Track Of The Day: Jonny L - This Time (Carl Craig Mix 1) (XL)

 

One of Carl Craig’s finest I think. It reminds me a lot of his version of ‘Domina’. Everything is wonderful; the breakbeats show a real lightness of touch and the backing track feels like muslin on speed. There’s so much going on in this track that it feels rather short at eight minutes. I wish I still had my copy, but it’s “lost in time, like tears in the rain”. The vibes are amazing, and by that I mean both “the vibes” and the glockenspiel, or is it the xylophone, that guides the track in. Amazing vocal, especially the little “ooh, ooh” that comes in just when you think it’s gone forever. Big umbrella statement, but no one is making anything as interesting as this nowadays. I’m not a reactionary btw. I just know. An emotive voyage through the darkness and into the light.

GoodMostlyBad-Baby-3-0-EP (Human Endeavour)

 

Title: Baby 3.0 EP

Artist: GoodMostlyBad

Label: Human Endeavour

Cat Number: HE015

Genre: Eponymous

1: Baby Gurl

2: Cam Gurl

3: Home Gurl

“With Baby 3.0 , GoodMostlyBad explores tech house and electro-leaning sounds with a renewed sense of energy, playfulness and purpose.” Well, we’re already in uncharted territory here aren't we. I guess this comes down to what the listener perceives as ‘tech-house’. A recently much-maligned genre which has estranged anyone who knows anything about its origins from the terminology. Anyway, I’m already struggling with this so lets stick to the sounds. ‘Baby Gurl’ is the pick of the bunch. A solemn stop though the low end undergrowth. Plenty of space between the grooves and a modicum of funk. So far, so good. ‘Cam Gurl’ feels lighter and more airy. BPMs are raised and urgency injected. Both tracks so far are pretty functional, with the upward curve in tempo not doing any favours. And then we’ve got ‘Home Gurl’ which continues to hurry things along, albeit with more force, further sacrificing any residual groove in the name of nimbleness and a lightness of touch. There are some interesting sounds throughout the three tracks here, with ‘Baby Gurl’ being by far the most useful tune, but I’m struggling to hear “tech house and electro-leaning sounds”. Maybe I need to go back to the drawing board.

Track Of The Day: Model 600 - Update Version.ur (Metroplex)

 

It’s awful that on the death of someone the stimulus is to go through the back catalogue in a random way and cherry pick. Such is life though. That said, hen the back catalogue is as rich as that of Juan Atkins its a relatively easy task. Here he slips into his little used Model 600 guise and gets together with Mad Mike to produce a piece of hard-edged electro of the type that only a holy union between the two could produce. “I like your update Model 6-0-0” is the subliminal refrain. And everything falls into place as only a union between two of Detroit’s heavyweights can. One of the YouTube comments takes the biscuit “The vocoder in this is so cold and sick that it must have hypothermia”, and it really can’t be put any better. This is weapons grade electro, and always ahead of the curve.

Track Of The Day: Model 50 - The Flow (R & S)

Maybe not a track that many reach for in the Juan Atkins canon, but, for me at least, an underrated classic. Nad that takes into account this excellent, kitsch video. Visually it’s got the “going back to look forward” aesthetic down to a tee. It looks like it’s walked straight out of the same studios were Gerry Anderson’s much slept on ‘UFO’ was made. There are some great eighties fashions that somehow seeped into the nineties and at some points it feels like you’re watching a version of ‘Mad Men’ on crack. The sound design is incredibly lush and immersive with the synth washes perfectly evoking the aquatic aspects portrayed in the video, and the electro filigrees running over the top are very well defined. All in all, under appreciated.

Dresden (Ivan Smagghe & Manfredas) live at Sweet Spot, Paradise City 2026

Paradise City Festival · Dresden (Ivan Smagghe & Manfredas) live at Sweet Spot, Paradise City 2026

In-studio: Intergalactic Gary (24 Oct 26)

 

SutroFM · In-studio: Intergalactic Gary (24 Oct 26)

Track Of The Day: Vernon Douglas Meets Tyler Lewis - Right, Right (Deepen Discs)

 

One that I thought was lost forever but then reappeared at random in the alleys of my mind. This track makes up in energy what it lacks in bass. Anyone mixing it needs to layer it over something with a great low end. It’s peak time stuff, which is why, in spite of its repetitiousness, it doesn’t get boring. Kirk out.

