Le Motel - Sueños is out now on Maloca

Belgian artist and Maloca Records founder Le Motel returns to the label for a new EP, ‘Sueños’, his most expansive work to date. Released on the 25th February, Le Motel draws from the worldly ethos of the label to bring together collaborators from the UK, Ghana, Spain and Brussels. 

Meaning dream in Spanish, ‘Sueños’ was made during the lockdown and is inspired by the fragments for dreams and the incapacity of experiencing music and life in a physical way. On Le Motel’s two solo cuts, ‘Sueños’ and ‘Talking To Drums’, the dynamic artist showcases his signature percussive driven sound. With the global influences from the collaborators, ‘Sueños’ continues to expand across heavyweight grime on ‘Love Talk Bad’ with Logan, glitchy IDM with Cabasa on ‘Libet’s Delay’, Clara! bringing reggaeton flavours to ‘Rápido’ and Bryte provides his distinctive vocals to the heavy bass rhythms of ‘Wonteeda’. 

As a music producer and film composer, Le Motel’s versatility has taken him to festivals and clubs in every direction and as a field recordist, he has ventured out to the less accessible areas of the globe to source sounds for his enriching productions. Having produced for some of Belgium’s biggest hip hop artists, Le Motel has also released on Portugal’s XXIII, LA’s TAR and New Zealand’s Cosmic Compositions. 

Launching Maloca Records in 2020, Le Motel aims to bring together a global network of makers which was highlighted on the label’s first compilation, Maloca Vol. 1. The release focused on a terrestrial and borderless percussive sound that has been bubbling in clubs and Le Motel’s orbit, featuring tracks from Nick León, OMAAR, DJ JM, Dengue Dengue Dengue, Coen, DJ N.K. and Tsongo. Maloca has also released solo EPs from Howie Lee, Farsight and more recently Griffit Vigo.

Sueños

Le Motel - Love Talk Bad (feat. Logan)

@yutotakei lands on Maloca with a stunning 7-track EP featuring a special remix from @kondukukonduku

MLC008 - Yuto Takei - MA EP - 間 EP
maloca.bandcamp.com/album/ma-ep

MA EP 

Yuto Takei - Oriental Microscope (Konduku Remix)

For Maloca's 9th installment, Le Motel returns to his own imprint and joins forces with UK's versatile pidgin rap experimentalist Magugu. After their 2021 Shoalin collaboration, these 2 prolific artists embark on a new musical voyage. Their upcoming 4-track EP “Kindness Weakness” carefully intersects Bass, UK Garage, Grime and Jungle.

Magugu is a Nigerian poet who fluently unifies Afrobeat, Dancehall with Grime and Drum and Bass. While performing Magugu raps in Pidgin, which is an English-based creole language spoken in Nigeria. For more than a decade he's been making a name for himself as a Cardiff-based artist with a distinguishable raw voice. After numerous releases on his own imprint GUGUGANG Records, the Pidgin Rap Guru also released on cutting-edge labels like Deep Medi Musik and Critical Music and has worked with significant artists like My Nu Leng, Phase and Chad Dubz.

On Topper is a Jungle/Baile anthem about reaching goals in life, regardless of who steps in your way. Blend is about being an individual that doesn’t fit in with the crowd. Everyone should make their own decisions. Kindness Weakness refers to the fact that some people view kindness as a weakness. Yet everybody has had their share of dark moments too. The final track portrays the softer side of the duo's artistic versatility. A laid back UK Garage groove accompanied by Magugu's soothing voice. Let me down represents finding inner peace and creating your own happiness because in life there are too many people who will let you down. This one goes out to making a promise to yourself and never giving up.

Launched in 2020, Maloca Records aims to bring together an international network of artists. Maloca Vol. 1, featuring tracks by Nick León, OMAAR, DJ JM, Dengue Dengue Dengue, Coen, DJ N.K. and Tsongo. Maloca has also released solo EP's from Howie Lee, Farsight, Griffit Vigo, DJ JM and Yuto Takei.

