, preserve it, and give it tangible form.
So, in 1991, he decided to take a bolder step: to found an independent record label—small, determined, and far removed from the commercial logic that dominated at the time.
That was the birth of Male Productions.

Male was not a label like any other: it was a workshop, a gathering point, a creative hub where DJs, producers, friends, and wanderers converged. Within that environment, an artistic core took shape—Stefano Di Carlo, Leo Young, and Mauro Tannino, along with other collaborators orbiting around Furlotti. From their synergy emerged a project whose very name declared its mission:

The True Underground Sound of Rome.

The collective did not simply aim to release music; it sought to tell a story of Rome through sounds that defied categorization: house, techno, ambient, electronic mysticism, psychedelic visions… a unique blend, instantly recognizable, emotional, and experimental. The sessions unfolded using essential yet razor-sharp gear: Roland drum machines, analogue synthesizers, Akai samplers, stripped-down mixers. Few tools, endless imagination.
The first result of this work was the 12” Secret Doctrine, released in 1991 in an extremely limited run—around 500 promotional copies, according to accounts. The record captured something that until then had floated only in the air of Roman raves: enveloping atmospheres, deep rhythms, melodies built to make the mind travel far beyond the dancefloor. A sound that did not imitate what was happening in Detroit, London, or Berlin, but absorbed those influences and re-sculpted them with a distinctly Roman sensibility.
Yet, precisely because it was independent and detached from commercial circuits, Male’s output remained sparse: few EPs, few copies, irregular distribution. Over time, those records became rare artifacts—almost mythical objects within the Italian electronic scene. The legacy of Male Productions seemed destined to survive only in the memories of those early years, in the stories told after raves, and in the private archives of a handful of collectors.
Many years later, thanks to the almost accidental rediscovery of a few original copies of the first two releases issued by Male Productions, it became possible to undertake a meticulous process of recovery and restoration of the audio etched into those grooves, with the aim of preserving as fully as possible the quality and character of that unrepeatable sound.

We are therefore able today to present — at last in a complete and faithful form — the first two mixes created for Male Productions, now released on a double vinyl that brings back into the present the exact moment when it all began: the nomadic nights of the raves, Furlotti’s vision, the creativity of Di Carlo, Young and Tannino, and the sonic identity of a Rome in the midst of transformation.

This is not merely a reissue.
It is a historical document.
A fragment of a culture that changed the city.
The authentic sound of the Roman underground, finally returned to the world.

"Heith and Tarawangsawelas met at the University of Traditional music in Bandung in 2017. Their collaboration has been evolving since then, both in person and remotely. Recording and arranging songs over a long period of time and across a vast geographical distance has lent their practice a distinct character. This distinctive distance allows the possibility to see things from different perspectives and creates music that hovers both in place and out of it. Here, in this music, we are both inside the Sundanese Land, and outside of it, both on the European continent and not. This record carries compositions from one side of the globe to the other, catching spirits and energies from different places, societies and rituals."

1/2 of seminal electronic act The Knife, Olof Dreijer will be releasing his debut album 'Loud Bloom' via dh2 this May following years of drip feeding solo music under various aliases and lending his production talents across the scene. The 14 track (double vinyl) album consists of equal parts dancefloor ready bangers (some of which have been previously released) and more still, ambient moments that highlight Olof's versatility as a producer as well as the sounds from around the globe that he takes inspiration from.


In a burst of colour and rhythm that cuts a distinctive path through modern club music, Olof Dreijer crystallises his solo work around a gleaming debut solo album, Loud Bloom, out 8 May via dh2.

Across the album, Dreijer toys with the tension between pure pleasure music and his tireless thirst for the new. You might hear the structure of a Chicago house beat or a classic drum machine hit, but at every turn these tropes are remoulded into dazzling new forms. Taking inspiration from Nigerian author Akwaeke Emezi and their ability to deliver bold, progressive themes and visionary sci-fi through the accessible lens of romantic fiction, Dreijer makes vividly unconventional dance music utterly instinctive and easy to love.

1/2 of seminal electronic act The Knife, Olof Dreijer will be releasing his debut album 'Loud Bloom' via dh2 this May following years of drip feeding solo music under various aliases and lending his production talents across the scene. The 14 track (double vinyl) album consists of equal parts dancefloor ready bangers (some of which have been previously released) and more still, ambient moments that highlight Olof's versatility as a producer as well as the sounds from around the globe that he takes inspiration from.


In a burst of colour and rhythm that cuts a distinctive path through modern club music, Olof Dreijer crystallises his solo work around a gleaming debut solo album, Loud Bloom, out 8 May via dh2.

