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Multidisciplinary Brussels-based artist Sagat steps up with a new mini album on the Basic Moves side label, Gems Under The Horizon, featuring a remix by Slovenian ambient bird e/tape. A few years ago, Wiet Lengeler, aka Sagat was invited by Basic Moves to create a live visual show using an analogue video synth setup to accompany a 5-hour dj set by e/tape at Face B in Brussels. From that moment on, the synchronicity between the two artists was clear - and this EP is the result.
Besides his visual work, Wiet Lengeler is also known for his contemporary techno music, primarily released on Brussels’ cult label Vlek Recordings. For this mini-album, Gems Under The Horizon 003, he presents four grainy ambient and textured electro-acoustic explorations. The tracks unfold organically — like ivy — gradually revealing layers of sound and hidden textures beneath babbling streams of electronics. e/tape’s remix feels like a natural continuation of Sagat’s sonic universe, together forming a mesmerising whole that explores the fringes of ambient music. In addition to the release, a limited run of the release + 30 x 3 riso printed posters from the visual show at Face B, made by Sagat and hand numbered are made available.
Mastering and lacquer cut was done by Frederic Alstadt at Angstrom Mastering. Artwork & inserts are designed by renowned Ghent-based visual artist Dieter Durinck.
Sit back and enjoy the wonderful aural world of Sagat and e/tape.
Sincerely,
The Basic Moves team.
Alpenglühen starts 2026 with two close friends working together in the 11th one.
Atàvic is the collaborative project between Estrato Aurora and Absis, merging two distinct yet complementary approaches to electronic music. The project is rooted in texture, atmosphere, and subtle narrative, allowing sound to evolve organically and without excess.
They together bring a refined sense of space and detail, working with ambient layers, restrained rhythms, and melodic fragments that unfold slowly. Here is a 4 track release with a more tactile and material approach, focusing on timbre, resonance, and sonic density, blurring the line between abstraction and structure.
The alignment between Atàvic and the label lies in a shared appreciation for subtlety, patience, and sonic storytelling, where each release is conceived as a complete and meaningful statement.
With this reference, Atàvic contributes a work that resonates with alpenglühen’s aesthetic ethos while reinforcing the collaborative project’s own identity: music that invites close listening and reveals its nuances slowly.
If you’re looking for a peak-time, dancefloor-driven banger to keep you moving until sunrise, this is not that record.
But if you’re after a mind-blowing experience that challenges and expands your listening (and dancings), this one’s for you. Don’t overthink it.
Recollection V-VI marks the third in a planned series of 7” releases, each built from Glonti’s expanding archive of Soviet-era recordings.
During the Soviet era, art often had to align with propaganda, seemingly fostering a symbiotic relationship between the state and its people. Consequently, in the realm of “Social Realism,” most forms of artistic experimentation were strongly discouraged and even punishable. With few exceptions, 20th-century Georgian classical/chamber music remained quite conservative; however, when faced with dysfunctional cultural phenomena, there will always be gaps in societal walls through which oppressed cultures can carry their historical heritage and unique paradigms.
In 2018, Glonti started collecting LPs of Soviet-era Georgian composers at Tbilisi’s “Dry Bridge” flea market.The records mostly consisted of classical and chamber music released on Melodiya, the singular, state owned record label of the USSR. It was through this process that the idea of Recollection was born, as Glonti aimed to create an album that would utilize samples from his growing collection.
The artwork by Dmytro Nikolaienko of Day Night reflects the generic qualities of Soviet-era cover art.
With centuries of history, traditional instruments carry physical vibrations shaped by human breath and touch. In contrast, electronic music generates vibrations through inorganic principles such as electrical signals and circuits. When the subtle tremors of traditional instruments resonate with the intricate tones of electronic sounds in an improvised dialogue, performers from distinct realms expand each other’s languages, creating a new sensory experience.
The project album Ancient Moment marks the first collaboration between the Korean contemporary music ensemble WhatWhy Art and the Seoul underground electronic music collective vurt.. It is a record of a free journey where two different worlds collide and merge, breaking cultural boundaries and dismantling aesthetic hierarchies.
In Part 1 of the album, you will hear boundless performances by daegeum player Hong Yoo with electronic musician Unjin, and gayageum player Hwayoung Lee with ambient duo Hosoo.
The recording was done in an improvised one-take format at STUDIO Y in Seoul, and Giuseppe Tillieci mastering enhanced the sonic quality.
The digital release will be available on vurt.’s Bandcamp on August 31, 2025, followed by an LP release in Europe and Asia in December.
Jeux d’eau is the result of an exploratory collaboration between the experimental ensemble Copenhagen Clarinet Choir and Danish composer and performer Anders Lauge Meldgaard. At the heart of the project is Meldgaard’s compositions and performance on New Ondomo—a Japanese instrument modeled on the pioneering French electronic instrument, the ondes Martenot, but what makes the music truly shine is the Copenhagen Clarinet Choir’s vibrant energy and adventurous spirit, bringing Meldgaard’s vision off the page and into a living, breathing soundscape through their playful and imaginative ensemble performance.
The initial spark for Jeux d’eau was struck during Meldgaard’s visit to the gardens of Villa d’Este in Tivoli, Italy—a place animated by fountains that once inspired Franz Liszt and Maurice Ravel to compose piano works of the same title. Echoing these earlier musical impressions, the project channels that lineage into a new sonic journey. Where some composers of the past often sought to define strict structures, Meldgaard’s work on Jeux d’eau instead offers an open framework—one that invites playful interaction and improvisation among the musicians. Recorded at The Village in Copenhagen, the album is a sonic experience where the organic resonance of the clarinet choir intertwines with the unpredictable textures of the New Ondomo and electronic landscape.
The work Jeux d’eau is open yet structured, forward-moving yet richly repetitive, drawing clear inspiration from American minimalists such as Terry Riley and Steve Reich, but rather than simply echoing the work of these pioneers, the music explores fresh terrain infused with a lyrical touch of late-romantic European sensibility, where flowing melodies and rich harmonies soften the rigor of repetition. At the same time, the music resonates with the clarity and delicacy that could be associated with Japanese composers such as Jo Kondo or Sueko Nagayo. The result is a sound world that is playful yet profound, one that continually shifts between pulsating momentum and delicate stillness. With each piece, the ensemble invites listeners into a captivating journey where tradition meets experiment, and where collective performance transforms composition into something vividly alive.
Conceived as a tribute to water and a reflection on the fragile bond between humans and the natural world, Jeux d’eau is both a sonic meditation and a quiet call to action. Through fluid forms and open notations, the work draws listeners into a space where music mirrors the dynamics of nature—demanding real-time awareness, collective sensitivity, and respect for balance. Like flowing water, the music adapts and transforms, reminding us that our environment, too, is ever-changing and in need of care. In this way, Jeux d’eau does more than celebrate nature’s beauty: it asks us to recognize our responsibility to protect the living systems that sustain us, and to pay caring attention to the world we live in.
Varg2™ reunites with the elusive Chatline for ASMR for Suicidal Thoughts, a two-track document recorded live to tape in Västra Skogen, Sweden 2023–2024 for Northern Electronics.
The music is stark and undistracted — locked into a narrow frame where tension is not resolved, softened, or defused. Instead it lingers as a permanent condition. The pair allow little variation, forcing a confrontation with stillness, bleak repetition, and uncomfortably intimate flashes of sensation that never fully surface.
Noise becomes a brittle membrane rather than a wall, punctured by funereal melodic fragments that appear momentarily before being swallowed again. The atmosphere is saturated, airless, and unyielding — a sealed environment where the listener is held rather than guided.
The result is a stripped-back work of pressure, frost, and suspended time — not a “journey” or a narrative, but a fixed state of dread and charged quiet, captured with unnerving specificity.
Welcoming elusive Japanese guitarist, Kouhei Fukuzumi, for his 3rd solo full-length as Ultrafog. ‘A Replica Screams’ emerges as a collection of drifting memories, a chain reaction of unique combinations of elements already present in the World. It embraces the idea that existence itself is positively shaped by serendipity and meaningful coincidences, and that we are all falling together, in time, and on time.
