Following releases on Love On The Rocks and Pinchy & Friends (the massive 'Leave Your Life' and 'Strings of Eden' which now goes for big bucks on Discogs) Alex Kassian arrives with the first release on the new label from the Test Pressing team.

Lead track 'Voices' arrives in three mixes that run from an expansive journey, to a pure club version, followed by the ambient excursion 'Lifestream' - an electronic piece focussing on what Alex does best, quality production with amazing sounds and melody. This is the first in a three part series of Alex Kassian releases building to an album next year. More

Debut studio album by Dutch electronic music producer and DJ Speedy J (real name Jochem Paap), Ginger was originally released in June 1993 as part of Warp Records Artificial Intelligence series.

Remastered in 2021, the reissue contains the original design by longtime Warp collaborators The Designers Republic.

Rotterdam-based Jochem Paap began creating techno tracks such as “Three O’Three” and “Something For Your Mind” in his hometown to play out in clubs, and chose the artist name Speedy J as a reference to his DJ skills. As commented on by All Music, Paap's clear intent with Ginger was "to take his music out of the rave and into the home-listening environment," and balance elements of the manic energy that defined his early releases with a lush sound palette. Writing and recording on his own in The Plant studio, the album was released on a number of different labels internationally and brought his minimal but melodic production style to a far wider audience, with critics noting his meticulous attention to audio design, skillful use of track interludes (the “Fill” tracks on Ginger, something Black Dog Productions also explored on Bytes), and a careful balancing of four-to-the-floor grooves with ambient textures. He released a second album with Warp, 1995’s G-Spot, and has continued to make a diverse range of electronic music, included releases on labels such as Mike Paradinas’ Planet Mu and Peter Namlook’s FAX +49-69/450464, and showcasing a more experimental strand of releases via his own Electric Deluxe imprint. The music on Ginger has been highlighted as a seminal release in a number of retrospective features by the likes of Pitchfork, The Wire and FACT. More

Tracklist

A1. Ultimately (feat. Coby Sey)
A2. Escape Velocity

B1. Restrained
B2. Nothing Else
B3. Our Sector (feat. Flowdan)

C1. The Vanishing
C2. Clean Slate (feat. Coby Sey)

D1. Rest Assured
D2. The Machine
D3. Melatonin

(2XLP, gatefold cover, printed inner-sleeves) Ben Klock & Fadi Mohem announce debut collaborative album featuring Coby Sey and Flowdan on new label LAYER

Ben Klock and Fadi Mohem present their first collaborative album on their new label LAYER. The ten-track full length project titled Layer One follows the hypnotic EP Klockworks 34 that set the stage in 2022. In a bold departure from the techno roots that have defined and nurtured their careers, Klock and Mohem are now pushing genre boundaries, exploring IDM, ambient and experimental electronic music while still retaining the brilliance that characterised their earlier work.
The conceptual direction of Layer One delves into a post-human world, where humans are close to extinction on Earth, leaving only imprints, traces, and relics behind—digital fossils and machine-generated images capturing fleeting moments of non-human photography, as Artificial Intelligence remains in a world that quietly thrives without us. We do not perceive this as a bleak apocalyptic dystopia, but more a sober and serene reflection of a world that continues to exist and flourish, indifferent to the absence of humanity. Despite this unremitting setting, through this journey we find survivors who signal a remembrance of the human sensibilities.
Elevating this project are two very human and dynamic collaborations featuring the charismatic Coby Sey and the legendary grime MC Flowdan. Sey, a prominent figure in the British music scene known for his work with artists like Tirzah and Mica Levi, injects his music with a mesmerizing emotional depth. Opening the album with the powerful track ‘Ultimately,’ Sey offers spoken-word musings on creativity and life over experimental landscapes meticulously crafted by Klock and Mohem. Nostalgia permeates this opening track, and track 7 ‘Clean Slate’ reinforces this sentiment with Sey’s stream-of-consciousness wordplay.
Flowdan, the gritty MC whose verses have become anthems of the UK grime movement, made headlines in 2023 with two songs that reached the top 20 of the UK singles chart. In 2024, he was awarded his first Grammy for the Skrillex and Fred Again collaboration Rumble, becoming the first grime artist to win in any category. On track ‘Our Sector,’ Flowdan unleashes his raw energy and dynamic flow, adding a thrilling vocal dimension to the album’s narrative. The fluid delivery of his lyrics and rhythmic timing are enhanced by the staccato beats and abstract synths. These collaborations are not mere features; they are pivotal moments that crystallize the album’s vision—an experimental re-imagining of electronic music’s possibilities.
Immediately offering an impressive entry to Klock and Mohem’s changing sonic universe ‘Escape Velocity’ shows the collaboration at its strongest. Deftly juggling between ambient chords and more densely intricate rhythmic moments. These tightly layered textures and intense clashing moments are continued through most of the album. On other tracks the duo are just as innovative ‘Rest Assured’ rips open the sound palette Klock and Mohem are known for, synths dart around flickering through into unexpected areas. Penultimate track ‘The Machine’ feels like the internal innards of a PC or synthesizer brought to life. Electricity flows through the track like an auditory exploration of the digital world's hidden mechanical and electrical processes. In contrast, final track ‘Melatonin’ does exactly what the name suggests; its soothing melodic ambience cradles the listener as the album draws to a close.
Alongside the album’s release, the duo will release two singles. This album represents the work of two artists at the peak of their creative powers, inviting listeners to step outside the familiar and explore a different musical perspective.
More

