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XTCLVR - Blessed Loops (LP)XTCLVR - Blessed Loops (LP)
XTCLVR - Blessed Loops (LP)sferic
¥4,846

XTCLVR’s debut album for Sferic conjures a vivid, disoriented blur of ambient trap and dub techno, shaped under the strain of Ukraine’s wartime curfews and shelling. Written during long nights of uncertainty, these ten tracks navigate a fractured sonic landscape—lush yet anxious, synthetic but emotionally charged.

Unintelligible vocals drift through fogged beats and smeared textures, evoking both the disarray of conflict and the dream logic of post-party comedowns. Tracks like ‘Perspective’ diffuse vocoder lines into gauzy clouds, while ‘Allergen’ and ‘Storm Shadow’ crackle with nervous energy, recalling the destabilised rhythms of Nazar’s Hyperdub output. Guest contributions deepen the haze: BSW948 threads bars through the warped pulse of ‘Night Shift Cut’, OB3TH shimmers through ‘The Wise Mystical Tree’, and Indy appears on the ambient drill-laced ‘Acid Flavour’. Final track ‘Dead Smoke’ sinks into submerged dread, a murky metaphor for psychic fallout.

Fans of Topdown Dialectic, False Aralia, and Sa Pa will find themselves pulled into this blurred and flickering world—part escapism, part document of a brutal reality.

Henzo - The Poems We Write For Ourselves (2LP)Henzo - The Poems We Write For Ourselves (2LP)
Henzo - The Poems We Write For Ourselves (2LP)Sneaker Social Club
¥5,573

With a clutch of EPs under his belt spanning a wealth of pallets, Henzo narrows the focus on his debut studio album “The Poems We Write For Ourselves” - a culmination of persistent iterations over several years, distilling his sonic milieu into something that feels decidedly his own. The album proper is coupled with a debut live performance which reinterprets the tracks and splices them with omitted material from the time of writing - recorded in full in the intimate confines of Manchester’s growingly infamous Stage and Radio basement. Honing his craft in the shadows of Lancashire, Poems is an expansive reflection of the producer’s time spent away committing to the scope of an LP.

A thread of stratified sound design weaves throughout the record, but with a discerning dancefloor proclivity mostly prevalent. Cold opener “Noggin” riffs on noughties Raster-Noton a la Byetone rebuilt with fractal tear out DnB, with closer “Indulgence” following suit on a puckered plod of Dub Techno ambience. More club-focussed moments come in the form of “Rustica Slump” and “Blue Will...”, the former’s sickly sweet vocals resolved by the latter’s stoic UKG/Techno rudeness. “A Bouquet of Clumsy Words” channels mechanical shuffle with a stripped back 2/4 pulse whilst maintaining a firmly FWD>>energy alongside “Plant Your Roots In Me” on a similar vector - swapping out a straight kick pattern for a bludgeoning 808 assault on an early Hessle-indebted tip.

“Take Stock, Touch Grass” harks to golden era ClekClekBoom and Night Slugs with a bare bones kick and vocal motif, updating the formula with a tweaking lead line that places it firmly in the contemporary space. “Swell:Shrink” sings from the same sheet with a shrieking, space age wobble doing the heavy lifting, knocking the pace back to a shoulder-lean swagger on a slow fast conundrum Henzo has shown his flair for on previous releases.

The outliers to Henzo’s more known approach, “Worm Grunting” with Belfast’s Emby, an amalgamation of halfest time DnB and illest mannered Road Rap, plus “The Rest Is The Mess You Leave”, a starkly anti-retro Ghettotek endeavour, give grounds to the LP. Clearly rooted in the comfortable universe of the dancefloor, these tracks expand the producer’s realm into loftier heights as he graduates into long play land.