Across the album, Dreijer toys with the tension between pure pleasure music and his tireless thirst for the new. You might hear the structure of a Chicago house beat or a classic drum machine hit, but at every turn these tropes are remoulded into dazzling new forms. Taking inspiration from Nigerian author Akwaeke Emezi and their ability to deliver bold, progressive themes and visionary sci-fi through the accessible lens of romantic fiction, Dreijer makes vividly unconventional dance music utterly instinctive and easy to love.

Ronnie Davis is another mighty Jamaican singer, whose talents have been greatly overlooked. His rootsy yet soulful voice have been in demand by many of Jamaica's producers, and have graced their catalogues over the decades, yet outside of the close reggae circles he has remained a closely guarded secret.

Born Ronnie Davis, in 1950 (Savannah La Mar, Jamaica). His singing career began in the 1960's and like many aspiring young singers, the Talent contests taking part around the Island, was his first introduction to the music scene. This led to him joining the vocal group, 'The Tenors'.  Who shortly after his arrival, released their debut 'The Whole World is a Stage'. This was the beginning of a run of Jamaican 7'' releases that did quite well in the domestic marketplace. But Ronnie had set his sights on a solo career,which came to fruition in the early 1970's, with two big hits for him in the guise of 'Won't You Come Home' and 'Stop Yu Loofing'. Running on through to the mid 1970's with such hits as 'Jah Jah Jehovah','Forget Me Now', 'On and On' and 'Babylon Falling'. Building up to the 1976 classic, 'It's Raining'.

Around this time Ronnie's path would cross with Keith Porter and with his childhood friend Roy Smith they would form one of Jamaica's foremost vocal groups 'The Itals'.  A group who would run until the 1990's and evolve into 'Ronnie Davis and Idren'. Ronnie's releases are very sort after among the reggae aficionados and any tune carrying his vocal talents rarely
disappoint. We have compiled some rare roots dubs to many of his finest cuts. Such gems as 'Chasing You', 'What You See is What You Get', his take on the timeless cut 'Tribal War', 'Tell You' and the a fore mentioned smash 'It's Raining'. A version of Gregory Issac's 'Love Overdue' is also present. Ronnie cut an album worth of material with Mr Issac's, testimony surely to Mr Davis's standing in the Reggae community.

Let’s hope that this release spreads the gospel according to Mr R. Davis, a little wider.  A wicked set by one of Jamaica's finest .....

Respect Jah Floyd.

A new release curated by Mystic Jungle, founder of Periodica Records, who - together with a small group of artists - has spent the past decade shaping a distinctive sound in his recording studio based in one of the most remote areas of Napoli.

This second release on the West Hill Music catalogue features the voice of American singer Roxana, alongside guitar contributions by Yugoslavian musician Igor Sekulović.

The A-side, "Can’t Make You Out", unfolds as a crepuscular track with a laid-back, exotic atmosphere, marked by subtle funk-rock influences. On the B-side, a stripped-down mutant-funk track built around electronic drums and a repeated vocal chorus leaves space for minimal arrangements and textured guitar lines to emerge.

Limited vinyl-only release.

Portal Replica welcomes cult Australian duo, B(if)tek, onto the label with a first-time-on-vinyl release of their debut album ‘Sub-vocal Theme Park’ released in 1996 exclusively onto CD. The 2x12” release includes the original album, plus additional never-heard-before 'lost' tracks from the pair. The album has been mastered by Rashad Becker at Clunk Studios (DE) and pressed to 180g heavyweight vinyl.

Kate Crawford and Nicole Skelty’s pioneering electro-femme outfit ‘B(if)tek’ can be traced back to 1994 in Canberra, where lack of blueprint blossomed their playful and bizarre experimentations in techno — ‘feminism with a wink and a bleep’. Thirty years on, the uniqueness and ingenuity of B(if)tek’s deep analogue exploration endures.

“Monstrous clowns dressed as princes whose role is to laugh at themselves and entertain outlandish beings, suffocated by etiquette, conspiracy and lies, bound by confession and remorse … and beyond that, the auto-da-fe and silence.” – Ferdinand (Pierrot), from the film “Pierrot Le Fou” .

Photography by Kate Crawford.
Design by Jesse Sappell.
Mastered by Rashad Becker at Clunk Studios, DE.

Be As One boss Shlomi Aber returns to Chris Liebing's CLR with the 'Schema' EP, arriving 24th April 2026 alongside a remix from James Ruskin. Active since 1994, Aber has been a cornerstone of underground techno for over three decades, with his focused, hypnotic approach in both the studio and DJ booth leading to releases on some of the scene's most respected labels, including Cocoon, Ovum, Nonplus, and Figure. With the 'Schema' EP, he follows his recent 'Retrospective' EP for Ben Klock's Klockworks, as well as previous CLR outings such as the 'Limelight' EP (2025), and the 'Remote 101' EP (2023), which both kept a spot in the Beatport Techno chart for over two years after release, while winning support from the likes of Carl Cox, Alienata, Dave Clarke, and many more.

