Repress!

Maara’s out to make mischief with the wryly titled ‘Hear Me Neigh’.

Whether that title’s in reference to a certain equine dissociative or purely a love letter to our majestic, four-legged friends, well, we’ll leave that for you to decide. Either way, the prolific prog house luminary lends her Midas touch to four equally deadly traxxx.

Following last year’s ‘Fancy Feast’ EP comes another proper dose of heads-down hedonism. It’s an eagerly-awaited return to the Kalakari fold, and true to form, opener ‘The Horse Track’ comes hurtling into the first furlong at full pelt. Big equestrian NRG packing some seriously rugged heft and neighing samples aplenty. Then, bringing more of that insistent throb, ‘Juicy Tracksuit’ is no less alluring or propulsive, albeit while channelling some Y2K aesthetic.

There’s more of that turn-of-the-century flex on the next one too. Evoking Love Parade circa 1999, ‘God Save The Bender’ deploys scything hard trance flourishes while opening a portal to the fractal realm. And finally, ‘Sheela Na Gig’ lands dripping with more of the seductive appeal that has become Maara’s hallmark. More

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Maara makes seductively uninhibited, proggy dance music. In fact, she’s quickly becoming one of its foremost exponents. Barely pausing for breath between releases, ‘Spiral 2 the Other Side’ finds the Montreal artist summoning divine feminine frequencies with a hypnotic, ritual-ready 4-tracker.

Some Maara productions are shot through with an almost radiant optimism, but here, darkroom throb prevails. Big on the gated vocals, ‘Spiral 2 the Other Side’ achieves cybernetic sensuality through trippy,

moire´-d electro, while ‘Take the Wheel Miss Sweetie’, with its driving, fathoms-deep approach, provides a direct take on the blueprint.

The Canadian assumes the role of high priestess on the flip. ‘Forget the world’ is a ritual incantation for bridging seen and unseen worlds; prog house magick with shades of ‘90s trance utopia. Rounding things off with a tunnelling electro tripper, ‘Doom Quest’ references the vortex-dwelling atmospherics of early tribal modes to mind-altering effect. More

Portal to the underworld: five pulsating tracks transport you between heaven and hell, featuring a collaboration with NAP and a remix by D.Tiffany. A Potion Activated.

Give in to the temptation of The Forbidden Plum. Take a bite and let the juice drip. Your journey begins with a hypnotic seduction, stoking the flames of desire as the voice in your head whispers, Want it so badly.

Dark and sexy, the flames get higher. The walls sweat on your descent as you lose control. Flood lights sweep over the crowd of bodies, cutting through smoke. Horns cry out in urgency—Miss Sweetie’s Inferno. Sludge bubbles over into the dungeon, alive and radioactive.

Dungeon Babez are the past and the future speaking with one voice. Moans echo in the grimy humidity, a druggy throb. You catch a glimpse of sky through the static haze and it’s like looking through memory. Something wet glimmers. Catch the droplets, sip sip and float away down the lazy river...

Do U Feel Me? This polyvocal track sounds like how it feels to be on the dance-floor, vibrating in union of body and spirit. Surrender in this dank chamber of voices echoing incantations. When you look into my
eyes, you are looking into your own soul.

D.Tiffany answers Maara and NAP’s call and response with a driving, elemental reply. A lost island reemerges from the depths of the ocean floor, breaking through the water’s surface. A message in a bottle floats over and washes up on shore. You open it and write something back. Ritual dance around a bonfire as the wind howls. Something large and dark passes overhead like a storm cloud. The air is electric. The sky bursts. More

Step Ball Chain recruits the French maestro Batenko for a club cut EP, a kiss from the underground laden with tweaked tools exhibiting an already imitable signature sound. The inconspicuous producer based in Marseille reveals a four track feast dipping into corners of forward thinking techno, bass and unexpected dance delight, centered in flirty, freaky mastery. Gamma-Ray Bursts delivers delicious locked grooves for late night deviants; obscure vocal fragments fidget over driving basslines, momentary euphoria and a feverish pulsation that is core to the label. More