Hiss Is Bliss - Nope / Abbadia (7")
Hiss Is Bliss - Nope / Abbadia (7")ZamZam Sounds
¥2,756
ZamZam 95 is a link with the enigmatic French producer Hiss Is Bliss. We’ve been fans since the very first drop on their 777Hz label and these two sides drive straight to the heart of the dub techno galaxy. Little is known about Hiss Is Bliss beyond the fact that they hail from France, are steeped in esotericism, and create tunes as masterfully grounded in roots reggae as they are in techno and related strands of electronic music. Their releases are utterly free of hype, beautifully crafted 10” vinyl plates that let the singers and tracks speak for themselves. At the risk of being cheeky, “Nope” is absolute dub techno bliss. The 808 kick propels the track relentlessly forward, saturated washes of color streak the night sky, while syncopated hi hats and warm, soulful chords bring life- dare we say funk- to a style too often stiff and clinical, too in thrall to the past to truly step forward. Matching Hiss is Bliss in mystery, Ras Lys’ vocal brings a Dread perspective on music and the sometimes shady business of music, a grounded contrast to the deep inner space explored by the tune itself. The B-side version “Abbadia” splits musical atoms through the desk, focusing squarely on the stripped 4/4 elements and gloriously distorted pads that echo and cycle like tides in a darkly shimmering sea.

Daktari ft. Horace Andy - Rasta Forever (12")Daktari ft. Horace Andy - Rasta Forever (12")
Daktari ft. Horace Andy - Rasta Forever (12")Mole Audio
¥3,071
The album includes the excellent track "Rasta Forever," which explodes with hypnotic and blissful dub techno sounds accompanied by powerful narration by Horace Andy.

Rhythm & Sound – See Mi Yah (Remixes #4) (12")
Rhythm & Sound – See Mi Yah (Remixes #4) (12")Burial Mix
¥2,963

Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald's dream project Rhythm & Sound, which brought legendary reggae singers into the modern era, released the See Mi Ya remix series in 2006. The highly anticipated 2025 reissue of this masterpiece, remixed by Carl Craig and Basic Channel, is finally here!

Basic Channel - Quadrant Dub (12")
Basic Channel - Quadrant Dub (12")Basic Channel
¥2,963

unification of techno and dub reggae. An outstanding universal masterpiece of sound dub/minimal techno released in 1994 by German Mark Ernestus & Moritz von Oswald's Basic Channel, repressed in 2025.

Om Unit & Soreab - Pressure 3D (12")Om Unit & Soreab - Pressure 3D (12")
Om Unit & Soreab - Pressure 3D (12")Baroque Sunburst
¥2,478

Om Unit pairs with Baroque Sunburst co-capo Soreab for 'Pressure 3D', a four-track EP featuring two stellar flips from Al Wootton and Ottomani Parker.

The duo, both known for traversing varying musical landscapes and bold approaches to electronic composition, meet in fruitful common ground, spinning percussive webs and crushing grooves ripe for reinterpretation. Opener "Last Breath" is relentlessly moody and hypnotic, reimagining a dancehall-centric groove with heaving sub-bass pulses, deep into the bass bins for a late-hour pelter. "Tunnel Drift" switches lanes with its distinct tech-stepping 90's throwback style, a forward-thinking take on a nostalgic sound.

Al Wootton steps in to remix A1 into characteristically fresh and inventive dubbed-out house, adding his signature layering of atmospheric textures and a deep and groovy bassline.

A2 is reworked by dub techno-jazz outfit Ottomani Parker (comprised of BSUN’s other co-honcho Big Hands, trumpeter Abraham Parker, sax maestra Izz Karpel and pianist Hayato Takahashi). After a blissful opening, their take sees horns, keys and live hand-drumming ride the driving percussion, an uplifting finale to an EP that packs a punch from start to finish.

DJ Trystero - Cantor’s Paradise (LP)
DJ Trystero - Cantor’s Paradise (LP)FELT
¥4,289
日本の伝説的衛星放送〈St.Giga〉から名前を取った先鋭レーベル〈CITY-2 ST. GIGA〉を主宰。〈The Trilogy Tapes〉や〈Incienso〉にも作品を残す、東京の要注目プロデューサー、DJ Trysteroによるセカンド・アルバムが〈FELT〉からリリース。ダブ・テクノの深淵を漂う全9曲を展開していく本作では、リズムは曖昧に、メロディは断片的に、音響は霧の中で揺らめき、聴く者を夢と現の狭間へと誘います。濃霧が晴れ、しおれたダブの形が浮かび上がる瞬間が印象的な"Untitled 6"など素晴らしいです。Huerco S.やCivilistjävel!を想起させる、減衰と残響の美学が光る一枚!
cv313 - subtraktive [remastered] (Midnight Blue Transparent Vinyl 12")
cv313 - subtraktive [remastered] (Midnight Blue Transparent Vinyl 12")Echospace
¥2,987

Originally released in small quantities on the esteemed Smallfish imprint back in 2007. An outline and blueprint of the cv313 sound; lush analog submersion enveloping one's mind into an altered hypnotic state. This release features the original in an entirely new dimensional surround mix utilizing heavier analog tape processing/saturation and remastered to a state of sonic perfection. Also featured is a newly remastered version of the subtraktive "re-imagined" edition and an unfathomable depth found in the unreleased version (reprise) culled from a live performance @ AIR (Toyko, Japan) This one rest somewhere in the upper regions of air beyond the clouds, reminding of those early Chain Reaction works of Vladislav Delay or the horizontal analog based dream-time experiments of Steve Roach.