Poul Verner - Nowawes 2 (Nowawes)

 

Title: Nowaves2

Artist: Poul Verner

Label: Nowaves

Cat Number: Nowaves2

Genre: Dub Techno

A: Choose Your Future

B: Choose Life

Both tracks here offer slightly different takes on the dub techno aesthetic. ‘Choose Your Future’ is sub 120BPM voyage through dense layers of analogue warmth. It’s a track to get lost in and feels lie its been constructed from spider webs, such is its apparent fragility and longevity. ‘Choose Life’ picks up the pace and adds levity to the mix. Both pieces feel like contrasting journeys through darkness and light and they aren’t over quickly, which is good, as their potential for layering other, more lively tunes in the mix can be fully realised. That being said, there is enough imagination and invention in each tune to make them stand out on their own.

Track Of The Day: Cybotron - Alleys Of Your Mind (Deep Space Records)

 

‘Alleys Of Your Mind’ can lay claim to be the first ‘techno’ single. The eternal debate is whether it is really electro, and are the two genres inseparable. Yes to the second question, and no to the first. It’s very much a product of its environment and time. The sounds that are used could be heard if one listened to the likes of Giorgio Moroder, Depeche Mode or Ultravox. And this particular track is rumoured to have been inspired by the latter’s ‘Mr X’. Which it resembles a slowed down version of. Sort of recorded in treacle. The direction that this music was to take though, coming out of Detroit, was completely different than that from its European influences. Tracks like this were the template for electro, hip-hop, house and techno. It’s not overstating things to say that even though it wasn’t the first to utilise such sounds, its probably one of the most catalysing and influential tunes ever recorded. The artists behind it, Juan Atkins and Richard Davies, had this idea and brought their own mindset and backgrounds into play in order to give it life. Juan Atkins went on to establish himself as one of the fathers of a movement which, even though he is now no longer with us, will live on.

Hackney Electronica - Feedback Memory (Dark Entries)

 

Title: Feedback Memory

Artist: Hackney Electronica

Label: Dark Entries

Cat Number: DE-358

Genre: Electronica

1: Feedback Memory

2: Six Foot Seven

3: Lost Trip-Destino

4: Trapped In The Circuit

5: Compressed Air

Hackney Electronica, a trio of “Quinn Whalley (Paranoid London), Unai Trotti (Cartulis Music), and Margo Broom (Hermitage Working Studios)” first released on Dark Entires in spring last year, so this is their follow up which is, it’s fair to say, varied. Electronic muscles are flexed and they deliver, if you like that sort of thing. ‘Feedback Memory’ opens proceedings with a piece of linear funk that does its best to go off the rails even chance it gets. ‘Six Foot Seven’ chugs along but isn’t that different in essence from its predecessor. The BPMs have been slowed down, but the percussion is more emphatic and the sound design more minimal, allowing the spoken word to take centre stage. ‘ Lost Trip-Destino’ feels like electro on crack and, as such, is very good indeed. Haunting even. ‘Trapped In The Circuit’ raises the temperature a little, and comes across as very urgent compared to what has gone before. Two sides of the same electro coin. ‘Compressed Air’ finishes the package by smudging the sonic envelope into halfway between beats and the imagination.

Track Of The Day: Blunted Dummies - House For All (Definitive)

 

Elegant in its simplicity innit. ‘House Music For All’ has an unforgettable hook which rests up three or four core elements, at least that’s what I can identify. The point is that, as one of the Discogs comments goes: “Still sounds fresh as hell today and is a testament to the fact that it doesn't take 1,000 synth lines and build ups at once to fill a floor.” And from another comment: “the original contains samples of the following tracks:

- beats from "Earth People - Dance" (1990)

beats from "Brand Nubian - All For One" (1990)

- synth + rides from "Bobby Konders - The Poem" (1990)

- vocals from "The Blackbyrds - Happy Music" (1975)

vocals from "A Tribe Called Quest - Check The Rhime" (1991) 

maybe also the title was inspired by that Brand Nubian album ("One For All" -> "House For All”).”