Step Ball Chain’s unconventional prototype band trickpony is the 11th release on the ever evolving imprint. An assortment of sensual cyber jams collaged together by the trio over timezones, birthed in Perth, Australia by Mike Midnight and Roza Terenzi; old friends joined by Helsinki’s visionary songstress Maria Korkeila. A trinity of alchemy blossomed into an audio rendition of exquisite corpse, layers of each entity glistening through amongst a united cosmos; trip hop atmospherics and downtempo drippings. The five track EP reveals a metamorphosis of nostalgia, a foot in the ever present and daydreams of future. A subconscious deep dive into lustful pop, guided by spine tingling vocal fantasies; textural hallucination, harmonic odes to the golden era underground and a flirtation with drum and bass, tribal percussive freakouts and dream tinged lyrics of desire. Pillow talk is a timeless exhibit of esoteric treasures, a portal to a private world of modern enchantment that reveals itself in new ways each listen, music for lovers created by a supergroup of innovators to be digested, shared and cherished. More

Busting into the Step Ball Chain domain is Naarm prodigy Mabel, who has already been making tectonic waves amongst the underbelly of clubland. Her signature psychedelic bratty-bass can be heard infiltrating doofs, raves and parties at feverish rates as everyone wants a taste of her slick, salacious sonics; Pleasure Phonetix generously offers five cuts for every spectrum of dance freak. Spanning tweaked out techno, stripped back electro flirtations and driving sophisticated psy-prog, Mabel never forgets to sprinkle a little vocal heat when it’s due - brace yourself for a rambunctious release. More

Bring back my Bass Butches! They’re bossy & they mean business. Rag-tag rhythm riders Maara and Roza Terenzi come together for a freaky friday sound swap; trading auditory secrets only a mixologist would know to conjure up a 2 track tek-trailblazer. Not for the faint hearted deejay, the record flaunts their distinct signature sounds as they reincarnate the status quo of experimental club music one snare at a time.

Percussively penetrating the core ethics of composition, the A side flirts and squirts all over a rhythm so raucous, the bass battens down the hatches. Stir the pot, rock the boat, roll the dice and ride the bass, surrender to the unruly structure as the groove gets full custody.

The bareback B side breaks rules and regulations; leading you to high-tech temptation, fast and furious with an explosive temper that can’t be tamed.

Tickling the rim of electro and bass yet ditching the doctrine, Loose Lips Sink Ships is a take-no-prisoners secret source of dancefloor dopamine, the sleek modern rendition of a ritualistic beatdown destined to weave motifs together and breed atmosphere.

It takes 2 to techno, but these are the number 1 drum degenerates of the future wave party starters. More

Your favourite lez-loonatics Roza & D. Tiff are back at it with the Tapestry Of Sound; Reloaded - revamped and ready to rock your local dancefloor. With 3 freaky sleek OG cuts from the dynamic duo and a deliciously danceable remix from the progressive prince Olsvanger, you’d be a stupid boy to miss out on this one. Expect all the classique Step Ball Chain-isms & more, tongue & cheek techno, percussive paradise and bass heavy bombs, with a few naughty noughties references for the True HeadsTM.

Don’t take yourself so seriously darling, it’s just dance music! In the words of Kelly... Let’s Pa More

The bermuda triangle of Berlin; a meeting of medicinal minds for the inaugural splitstep. Byron Yeates, Roza Terenzi & D, Tiffany come Tag-teaming and steaming with licks of flirty tech, hard house, pumping prog and sleek, freaky techno bouncing off the walls. A true melting pot of deeply burrowed memories of dance, the trio collaborate in various ways to propel a new age wave of dance music; a delicious mix of rough, tough and playfully feminine which embodies Step Ball Chain.
Cheers queers!

Gushing all over the A Side with a funk force of tech house, Roza Terenzi sticks her heels in and locks down The GrooveTM like no other, reduced tempo for the calm before the storm. Warming up the original just in time for the Byron Yeates remix; providing a stripped back, sped up, jacking rendition of Gush served hot and heavy. Bouncing into the B side, Byron causes the heat to rise to the top, Cauldron of Chaos simmering and ready to blow, use with caution. Rounding out this seriously hot record is Roza & D. Tiff with a tech leaning team up, Prude Pride hitting all the right spots for a manifested meltdown.

