MUSIC

Eager Buyers is an observation of longing, of memory, of attempted connection, of lost innocence, and irreconcilable dreams. It’s the sound of broken promises for a bright future, where rose-tinted glasses have lost their clarity, dirtied with disaffection over time. Spanish-born, Berlin-based artist JASSS, presents her third LP, Eager Buyers. It’s the inaugural release on her own new platform called AWOS, which also encompasses musical, AV and art collaborations, live events, and a radio show.

Across this sultry, smoky, cinematic epic, JASSS attempts to process mixed feelings amidst the modern malaise. Alluringly atmospheric and cerebral, but bold and direct, with high-spec sound design, JASSS spaces each element with expert definition. Searing swathes of noise nestle with crisp breakbeats, billowing bass, dark ambience, prepared piano, phosphorescent electronics and calibrated percussion.

“Whether you buy into the dream of capitalism or not, on a subconscious level, many people that lived through the 90s and 2000s had capitalist hope from the 80s and 90s drummed into them. It was a promise of something that never came true. We put our faith in a mirage, and now we’re left in an existential void, struggling with a very real

collapse.” - JASSS

A sort of anti-nostalgia, the record lives in a contemporary purgatory of oblique moods which hover in the psyche, somewhere between uncertainty, foreboding, and guarded anticipation. The raw metal of bass guitar strings plays a key part too, ranging from ornate melodic phrases, shoegazy drones, and attitude-riven hard twangs. Vocals come from JASSS herself, plus James K and Alias Error on the track “It’s A Hole”.

The heavy, hauntological atmospherics are in part due to the addition of field recordings – the discreet, but spiritually-loaded incidental sounds of a place which can capture its history, with the acoustics somehow retaining an emotional imprint of lives long gone. If pressed for descriptive reference points, ‘masterfully-produced-post-punk-post-rock- baroque-gothy-dubby-trip-hop’ might be a starting point, but that doesn’t do it justice. Equally spectral in their dream-like quality are the musical signposts, where genre elements are familiar, but somehow also unplaceable, untethered from context, and beautifully strange in their new composite. At points there’s an air of strangely dazed calm too – a kind of frazzled cool in the face of desolation, and even tender, lighter moments, which glint through the cracks.

London-based percussionist and composer Valentina Magaletti teams up with Japanese experimental electronic artist YPY for Kansai Bruises, an evocative exploration of cross-cultural sonic territories that bridges European avant-garde percussion with Japanese electronic minimalism. The album unfolds across eight carefully crafted tracks that document a metaphysical journey through Japan's Kansai region, where ancient traditions collide with hypermodern urban realities. Opening with One Hour Visa, the record immediately establishes its liminal character—caught between arrival and departure, belonging and displacement.

Magaletti, whose collaborations span from Nidia to Jandek, brings her signature approach of "strategically enriching a folkloristic and eclectic palette through endless listening and experimentation." Her percussion work here is both architectural and atmospheric, creating rhythmic foundations that breathe with organic unpredictability while maintaining an underlying structural tension. YPY's electronic contributions provide the perfect counterpoint—minimal yet emotionally charged, digital yet deeply human. Together, they create soundscapes that feel simultaneously intimate and vast, personal and universal. Standout tracks include the title piece Kansai Bruises, where field recordings merge with processed percussion to create an almost cinematic sense of urban wandering, and Float, which achieves a remarkable state of weightlessness through its interplay of subtle electronics and polyrhythmic percussion. The album's sequencing tells a complete story: from the initial disorientation of One Hour Visa through the nocturnal drift of Lantern Lit Run, the contemplative pause of Interlude for Fog Days, and the surprising warmth of closing track Pesto—a title that hints at the unexpected cultural fusion that defines this remarkable collaboration.

Kansai Bruises represents a significant evolution in transcultural electronic music, proving that the most interesting artistic encounters happen not in the comfort of familiar territory, but in the bruising, beautiful space between worlds.

Harry the Nightgown return with Ugh, their second album and most ambitious work to date — a fizzing fusion of hyperpop, experimental electronics and avant-pop songwriting. Now a trio, the group features original members Spencer Hartling (aka tp Dutchkiss, founder of Wiggle World studio) and Sami Perez (Cherry Glazerr, Jerry Paper, The She’s), joined by DIY harmony obsessive Luke Macdonald, also a touring member of Cherry Glazerr.

