The first solo release from MPC wizard and Dutch DJ Iceberg (aka Benjamin Berg) knocks itself into existence. Five tracks of unforgettable swing from the young producer, each packed with enough saturated crunch to make Roger Linn proud. If there’s one thing we know for certain, it’s that this record hits the mark right on time — surely an ode to sequencers and the attitudes of times past.

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Ring Ring Ring! The dawn of a fresh day brings a new release near. Squid Recordings inks its way into existence with a heavy foot on rave Americana.

With releases on Rush Hour, Velocity and his own Nylon Recordings, James ‘Nylon’ Thomas sees his Nylosphere project reborn, remastered and retouched (over two decades later) for the modern world.

The two widely varying title tracks, backed with equally contrasting mixes, are a microcosm of what late 90s, American-made dance music embodied. That is, a web of genre hopping maximalism, analog driven punchiness and a beautiful uncertainty to a post millennia world.

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
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We go through life. We shed our skins. We become ourselves.” This line from Patti Smith was going round and round Felix Manuel’s head as he gradually constructed Under Tangled Silence, his first album in six years and a record of a literal creative rebirth. Felix originally began it in earnest in 2020 Covid lockdown, but a catastrophic hard-drive meltdown destroyed almost all his work and sent him close to psychic collapse himself. However, ultimately this pushed him to rebuild from scratch and in so doing to confront and reassess every part of his musical and psychological processes. The result is utterly extraordinary. Felix was a child prodigy as an instrumentalist and his advanced musicality has always been prominent in his music, but here he has put himself front and centre as pianist, harpist and more. And this sense of exposure as a performer interweaves with an unflinching emotional openness too. Where sometimes electronic production as advanced as this can use intellect and techniques as shields from soul-baring, this is the sound of someone who can boldly say “I feel things, I cry all the time, and I'm not afraid to say it or show it in the music.” But this doesn’t mean there’s a move away from the soundsystems and dancefloors where Felix made his name as a uniquely innovative vinyl DJ. Even just in the opening track “A Tune for Us”, minimalist piano ripples and jazz drumming flow into the breaks of vintage jungle – and as the structure of the LP unfolds, a deep ambient meditation like “Hold” can sit very naturally in between the futurist dancehall of “L’Ancienne” and the high-definition acid house mind movie of “Galaxy in Silence”. In fact, as with the hands-on musicianship, that gutsy big-speaker electronic impact is delivered with more certainty, more expertise, more personal flourishes than ever. And all of those elements are more integrated than ever too: the sound of a total musical personality emerging afresh is truly something to behold. An already remarkable talent has been refreshed, reborn and is making the music of his life.

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DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
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Mexican magic man Iñigo Vontier returns with another stroke of high NRG-nius on ACID COWBOY.

Put on your pointy boots & strap on your stetson: this stripped-down hip-spurring mix of meme-ready themes might be the dance hit of the summer.

Fresh off releases for Optimo & Crosstown Rebels, Iñigo has been smashing his ‘Calypso Cult’ parties around the world with a hypnotic blend of tribal house, acid techno, and playful eccentricity. This release encapsulates this special brand of mischief into a super-potent 12 inch coming this summer on Multi Culti World Records.

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The fourth installment of Secretsundaze’s 9FINITY imprint releases the tectonic ‘get now EP’ from Irish, via Berlin dancefloor expert eoin dj. Their eclectic sets draw from all hues of the dance music spectrum, from psychedelic techno, indulgent hard house, pumping tech cuts and beyond.
eoin’s latest record pulls all of these influences into a tight, rolling house-centric EP that brings everything from the raucous to the utterly sexy. Thundering 909 Toms and gliding synths across A1’s ‘spin flip contrast a more percussive, hedonistic voyage through A2’s ‘skin on skin’.
Banging through the B-side with ‘faux baddy’, a mean dancefloor cut that draws the crowds forward for a slice of tribal hard-house. B2’s ‘get now’ is a certified club moment, with eoin’s punky vocals and sludgy reese bass line sliding throughout the uplifting drums and synth chords. A final moment emerges with the digital bonus track ‘the rapture channel’, a progressive groove blending buoyant percussion and large synth licks – an indispensable tool for any time of the night.

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Mexican enfant extraordinaire Iñigo Vontier is rolling in with his debut EP for Feines Tier and it’s a match made in heaven. Just judging on the name alone, as he seems to be from some kind of royal Tier family descent. But enough with the mind-numbingly bad puns and on to some brain-meltingly good music. Rolling. Everything’s rolling. Zongato is rolling. We don’t know who or what a Zongato is (a Google search just led to a Twitch streamer with that name and 0 followers), but they are definitely rolling. It’s got this special combination of straight and uncompromising beat and bass paired with psychedelic synth sirens floating around your head that somehow only the Mexicans really know how to nail. Astrolo is rolling. Like a well-oiled machine. Well, maybe like a not so well-oiled machine, one that’s shrieking and creaking, but has been running since forever and reliably will do so until we’re all gone from this Earth. If you ask Google Translate, Mucha Onda means „very cool“ in English, „molto bello“ in Italian or „valde frigidus“ in Latin and there is nothing more to add to that. The psychedelics are back (were they ever gone?) and kick in in full swing on Hedonist Lizard. A dangerous cocktail of high-proof alcoholic drum and bass patterns paired with some sugary spicy herbals of unknown origin, better not down it in one go. You were warned. On The Sounds Are Good, the sounds are good indeed! And rolling.

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As they landed from their extended hovering adventure – a journey en(capsule)ated by twists, turns and various chops – the Fast At Work crew found themselves drawn to the idea of a new, singular sonic flow. Always on a noble mission for a future-forward vision of higher-deeper tempos, the crew realized that often the most meaningful iterations of their gospel can be found in the most inconspicuous places – “not even noticed,” some might say. Within these subtle crevices, a rising duo emerged to carry this torch (disc) forward into new, uncharted realms. Taking inspiration from “Eteus,” the god of light and knowledge, this duo expertly crafted four original offerings, all with a distinctive, minimalistic fusion of breaky, hopeful expansion. While the title contribution echoes a sermon of oozing bassline flows and siren signals, “Drip Advise” equally mesmerizes with its spiraling melodies and strong percussive foundation. On the disc’s flip, the anointed duo broadened and refined their journey via the acid-tinged bedrock of “Creamavity,” while the final offering “Anxious” ironically synthesized the full pilgrimage into a polished musical (and vocal) definition – “release yourself, into the unknown.” With the hope of sharing this glistening gospel far and wide, the mystical duo prescribed a set of two reshapes from enlightened phonic gurus in their own right. While Wisdom Teeth’s K-Lone opted for the always reliable essence of strong foundational grooves and deep airy textures, Maara (founder of the newly formed Ancient Records) crafted an oceanic odyssey – over 10 minutes of timeworn atmospherics and sensorial sensibilities.

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Germany
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