‘Sensual’ is the third chapter of Sacred Medicine’s sonic tale. A song carefully shaped by Ron Trent to resonate on the dancefloor through its deep powerful frequencies!
An odyssey of fierce percussions and thunderous basslines, a sound journey of the highest caliber, a very indemand jam played all over the world by Joe Claussell and Ron himself during the last few months is finally available!
Enjoy ‘Sensual’ in its full vibrating and hipnotising 11 minutes, cut on a phat slab of [one sided] vinyl!

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The 3rd part of the Humans Drums & Machines - Trilogy by House Master Ron Trent! The last part of the series seems to be the strongest. Ron's unique sound spectrum in full beauty is shown here on "Dimentions & Beyond".


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Sacred Medicine, the joint project/label Joaquin Joe Claussell and Ron Trent have been carefully crafting and honing over the past couple of years, brings you the second instalment of deepness and authenticity.The much anticipated ‘Magic Carnival’, a song heavily programmed in their sets to maximum effect, is finally here!Another manifestation of the powerful and original output of the label, ‘Magic Carnival’ builds and builds in a musical crescendo with signature musical elements pulsating all over the song to full impact.A relentless spiritual groove….another jam in the Sacred Medicine building catalogue…a special one-sided 12 inch made with love and extra care, to spread the message loud and clear!

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Repress on Grey / Silver Vinyl!


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Repress!

The tone always makes the music. But only those who actually make the sound? An ancient-house-avantgarde dream has always been there since the legendary -Warehouse- days of Ron Hardy, to bring more sounds and tones constantly to an independent, repetitive development. And thus beyond the limits of an executive creative artist on the otherwise purely commercial sense what we call in common -beyond imagination-.

-Raw Footage-, the latest album concoction of Chicago house legend Ron Trent (Prescription) on his new imprint -Electric Blue- works in the best sense of Stanislav Lem heroes Trurl & Klapauciusals, cruising like those two metal brains frantically invented by the universe of 4/4-Sounds to get insane tracks out of the new material matter located there, and put them together to brand new ones. This trackwerk varies as well as of course between classical Chi-Town to the context of contemporary, epic house dubs and lives in a perfidious manner from the interaction of various computer modules that constantly spits out new and exciting interactions. In the end, the software sings only as digital output of great analog sounds, which may well be understood as a mocking voice to the majority of contemporary Homeboy wackiness formats.-Unpredictable- and less -cryptic- might fit here as a keyword excellent, where you kick out of the rough house plant a significant entertainment value must, without the need to posess necessarily the same nerves of steel. Anyone who has ever really wondered what House sound could be appropriate for a journey through the vastness of the universe is, gets there now at this point completely to his fullest expense. Trent 2012 and its tracks on this album reflect a lot about the revolutionary founder of -Spirit of music- from the mid-80s, who is recorded then as now but with inadequate slogans such as -light years ahead of its time-. For as Trents body of work -Raw Footage- is also particularly scary genius material, although still of totally solid stress field and background from the musical spectrum between the Windy City and the Motor City engine bridled her.-But heres to the Future- – For Sir Trent more than twenty years after -Altered States- and the relevant follow-ups, thats not really a problem!


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RAWAX PROUDLY WELCOMES MR. RON TRENT TO THE FAMILY! WE'RE PROUD TO PRESENT YOU THIS MASTERPIECE OF MUSIC - ORIGINALLY RELEASED ON
CLUBHOUSE RECORDS IN 1992. SOON AVAILABLE WITH NEW CUT AND NEW MASTERING - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

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Repress!
big re-release from 1995 by ron trent!


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The tone always makes the music. But only those who actually make the sound? An ancient-house-avantgarde dream has always been there since the legendary "Warehouse" days of Ron Hardy, to bring more sounds and tones constantly to an independent, repetitive development. And thus beyond the limits of an executive creative artist on the otherwise purely commercial sense what we call in common „beyond imagination“.

