Having curated one of our favourite mix series on the internet, the Astral Plane’s move into release with their excellent Heterotopia compilation is all kinds of hype. Alongside Jacques Gaspard Biberkopf sit other Truants faves Air Max ’97, Victoria Kim and Divoli S’vere who all contribute club-ready fireballs. Heterotopia, the theme driving the compilation, refers to Foucault’s conception of alternative political space, utopias of Otherness, difference and plurality existing outside of social hegemony. This idea manifests itself beautifully in clubland, in the cultural safehavens that were the Paradise Garage and Fantazia, that are Vogue Knights, the Battle Groundz and the dark warehouses of Newark. It also manifests itself in the state of liminality we are shrouded with in the club, as well as the embodied rituals of drug use, dance and listening. Though we shouldn’t forget nightlife’s intrinsic ties to the leisure economy, the club space’s ability to foster alternative community and subjectivity is nonetheless an incredibly powerful tool Jacques Gaspard Biberkopf seems to take the theme figuratively, establishing a widescreen architecture that hones in in the absurdity of Jersey club through dehydrated textures and his trademark use of voice. In a far away room, someone tinkers on a piano. As the arms of power continue to strangle public space, whether through surveillance or the monetization of Soundcloud, the Astral Plane remind us of the powerful political agency ‘real’ club space offers.

Heterotopia will be release on October 21, revisit Biberkopf’s Functions of the Now here.