Ransom Note

Samson A.K. has been a heady presence amidst the underground for a long time now having cut his teeth in various guises. However, more recently he has begun boldly making music under his own name, cementing himself with a new position having released material on the likes of Berceuse Heroique, MAL Recordings and via his own newly launched imprint Ideal State.  From a musical perspective Sam tends...

Patricia Wolf makes music from the inside of an ecosystem. Her recent release on Music To Watch Seeds Grow By; Yarrow (the 9th edition in the series) emerged from weeks spent at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado, working alongside ecologists studying plants, pollinators, and the slow pressures of a changing climate. Patricia Wolf Mock Up The album maps a Yarrow’s life fr...

Wigs is part of a new school of dj's pushing faster tempo's and frequencies. Releasing records and playing at some of the most interesting new parties on the circuit he has begun to make a name for himself for his euphoric, energetic sets which blur the lines between house, trance, tribal and beyond.  His latest release comes on Kasra V's label, a record which makes sense in context with Kasra als...

We’re premiering the video for ‘Abiotic Factors’ – Patricia Wolf’s opening dispatch from Gothic, Colorado and the invisible forces that determine whether anything grows at all… Tia and Wil’s Music To Watch Seeds Grow By series – the ambient/new-age/planty cassette label has in nine editions, tried to make a compelling case that the best way to understand ambient is to get your hands in some soil a...

Manami is firing on all cylinders. If you’ve spent any time on a UK dancefloor over the last decade, you’ve likely crossed paths with her. Born in Japan and raised on Bristol’s foundational dub, house and bass scenes, she’s built a fierce reputation for holding down a room with unmatched energy and a distinct sense of community. From early days raving at Livity Sound, Futureboogie, Timedance and D...

Hercules and Love Affair is an electronic music project created in 2004 by DJ, producer and songwriter Andy Butler. Originally formed in New York City, the act became known for blending classic disco, Chicago house, techno and synth-pop into emotionally charged dance music with an art-pop sensibility. Rather than functioning as a traditional band, Hercules and Love Affair operates as a rotating co...

Cult classic given the Allison magic… There was a Young Fellow called James Allison, who said, “All this dancing has something quite wrong with it! I’ll edit three classics and turn them about, And make all the rockers get up and go out!” So he rummaged through cult cuts and album-shelf things, and polished them up till they jangled like strings, Said Ivan Smagghe. “Goodness!” said Sean Johnston,...

Your favourite DJ’s favourite punk band are back, and they’ve brought the sweat with them. There was a Young Band from the Paradise Palms, Who played with such fury it rattled your arms, They grooved like the ESG, bit like The Slits, And drove Windmill Brixton completely to bits! “O come to our Party!” cried Bikini Body, “It’s perfectly sweaty and pleasantly shoddy! The bassline is punching, the d...

Safiye has been quietly doing the work. And we mean that in every sense. Anyone who's crossed paths with her at Love International - or anywhere else, for that matter - will know there's a version of Safiye most people never fully clock. The one making sure everything runs smoothly, checking in on people, holding the energy of a room without ever needing to shout about it. Calm, kind, and complete...

“Everyone needs a moment of silence every once in a while,” Basil seems to know this, too. Salamanda create a bed for Basil’s germination. Watching something small grow in your kitchen makes you pay close attention. The Seoul-based duo Salamanda and the next artist stepping up for Seeds understand this. Uman (Sala) and Yejin (Manda) spent a day watching a single basil plant on a windowsill, notici...

A longstanding, driving force within the Italian underground and the wider world of contemporary psychedelic music, Lay Llamas celebrates the release of the project's new album 'Time, Islands and Thresholds' with a mesmerizing mix for our main series. Nicola Giunta has been leading the psych brigade under the Lay Llamas banner for well over a decade. Formed in 2012, the project has since released...

Wonky organic grooves from ALF CHAMPION and MDHNTR via Calypso records new compilation There once was a Shape who could dance, With pockets of electronica trance, It wobbled its form through the Definition, And questioned each note and condition, While singing quite badly about circumstance. “What is,” asked the Shape, “this peculiar sound? That bounces and bobs all around and around? Is it liquid...