"Raw Footage", the latest album concoction of Chicago house legend Ron Trent (Prescription) on his new imprint "Electric Blue" works in the best sense of Stanislav Lem heroes Trurl & Klapauciusals, cruising like those two metal brains frantically invented by the universe of 4/4-Sounds to get insane tracks out of the new material matter located there, and put them together to brand new ones. This trackwerk varies as well as of course between classical Chi-Town to the context of contemporary, epic house dubs and lives in a perfidious manner from the interaction of various computer modules that constantly spits out new and exciting interactions. In the end, the software sings only as digital output of great analog sounds, which may well be understood as a mocking voice to the majority of contemporary Homeboy wackiness formats."Unpredictable" and less "cryptic" might fit here as a keyword excellent, where you kick out of the rough house plant a significant entertainment value must, without the need to posess necessarily the same nerves of steel. Anyone who has ever really wondered what House sound could be appropriate for a journey through the vastness of the universe is, gets there now at this point completely to his fullest expense. Trent 2012 and its tracks on this album reflect a lot about the revolutionary founder of „Spirit of music“ from the mid-80s, who is recorded then as now but with inadequate slogans such as "light years ahead of its time". For as Trents body of work "Raw Footage" is also particularly scary genius material, although still of totally solid stress field and background from the musical spectrum between the Windy City and the Motor City engine bridled her."But heres to the Future" – For Sir Trent more than twenty years after "Altered States" and the relevant follow-ups, thats not really a problem!

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Repress!

Ron Trent presents Humans Drums & Machines. Ron shows again his unique talent of creating timeless music. This release is dedicated to the Humans. Two more records about Drums & Machines will follow.




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This is the third release from the upcoming "ROMANTIC FLIGHT" album. The song acts as la lamentation for all serious melody makers, muses, and dancers with poetic vocals, deep strings, and ethereal melody. Support from DJ's JOE CLAUSSEL, PATRICK WILSON, VOLCOV, and of course RON TRENT.

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Worthy 7" pressing of Georgia Anne Muldrow's future soul stunner 'Always' (previously only available on Sassy J's 'Patchwork' compilation). The B side features a bumping unreleased remix of L.A. jazz outfit Build An Ark from Club Diego (Diego Gaeta). Ltd Edition.

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*2024 repress* Revised Tracklisting*

A compilation of highly collectable and rare Surinamese 45's and LP cuts. Compiled by Antal Heitlager & Thomas Gesthuizen this is the follow up to the Kindred Spirits released Surinam! compilation. This volume goes even deeper into the field of 70ties and 80ties funk music from the Surinamese dance floors...Recommended! Fresh Artwork by Cosmo Knex (Johann Kauth)..

MCDE: "Killer compilation! lots of favorites on there and stuff i still need to find"

Gilles Peterson: "Jammin is a salacious boogie number, cooked up with quick-fingered bass work, female harmonising and guitar solos."

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Repressed edition - this is a *2LP version*

Hunee presents a collection of his favorite dance floor cuts ... Biggest tip!!

"Hunchin' All Night" hosts a wide spectrum of tracks from the likes Boncana Maïga, Black Beat Niks, Larry Heard, Mappa Mundi and many more.

Hunee, aka Hun Choi, is a Korean Berliner who has been drawn in music since a very young age. After working in record stores and studying musicology he resided in Amsterdam, where he released his debut album Hunch Music. As a DJ he has always followed ‘a hunch’, which gave him wings to communicate the music he loves with crowds all over the world. With Hunchin’ All Night, Hunee expresses his relationship with the dance floor.

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Back in 2016, Lars Bartkuhn was on a quest to expand his musical horizons. Inspired by the idea of the desert as a transformative place – an alien environment whose combination of vastness and beauty challenges those lost within it to first find themselves before they can find a way out – he loaded up his sampler with sub-Saharan samples and set about making two 12” singles, ‘Nomad’ and ‘Massai’, which subsequently appeared on Utopia Records.

Following completion of work on his 2023 album Dystopia, a conceptual ambient meditation built around electronic and acoustic improvisations, the German musician and producer decided to return to the core ideas that inspired those two 12” singles. Once again, he wanted to challenge himself, explore the more exotic side of his musical influences, and discover a course through the musical desert to ultimately become a better musician, producer, and composer.

