Cerca:sounds of the city experience

2024 Reissue

Released on the famed tax scam label Tiger Lily in 1976, Sounds Of
The City Experience's self-titled debut album is a rare groove treat with original pressings often reaching astronomical figures on the second-hand market. Its quality carries over into the sound with its richness of character pushing beyond what must have been a very limited recording budget. The members, whose anonymity today stands in stark contrast to the instant fame they generate on the record, go from strength to strength across these ten tracks, and craft some of the most catchy and enticing soul and funk of the 70s. P-VINE is excited to be reissuing the album for a limited edition LP package with an iconic Japanese obi strip attached.

Santamaria Brothers are the latest incarnation of a lifelong musical journey rooted in rhythm, rebellion, and reinvention. The children of Peruvian and Ecuadorian immigrants to Australia, brothers Pat and Andrew Santamaria grew up steeped in the sounds and culture of Latin America - a deep inheritance that coloured everything they did, even as they moved through scenes and styles far from home.

In their youth, the brothers sharpened their first musical swords playing in globally touring indie bands. As the rhythm section of cult outfit Lost Valentinos, they had the opportunity to see the world and learn from the best; touring with, working alongside, and releasing music through the likes of Soulwax, Ewan Pearson, and Kitsuné. Taking those experiences home, they dove deep into the rave underground, co-founding of the crucial Sydney-centric techno label, warehouse party collective, and long-running radio show Motorik! In that guise,they helped shape the city’s electronic music scene over the past decade from the booth, the studio, the airwaves, and the street.

Now, after years behind the decks and on both sides of the mixing board, Santamaria Brothers return to their roots - releasing music under the family name for the first time. With We Got Latin Soul, they bring it all together on a 4-track EP of club-ready edits (via Sosilly Records). Reworking four towering figures of Latin soul; Mongo Santamaria, Ray Barretto, Pucho & The Latin Soul Brothers, and Joe Bataan — the brothers inject each cut with tasteful touches of Balearic haze and chugging acid house pressure, honouring the originals while making them sing on today’s dancefloors.

This is Latin soul filtered through a unique blend of antipodean rave culture, crate-digging, and relentless reinvention. It’s joyful, percussive, and made for the club - a full-circle moment from two lifers forever finding new ways to move bodies.

Destination Unknown is an EP by Unpronounceable born from an archive of sounds collected between 2019 and 2024—sonic fragments that took shape without a predetermined direction guided only by an open idea in constant transformation. The original track conceived as a “destination unknown” composition developed its own independent identity. However precisely because of its fluid and cross-genre nature Unpronounceable chose not to place it within a traditional EP context instead opening it up to a multiplicity of perspectives by inviting five artists to reinterpret it freely without genre constraints.

The result is an EP that unfolds like an alternative map of the same sonic territory where each remix explores a distinct direction transforming Destination Unknown into a multifaceted and ever-evolving experience.

In Carl Finlow’s remix Destination Unknown takes on a strong cinematic and narrative dimension. Inspired by the title Finlow imagines a mysterious journey toward a futuristic dystopian city turning the track into a kind of electro soundtrack—dark yet ironic rich in character and capable of evoking vivid images and motion.

MANASYt pushes the track toward more physical and ritualistic territories focusing on the dark pads and the more oneiric vocal elements of the original. The result is a hypnotic pulsating tribal-industrial reinterpretation where rhythm and sonic material become central intensifying the track’s most visceral qualities.

With Gay Horror the focus shifts to an emotional and narrative dimension. The vocals are deliberately made elusive and undefined while the structure develops through a slow controlled crescendo that recalls the atmospheres of ’90s trip-hop. This version also reflects a long-standing human and artistic relationship conceived as a story that travels through time and reaches the present day.

Kevin Follet adopts a more conceptual approach overturning the perspective of the original track. Rather than working with its main elements he brings the underlying structures to the foreground transforming what usually remains hidden into the core of his reinterpretation. His remix is elegant and deep balancing sound exploration with a strong attention to songwriting.

Closing the EP is GP The Synth Roller with a radical and highly experimental reinterpretation. The track behaves like an unstable system: parameters shift without warning surfaces lose coherence sudden accelerations collide with moments of arrest. There is no resolution only a sonic condition in constant tension eventually condensing into a dark compact mass.

Taken as a whole Destination Unknown is far more than a simple remix collection: it is a collective exploration of the potential of a single composition. Unpronounceable’s original track and the reinterpretations by Carl Finlow MANASYt Gay Horror Kevin Follet and GP The Synth Roller move across electro techno industrial and experimental territories offering six different perspectives from the same starting point. An open journey with no fixed destination where every detour becomes an integral part of the path.

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.

Follow up to Goodge's 2023 album Echoes Of Yesterday. Previous releases found on Hip Dozer and Cascade Records. Tracks found on the popular Spotify Mellow Beats playlist. 11th in 'Jet Set' Cold Busted series. Designed and manufactured similar to the vintage 60's style rice paper sleeves. In his latest EP, Sunday Soul, Goodge takes listeners on a four-track journey through the heart of funk, masterfully blending elements of R&B, jazz, and chilled lo-fi. Released as part of Cold Busted's Jet Set series, this four-song offering follows Goodge's 2023 album Echoes Of Yesterday and showcases his dedication to crafting timeless music. "Lights Out" kicks off the EP with heavy funk and stirring breakbeats, accompanied by a scratchy guitar that summons the revolutionary spirit of the '70s. Horns serve as a call to action, while a rollicking bass line and chunky electric piano might inspire listeners to go out and fight crime. "Promised Land" follows, featuring a formidable funk bass guitar and lead guitar chords that rhythmically play off the delightfully busy drums, creating an atmosphere reminiscent of the city's bustle. The title track, "Sunday Soul," is a rowdy affair with a speech-over-beats leading to crispy snare rolls and chiming electric piano. Shaker magic, staccato horn bleats, and spiral flute bits combine to create a swirling vintage-hued photograph of sound. The EP concludes with "Within Myself," a spacier sonic experience that could serve as the soundtrack for chasing someone across rooftops. It's funk spelled with a capital K. Sunday Soul is a must-listen for fans of of the heavier side of funk, solidifying Goodge's position as a master of his craft, creating a nostalgic yet fresh soundscape that keeps listeners grooving back for more.

Following releases of the UFO and Supercar soundtracks, Thunderbirds is the third in the series from Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s iconic TV shows. It is newly compiled, mastered and designed by the creative team at Fanderson (The Official Gerry and Sylvia Anderson Appreciation Society), who have access to Barry Gray's original studio tapes.

The album features 37 tracks from 19 episodes (series 1 and 2), including the Thunderbirds main theme and closing titles. The tracks were not programmed to follow the episode order but to achieve an integrated listening experience. The best bits of the sixties’ soundscapes are here. The Thunderbirds soundtrack is an effective time capsule as Gray’s music veers into British spy genre, Latin pop, exotica, urban jazz and military marches. Beautifully composed and conducted, the score reflects the moods of the scenes, from dangerous to romantic and no-nonsense to silly.

Barry Gray was a classically trained composer and a versatile musician, and was amongst the first composers to use electronic instruments in music for television. Best known for creating the music for most of the Gerry & Sylvia Anderson television series in the 1960's and 70's (Fireball XL5, Thunderbirds, UFO, Space:1999), Barry Gray’s complete musical opus is still not commercially available in its entirety.

Gatefold Sleeve

M’Bamina – African Roll (1975)
The story of an album born between Africa, Italy, and the nightclub culture of the 1970s
In the heart of 1970s Italy — a country undergoing profound social change and a music scene just beginning to open itself to distant sounds and cultures — an extraordinary, almost improbable story took shape. It is the story of a group of young African musicians who found their way to Europe, of a Turin nightclub that became a crossroads for communities and experimenters, and of an album which, released in small numbers and largely unnoticed at the time, is now considered a rare jewel of Afro-fusion.
The band called themselves M’Bamina — an ensemble of musicians from Congo, Cameroon, and Benin, who arrived in Italy in the early Seventies. Settling between northern Italy and the Pavia area, they began performing in small clubs and community events, bringing with them a vibrant rhythmic heritage: African polyrhythms, call-and-response vocals, funk-infused bass lines, and Caribbean or Afro-Latin colours absorbed along their musical journeys. Their raw, contagious energy on stage quickly drew attention.
Meanwhile, in Turin, another story was unfolding. There was a venue becoming almost legendary: Voom Voom, one of the city’s liveliest nightclubs, run by Ivo Lunardi. The club attracted an eclectic crowd — students, artists, foreigners, night owls — and Lunardi quickly understood that the dancefloor wasn’t just a place for music, but a melting pot for a new kind of cultural energy. Out of this vibrant atmosphere came his idea: to turn the club’s name into a small independent record label, Voom Voom Music, capable of capturing the spirit of those years and giving voice to unconventional projects.

When Lunardi heard M’Bamina, he immediately sensed that this was the sound he had been searching for: fresh, different from anything circulating in Italy at the time, and capable of blending African tradition with funk and European sensibility. He brought them into the studio.
Production was handled by Lunardi along with Christian Carbaza Michel, while the engineering was entrusted to Danilo Pennone, a young sound technician with a sharp, intuitive ear.
The recording sessions — held in Turin in 1975 — produced a remarkably warm and direct sound. The music feels almost live: grooves rooted in African tradition, but open to funk-rock structures and modern arrangements. It is a natural fusion, never forced. Tracks move between tribal rhythms, funk basslines, light electric guitars, congas and Afro-Latin percussion, with call-and-response vocals and melodies that echo both Congolese tradition and the lineage of Latin jazz. Not by chance, one of the album’s most striking tracks, Watchiwara, reinterprets a Latin standard through M’Bamina’s own rhythmic language.

The album was titled African Roll — a name that was already a statement of intention. It is African music that “rolls,” that moves, adapts, transforms within a new geographic and cultural setting. It is not strictly Afrobeat, nor Congolese rumba, nor Western funk: it is a spontaneous, hybrid blend, shaped more by lived experience than by any calculated aesthetic program.
When African Roll was released, the world around it barely noticed. Distribution was limited, and 1970s Italy had yet to develop a cultural framework for receiving such music. The national music press rarely paid attention to African or “world” productions. The album slipped into silence — though the band’s own story did not.

M’Bamina continued performing across Europe and Africa, even sharing a stage in Cameroon with none other than Manu Dibango. By the late Seventies, they moved to Paris, signed with Fiesta/Decca, and recorded a second LP, Experimental (1978). Meanwhile, the peculiar record they had made in Turin began to resurface quietly among vinyl collectors, Afro-funk enthusiasts, and DJs hunting for forgotten grooves.
That is when the album’s fate began to shift.

Over the decades, African Roll emerged as an almost unique document: a snapshot of an intercultural Italy before the word “intercultural” even existed, a fragment of migrant history, a spontaneous experiment in musical fusion born far from major industry circuits but rich in authenticity. Original copies began commanding high prices on the collector’s market, and the album became recognized as one of the hidden classics of European Afro-fusion from the 1970s.
Today, more than fifty years later, this reissue finally restores visibility and dignity to a project that deserves to be heard, studied, and celebrated. It is not simply an album: it is the testimony of a rare cultural encounter, born in an Italy unaware of how fertile such exchanges would one day become.