Vocals by Magugu
Music by Le Motel
Mixed and mastered by Jean Vanesse @ greenHouse Studio
Bass on « Let me down » by Victor Defoort
Artwork by Le Motel Typography by Lucas Descroix

Kindness Weakness

Magugu x Le Motel - On Topper

or Maloca's 9th installment, Le Motel returns to his own imprint and joins forces with UK's versatile pidgin rap experimentalist Magugu. After their 2021 Shoalin collaboration, these 2 prolific artists embark on a new musical voyage. Their upcoming 4-track EP “Kindness Weakness” carefully intersects Bass, UK Garage, Grime and Jungle.

Magugu is a Nigerian poet who fluently unifies Afrobeat, Dancehall with Grime and Drum and Bass. While performing Magugu raps in Pidgin, which is an English-based creole language spoken in Nigeria. For more than a decade he's been making a name for himself as a Cardiff-based artist with a distinguishable raw voice. After numerous releases on his own imprint GUGUGANG Records, the Pidgin Rap Guru also released on cutting-edge labels like Deep Medi Musik and Critical Music and has worked with significant artists like My Nu Leng, Phase and Chad Dubz.

On Topper is a Jungle/Baile anthem about reaching goals in life, regardless of who steps in your way. Blend is about being an individual that doesn’t fit in with the crowd. Everyone should make their own decisions. Kindness Weakness refers to the fact that some people view kindness as a weakness. Yet everybody has had their share of dark moments too. The final track portrays the softer side of the duo's artistic versatility. A laid back UK Garage groove accompanied by Magugu's soothing voice. Let me down represents finding inner peace and creating your own happiness because in life there are too many people who will let you down. This one goes out to making a promise to yourself and never giving up.

Launched in 2020, Maloca Records aims to bring together an international network of artists. Maloca Vol. 1, featuring tracks by Nick León, OMAAR, DJ JM, Dengue Dengue Dengue, Coen, DJ N.K. and Tsongo. Maloca has also released solo EP's from Howie Lee, Farsight, Griffit Vigo, DJ JM and Yuto Takei.

Vocals by Magugu
Music by Le Motel
Mixed and mastered by Jean Vanesse @ greenHouse Studio
Bass on « Let me down » by Victor Defoort
Artwork by Le Motel Typography by Lucas Descroix

Magugu x Le Motel - Let Me Down

Coen, the elusive artist behind 2017’s highly acclaimed ‘Yellah’, returns with an 8 track mini album on Le Motel’s Maloca Records. Created over the last two years during the artist’s relocation from Manchester (U.K.) to London, the collection is a DJ’s gift box, built around stripped back, hard hitting beats at a range of different moods and tempos.

Much of the music uses the artist’s own percussion collection, meticulously recorded and sampled for use on this record. From Tama’s 166bpm four-on-the-floor assault, to the wild drum solos of Pressure Roll and the Miami bass-tinged LFNT - take your pick. Or, for the real club heads, sit back and take a trip through the twists and turns of the full release.

Slop, Drop & Roll

Coen - Tama

Coen, the elusive artist behind 2017’s highly acclaimed ‘Yellah’, returns with an 8 track mini album on Le Motel’s Maloca Records. 

Created over the last two years during the artist’s relocation from Manchester (U.K.) to London, the collection is a DJ’s gift box, built around stripped back, hard hitting beats at a range of different moods and tempos. 

Much of the music uses the artist’s own percussion collection, meticulously recorded and sampled for use on this record. From Tama’s 166bpm four-on-the-floor assault, to the wild drum solos of Pressure Roll and the Miami bass-tinged LFNT - take your pick. Or, for the real club heads, sit back and take a trip through the twists and turns of the full release.
credits
released March 21, 2023 

All tracks composed, produced, mixed by Graeme Cohen 
Artwork by Laetitia Bica commissioned by DEMESTRI + LEFEUVRE 
Mastering by Elvin Vanzeebroeck 
2023, Maloca

Coen - Clang

Third single of Maloca, Vol.2 forthcoming on Dec 8th
maloca.bandcamp.com/album/maloca-vol-2

« Founded almost four years ago, Le Motel’s Maloca Records has excelled in world-building as it tirelessly brings together some of the best and most innovative artists from different pockets of the club community around the world. This is showcased most notably through the compilation series which returns for its second volume on the 8th December as it combines both established and breakthrough artists.