The vinyl edition contains an original artwork poster presenting João Bragança Gil’s ‘The Origin’ (On & On), an installation on synchronicity and fossils, which materialized in conjunction with Ultrafog’s live show at Ufonic (Lisbon, September 2024).
kishun is a duo: ISHIKAWA Ko, player of the shō (mouth-organ), and NAKAMURA Kahoru, player of the gaku-biwa (Japanese court lute). Since 2015 they have used only shō and biwa. Their idea is to bring out the hidden sound in what they call “gagaku without melody.”
Gagaku is the ancient court music of Japan. It is more than a thousand years old. In the Heian period, nobles gathered old songs and dances from Japan and pieces that had come from Korea and China between the 5th and 9th centuries, and shaped them into one art. As gagaku took root in Japan, it was arranged and rebuilt. The form we hear today is unique to Japan. By the Heian era, it was already close to its present shape. Gagaku lives in two worlds: as court music at the Imperial Palace, and as sacred music for rites and festivals at temples and shrines. Because of this history, it was kept by nobles and professional musicians, away from the taste of ordinary people. Its instruments and dances are very different from most other Japanese traditions.
Gagaku has four main kinds: bugaku (dances, including those from the continent), kangen (an instrumental ensemble), kuniburi-no-utamai (old songs and dances from Japan), and utamono (vocal music from the Heian period). Among these, kangen is rare in Japan: it is a full orchestra made only of instruments. Most other Japanese music centers on singing. When there is instrumental playing, it is often in small groups or as support for theater and dance. Kangen stands apart.
The kangen ensemble is called “three winds, two strings, three drums.” The winds are shō, hichiriki (double-reed), and ryūteki (transverse flute). The strings are biwa and so (zither). The drums are kakko, taiko, and shōko (gong). The hichiriki and ryūteki carry the melody. The shō wraps them in chords. The string parts frame the rhythm. Kishun plays only shō and biwa, both in classic pieces and in improvisation.
The shō is a free-reed mouth organ with 17 bamboo pipes of different lengths and pitches. Each pipe has a small metal reed. In the classic style, players do not use tonguing. They shape phrases with breath. The shō is not loud. In ensemble it plays long, steady chords called aitake. These chords color the melody and show the center of the mode (scale).
The gaku-biwa is a lute. Today it has four strings and four frets, and is played with a plectrum. Its back is flat and the body is shallow. Its sound is strong at the start, then fades quickly, with almost no ring. For this reason, the biwa speaks more in rhythm than in harmony.
kishun leaves out the melody instruments of kangen. They focus on the shō, which builds a field of sound through aitake chords, and the biwa, which draws the rhythm. This is their experiment: to bring forward the voices that hide behind the melody. With the skill of two masters, they reach this goal. Sounds that the full gagaku ensemble often covers without notice step into the foreground and speak to us in a fresh, striking way.
(*1) ISHIKAWA Ko — Studied shō and gagaku song with MIYATA Mayumi, BUNNO Hideaki, and SHIBA Sukeyasu. He began performing in 1990. He plays classic and new works with Reigakusha, a well-known gagaku group, and also performs as a soloist. He has taken part in many projects with artists such as SAKAMOTO Ryuichi and Evan Parker. He is also active in free improvisation.
(*2) NAKAMURA Kahoru — While at university, she met the revival of Bankaso (the oldest known biwa score, reconstructed by SHIBA Sukeyasu) and began to study gagaku. She studied ryūteki with Shiba Sukeyasu, and gaku-biwa and umai (right-dance, a style with roots in the Korean peninsula and northeast China) with YAMADA Kiyohiko. A member of Reigakusha, she has performed since 1990 at festivals in Japan and abroad, and as a soloist. She also works to bring lost classic pieces back to li
A while back my friend Axel and I came across a small handful of original backstock copies of Tumbling Down, a privately-pressed LP from the mid-80s by Race Knower. Most of the original pressing had defects that kept it from being properly released at the time—these few clean copies quietly made their way into the hands of DJs and collectors. A few months back, we uncovered a final box in storage—these are the very last clean copies around. The album’s a really special one, drifting between drum machine-driven blues and Gil Scott-Heron-style roaming jazz soul. Thought it might be something you’d want a few of in your crates.