The result is Nomad, an album that not only brings together two sides of his work – the immersive ambient explorations at the heart of Dystopia, and the club-focused rhythms that marked out his early career deep house explorations – but also draws on a familiar palette of influences, from Latin jazz-fusion and the deep jazz brilliance of ECM Records releases, to the ‘fourth world’ works of Jon Hassell and the African music that had initially inspired the ‘Nomad’ and ‘Massai’ singles.

Searching from the start for a more ‘analogue’ sound – hand percussion, kalimba, piano, voice, bass guitar, acoustic and electric guitars, alongside the modular synth sounds that were such a part of Dystopia – Bartkuhn combined improvisational and traditional composition techniques, painstaking editing, tweaking and reworking tracks over an extended period.

Added to impeccable sound design – even the more dancefloor-focussed excursions are optimised for headphone listening – the results are startling, even by Bartkuhn’s impressively high standards.

There are, of course, radically reworked versions of previous singles – a sun-kissed, Brazilian jazz-fusion informed re-invention of ‘Transcend’ (where Bartkuhn offers nods to another musical hero, Pat Metheny), an expansive, solo-laden take on ‘Nomad’ and a ambient inspired re-recording of ‘Massai’ – plus the kaleidoscopic brilliance of 2021’s ‘Every Morning I Meditate’, but far more never-before-heard highlights.

There’s the 6/8 time, Latin-tinged sunshine of ‘Back To My Innerself’, a track built on organic performances that were improvised straight into the sequencer; the meandering, densely layered sound world that is ‘Flame’ (a tribute to ECM recordings of the 1970s); the lightly techno-influenced fourth world futurism of ‘Ghibliman’; the organic deep house bliss of ‘African Skies’, where Bartkuhn’s vocalisations come to the fore; and the slow-motion ambient house of ‘First Kalimba’.

Nomad, then, is an album that effortlessly showcases Bartkuhn’s unique musical personality and ability to craft warm, colourful sound worlds – some rhythmic, others not so much – while neatly sidestepping categorization. It could well be his strongest and most personal musical statement yet.

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6-track EP compilation with Terada's work for the Ape Escape games, tip!

Outside of the international house underground, where his early ‘90s works for the Far East Recording label he co-founded with Shinichiro Yokota are rightly celebrated as bona-fide classics, Soichi Terada is best-known for his work composing music for video games. Yet until now, few of his productions for video games have been released outside of Japan, especially on vinyl.

Apes In The Net, a six-track EP featuring music composed for the popular PlayStation 1 series Ape Escape, sets the record straight. It not only showcases Terada’s quality as a composer and producer, but also his versatility. Like much of Terada’s work on the Ape Escape series, the tracks featured don’t explore deep, New York and New Jersey influenced house sounds, but rather his lesser-celebrated love of jungle and drum & bass – a sound he fully explored on 1996 album Sumo Jungle.

“The producer of the Ape Escape games heard that and got in touch,” Soichi remembers. “They asked me to make the soundtrack, and then work on the music for the sequels after that. I used to love making music with AKAI hardware samplers, synthesisers, and computers, so I played and recorded the tracks using almost the same methods as I did when I made house music. Using breakbeats and audio samples with a sampler was the most useful way to make the soundtracks.”

The six tracks on show, which were originally recorded in the ‘90s but reconstructed and remastered for Japan-only CD and digital releases over a decade ago, mix elements of Terada’s familiar deep house style – think warming chords and pads, memorable melodies, and emotive musical motifs – with blistering D&B breakbeats, 16-bit synth sounds, electronic bleeps and undeniably weighty basslines. They’ve stood the test of time and arguably sound just as fresh now as they did at the turn of the millennium.

For proof, check the soaring, spellbinding ‘Spectors Castle’, where uplifting lead lines and sumptuous chords dance atop punchy beats and growling bass, the jazzy and saucer-eyed rush of ‘Mount Amazing’ (all twinkling piano motifs, alien synth sounds, squelchy bass and skittish drums) and the intergalactic, liquid D&B excellence of ‘Time Station’, whose whistling melodies and stargazing chords are undeniably alluring.