Naya Beat Records reveals Volume 2 of its critically acclaimed series dedicated to South Asian dance and electronic music. Label founders Turbotito and Ragz have curated an exceptional 13-track compilation with a focus on an overlooked era of house and electronic music released between '88 and '94.
While Volume 1 explored early 80s Balearic, synth pop, and disco, Volume 2 uncovers lost or forgotten future classics from later in the decade. The release spotlights a unique era in the late 80s and early 90s when fertile cross-cultural collaboration abounded in diasporic communities in cities like London and New York and when South Asian music was infused with acid house, New Beat, and dub.
There is a true wealth of sounds here, from The Jets Orkhestra’s organ-fuelled house workout ‘X-290’ to the downtempo splendour of the Asha Bhosle fronted West India Company. Lady M lends the Hindi house track and arpeggiated wonder of ‘Kali Raat’ and Mantra’s eponymously titled cut is a hypnotic gem. Featuring other scintillating Balearic house, dub, and street soul from the likes of Asha Puthli, Bappi Lahiri, Johnny Zee, and Kuljit Bhamra, this double album is a treasure of never-before-reissued and previously impossible-to-?nd holy grails.
Often "too Asian for mainstream success in the West, and too Western for success in Asia," the pioneering music from this time was frequently released to short-lived success or relative anonymity. Naya Beat founders Filip Nikolic (aka Turbotito) and Raghav Mani (aka Ragz) have spent the last four years endlessly hunting through dusty records, obscure cassettes, and unreleased studio tapes to deliver a reference release for contemporary collectors, tastemakers, and bold selectors looking for fresh sounds.
Featuring an incredible gatefold package with Naya Beat’s trademark stunning artwork and exhaustive liner notes, the 2LP release has been cut to vinyl for the discerning DJ and listener by Grammy-nominated Frank Merritt from The Carvery, London.
Naya Beat Records is focused on uncovering foundational dance and electronic music from the subcontinent and South Asian diaspora through reissues, remixes and compilations. Success came immediately with ‘Naya Beat Volume 1’, which was named Vinyl Factory’s number 1 reissue of 2021, and has been followed up with more fascinating releases such as a two-part remix project with disco-jazz legend Asha Puthli, a scintillating bhangra acid house EP with Mr. Scruff, a reissue of Pinky Ann Rihal’s 1985 Hindi new wave album, and the superb Bollywood compilation ‘Awaaz Series 1’.

A1 - West India Company - My Shooting Star
A2 - Bappi Lahiri - Rama Rama
A3 - Sharlene Boodram - Chamkay 'D' Chutney (Turbotito & Ragz Remix)
B1 - Kuljit Bhamra - Dholdrums
B2 - Mantra - Mantra
B3 - Heera - Beat The Rhythm (Check It Out)
C1 - Lady M - Kali Raat (Edit)
C2 - Johnny Zee - Billo To Meri Aan
C3 - Turbotito & Ragz ft. Manjeet Kondal - Pyaar
C4 - Sangeeta - Calling (Turbotito & Ragz Remix)
D1 - The Jets Orkhestra - X-290 (Turbotito & Ragz Remix)
D2 - Fantasy Nite Club - O My Baby
D3 - Deepak Khazanchi ft. Asha Puthli - Bass Fire (On And On) (Turbotito & Ragz Remix) More

2024 Repress!

Mystic Jungle makes a much-awaited return with Deviant Disco, a new 12” of sun-soaked groovers released through Periodica Records. A culmination of several years of writing, vibing, and influence mining, these compositions represent the producer’s most varied and expansive works yet, and to fully realize his vision, Mystic Jungle invited the entire West Hill Studio crew to contribute narcotizing layers of pop vocal mesmerism, and additional touches of guitar, bass, percussion, and synth.

Strains of Italo disco, balearic boogie, and freaky funk are interspersed amidst passages of Nigerian highlife, soft focus AOR, kinetic Hi-NRG, and exotic lover’s rock, resulting in a personalized voyage through a paradise of sound, one that is unmoored from the concerns of modernity, and celebrates instead a hedonistic naivety, and a desire to dance all day in spiritual ecstasy. More

The Bongo Hop is back with another highly danceable, genre bending and colorful effort. Always navigating back and forth across the Atlantic in search of his musical dreamland, he offers a deeper insight into the making of his music, an organic sounding, almost live approach to his infectiously groovy compositions, topped with impeccable collaborations.
(feat Nidia Gongora, Lucas Santtana, Moonlight Benjamin...)

Tracklist:

A1 - Mi Ola
A2 - Magica Bonita
A3 - La Pata Coja
A4 - L’Oubli Mauve
A5 - Memento
B1 - Eko Eko
B2 - Dekonekte
B3 - Ah Kumana
B4 - Magica Bonita (Radio Edit)
B5 - La Pata Coja (Radio Edit) More

Meticulously Serviced Liminal Portal More