This release also features three new never-before-heard epic analog incarnations from the ever-evolving variant guise in various forms of sonic conversion. An exciting new development is the inclusion of a long forgotten recording (from the archives) captured from the first ever live performance of the Intrusion project (along w/brock van wey) @ the Little White Earbuds Showcase (Chicago / March 2009). Captured from a blissful moment over a decade ago and it truly hasn't aged a single solitary second. This project encapsulates the culmination of nearly 12 years of recordings and manifest into an epic hypnotic state for the ages, an opus of sorts and in one word - timeless.

Pulled from the Smallfish archive (published: 2007):

So, am I pleased, thrilled and proud to be able to announce this next Smallfish 3″ CD release? You bet I am! Coming out of Detroit and shortly to be releasing an EP on the hotly tipped Echospace label run by Rod Modell and Steve Hitchell, aka Soultek, comes this anonymous piece of music from cv313 that is simply stunning. For lovers of Dub Techno this is an absolute must-have as it’s, once again, coming in a limited edition of 100 copies only – no represses! Subtraktive is a 15 minute track featuring the sort of aquatic depth and beauty that we’ve come to associate with the likes of Echospace, Basic Channel, Deepchord and the Meanwhile label and allow me to tell you that this piece just flies by. A deep, hypnotic and subtly building intro with an insistent high-end percussive sound leads you along, drawing you in to what inevitably grows into an-ultra refined 4/4 track with a steady, wonderfully atmospheric groove that’s drenched in reverb, metallic chord licks and tape delays. Just check the samples to see exactly what I mean… and if you’re a fan of this sound (and I’m pretty sure you all know that we here at Smallfish are *big* devotees of the purity of Detroit / Berlin Techno) you should consider this an essential release. Great to be able to put something out on CD as most of this gear comes on vinyl, so for those who feel they’ve missed out on some great sounds, here’s a perfect opportunity to enjoy some authentically deep Dub Techno pleasure. Many thanks to cv313 for allowing us to release this complete and utter gem. DO NOT MISS! Due to demand for this item we are having to restrict it to one copy per customer. -Smallfish, London, UK

As the highly respected fellas at Boomkat so eloquently stated:

"The original is a classic of the Echospace catalogue, merging beatless misty dawn atmospheres with an aura of heavy influences....like a Rhythm & Sound tape stretched out on a Jamaican beach until the edges begin to fray and curl unpredictably."

Porter Ricks - Biokinetics (2LP)
Porter Ricks - Biokinetics (2LP)Mille Plateaux
¥5,121
A miraculous reprint of a great masterpiece. This is a work that still fascinates many listeners. Biokinetics", the ultimate masterpiece in the history of dub techno/ambient, was released by Porter Ricks as the first release for Chain Reaction, a sub-label of the sacred Basic Channel, and has been reissued by Mille Plateaux on 2LP and CD. Following three 12" releases, this was the label's first album release and is still considered one of its best. This is a masterpiece that reconstructs the spacious ambience pioneered by label bosses Mark Ernestus and Moritz Von Oswald into a gem of techno sound, infusing it with cold, isolated experimentalism and minimalism like early Plastikman.
cv313 plays Mike Huckaby - Our Life With The Wave EP (12")
cv313 plays Mike Huckaby - Our Life With The Wave EP (12")Echospace
¥3,124

これぞ、追悼と再生の音響彫刻!故Mike Huckabyが遺したモジュラー・サウンドスケープを、cv313ことStephen Hitchellが深遠なダブ・エレクトロニクスとして再構築した作品が限定プレス。Mike Huckabyが愛用していたWaldorf Waveシンセサイザーに捧げられたトリビュート作品。ディープ・テクノの核心を静かに照らし出すような時間感覚と質感が息づいており、重力から解き放たれたような空間構築、漂うアナログの残響が美しいです!