Treasurable 1st reissue of a 1982 roots reggae rarity, one of the only cuts by cousins Freddie & Dessie, and starring Beres Hammond in full fat remaster and new cut, thanks to the ceaseless search of Shella Records, who finally sourced a mint copy in Brazil.
"“Me Look Like A Lion But Me Humble Like A Man” Fredrick Dookie & Desmond Silpatt were cousins and close friends who, though not prolific, created one stunning reggae tune which has been near impossible to find for over 40 years.
Like artists from Supercat to Sheila Rickards, Freddie & Dessie are of Indo-Jamaican descent. They gravitated to music from an early age.
Recorded at Aquarius and arranged by Wire Lindo, the track features back up vocals from a young Beres Hammond.
"I have loved this song for a very long time and this exclusive reissue has been in the works for several years since I tracked down one half of the duo Dessie aka Desmond Silpatt who is now based in Florida." says Chris from Shella Records.
Freddie, who provides the song’s hypnotic vocal, was a devout Rasta man who sadly passed away in 2019. He is survived by Dessie, a renaissance man, inventor and author who has penned thousands of songs in his time."
Legowelt & Takafumi Noda aka Mystica Tribe with their third Noda & Wolfers album, this one is for the real dub headz!
Reissue of Teresa Bright's 2008 album of hapa-haole jazz, Tropic Rhapsody. Remastered by Jessica Thompson with newly composed liner notes by musician and radio host Bill Wynne.
Only Teresa Bright could have recorded Tropic Rhapsody.
In an era when Hawaiians are retaking the reins of their language--and especially the new generation of musicians who are composing and recording almost strictly in the Hawaiian language--Tropic Rhapsody was a bold move artistically and commercially to make an album of almost entirely hapa-haole material.
From her earliest moments in a recording studio, Teresa Bright was not afraid to have a go at hapa-haole music–not as the novelty it might have been becoming in that period when she debuted (the early 1980s), but as a serious art form. Her first outing, the 1983 album Catching A Wave with then partner Steve Mai‘i, featured such hapa-haole staples as “My Little Grass Shack” and “Sadie, The South Seas Lady,” and even the oft-maligned “Yacka Hickey Hula” which she tackled with the seriousness of a heart attack. Steve & Teresa would go on to record three albums--all of which are considered collector’s items today because they contain some classic tunes including the exceedingly popular “Uwehe, ‘Ami, and Slide,” Teresa’s wildly successful attempt at composing a modern hapa-haole song which would go on to take the coveted prize for “Song of the Year” at the 1988 Na Hoku Hanohano Awards and which remains a staple on local Honolulu radio nearly four decades later.
Twenty-five years into her recording career Teresa flipped the script and gifted the world with Tropic Rhapsody–an album of primarily hapa-haole tunes with just a smattering of Hawaiian language numbers. Among its many definitions, a rhapsody is a type of music. One source characterizes a “rhapsody” as “featuring a range of highly contrasted moods, color, and tonality” and “an air of spontaneous inspiration and a sense of improvisation.” In these respects Tropic Rhapsody lives up to its title. At the time of its release in 2008, Tropic Rhapsody boasted a roster of mostly hapa-haole tunes (and only three Hawaiian-language compositions - but all classics that are right at home in this collection). Working with arranger Kit Ebersbach, Bright crafted a collection that reflects her adventurous musical spirit. From the opening strains of “Lei of Stars,” the strings glistening and cascading around Teresa’s voice like the very lei of which she sings, you just know this album is going to be special. They chose Latin-themed treatments for such classics as “Silhouette Hula,” “Blue Hawaii,” and “Sweet Leilani.” Then they surprise us with a “Kaimana Hila” in 3/4 time. Cuba meets Hawai‘i as we delight in the rhumba rhythms of a hapa-haole rarity, “On A Tropic Night.” They pick up the tempo with a samba treatment of “Pagan Love Song,” but more delightful than this is that Teresa Bright sweetly harmonizes with herself (the only thing better than one Teresa Bright being two or three). And she closes with “Aloha ‘Oe,” an all too sad reminder that Teresa left this earthly plane in September 2024.