Five years on from their self-titled debut, the band embrace imperfection with open arms, crafting an eleven-song record packed with warped hooks, dense production, and flashes of emotional vulnerability. Released on Leaving Records, Ugh takes cues from artists like Björk, fka twigs, Oneohtrix Point Never, Tirzah and Vegyn, but filters them through Harry the Nightgown’s own playful, fractured lens.

When you’re running a label, a demo occasionally comes across your desk that makes you reconsider everything you thought your label was all about. For Balmat, such was the case with this stunning album from Stephen Vitiello, Brendan Canty, and Hahn Rowe. It sounds like nothing we’ve released so far—and that very otherness opened up a whole new world of possibilities for us.

Fans of ambient, experimental electronic music, and sound art will be familiar with Vitiello, a New York native, long based in Virginia, who has collaborated with a cross-generational list of greats: Taylor Deupree, Steve Roden, Lawrence English, Tetsu Inoue, Nam June Paik, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Pauline Oliveros, and many more. On labels like 12k, Room40, and Sub Rosa, he has explored a wide range of minimalism, microsound, lowercase, ambient, improv, and other styles. But this album is something different. It may begin in ambient-adjacent territory, but it quickly veers off, and it just keeps zigzagging, taking on elements of krautrock, post-punk, dub, and the groove-heavy interplay of groups like Natural Information Society and 75 Dollar Bill.

This stylistic turn is thanks in large part to Vitiello’s choice of collaborators. “We’re coming from three different schools,” Vitiello says: “sound art, art rock, and punk rock.”

Active since the early 1980s, Rowe—a violinist, guitarist, and producer/engineer—has played with, or manned the boards for, a frankly jaw-dropping list of musicians: Herbie Hancock, Gil Scott-Heron, the Last Poets, Roy Ayers, John Zorn, Glenn Branca, Swans, Live Skull, Brian Eno, David Byrne, Anohni, R.E.M., Yoko Ono, and many more. But he might be most closely associated with Hugo Largo, a one-of-a-kind New York quartet—two basses, vocals, and Rowe’s violin—that in the late 1980s helped lay the groundwork for what would eventually become known as post-rock.

Canty, of course, is the legendary drummer of Fugazi, the visionary DC post-hardcore group, as well as Rites of Spring before them, and, currently, the Messthetics, a Dischord-signed instrumental trio with guitarist Anthony Pirog and Fugazi bassist Joe Lally.

Vitiello’s trio first collaborated on First, a 17-minute piece released on the Longform Editions label in 2023. Second picks up where the freeform drift of First left off, channeling the trio’s exploratory energies into more intentionally structured tracks and—in a real first for Balmat—some almost shockingly muscular grooves.

“Sometimes my projects are more conceptually driven,” Vitiello says, “but I think this was more musically geared. I just wanted to open up the references and bring in an incredible drummer, bring in some melodies, and I’m sort of the center.” But his collaborators, he stresses, are “vastly creative in making anything I might suggest better.”

Like its predecessor, Second took shape in phases, shifting between improvisation and collage. Vitiello laid down the skeleton of the music at home, sketching out initial ideas on Rhodes keyboard and acoustic and electric guitar; he then fed the parts through samplers and his modular system, recording 10- or 20-minute jams. Once he had edited them into more structured forms, he hit the studio with Canty, who added not just drums but also bass and piano; finally, Vitiello took the results of those sessions to Rowe, who played violin, viola, electric bass, and 12-string acoustic and bowed electric guitar, and assisted in some of the final structuring and mixdown.

A few more surprises along the way: Reanimator’s Don Godwin, the studio engineer where Vitiello recorded with Canty, contributed what he calls “resonant dustpan”; and none other than Animal Collective’s Geologist, who just happened to be in the studio that day, sits in on hurdy gurdy on “Mrphgtrs1,” the album’s gorgeous, stunningly atmospheric drone closer. “I love these chance encounters,” Vitiello says. “Somebody I admire, a group I admire—that was an unexpected gift.”

An unexpected gift is a great way of describing Second as a whole: three veteran musicians venturing outside their usual zones and finding a new collaborative language together. The results can’t be neatly slotted into any given genre; they belong not to any given category, but to the spirit of conversation itself.

Gendel on C-Melody Saxofone and Wilkes on Fender P-Bass arrangements of selected material and original compositions a document of specific variations in instrumentation, sound, and repertoire, with a focus on melody, execution of arrangement, and total freedom The Doober follows the release of Music for Saxofone & Bass Guitar (2018) and Music for Saxofone & Bass Guitar More Songs (2021).

