Suche:sim on

12" (Limited Full Cover)

Ossie lands back on Heist after his 2025 hit ‘Are U still smiling?’ with a 4 track EP featuring Miraa May.

How on earth do you follow up your debut when that record got dancefloors moving across the world and picked up radio & dj plays from dance music’s finest selectors?
Many producers would get instant writer’s block, but not Ossie. His new EP on Heist is full of joyous melodies, catchy vocals and euphoric dancefloor moments. Across 4 tracks, Ossie takes us on a trip through rolling electronics, catchy UK sounds and big room anthems.

His Heist debut in 2025 did not go by unnoticed, and Ossie kept a busy calendar since, with regular shows in London and Hï Ibiza with Skepta’s Mas Tiempo crew, his own Supercali imprint as well as his appearance alongside heavyweights Louie Vega, Kerri Chandler, Cinthie and more on Heist’s ‘House of House’ much celebrated compilation.

The Motivation EP kicks off with a bumpy UK track that somehow reminds us of Bicep early day hit ‘Vision of love’. Where the Bicep boys went for a big sample, Ossie landed a surprise studio session with Algerian born-London native Miraa May where they wrote ‘Motivation’ in a single session. The track is stripped back to its core with catchy scats and chants from Miraa May and keys that’ll stick with you far after the track is over. If you’d need any extra motivation for your daily routine, to get out of bed or to go out dancing, this is your jam.

‘Can it get any better’ is a loopy house affair with soulful vocal chants, hints of disco and a subtle piano theme that drives the track into big room territory. It’s energetic without ever getting over the top; a thin line Ossie navigates effortlessly on this record.

On the flip, we’ve got ‘Left side’; a deep groover built around a synth & disco loop and cleverly sampled vocals singing ‘I believe… oooh yes I do’. This one is definitely a lowkey banger, where Ossie turns that one simple loop into a powerful theme made to ignite dancefloors.

The EP closes with the heavy warehouse groove of ‘Don’t stop’. A cavernous low end, rough percussion and chopped synth stabs all come together on this beast of a track. Ossie cleverly plays around with vinyl backspins, vocal chops and small changeovers to keep things interesting, while the groove just keeps on going.

Ossie’s ‘Motivation’ EP has dancefloor written all over it and with all its forward energy, there’s no doubt you’ll be hearing this one a lot in clubs all over the world.

As always, play it loud and share the music.

Lars & Maarten

If you dig deep enough into the internet's lower depths, you'll find a shaky video shot on a camcorder. In 43 seconds, we see a makeshift drum kit built out of backyard Ostbahnhof trash, hear distorted vocals, and feel the anarchic energy of band and ravers dissolving into each other. It's now been twenty years since Bonaparte played their very first show at the legendary Bar25 on Berlin's Spree river. The ringmaster of this unhinged musical theater was Tobias Jundt then, and it's Jundt again now bringing the Bonaparte extravaganza back to the stage. New and nostalgic sit close together when the party's been going this long. Or, as they put it: "PARADISE IF YOU CAN STAND IT."

From late October through mid-November, Bonaparte will tour Germany, Austria, and Jundt's native Switzerland at full intensity, the full lineup - band to burlesque. Since their 2006 debut through their supposed farewell in 2019, Bonaparte played over 800 shows in 28 countries. Bottom line: "Too Much" isn't enough to properly celebrate a body of work like this. And the new songs from "PARADISE IF YOU CAN STAND IT" are far too significant not to bring to the stage. The lo-fi trash-punk of Bonaparte's earliest records has been built out with added layers, in production (largely alongside British avant-garde electronic artist HELiX) and in the songwriting itself.

The world certainly hasn't gotten any simpler since 2006. Tracks like "EVERYBODY PRESiDENT," loosely riffing on Zoe Leonard's poem "I Want A Dyke For President," and the corrosive "BRAiN ROT" mirror the social chaos we find ourselves in 2026. "OBEY (THERE iS STiLL A RiOT GOiNG ON)" is just as furious, though here the principle of hope still holds, as a multigenerational choir concludes "everything will be okay." Jundt speaks across generations again on "i LOVE YOU (MORE LATER)," dedicated in equal measure to his parents and his daughters: "Let the echo chamber bleed - from here into eternity."

The reconciliation and hope Bonaparte allows for and tends to, amid violence and all that noise, make "PARADISE IF YOU CAN STAND IT" a singular document of an artist grown wiser. Separation and grief don't cancel out love and vitality - they depend on each other. Ultimately, the album is a record of searching for and finding a home. To arrive, you have to let go.

And what better place to let go than in step with Bonaparte's wild, hedonistic party circus, finally back to gently terrorize our cities?

For over 25 years, David Madson (aka Odd Nosdam) has been stationed away from the light of the mainstream, diligently working the nightshift. Every so often, we awake to find another of his bleary and beautiful missives slung into the waking world – albums whose assemblages of sampled grooves, atmospheres and voices are unified by a hallucinatory sense of melody, like disparate visions strung together through ribbons of sleep-talk. From his earliest days as a member of the seminal group cLOUDDEAD, through his remixes for artists such as Boards of Canada and Black Moth Super Rainbow, Nosdam has been reporting back from his rounds upon the perimeters of culture and consciousness, forging a musical language all of his own.

On Patrol is the second Odd Nosdam LP to be released on The Notwist’s imprint Alien Transistor – following on from the 2019 album Mirrors – and continues a collaborative history that begun with a 2008 remix of The Notwist song, “Sleep”. It’s a love letter to the vinyl format, produced with the aim of optimizing for a single LP. This objective permeated every aspect of the album’s production, from the duration of each side through to the vinyl mastering (Jessica Thompson) and lacquer-cutting (Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin). As we've come to expect, the album is built almost entirely from found sounds, many of which were taken from obscure and second-hand vinyl gathered during Nosdam’s ceaseless crate-digging escapades. Other sources include field recordings made in 2022 at the Catalonia summer home of artist Salvador Dalí, which are baked into the swirling sci-fi glide of “Here to Know (Adéu Mix)”, and a sumptuous clunking bass line courtesy of Organi’s Mike Walti, which runs like an infinite highway through the fuzzy, sunbaked sprawl of “Deepsimple”.

Odd Nosdam’s work has always swept the entire atmospheric spectrum, from rhythmic vigour to levitational beauty. On Patrol is perhaps his finest assimilation of these extremes. “Sgt. Pepsi” is the perfect case in point: a formidable slow groove capsizes into vinyl crackle after a mere minute, before the song resurrects itself through sweeping strings and vocal harmonies, sliding against each other like the overlain romantic denouements to a dozen Hollywood films from the 1940s. Elsewhere, “Get You In (Belong Mix)” drapes shoegaze guitar over a trundling funk backbeat, straddling the physical world and the outer realms, while hushed voices point toward the song's implied themes of cultural cliques, critical consensus and the plight of the eternal outsider: “Sure, I can get you in... these people are my friends, I’m one of them - I belong.”

This is music that both endures and disappears. Odd Nosdam has always wielded a strange relationship with time, scrambling association with any specific era, weaving together numerous tempos simultaneously. There is no master clock. Each track could happily hold up as an infinite loop, yet Nosdam clearly favours the potency of the gone-too-soon, applying the fadeout just as hypnosis starts to crest. Indeed, the songs are both the product of meticulous long-term construction and spontaneity. While the foundations of On Patrol have come together over several years, the recording process involved channeling vibes through a vintage Roland Space Echo and bouncing song fragments back and forth from hard disk to cassette 8-track, gifting a phased permanence to creative decisions made on the fly – a hat-tip to the production processes of Nosdam's longtime hero, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. Like a recurring dream, On Patrol appeals to both the plains of momentary ephemera and the long-established backchannels of the unconscious, equal parts revelation and deja vu.

Text by Jack Chuter
Artwork by Ian Ferguson

For over 25 years, David Madson (aka Odd Nosdam) has been stationed away from the light of the mainstream, diligently working the nightshift. Every so often, we awake to find another of his bleary and beautiful missives slung into the waking world – albums whose assemblages of sampled grooves, atmospheres and voices are unified by a hallucinatory sense of melody, like disparate visions strung together through ribbons of sleep-talk. From his earliest days as a member of the seminal group cLOUDDEAD, through his remixes for artists such as Boards of Canada and Black Moth Super Rainbow, Nosdam has been reporting back from his rounds upon the perimeters of culture and consciousness, forging a musical language all of his own.

On Patrol is the second Odd Nosdam LP to be released on The Notwist’s imprint Alien Transistor – following on from the 2019 album Mirrors – and continues a collaborative history that begun with a 2008 remix of The Notwist song, “Sleep”. It’s a love letter to the vinyl format, produced with the aim of optimizing for a single LP. This objective permeated every aspect of the album’s production, from the duration of each side through to the vinyl mastering (Jessica Thompson) and lacquer-cutting (Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin). As we've come to expect, the album is built almost entirely from found sounds, many of which were taken from obscure and second-hand vinyl gathered during Nosdam’s ceaseless crate-digging escapades. Other sources include field recordings made in 2022 at the Catalonia summer home of artist Salvador Dalí, which are baked into the swirling sci-fi glide of “Here to Know (Adéu Mix)”, and a sumptuous clunking bass line courtesy of Organi’s Mike Walti, which runs like an infinite highway through the fuzzy, sunbaked sprawl of “Deepsimple”.

Odd Nosdam’s work has always swept the entire atmospheric spectrum, from rhythmic vigour to levitational beauty. On Patrol is perhaps his finest assimilation of these extremes. “Sgt. Pepsi” is the perfect case in point: a formidable slow groove capsizes into vinyl crackle after a mere minute, before the song resurrects itself through sweeping strings and vocal harmonies, sliding against each other like the overlain romantic denouements to a dozen Hollywood films from the 1940s. Elsewhere, “Get You In (Belong Mix)” drapes shoegaze guitar over a trundling funk backbeat, straddling the physical world and the outer realms, while hushed voices point toward the song's implied themes of cultural cliques, critical consensus and the plight of the eternal outsider: “Sure, I can get you in... these people are my friends, I’m one of them - I belong.”

