Can you feel it? Time moving faster and faster. ''The next thing'' is always more appealing than what you're holding in your hands right now. But is it better? Well, perhaps. Perhaps not. At this pace, can you really tell? So. Just like Magritte's pipe wasn't a pipe, this is not a record. This is an invitation. An embracement. You see, this round disc may be white, but it is not empty. It is filled with our creativity. Our time. And now we would like you to fill this plain, white sleeve with your creativity and your time. We want you to share this with us. To be a part of this release. To be apart of our SELF. This music spoke to you in some way, and now we want you to speak to us. The language is up to you - do whatever you feel like! Some of you will paint, some of you will print, some of you will do things we couldn't even think of. All of you will be a part of the movement. A movement against the one-sidedness of the producer-consumer relation ship. A movement against the hurried Zeitgeist. A movement against the grain. We are the Swedish Electronic Liberation Front. We don't have customers. We don't have followers. We only have members. And you're invited to join us.





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Rivet is back on Kontra-Musik with a classy funk affair that will be luring us ever deeper into dancefloor delirium. It is a matured Rivet we meet on Bear Bile EP. The complexity of sound and composition of his latest EP, Driftwood continues here. Sometimes we hear Rivet complain that his production and release rate is to slow. When listening to his resent music you definitely understand why. Rivets music contains all the classic elements, but decomposed, manipulated and built together again in his own updated, very distinguished way.




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RIVET is back at it on SKUDGE...3 bold ones! TIP But what you gonna do when your artists keep sending you gems after gems? Well, Rivet gives us little choice, we just had to release this EP as soon as possible as it probably catches the spirit of what we consider the most relevant stuff around. If the concept behind the Driftwood EP can be traced back to an old Swedish theater OST from the 80ies, what you get is probably Rivet's most floor bending material ever. Filled with evil lurking storms of the most timeless kind, the journey starts with a bang as Driftwood crosses over the whole dance music spectrum, taking cues from funk, post punk, Manchester and Chicago house, certainly a challenging bridge building approach.Crane Dance follows a more sinister path with its witchy incantations carving a somewhat demonic take on house, a mesmerizing cascade of beats and eerie pads. Lastly, Line of Moments brings us some apparently more mellow grounds filled with melancholic strings soon to be revealed as deceivingly acidic chimeras. All in all an EP that we take great pride in presenting to your ears! Cheers, Skudge

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Mariachiara Troianiello, the force behind Katatonic Silentio, continues her exploration of spatial and sound design, slicing various forms of dub while following her instincts and storytelling through each work.

Troianiello's music and live sets are known to be meditative, with each transition subliminally serving a purpose. As 'Axis Of Light' delves into five pieces for this EP, one can experience the drops and transitions connecting, gradually uncovering hidden meanings.

Written and produced by Mariachiara Troianiello
Artwork by Apolo Cacho
Layout by Takashi Makabe
Digital Master by Paul Mac
Mastered and cut by Simon at The Exchange

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Ach, komm, ein Mensch kann nicht immer gut sein... This sentiment rings amusingly true for us. How did we find ourselves in this post-truth era, and why does such a term actually exist? In a world where distinctions between right and wrong blur, does the clarity of a black-and-white delineation persist? Are we progressing, or are we regressing to a state reminiscent of the past?

Weaving together the complex tapestry of gore, politics, emotions, and, of course, the human experience in this work is done intricately and reflectively by the hands of Christoph de Babalon.

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Pointillist club rhythms and dense, porous dub clouds encircle the Wrecked Lightship as Laurie Osborne and Adam Winchester set sail for phantom islands once more. The nocturnal boatswains chart a course guided by pronounced percussive impulses, using physicality to navigate the looming atmospheric pressure that has become their signature style.

Opening tracks ‘Arial’ and ‘Third Law’ speak to the roots of Osborne and Winchester’s respective work as Appleblim and Wedge, dealing in dancefloor abstractions where techno, electro and dubstep once stood, but there’s much more at play than simple genre tags could ever express. ‘Third Law’s electro-static interference calls back to Winchester’s work in Dot Product, while the twitchy urgency and gnarly bass echoes Osborne’s ALSO project with Second Storey.

