@obelisksydney - Meta Bliss EP
[PAYNOMINDTOUS, PNMTU006, out Dec. 28th, 2022]
* featuring remixes by @ptwiggs and @sus1er *
Name-your-price download
[paynomindtous.bandcamp.com/album/meta-bliss]

The Sydney-based DJ and producer Ryan O'Rourke aka Obelisk (he/him) is an emerging name in the Australian contemporary underground club scene as an organizer of the experimental dance event series Nexus (instagram.com/nexus.eora/) and as an artist, holding releases on local compilations (@deep-scan-radio and @meganesia), and showcasing performances as both a solo artist and with the Winged Mantis duo, alongside Sydney-based DJ @index-exe. The work of Obelisk focuses on the interaction between heavy laptop electronic music and jungle/breakcore influences, mediated by a taste for raw aggressiveness and emotional grandeur that have been arranged in his debut release “Meta Bliss”, out on December 28th on our platform.

Composed of three original tracks, the release collects sharp, crystalline, and bursting compositions that feature fast and broken rhythms brilliantly juxtaposed with disfigured synths. While often indulging in the belligerent fury of knife-sharp percussions and booming distortion, the EP often crosses into spacious, euphoric melodies accompanied by frantic but cathartic, tempo-shifting drum work. Obelisk’s goal has been to investigate various ways of experiencing ecstasy and euphoria, whether by means of extreme, overwhelming rhythmic aggression, or breathtaking melodic refrains. While going through the 20-minute EP, one is brought to witness a daring descent into rush. “Meta Bliss” is the heavily cinematic sound commentary to some fast-paced, epic-scale, high fantasy encounter with angel-shaped, all-powerful beings of light under an immaculate sky.

Meta Bliss EP is completed by two remixes by the Sydney-based musician, producer, and DJ Ptwiggs (she/her) @ptwiggs and the Perth-based producer and DJ SUS1ER (he/him) @sus1er. Ptwiggs provides additional tones of darkness to “Illidan Bass” by crafting a 170 BPM deep drum and bass rework rich with clangy breakbeats, and diving deep into the obscurity of the industrial bassline. On the other hand, SUS1ER delivers the perfect closure to the release by re-arranging the opening track “Echoburst” into a 178 BPM hardcore anthem that preserves the emotional impact of the original all the way through the rawstyle finale.

Tracks 1-3 produced and mixed by Obelisk. Track 4 produced, mixed, and mastered by Ptwiggs. Track 5 produced and mixed by Sus1er. Track 1-3, 5 mastered by @wimdehaen. Artwork by K095C [instagram.com/k095c/]

Meta Bliss EP

Name-your-price DL

Obelisk - Brokenblade

On “Double Stretch My Soul," Uxile stumbles and advances through a self-imposed realm of creativity. The track, originally conceived for a club set at OHM in Berlin, evolved through collaborative impulses and morphed into a vibrant narrative that embodies Uxile’s continuous quest for sonic exploration, capturing the essence of unpredictability and transformation that defines the whole Album. Double Stretch My Soul is the first single from Uxile's album Vapors Unfold, set to release on 24.11. via Berlin's @unguarded.

Double Stretch My Soul
Mixed by Sin Maldita 
Mastered by Angel Marcloid at Angel Hair Audio / angelhairaudio.com
Additional programming by @agnesemenguzzato, @aeondelit & @sinmaldita

https://uxile.bandcamp.com/album/vapors-unfold

Double Stretch My Soul

Five Ten Fiftyfold (MYEN REFIX)

‘Mixtape_01’ is the debut drop from Vienna-based ssolve, and a low key hit of the reset button on a range of electronic musics. Reconstituting strewn sounds from club nights and noise gigs, ssolve’s fresh sound takes in liberated dark beats from gqom, kaleidoscopic neoperro, along with guttural industrial throbs (and screams). ssolve moulds these pieces into a fresh little world of heady glocalised bass, beats, and bombast. Behind the mixtape’s sounds lie years of experience ghost-writing, producing, and sound-designing for a range of projects.

Finally let loose, unconstrained, ssolve’s tentacles blossom across cinematic granules of thudding light on ‘Ultra Forever’, sculpt an intimate ambient prayer on ‘Waves’, or slice samples into visceral dancefloor-ready riddims on ‘RYTM F’, ‘RYTM C’, and ‘RYTM D’.

Born in Germany, ‘89 to a Namibian/German Household, ssolve has lived in Vienna for over a decade. ‘mixtape_01’ was co-created with Enesi M., Ragnheiður Erla Björnsdóttir, and Ernst Lima.

Text by Tristan Bath
credits
releases February 9, 2024

Cover: Ernst Lima
Written, recorded, mixed by ssolve
Track 11 & Track 7 written with Enesi M.
Track 4 written with Ragnheiður Erla Björnsdóttir
Track 10 written with Ernst Lima
Track 3 written with Christiane Peschek for her Installation "FOREVER" @Alba Gallery, Vienna 2023

RYTM F

Genre tags. How outdated, how limiting. In our everything-all-at-once media landscape, dull catch-all terms like 'dance' are no longer useful for artists and archivists hoping to describe music that spills and oozes out of any box you try to force it into.

As a test case, take At Her Open Door, aka Taiki Kobayashi, an artist who crosses dubstep, experimental, IDM, rave, trance, gabber, noise, and 80s synthwave. For his new EP 𝙀𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙮 𝙀𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙚𝙨, he says his productions give form to the sound he wants to hear, a sound that fuses conflicting emotions and expressions.

Perhaps 30 seconds or so into 𝘈𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘳 you think you've got his number, nodding along to the complex uplifting trance chords. But then comes the noise, the glitches, the distortion, the ultrachaos.

Or how about 𝘔𝘶𝘭𝘴, which begins with metallic phrases that seem predictably grime-adjacent, before suddenly switching up into a hard trance untz-athon.

Finally, 𝘠𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘴 is a violent hypercontemporary glitched-out deconstructed club track that's also a nostalgic hoover-driven rave anthem. You can read that again if you need to.

So any ideas for how to categorise this would be much appreciated. Leave your answers in the comments. Please like and subscribe.

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At Her Open Door is an experimental music project started in 2007 by Japanese artist Taiki Kobayashi. He has previously released the album FLIR on CHINABOT and the EP Demon Stinger on formforum, and has participated in compilations for Magdalena's Apathy and Subsist Records.

Entropy Echoes was created using analog synths and samplers such as the Octatrack, Roland JP-8080, and α-Juno.

Entropy Echoes

At Her Open Door - Yokes

To See Forever

Do It Again

https://soundcloud.com/kil_marcel for @summon1

www.retreatradio.net/summon

Listen 24/7 at www.retreatradio.net

s̶͈̓̏̀̇̈̎͊̓͝ummon #3 w/ Kil Marcel (07/02/25)

klonopinbaby - drama (prod. klonopinbaby)

“Violencia Intrafamiliar” nace de hechos reales. Es algo muy personal mío y de mucha gente que lo vive en silencio, y no tiene que ser normalizado. Convierte el miedo en ritmo kicks industriales que golpes en la pared, texturas metálicas que arañan la piel, un bajo que aprieta el pecho. No glorifica: denuncia. Este track es para mirar de frente lo que muchos callan y para transformar trauma en fuerza colectiva.


@kask4r

VIOLENCIA INTRAFAMILIAR

DARK RITUAL

Mixed by Via App & Stud1nt
Mastered by Stud1nt
https://viaappp.bandcamp.com/

Do It Again

Holy Similaun