cv313 -  beyond starlit sky [remastered] (12")
cv313 - beyond starlit sky [remastered] (12")Echospace
¥2,978
10 Year anniversary edition of cv313's Beyond Starlit Sky on Echospace. Out of print for a decade, now newly remastered, ‘beyond starlit sky’ is archetypal dub house crafted in the image of Berlin’s MvO & Ernestus as much as Detroit’s Infiniti. The nine minute studio original weaves iridescent melody thru deftly convected clouds of static noise fidelity on tumescent bassline with starry-eyed effect. The live mix alters the atmospheric physics to let the bass billow outwards under storm-brew clouds of gaseous swill, subtly teasing in the harmonised dub chords until they properly pay-off deep into the 2nd half. !

CV313 Infinit 1 (remastered) (12")
CV313 Infinit 1 (remastered) (12")Echospace
¥2,978
Nearly 15 years have passed since the original was release in 2010 with all tracks lovingly remastered for this new remastered edition; which also includes STL's first ever remix and sounds just as beautiful as the day we first heard it! Deep, reduced dub-techno with ethereal production nuances from Stephen Hitchell and Rod Modell. Both original tracks here reveal the duo's obsession with the likes of Maurizio, Basic Channel and Chain Reaction.
cv313 - Sailingstars (remastered) (12")
cv313 - Sailingstars (remastered) (12")Echospace
¥2,987
It's been nearly 15 years since this originally hit the shelves, which literally took the immersive atmospheric sound of Echospace and brought it right to the floor. With cv313's ''Sailingstars'' the spirit continues as they go on to preach the gospel of deep with a rippling exercise in space and bass. A sort of slow motion movement in tone and 38 hz sub frequency which nearly verges on the disturbing, a sonic threshold quite hard to achieve in a vinyl cut. The power of repetition and subtle atmosphere are clearly demonstrated here by bringing the listener to an almost hypnotic state within its melodic spatial grooves. The B side offers two immense reductions, equally effective providing a low end throb, analog spirit and organic textures captured in zero gravity, it's like truly sailing among the stars. Lovingly remastered and mixed down from the original analog 1/4'' reel to reel tape, strictly limited to 300 copies for the world.
cv313 - [Live Excursions] (CD)
cv313 - [Live Excursions] (CD)Echospace
¥2,251

Exclusive unheard live extracts from cv313's live performance at Glass City Record Store release party in Detroit, USA. Recorded from 16 channel Mackie mixer, performed entirely on analog/digital hardware, samplers and sequencers. NO COMPUTER INVOLVED. Recorded in May, 2001 @ a warehouse somewhere in Detroit.

Thoughts:

Live Excursions is the third in the cv313 Live series, this time a recording of a gig performed by Hitchell at the 2001 DEMF Festival for the Glass City Records release party. As the earliest recording in the series to date it is in many ways Live @ Primary‘s opposite number, a fact reflected in the vastly different material featured, as well as the negative-print artwork that adorns the gatefold Eco friendly wallet.

It is perhaps the most easily recognizable as a cv313 gig in particular, featuring many staples of early cv313 material with very few of the diversions into Soultek, Intrusion or other housier archive material that characterizes other live cv313 sets. Live Excursions focuses heavily on on tightly looped, mesmerizing, repeated grooves soaked in delay and reverb, with warm, fuzzy textures and soft, through-the-walls beat-work that one can imagine anesthetizing many a wearied festival-goer seeking a final, hazy chill out session.

The tracks on Live Excursions are all simply named “Glass City Session” with a numeric suffix, but a bit of digging into the cv313 back catalog does at least reveal the origins of some of these tracks. It opens, for example, on a live version of the twenty-two minute long “Subtraktive [Intrusion’s Enchantment] Extended Version,” and yes, that makes it a live variant of an extended version of a remix of “Subtraktive,” proof of how deeply meta the whole echospace [detroit] catalog can be.

The original mix can actually be found on the second “Subtraktive” disc of the 2xCD edition of Dimensional Space, and this live version doesn’t deviate drastically from it. It’s a stunning opening to the set, the hovering drones, rolling congas, and earth-shaking sub-bass making for a truly hypnotic, head in the clouds twenty-two minute opus.

