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Longer and slower-releasing than his other albums, Pomegranates often parallels the cinematic epic on which it’s based (Նռան գույնը), with ideas pursued over long timelines and across dark landscapes, assembling elements and moods from the aesthetic and folkloric landscapes of Armenia. Jaar’s identity is perceived within this, folding in his heritage as Palestinian and Chilean as he attempts to build a musical architecture outwards that frames as much of the mess and sprawl of life as possible; using a language that investigates the movement and fluctuation of his own artistic career and character similarly to the film’s tracing of the coming of age of the young poet, Sayat-Nova.
At times, Pomegranates feels profoundly intimate, as though looking through the archive of a friend’s music and discovering the accent and common currency that lives within each of these tracks. Much of Jaar’s most elegant and touching melodic work is nestled here, its power residing in its simplicity and willingness to speak to the heart and not the mind of the listener.
In the text document included in the first freely distributed version of the album in 2015, Jaar writes that the album was conceived during a moment of change, and that the pomegranate became an icon that heralded that passage of time. The physical publication of Pomegranates closes one door whilst opening another, keeping promises and marking a significant point in the career of an artist who restlessly reinvents himself, with a document that illustrates a common language of lyricism, freedom, and emotional resonance linking his many paths and projects.
Clay oven-baked ruffneck beats and fragrant vocal delicacies from the endless archive of Bryn Jones’ Muslimgauze, offered up in a series of genuinely, previously unreleased - rather than repackaged - material.
The sole 12” in a four part series (the others are 7”) serves two variations on a theme as part of Muslimgauze’s near-ritualistic, everyday practice, at The Abraham Moss studios, north Manchester. Taken from typically untitled DATs sent to labels almost as quickly as they were recorded, the session opens with a wickedly coarse piece of looped, pitching hand-drum rhythms pushed into the red are swirled with a patina of tense cries resembling a glitching muezzin, and peppered with spoken word shrapnel. Its longer B-side variant locks much deeper into that groove with a beautiful wistful vocal loop vapourised into ether whilst the drums are clipped to a cleaner trot, but still riddled with satisfying amounts of sinewy noise in the mix, between its teeth.
INDEX:Records is enamoured to present the accomplished debut record by New York City resident, Beau Mahadev – 8-parts of dreamy vocals and wet-textured IDM-pop.
To some extent, this album arriving at INDEX:Records has been over 3 years in the making: we were first introduced to Beau’s work at GLOB in Denver (during our USA tour in 2023), at an event hosted by a dear friend, filled with lovely peeps. We were totally blown away by Beau’s performance and knew within a few minutes of their set starting that we wanted to release an album with them someday. Now, here it is: Subterra. Featuring tasty collaborations with {iii}, Uza A'amo and Yau Hei ASJ.
Vinyl limited to 200 copies. Front sleeve by Chiu. Design by Conna Haraway
Anyone fascinated by Debit or Elysia Crampton’s Chuquimamani-Condori investigation of South American folk heritages or even The Haxan Cloak are advised to check Nervio Cosmico’s electro-acoustic spirit quest, notably recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World studios.
““Singing Vessels” draws inspiration from the sonorities and aesthetics of Amazonian medicine ceremonies and traditional Andean music. At its heart is a collection of clay whistles from ancient South America, whose timbres conjure the vibrant soundworld of the Andes. The piece also incorporates shamanic instruments from the Amazon, such as the shacapa — a bundle of dry leaves whose rustling produces a deep, soothing texture with remarkable sensory resonance.
Interwoven with generative electronics, live looping and synthesisers, these organic timbres create evolving psychoacoustic spaces where the mystery of nature meets inner realms of perception and consciousness. The piece unfolds as a ceremonial passage through a shamanic ritual: beginning in a dense jungle of sounding entities, rising into moments of cathartic purging, dissolving into states of blessing and communion, and finally returning to the here and now with renewed awareness.
Nervio Cosmico is an electroacoustic experimental duo based in Bristol, formed by Chilean composer Daniel Linker and Italian sound artist Matteo Amadio. Blending acoustic instruments from ancient South American shamanic traditions with live looping, generative sound design, and live electronics, they craft sonic journeys that explore perception, consciousness, and a spiritual connection with nature.”
