In 2024, Japanese vocalist @ultrama00 recorded an album together with producers duo @ifs_raps . “REIFSMA” was a meshing of MA's spontaneity with IFS' production machinery. Extended vocal techniques, multi-layered narratives and original expression gave IFS's tracks a disturbed and hypnotic feel. After the critically and audience acclaimed “REIFSMA ”, MA returns to the Guides label with the solo album “VWV”.

“VWV” is MA's second solo album, the first, “AMA,” was released on Morphine Records. The two albums are closely related, complementing each other. “VWV” is a reverse transcription of the word “AMA,” which means, in turn, heaven or universe. But visual and semantic connections are not the only thing at stake. “VWV” and “AMA” both focus on the elemental, unpredictable, risky and sometimes wild. The narrative in the works is not chronological, concentrating rather on what is simplest in language, expression and the body. MA lets his thoughts flow without assigning them to anything or giving them any specific direction. His verbal and vocal practices are close to stream-of-consciousness, MA often refers to word games.

On the musical level, we get extremely spare material, in which the voice dominates. However, MA does not shy away from the sonic layer either, enriching the tracks with rough, dirty, industrial sounds. The nature of these recordings evokes associations with the plunderphonic tradition and the “borrowing” of new contexts. “I used recordings of vocals and sound ideas that came to me, which I'd recorded as rough drafts, and edited them.” - MA naturally expands the semantic field of plunderphonics, treating his ideas as something potentially strange, not-yet-mine, which is instinctively processed when he gives it a voice. In his practice, MA is careful to note the nature of the spontaneous self-alienation and what comes in its place. He is like a sound poet who responds with his voice to every slightest impulse of narrative and potential atoms of meaning ready to be externalized.

“VWV” resembles the universe after the Big Bang - it is spreading radially in all directions, trying to encompass and express “everything” at every moment, simultaneously.

MA - VWV

Four years since the release of the Groove, for which responsible were exclusively female producers, the outlines label is presentingthe last cassette finishingthe series and concluding this publishing chapter. The first two cassettes featured an Argentinian sound artist, Aylu, („groove 4”) and a German vocalist producer and activist, AGF, („groove 5”). „groove 6” belongs to one of the most important characters of Chicago Footwork, Jana Rush. This young producer and DJ proved to be an extremely active artist DJ-ing her first sets alongside DJ Rashad, Gant-Man and Nehpets only to co-release, at the age of thirteen, a vinyl with DJ Deeon (Dance Mania label). Two years later she releases another twelve-inch, this time for Contaminated Muzik. For Jana Rush’ next official release we had to wait until 2016.

„groove 6” is being released a few months after the artist's excellent album „Painful Enlightenment” (Planet Mu), which is anaudio documentation of a difficult and dark time in Jana's life. Since„groove 6” was created around the same time, it can be treated as the bright reverse side of the heavy and dense atmosphere of Jane Rush's album.

The A-side tracks of the outlines release are filled with intense and overwhelming physicality. They almost seem like an affirmation of corporeality as opposed to the disturbing and uncomfortable momentsfrom „Painful Enlightenment” („G-Spot”or „Suicidal Ideation”). „Fingering Ur Girl”, „Furious Feet” or „Eros” present the body, movement and physicality in a network of associations referring to the energy of libido, dance or music production. Their sonic intensity also points to the source of Jana Rush's music – footwork battles and competing dancers' moves. This is perfectly complemented by the raw and minimalist track „Off Him” recorded by Jana Rush together with DJ Rashad. The B-side, on the other hand, comprises tracks exploring various forms of rhythmic abstraction. „MY RZ-1” bears resemblance tothe music of the Raster-Noton label. „WTF Iz Goin'On ”and „90's Acid” bounce into the listener's ears with a simple sound theme embedded in a rushing beat. The finale, „Simple", turns out to be a perverse play on the footwork convention with theuse of 105BPM tempo.

The „groove 6” cassette is a testimony to the extraordinary creativity of the Chicago producer. Her work stems from the musical roots of the Windy City such as ghetto house and footwork, but her music goes much further ahead – being in constant motion and transformation, it eludes any precise definition. This striking version of Jana Rush's footwork seems to exceed its stylistic limitations, thus, reaching previously unknown lands.

Jana Rush - groove 6

In 2020 the first release in guides, a new publishing initiative set up by outlines owner Pawel "Paide" Dunajko, was released. guides is intended to be a label less burdened by formal requirements but - like outlines - still trying to present the most interesting and innovative music at 160 bpm.
 
