"Pacifying The Population" thrusts us into a world where the dominator culture acts like a ruthless drug cartel, us it's compliant consumers. The highly-charged ten tracker LP evokes a narcotic frenzy like atmosphere that surges into the consciousness and pulses through the body like a craved hit. Once again Kastner propels us through a unique musical landscape at the very edge of the sonic territories.

The dominator culture enforces what is moral, ethical, worthy or valid, selling lifestyles, enforcing rituals, “pushing” values, incentivizing the pathological, imposing our needs and beliefs. Increasingly displaying hallmarks of a cruel drug cartel /drug addict, dependency dynamic. The population hooked and enslaved to it's destructive needs.

Seduced, hooked, strung-out on the promise of instant gratification, short-term satisfaction, shiny gadget infatuation, pre-packaged trash values, the cultish, totem imagery of a moribund, redundant culture. An accurate sense of the lived experience obscured by a junkie haze of stupefied confusion. Addicted and hooked, it holds us hostage, keep us compliant, increasingly we are unable to locate ourselves in the maelstrom of noise. Attempting to operate outside that paradigm rendered almost impossible with countless cultural, social and practical obstacles to overcome. Not "playing the game" is seen & treated as subversive, anti-social, madness.

Opening the album “Sanctioned Sedatives” literally kicks the door down with a massive base line that cuts through disorienting distortions. “Restoring The Connection” sounds like the way out of a tunneling drug habit, a subdued claustrophobic feel in the beginning drive the track to a mind altering, rising wall of pads.

On side B calmer moods create the appropriate environment for the hazy ambience and the suffused positive feel of B2, which, as the title may suggest, sounds like an invitation to get out of the loop, in order to “Unfuk Your Mind”. The title track “Pacifying The Population” begins side C, grand in scope, pounding drum workouts, a sinister spoken narrative, symphonic strings, mind-mangling resonant acid make this an epic trip.

The closing track “Apocalyptic Signs (Eulogy)” is deeply layered, orchestral. Ethereal synth melodies and heavily warped voices from far out territories induce a deep reflection on the whole album, despite the title it sounds like an unexpected ode to life or maybe as the relief from all human pains.

Pacifying The Population evokes an oppressive feel, a sense of constant tension, modern living. The dense atmospheres, the abrasive and repetitive grooves, Consuming and devastating as a drug habit, the elements that perfectly capture the essence of the whole album. Despite that, it still sounds like a way out from all that is possible, a way to restore the connection within ourselves and between each other. A therapeutic purge. More

"We Are Power", Galaxian's first album in over a decade, cuts a new path. On this Foul-Up and Shipwrec joint release, Kastner presents a rumination on the confrontation and power clash between humankind, nature, the spiritual and mechanistic industrial growth societies. What is authentic power? What is granted power? What is innate natural power? How is power accessed, wielded, utilised, felt? On this album the blistering beats and razor-edged rhythms that characterise the Glaswegian's productions have been softened, the menace melted, the angst soothed (well almost.) Across eleven tracks, distinct audio vistas are surveyed. The human form takes centre stage from the opening monologue of "Out of Balance" with the entire record searching for balance between humankind, nature, orthodox culture & the machine. At times the machine wins. "We Are Power" is a corruption of voice, samples chopped, sliced and fed into controllers and sequencers to produce a dense decibel wall. That wall grows ever higher in the terrifying drone of "Anatomy of a Modern Lie." At other points, a perfect symmetry between artist and tool is found. The racing interchanges and pulses of "Universal Truths" give rise to dawning reprises and warmth. For those after an electro fix, Galaxian abides. The speed snares of "Messianic Delusions" or dripping drums of "Fields of Meaning" are soaked in the history of machine music, yet they are grander in their delivery and more nuanced in their composition. Fresh territories are explored, the playful solar dreams of "Without Form" or the cinematic grandeur of "In Reverse". This album is unmistakable Galaxian, it marks a high-point and brings with it a culmination of intense expression. More

Curtis Electronix is proud to present "Destroy Your Future", the new LP from the one and only Galaxian. In the last years Mark Kastner aka Galaxian has become a prominent figure in the underground scene because of his high quality productions and his unique take on electro. We all know electro started with futurism and well, this work is pure futurism. Each cut is a trip into his restless creativity. Each track is a mind altering exploration of a deeply cinematic soundscape with a massive number of elements perfectly fused together with his "one of a kind" sci-fi aestethic that immediately pulls you out of the schemes. Caustic distortions, post industrial environments, mind expanding electronics and primitive drum patterns are only the main elements of this sci-fi masterpiece. There is no "Detroit Nostalgia" in it. This is sonic militance. The same that inspired the originators back in the days. When you play it, time runs faster and future looks closer. We are on board, but Galaxian is the only pilot of the ship. More