Shlomi Aber's 'Schema' EP opens with the title track and heads straight into subterranean territory, pairing weighty low-end pressure with tightly controlled tension. Rattling bass foundations are o?set by sharp hi-hats and static-laced textures that flicker through the mix, keeping the groove locked and the atmosphere charged.

On remix duties, James Ruskin, founder of the seminal Blueprint, delivers a shadowy, atmospheric rework. Eerie pads hang in the background as swampy bass anchors the rhythm, with haunted melodic elements slowly unfolding to create a deep, immersive take built for late hours and dark rooms.

Closing track 'Gasolina' sees Aber shifting into broken-beat territory, where warm, glitchy rhythms loop with hypnotic precision. Ghostly synth motifs drift in and out of focus, giving the track a cinematic, heady quality that rounds out the release with understated intensity.

Founded by influential techno lynchpin Chris Liebing in 1999 and reemerging in 2021 after a five-year hiatus, Create Learn Repeat (CLR) has hosted a range of artists like Dubfire, Flug, Bjarki, DJ Dextro, and more while also focusing on developing newer acts in the scene, such as Risa Taniguchi, The Southern, and Klint.

The collaborative project of Lawrence English and Werner Dafeldecker has consistently been concerned with processes of transformation. This is all the more true for »Fathom Tides,« the duo’s second album for Hallow Ground following up on »Tropic of Capricorn« from 2023. Using field recordings collected from diverse coastal environments made by English and later treated extensively by Dafeldecker, the two sound artists explore cyclical changes in nature across these seven pieces. Through its abstracted soundscapes, »Fathom Tides« poses concrete questions: What impact do we have on the world we inhabit?

»Tropic of Capricorn« was based on material English had recorded around Australia to highlight the country’s colonial past. On »Fathom Tides,« water and tides provided a conceptual framework for the duo’s remote working process—notions of states of action and tidal dynamics becoming guiding principles in their work with the source material. English and Dafeldecker were led by the question how the morphing of solid forms into more liquid states might be captured and used as compositional guides for their respective preparations treatments and the addition of electronics to the source material.

While eroding coastlines, river systems, and glacial transformation served as inspiration, the seven pieces resulted out of the two sound artists paying close attention to seemingly minute details through which immediate and distant histories peek through often in the most unexpected and rewarding ways. Hence, »Fathom Tides« does not provide a macro view on the catastrophic changes humans have facilitated on Earth. It is its own sound world guided by both the pace of its subjects and a recognition that time is fluid—a reminder that our clocks are not those of the world around us.

Nicolini is back with 'Quita Maldicion' - an album of hyper riddim tracks, mixing up Memphis-tinged beats, pitched vocal chops, blown-out bass, and fever dream Dembow. With guest appearances from Chimira, Sharp Shin, Cheba Tmax, and Toff Youth, 'Quita Maldicion' hits like the zaps of an alien rave defibrillator, reanimating your lifeless body for the dance. Remove the curse on this world!

Irish drone-doom-folk act One Leg One Eye, the project of founding Lankum member Ian Lynch and veteran noise monger George Brennan, announce their new album, CRONE, out on 1 May on AD 93.

Today the group share the first track on the album, ‘Many are my Names Besides’, on which they are joined by the elemental force that is legendary actor, performer, writer and director Olwen Fouéré (Operating Theatre) contributing vocals.

Olwen Fouéré comments:

“When Ian and George first approached me to work with them, they were already creating the Crone album as a sonic invocation of the ‘sovereignty goddess’, who personifies the land and the legitimacy to rule it, in her darkest and most terrifying form. As we spoke, the triple goddess figure of the Morrigan entered my mind, reinforced by a marked presence of crows every time we met. The Morrigan is essentially a war goddess, frequently appearing as a crow in a battlefield, a death prophet, a guardian of sovereignty, and a very powerful figure in Irish Mythology.

So I invoked her energy as a starting point, using text extracts that Ian sent me from the Ulster Cycle and other sources. The voice recording was done in one day, improvising the source material while the already composed music occupied my psyche through headphones.

Listening back, at this time in our world, I can only wonder at how much blood and war the Crone/ Crow of sovereignty is preparing to unleash now. Watch out.”

CRONE is the second album from Lynch and Brennan, following on from 2022’s slowburn slab of ambient grit, …And Take The Black Worm With Me. Bewildering, psychedelic and ultimately transcendental, the four tracks of One Leg One Eye’s CRONE shapeshift and morph endlessly in a coarse miasma. Traditional song structures and vocal melody are eschewed, instead the trio directly channel energies from the rich seams of mythological significance submerged below the Irish psyche. The anger, rage and beauty of the sovereignty goddess burn a consistent and deliberate line through the album in the form of obscure incantations and dire pronouncements, the gnarled sinews that bind it all together.