There are plenty of other delights to be found across the EP, too, from the bustling, race-to-the-finish breathlessness of D&B/bleep techno fusion workout ‘Spectors Factory In’, and the rumbling sub-bass, creepy pads and suspenseful melodies of ‘Haunted House’, to the bombastic, all-out-assault on the senses that is ‘Coaster’, the set’s most “purist” jungle workout – albeit one that also doffs a cap to the pulsating world of big room techno.

Apes In The Net, then, celebrates Soichi Terada’s mastery as a video games composer and early Japanese junglist. Props are well and truly overdue.

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*2024 repress*

Leon Vynehall’s beautiful ambient, cinematic race car track now reconstructed for the dancefloor…Comes with an unreleased beat version on the A-side and the original version taken from Gerd Janson's "Music For Autobahns 2" on the flip.

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Since 2014, Brighter Days has been a part of the rich tapestry of Amsterdam nightlife – a semi-regular party promoting positivity and inclusiveness run by resident DJs Kamma and Masalo. On the back of the platform provided by the party, the duo has notched up a string of memorable club and festival appearances, a regular Brighter Days show on Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide FM, and a memorable Boiler Room set streamed live from Dekmantel Festival.

Now Kamma and Masalo have taken the next step and curated a Brighter Days compilation for Rush Hour, a collection that does a terrific job in offering up slept-on and unreleased gems – including a clutch of their own tried-and-tested re-edits – while also accurately representing the sound, style and ethos of the event that inspired it.

Like Kamma and Masalo’s event, which invariably takes place in intimate dancing spaces in Amsterdam, the Brighter Days compilation offers up an open-minded, club-friendly soundtrack that joins the dots between crate-digging obscurities from the recent and distant past, fresh cuts, ‘secret weapons’ and previously unreleased music from young, local producers who have become regular faces on Brighter Days dancefloors.

Across nine tracks, Kamma and Masalo deliver an enticing blend of tactile and colourful house, disco, basement-ready throb-jobs, inspired dancefloor dubs and righteous boogie jams, some of which are appearing on vinyl for the very first time (see Haroumi Hosono and Yasuhiko’s ‘Turquois’, an exceedingly rare, CD-only chunk of deep, throbbing tribal house intoxication).

There are highlights everywhere you look, from the piano-house rush of the ‘Subterranean Mix Edit’ of S’Xpress’s overlooked 1990 single ‘Nothing To Lose’ and the South African Kwaito-boogie brilliance of Cisco The Champ’s ‘Move On’, to the Italo-disco excellence of Hugh Bullen’s ‘Alisand’, and Mr Fingers’ jacking 1988 remix of ‘We’re Gonna Work It Out’ by fellow Chicagoan house producers North/Clybourn.

Kamma and Masalo’s remixing and re-editing skills are put in the spotlight, too. There’s the edit of Discotheque’s 1982 Dutch-Belgian disco classic ‘For Your Love’ and a previously unreleased ‘dub’ edit of French-Cameroonian artist Anyzette’s 1984 gem ‘Baladoun’, a low-slung slice of drum machine-rich body music that blurs the boundaries between Italo-disco, Afro-boogie and proto-techno.

Completing the package are two cuts that demonstrate the duo’s love of showcasing tracks by young and little-known Dutch producers. Peffa’s ‘Routine’, an immersive and emotive treat that blends elements of deep house and Detroit techno, is just one of numerous unreleased tracks by the producer that Kamma and Masalo has been showcasing in their sets in recent years, while Desmon – whose ‘Submerge’ is a woozy, off-beat deep house treat – has been a regular on Brighter Days dancefloors since the start. It’s a fitting nod to what makes Brighter days special: a close-knit community of dancers and inspired, lesser-known music old and new.

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Since relocating to Brazil some years back, Needs Music co-founder Lars Bartkuhn has returned to his long-held love of musical improvisation. Although it’s a product of his jazz roots and classical training, the German producer has constantly found new ways to apply it to his work in the sphere of electronic music.