"Eau" is the lovely new album from aus, the solo project of Tokyo-born composer and producer Yasuhiko Fukuzono, who has gained attention, in Japan and overseas, for his thoughtfully paced and sensitively skillful music as well as his intriguing sound design for exhibitions and experimental cinema. Having worked primarily with keyboards and electronic sound up to this point, "Eau" is a slight yet fascinating shift for aus; the album, while still primarily an electronic work, revolves around the sonic world of a stringed acoustic sound source, the koto, that most characteristically Japanese of musical instruments. The very accomplished Eden Okuno provides the delicate-yet-rich koto sounds on offer here; Fukuzono, in the liner notes, acknowledges the importance of Okuno’s artistry to the project.
The compositions on the album are designed to balance the sound of the koto, with its subtly variable attack and flickering resonance, with the timbre of other instruments. The delicate decay and metrical flexibility of the koto is enveloped by sustained synthesizer sounds and contrapuntally constructed piano melodies, creating a flowing ambience with absorbing undercurrents, a languid and liquid quality that reveals the suitability of the title.
Avid fans of contemporary Japanese music might hear the influence of pioneering works such as the the 1979 Hiroshi Yoshimura composition “Clouds for Alma", realized by koto player Tadao Sawai, and the 1993 album "Koto Vortex I: Works by Hiroshi Yoshimura" which featured performances of Yoshimura's works by the Japanese koto quartet Koto Vortex. These works attempted to remove the koto from its traditional context and place it within the context of ambient and techno. "Eau" is available on CD/LP/cassette/digital, with E/J liner notes by aus. "Eau" is the first collaborative release by EM Records and FLAU, the label run by Yasuhiko Fukuzono (aus).
Originally released in 2014, Strut re-introduces Hardcore Traxx: Dance Mania Records 1986-1997, the highly sought-after definitive retrospective of one of Chicago’s most important and innovative house music labels. Emerging as a raw alternative to the powerhouses of Trax and DJ International during the mid-‘80s, Dance Mania continued to represent street-level Chicago club music into the ‘90s, helping to pioneer the Ghetto House sound. Hardcore Traxx traces the full story of the label from its heyday. Founded in 1985 and managed by Ray Barney from Barney’s Distribution HQ on Ogden Avenue (moving later to West Roosevelt Road), Dance Mania hit the ground running with its second release in ’86, the incendiary ‘Hardcore Jazz’ EP by Duane & Co. Barney quickly became a trustworthy outlet for early house and acid productions by upcoming Chicago artists such as Lil Louis, Marshall Jefferson and Farley Keith aka Farkey “Jackmaster” Funk. The label set out its stall with a series of landmark Chicago releases including ‘7 Ways’ by Hercules, Li’l Louis’ ‘The Original Video Clash’ and international smash ‘House Nation’ by Housemaster Boyz. During the ‘80s, it cemented its reputation for uncompromising club records and DJ Tools with sounds spanning raw garage (Victor Romeo’s ‘Love Will Find A Way’), acid trax (Robert Armani) and quality house (Da Posse).
Into the ‘90s, Barney unleashed the groundbreaking ‘Hit It From The Back’ by Traxmen and Eric Martin, ushering in a primitive new sound around faster, stripped down rhythms and X-rated party-starting lyric lines. Barney remembers, “Guys used to call in and ask for music on Dance Mania – they were saying, ‘gimme some of that ghetto stuff’.’ Dance Mania producer DJ Slugo adds, “when we made Ghetto House... we made music for the b*tches. Music for the grinding sh*t and all of that.” The sound spawned a whole new
swathe of homegrown producers releasing a fast flow of no-compromise dancefloor bangers: Paul Johnson, DJ Deeon, DJ Funk, DJ Milton, Waxmaster and Slugo all became leaders of the scene. The influence of ghetto house became widespread, not least for Daft Punk, whose track ‘Teachers’ from their ‘Homework’ album in 1997 was effectively a tribute to Dance Mania. The new wave of productions also paved the way for the later Chicago juke and footwork scene Now revitalised under the leadership of Ray Barney and Parris Mitchell, Dance Mania remains a cornerstone of Chicago’s dance music culture. With Hardcore Traxx, Strut delivers the ultimate tribute to the label, featuring a meticulously curated compilation of its classics, Ghetto House anthems, and hidden gems. The release was produced in collaboration with Dance Mania and compiled by Conor Keeling (creator of the popular Daft Punk-inspired Teachers mix) with contributions from Miles Simpson of Ransom Note.
