Ransom Note

“I loved the naivety of it, and it’s about trying to bottle that feeling.”

Toby Tobias has never really stopped. Since 1992, when he first got his hands on a sampler, some amen breaks and a stack of horror film samples, he’s operated under a run of aliases and studios, but Alphonse was always the one closest to the bone – a direct line back to hearing it all for the first time on Kiss FM and in the raves, before he knew what any of it was called. He’s put records out on Klasse Wrecks, Hypercolour, Emotional Especial and Kalahari Oyster Cult, run a label of his own in Voice Notes, and built a career propping up the counter in Croydon before anyone was paying him to be there.

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His latest, ‘Spirit of the Night’ with Seraphina Simone, is the kind of record that took its time. Written in a single session at Glastonbury in 2017, it sat through lockdown, a new baby and a handful of other projects before it finally clicked as a late-night acid house record, built around a snaking 303 line and Seraphina’s vocal, and spun out into four mixes pulling in four different directions. It’s out now on our our very own Ransom Note Recs.

We locked him in for a mix and a chat. Check it out below.

https://www.theransomnote.com/music/premieres/alphonse-see-me-in-3d-ransom-note-mix/

Berlin-based DJ and producer Anna Kost has carved out a distinctive space between techno, bass music and experimental electronics.

She has released material on the likes of Soma, Faux Poly, ÆX and more having established herself as a DJ in the German capital appearing at the likes of Tresor and RSO.

As a producer, she draws upon an array of influences, tending to focus on deeper, emotionally lead material which dances atop club based sounds and sensibilities.

This mix is made up entirely of her own unreleased material and demonstrates an unrivalled potential as she plots her next steps.

We're premiering Kerobokan, the title track off Rocco Universal's new EP - out 18 September on Cosmic Tiger, CT004, vinyl and digital.

Rocco Universal is the alias of Patrizio Cavaliere, who also happens to run Cosmic Tiger itself - started as a blog in 2019, gone quiet for a while, now back as what he calls a slow-moving but trusted archive of interviews, conversations and dancefloor oddities. He writes for Juno and Mixmag Asia, holds down a residency at Potato Head Bali, and has previously landed productions on Leng and Soul Clap.

The EP is four cuts of cosmic machine funk, recorded on analogue synths with feeling put well ahead of control - saturated drums, thick bass, melodies that take their time getting anywhere. Shaped patiently around that Bali residency, the tracks move through cosmic disco, proto-house, electro-funk and psychedelic chug, each one finding its place beneath evolving twilight skies. Whoever's naming the tracklist deserves a mention too - Mutiny On The Sex Raft opens things, Floating Free closes them.

Kerobokan sits third, named for the stretch of Bali it was shaped in - slow-burning, intuitive, built for the point in the night where nobody's watching the clock.

Kerobokan, below. The EP's out 18 September on Cosmic Tiger.

Buenos Aires bassline, Guadalajara hypnosis – we’re premiering Pinto’s deep, stripped-back take on Javier Ferreira’s Mercury…

Javier Ferreira built a bassline from mercury and light,
Multi-instrument magic from Buenos Aires to the night;
He broke the rhythm loose and let it drive,
Through peak-time thunder, after-hours haze,
A groove gone liquid in a silver blaze,
Deep and functional, and somehow still alive.

Then Pinto came along, all sampler and swing,
Stripped the groove right back till the silence could sing;
Guadalajara hands on a Mexican night,
He hypnotised Mercury, slowed down the spark,
Turned peak-time to prayer in the after-hours dark,
On Playground Records, ten September: liftoff flight.


Ferreira’s Argentinian – Buenos Aires born, Barcelona based – and has been at this fifteen-odd years: DJ, producer, mixing engineer running his own studio, Soundsfera. He co-runs NINEFONT with his brother Gabriel, a hundred-plus releases deep, and has put tracks out everywhere from Suara to Rotten City. DJ Mag LA called him one of Argentina’s top five techno DJs back in 2017; these days he’s as likely to be found teaching, having co-founded academies in Buenos Aires (Insound) and Barcelona (BesideSchool).

Deeper is three originals where deep basslines, broken rhythms and driving house grooves collide – detailed but functional, working just as well at peak time as three hours past it. The remixes pull in two directions: Pinto takes Mercury deeper and darker, stripping the groove back till tension carries the track instead of rhythm; François Del Mundo & Rem’s Martinez go the other way on a separate cut, adding a soaring arpeggio and turning it into a straight-up club weapon.

Pinto’s from Guadalajara – a Bar Américas resident since 2007, founder of the Localafiesta night, part of the Vatos Locos crew, known for running a sampler as an extra mixer channel back when nobody else was bothering. His read on Mercury fits: strip it back, let it hypnotise rather than hit.

Mercury (Pinto Remix), below. Deeper is out 10 September on Playground Records, mastered by Submarea Estudio.

GRAB THE FULL EP HERE: https://javier-ferreira.bandcamp.com/album/deeper-inc-pinto-fran-ois-del-mundo-rems-martinez-remixes

The most excellent Nandele Maguni steps up with the cHai EP on his own label. the ace-ly name Awesomakossamusic - four tracks, written, recorded, produced and mixed solo at Empty House Studios. We're premiering VIOLA, today.

Not a new name round these parts, Nandele opened Rosie Ama's Human Endeavour with Incomati on the label's Trains of Thought comp back in 2022, then returned with an extended solo EP of his own, Maputo, in 2024.

Maguni has been dragging Mozambique's underground into rooms that didn't know they even needed it till they found it ever since: Cotch International, a spot on Tresor's roster, records built from psychedelia, hip-hop and rhythm that defies any real categorisation or genre box. cHai goes further back. Chai's an administrative post in Cabo Delgado's Macomia District - the place where the armed struggle against Portuguese colonial rule began on 25 September 1964. No history lesson though: Maguni runs it through analogue machines and raw, unpolished textures until it sounds like it's arriving from the future, not the past.

VIOLA is rhythm first, textures close behind - the same push-pull between ancestral and synthetic that runs through the record. 

Get it on, let's go: