MUSIC

In the late 1980s, as techno and house made its way around Europe, mutating as it hopped from city to city, one young DJ from Curacao made a mistake that would inspire a brand new sound. While he was performing at Den Haag's Club Voltage, DJ Moortje accidentally dropped a dancehall track at 45RPM rather than 33, and let it play out. Thirsty for a hi-NRG sound, the crowd loved the squeaky vocals and rapid beat, and bubbling (or bubbling house) was born. For the next couple of decades, bubbling was a crucial part of Holland's Afro-diasporic club landscape. And as a new generation of wide-eyed young DJs and producers began to take the reins, it evolved accordingly. In the late-2000s, Den Haag-based teenage prodigy Guillermo Schuurman followed in the footsteps of his uncle DJ Chippie (one of the genre's co-founders) and cousins DJ Daycard, DJ Master-D, Stiko Jnr and DJ Justme, and began performing and writing beats. Using Fruityloops, he fused familiar bubbling rhythms with rap and R&B samples, trance synths and electro house wobbles, and his tracks quickly became a regular fixture on the Dutch circuit. "Bubbling Inside" is a collection of Schuurman's most essential cuts from the era (2007-2009), with a couple of newer productions added for context. Crafted solely for the dance, most of these tracks were never properly released and have been painstakingly hunted down and collected by the Nyege Nyege Tapes together with Sascha Roth from Pantropical in Rotterdam and De Schuurman himself. Hearing them together highlights just how forward thinking the young producer was, steering a Dutch institution into the future. 2008's 'First One' is a proto-Berghain belter, with booming bass-heavy kicks underpinning the kind of cheeky melodies that remain the calling card of the genre. 'Pier Je Bil!!' ratchets up the tempo, twisting bubbling's syncopated dancehall kicks into a rapid-fire club clatter and decorating them with steel-pan melodies. Elsewhere, 2019's 'Domina' shows how Schuurman's production style has developed as he mutates trap percussion, dubstep bass and eerie synth textures, while retaining the DNA of bubbling. "Bubbling Inside" is a testament to the evolution of the bubbling genre, as witnessed by one of its most visionary producers.

Mohammad Reza Mortazavi (Tombak) & Burnt Friedman (electronics, synth.) release their second EP “YEK 2”.
Equipped with one drum only and laser-pattern–electronics, Mortazavi and Friedman produce delicate, yet archaic, trance–inducing, transnational dance music with“…hints of dust and grain… “. (Freq)

Mortazavi and Friedman move hands and faders according to odd cyclical rhythms with incredible accuracy. The extreme dynamic range and rhythmic congruency of drum and electronics merge both, Mortazavi`s and Friedman’s repertoire entirely.
Complete in [YEK], resisting cultural notions of folklore and territory.

Nicolò's music was born in the foggy winter of the Adriatic coast, and raised in the dusty grooves of Milford Graves LPs. It travelled to London and Berlin, where it collected sweat from crowds dancing in dark basements, leaving it with an organic hue and rhythmic patterns both broken and free. This is bass-driven music from outer space. RRRing The Alarm!

Boundary caught our ears when he was just a 19-year-old, a true genius, he's been making music since he was 13 with a maturity and depth well beyond his years. We're absolutely gassed to get him onto the label with a transcendent LP that hits you right in the feels. Hailing from the Dominican Republic, Boundary leans heavily on all the good stuff from early Detroit techno, UK & Japanese ambient, and leftfield techno, stitching things together with immaculate drum programming, wandering basslines, and ethereal pads. Sometimes brilliantly raw and gritty, at other times delicate and refined, this is an LP that ranges from deep, glassy ambient through to 140 bpm (and beyond!) pumpers. It's classy techno from start to finish, think Aphex Twin meets PLO Man with an early Detroit twist. Limited cassette run and digi, don't miss out!