4 Club certified hitz, guaranteed to make you sweat. Don’t you dare sleep! More

Benoit B aka Terra Utopia breaks out into another auspicious alias for Step Ball Chain, Blu:sh - metamorphosed; coming in hot and heavy, sexy and sophisticated. Bass down, *ss up! The ambitious 6 tracker “Lovebite” fuses forms of dance; reworking elements from niche corners of the Step stratosphere that can result in freaky combustion. Breathing life and lust into every phrase, we are fortunate to be offered an intimate glimpse into a complex world of sound, filled with bold and brash inspired statements, rhythmically rolling the dice with snap lock precision. The cherry on top is served via a vocal collusion from fellow associate noff, the web expanding as the label delves deeper into futuristic tech territory, the prolific producer pushing their own boundaries and desires for new meticulous audio spectrum and ethereal realms.

The trio of flirtatious tracks laid bare on the A side read as a love letter to 4/4 naughty nocturnal testimonies. Opening auspiciously; Tighten Up dips into nasty grit, a sub centered excursion into the technological domain, sleazy and stripped back with modest tenacity. Candy Land sugarcoats the status quo of pumped up prog, playfully in the driver's seat and revving 100 miles per hour toward Hush highway; narrated by Greek cyber enigma noff.. An atmospheric deep trance kissed club chant. Opposites attract and find points of connection on the flip of Lovebite, the B side boasting a mutually slick sharpness permeating the record; blending sparse bass focused broken beat expeditions with liquid dnb; genially abstract mood boards of sampling mayhem; cut and spliced in addictive fashion. Flushes of gorgeous esoteric harmonic soundscapes fill out the rhythmical chaos, grounding and expanding the mind through a lush & plush tint woven in Recess and Heaven Spot alike.

A perfect prophecy destined for Step Ball Chain, Blu:sh’s first, yet expertly curated EP sets the bar high as hell. Divine dance music that can’t help but push boundaries; confronting and challenging our archival references and perceptions of genres and classifications, arguably the best kind of auditory statement. More

A subconscious inhale of precious tranquillity, Step No.4 hosts a rare and sentimental collaboration between Roza Terenzi and Australian virtuosic enigma jd. An intrinsic connection of friendship, understanding and mutual exchange of instinctive musical roots in the form of EP Third Nature. Divided by different continents, live recordings from a studio in Melbourne have been sent via cyberspace and sculpted into four genre expansive explorations, from new-age junkyard to devious dnb.

Textural research is extensively carried out through the records A side; polyrhythms galore as hand drums collide with shimmered shakers; forming tripped out tessellations. A leftfield nod to Madonna drools below the opening track, an anchor for mind-wandering timbre and chordal bliss, glorious saxophone trickles throughout an uplifting swell of suspended melodics. Constant evolution as things progress to a downtempo subterranean soundscape, A2 dropping deeper into pulsating bass, ricochets of drum cuts flickering in and out to haze out rhythmic stagnation yet maintain a complex flow. In contrast, the B side speeds soar, firstly a dreamy, steamy progressive peak timer; playful in nature yet packing a punch. The closer showcasing a sexy sinister side, dark drum and bass where pitched gongs hover and drip, rough and ready bass growls and breaks are sliced and diced with Michelin quality.

This highly anticipated pairing proves a contemporary form of analog/electric hybrid collaboration; an endless portal into groundbreakingly tweaked visions and the mergings of minds. More

Step Ball Chain continues to shake the system and flip the skritch with its third offering via MYKI’s follow up solo release “Delenya”. The undeniably intriguing Tel-Avivian Producer & DJ, also part of the Tofistock label family and member of Shen band, shares a consensual glimpse into his fevered brain over the course of a spellbinding week. Progressively exposing sensations rooted in paranoia and isolation of recent dystopian life, the EP is sonically metamorphosed into conscious expanding club explorations, percussively advanced and masterfly frenzied dance tools for the globe's memorable dance floors. With an additional likeminded remix from label-head Roza Terenzi, the 4 tracks embody a staunch riot signalling the optimistic restoration of movement and ferocity, highlighting the crucial role and release these sentiments provide. More

Visual Art and Music have historically shared an important, entwined relationship; often posing questions of which provoked which in a project? What about when the imagery is a medieval surrealist, hyper coloured XTC wonderland? Genre-blurred and stirred, daring and dynamic dance music for the twistedly imaginative minds and bodies! The Tapestry of Sound is an audio tribute to the liquid lockdown Tapestry of 2020, a wall-size mixed media art piece originally intended for a live-stream backdrop; despite not being completed in time, it became the epicentre of communal creative junction & release - no limits or logical sense. The result, a sonic terrarium cultivated by longtime partners in crime D. Tiffany and Roza Terenzi; with the help of friends, weaving their sapphic magic into something wicked and new for STEP02, Tapestry of Sound.