This is music that both endures and disappears. Odd Nosdam has always wielded a strange relationship with time, scrambling association with any specific era, weaving together numerous tempos simultaneously. There is no master clock. Each track could happily hold up as an infinite loop, yet Nosdam clearly favours the potency of the gone-too-soon, applying the fadeout just as hypnosis starts to crest. Indeed, the songs are both the product of meticulous long-term construction and spontaneity. While the foundations of On Patrol have come together over several years, the recording process involved channeling vibes through a vintage Roland Space Echo and bouncing song fragments back and forth from hard disk to cassette 8-track, gifting a phased permanence to creative decisions made on the fly – a hat-tip to the production processes of Nosdam's longtime hero, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. Like a recurring dream, On Patrol appeals to both the plains of momentary ephemera and the long-established backchannels of the unconscious, equal parts revelation and deja vu.

Text by Jack Chuter
Artwork by Ian Ferguson

With his last three records all landing within a calendar year (2024-25), enigmatic Swedish producer Civilistjävel! (aka Tomas Bodén) is on a hot streak of releases, his singular vision increasingly ambitious and expansive. There are few artists working at this level so consistently right now, reinventing, revising and continually developing their language. Following on from 2025’s radically re-worked ‘Versions’ (of Mayssa Jallad’s ‘Marjaa…’), Bodén returns to break further fresh ground with his new album, ‘Älvgång’. Featuring contributions from Soccer Committee, Carrier and guest (aka Jabu’s Jasmine Butt), ‘Älvgång’ foregrounds a more brittle and insistent rhythm-based sound, whilst comprising his most broad-ranging collection of material to date.


‘Älvgång’ grew out of a series of sketches made from late ‘24 and throughout the whole of ‘25 at Stockholm’s renowned EMS Studios, which gave Boden free rein to its extensive collection of vintage analogue equipment and rare modular synthesizers such as the Serge and Buchla systems. As a loose framework of tracks began to take shape, so did a reflection of sorts, on family and foundations, underpinned or influenced by sounds that drifted into Tomas consciousness around this time - ancient Swedish pastoral music, Georgian lithurgical chants, gongs, chimes. An idea settled into place, a dedication to his Grandfather, as the earlier release Fyra Platser (tr. ‘Four Places’) was to his Grandmother. Älvgång is grounded with the sense of time and place of an old family photograph, with the tracks over each side bearing one of two names that are more or less the same location - Strinne was the old name for a this loose collection of villages. These days it is more commonly known as Bjärtrå. Metaphorically speaking, the river runs through both.


Civilistjävel! conjures so many adjectives and descriptors, ‘glacial’ and ‘ambient’ frequently among them - but while not altogether untrue, such terms belie the tension and drama so often present in Tomas’ music. Listening to ‘Älvgång’ is not a passive experience. The eight tracks here feel like a patchwork of memories that bathe in the same ethereal, otherworldly glow of Tarkovsky’s polaroids’.


The machine pulses that dominate this landscape are reigned in and tempered by a human hand; lithe, untethered coils, breathing in and out. ‘Strinne Ett’ sets out with purpose, sensing awe and wonder through the murk, but as the final tone unfurls like a question mark, another chapter begins, unfolding/building like a Tarjei Vesaas novel. These lyrical, abstract miniatures combine to reveal a wider context, fragile humanity standing alone against nature.


Guest appearances on Civilistjävel! records have become a regular occurrence (including recent collaborations with Mayssa Jallad, Laila Sakini, Cucina Povera, Thomas Bush, Eldon + Withdrawn), but are used sparingly and with increasing precision. On ‘Strinne Tre’ Mariska Baars’ (Soccer Committee) voice feels like a balm, a clearing. But as her simple, three-word incantation drifts further into fog, the meaning changes, and her words seem to curdle. Carrier’s beats widen the parameters on ‘Strinne Fyra’, a skittering promise that builds tension then refuses to release it; all false starts, Photek gongs, and trinkling modulars. Jabu’s Jasmine Butt pulls all the threads together for the final track, Thomas Tallis’ ghost walking over offset machine impulses, that work against their own symmetry.


Side two begins inquisitively, scanning bleached, alien surroundings, its sparse pads recalling Aphex Twin’s ‘Selected Ambient works Vol 2’. 'Bjärtrå Två’ picks up the baton from ' Strinne Fyra’ with a ruptured Simmons SDS200 analogue drum synth set free from its shackles, the rhythm eventually slotting into the spaces that were hiding in plain sight. What follows seems like an epiphany; ‘Bjärtrå Tre’ is achingly beautiful, a euphoric, winding ascent that leads to devotional plainsong. ‘Bjärtrå Fyra‘s final unheralded shift feels both tragic and haunting.

Tears|Ov are Terces Wale (aka D. Wale), L.E. Allen and Lottie Lou Poulet. For real money and in no particular order, they also work odd jobs as digital caterers, shrinking heads, doing laundry and looking up stuff online.

Tears|Ov write: ‘A life on hold! The corporate apology embedded in bad quality, insincere, trashy, patronising hold music it can have no meaning in this stage of Capitalism. There isn’t time - and humility is a waste of money. Still they joke and try to keep us calm, patient and satisfied. This was the starting point for “A Life on Hold” by Tears|Ov - Which quickly drifted into further musings on a collective life that feels forever two steps forward and x-steps back. We wait on hold and reach the top of the queue only for the line to go dead.

Tears|Ov are interested in the ready-made of mainstream media, particularly, the lies, the rub, the promises and the taken for granted. We are the blood plasma of the I in the screens embrace. We seek to find ourselves in that reflection, our real selves – if they even exist – just because it’s kinda fun. You may have seen us on TV, in the bargain basement music section, or some venue in your local area. We take the opportunities the Universe provides.” – Tears|Ov, London, 20 June 2026

Tokyo-based producer aus debuts on Squama with his new album Mere Meer.
Grounded in the question of how a specific environment can emerge through voice and memory, rather than through recording of an objective reality, the album stands in the tradition of modern Japanese Ambient and Kankyo Ongaku.
aus is the solo project of composer, producer, and curator Yasuhiko Fukuzono. His music is characterized by a precise combination of cinematic strings, acoustic instrumentation, and concrete sound design derived from everyday life.
In recent years, he released music on EM Records, WRWTFWW and his own flau imprint. As a remixer, he put his touch on tracks by Matthew Herbert, Tenniscoats and Craig Armstrong, among others.
His sonic research also extends beyond traditional formats into spatial sound installations and site-specific works, collaborating with experimental figures like Ulla, Li Yilei, and Hinako Omori for institutions such as the Tokyo National Museum.

Much of the album consists of sketches made with synthesizer and voice. Sampled from social media clips, field recordings or a heavily processed version of Fukuzono's own vocals, the voice became a central element of the record. "I have long been interested in the relationship between words and melody.", aus says. In his former work as a speech therapist, he witnessed patients with severe dementia or aphasia, who all of a sudden could recall lyrics when they were sung with familiar melodies. An experience that left a deep impression on him.
During the Covid years, when hearing voices of friends and family sometimes was the only way to feel connected to the outside world, aus began reflecting on the connection between voice and environment. "Every voice represents an encounter with a person, but it's also an encounter with a place."
Unable to travel as freely as before, that limitation became part of his method: rather than just recording actual field material capturing the real world, he would write and perform melodies that simulate a sense of place - an imagined room, an imagined street.
"My interest lies not in the dichotomy between artificial and environmental sounds, but in how they collectively shape a single perceptual field."
By observing and mapping our world, aus creates his own and his new record is a prime example of that process.

On their third album, FANGS, London collective HMLTD have created an entirely new genre: Götherdammerüng (or ÜberGöth). Predictably unpredictable, it could not be further away from their last outing, 2023 rock opera The Worm. The sixteen-piece orchestra has been traded in for Ableton, the timpani and violins replaced with side-chained four-to-the-floor and rave synths, and the gospel choir swapped for guttural gothic howling and black metal screams. The result is both unique and terrifying: a total reinvention and rehabilitation of the goth genre, through the looking glass of modern electronic and doomscroll-era dance music.

This new beginning was accompanied by a change in personnel, with Theo Spark and Andrei Martynchyk joining the fray alongside original members Henry Spychalski and Duc Peterman. Decamping to a ruined château in the Loire Valley, the quartet became obsessed with vampire lore, and the EBM and goth sound that inspired their early work: Fad Gadget, DAF, Nitzer Ebb, Suicide and Bauhaus. FANGS also points to more contemporary influences like Crystal Castles, German hardcore, 2000s blog-house a la Justice, and 2020s sleazepop.



The world crafted in FANGS is full of cosmic pessimism, glowing horror, imperceptible evil and digital dismemberment, ancient curses and ruined castles, Vampires. But it is also a thoroughly fun, and funny, record, as danceable as it is deep. Born of the club, some tracks would not sound out of place on Brat. Like a Smiths song which sounds happy and carefree until your brain tunes in to the misery of the lyrics, it can be listened to - and enjoyed - on two levels. One can get lost in the throb of bass and ludic synths, or tune into the horror of the lyrics which overlay them.



FANGS attempts to offer up a reflection to a culture that - like a Vampire - has lost its own. The result is something not only thoroughly modern, original, and inventive - but that feels genuinely dangerous and potent. FANGS delights in this ambiguity: simultaneously indicting decadence, decay, and moral rot, while luxuriating in its intoxication by it. Cacophonous sub-bass becomes a chthonic call of the void; seraphic rave synths become the screech of Valkyries; four-to-the-floor becomes a deathly funeral march. Vampire apocalypse.