It is the story of a visionary producer, an extraordinary band, and a fleeting moment in which music, migration, and nightlife came together to create something genuinely new.
African Roll is — now more than ever — the sound of a bridge: between continents, between eras, between cultures. A record that, after rolling far and wide, has finally come home.

Following her acclaimed 2023 release Flood City Trax, a dreamy, lo-fi take on footwork inspired by the crumbling rust-belt city she calls home, Nondi returns to Planet Mu with her second self-titled album, Nondi…While Nondi… retains some of the hazy, nostalgic atmosphere of Flood City Trax, it pushes her sound in bold new directions. “I made this album to capture the sense of freedom I used to get from music when I was first discovering it all,” Nondi says. “It’s meant to be cute, fun, kinda weird and emotional — but most of all, it’s a presentation of some of the prettiest tracks I’ve made.” Though she hasn’t really experienced club culture where she lives, her impressionistic productions evoke the surreal, lingering sounds of a night out — the melodic haze that hums in your ears as you drift off to sleep. Lo-fi and melodic, yet fluid and free, her music carries a sense of flight and intuitive logic. Nondi’s influences range widely — Actress, Aphex Twin, footwork, and the stranger edges of dub techno are all felt, yet she hallucinates them through her own weathered, dreamlike lens. Her tracks often build from clashing loops that evolve and transform organically, or from familiar genre elements reshaped by her instinct for misty, heart-wrenching melody. Some moments stay closer to genre, like Broken Future 175, a drum-and-bass tear-out that dissolves into lush, blurred chords, or Just Hanging Out, a bruised and beautiful take on 2-step. Lead single Tree Festival feels like a blown-out fusion of rave energy and sped-up new-age bliss, while Death Juke drifts through off-beat vocal samples, pulsing drums and 8-bit FX, reminiscent of early Steve Reich reimagined through a Game Boy. Nondi… is a uniquely moving and exploratory album that expands her sonic world even further. Lo-fi yet luminous, playful yet profound.

Disco legend Sylvester comes to Dark Entries with Private Recordings: August 1970, an intimate collection of vintage jazz, blues, and gospel. While Sylvester is best known for his chart-topping collaborations with producer Patrick Cowley, such as “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real),” this release reveals his passion for the sounds of the 30s and 40s. In 1970 a 22-year-old Sylvester had moved to San Francisco and found himself involved with the Cockettes, the infamous psychedelic performance art troupe. Among this milieu was Peter Mintun, a pianist and record collector living in a commune devoted to retro culture. According to Mintun, “We were like hippies who lived in the twenties. We lived in a house that didn’t have anything modern in it. Nothing in it was made after World War II.” Mintun and Sylvester bonded over their love of Black singers of yore and were allotted a slot during Cockettes performances reviving the music of the Prohibition Era. One afternoon, Sylvester and Mintun recorded a number of their shared favorites using a high-end microphone a friend had acquired. Private Recordings features 9 songs from this session, including standards like “Stormy Weather,” “Happy Days Are Here Again,” and “God Bless the Child.” Sylvester’s unmistakable falsetto brings depth and a dash of camp to these familiar tunes. The recordings are casual and intimate, even capturing banter between Sylvester and Mintun; their brief rendition of “When My Dreamboat Comes Home” has the duo working out a melody in real time. In addition to their sonic explorations of decades past, Sylvester and Mintun also staged photographic shoots in vintage couture. Private Recordings comes with a 16-page booklet on firm cardstock featuring images from these never-before-seen shoots as well as liner notes from Mintun detailing his friendship with Sylvester and their experiences recording. All this is housed in a metallic silver sleeve designed by Eloise Leigh featuring a 1920’s Art Deco aesthetic. The record will be released on September 6th which would have been Sylvester’s 76th birthday, and all proceeds from Private Recordings will go to the two charities that Sylvester left his royalties after his death: Project Open Hand and PRC (formerly AIDS Emergency Fund). This essential release documents the earliest known recordings from one of disco’s greatest talents.

From out of the dark, sparks of feedback birdsong signal a return to the singular sonic environments of Rafael Toral"s sound-world. A year after Spectral Evolution, his acclaimed album of electric guitar conceptions, comes the companion work Traveling Light. Sharpening his focus around a set of jazz standards, his move from abstract form to solid song elicits glints from beyond time and space, crafting a unique listening lens for deep listeners. In the early years of his practice, Toral used the guitar as a generator to create discreet texture and droning tones. Later, he abandoned the guitar entirely, focusing on self-made electronics to render his music with a post-free jazz perspective. For the music of Spectral Evolution and Traveling Light, Toral has combined his methodologies: radically expanding the space within their harmonies with his self-made machines, while engaging directly with his instrument and the chords of the material. In addition to Toral"s proxy orchestra of guitars, sine wave, feedback and bass guitar, Traveling Light features the sounds of clarinetist José Bruno Parrinha, tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, flügelhorn player Yaw Tembe, flautist Clara Saleiro, who each guest on one song. In every contour of Traveling Light"s path - arrangement, improvisation and production - the spring of the old pours through the new in an unstoppable flow. The result is a listening experience of these standards that remains "in the tradition", even as the elongated harmonies seem to alter time such that, as Toral notes, "the chords become events on their own."

First Word Records are very proud to bring you 'Ghouls', the 6th studio album from Bastien Keb.

Through the reflective and introspective multi-mood journey of its 19-tracks, this album spans psychedelic-chamber-funk, warped anti-ballads, cinematic instrumentals, Ethio-jazz & ethereal ambience.

Part soundtrack, part beat-tape, part memoir, this is a dreamlike soundscape sewn together from half-forgotten memories & late night breakdowns.

Entirely sample-free, this album is full to the brim with musical experimentation, with Keb's compulsion to make all the individual pieces of music independently; combining strings, harps, saxophones, theremins, clarinets, flutes and trumpets.

He signals to the fuzzy, nostalgic nebulous of mid '90s skate videos, as well as harking back to the scores & moods of movies like The French Connection, Taxi Driver, The Warriors and La Haine. There are whispers of sounds in the air from jazz clubs, street preachers & Turkish restaurants.

Keb describes the sonic experience of this album simply as this… "You're half awake, and half asleep, but you're warm…"

For this 19-track opus, Keb is joined extensively by Malik Ameer Crumpler; a poet, composer, editor and professor based in Paris, who's been involved in numerous albums while writing for various forms of experimental media.

A multi-instrumentalist originally from the Midlands, Bastien Keb (aka Sebastian Jones) previously released his highly-acclaimed album '22.02.85' on First Word back in 2017; this new album being a very welcome return to the Worldwide Award-winning UK independent label.

His music has been widely supported across BBC Radio in the past by DJs including Gilles Peterson, Huey Morgan, Huw Stephens, Jamie Cullum, Lauren Laverne, Mary Anne Hobbs, Nemone and Tom Ravenscroft. This is in addition to glowing press reviews from the likes of Pitchfork, The Guardian and The Line Of Best Fit.

He's built up a steady fanbase through his extensive catalogue over the years, with material for labels like Def Pressé, Gearbox, One-Handed Music and most recently for Shabaka Hutchings' Native Rebel Recordings imprint, on a collaborative project with South London's Confucius MC (Speakers Corner Quartet).

Keb concludes "this record is for anyone feeling lost in a world that seems to have lost itself without knowing it. It's for the people who know that the world is missing the beauty of the lights in the distance, whilst being distracted by new shoes and flashy phones..."

'Ghouls' is due to be released on vinyl & digital worldwide, November 14th 2025.

**Gangster Music Vol.3: The Most Gangster Music Trilogy of All Time Comes to a Triumphant Close**

Imagine curating a dream lineup of MCs and producers from every corner of the rap world—sounds impossible, right? Not for artist and illustrator Gangster Doodles, who has been bringing this vision to life for the past decade. Now, with “Gangster Music Vol.3”, the trilogy reaches its grand finale, and it’s bigger, bolder, and more unpredictable than ever before.

Gangster Doodles himself puts it best:
"It’s hard to believe that I’ve been actively working on this Gangster Music series for the past 10 years. The most gangster music trilogy of ALL TIME is almost complete!! And in my humble opinion Vol.3 is the most exciting out of the 3, both from a music standpoint (special shout-out to all my music heroes on Vol.3) and artistically speaking this is the most fun I’ve had in years”

Since launching Volume 1 in 2019 and following up with the second volume in 2022, Gangster Doodles has been shaping the Gangster Music series into a one-of-a-kind sonic universe—an unfiltered mix of underground titans, unsung legends, and rising stars. Volume 3 is the biggest installment yet, boasting a staggering 30 tracks that traverse the entire spectrum of rap and beat culture.

This time around, the lineup is as eclectic as ever. From legendary pioneers like Lee Perry and Tommy Wright III, to veteran producers such as Mr. Scruff and Peanut Butter Wolf, the album pays homage to hip-hop’s roots while pushing forward into fresh territory. The roster also includes established up-and-comers like Devin Morrison, Low Leaf, DJ Harrison, Quelle Chris, Homeboy Sandman, and Suzi Analogue, ensuring a mix of classic flavors and new-school innovation. The bubbling underground is well represented too, with artists like Raz Fresco, Atlanta’s 645AR, and Pro Era’s Chuck Strangers bringing their own distinct heat.

From pioneering SoundCloud rappers like Pouya to genre-bending composer John Carroll Kirby, from Birmingham’s Romderful to Chile’s RVYO, the album encapsulates a truly global soundscape, proving once again that Gangster Doodles’ ear for cutting-edge talent is second to none.

As always, the cover art is a vital piece of the puzzle. This time, Bootleg Garfield & Friends take center stage, bringing the same playful irreverence that has defined Gangster Doodles’ artwork for years. Fans are encouraged to engage, remix, and make the cover their own, staying true to the spirit of interactive creativity that has always fueled the series.

After years of meticulous curation, countless DMs, emails, and behind-the-scenes wrangling, Gangster Music Vol.3 is here to complete the trilogy in legendary fashion. Expect boundary-pushing beats, next-level lyricism, and a lineup that celebrates hip-hop in all its many forms.

“Thanks to everyone who’s actively supported and continues to tap-in. Believe & trust when I say I've got more dope stuff cookin’. STAY TUNED!! GANGSTER DOODLES 4EVER. 1LUV."

Gangster Music Vol.3 is out April 7th on All City. Stay tuned, stay tapped in, and get ready for the most gangster music experience yet.

Googling “paradise house”, the first results to pop up are an endless list of European b&b’s with whitewashed lime façades, all of them promising “…an unmatched travel experience a few steps from the sea”. Next, a little further down, are the institutional websites of a few select semi-luxury retirement homes (no photos shown, but lots of stock images of smiling nurses with reassuring looks). To find the “paradise house” we’re after, we have to scroll even further down. Much further down.