Uncleared is the name of my new 29-track instrumental beat-tape. In a more “back-to-basics” approach to beat-making, this tape began as a creative exercise for myself to return to the music that made me who I am. Around Q3/Q4 of 2023 I had read about a “one 4-bar loop a day” regimen to keep output flowing, and this practice was entirely effective in churning-out beats during self-imposed down-time for music making amidst my record label/family balance lifestyle. It was then that I had set a goal to produce & release 40 new beats by the time I turned 40. I found an almost entirely sample-based production flow in Ableton referencing an ongoing list I kept of material to sample & chop as the foundation for the track, culling from the timeless All The Breaks folder for the drums, and finishing the track with a synth bass-line that I’d quickly dial-in & play by hand using Teebs' old M-Audio midi keyboard controller that I am somehow still borrowing and cherish. Most of these beats are under 10 stems in any given project - drastically different in comparison to my projects in the past (Outmind, In My World, Time Flying Beats et al) where stems would be consistently breaching 50+. Furthermore relating to the title, I was recently served an uncleared sample notice from a bigger label entity. It’s the first time this has happened so I suppose we’ve been lucky, and it’s honestly the first time I’ve reconsidered casually releasing this type of material - particularly on major streaming platforms. I’m not sure what lies ahead for sample-based music culture - but i'm hopeful it will be able to sustain and evolve as we attempt to emphasize the reclamation of the spaces on the internet where this music can be safely & responsibly shared, supported, and appreciated. During the last few weeks leading-up to release, artist neighbor / bestie Aaron Raays would come over to my backyard studio shed at night to listen to the developing material and provide me with trusted feedback notes. I have a habit of whip-testing music obsessively in my 2010 Prius driving around Los Angeles, and at the Leaving offices on the Mobius Acoustics system there. These check-ins were crucial in seeing this one through. Only 29 beats made the cut, but I had a lot of fun making these, and I’m having even more fun performing them.

Minneapolis-born saxophonist Cole Pulice, acclaimed for the ambient jazz masterpiece To Live & Die In Space & Time, returns with a long-awaited new album on the spiritually rooted West Coast label Leaving Records. Celestial echoes of modern classical, glacial drones of profound stillness, and a radiant landscape where spiritual jazz and ambient music interweave—this is music that dissolves into the air, where even silence feels sonorous. Pulice’s horn traces ripples that linger long after the notes fade, offering a meditative expanse of emotion, memory, and time. A deeply introspective and prayerful work that resonates with the space between sound and silence.

A live album by The Growth Eternal, the Tulsa-born, LA-based master of alternative R&B, arrives via the spiritual stronghold of the independent scene, Leaving Records. Infused with the sacred spirit of gospel, the deep wisdom of Black music, and the improvisational freedom of modern jazz, the album weaves these threads into a refined and intimate sonic tapestry. It resonates like the echo of a celebration reaching your bedroom—experimental soul music that balances warmth and grandeur. As the title suggests, the recording emanates the atmosphere of a private, heartfelt space, quietly glowing with presence.

Prolific Geordie acid and braindance producer Daniel Pringle aka The Jaffa Kid showcases a spectrum of mutating styles shared with Mike Paradinas, RDJ, Jega, Luke Slater or Plaid

　

Behind 100s of releases since he really got going in the 2020s, The Jaffa Kid’s prodigious output is here parsed for a carousel of flavours that prove his strength in diversity and a restless work rate generating quality results. Like the best braindancers he balances club needs and tropes with something tripper, headier in his melodic and harmonic arrangements, which favour piquant, microtonal tunings and psychoacoustic space over straightforward conventions.

Like the touchstones of µ-Ziq or AFX and their ilk, TJK expresses a certain strangeness of coming from this island in his reading of electronica as contemporary folk, and braindance as its wyrdest facet, modally fusing and acknowledging the input of successive waves of influence on these shores. There’s a wickedly eyrie electronic soul at play across the LP from the likes of his Gescom or BoC-esque pads and whirring breaks on ‘IOAM’, and hits of Plaid’s syncopated intricacies on ‘Colobia’, with fast-fwd Rephlex/Planet Mu rave in ‘241’ and jega-esque ‘Infinite Chasers’, saving highlights to the sounds of a ticklish robot in ‘Night Unfolding’ and a smart braindance update on modern D&B frameworks in ‘Extol II.’

