Italian duo Agents Of Time have been incredibly busy over the past few years, from releasing a string of classic singles – including their recent single for Afterlife, “The Mirage”, which earned more than five million views on Instagram – to remixing The Weeknd’s “Take My Breath”, which appeared on his recent Dawn FM (Alternative World). But the biggest news is here now – their second album, Universo, is ready. Elevating their trademark melodic techno with an exquisite pop-ness, Universo has found its ideal home with Kompakt, following their Music Made Paradise 2020 debut EP for the label. It’s a meeting of minds that makes perfect sense.

Andrea Di Ceglie and Luigi Tutolo, the two members of Agents Of Time, used their time during the pandemic to work on Universo, an album loosely conceptualised around their ‘personal universo’, a manifestation of the world Di Ceglie and Tutolo built both within and around their studio. This accounts for the sparkle and brightness of Universo – it’s full of personality, vim and vigour, the duo experimenting with their music, exploring its furthest corners. If you come to Universo expecting just another album of melodic techno, get ready to be pleasantly surprised – there’s a whole lot more going on here, and it’s all equally compelling.

After a typically poetic opening gesture – the swirling, synaesthetic, self-titled intro track – expectations are immediately blindsided with the two-step pop of “Fallin’”, sung with gentle clarity by guest Audrey Janssens, a dream of a song that harks back to the glory days of early ‘00s UK garage. “Interstellar Cowboy” is a confident, lithe, disco-fied strut; the gentle minor-key piano of “Liquid Fantasy” spirals into a gorgeously melancholy techno-pop epic, Vicky Who?’s voice rich with yearning. Janssens also reappears on the electro-swirl of “Poison”; “Dream Vision” revisits their single “The Mirage”, soft with sweeping strings, loaded with drama; “Part Of Life” sashays into view with a schaffel-stomp.

This rich variety throws the more dancefloor-focused tracks, like “Ciao”, into even starker relief – they’re more decisive, streamlined, yet rich with detail, chugging, Moroder-esque bass meeting strobe-lit synths that fire melodies out into the firmament. Universo feels texturally dense, but it still breathes, its sounds so tactile you want to reach out and grab them, its tunes so seductive you can’t get them out of your head. Universo is a fiercely beautiful album, brave in its spirit, a perfectly poised meeting-point of pop melody and stylish, lush techno: Agents Of Time in excelsis. More

Italy’s AGENTS OF TIME have long been on the KOMPAKT radar. It started thanks to their exemplary releases on Correspondant and other labels such as Stem, Ellum plus last year’s collaboration with Mathew Jonson (from whom their name is inspired by). Michael Mayer had chance to play with them last summer at one of their Obscura parties and their friendship was cemented. Which leads us now to their five track KOMPAKT debut, entitled MUSIC MADE PARADISE. From our early days of releasing landmark tracks from JUSTUS KÖHNCKE, the label has never been shy of exploring the enigmatic fringes of disco in our own way. AGENTS OF TIME follow these footsteps but head into galactic territory with MUSIC MADE PARADISE. They continue their knack for bridging synth-wave with modern bass rhythms in a means which are purely designed for today’s dance floors. We’re proud to make their label debut with an incredible selection of music from this talented trio. French touch meets Italo chic on Drive Me Crazy. At first, My Heart is A Microchip comes across as a segue track, but opens into cascading synths and a predatory breakbeat to lead its own charge. Under Control is classy Moroder disco brought to the modern age. Aptly titled Interstate 10 is an EP highlight – the percussion lead is infectious and ready for prime time exploration. More

Agents Of Time are proud to present ‘Ordinary Cosmic Dance’, the new EP on their own Obscura imprint. Over three tracks the Bari based trio brandish hypnotic, looping melodies in techno structures with subtle trance references. It arrives a year after the birth of the label, which has since issued music by Hiver, Amandra and The Hacker amongst others. ‘Cosmic Frequencies’ revolves around a syncopated synth line that swells its way through mesmeric percussion and entrancing pads. ‘Dance Impulse’ takes fragments of dub techno and remoulds them into a glitchy dancefloor workout. ‘Ordinary Chaos’ builds low end frequencies juxtaposed with a stripped back melodic lead and staccato bass. More

Italian based trio ‘Agents Of Time’ launch their brand new electronic-music record label 'Obscura'. The first release 'Day one' is showcasing the Agents’ style and personal touch with 4 new original tracks.