While she may have been a jazzer at heart, Teresa’s heart was first and foremost Hawaiian. To those unfamiliar with Hawaiian music, Tropic Rhapsody could be considered a jazz album. It would be right at home on the shelf next to Astrud Gilberto or Diana Krall. But because the romantic lyrics speak of the moon and the stars and evoke tradewinds and palm trees, and because of Teresa’s ever respectful approach to the material, it is also uniquely Hawaiian and deserves its place in the pantheon of classic hapa-haole recordings. A modern classic. Just like Teresa herself.
From the 2025 reissue liner notes, written by Bill Wynne.
Son of Chi returns to Astral Industries, alongside Spanish artist Clara Brea, for the collaborative release of AI-29. A product of fate, chance experiments, but most of all, sensitive artistry - ’The Wetland Remixes’ exists as a confluence of two kindred musical spirits, a wayfaring epic that draws together a rich archive of ecological field recordings, live instrumentation and higher inspirations.
Ahead of Hanyo’s concert at ‘Avalovara listening club’ (Madrid) at the end of 2019, the curators (Diskoan & Josephine’ Soundscapes) organised a special dinner and arranged the meeting of Clara and Hanyo. As Hanyo recalls, “It was like stereochemistry. There was an instant match and understanding, and basically we decided in a split second to exchange recordings and to collaborate on future live and studio experiments.”
The auspicious meeting of the two ignited a remote exchange of materials and ideas, as the world descended into a series of pandemic-related lockdowns. The first of said recordings included the stems of Clara’s ‘Wetland Project’ - a site-specific audiovisual project originally produced for Eufonic Festival (Spain), using field recordings from the Ebro Delta nature reserve (one of the most threatened regions of climate change on the Iberian peninsula).
From this initial impetus, Hanyo began working on the first sketches of the album back in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Just like their meeting in Madrid, the project developed naturally and spontaneously with extraordinary ease. Later, Hanyo started adding field recordings from the Magic Cave and Wetlands of the ‘Kallikatsou’ (Patmos, Greece) as well as organic and acoustic overdubs, featuring bass, drums, percussion, guitars, oud, piano, hammond organ, wurlitzer, flutes, bells, and mouth harp.
In the distance, the sound of birds peak through the effervescent wash of the wetland soundscapes. The pass of running water flows deeper into a land full of secrets never told. On the strike of dusk, the silhouettes of shapely trunks and foliage melt slowly into the impenetrable darkness. As darkness passes, light emerges, with exquisite moments of tranquility that seemingly emerge from nothingness.
Beneath the shimmering veneer of textures, wildlife and melodies, one may hear the deeper references of ’The Wetland Remixes’. With credit to Clara’s input, for Hanyo the album process became a kind of refuge, and ultimately inspired the return to the core of Abstract Sound - what the Sufis call “Saut-i Sarmad.” Such references allude to the spiritual quality embedded in the music - the autonomous process of self-expression, the great mystery. Hanyo: “An ambience like this cannot be created by routine. There is no blueprint. The music has to find you. It’s like a blessing if it happens. You should not interfere, just observe and be impressed...”
Deep, luscious mind trips as per the classic Chi sound, ‘The Wetland Remixes’ beautifully correlates the interconnecting dots of geography, ecology, and mythology’s forgotten lore.
John T. Gast’s 5GT label shells the baddest yet by their secret weapon Xterea, panel-beating aspects of free party tekno D&B and UK steppers with a proper rusty, distorted tang that works a treat - RIYL Muslimgauze, Yann Dub, Carrier.
With scant background info, comparisons between Xterea and his label boss have almost inevitably been made - kinda like loads of artists on Rephlex were presumed to be AFX aliases - but we’re assured that Xterea is not JTG, they just share a thing for the grubbiest subterranean dub rave.
Whatever, their latest is also their strongest, arranging brittlest, nagging drums and murky atmospheres into hypnotic propulsion systems with a dead satisfying sort of unfinished, off-the-cuff, uncommercial quality that hits where it matters.