From the coastline to the dance-floor. Daichi's ear was formed early. Weekends spent at Oppa-La in Enoshima absorbing whatever the room had to offer, left a mark that still runs through everything he does. From there the path naturally progressed, co-founding Vinyl Youth, a collective whose energy has carried through Korea and onto the stage at Rainbow Disco Club. His productions tell a similar st...

akarta’s Strange Fruit with the last track from their Drips EP is something super special. Pouvoi Moteur – French for “motoric power,” since you asked – is exactly what that sounds like: locked-groove krautrock discipline shot through with kosmische shimmer, the kind of track that makes the road ahead feel endless and the destination irrelevant. The ghost of Can’s engine room is all over it, that...

Adispatch from the holy island, via Alabama. Two guys from Muscle Shoals, Alabama -0 the city that quietly wrote half the soul records you’ve ever loved — making shoegaze concept albums about a tidal island off the coast of Northumberland. On paper, it shouldn’t work. In practice, Holy Island, the debut from Adam Morrow and Jamie Sego’s Sister Ray Davies, is one of the more beautifully stunning re...

Owain K is a stalwart of the Bristol underground. For many years he has cut his teeth running parties, curating labels and producing music. A bit of an unsung hero of sorts in our eyes - his musical knowledge is vast and in this day and age he represents exactly the sort of character and dedication a DJ should have. For years he has been on a quest to explore new music, digging for hidden gems and...

Human Endeavour’s ‘Dancefloor Designs’ returns with two club-focused remixes from Parris and GoodMostlyBad. Launched last year as a way to reimagine previous label material for the club, the second chapter in the series revisits tracks from Nandele’s ‘Maputo’ EP and Reda Saiarh’s contribution to the label’s first ever release. First up can you feel the sun co-head Parris works his magic on Mozambi...

Dark Entries and Ransom Note present a defiant comeback from Gavilán Rayna Russom, featuring remixes from Russell E.L. Butler and Borusiade. Gavilán Rayna Russom built Black Meteoric Star in Berlin in 2006, less as a project than as a form of protection: a performance identity that could carry truths she wasn’t yet able to live openly, a vehicle for the intersection of electronic dance music and q...

Seoul duo Salamanda. Uman Therma (Sala) and Yetsuby (Manda) have turned their gaze to the most unassuming of subjects: a single basil plant on a windowsill There once was a Basil who sat in the dusk, When the light had gone thin and the day shed its husk, He gazed at the glass where the garden grew small, And pondered his fate in the last of the hall. A wine of deep blue in a vessel unclear appear...

Simply Nothing is a dubbed-out analogue synth workout like only these two know how.  Carefully constructed percussion, with George Hume's bass sitting beneath a veil of spectral vocals courtesy of Sarah-May Brown. On the EP there's a two other original tracks plus a remix from the excellent Hybrid Man does what Hybrid Man does best, pulling the hypnotic core of the original. Simply Nothing is out...

Giorgi Pipia is a Georgian DJ and selector originally from the western region of Georgia, now based in Tbilisi—one of Eastern Europe’s most influential underground electronic music hubs. Deeply connected to the city’s evolving club culture, he is a resident at the community-driven club Left Bank and a regular radio host on Rinse FM France, where he showcases his wide-ranging musical taste and expe...

With the current climate doing its best to grind things down, sometimes making music with your people is all you can do – and LA’s underground is responding in kind. Few collectives embody that spirit quite like the Elbow Grease and DISCOS XXX crew. SSRI – the Sound & Spirit Research Institute, a studio brainchild born from the meeting of DJ Dex aka Nomadico of Underground Resistance, Kosmik of Th...

Music that makes you feel deeply human… There’s a version of events where Joshua Idehen is still behind a bar in the West End, coming home late, flicking through channels. But then came Dizzee Rascal on Channel U – that first-person rant, that stream of consciousness pouring into the void – and something locked into place. Nearly two decades later, the British-born Nigerian poet and spoken-word ar...

For Phil Kieran – DJ, producer, film composer and the Belfast-based mind behind Le Carousel – it was closer to twelve years, the span it took to bring The Humans Will Destroy Us to life. The follow-up to his cult debut lands on 13th March via Phil Kieran Recordings, and it arrives fully formed: part shoegaze-inflected electronics, part Kosmische drift, part dancefloor catharsis – a record that fee...

A transmission from deep within the French underground. Sarcus Soundsystem, the trio of Ubik, Jacky Jeane and Olga B, have been quietly doing something right in Paris for a while now. Their various endeavours around the capital have drawn attention through noise, care and curiosity. A genuine investment in the spaces they use and the people who fill them. As a collective, their extended sets are b...