‘Dystopia’, his first solo album for almost nine years, was born out of two interlinked ideas: a desire to create improvised music without the aid of computer sequencers or an electronic drum set, and a deeply held love of storytelling through sound. Bartkuhn set to work improvising with modular synthesizers, acoustic instruments and hand percussion, later adding light-touch overdubs to a handful of pieces. When he listened back to the recordings, an aural narrative emerged, and you’ll hear it if you listen to the album from start to finish, as is intended.

As you’d expect from a musician and composer of Bartkuhn’s undoubted ability, ‘Dystopia’ is a stunning album – an undulating, expansive ambient journey packed with emotional resonance. While Bartkuhn naturally sees it as a logical progression of his previous ambient-leaning work with Kabuki as The First Minute of a New Day (and particularly their self-titled 2020 album Séance Centre), ‘Dystopia’ also features subtle nods to many of his long-held musical loves, including John Hassell’s ‘fourth world’ recordings, the impossible-to-pigeonhole 1970s catalogue of deep jazz imprint ECM, and the far-sighted American minimalism of Terry Riley and Steve Reich.

The album’s emotional depth is evident early on, with the slow-burn title track – all bubbling electronics, billowing chords, clarinet-style notes and gently strummed guitars offering the most melancholic and bittersweet of openings. The becalmed ‘A Drop Of Water In The Ocean’ follows, with discordant aural textures and hand percussion mimicking the rolling ocean, before ‘Largo (Calm Before The Storm)’ hints at unsettling times ahead.

‘Water and Warm Air’, the only track on the album whose starting point was not Bartkuhn’s cherished modular set-up, bleeps and bubbles across the sound space, adding a starry and otherworldly slant to proceedings, while ‘Disembodied Journey (Parts 1, 2 and 3)’ is a sublime, slowly unfurling journey in three movements – all Tangerine Dream style synthesizer motifs, Pat Metheny-esque guitars and jazz-fusion instrumentation.

So the album continues, with the poignant warmth and looped motifs of ‘Still Existing’ and the sparse, dubbed-out minimalism of ‘Do You Know How To Get Out?’ – a kind of 21st century jazz-fusionist’s take on sparse electronic hypnotism – giving wat to closing cut ‘Into The Waves’, a gentle combination of undulating electronic arpeggios and echoing instrumentation that offers a hopeful and undeniably picturesque conclusion.

Fittingly, the album cover features a painting by the late Dutch artist Franz Deckwitz (1934-94), whose images of alien landscapes were used by Phillips on a series of music concrete compilations. The image featured on the cover of ‘Dystopia’, depicting a deep blue ocean and shoreline, was painted by Deckwitz in Amsterdam in the late 1970s and inspired by a trip to the island of Ponza, Italy.

Matt Anniss

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Tom Trago returns to Rush Hour after 10 years with a wonderfully accomplished mini-album, tip!

During the years he spent living in Amsterdam, when his DJ career seemed to become an unstoppable juggernaut, Tom Trago was a regular visitor to Deco Sauna, a local institution that helped him “decompress” and de-toxify his body. Eventually, a more extended period of “decompression” was needed, with Trago moving to the coast to reassess his priorities and spend more time with his young family.

‘Deco’, his sixth album and first for Rush Hour in a decade, was recorded following an extended absence from club dancefloors, as Trago cut back on DJ commitments to prioritise family life. When he returned to the studio, often with his daughter by his side, Trago initially struggled to get back into the groove. The desire to make dancefloor-focused music had – temporarily, at least – deserted him; instead, he found himself drawn towards a desire to create “electronic lullabies” and music that reflected his more pastoral environment (his home backs on to a patch of woodland in which he would walk every day).

