RNT is rebooting the beloved House of Spirits project with a 7Inch series streamlined for the dusty donut heads. First up is the one that started it all 'Holding On' on the A side with it’s P&P meets rare-groove-gospel flavor that essentially defines Tom Noble’s HOS sound, and crowd favorite album cut 'Love Trip' on the flip. Never-leave-the-bag material!

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Still buzzing from the first House of Spirits 12 Inch earlier this summer, RNT tops up our collective high with even more soulful bliss from the mind of Tom Noble. A Brit-funk inspired uptempo heater with spindly guitars, driving bass and a joyous vocal hook, 'Please Take Me There' is another all original modern retro offering that portends the massive gravity of the full LP to come. On the B side, Dutch production wunderkinds Makez reconfigure the tune into a sultry vocal house excursion, and Sizmo takes it to the beach with an extra wavey balearic A Capella dub. End of Summer essential!

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Tom Noble, digger extraordinaire, owner of Superior Elevation Records, and general Brooklyn/LA legend, dons his House Of Sprits moniker for the first single from a forthcoming LP on Razor-N-Tape.

'Times Are Changing' sets the tone for this album project that collects the work of nearly 15 years, a gritty vision of modern-retro soul that throws a reverent nod to its Mizell Brothers and Patrick Adams influences as it brings the sound into the future. Recorded with all live instrumentation and mixed tough for the dance floor, this limited 12 Inch boasts an extended original and instrumental on the A side, and a huge remix from Aussie synth wizard Harvey Sutherland on the flip that highlights the rich instrumentation and extremely catchy vocal hook. A surefire summer jam, this is timeless music that is only the tip of the iceberg from a future classic album.

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After a feature on last year’s VA Family Affair comp, Tokyo-based producer Yuu Udagawa drops her first solo EP on Razor-N-Tape. With releases on Freerange and Compost under her belt, Yuu has been developing a subtle and moody deep house sound that she displays across the 3 original songs of the Urban Physicality EP. Each track vibrates with dark chordal textures, pulsating drums and chopped vocal samples, beautifully layered to develop and slowly build. To round out the record, Tokyo producer Takuya Matsumoto turns in a throbbing late-nite remix of the EP’s title track, with a tougher drum profile, cavernous bass and masterful sound design.

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For her sophomore outing on Razor-N-Tape, Megatronic drops There’s Truth in Gospel, an extended concept EP built around the idea of a modern-day gospel congregation, reimagined through the lens of soulful, high-energy club sounds. Its six soulful house tracks explore vibrant layers of live instrumentation, from trumpets, flutes, and diverse percussion styles that breathe warmth into the sonic palette of the record. Featuring the voices of Fawziyya Heart, Aku, and Chico Casidi, and gorgeous artwork that perfectly captures the rich concept of the music, There’s Truth in Gospel is an ode to unity, joy, and collective celebration.

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The collaboration between influential DJ/producer Eli Escobar and acclaimed vocalist/songwriter Nomi Ruiz has been a long time in the making. The two Puerto Rican New York native’s first collaboration, the electrifying track ‘Desire’ in 2011, set the stage for a series of projects, including their recent joint effort ‘Dance 4 Love ’99’. Now, they are set to release their debut LP, ‘Love Louder’.

‘Love Louder’ captures Eli and Nomi’s experiences of love and loss, reflecting their enduring connection to New York City and its vibrant, yet fading, nightlife culture. The album, while featuring dancefloor gems like ‘Heathens’ and ‘Full Fantasy’, takes an emotional turn, focusing on the themes of loss and presence in a rapidly changing world. The title track opens with lyrics invoking the late Donny Hathaway, reflecting a more profound introspection from the duo. They share their pain over loss, particularly the passing of mutual friend James Dewitt (DJ BluJemz), whose absence profoundly affected their creative process.

Escobar recently opened a club in Brooklyn named Gabriela, honoring a friend who passed away during the pandemic, emphasizing their commitment to preserving New York's cultural landscape. ‘Love Louder’ serves as a love letter to their hometown, intertwining celebration with mourning. In the poignant track ‘Go Be Gone’, Ruiz expresses the difficulty of embracing change and saying goodbye.

As they honor the past, they also aim for a brighter future through their music.

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Masterful producer Yuksek returns to RNT with the Deja Vous EP of all-original modern disco. She’s Mine leads with a rolling percussive beat and Italo baseline and layers emotive piano chords and plaintiff vocals, to hearken back to a nostalgic era of indie disco. On the flip side, the EP title track collab with Brazilian producer Diogo Strausz brings expected tropical flavor, and All Night feels a bit French-touchy with it’s infectious phase effected vocal loop. Accessible hooks and solid production, this is a handy one for the bag!