Across 17 tracks, Maloca, Vol. 2 features both label family and exciting debuts with the likes of Farsight, Griffit Vigo, and DJ JM returning to the imprint. The rest of the compilation sees knockout contributions from the likes of Bambounou, Flore, Konduku, Tristan Arp, NVST, De Grandi, Neida, Cheb Runner, Malo2k, Leese, Ultima Esuna & Destrata, Mika Oki, M I M I and Space Drum Meditation. Whilst these artists may be from different cities across the pond, they all have something in common - they are leading the way for the next wave of club music. Whether that’s the riotous sounds of NVST, Griffit Vigo’s ever- evolving landscape of gqom, Tristan Arp’s signature insect-inspired soundscape, the emerging Brussels-based artists M I M I and Mika Oki or the trippy, introspective melodies of Konduku and Space Drum Meditation. Maloca, Vol. 2, captures a mind-melting moment in time.

The artwork is by Brussels-based painter Anastasia Bay who’s work presents a renewed vision of the human figure. Oscillating between abstraction and figuration, Anastasia Bay’s work is all about contrast and balance. The choice of a precise fragment of reality in her works dissolves any narration. »

Artwork by @bay.anastasia
Mastering by @hypna__

Maloca, Vol. 2

Bambounou - Tboujeh

maloca.bandcamp.com/album/maloca-vol-2

« Founded almost four years ago, Le Motel’s Maloca Records has excelled in world-building as it tirelessly brings together some of the best and most innovative artists from different pockets of the club community around the world. This is showcased most notably through the compilation series which returns for its second volume on the 8th December as it combines both established and breakthrough artists.

Across 17 tracks, Maloca, Vol. 2 features both label family and exciting debuts with the likes of Farsight, Griffit Vigo, and DJ JM returning to the imprint. The rest of the compilation sees knockout contributions from the likes of Bambounou, Flore, Konduku, Tristan Arp, NVST, De Grandi, Neida, Cheb Runner, Malo2k, Leese, Ultima Esuna & Destrata, Mika Oki, M I M I and Space Drum Meditation. Whilst these artists may be from different cities across the pond, they all have something in common - they are leading the way for the next wave of club music. Whether that’s the riotous sounds of NVST, Griffit Vigo’s ever- evolving landscape of gqom, Tristan Arp’s signature insect-inspired soundscape, the emerging Brussels-based artists M I M I and Mika Oki or the trippy, introspective melodies of Konduku and Space Drum Meditation. Maloca, Vol. 2, captures a mind-melting moment in time.

The artwork is by Brussels-based painter Anastasia Bay who’s work presents a renewed vision of the human figure. Oscillating between abstraction and figuration, Anastasia Bay’s work is all about contrast and balance. The choice of a precise fragment of reality in her works dissolves any narration. »

Artwork by @bay.anastasia
Mastering by @hypna__

Cheb Runner - Debka Ghaba

ARTERIA

HYPNA - QUAD

https://maloca.bandcamp.com

Brussels-based producer Hypna lands on Maloca Records for Arteria. Known for his versatile output of sci-fi influenced club music on labels including Boxed, Insert and his own imprint Plasma Sources, Arteria marks Hypna’s first EP via Maloca, and a radical take on his established sound. 

Each of the 7 tracks on Arteria shifts Hypna’s hard-hitting and percussion-focused palette down into the chugging regions of 90-100BPM, where the artist explores his dancehall and southern-rap influences. This tempo range fascinates Hypna, regarding it as “a portal where so many different genres and energies meet allowing you to quickly shift from something slow and head bopping to a total different pace”. The resulting EP is a 7-track, club-scorching ride through Neptunes and Timbaland-tinged rap beats and slamming dancehall rhythms, all backed up by Hypna’s laser-fuelled percussion and rolling walls of sub-bass energy. 