A pair of next-level genre-free epic electronic trips from fearless futurist Galaxian. Comes with poster insert. More

Intensive Outta Spiace Meditation More

Scotland's premier electro alchemist is back on Shipwrec and this time flying solo with five shards of sharpened machine music. Beats rain down in solid sheets, a hail of drum patterns pelt and pound. Acid scorn, speeding snares and scorched sound roar and rumble in the menacing "Days of Rage." The 12" hisses and howls, sending forth a searing line of percussion as gears crank and grown. "Glasgow to Detroit" is just as fiery, scorn and sparks leaping off burning bars. Aggression is always at the surface, and behind the razor rhythms lurks a palpable paranoia, as in "Daisy Cutter" or "Uprising." The only respite comes with the complex and textured "Stones and Sticks." Harsh mechanics from an industrial heartland.

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Tracklisting
A1 Ctrls - Ectomagnetic
A2 Ctrls - Injection Shuffle
B1 Ctrls - Subsumed TM1
B2 Ctrls - Nanocaust

Sales Note
Hailing from Denmark, CTRLS takes the steering wheel for KEY042, delivering an EP that embodies techno and raw industrial energy, marking his third appearance on the label.
The A-side begins 'ectomagnetic', a highly rhythmical track building through layers into a dreamy chord progression thats traddles the line between eyes-closed fantasia and full-body pump. In the midst of it all, the bassline drags our attention as its earthy, round essence stands out from the metallic universe created around it. A2 'injection shuffle' is a heavy hitter, characterized by distorted, ringing textures and old-school methodology, boasting menacing drum programming thatsolidifies its status as a peak-time big room monster. Continuingon the B, 'subsumed' offers another mystical journey blending body music with spaced-out melodies, all stamped with CTRLS's unmistakable touch. A sort of sci-fi tension, eerily drawing listeners into its other worldly atmosphere. Closing with 'nanocaust', the EP dives into intense atmospheres led by a broken beat bone and cavernous soundscapes - once again - presenting a general sound which will make you feel a different kind of energy.
Strong package of densely populated sonic environments, all inline with the sound of KEY. More

Tracklisting:
A1 Ctrls - You Win
A2 Ctrls - The Wash
A3 Ctrls - NP Soup
B1 Late Night Approach - L Ultimo Ritmo (Ctrls remix)
B2 Ben Pest - Strict Saws (Ctrls remix)

Sales Note
Ctrls lands on Mechatronica, and fiercely mutates forward-thinking electro with machinist bass music into a cold-blooded and carefully programmed record, for the mind and for the floor. More

Micron Audio opens its doors to an external artist for the first time, welcoming in Ctrls with a crucial new EP entitled Your Data. Across four tracks, the Danish producer unravels a dark and funky electro core, taking inspiration from the rapidly intertwining codependence between technology and society. As digital twins, metaverses or humanoid robots lodge themselves deeper into our surroundings, Ctrls unpicks the deepening complexity brought on by our pervasive digital lives. Encouraged by Micron Audio boss Stingray to delve into the darker productions as a means of exploring a contemporary electro sound, Ctrls fixes a hypnotic heft with fresh industrial sound design, never resting as he navigates contorting track structures and twisting tones. The digital hum rages, as brain neurons fire from information overload, with a tsunami feeling and emotions in tow. Remarkable is the combination of pounding rhythm, hauled in by a magnetic motion, with tones of digital disintegration, all flux and shift. This electro sound is a far cry from a clone of the genre's forebearers - no retro-specificity. Instead, Ctrls delivers a timely dose of accelerated culture - The Future is Now. More

CTRLS takes a hard line of attack on the groove, lashing dissonant layers of analog machine funk over brute force percussion. KEY Vinyl is Freddy K's most recent contribution to the techno community - an imprint founded in 2009 that stands for tradition as well as progress. This year's relaunch of the vinyl-only platform signals Armeni's return to the fore of techno advocacy, releasing the bruising brand of techno that fuels Freddy K's colossal DJ sets. More

(incl 4 tracks + 2 locked grooves) The Ctrls class of inventive, inorganic techno is a mainstay of Token's output. For his ninth solo EP, he takes a trip down a back alley to the spirit of some of his earlier releases on the label.
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Following last year's Two Worlds EP, Nonuser takes Ctrls club focused sound to new heights, delivering rolling percussion alongside twisting, distorted leads and thundering bass lines. More

Ctrls delivers three high grade, heavy hitting sessions of unrelenting techno you won't find anywhere else.
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We know the storm caused by Ctrls' last record ('Movements EP' came out in February) hasn't quite calmed down yet, but we just couldn't hold this one back.