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As bassist for dance-punk outfit The Rapture, Mattie Safer cut his teeth in the music scene alongside a wave of now-legendary early 2000s NYC acts like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem and more (a time period recently immortalized in the documentary film ‘Meet Me In The Bathroom.’) Fast-forward nearly 2 decades and Mattie has found the sweeter side of dance music as the current lead vocalist for slo-mo kings Poolside, and now he presents his 2nd solo lovetempo project on Razor-N-Tape.

Championed heavily by Gilles Peterson, lovetempo’s modern soul classic 'But I Do' gets a vinyl release with a trio of remixes. Crackazat delivers in his signature style, weav-ing the organic elements and earworm vocals of the original into a deep and jazzy mix. Lon-doner Daisybelle bumps the BPMs up a few notches and adds pulsing synths to her take, and Brazilian duo From House To Disco turn in a dubby club remix to round out the record.

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Brazilian producer Diogo Strausz makes his return to RNT with an incredible pair of new tracks, each remixed to perfection respectively by Kai Alce and Lex Wolf. Canto Das Trés Raças is a classic of legendary proportions, and Diogo’s new cover version both honors the original and brings a fresh new take, entirely re-recorded and primed for the dance floor. Ever-reliable Atlanta deep house don Kai Alce turns in an incredible soulful remix that feels like an instant classic. On the flip, Diogo’s original tune Caramba strikes a lighter tone, with arpeggiated synths and a cheeky vocal, giving Kraftwerk meets Marcos Valle at the disco. RNT/Make-A-Dance stalwart Lex Wolf bumps the tempo up a few clicks, looping and filtering synths and an extemporaneous vocal sample into a hypnotic, driving club track.

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JKriv returns to home base Razor-N-Tape with the Intuition EP, a strong statement of how far his sound has traveled in the 2+ years since his last artist release on the label.

Blueprint, a driving club burner rooted on an unrelenting bass line, builds slowly through conversational synth elements until it opens up into a soulful vocal loop that explodes in a euphoric peak. The title track of the EP is a dubby slow roller that was equal parts inspired by 90s Ryuichi Sakamoto records and modern G-funk. Over its lithe piano, hooky vocoder melodies, and rolling bass, Megatronic delivers a melancholic message of relationship loss and renewal, and coda vocals are added by J himself.

Zone 1, an ode to David Morales’ amazing Red Zone 90s remix catalog, drives hard with insistent analog drums and absolutely filthy bass beneath a pillowy layer of lush and acidic synth elements. Wearing the influence of J’s favorite producer Larry Heard proudly on its sleeve, Paula’s Dance is a symphony of intertwining analog gear, with a mysterious and gorgeous vocal by Mexican singer Pahua.

Completed while JKriv was undergoing treatment for lymphoma in the latter part of 2024, this record is both deeply personal and a triumphant statement of determination under adversity. The beautiful cover artwork by The Myno captures both the vulnerability and focus that defined the period in which J made this music.

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Fresh off a trip to the watercooler, London’s Clive From Accounts is circling back with his most expansive offering to date, the full length LP 'The Very Best Of Clive From Accounts.' Action items include lead-off single 'Save Me' with its driving organ stabs, soulful vocals, exuberant steel pans and just a touch of acid, as well as second single 'Heavier' which lives up to its name as a dark and weighty club number that boasts some heavy toasting from Riko Dan. But you’ll also want to go ahead and put a pin in 'Konsumu Suru' for a more melancholic tone with Japanese vocals by Maya Kuroki & violin by Jessica Roch, the mideastern tinged 'It Began,' and classic drum & bass vibes of 'Spectrum' amongst others!

We’ve run the numbers and offered this record as a 7 track vinyl sampler, that includes a special intra-office easter egg! A true win-win, this varied EP really fleshes out the depth and breadth of Clive’s wheelhouse, and is a deep dive into modern UK club sounds.

