Name: Buried Hardware by DJ Counselling in Speaking in Code
Duration: 5 min 6 s
Description: The 4th single taken from Speaking in Code.

DJ Counselling, known for fusing live recording techniques with analog synths, crafts a sound that is both eclectic and unmistakably his own. His music is uplifting and emotive—and on his forthcoming album, hauntingly dark in places. With Speaking in Code, DJ Counselling returns with an arresting new vision—ten seamlessly connected tracks that trace a shadowy arc through cinematic, dystopian scenes. From the start, the London-based producer, Ash Arnold, conceived the album as a filmlike experience, setting each piece within a stark, futuristic landscape of his own design. Every track serves the mood of that world: isolated, vast, and emotionally loaded. Rather than a collection of songs, here is a visual narrative—where the music doesn’t just accompany the imagined scenes, but builds them.

The album opens in shadow—tense, industrial, almost claustrophobic—before gradually shifting toward more melodic and emotive terrain. Unlike Alt-Mobeat, which leaned into the rawness and immediacy of remote sessions and field recordings, Speaking in Code involved a longer, more deliberate and intricate process. Most of the initial sketches came together in Berlin during May 2024, but arranging, editing, and mixing the album required months of meticulous revision and sonic precision back in Arnold’s London studio.

Otherworldly, sci-fi-inflected vocal samples carry a heavy sense of foreboding as they weave through the tracks, binding the album’s shifting styles—techno, trip-hop, and drum & bass—into a fluid, interconnected narrative. ‘Breathing Underwater’ marks Ash’s return to drum & bass for the first time since his track ‘You Got Me’ on Hospital Records over a decade ago. Echoes of that earlier release appear in the form of subtle samples—an intentional nod to both the original and to one of his key inspirations, the late Marcus Intalex, who championed the track during its time.

DJ Counselling’s most intentional and immersive work yet, Speaking in Code breathes life into his imagined sonic landscape through the dynamic tension between textured samples, hand-played rhythms, and intricate synth layers. The album also stands as his boldest statement of eclecticism, experimentation, and raw beauty. It carries listeners on a profoundly emotional journey through tension, release, and intimacy, unfolding against the relentless pull of the dancefloor.

Speaking in Code

fabric presents Pretty Girl

Slam (Mixed)

An Angel / Girl Reborn

Girl Reborn

Pedalling

Macerato out now:  https://orcd.co/macerato

Macerato

2nd Single taken from the album 'Speaking in Code'

Breathing Underwater

Primeiro announces debut vinyl release: Music for Horses I & II

Unsettling the boundaries between the human and the non-human weaves through the fabric of Primeiro’s practice. Both his new album, inspired by a horse-related accident, and his project Feed the River—a festival where music is made in collaboration with bodies of water—seek to blur these lines.

Initially released digitally in 2024, Music for Horses I drew comparisons to the tranquility of Japanese cult artist Hiroshi Yoshimura, but a closer listen revealed deeper layers of intricate craftsmanship. Primeiro himself defines his style as “ambient manija” (rough translation: “obsessive ambient”).

Now, in June 2025, Music for Horses I & II arrives on vinyl through a collaboration between Sonôsfera (Buenos Aires), Danzee (Berlin), and EX:IN | IN:EX (Chemnitz). The record is split into two parts: side B was recorded prior to a horse-riding accident that deeply marked Primeiro’s life and released in 2024; side A was composed in the period following the accident and has not being released yet. 

The album’s sonic approach is rooted in floating arpeggios and meticulously crafted repetitive sequences, exploring the threshold between ambient and handcrafted electronics.

The digital version accompanying the vinyl release presents a reinterpretation of Music for Horses I. After receiving the vinyl pressing, Primeiro slowed down the record on a turntable, re-recorded the tracks, and layered them with drum machines. During his residency at EMS Stockholm, he further reshaped the sound, adding sub-bass textures using Buchla 100 and 200 synthesizers, and processing the material through tape machines to create warped, time-stretched versions of the original compositions.

In recent years, YouTube has sparked a quiet revolution in how we listen to music. "Stretched versions" of albums—where artists like Brian Eno, Hiroshi Yoshimura, and even pop songs like Justin Bieber’s “U Smile” are slowed down dramatically—have gone viral. These time-stretched interpretations turn melody into atmosphere, attack into pure decay, and songs into vast, ambient environments. Primeiro’s digital version of Music for Horses resonates deeply with this phenomenon. 