Noisy, surreal and uncompromisingly idiosyncratic, The Shadow Ring's 1997-released 'Hold Onto I.D.' is a perennially misunderstood rust spot in their discography, marked by Graham Lambkin's choked free-form poetry and Tim Goss's eerie Radiophonic oscillations.

Squeezed between '96's 'Wax-Work Echoes', founder members Lambkin and Darren Harris's first album with keyboard player Goss, and '99's dark, concept-driven double album 'Lighthouse', it's easy to understand why 'Hold Onto I.D.' is one of The Shadow Ring's most overlooked full-lengths. Listening now, it falls perfectly into place; if they were playing fast and loose with the possibilities on 'Wax-Work...' and exploring new territory with 'Lighthouse', this is the point where Lambkin, Harris and Goss were able to take stock, augmenting the Bolan-goes-Jandek crankiness of 'City Lights' and its snotty follow-up 'Put the Music in its Coffin' with frazzled, hot-wired electronics and isolationist, paranoiac reflections. "You've got to learn the difference between sweat and dew," Harris deadpans on opener 'Watch the Water'. "You've got black lakes forming on your floor, and the dusty brown rug from decades or so ago becomes hot spot for shrimp and nautical foe."

Lambkin's muculent tales of small-town boredom ink a rough outline of Folkestone, the somnolent coastal town where the band lived, contrasting literal decay with asphyxiating cultural emptiness. On previous records, The Shadow Ring had sounded as if they were delivering their own discrete reading of British rock, but the music falls away from the figurative even further here. The gunky, detuned riffs are there just to prop up the stern, psycho-satirical lyrics (guitars would disappear completely by 'Lighthouse'), and any rhythms have become little more than side-room ambient clatter. It's Goss's piercing, terror-stricken monosynth keens that take pride of place, forming an uncomfortable bed of anxious electronics that buzzes beneath the entire record. Lambkin and Harris break and bend their acoustic instruments as if they're speaking to the synth sounds from a similar vantage points, like forgotten remnants of British folk history.

A disheveled piano is tapped at furtively on 'Wash What You Eat', and dissonant chords crack awkwardly from a cheap acoustic guitar; Goss's swirling, pitchy warbles sound as if they've been pulled from a Quatermass re-run and copy-pasted with cheap cassette. And it's the fact that we're served this inner vision of humdrum British surrealism - a no-hope fantasized hi-culture/lo-culture melt fueled by tapes, fanzines and overdue library books - that makes it so enduringly good. Lambkin, Harris and Goss weren't pretentiously trying to affix their images onto concepts earmarked for the elite, they were working in their own damp, festering cinematic universe and presenting it warts 'n all. It's fucking timeless.

Froid Dub continues to explore its synth-lined slowed down digi-dub cave flooded with waves of echoes and acid bleeps. Bass lines and flanged delays sail over deep waters, seemingly barely disturbed by the minimal pump of the synth-wave vibe.

Civilistjävel! returns with Brödföda, the successor to 2022’s Järnnätter and his fourth release for FELT. The record features collaborations with Laila Sakini, Mayssa Jallad, Thommy Wahlström, ELDON, and Withdrawn. Tomas Bodén is a revered figure of the aural murk, known primarily for his work as Civilistjävel. It’s an alias that has spawned a catalogue of self-released peculiarities, featuring music that scorns traditional form, instead opting for unfussed symphonies of ice-hued minimalism; soft murmurs that emanate from his studio in the High Coast of Sweden. On Brödföda, his latest album for Fergus Jones’s FELT imprint, subtle new developments in mood prevail. Across its 75 minutes, Civilistjävel! unveils a breadth of emotions that on previous releases seemed distant. He also invites collaborators on record for the first time: Beirut-based singer Mayssa Jallad mournfully croons on “IV”, “VIII” hosts Coldlight’s ELDON & Withdrawn for an abstracted session of dub-hop murk, Laila Sakini offers a hallucinogenic monologue amidst melodica, sticks & bells playing on “IX”, and Thommy Wahlström floats scant acid dub stylings on “VI”. These additions and developments bring a forlorn intimacy to the music, and suggest an ambition that few artists of his ilk strive for. FELT’s (un)reliable cast of audio ghouls routinely summon the odd, with Civilistjävel! often its primary culprit; Brödföda gently modifies this path to pursue some of his and the label’s most quaintly beautiful music yet.

