Buy/stream: https://kompakt.fm/releases/sound_of_mind_2xlp_dl

Over the past decade, Egyptian-born, Barcelona-based DJ and techno producer Raxon, known to friends and family as Ahmed Raxon, has popped out a steady stream of twelve-inch singles, precision-tooled, for labels like Cocoon, Drumcode, Diynamic, Truesoul, and Ellum Audio. An alumni of Kompakt’s Speicher series – check the insistent, vibrating pulses of “The Ancient” and “Dark Light” on 2019’s Speicher 107 – with Sound Of Mind, Raxon has produced a long-awaited debut album that’s ready and aching both for the dancefloor and the boudoir, traversing the heat of the club and the warmth of the home.

“The idea of an album has always floated around in my head for the past few years,” Raxon confirms, “but it was never the right moment in my mind.” Instead, he’s been insistently pursuing his vision of deep, elegant techno, taking him from early DJ gigs in Dubai, including the legendary audio tonic night, then relocating to Europe on the recommendation of Herman Cattaneo, all the while allowing his experiences to inform and transmute his producer’s thumbprint. He’s an architect by training (though he gave architecture up for electronic music), which might explain why Raxon productions are so sturdy and well-designed; but remember also that architecture is a field filled with brave experimentation, something Raxon definitely draws on throughout Sound Of Mind.

Like many albums from the past twelve months, Raxon’s debut developed partly thanks to the unique social situation the planet has found itself caught within. “In the beginning of 2020 I started working on a few tracks with the album in mind,” he recalls, “with no idea of what’s to come in the next few months. As catastrophic as the situation was/is, I found myself in the studio; in a way the lockdown gave me that creative freedom in the studio, [to] try to tell my story through sound.” And indeed, there is something in the way of ‘life writing’ about Sound Of Mind, particularly in the way Raxon’s productions pay subtle homage, perhaps, to his formative listening experiences in the late nineties.

It’s no retro trip, but there’s plenty of variety here, and a few moments that’ll tickle the collective memory – see the prowling pulsations of the opening “Majestic”, the alien breakbeat action of “Vice” and “Journey Mode”, where the interstellar tones feel like Foul Play or Steve Gurley, the leaking gas and woozy keys that make “Droid Solo” so subtly destabilising, or the strobelight drones that sputter and flare throughout “El Multiverse”, where dappled organ tones fight it out with interdimensional transmissions, all sucked into the vortex of a late-night techno mantra. Beautifully sculpted, Sound Of Mind feels consummate, an elegant set that pulls Raxon’s vision into its sharpest focus. Alive with possibilities, it’s a fever dream of creativity.

Raxon - Almost Human

Out August 6th. 
Pre-order: https://smarturl.it/WGDIG004

With his album project slowly coming full circle, Biesmans delivers a stellar four track remix pack of 'Trains, Planes & Automobiles'. Remixes from associated artists Adana Twins, Alex Medina & Man Power meet Biesmans’ own reinterpretation of ‚Hawkins‘ that proved to work especially well in his live sets.

@adanatwins
@alex-medina
@manpower-1
@biesmans

Biesmans - Hawkins (Biesmans Remix)

5.Sarah Wild - Jardin

Buy/stream: https://kompakt.fm/releases/brainwave_technology_12

Michael Mayer’s latest EP, Brainwave Technology, comes at you purposeful, stealthy and sly. It’s a glorious left turn for the redoubtable producer, one that sees his typically lean and lithe productions buffed to a metallic, futurist sheen. There’s a gleam in the eyes of tracks like “Brainwave Technology” and “Alpha” that speaks of serious fun, of the intersection of the pleasure zone and the frontal lobe.

“Brainwave Technology” itself is informed by Mayer’s deep dive into the thorny terrain of artificial intelligence, transhumanism and posthumanism. Inspired by reading German philosopher Richard David Precht, Mayer found himself heading down the “proverbial rabbit hole,” as he describes it, “watching hours of YouTube material by self-proclaimed prophets of these ‘inevitable’ changes to come.” Never one to be taken in by the egotist’s dance, Mayer’s cynicism about the whole endeavour is tempered, a little, by the deeper questions that these figures gesture towards: “Is it really an evolutionary step that man and machine become one? Or is it rather a marketing plot by Silicon Valley billionaires?”

On “Brainwave Technology”, Mayer plays the charlatans at their own game, turning their logic against them by exposing the fruitiness of their ‘visions’. “I chose irony as my sword with which I chopped off some quotes from some of those batshit crazy prophets and self-promoters,” he explains of the drooling psychobabble he drops in the track’s lacuna. There’s a sense of humour here – how could you not laugh at these hungover egotists? – but there’s levity too, a sense that Mayer’s using sound to expose the contradictions and double-speak at the heart of these half-formed ideas. It’s a Burroughsian tactic, to slice into the heart of the voice to see what hidden truths surface.

It was Burroughs, too, who once said that “when you cut into the past, the future leaks out”; Brainwave Technology cuts into the logic of the futurologist to leak out the messiness of modern reality. On “Alpha” and “Gamma”, Mayer seems to conjure up the stark, ominous music that’d soundtrack a science fiction reinterpretation – or preinterpretation – of our modern malaise, all funereal wreaths of electronic noise and clatterboxing beats. As the EP resolves with “Device For The Young At Heart”, Mayer’s questions are piling up: “Do we want to become immortal and live on as a download? Do we really give up on Earth and put all our effort into colonising Mars?” There are no answers, of course, but plenty of imaginings-to-be. Brainwave Technology soundtracks both dystopian and utopian possibilities of what could come next.

Michael Mayer - Alpha

Michael Mayer - Brainwave Technology

Exclusive: Inter Gritty & Exon Banks - Yellow

Swedish producer Thomas Andersen alias Inter Gritty and artist duo Exon Banks team up for a common release that is musically rooted in the Electronica/ Leftfield field. The four tracker, Yellow, includes the original version of the eponymous EP as well as three remixes from Osch, Nihad Tule and Insolate. However, it's the original version that claims one's full attention as Inter Gritty and Exon Banks created a timeless beauty that outlives current trends and influences. Yellow comes in melo but not dramatic, Yellow means colorful nostalgic melancholia in all its manifold pulchritude, with Exon Banks vocals silkily floating over Inter Gritty's nifty pads and beats creating an autumnal atmosphere one should not fear to dedicate him/herself to as both, instrumental and vocals, take over yourself to obliterate awe and let beauteousness blossom in the back of your mind.

Inter Gritty & Exon Banks' EP Yellow will be released on RISE NKGP in September, 2021.

Buy here: https://subwax.es/product/rise38

Artist information
Inter Gritty: https://facebook.com/intergritty // @inter_gritty // https://instagram.com/inter_gritty
Exon Banks: https://facebook.com/exonbanks // @exonbanks // https://instagram.com/exonbanks

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Yellow

Buy here

EXCLUSIVE: Inter Gritty & Exon Banks - Yellow [RISE NKGP]

Milio - Nachtzon out now on vinyl & digital - @Atomnation

atomnationrec.lnk.to/Nachtzon

Nachtzon

Milio - PS-30

bella ciao (tenshi n tec9beat)

Nettspend feat/Blånk - TRYNNA GET prod Harrison

hate anthem

Hate Anthem (prod.Chupep)

(Value 3.4) You Didn't Say Anything

Label, booking agency & online record shop

Demo submission: 
We receive a lot of demos every day. Please understand that we are unable to listen to everything. Send your private soundcloud link to: label@kompakt.fm.

Michael Mayer - Brainwave Technology

Kompakt

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