On their third album, FANGS, London collective HMLTD have created an entirely new genre: Götherdammerüng (or ÜberGöth). Predictably unpredictable, it could not be further away from their last outing, 2023 rock opera The Worm. The sixteen-piece orchestra has been traded in for Ableton, the timpani and violins replaced with side-chained four-to-the-floor and rave synths, and the gospel choir swapped for guttural gothic howling and black metal screams. The result is both unique and terrifying: a total reinvention and rehabilitation of the goth genre, through the looking glass of modern electronic and doomscroll-era dance music.

This new beginning was accompanied by a change in personnel, with Theo Spark and Andrei Martynchyk joining the fray alongside original members Henry Spychalski and Duc Peterman. Decamping to a ruined château in the Loire Valley, the quartet became obsessed with vampire lore, and the EBM and goth sound that inspired their early work: Fad Gadget, DAF, Nitzer Ebb, Suicide and Bauhaus. FANGS also points to more contemporary influences like Crystal Castles, German hardcore, 2000s blog-house a la Justice, and 2020s sleazepop.



The world crafted in FANGS is full of cosmic pessimism, glowing horror, imperceptible evil and digital dismemberment, ancient curses and ruined castles, Vampires. But it is also a thoroughly fun, and funny, record, as danceable as it is deep. Born of the club, some tracks would not sound out of place on Brat. Like a Smiths song which sounds happy and carefree until your brain tunes in to the misery of the lyrics, it can be listened to - and enjoyed - on two levels. One can get lost in the throb of bass and ludic synths, or tune into the horror of the lyrics which overlay them.



FANGS attempts to offer up a reflection to a culture that - like a Vampire - has lost its own. The result is something not only thoroughly modern, original, and inventive - but that feels genuinely dangerous and potent. FANGS delights in this ambiguity: simultaneously indicting decadence, decay, and moral rot, while luxuriating in its intoxication by it. Cacophonous sub-bass becomes a chthonic call of the void; seraphic rave synths become the screech of Valkyries; four-to-the-floor becomes a deathly funeral march. Vampire apocalypse.

Ibiza-based Jazz N Palms is back with more musical dispatches from the calmer side of the island that follow on from his Ses Rodes album in 2022. That record was focused on a double album assembled, as if over a Cartesian grid of space-time. While one record was about space/the environment, the other was following the times of the day. This 7" expands that with more music inspired by magical island spaces.

These tracks were recorded in Magrana Studio in Ibiza with three new musicians and, after the post-production, the mixing was made with the help of Ben Westbeech and his beautiful Unfairchild II, an amazing Californian reproduction of the holy grail of tube compressor that has been present in Abbey Road studios since the 60s.

Opener 'El Valle' ('the valley') captures the different shades of light that pass over Ibiza, from early spring light to the arrival of looming clouds and the first thunders of a summer storm. It is the organ which serves as the main character to convey those sensations and the passing from light to dark as a live, loose and dusty groove bounces below. On the flip side, 'La Costa' simulates cruising on the open sea, riding choppy swells as waves lap at the boat and you gaze at the passing landscapes. Only drums and bass have been used to convey the feeling, and the result is a wonderfully uneven, ever-evolving and funky groove full of life.

Nine-time GRAMMY® winner Anderson .Paak and GRAMMY®-nominated rapper Cordae have been operating on the same wavelength for years. What started as pure chemical reaction on 2019’s “RNP” slowly turned into one of hip-hop’s most natural, low-ego partnerships, fueled by back-and-forth gems like “Two Tens” and “Summer Drop” and a series of dynamic TV performances that felt more like two best friends hanging out than a polished routine. On their debut collaborative album, Heavy Is The Crown, that organic bond gets the full-length treatment it’s always deserved.

At its core, the project is a tightrope walk between serious real-life stakes and uncompromising fun. The title isn't just bravado—it speaks directly to the shared weight both artists carry as the primary providers and anchors for their families. But instead of letting that pressure crush the vibe, .Paak and Cordae lean into each other. Meeting as total equals, .Paak’s elastic, soul-drenched musicality anchors Cordae’s razor-sharp lyricism, allowing both to unpack the heavy reality of success and family responsibility without ever losing their spark.

That balance is what makes the album tick. To drive the point home, the album art pays homage to the cult comedy Step Brothers—a nod to the silly, irreverent friendship that birthed the music in the first place. Heavy Is The Crown doesn't feel like a forced corporate crossover or a calculated career move. It’s a record about brotherhood, family, and what happens when two masters of their craft step into the studio simply because nobody makes them laugh, rap, or create quite like the other.

Nine-time GRAMMY® winner Anderson .Paak and GRAMMY®-nominated rapper Cordae have been operating on the same wavelength for years. What started as pure chemical reaction on 2019’s “RNP” slowly turned into one of hip-hop’s most natural, low-ego partnerships, fueled by back-and-forth gems like “Two Tens” and “Summer Drop” and a series of dynamic TV performances that felt more like two best friends hanging out than a polished routine. On their debut collaborative album, Heavy Is The Crown, that organic bond gets the full-length treatment it’s always deserved.

At its core, the project is a tightrope walk between serious real-life stakes and uncompromising fun. The title isn't just bravado—it speaks directly to the shared weight both artists carry as the primary providers and anchors for their families. But instead of letting that pressure crush the vibe, .Paak and Cordae lean into each other. Meeting as total equals, .Paak’s elastic, soul-drenched musicality anchors Cordae’s razor-sharp lyricism, allowing both to unpack the heavy reality of success and family responsibility without ever losing their spark.

That balance is what makes the album tick. To drive the point home, the album art pays homage to the cult comedy Step Brothers—a nod to the silly, irreverent friendship that birthed the music in the first place. Heavy Is The Crown doesn't feel like a forced corporate crossover or a calculated career move. It’s a record about brotherhood, family, and what happens when two masters of their craft step into the studio simply because nobody makes them laugh, rap, or create quite like the other.

The Brussels-based collective re#encounter will release its debut album, Angels and Demons at Play, on September 18, 2026, via W.E.R.F. records. With gnawa grooves, cumbia, griot storytelling, Afro-Caribbean rhythms, and ecstatic jazz improvisations, the nine-piece ensemble crafts a distinctive, spiritual, and above all, danceable jazz idiom.

At the heart of the album lies trance. Hicham Bilali's gnawa, Kaito Winse's relentless energy, Paula León's cumbia roots, and the spellbinding jazz improvisations of Lúcia Pires and Joos Vandueren intertwine with Falk Schrauwen's Afro-Caribbean rhythms. Together with Robbe Latré, Ismaïl Akharraz, Ayoub Boufous, and Anaïs Moffarts, they create a musical encounter where differences are not erased but harnessed as a creative force.

On Angels and Demons at Play, Hicham Bilali's gnawa grooves enter into dialogue with the voices of Kaito Winse and Paula León. They weave stories from the griot and cumbia traditions-tales of ancestors, cosmic journeys, and djinns. Flute, saxophone, and trumpet craft soundscapes and melodies rooted in existing traditions, while drums, percussion, and bass drive the whole forward with tight, hypnotic rhythms.

With this, re#encounter aligns itself with the spiritual jazz idiom of artists like Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, Kahil El'Zabar's Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, and Shabaka Hutchings, but always from a distinctly Brussels-based perspective. The result is a homegrown form of Afrofuturism: music that draws on deep cultural roots while simultaneously looking ahead.

There's a moment during every great dance floor experience when the music takes over and everyone becomes part of something bigger. "SHOUT!", the latest release from 2SoulFusion Presents Ascension, captures that feeling in its purest form. Featuring the powerhouse voices and ad-libs of Dames Brown and Dawn Tallman, along with an all-star ensemble of master vocalists including Josh Milan, Rahsaan Patterson, Lisa Fischer, Cindy Mizelle, Audrey Wheeler, Ramona Dunlap, and Lea Lorien, this joyful anthem is an invitation to let go, lift your spirit, and celebrate through music.

Produced, written, arranged, and mixed by 2SoulFusion—Louie Vega and Josh Milan—"SHOUT!" draws inspiration from the communal spirit of gospel while embracing the energy and freedom of house music. Driven by simple yet powerful affirmations—"Shout," "Sing," "Move," "Love," "Get Up On Your Feet," "Listen Up," and "Let This Music Take You Higher"—the song transforms into an experience where every voice becomes part of the celebration. It's a journey of anthemic hooks, soaring harmonies, infectious grooves, and unforgettable melodies designed to ignite dance floors, uplift hearts, and remind us that music has the power to unite people through rhythm, joy, and love.

The inspiration for "SHOUT!" was born from a creative exchange between Louie Vega and Charaf Tajer, founder and creative director of the internationally acclaimed fashion house Casablanca. Introduced by longtime friend Joseph Capriati, Charaf shared a bold vision—to bring together the worlds of fashion, gospel, and house music for one unforgettable Casablanca runway presentation in Paris.

Louie Vega recalls: “Charaf was introduced to me by my friend Joseph Capriati, who said Charaf was looking to meet me about an idea he had. His vision was to marry fashion, gospel, and house music within Casablanca's collection. At first, he wanted me to DJ and play gospel house music. I said, 'Instead of playing existing music, why don't I create an original song with a gospel house flavor?' I immediately got together with my 2SoulFusion partner Josh Milan, and together we came up with 'SHOUT!'”