It feels like yesterday, and at the same time it seems like a million years ago. The Eighties had just ended, and it was still unclear what to expect from the Nineties. Mobile phones that were not the size of a briefcase and did not cost as much as a car? A frightening economic crisis? The guitar-rock revival?! Certainly, the best place to observe that moment of transition was the dancefloor. Truly epochal transformations were happening there. From America, within a short distance one from the other, two revolutionary new musical styles had arrived: the first one sounded a bit like an “on a budget” version of the best Seventies disco-music – Philly sound made with a set of piano-bar keyboards! – the other was even more sparse, futuristic and extraterrestrial. It was a music with a quite distinct “physical” component, which at the same time, to be fully grasped, seemed to call for the knotty theories of certain French post-modern philosophers: Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Paul Virilio... Both those genres – we would learn shortly after – were born in the black communities of Chicago and Detroit, although listening to those vinyl 12” (often wrapped in generic white covers, and with little indication in the label) you could not easily guess whether behind them there was a black boy from somewhere in the Usa, or a girl from Berlin, or a pale kid from a Cornish coastal town.

Quickly, similar sounds began to show up from all corners of Europe. A thousand variations of the same intuition: leaner, less lean, happier, slightly less intoxicated, more broken, slower, faster, much faster... Boom! From the dancefloors – the London ones at least, whose chronicles we eagerly read every month in the pages of The Face and i-D – came tales of a new generation of clubbers who had completely stopped “dressing up” to go dancing; of hot tempered hooligans bursting into tears and hugging everyone under the strobe lights as the notes of Strings of Life rose up through the fumes of dry ice (certain “smiling” pills were also involved, sure). At this point, however, we must move on to Switzerland.

In Switzerland, in the quiet and diligent town of Lugano, between the 1980s and 1990s there was a club called “Morandi”. Its hot night was on Wednesdays, when the audience also came from Milan, Como, Varese and Zurich. Legend goes that, one night, none less than Prince and Sheila E were spotted hiding among the sofas, on a day-off of the Italian dates of the Nude Tour… The Wednesday resident and superstar was an Italian dj with an exotic name: Don Carlos. The soundtrack he devised was a mixture of Chicago, Detroit, the most progressive R&B and certain forgotten classics of old disco music: practically, what the Paradise Garage in New York might have sounded like had it not closed in 1987. In between, Don Carlos also managed to squeeze in some tracks he had worked on in his studio on Lago Maggiore. One in particular: a track that was rather slow compared to the BPM in fashion at the time, but which was a perfect bridge between house and R&B. The title was Alone: Don Carlos would explain years later that it had to be intended both in the English meaning of “by itself” and like the Italian word meaning “halo”. That wasn’t the only double entendre about the song, anyway. Its own very deep nature was, indeed, double. On the one hand, Alone was built around an angelic keyboard pattern and a romantic piano riff that took you straight to heaven; on the other, it showcased enough electronic squelches (plus a sax part that sounded like it had been dissolved by acid rain) to pigeonhole the tune into the “junk modernity” section, aka the hallmark of all the most innovative sounds of the time: music that sounded like it was hand-crafted from the scraps of glittering overground pop.

No one knows who was the first to call it “paradise house”, nor when it happened. Alternative definitions on the same topic one happened to hear included “ambient house”, “dream house”, “Mediterranean progressive”… but of course none were as good (and alluring) as “paradise house”. What is certain is that such inclination for sounds that were in equal measure angelic and neurotic, romantic and unaffective, quickly became the trademark of the second generation of Italian house. Music that seemed shyly equidistant from all the rhythmic and electronic revolutions that had happened up to that moment (“Music perfectly adept at going nowhere slowly” as noted by English journalist Craig McLean in a legendary field report for Blah Blah Blah magazine). Music that to a inattentive ear might have sounded as anonymous as a snapshot of a random group of passers-by at 10AM in the centre of any major city, but perfectly described the (slow) awakening in the real world after the universal love binge of the so-called Second Summer of Love.

For a brief but unforgettable season, in Italy “paradise house” was the official soundtrack of interminable weekends spent inside the car, darting from one club to another, cutting the peninsula from North to centre, from East to West coast in pursuit of the latest after-hours disco, trading kilometres per hour with beats per minute: practically, a new New Year’s Eve every Friday and Saturday night. This too was no small transformation, as well as a shock for an adult Italy that was encountering for the first time – thanks to its sons and daughters – the wild side of industrial modernity. The clubbers of the so-called “fuoriorario” scene were the balls gone mad in the pinball machine most feared by newspapers, magazines and TV pundits. What they did each and every weekend, apart from going crazy to the sound of the current white labels, was linking distant geographical points and non-places (thank you Marc Augé!) – old dance halls, farmhouses and business centres – transformed for one night into house music heaven. As Marco D’Eramo wrote in his 1995 essay on Chicago, Il maiale e il grattacielo: “Four-wheeled capitalism distorts our age-old image of the city, it allows the suburbs to be connected to each other, whereas before they were connected only by the centre (…) It makes possible a metropolitan area without a metropolis, without a city centre, without downtown. The periphery is no longer a periphery of any centre, but is self-centred”.

“Paradise house” perfectly understood all of this and turned it into a sort of cyber-blues that didn’t even need words, and unexpectedly brought back a drop of melancholic (post?)-humanity within a world that by then – as we would wholly realise in the decades to come – was fully inhuman and heartless. A world where we were all alone, and surrounded by a sinister yellowish halo, like a neon at the end of its life cycle. But, for one night at least, happy."

Recut, the elusive DJ and producer whose roots trace back to Southern Italy but whose sound resonates globally, is back with a scorching new release titled "Narcotic Tango". This four-track EP, out on vinyl only, is a deep dive into the raw energy of Acid House and Chicago's underground, delivering an unforgettable experience for both DJs and dancefloors alike.

Opening with "Narcotic Tango", Recut lays down a track with intense rhythmic drive. The throbbing bassline and shimmering hi-hats combine with a tantalizing arpeggio that elevates the track to a hypnotic level. It’s a club banger with an irresistible groove, and once you’ve heard it, you won’t forget it. Next up, "Acid Street" transports listeners into a world of deep, dark synthetic atmospheres. The pounding drum machine and the rumbling analog bassline carry the track forward like an unstoppable force, while the overall vibe conjures a sense of gritty dancefloor energy that never lets up. "Jack On Acid" brings the heat with an unapologetically raw Chicago-inspired sound.

With a deep, looping acid groove and a steady, driving rhythm, it channels the essence of the Windy City’s storied dance music tradition, offering pure, unfiltered Acid House energy. Finally, "Feel The Heat" kicks things into overdrive with its infectious blend of New York house and Latin-infused vibes. This track is all about dancing until the break of dawn, breaking boundaries with its smooth yet aggressive energy and contagious rhythm. Recut’s unmistakable style shines through, blending the wild, experimental spirit of Acid House with the raw, soulful energy of Chicago House. Whether you're a vinyl collector, a club DJ, or simply a lover of pure dancefloor joy, this EP is an essential addition to your collection. A seasoned DJ and producer with a passion for underground sounds, Recut has been carving his name in the electronic music scene for years. With his eclectic mix of influences and cutting-edge production skills, he continues to push boundaries and captivate audiences worldwide.

Brian d’Souza, better known as Auntie Flo, delivers his brand-new fourth studio album, ‘In My Dreams (I’m A Bird and I’m Free)’, set for release on 21st November. The album, a rich blend of electronic music, live instrumentation, and global influences features collaborations with the likes of Nicola Cruz, Joshua Idehen, Shingai Shoniwa, Yohan Kebede (Kokoroko) and even his Goan Auntie Florie, where the Auntie Flo moniker is derived from. Each track on the album transports you to a different location: Goa, Istanbul, Nairobi, Mexico City, Waiheke Island, Rio De Janeiro, Havana, Seoul are all destinations to nest in across its ten tracks. It will be available in both digital and vinyl formats on his own label, A State of Flo Records.

Auntie Flo’s latest body of work is the culmination of a five-year journey that has seen d’Souza expand both personally and musically. Known for his unique ability to fuse electronic sounds with rhythms and influences from across the globe, d’Souza takes his craft to new heights in this album, offering listeners an intimate look into the experiences, places, and stories that have shaped his artistic evolution. The groundbreaking DJ and producer presents an expansive, deeply personal exploration of global sounds, collaboration, and migration.

Following the success of the Afro-disco single Green City—a dynamic tribute to the legendary Fela Kuti and Luke Una’s ‘track of the year’—In My Dreams (I’m A Bird and I’m Free) ventures further into uncharted musical territory. The album, however, is more than just a continuation of Auntie Flo’s signature sound. It is a reflection of d’Souza’s life and career, capturing his exploration of identity, migration, and cultural fusion. With tracks that draw inspiration from field recordings collected around the world, the album resonates with a profound sense of place and memory.

In My Dreams (I’m A Bird and I’m Free) is not only a reflection of d’Souza’s creative journey but also a commentary on migration—both human and musical. The album draws on the freedom of birds to migrate across borders as a metaphor for artistic and personal freedom, juxtaposed with the challenges that political barriers impose on human migration. As d’Souza explains, “Birds have the freedom to migrate wherever they choose, while humans face constant barriers”.

A State of Flo supports Earth Percent. 10% of the revenue generated from this release will be paid to environmental charities.

Pitch Dark is a new VA series brought to you by Berlins Pure Hate Trax. For this the 1st in the series they invite 3 new Artists to the label but by no means new to the scene in Codex Empire, Maedon & 7CIRCLE. Also making a welcome return after his debut on VHXX1 is STRISC. Codex Empire – Since 2014, British born, Vienna based Codex Empire has built an international reputation for dark and intense techno productions and live shows. Combining this background in dark electronic music with heavy rhythmic elements makes Codex Empire an intense and simultaneously danceable experience both live and on record. Codex Empire has performed over 100 live shows across Europe, Japan, Korea and Canada, as well as numerous appearances in Berlin at Berghain, Tresor, Arena Club, Suicide Circus and BoilerRoom. Maedon – A native of notoriously grimy Baltimore who spent some seasons in filthy Philadelphia learning the craft, her arrival in New York City circa 2018 signalled a shift in development, one confirmed by the emergence of her Maedon moniker and her partnership with Brooklyn/Berlin techno powerhouse Sonic Groove and its head Adam X. Fast forward three years to Berlin, two albums, a residency at Tresor and an entire world later, Maedon forges ahead to the next phase of a rapidly building career. Assuring her future as the world falls apart, Maedon’s bracing sound and undeniable skills are a story now unfolding, with its beginnings already written in grit.
7CIRCLE – At the helm of Destroy to Rebuild, 7CIRCLE is a musical project without boundaries. Drawing from post punk and metal roots, 7CIRCLE navigates across all genres including Techno and Industrial without compromise or frills. The journey through the discography of 7CIRCLE is a fascinating path filled with darkness and aggressive sounds which are sometimes embellished with a melancholy touch to satisfy lovers of strong emotions. STRISC. – Hailing from the East Midlands, UK and residing in Berlin for the last 8 years, STRISC. is an Artist, DJ & Label Owner who has been making waves due to a relentless output of no-compromise productions that have garnered him the respect and attention of Techno aficionados and peers alike.

DJ Elephant Power (Nicolas Baudoux) based in Brussels, Les Octaves de la Musique awarded musician, is returning with his new EP ‘Blowing From Above’ on May 2024 with limited edition vinyls. The abundantly creative producer never tires of exploring the possibility of new sounds and rhythms. This time he delves deep into numerous genres from breakbeat to bass and he added more colours on each track which composed, performed and produced by himself. Mastering was done by Beau of Ten Eight Seven Mastering in UK. This new EP will be the first page of the upcoming album in June 2024.