Just as the subject matter of the tracks delve deeper into Irish myth and the remote past, the temporal reality of the album reaches back into the bands prehistory, with the majority of it the material being recorded by Lynch and Brennan in 2021 before One Leg One Eye was conceived of as an entity with Brennan working on the CRONE project while Lynch worked on …And Take The Black Worm With Me.

When they were there they saw a lone woman coming to the door of the Hostel, after sunset, and seeking to be let in. As long as a weaver’s beam was each of her two shins, and they were as dark as the back of a stag-beetle. A greyish, wooly mantle she wore. Her lower hair used to reach as far as her knee. Her lips were on one side of her head.

She came and put one of her shoulders against the door-post of the house, casting the evil eye on the king and the youths who surrounded him in the Hostel. He himself addressed her from within.

"Well, O woman," says Conaire, "if thou art a wizard, what seest thou for us?"

"Truly I see for thee," she answers, "that neither fell nor flesh of thine shall escape from the place into which thou hast come, save what birds will bear away in their claws."

"It was not an evil omen we foreboded, O woman," saith he: "it is not thou that always augurs for us. What is thy name, O woman?"

"Calib," she answers.

"That is not much of a name," says Conaire.

"Lo, many are my names besides."

"Which be they?" asks Conaire.

"Easy to say," quoth she. "Samon, Sinand, Seisclend, Sodb, Caill, Coll, Díchóem, Dichiúil, Díthím, Díchuimne, Dichruidne, Dairne, Dáríne, Déruaine, Egem, Agam, Ethamne, Gním, Cluiche, Cethardam, Níth, Némain, Nóennen, Badb, Blosc, Bloár, Huae, óe Aife la Sruth, Mache, Médé, Mod."

On one foot, and holding up one hand, and breathing one breath she sang all that to them from the door of the house.

Amid rusted transistors and owner manuals blurred by dust, Rogelio Serrano rescued abandoned vintage synthesizers from Mexico City's flea markets. These devices, revived by a Japanese technician based in the capital, returned to life with electric pulses, becoming accomplices in nearly clandestine recording sessions at a solitary, remote location called "Ojo de Agua" on the city's outskirts. Sound Cartography is a sonic archive of tracks recorded between 2017 and 2019, which could easily be considered demo pieces, unfinished works, or simply orphaned creations.

Take Me, I’m Yours is the first collaboration album between Alan Abrahams and Jan Jelinek. Released through the latter’s faitiche, it builds upon multi-layered vocal sketches by the former. The Paris-based artist, primarily known for his work as Portable and Bodycode, supplied Jelinek with multi-layered song sketches that the German artist subjected to a rigorous process of manipulation, excavating the ambiguities of the original material and transforming its rhythms into subtle pulses. Take Me, I’m Yours is neither a typical Abrahams record nor a classic Jelinek album—it is something third, mediating between the physicality of the voice and the abstraction of electronic sound design.

The two had crossed paths before really getting to know each other after Abrahams invited Jelinek to play at one of his Süd Electronic parties. The idea of a collaboration emerged slowly. “It started as an experiment, and over the past few years grew from a few tracks into this album,” says Abrahams. He describes recording the basic material as a “tantalizing” process, not knowing how Jelinek would transform his material, some of which was based on wordless chanting, while other tracks were working with lyrical content. However, their mutual trust allowed Jelinek to remove the harmonies, radically reduce the rhythms, and concentrate on Abrahams’ voice.

Jelinek heard something “fragile” in this voice, “moments of doubt and dark premonitions.” He points to Forever as an example. “Alan’s original song reminded me of classic vocal house, but his voice seemed to almost break,” he says. “This contradiction made the piece even bigger, because we hear a singer in the moment of an awakening.” He further accentuated such tensions through arrhythmic synth modulations and time-stretching algorithms, while also adding concrete sounds from a variety of sources. With its dedication to both transforming and amplifying the emotional qualities hidden within Abrahams’ pieces, Take Me, I’m Yours functions as a dialogue between those two singular artists.

Sometimes the title of an album tells you everything you need to know. Laurence Pike’s Possible Utopias for Jazz Quintet is like that: The music within represents a search for freedom, potentiality—liberatory strategies that transcend the ego and the solitary, atomized figure.

But in this case, the album title is also a red herring, because there is no jazz quintet here—just Pike, his drums, and his machines, not so much an ersatz ensemble as a purely notional one, a thought experiment equipped with drumsticks, circuitry, and the desire to go beyond hardwired limits.