That vision came to life during Casablanca's spectacular Paris presentation inside a breathtaking cathedral, where Louie Vega premiered the original twelve-minute and nine-second composition live. As the music echoed through the cathedral, Dames Brown joined the London House Gospel Choir in a soul-stirring performance while the models walked the aisle on Casablanca's carpet made of their signature green color and a dashing vibrating giant mirror echoing the runway visually. Renowned DJs Luciano and Chloé Caillet were among those who walked the runway, while friends of Charaf Tajer and special guests—including Jaden Thompson, Folamour, Dimitri From Paris, Kapela, and many others—were in attendance, making it an unforgettable gathering where music, spirituality, fashion, and culture merged into one extraordinary experience.

Inspired by that magical evening in Paris, Louie Vega and Josh Milan returned to the studio to expand the original composition into the powerful recording heard today. Built around rich live musicianship, Josh Milan's keyboards, organ, piano and synth bass provide the foundation alongside Axel Tosca's expressive grand piano recorded live, Sherrod Barnes' soulful guitar, and Gene Perez's unmistakable bass groove. Together they create an infectious, organic driving sound that allows the vocals to soar while delivering the unmistakable musical depth and musicianship that define 2SoulFusion.

Leading the celebration are Dames Brown and Dawn Tallman, whose commanding performances are elevated by an extraordinary choir of world-class vocalists. Dames Brown's spirited sermon and ad-libs, and Dawn Tallman’s powerful ad-lib vamping out together with the soaring harmonies of Lisa Fischer, Cindy Mizelle, Audrey Wheeler, Rahsaan Patterson, Ramona Dunlap, Lea Lorien, and Josh Milan, recreate the feeling of a joyful gospel congregation—not confined to four walls, but alive on dance floors around the world. Every chorus encourages listeners to get up, listen up, feel it, sing, move, love, and become part of the experience. Recorded between Honeycomb Studios in Pennsylvania, The Hub Ibiza and Manhattan Center Studios, New York City, and mixed at The Hub Ibiza, "SHOUT!" reflects the continuing vision of the Ascension project, where spirituality, musicianship, community, fashion, and dance music become one.

Seven years after the haunting resonance of Voids, electronic pioneer Martyn returns to the album format with Music For Existing. Arriving on 15 May 2026, the record is more than a collection of tracks; it is a profound exploration of what it means to remain devoted to a craft in an era of relentless noise.

The album’s announcement is heralded by the lead single "Heavy Sound." The track serves as the perfect bridge between Martyn’s past and present - a masterclass in tension and release that previews the album’s dialogue between the producer, the musicians, and the audience. We live inside a culture that has prioritised and monetised restlessness. The modern apparatus runs on the continuous production of "next," driven by algorithms that value novelty over depth.

Music For Existing serves as a love letter to the communal act of making music - something that is both healing and inherently defiant. For Martyn, a musician often finds solace in musical conversation with others; in the moment we press record, we simply exist together. This record is an invitation to build human infrastructure around what we love, leaning into the fluid nature of community and seeing exactly where the music takes us when we choose to listen.

The album is a sprawling, "off-the-grid" tapestry that echoes Martyn’s profound appreciation for jazz - free, instinctive, and bursting in every sonic direction. This collection features an expansive cast of collaborators, including Duval Timothy, Dan Only, Lucinda Chua, and Mark Cisneros. The record is further elevated by the contributions of jazz talents Mischa Porte and Cees Bruinsma, alongside the evocative words of writer and poet Musa Okwonga.

While the acoustic textures and improvisational spirit of this record may feel like a departure, they represent a homecoming. Jazz has always been ingrained in Martyn’s work; even in his most stripped-back club tracks, the DNA of swing, syncopation, and free-form structure was always present, if not always visible.

Music For Existing marks the beginning of an exciting journey that will continue from the studio to the stage, celebrating the radical act of existing in the moment.

WRWTFWW Records proudly announces the release of sfs/in vain (selected tracks) by UK jungle heavyweight and Future Retro London founder Tim Reaper, a limited-edition 3LP bringing together selected tracks from two previously digital-only albums, sfs and in vain.
An insane collection of slower 140 BPM wonders, sfs/in vain explores jungle, dubstep, UK garage, R'n'B, grime, liquid D&B and broken beats through Tim Reaper's fresh and informed approach. Deconstructed and reconstructed club music, rooted in tradition but looking forward, these tracks reveal another side of one of the key figures in the modern jungle revival.
The selection comes from 2 albums. sfs collects a body of slower material Tim Reaper worked on throughout 2025, stretching across various genres of UK electronic music. in vain comes from a much more personal place. Written during a period of instability, heartbreak, financial and professional uncertainty, the album became a way for Tim Reaper to process what was happening around him and find some kind of escape. The tracks were made at a point when the effort he had put into rebuilding his life felt as though it had all been "in vain" - hence the title. The result is warm, melancholic, soulful, simply very human.
Together, these selected tracks highlight the incredible range of Tim Reaper's production, proving that his understanding of jungle extends far beyond the traditional boundaries of the genre. From heavyweight bass music to delicate melodic passages, sfs/in vain (selected tracks) is a beautifully varied snapshot of an artist constantly pushing UK club music into new territories.
Tim Reaper has been leading the resurgence of jungle for years, with releases on AKO, Skeleton Recordings, 7th Storey Projects, Green Bay Wax, Dalston Chillies, Parallax, Myor Massiv, V Recordings, Deep Jungle and many more. He is also the founder of Future Retro London, one of the most respected labels and platforms in the contemporary jungle scene.

By the time Michael Nau completed Popfly, the songs felt less like compositions than companions. Arriving in fragments, notebook lines, and fleeting observations, these pieces kept company for years until taking their final form. The result is one of Nau's most openhearted, expansive records, both homespun and otherworldly at once. Radiant folk melodies, tape-warped textures, and flashes of everyday wonder coexist in perfect balance on Popfly. Nau has never been a songwriter who forces songs into existence. Instead, he follows them, trusting intuition over agenda and allowing songs to gradually reveal themselves. Writing and recording often blur together, with melodies evolving before lyrics are finished and stray recordings forming the basis for new songs. Popfly showcases these creative detours: thoughtful folk songs, sonic experiments, and accidental beauty transformed into fully realized compositions. Many songs began at home, growing in meaning. Since he entered the Vermont studio, Little Jamaica, with longtime friend and collaborator Benny Yurco, many of them had already lived several lives. "Studio recording feels like covering my own songs," Nau says. This idea flows throughout: performances are lived-in, feeling effortless, as if assembling itself. The title track carries a flicker of wonder in its simple observations. "New Slack" moves with the loose confidence of a song content to follow its own path. On "Lost Station Hideaway," soft static and fading signals become something strangely comforting, as if the song itself is being broadcast from somewhere just beyond reach. Family and friendship are deeply woven throughout the record. Nau's children contribute vocals, bringing warmth and spontaneity to the album's communal spirit, with longtime collaborator and wife Whitney McGraw lending her serene voice. The harmonies that drift from them extend the album's central impulse of people gathering to make something beautiful. Across Popfly, loose-limbed folk songs mingle with homespun psych-pop, porchside country-folk, dreamlike atmospherics, and quietly profound observations. The record moves with the ease of conversation among old friends, finding beauty in tiny revelations, strange coincidences, and everyday mysteries. The record is full of transmissions from different moments in Nau's life, stitched together by instinct, affection, and time. Taken together, they form a portrait of a life spent paying close attention to the world and its small miracles.

‘Finally’, the forthcoming new record from Catz ’n Dogz, belongs to the latter.

There are albums you listen to, and there are albums you live with. ‘Finally’, the forthcoming new record from Catz ’n Dogz, belongs to the latter.

Across sixteen tracks, Voitek and Greg have created their most creatively ambitious and emotionally open work to date. An album about relationships, friendship and the people and places that shape us. At its heart is a simple idea: music should make you feel something, and sometimes the most meaningful moments are the quiet ones when you finally have time to yourself.

Finally is rooted in the emotional contradictions that make memories so powerful. Inspired by classic American Folk and Soul, its songs are happy and nostalgic; hopeful without pretending that the past doesn’t exist. There is melancholy inside the euphoria and warmth inside the sadness, a constant interplay between looking back and moving forward.

The album begins with the soulful breakbeat glow of 'We’re Gonna Be Alright' featuring Ajii, before moving through the smoky jazz and piano-led intimacy of 'Dance For You' with Miller Blue and the bass-driven energy of 'Sun Goes Down' featuring Charlotte Haining. Closing with the reflective 'Miss You' featuring Mateusz Krautwurst, the record takes in a rich cast of vocalists, musicians and producers, alongside a series of deeply personal Catz ’n Dogz solo productions.

Those collaborations are central to Finally. The album is, in many ways, a celebration of the creative friendships Voitek and Greg have built throughout their journey. Relationships that have allowed them to step outside their comfort zone and rethink what their music can be.

Written and recorded between Madrid, New York, Warsaw and the road, the album finds the duo placing renewed emphasis on songwriting, chord progressions and musical craft. Rather than simply chasing the next track, they took the time to learn, experiment and create something with a sense of permanence.

This is an album for driving without a destination. For watching the sun go down. For remembering somebody you haven’t thought about in years. For those rare stretches of time when there is nowhere else you need to be.

Phenomena begins with two artistic voices that seem to speak different languages. Barcelona-based producer R-010 (Lucas Rojo) approaches composition through rhythm, space and electronic transformation; Madrid-born vocalist and multidisciplinary artist Venerandi through texture, breath and the expressive possibilities of the human voice. By the time the album reaches its final moments, that distinction has quietly disappeared.

Rather than functioning as a meeting point between two individual practices, Phenomena gradually
becomes a third language—one that belongs to neither artist alone. Voice no longer sits above the music
but moves inside it, dissolving into layers of synthesis, percussion and guitar until performance itself
becomes another malleable sound source. Likewise, electronic production never behaves as a fixed
environment; it constantly adapts, absorbs and responds, allowing acoustic gestures and digital
manipulation to reshape one another in real time.