The second tape in the guides catalogue is the result of a collaboration with Japanese producer otomoni. The Tokyo-based sound artist owns the Minzoku Tapes label, where his original productions have mainly been released.

otomoni's "super u" tape consists of nine tracks for which Chicago footwork is the starting point. However, the Japanese producer creates his own individual version of this genre, using such compositional techniques as sound design, field recording and musique concrete. otomoni's sound palette is extremely rich and characterised by a multitude of details. The rhythmic layer is non-obvious, driven by a microcosm of sound particles and melodies.
 
The very beginning of the release ("mizurizu") presents before us evocative images of some undiscovered anime world, in which a delicate impressionistic narrative merges in the finale with noise blurring details. "hanoi" relieves this moment of tension with a melodic intro that, after a while, launches into a footwork groove. "kenka" is a sweet miniature with echoes of reggaeton rhythm. Finishing the A side of the cassette "misago" is a futuristic minimal footwork set on an ear-piercing synthetic sound, around which surprising noises are lit up.

In the opening B-side title track "super u" otomoni continues to create his sound world. It's transformed vocal samples, expressive and juicy rhythmics, on the background of which unexpectedly appears the sour sound of Roland's 303. "ooree" takes the listener to a different, but equally surprising corner of otomoni's world full of plasticity and colours. In "amenoi" the listener lands in the middle of a jungle of sounds creating an unreal scaffolding for an alternative reality. From its very beginning "mikudro" fits into the narration started in "amenoi", but it tries to burst this created structure with a vibrating stroboscope of sounds. Seemingly chaotic percussions create a new physics of music. The album's closing "akumu" begins with a vast looped drone, against which ritual simple vocalizations are sung. After a while the drone and the voice are joined by other sounds of a new world coming to life.

otomoni's music has an extraordinary gift for illustrating alternative realities. However, this does not happen with a flourish, pathos or overload of meanings. The sounds he uses are characterised by subtlety and minimalism of expression. It is an autonomous and living world. Footwork in its basic form is a musical genre which is supposed to accompany the movements of dancers competing with each other. otomoni's Footwork is music detached from this tradition, but using the components of this genre to create a completely new reality.

super u

otomoni - super u

@djstrawberrymusic, or rather Emre Öztürk, is a Turkish sound artist, representing Algorave Istanbul. He debuted with the track 'Hafif Müzik' on the compilation album “grids” released by outlines. The album “Cycles”, which is the artist's full-length debut, is the third release in the catalogue of guides, a sub-label of the outlines label.

Side A of the cassette opens with 'Motion', an extremely spacious and ambient composition in which individual sounds gradually reveal a vast cosmic landscape. DJ Strawberry's next track, 'Dance/Music', floats in a similar sounding atmosphere, but is enriched by vocal samples, which in the initial phase of the track are repeated single words. In the central part of the recording, the author of the spoken words is revealed – he is one of the most important representatives of Chicago Footwork, DJ Spinn, who is joined after a while by his legendary friend DJ Rashad. Excerpts from their conversation are taken from a 2012 French TV interview. In it, Rashad and Spinn talked about the origins of footwork and it is this part of the conversation that is placed by Strawberry at the climax of the piece. The modern and futuristic footwork sound is combined here in a surprising way with the story of two Chicago legends. 'Variation' is the third number on the A-side, which calms the atmosphere after the extremely exciting and dynamic 'Dance/Music'. We find ourselves in a dub-ambient space, watching the spectacular ethereal images shift. Concluding the A-side, 'Fast Track' is a composition in which one can hear inspiration from the Japanese footwork minimalism of DJ Fulltono and CRZKNY from their joint project Theater1. A clear rhythmic pulse is surrounded by delicate micro-drops.

The B-side of the cassette is a consistent development of DJ Strawberry's created sound world. 'Acelem Var' presents a subdued liquid variation of ambient dub. 'Acelem Yok', on the other hand, is the most monumental track and its dramatic layer is as spectacular as the final section of 'Dance/Music'. The concluding B-side of “Cycles”, 'Mono Ton', is like an extended complement to the last track from the A-side, 'Fast Track'. Here, too, you can hear the scattered particles floating in rhythmic space against an underwater, impressionistic and ambient background.