“Glasscity Session III” is a particular surprise, as it turns out to be none other than a live version of “Durveda,” a hitherto unreleased track fully of atyipically dark and disturbing drones and textures that makes it proper debut on Dimensional Space. This alone makes Live Excursions enough of a historical curio for fans to warrant investing.

Pre-orders of the Live Excursions disc on the echospace [detroit] Bandcamp site also came with an immediate download of four tracks that were stated to be on the CD itself. In actual fact it appears that the second and fourth tracks appear on the main disc, but the first and third do not, making them digital exclusives. Sadly, these tracks are not mastered to anywhere near the same quality as the main disc, the sound quality muddy and muted.

Live Excursions is hopefully not the last in the Live series of cv313 sets we’ll see, as they frequently offer unique takes on the material, and each has it own distinctive character. This is definitely one for armchair listening, an intoxicating opiate best experienced on headphones with a spacious sound stage. -Igloo Magazine

If you missed out on the pair of cv313/ Echospace [detroit] Record Store Day CD’s then why not attempt to heal your pain by picking up this disc of ‘Live ‘Excursions’ from Detroit’s Stephen Hitchell and Rod Modell (DeepChord). Arguably the finest dub techno practitioners outside of early productions from Moritz Von Oswald and Mark Ernestus, you know; Basic Channel etc.

These tracks are extracted from a live session at a warehouse somewhere in Detroit and serve as evidence these guys can cut it live - all hardware/ no computers. Outside of that there’s nothing revelatory here just straight up chilled cv313 shimmering dubbed out magic. Metallic clouds that seemingly float into infinity, steady beats and a vibe that’s hypnotic throughout. Repetitious? On the surface for sure, but once inside - the nuances reveal themselves and all is not as it seems. These guys go deeeeeeep and I want some of what they’re smokin’. Originally this was issued in an edition of 100 copies but we have a limited amount of the reissue available in different packaging/ artwork.

Oh and while you’re at it there’s also limited copies of their deeply immersive ‘Seconds To Forever’ disc available and totally worth grabbing. -Norman (UK)

Rod Modell and Stephen Hitchell's glacial dub techno project cv313 release never before heard live extracts from a session they performed at a Glass City Record Store release party in Detroit. Performed in a warehouse entirely on hardware, its a characteristically deep and otherworldly release from the pair, pillowy kicks swimming in infinite layers of spidery static and hallucinatory pads. It's music that is involving and immersive to the point of disorienting, and shows cv313 as a powerful live act - even when experienced on headphones long after the event has taken place. -Bleep

Having recently released the impressively in-your-face Live at Primary CD, it's something of a surprise to see CV313 dropping another live recording so soon. To be fair, Live Excursions first surfaced digitally last year via their own Bandcamp site, and now makes its way onto CD for the first time. The recordings themselves are vintage too, having been captured at a warehouse party in Detroit back in 2001. According to the Echospace website, the tracks were performed live using only outboard kit and a 16-channel mixer, with no computer trickery. Whatever the method, the resultant tracks are long, trippy, and immersive forays into dub techno and ambient in CV313's trademark style. -Juno

"[Live Excursions]" shows American masters of dub-techno at the beginning of their joint experiments.

A separate chapter in the work of Rod Modell and Stephen Hitchella are performances. Their music becomes then a slightly different dimension - it is less clarified, it has a more raw sound and marked by a strong element of improvisation. We can convince listening to the album, "[Live Excurcusions]", containing songs recorded during spontaneous sessions organized in a record store Glass City in the Motor City as part held there in 2001, the Detroit Electronic Music Festival.

The show starts slowly pending roll, combining tarry sound straight from Jamaican dub with reduced rhythm of techno style. All of this is immersed in a corroded shafts of grainy sound, behind which regularly emerges rudimentary melodic motif ("Glassity Session 1"). After twenty minutes of psychedelic music, Rodell and Hitchell hit more dance party - combining, for minimalowym backing billowing sheets and deep bass ("Glasscity Session 2").

When the club energy falls, US producers are turning to ambient. "Glasscity Session 3" is quite unusual composition in their repertoire. Its center are the mechanical rhythms borrowed from Kraftwerk, which overlap with towering waves of synthesizers monochrome pierced corrosive loop. In contrast - the next composition is actually techno pure form. This time the silent any noise and echoes, and remains the only motor pulse, braided rozwibrowanymi chords ("Glassicty Session 4").