This continuous transformation defines the record more than any particular genre ever could. Echoes of trip hop, bass music, psychedelia and experimental electronics drift across its surface, yet they are never
presented as stylistic markers. Instead, they appear as temporary states within an ecosystem that remains
in constant motion, where dense rhythmic passages collapse into suspended atmospheres and moments
of stillness carry as much weight as those driven by pulse.

The presence of Matteo Caro (guitar and percussion), Pablo Gorostiaga (guitar) and Alessio Rodolico
(percussion) further expands this dialogue. Their contributions are not decorative additions but structural
ones, gradually dissolving the distinction between composition, improvisation and production. Instruments
emerge, mutate and disappear inside the same sonic fabric, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish
what was performed from what was transformed.

With Phenomena, Lapsus Records presents a work that feels less interested in crossing genres than in
questioning the borders between artistic identities themselves. The album never asks the listener to decide
where the human ends and the machine begins. Instead, it quietly suggests that, after enough careful
listening, the question itself may no longer matter.

Pablo Volt and J.G.G. make dub-folktronica the unpolished way: guitar, horns, drums and synths, recorded loose, drenched in echoes and tape saturation. They met in Barcelona over a shared love of experimental beers and even more experimental sessions, determined to see how far their musical chemistry could take them. "Mordida", their 2023 tape, spent months on repeat at the Pingipung office. Now comes the debut LP: Aqui me quedo. It's a record built on the gap between two childhoods. Pablo Volt (aka Pope, as producer) grew up in Mendoza, Argentina; Jordi Gege aka J.G.G. in a suburb of Barcelona. What they share is a language and a curiosity about each other's memories and musical roots - the studio is where they embrace their different origins in improvisations. A ditch from Pablo's childhood becomes "Zanjon". A mountain Jordi used to roam becomes "Emisora". An ice cream shop, a Sunday market, a football club: small doors into a past the other never lived, but somehow recognises. Aqui me quedo, "I'm staying here", is also the name of the Barcelona bar where they toast after a good session. Two friends, tracing their way back through the past, decide the present is where they'd rather be. Handmade, melodic, unashamed of a smile as they greet from the LP sleeve: this is the spirit in which Pingipung was founded 24 years ago and these two guys, muy simpatico, are living proof of it.

2026 Repress

Dial Records boss makes a welcome return to Smallville in March of 2024 with a fresh four-tracker EP ‘Gravity Hill’. Peter Kersten, better known to most as Lawrence, has been at the forefront of underground house and techno for decades now. His Dial imprint, co-founded alongside Carsten Jost, has grown to become a north star for many seeking out raw, emotive and understated electronic music and Lawrence’s own productions follow a similar path, finding a home on many beloved labels beyond Dial such as Kompakt, Mule Musiq, Ghostly
International, Giegling, Pampa and of course Smallville, that he co-founded together with Stella Plazonja and Julius Steinhoff in 2005.
Title-track ‘Gravity Hill’ opens the project and perfectly sets the tone with Lawrence’s distinct atmospheric haze of keys, chords and pads billowing atop swaying bass tones and crisp drums. ‘Beaver’ follows next and edges into dubbed out realms with expansive stab delays, rounded subs, modulating percussive flutters and a robust rhythmic drive.
‘The Swamp’ then leads the B-side, diving into a deeper territory via airy Rhodes melodies and subtly unfurling pads, intertwined with organic percussion and a jazz tinged bass line. ‘Stargazer’ then concludes the package and shifts back to a more straight, dance floor- oriented feel via a twitchy acid bass, circling resonant synth licks, hypnotic textures and a swinging drum groove.
Smallville 62 artwork by Stefan Marx as always and it's the first 12“ Smallville cover in full colour ever after 61 black/white releases.

Breakbeat Paradise Recordings proudly welcomes back one of the undisputed heavyweights of the international funk and breaks scene, Basement Freaks, for another scorching edition of the Toxic Funk series.

The brainchild of Greek producer George Fotiadis, Basement Freaks has spent more than two decades building a worldwide reputation for infectious grooves, heavyweight beats and dancefloor-destroying funk. With releases on labels including Jalapeño Records, Bombastic Jam, Good Groove Records and many more, Basement Freaks has become a staple in DJ sets around the globe and one of the most respected names in modern funk.

Opening the release is Got That Funky Stuff, an irresistible slice of raw party funk packed with chunky breakbeats, killer basslines and soulful samples that are guaranteed to get any crowd moving. Flipping over, Life For Dat Sweet Ting keeps the energy flowing with another irresistible groove, combining vintage funk flavors, rolling drums and signature Basement Freaks swagger into a certified dancefloor weapon.

Whether you're a funk DJ, breakbeat selector or simply a lover of timeless grooves, Toxic Funk Vol. 25 delivers two expertly crafted cuts that showcase why Basement Freaks remains at the very top of the global Nu Funk scene. Another essential 7-inch for collectors and DJs alike, and another dose of pure funk from Breakbeat Paradise Recordings.

Long Distance Operators (LDO) is a collaboration between the Australian musician Hugo Race and the Belgian violinist Catherine Graindorge. Hugo Race, singer, songwriter, producer and author, has a long and wide-ranging history, from the trans-global Dirtmusic and his groups True Spirit and Fatalists to his origins in the 80's Melbourne post-punk scene with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds and The Wreckery. Catherine Graindorge, violinist and composer, is known for her solo work and collaborations with International artists such as Iggy Pop, John Parish, Pascal Humbert (16 Horsepower), Simon Huw Jones (And Also The Trees). She also plays and composes for theater and cinema. The music of LDO is an intensely atmospheric dreamweave of violins, electronics and Hugo's darkly evocative voice. The duo explores metaphysical lyrics, experimental sounds and retro-baroque orchestrations in a romantic, song-based context.

Long Distance Operators (LDO) is a collaboration between the Australian musician Hugo Race and the Belgian violinist Catherine Graindorge. Hugo Race, singer, songwriter, producer and author, has a long and wide-ranging history, from the trans-global Dirtmusic and his groups True Spirit and Fatalists to his origins in the 80's Melbourne post-punk scene with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds and The Wreckery. Catherine Graindorge, violinist and composer, is known for her solo work and collaborations with International artists such as Iggy Pop, John Parish, Pascal Humbert (16 Horsepower), Simon Huw Jones (And Also The Trees). She also plays and composes for theater and cinema. The music of LDO is an intensely atmospheric dreamweave of violins, electronics and Hugo's darkly evocative voice. The duo explores metaphysical lyrics, experimental sounds and retro-baroque orchestrations in a romantic, song-based context.

2026 Repress


DJ Koze's 2013 album opus Amygdala has continued to bewitch all who encounter it since its release. Tipped as his own personal Sgt. Pepper, the sublime long-player revealed a fully-realised and personal body of work, complete with a classic songwriting at its core, House in its heart, and veins coursing with psychedelic color. La Duquesa' was the album's dreamy single standout, a journey into deep, tropical ecstasy. XTC' begins in the same spirit, and captures the all the blissful allusions of its name, but its initial gentility belies the deep intensity to come. Floating pads glow with celestial ambience as a kick drum is gradually coaxed into solid form, and the introduction of spoken text begins the second act. Many people are experimenting with the drug Ecstasy,' it says, ...is the drug like the lie and meditation the truth Or am I missing something that could really help me". XTC' then transforms: sweetly imploring tones become demanding, gentle gradients between chords turn hard-edged, and sharp hi-hats cut through the haze. Complete with Koze's signature percussive quirks, it drives towards the track's final pay off: an undeniable, all-consuming, irresistible high. Knee On Belly' recalls Koze at his most tongue-in-cheek and overt, it is bright, bold and literally brassy, using cut-up horns of all shapes and sizes to patchwork together his own unique arrangement. With the highs and mid ranges accounted for, Koze adds in a swollen, thrumming bass line to mix to bring this floor-filler to life. Knee on Belly' recalls a raw, filtered and funky approach to groove, with a nod to disco house and the art of artful sampling, as it orbits between its own neon highs and simmering lows.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of one of the true cult classics of the Italo Disco universe: Mike Mareen’s “Love Spy.” Released in 1986, the track sounded strikingly different from much of the dance music around it: futuristic, dramatic, playful and instantly recognisable. It quickly found its way into DJ cases across Europe and became one of the records that would define Mike Mareen’s electronic sound.

But the story actually began under a different name. An early incarnation of the song was called “Batman,” with lyrics inspired by the adventures of the famous comic-book hero and the villains surrounding him. A small number of promotional copies circulated before copyright concerns meant that the concept had to be abandoned. The title and lyrics were rewritten and “Love Spy” was born. The early “Batman” version has since become one of the most fascinating curiosities in Mike Mareen’s catalogue.

Four decades later, we felt an anniversary like this deserved something special.
LOVE SPY 40th Anniversary will therefore arrive in two parts, bringing together some of our favourite producers from today’s Italo, synth and electronic scene.

Part One features brand-new remixes by Luca Dell’Orso, Flemming Dalum, Also Playable Mono and Disco Computer. And enthusiasm was never going to be a problem here. “Love Spy” is not simply an ’80s classic, it remains a genuine DJ favourite, loved by old-school collectors and a new generation of Italo-wave selectors alike.

Alongside four killer new interpretations, we are bringing back the original Badman Mix, plus the highly sought-after “MAKE YOUR OWN MIX” material – rare set of individual elements created for DJs to deconstruct, combine and rebuild “Love Spy” themselves. These samples have become particularly desirable among collectors and make the perfect addition to the first chapter of our anniversary edition.

Four new remixes. Two pieces of history. Forty years of LOVE SPY.

And we are only halfway there.

LOVE SPY 40th Anniversary Part Two, featuring another line-up of major names from our scene arrives in November.