And the results, strictly speaking, aren’t really jazz, though they incorporate the vocabulary of jazz, along with that of ambient, electronica, and post-rock. They are some other thing, cognizant of genre but never beholden to it. Again, we’re talking about a search for freedom here.

The Sydney-based musician has a long history of coloring outside the lines, not just in his solo recordings—including four albums for the Leaf label between 2018 and 2024—but also in the trio Pivot (later PVT); Szun Waves (alongside saxophonist Jack Wyllie and Border Community’s Luke Abbott); Triosk, which recorded an album with Jan Jelinek in 2003; and even post-punk titans Liars, whom he joined in late 2018.

Of his first album for Balmat, Pike says, “My loose concept was: What does music sound like when the expectations of late capitalism are removed from it? How might a jazz musician from an idealised culture of the future, or even another world, utilise musical language when the conventions of style and marketing are no longer a factor in music making?”

That inquiry, he says, connects to his “guiding principle: that the purpose of music is to access something bigger than the individual, and reveal a sense of possibility and freedom in the world to the listener. To create an understanding that the future can be something other than what we imagined or expect, even unconsciously.”

Heady ideas, but plug into his stream-of-metaconsciousness flow and you may start to intuit what motivates him. There is a deeply lyrical expression in these pieces—in the ruminative piano of opener “Guardians of Memory,” for example—but also a sense of exploded perspective, of ideas approached from more angles than any one mind could dream up. Of a collectivized consciousness, of mycelial networks branching across tone and rhythm and timbre, of ideas articulated in distributed fashion, nodal points dancing across drum heads.

Pike’s imaginary quintet is hardly without precedent; it’s a continuation of concepts floated across Jan Jelinek’s Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records, Burnt Friedman’s many guises, and much of the recombinant improv of the International Anthem roster, not to mention the far corners of ECM’s catalog in the late 1970s and 1980s, which Pike says have been integral to his development since he was a teenager. Possible Utopias for Jazz Quintet is a point in a continuum, a voice in a conversation, a question with no obvious answer: How can the search for otherness in music manifest something true about ourselves?

Very limited numbers, orders will need to be confirmed.

For his new album, Irreparable Parables, Andrew Wasylyk felt a strong desire to write a set of songs featuring an element hitherto rare in his work: the human voice. Equally strong was the conviction that he did not want to sing them himself.

The Scottish multi-instrumentalist and composer set about assembling a group of guest singers, sending out the songs to wherever they were in the world. The vocals were recorded remotely and then, like migrating birds, winged their way back to Scotland. The result is an album of great beauty which, perhaps preeminently in Wasylyk’s work, expresses the vulnerability and resilience of the human spirit.

Six singers appear on the record, represented by six songbirds illustrated on the sleeve by Clay Pipe Music’s Frances Castle. The cuckoo is a nod to Belle and Sebastian’s 2004 single ‘I’m A Cuckoo’, that band’s Stuart Murdoch being the first voice you hear on the new album. When the vocal for ‘Private Symphony #2’ arrived, says Wasylyk, “it was everything that I was looking for and more. But this is Stuart Murdoch. Of course he’s going to make something incredibly beautiful and thoughtful.”

The song lyrics were, for the most part, written by the singers. The music is Wasylyk’s creation. He navigates a sound world that lies somewhere beyond the borders of classical and jazz, ambient and abstract. It is difficult to describe, but easy to understand, which is to say to feel. That is the way Wasylyk’s work is experienced: as a feeling. It takes you back to childhood, perhaps, to feelings of comfort and safety, or to memories of walks at sunrise and sunset, or to the way a shadow falls on a particular field in a particular place at a particular time in your life. This is consoling music. That is why, though pretty, it is not merely pretty. These are songs to shore up the soul.

Wasylyk writes in a room, in his native Dundee, full of “half broken” instruments. He picks these up, plays a little, seeking an idea, a feeling, a door that lies ajar. The musical palette of Irreparable Parables includes brass and woodwind, a six-piece string section, guitar, bass, drums, vibraphone, Mellotron, Fender Rhodes, tape loops, synthesisers and percussion. The strings were arranged by the cellist Pete Harvey, a long-term collaborator.

Among the other guest vocalists are Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals, Saya Ueno from Japan’s Tenniscoats and Peter Brewis from Field Music. Wasylyk himself takes the lead vocal on the title track, though a throat infection and touch of pitch-shifting have altered his singing in a way that even he, having fallen out of love with his own voice, finds acceptable.

The heart of the record can, arguably, be found in two tracks, ‘Love Is A Life That Lasts Forever’ and ‘Spectators In The Absence of God’, sung respectively by Molly Linen and Kathryn Joseph. The former, bright with trumpets, was inspired by the writing of Derek Jarman. “I was feeling deeply upset about the world and wanted to try and write some- thing that was obviously hopeful,” Wasylyk says.