Over the past few years, concert patrons have stopped the musician Carlos Niño after gigs to ask two simple questions: “Are you a shaman?” “I hear the medicine in your music, can I come to your next ceremony?” The queries are fair enough: Looking at Niño, a tall man with a wild beard and kind eyes, one would think he’s from some faraway time and could maybe cast spells. Once you get to know him, you find that he’s just an incredibly sweet guy with a laid-back demeanor, and that he isn’t some guru claiming to have an all-access pass to the otherworld. So what does he say to those wondering if he’s a spiritual teacher? “I’m just chillin’, on fire,” he declares. “I'm not rolling with or out any kind of religious or traditional focus, rules or doctrine. I'm just presenting something that has a lot of energy, and is intended to be an opening for those of us who are journeying, creating musically, and for those who gather with us.” Indeed, there’s a communal essence to Niño’s self-described Energetic Space Music. As leader of Carlos Niño & Friends, he encourages his collaborators to improvise without preconceived ideas of what the sound is supposed to entail. His new album, (I’m just) Chillin’, on Fire, features more than a dozen musicians and includes a who’s who of sonic experimentation — everyone from guitarist Nate Mercereau and saxophonist Kamasi Washington, to New Age cornerstone Laraaji and hip-hop legend André 3000 playing his now trademark flute. On purpose, Niño lets the music drift and the unity ensue, making (I’m just) Chillin’, on Fire another highlight in a recent run of sublime work. But where albums like 2020’s Chicago Waves (with multi-instrumentalist Miguel Atwood-Ferguson) and last year’s Extra Presence hovered in the speakers, (I’m just) Chillin’ forges ahead in certain spots through energetic drums equally indebted to jazz and electronic funk. It eschews genre, but the tenets of ‘70s underground jazz are present. Fifty years ago, acts like Brother Ah, the Ensemble Al-Salaam and Mtume Umoja Ensemble crafted music that scanned as Spiritual Jazz yet flared in many different directions. They leaned into the transcendence of the music overall, not artificial terms used to market it. (I’m just) Chillin’ emits the same emotion: On “Mighty Stillness,” when the experimental violinist V.C.R proclaims her “ancestral right” to rest, she evokes Black women like Jeanne Lee, Jayne Cortez and Beatrice Parker, innovative vocalists from indie scenes who embodied the same freedom. Then on “Love Dedication (for Annelise),” Niño uses subtle bass (from Michael Alvidrez) and a serene piano loop (from Surya Botofasina) to speak of endearment in broad terms. “Love is unconditional — everywhere, everything, flowing always,” he observes. “Totally alive, no upper limit.” Though he hesitates to embrace comparisons to the spacious arrangements heard on indie labels of the ‘70s like Strata, Strata-East and Tribe (only because of how much he respects their legacies, not wanting to claim any space in their fields), there’s no denying his stature as an anchor in the jazz, hip-hop and beat scenes in Los Angeles over the last nearly 30 years, and how his influences are alive in what he makes. “All of those labels to me are hugely influential,” Niño says. “When I think about Strata-East, I immediately think of Pharaoh Sanders, and I think of one of my favorite albums of all-time, Live at the East (on Impulse!), and how The East and that movement is a huge influence. I'm not from that community. I don't claim any direct connection to it, but my awareness of it and my appreciation of it is gigantic.” The vocals for (I’m just) Chillin’ were compiled unconventionally. “I was like, ‘I'm going to turn on the mic, and you're going to listen all the way through the album and record anything you're feeling at any moment,’” Niño says of the creative process. “It was completely open to their interpretation.” He found that the vocalists Cavana Lee, Maia, Mia Doi Todd, and V.C.R interpreted the music in similar ways: “People who are not even in the same room, who did not hear what the other person did, they all created these really cool weavings — and it was so fun.” While the album compiles live and studio arrangements recorded in places like Venice, Leimert Park and Woodstock over the past three years, it feels harmonious, as if captured in one space with all musicians present. This highlights Niño’s ability as a conductor and producer. That he could winnow such vast experimentation into a seamless set is a worthy feat on its own. Much like Niño’s other LPs, (I’m just) Chillin’ is an immersive listen that requires attentive ears to fully absorb. In a world dominated by social media and the 24-hour news cycle, it seems we’re all in a hurry for no reason in particular. By creating music with tender messages and leisurely pacing, Niño nudges listeners to slow down and appreciate life’s natural wonders, to savor the journey and not rush