In any case, we’ve all been on a dance floor at some time somewhere and heard the omnipresent vocal sample that this tune is built around. It doesn’t get deeper than that because it doesn’t need to. That underlines its existence as a perfect piece of layering that doesn’t need layering. Listening to this track you’re constantly waiting for something to happen, which doesn’t. In the end it’s unnecessary, but the tension and it not getting out of second gear builds and builds until its impossible to ignore. The only thing that would improve it would be to make a longer edit, but maybe the stress of waiting for it to explode would then be too much.

Track Of The Day: Nuages - Move (F Comm)

 

Nuages were Ludovic Navarre and Shazz. Two of the founding fathers of French house and sonic polymaths. This track from their ‘Blanc EP’ is a great piece of protocol wild pitch. So much so that I wouldn’t be surprised that, in some parallel world, DJ P[erre admitted that this is what inspired him. Anyway, it’s possible for more than one person to have the same great idea. ‘Move’ is elegant in its simplicity. Vocal sample which are gents, groans and cries combine with loping percussion, synth washes and that dominant wild pitch stab to create a track that has echoes of techno and garage but which is undeniably house. Pitch it down ever so slightly and give it an extra two minutes and it’s presque parfait. One of the other tracks on this EP, ‘No Work Today’ was featured on these pages almost exactly three years ago. There must be something in the autumnal air.

Track Of The Day: Son.sine - Karuna (Nurture/Delsin)

 

One of those tracks that if you’re not playing it on vinyl, you’ll be asked why. That’s not because one format is automatically thought to be superior to the other. Just that the brittleness of this recording causes it to capture every little blemish in the ether. This is highlighted by everything being thrown into sharp relief by the kick, something that also doesn’t manage to escape the high end heist. It’s another dub techno record Jim, but not quite as we know it. Everything shimmers on this record, which isn’t something that one normally writes about this genre. One which seems to have had no embryonic passage, or pupating stage. I love the way the percussion suddenly gathers momentum at around the halfway mark. Something which gives the track a new leash of life and, in some way, does mark a stage of advanced development. Only this concerns the specific tune though, and not the whole genre. The sounds are very familiar of course, but they’ve been put through a blender of sorts rendering them into some sort of spiky, flat relief. Now I know that is an oxymoron, but it’s all I could think of in a bid to say something original about a genre which in spite of its relative uniformity, still manages to confound. Music for looking out over a dark horizon.

Voyage De Lux w/ Alex Downey - 28.10.26

1BTN · Voyage De Lux w/ Alex Downey - 28.10.26

Dub Cleanse 4

 

isitbalearic..? · Dub Cleanse 4

Track Of The Day: Donnacha Costello - Pistachio B (Minimise)

 

It’s. Ore than twenty years ago that the ‘Colours’ series was released on Irish producer Donnacha Costello’s own Minimise label. It was clever marketing because something in the record buyers psyche would mean that one would never be content with owning a few of them. It was all or nothing. Thankfully this was also an easy choice as the music is brilliant. Emerging around the time that the minimal movement was starting to gain some momentum, it rode that wave but was always a little bit more well-rounded. And this from the ‘Pistachio’ release shows why. It’s well-crafted dub-techno with extra layers. Like a perfectly baked mille-feuille, it just keeps on giving. Layer after layer it unfolds revealing something that little bit different on every level. I’m waiting for the whole series to start appearing in random sets so that the prices rise exponentially. Because at the moment they’re dirt cheap.

Track Of The Day: Popol Vuh - Aguirre I (l'acrime di rei) (Cosmic Music)

From Herzog’s incredible ‘Aguirre, The Wrath Of God’, and another contribution to a Herzog film on these pages, Popol Vuh’s spellbinding, symphonic medieval wall of sound is a proper trip. If you haven’t seen the film, put it on your list. It, like the music, is a truly transcendental experience.

