5h set recorded live at ABY Forest, in Brussels, June 15th 2023. 

Hybrid Dub / Dub Techno / Nu-Folk / Downtempo / Midtempo / Afro House & more

TRACKLIST :

01 Jambassa & The Sleeping Tree - Dreada Dan Dread
02 Rhythm & Sound & Paul St Hilaire - Why?
03 Flore - Evidence (Azu Tiwaline RMX)
04 General Dub - Troisième Pillier
05 Joaquin Cornejo & Alex Serra - Las Frutas
06 Mondocane - Hibakujumoku
07 Emmanuel (S)antarromana - Barbès
08 Castora Herz & El Naan - Charro del Marinero y la Estrella
09 Mr Moo - Da Doop
10 Modeselektor & Paul St Hilaire - Let Your Love Grow
11 Mixwell - Ciclico
12 Mr Moo - Krunk Temple (Kazike en Estado de Trance Edit)
13 Da Iguana - Bajo y Gordo
14 Azu Tiwaline - Organ Dub Warriors
15 Azu Tiwaline - Red Viper
16 El Remolon & Barbara Silva - Si Quieres que te Quiera (Lucas Lead RMX)
17 Luis Enrique X Jorge Ben Jor - Mas que Nada (DieDerDas Edit)
18 Hukwe Ubi Zawose - Wagogo (Tikki Masala Edit)
19 Lokal Affair - Sufi Trip
20 Da Iguana & Sagara - Eres el Cantor
21 A Macaca, Peace & Rojey - Soley Katuntu
22 Leonard Cohen - The Partisan (Anton Feine Edit)
23 Berkay Mete - Hasankeyf
24 Prabumi - Ka Chey There
25 Super Djata de Bamako - Bimoko Magnin (Pigmaliao Edit)
26 Pedro Dos Santos - Desengano Da Vista (Psycho Tropiques Edit)
27 R Vincenzo - Excellent Drom (vinyl version)
28 Andi Otto & Md Pallavi - Bangalore Whispers (Andi Otto Remix)
29 Reo Matsumoto & Mamazu - Ujicha
30 Da Iguana & Sagara - Xupul
31 Samarana & Sahalé - Yourou 
32 Seba Campos - La Pastorcita Perdida (AmuAmu Remix)
33 Reo Matsumoto & Mamazu - Hena
34 Dreems - Jungle Jim Eddiitt
35 Reo Matsumoto & Mamazu - Oreo
36 Deep Filip - Ashtar (The Oddness ReMiX)
37 youlaike - Gondola
38 Maya Kamaty - Diampar (Praktika Remix)
39 Di Laif - Flama
40 Balam - Wakax 
41 Breger - Streifenstern
42 Mondocane - Acacia
43 Balam - Yaka Jaus
44 Aero Manyelo - Zambezi (Dub)
45 Ground - Honi Say
46 Peter Power - Adama Waro (Khidja Dub)
47 Aero Manyelo & Oluhle - Siza Sizwe
48 Kraut & René Opsedee - Confeti (Acid Pauli Remix)
49 Rumberos de Ayer - Quinto & Bongo (Jose Marquez Remix)
50 Praktika & Dom Peter - TamaLyon
51 Bawrut - Conga
52 Praktika - Doni Doni
53 Hyenah & B'utiza - Usuthu (Mr Raoul K Remix)
54 Breger - Rental or Grib
55 Alma Negra - Endless Summer (Soulphiction Remix)
56 Alma Negra - Onga
57 Alkaline Georgi - Rumba Tumba
58 dj zhao - Sultana Doomwork Isla (mash up)
59 Dj Mtshepang - Ubizo (Jose Marquez Remix)
60 Jose Marquez & Kakatsitsi - Belebo
61 Reo Matsumoto & Mamazu -Ujicha (Taihei Remix)
62 Acid Pauli & Nancy - iBang
63 Synne Sofie - Danse, Ikke Gråte Nå
64 Shadi Kries - Nawa (Khazali)