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Londoner come Margatean Ben Sun returns to RNT with a full-length offering of introspective analog electronic textures. Moving through various tempos and rhythmic styles, Ben crafts a sonic palette that feels alternatively meditative and melancholic, dark and brooding, or meditative and euphoric, while always rooted in a solid groove. With gorgeous artwork designed by Ben himself, this record is a gorgeous listen, and essential warmth for the frigid winter months

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RNT drops their fourth installment of the beloved compilation series Family Affair with a diverse offering of vibes, and adds some fresh new faces to their ever expanding roster of artists. On the A side an Afro-electro secret weapon from label co-head JKriv’s DJ set is released into the wild, and German legend Vincenzo delivers a tune that harkens back to the lush deep house of his early 2000s glory era. The 3 songs of the B side bring even more variety, from the stomping hypnotic new disco of Ilija Rudman’s ‘Discoteka Parmida,’ to the head - nodding R&B groove of Yasmin’s ‘Real High’ and the modern live-arranged Afrobeat vibe of Arnau Obiols’ ‘Pagan Mambo.’ With ever gorgeous jacket art that is now the signature style of this series, this record is one for both the listening shelf and the bag!

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UK-born, Lisbon-based DJ, Producer, Songwriter, and activist Megatronic joins the RNT roster with her ‘Do I Belong To You?’ EP, a bold statement of her soulful and visionary sound. Side A opens with the deeply emotive ’The World’ featuring soulful and melancholic vocals by Stavros, then moves to the pulsating and freewheeling groove of Nuffin’ But Love (co-produced by Jitwam) and finishes with the jazzy vibes of Organic, with Meg’s sultry spoken poetry floating over live instrumentation. On the flip side two superlative remixes by heavyweights Jimpster and Kiko Navarro take Meg’s music straight to the dance floor, with Jimpster bringing is his signature lush deep textures to ‘Been Thinking’ (the original of which is available as part of the digi EP only) and Kiko delivering an acid afro-house banger of a mix on ‘The World.’ A gorgeous listen from beginning to end, this EP captures a sound that feels both classic and futuristic all at once.

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Still buzzing from the first House of Spirits 12 Inch earlier this summer, RNT tops up our collective high with even more soulful bliss from the mind of Tom Noble. A Brit-funk inspired uptempo heater with spindly guitars, driving bass and a joyous vocal hook, 'Please Take Me There' is another all original modern retro offering that portends the massive gravity of the full LP to come. On the B side, Dutch production wunderkinds Makez reconfigure the tune into a sultry vocal house excursion, and Sizmo takes it to the beach with an extra wavey balearic A Capella dub. End of Summer essential!

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Colombian-born, New York-raised producer and instrumentalist Felipe Quiroz aka Prince of Queens brings his unique synthesis of trans-caribbean culture with house and techno to RNT on his Merida EP. Known for releases on Names You Can Trust and his band Combo Chimbita, this lush and varied EP invites you into a world where vintage tropical sounds and modular synthesizers live side-by-side on the dance floor. With 6 songs stretched across two sides, the record explores a wide range of tempos and electronic Latin vibes, and boasts gorgeous cover art that suits the emotion of the music perfectly. Although he is a seasoned producer, Prince of Queens is still a relatively new name on the club scene…but with this definitive musical statement it’s a name that the heads will remember.

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Magic Words, a new project from NY-based producers Eli Cohen and Peter Hargarten, make their debut on RNT with the Wabi Soba EP, a perfect summertime record. If the title track sounds a bit familiar it’s because it’s been in Harvey’s hands for a while and has made many appearances in his sets around the world. Based around an emotive and dreamy loop, the song basically embodies Balearica, dripping with Spanish guitar and wistful, melancholic harmonies. Toronto’s Jex Opolis turns in a massive remix that preserves all the delicate texture of the origi-nal and lays it lovingly over a pulsing clubby drum foundation. Already getting a huge re-sponse in the RNT crew’s club sets, this is a special record that’s got some serious sum-mer anthem buzz!

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Tom Noble, digger extraordinaire, owner of Superior Elevation Records, and general Brooklyn/LA legend, dons his House Of Sprits moniker for the first single from a forthcoming LP on Razor-N-Tape.

'Times Are Changing' sets the tone for this album project that collects the work of nearly 15 years, a gritty vision of modern-retro soul that throws a reverent nod to its Mizell Brothers and Patrick Adams influences as it brings the sound into the future. Recorded with all live instrumentation and mixed tough for the dance floor, this limited 12 Inch boasts an extended original and instrumental on the A side, and a huge remix from Aussie synth wizard Harvey Sutherland on the flip that highlights the rich instrumentation and extremely catchy vocal hook. A surefire summer jam, this is timeless music that is only the tip of the iceberg from a future classic album.

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Mexican sensation Pahua comes to Razor-N-Tape via a huge remix project featuring some of the hottest producer names in current outer-national dance music.