Track Of The Day: Reedale Rise - Littoral Zone (Delsin)

 

While I’m readjusting to normal life after Sheffield, here’s a lovely piece of sublime profundity from Reedale Rise. Simon Kent, aka Mr Rise, is from Liverpool and early in his career produced some lovely pieces of deep electro and mid-nineties UK IDM-inspired goodness, like this. It’s one of those releases that I forgot I owned, and am obviously very glad I do. Saying the unsaid in such an eloquent, electronic way, it’s one of those tracks that sounds like the machines are in communion with themselves, producing a sophisticated language that no one really understands, while communicating with each other through melancholic, melodic vibes. A great one to open or close a set with. Or, should you so desire, to accompany for sitting in the library of Babel, surrounded by ancient tomes and sipping a strong, smoky Armagnac. 

Track Of The Day: Gazelle Twin - Belly Of The Beast (Anti-Ghost Moon Ray Records)

 

Last night I was in Sheffield to see Cabaret Voltaire’s final UK gig. And while it was great, emotional, all those things you would expect, I remember the performance of the support act, Gazelle Twin, just as much. And I’[m annoyed because I didn’t catch all of her set. Just the final twenty minutes or so. Still it was more than enough to elect a lot of interest. In the short time she was on stage I was completely transfixed. A compelling, sonically unique performer.

Tracks Of The Weekend: Cabaret Voltaire - Spread The Virus (Rough Trade) & Sandoz - Dark Continent (Touch)

 

 

  

A nice double bill here. As myself and the missus are tracking up to Sheffield later today for Cabaret Voltaire’s last ever gig, (so they say), here are two tracks that won’t be played. The first is a classic from ‘Red Mecca’, highlighting Steven Mallinder’s growling vocals and Richard Kirk’s sax. The other is A Kirk solo effort. The former engenders a sense of latent paranoia in spite of the beats and momentum. The second couldn’t be more different in tone, and is dreamlike in parallel with grooviness. Both works of genius, both incredibly influential and moving. We shall never see their like again.

Track Of The Day: Thomas Melchior - Feel Sensual (Perlon)

 

One from the early days of Perlon. Minimal before minimal. Having said that there’s plenty going on here. Of course it’s the eponymous vocal sample that grabs the attention first, but closer listening reveal a myriad of sonic activity. The percussion is what most stands out, but under the hi-hats you’ve got a guitar that sounds like a sitar, a laid-back sub bass and an undulating, indefinable floater. It sounds like the sound a short wave radio might make when overheating. It skips along a bit too quickly for me, so I’d pitch it down a tadge. 

Track Of The Day: LFO - Psycodelik (Warp)

 

Keeping it Yorkshire innit. LFO are from Sheffield and they are worth a comparison with Cabaret Voltaire not just for geographical reasons. So much of their output goes under the radar.’Psycodelik’, for their second album ‘Advance’ being a case in point. I bought this album pretty much on its day of release. However, it’s been so long since I listened to it that I’ve forgotten any specifics. ‘Psycodelik’ sounds like dance floor techno composed by a hybrid of The BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Jean-Michel Jarre. What it lacks in bass it more than makes up for in self-consciously affected space age high end effects and a sense of the euphoric. A great track from an album that I shall be revisiting before travelling up to Sheffield on Sunday.

Track Of The Day: Cabaret Voltaire - Sluggin' Fer Jesus Pt 1 & 2 (Les Disques Du Crépuscule)

 

Two for the price of one. One of Cabaret Voltaire’s finest earlier moments (by that I mean before the got groovier). Described as industrial in some quarters, when it sounds the opposite. Very primitive and organic. It can’t have been easy to get the machines to discover their inner organisms. This is a piece of tribal electronica which probably wrote most of 23 Skidoo’s nascent output for them. It’s a sampling masterclass that in turns reeks of cold war espionage and tribal funk. I’m off to Sheffield on Sunday for what is supposed to be their last ever gig. I don’t think they’ll perform this. It’ll probably be ‘Voice Of America’. Two sides of the same coin.

Track Of The Day: Giorgio Moroder - Paul's Theme (Jogging Chase) (UMG Recordings)

 

Feeling a little lazy today, so here’s something from ‘Cat People’ that sort of fits the bill. That is to say my name’s Paul and I’m about to go out running. Not jogging, that seventies/eighties fad invented by the target of Bill Hicks’ ire, Jim Fixx. I don’t have the leg warmers or head band. And is there a more eighties actress than Nastassia Kinski? She came and went. Where is she now I wonder? She’s still with us and she’s ]older than me! That feels odd. I’ve only ever viewed her through the prism of that decade and ‘Paris Texas’, ‘Tess’ and this film. Giorgio Moroder pulls out another one of his inimitable electric sagas. Has this ever been edited or extended? I’m a bit too lazy to look. The time is now though.