“It’s is an extraordinary noise, an acidic tone dialled up in all directions, not just distortion but an intense vibration with huge amounts of treble to emit a stinging sound that could loosen your dentistry.” MOJO ★★★★ “There is a lot of colour crammed into this compilation…an escalating dense cascade, a display of virtuosity” The Quietus (Compilation of the Week) "Azerbaijan’s Rəhman Məmmədli dazzles, deserving of recognition for his imaginative reconfigurations of longstanding forms and palpably impassioned playing" Pop Matters In the heartlands of Azerbaijan, where the melodies of the Caspian Sea meet the rhythms of the Caucasus Mountains, the electric guitar has become more than an instrument—it's a symbol of cultural fusion and artistic expression. Building upon the success of their first compilation, "Azerbaijani Gitara," which showcased the pioneering work of Rustem Quliyev, Bongo Joe Records are thrilled to present the highly anticipated second volume, featuring the legendary guitarist Rəhman Məmmədli. The roots of Azerbaijani gitara culture run deep, stemming from a rich tradition of musical experimentation and innovation. From the early 20th Century oil boom to the socialist era of Soviet rule, Azerbaijani musicians and composers embraced the electric guitar as a vehicle for blending indigenous traditions with global influences. The introduction of electric guitars from the Czechoslavakian factory 'Jolana' sparked a musical revolution in the Caucasus, with young musicians like Rəmiş leading the charge. Draw

Geneva-based duo Bound By Endogamy delivers a heavy blend of rave, synth-punk, and industrial music. Shlomo Balexert and Kleio Thomaïdes are both prominent figures in the local squat and punk scene, having been involved in numerous projects over the past decade. Following several cassette releases and a remarkable debut 7'' on Lux Records, the band presents a self-titled album that combines raw, growling basslines, crisp analog rhythms, and passionate vocals ranging from breathy to fiercely cutting. On stage, the project consists of drums, a sampler, and vocals. Shlomo handles the drums alongside sharp synthesizers, while Kleio delivers powerful vocals reminiscent of a professional boxer. Expect a fusion of DAF and Kleenex with a hardcore edge.

Official remastered edition of COIL's 1998 drone/ambient masterpiece. “4 Tones to facilitate travel through time.” So begins the listeners’ journey into what has become one of the most treasured and revered pieces of COIL history ever released. Each of the four pieces on Time Machines is named after the chemical compound of the hallucinogenic drug that they were composed for, and the album was meticulously crafted to enable what John Balance referred to as "temporal slips" in time and space, allowing both the artist and audience to figuratively "dissolve time". Inspired by long form ceremonial music of Tibet and other religions, where the intent is to lose oneself in the music – to meditate or achieve a trance state – Time Machines became Drew McDowall, John Balance, and Peter Christopherson’s “electronic punk-primitive” answer to this tribal concept. Starting as a rough demo tape recorded solely by Coil member Drew McDowall, Time Machines started to take full form when McDowall enthusiastically delivered these demo recordings to Balance and Christopherson as sketches for a new Coil project with the primary goal of shifting Coil’s sound further into a more conceptually abstract direction. Largely recorded in 1997 using single takes with minimal post production, these four drones contain every intended fluctuation and tone, along with every glitch of the original – “Artifacts generated by your listening environment are an intrinsic part of the experience.”

Waterfall Horizon, 7038634357’s second album with Blank Forms Editions, was written for live performance and workshopped over successive shows during a 2022 tour. Here, the song forms have begun to crystallize. Hallmarks of the artist’s prior, studio-crafted recordings—slow-burning ambience and obfuscating digital distortion—are pared back, revealing borderline pop inflections. Waterfall Horizon’s more traditional lyrical scaffolds allow verses, chorus, and interstices to flourish, all within a minimized, icy range.

Neo Gibson, born in Virginia and based in New York City, records, performs, and produces as 7038634357. This numerical alias, under which Gibson has been releasing work since 2016, offers a window into the careful ambivalences of the musical project. It conjures the impersonal—the opacity and randomness of data, a number that is hard to remember or even say out loud—while also suggesting a direct line of communication with the artist, down to an area code indexing their biography. 7038634357 uses a restricted palette to achieve music that is formally precise and emotionally direct. Their digital-native approach to production, in which frank melodies cross paths with heavy distortion, contains traces of both trance’s maximalist arcs and a songwriterly intimacy. Expressive details may appear submerged or abraded, subjected to a canny sense of dynamics and textural discretion.

