The Kempe Stone Portal is the long awaited debut album from long time musical adventurer @vendetta-suite. It arrives on Hell Yeah Recordings on June 25th, and spans over 20 years of diverse musical experiments. In the words of label boss Marco, "it's a nice ride."

Gary Irwin started dancing in 1990, when he was drawn to the dubbed out and psychedelic sounds of Andrew Weatherall and The Orb, at the same time falling for the forward looking house and techno played by David Holmes and Iain McCready at their regular nights at Belfast's Art College. After studying music technology and performing arts, Irwin gave Holmes a cassette of bedroom produced techno and it started a long and fruitful relationship that has continued to this day.

In the intervening years, Irwin has been the in-house engineer at Holmes' Exploding Plastic Inevitable studio and label, has engineered and remixed with him, released on his labels and written music for his Holy Pictures album, all while picking up credits on labels like NovaMute, Sabrettes, 13Amp and many more. As time passed, Irwin explored non-dance sounds such as krautrock, library music, synth and 80s b-sides before more recently circling back to acid house, downtempo and Balearic. All of this and more informs this panoramic 12 track album, which is a testament to a life spent submerged in many different sound worlds.

The Kempe Stone Portal opens on the ‘Neon Secrets’, which along with tracks like ‘Morning Star’ and ‘I Am The Ghost In My House’ betray Irwin’s love of wonky, shimmering experimental synth-pop musik. They are glistening tracks with heavenly harmonies that are truly life-affirming in their richness. Elsewhere, ‘Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise’ is an homage to his early experiences of Balearic acid house music from the late eighties and early nineties with a not too subtle reference to the narcotics of the time. ‘Who Do You Love’ was Irwin’s first non-dance music production in 1998, a cover of The Jesus and Mary Chain's version of the Bo Diddly classic, with guitar feedback and distortion drawing you into a murky world of fuzzy sonics.

‘Della Notte’ came 10 years after, with rumbling toms, bubbling synths and phased Rhodes making for a psyched-out post punk dub. Seasonal sleigh bells and obvious krautrock influences abound on ‘Christmas in Cologne’ while ‘Maybe Tomorrow’ is Air meets Phil Spector on a beach at sunset. ‘Warehouse Rock’ is a dubby acid track that follows on from where 2017 track ‘Shut Up Ya Dub!’ left off, but with a more experimental approach that found the artist limiting himself to a 303, drum machine, dub effects and samples. If King Tubby were to release on Acid Trax, this is how it would sound. Shorter tracks ‘Spring Blues’ and ‘The Adult Section’ were originally made for a modern library music side project and are brilliantly suspensory pieces of lush electronics, yawning chords and gentle rhythms that empty your mind of any tension.

This is a storied album that traverses different musical worlds with style and skill. Some are old, some are new, but they add up to a long player that is both fascinating and timeless.

HELL YEAH

The Vendetta Suite - The Kempe Stone Portal

The Kempe Stone Portal is the long awaited debut album from long time musical adventurer The Vendetta Suite. It arrives on Hell Yeah Recordings on June 25th, and spans over 20 years of diverse musical experiments. In the words of label boss Marco, "it's a nice ride."

Gary Irwin started dancing in 1990, when he was drawn to the dubbed out and psychedelic sounds of Andrew Weatherall and The Orb, at the same time falling for the forward looking house and techno played by David Holmes and Iain McCready at their regular nights at Belfast's Art College. After studying music technology and performing arts, Irwin gave Holmes a cassette of bedroom produced techno and it started a long and fruitful relationship that has continued to this day.

In the intervening years, Irwin has been the in-house engineer at Holmes' Exploding Plastic Inevitable studio and label, has engineered and remixed with him, released on his labels and written music for his Holy Pictures album, all while picking up credits on labels like NovaMute, Sabrettes, 13Amp and many more. As time passed, Irwin explored non-dance sounds such as krautrock, library music, synth and 80s b-sides before more recently circling back to acid house, downtempo and Balearic. All of this and more informs this panoramic 12 track album, which is a testament to a life spent submerged in many different sound worlds.