ASA Arturo Lanz Saverio Evangelista AtomTM are the last three futurists on earth. »Radial« is the result of a vivid creative merge between Esplendor Geométrico and AtomTM. A transparent diamond formed by a heavy implosion. Its underlying massive mechanics are covered by a crystal surface made to cut reality in half. Just one letter short of “radical”, this album is no less than exactly that - an orgy of powerful, blunt repetition and hyperbolic simplicity, a profound evocation of nothingness and its surroundings. The 13 tracks (which comprise the digital full-length version) of »Radial« are the exact expansion of sonic ideas those three artists have explored during the last couple of decades. Unexpectedly so, this makes this production an outstandingly atemporal one - some would even classify it as meta-contemporary. A selection of 10 tracks of the digital full-length album will be released on CD through raster on September 01, whereas an accompanying vinyl release is scheduled for the end of 2023.

Ship to Shore PhonoCo., in conjunction with Sony Music Entertainment, is proud to present Hirokazu Tanaka & Keiichi Suzuki’s original soundtrack to the 1994 Super Famicom classic MOTHER 2: ギーグの逆襲 (MOTHER 2: Gyiyg Strikes Back!). MOTHER 2, released as EarthBound in the West, is revered as one of the most offbeat and memorable RPGs. Citing influence from artists such as Brian Wilson, Frank Zappa and John Lennon, Suzuki and Tanaka created a diverse soundscape quite unlike anything that came before it. Remastered specifically for vinyl and released outside of Japan for the first time ever, MOTHER 2 is a must have for video game music and soundtrack fans.

WAAN represents the musical marriage of seasoned saxophonist Bart Wirtz and keyboard wiz Emiel van Rijthoven. "Echo Echo", the album"s title reflects the relationship between WAAN"s two members. They are the echo of each other"s echo - a symbiotic and never ending musical relationship and far more complex than just being a dance music influenced jazz album.

継続的な研究と探求の道を歩む、実験的な音響作品を出版するためのプラットフォームであるというロンドンの新興レーベル〈Titrate〉からは、同地の実験的ダンス・ミュージック・プロデューサー/レコードコレクターであるHenrique Matiasによるソロ・プロジェクトHemsによる2022年度デビュー・アルバム『Chaotic Affair』がアナログ・リリース。実験的なトーンを軸にしながらも、全体的に瞑想的な雰囲気を持つこの一枚では、リスナーを聴覚的没入へと誘う豊かなテクスチャーが含まれた先鋭的な電子音響/エクスペリメンタル・ディープ・テクノをたっぷりと堪能できます。

大聖地〈Mille Plateaux〉から〈Leaf〉〈Raster-Noton〉までも横断して数々の傑作を生み出した、Mika Vainio (Pan Sonic)とも並ぶフィンランド電子音楽界の一大ヒーローであり、昨今本格的にリリースを活発化させている鬼才Vladislav Delay。 μ-ZIQが運営する〈Warp〉や〈Hyperdub〉と並ぶエレクトロニック・ミュージックの聖地である〈Planet Mu〉から発表した2022年傑作『Isoviha』をストックしました。彼が住むフィンランドのハイルオト島から北へ1000キロ離れた北極圏の自然と音世界を個人的に考察した『Rakka』の2タイトルと対をなすアルバム。人工文明への回帰を示し、『Rakka』よりも複雑な世界を提示するハイパーモダンなミュージック・コンクレート傑作盤！

Aaron Anderson & Chris Hontos with Leonard King, William Statler, Chris Farstad and Eric Timothy Carlson. Mastered by Jack Callahan.