DJ Strawberry's album “Cycles” is an extremely mature offering. Different genre traditions intermingle here: ambient, minimalism, dub techno, clicks and cuts and Chicago Footwork. Strawberry builds his songs with great sensitivity, combining the modern with the classic Chicago sound. An excellent example of this is 'Dance/Music', in which the producer seems to be drawing attention to the prevailing trend in recent times where music and DJs have become more important than the people on the dance floor. Emphasising this problem by referring to the foundations of the dancer/DJ relationship in footwork culture is a treatment that puts things back into perspective. In turn, the fusion of the unique beauty of ambient with footwork and a tempo of 160bpm moves the “Cycles” album towards illustrative music, which could be the perfect soundtrack to accompany the new discoveries of Webb's telescope. It's also not hard to imagine these tracks sounding from the radio of a space-traversing Tesla.

Artwork: Iwona Jarosz / Yes in Progress
Mastered by: Mateusz Wysocki

Cycles

DJ Strawberry - Cycles

Producer duo @ifs_raps and Japanese rapper @ultrama00 team up for a collective ritual.

Imagine a consciousness saturated with a psychoactive substance. Perceptual precision spills out of the defined limits, colours blur and the edges of objects become sticky and stretchy. At this borderline moment, between waking and hallucination, the pulse is activated. It begins to accelerate. It forces the body to react immediately. A syncopated strobe flashes with rhythm. A figure that is a voice enters the stage. With each formed word, the voice sinks into its sound, dissolving meaning into the fractal sonority of language.

REIFSMA activates in apparent simplicity. The initial drum loops sound familiar ('Heddchara'), but then - from behind the sliding curtain of the beat - MA appears on stage. He begins to weave his multi-layered story. His voice seems to be in many places at once. On the one hand, he is trying to create some kind of narrative, but at the same time he can't stop himself from uncontrollable, sound-alike digressions that spread in different directions. The stories told by MA seem to oscillate around automatic writing and create snapshot images of a frenetic mind reacting to the slightest hint of reality. MA's voice shows its wide register and different frequencies, as if it is capturing from within the streams of consciousness of different people lending itself to them to spin their own stories. There is something sensually primal in this gesture, playing out beyond the control of habitually trained attention. The IFS duo's rushing beats follow the shamanic MA like his shadow. They accompany him with their jitteriness ("Shinnyu"), nervous loops ("Yaksoq") and breadth of perspective ("Enshooritz"). However, they do not pretend to distract from MA's voice; rather, they try to frame a broad panorama for the ritual situation.

In the world of REIFSMA, listeners feel like characters in William Gibson's books. Faced with sensual overstimulation, the body reacts uncontrollably and spontaneously. The aim, however, is not liberation from technology, but to find a loop for the body to instinctively follow.

IFS is a duo of producers coming from Poland: Mateusz Wysocki (@fischerle) and Krzysztof @kook-on Ostrowski. Their extensive musical fascinations draw on traditions such as avant-garde, dub, glitch, footwork and hip-hop. There have been five releases by the duo to date, including the 2022 album 'Psycho Outs' recorded with Polish rapper Prykson.

MA is a Tokyo-based Japanese rapper and vocalist. His musical activities include extended vocal practices and field recordings. Two MA albums have been released so far - a debut album on Morphine Records and a collaboration with Italian sound artist Nicola Ratti 'NR + MA'.

Mixed and mastered by IFS
Artwork by Marta Sieczkowska

REIFSMA

IFS MA - REIFSMA

Excerpts from the second release in the groove series dedicated to variations on ambient, footwork and fast tempos. groove 14 was produced by Canadian sound artist @automatisme01.
Artwork: Iwona Jarosz
Mastered by: Mateusz Wysocki
Edition of 60 tapes.

Automatisme - groove 14.1 (preview)

1 Richie Hawtin - Concept 1 9611 2200
2 CRZKNY - untitled
3 Richie Hawtin - Concept 1 9608 1500
4 AGF - groove 5.2
5 Richie Hawtin - Concept 1 9612 2400
6 Skip Club Orchestra - L12R16
7 Richie Hawtin - Concept 1 9612 2300
8 D.J.Fulltono - The Plot Thickens
9 Richie Hawtin - Concept 1 9611 2100
10 DJ Strawberry - Hafif Müzik
11 Richie Hawtin - Concept 1 9604 0700
12 Theater 1 - Nero
13 Richie Hawtin - Concept 1 9602 0400
14 Theater 1 - Lucy
15 Richie Hawtin - Concept 1 9601 0100
16 Skip Club Orchestra - VA20
17 Richie Hawtin - Concept 1 9603 0600
18 CRZKNY - untitled
19 Richie Hawtin - Concept 1 9607 1300

