“Dreams of a Dancefloor” is the latest EP by Octo Octa (aka Maya Bouldry-Morrison) on her label T4T LUV NRG. Maya spent the last 3 years perfecting her engineering on these three sensual, beautiful and enveloping songs. For the opening track, “Late Night Love”, we hear Octo Octa capturing not just the subjective experience of dancing together, but also what happens after the party, making love and holding her partner close. It has none of the formalism of “big trance” and is instead an extended house-trance missive all her own with beautiful resonances that evoke Motherbeat and the ineffable softness of true connection. The second track “Let Yourself Go!” raises the tempo but maintains the mood of the record. The song is a classic Octo Octa ecstatic breakbeat acid jam written for building heat in the body and for speaker-dancing under a starlit sky. The E.P. closer, “Come Here, Let’s Commune”, is an invitation to explore togetherness. The essence of the track is a gorgeous piano theme, grounded in Maya’s belief that the dancefloor experience can be not only exciting and ecstatic, but also deeply moving and generative—a reminder that underground dance culture offers permission for connections unsanctioned in the dominant society.

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When Octo Octa sent us the demos for her first full-length record since 2013, we were floored by how many tracks were single worthy. But, there was one that stood out as something entirely on its own, a song that in many ways sounded like nothing Maya had ever released. Since the beginning, we always knew we wanted to do something special with "Adrift," the 8+ minute space-age synth-dub techno tune. When we asked Maya about doing a 12" with remixes we were blindsided to learn she has NEVER had any of her music remixed before. With some remixers in mind, she asked two of her favorites and they said yes. So, here we are to present HNY-016 Octo Octa - Adrift, remixed by Avalon Emerson and Dorisburg."

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Love Notes (from Brooklyn) serves up another winner, this time with the sonic stylings of the illustious (and also Brooklyn based) Octo Octa, whose not unimpressive discography already includes releases on such heavyweight labels such as Running Back, Argot, and Deepblak. From the opening, echoed chords and unique percussive qualities of Eyes Low, through the spaced out funk of Touch Formation, to the early morning vibes of I Feel, this EP delivers on all levels. This is the 9th release on this fine American imprint and they show no signs of slowing down their sonic agenda.


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Ahead of the release of a full length album by the same title, Honey Soundsystem records presents 3 breakout tracks on 12" vinyl from Octo Octa's "Where Are We Going?". Side A features the "new school" breaks pumper "Move On (Let Go) (De-Stress Mix) and the peak-time synth heavy tear jerker "On Your Lips." On the flip we share the 9 and a half minute aquatic house opus "Where Are We Going? Pt. 2" “Do you feel better?” — is the line Maya Bouldry-Morrison aka Octo Octa repeats like a mantra on the final track of “Where Are We Going?” her newest and second studio LP. “It was the question every single person asked me after coming out as transgender,” she told us “Overall I do, but no, I don’t feel better at every moment, which is why the track slips out with a dour bass drone in addition to a beautiful pad. These days, both emotions are ever-present for me.” It is precisely this candor and intensity that immediately drew us in when Maya sent over the LP to consider for the Honey Soundsystem label. As DJs we are always looking for music that can speak in our sets, not just the highest caliber productions, but songs that represent the changing landscape of the queer dance-floor. “Where Are We Going?” reads like a diary. With track titles like “No More Pain (Promises To A Younger Self)” and “Move On (Let Go) (De-stress Mix)” you can’t avoid the autobiographical messages of these songs, but Maya leaves no booty un-shaken - this is still 9 four-to-the-floor house and techno beauties to rock your body. Her willingness to even model for the cover art of this LP, proved this is a side to Octo Octa we've never seen or heard before, an artist ready to let her fans experience an intimacy as deep as the synths and lead lines she has gained notoriety for. Applying her years of international DJ’ing, this album flows with intention and has effortlessly found its way back into our headphones and home stereo systems repeatedly - Pro-tip: you can even have sex to it. Needless to say this is the first time in a decade Honey Soundsystem has thrown itself at a contemporary LP and we know once you hear it, you will know where we are going…

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Guess whose back on SKYLAX ? The great & ultra prolific brooklyn based producer Octo Octa ! You know him from his releases on 100% Silk, on Gerd Janson’s Running Back label, Deepblak, Argot, Love notes & of course on our beloved Stay Undergroun It Pays sub-label, that was his first introduction to the Skyalx fans & world. The man from NYC serves up 3 slices of that U.S. experimental house sound we love so much. This ep delivers an amazing quality close to perfection for us on all levels. All in all, another killer release that feels straight at home in the Skylax records impressive catalogue