Returning to his most familiar synthesisers – and specifically the first synthesiser he bought, on credit, as a young DJ and wannabe producer – Trago set about navigating different musical routes without the straight-jacket of club-focused dancefloors. Occasionally, old friends from Amsterdam would join him in the studio – Tracey and Maxi Mill, both of whom are part of his Voyage Direct label roster, contributed to tracks on the album – but for the most part the production process was a solo endeavour: musical therapy for an artist determined to do things differently after years spent making club hits and sweat-soaked peak-time workouts.

The results are rarely less than spellbinding. Trago sets his stall out with opener ‘Dark Oak’, a gorgeous, colourful, sun-bright scene-setter co-produced by Tracey that layers tumbling lead lines, chiming melodic motifs and kaleidoscopic chords atop the gentlest of bubbly beat patterns. Maxi Mill lends a hand on ‘Central Park’, a deep and hypnotic excursion marked out by rhythmic bleeps, minimalistic beats and layered melodies, and the summer sun-down rush of ‘Never Peace a Puzzle’, where kaleidoscopic synth sounds, meandering solos and looped electronic stabs rush towards a dancefloor of the mind.

Trago’s desire to create “electronic lullabies” for his young daughter comes to the fore on ‘To Be Left Unlocked’, a hypnotising fusion of spacey electronic motifs, Steve Reich style (synth) marimba melodies and slowly building musical intensity, while the echoing Fender Rhodes riffs, squelchy synth-bass, glistening guitar notes and sparse, snappy post hip-hop beats of ‘When The Sky Is Watching Us’ doff a cap to the producer’s roots as a bedroom beat-maker.

Given the project’s genesis, it’s perhaps fitting that Trago chose to conclude proceedings with ‘It Might Be Forever’ and the digital only ‘Blue Dope’, the album’s most rejuvenating, immersive, and vibrant moments. Both feature sustained chords painted with vivid aural brush strokes and come blessed with the merest hint of a rhythmic pulse – a thread that subtly runs throughout Trago’s most mature and musically rich album to date.

Matt Anniss

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Heavy hitting remixes by Alex Attias and Byron The Aquarius of tracks from Soichi's 'Asakusa Light' on Rush Hour. TIP!

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Multi-instrumentalist Lars Bartkuhn returns to Rush Hour following the brilliant ‘Transcend’ 12'' and the two exquisite ‘Needs: Not Wants’ compilations with two brand new cuts. ‘Melancholia’ is a mesmerizingly deep and dubbed-out workout with climbing basslines, distant vocal chants and jazzy percussion. Flip side ‘Icarus Ascending’ is a thick disco-bass invested house floor burner crafed to uplift all spirits to higher levels

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Double LP documenting a realtime collaboration between Terrence Dixon (Metroplex/Tresor/Rush Hour) and Jordan GCZ (Off Minor/Minimal Detroit/Rush Hour). Finally the full results of these special sessions see the light of day (a ltd edition 12" of exclusive tracks owas released in 2020).
BIG TIP!

"In September 2019, Motor City techno legend Terrence Dixon made a rare trip to Europe. He was introduced to Jordan Czamanski AKA Jordan GCZ, a serial collaborator and electronic music improviser best known for his work as part of Juju & Jordash and, alongside David Moufang and Gal “Juju” Aner, as Magic Mountain High.

The pair hit it off immediately, so Czamanski powered up his studio and the pair began to jam. Over the following five days, the pair improvised extensively, stopping only periodically to drink coffee and discuss music, life and much more besides. While in the studio, they barely uttered a word to each other, instead responding almost psychically to the rhythms, grooves, riffs and musical motifs the other was spinning into the mix.

The results of these surprisingly magical 2019 studio sessions are showcased on Keep In Mind, I’m Out of My Mind, the pair’s first joint album and Dixon’s most significant musical collaboration since the Detroiter’s 2018 hook-up with German techno and ambient veteran Thomas Fehlmann.

In keeping with the project’s improvised roots, the six-track set is notable for its immediacy, pleasing looseness – it was mostly created using outboard equipment including synthesizers, drum machines and effects units – and sonic fluidity. It offers a neat, symmetrical blend of the two producers’ trademark styles, with Czamanski’s attractive chords, melodies and jazz-flecked motifs rising above hypnotic, cymbal-heavy rhythms that have long been the hallmark of Detroit’s sci-fi-fuelled techno sound.