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Mechanical rhythms, whip-crack electronic riffs, insistent robot vocals: Ctrls proved to master these sounds very well on his past EP's and he only seems to perfect his skills on this 4th instalment. Conventional? Never. Powerful? Always.



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(sleeparchive remixes) After 2 ep's, 1 remix, 1 track licensed to Norman Nodge's Ostgut compilation, support from Blawan, Luke Slater, Marcel Dettmann, Untold & others, gigs at Fabric, Berghain and other clubs across Europe, Ctrls delivers his 3rd EP

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Early support by Blawan. After Ctrls' outstanding & critically acclaimed debut ep in April, the Danish Token resident is now back with 4 new cuts. Pure machine funk.
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After releases by Phase & Xhin, which left the techno scene with a pair of extra holes, Token now introduces its third release for 2012.
We introduce a new name: Ctrls, from Copenhagen, Denmark. A new name, but not a new artist. Troels B-Knudsen is an ex drum & bass head and earned his producer stripes throughout the years. He slowly made his transition to techno and last year him & long time friend Lasse Buhl formed Northern Structures. To great acclaim, they released their first 2 EP's on Adam X's legendary Sonic Groove label. 2012 sees the start of a new chapter, his solo project: Ctrls. His debut for Token is called 'Interface EP' and holds 3 powerful pieces in Ctrls' own style: hard edged, stripped down, metallic sounds, detailed drum programming and a mean low end. With this first EP and a follow up in the works, we're excited to add Ctrls to the Token roster.
Take notice. More

In a world increasingly under the sway of algorithms and the advent of AI, potentially signaling an epochal moment as important as the Industrial Revolution, Micron Audio releases the next in its series of forward-thinking electronic music: BOTS by Belgium's 6SISS. Much as early electro was driven by the twin influence of the rhythm of the factories of Detroit and a bold imagining of life beyond (or below) our world, BOTS takes its cues from the ideas and concepts surrounding our potential near-future such as Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing. At times the music swirls with sounds that bring to mind nascent intelligence slowly working out its purpose, albeit an intelligence alien to that found in animals. In other moments the rhythm shudders and shakes like the microsecond "thoughts" of an AI slowed down infinitesimally, overlaid with speech manipulated into sounds completely unrecognizable yet strangely familiar, like listening in to a conversation between two programs. Released on 12" record and, more fittingly, digital, BOTS returns electro to its roots in envisioning the future whilst freeing itself from the paradigm of the genre's past to create a soundtrack of the AI world; a view beyond the algorithm. More

R&S welcomes Belgium’s Peter Adriaenssens AKA 6SISS, for a four track EP of dark rhythmic techno. A returning New Beat veteran who started releasing 6SISS material in 2013, Adriaenssens's music combines driving rhythms with ominous, desiccated field recordings and withered pads that call to mine the Ben Frost's militant soundscapes. The foggy atmospherics that pervade make sense when you learn that he often moonlights as a member of a post metal/drone band, creating eldritch soundscapes and drones. Adriaenssens is a self confessed 'family man' which has had a strong impact on his music: "The way I cook food is also the way I make my music - with the ingredients available in the fridge and the sounds available on my laptop." he explains. "I build layers of sounds and textures, with or without a beat. Don’t search for melodies in my tracks, see them as haunted trips. I’m always inspired by artists who do something different, or sound original like Tim Hecker, Johan Johansson, Mika Vainio. Over the four tracks of the Prisma release, Adriaenssen's bruising off kilter rhythms stagger and lurch in mesmerising ways that undercut the 4:4 hegemony and are sure to confuse and delight dancefloors in equal measure. More

In a world increasingly under the sway of algorithms and the advent of AI, potentially signaling an epochal moment as important as the Industrial Revolution, Micron Audio releases the next in its series of forward-thinking electronic music: BOTS by Belgium's 6SISS. Much as early electro was driven by the twin influence of the rhythm of the factories of Detroit and a bold imagining of life beyond (or below) our world, BOTS takes its cues from the ideas and concepts surrounding our potential near-future such as Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing. At times the music swirls with sounds that bring to mind nascent intelligence slowly working out its purpose, albeit an intelligence alien to that found in animals. In other moments the rhythm shudders and shakes like the microsecond "thoughts" of an AI slowed down infinitesimally, overlaid with speech manipulated into sounds completely unrecognizable yet strangely familiar, like listening in to a conversation between two programs. Released on 12" record and, more fittingly, digital, BOTS returns electro to its roots in envisioning the future whilst freeing itself from the paradigm of the genre's past to create a soundtrack of the AI world; a view beyond the algorithm. More

