Following “The Red Pill” and “Suicide Neighborhood”, VHS Horror Tape marks the next chapter in the sonic universe of Dutch synthwave wizard Adam Tristar. The album expands on his signature sound with darker tones, gritty analog textures, and a strong cinematic horror influence, evoking late-night VHS aesthetics, neon-lit nightmares, and retro-futuristic suspense. It’s a haunting journey that blends nostalgia with menace, pushing his synthwave style into deeper, more ominous territory.
“II” is the second album by Californian post-punk heroes Alone in My Room. Continuing their exploration of isolation and urban tension, the band sharpens their stark, stripped-down sound, blending cold-wave severity with lo-fi intimacy. Pulsed basslines, detached vocals, and raw, close-mic’d production create an atmosphere that feels oppressive yet deeply personal. Following their 2020 debut Alone in My Room—a claustrophobic, late-night statement—the band pushes further into darker, more confrontational territory, solidifying their place in modern underground post-punk scene.
Enrico Rava’s second solo record, recorded in Milan in January 1973 and released on the German BASF label, is nothing less than a cornerstone of Italian jazz-rock. The lineup is killer: John Abercrombie on guitar, Bruce Johnson on bass, Chip White on drums. Four musicians operating at the absolute peak of early seventies fusion energy – electric, cosmopolitan, burning with that particular fire that only existed in that brief window when jazz met rock and nobody knew the rules yet. Abercrombie, already on his way to becoming one of the most distinctive voices in electric jazz guitar, delivers some of his most ferocious early work here. White’s drumming is relentless, pushing the music forward with an intensity that never lets up.
As the label turns 35 years, Tresor Records’ ongoing reissue series comes round to Scan 7’s 1999 album, Resurfaced. A true exemplar in the canon of Detroit techno, the LP is a further reminder of Scan 7’s confidence to patiently let the music unfold, never needing to overplay their hand. This is demonstrated from the first second as Random Soul opens with a slow downbeat and soft, almost imperceptible synths before quickly settling into a perfect groove whose power is present without the need for a hard edge. This strategy is utilised throughout the album in tracks like Black Wall and Unit Seven, while Invisible Invasion and Twisted Groov add in some intensity for deeper moments in the club.
Repetition stops being mechanical and starts to breathe. Beauty is taken apart piece by piece to get rebuild with irony as A Thousand Details’ minimalism blinds the mind.
Wilson Records present the new LP by Fabio Monesi, an artist known for his uncompromising analog approach and his ability to merge heritage with innovation. This latest work draws from a rich palette of influences—new wave atmospheres, raw electronic structures, and the unmistakable pulse of Chicago house while projecting a distinctly future-facing vision. Crafted entirely through hardware sessions, the album showcases Monesi’s deep command of analog equipment and his instinct for blending grit with elegance. On the second track, Fabio lends his own voice, adding a personal touch that shapes the emotional core of the record. A profound and reflective body of work, the LP explores themes of self-awareness, resilience, and inner transformation.
Maxwell Elemuo, Nigerian singer and soul provider of twitching funk entertainments, dons again his flares with Maxwell Elemuo Acc By Friimen Music Coy, a long-forgotten Afro-soul record now rereleased through Afrodelic. Backed by the Lagos-based Friimen Musik Company – though he himself was more a fixture of the Aba and Port Harcourt scene – Elemuo delivers seven heavens of late-60s energy despite their mid-70s birthdate: heavy, thudding drums and wah guitar framed aloud in warm, assured vocals. Album hearthstones ‘Love And Happiness’, ‘Let Me Love You’ and ‘People Get Ready’ ride that classic West African blend of American soul influence and local swagger, cementing a lesser-cited strand of southeastern Gulf soul.
Altın Gün, the Grammy-nominated Turkish psych-groove quintet from Amsterdam, return with their sixth studio album Garip — their most ambitious and diverse release to date, and a heartfelt tribute to the legendary Turkish folk bard Neşet Ertaş, a beloved icon of Anatolian music. Garip (“Strange” in English) features ten of his compositions, each reimagined and richly expanded through Altın Gün’s distinctive lens. An electrifying live band with an ever-growing global following, Altın Gün push their sonic boundaries even further on Garip — weaving in lush Arabesque string arrangements, bursts of saxophone, glimmering synth balladry, and a fresh surge of tightly wound rock ’n’ roll.
Danny Wolfers presents a brand new Smackos album as name-your-price on his bandcamp page. ‘Come for the Universe Stay for the Clowns’ is dedicated to the memory of Koen van Someren Gréve and includes nine synthetic hardcore ambient synth folk ballads.
Sun Electric — the legendary Berlin duo of Tom Thiel and Max Loderbauer — returns with Episodes, an enticing new album. While the pair has been active and creating over the years, Episodes marks their first album of original material in nearly 20 years. Now, with a renewed way of working together, they present fresh and captivating music on the Belgian De:tuned label, built from recordings made with the vintage 1960s Subharchord Synthesizer. Across 6 tracks, Sun Electric takes listeners on a strange yet wonderful journey through shifting moods and sonic textures, capturing their unmistakable sense of exploration and atmosphere.
“Diffractions” is a new album by Colombian artist Filmmaker AKA Faunes Efe, self-released on his bandcamp page.
