Repress!

Being the humble guys that they are, Surprise Chef aren't going to admit they have something very special going down. However, there must be some magic in their studio, or maybe in the fact they all share a house and have formed close bonds, or perhaps from absorbing the DIY ethos of running their own record label that has culminated in such a unique and enchanting sound.

'Daylight Savings' is the follow-up to the group's debut album 'All News Is Good News’. That album earned the band a much-deserved following across the world and triumphantly marked their arrival onto the international stage. Their new album was recorded in Spring 2019, almost exactly a year after they recorded ‘All News Is Good News’. It was the weekend that daylight savings time started in Australia, and the studio was filled with the smell of the towering Jasmine bush on the exterior back wall of the house. The record is subsequently filled with the optimism that comes with the impending warmer months and longer days in Australia.

Recorded in their own home studio in Melbourne, the production approach for 'Daylight Savings' is a big step up from their debut. Engineer, Henry Jenkins, created enormous-sounding space within this record, using a great deal of creative analogue recording techniques and working in an expansive recording environment. The results are a sound that emulates the massiveness of the late-60s Capitol Records.

‘Daylight Savings' was written collaboratively by the whole band and features the core Surprise Chef rhythm section. It expands upon where their debut left off with a leaning more towards 70's jazzfunk than soul and a stronger focus on the rhythm section. There’s the epic drama, ebbs and flows of a vintage David Axelrod or Alain Goraguer cinematic production, plus the influence of El Michels Affair and Melbourne bands Karate Boogaloo and The Putbacks, yet it still sounds uniquely Surprise Chef. You get a sense of that rare attribute of being both a contemporary band and a band you expect it won't be too long before other producers start sampling them.



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Matching vivid world-building with a full house of kinetic rhythms, Polygonia delivers her latest album to Dekmantel as an invitation to experience 12 different dream scenarios.

As Polygonia, Munich-based Lindsey Wang has established herself as a constantly inventive, omnipresent operator within the modern electronic landscape, exploring varying shades of ambient and deep techno while increasingly spreading into downtempo and leftfield electronica with a playful yet mysterious spirit.

Dream Horizons is an instructive title — Wang approached her new album as a collection of different dream scenarios, with all the creative freedom the concept implies. From oceanic calm to artful propulsion, she was free to shift gears from track to track while relishing the strange and beautiful atmospheres her inspiration pointed towards. A multi-instrumentalist as well as a producer, Wang recorded her own voice, saxophone, flute, violin and percussion to inject organic, human vibrancy into the surreal spaces she was shaping out, capturing the uncanny sensation of alien and familiar that hangs over the places we visit when we sleep.

There are pointedly direct techno workouts on the album, from deft beatdown 'Soul Reflections' to shimmering ear worm 'Set Me Free', and 'Twisted Colours' relishes shifting blocks of flute around a sprightly, footwork-tickled framework. Elsewhere, there's space for softer expressions on pearlescent opus 'Crystal Valley' while elastic rhythms and tactile textures slither around at a lower tempo on 'Flakes Flying Upwards'. In between, Wang plays with fractured beat patterns and sharply sculpted sonic matter with a staggering level of detail and intention. 'Gate To Amygdala' is the perfect example of the bold scope of her expression — the midpoint track thrives on nervous tension and a dislocated sense of momentum without anything like a conventional techno trope. 'Mindfunk' equally pushes and pulls at sensory perception with an off-kilter, awkwardly looped synth phrase that relishes the opportunity to skew dance music conventions within the flexible rules of the dream world.

For all the smart production and knowingly experimental approaches that form the basis of the album's sound, it's also a record charged with the full range of emotions you might expect to experience on a break away from consciousness. Whether it's the melancholic impressions that smudge into incidental pauses on 'Metaphysical Scribbles' or the mantra-like breath and sax combination of 'Essential Breath' that closes the record, Polygonia's heart bursts out of the album's vibrant form as brilliantly as her exacting, studio-synced mind.

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Third chapter of the ‘Inside’ series of various artists eps selected by Neroli’s very own Volcov.
Fred P makes a welcome return on the label with a late night banger with heart warming strings entitled ‘Time Well Spent’. The rest symbol project [by Molinaro, Moreiya and Wendy Lavone] offers the blissful cinematic ‘Etius Motif’. On the flipside Hakim Murphy and G. Marcell team up as Resonating with the raw relentless ‘J707’ and Patrice Scott’s lush opus ‘Untitled’ from The First Circle [Neroli’s 20th anniversary] album appears here in a longer beat version.
As always curated and assembled with Love!