You know the pattern: someone calls their album "Balearic," and you immediately expect chill-out terraces, pan-flute samples, and the umpteenth return of the Café del Mar sunset. Devi G. refuses this reflex almost maliciously. The title is a trick—an invitation to disappointment for those hoping for postcard exoticism. What is actually being negotiated here is erosion, but that of the body itself: the abrasion one inflicts upon oneself in the excess of the night, when partying turns into wear and tear, and a rush becomes a graze that only becomes visible in the morning. No backdrop, then, but a wound one has voluntarily acquired.

Instead of the usual Ibiza xylophones, Devi G. digs into the rift between idyll and wear. The result reads like a séance—less José Padilla, more as if Kevin Martin had re-recorded a Manuel Göttsching record on a dying four-track deck. The target area lies somewhere between the waterlogged ambient sketches of Huerco S. and the faded dub-afterglow of Actress, but Devi G. remains consistently on his own, grainier frequency.

Balearic Abrasions (title track) opens without haste, demanding almost without impatience: no motif, no rhythmic handhold, just a slowly tilting balance between warm texture and rough surface. The grain never feels forced—it is not a lo-fi costume, but an integral part of the statics themselves. Where other ambient producers strive for perfection, Devi G. consciously seeks the breaking point. Rhythm remains a tool, never an ambition. Those expecting quick resolution will be disappointed; those willing to listen will receive a depth effect that is rarely this vivid.

Exit Through Thee Gift Shop tips into harder territory: dub-techno reduction meets industrial edge, carried by a stoic kick drum that knows no mercy. Metallic textures slice through the sub-bass, while repetitive chords hypnotize like a defective loop. Central to this is a rare Terence McKenna recording, which functions less as spoken-word ornamentation and more as a disruptive spirit between memory and media archaeology. The title—Banksy reference included—turns this into a biting punchline: radical electronic abstraction positioned against the hyper-commercialized art world.

Morning Depth pushes the claustrophobia further, somewhere between post-industrial and deep-sea dub. The track refuses any peak-time logic, preferring to disintegrate into itself, subcutaneously, methodically. At the end, a casual, almost banal vocal sample (“i defiantly prefer chocolate”) breaks into the cool machinery—a small, profane fissure that makes the coldness of the rest of the piece all the more apparent.

Desiré Algorithmic is the album's most calculated moment: a stoic, repetitive bassline as a foundation, topped with fragile melody fragments that flash like glitches in faulty code. The title reads like a promise from nightlife—a figure that suggests much and delivers nothing, because behind the façade there is simply nothing, only simulation. The track carries exactly this principle: promise without substance, desire without body, just rendering. Only in the final third does a melancholic saxophone break into the sterile structure—organic, imperfect, and for that very reason more credible than everything before it. It is the moment in which the real briefly flashes through the surface of the dummy before it closes again.

All-inclusive Residue concludes the album as sedimentation rather than dramaturgy: dub-techno remnants, industrial patina, salty ambient surfaces that settle rather than compose. The refusal of consumption as a sonic principle—brittle, stubborn, with a gravity that lingers long after.

Verdict: Balearic Abrasions is not easy listening with a sea view, but an exercise in patience and friction. The restraint with which Devi G. avoids climaxes will frustrate some—for everyone else, that is exactly where the record's strength lies. No sunset. Rather, what remains on the rocks afterward.

"After a couple of years shaping her sound in the studio, Budino lands the "Signal EP", a record that grew out of the desire to make music for her own sets. Citing the journey she aims to create in the club as a key inspiration, she certainly put in the mileage, with a booking schedule tirelessly spanning all points of the compass. Although this is her first label-released original record, it's no novice effort: ALT027 shows a confident artist, fully in control, with a distinct vision and the technical expertise to bring it to life. On opener "Stay More", a trippy trance rendition, the sturdy kick and distorted sines leave ample room for mid-bass acid lines to roam freely. In its company, a myriad of risers, gated white noises and delayed fills appear - signifiers within the artist's palette, as will become apparent. "Wireless" features similar crafty sub movement, but this time the drums are infused with conga patterns and other exotic slices of battery. Because of the zest these rhythms bring, the track can keep building for several minutes until a synthesised lead emerges. When that finally happens, the affair really takes off. On the other side, "Alpha 7" rides the call-and-response dynamics between different formant and deep-vibrating leads, its shimmering arpeggios and atmospheric pads adding colour. Closer "1031" provides an organic touch with its live guitar bass pulse and enigmatic, eerie vocals. Amidst ever-evolving micro-frills, a sturdy square lead thrusts it forward. The groove, again, is endlessly seductive. This characterizes Budino's skilled approach: it's often so hypnotic it feels unclear whether the themes materialise from the surrounding, seemingly fluid compositions - or dissolve into them. In any case, these are multi-dimensional cuts you will love getting lost in on a nearby dancefloor."

In the early ‘10’s the WPH Summer Special was a yearly tradition: a stamped vinyl only releases featuring lost tracks, one-off collabs, dreaded digital only gems, etc. Some summer specials were so hot we released them in the winter to battle the cold…

Guess what? It’s back! Four killer tracks on one slice of vinyl. Satoshi Fumi remixing Ian O’Donovan to devastating Detroit-styled effect, Red D taking things deep with some dreamy deep house magic, Fabrice Lig going from ‘Border 2 Border’ on vinyl with Red D & Lady Linn and then Uit De Hoogte teaming up with Lefto for an oldskool house jam that will only be available on this release.

If this doesn’t get your heat up…

Ame: Thanks for ‘Border 2 Border’

Frankey & Sandrino: Great music in here, thanks!

Ben Sims: Ian O’Donovan one…asap!

Axel Boman: The dancefloor is open indeed.

Terre Theamlitz: Thank you for ‘Sweet Synthie Pauline’.

Simon Caldwell: Lovely E.P. of reminiscence!

Satoshi Fumi: Cool pack J

Red Rack’em: Love the Satoshi Fumi remix.

Severino Panzetta: Grooovy!

Jimpster: I can imagine the Ian O’Donovan working nicely. Classy stuff!

Harri Subclub: Play and support from me.

Massimiliano Pagliara: Great tunes!

Ghost Dubs, real name Michael Fiedler, aka Jah Schulz, announces a rebirth with 'Damaged', his first album for The Bug's PRESSURE label..

Having recently dropped two criminally overlooked, experimental dub LPs, with his 'Dub Over Science' series, the German producer/bass specialist, now stretches his own parameters of outwardness still further, with these twelve fresh explorations of dub deviance. For those who feel the fusion of dub techno and ambient drone had creatively ended with the demise of the short lived, Berlin based Chain Reaction label. Ghost Dubs now upgrades, and extends that legendary blueprint's abstract methodology even further and deeper, floating away upon a wonderfully warm sea of hiss and static bliss. This is dub so atomized that it disintegrates within your eardrums. Its music, where the machines take over and virtually all traces of humanity are erased. But thankfully, the warmest soul still oozes seductively from the pores of Fiedler's robo riddims. Relentlessly hypnotic, seriously sedated, 'Damaged' celebrates the point of departure within it's mesmerising low end grooves. Album opener 'Chemical', provides an opiated slo-mo skank, which sounds like Plastikman's 'Consumed' era pulsations drenched heavily in sub aquatic fx. A triumph of surface noise surfing and sub woofer testing relentlessness, it provides the perfect intro to this compellingly immersive album. For batty shakers and headtrippers alike, there's added thrills aplenty, as Ghost Dub's richter scale tremor rhythms remain impressively massive, and the atmospheric depths of 'Damaged' appear tantalisingly oceanic. Throughout the duration of the dreamy selection, there is an obsessive balance of bewitching ambience and heavyweight bassbin shaking. The lead single 'Thin Line' itself provides a missing link between African Headcharge's early percussive body probes and Rhythm & Sound's addictive radiance, with the slightest hint of Burial's doomed romantic hauntology added for good taste. Alternately, and no less gracefully, 'Dub Lobotomy' bizarrely resembles Miles Davis 'Get Up with it' chopped, screwed, and relocated to a futuristic Kingston Town. Impressive indeed, Fiedler's mastery of live dubbing on his mixing desk shines accross the duration, and gives the album an improvised edge, and sense of peripheral chaos. Elsewhere, spooked steppars('Hot Wired'), haunting house ('True to life') and 4th World psychogeography('Undone'), combine to ensure there is a forever changing mixture of flavours percolating within the admirable consistancy of the overall sound.

With a tip of the cap, and nod of the head to Pole('Second Thoughts'), its no surprise then that PRESSURE would then turn to the great, Berlin based producer Stefan Betke, to master/cut this collection at his infamous Scape mastering room. And a fine job he did too, as high quality sound and levels are definitely maintained throughout.

If you like your melodies submerged, your dub narcotic, your basslines obese, and your beats evaporating, 'Damaged' provides the perfect prescription and entry point into Ghost Dub's spectral soundworld.

RAWAX welcomes Clouds of Kouros aka Garry Todd to the artist family!
We are very happy to present you this great artist on our label. The firrst felease is simply a Killer!
Highly recommended!

DJ Support: Glenn Underground, Crazy P, Terry Farley, Aroop Roy, Chris Coco, Frank Tope, Greg Wilson, Dom Servini, Francois K, Max Essa, Oliver Dollar, Pete Herbert and many more

Danny Ward’s Balaphonic project, one of many the long-serving performer, producer, percussionist, drummer and DJ has utilised over a career spanning over three decades, has evolved considerably since his first release under the alias 11 years ago. Conceived as a platform to explore his love of Afro-Cuban and Brazilian musical culture, it gathered new impetus during lockdown and the recording of superb first album Resolution Revolutions, which fused these influences with nods to Balearica, dub, dancehall and deep house.