Where is Agartha? What is the specific region in which it lies? Along what road, through what civilizations, must one walk in order to reach it?.’ Saint-Yves d’Alveydre in 1886 Agartha, the debut full-length album by Japanese producer Wata Igarashi, is a mysterious, divine thing. Named for the mythical secret kingdom, understood as a complex maze of underground tunnels, perhaps designed by Martians who colonised the Earth tens of thousands of years ago, it’s a similarly mystical, perhaps even cosmic trip – but this time, exploring an inner, deeply personal cosmos. Beautifully detailed and bustling with rich incident, it takes Igarashi’s music to new places, which still retaining his unique sonic imprimatur; in this respect, it’s perfectly at home with Kompakt, a label that’s always encouraged artists to make the visionary music they need to create, to take risks and make sideways steps into uncharted territory. An eloquent producer and DJ, Igarashi has been releasing techno for eleven years now, appearing on such imprints as The Bunker NY, Delsin, Midgar, and Time To Express; he has also self-released his productions via his WIP net label. Throughout, Igarashi has consistently explored his unique approach to techno and electronic music, one that’s eloquent and poised, even when it shifts into more psychedelic terrain; he’s a master at balancing the sensual and the functional, and he has an unerring ear for the right texture, the right tone, at the right time. He brings all of this into Agartha, his most thorough-going expression of self to date. For Agartha, Igarashi had a strong concept he wanted to explore. Visualising specific scenes from an imaginary film based on the titular secret kingdom, he created soundtracks for those scenes, spending time during the pandemic in his studio, working away carefully at the ten tracks here. Given his background in creating music for television and advertisements, Igarashi is well-placed to explore the marriage of the sonic and the visual in such intimate ways, but freed from commercial concerns, he let his imagination run riot. He also drew on a rich palette of musical influences – techno is in there, of course, but you can also hear the smoky, improvised jazz of the likes of Miles Davis (to whom the album’s title is an indirect nod), and the minimalism and systems music of Steve Reich. The latter is particularly pronounced on the gorgeous, beatless drift of “Floating Against Time”, where an arpeggiated sequence lingers, lovingly, around your ears for nine blissful minutes, coasting across swooning drones and waves of ambient noise. “Ceremony Of The Dead”, originally composed as part of a Sony 360 Reality Audio spatial sound concert, is a deep pass into systems composition, with various patterns overlaid and interlocking, before a wordless vocal rises from the depths, a gorgeous counterpoint to the swarming textures that gather across the track. On the other hand, tracks like “Burning” and “Subterranean Life” nudge toward Fourth World territory, painting deluxe dreamscapes of uncertain provenance; the title cut is an abstract drift-world, Igarashi painting an alien tableau dotted by shape-shifting creatures. Agartha’s conceptual framework means that everything on the album sits perfectly together; listening to it in one sitting is a dizzying, lush experience. Its imaginings of inner landscapes recall, in some respects, the nautical, aqueous mythologies of the Drexciyan universe, though from different perspectives. But the result is Igarashi’s own creation, a deluxe, enchanting trip through the visionary Agartha of this unique producer’s cinematic mind’s-eye.

Berlin party series and label AWAY Music continues its limited vinyl series called "Reissued", dedicated to re-releasing iconic cuts from the vast collaborative catalog of Move D & Pete Namlook. The third instalment "Reissued 3", which follows the series' first two EPs from previous years, features again some exceptional pieces that were previously only available on CD.

Written and produced by Laurel Halo
Mixed by Cole MGN
Mastered by Jason Goz at Transition

Laurel Halo - Piano, synth, vibraphone, guitaret, vocals
Eli Keszler - Drum kit, dumbek, glockenspiel
Max D - Cowbell (Jelly)
Klein - Vocals (Sun to Solar, Jelly)
Lafawndah - Vocals (Jelly, Syzygy)
Michael Salu - Vocals (Who Won?)
Craig Clouse - Wurlitzer (Who Won?, Syzygy, Like an L, Do U Ever Happen)
Julia Holter - Cello (Do U Ever Happen)
Michael Beharie - Electric guitar (Moontalk)
Diamond Terrifier - Tenor saxophone (Arschkriecher, Who Won?)

“Sun to Solar” lyrics adapted from “Servidão de Passagem” by Haroldo de Campos (Something Else Press / Primary Information)

This recording was made at and with the support of the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.