Remixers on this 12” includes both staples and newcomers to the RNT production stable. Label co-head JKriv turns in a late-nite bass mix of the exceedingly popular ‘Porque Yo,’ Captain Planet delivers a percussive & thumping afro-house flip to “‘Espantapajaros’, Tigerbalm brings her chugging international disco flair to ‘Pa’lante,’ Prince of Queens digs deep with a housey dub of ‘Calla,’ and Londoner Clive From Accounts takes ‘Cana Brava’ into moody nu-disco meets amapiano territory.

With a collection of remixes as prolific and solid as these, RNT opted for an expansive 12” and 7” package which features seven of the remixes across two slabs of vinyl, with gorgeous artwork that flips the moonrise eclipse motif of the original Habita album cover perfectly in a slick device that reveals a crescent moon as the record is removed from the jacket.

This package honors the essence of the original music, while flipping it in quintessential RNT club-ready fashion.

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The 3rd installment of Razor-N-Tape's Family Affair series is back and hotter than ever! Now an annual end-of-year tradition, Family Affair Vol. 3 features a heavy hitting 5 track sampler of standout tracks from the full compilation.

The A side features two spanking new remixes of RNT material — Ezel’s dub of Cor.ece & JKriv’s Possibly Impossible takes the track into classic & soulful house territory, while Bruce Leroys flip fellow brasilian artist Guinu’s Amanha into a mid-tempo afro stomper.

The B side starts with boogie-funk bomb Better Than Her by JKriv ft. Saucy Lady & Tortured Soul on vocals. Kim Ahn delivers the deep & sensual vibrations of In The Stars, and Cody Currie rounds out the EP with Ghost, a funk live instrumentation heavy UK broken beat jazz-dance serving.

With gorgeous art lovingly designed by The Myno, in true RNT style the collection is a lovely listen from beginning to end, and naturally boasts some serious dance floor heat!

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Leon Michels has quietly become one of the most sought-after producers in music. His signature sound has caught the attention of the mainstream while continuing to inspire the underground. Since 2023's El Michels Affair & Black Thought album Glorious Game, Michels has been busy producing records for other artists; Norah Jones' Grammy winning Visions, Clairo's Grammy nominated Charm, Kali Uchis' "Moonlight", as well as albums for labelmates Brainstory, Derya Yyldyrym & Grup imek, Thee Heart Tones, and Liam Bailey. His new album 24 Hr Sports marks the highly anticipated return to recording under his own moniker, El Michels Affair 24 Hr Sports was inspired by the fashion and graphic design of `80s & `90s Sports Illustrated magazines, MF DOOM's Special Herbs albums, the sample sources used on them, and gospel music a la Pastor T.L. Barrett. The sum of those inuences with Michels' impeccable creative touch prove to be the recipe for an instant classic that will surely be one of the most heralded releases of 2025. The album opener "Drum Line" is an anthemic, uplifting tune with marching band drumming and thundering brass arrangements that command undivided attention and set the tone for what's to come. 24 Hr Sports sees a signicant departure from the largely instrumental music of the El Michels Affair catalog with a roster of vocal features that manages to mirror the undenable genre of his music. The rst one on the album is "Mágica" which features Brazil's Rogê. He takes the already pumping energy of the track over the top with his fútbol inspired lyrics. Moving from Brazil to Ghana, "Say Goodbye" features Florence Adooni who touts her individuality with an effortless swag jumping between Frafra and English, telling it like it is in the earworm chorus, "never gonna nd a girl like me_". Labelmate and world renowned trumpeter from The Roots, Dave Guy joins the `70s groove of "Oakley's Car Wash" with his distinct horn lines before the track switches lanes, closing with a dubby outro. From raucous to serene, "Anticipate" featuring Clairo picks up on the musical synergy between her and Leon that created 2024's Charm album. Clairo rides signature EMA arrangements perfectly as she pines for an unattainable love over the band's airtight instrumentation. "Eastside" is a song that could soundtrack a sunrise over the ocean, putting Leon's tasteful use of space and arrangement on a pedestal. By way of Japan, The Suginami Children's Choir join in on the lush "Clean The Line" singing a song about the moon, the sun, and birds. Next, "Cortex" kicks in the door with gritty distorted guitars and thundering drums that puts a moment of pure cinematic intensity in the middle of the album. Leon himself handles lead vocals on "Shining," a song about looking for a friend to share the joys of a sunny day with. The universally adored Shintaro Sakamoto is featured on "Indifference", a swanky tune built on bouncing basslines and ute chops. Shintaro uses the arrangements to go from singing to speaking, musing over a eeting love. The Grammy winning duo of Norah Jones and Michels reunite on "Carry Me Away" with Jones' honeyed vocals soaring over a track that is hard to place but easy to love. Leon leans into El Michels Affair territory on the tune that sounds decidedly different from the Norah Jones records he has produced. "Take My Hand" puts gospel inuence front and center with the Fabulous Rainbow Singers choir on the chorus and a saxophone solo from the late great Rahsaan Roland Kirk. "Open Season", a mid tempo, piano driven number with group vocals chanting "we want the gold, we want the gold_" could soundtrack a slow motion highlight reel, while the aptly titled album closer "Victory Lap" is a dreamy euphoric wind-down worthy of the record that just nished. When all is said and done, the trophy on the cover of the album speaks volumes. El Michels Affair is champion sound and 24 Hr Sports hammers that home.