Following that Rat Heart pearl last month, Tom Boogizm returns with a buckshot blast of bashment swivel, bleary soul, sawn-off R&G and rap blatz for DDS - the first productions under his own name since 2015.
For this one Tom draws a jagged line in the sand between his wounded troubadour sound as Rat Heart and the raggo club styles he built a mean reputation on, largely thru the DIY club sessions that bore his name and which carried through to his Shotta raves and tapes over the last decade. He fires five cuts that sound like tracks twysted in the blend, looped and diced, cut with the cruddy mercurial tekkerz that have become his calling card over the decade since Micky Von Dutch issued ‘I Can’t Sleep Because My Mind Won’t Switch Off’ on tape with Ono.
It comes booling for SND-style bashment with the grimy, reverse-whipped bass and melodic dancehall motifs of ‘G A F 425’, and harks to his earliest tackle in the spare soul air of ‘Lawyer Up (Dubstrumental)’, whilst registering a centrepiece highlight in the discordant, pranging R&G of ‘2 MCR.’
Perhaps closest to his murky ‘art is the squashed rap scuzz of ‘Young Bleed’, hacking up and screwing a gob of toffee-and-coal mouthed muck, beside the spattered, pitching noise blatz of a ‘Milli Up’, reeling back to styles heard on his essential vinyl debut, ‘Posh People Make Me Ill.’
As scuzzed, loose-limbed and essential as they come.
Low-key legend and occasional spar to everyone from Will Bankhead to Jamal Moss, Duster Valentine throws down a killer deep house meta-mixtape for YOUTH, hustled from myriad Chi-Detroit-NYC-Italian++ records - huge RIYL the OG’s.
Manc-Greek oracle Duster Valentine is the nom de plume of Paul Bennett, a heads-down but vital figure known for nudging disco, deep house and related strains of dance music since the ’80s (maybe longer, nobody knows), influencing everyone from Jon K to Christos Chondropoulos and Sockethead, with work deployed on a secretive, cult edit label and the likes of Berceuse Heroique and MAL.
For YOUTH, your man tends to a perennial touchstone - deep House - with over 90 minutes of cuts screwed and stitched with reeeel passion, parsing slivers of foundational tunes and reassembling them with additional pads and strings, into an eyes-down, pumping and swanging session judiciously tempered with dubwise digits on the mixer, plus a little post-production. It’s deadly stuff from top to bottom; obsessively methodical in its approach, effortless in its hypnotic traction and effect.
Numerous trax breeze by with a timeless guile that speaks to a lifetime immersed in the good stuff, with all his influences writ explicitly in the music and the j-card - dozens upon dozens of the artists whose drums, vox and stabs he cadged, pruned, and puckered. Like Paul himself, there’s no need to overstate it; it’s simply a masterclass, for the heads.
At 19, Helviofox adds his signature to the batida template that by now seems to have been in existence since forever. Such is the strength of this primordial fountain, a source of rejuvenation. Also within the literal family: Helvio cites brothers Dadifox and Erycox as main influences.
Curiosity for the sound made him go into production by the time he was 13. A couple of years later (2020) he became co-founder of TLS with E8Prod, Alberfox, DiionyG and other mates. His talent fully developed since then, opening a slight detour that became a new path parallel to the main road.
Lively basslines anchor the beat directly lifted from tradition and clearly channeled to the dancefloor. Strong, well rounded grooves, a spot-on sense of timing and tempo, elegant atmospheres, all part of Helvio's notion of arrangement and his perception of dance music boundaries, stretching them just enough to present a challenge but not as far as to disconnect head and feet and risk losing the floor.