Sounding like a lost Nu Groove record dug up in Detroit basement and played at the clubs of Ibiza in ’93, Nicky Benedek and Tom Carruthers team up for a dream collaboration with the six track “Process 9” LP. These are detailed and anthemic tracks to be played at the night club, the perfect balance of rough drum programming and deep, lush synthwork, everything has fallen into place when these two hit the studio together. Absolute essential gear for lovers of the late nites and endless mornings.
Absolutely killer 11 track double pack of raw techno missiles from Bari, Italy’s hero, DJ Plant Texture. Ultimate club gear that will do total damage anytime, anywhere. No nonsense, committed to the art of music..no false idol worship…just blistering true to form blasting techno cuts made to mix and send em’ into a frenzy. No trends, straight for the throat!
ep into the wild heart of New York’s underground avant-garde jazz scene with ‘Voyage from Jericho’. Recorded in 1974, release in 1975, this landmark session finds the Charles Tyler Ensemble pushing boundaries with fearless improvisation, deep spiritual yearning, and a raw emotional fire. Joined by top-tier collaborators — including Arthur Blythe, Earl Cross, Ronnie Boykins, and Steve Reid — Tyler shapes a sound that fuses avant-garde intensity with soulful depth, creating a powerful celebration of freedom and expression. This is music that demands attention and rewards deep listening. Whether you’re a devoted explorer of the avant-garde or a curious listener seeking something beyond the mainstream, Voyage from Jericho offers a journey both challenging and transcendent.
Dutch techno producer Troy, has long been a steady presence in the deeper realms of contemporary techno. Known for his timeless sound on labels such as Klockworks, Non Series, and KEY Vinyl, Troy continues to explore the intersection of raw energy and refined sound design on his first Double EP ‘Echoes of Ancient Life’ on Function’s Infrastructure New York. Across these 8 tracks, Troy constructs a continuum between the mystical and the mechanical: deep, tunneling synth lines, evolving textures, and precise rhythmic flow pushing his punchy techno sound to the next level.
Brazilian avant-jazz vanguardists Grupo Um celebrate their 50th anniversary, sharing a second previously lost 1970s album from the vaults. Nineteen Seventy Seven (titled after the year it was recorded) is another rip-roaring instrumental fusion treasure from the band which spawned from within Hermeto Pascoal’s famed mid-1970s São Paulo collective. Like their debut album Starting Point, Grupo Um’s Nineteen Seventy Seven was recorded when Brazil’s military dictatorship was at its most repressive. “There were no open doors to those who dreamt to be protagonists in creative instrumental music”, remembers drummer Zé Eduardo Nazario, “even popular composers and singers had to submit their songs to censors and many records were banned and confiscated from the stores.”
NYC’s Sweater on Polo follows up his acclaimed L.I.E.S. 12 inch from 2023 with debut full length double LP, “Almighty Grand Essence”. This is pure to form 1985-1988 Chicago House worship, and while many have attempted to recreate this sound, most fail to deliver with correct reverence. Names like Saunders, Mixx, Virgo Four, undoubtedly appear in this conversation with Sweater on Polo taking cues and transforming the vintage sound into re-imagined dancefloor classics. Raw but clean, psychedelic but functional…this nine track record can move the crowd in all the right ways, with the lush deepness of “The Creation” to the nu-wave-house hybrid of “Proto Wave” or BMX beat track closer Psychotic Seance, its rare to find a young producer tapping into the vaults in such a focused, effective manner.
Sometimes you’ve just got to point things out for what they are. Brussels-based, French born UFO95 does so impressively on the second instalment of his brutalist architecture-inspired series, framing producer and DJ as alien abductee and diagnosing the current world state from an extranormal perspective. Techno with narrative suffers much unfair derision, so this album is very welcome: the saturated ambience of ‘Dystopie’ sounds like a Heptapod’s warning blasted over glacier valleys, while everything from there is an invasion in churning waves, like the many bulldozing arms of a self-replicating war machine.
Kid Machine’s 9th album featuring more deep space Electro Italo rarities. This is 3rd in the current series of albums of this kind.
Astral Industries presents a vinyl reissue of Robert Henke’s multifaceted concept album ‘Layering Buddha’. An erudite masterclass on sampling and composition, ‘Layering Buddha’ encapsulates the material process of metamorphosis and a well of nascent, ever-present potentialities. Originally released in 2006, ‘Layering Buddha’ began with a curious encounter with the ‘Buddha Machine’ – a pocket-sized, battery powered playback device that, over the past two decades, has quietly achieved a cult status around the world. Conceived by the Beijing-based group FM3 (Christiaan Virant, Zhang Jian), the machine takes inspiration from Tibetan Buddhist prayer boxes and consists of nine sound loop compositions of varying length, which can be toggled with a single switch. Due to low production cost and manufacturing imperfections, each Buddha Machine is unique, giving slight variations in sound, pitch and duration. Using a state of the art A/D converter Henke made high quality recordings from a single machine, providing the source material for the album. Through various processing and arrangement methods, new pieces emerged, most of them all deriving from a single source loop. The pieces were then set up on the computer as generative arrangements, living as continuously permutating structures that could theoretically go on forever – just as the loops do within the Buddha Machines…
The Hipodrome Of Music 