Concept 160 Part I

1. DJ 2F FT MC YSA - VAI NA PEÇA (RESPOSTA)
2. DJ - Rashad - Disco Ballz
3. MC REBECCA - CARA DE BAND (DJs EMANUEL OLIVEIRA & LOBINHO)
4. DJ - Rashad - drop juke out
5. MC TH - CONTATINHO FIXO - CARÃO DE MAL NEUTRA (DJs TERRORISTA & ALEXDABAIXADA)
6. DJ Clent - Sublyfe
7. DJ LF SHEIK TUDO NO SIGILO
8. DJ Rashad - Grace
9. DJ RD DO MARTINS & MC FLUUP & MC 2D- PASSAPORTE PRO CHILE
10. DJ Rashad - shake & drop
11. DJ RD DO MARTINS - SOU DA TROPA DO MARTINS
12. DJ Clent - The Wickedness
13. DJs TERRORISTA, DOLLYNHO DA LAPA E ANDRE DA SUL - RASTA A XERECA NO ASFALTO
14. DJ Clent - Power
15. DJ GL SHEIK - JOGA O BUCETAO
16. DJ Rashad - Shakedown RX Much Better
17. DJ PH DO VNC - MTG - SO CAVALGADA - DEIXA EU BOTAR NA PELE
18. DJ Diamond - Long Live A King
19. DJ GL SHEIK DE CABO FRIO - MEGA BOTADA NA TCHEQUINHA
20. DJ Rashad - electronic juke
21. DJ TERRORISTA - COMEÇOU O JOGA JOGA EM LAS VEGAS (PEGA ESSE SWING)
22. DJ Diamond - Game Over
23. DJ GL SHEIK - JOGA O BUCETAO
24. DJ Clent - Let Me See You Juke Feat DJ Puncho
25. DJ VICTOR BRUM EU SOU O METRE DOS MAGOS 
26. DJ Rashad - lick on the dick
27. DJ WL DO CHAPADÃO RITMADÃO PRA ELAS
28. DJ Rashad - Work 07
29. MCS PE NA COVA, G7, AGABE E DENNY - ATABAQUE PRAS PIRANHAS (DJ TERRORISTA)
30. DJ Diamond - Karlis Mood

Ghetto Funk IV

Artist: @simon-off
Titile: joyful discontent
Label: guides
Release date: 17.11.2023
Format: digital / cassette (edition of 50)
Mastered by: LXC
Artwork: Marta Sieczkowska
Simon Hafner aka Sun People is well known to fans of fast tempos, having released music on labels such as @exitrecords @rua_sound and @through_these_eyes. Hafner presents a wide range of music and guest mixes on his monthly Sub FM radio show and is also releasing music and doing A&R for the label @defrostatica.

His latest cassette on the Guides label, titled Joyful Discontent, is a tribute to minimalism, referencing the works of Frank Bretschneider and Mark Fell. The starting point for this release was a JMT VDR-1 drum synthesizer, characterised by its intuitive aspects, its limited sonic capacities and the challenge to stretch the machine's possibilities. This one instrument informs the structure of the album, fixed in tempo, track and total length. Reducing his tools to a bare minimum, Hafner explicitly refers to specific genre traditions inherent in this radical form. Structurally and sonically, the spirit of clicks & cuts (e.g., Komet’s ‘Rausch’) can be heard, as well as influences from dub, ambient and minimalist drum&bass and footwork.

In his thinking, however, Hafner goes further. The idea of interlocking all the pieces, complementing the overall grid of constraints, provides the frame for a playful exploration. The result was also fuelled by intuitiveaction, such as when a single gesture and decision changes the direction of a process that takes place in real time. When composing, despite the track’s live act structure, he produced recordings that could function as parts of a jigsaw puzzle that can berearranged freely in any order, thus opening the way for a reinterpretation of the whole. This is also why the album will be available in two versions, both as a mix of combined tracks, and as eight individual pieces that make up the whole.

Despite so many formal constraints, Joyful Discontent still sounds accessible. The pieces produced by Hafner move in the direction of Mark Fell’s compositional approaches, where music is devoid of evoking emotion, rather, aiming for a neutral and non-imposing environment for the listener. 