Rafael Aragon @ Forest Abbey's Garden (extended 5h set)

https://soundcloud.com/alf_champion: I recorded this set in my studio imagining myself DJing in some basement full of spaced-out ravers, starting slow but increasing the tempo discreetly. Some old and new gems from my favourite producers on this planet as well as some tracks of myself. WONKY, RAW, PHYSICAL, FREE AND PSYCHEDELIC. Love, Alf

https://soundcloud.com/fucanglongfiles
Artwork: https://soundcloud.com/oniss
🔊 https://youtu.be/NOS1SgpNiOA

Guadalajara-based experimental musician, producer, visual artist and DJ; Rafael Alfonso Anaya Champion also known as ALF CHAMPION genres bound all over the place, covering a wide range of colours and emotions A never-endless seek for the ideal beat; a drum enthusiast who´s sound tilts towards a mix of sleazy Electronica, Leftfield, IDM, Disco, Rock, Chug, Psychedelic, House and whatever..

Founder of Fucanglong Files next to Mufti. He made his debut on JD Twitch´s imprint Optimo Music [Optimo (Espacio)] releasing music next to artists like Tornado Wallace, Luca Lozano, Boot & Tax, Nicola Cruz, Sex Judas, Theus Mago to name a few.

“THE BRAZEN MELTING POT DARK FUNK FURY OF FRIGUS FRIGUS..” - 2MR.

DJing for a bit more than 6 years now, he got most of his experience as a resident DJ at clubs like Kin Kin and Galaxy 1985 (México), Now continues his path by releasing unique tracks on labels like Unterman, 2MR, Good Skills, Playground, Ombra, Remmah, Paradise Palms, Psychic Zebra, Alfa Trigueña among others…

Play on YouTube

LAYER #370 | ALF CHAMPION

Disco al Dente is back with an extra fizzy and refreshing mix.
An hour of rare Italo disco with caribbean flair.
Bevi Frizzantina and enjoy!

"FRIZZANTINA" GUEST MIX by DISCO AL DENTE

Paper Recordings needs no introduction. But allow us anyway to utter a few words about it for those who were living isolated in a cave for the last 32 years: Founded in Manchester in 1993, the label and its subsidiaries (Paper Disco, Paper Wave, Repap, and We Are Woodville) have released over 2.000 tracks (originals and remixes) made with love by more than 500 artists from established to newcomers. Soul, Funk, Jazz, Balearic, Downtempo, Disco, Nu Disco, House, and Techno can be found in its vast and second-to-none catalogue, turning it into the perfect source for a slow wine/coffee-in-hand multi-genre digging session. 

For its forthcoming parcel, the Mancunian powerhouse welcomes back British producer Cal Gibson aka The Secret Soul Society and his beautifully named four-tracker “Female Planet” EP. Owner of a refreshing Disco-meets-House sonority, Cal fails to disappoint when it comes to supplying dance-floor gems embezzled with retro-modern elements. Besides Paper Recordings/Disco/Wave, his previous works can be found on other acclaimed outlets such as Buena Onda, Spa In Disco, Rare Wiri, Hot Digits Music, and Citizens Of Vice, just to name a few. 

Premiered here, “Is It Daylight?” develops its magic with an imposing Cosmic-Disco-on-acid aura combined with swirling distortions and airy pads. A mellow but complex theme that showcases Cal’s high-level production skills. Kudos!  

You can find (and buy) this and other music pearls on the Juno Download page of the label: https://www.junodownload.com/labels/Paper+Recordings/

Follow @thesecretsoulsociety and @paperecordings, peeps!

PREMIERE717 // The Secret Soul Society - Is It Daylight?

Gemini zaid

Gemini Zaid

Hell Yeah's lovingly curated Buena Onda series is back with a new edition that focuses on Adriatic Beats & Beyond. It has been assembled by label head Marco Gallerani and features four exclusive new tunes that reflect his summer residences at a cosy beach bar on Italy's Eastern and Adriatic coast.

Marco moved back to his hometown of Ferrara after the pandemic and began spending more time at the local seaside, the famous Lidi Ferraresi. It's there, at Lido di Spina, that a friend runs Kai Beach Bar, a small spot where, every Thursday throughout August for the last three years, he has soundtracked afternoons and sunsets under the Buena Onda banner, more than a decade after the party first started in Berlin.

