Four stand-out releases in two years is no mean feat but Montreal-based producer Maara has taken to releasing propulsive proggy delights and ethereal downtempo steppers of high quality with absolute ease. Following her debut EP Ultimate Reward on Priori and Ex-Terrestrial’s label NAFF, she’s dropped releases for Isla and Radiant Love plus, more recently, hypnotic, […]
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If you’ve spent any time scouring the web for new techno mixes, you’ve probably come across Smoke Machine in one way or another. The Taiwan-based record label, mix series and events platform has become one of Asia’s finest purveyors of quality techno, largely due to the meticulous curation of their podcast series and their annual […]
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It’s December 2021 and chamber group Manchester Collective are on stage at the Howard Assembly Room in Leeds, undercutting the pomp and posturing innate to all classical venues with their palpable enthusiasm and personable candour. They’re presenting a programme named Heavy Metal, looking to distort sound as well as the performance space itself. First on […]
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Sky H1‘s sound is difficult to pin down, operating somewhere in the half-spaces between ambient, techno, trance and modern forms of “club” music. With releases on labels such as CODES and essential appearances on compilations from PAN and Astral Plane Recordings under her belt, the Belgian artist released her debut album, Azure, on AD 93 […]
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Music’s intrinsic ability to transport its listener is perhaps one of its most admirable qualities. We strive to ‘get lost in the music’: to escape into a sound’s enveloping energy and, perhaps, forfeit sense of time and place. Giving form to this ineffable feeling, Brooklyn producer downstairs J explores sounds both fascinatingly strange and surprisingly […]
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Over the past few years, Civilistjävel! has released a series of magical records. Each 12” has featured a collection of untitled tracks that sit somewhere along a spectrum of ambient smudge. Sounds vary, with dank drones and shocking darts hinting at musique concrète and strange soundtrack or library music. Occasional forays into lumpy techno and […]
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The common thread running through DJ Plead’s career is tough, functional, percussive music, drawing on the rhythms and timbres of his Lebanese heritage for a sound that’s deeply personal yet one that can quickly alight a dance floor. It’s this genre-busting flair of club experiments, nurtured and supported by a crew of like-minded producers based […]
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Danielle has been a key figure in the Bristol coterie for a while now, regularly lending her talents to the city’s ongoing musical developments. Yet her trajectory as a DJ has led her far further than the confines of Bristol over the last five years. Her versatility and multi-faceted skills have led her to take […]
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When we look back at the era from 2015 to now, we doubt there are DJs whose mixes dominated the zeitgeist as much as CCL’s. Through recordings for Unsound, Honey Soundsystem, C-, Discwoman and Blowing up the Workshop, their distinct vision and ability in creating masterful, story-like mixes has resonated far and wide. That’s not […]
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For Bruce, breakthrough releases on Hessle Audio, Idle Hands and Livity Sound were always bound to turn heads, but he’s kept the momentum going in spectacular fashion the last eight years. A large part to this is his distinct ability in manipulating tension and release for either densely textured rhythms to stripped-back, ambient abstractions, but […]
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For the last five years, the DJ and producer partnership of Lou Nour (FKA Imbratura Lou) and Sancha Ndeko has been on a wild ascent. As Sicaria Sound they’ve embraced the two-decade-old lineage of dubstep, and merged their own individual interests of grime, dancehall and soundsystem culture to produce the kind of quiet, careful innovation […]
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Freedom To Spend is a label that takes unheard or underappreciated sounds from decades gone by and repackages and recontextualises them for a new audience. In recent years they have released music from Michele Mercure, Ernest Hood, Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton, Pep Llopis and more. 2021 has seen the label release Tiziano […]
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