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T4TLUVNRG returns with a new release from Rrose, an artist who has been broadcasting transmissions of esoteric minimalism to the worldwide underground for nearly three decades. Stretching across eras and intentionalities within their work, they invite listeners to inhabit unfamiliar realms of phenomena in the dance. Influenced by the surrealist whimsy of Marcel Duchamp & fellow provocateurs in the Dada movement; the artist as self, subject, and instrument is disassembled, embraced, & reassembled back again into an enticingly abstract form under the sonic melding of experiential sound & techno as the medium. Rrose’s captivating dexterity & evocative tension courses with an arcane fluidity throughout each of the record’s three tracks; their entrancing qualities perfect as tools to supplement the rhythmically inclined DJ bag, or as standalone experiences in circadian perception. “Second Coming” arises in vaporous glamour & undulating perceptive shifts, unfurling an atomic web of percussion occupying an elegant liminality evolved by the listener as participant. “Triplicate” expands our journey further, a dance of glimmering waves inside an elastic cocoon, molting with new anatomical downloads in between spaces of stillness, movement, & rippling kinetic vectors. As the B side morphs into “Silhouettes”, we glide onwards in a dance of smoldering glow, threads of energy conduction meld & drape themselves over subsonic pulsations, free flowing into constellations of momentum over a sprawling canvas.

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T4T LUV NRG presents “Call Me G”, the new album by Brooklyn’s Russell E.L. Butler, their first full length LP since the release of 2018’s critically acclaimed “The Home I’d Build For Myself and All My Friends” on Left Hand Path. In the intervening years, Russell has experienced an accumulation of personal subjective experiences which are explored through captivating musical modalities and expressions on this sprawling, gorgeous, and deeply emotional album. Russell’s work on “Call Me G” can be described as a unique amalgam of early NY house music, dub techno and poetry. The album’s title track, as well as its instrumentals, are a kind of storytelling for histories that continue to exist without observation as well as for secrets and the power they hold in spite of their truth being obscured and sometimes lost. Storytellers like Russell have the ability to collapse the past and future into discrete experiences of non-linear time through the emotional landscape of music and voice. Each song contains a palatable loneliness and hurt to which many in this modern world can relate, but each track also suggests the possibility of genuine connection and the formation of the self through communing and reintegrating with the natural world. These parallel concepts are the subject of “Accumulation”, a writing by Russell which accompanies the release of the album. The emotions, conflicts and resolutions that accompany Russell’s storytelling are felt acutely on tracks such as “I’m Dancing No One Is Watching” and “Stare Into The Light Beam”, among others. On the title song, which closes the album, Russell sings “Can you call me? Will you call me? All that I want is for you to call me by my name...My name is G.” Context is part of interpretation and thus it is left to the listener to feel in the music and lyrics the concept that what may seem erased never truly dies, the traces still exist in the thing that takes its place. The T4T LUV NRG label is in part a continuing effort to facilitate the documentation of true stories that don’t get told—rather than representing a singular vibe or genre. Russell’s album is a stunning and profound entry in this evolving catalog of music and art. The beautiful cover of “Call Me G” is based on a hand drawn portrait of the artist by Diego Guzman.

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T4T LUV NRG presents “Name It”, the latest album by Oakland’s Bored Lord, aka DJ Daria. The internationally beloved producer and DJ has created a truly stunning album of impeccably produced and mixed work, each song an enticing chapter in a complexly woven story about love. This album of uninhibited, hook-laden tracks conveys a narrative of love that is not only romantic and personal, but also communal and familial— a love that refuses to limit itself to just two people, but instead spills forth into the world, embracing everyone open to its power. With her emotive, tenacious album, Bored Lord reminds us that to truly allow yourself to be enveloped in desire, you have to endure the pain that comes alongside it. You have to adapt and stretch yourself in order to experience the immense growth love has to offer. You have to believe there's more to this world than suffering and isolation. You have to look within and accept whatever you find, even if it is ugly or difficult. Love is the peace you find amidst the chaos of living, and it doesn't just fall into your lap. You have to want it. You have to be ready for it. And if you are ready, you have to name it. As a producer known in no small part for her edits, Bored Lord presents “Name It” as a work undeniable in its artistry, completely authentic in its messaging, and absent of the industrial notion of production. The songs on “Name It” have instant hooks and each is deeply inspired by the genres Bored Lord loves—broken beat, drum n’ bass, jungle, UK bass, Florida breaks and house among them—but rather than simply reproducing, these tracks expand each genre beautifully. Daria’s technique is decidedly hardcore, with samplers, romplers and a bone dry aesthetic, each song and sound all her own. In the artist's own words “I want the industry people to be confused while the ravers understand the very moment they press play. I want to challenge everyone to name it.” And we expect that indeed they will, play after play after play. Now, close your eyes and believe there is more, more, more….

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“Bumpers” is the latest EP on T4T LUV NRG by DJ Autopay, the alias of musician and DJ Russell E.L. Butler. All of these tunes were written with DJs and blending in mind—like bumper cars, they are fun yet emotionally charged and built for unexpected collisions of sound. “More Femme, More Masc” is a queer non-binary anthem with heavy Baltimore-influenced vibes, written by Russell during the pandemic in a time of peak vulnerability, their voice cracking throughout. The track is an interpretation of “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman and “Sometimes I Rhyme Slow” by Nice & Smooth but sounds like nothing we have heard before. Tropes 1, 2 & 3 are all house instrumentals in the spirit of the golden age of American house music yet interpreted through Russell’s unique lens. These cuts would have been as at home on Guidance records years ago as they are today on T4T LUV NRG, evoking the swinging dance beats and heady vibes of producers like Callisto and the early Large records by Kerri Chandler and DJ Rasoul. Russell has created something truly special for the contemporary dance floor with this timeless EP.