‘Blowing From Above’ feat Eunsol

Now you entered the city where you can feel the atmosphere of heat with full of energy. Under the welcome sign of breakbeat and bass, you breathe the dopamine of electronic dance deeply. Alongside baseline skyscrapers covering the sound of this city, mysterious Korean words lead you to hyper pop buildings. Across the traffic lights with barking dog and staccato synth arpeggio on the road, you reach the futuristic bridge between jungle and grime.

‘I Got You’

Under the repeated street lights of ‘I Got You’ scratch samples, you are in the car passing through continuous cowbel 808 sounds on the techno road. In front of the funk graffiti wall, a powerful metal guitar sprays the paint with no compromise. Buildings of synth grab you to follow the new banging club anthem.

‘Shades’

Curly hair architect, who is well known for perfectionism of repeated linear, built a new Mantronix satellite laboratory. This is located on the mountain of Detroit and built on the solid ground of analogue synth signals. Filtered synth and bassline are the main columns of the building. In the main lab, the next satellite has been developing on woah woah sound mattress. Visitors can experience zero gravity in the room in the middle of kick and snare which provides perfect unbalance.

‘Infinity’

A colourful new dish is ready for you. You will feel beautifully balanced and harmonious tastes of progressive techno, trap and bass. This astonished dish was sourced the very best of heavy bass and synth melody for well balanced scent with thoughtful contacts. Geomungo, a traditional Korean string instrument, enhances and amplifies stunning ingredients and it makes a highlight with amazing pairings.

Peaked #1 on Beatport Top 100. Supported by: Gorgon City, Fisher, Dom Dolla, Vintage Culture, Danny Howard, Solardo, Joel Corry, Acraze, Ferreck Dawn... Versatile British producer Riordan, a rising star in the electronic music scene makes his debut release on Gorgon City's imprint REALM RECORDS. ‘Needle On The Record,’ delivers an undeniable groove that effortlessly transports you to the heart of the dancefloor. A thumping bassline, charged synths, and commanding atmospheric elements, the track sets the stage for something monumental even before the vocals kick in. As the chopped vocal hook is expertly manipulated during the breakdown and rapidly looped in intensity as they cascade into the exhilarating drop. Experience the enchantment of Riordan's soundscapes.

Supported by: Gorgon City, Fisher, Dom Dolla, Vintage Culture, Danny Howard, Solardo, Joel Corry, Acraze, Ferreck Dawn

San Francisco dub techno magician is in the game, but wait a minute.. Does anybody know What Robot Says?

Vinyl Only

Introducing the debut EP from the visionary electronic artist Federsen, What Robot Says Records proudly presents a mesmerizing journey into the depths of dub-infused electronic music. Hailing from the vibrant city of San Francisco, Federsen, also known as Chris Kelly, brings forth a sonic landscape rich with the influence of dub reggae recording techniques.

Within this inaugural release, Federsen masterfully melds vintage tape delays and analog equipment to craft a sonic experience unlike any other. Each track within the EP is a testament to Federsen's meticulous attention to detail and his ability to weave intricate melodies with hypnotic rhythms.

Opening the EP is "High Pressure," a seamless blend of precise minimalistic percussion and ethereal melodies, effortlessly drawing listeners into a world of hazy dub textures. Following suit is "Sono," where deeper melodic layers intertwine with Federsen's signature sophistication, creating a timeless elegance that permeates every note.

As the EP unfolds, "Fazed" emerges as a standout track, delivering a powerful groove destined to ignite dancefloors while still maintaining the immersive simplicity of dub soundscapes. Finally, "Quadrata" serves as the perfect conclusion to the journey, offering a sublime fusion of atmospheric elements that evoke a sense of introspection and tranquility.

With this EP, Federsen invites listeners to immerse themselves in a sonic tapestry where tradition meets innovation, where every beat pulses with intention, and where the boundaries between genres blur into oblivion. What Robot Says Records proudly presents Federsen's debut EP, a testament to the boundless creativity and artistry of one of electronic music's most promising talents.

Monty Luke release ‘Nightdubbing’ LP on Rekids.The Black Catalogue bosses' second album explores dub-infused dance music and, following the recent two EP drops on Rekids, will be released on Radio Slave’s imprint on 29 March. Succeeding part two of Monty Luke’s ‘Nightdubbing’ series on Rekids, the US-via-Berlin artist unveils an album of the same name on Radio Slave’s lauded Rekids imprint. ‘Nightdubbing’ encompasses the first two instalments and adds five more tracks of intricate sonic material, completing this gorgeous work of art already supported by Fred P, nd_baumecker, Louise Chen, and Laurent Garnier. Luke’s ‘Nightdubbing’ album starts in the club, with the rave-primed ‘40 Acres And A Terabyte’ utilising the rich melodies of deep house alongside the crushing weight of subs. It is followed by the title track, with ‘Nightdubbing’ taking a more traditional house route, its soothing sounds enveloping the listener while honing in on that reverb sweet spot. Black Catalogue boss and former Planet-E label manager Monty Luke’s timeless ‘Nightdubbing’ effortlessly traverses deep house and techno rife with bass-rattling low-end and experimental rhythms. It is no surprise, then, that the album is heavily inspired by ‘70s and mid-80s dub reggae, seeing Luke incorporate and modernise the genre’s iconic rhythms, spoken word poetry, and spacious bursts of harmony across the LP. ‘Bob Molly’ picks up pace with nods to Caribbean dem bow-like rhythms of old, Monty Luke filling the space between its infectious beat with tumbling percussion and echoing plucks. Tracks like ‘Supernova’, ‘New World / Old Future’ and ‘Starstorms’ return to the modern-day traditions of club music while ‘Future Mystic’ and ‘Avant Garde Dance Hall ‘, again find room in between the dancefloor and sound system listening sessions. Monty Luke spent ten formative years in Detroit, where the city's unique musical spirit influenced him immensely. He has since distilled this experience into the music he has released on labels like Rekids, Planet-E, Hypercolour, and his own Black Catalogue. His raw, dub-infused sound comes with plenty of futuristic designs, and this final complete iteration of ‘Nightdubbing’ continues to push the boundaries of his music.

There are two versions of the vinyl - classic black and triple-color limited Indie Shop edition.

Both have special insert inside with the bands bio and photos.

Generacja JAZZ is a project showing a fragment of the new wave of Polish jazz, treading its own path, creating, touring and jamming across Europe. Borders don't exist - especially musical - the new generation is engaging with nightclubs, festivals and playlists. The time has now come to show its broader perspective. We created a project which involves a handful of groups that have already racked up debut albums and festival wins, as they set out on their musical odyssey. The groups also have other things in common, like their passion, originality and, for the needs of the project, age - all the artists during the recording of this album were under 30 years old. This is the new generation - the Jazz Generation.

For the Jazz Generation record we invited five bands who had already released debut albums: Immortal Onion, Klawo, Rejoin, Twoosty Mayonez and USO 9001. We also reserved two spots on the compilation for the winners of our open call competition, whereby on the basis of the jury's choice (jury: Monika Borzym, Paulina Przybysz, Envee, Wojtek Mazolewski i Marcin Groh Grośkiewicz) we met the winning bands: Kosmos and quietet.

The sleeve artist is Kornelia Nowak, who won our open call for young designers and graphic artists. Here once again we could rely on the opinion of a prestigious jury comprised of: Beata Śliwińska Barrakuz, Bovska, Maciej Animisiewasz Grochot, Grzegorz Forin Piwnicki i Marcin Groh Grośkiewicz.

Generacja JAZZ LP is also a start of the new imprint - U JAZZ ME, which will be focused on jazz from Poland.

And here are the bands from the album:

1. Immortal Onion - A band from the Tri-City playing a broad spectrum of instrumental music.

Band members: Wojtek Warmijak (percussion), Tomir Śpiołek (piano, synths), Ziemowit Klimek (Upright Bass, synths).

The band Immortal Onion has already established itself as one of the most interesting projects of the new wave of Polish jazz, and is consistently being labelled as such abroad. After two well received albums ("Ocelot of Salvation" (2017) and"XD Experience Design" (2020) U Know Me Records) they released their third album "Screens" in 2022, which was recorded with the well known Tri-City composer and saxophonist - Michał Jan Ciesielski.

The inspiration behind the band's formation were such artists as: Esbjörn Svensson, Hiromi Uehara, Tigran Hamasyan and Tosin Abasi.

The group's guiding principle from the very beginning was the fusion of often disparate musical styles, which bore "post instrumental aggressive gay pop". Despite the stylistic discrepancies, between which they swim, the group has forged its own identifiable language, characterised by complicated rhythmical structures, energetic riffs and trance beats with lyrical melodies.

The trio has performed its original material at many venues and festivals around Europe and Asia.

2. Klawo - seven adventurous adventurers from Gdańsk, who were brought together by their love for music, halvah and throwing Frisbee. Their self-named début album, released in 2022 on the local label Coastline Northern Cuts, is an amalgam of the inspirations of each of the team members and played backwards contains tips on how to reach the Kashubian pyramids. After a win at the international competition Jazz in the Park, held in Cluj-Napoca in Romania, the band began work on their second album. Meanwhile, they were also travelling the length and breadth of Poland on a mission to infect people with the idea of Baltic Funk.

3. Kosmos is a Łódż based jazz quintet. It was formed in 2020 by Pianist Stanisław Szmigero, Saxophonist Iwo Tylman and Trumpeter Jan Ostalski. However, it wasn't until 2022 that Kosmos found its true form when Kamil Gużniczak (Upright bass) and Kacper Kuta (Percussion) joined the line-up.

Their compositions are influenced by Polish yass bands, electronic music and hip-hop. Kosmos music is a mix of lyricism, space, intensity and elements of experiment.

The band members are all eccentric characters possessing different means of musical expression - looking at them, one could even argue they are a group of oddballs. Despite this, for reasons unbeknownst to themselves, the members of Kosmos complement each other on stage and form a unified artistic vision of the world around them.

Kosmos officially released their début single "Ja" in June 2023. They regularly play concerts across Poland and recently were selected as distinguished artists at JAZZiNSPIRACJE (JAZZiNSPIRATION) - a competition held during the 13th Lublin Jazz Festival.

4. Quietet (formed at the beginning of 2023) is the result of meetings between five talented musicians with a deep passion for musical creation. Its sound is a unique blend of Jazz and classical music with a hint of hard rock. The band is inspired by the Scandinavian approach to making music, which brings a characteristic atmosphere and melodies to their work. Their music captivates listeners with its originality, refined improvisations and flawless technique. Both classical and modern musical trends feed their inspiration when creating passionate and emotional compositions.

Their works are full of sound experimentation, which equally surprise and expose new musical horizons. Through their compositions, "Quietet" aims to share their emotions evoked during performances, creating a musical journey that affects and inspires.