Hypna also brings vocalists into the fold for the first time, with Jamaican dancehall royalty Warrior Queen on ‘Rollin Deep’ and up-and-coming Florida rapper Milli Bucks on ‘Big Bags’ helping to ground the EP in the rap beat influences the artist has injected into Arteria.

2024, Maloca 

Music by HYPNA 
Featuring Warrior Queen & Milli Bucks 
Artwork by Baudouin Willemart 
Mastered by Fred Alstadt @ Mont Analogue mastering

HYPNA - ROLLING DEEP (feat. Warrior Queen)

https://maloca.bandcamp.com/album/siiix-vol-1

Lying somewhere between a collaborative EP and a compilation, Brussels-based label Maloca Records presents SIIIX, Vol.1, a body of work showcasing a dialogue between veteran Netherlands-based HIIIT (fka percussion ensemble Slagwerk Den Haag) and 6 producers operating across a diverse spectrum of electronic music. Shimmering between footwork, IDM, UK bass and ambient, this project is united by a shared acoustic palette.

Born in 2021, HIIIT was directed by group member and respected multi-instrumentalist/composer Frank Wienk (Binkbeats) to record a sample bank from their vast collection of instruments and unique percussive sources, comprising everything from plastic fuel cans to the largest tam-tam in Europe. A select group of producers were then commissioned to compose sketches from this sample bank.

Chosen by HIIIT are label newcomers Azu Tiwaline, upsammy, Julian Sartorius, Krampfhaft and Valentina Magaletti, as well as Belgian drummer and producer Hi Hats In Trees, who returns to Maloca after releasing his album ‘Artefacts’ on the label last year. Each producer was hand-picked for their percussion-focused music approach and in many cases, their background as drummers.

After creating their sketches, the works were sent back to HIIIT, who recorded more unique layers of percussion on top of these initial pieces. These were then returned to the commissioned producers, with the brief being to utilise the newly recorded material in any way; but to ultimately create fully-realised pieces of music with it.

The final result led to 6 wildly different sonic outcomes. From the high-energy workouts of upsammy’s ‘Embrytone’, Azu Tiwaline’s ‘Brain Rattled’ and Hi Hats In Trees’s ‘CAIRO’, to Julian Satorius’s warped rhythms in ‘Klutsel-Klötzli’, or the cinematic ambient spaces conjured by Kramphaft’s ‘Anticline’ and Valentina Magaletti’s ‘A Drink with the Queen of Wands’, Maloca x HIIIT is a collection of music which rattles and pulses across the electronic music continuum. What unites this record is the acoustic colour and sense of life which would have been next to impossible to achieve without the bespoke sonics from HIIIT.

As a whole, the record can be considered as an organic dialogue; be it between composers and producers from a conceptual standpoint, or between acoustic sound sources and the resultant electronic manipulation when listening to the material.

Artwork by Quentin Lacombe

SIIIX, Vol.1

Hihats In Trees - CAIRO

Azu Tiwaline - Brain Rattled

https://maloca.bandcamp.com/album/speleogenesis

Wisconsin-based producer and drummer Chants (The Trilogy Tapes, Maximum Airtime, Astral Plane Recordings) meets master drummer Dave Schoepke on this all-drums LP for Brussels-based Maloca Records. ‘Speleogenesis’ blends live drumming with dub techniques and dancefloor-informed production, guided by imagery of a subterranean world. It’s a full-circle moment, as the two met when Chants (aka Jordan Cohen) took drum lessons from Schoepke during his teenage years.

The recording process began with Chants creating skeletal demos for Dave Schoepke to improvise on. Schoepke recorded many layers of drums and percussion, running some of them through his hardware synthesizers. Chants then shaped these recordings, resulting in the cavernous dub techno track ‘Pressure Slide’, the Brazilian-influenced ‘Ritmo Crudo’ and ‘Ritmo Puro’, and the uptempo, slippery dancehall dub of ‘The Quickstepper’.