This liminal space between experimentation and popularity is both dangerous and attractive. There is no one formula. Precisely why it still retains plenty of fuel for current and future generations to contribute personal visions.
A limited edition first ever pressing of Arca’s iconic @@@@@ mixtape, the scorching of earth that preceded the launch of her KICK series. Delivering 62 minutes of quantum states, this is some of her most delicate and astonishing work to date - hard, soft, emotional, brutal, sincere and playful. Presented on double vinyl with an etched D-side.
Co-released by Cairo's HIZZ imprint and Heat Crimes, Upper Egypt’s “King of Trobby Music” detonates another singular vision on Raasny—a 9-track suite of bruised street rhythms, electro-shaabi fireworks, and raw emotional voltage, beamed direct from El Minya to the world.
Abosahar has spent the last decade carving out his own micro-genre—Trobby, short for “True Being.” Here it comes into sharpest focus yet: a sound that blurs electro-shaabi, house, techno, trap and pop into dazzling, rough-edged collages, powered by cracked software, busted machines, and the immediacy of lived experience.
Raasny loops wedding-party ecstasy into journeys from Minya’s dusty streets to Cairo’s neon clubs. Tracks like “Bs Ya Baba” and “Shaabi Alarab” fold shaabi’s serrated synth stabs into mutant pulses; “Moled w Samar Haz” and “Moled Altenee” lock into hypnotic folk-ritual cadences; while the title cut “Raasny” surges with an almost devotional intensity, all cracked voices and distorted beats tumbling into the red.
What sets Sahar apart is his refusal of polish: everything is left jagged, overdriven, improvised, alive. His music is inseparable from the weddings, streets, and daily life of Upper Egypt—rooted as much in the dust and electricity of Minya as in the people who move to it.
Raised with little more than a battery-powered radio and homemade instruments fashioned from grass and cardboard, Sahar’s DIY ethos is burned into every second of Raasny. His recordings double as ethnography and autobiography—part diary, part sound-system weapon, part spiritual exorcism.
Already hailed across Cairo’s underground and carried abroad to stages in France, Switzerland and Germany, Sahar’s music still belongs first and foremost to the streets and weddings of Upper Egypt. Raasny makes that clear: this is music of and for the people, loud, ecstatic, and uncontainable.
download code included with the record.
+2 bonus tracks
友人カ仏 from Moe and ghosts - 通過 (Rap Phenomenon Remix Demo)
Madteo - Hatsuentou (Madteo's Edit #2)
Root Echoes is described by Pedro Elías Corro, better known as DJ Babatr, as “a celebration of resilience, joy and solidarity on the dancefloor.” The album offers a raw, powerful snapshot of the raptor house sound in one of its most formative and expressive periods. Carefully selected from Babatr’s personal archive, it connects ground-shaking tracks produced in Caracas between 2003 and 2007 with more recent material that keeps the genre’s pulse alive today. Recognized as a foundational figure in the creation of raptor house, Babatr shaped a style defined by its fusion of Afro-Venezuelan percussion, tribal techno, acid, Eurodance, and the street-level intensity of Caracas working-class neighborhoods. His tracks spread organically through minitecas, bootleg CDs, and street parties, becoming part of the shared sonic vocabulary of a generation.
These tracks were born within the vibrant miniteca scene of early-2000s Venezuela. Known locally as changa, this was the catch-all term for the electronic dance music, house, techno, Eurodance, that powered matinées and street parties. From that ecosystem, raptor house emerged as its own distinct identity, marked by galloping rhythms, serrated synths, and hypnotic structures designed to energize and empower. Opening with 2024’s “1 2 3 4 Ladies on the Floor”, the album delivers a relentless floor-filler that fuses technoid drive with Venezuelan percussive textures, a contemporary statement of Babatr’s ability to refract global sounds through his own lens. It then moves back to 2003 with “The Tech Sounds”, where trance-like synths spiral around tough, wooden drum patterns in a track as raw and defiant as the dance floors it was built for.