DJ Stingray 313's Aqua Team series returns to Micron Audio. Originally released as a two-part series on the ever-innovative WeMe, the records quickly became collector's items. 15 years later, Aqua Team is now back in full force, reimagined as a triple vinyl album of underwater sonic explorations, fully remastered to meet modern cyborg standards. "Serotonin" starts the series off in true DJ Stingray style - pounding drums and 808 bass kicks, airy yet striking arpeggios and haunting vocal loops throughout. "Straight Up Cyborg" is a dystopian journey through cybernetic blips, bleeps and static and progressive build that truly bring the track to life. An aquatic alien bassline, sonar-like leads and hovering snare move swiftly in "Star Chart"; "Silicon Romance" and "Counter Surveillance" are modish tracks instantly recognizable as DJ Stingray 313's unique Detroit sound. "You have a destiny, and now is your time to fulfill it" says the mantra-like sample in "Potential", an entrancing synth loop sure to send listeners and dancefloors deep diving into euphoria. Pounding drums, floor-shaking low-end, running percussion and atonal, ominous samples theme the nefarious tracks "Binary Coven", "NWO", "LR001" and "Mindless", footnoting much darker undertakings in DJ Stingray 313's Aqua Team excursion. Closing out the Aqua Team saga is the strongly-titled "It's All Connected". Thick drums, glistening arpeggios and ethereal strings shine brightly across a wide stereo plane, creating a thundering wall of sound. Aqua Team truly showcases the diverse facets of DJ Stingray 313's signature production, as vast and evolving as the seafloor itself. - Jay Remy More

DJ Stingray 313's highly-praised FTNWO LP returns to heed its sonic warnings and powerful messages on his own label, Micron Audio. Originally released on WeMe Records in 2012, FTNWO displays the high-tempo, ever forward production DJ Stingray 313 is known world around for. DJ Stingray 313 says "FTNWO was conceptually centered on conspiracy theory, science, prepper [doomsday preparation / survivalism] and social commentary," and the foreboding introduction of "Evil Agenda" sonically explains just what lies ahead for the listener. The stark warning leads into DJ Stingray 313's stomping "Dark Arts", beginning the FTNWO experience. "Room Clearance" gets straight to business with raw, gritty and true-to-the-art Detroit electro sounds, along with a heavy, quivering lead to piece the track together. FTNWO's cyber-explorations continue with "Denial Of Service". "I NEED a computer!" shouts a destitute voice throughout the track, as a hypnotic siren lead weaves through pounding 808s. The uptempo onslaught continues with "Interest Rate" - pads that give a feeling of falling accompany samples lamenting the realities of debt in modern society. These statements in the samples permeating the aptly titled track eerily foretell many present-day situations in 2022, as well as prove testament to DJ Stingray 313's ahead-of-the-curve production techniques. "No Knock" also carries on with arpeggiated square waves and dissonant FM stabs laced intricately over thundering drums. "Outsourced" has a call and response feel, with lush, bright tiny synths talking with each other over a thundering rhythm akin to a drum & bass arrangement. DJ Stingray 313's sound also stretches to more melodic planes, as "Reverse Engineering" displays. Brooding pads and icy percussion engage in a sonic dance. In the same on "Image Search", cold drums and riffs intertwine the warmer layering pads and leads. Both create two powerful compositions on FTNWO that move unlike any other. "Remote Viewing" only moves lower in tempo compared to the rest of FTNWO, DJ Stingray 313's keen ear to melody still burning brightly. F.T.N.W.O. remains an ageless album - an ominous piece from a near-distant past, back again as part of the Micron Audio catalog to soundtrack the new and uncertain times we live in. More

Micron Audio opens its doors to an external artist for the first time, welcoming in Ctrls with a crucial new EP entitled Your Data. Across four tracks, the Danish producer unravels a dark and funky electro core, taking inspiration from the rapidly intertwining codependence between technology and society. As digital twins, metaverses or humanoid robots lodge themselves deeper into our surroundings, Ctrls unpicks the deepening complexity brought on by our pervasive digital lives. Encouraged by Micron Audio boss Stingray to delve into the darker productions as a means of exploring a contemporary electro sound, Ctrls fixes a hypnotic heft with fresh industrial sound design, never resting as he navigates contorting track structures and twisting tones. The digital hum rages, as brain neurons fire from information overload, with a tsunami feeling and emotions in tow. Remarkable is the combination of pounding rhythm, hauled in by a magnetic motion, with tones of digital disintegration, all flux and shift. This electro sound is a far cry from a clone of the genre's forebearers - no retro-specificity. Instead, Ctrls delivers a timely dose of accelerated culture - The Future is Now. More