Tracklist
1.1DRUMLINE
1.2MáGICA FEAT ROGê
1.324 HR SPORTS THEME NO 1
1.4SAY GOODBYE FEAT FLORENCE ADOONI
1.5OAKLEY'S CAR WASH FEAT DAVE GUY
1.6ANTICIPATE FEAT CLAIRO
1.7EASTSIDE
1.8CLEAN THE LINE
1.9CORTEX
1.10SHINING
1.1124 HR SPORTS THEME NO 2
1.12INDIFFERENCE FEAT SHINTARO SAKAMOTO
1.13CARRY ME AWAY FEAT NORAH JONES
1.14TAKE MY HAND FEAT RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK
1.15OPEN SEASON
1.16VICTORY LAP

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2LP Green splatter

Tracklisting
1 Sound then Words
2 We would lift our Voice...
3 We are calling out in this moment…
4 The Water is Rising / as we surpass the firing squad…
5 We have work to do... (speaking after the concert)

Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople is the first collaborative
album from poet/vocalist Saul Williams and percussionist/producer Carlos Niño.
The album was recorded live underneath black oak and walnut trees in Coldwater Canyon Park, Los Angeles, on December 18, 2024.

The performance, which was organized by Noah Klein of Living Earth on the grounds of longstanding conservationist organization TreePeople, was the first of its kind for Williams and Niño, who have been friends since the late 1990s.

For the occasion, Niño assembled and directed an ensemble of frequent collaborators including Nate Mercereau (Guitar Synthesizer, Live Sampling with Midi Guitar, Sample Sources), Aaron Shaw (Flute, Soprano Saxophone with Pedals, Tenor Saxophone), Andres Renteria (Bells, Congas, Egyptian Rattle Drum, Hand Drums, Percussion), Maia (Flute, Vibraphone, Voice), Francesca Heart (Computer, Conch Shell, Sound Design), and Kamasi Washington (Tenor Saxophone). Available Friday September 19th, 2025.


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Almost fifteen years since the release of her self-titled debut LP on Mr Bongo, reggae’s orator of love Hollie Cook is returning to the label for Shy Girl, her fifth studio album and her most authentic yet. Woven with tight grooves, beautiful vocals and catchy melodies, Shy Girl hears singer and songwriter Hollie Cook revel in her contemporary lovers rock sound, more confident and open to vulnerability than ever before.

A sun-drenched exploration of love in all its guises, Shy Girl tells stories of the magical and the melancholy, the heart-lifting and heart-breaking, across 12 luscious, analogue reggae compositions - the culmination of a soft-hued and instantly recognisable “tropical pop” sound that Cook has made her own.

Put together across three years and four cities – from LA and NYC, to Vejer de la Frontera in Spain and Cook’s hometown London – Shy Girl was written with long-time collaborators, The General Roots Band, and features a contribution from legendary dub MC, Horseman, who lends his voice to the album’s first single ‘Night Night’.

The album opens with the title track ‘Shy Girl’, a buoyant and elastic slice of lovers rock that was written in a moment of spontaneous intuition, and bubbles with a charisma and positivity that Cook radiates. “I’m not a natural show-off,” Cook explains. “The Shy Girl theme is me. It’s just about being my most vulnerable self and being as true to the music that Iove as possible.” It is this honesty which shines throughout, from the chugging deep dub of ‘Frontline’, complete with raking electric guitar lines, to the bittersweet roots ballad ‘We Share Love’, which closes out the album.

It's clear to see that Cook’s songwriting draws on a lifetime of musical influences and inspirations. From her father, Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook’s record collection and touring with post-punk icon Ari Up’s The Slits, to her love for strong female-led pop music and the bassweight of London’s sound system culture. Enamoured with the music of Janet Kay and Phyllis Dillon, Shy Girl represents a homecoming and a coming-of-age for Hollie Cook, distilling and refining a shimmering reggae sound that will capture your heart, as it first captured hers.