Chants then assembled a new palette of samples from this core and constructed dancefloor-focused bangers like the hyperactive ‘Cyclone Rhythm’ and minimal 170 bpm ‘Rafter’, adding his own homegrown breakbeats. As the album took shape, the music kept evoking mental images of caves, tunnels, and underwater caverns that in turn influenced the final pieces. ‘Notes from Underground’ and ‘Speleogenesis’ present a more unfiltered view of Schoepke’s nuanced drumming. ‘Airbell Dub’ was also created using material from one of Schoepke’s meditative solo performances. Finally, ‘Cavernicole’ features both drummers in full duet mode, trading phrases over an insistent kick drum pulse.  

Credits :
released October 11, 2024
2024, Maloca

Music by Chants & Dave Schoepke
Artwork by Rémi Volclair
Mastered by Hypna

Speleogenesis

Chants & Dave Schoepke - Rafter

https://maloca.bandcamp.com/album/dreaming-of-us-while-slowly-catching-fire-in-a-place-i-never-belonged

All things are in perpetual motion and at the centre of this flux is self-discovery. ‘Dreaming Of Us While Slowly Catching Fire In a Place I Never Belonged’ is an introspective portrait of NVST, a multi-talented Swiss DJ and producer making her Maloca Records debut.

The 7-piece opens up a space for reflection on raw emotions and identity, making the most of the traits of sonic experimentation that mark NVST's sound. The LP is a slow-burning-lucid-dream into a searing transformation: an obscure fire that consumes but illuminates, transforms while discovering itself.

Samples and vocal manipulations become instruments of narration, weaving fragments of memories and feelings into a sound texture that feels both personal and collective.

NVST distills the chaos of transformation into rich, layered soundscapes: ethereal, echo-laden vocals - often manipulated through pedals and embedded in haunting dialogues - clothe the compositions with an otherworldly texture. An echo that responds to itself in an intimate dialogue.
The impulsive, distorted and spatialised bass pulses beneath each track, creating a constant tension between breathlessness and breathing, becoming a feature that crosses genres.

Frantic drum machines, samples and sharp glitches move unfiltered, creating a dynamic that reflects the emotional complexity of the album.
credits

releases March 14, 2025
Music by NVST @nast_is_nvst
Artwork by Alice Vink @dirty.dms
Font by Rémi Volclair @rembagram
Mastering by Hypna @hypna__

NVST - No Bombs (Inferno Edition)

https://maloca.bandcamp.com/album/moshpit

Coen - Ripper

Brussels-based imprint Maloca is proud to present percussive connoisseur Coen’s sophomore mini-album, Moshpit: an 8-track exploration where focus and intensity rules all. As the title suggests, the release marks a more abrasive turn after 2023’s Slop Drop & Roll.
 
Feeling like a new direction was needed for his second mini-album, Coen went back to his roots. There, the artist re-discovered a love for Slayer and the brutal, near out-of-control power found in thrash metal. Through this recapturing of his teenage years, he found his approach, developing methods for transposing the genre’s raw aesthetics into his stripped back, drum-forward sound.
 
The result is a listening experience dominated by double-time kicks, corroded walls of texture and a level of intensity not heard before in the London artist's work. Moshpit acts as an ode to Slayer and the brutal, relentless energy of thrash metal, taking the genre on a conceptual level and translating it into Coen’s universe. 

Despite this aesthetic turn, the album also stands as an evolution, rather than a revolution, from Coen. The orotund percussive tones and lethal high energy grooves of Headbanger and Roll Play are nods to 2023 standout Pressure Roll - weapon of choice for DJs across the spectrum including Bonobo, Bambounou, Ahadadream, Toumba & Lu Su.
 
Moshpit also sees Coen at his most concentrated, distilling what he does best down to its most vital and essential form. Each track bristles with a cinematic, metallic sheen and never feels too busy, with the artist getting the most from recordings of his studio’s collection of percussion instruments – with many of the textures on the album becoming distorted abstractions of drums found in it. 
 
The artwork, made by Coen himself, bristles with coarse texture, without becoming drowned in noise - an appropriate visual guide to the sonic landscape to be found in Moshpit. 

Maloca Records

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