"The beat has become less Balearic, more Adriatic," he explains of the sounds that can be heard up and down the coastline. "There’s no sunset culture yet, but they like a groove for aperitivo. This selection reflects the music I propose there, a kinda sunrise to sunset trip."

The 13-track selection includes four exclusives: the first is Blende's 'Amor,' which is forthcoming on the label. Johan Blende is a Swedish producer, songwriter and DJ who weaves together modern dance with retro sounds of the 70s and 80s and debuts on the label this summer with his Recess EP. 'Amor' is a bubbly groove with a New Age wash and lo-fi pads full of charm.

Hell Yeah regular and Italian magic man Walter Del Vecchio aka Quiroga also offers a new Baia Club Ambient Version of 'French Kiss' which has a lazy acid line worming its way through dubby kicks and tabla drums, and his dreamy electro soother 'Cala Ventosa' also features. Secret Soul Society, aka South Wales's Cal Gibson, also tests a new EP with his 'Orange Surprise' blending off-balance rhythmic shuffles with starry cosmic melodies. The final exclusive is from Balearic Gabba Sound System, who flip The Vendetta Suite aka the legendary Gary Irwin's 'Della Notte' into a quietly epic cinematic closer with icy analogue beats and a warped bassline for dubbed out late night escape. His 'Island Hill Microdot' also offers some warped cosmic ambient house introspection.

Elsewhere, Michele Mininni features twice - once with Gallo's Tropical Hinterhof Remix of the suspensory ambient lushness pop 'Carousel of Tears' and once with the original percussive pressure and hip-house fusion of 'Urban Voodoo' from his Pop Archetypes LP. Buena Onda veteran Feel Fly comes through with an Estatico Danzante Remix of Pedro Bertho's 'Tornei' feat Mariana Gehring and takes us to the stars on twinkling keys, dusty breakbeats and steamy vocals that glow as warm as a setting sun.

Add in further groovy gems such as Bonnie and Klein's synth and vibes laced 'Horizon Avenue,' dreamy, breaks-driven downtempo brilliance from pub wave innovator Dawn Again, hints of Ibiza cool from Willie Graff's remix of Aura Safari & Jimi Tenor and some upbeat synth-laced house from label stalwart Luminodisco and you have a faultless collection of grooves for grown up dance floors. 

Compiled by Marco Gallerani
Artwork by Matteo Gallerani

Thanks to Everyone at Kai Beach Bar - Lido di Spina (FE)

download

The Vendetta Suite - Island Hill Microdot

PRIVATE PIANO 11 FT TRIKZ MAN_Current

Soft Centre is the new album by Iko Chérie, the solo project of French-born, London-based multi-instrumentalist Marie Merlet. She blends dub-inflected textures, pop tinged vocals, reverb-drenched guitars, Casio drones, and warm experimental noises – creating her own intimate, fragile sound. 

Self-produced and largely performed by Merlet, the album grew from an introspective process, with many sketches recorded in transit between tours. The result is a deeply personal work, balancing light and dark in a Lynchian dream-pop haze. Songs such as We Smoke That Peace Pipe and Bilbao shimmer between vulnerability and resilience, while the single Ghosted Ghosters of the Holy G captures the immediacy of a one-take dub bass. Some pieces retain the quality of improvised snapshots (Intelligent Women, Half a Metaphor) while others reveal her meticulous production process and songwriting craft (Tears in the Sea, Luciférine). Merlet defines Soft Centre as alive in radical tenderness, unguarded, open, and vivid.

Influenced by Clarice Lispector’s prose, Diane di Prima’s poetry and Rachel Carson’s environmentalist writing, as well as Marie’s fascination with a vintage Roland Space Echo, the album is an invitation to connection that she describes as “... hopefully a meditation into healing.” 

A versatile musician trained in classical piano, jazz, and electroacoustic composition, Merlet has long moved between different worlds of sound. She has worked with Laetitia Sadier in Monade, performs with Gina Birch (The Raincoats), Malphino, Yama Warashi, and several other groups, she recently appeared on the latest Stereolab album.  
Her debut solo LP, Dreaming On (Elefant Records, 2015), revealed her singular melodic instincts; with Soft Centre she ventures further inward, shaping her own distinctive voice in experimental pop.