On the Organic Matters EP, Ward’s follow-up to that critically acclaimed set, the Balaphonic musical universe has expanded once more, with the Manchester native showcasing a wealth of eye-catching collaborations and an even more intricately layered and sonically detailed sound rich in live percussion and instrumentation. It’s an ambitious and widescreen musical vision wrapped in sun-soaked melodies, morning-fresh motifs and simmering, sunset-friendly soundscapes.

The dizzying new heights scaled by Ward on Organic Matters is evident from the opening bars of ‘Dew Drops’, a piece created in unison with internationally renowned composer and arranger Robin Dewhirst. Between them, the pair have conjured up a yearning, life-affirming samba shuffler where picturesque piano, xylophone and balafon melodies rise above Ward’s dense, layered Latin percussion and warming bass.

Next, Ward delivers a thrillingly different take on his 2005 composition ‘Switch’, featuring legendary Brazilian jazz vocalist Flora Purim and her equally talented daughter Diana Moreira Booker. Whereas that was a jazzy deep house workout, Ward’s Balaphonic re-make is a shuffling, gentle exploration in 7/4 time – a heartfelt tribute to the Brazilian records with which Purim first made her name in the 1960s and ‘70s.

‘Balaventurers’ sees Ward join forces with an old friend from the North-West scene, R.S.L founder Joe Botham AKA Baleardelica – a multi-instrumentalist and producer whose Flamenco-inspired acoustic guitar motifs provided the starting point for another vividly colourful exploration rich in layered vocalisations, twinkling keys and impeccably arranged percussion.

It’s followed by ‘Life of Strings’, a more up-tempo and dancefloor-leaning excursion written and recorded alongside Amsterdam-based violinist, and composer Katya Gabeli. While Ward’s percussion-rich groove provides propulsion and a rock-solid foundation, it’s Gabeli’s evocative string arrangement that provides the focal point and emotional resonance. It’s a genuinely brilliant collaboration.

To round off a second stunning Balaphonic release on NuNorthern Soul, Ward delivers two simmering, slow-motion delights: the Afro-Cuban rhythms, cascading melodies and melodic percussion motifs of ‘Boxfresh’, and stunning EP closer ‘Home’ – an almost overwhelmingly poignant and beautiful number that gently ebbs and flows on waves of tracked piano, dreamy chords and a comforting sense of closure. It’s a genuinely sublime conclusion to another wonderful Balaphonic release.

Cécille Summer 2026 Compilation
Summer and Cécille have always gone hand in hand.

For 2026, we’re back with another carefully selected collection of records that perfectly capture where house music feels today. Eleven tracks from artists we’ve admired for years, longtime friends of the label, exciting
newcomers, and fresh faces joining the Cécille family for the very first time.

Piem opens the journey with his long-awaited Cécille debut. A respected name in the scene for many years, his unmistakable groove has been on our radar for a long time, and we’re proud to finally welcome him to the label with Give Me The Rhythm.

Leon returns to where it all began. Since his very first Cécille release back in 2009, he’s been an important part of the label’s story. Let Bass Kick is classic Leon—timeless, understated and effortlessly effective.

UK duo Late Replies continue their incredible rise with Moment 4 U. Their fresh take on house music has been impossible to ignore, and we’re thrilled to have them on this year’s compilation.

Dutch mainstay Jesse Maas delivers Voices In My Head, another classy slice of groove from one of the most consistent names in the Netherlands’ house scene.

Buenos Aires’ Manu Desrets impressed us so much that one track simply wasn’t enough. His two contributions, Get GG and Voy No Kako, showcase two different shades of his sound and perfectly reflect why he’s become
one of the most exciting producers coming out of Argentina.

Andrew Azara has become a true part of the Cécille family over the years. This time he teams up with Traumer, who makes his label debut with a beautifully understated deep house record. Need You is one of those tracks
that quietly sticks with you.

We’re also excited to welcome Jay de Lys to the family. Together with Simon Kidzoo and Monölitio, the trio delivers Into The Light—a warm, feel-good house record that instantly became one of our favourites. Three
artists from Argentina, the Netherlands and Barcelona coming together exactly the way house music should.

After turning heads on last year’s Costa compilation, Brazil’s Classmatic returns alongside fellow Florianópolis producer Marian. Brazilian Madness is exactly what you’d expect: infectious groove, irresistible swing and that
unmistakable Brazilian sense of rhythm.

One of the hottest young names coming out of the Netherlands right now, Stefan Meser delivers Don’t Hesitate—one of those records that gets stuck in your head after the very first listen.

Closing the compilation is someone who’s been part of the Cécille story since the very beginning. Christian Burkhardt has been a longtime friend of the label and one of Frankfurt’s finest. Specialo lived in our vault for almost two years while we waited for the right moment to release it. This felt like the perfect place for it, and the perfect way to close another Cécille summer.

Eleven tunes. Eleven different stories. One soundtrack for Summer 2026. Welcome to the next chapter of Cécille.

Magazine Announces 15th Anniversary Remaster of Barnt’s Techno Classic Geffen

Cologne-based record label Magazine celebrates the 15th anniversary of Barnt’s visionary anthem Geffen. One of electronic music's most defining tracks of the 2010s will be reissued in a 2026 remaster edition, marking the first time it receives its own dedicated standalone release.

Originally published on the legendary Cómeme imprint as part of the Various Artists EP The Power Of Now, the track rapidly became a global phenomenon. Looking back, one can hardly imagine Geffen without the 2010s, or, conversely, maybe even electronic music of that era without it. The composition mirrors the expressive possibilities of bedroom producers at the beginning of that decade—an era where artists could launch tracks into the world and have them resonate through their sheer sonic power, without major marketing efforts.

Barnt remembers: "It was one of my earliest tracks. I had just entered art school and didn't own much equipment. My MIDI keyboard only had two octaves. I would always play notes with my right hand while simultaneously shifting through the octaves with my left. This is how the hook line came to life. The production only consisted of seven or eight stems, and barely any equalizers were used during the mixdown. In hindsight, this sparse approach to production probably made it sound different and is why it hits so hard on big sound systems (while sounding unfinished to some on YouTube). At that time, we were doing a small festival on a playground in the center of Cologne. When I played the CDR there, Matias Aguayo demanded it right after. That is how it ended up on Cómeme."

The release comes with two very Magazine-esque reinterpretations from the label's two other co-founders alongside Barnt: a powerful atmospheric club remix by Jens-Uwe Beyer, and Magazine Hallucination, a wild, collaborative, psychedelic mutation by Crato and Beyer.

Jörg Burger, who already mastered the original track, is also responsible for the mastering of this release.

Celebrate the incredible music from the first half of the 70s with this brand-new 2LP collection packed with the era’s most iconic hits.

LP1 kicks off with Queen’s ‘Killer Queen’, followed by Elton John’s timeless ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ and Mott The Hoople’s anthemic ‘All The Young Dudes’. Glam-rock favourites from Sweet, Mud and Wizzard sit alongside Pilot’s feel-good ‘Magic’ and David Essex’s distinctive ‘Rock On’. Side Two turns up the guitars with Rod Stewart’s ‘You Wear It Well’, Free’s legendary ‘All Right Now’ and Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet’. Alice Cooper’s rebellious ‘School’s Out’, Status Quo’s ‘Down Down’ and Thin Lizzy’s ‘Whisky In The Jar’ continue an incredible run of rock classics before Bob Dylan closes the LP with ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’.

LP2 opens with Paul McCartney & Wings’ epic ‘Band On The Run’, before Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ and Billy Joel’s ‘Piano Man’ showcase some of the decade’s finest songwriting. Harry Nilsson’s unforgettable ‘Without You’ and Terry Jacks’ ‘Seasons In The Sun’ lead into soulful classics from Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes and The Stylistics. Side Two opens with Neil Diamond’s enduring ‘Sweet Caroline’ and Carly Simon’s ‘You’re So Vain’, before Diana Ross’ ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ and Stevie Wonder’s ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours’ launch an irresistible run of soul and dancefloor favourites. Barry White’s ‘You’re The First, The Last, My Everything’, George McCrae’s ‘Rock Your Baby’ and The Three Degrees’ ‘When Will I See You Again?’ lead into Michael Jackson’s beautiful ‘Ben’, bringing this celebration of 1970–1974 to a memorable close.

Info Deutsch:

Nach „EBM“ aus dem Jahr 2022, einer Zusammenarbeit mit dem Elektronik-Produzenten Benjamin John Power alias Blanck Mass, haben Editors auf „Surface, Echo & Sound“ völlig neue Wege eingeschlagen. Als sich die Band im Sommer 2025 wieder zusammenfand, um an einem Nachfolger zu arbeiten – nachdem die drei vorangegangenen Alben weitgehend als Studio-Projekte geschrieben und aufgenommen worden waren –, hatten die Editors das Bedürfnis, zu einem natürlicheren Ansatz zurückzukehren, der an ihre Anfänge erinnerte: als sie in einem Proberaum in Stafford saßen und sich gegenseitig gegenüberstanden, während sie gemeinsam an den Songs arbeiteten.



Ähnlich wie bei seinem letztjährigen Soloalbum „There is Nothing In The Dark That Isn’t There In The Light“ verfolgte Frontmann Tom Smith auch bei dem neuen Material der Editors einen ähnlich reduzierten, akustikbasierten Ansatz: Er brachte eine Auswahl an Songs zur Band, damit sie diese gemeinsam spielen konnten, probierte verschiedene Dinge aus und schaute, wohin die Reise ging. Was die Entstehung des Albums angeht, „war es ein sehr produktiver Sommer“, sagt Smith. „Die Sonne schien die meiste Zeit, wir waren im grünen Gloucestershire, nicht weit von meinem Wohnort entfernt, in diesem unscheinbaren kleinen Gewerbegebiet – es war so ziemlich das Gegenteil von Berghain!“

„Surface, Echo & Sound“ ist als LP, Ltd. Col.LP CD und digital über Play It Again Sam erhältlich.