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“Dreams of a Dancefloor” is the latest EP by Octo Octa (aka Maya Bouldry-Morrison) on her label T4T LUV NRG. Maya spent the last 3 years perfecting her engineering on these three sensual, beautiful and enveloping songs. For the opening track, “Late Night Love”, we hear Octo Octa capturing not just the subjective experience of dancing together, but also what happens after the party, making love and holding her partner close. It has none of the formalism of “big trance” and is instead an extended house-trance missive all her own with beautiful resonances that evoke Motherbeat and the ineffable softness of true connection. The second track “Let Yourself Go!” raises the tempo but maintains the mood of the record. The song is a classic Octo Octa ecstatic breakbeat acid jam written for building heat in the body and for speaker-dancing under a starlit sky. The E.P. closer, “Come Here, Let’s Commune”, is an invitation to explore togetherness. The essence of the track is a gorgeous piano theme, grounded in Maya’s belief that the dancefloor experience can be not only exciting and ecstatic, but also deeply moving and generative—a reminder that underground dance culture offers permission for connections unsanctioned in the dominant society.

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For their second release of 2023, T4T LUV NRG present the “Temptation E.P.” by breakout L.A. based producer and DJ Introspekt. Between sets at West Coast renegades, Introspekt has caught the attention of DJs the world over with her heavy and beautifully crafted UKG productions on Gimme A Break and Shall Not Fade, including a forthcoming release on Interplanetary Criminal’s compilation for Locked On. T4T LUV NRG label heads Octo Octa and Eris Drew were introduced to Introspekt through Bored Lord and eagerly signed the Temptation e.p. on a first listen, already having been fans of her music. Their imaginations were immediately captured by this U.S. artist’s fresh take on UKG, which borrows certain motifs from Ballroom culture and classic house sounds. All of the tracks on “Temptation” utterly rip in a playful way but they also have a genuine emotion and narrative that Introspekt weaves through all the swingin’ beats and bass. We can’t wait to hear these juicy tunes work the bins over the coming months!

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T4T LUV NRG present the first vinyl release by Gynoid 74, the beloved Glaswegian DJ known also as Miss Cosmix. Label heads Eris Drew & Maya Bouldry-Morrison (Octo Octa) met Gynoid 74 through their work with the queer Shoot Your Shoot event series in Scotland. Gynoid 74 has been DJing for 20 years and has shared her knowledge of DJing and sound with so many artists in Glasgow that she’s truly beloved there for her contributions to the scene. She’s as likely to be DJing as she is to be working sound at a local club or huddled off in her home studio. The three artists all formed an immediate connection because of their mutual love for old school electronics, tape culture, and proper house music. When the label finally heard Gynoid 74’s original music they were blown away. Gynoid 74 tracks are a truly refreshing mix of 12-bit sampling and raw breaks alongside “tracky” house music that could have come from Chicago in the 80s, but didn’t. The songs on the “Shroom E.P.” are elemental and elegant, each one recorded on a limited kit of gear by a special artist who makes timeless music for herself, creating little worlds of her own to exist in. The vinyl release includes the incredible original artwork of ocypode_quadrata, which beautifully illustrates Gynoid 74 in communication with her snails and mushrooms.

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T4T LUV NRG presents “The Last Illusion,” an ep of four bass-heavy and powerfully emotional tracks by Oakland-based artist Bored Lord. All of these songs are proper hardcore house tracks in her unique style, pressed loud and built out of love between queer and trans people...the same love we use to survive. The label fell in love with Bored Lord’s work after Eris and Maya (Octo Octa) played with her at a queer warehouse rave in L.A. What they saw in this unique artist was an energetic sibling, a DJ with the ability to use music and magic (“illusion” here an ecstatic technique) to set bodies free. The first song “Everyday 2gether” conveys the triumph of togetherness with airy stabs and cutting breaks that make dancers drill down hard while they sway. The second song “GNC NRG” is a tunnel of an acid track, meant for building GNC energy on dancefloors and in those bodies ready to receive the message. “Woman’s Wisdom”, the third song, is a full-on psychedelic banger cast from Bored Lord’s lived-experience of using chaos to both destroy and create. The e.p.’s closing song “So In Luv” revels in love’s intoxication with its hard mid-tempo breaks and gorgeously lifting pads. The cover art by Periwinkle Lamb and the title of the ep are inspired by the book “The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions” along with its accompanying illustrations. (L. Mitchell, ill. N. Asta 1977). “The Last Illusion” is available on 12” vinyl and for digital download from the label’s Bandcamp and at fine music stores.

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