Album design by Bureau Mirko Borsche
Photography by Phillip Aumann

Laurel Halo's debut album

Giant Swan's Robin Stewart returns to Trilogy Tapes with a new solo album and a new moniker, twisting warehouse techno into psychedelic, suspended bumps 'n grinds that never lose sight of the sticky dancefloor. RIYL Blawan, Regis, Rhyw or Rrose. Stewart steps up his solo game on 'When A Worm Wears A Wig'; he's been releasing material under his own name since 2016, but re-badging his productions as RS Tangent feels like an intentional line in the sand. The album appears on Trilogy Tapes, who released his dubby 2020 EP 'Time Travel', but where that set honed in on stifling vapors and cavernous reverberations, this latest long-form suite cuts back on the FX and focuses on bone-dry and unpredictable ADHD rhythmic pressure. Stewart makes techno, but refuses to take the easy route. On 'Manic Balance', the kickdrum is drowned out by galloping, squelchy synth vamps and distant vocal snips wrapped around Berghain-ready sine subs that sound as if they could level a small building. If you're searching for floor-filling, industrial pressure, 'Bovine Overbite' should convince you that you're in the right place. A thundering 4/4 that's interrupted by deliriously psychedelic percussion, it's a backroom jam that uses the language of big-room tech to challenge the status quo. There's parallels to be drawn with Batu and Metrist's cracked, controlled chaos too, but it's the pneumatic grind of Brummie techno that casts the longest shadow on 'When A Worm...', with Surgeon's scientific slop guiding tracks like 'Emperor Worm' and the itchy 'Swimmer's Ear', and Regis's pitch-black shuffle hypnotising 'Primitive Paste'. When Stewart careens off course, like on 'Youth Scene Butcher Dub', he lets his propulsive jams dissolve into the aether, bringing out the rhythmic texture of his machines in the same way Rrose did on this summer's brilliant 'Please Touch'. And on 'Touch the Tap', the producer imagines a reality where minimal techno and bassline exist in the same continuum, adding a low end throb that wouldn't sound out of place in deepest, darkest Deutschland. Hard, heavy, and winningly tongue-in-cheek - just the way we like it.

Composed and recorded in London and Tristan da Cunha during 2022 and 2023. Trumpet on track 1 by Abraham Parker, additional strings on track 3 by Otto Von Lumi, programming on track 4 by Big Hands. Limited to 300 copies.

Eaux proudly announces the second full length solo LP from Rrose, Please Touch, released on vinyl, CD, and digital download in June 2023. The LP follows 2019’s Hymn to Moisture in ways that are both subtle and striking: Please Touch further hones the artist’s tensile sound while exploring new aesthetic vistas and basking in an undeniably erotic sense of play. Moving with undulating power, the album’s nine tracks drift across tempos from a weightless 0 bpm to a crawling 100 to a lunging 140 and back, with a rich palette of sculpted noise and cross-talking microtones. Rrose’s compositional process, rooted in their studies with West Coast avant garde trailblazers at Mills College, centers on “seed” sounds being fed through elaborate webs of interrelated audio processing. The result is a world where changes in any one element have downstream implications for some or all the others. It’s a rich interdependence that lets the tracks breathe, grow and mutate with uncanny organicism. Please Touch addresses in equal measure the perceptual and the corporeal: these are sounds that sink into the body, exhibiting a tactility that pushes, pulls, bends and yields with fearsome vibrancy. The album splits its time between radical techno iterations and pieces which pare back the percussion, letting the synth textures uncurl in their own time and space. The quivering drone and rolling sub-bass of “Joy of the Worm’’ set the tone for the record, while “Rib Cage,” Spore" and “Spines ” swing with stepping rhythmic underpinnings. Building with finely calibrated tension, they use their few elements to startling, snarling effect. “Pleasure Vessels” is a rare moment of becalmed introspection in Rrose’s oeuvre, hinting at a melodic ambiance that is practically unseen in previous works. It glows with a soft, dawn-like light before dissolving into a tidal fizz. “The Illuminating Glass’’ brings the tempo down to a languorous chug, nodding its way through a field of glistening chirps and leaden gasps. “Feeding Time,” “Disappear” and album closer “Turning Blue’’ meanwhile nod to the cerebral psychedelia of Rrose’s forebears, with mesmeric, looping textures and long, magisterial tones not dissimilar to the spectral works of James Tenney (whose work Rrose regularly performs) and the deep listening pieces of Pauline Oliveros. The title of the album refers playfully to the tactile quality of the music while hinting at a forbidden sensuality that is only permitted within the confines of this microcosm. The phrase is also another nod to Marcel Duchamp, who gave this title to a 1947 exhibition of Surrealist art.