The next two parts of the show in detroitowym shop again wprzęgają dub sound processing techniques to create a psychedelic dance music. In the "Glassity Session 5" measuring impacts bit bulky accompanied by distant explosions zbasowanych effects, and "Glassity Session 6" withdrawn rhythm resonates thicket of sewage reverb. Record ends with another nod to the ambient aesthetics - rozwibrowanymi cascades of chords intertwined with the majestic tone ("Glassicty Session 7").

"[Live Excursions]" shows Rod Modell and Stephen Hitchella at the beginning of their joint experiments. But I can be heard on the album germs of ideas that will be later developed into brilliant Echospace plate. Rough and raw sound recordings show an obvious kinship with the canonical achievements of Basic Channel - but slowing rhythm, sound radical corrosion, extending the length of recordings, music saturating the psychedelic mood, it indicates that this is just born into our ears completely new vision of dub-techno. Thus, this album is a very interesting document for all lovers of this timeless music. -Nowamuzyka Magazine 

cv313 - Dimensional Space (2CD)
cv313 - Dimensional Space (2CD)Echospace
¥2,346

There's been a world of hurt in regard to this album, the original masters recorded from 1996-2010 were submerged underwater due to the flood in our home studio where boxes of old reel's were never to be recovered again. Finally, years of restructure on live recordings and pain staking undulation in the restoration process have lead us to finally accomplish what so many expected wouldn't happen: an awakening of sagacious spirit: With that being said It's our distinct honor to present the sonic world of "dimensional space" the highly anticipated debut album from cv313. This album has taken a cosmic eclipse where two events collide for Unison. The culmination of this project lead to synergy, creative experience re-invented and re-imagined, flow of an astral vortex.

Round Five Feat. Tikiman - Na Fe Throw It (12")
Round Five Feat. Tikiman - Na Fe Throw It (12")Main Street Records
¥2,837

originally released on Main Street Records in 1999, and repressed in 2025.

Round Three Feat. Tikiman - Acting Crazy (12")
Round Three Feat. Tikiman - Acting Crazy (12")Main Street Records
¥2,837

originally released on Main Street Records in 1996, and repressed in 2025.

Round Two - New Day (12")
Round Two - New Day (12")Main Street Records
¥2,837

originally released on Main Street Records in 1995, and repressed in 2025.

Carrier - Tender Spirits (12")Carrier - Tender Spirits (12")
Carrier - Tender Spirits (12")Carrier
¥3,469

"A growing, single-minded confidence in his thing practically makes time stand still and places us right in the moment and momentum of the music. Crucially, whilst clearly referencing foundational styles, it’s a masterclass in innovation not imitation" - boomkat

Carrier presents Tender Spirits, the third turn on his eponymous series that explores his abstractions at its most sparse and cerebral.

Space maintains great purpose for Guy Brewer, having experimented with this previously for multiple drum-focused missives as Carrier. On his latest release, he treads deeper into the furthest regions of dub deconstruction, with Tender Spirits offering a serene path to the inbetween.

Across 8+ minutes, Light Candles, To Mark The Way moves towards the muted sublime; a gentle half time’d bliss that ebbs and floats across the enveloping mist. Slow Punctures gradually returns to dusk, eerily surveying the hollowed-out remains of its dub architecture with an off-kilter lurch. Carpathian echoes further in stark reduction, a weightless atonal zone anchored by the abstracted pressure suspended within.

Tender Spirits tracks Carrier at exciting new parallels, unfurling his most ascendant and capacious music to date.

Monolake - Gravity (2LP)Monolake - Gravity (2LP)
Monolake - Gravity (2LP)FIELD
¥5,564

Twenty-four years on from its original release, Monolake's seminal Gravity receives its first vinyl pressing courtesy of Field Records. Occupying its own space at the intersection of dub techno, minimal and electronica, it's an ageless album of staggering vision and technological prowess which has matured into an all-time pillar of electronic music. This edition, remastered by the album's key architect Robert Henke, follows on from the recent reissue of Monolake's first album, Hongkong.

Arriving just after the turn of the millennium, Gravity marked a turning point for Monolake. With co-founder Gerhard Behles moving on to other ventures, Henke produced most of the album solo and journeyed deeper into spatial exploration and the dub-informed principles that underpinned their project from the start. Minimalism and negative space run through the whole record, from the keen slithers of percussion pinging through lattices of delay to the hypnotising pulse of subliminal basslines anchoring the tracks. Gravity is a record which hangs on techno's linearity as a form of meditation, but the crystalline clarity of the mix allows every micro-fluctuation in rhythm and sound to cut through.