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Trinidadian Deep is once again back on Neroli [his 8th contribution since 2012], this time joined by Chicago’s Light Work Productions. ‘Orisha Stomp’ (Rework) is a fierce percussive and pulsating jam while ‘Italo Disco’ is a relentless melodic builder. On the flipside ‘U R Loved’ closes the record with its trance inducting romantic vibes! Deep!

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Neroli release n. 60 and is indeed a special one…Dominic Stanton aka Domu is back! Not much else to add really, as a return of a Domu release after more than 10 years of absence from the scenes should already say it all! These brand new songs still have all his signature elements but with a modern twist, and feature the vocals of [Hiatus Kaiyote’s] Lori on the breathtaking ‘On The Line’, the skills of K15 on ‘Ya Nah Gonna Get It’ and the help of long time collaborator
Marin on bass! A unique sound that we missed so much….

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Repress!

Neroli is proud to welcome NYC very own FRED P aka Black Jazz Consortium for a very special EP! Here he delivers four songs where his trademark rich emotive melodies meet with fresh syncopated beats. A record that should please all Neroli fans as well as old Archive records headz!


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Abul Mogard’s first solo album on vinyl in four years, initiating his personal imprint Soft Echoes
Edition of 500 copies, BioVinyl incl. download code

'Quiet Pieces' initiates Abul Mogard’s personal imprint Soft Echoes with a definitive self-portrait of calm, contemplative, and discreet inner landscapes made audible. It is the first solo album on vinyl in four years. RIYL Alessandro Cortini, William Basinski, The Caretaker.

While sifting through archived material left idle from earlier projects, a chance encounter with a late uncle’s trove of beloved 78rpm classical and opera records prompted the reworking and completion of what would eventually become the album. Spinning dusty records at 33 and 45rpm, Abul Mogard recombined their enduring spectres with unfinished sketches from his archive. The resulting soundscape blurs distinctions between his memories and those of another, exquisitely short-circuiting the senses with its waking, dream-like lucidity.

This was a process I hadn’t explored in my earlier works. I began sampling brief moments from these records, altering them with studio effects and playing them at slower speeds. In many cases, I wasn’t entirely sure how the original music sounded. These fragments, once further processed, became a source of inspiration for my new compositions. Over time, I realised that the old pieces from the archive and the new material derived from the samples naturally complemented each other.”

The resulting pieces hover over a threshold, a liminal space that harmonises the old and older material. Voluminous waves of quiet and loud undulate between consonance and dissonance, conjuring imagery of a decaying grandeur that humanity’s decadence has surrendered to the elements. Abul Mogard’s seemingly abandoned yet vast landscapes are nevertheless intimate with timbral frissons of red-lined distortion. Elusive, yet as tangible as sea spray or smog, they affect the olfactory senses with a rarified, synesthetic quality that modestly engages one’s emotional register – a hypnotic, distinguishing feature long hailed as one of the hallmarks of his work. A fidelity to memory and dream recall is sensitively probed in the journey from the stately symphonic stasis of 'Following a dream' to the almost industrial, untethered brutality evoked by a looming silhouette that’s never fully visible in 'Constantly slipping away', culminating in the foreboding coda of 'Like a bird'. Those pieces appear to shield the album’s sentimental core, where the tempestuous play of light and shadow of 'In a studded procession' escalates to breathtaking, panoramic climax, while 'Through whispers' evokes an out-of-body-like experience encountered with visceral poignancy.

Looking back, Mogard notes an unexpected influence: “I realise being inspired by Phill Niblock, whose work I had barely known at the time but explored after his passing in 2024. His album 'Boston Tenor Index' changed the way I approached dissonance. It encouraged me to push my sound further, to the edge of a space where I began to feel uncomfortable.”

The album artwork, created by longtime collaborator Marja de Sanctis, features a photograph taken at the Temple of Jupiter Anxur, an archaeological site overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Captured with an iPhone, the image traces the residual presence of construction techniques and architectural forms of the Romans, where material history is transcribed through contemporary tools. The convergence of ancient and modern technology aims to reverberate the site’s lasting spiritual presence – an echo persisting in what is now perceived as a quiet, emptied space. The spiral gestures towards infinity and light. Past and present dissolve into one another, reflecting 'Quiet Pieces' meditation on sound, memory, and time.

RIYL Alessandro Cortini, William Basinski, The Caretaker

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