Wrecked Lightship is an anchorless concern, free to drift into experimental waters if the currents surge that way, and so ‘Kill Mirror’ and ‘Hydrotower’ head away from forthright structures to play around with sound design and full-frequency manipulation. It’s too kinetic and jagged to be considered ambient, even if it willfully shirks the dancefloor. But for every starboard swerve there’s a prevailing wind, and the likes of finely-tuned club weapon ‘Take It Back’ whip ahead with laser-eyed focus.

Nailing their split interests between immediacy and the avant-garde to the mast, Wrecked Lightship deepen the reach of their project on their second album. Whatever shape a specific track might take, Oceans & Seas serves as a paean to the art of sonic manipulation and spatial processing.

Written and produced by Adam Winchester and Laurence Osborne
Artwork by Chloe Grove
Layout by Takashi Makabe
Text by Oliver Warwick
Mastered and cut by Simon at The Exchange

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Bringing his signature heavy freak crunch to the label, Cocktail Party Effect's "Oscilloscope Detachments" is the latest addition to the Midnight Shift catalogue.

Instructions: Follow the oscilloscope to jack into the EP's pulse from start to end.

Headliner A1 '77' dazzles in melodic glory paired with glitchy underfoot and a high-voltage wire running hot. Next, '88' lets it all loose with classic breaks twisted on its head and with its core intestines spilling out. Unexpected turns in this effect-heavy club composition recalls the phrase that "you've gotta know the rules to break the rules" and CPE is undoubtedly a master of that. '99' takes it further down South London style for the heads, while ambient closer '111' visualises the previously underscored oscilloscope in full spectrum.

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“There was something extra-political, extra-social, almost extra-human about it; it smacked of tidal waves, of natural forces . . . These emotions are my instruments.”
— Richard Wright, The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference (1956)

The Observatory is one of those last few bands that can change and become your life. Stuck in Singapore, the wilful outlier of Southeast Asia, this ever-shifting group stubbornly evolves past its roots, most recently in an more improvisational, instrumental, and noise-adjacent territories in an EP with collaborator Haino Keiji.

In DEMON STATE, Dharma and Cheryl Ong plus Yuen Chee Wai continue The Observatory’s bold partnerships, this time with electronic musician Koichi Shimizu (IMPRINT). Together, they finally reach this long-gestating, total (yet I’m sure temporary), and rhythm-focused, electronic reinvention of The Obs—while briefly nodding to their past. The road is long; DEMON STATE is one pit stop in glorious hell.

Partly stemming from a casual, improv studio session with Koichi in early 2020, the eight tracks on DEMON STATE—their first release on the Midnight Shift label—were formed from a gradual accumulation of sonic layers; they were foraged, recycled, and pieced together remotely also from solo bedroom recordings, a historical sample, nonhuman beats and effects, as well as journals and junk.

A vinyl and digital release, DEMON STATE features the cover-art illustration of Enka Komariah (Senyawa, Raja Kirik). As they describe it, the “sense of wretchedness in this, the waste of capitalism, the evils of racial discrimination, the ever-spiralling mess, the awakenism of control” are confronted, head on in the band’s pattern, to disturb, comfort, confuse, worship, dance, rest, and resist.
Ultimately, the singular form of DEMON STATE refers to our personal, individual, and ineffable states of demonic possession. DEMON STATE embraces us in the independent space of The Obs, where we can be alone together. It offers its listener some type of solace, if not an exorcism. For when the devil has been in us for this long, who’s to say who’s possessing who, who’s whispering sibilant sounds in our ears, who’s wearing the mask, who’s not yet dead and who’s still alive? Who’s still fighting for a just world?

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Versatility does not even come close to describing how the humble Japanese ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U is considered to be one of the best DJs in the world by many of his peers. From his debut at DJ Nobu’s FUTURE TERROR event to performing 3 years consecutively at Berlin Atonal Festival, Yukimatsu’s sets have to be heard for you to understand.

In this special mix album, Yukimatsu gathers round his producer friends to build vessels of the story structure. Threading the pages together, interweaved by friendship and sine waves, he has crafted a masterful presentation from their individual messages. Pulling and stretching all sonic shapes and shades while exploring the farthest reaches of sound, the result is a frequency soup of twelve outstanding tracks that when sequenced together, become part of a greater, grander story: Midnight is Comin’.