Their 4th release, after a ’24 debut with Mindseyerecords.xyz, and preceding pair for 5GT, ‘I’ll Call You Later’ is their most substantial in terms of length and locked-in effect. A case in point is the 10 min standout ‘Don’t Shoot the Messenger’, reminding us to the trippiest ends of frenchtek via the neuro pressure of late ’90s D&B, and getting right into the whirring details with a restrained, hands-on dub tactility.
That aesthetic is thoroughly explored with rude swagger across all seven cuts, variously squashed into an industry-dancehall swivel on the tense ‘Playtime’, and spangled in killer electro-dub noise of ‘Mix Up’, thru the serotonin-depleted, up-for-3-days limb-mill of ’Style Like This’ and its dub, to the secret backroom warehouse steez of ‘I Swear That’s X.’
Retrospection is rare for HTRK, the Melbourne-based duo of Jonnine Standish and Nigel Yang, who marked their 21st year as a band in 2024 with a series of performances, installations, and long-overdue catalog represses. But back to the present, before more tour dates in 2026 and on the heels of their first new songs in several years (Summer 2025’s “Swimming Pool” b/w “Puddles On My Pillow”), HTRK close this chapter with String of Hearts (Songs of HTRK), the first full-length collection of HTRK covers and remixes from friends and contemporaries. Across two decades of music, HTRK have risen slowly to become your favorite artist’s favorite artist. The Guardian posits, “Few Australian bands have been as influential…with their idiosyncratic mix of atmospheric electronic and guitar-based squall for the past 21 years.”
Amidst the reissues, including the newly announced Psychic 9-5 Club, HTRK revisits their body of work and grapples with notions of legacy and lasting expression. They turn to some of their biggest fans for answers. String of Hearts (Songs of HTRK) invites new interpretations from Coby Sey, Double Virgo, Kali Malone and Stephen O'Malley, Laura Jean, LEYA, Liars, Loraine James, NWAQ, Perila, Sharon Van Etten, and longtime collaborator, Zebrablood. The contours of HTRK’s singular, smoldering songcraft extend and distort in the hands of others, part peer tribute, part fun-house reflection; the effect is befitting of a band devoted to raw emotion, self-discovery, and unrestrained creative vision.
Maybe the most unexpected pairing, beloved songwriter Sharon Van Etten takes on “Poison” from Work (work, work) (2011) in her inimitable style. A cult favorite from the band’s darkest period, defined by sludgy 808 beats, eerie synth arpeggios, and vaporous guitar noise, “Poison” remains just as urgent and piercing here. “My little oxide joyride / Plastik pick me up / Where we gonna go / You decide…” Van Etten delivers with a pinch more clarity, underscoring the romance beneath Work’s bleakness.
Loraine James, HTRK's Ghostly labelmate in her Whatever The Weather alias and a past collaborator with Standish (James' 2019 Nothing EP), re-examines "Dream Symbol" from 2019 LP Venus In Leo. The original track found Standish revisiting her childhood home in a recurring dream, craving afternoons of innocence and the way the sun kissed her skin. James' glitchy treatment adds more dust and static to the scene, as well as her own voice, to Standish's verses, creating a doubling, duet-like feel.
The immensely talented duo of Kali Malone & Stephen O’Malley (Sunn O)))) encircle “Siren Song” from Rhinestones, the revelatory 2021 album that drew cues from the intimacy and brevity of Western folk, skewed through a narcotic, nocturnal lens. While the original was obscured in transition, a stark 49-second vignette of finger snaps and riffs, Malone and O’Malley stretch the moment to nearly six minutes suspended on organ drone and the trance-inducing mantra.
Double Virgo, Sam Fenton, and Jezmi Tarik Fehmi of post-punk outfit bar italia, tackle Marry Me Tonight’s "Rent Boy." The 2009 track found HTRK at their heaviest. Double Virgo strips it all back to strings, chimes, and strums as the two voices riff on Standish's wordplay. Alexandra Zakharenko, aka Perila, smoothes out the industrial edges of "HA", another cut from Marry Me Tonight; the hushed and hazy rendering allows various lyrical layers to seep into the echoed mix. Experimental legends and fellow Aussies Liars reimagine MMT's "Waltz Real Slow" as an outsider ballad or a tender Western drift; alien-like vocals cross stately chords that unravel to feedback in the final march.