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The debut album is a journey through layers of influences connected by the band members bringing the sound of Ethio-Jazz, Afrobeat, Percussion, Dub and Tribal Music with an electronica sauce are interwoven, all mixed together in a delicate balance that creates a cinematic soulful and one-of a kind aesthetic blend from the connection of several worlds
The name "Tezeta" is taken from the well-known Ethiopian musical scale, which served as a major inspiration for the writing. This scale symbolizes nostalgia, longing & love songs and serves as a starting point that resonates a quiet pain and longing for a far away place, but still feels like home. In the case of Hadar and Tushiner, this is a tangible longing and the African sounds are woven into them like a second language
The approach to the production of the album reflects loyalty to the tradition of classic studio recordings that include tape reels, field recordings, African percussion, flutes, saxophone and old synthesizers combined with guitars and drums. Every recorded sound went through a filter of precision, listening, and searching for depth that is both technical and emotional
Their music always takes place in the present, it is a living, open moment, connected at the same time to what is heard in the distance from the winds of the Gulf of the African continent and through the streets of Tel Aviv, inviting listeners into a space where emotion and rhythm move together as one

Eran Hadar guitars, synths, percussion, sound
Eylon Tushiner saxophone, flute, keys
Dror Tshuva bass guitar
Omri Gondor drums

A1 - Tezeta
A2 - Addis Alem
A3 - Ko Ba Na
B1 - Bride Dance
B2 - Addis Ababa
B3 - Afrikoko

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Repress!

The latest by Chicago trio Purelink unspools an alchemical suite of fractal ambient, dusted dub tech, and interstitial electronica, born from a spirit of unity and flux: “All hands on the mixer, forever finding the sound.” Since forming in 2020, Tommy Paslaski (aka Concave Reflection), Ben Paulson (aka Kindtree), and Akeem Asani (aka Millia) have convened regularly in a shared studio to workshop, swap samples, and hone their collective muse via “the endless possibilities of a laptop,” seeking “something different than we would make on our own.”

Distilled from extended compositions prepared and performed across 2022 in Chicago, Kansas City, New York, and Los Angeles, Signs captures their chemistry at its most liquid and immaterial, mapped in mutating systems of glitch, glass, rhythm, and space. It’s music alternately subdued and subterranean, elevated and remote, attuned to the flickering sentience of outer spheres.

Cover art by Ezra Miller.

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Solitary Dancer compose their first new works in five years for adidas & Yohji Yamamoto's pioneering Y-3 label. Originally featured as the score for Y-3's Spring/Summer 2025 runway presentation at Salle Pleyel in Paris, Y-3001 ushers in a series of artist commissions aimed at defining a new era of sound for the historic brand's return to runway format.

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
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There isn’t many who would disagree with the underlying sentiment that electronic music makes us feel something extraordinary. Much in the same way, the possibilities for creative discourse and cosmic interactivity are accessible to anyone with an open mind. It’s in this place where these possibilities materialise, and it’s in this space where SYNCROPHONE 39 operates within.
You see, you won’t find cleverly constructed adjectives or nonsensical descriptors for the music presented here. It doesn’t need them. The music speaks for itself, much in the same way the artists do. Stojche has been carving out timeless techno for two decades now, working tirelessly without fanfare to enrich a scene that sits close to his heart. Whether that be through releases on his own imprint TANGIBLE ASSETS or the ever expanding a.r.t.less, his trademark sound signature is synonymous with the soul of Detroit. You may be hard pressed to find anyone else who’s been as consistent with this sound over the years as he has. On the other hand, Gerard Hanson aka Convextion has been doing exactly that without fault his entire career. So the combination of these two artists on this release makes perfect sense.
Syncro39 is a celebration of core values in music. Of devotion to a singular obsession crafted over the course of decades devoid of trends or cheap influences, social or otherwise. It’s that unwillingness to compromise and to put everything on the line in the pursuit of the dreaming process that makes this a special release.
One thing is for certain. Those who are inspired by Stojche’s signature original and the timeless journey of Convextion’s remix,
will carry themselves through the smoke and haze into the sunlight as it takes some time for the rush to subside. That’s probably an apt abstract for this release thus far. For the most part though, the narrative for Stojche has only just begun.