‘Spectators …’ offers an emotional counterpoint. It is an “apocalyptic hymn” that seems to grapple with watching human suffering from afar, too distant to be at physical risk, but experiencing the psychological wounding, and feelings of helplessness, even complicity, that come with constant awareness of other people’s pain. “Kathryn’s a pal, I love her dearly, and she’s a brilliant artist who really feels what she writes,” Wasylyk says. “The cracked tenderness of her voice is spellbinding.”

The album closes with an instrumental piece, ‘Soul Enters The Ocean Sun Climbs Out Of The Sea’, all piano and strings, that offers a sense of resolution and ascension. A good moment, too, for Wasylyk to reflect upon the artistic companionship that he enjoyed while making this record – the songbirds that answered his call: “These humans are incredible at what they do. I’m deeply grateful and feel so lucky. It blows my mind.”

A defining transmission in the history of Skylax Records. Originally released across different moments of the Skylax catalogue, these recordings are now assembled as the final chapter of the Skylax House Explosion series — a project exploring the architecture, memory and survival mechanisms embedded within house music culture. The record opens with Move D’s “Outer Rim 64”, originally released in 2018 as part of the Skylax House Explosion narrative. Suspended between motion and distance, the track establishes the conceptual perimeter of this final chapter — a space where rhythm no longer functions only as propulsion, but as orientation. Here the listener stands at the outer edge of the dancefloor’s architecture, where structure persists even as its original social conditions begin to disappear. The sequence continues with Hardrock Striker’s “Motorik Life (DJ Sprinkles Dub)”, originally released in 2011. Rather than operating as a conventional remix, the Dub reinforces the motorik continuum of the original composition, transforming repetition into endurance. DJ Sprinkles preserves the infrastructural skeleton of the dancefloor — its capacity to sustain bodies through duration alone, without narrative resolution or emotional release. The record culminates with “Motorik Life (DJ Sprinkles Mountain Of Despair Remix)”, one of the most politically explicit works ever associated with Skylax Records. Through the relentless repetition of the phrase “mountain of despair,” Terre Thaemlitz dismantles the traditional function of dance music, transforming remix culture into structural critique. Referencing Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous metaphor, the remix removes the promise of redemption and leaves only the architecture of struggle. The dancefloor is no longer presented as escape, but as a temporary condition of survival. Together these recordings reveal house music’s true function: not to resolve despair, but to create temporary conditions in which bodies can continue to exist despite it.

Der australische Progressive-Rock-Gigant Karnivool kehrt mit "IN VERSES" endlich zurück. Das Album ist der Nachfolger ihres weltweit gefeierten und in Australien auf Platz 1 der Charts gelandeten Albums "Asymmetry". Das vierte Album der Band ließ so lange auf sich warten, dass es fast schon legendär ist. Nach einigen Fehlstarts und einem langen, heißen Sommer im Studio in Perth ist es nun endlich da. In Zusammenarbeit mit ihrem gleichgesinnten Produzenten Forrester Savell (Sound Awake, Themata) hat die Band ein musikalisches Meisterwerk geschaffen, das sich frisch anfühlt und gleichzeitig auf ihren beliebten Backkatalog Bezug nimmt. "IN VERSES" erweitert den Umfang ihrer weitläufigen Klanglandschaften und schafft es dennoch, Momente zu kreieren, die nur Karnivool-Songs so beflügeln können. Damit beweist das Album eindeutig, dass es Dinge gibt, auf die es sich zu warten lohnt.

Karnivool haben weltweit über 300.000 Alben verkauft und sind an den meisten Orten aufgetreten, an denen sie spielen wollten. Sie sind eine feste Größe auf europäischen Festivals wie Download, Rock am Ring, Hellfest und Copenhell sowie an weit entfernten Orten wie Südafrika, Indien, Dubai und natürlich Australien.

With Dark Matter EP, Rambal Cochet continues his exploration of the fringes of electronic music, where ritual, cosmic and hypnotic sounds create a soundscape between mysticism and science fiction. The EP moves naturally between rhythms, atmospheres and synthetic lines from a lost rave futurism.

Each track has its own journey in a single narrative, with deep bass, percussive patterns oscillating between trance, downtempo and global influences, and a melodic sensibility that is both distinctive and accessible.

Dark Matter EP is a work that celebrates the visionary and cinematic side of Rambal Cochet, mixing mystery, spirituality and club pulsation for the dance floor and listener.
Perfect for seeking emotional intensity and imagination, or for an immersive, timeless listening experience.

Yogg delivers the second release on his Polarized Future label, with four deep and sub-heavy cuts on ‘Don’t You’. Produced in his new Brussels studio, the EP channels the tension between familiarity and instability. The sounds here are deconstructed, fizzing and alive, produced with a pointillistic attention to detail.