With a particular interest in site-specific performances in non-musical spaces, 7038634357 has performed in a variety of contexts, including the mezzanine of the West 4th Street subway station in New York City and INA GRM/Radio France’s Présences électronique festival. The first 7038634357 vinyl record, Neo Seven, was released on Blank Forms Editions in 2023; previous releases include self-released cassettes and CD-Rs, as well as a pair of EPs on Genome 6.66 Mbp (2018, 2019).

In 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic began, environmental sounds were recorded in the dense forests of Kerala, India, and

in 2023, in the chaotic wastelands of Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan, where suicide bombings still occur, Peshawar,

where suicide bombings still occur in 2023.

This futuristic Asian music, created by blending traditional instruments with electronics and collage, mysteriously blends with Arab and African elements, evoking the scent of the earth despite being rooted in asphalt—a truly unique masterpiece!

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.

Special Guest DJ — also known as Shy — has spent the better part of a decade quietly reshaping the experimental electronic underground. Operating from Berlin under aliases like Caveman LSD and uon, their work weaves between dubwise ambient, smeared club textures, and lo-fi dream states.

On Our Fantasy Complex, they channel that tangled web into a 40-minute suite of fogged-out mood music: sensual, angry, dreamlike. There are trace elements of shoegaze, dub techno and quasi-speed D&B, but it’s more hex than genre exercise — a lucid tangle of textures shaped by peers like Ben Bondy, mu tate, and Arad Acid add an extra dimension.

This isn’t ambient in the blissed-out sense, but a darker, dirtier kind of psychedelia — music that melts the line between introspection and club detritus. From the looming bass pressure of ‘How Long Can I Burn?’ to the dissociative haze of ‘Yoro (pt I & II)’, and finally the crystalline closer ‘Dream’, it’s a record that lingers like smoke.

Lucy Duncombe and Feronia Wennborg compose a modern symphony for virtual choir on 'Joy, Oh I Missed You', muddling sound poetry with Nuno Canavarro and ‘Systemische'-style machine-damaged surrealism. It's mindbogglingly good, like a mashup of Lee Gamble's 'Models', Akira Rabelais' 'Spellewauerynsherde' and Robert Ashley's timeless 'Automatic Writing’ screwed to perfection in a mode that will also appeal if you’re into work by Kara-Lis Coverdale, Nozomu Matsumoto, Theo Burt, Olli Aarni, Sydney Spann, Hanne Lippard.

Duncombe and Wennborg have been chewing over ‘Joy, Oh I Missed You’ for four long years, working their process until they were "queasily intimate" with their arsenal of artificial voice tools. Tracing the history of the technology, from voice synthesisers and chatbots to AI voice analysis tools, the duo experiment relentlessly to develop a digital-age response to IRL extended vocal technique - think François Dufrêne, Yoko Ono or Phew. Less interested in replicating human sounds exactly, they instead test how various tools might cough up their own idiosyncratic tics as they stretch and stutter through attempts to mimic their "fleshware" counterparts.

Duncombe's got prior form here, most recently re-synthesising her voice on the brilliantly oily 'Sunset, She Exclaims' 45 for Modern Love, following a stunner for 12th Isle in 2021. Wennborg brings along experience from her tenure as one half of microsound duo soft tissue, whose 2022 LP 'hi leaves' was a haptic treasure. These approaches mesh remarkably well on their first collaborative full-length, with Duncombe's eerie bio-electronic incantations providing the ideal foil for Wennborg's carbonated hardware processes. It's not completely clear where the human voice ends and the zeroes and ones begin on 'Your Lips, Covering Your Teeth', as rolling cyborg syllables tumble over OS-startup womps and surprisingly svelte outcroppings of glassy, synthetic glitches. The music is surprisingly mannered, a sonic reflection of the cover, where a mouth is pixellated until only colour swatches remain. Duncombe and Wennborg trace the gradual erosion of their voices, leaning into the chaos as their various tools veer off into unique patterns of failure.

What sounds like a far-off, ghosted folk rendition (we're reminded of the Icelandic laments that Rabelais chewed up on 'Spellewauerynsherde') is offset by gnarled, bitcrushed machine faults and pneumatic lip smacks on the brilliant 'Residue', and on 'Brushed My Hair', the duo massage the voice until it sounds like a flute. Assembling stutters and barks and sighs into a celestial chorus alongside time-stretched moans, they create a levitational atmosphere on 'Smell It', freezing the energy from bizarre pitch steps to configure a zonked vocal ensemble.