The Kempe Stone Portal opens on the ‘Neon Secrets’, which along with tracks like ‘Morning Star’ and ‘I Am The Ghost In My House’ betray Irwin’s love of wonky, shimmering experimental synth-pop musik. They are glistening tracks with heavenly harmonies that are truly life-affirming in their richness. Elsewhere, ‘Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise’ is an homage to his early experiences of Balearic acid house music from the late eighties and early nineties with a not too subtle reference to the narcotics of the time. ‘Who Do You Love’ was Irwin’s first non-dance music production in 1998, a cover of The Jesus and Mary Chain's version of the Bo Diddly classic, with guitar feedback and distortion drawing you into a murky world of fuzzy sonics.

‘Della Notte’ came 10 years after, with rumbling toms, bubbling synths and phased Rhodes making for a psyched-out post punk dub. Seasonal sleigh bells and obvious krautrock influences abound on ‘Christmas in Cologne’ while ‘Maybe Tomorrow’ is Air meets Phil Spector on a beach at sunset. ‘Warehouse Rock’ is a dubby acid track that follows on from where 2017 track ‘Shut Up Ya Dub!’ left off, but with a more experimental approach that found the artist limiting himself to a 303, drum machine, dub effects and samples. If King Tubby were to release on Acid Trax, this is how it would sound. Shorter tracks ‘Spring Blues’ and ‘The Adult Section’ were originally made for a modern library music side project and are brilliantly suspensory pieces of lush electronics, yawning chords and gentle rhythms that empty your mind of any tension.

This is a storied album that traverses different musical worlds with style and skill. Some are old, some are new, but they add up to a long player that is both fascinating and timeless.

Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise

Download

The Vendetta Suite - Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise

Della Notte

The Vendetta Suite - Della Notte

The Kempe Stone Portal

Christmas In Cologne

The Vendetta Suite - Christmas In Cologne

Morning Star

The Vendetta Suite - Morning Star

I Am The Ghost In My House

The Vendetta Suite -  I Am The Ghost In My House

Neon Secrets

pre-order

The Vendetta Suite - Neon Secrets

A year on from Dawn Again's pubwave classic Every Dog's Hotel, the Australian producer returns to Hell Yeah with more dreamy, breaks-driven downtempo brilliance.

Melbourne-based Nick Verwey won plenty of new fans for the sunlit, lo-fi sounds of his last album. It came after years of making music for, and playing records to, people who like to get down anywhere from rooftops to beaches and living rooms. The prolific producer has released on the likes of Houseworx and Enjoyment Division before now, and this new EP is another wonderfully dreamy and carefree outing.

'A Day In The Life of Pond Algae' unfolds over a lazy, dubby groove that is gently brought to life with bulbous synth loops and shakers, sunny chords and little smears of sound that pass like clouds. 'Guided Meditation For Dancefloor Nirvana' picks things up with dusty broken beats and instructional spoken words that encourage you to breathe over painterly synth strokes and effortlessly cool grooves. 'Vanilla Sky' lays you out flat on the lawn, the beach or the lounger and has you gazing up to an azure blue sky as gentle drums and synths wash over you like a cooling breeze. Lastly 'Crying Outside the Stadium' captures the magic of later afternoon on a summer day with more blurry pads and vocals and hints of cosmic melody that lead you towards nightfall with a loving hand.

This is another superbly soothing soundtrack for a calming day of outdoor dancing.

https://soundcloud.com/dawn-again
https://soundcloud.com/hell-yeah

PREMIERE⚡Dawn Again - Crying Outside The Stadium [Hell Yeah Recordings]

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mi-el – In Dreams

Mix of the Week #594 is by Polcari
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the latest album from Polcari is out now, "I Will Try To Imitate The Birds" on Hell Yeah Recording  https://hellyeahrec.bandcamp.com/album/i-will-try-to-imitate-the-birds

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Mix of the Week #594: Polcari