These are not just tracks. They are sound documents of space, community, and survival, a genre built for collective release and celebration, echoing from the barrios of Caracas to sound systems worldwide. More recent cuts like “Let’s Do It” layer classic TR-909 kicks and echoing vocal stabs with synth work that nods to foundational techno. “You I Wanna Bass” (2005) reimagines 90s Euro club leads with a Caracas edge. “Call Space” channels the mysticism of pre-Hispanic flutes into shrill, trance-infused riffs, pulling the listener into its own sonic ritual.
Root Echoes is an intimate and deliberate selection from over 700 tracks Babatr has recorded across two decades. It captures the heartbeat of a movement that never stopped, music that traveled hand to hand, through bootleg CDs, online sharing, and word of mouth—ultimately finding its way into the sets, remixes, and samples of DJs around the world, resonating across global club networks.
Heavy, heavy, heavyyyyy rhythmic madness from Shackleton, Scotch Rolex and Omutaba, invoking new rhythmic traditions on an enchanted debut album for Nyege Nyege Tapes, twisting galvanic rhythms from HHY & The Kampala Unit's Omutaba into sozzled, psychedelic peregrinations. Dubby, kinetic and viciously mind-bending, it's peak gear if you're into anything from African Head Charge to Mark Ernestus' Ndagga Rhythm Force.
Leading on from Shackleton and Scotch Rolex’s maiden merger, ‘Death by Tickling’ in 2023, the duo pull in the dextrous limbs of Omutaba - known from his work with STILL, Metal Preyers and HHY & The Kampala Unit - for a dervishing session of dubbed-out and tumbling polyrhythms and psychoactive vibes as Three Hands of Doom. Shackleton’s hand on the tiller is patently apparent but, as with his recent works with Heather Leigh and Wacław Zimpel, he proves a mutable collaborator and porous to the shared spirits of fellow electronic music journeymen Scotch Rolex and Uganda’s Omutaba in four swingeing sections defined by their joint ability to diffract the flow between rolling and irregular grooves.
‘Ring Dirt’ opens the session with a limber display of monotone strings and suspenseful synth work that calls to mind Can sent economy class to the equator for ritual teachings. Enlightened, they proceed thru the lush, whorling metric calculations of ‘Insect Vibration’, layering shivering incantations and worm-charming subs with a frisson of field recordings. At this point fully attuned to each other, Omutaba’s Ugandan drumming is felt most powerfully meshed into the 10 minute matrix of rug-pulling and thunderous detonations to ‘Burnt Earth’, before they all buckle into the outright dread of a standout eponymous title tune that appears to follow rhythms from the Congo thru West Africa, to Haiti, via Japan and Berlin, and back to Uganda.
Both Shackleton and Ishihara have been on blistering form in the last couple of years, and 'Three Hands of Doom' feels like both a continuation and an extension of last year's 'Death By Tickling', weaponizing Omutaba's exhilarating playing into something that feels much, much more than the sum of its parts.
CLEAR VORTEX CHAMBER charts a new period of exploration and discovery for Alexander Tucker both as musician and producer. After discarding a year’s worth of material, Tucker sought the advice of Downwards Records label boss Karl O’Connor aka Regis who advised him on production techniques and approach. Along with further support form Freddy Lomas of Kinn and Emptyset’s James Ginzburg, Tucker got to work on a new set of material with a heightened sense of clarity and density. Tucker explains “Making this album really tested me, it was the outcome of a long period of hard lessons and harsh realities, but I had some good friends to guide me along the way and pull me out of the mire.”
At the core of MICROCORPS is Tucker’s complex modular systems, knitted into the tracks are triggered samples of his own cello and bass guitar playing, which meld into the electronic fabric of each track. Tucker expands “I wanted the album to sit somewhere between machine technology with something primitive, where synthetic and acoustic sources become intertwined. I like the idea of different dimensions phasing in and out of one another, creating new areas where I can explore sound, structures and imaginary spaces”
These imaginary spaces play a key role in the construction of CLEAR VORTEX CHAMBER. Tucker’s background in fine art and his current work with experimental comics bleeds into the unspoken landscapes of his music. “I want to trigger parts of the brain that can dream up imagery whilst at the same time focus of the sonic structure of the music itself, I guess I’m still obsessed with trying to create some sort of psychoactive environment” The architecture of each track presents itself in the form of massive kicks, sonar clicks and kinetic percussive rhythms, supported by pulsing bass drones. Cello and bass guitar samples initially bowed, plucked and hit by mallets are triggered creating dense wooden timbres that punctuate the electronic field. Voices and vocals both treated and untreated weave throughout the album in the form of cryptic dialogues and unspooling wordless singing, adding to the cross pollination of something human, machine and a space in-between.