This is music built for soundsystems, with a strong emphasis on bass weight and meditative, spacious minimalism. Elements are removed to the bare essentials, at times feeling like a contemporary reimagining of the early sound of dubstep; echoing the unease of a society in the midst of a dystopian timeline.

New music from The Strokes arrives now, beginning with a new song, “Going Shopping” released today. Produced by Rick Rubin, Reality Awaits is the 7th album from The Strokes. Full track list includes nine new songs — set for release on June 26.

Originally formed in the early 1990s, Tadpoles earned a reputation as a neo-psychedelic rock band known for their impressionistic textures and adventurous sound.
After a 25-year hiatus, the band has reunited, now working across Sacramento, New York City, and Basel. They collaborate remotely to create new music that expands into unexpected genres, including jazz, ambient, country noir, and ambient shoegazer rock, all while maintaining their core psychedelic essence.
In this new chapter, the Tadpoles have teamed up with legendary producer and mixer Sonic Boom, known for his work with Spacemen 3, Panda Bear, MGMT and Beach House, to sculpt their evolving sound. His influence helps weave those new layers of psychedelia, ambient, and even jazz into the band’s signature adventurous spirit.”
This release reflects the band’s evolution and continues their legacy of blending noise, melody, introspection, and a bit of sly humor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The follow up to his 2017 album, Produced With Love II is a collection of brand new songs from one of the UK's most longstanding, respected and fiercely independent artists. In a flash-in-the-pan industry like music, Dave Lee's career is notable for both its longevity and consistency. As a record producer and remixer, DJ and curator, he's now clocked up well over 30 years and, if such things existed, would be nailed on for a carriage clock for long service to add to the numerous hits and landmarks he's enjoyed over a storied career. His latest album, Produced With Love II, continues the work he started with 2017's superb collection. Incorporating aspects of house, soul and disco and crafted with the attention to detail you'd expect from someone of Lee's heritage and calibre, Produced With Love II comprises 12 brand new songs and will arrive in June 2022. The writing process has always remained the same and Dave has always preferred to work face-to-face with artists whenever possible - albeit with a few enforced remote sessions due to the pandemic.

During the 35 years of making music, Dave Lee has constantly been searching for new singers and writers to work with. A search that’s ended up with many fantastic collaborations and releases with the likes of Thelma Houston, Taka Boom, Dianne Charlemagne and Seal. More recently this quest led him to Maurissa Rose and the creation of their album ‘London / Detroit’. After hearing Maurissa's voice on a Theo Parrish record Dave reached out to her and after a few long phone conversations and mp3 swaps they both agreed a visit to London would be much more fun than trying to work together remotely. Maurissa made the journey from her home in Detroit to write and record an album with Dave at his studio in March 2022 - as they both feel that creating music together in the same room is always better. The fruits of their labour yielded 11 brand new songs (and 1 cover) tapping into their collective love of Soul, Disco and R&B, with a sprinkle of Soulful House. This album is a special one for Dave Lee as it’s the first time in his career he’s recorded an entire album with same singer on every track.

In the album’s liner notes Dave talks of how Maurissa is a naturally creative person, full of ideas, warm & unpretentious which is reflected in her vocal performances throughout ‘London / Detroit’. Dave’s expertly crafted music is backed up with a deeply passionate yet effortless delivery from the Detroiter, a marker of someone who has honed and perfected their art. When it comes to the music side of this LP, Dave Lee is once again proving he’s still at the top of his game and shows no sign of relenting. Drawing from his encyclopaedic knowledge of all things Soul/Funk/Disco, we are treated to a range of styles, BPMs and influences from 95bpm street soul to more uptempo disco and boogie flavours. Be it the rippling synth voyage opener of ‘You Decide’, taking the Johnnie Taylor classic ‘What About My Love’ into a modern Boogie realm, upping the tempo on the soulful houser ‘I Feel the Sun” or bringing the tempo back down to the bassy acidic chug of ‘You’re Giving Me Life’. Mr Lee is truly adept at creating a modern disco soul sound without the usage of samples.

London and Detroit might be two very different cities on opposite sides of the Atlantic but this album is proof that creative synergy knows no distance.

Out everywhere on Feb 28th on Gatefold Vinyl, CD and Digital/Streaming.