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Gifted & Blessed is back again, this time with his first full-length album as The Abstract Eye, bearing his soul through his arsenal of analogue and mostly vintage drum machines, synthesizers, and effects processors. You Can’t Unsee Me consists of 8 pieces recorded live and in one take at different moments over the last 10 years. Throughout the album, AE exhibits simple-yet-complex sequencing and processing while emphasizing depth, warmth, and heart. Whether you’re looking for music to dance to, music to relax and vibe to, or music to think deeply to, this has it all. One thing that’s for sure about The Abstract Eye…once you’ve experienced what he brings to the world through his signature brand of electronic music, you simply can’t unsee him.

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2nd Pressing!

“There is no defined goal, rather a desire to explore new sonic languages that hold firmly to Neapolitan roots while opening up to a global and contemporary musical aesthetic.” - Pellegrino

With the name Koinè, a term that means “common language,” the work already guards a declaration of intent in its title, where languages (spoken and musical) and dialects mingle, creating a mosaic of sounds, sensations and visions that weaves the Neapolitan melodic tradition with disco, funk, jazz fusion and world music. Pellegrino abandons the patterns associated with revivalism, experimenting with new compositional dimensions and drawing from an imagery that blends vintage instruments, ethnic percussion and Mediterranean atmospheres.
Koinè is a musical journey that embraces the risk of change while exalting its liberating power: a sequence of images and emotions, traversing the past, experiencing the present with its baggage of disillusions and expectations and projecting itself into the future in search of a need for elsewhere that reconnects us with ourselves.

The album is a eulogy of contaminations: from popular music to synth pop, contemporary songs blending with a “dance” fusion. A delicate balance between roots and change, tradition and creative drive, in which the Pellegrino & Zodyaco project draws an authentic and contemporary portrait of the Neapolitan “new school” of which it was among the first promoters with the works “Zodyaco I” (2018) and “Morphé

Koinè is proof that escape, when it is conscious, can bring us back to the heart of things.

"In times like these, escape is the only way to stay alive and keep dreaming" H.L.

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Tracklisting
A1 Dold - Phyllite
A2 Dold - Blueschist
B1 Dold - Tactite
B2 Dold - Slate

Sales Note
Opposing rising colder days but in line with greyed-out skies, Metamorphism EP by Swedish producer Dold pays tribute to nature's brutal, subterranean forces where winter solstice causes the world to look paused and asleep.

Four uncompromising tracks that emerge from minimalistic elements to genuine narration full of drive and energy, showcasing Dold's unique, dynamic handwriting in composition once again. T3R014 finds us at the right time and place where blackbirds and north winds take control, reminding us that heat and fire will always exist deep below us.

Out on December 6th - Make sure to grab your limited copy!
c 2024 The Third Room
Written and Produced by Patrik Eriksson
Mixdown and Mastering by Ahmet Sisman (The Third Room Studios)
Artwork by Daniel Bornmann & Lennard Makosch (STUEDIO.XYZ)
Distribution by Triple Vision
Pressing by Matter Of Fact

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Volume 1 of this expertly curated project of 90s Italian House - put together by Don Carlos.

If Paradise was half as nice… by Fabio De Luca.

Googling “paradise house”, the first results to pop up are an endless list of European b&b’s with whitewashed lime façades, all of them promising “…an unmatched travel experience a few steps from the sea”. Next, a little further down, are the institutional websites of a few select semi-luxury retirement homes (no photos shown, but lots of stock images of smiling nurses with reassuring looks). To find the “paradise house” we’re after, we have to scroll even further down. Much further down.

It feels like yesterday, and at the same time it seems like a million years ago. The Eighties had just ended, and it was still unclear what to expect from the Nineties. Mobile phones that were not the size of a briefcase and did not cost as much as a car? A frightening economic crisis? The guitar-rock revival?! Certainly, the best place to observe that moment of transition was the dancefloor. Truly epochal transformations were happening there. From America, within a short distance one from the other, two revolutionary new musical styles had arrived: the first one sounded a bit like an “on a budget” version of the best Seventies disco-music – Philly sound made with a set of piano-bar keyboards! – the other was even more sparse, futuristic and extraterrestrial. It was a music with a quite distinct “physical” component, which at the same time, to be fully grasped, seemed to call for the knotty theories of certain French post-modern philosophers: Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Paul Virilio... Both those genres – we would learn shortly after – were born in the black communities of Chicago and Detroit, although listening to those vinyl 12” (often wrapped in generic white covers, and with little indication in the label) you could not easily guess whether behind them there was a black boy from somewhere in the Usa, or a girl from Berlin, or a pale kid from a Cornish coastal town.