BLUR w/ Sansibar @ Kiosk Radio 17.10.2026

 

Forward x Euphorie present Vera @ Kiosk Radio 10.10.2026

 

Track Of The Day: Headman - Be Loved (Daniel Avery's 'Divided Love' Remix) (Relish)

 

I’ve just come across this very recent Daniel Avery remix of Headman’s ‘Be Loved’, and had to post it. If, for nothing else, nostalgia’s sake. I had quite a few Headman records a while back, but they seem to have vanished. I think they may have all been taken in the great flood of spring 2016, when I lost around a quarter of my collection courtesy of a small pipe which went into the bathroom sink suddenly bursting when we were in France. Luckily one of my sons was passing the house at the time and he thought he’d pop in for some free nosh. Imagine his surprise top enter the kitchen to get showered and to soon find around an inch of water on the floor.I was in Monet’s garden in Giverny at the time, were it was also pissing down. Having to arrange an emergency plumber from another country wasn’t part of the plan, but we got it done. I dread to think what would have happened if the leak had gone undiscovered. Anyway, I lost a lot of records, amongst other stuff, including my collection of Headman heat. Luckily we’ve got people like Daniel Avery who are up for a reinterpretation. And this is truly excellent. A slo-mo bleep fest that pulses its way across the dance floor using a combination of low end sonar and high end brittleness. Losing my Headman records wasn’t my happiest moment, but it’s good to see a and hear that the chug and bleeps remain intact.

Luxus Varta - Super Filter (In Abstracto)

 

Title: Super Filter

Artist: Luxus Varta

Label: In Abstracto

Cat Number: IA05

Genre: Electro

1: Shadow Play

2: Heavy Cream

3: Easy Listening

4: Tragic Fit

Monsewer Varta’s music isn’t the easiest to categorise, and I guess he probably likes it that way. Electro is just a sobriquet because although it feels like that, it’s so much more. ‘Shadow Play’ for example, relies on break beats to propel it through the thick, dark water that infuses the sonic underpass, but it feels like a reinterpretation of a Sisters Of Mercy record played through the apex of a Naum Gabo sculpture. ‘Heavy Cream’, the title alone feels radioactive, breathes like a Geiger Counter draped in menacing black underwear. Now when I think of easy listening, I think of Val Doonican and Perry Como. However, this eponymously titled track sounds like the accompaniment to a Vampire getting up for a midnight stroll with only one thing on its mind. ‘Tragic Fit’ is possibly the most conventional electro piece on the release, but it feels like it was composed by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, put in a centrifuge and then passed on to John Barry to see if he “could do something with it”. It’s possibly the best track on this release, but it’s all good. Just make sure you’re in the mood and it’s Hallowe’en. 

Call Super @TheLotRadio 10-16-2026

 

Track Of The Day: Brainticket - Black Sand (Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah)

 

Brainticket have been buried deep within the recesses of my mind for at least forty years. I first came across them during the scag years. Synthetic heroin flooded Merseyside in the late seventies and early eighties. I wasn’t a participant, but I knew some who were. There was also a rush on very strong cough medicines at the same time. Actifed and Phensedyl being particular favourites. Anyway, if you couldn’t get hold of any scag or methadone, you could try your local pharmacy and see what they had. If they saw you coming, then more frustration would await. Once equipped, back to a squalid flat or bedsit to be accompanied by Hawkweed or some other far out purveyor of sonic bliss. The organ stabs on ‘Black Sand’ are instantly recognisable, and take me back to a place I don’t want to revisit. I got out alive though.

Track Of The Day: Mondocane - Touring (Cosmovision Records)

 

Simple psychedelic chug just the way it was meant to be. It’s a deceptively minimal arrangement which makes good use of some off-key dynamics and a persistent, almost under the radar guitar riff to drive it along. Not much more to say, except I’m stunned that the video has only had four likes in the three years since it was posted. One of those being me.

