Tony Johnson is the electrifying new alter ego of multi-talented artist Toon Janssens. Under this moniker, he delves deep into the world of acid and electronic soundscapes, capturing the raw energy of the early days. Get ready to be transported into a hypnotic realm of cosmic atmospheres.
After five years, Ekman returns to Shipwrec with ‘Elixers’. Throbs of bass and rasping snares shear a path for smoother tones in ‘Alruin Met Cranberry’. Injecting the ever-present sense of unease, a menacing melody stalks the constricting recesses as paranoia takes hold. These inner alcoves are further explored in the disturbing ‘Doornappel Met Peer’. Spectral synth-lines don a thin shimmering veil, warbling notes tremble while beats offer little relief in this unstable outing. Aquatic undercurrents introduce the flip, a sharp drum slicing through the burbling bass of ‘Codeine En Rozemarijn’. From this murky soup, a string ascends as Ekman toys with contrasting tones to produce a piece of acid dipped elegance. Shattered drums pierce the ambient fog of the finale. ‘Alsem Met Anijs blends’ intricate percussion with soulful strings to produce a hauntingly beautiful dreamscape to finish Ekman’s heady brew
Cult icon Bill Converse trots back to Dark Entries with ‘Trust’. Converse has honed his craft since the early days of the Midwest rave scene, absorbing lessons from luminaries like Claude Young and Traxx. His skill as a producer has been cemented with releases on labels like Dark Entries, Fit Sound, and Obsolete Futures, and his prowess as a DJ has been witnessed on floors worldwide. In recent years, Converse has also pushed audiences to their lysergic limits with his sinewy and kinetic live sets, which pair classic analog boxes like the Roland TB-303 with cutting-edge modular synthesis techniques. The 7 tracks on Trust pick up the wild energy of these live hardware explorations, channeling the splayed beats of Chicago’s Relief Records, the acidic grit of Midwest techno like Woody McBride’s Communique Records, and the hypnagogic hooks of Artificial Intelligence-era IDM. According to Converse, the abrupt changes and off-kilter rhythms are “an effort to facilitate or express trust-making in the listening experience. I want some degree of give and take with the listener.” This process makes Converse’s sound truly singular, the kind of aural landscape that can only be conjured through a lifetime of crate-digging and analog abuse.
Hackney Electronica come to Dark Entries with the Synaptic Shadows EP, featuring 5 cuts of acidic rave-inflected wave. Quinn Whalley (Paranoid London), Unai Trotti (Cartulis Music), and Margo Broom (Hermitage Working Studios) formed Hackney Electronica during COVID era. Trotti and Whalley were spending countless hours digging through records and making music during lockdown. As their sound took shape – heavy and hypnotic – they invited Broom to join, cementing the motley trio. The five pieces on Synaptic Shadows explore themes of altered states, late-night cityscapes, and the fine line between pleasure and paranoia. Each track pulses like a memory from the backstreets of Hackney, where the night transforms the city into an electrified maze of fleeting highs and inevitable crashes. The anxious grooves on “H.E. Nuestro Circuito” and “Whispers from the Depths” channel 1980s DIY electronics onto the contemporary dancefloor, while “Efecto Perfecto,” “The One”, and “Nueva Ola” offer breakbeat-laced electro that will keep you dancing until dawn. Housed in a sleeve designed by German Bardo, Synaptic Shadows is more than just a debut release, it’s a journey through the flickering alleys of the mind, where tension and transcendence intertwine.
This transmission is pure unfiltered West Coast Squirrel Bait, C.L.A.W.S. featuring a cast of collaborators within the Squirrels extended universe. Dark after-hours to high desert romance, Mission District alley cats searching for sunlight. Squirrels On Film label cofounder Solar joins for a ‘Black Magic Carpet Ride’. ‘Wild Slugs United’ features deadly bass clarinet blasts by Paul Costuros (of Murder Murder / Death Sentence: Panda! et al).
15 Years Of Dame-Music Vol.1 is an ode to the unmistakable sound of the TB-303, a core element of Bloody Mary’s widely respected sound and label. Above all, it celebrates fifteen years of quality dance music, set to continue across its three excellently curated volumes in 2025. The first volume features a track from Bloody Mary and welcomes back Thomas P. Heckmann, E-Bony, and Hardfloor to the imprint.