5. Connecting jazz with electronic music in fresh interpretations, six young musicians make up the group Rejoin. The group re-formed in 2020 after a four-year break, playing their debut concert at Lotos Jazz Festival Bielska Zadymka Jazzowa. The musicians in Rejoin have performed alongside such artists as: Urszula Dudziak, Krystyna Prońko, Marcin Masecki, Szczyl, Kuba Więcek and Paulina Przybysz.

Most of the members of Rejoin are students from the Katowice Music Academy, where they also develop their own projects. Rejoin was a recipient of the Fabryki Norblin Music Masterclass Foundation scholarship.

6. Twoosty Mayonez is something your grandad would listen to with his younger sister. The non-standard approach to jazz alongside a pursuit of strange sounds, culminated in the conceptual album entitled "Carmin". The material was created by Bartosz Wolerta (percussion) and Dominik Kaniewski (bass guitar/synths). "Triceradiplodocus" tells the story of a mechanical dinosaur that lives on the yet undiscovered planet Carmin.

It all started with waiting music for the city of Ghent information telephone line.


City composer Fulco Ottervanger (Cruise Lento) envisioned a music in which waiting time would serve as an invitation to stillness and presence. Long-term friend and producer Lieven Van Pée (Vectrex) turned out to be the ideal companion.


However, the music was never used, yet it had not missed its magical effect. The two gentlemen were now determined to make a full ambient album in which silence would play a leading role, both intuitive as well as elaborated down to the smallest unit of time... An additional approach was to make music to lull their newborn sons to sleep. With melodies simple, sounds sweet and silences deep.

Inspiration came from Haruomi Hosono's 1984 obscure classic Watering a flower, Eric Satie's Vexations and how could it be otherwise, John Cage's 3'44. What these progressive yet universal compositions have in common is a refinement of repetition and both a soothing and stimulating character.


As a listener you can't help but dive into the silence and experience an certain sweetness. The ideal record to rest to, to wake up to and enter a wider field.

Gray sky, desolate moor, cold wind and almost anechoic silence, that melt with raw and intimate sounds, acid synths and powerful rhythms. This is the vision of 'Scena_731' label, with base in the hard city of Rotterdam, Holland. In this release the trio Yari Greco, Ontal and Ryuji Takeuchi, has clear ideas; a label careful to the digital, but that finds its true and primordial analogical essence in vinyl, in order to "set/fix it", some of the best releases in limited editions. The third release is on vinyl; 'SC731003 LP' is the summary of an exactly "archived" path, collected and matured in the years from combined experiences of its producers.Supported by Bas mooy, Orphx, Violet Poison, Violet Poison, Paula Temple, Isolated Lines, Orde Meikle, Eomac, Mindcut Music, The Zone FM, Reclaim Your City, and more...

Nothing Under Heaven is the third full-length album from Scottish ambient and drone multi-instrumentalist Yulyseus.

It follows 2022’s In the Dark Palaces of Both Our Hearts, an introspective and immersive work shaped by travel, displacement, and unfamiliar surroundings. Where that release explored darker and more inward-looking terrain, Nothing Under Heaven opens outward into broader, more expansive soundscapes. Drawing on years spent moving between Glasgow, Berlin, Mexico City and Valencia, Niall Gahagan’s compositions here feel patient and quietly luminous, built from layered electronics, bowed strings and subtle field recordings.

Rather than seeking dramatic gestures, the album unfolds slowly, allowing atmosphere and emotion to emerge over time. Working within a crowded and ever-evolving ambient landscape, Yulyseus continues to focus on texture, weight and gradual movement.

Across eight carefully shaped pieces, Nothing Under Heaven explores how sound can hold both stillness and momentum, inviting attentive listening rather than functioning as simple background music. The opening track, Veillands, sets the tone with a quiet intensity that gently draws the listener inward. From there, the album develops as a continuous, immersive experience, rich in detail and emotional nuance. Nothing Under Heaven reflects an artist still in motion, responding to change, uncertainty and new surroundings with humility and care. It stands as a thoughtful and deeply considered addition to Yulyseus’s growing body of work which is rooted in patience, deep listening, and a continuing search for meaning through sound.

A personal record for Mike shaped by memory, places, and renewal. Walking the streets of his birthplace, St. Louis, Zito reconnects with the sounds, stories, and hard lessons that forged his signature blend of soul-driven blues and fearless storytelling. Thirteen years after Gone to Texas, this album feels like a defining moment, marking a new chapter for Mike, his family, and a life reclaimed in the city that started it all. The songs paint vivid snapshots of city life and personal reckoning, from late- night regret and self-awareness to raw portraits of neighbourhood survival and street-level truth. Tracks like "Downtown at Midnight" and "Grand Avenue" capture the grit, temptation, and consequences of the past with unflinching honesty, grounding the album in lived experience and emotional weight . Zito's writing is direct and cinematic, pairing tough reflection with compassion and hard-earned wisdom.

At its heart, Outside Or The Eastside is a celebration of second chances, an album dedicated to better days, family, friendship, love, and joy found in everyday moments. Life's unpredictable paths open doors you never expect, and for Mike Zito, this record embraces that truth with warmth, humour, and swagger. It's a record about choosing connection over chaos and moving forward with gratitude, purpose, and the volume turned up

Analog Fingerprints Vol. 0 is a compilation bringing together the early 2000s works of Marco Passarani under his Analog Fingerprints alias, collecting key tracks originally released on Rome’s Plasmek and Pigna labels.

For Numbers, the story starts long before the label itself. In their formative years, digging in Glasgow’s Rubadub, Passarani’s records felt like dispatches from a future city. Releases on his own Nature Records and on labels such as Generator and Interr-Ference Communications were mind blowing: rooted in Detroit techno, Chicago house and electro, yet pushing somewhere new. Much like fellow travellers Autechre, who would remix him in 2001, Passarani’s music balanced machine funk with restless experimentation.

Information was scarce, and you would hear these records first on the dancefloor or at listening stations in shops like Rubadub. Print fanzines like Ear and early web outposts such as Forcefield offered only fragments. But there was a palpable axis forming between Detroit techno and a new European wave of record labels including Skam, Rephlex, Clone, Viewlexx and Nature itself. It was the sound that defined Saturday nights at Rubadub’s ‘69’ parties in Paisley, just outside of Glasgow.

Passarani’s records, in particular, were instrumental in bringing together the future Numbers co-founders. Richard had already booked him pre-Numbers; meanwhile Calum (Spencer) and Jack (Jackmaster), then 16/17 year olds working alternate Saturdays in Rubadub, were so enamoured with the Roman sound that they travelled to Rome for the Bitz Festival in 2003 to seek out Passarani and Lory D at their source.

The first Analog Fingerprints release landed as a 12” on Plasmek in 2001, following the fractured, IDM-leaning 6 Katun material. For Passarani, the project marked a recalibration. A DJ first and foremost, he had moved into production via early computer setups, from a Commodore Amiga through primitive PC audio, Cubase and Logic, later experimenting with Ableton. The IDM scene had offered a playground for trial and error, but there was always a tension between abstraction and the dancefloor. Analog Fingerprints became the bridge: still intelligent, but with more dance than distance. After years of broken beats and complex arrangements, he wanted directness without surrendering identity.

Working closely with Francesco de Bellis and Mario Pierro in the Pigneto district, the trio formed Pigna as a vehicle for reclaiming a more accessible dance sound, deliberately steering away from the minimal wave beginning to dominate Europe. Sessions were fast, instinctive, often stretching late into the night with friends dropping by. It was a studio as social space, production as collective energy.

“In that constant search for balance, Analog Fingerprints was my way of expressing something closer to the classic dance floor. The track 'Tribute' - a tribute to my favourite early Detroit techno track of all time, 'First Bass' by Separate Minds - came after I realised I had almost lost my connection with the dance floor. The simplest step was to take inspiration from early Chicago and Detroit and twist it in our Roman ‘Pigna’ way. My goal was to create more accessible dancefloor tracks by mixing my unconscious Italo roots with my teenage love for that early US sound, ensuring the result was as far as possible from the minimal sound that was starting to dominate everywhere.” - Marco Passarani

Technically, the Analog Fingerprints tracks span a transitional era: Roland TR-909, SH-101 and Alpha Juno hardware met early software experiments. A Novation Drumstation rack stood in for the unattainable TR-808, syncing with TB-303 and TR-606. Yet the true secret weapon was Jeskola Buzz, a tracker-style modular environment that allowed step-by-step parameter control and strange melodic constructions, later exported into the audio sequencer. Even the lead on ‘Tribute’ came from an early PPG Wave-style plugin. It was hybrid thinking at a moment when digital tools still felt unstable but full of possibility for technologists like Passarani.

Behind the music sat Finalfrontier, a loose Roman collective orbiting Nature and Plasmek. Distribution and production were intertwined; importing obscure records into Italy built connections with like-minded outsiders across Europe and the US. Expensive phone bills and fax machines forged an “electronix network” that linked Rome to Clone, Viewlexx, Skam, Rephlex, Rubadub and Detroit’s Underground Resistance. There was a shared sense of survival and resistance, of operating against commercial systems.

Passarani recalls “The first time I found a sheet of paper inside an Underground Resistance 12” with info about upcoming releases... and a huge picture of Spock on the back. Imagine that: you love the music, you love Star Trek, and there’s someone on the other side of the ocean sharing those same values and sounds. It was the perfect match. We even gave our original company the suffix ‘Finalfrontier’: that says it all.”

Feedback in that era arrived physically: distributor faxes, conversations with visiting DJs, the experience of playing abroad and meeting kids who had connected with the records. Glasgow became a key node in a scattered outlier network. Passarani personally brought the first two Nature releases to Fat Cat in London, playing them in-store. Shortly after, a fax arrived from Rubadub in Glasgow requesting copies.

“I still remember that phone buzz and the fax paper slowly sliding out, with someone I didn’t know saying they wanted 75 copies of Nature 001. Or like the time we got a fax from the Rephlex crew just saying, “Hello Nature Records, Keep up the good work.” That was how we knew the message was getting through. It was a fantastic feeling; just one piece of thermal fax paper as an analog notification - the mood for the entire week would change.” - Passarani

The connection to Glasgow has since stretched across generations. As Passarani reflects, links often fracture as scenes renew themselves, but in Glasgow something different happened. New and old mixed seamlessly. There was a visible trust in what came before, and a willingness to carry it forward rather than discard it. Observed from Rome, it was deeply encouraging.

Analog Fingerprints Vol. 0 captures that moment of exchange: Rome to Glasgow, Detroit to Europe, experiment to dancefloor. It documents an artist recalibrating his sound and a network of scenes discovering one another in real time, connected by vinyl, faxes and shared intent.

This is a special work by acclaimed composer and musician Adriaan de Roover, who has released records on Dauw, VIERNULVIER, PIAS, and Consouling Sounds. Chansons de trottoir / Stoepliedjes documents his relationship to sampling in the form of a radio play.

Originally created as a radio piece for Resonance FM in Manchester, the album is a sonic portrait of a walk through Brussels. It is constructed from two field recordings: one made during a walk from Metro Midi towards Adriaan’s home, and another recorded on a walk towards Flagey. Rather than foregrounding recognizable landmarks, the piece focuses on the pavement underfoot: the steady, repetitive rhythm of footsteps on sidewalk tiles.