Zebrablood gives “Soul Sleep” (Psychic 9-5 Club) a shuffling and blurry breakbeat remix, and Dutch dub techno fan favorite NWAQ deepens the drone of rarity “Female Jealousy” (Lilac EP). Rhinestones’ "Sunlight Feels Like Bee Stings" becomes otherworldly in LEYA’s harp-backed version, while “New Year’s Day”, another standout from Venus In Leo, is mainlined into a folk standard by fellow Melbourne native Laura Jean.
Coby Sey reinvents Leo’s “Mentions”, lending his airy, soulful cadence to lyrics that outline a lack of physical intimacy in the social media age. Regarding the track, the acclaimed British musician adds that he first came across HTRK during the Myspace era, “My love for HTRK's music has existed for a long time.” This may be the case for many. HTRK’s indelible impact on underground music spans far beyond its initial reception. The ripples permeate time in such a way that they have positioned the band as a perfect candidate for the present round of renewed appreciation.Retrospection is rare for HTRK, the Melbourne-based duo of Jonnine Standish and Nigel Yang, who marked their 21st year as a band in 2024 with a series of performances, installations, and long-overdue catalog represses. But back to the present, before more tour dates in 2026 and on the heels of their first new songs in several years (Summer 2025’s “Swimming Pool” b/w “Puddles On My Pillow”), HTRK close this chapter with String of Hearts (Songs of HTRK), the first full-length collection of HTRK covers and remixes from friends and contemporaries. Across two decades of music, HTRK have risen slowly to become your favorite artist’s favorite artist. The Guardian posits, “Few Australian bands have been as influential…with their idiosyncratic mix of atmospheric electronic and guitar-based squall for the past 21 years.”
Amidst the reissues, including the newly announced Psychic 9-5 Club, HTRK revisits their body of work and grapples with notions of legacy and lasting expression. They turn to some of their biggest fans for answers. String of Hearts (Songs of HTRK) invites new interpretations from Coby Sey, Double Virgo, Kali Malone and Stephen O'Malley, Laura Jean, LEYA, Liars, Loraine James, NWAQ, Perila, Sharon Van Etten, and longtime collaborator, Zebrablood. The contours of HTRK’s singular, smoldering songcraft extend and distort in the hands of others, part peer tribute, part fun-house reflection; the effect is befitting of a band devoted to raw emotion, self-discovery, and unrestrained creative vision.
Maybe the most unexpected pairing, beloved songwriter Sharon Van Etten takes on “Poison” from Work (work, work) (2011) in her inimitable style. A cult favorite from the band’s darkest period, defined by sludgy 808 beats, eerie synth arpeggios, and vaporous guitar noise, “Poison” remains just as urgent and piercing here. “My little oxide joyride / Plastik pick me up / Where we gonna go / You decide…” Van Etten delivers with a pinch more clarity, underscoring the romance beneath Work’s bleakness.
Loraine James, HTRK's Ghostly labelmate in her Whatever The Weather alias and a past collaborator with Standish (James' 2019 Nothing EP), re-examines "Dream Symbol" from 2019 LP Venus In Leo. The original track found Standish revisiting her childhood home in a recurring dream, craving afternoons of innocence and the way the sun kissed her skin. James' glitchy treatment adds more dust and static to the scene, as well as her own voice, to Standish's verses, creating a doubling, duet-like feel.
The immensely talented duo of Kali Malone & Stephen O’Malley (Sunn O)))) encircle “Siren Song” from Rhinestones, the revelatory 2021 album that drew cues from the intimacy and brevity of Western folk, skewed through a narcotic, nocturnal lens. While the original was obscured in transition, a stark 49-second vignette of finger snaps and riffs, Malone and O’Malley stretch the moment to nearly six minutes suspended on organ drone and the trance-inducing mantra.
