Samurai Music presents it's 100th Vinyl Release with Hyaku

The medium is the message! Vinyl has always been our preferred medium for releasing music and without this tactile form of presentation, Samurai Music would not continue in its current form. Vinyl is the ultimate personification of what the label wishes to represent. Music always comes first, but the vinyl artefact is king for us.

Hyaku is the 100th Vinyl release on the Samurai Music label. Through the many twists and turns of the industry in our almost 17 years of existence, the Samurai Music vinyl releases have maintained their aspiration for quality, unique design that stands the test of time. Praise and thanks always to our long time designer Ryan Quinlivan and the many pressing plants we have worked with over the course of our labels lifespan.

To celebrate this milestone we have assembled a gang of producers that best represent the Samurai Music sound of now to contribute tracks that they feel best encapsulates their take on our sound.

1. Dom & Roland - Going Solar
2. Eusebeia - Psychoid
3. Presha - Ratcatcher
4. Hoji - Umbra
5. ASC - S100
6. Reeko - Codex Gigas
7. Sam KDC - Mutilate
8. Torn - When The Light Was Born
9. Brendon Moeller - Walking On Glass
10. The Untouchables - Temporal Rift
11. Mako - Get Away With It
12. Ancestral Voices - Night Skies Of Eden
13. Last Life - Edena

Hyaku

Sam KDC - Mutilate [SAMURAI100]

So here we have it: the final plate of the Exit 100 series. I’ve been immensely proud of this project, and I believe this release is a fitting way to conclude it. We’ve curated a collection full of great music from artists I love, and I’m pleased that we’ve created a project that represents Exit’s future rather than its past.

Joe Seven - Typh Jam

Consequence - I Forgot You and You Forgot Me

Final 'Eternal' chapter of the album 'Immortal'

Eternal

Entire - Explore / Exploit EP
Release Date: 6th of January 2025
Buy: entire.bandcamp.com

Various experiments around drum and bass and beyond. With the whole 2024 being a year of narrative/storytelling releases from me, I still find myself branch out in multiple different directions when working with the drum and bass tempos and rhythms.

"The exploration-exploitation dilemma, also known as the explore-exploit tradeoff, is a fundamental concept in decision-making that arises in many domains. It is depicted as the balancing act between two opposing strategies. Exploitation involves choosing the best option based on current knowledge of the system (which may be incomplete or misleading), while exploration involves trying out new options that may lead to better outcomes in the future at the expense of an exploitation opportunity. Finding the optimal balance between these two strategies is a crucial challenge in many decision-making problems whose goal is to maximize long-term benefits."

Track 7 is a bonus lost project, a small tribute to the CX Digital record label:
https://www.discogs.com/label/250402-CX-Digital

Written by Filip Olszewski
Artwork by Filip Olszewski
Mastering: Adam Jade Mastering

Explore / Exploit

Explore / Exploit EP (entire.bandcamp.com)

Released on 12" and Digital 28.03.2025
- https://tamen.bandcamp.com/album/onyx

We’re delighted to welcome these two Australia based producers to the Samurai family with Onyx - a 4 track EP that delivers a blend of tight edits, chest heavy bass, and intricate sound design. Pugilist & Tamen combine nostalgia with forward-thinking production and Onyx traverses a rich landscape of jungle-rooted moods. 

Onyx introduces a step forward in the duo's production, utilising sculpted distortion as an instrument. Seen on 3 of the 4 tunes, this approach adds a temperative tension as the tunes give the impression they have gone too far into the distortion no go zone but ultimately finding a balance that compliments and enhances the tunes overall sound pallette perfectly.

Raw and direct with rich layers and honed grooves that ultimately mark the tunes as memorable, Onyx is on a new level for Pugilist & Tamen.

https://www.instagram.com/pugilistmusic/
https://www.instagram.com/djtamen/

Onyx

Pugilist & Tamen - Onyx [SMDE48] *previews*

OA301: Entire - Century of Sparks EP

1. Finest Lines
2. Fragment 101
3. Century Of Sparks
4. Coast Decay

Entire - Finest Lines (Original Mix)

Samurai Music returns to the evocative sound world of Ancestral Voices for an album that splits the difference between cinematic sound design and deadly restraint at 170 BPM. Nemeton continues Liam Blackburn's exploration of ancient Celtic mysticism through snaking rhythms and snarling sound design, conjuring a high-definition sonic image of sacred groves and the druids practicing amongst them.  

Blackburn's Ancestral Voices project tracks back to 2015, when he debuted on Samurai Horo with the Night Of Visions album. In stark contrast to his celebrated 140 work as Indigo, this project leaned on the inspiration of pagan spirituality to charge his vivid, advanced production style with a rich and mysterious atmosphere. While he's channelled this approach into a variety of tempos and styles, on his 2016 EP Old Earth Voodoo on Samurai Music he applied the concept to a drum & bass framework, which he returns to on Nemeton with rigorous focus.

Far from a straightforward collection of breakbeat tracks, Blackburn uses negative space and pointillist production to carve out an immersive, tense sound world around the 170 grid. He takes a widescreen approach to percussion, running from pin-prick synthesised one-shots to tumbling, organic drums you'd more readily associate with a Hans Zimmer score. Scene-building is the foremost mission across Nemeton, casting otherworldly forces in sweeps of low-end friction and dramatic melodic blooms amidst tangible real-world field recordings of flora and fauna.  

Casting the mind back some 2000 years is an exercise in imagination as much as research, and Blackburn ably summons dark fantasy as he delves ever deeper into Welsh mythology with a studious zeal and avid fascination. It's that drive that makes Nemeton burst forth and take shape so powerfully, bristling with kinetic energy and a barely-concealed, strangely seductive menace that leaves a lasting impression long after the last snatch of bass has bared its teeth.


Nemeton - out on 2025-05-02 on 2x12" and Digital. Exclusive collector's Vinyl edition available only on Bandcamp and voidvinyl.eu


1. Ancestral Voices - Nemeton
2. Ancestral Voices - A Heart Of Oak
3. Ancestral Voices - Annwn
4. Ancestral Voices - Mist Of Avalon
5. Ancestral Voices - Arawn
6. Ancestral Voices - Stanzas Of The Graves
7. Ancestral Voices - Keltia

Full album previews - https://voidvinyl.eu/products/ancestral-voices-nemeton

Nemeton

Ancestral Voices - Annwn [SMDELP14]

Alien Cat

Hola amigos, les presento el nuevo lanzamiento de mi label. Una colab junto a mi amigo @agus-hernalz

I.A.
Nova Tension Music

Arde Ep

Arde

Download Here

PREMIERE: Arde (Original Mix) - Agustín Hernalz, Ignacio Arbeleche - Nova Tension Music

Astrology .wav

Exit Records is at forefront of electronic music, constantly pushing the envelope in terms of aesthetic and execution.
Label owner dBridge strikes a careful balance between releasing music that serves a purpose for dancers and thinkers alike. The roster of artists involved in the label is allowed express themselves as they see fit with only one stipulation; pushing the genre forward.
The Exit Records club nights are typically riotous affairs- they stand as a mix of the most cutting-edge music crossed with a firm eye on the dancefloor, from stages at festivals to residencies at clubs across the world, the events are known to sell out.
As the label enters its 15th year of existence a confidence in sound and direction has come to the fore and this is what cements Exit Records as a go-to label for those inside and out of the genre.

Joe Seven - Typh Jam

Exit Records UK