The recordings are mixed with samples from the music of the Brussels hip-hop group STIKSTOF. Their music became the soundtrack to a period in which Adriaan’s desire to move from Antwerp to Brussels began to take shape. Through repeated listening, the city of Brussels gradually revealed itself to him. This experience echoes that of countless music fans who, while listening to The Beatles, imagine what Liverpool might be like: a city revealed through sound and myth, often crystallized in lukewarm Hard Rock Café–style projections.

Chansons de trottoir / Stoepliedjes is an exercise in sampling and an exploration of how one might find a personal place within the music of others. It frames appropriation as an attentive and considered act. Suspended between memory and imagination, the piece exists closer to a dream state than to reportage.

B. Chamber (Stratum A), by B. Close, is the first full length solo release by Los Angeles-based multi-disciplinary artist Brian Close. The first of two volumes assembled from some thirteen hours of music produced by Close while residing in Connecticut from 2021-2025, B. Chamber (Stratum A) offers a vivid, fractal afterimage of a prolific, specific time and space in the artist’s oeuvre.

After leaving New York City early in the pandemic to a farmhouse in the countryside with dedicated spaces for multiple sound stations, Close developed an intensive daily practice of melding with the machines. The vast, pastoral backdrop of rural CT provided inspiration and contrast for his ongoing investigations into dynamic, poly-rhythmic electronic music. The sounds on B. Chamber (Stratum A) range from the machine-modeling of acoustic instruments and natural environments to the utterly unhuman, spinning on the axis between crystalline, pointillist precision and shifty blown-cone distortion. Close’s atypical interpretations of rhythm, noise and other undefined musics land in a hybrid zone of their own.

Throughout B. Chamber (Stratum A), Close’s productions are in perpetual motion. Foxtrot’s shifting hi-hats and disembodied voices rise like cicadas propelled by glitching machines and tangled rhythms, Many Drive draws momentum from dubby stabs and twinkling atmospherics. Character Community’s nimble, drifting snares and erratic static are uplifted by swelling synths, and Mpan’s modular mining forgoes drums but is no less propulsive for it. Acre Voices’ seasick pads and deft drum patterns tap an energizing nerve, and closer 5D Bow’s ambush of pummeling machine gun fire spirals into the tryptamine palace and emerges completely rinsed and refreshed.

Equally powerful in the club as in the outdoors, in the headphones eyes closed or on the move, B. Chamber (Stratum A) grants an immersive temporary trip on B. Close’s unique wavelength, with Stratum B to complete the picture in the summer of 2026.

RIYL - Mark Fell, muay thai, Vladislav Delay, gaming, Errorsmith, modular synthesizer.

+++++

Brian Close (b. 1979, NYC) uses the cold logic of mathematics to trigger states of total sensory displacement. Close co-founded multiple AV studios to explore the "hypnotic"—a ritualistic practice of motional-graphism and improvisational sound. His work is a study in synesthesia and the architecture of trance, using geometric precision to dissolve the sense of time. It is a digital-visceral experience built on heavy logic, designed for large-scale immersion and timelessness.

Close is one half of Georgia who have released records on Palto Flats, Firecracker Recordings, Meakusma, Youth, OOH-Sounds and EM Records, and have a long-running residency on NTS.

B. Chamber was written, produced and mixed by Brian Close.
Mastered by Rashad Becker.
Artwork by Brian Close.

Islaja presents her new album ”Angel Tape”, her debut release on the new Helsinki-based label Other Power. Drawing inspiration from childhood epiphanies while listening to an alleged recording of angels singing, Islaja has crafted an album that stands out as a major work in her expansive and celebrated catalogue, which includes previous releases on labels such as Ecstatic Peace!, Fonal and Svart.


Islaja, aka Finnish artist Merja Kokkonen, describes her new album as a “counterwork” to her most recent albums, where the mode of composing was more song-based. This time around, she goes more in the direction of vast fields of sound where the human voice is a key ingredient of music that breaks free of strict stylistic guidelines and traditional song forms. Rough around the edges, atonal and otherworldly, "Angel Tape” is the result of a lifetime of inspiration from something beyond the immediate realm of our experience, an attempt to catch the elusive essence of musical otherness.


”As a child, I listened to the ’angel tape’ my mother played, and I never thought that the human voices I heard on it were angels singing. Instead, all the aural debris lying just beneath the surface caught my attention as I thought it was mysterious and something from a different world than ours, and so that was probably what was referred to as the ’angels’ so miraculously caught on tape”, Kokkonen explains. ”I think this was one thing that led me on this lifelong quest to find new sounds and forms in music.”



The tape she is referring to, a mid-80s church recording, was passed around in religious circles. Each time the tape was copied, it became slightly more distorted. It was believed that this recording of religious music had accidentally captured for the first time the voices of actual angels singing. The tape was rumoured to have originated in Kansas City and to have made its way to Finland.


Whereas Islaja has often thought of albums as being collections of recent songs presented together, ”Angel Tape” has a strong sense of conceptual coherence. The music comes from a place. That doesn’t mean that one must take a single path from one place to the next, as close listenings of the album reveal layers upon layers of not only sound but also of mood and meaning. From the human voice in its barest form, to the rising dense walls of sound moving and reshaping, ”Angel Tape” is a captivating album that unveils new contours with each repeated listening.

A chopped-and-screwed love letter to the sounds of rebajada – half-speed cumbia, pioneered by Sonido Dueñez in the 1990s, and born from an overheated turntable motor that didn’t make the crowd stop dancing. With Debit’s treatment, rebajada becomes an ethereal, at times intense ambient tapestry that’s also a history lesson.

Spend any amount of time pacing the streets of Monterrey, the bustling city in the north of Mexico where Delia Beatriz, aka Debit, grew up, and you’ll be sure to catch traces of cumbia echoing from Bluetooth speakers, DIY soundsystems, or car stereos. An Afro-Latin dance form and »practica cultural« originating in Colombia in the early 19th century, cumbia evolved rapidly in the early 1900s, as a localised sound played on drums and flutes quickly modernised to integrate European instrumentation like the accordion. When it reached Mexico in the 1940s, the sound shifted again, fusing with mariachi styles and integrating further vallenato folk elements. Eventually, cumbia spread across the entirety of Latin America, splintering into a spectrum of different musical styles such as chicha in Peru, and cumbia villera in Argentina. And over in Monterrey, cumbia inadvertently found its own idiosyncratic groove.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, waves of immigrants from across Mexico and Latin America headed to Monterrey to find work, making a home in Colonia Independencia. Colombian cumbia records, shipped in from Mexico City, Houston, and Miami, became the soundtrack of the neighbourhood, relaying familiar stories to a rural working class adjusting to their new industrial reality. The sound struck a chord with locals, and huge street parties hosted by ramshackle soundsystems known as sonideros unified the diverse community. So when cumbia rebajada materialised serendipitously in the 1990s, it emphasised and highlighted the memory distortions at the heart of the immigrant experience. Local record collector, selector, and sonidero Gabriel Dueñez had been playing cumbia for hours one night when disaster struck: his turntable’s motor overheated and slowed down, turning the music into a warped groan, with half-speed voices echoing over wobbly accordion drones and splashy drums. But the crowd kept dancing, and Sonido Dueñez realised he’d struck gold – cumbia rebajada was born.

Over the next few years, he dubbed a popular series of mixtapes, hawking them at the flea market on the dried-up Santa Catarina riverbed beneath El Puente del Papa, the bridge that links downtown Monterrey with Independencia. These woozy archives became the stuff of legend, poetically but subconsciously shadowing DJ Screw’s series of epochal cassettes that appeared over the border in Houston. Beatriz uses Sonido Dueñez’s first two tapes as the starting point for »Desaceleradas«, entering into a dialogue with time, culture, and geography as she recalls the sonic ecosystem that surrounded her decades ago, long before she emigrated to the USA. If 2022’s acclaimed »The Long Count« was an attempt to recover concealed pre-Columbian history in the face of colonisation, »Desaceleradas« jumps forward, figuring out how memory and shared celebration can resist a more contemporary form of cultural erasure. As AI systems scrape, blend, and decontextualise culture around us, leaving vapid slop, »Desaceleradas« proposes a slower, more careful, and ultimately more human kind of engagement. It’s an archive with a pulse.

A great mixture of jazz, funk, afrobeat and house on new album by Italian outfit Asakaira for Quattro Bambole. "Asakaira is the name of a place that does not exist, an "invisible city" that is the backdrop to the meeting of four musicians. Michele Vassallo (sax and efx), Giuseppe Desiderio (bass), Francesco Fasanaro (percussion) and Giuseppe Limpido (drums) who together have already gone through various experiences to immerse themselves in an imaginary space, of the border! So, they exploit this nature to transcend the limit, throwing caution to the wind with carefree abandon, but not before carefully noting the history and legacy of jazz, hip-hop and afrobeat. Asakaira' s sound is psychedelic, fluid, constantly evolving: afrobeat & jazz punk alternate with funk, electronic music of Mediterranean culture. An absolutely "stateless" sound, while maintaining its own timbre and stylistic coherence to make it recognizable. The choice of not having a harmonic instrument present in the lineup gives ample space to electronic effects and the groove, creating a sort of modern ritual. The eponymous debut album, released by Quattro Bambole Records, consists of seven tracks, in which the ability to reinterpret their native sounds with polysemic rhythms emerges in a work where layered drums and percussions intertwine with effected saxophones and psychedelic bass lines. A path that moves between songs with a more "ethereal" ancestry, such as the opening track "Night Tales", an acoustic groove that rests on the use of the handpan, an idiophone instrument that gives the song a psychedelic vibration and like "Chatting With You" where a soft and extended overlapping of multiple musical meters emerges, between neo soul, jazz and hip-hop."

Have you noticed that Western music emphasises linear time? Melody is a continuous sequence of sounds. Harmony and rhythm follow a progression from beginning through climax and resolution. Is it possible to have an art that is based on non-linear time? Can we even experience non-linear time? Efrain Rozas' Still posed this question in the form of an installation made for quadraphonic sound, architecture and light. A document of his installation at Queenslab--part of a one-month residency with The Kitchen, New York City in April 2021--the album is a live, stereo room recording of Still as it was presented over three one-hour viewings. Efrain Rozas is a Peruvian interdisciplinary artist working with Latin American music, robotics, sculpture and installation. He holds a PhD in composition and ethnomusicology from New York University, and is a 2023-2024 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow. He has published Fusi?n: a soundtrack for Peru, a publication, video documentary, and music compilation; and has released several albums internationally via Names You can Trust, the Ethnomusicology Institute of Peru, the Embassy of Spain and Buh Records.

2026 Repress

Flickering in ultraviolet, there is an elusive place where blue pill meets red, ups become downs, and day merges with night. Those liminal spaces where anything is possible is where you’ll find Nightbus and their hypnotic debut album Passenger. Doom, uncertainty, and opportunity lurk in the shadowy corners of their murky existence with stops at disassociation, co-dependency, and addiction before reaching its final destination - a glimmer of hope.