A collection of earlier and newer works by LFU
combined in one EP.
On November 14, 2025 !K7 Records released DJ-Kicks by Eris Drew. She chose 'Oh Echt' by LFU as the opening track of her mix.
The style of 'Oh Echt' is not easy to categorize. Electronic breakbeats with Detroit hi-hat patterns and a typically pushy four-to-the-floor kick. The funky, staccato bassline and mysterious strings take you back to the eighties and the added funky organs and stabs complete the story. The "Oh Echt" Main Mix is the instrumental mix of the 'Vogel Mix' in which the 'Oh Echtapella' is incorporated.
The first design of 'Boom Boom Tracking' was in 2011 for a DJ/DRUM performance that LFU did. He picked it up again in 2014, but did not finish it until 2024. This big beat floor filler contains chemical beats accompanied by electrostabs and a deep, dark bassline. If you listen intently to this song on a regular audio device, you might notice a thump on every 1 of the 4 beats, but when it's played on a good, big sound system, you can't miss this tension in your stomach. 'Boom Boom Tracking' it is!
Downtempo percussive track 'Tjeetje' is the first track LFU has made in North Coast Studio in 2001. 'Slow Forward' was the third song he completed there in 2003, the same place where he met Ben Baan of Fruitcake, who played the piano part.
Initially, 'Queen Cubana' did not make it as a remix of Eddy Zoey's 'No Soy Cubano' in 2017. In this new version, LFU removed his vocals, except for "Step". LFU took inspiration from Katy Perry's 'Bon Appetit' and turned it into a rhythmic slow jam with carefully programmed beats, resulting in a spectacular funky joint.

In 2018, Rian Treanor left his home in Rotherham, UK, and headed to Kampala for a residency at Nyege Nyege's villa studio. The mind-expanding experience inspired his critically acclaimed 2020 full-length "File Under UK Metaplasm", but that wasn't the end of the story. Treanor also spent time working alongside Acholi fiddle player Ocen James, developing an improvisation-heavy collaboration that would push both musicians' idiosyncrasies into completely new places. Treanor wanted this collaboration to be as tactile and reactive as a live performance with traditional instruments, so he set about working on a digital process that would synchronize with James' approach. Using physical modeling techniques, Treanor created an instrument that explored the tunings and sounds of the a'dungu, an arched harp, and the nah or nag. With Ocen playing his rigi rigi, a single string violin, they intuitively experimented with the spectral properties of sound, using texture and acoustic contours as their structural framework. They were able to develop a sound together that was unconventionally rooted in traditional Ugandan culture, but shuttled into different dimensions of noise, computer music and radical UK rave. "Saccades" is the buffer between two vastly different sonic universes, united in respect and sprightly curiosity. Treanor's hyperactive computer-controlled rhythms are immediately identifiable on opening track 'Bunga Bule', but the sound palette is distinct: it's more flexible and less digital. James' expressionistic fiddle strokes are a revelation, contorted into hoarse squeals and rough vibrations that rub and flex off Treanor's tin can shuffle.

Fragments was a completely new way of working for us. We’ve always worked with an internal brief, creating documents, pictures and videos, simply because keeping an idea on track with three individuals can be difficult. It's easy for someone to be edged out of the creative process when the focus is not clearly defined.
It’s a formula we’ve used since the early 2000s, but things have changed a lot since then, particularly when we decided to dip our collective toes into supporter memberships with Patreon. It made us think about what we could do directly for our support- ers rather than just the next album or project. At first, the whole thing felt odd and uncomfortable, but we decided that we’d try a few things and ask for feedback.
"Fragments" was initially a way for us to see how we could include others in an ongoing creative process. There was no over-arching concept, no defined characteristics or purpose, just the promise that there would be at least one new track for members to download every month. Consequently, we never knew what was coming next, so the old, very focused working method was irrelevant. It was difficult for us to let individual tracks go without knowing what was coming next, but this also made the project more interesting.
And then C19 hit and we were forced to continue the project remotely from our home studios. As difficult as the disruption was, it was during this period that we realised we could re-organise and remaster the individual tracks into a coherent album, captur- ing a specific moment in time and drawing a line under the first phase of the project.
Like our "Allegory" EPs, we’ve tried to keep everything stripped back. We used to hide many subtle elements within the layers, but not so much this time.
Fragments is our journey through many changes, both self-im- posed and those imposed upon us, and it ultimately led us to create things differently. We hope you like it.




b A2















r D1 b Yes Hello (Remastered BONUS) 1:53
s D2 No JuJu (Man Power Version - Remastered BONUS) 4:27
t D3 Cup Noodle (Unemployed Youth Version - Remastered [BONUS]) 5:43
[u] D4 Black Smoke (They Never Got Started) (Remastered [BONUS]) 2:18
[v] D5 Concrete Concentration (Remastered [BONUS]) 3:21
[b] They All Live In The Past (Remastered [BONUS]) 1:06

2025 Repress

3rd part of Robert Armani's own series on CHIWAX is the classic from 1994 "Traxmen present Robert Armani - Collection Vol. 1" which originally came out on Dance Mania!