Quickly, similar sounds began to show up from all corners of Europe. A thousand variations of the same intuition: leaner, less lean, happier, slightly less intoxicated, more broken, slower, faster, much faster... Boom! From the dancefloors – the London ones at least, whose chronicles we eagerly read every month in the pages of The Face and i-D – came tales of a new generation of clubbers who had completely stopped “dressing up” to go dancing; of hot tempered hooligans bursting into tears and hugging everyone under the strobe lights as the notes of Strings of Life rose up through the fumes of dry ice (certain “smiling” pills were also involved, sure). At this point, however, we must move on to Switzerland.

In Switzerland, in the quiet and diligent town of Lugano, between the 1980s and 1990s there was a club called “Morandi”. Its hot night was on Wednesdays, when the audience also came from Milan, Como, Varese and Zurich. Legend goes that, one night, none less than Prince and Sheila E were spotted hiding among the sofas, on a day-off of the Italian dates of the Nude Tour… The Wednesday resident and superstar was an Italian dj with an exotic name: Don Carlos. The soundtrack he devised was a mixture of Chicago, Detroit, the most progressive R&B and certain forgotten classics of old disco music: practically, what the Paradise Garage in New York might have sounded like had it not closed in 1987. In between, Don Carlos also managed to squeeze in some tracks he had worked on in his studio on Lago Maggiore. One in particular: a track that was rather slow compared to the BPM in fashion at the time, but which was a perfect bridge between house and R&B. The title was Alone: Don Carlos would explain years later that it had to be intended both in the English meaning of “by itself” and like the Italian word meaning “halo”. That wasn’t the only double entendre about the song, anyway. Its own very deep nature was, indeed, double. On the one hand, Alone was built around an angelic keyboard pattern and a romantic piano riff that took you straight to heaven; on the other, it showcased enough electronic squelches (plus a sax part that sounded like it had been dissolved by acid rain) to pigeonhole the tune into the “junk modernity” section, aka the hallmark of all the most innovative sounds of the time: music that sounded like it was hand-crafted from the scraps of glittering overground pop.

No one knows who was the first to call it “paradise house”, nor when it happened. Alternative definitions on the same topic one happened to hear included “ambient house”, “dream house”, “Mediterranean progressive”… but of course none were as good (and alluring) as “paradise house”. What is certain is that such inclination for sounds that were in equal measure angelic and neurotic, romantic and unaffective, quickly became the trademark of the second generation of Italian house. Music that seemed shyly equidistant from all the rhythmic and electronic revolutions that had happened up to that moment (“Music perfectly adept at going nowhere slowly” as noted by English journalist Craig McLean in a legendary field report for Blah Blah Blah magazine). Music that to a inattentive ear might have sounded as anonymous as a snapshot of a random group of passers-by at 10AM in the centre of any major city, but perfectly described the (slow) awakening in the real world after the universal love binge of the so-called Second Summer of Love.

For a brief but unforgettable season, in Italy “paradise house” was the official soundtrack of interminable weekends spent inside the car, darting from one club to another, cutting the peninsula from North to centre, from East to West coast in pursuit of the latest after-hours disco, trading kilometres per hour with beats per minute: practically, a new New Year’s Eve every Friday and Saturday night. This too was no small transformation, as well as a shock for an adult Italy that was encountering for the first time – thanks to its sons and daughters – the wild side of industrial modernity. The clubbers of the so-called “fuoriorario” scene were the balls gone mad in the pinball machine most feared by newspapers, magazines and TV pundits. What they did each and every weekend, apart from going crazy to the sound of the current white labels, was linking distant geographical points and non-places (thank you Marc Augé!) – old dance halls, farmhouses and business centres – transformed for one night into house music heaven. As Marco D’Eramo wrote in his 1995 essay on Chicago, Il maiale e il grattacielo: “Four-wheeled capitalism distorts our age-old image of the city, it allows the suburbs to be connected to each other, whereas before they were connected only by the centre (…) It makes possible a metropolitan area without a metropolis, without a city centre, without downtown. The periphery is no longer a periphery of any centre, but is self-centred”.

“Paradise house” perfectly understood all of this and turned it into a sort of cyber-blues that didn’t even need words, and unexpectedly brought back a drop of melancholic (post?)-humanity within a world that by then – as we would wholly realise in the decades to come – was fully inhuman and heartless. A world where we were all alone, and surrounded by a sinister yellowish halo, like a neon at the end of its life cycle. But, for one night at least, happy.

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