Info Englisch:

Following on from 2022’s EBM, a collaboration with electronic producer Benjamin John Power, aka Blanck Mass, on Surface, Echo & Sound, Editors have found themselves somewhere new entirely. When the band regrouped in summer 2025 to work on a follow-up, after three albums written and recorded very much as in-the-studio projects, Editors felt they wanted to go back to a more natural approach, something that harked back to their earliest days, sat in a practice room in Stafford, facing each other as they worked through songs together.



Like on last year’s solo record There is Nothing In The Dark That Isn’t There In The Light, frontman Tom Smith took a similar stripped back, acoustic-based approach to the new Editors material, bringing a selection of songs to the band for them to play together, trying different things out, and seeing where they went. In terms of creating the record, “It was a very productive summer,” says Smith. “The sun was out for the most part, we were in greenest Gloucestershire, not far from where I live, on this innocuous little industrial estate – it was pretty much the opposite of being in Berghain!”



Surface, Echo & Sound is available on LP, Ltd. Col. LP and CD & Digital via Play It Again Sam.

Info Deutsch:

Nach „EBM“ aus dem Jahr 2022, einer Zusammenarbeit mit dem Elektronik-Produzenten Benjamin John Power alias Blanck Mass, haben Editors auf „Surface, Echo & Sound“ völlig neue Wege eingeschlagen. Als sich die Band im Sommer 2025 wieder zusammenfand, um an einem Nachfolger zu arbeiten – nachdem die drei vorangegangenen Alben weitgehend als Studio-Projekte geschrieben und aufgenommen worden waren –, hatten die Editors das Bedürfnis, zu einem natürlicheren Ansatz zurückzukehren, der an ihre Anfänge erinnerte: als sie in einem Proberaum in Stafford saßen und sich gegenseitig gegenüberstanden, während sie gemeinsam an den Songs arbeiteten.



Ähnlich wie bei seinem letztjährigen Soloalbum „There is Nothing In The Dark That Isn’t There In The Light“ verfolgte Frontmann Tom Smith auch bei dem neuen Material der Editors einen ähnlich reduzierten, akustikbasierten Ansatz: Er brachte eine Auswahl an Songs zur Band, damit sie diese gemeinsam spielen konnten, probierte verschiedene Dinge aus und schaute, wohin die Reise ging. Was die Entstehung des Albums angeht, „war es ein sehr produktiver Sommer“, sagt Smith. „Die Sonne schien die meiste Zeit, wir waren im grünen Gloucestershire, nicht weit von meinem Wohnort entfernt, in diesem unscheinbaren kleinen Gewerbegebiet – es war so ziemlich das Gegenteil von Berghain!“

„Surface, Echo & Sound“ ist als LP, Ltd. Col.LP CD und digital über Play It Again Sam erhältlich.



Info Englisch:

Following on from 2022’s EBM, a collaboration with electronic producer Benjamin John Power, aka Blanck Mass, on Surface, Echo & Sound, Editors have found themselves somewhere new entirely. When the band regrouped in summer 2025 to work on a follow-up, after three albums written and recorded very much as in-the-studio projects, Editors felt they wanted to go back to a more natural approach, something that harked back to their earliest days, sat in a practice room in Stafford, facing each other as they worked through songs together.



Like on last year’s solo record There is Nothing In The Dark That Isn’t There In The Light, frontman Tom Smith took a similar stripped back, acoustic-based approach to the new Editors material, bringing a selection of songs to the band for them to play together, trying different things out, and seeing where they went. In terms of creating the record, “It was a very productive summer,” says Smith. “The sun was out for the most part, we were in greenest Gloucestershire, not far from where I live, on this innocuous little industrial estate – it was pretty much the opposite of being in Berghain!”



Surface, Echo & Sound is available on LP, Ltd. Col. LP and CD & Digital via Play It Again Sam.

WHIMM formed around the shadowy heart of the Toronto post-punk underground over a decade ago. The partnership between Mounir Al Shami and Andrew Matthews has emitted sporadic musical shards over time, while slowly evolving into something so much bigger than its beginnings. Ideas seep out of every corner of No Promotion, showcasing a burning desire to explore and challenge while delivering very direct sonic offerings. The result is an album that feels as if you took the entire Coil discography and smashed it into pieces, assembling these precious songs from the fragments. Or as if Vangelis beckoned Section 25 to the studio in hopes of recording the score to a seedy film. The resulting LP is in a state of flux – equal parts motion and decay.

Patrick Flegel, of Cindy Lee, welcomed Al Shami and Matthews into REALISTIK Studios in Montreal to engineer half of the tracks for the album, including lending guitar to the opening track "Five in Decline." That influence is evident early on, as the first three songs are taken from those sessions. "Five in Decline" throbs and barks before racing through the hallways closing in around it. "Another Labour" slows to a spidery waltz as anxious melodies call out to one another. "Returnal" pulses, floats through the night sky and haunts you forever. "Rye" carves a percussive pathway toward similar travellers like Terry Riley and Jon Hassell, before the lament of "A Death Remembered" forms the perfect midpoint for the record. A slow build countered by twitching drums and blanketed by organs recorded at Metropolitan United Church in Toronto, it feels like emotion right on the edge of resolve.

"Rhymes of December" screeches through on a solitary train under the towering cityscape as the flickering lights blur past, its doors opening to the candlelit altar of "After the Last Sky" (those beautiful organs again) with an operatic swirl. "K'20" throws you into a claustrophobic and chaotic cab ride (Who is talking? Are those sirens?) until you finally find the quiet of the early morning, waiting at the window for the sun to join you once again as the first notes of "No Promotion" are delicately plucked. The final song from the Flegel sessions, it is over eight minutes of contemplative beauty. A restless heart that is ready to rest. Closing with a final apparition in the key of The Caretaker, "After the Last Sky (Reprise)" is a return to melody when words lose all meaning.

Al Shami and Matthews weave their lyrics throughout, words describing a search for lucidity, and of reactions and reflections. Al Shami – speaking from the Palestinian diaspora – ruminates on displacement, both personal and collective. His journey from having "been without a land and I can still see clearly" in "Rhymes of December" to a more defiant "we will be back again, no matter how it ends or where we've been" in "Returnal" takes a very insular turn on No Promotion. That sense of alienation pulls at the very center of a relationship when land and circumstances separate: "And after our last breath, all that's left in me is our flesh and fears, your last words would swim for years, you'll never find a home in me." Hearts on the outskirts that know the direction.

2026 Repress

It’s Italian time! Sam Ruffillo is back. Sicilian producer doing smooth Balearic disco with Italian vocals. The direction is clear: Sam Ruffillo's music brings us back into the Italian riviera and the hippy days of Ibiza in the late 1970ies. Even his way of production is similar to how the early days disco producers in Italia used to work: No samples needed. Instead a few guest musicians come to jam over Sam's beats in his Italian studio space. Guitar, bass, percussions. Sam later makes the production and added keyboard solos and put together the vibes into what is this new EP.

The girl voice comes from NINFA. It’s the classic studio story: Ninfa is a singer and DJ and friend of Sam. She was hanging at the studio while Sam was finishing these tracks. She stated to sing along... the words came up spontaneously… so they decided to record her and finally decided to keep them. The vibe was too good. Why talk English if u can do it better: in Italian! :)

This is second for Toy Tonics after his Sport House EP from last year. Sam also appeared on the solo record of Joel Holmes on Toy Tonics. Together with Kapote Modica he co-produced and made the beats on that record. Now Sam is back with this pure Italian EP. Inclusive remixes by new German artists Gome and Italian Musemeci - known to many from his fabulous Italo-trance releases on Diynamic records.

Frenchman Janeret heads up the second release on fledgling label Species. Deep in the game for over a decade now, Janeret has an innate ability to blend emotive layers of electronic funk with sultry grooves and hypnotic rhythms. His output is impeccable, each release encapsulating his emotionally rich approach. On the road, he’s an in-demand selector, channelling his love for sharing music that moves people into spellbinding sets from Europe to the USA, Australia and South America.

On the Vibrations EP Janeret embodies the essence of what makes him unique: combining the core foundational components of his sound to produce four dancefloor-ready cuts that epitomise where he’s at right now…

The EP opens with its title cut, ‘Vibrations’, a steppy production with an enchanting riff and mythical melodies. A reggae vocal utters “vibration” intermittently, accompanied by a hip hop sample, demonstrating Janeret’s broad sonic palette. Layered drum arrangement and deep bassline make this one a surefire dancefloor groover.

Up next it’s ‘No End’, a mesmerising trip driven by crisp percussion and a mean b-line. As the drums roll out, Janeret introduces jaunty layers that add cosmic funk to the cut. With each stage of progression the swirling funky synths envelop the listener more and more, immersing you in their wistful vibrations. A spinetingling break allows space for a short breather before the beats come back in, guiding us to the close.

On the flip we have ‘Fazed’, which kicks off with sturdy breaks and a highly effective, simple melody. The low end is immediately captivating, complementing the melody with a little more complexity. Together, the beats, bass and uncomplicated melody build steadily, with more elements added bringing further depth to the cut. This is one for closing your eyes and really losing yourself in the moment.

Finally, ‘Sub Pressure’ closes out the EP with a dreamy, yet bass-heavy atmosphere. Soft pads glide across the top layer, while a hefty b-line balances things out in the bottom end. Janeret’s exquisite production keeps things progressing with subtle elements creeping in throughout, creating a symphony of electronic sound and vibration. Let the brighter layers tantalise your spirit, while the bass moves your body.

Masterful work from Janeret here, with four versatile tracks designed to move the dancefloor across mind, body and soul. Feel the Vibrations…