One of the first artists from outside of Africa to sign to Hakuna Kulala, WULFFLUW XCIV brings his borderless productions to the label's ongoing Whitelabel series following a slew of dancefloor agitations from T5UMT5UMU, Menzi & Scratchclart, and others. "Toxica EP" builds on the mutant fusion of 2020's acclaimed "Ngoma Injection", stripping back the woozy psychedelia and chromium ambience and replacing it with pure soundsystem pressure. 'Take a Ride' bends acid techno machinery around rubbery East African rhythms, anchoring block party hedonism with a 4/4 bump that wouldn't be out of place in Kreuzberg and vocal shakes straight from São Paulo. But this isn't a mindless mashup of aesthetics, its a conversation with the world's fringe agitators, using stylistic and rhythmic strokes to highlight commonality, not exclusivity.Hakuna Kulala's own Chrisman appears on 'Tetemeka', and the two producers adapt the syrupy tarraxinha inversions the Congolese engineer perfected on last year's "Makila" full-length. Low, resonant gqom atmospheres underpin the entire track, but WULFFLUW XCIV's squeaky toy synths prevent it from slipping into darkness. Elsewhere 'Kluck' distorts the timeline completely, wedging flute-led Latin American tribal sounds into a riddim vs. trap superstructure, and 'Exp' sublimes speed dembow into delirious trance and minimal techno vapors. The boundaries between dance subgenres are slowly dissolving, and WULFFLUW XCIV's digital-era intermixture sounds like the cyberpunk carnival we're all desperately in need of.

Words as mirrors in a framework of clatter shape the arches to VOICE ACTOR’s pavilion. Surrounded by offerings of flowers, a construction is shown. The unusual compact scale conforms to tiny standards for intimate listening. All is half-height, so the visitor has to enter on hands and knees. From the verandah a crumbling, overgrown statue can be glimpsed, pointing at the pond nearby. The water is framed by a soundfence of endless space nobody can leap, a tree branch repetitively dips into it from above. Visitors can be seated on large rocks and have the surprising pleasure of hearing tear-stained but triumphant hearts sing.'

As Young Druid, John T. Gast distills his most endearing Midi-eval energies into a suite of LED candle-lit fugues and funky Myrdas, making a sterling follow-up to his UVA_roots_and_destruction mixtape for Richard Sides’ Bus and the INNA BABALON tape in 2016, which was also self-issued on his 5 Gate Temple label. Concocted from a bank of recordings alchemised on one box and a two-track recorder, Young Druid follows 12 ley-lines of investigation with findings equally applicable to occult soirees and the downtime of amateur archaeologists and tyrannical trap lords alike; conjuring a haul of exquisitely ornate, glyphic hooks, gilded dub grooves and smoked-out chamber themes of a supremely rarified yet earthly air. They bear a striking resemblance to the bright, poised baroque MIDI orchestrations of Coil as much as King Tubby’s classic digi dubs, splitting the fine difference between K. Leimer’s new age experiments and Roland Young’s mystiphonic experiments or even Wiley and Geneeus’ early grime etudes; essentially divining an obscure, arcane and meditative sense of spirituality that transcends time and place with a broad appeal to armchair and headphone-dwelling mystics of all stripes. If you need any prompts, check the creamy luft of Young Druid for a start, then the cross-eyed invocation of Fugue and the Jammer-meets-kenji Kawai stepper, Myrda, and Blue’s exquisite trip hop pallor and you should have a good measure of the variety and consistency of mood and vibe therein. Strongly recommended.

Palestre is a study of higher-dimensional spaces and altered states of consciousness. It explores parallel dimensions and temporal anomalies from a perspective that blends mythology, modern physics, ADHD, transcendental music and club culture. Sciogli Assurdi was recorded between art galleries, clubs, squats, and folkloric festivities in 2018.