The in-between of Nightbus’ own Gotham lies where Manchester’s city pulse meets Stockport’s outer realm. An audio-visual entity formed among a musical family of friends, freaks, and foes in messy mills and after hours on dancefloors alike, their sound bleeds from tension where collective creative forces are bound together and collide with the fallout of being torn apart. Before even playing a show, their So Young released single ‘Mirrors’ – a knowing nod of respect to some well-known gloomy Northerners - may have made old school indie heads shimmy at shows in Salford’s The White Hotel but also signalled the duo’s knack for offering listeners a Bandersnatch approach to hitchhiking their own personal Nightbus in whatever direction they choose to take. “Everyone can have their moment with our songs; the music is our response to who we are as young people, living in the city full of this energy right now,” they say.

Whilst reverb hefty melodies and dread-filled loops embody isolation from writing at each of their home studio set-ups, magic happens in the ether across 90s trip-hop, indie sleaze and electronica; Jake’s production layers Olive’s pop sentimentality with drums and samples whilst tales of a cast of faceless characters place Olive as puppet master; her severed self’s perspective manipulating their stringed limbs at arm’s length to see how their stories play out when scenes reflecting her own lie close to the bone. “It’s a bit fucked; like having this out of body experience with a made-up movie running through my head,” she says. “As I write I can see they’re all from a similar world, but they allow me to explore different feelings without giving away part of myself.”

Recorded at The Nave in Leeds with producer-engineer Alex Greaves (Heavy Lungs, Working Men’s Club), surprise and danger lies in every crevice. Brooding whispers turn to chants on 6-minute opus ‘Host.’ Improvised when performed live, its immersive shift in tempo leads to hefty dub courtesy of Jake’s pedals. Even then, you won’t know shit’s hit the fan until its mid-point reveal when ominous bass blasts a thunderous soundtrack as its protagonist defiantly walks away after committing the perfect crime. “It makes you wait, and more songs should have sirens,” Olive grins.

Leaning deeper into alter-egos via the video game-psychological horror of a Silent Hill dystopia, the band’s Fight Club moment ‘Angles Mortz’ turns its literal translation of death angles on its head as it reflects upon kink and internalised shame reincarnated as pride. Elsewhere the ice cool ‘Landslide’ is a Requiem for a Dream about the addiction of being in a band; ‘The Void’ explores co-dependency and estranged relationships; and carefully selected samples revive house track ‘Just A Kid’ from the band’s early incarnation. Passenger’s every direction is to face challenges head on. “That is what’s so great about horror; you can see through predictable patterns so when the unexpected occurs it's more realistic and uncomfortable… I want to own the dark stuff!”

As for Passenger’s first single, the pulsating ‘Ascension’ is a spiralling deep dive into death, suicide, and legacy around who or what we leave behind. A noughties club banger by way of NYC beats - ergonomically designed for those who like to stay out a little too often and too late - it throbs like a house party’s partition wall as the literal levelling up undergoes a neon transformation; blue glitching to pink, diffusing the white construct of the Nightbus Matrix. “It really does feel like the end of something and was purposely written that way,” they say, “the ascension is like a firework going off!”

With wheels in motion, Nightbus has become a movement surpassing sonic realms. Between shows from Porto to Brighton taking in The Great Escape, Rotterdam’s Left Of The Dial and Paris’ Supersonic; DJing; remixing; guesting (BDRMM’s Microtonic album); and even enlisting talented like-minds to craft a 3-part queer coming-of-age music video series which ties in with a new ‘hyperpop’ phase in the evolution of their popular Nightbus Soundsystem club night, heads are now being turned from sports brands to high-end fashion designers. “There are things we can’t reveal just yet,” tells Olive, “but we’re excited about the direction this beast we’ve created is heading.” As the album philosophises and asks one ultimate question; what does it truly mean to be ‘Passenger’? Nightbus may not claim to offer a definitive answer, but it might make you feel a bit better about those demons.

Hercules & Love Affair music has always been about folding past, present and future together – and never more so than in the latest phase, encapsulated by the track that launches things, “Someone Else is Calling.”

If the song-first, ultra-gothic mind-movie of the last H&LA album In Amber was partly motivated by Andy Butler falling out of love with dance culture, this new body of work – an EP titled Someone Else Is Calling – is an unabashed resurgence of the love affair. A co-production with London underground veteran and inspiration to Butler, Quinn Whalley of Paranoid London and Decius, the lead single is a surging, tactile acid track woven around the vocal of Icelandic icon Hips & Lips aka Elín Ey – who hits that new wave disco sweet spot between Grace Jones and Yazoo era Alison Moyet.

Elín’s lyrics work perfectly with the bodily momentum of the sounds, circling around themes of self-possession and the urge to move on to the next experience, the next sensation: hunger for reality. And this taps into Andy’s feelings on escaping New York and moving to Belgium, discovering that dance culture was anything but the hollowed-out, identikit-festival-lineup conveyor belt he’d feared, and still had plenty of outposts where it was still – as he’d first experience it as a teen – about the hot, sweaty reality of diverse people seeking communion, communication and heightened ways of being in the here and now.

The video, filmed by Tatsumi Milori couldn’t be a better expression of exactly this. A love letter to the strange and glorious party scene of Mexico City, it captures people who are both tapping into the eternal verities of those magical dancefloor communions, and thrilling – against all the odds of oppressive forces – at the sense of possibility in the flow of gender and sexuality in the present moment. It’s powered by innocence and experience as intertwined forces, and it amplifies the heartbeat of the song a thousandfold. There will be more, much more, to follow from the partnership of Andy, Elín and Quinn. It digs deeper still into the decades of dance and other underground cultures that feed into this modern moment – but this shining beacon should give you a pretty good hint.

Someone Else Is Calling will arrive on one of Los Angeles’s most exciting new independent labels and creative hubs, StrataSonic, on December 14. The lead single of the same name, along with the music video directed by Tatsumi Milori, is out now. This marks the first collaboration between Hercules & Love Affair and Stratasonic.

Alvorada is Montanha’s first long play: an ambient-leaning work, nocturnal in mood yet touched by electricity, tracing a journey from waking activity into dream logic. Recorded mostly in the late hours of the evening with windows open to the city, letting its air and sounds influence the music, it sometimes reached the early moments of sunrise. The title, meaning “dawn,” reflects both the liminal hours of its making and the band’s own renewal. These tracks are closer to drawings than songs: narratives written between instruments, moments of tension and release, fragments of memory and dream. The tracklist follows this nocturnal voyage with the patience of Eno, the disquiet of Uematsu, and the madness of Miles Davis’ Decoy, oscillating between streets and sleep, routine and reverie.

Montanha was formed in 2010 by André Azevedo, Nuno Oliveira, João Sarnadas, and Tito Silva, bonding over architecture school all-nighters on videogame soundtracks (Age of Empires, Super Mario). They began as a psychedelic rock combo and in 2013 released their self-titled EP which introduced a raw, improvised energy. But the album that was meant to follow was abandoned as the band entered hiatus. The four members turned their creative drive towards co-founding Favela Discos, where experimentation with media and form reshaped their ideas of music, and developed their taste, their way of playing, and a more personal sound that was more open and disconnected from a defined genre.

By 2017, Montanha had returned to the studio with new experience, no longer a rock band in the traditional sense but a project devoted to improvisation and electronic soundscapes. An ever gentrifying city forced them to abandon acoustic drums, and they embraced electronic beats instead, and became mobile; one guitar dissolved into full synths, leaving the other to converse with bass. Improvisation remained their compass. In improvisation there are no mistakes, only missed opportunities. Montanha found their opportunity in the routine of the studio to break routines of pop and experimental. The result is a body of nearly fifty hours of recordings, sculpted into an album.

Alvorada is not only Montanha’s first LP but also the dawn of their new phase. Improvised yet carefully sculpted, the record expands the territory of the song into nonlinear narratives, letting the language of night, dream, and city seep into its form.

A decade after its release, A Fragile Geography returns transformed. This limited edition cassette accompanies the AFG10 anniversary reissue, offering an inspired re-envisioning of Rafael Anton Irisarri’s landmark compositions. Reworks presents distinctive readings of these pieces, with each artist leaving their personal mark on the material. The titles remain unchanged, with the sole exception of “Hiatus,” reborn here as “Ausencia.” Together, these reimaginings extend the emotional cartography of the album into new terrains.

KMRU reframes “Displacement” with expansive, glimmering layers that open into meditative ambient landscapes. Nairobi born and Berlin based, he is known for morphing field recordings into vivid aural experiences, often capturing the texture of footsteps, foliage, and distant city life and weaving them into contemplative soundscapes. In this version he introduces subtle new sounds, including stringlike synths that trace and heighten the piece’s emotional arc. The result invites close listening, offering enveloping tones where the organic and the synthetic gently collide and flow.

Penelope Trappes renders “Reprisal” as a voice-led invocation of the delicate and the intimate. Her wistful vocals bloom with fragile sorrow, rising over shimmering strands of strings to create a sound world at once sacred and shadowed. She is adept at channeling inherited grief into music that is transcendent and otherworldly. The interplay of her voice, the strings, and her use of space and depth draws those qualities into Irisarri’s orbit, imbuing “Reprisal” with the same spiritual weight and clarity that define her most powerful work.

Kevin Richard Martin (a.k.a. The Bug) transforms “Empire Systems” into a cavernous “Iced Mix,” driven by polyrhythmic double bass motifs and sculpted from subterranean pressure and negative space. Known for pushing sound to its physical limits, Martin brings the stark intensity of his dub and noise infused practice into Irisarri’s architecture. The track seethes with harmonic distortion and erupts in white noise rhythms, its brooding low end depth and icy reverberant textures amplifying the tension. Vulnerability and force are set in stark relief, as silences feel as heavy as the bursts of sound themselves. The result is a stark study in atmosphere, restraint and impact, reframed through Martin’s singular lens of sonic mass and low end intensity.

On Side B, Mabe Fratti opens with a cinematic, dreamlike, Lynchian reimagining of “Hiatus” in her native Spanish (“Ausencia”). She threads cello and voice so wondrously that her rendering feels at once hauntingly beautiful and disquieting. Emotionally charged melodies shift in unexpected directions, while her soft, intimate vocals hover above Irisarri’s brooding synth textures. Fratti’s gift for blending experimental and avant pop sensibilities with visceral, emotionally powerful expression shines resplendently here. She gives voice to Irisarri’s reflections on the passage of time and his growing desire to reconnect with his familial roots.

Abul Mogard stretches “Persistence” into a vast drone elegy. A master of patient sound sculpting, Mogard layers evolving waves of analog synths into a dense shroud that radiates its own internal light. Gradual surges of tone and subtle harmonic shifts emphasize the piece’s endurance and inevitability. Irisarri’s original composition, in Mogard's hands, becomes a rumination on time’s unrelenting flow. Melancholy and transcendence coexist in equal measure in this engulfing, cathartic rework.

William Basinski and Gary Thomas Wright close the cycle with a spectral version of “Secretly Wishing for Rain.” Basinski’s field recordings of Reseda rainfall and birdsong, which open and close the rework, add a personal touch and evoke the imagined sound of a grainy film reel flickering to life. The piece suspends Irisarri’s yearning for the Pacific Northwest, lodging it hazily between memory, place and an unreachable dream. It feels like a fading recollection, half forgotten and half felt. A final gesture that dissolves the album into vapor, leaving the listener adrift in its lingering afterglow.