More

Correspondant can finally reveal the release of the remixes for Man Power’s debut LP, which was released last year on Correspondant. A year in the making, the remix package features artists and friends hand-picked by both Jennifer Cardini and Man Power himself. Disco Halal’s Moscoman remixes the baggy splendour of Beilsteiner, creating a rolling and belching extended opus more focused toward the peak time dance floor. Hivern Disc’s JMII takes Hunting Swan and turns it inside out, exploring space with a cerebral, schizophrenic quality. Alternatively, Pale Blue (Mike Simonetti) takes Boys Beware and re-imagines it as an aggressive drum workout. Completing the package, Suade, the artist who also mastered the original album, replaces TEN’s balearic leanings with an IDM sensibility, yet still retains the optimism of the original track. All 4 remixes manage to exist as distinct works in their own right, while paying homage to the "magpie" approach of the original long player. More

Vox low come in hard, slow and dark on a new 3 tracker for Correspondant. The Pyschedlic Parisian duo display various iterations of left field menace, ranging from Glam Rock on “The Hunt”, Electro Disco on “Some Words of Faith, and pitched down Acid on “I am a Strange Machine Sometimes”, but all with the signature analogue pulse which Correspondant is famed for presenting. More

Correspondant return with their fourth annual label compilation. In this, the year of their fifth anniversary, they invite you on a night drive which takes you deeper in to the darkness. Label owner Jennifer Cardini has invited a cavalcade of Correspondant’s core family (Man Power, Red Axes, Javi Redondo, Doll Kraut), closest collaborators (Axel Boman Boruisade), and newest friends (Chida, Yovav, Dollkraut, Kiwi, Jonathan Kusuma, Autarkic) to show the world that Correspondant has a synthetic heart of punk which pumps glacial disco through its frozen veins. More

Correspondant return with their fourth annual label compilation. In this, the year of their fifth anniversary, they invite you on a night drive which takes you deeper in to the darkness. Label owner Jennifer Cardini has invited a cavalcade of Correspondant’s core family (Man Power, Red Axes, Javi Redondo, Doll Kraut), closest collaborators (Axel Boman Boruisade), and newest friends (Chida, Yovav, Dollkraut, Kiwi, Jonathan Kusuma, Autarkic) to show the world that Correspondant has a synthetic heart of punk which pumps glacial disco through its frozen veins. More

Romanian born, and Berlin Based, Borusiade (aka Miruna Boruzescu) makes her Correspondant debut in dazzlingly bleak fashion. Over a four track EP the artist manages to channel a wealth of disparate sounds, referencing Giallo disco, New Wave longing and Pitched-down ghetto techno amongst other dark and otherworldly tropes. All of the music on offer here possesses a slow and dark drive that purposes it for the dance floor, but also contain such a wealth of loss despair, and a perverse pathos that elevates them from simple dance music and move them in to a more artistic realm. More

Bird of Paradise brings his sophomoric contribution to the label in the form of a full length EP, replete with a remix from Lauer More

Coming from the traffic-saturated streets and lo-fi screamo scene of Mexico City, rising producer Max Jones makes his debut on Jennifer Cardini's Correspondant label with the Cornetto EP. A onetime member of a guitar-driven punk posse, Jones' more recent work as an electronic producer favors heavily syncopated drums, eerie atmospheres, and wry humor. His discography to date includes a recent joint EP with Eddie Mercury as Los Mekanikos for Sanfuentes, the imprint headed by Chilean producer and Cómeme label co-founder Vicente Sanfuentes, and he also helped initiate Mexican labels Electrique Music and Disque Discos, together with Mercury and Alec Sander (appearing on Cornetto as Mijo). Jones' upcoming effort marks Correspondant's 30th release, and comprises four tracks of drum machine-led workouts. Lead cut "Cornetto" starts things off in the label's signature style of deep, dark dancefloor warmups, with a live-feel percussive line and foggy drones shot through with confrontational midrange sirens. "Uh Oh" opens at a clip with an electrified, alien pulse, but keeps to the stripped-back core elements of thrashing cymbals and two alternating vocal samples. "Slow feat. Mijo" finds Jones teaming up with ongoing collaborator Alec Sander in a sinister, new wave-inspired cut, built around a narcotic vocal mantra and resonant, oscillating synths, while the minimal, throbbing bassline of "L.M.M" follows its own trail into a sonic wormhole, offset by crispy hi-hats to round out the EP. More