Collaboration is a key element to MICROCORPS. Justin K Broadrick’s heavy spidery guitar lines and processed screaming rip wormholes in ‘FEDBCK’, Regis lends his distinct vocal work to ‘ZONA’, Japanese artist Phew injects organ drones, vocals and fried electronics throughout ‘SANSU’. On penultimate track ‘FEBCK 2’, Karl D’Silva’s droning saxophone joins Broadrick’s feed backing guitar noise and improvising lyricist, producer and sound artist Elvin Brandhi spits out cut up diatribes across final track ‘MALLETS’. Throughout the album Tucker’s own processed voice sits alongside singer JJOWDY’s eerily gentle laments
Salty club dogs Beau Wanzer, Lukid & Tapes agitate each to stuttering 2-step, juke and rave noise extents on a frazzled session for TTT
The five trax of ‘Borez’ see all three flock around mutual poles of briny electronics and nervily restless rhythm programming within a framework of shattered but sharply effective club music. The gibber-jawed juke garage of ‘Point of Some Return’ pitches them into diciest wormholes of teeth-chatter 2-step, next to the dry-humped slam and almost Drexciyan lines of distorted, scudding, coruscating leads to ‘Rubber Eater’ on its 7’ arc to lusher resolution.
‘Darnell Can’t Polish a Turd’ pulls focus to sourest, piquant frequencies and bolshy bass blasts in a sorta bucking roll cage like Somatic Responses gone happy hardcore, and ‘Xylone Xylophone’ follows down that metallic wormhole like Evelyn Glennie on a mazza to the fizzy machine funk of ‘Lomp’.
Haino sings. Hasunuma plays. It’s a minimal framework, but what emerges is a boundary-blurring sonic exploration. Across the album, Haino’s voice threads through Hasunuma’s layered soundscapes built from analog synths, electric guitar, piano, field recordings, and more. Haino entered the studio with only lyrics in hand, improvising melodies in response to Hasunuma’s evolving arrangements. The result is a work of deep trust, intuition, and sonic tension.
Keiji Haino and Shuta Hasunuma’’s creative connection began in 2017 with an impromptu performance in Shibuya—Hasunuma on a Buchla modular synthesizer, Haino responding with the Japanese national anthem, “Kimigayo.” That moment sparked their unlikely collaboration.
In 2018 Haino appeared at the Hasunuma-organized event “MUSIC TODAY IN KYOTO” at Rohm Theater, alongside Nobukazu Takemura, Manami Kakudo, Elena Tutatchikova, Kukangendai among others. In September 2021 during the pandemic, the two performed "U TA" for the first time at WWW in Shibuya. They began planning the album soon afterwards.
For the recording of U TA, Haino entered the studio with only the lyrics in hand, with no knowledge of what sounds Hasunuma would produce. Responding to Hasunuma’s music in real time, Haino composed the melodies and layered in his voice on the spot. With additional sessions at Hasunuma’s private studio and Haino’s preferred studio, the album was completed.
La Düsseldorf's debut album, formed by Klaus Dinger after the dissolution of NEU!, sublimated the experimental nature of Krautrock into a pop sensibility.
The tracks "La Düsseldorf," "Silver Cloud," and "Time" create a hypnotic and celebratory atmosphere through their repetitive motorik beat and shimmering synthesizers. The album is marked by the energetic vocals of Klaus Dinger and a sense of openness within its minimal structure.
Transcending the boundaries of German rock, this work radiates a genre-crossing appeal, where an art-rock perspective fuses with a DIY spirit. It stands as a symbol of Krautrock's evolution, continuing to shine brightly with a freshness that influenced later new wave and techno music.