Mastered with great care by Stephan Mathieu and featuring a remixed version of the original artwork by Daniel Castrejón, this edition refracts the language of the original through new prisms. Less a return than a passage, across time, across interpretation, into uncharted emotional realms.

Ostinato as resistance: Rafael Anton Irisarri’s landmark work reimagined. Marking the tenth anniversary of the American composer’s critically acclaimed album 'A Fragile Geography', this new edition arrives renewed, both sonically and visually.

First released in 2015 (Room40) during a period of personal upheaval and creative reinvention, it endures as a testament to resilience, transformation, and the connection we hold with the places that shape us.

Written in the aftermath of a devastating theft, A Fragile Geography was born out of loss. Just days before a cross-country move to New York, Irisarri’s entire Seattle-based studio was wiped out. Instruments. Recordings. Archives. Gone without a trace. He arrived on the East Coast to an empty room and the daunting task of starting over.

“This album wasn’t just a record; it was a lifeline,” Irisarri reflects. “It became a way to process the emotional chaos that followed: uprooting, instability, and ultimately, the slow, intuitive rebuilding of a life.”

Composed and recorded in the rural woods of the Hudson Valley, the album took shape in seclusion, surrounded by nature, and through a process guided by improvisation. Embracing limitations, Irisarri wove textural layers of field recordings with half-remembered melodies from his Seattle years, piecing them together like fragments of memory. Tracks like “Displacement,” “Hiatus,” and “Persistence” juxtaposed haunting stillness with restless momentum, mapping an inner terrain of grief, catharsis, and rebirth.

Among its defining sounds is “Empire Systems,” a monumental centerpiece built around a simple four-chord progression, organ textures, and guitar drones. Gradually, the track expands into layers of immersive loops and thick, enveloping distortion that wash over the listener like a rolling wave. Often cited as the album’s most majestic passage, it captures Irisarri at his most sonically ambitious. With a harmonically saturated structure crafted from restraint and repetition, it remains one of his most recognizable compositions: an exercise in the art of maximal minimalism.

From the outset, “Reprisal” received praise from BBC’s Mary Anne Hobbs, who championed the track on her radio show. Her support played a key role in introducing Irisarri’s work to wider audiences and solidifying his place within the lineage of electronic, drone, and experimental sound artists. A slow-burning elegy, the piece emerges from a haze of distortion and sub-bass, with dense, unrelenting drones carrying a sense of mounting tension. Just as it seems to collapse under its own weight, flickers of guitar emerge like distant light through fog. It’s a meditation on dissonance, resolve, and the elusive possibility of release.

The closing track, “Secretly Wishing for Rain,” is steeped in saudade: a longing for Seattle’s dour grey skies, lush green landscapes, and desaturated sunsets. Through it, Irisarri mourns a vanished chapter of life bound to the city, a time documented in scattered mementos and cherished collections, now permanently gone. A reflection on what could never be recovered: an era lost to time. Julia Kent’s looped cello motifs added a melancholic warmth to the track, marking the first collaboration between the two artists and sparking a musical dialogue that would keep growing in the years that followed.

More than a career highlight, A Fragile Geography has laid the foundation for Black Knoll studio, which Irisarri rebuilt from the ground up. The studio has since grown into a creative hub for countless projects, with Irisarri engineering records for iconic music figures like Terry Riley, Ryuichi Sakamoto, William Basinski, MONO, Devendra Banhart, Grouper, Emeralds, Steve Hauschildt, Julianna Barwick, and many others. Carried by its lasting influence, the album has quietly captured the ear of a younger generation, its sound and emotional arc finding new listeners in unexpected corners.

The album’s new visual language was reimagined in collaboration with Mexico City–based designer Daniel Castrejón. Irisarri captured ghostly images at Gaztelugatxeko Doniene, a historic coastal site in Bermeo, Euskal Herria. Castrejón then treated the photographs with distressed textures and spectral overlays. The final artwork channels the rugged, elemental forces that shaped both the music and Irisarri’s aesthetic, renewing his ties to ancestral ground inspired by the Basque homeland of his bloodline.

Mastered by Stephan Mathieu with exceptional attention to detail, this anniversary edition uncovers every nuance in the sound design, enhancing clarity and presence. With each listen, new elements emerge, inviting discovery and reconnection.

“I don’t experience this album as a document of grief anymore,” says Irisarri. “I hear adaptation and I'm reminded that when everything falls apart, something meaningful, maybe even beautiful, can emerge.”

Ostinato as resistance: Rafael Anton Irisarri’s landmark work reimagined. Marking the tenth anniversary of the American composer’s critically acclaimed album 'A Fragile Geography', this new edition arrives renewed, both sonically and visually.

First released in 2015 (Room40) during a period of personal upheaval and creative reinvention, it endures as a testament to resilience, transformation, and the connection we hold with the places that shape us.

Written in the aftermath of a devastating theft, A Fragile Geography was born out of loss. Just days before a cross-country move to New York, Irisarri’s entire Seattle-based studio was wiped out. Instruments. Recordings. Archives. Gone without a trace. He arrived on the East Coast to an empty room and the daunting task of starting over.

“This album wasn’t just a record; it was a lifeline,” Irisarri reflects. “It became a way to process the emotional chaos that followed: uprooting, instability, and ultimately, the slow, intuitive rebuilding of a life.”

Composed and recorded in the rural woods of the Hudson Valley, the album took shape in seclusion, surrounded by nature, and through a process guided by improvisation. Embracing limitations, Irisarri wove textural layers of field recordings with half-remembered melodies from his Seattle years, piecing them together like fragments of memory. Tracks like “Displacement,” “Hiatus,” and “Persistence” juxtaposed haunting stillness with restless momentum, mapping an inner terrain of grief, catharsis, and rebirth.

Among its defining sounds is “Empire Systems,” a monumental centerpiece built around a simple four-chord progression, organ textures, and guitar drones. Gradually, the track expands into layers of immersive loops and thick, enveloping distortion that wash over the listener like a rolling wave. Often cited as the album’s most majestic passage, it captures Irisarri at his most sonically ambitious. With a harmonically saturated structure crafted from restraint and repetition, it remains one of his most recognizable compositions: an exercise in the art of maximal minimalism.

From the outset, “Reprisal” received praise from BBC’s Mary Anne Hobbs, who championed the track on her radio show. Her support played a key role in introducing Irisarri’s work to wider audiences and solidifying his place within the lineage of electronic, drone, and experimental sound artists. A slow-burning elegy, the piece emerges from a haze of distortion and sub-bass, with dense, unrelenting drones carrying a sense of mounting tension. Just as it seems to collapse under its own weight, flickers of guitar emerge like distant light through fog. It’s a meditation on dissonance, resolve, and the elusive possibility of release.

The closing track, “Secretly Wishing for Rain,” is steeped in saudade: a longing for Seattle’s dour grey skies, lush green landscapes, and desaturated sunsets. Through it, Irisarri mourns a vanished chapter of life bound to the city, a time documented in scattered mementos and cherished collections, now permanently gone. A reflection on what could never be recovered: an era lost to time. Julia Kent’s looped cello motifs added a melancholic warmth to the track, marking the first collaboration between the two artists and sparking a musical dialogue that would keep growing in the years that followed.

More than a career highlight, A Fragile Geography has laid the foundation for Black Knoll studio, which Irisarri rebuilt from the ground up. The studio has since grown into a creative hub for countless projects, with Irisarri engineering records for iconic music figures like Terry Riley, Ryuichi Sakamoto, William Basinski, MONO, Devendra Banhart, Grouper, Emeralds, Steve Hauschildt, Julianna Barwick, and many others. Carried by its lasting influence, the album has quietly captured the ear of a younger generation, its sound and emotional arc finding new listeners in unexpected corners.

The album’s new visual language was reimagined in collaboration with Mexico City–based designer Daniel Castrejón. Irisarri captured ghostly images at Gaztelugatxeko Doniene, a historic coastal site in Bermeo, Euskal Herria. Castrejón then treated the photographs with distressed textures and spectral overlays. The final artwork channels the rugged, elemental forces that shaped both the music and Irisarri’s aesthetic, renewing his ties to ancestral ground inspired by the Basque homeland of his bloodline.

Mastered by Stephan Mathieu with exceptional attention to detail, this anniversary edition uncovers every nuance in the sound design, enhancing clarity and presence. With each listen, new elements emerge, inviting discovery and reconnection.

“I don’t experience this album as a document of grief anymore,” says Irisarri. “I hear adaptation and I'm reminded that when everything falls apart, something meaningful, maybe even beautiful, can emerge.”

John Calvin Abney rises again from the Oklahoman prairies with his latest album Transparent Towns. The ten songs focus on how we remember, and ultimately accept, though he is not always certain the memories we carry adequately mark the moments that make us. "This record is wrapped around the passage of time, whether or not we can trust the memories that we swear on, how we forgive ourselves and others as seasons turn, and how we define what is important as we roll the boulder back up the hill," Abney says of Transparent Towns. "We build these routines and live our stories, we rely on our histories and our memories - spoken and recorded. Now, we're relying on copies of copies, memories of memories, all packed like sardines into our phones, and we're losing the ability to tell our own stories. I have to constantly remind myself, as well as redefine what matters at the end of a day." Transparent Towns is the seventh studio album for Abney, and his first since 2022's Tourist, which he crafted after spending the pandemic as an itinerant writer. In contrast Abney penned most of the album's 10 tracks during a period of introspection and convalescence while recovering from vocal cord surgery in 2023. The time to himself - "I didn't sing for nearly a year, and after surgery, I couldn't talk for a month, and couldn't sing for over three months," he says, left him contemplating how to trace his experiences in the silence. The album's title track is Abney's take on the inaccessible past, witnessing loss and grief through the years, damning the "days we let go left unsaid", and accepting the uncontrollable circumstances we are sometimes placed in. "The troubles and the joys exist vibrantly in your memory, but you're wondering if you remember correctly," Abney remarks. "I've sometimes had this sort of confusion between memory and dreams - you crafted this ideal in your head of how things were or might be, in order to soften the blow of a harsher reality." The places we inhabit dictate how our memories form, and for Abney, there is one place to which he is constantly drawn: Oklahoma. Although he was born in the biggest little city in America, Reno, Nevada, he grew up learning guitar and piano in Tulsa, playing bars and DIY spaces from Norman to Stillwater. His affinity for the land that raised him is evident in the production of Transparent Towns. Abney self-produced the record, tracking most of it at Cardinal Song outside of Oklahoma City, with Michael Trepagnier handling mixing and engineering. The band was comprised mostly of Sooner State musicians too, along with Lydia Loveless and John Moreland contributing harmony vocals. His signature vulnerable voice and lyrical handiwork comes through in each of the songs, along with his penchant for alternative pop melodies set against colorful chords and subtle soundscapes. Having toured for years backing up artists like Moreland, Wild Child, Ben Kweller, and S.G. Goodman, Abney embraces a lead role again, as he presses forward with the loving lament and defiant joy throughout Transparent Towns, calling us to leave behind the pressures we place on our ourselves and recognize that just because there is an ending, it doesn't mean it's the end.