This unique and appealing, dancefloor-focused sound ripples through album opener ‘Fretless’, an ultra-deep chunk of heady liquid techno, and the breathless bustle of ‘Operation Delete’, where bubbly synthesizer motifs, cascading ambient electronics and urgent bass cluster around a killer broken techno groove.

It’s there, too, throughout the surging, deliciously percussive ‘Space Chime’, an alien-sounding concoction that sounds like it was beamed down from some distant galaxy, the warming-but-intoxicating minor key swirl of ‘Axis Mundi’ – a two-part slab of techno psychedelia full of trippy electronics, dystopian jazz riffs and intergalactic intent – and the pitched-down, mind-altering oddness of closing cut ‘Above Ground’, when the pair goes all-out in pursuit of leftfield techno perfection.

Created from scratch in a few days by two of electronic music’s most accomplished improvisers, Keep In Mind, I’m Out of My Mind is an exemplary meeting of musical minds and sonic sensibilities."

Matt Annis

Comes with insert with photographs by Atelier Fantasma (Jop Verberne).

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vThe legendary N.A.D. follows up the aptly titled ‘Electro EP’ with the punishing ‘A Day in May’, a scorching hot four track technofunk monster that marries the Detroit and Kalamazoo techno traditions with classic UK techno. Absolutely exceptional high-octane material destined to set any dancefloor on fire.

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Repress!

Soichi Terada & Masalo team up to produce club mixes of tracks from Soichi's 'Asakusa Light' on Rush Hour. TIP!

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Doing exactly what it says on the tin - a tough four track electro set from Mustafa Ali under the N.A.D. moniker. TIP!
- - - full info soon

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Back in 2015, Japanese deep house pioneer Soichi Terada stepped back into the limelight courtesy of Sounds From The Far East, a Rush Hour-released, Hunee curated retrospective of material released on his Far East Recording label in the 1990s and early 2000s. Buoyed by the positive response and renewed interest in his work, Terada went back into studio to record his first new album of house music for over 25 years, Asakusa Light.

Developed over 18 months, Terada tried to recreate the mental and physical processes that led to the creation of his acclaimed earlier work. Those familiar with Terada’s celebrated, dancefloor-focused sound of the 1990s – a vibrant, atmospheric, and emotive take on deep house powered by the twin attractions of groove and melody – will find much to enjoy on Asakusa Light.

“I tried to recall my feelings 30 years ago, but when I tried it, I found it super difficult,” he explains. “I didn’t even know what I thought about myself five years ago, and the mental metabolic cycle seems to be faster than I thought. I tried different methods, including digging up my old MIDI data and composing by remembering old experiences. With the help of Rush Hour, I found some of the light from my heart that I had 30 years ago. I nicknamed the light I found in my heart, ‘Asakusa Light’.”

Produced using the very same synthesizers and drum machines that powered his 1990s work, the album is a joyous, colourful and life-affirming collection of timeless house music that not only recalls Terada’s own impeccable back catalogue, but also that of similarly celebrated contemporaries such as the Burrell Brothers or Ben Cenac (Dream 2 Science, Sha-Lor).

Terada, who has spent much of the last two decades writing video game music, has always had a gift for combining warm, undulating synthesizer basslines and perfectly programmed machine drums with stirring chords, smile-inducing melodies and mellow musical flourishes. It’s this immersive, sun-kissed and tuneful trademark style that takes centre stage on Asakusa Light, an album for the ages.

The set begins with the alien-sounding chords, soft-touch percussion and dawn-friendly warmth of ‘Silent Chord’ and ends on a high via the bouncing string stabs, starlight chords and thickset grooves of ‘Blinker’; in between, you’ll find a deluge of effortlessly feelgood music that’s the aural equivalent of a dopamine rush at sunrise.