Music for Horses resonates within Primeiro’s broader body of work, where there is space for the non-human, much like in his Feed the River project, a site-specific performance that uses rivers as sonic bridges between musicians, audiences, and the environment. It has been carried out along the Spree in Berlin, the Elbe in Hamburg, and the Chemnitz River in Chemnitz. Artists are positioned along the riverbanks, creating a dialogue shaped by distance, flow, and acoustic resonance, inviting a collective re-imagining of our relationship with water as a living entity.

Label: Sonôsfera (Buenos Aires), Danzee (Berlin), and EX:IN | IN:EX (Chemnitz)
Cat. No.: 001
Formats: Digital - Vinyl
Release Date: 18/07/2025

Distribution: Self-distributed
Bandcamp: https://primeiro-segundo.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-horses-i-ii
Credits:
Recorded and mixed by Primeiro
Mastering by Ariel Schlichter

https://soundcloud.com/user-442847447

PREMIERE: primeiro - Movement No. 2 (Escápula)

The 3rd single taken from 'Speaking in Code'.

Released 01/08 on Ten Flowers

3000 Words Left

The 4th single taken from Speaking in Code.

Buried Hardware

Taken from the forthcoming album 'Speaking in Code'.

Transmission fr. Nowhere

Isotopes

PREMIERE :  QUADRIVIUM - Quetzalcoatl (Andrea Zapata Remix)

Quadrivium (Mexican Duo _ Misael Martinez & Carlos GM)
https://soundcloud.com/quadriviumtechnomusic
https://www.facebook.com/share/15yetrVCqU/

Andrea Zapata
https://www.facebook.com/share/1C47z9rwZu/
https://www.instagram.com/andreazapata______/

Dorian Label:
doriangraymusic.bandcamp.com 
facebook.com/DorianGrayTechno 

Mastered at Dorian Studio by Dorian Gray

PREMIERE :  QUADRIVIUM - Quetzalcoatl (Andrea Zapata Remix)

Do You

A-Square (2025 August  Track Eight)

http://www.discogs.com/Various-Musik-For-Autobahns-2-Ambient-Race-Car-Music/master/879729

A213

South London’s DJ Counselling, aka Ash Arnold, is known for creating hand-played rhythms with an original approach to groove. Being part of the electronic dance scene for over 20 years, Ash has worn many hats: producer, remixer, DJ, record label owner, band leader and, first and foremost, drummer. First surfacing as DJ Counselling with his debut single “Pollard’s Thrill” in 2018, Ash uses real instruments and live recording techniques with analogue synthesisers to create deep, atmospheric music that is as uplifting as it is emotive.

Whether in his home studio in London or mobile studio in Berlin, Ash explains how he knows he’s onto something special “when it doesn’t feel like the music is coming from me anymore. For a moment, I get so lost in what I’m creating that I hear it as though someone else is making it.” The DJ Counselling project gathered momentum in 2020 with lauded releases “Every Day the Sun Comes Up”, “Cool Air” and “Wide Awake in an Open Space”, which drew fans like Tom Ravenscroft and Jungle.

With DJ Counselling, Ash doesn’t intend to deliver big club hits but rather creates music that reflects his mood or location at the time of writing. Nonetheless, his music is hugely popular on the dancefloor; being played by the likes of Richie Hawtin and Bonobo. Esteemed for his eclecticism and versatility, Ash brings the club to the concert hall, and vice versa, with his ever-evolving live performances. Expect percussion instruments, classical sensibilities, and complex analogue synths being given equal attention on stage.

DJ Counselling’s new album, Alt-Mobeat, underscores Ash’s symphonic craftsmanship and esteem as a musician. It is difficult to place DJ Counselling into a specific genre. From tracks like “Cool Air”, one of Spotify’s Best Electronic Songs of 2021, to his latest works, Ash has never tried to fit himself into a box. Instead, he applies an emotional connection to everything he creates, with a strong groove always being the main focus.

https://linktr.ee/DJCounselling

Buried Hardware

DJ Counselling

Recent comments

Bíela Rádio Partyzán

Related tracks