A maypole is a tall wooden pole often erected as part of late 19th century European Midsummer folk festivals, around which a dance often takes place; coinciding with Summer Solstice, or in Corona-era... Scrollstice. The A-side presents two contrasting offerings of the Maypole Theme, opening with the Surrealist Piano Roll Mix; an effortless euphoria gliding and twirling amidst a rolling 2-step garage routine, playfully anticipating melodic ecstasy via black and white keys. A complementary contrast offered by the Looming Giant Mix; sleek and deep. A hot-femme fiasco, driving and deviating between 4/4 and a freaky broken plot-twist; evoking imagery of the night, skipping fiercely round the pole; which was often considered a symbol of the union between masculine and feminine energy.

Wasp Of A Woman initiates the B side blowout, stripped back and sensual, but don’t be fooled; this is a straight-up b0mb. Low end throbbing underneath ferociously swung drums, topped by microphone assassin Kaylin with the fire lyrical content, a true upcycle of genres to set the mood for a flammable dancefloor. Cooling off, only slightly for a cigarette break, is Inhale, Exhale the final track from the EP. The tempo finally settling down but bumping up the groove with thumping toms guiding a playful party-starter, rhythmic and melodically inspired; infectiously cheeky with subliminal naughty memos teasing their way in through the backdoor.

Let your mind run wild with this effortless collaboration, two minds sharing the same obscurely forward-thinking visionary, the Tapestry Of Sound; a Meta Musical Time Capsule. More

Repress!
Tracklist:

A1 - Roza Terenzi - Cosmology
A2 - Roza Terenzi - Stylish Tantrum
B1 - Roza Terenzi & D. Tiffany - Chosen Family Feud
B2 - Roza Terenzi - Illusions
B3 - Roza Terenzi & Saoirse - Sxc Saloon


Sales Notes:
Popping The Cherry of 2020’s latest modern-contemporary record label; Step Ball Chain, is Roza Terenzi with “Stylish Tantrum”. Suggestive title to set the tone; the 5 track EP insisting sharp, sassy, high-tempered bombs with full bodied bounce. Unexpected tempo and timing variations, flared-up bpms, half time drum cuts and slicked modular flourishes, Terenzi’s signature cheek ramps up to an extra twisted club climate, atmospheric and evocative in texture as always. Featuring collaborations with D. Tiffany and Saoirse, the release covers extended dancefloor territory, assertive anthems delivering femme finesse, choreographed to perfection.

The A side fires up with an exuberant 4-by-4-2-the-floor routine, Cosmology. Vocal cuts from the queen Fiorella, billowing bells and dramatic synthetic sweeps to form fluidity over the tight bouncy low end. Whilst flirtatious melodic notions come and go, zip-lock percussion and commanding drumwork hold it down; squeaky steeze not-so-politely letting you know what’s to come. Deceivingly dubwise introductions soon furiously interrupted with Stylish Tantrum. Ricochet rhythms and bone breaking clap backs echo around your head, electrifying percussive fills and vocal spills snatching your attention before the everything glues together vicious harmony, baseline pulsating underneath a whiplash drum display - one for the dangerous deejays.

Chosen Family Feud opens the B side, a collab with seasoned associate D. Tiffany, showing off a bossy stomping brigade. Mumbling voices, waspy sirens and spooked out synth lines haunt the beginnings of the track, stripping back to a bassline breakdown before wailing vocals and clattered percussion take over, cymbals bursting. B2 is a moment to reflect, Illusions brings the energy down, low slung metallic backbeats thrown over encompassing, effortless pads and soaring resonance. The downtempo atmosphere crept up on by a double time d’n’b re-jig, softly gliding in over the growling sub, chopped breaks reflecting and falling. Closing out the record is another joint effort, recorded in Melbourne with Saoirse; Sxc saloon dashing back to the dancefloor, hot and deep. Throbbing bass married with slick galloping drums, sensuous fleeting whispers looping to draw you into hypnosis before a climactic tempo plummet intended to turn heads. STEP01 is kicking its heels up, stomping, strutting and trailblazing for what’s to come.olog More