Double Virgo, Sam Fenton, and Jezmi Tarik Fehmi of post-punk outfit bar italia, tackle Marry Me Tonight’s "Rent Boy." The 2009 track found HTRK at their heaviest. Double Virgo strips it all back to strings, chimes, and strums as the two voices riff on Standish's wordplay. Alexandra Zakharenko, aka Perila, smoothes out the industrial edges of "HA", another cut from Marry Me Tonight; the hushed and hazy rendering allows various lyrical layers to seep into the echoed mix. Experimental legends and fellow Aussies Liars reimagine MMT's "Waltz Real Slow" as an outsider ballad or a tender Western drift; alien-like vocals cross stately chords that unravel to feedback in the final march.
Zebrablood gives “Soul Sleep” (Psychic 9-5 Club) a shuffling and blurry breakbeat remix, and Dutch dub techno fan favorite NWAQ deepens the drone of rarity “Female Jealousy” (Lilac EP). Rhinestones’ "Sunlight Feels Like Bee Stings" becomes otherworldly in LEYA’s harp-backed version, while “New Year’s Day”, another standout from Venus In Leo, is mainlined into a folk standard by fellow Melbourne native Laura Jean.
Coby Sey reinvents Leo’s “Mentions”, lending his airy, soulful cadence to lyrics that outline a lack of physical intimacy in the social media age. Regarding the track, the acclaimed British musician adds that he first came across HTRK during the Myspace era, “My love for HTRK's music has existed for a long time.” This may be the case for many. HTRK’s indelible impact on underground music spans far beyond its initial reception. The ripples permeate time in such a way that they have positioned the band as a perfect candidate for the present round of renewed appreciation.
Jordanian producer Taymour teams up with Palestinian rapper/singer Bareetlblad on a killer mini-album of skewed gothic pop, like some auto-tuned, arabic-language re-imagining of Faith-era The Cure via Dean Blunt, Cocteau Twins x Future. Trust, it’s exceptional stuff, curving melancholy, PNL-style biomechanical rhymes around heartfelt new wave/post-punk loops, like little else.
'NOS INSAN (نص إنسان)' is such a potent fusion of ideas that you wonder why no one tried it sooner. Billed as a break-up record, it's dripping with intensity, finding fragile harmony between Future's slow-burning emo-rap milestone 'HNDRXX' and Martin Hannett's moody canon. If that sounds odd, just imagine a pulverised version of Dean Blunt's catalog: 'Black Metal'-era songwriting, Hype Williams-era beatmaking and Babyfather's plasticky rap commentary.
Haifa-based vocalist Bareetlblad is captivating on 'Sort Akrhek, Ad Ma Ba7ebek (صرت أكرهك ! قد ما بحبك)', singing and rapping over Taymour's beatless, chorus-heavy guitar loops. It's a flawless opener, isolating a mood that's potent and fully unique. There are no beats, just rain-soaked Vini Reilly-style shimmers over Bareetlblad's soaring AutoTuned vox. The album title means "half a man”, a reference to a hollowed-out stretch following a breakup, referencing vintage grunge and shoegaze while at the same time scraping life-or-death imagery from traditional Arabic poetry and the region's melancholy folk music.
Peep 'T2ddamet (تقدمت)', a track that pulls on the interplay between Taymour's '80s Cure-style drum machine splashes and Bareetlblad's melodramatic love-drunk rhymes, or the all-too-brief 'Bdounik (بدونك)', a minute and a half of washy industrial-cum-dreampop guitars over robotic, overdriven sweet nothings that sound as if they're being broadcast through an empty mall on a busted tannoy. Best of all, 'Msafreh (مسافرة)' rounds things out with a euphoric gust of strums and a half-heard vocal that you'd more likely expect to find on one of Cocteau Twins' late-period fantasies.
One of the best rap/R&B mutations we've heard in ages, a small, perfectly formed cult classic in the making.
The source material for 'Layering Buddha' are samples derived from a 'Buddha Machine' - an audio artwork by the Chinese/Canadian artist duo FM3. These are cigarette package sized, battery powered sound playback devices, containing nine short musical loops. Due to manufacturing imperfections, individual machines play those with a slightly different sound, pitch and duration. The built-in playback circuit, with its low sampling rate and bit resolution, produces a very rough sound, similar to ancient computer games or talking toys. Rich textures and moving echoes occur when many of these machines are played at the same time, distributed in space.