There are subtle variations aplenty throughout the album – see the 8-bit lead lines and pulsing electronic textures of ‘Takusambient’, the vintage Tony Humphries flex of ‘Diving Into Minds’ and the effortlessly funky ‘Marimbau’ – but it’s the uniquely atmospheric, vivid and tactile nature of Terada’s loved-up sound that resonates. After well over 30 years in house music, the light in his heart is shining brighter than ever.

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Unspecified Enemies, the project led by Louis Digital (Numbers, Counterattack, Arcola) present their debut album Romance in the Age of Adaptive Feedback.

Written and produced by Louis Digital, the album incorporates fragments of music data generated by long-time collaborator CiM (Ann Aimee, Delsin). Describing the title track, Louis Digital states:

“It’s the microelectronic sound of a city playing strange light games with itself, evoking bitcrushed desires and floating images, an urban phantasy stored on the broken circuits of an Ensoniq ASR-10.”

The origins of Romance in the Age of Adaptive Feedback trace back to 2006, when Louis Digital launched Diamond Sea, a series of events at London’s ICA that introduced the Unspecified Enemies project and a label called City of Quartz. The vision was to merge the hi-tech electronic textures of contemporary R&B with the sampling and sequencing techniques of pioneers like Anthony Shakir and Soundhack. However, the music was lost in time, and City of Quartz never released a single record.

Yet, the story took an unexpected turn. At one of these events, Spencer from Numbers received a CD containing early recordings. Years later, Numbers encouraged Louis Digital to reconstruct the lost music for an album. The result is a work resurrected from the past and reimagined for the future—retrieved in fragments from a broken Iomega Jazz SCSI Drive.

Expanding on the album’s themes, Louis Digital reflects:

“By the late ’90s the cinematic image of Los Angeles and the sound of Detroit techno had crystallised a new style of living in time and space. In 1997 Mike Davis — the political activist, urbanist, writer and historian of Los Angeles — suggested that it all had “something to do with a microelectronic aesthetic of very transient and decaying states”. It was a romantic vision — one where the city’s glass surfaces reflected a musical desire for futurity not yet dominated by data-driven corporate life. These were strange days to live through. This album evokes the embers of this fibre-optic moment, when urban revolution in an age of digital reification still felt possible.”

The album features full sleeve artwork and a poster designed by Ben Drury. In support of the release, an NTS show titled Romance and Reification will explore the cinematic and electronic music influences behind the album.


Written and produced by Louis Digital for Unspecified Enemies
Additional music data generated by CiM
Mastered by Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven
Artwork by Ben Drury

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Life is full of splendid yet fleeting moments – as is this album. Filled with songs of ever- changing bliss, it offers a modern take on Rephlexish-Warpy IDM and Electronica, embedded in that irresistible Electro groove from the land of milk and honey. Put your feet up – it’s time for a break from work.

First time on vinyl! Selected tracks from the 2018 digital release, newly compiled and remastered – plus three completely new tunes from the same era!

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Tornado Wallace arrives at Test Pressing with the main mix being a beautiful long track that develops over ten minutes, starting with keyboard melodies before the tracks goes into the club zone. The ‘Symphony Mix’ takes the train on an ambient mix with the Bitter Beats bringing fin for the DJ squad.

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Rakim Under is back on M.A.D for his 3rd release! A collection of edits designed to make your body move.

Limited pressing and vinyl only. Don’t sleep

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A real 90's anthem for the underground house clubs in London. Slower garage style house and deeper sounds with a banger vocal hook. Another classic reissue by Back To Life.

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Tracklisting
A1 In Glass - Shadow
A2 In Glass - Shattered
B1 In Glass - Fractured
B2 In Glass - Glow

Sales Note
Phara presents, 'In Glass'. The first release under this new moniker, moving at a softer and more harmonic cadence.
Expect layered, mesmerising soundscapes inspired by cold winter days, held together with the more familiar tensions and textures you might expect from Phara.

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RAWAX proudly welcomes Percy X to the artist family! We are very happy to present you Anthony Scott MacKinnon under his Mion alias.
Miori EP war originally released on legendary Music Man Records from Belgium in 1997!
The 2025 version contains a new mastering and new tracklisting!

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DE - 22113 Hamburg
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