'Joy, Oh I Missed You’ is an album that, like its source material, constantly morphs, testing the boundaries of its concept repeatedly without bubbling over into conceptual goo. In fact, it's remarkably euphonious, even at its most theoretically abrasive; Duncombe and Wennborg wring out uniquely angelic formations through a process of trial and error that packs a surprising, hefty emotional punch.

Today, 4-piece instrumental band Yuuf announce signing to Ninja Tune’s Technicolour imprint alongside news of a forthcoming EP ‘Alma’s Cove’ out 20th June 2025.

Spanning 5 tracks, ‘Alma’s Cove’ is a meditative soundscape which takes the listener on a sonic journey through nature, connection and togetherness away from the stresses of day-to-day life. “Alma’s Cove is a dreamy tropical space free from stress, where you can feel content and present. A sheltered paradise to enjoy at your own leisure” the band comment. “When writing the EP the main goal was to create a space that’s the complete opposite of our London life: stress, anxiety, overwhelm. Reconnect to nature and enjoy the present. A dreamland”

Alongside the announcement Yuuf share the EP’s title track “Alma’s Cove”, out now on Technicolour. Rich with organic textures, shimmering details and psychedelic rhythms, the single invites the audience into the serene world of Alma’s Cove. “The listener is walking around and taking in nature, the sounds, and the views and reveling in its natural beauty”. The single arrives with an official music video, showcasing a full live session filmed during the band's recent trip to Crete.

Mixing international sounds and global influences is central to Yuuf’s ethos. Even its members all hail from different parts of the world – Switzerland, Denmark, France and England. “We naturally blend our diverse musical tastes from around the world to shape the sound of our music”. ‘Alma’s Cove’ is a prime example of this, inspired by classical Spanish guitar, Americana soundscapes and the music of Studio Ghibli.

Yuuf kick-off a UK tour in May, with multiple stops at various summer festivals including Wide Awake Festival, Green Man Festival, Lost Village Festival and Psych Festival. Full tour dates below. The band released their debut EP ‘In The Sun’ in Summer 2024 which has already gained over 1.5M streams on Spotify alone and received support from the likes of BBC 6Music, KEXP, KRCW and IG platform Somewhere Soul (919K followers). Released alongside the EP ‘The Sun’s’ viral live session video now has an impressive 1.8M views, 84k likes and 4k comments on YouTube.

Under the right conditions, half-remembered dreams can meld seamlessly into hazy present moments. Time spent alone can be an emotional blank canvas, and an opportunity to deconstruct sense and feeling; a patchwork of snippets both rooted in memory and abstracted from reality. The title of ‘quilted lament’ perfectly captures the way Gretchen Korsmo and claire rousay’s overlapping missions come together to do just this. Worn polaroid melodies and snatched everyday noises seem overheard through windows onto the street. They feel emotionally twinned, claire and Gretchen, it’s not always possible to tell where one ends and the other begins. Their musical thoughts and DNA are sewn together into a mini symphony of warmly embracing movements.

Built remotely between pre-existing friends in the underground music scene, the duo layered ideas onto audio files, and sent them back (and forth). And these luscious instrumentals truly do feel assembled by intuition, casually crafted with little need for guidance. “claire and I are both emo,” explains Korsmo. “We are both former texas-dwellers [too] and relate over both the woes and beauties of being in the American DIY experimental music scene.” Buoyant piano keys and hushed layer vocals tracks sit alongside a humming field-recorded scrapbook; a neighbour caught in a moment of private inspiration while street noise elevates; a private hymnal in the bathroom while the washing machine ends its cycle. Both artists take field sounds from a wealth of Zoom and Tascam recordings made in the last half-decade in Santa Fe, San Antonio, Los Angeles, Kamakura, Japan and elsewhere – from a baseball game announcer in Santa Fe, to the sound of a friend eating a juicy peach. At times, the bedroom walls seem to grow thin amid atmospheric creaks and disembodied whispers. Despite its very emo core, this is a recording engulfed in an intense sense of bliss, more at peace than we’ve heard either artist before.

LINTD, a pseudonym of Iyunoluwanimi Yemi-Shodimu, a notable musician from Nigeria, based in Manchester, will release his latest work in 2025 on vinyl from HEAD II, the cutting edge of the London underground. A strange work that can be called a modern dark audio fairy tale, with a strange fusion of gothic sensibility and experimental structure. The acoustic space woven between decadent and mysterious narration, strange beats, distorted melodies and silence is like a dark fable drawn with sound. A sharp and solitary strange work that reminds us of the narration x acoustic structure after Dean Blunt and even the illusion of The Shadow Ring.