Somewhere between techno, early 90s Italian progressive, and goa trance, the debut EP by Astral Renegades is difficult to pigeonhole, but works wonders on a saucer-eyed dancefloor. The brainchild of a mysterious but established producer, Astral Renegades takes things in a whole new headspinning direction.
Comprised of raw recordings, spontaneously conducted between 2012 to 2020 in Venice and later in Milan, Machinete are Marco Segato (La Serpiente) and Pietro Giubilato (TLXCO) executing and modulating rough post-industrial beats into pummeling electro structures with a brute sense of nocturnal acid in the air which strives to bring power to its knees.
All revenues from this album will be donated to The Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund (gascf.org). The fund provides medical assistance to children in critical need and supports the medical sector in Gaza and Lebanon.
Don Kashew returns to Subject To Restrictions Discs with the album ‘Bellows’. A haunting, melodic, maudlin affair, as one would expect from the Zurich-based producer, with a variety of ‘breathing’ instruments as a fulcrum, that challenges any physicality. The compositions draw from the pool of New Age music and neo-folk of the 80s and 90s. But ‘Bellows’ stretches and looks at the future, deliberately blurring lines that were supposedly anchored. So, Don Kashew has begun a new phase in his musical expression; quivering, but grounded and interwoven in a rich arras of synth work and overlapping woodwind sounds.
Sharif Abu Ammar (b. 1968) is a sonic agitator, cultural theorist and elusive musician who emerged from the late ‘80s transnational acid house circuits. Blurring the lines between history, memory, secrecy, and the future, he was raised between the shadow of colonial histories and the neon glare of global capitalism. His work fuses decolonial critique and the commodification of underground music, subverting both the hedonism of the scene and the exotifying gaze of the West.
The term “Ides of March” refers to March 15th since the troubled days of the Roman Empire. But this year, more than ever, one might think these times of Calamity start on March 3rd, the annual TB-303 day, due to the boiling and dark tracks cooked by Mule Driver for this glorious day. Once you hear their lethal drop of electro-acid you can kiss the Roman empire goodbye – Mule Driver delivers the Roland Empire!
Jim Coles’s fifth instalment of his best-selling ‘Acid Dub Studies’ series arrives in the form of the third set of original works exploring the infectious sound of the 303 bass-line in a dubwise setting. The album takes in traditional dub mixing approaches in a digital and roots/digi-dub style whilst also making space for more electronic and ambient processes to close the project.
Mannequin Records present the upcoming release of Chromium Industries, a double LP (MNQ 162) capturing the innovative spirit of two pioneers of electronic music: Andrew Lagowski and Paul (Howie D) Howard. This long-anticipated album marks a return to the seminal sounds of the Chromium Industries label, which emerged as a crucial platform for boundary-pushing techno and electronic music in the 1990s. Chromium Industries 2xLP is more than an album; it’s a legacy preserved and reimagined. The double LP transports listeners to an era when electronic music was in full experimental bloom while showcasing the genre’s continual evolution.
Raymond D. Barre with his second album ‘Dans l’Œil Du Biset’ for Nocta Numerica.
Ka§par & Sheri Vari, Muzikalist and Daniel Holt with the projects Vault & Death Posture are on the latest release of In The Dark Again. They deliver four tracks full of gloomy beauty and bitter sweet delight. Let yourself be enchanted by this very special record.
Mike Inzinger trades with a wide array of sounds, intersecting Ambient, Techno, Electro, House and Acid elements. The upcoming 4-track EP “Final Report” nods to Netherlands’ west coast electro bents, varying from surreal 808-driven groovy acidic realms to immersive atmospheric, spaced-out pads and repetitive percussive wanders
TLXCO’s music is rough, pure, imprecise and spontaneous. A lover of analogue jams, bizarre electro rhythms and underground club culture, Pietro Giubilato contains in his work a plurality of different musical perversions which, when exposed, will intrigue the most esoteric type of listener.
Release No.10 features ‘Everyday EP’ the first solo record by Hayter of the Dog Balls and Westlake & Hayter fame. The record seamlessly transitions from 2000ish Gigolo vibes to Detroit electro-funk and wave anthems. The release is spiced with an acid power ballad of a remix by Hayter’s fellow Leipzig electro poet Credit 00.
The Hipodrome Of Music 