From the sound art experimentations of orhythmo – Nagel and wide yawning strings in Ryo Murakami – Reminiscence to the rhythmic slo-mo haze of Sapphire Slows – Hinotori and the exponentially pulsing colours from DJ Nobu - Yakou Gai. The DMT-like spacious virtual meditation hall of KEIHIN – Exhale follows the uneasy footsteps of YPY – MS to the intermissioning chapter of City – 9K. Fall into the wormhole of COMPUMA –Flowmotion (IN DUB) and be transported to the reverb-drenched, intimate experience of Coni – Ängelsbäcksstrand, the primal invocations of Gabber Modus Operandi – Kisah (which also means story in Bahasa Indonesian) to the transcendent notes of SPINNUTS - Zweimal schlafen atmosphäre. The soaring universe of Albino Sound – Celestial Sphere wraps up the album with crystalline notes.

“Versatile is not even close to describing his music selection and mixing skills as he plays anything without prejudice and is purely music loving. He is extremely humble, can mix anything and make it sound interesting.” – nolens.volens (Bangkok, Thailand)

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Throwing a curveball in the works, Midnight Shift releases an artist they have been in touch with for the past six years. Italy's Nothus (XCPT) introduces his richly textured sonic world via the Xtreme Ratio EP, inspired by India and his field recordings captured during a trip -- from water sounds deep in the jungle to crowds and temple bells. The result is presented in finely detailed stereo gymnastics with 4D punch.

Crossing from the pure cinematic to dubby bass step and techno breaks, the futuristic meets primal urges like metal on flesh. Wormhole right into the frenetic pace of 'Le Segrete' and its glitched out matrix assault, while 'Sesso Orazio feat. Delikwe' with percussive drum breaks and distorted bird calls cuts a groove from an alternate reality dimension. A world that was once imagined by our ancestors but now lost.

Written and produced by Nothus
Dedicated to my people at EXP Records in Bari, South Italy
B1 co-produced with Delikwe
Artwork by EPOD
Layout by Graeme "Gramrcy" Bateman
Mastered and cut by Simon from The Exchange

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A bridging of minds and energies, a confluence of souls and spirits. Midnight Shift releases an exclusive collaboration between Prequel Tapes and dBridge - Ionize. Cast all genres aside, as two electronic worlds collide to produce a third sonic space.

Start your engines with 'Divisible Cause' speeding and hurtling into the great atmospheric unknown. Outlier for the freaks, 'Stray Thrills' amalgamates between the classicist EBM and futurist UK bass. Stumble through 'Pleasure Systems' with light sabres, wrangled beats and gun shots ricochetting off the walls in one heady disorientation. Then wander aimlessly into the warehouse at 170bpm with 'Mindless', led by twilight tones and menacing machines at every turn.

Written and produced by Marco Freivogel and Darren White
Mixed by Prequel Tapes
Artwork by EPOD
Layout by Graeme "Gramrcy" Bateman
Mastered and cut by Simon from The Exchange

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A personal release for both Mr. G and the label, where a friendship was born in Temasek, the earliest recorded name of a settlement in Singapore. From the stay at the Pan Pacific hotel with great views of the city centre, to a bespoke cocktail bar and tucking into black pepper crab, the memorable excursion is now forever captured in this EP. Liner notes: Thought out by Mr G after been shown the time of our life's.....@ 23 The Heights Thanx to Phoenix G 2015

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Originally released on Studio !K7 Records in 1998, Peter Kruder and Richard Dorfmeister's groundbreaking release, 'The K&D Sessions' reset the bar for what could be achieved in a compilation. Across an array of original tracks, dubs and infamous K&D Session remixes, the DJ and producer duo took the listener on a smoke-filled blunted journey that flowed flawlessly. Often compared to DJ Shadow's 'Endtroducing' for it's similarly deft craft of rhythm and quoted by Allmusic as "the most blissfully blunted music the world has ever heard", the album has sold over 1,000,000 copies to date and was included in Spin s Top 20 albums of 1999 .

The album has long since been deleted on Vinyl with original 4LP sets changing hands for 300+ on the collectors market and even a bootleg vinyl copy will set a buyer back over 100. Sixteen years later, this legendary album will be available as a long overdue 5LP reissue remastered by Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood. Finally back in print in 180g vinyl.

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