“Through an unseen threshold lies a room of warmth, stitched with melodies of quiet hope"
Valentina Magaletti

“Marie Merlet aka Iko Chérie has landed new music of a divine nature. Divine because it speaks of the Ocean, it speaks of witches, it speaks of justice and things unseen, it speaks to sensitive people who know that there is importance in telling our truth and making a just noise that may find its echo in the dark, amplified by the atoms of resonance, coming to life through a song with a wholesome story.”
Laetitia Sadier

“Iko Chérie has the soundtrack for your dreams. A soft and warm embrace that invites us to navigate this world with an open heart.”
Coco Maria

Get LP / digital

Iko Chérie: We Smoke That Peace Pipe (Pingipung 093 / LP, digital)

Just Like The Old Times

FUZZion Jungle Organic — Bansuri Lead (124 BPM)

@ventralisgolden

Artwork: Ventral Is Golden
https://www.instagram.com/ventralisgolden

I had written in substance that in the mythic tradition the Mountain is the bond between Earth and Sky. Its solitary summit reaches the sphere of eternity and its base spreads out in manifold foothills into the world of mortals. It is the way by which man can raise himself to the divine and by which the divine reveals itself to man. The patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament beheld the Lord face to face in high places. For Moses it was Mount Sinai and Mount Nebo; in the New Testament, it is the Mount of Olives and Golgotha. I went so far as to discover this ancient symbol of the mountain in the pyra­midal constructions of Egypt and Chaldea. Turning to the Aryans, I recalled those obscure legends of the Vedas in which the Soma— the ‘nectar’ which is the ‘seed of immortality’ —is said to reside in its luminous and subtle form ‘within the mountain’. In India, the Himalayas are the dwelling place of Siva, of his spouse ‘the Daughter of the Mountain’ and of the ‘Mothers’ of all worlds, just as in Greece the king of the gods held court on Mount Olympus…

And what defines the scale of the ultimate symbolic mountain -the one I propose to call Mount Analogue - is its inaccessi­bility to ordinary human approaches. For a mountain to play the role … its summit must be inaccessible but its base accessible to human beings as nature has made them. It must be unique and it must exist geographically. The door to the invisible must be visible.

VENTRAL IS GOLDEN - AMATEUR EXOTIC'S DESCENT FROM MOUNT ANALOGUE

"If you didn't know, Hell Yeah is the Italian label hell-bent on releasing the best modern disco(ish) you can find. Sometimes it's blissed out and Balearic, sometimes it's squelchy and down-right weird and sometimes it's the sort of elongated, tribal stuff that works dancefloors into a salacious frenzy" (Kristan J Caryl - DJ MAG January 2014)


Hell Yeah Recordings, a descendent of leading Italian dance label Mantra Vibes is an Italian-based electronic music label active since 2006. Releasing from Ferrara, Bologna, and Amsterdam and led by Marco Gallerani “peeDoo” (A&R), the label bases its philosophy on a diversity of artists and recording experiences tied together by a common vision of what defines quality progressive recording. 

With a sound as diverse as the artists it represents, Hell Yeah does not limit itself to the constraints of genre but packs a complex palette of sounds ranging from techno to minimal-nu-rave to electro-funk and tech house.  Artists as varied as Radio Slave, Santos, Umek, Oliver Koletzki, Congorock, 3iO, Crimea X and the mighty Balearic Gabba Sound System have helped establish Hell Yeah’s eclectic sound, a distinct take on party music loaded with a sonic Balearic feel good vibe that has made press around the world hail Hell Yeah as a label to watch, always

Hell Yeah aims to build upon its current reputation as a leading Italian Electronic Music play, overseeing the release of a series of progressive productions that straddle genres, defy conventions and blur barriers between listening and dance music. Stemming from Hell Yeah’s initial graphic identity formed by Neverending’s Rocco “the Boghe” Pezzella, new mind-bending web and label artworks from Italian artist Andrea Amaducci and the Berlin-based Ice Cream For Free collective promises complete visual as well as aural stimulation.

info/bookings: 
marco@pplayground.com