Compared to a lot of overly sterile digital music released in the early 2000s, Gravity endures thanks to the warmth and texture Henke elicited from his processes — even when leaning into none-more-digital effects like bit reduction. He described the ninth-floor view over Berlin from his studio at night as a key influence on the sound of the record, but the space Gravity shapes out feels thrillingly implacable. Unbound by the standard conventions of time and space, Gravity stands proud as a true original and finally gets the ceremonious vinyl pressing it so richly deserves.

GAS (CD)GAS (CD)
GAS (CD)Kompakt
¥2,229
Kompakt is proud to announce, finally, a reissue of the first, self-titled GAS album. Originally released on electronica imprint Mille Plateaux back in 1996, it’s been unavailable in its original form ever since – the version of GAS included in 2008’s Nah Und Fern box featured several different tracks. Here, however, GAS is restored in all its glory, the debut full-length from Wolfgang Voigt’s most enigmatic, quixotic project. There had, of course, been signs of what was to come. Back in 1995, Voigt essayed the first GAS release, a slender, yet remarkable four-track EP, Modern. Its centre label featured a reduced symbol – an overhead or lamp light, switched on, its glow radiating outwards in four bold black lines – a perfect representation of the tight, stylised ambient electronic pop contained on that 12”. A few curious compilation tracks were floating around, too, for Mille Plateaux’s Modulation & Transformation and Electric Ladyland series. If you were attentive enough, you could tell something was up. But nothing quite prepared us for the languorous, effervescing loops and regular-like-clockwork beats that Voigt folded together on GAS. Its six long tracks, all untitled, neither begin nor end but hazily fade into earshot, vibrate majestically in your cochlea for fifteen-or-so minutes – some a bit shorter, some longer – and then meander away, reading the mise-en-scène for the next example of Voigt’s drift and dream logic to unfold. The material is referential in the most distant way, and you can sense only the most evanescent of ghostly presences, haunting these six compositions. GAS feels, also, like a more pliable hint at what’s to come, as the GAS concept really solidified on its successor, 1997’s Zauberberg, and reach its apotheosis on Königsforst and Pop. Those three albums share a very similar palette – blurred, hazy samples, often of classical music, stacked and cross-thatched across a muted 4/4 thud. GAS, then, is an outlier of sorts: it’s more expansive in its remit, lighter in its mood, perhaps more fleet of foot. This, of course, is part of its charm. In clearing space for Voigt, by preparing the terrain, GAS sits both at the edge of the forest, and at the verge of an expansive, wide-eyed future; one where GAS would become truly eternal.
Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga Rhythm Force - Walo Walo (12")
Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga Rhythm Force - Walo Walo (12")Ndagga
¥2,841

Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga Rhythm Force lick another deadly shot of tumbling, tucked-up senegalese mbalax, making their 1st outing of ’16 and a 3rd 12” together in this line-up since 2015.

We’re all over the sloshing Walo Walo Version something rotten. It’s an utter joy to reprogramme yourself to its tangled syncopation, picking out and anticipating particular patterns with uncertain limbs, revelling in its wickedly stumbling, uniquely resolved meter. If, like us you’re nuts for drums, that lone, hingeing clap will leave you equally rapt, and then there’s a locked groove…

Flip side is also amazing: Ndiguel Groove resets the rhythm to a loping, shoe-laces-tied sort of house bustle sprinkled with lissom guitar and suspended in Mark’s mixing trickery, before turning up a denser original mix of Walo Walo Rhythm riding that Prophet 5 bassline and talking drums ‘aaaard.

Moritz Von Oswald Trio - Fetch (2LP)
Moritz Von Oswald Trio - Fetch (2LP)Honest Jon's Records
¥4,956
Moritz von Oswald, who has laid the groundwork for a deep interaction between genuine Jamaican dub and Detroit-style classic techno through his collaborations with Mark Ernestus, dub techno legend =Basic Channel and Rhythm And Sound, is creating ambient techno. Moritz Von Oswald Trio, a legendary trio teamed up with Max Loderbauer of Sun Electric, the pioneer of , and Vladislav Delay, a master of avant-garde electronic music from Northern Europe and Finland. Stock up on the 4th album "Fetch" released in 2012 from London's prestigious !

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