Ransom Note

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 locked hypnosis that somehow never quite repeats itself, while Cluster’s smeared electronics hover at the periphery. Aryadiaz, who conceived it partly out of an obsession with factory machinery and, apparently, partly with German beer, describes the 4/4 pattern as feeling like “breaking through space and time.” We’re inclined to agree.

Out now via Gentle Tuesday Recordings, with a vinyl release to follow through Loide and TipTop Records. Stunning stuff.

https://strangefruit.bandcamp.com/album/drips

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 records to land this year: motorik folk, walls of fuzz, delay pedal disco, and genuine literary heft, released via the always excellent Sonic Cathedral and drawing comparisons to mid-period Flying Saucer Attack, Souvlaki-era Slowdive and a long-lost Spacemen 3 outtake.


They are, by their own admission, complete beginners as DJs. We handed them the airwaves anyway.
What came back is exactly what you’d expect from two people who learned to hear music through Nuggets compilations and Delia Derbyshire records, who want biblical noise and dream of piloting the Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound. It’s a mix that’s charming and oddly coherent: dub basslines, psych and proto-electronic tangents, the kind of selection that could only have been assembled by people who think in pedals and reverb tails rather than BPMs. A journey with a clear first step, even if the destination remains gloriously unclear.

Not a DJ mix in any conventional sense, just an excellently varied record collection let loose.

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 helping to push the sound forward without gimmicks or the sort of delusional grandeur we've become accustomed to from a DJ in the social media era.

His blog and record label Innate is widely acclaimed amongst those in the know and its rare we'd kindly say as such about another site. Only kidding...

This mix is a serious addition to the series and showcases a deep understanding of nuance and sound as he weaves and winds between house, electro and the eclectic spaces in between.

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 Mozambican artist Nandele’s ‘Chapa 100’. Originally released at the beginning of 2024, here the track is morphed into a bright, skippy drum tool with plenty of sub bass to carry the groove. The second remix comes courtesy of Scuffed Discs and Bad Tips producer GoodMostlyBad who strips back the sassy new beat of Reda Saiarh’s ‘Kiki’ into a sleek and sophisticated acid-meets-NYC ballroom number.

Human Endeavour is part of Ransom Note Records’ family of sub-labels, curated and run by former R$N Editor, DJ and Noods Radio resident Rosie Ama.

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 queer resistance. In the years since her reach has been wide, her presence felt across stages and in studios that stretched well beyond the underground, but Black Meteoric Star has always remained something distinct. An avenger. A keeper of a more radical flame.

‘5am Open Air Sunrise’ captures something very specific: that hour on the dancefloor where exhaustion dissolves into transcendence, where the body gives up resisting, and something more honest takes over. It was recorded live, which means the contributions from Russell E.L. Butler and Borusiade are less remixes than full reconstructions, each expanding the emotional landscape while preserving the original’s energy.

Rayna has been clear about what’s driving the return: “Black Meteoric Star is one of those characters I created for survival. And this moment demands its return.”

With a full album waiting in the wings, ssh! – this feels like an opening statement worth paying attention to.

Dark Entries make for natural co-conspirators on something this uncompromising.