Naturalis 2026 Earth Stage with Vladimir Ivkovic b2b Manfredas

Naturalis Festival · Naturalis 2026 Earth Stage with Vladimir Ivkovic b2b Manfredas

XDB - Live From Dimensions '26

Dimensions Festival · XDB - Live From Dimensions '26

Hamish & Toby - Live From Dimensions '26

 

Dimensions Festival · Hamish & Toby - Live From Dimensions '26

Various Artists - Filaments (Silver Threads)

 

Title: Filaments

Artist: V/A

Label: Silver Threads

Cat Number: STo4

Genre: Ambient

1 Blush Tide - Cate Francesca Brooks

2 Say More - Bea Brennan

3 Nangan Island - Ryan J Raffa

4 Between Voids - Jo Johnson

5 Hold, Together - Jo Johnson & Hilary Robinson

6 Trompos - Mareena

7 Let Them Out - Raica

8 Timeblind - Erika

9 Expectation - Ana Quiroga featuring Leilehua Lanzilotti

10 Entropy Remainder - C. Lavender

11 Silver Filaments Connecting Us All - Anthony Child

12 We Think a Spoon is a Saw - Loula Yorke

13 Mesmer - Polypores

‘Filaments’ is, as you can see, a various artists compilation on Silver Threads. We came across the label back in May on the occasion of Plant43 releasing ‘Spells For Warding Off Evil’. Now I feel with such a release that words are, to a large extent, more meaningless than they normal. An album like this is all about holistic reception, conception and connection. Right, waftle over. I believe that on an album such as this, sequence counts for a lot. With that in mind the listener is in for an undulating experience. Hardly a violent one though. Label head and album curator Jo Johnson makes two contributions in sequence: ‘Between voids’ and ‘Hold Together’ with Hilary Robinson. The former a delicate deconstructed, orchestral  piece the constituent parts of which have been scattered to the four winds.The latter feels like the prelude to something sinister, or its aftermath. iT feels like walking though empty rooms in a derelict mansion where only traces remain of its occupants. It’s. An album which alternates between darkness and light, but lives more within the shadows than the Sun. The repetition of  ‘Entropy Remainder’  by  C. Lavender

evokes a feeling of malfunction, Something that is immediately dispelled by Anthony Child’s ‘Silver Filaments Connecting Us All’, which isn’t the only piece that reminds me of seventies French electronica, another example being Raica’s ‘Let Them Out’. And it’s towards the album’s end that the machines feel a bit louder and more cohesive. The final two contributions: ‘We Think a Spoon is a Saw’ by- Loula Yorke, and ‘Mesmer’ by Polypores lean on each other to establish momentum. Firstly by gently unfolding and soundtracking the origins of life on Earth,, which leads into what feels like a kosmische piece of intense chug.

Track Of Yesterday & Today: Grace Jones - Nightclubbing (Island) & Iggy Pop - Nightclubbing (RCA)

An Iggy Pop piece of work which is on ‘The Idiot’, ‘Nightclubbing’ is one oof those tracks that was given a new lease of life by another artist. In this case Grace Jones and not too long after the original came out. Anyway, the original comes on like some sort of Brechtian gothic rock. Maybe that’s the Berlin influence, and Bowie, who produced it. It’s a marvellous piece of music and impossible to duplicate. So Grace Jones goes for the electric reggae approach which, at the time, was proving to be incredibly influential. I guess that can be put down to Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare wanting to push the music forward, as well as it being recorded at Compass Point Studios on The Bahamas. Location was a critical ingredient in the composition of each of these tunes, something which may have been lost a little in recent years, what with home studios and all.

hanging in the balance

tom thumb · hanging in the balance

Slow Life Friends Podcast - 031 - DEMOFATHER

Slow Life · Slow Life Friends Podcast - 031 - DEMOFATHER -

Zeina at Night Moves, London /March 21, 2026

Zeina · Zeina at Night Moves, London /March 21, 2026

#173 | Eli Verveine (CH)

 

Recorder.13 · #173 | Eli Verveine (CH)

Track Of The Day: H-Foundation - Passage Of Time (Soma)

 

Went to see A Certain Ratio at Dingwall’s last Friday, and I’m off to see Cabaret Voltaire’s last ever gig in Sheffield in a couple of weekends time. So the temptation to start going through all of those two acts tracks that I haven’t yet posted is texting. And I will get through them, but it will by by osmosis. Meanwhile, in a world removed from those parallel pleasure spheres, here is a track from H Foundation who, I do believe, are on the cusp of a moment. Their sound is definitely coming around once more and, having already posted ‘Hear ‘dis Sound’ and ‘Future’ (not strictly H-Foundation, but Halo), here’s an underrated gem form them. One for the warm up or a bridge into something bigger. Great track with more than one string to its bow; this is an underrated tune from Hipp-e & Halo with a groove as great as any of their other stand out tracks and one that reveals something new on every listen. Obviously best appreciated on a big system. Big room tribal tech innit.

Track Of The Day: Norma G - Son Of Norma (Urban Sound Of Amsterdam)

 

I know this track because it’s the second one on ‘Psychotrance 2’ which is mixed by Darren Emerson. And it’s by Steve Rachmad, who may have put a foot wrong, but I’m not aware of when.  There are great comments on its YouTube page, which namecheck Colin Dale for playing it. One of his faves apparently. It’s just a great tune though. When techno was bursting ut of its rave shell, cross-pollinated by influences and bathed oil analogue warmth. One from when the machines were a ,little bit more than digital interfaces, and you can tell.

Shawescape Renegade 09.10.2026

 

Praslea @ SUPER DOMMUNE - 22.09.2026

Eric Cloutier - Super Dommune 01.06.2026

 

Eric Cloutier || Palinoia · Eric Cloutier - Super Dommune 01.06.2026

Dr. Dunks feat. Zopelar - Plateau Alone (Quiet Village)

 

Title: Plateau Alone EP

Artist: Dr. Dunks feat. Zopelar

Label: Quiet Village

Cat Number: QV005

Genre: Is It Balearic?

1: Plateau Alone

2: Slow One Eleven

3: 88 Lights

Well is it? I would say yes without any qualification. ‘Plateau Alone’ feels like it’s caught between at least three different points of reference. The bass, the various analogue synth embellishments and the kick. Beyond all that it runs free in the sonic savannah. ‘Slow One Eleven’ is pure chug business, and one which I could have heard at Covenanza last Friday night. I do like to remain in the moment while simultaneously taking notes. And I’m probably too old to change so don’t judge me. That’s my nerdy side coming out I guess. Anyway, without the geeks as gatekeepers what would we do? Great track though, making use again of similar flourishes to ‘Plateau Alone’, which I’m guessing are the work of Zopelar? ’88 Lights’ takes us by the hand to guide us through a soporific landscape and when the vocals come in it sounds like we’re in late sixties psychedelic California on mogadons listening to The Mamas & Papas. I’d like to say this is a truly wonderful release with something for everyone, and it is. Turn on, tune in and drop out tho.

Signal Type - Breakthrough (Cultivated Electronics)

 

Title: Breakthrough

Artist: Signal Type

Label: Cultivated Electronics

Cat Number: CE050

Genre: Electro

A1: Breakthrough

A2: Breakthrough (Radioactive Man Remix)

B1: Breakthrough (Silicon Scally Remix)

B2: Breakthrough (Morphology Remix)

Signal Type, for those not in the know, is “the collaborative project of label head Sync 24 and Matt Whitehead”. And this is Cultivated Electronic’s 50th release, so it had better be good. Thankfully, first impressions are very positive indeed. The original mix is an energetic nod to the birth of electro. It’s a boogie down Pandora’s box of energetic machine funk tropes elegantly welded into one cohesive whole. And if that sounds painful you’d better get the KY jelly out for Radioactive Man’s squelchy low rider of a version. It’s a dense piece of cerulean syncopation that purposely flies under the radar in its guise as a heavy duty example of rogue machine funk. The Silicon Scally mix is equally emphatic, but focuses on the high end, polishing the sonic stalactites and stalagmites that overhang a more open and empty panorama. And the dots are joined by Morphology, whose take is probably the most similar to the original, but reserves the right to the dramatic interlude with sweeping, symphonic synth stabs before reverting back to a dive back into the electro funk wormhole.