Utterly unmissable first ever reissue of SND’s god-tier triple pack, cruelly out of print since 2008, now finally available to discerning dancers/DJs - packing a pinnacle of avant-dance beat science certain to connect with fans of garage, UKF, footwork and experimental techno. If yr into owt from Beatrice Dillon to Timbaland, Ryoji Ikeda to El-B, Autechre to The Neptunes - this is a must have. A peerless masterclass in nanoscopic funk editing, ‘4,5,6’ has never been bettered in our books. It originally arrived as a limited pressing of 300 x 3LPs in 2008 but has been sorely notable by its lack of availability ever since, often leading us to offer wild handed descriptions to bewildered mates, who, even if they looked for 2nd hand copies, would still be stumped as nobody in their right mind is selling a set. However that is all corrected with this new edition, representing one of the most crucial reissues of the decade and an unmissable opportunity to revel in some of Mark Fell and Mat Steel’s finest work, bar none. When it landed in 2008, a decade after SND’s seminal early trio of self-releases, ‘4,5,6’ took our heads off. It marked a leap in form from their self explanatory ‘Tender Love’ LP of 2002 with a return to their early EPs’ avant club focus, but drawing on processes and tekkers they had sharply refined over the interim. Aspects of the deep house, garage and computer music that originally inspired them were rendered inside out, revealing and recalibrating their mechanics in something like an iridescent Haynes manual you could dance to, or simply marvel at if the legs weren’t willing. It stood out a mile from the rote minimal techno and dubstep of the time, which had started moving in the “future garage” direction by 2008, and effectively gave the sharpest side-eye to that sound, innovating-not-imitating in order to update and galvanise the original ‘90s forms with visionary mix of pointillist and mercurial flex. But, no mistake, for all its radical restructuring of garage and related styles, the results aren’t intended for chin stroking: they’re a direct, physically urgent extension of Mark and Mat’s deeeep love of dance and electronic music, itself rooted in original synth-pop/industrial and the first wave of US deep house/garage/techno that took their generation, and cities such as Sheffield, by the balls. In 2023, the ten tracks of ‘4,5,6’ are effectively equidistant from the original wave and now, and uncannily stand futureproofed by their vacuum-sealed reductionism and metallic lustre. However in many cases they’re still too much for DJs who all too often patronise their crowds with predictable pap. But if you’re a rare one, the likes of ‘C1’ are utterly primed to get fader chopped with early Roska riddims, and ‘E1’ is waiting to be threaded with Autechre and El-B’s most advanced funk, while the rest offers myriad options for interpretation at the craftiest hands. Basically, if you don’t already know this stuff; no excuses.

The Black Dog's highly regarded album, Radio Scarecrow, is now remastered and re-issued on Dust Science, 15 years after its original release on Soma Records. Two years of constant development culminated in a masterpiece that flows delightfully and hits hard. Marking a true progression from the band's previous album, Silenced, the trio are keen to note: "The beats are faster and the bass is much heavier - so much so, that it was making us ill, working with the low frequencies for hours on end. We could only do 3 hours at a time on some parts." Tracks like Floods v3.9 and Beep are a testament to this. With throbbing basslines strong enough to make an impact on the Richter scale, these tracks are best played out on big sound systems. Radio Scarecrow unfolds gracefully, barely skipping a beat between tracks. The act have created an album that demands to be listened to in its entirety. With elements blending between tracks (the same kick drum being used to very different means in Short Wave Lies and Siiiipher for example) and with constant references to conspiracy theories and the supernatural, The Black Dog present more than a collection of tracks. Influenced heavily by their interest in Magick, Numbers Stations and Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP), the act have hidden examples of these within their work. "These transmissions and recordings (and people's interpretations of them) had a strong influence on many of the final concepts and compositions, to the point where we've been embedding coded messages and curses deep inside the tracks". "These transmissions and recordings (and people's interpretations of them) had a strong influence on many of the final concepts and compositions, to the point where we've been embedding coded messages and curses deep inside the tracks".