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Skogar – Dark Fantasy
Skogar – City Morgue
Semilanceata – Swunnen
Ildjarn – Succumb...
Schändermond – Er Wird Alles Schänden
Schändermond – Novemberfrost
Taqbir – Tfou 3lik
Civil Defence Programme – Track 2 (Tape 7)
Civil Defence Programme – Track 3 (Tape 7)
Metalvarefabrikken – Eksempler Nummer Tre
Hilozoizmo – Extravagancias
Hilozoizmo – El Árabe Loco
Hilozoizmo – Expanciones
Hilozoizmo – Fantasías
Hilozoizmo – Entonación
SHXCXCHCXSH – SWSWWWSSWSW
SHXCXCHCXSH – Nges
Fleckentarn – Le Temps Ne Guérit Rien
Vaurien – Biture Tiède
Fleckentarn – Une lame de flammes et de rancœur
Excrement – Respectable Living
Yellowcake – When Night Comes
Asmus Tietchens – Medienlandschaft 6
Asmus Tietchens – Fron
Giovanni Bignone – Maschinengewehr
Urfalı Cemil Cankat – Sultan Süleyman'a Kalmayan Dünya
Bill Orcutt – And Lenny Bruce Made Love
Orchestre De La Paillote – La Guinée Moussolou
A LARGE SHEET OF MUSCLE – GO W THE GHOST
A LARGE SHEET OF MUSCLE – SADDLE IAN
John Grzinich – Spruce

TTT NTS 21.07.25

Into the Clouds

hell yeah its summer

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A Phat Phil Cooper Eclectic Mix [Ibiza, August 2025]

Andrew Weatherall's first official posthumous mix. The only b2b DJ Harvey ever agreed to. Six hours at Trouw. This one's special.

When mulling which direction to go in for RA's 1000th mix celebrations, many options came to mind. Some shadowy character 2-stepping around the fringe of our collective consciousness? An impossible-level IDM icon?

All tempting. But, ultimately, we are a DJ-forward publication and this is a DJ mix series. It felt truer to the history of the RA Podcast to release deep vault material from a time when the world of niche records felt different, tighter, more discrete.

The fourth-longest mix in the series' history is an unrepeatable marathon set recorded in 2012 at a superclub that no longer exists. 2012, incidentally, is farther away from 2025 than 2012 was from 2000... if we have to clock it, so do you.

It's the coming together of one British icon who passed away in 2020, and another whose time on the road has scaled back considerably as of late. DJ Harvey agreed to exactly one b2b set in his life: this one, with Andrew Weatherall.

The night took place at Trouw, an Amsterdam club already considered legendary before it shuttered its doors in the opening hours of 2015, as part of an RA series anchored around start-to-close combinations. Harvey was at the peak of an irresistible career second act, which dovetailed with a disco revival that dominated clubs for years. Weatherall, with infinite brownie points stockpiled from the '90s, remained everyone's favourite debonair psychonaut. 

What follows is 385 scintillating minutes of arpeggiated chug and slow-cresting climaxes: a moment when the resting heart rate of dance floors plunged lower than any comparable point in the 21st century. A masterclass, entirely self-contained in audio form.

If you've got time to spare, a fun side game is sussing out who plays what. A disco-dub cover of Echo & the Bunnymen? Smart money's on Weatherall. Exuberant EQ'ing of The Isley Brothers? Gotta be Harvey. As for the low 'n slow, lightly spangled house that was all the rage in the early 2010s (think Maxxi Soundsystem, Disco Bloodbath, Rub & Tug, C.O.M.B.I. and Full Pupp), it's anyone's guess. 127 BPM feels practically like an F1 car.

When we kicked off our RA.1000 campaign, we outlined a few goals: tick off a handful of long-awaited dream guests, honour architects who shaped the world around us and deliver recordings you truly can't hear anywhere else. Full send.

DJing and the mythmaking around it has undergone a quantum leap since 2012, let alone 2006, 1996 or 1989. For those of us who were kicking around in the former, there's a creeping melancholy that our prime is fast becoming a matter of historical record. The killing moon really did come too soon. 

Where will electronic music, DJ sets or any of this be in 2044? Hard to say. Best not to overthink that one. Instead, we want to say thanks to all contributors on the series so far. Now enjoy luxuriating in the company of two of the greatest to ever do it, together, for the first and last time.⁠ – Gabriel Szatan (Editor, RA)

@andrew-weatherall

Read the interview with DJ Harvey and Andrew Weatherall's family at https://ra.co/podcast/1016. Listen to all RA.1000 mixes, as well as the complete history of the RA Podcast, at https://1000.ra.co

RA.1000 DJ Harvey & Andrew Weatherall

Coyote & Secret Soul Society IIb? Party Bodega Secret Garden

Coyote - The Standard Solar Sessions

"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

The Vendetta Suite - Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise

Hell Yeah Recordings

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