(with the kind support of the city of Graz)

This release is also available on the artist's bandcamp page. If you want to support him directly, I encourage you to do so.

sun people - joyful discontent (preview)

Artist: @djstrawberrymusic
Titile: Beyond
Label: guides
Release date: 15.03.2024
Format: digital / cassette (edition of 70)
Additional mix and mastering: Mateusz Wysocki
Artwork: Marta Sieczkowska

Released in 2022, the debut album "Cycles" by Turkish producer DJ Strawberry brought a surprising mix of genres. The tracks, which were kept at 160 bpm, combined the Chicago footwork tradition with its hybrid formula inspired by Japanese minimalism and spacey dub techno in a highly inventive way.

Two years after the release of his debut album, DJ Strawberry, returns with a follow-up to "Cycles" entitled "Beyond". The process of making the album was accompanied by many difficult moments. In February 2023, his country was hit by the largest earthquake in its history that significantly affected his family and loved ones. What brought the producer respite from these hard times was to dive into making music. "Beyond" is therefore a story about suffering, anxiety, but also about the process of coming out of these difficult emotions towards something constructive that brought joy and relief.

The album begins with crystal and delicate sounds in "following you". We see some idyllic and jittery imagery, which lightly jumps to the rhythm of complex rhythms. The character and atmosphere of the album transform with the second track. In "soyut", a noticeable tectonic shock is triggered by nervous percussion loops and the deep intensity of the infra-pulse. This physical aspect of experiencing sound and the vibrations it generates constitute the primary foundation that binds the music of "Beyond". The low-pitched, rough bass that appears in "soyut" also resounds in the next anxious track "çıkmaz", its dirty, earthy sound referencing footwork productions dedicated to competing dancers. The change in atmosphere doesn't come until "euphoria." After the first half, echoing the emotions of earlier tracks, the second half of the piece, DJ Strawberry, transports the listener into a space of liberating relief and affirmation. Ending the album, "feedback loopjuke" is a minimalist coda with swirling looped drums and juke claps fired off in the final part of the track.

The therapeutic aspect of the music contained on "Beyond" places DJ Strawberry's actions in close proximity to the similar sonic practice of another representative of the outlines, Jana Rush. Her album "Painful Enlightenment", released on Planet Mu, also used footwork to deal with difficult emotions. Once again, then, a musical genre whose prior function was mainly to "serve" competing dancers has transcended this traditional format to become a vehicle for DJ Strawberry's personal narrative.

DJ Strawberry - Beyond (preview)

outlines owner @paide is playing tracks back from label's catalogue, some unreleased tunes and other artists inspiring music as well.

1. JANKA - LOLSKA DUB [forthcoming guides]
2. CRZKNY - TR-06 [forthcoming guides]
3. Sun People - Forward
4. IFS MA - YAKSOQ (Ace-up Remix)
5. 2K88 - GODMODE
6. Kelela - Divorce (DJ Manny Remix)
7. JANKA & CRZKNY - KAORI DUB [forhcoming YUKU]
8. CRZKNY - TR-05 [forthcoming guides]
9. Sun People - Discover
10. IFS MA - HEDDCHARA (Loopdrive Remix)
11. JANKA - YAMANOTE DUB [forthcoming guides]
12. JANKA & CRZKNY - KURUMI DUB [forhcoming YUKU]
13. Senking & DYL - Astral projection
14. 2K88 - SHAME
15. Sun People - After The End
16. Sinistarr - Torpor (DjBadshape Remix)
17. Thomas Knak & DYL - 01 
18. DJ Strawberry - Versatile Pt. 2 [forthcoming Defrostatica Records]
19. DYL - Steps
20. DJ Strawberry - 3-4-3 Pt. 1 [forthcoming Defrostatica Records]
21. DYL - H1

outlines mix 5.0

One of the best electronic albums of 2023 according to Bandcamp gets a remixed version. Eight producers create their own interpretations, taking the originals into genres such as dub and dub techno (@yacmusik, @j_a_n_k_a, @loopdrive), footwork techno (@fetus_music, @ace_up), energetic ambient (@djstrawberrymusic), bristol sound (@eurlica), electro (@otomoni).
Mastering by Mateusz Wysocki.
Artwork by Marta Sieczkowska.

REIFSMA REMIXED

1. Citizen Boy - Dark City
2. Skip Club Orchestra - MP05A
3. Julz Da Deejay - Broken Souls
4. Skip Club Orchestra - MP05B
5. Mafia Boyz - Bhengi Yokhalipha
6. DJ Fulltono - Draping 8
7. Mafia Boyz - Seasons
8. Jam City - 500 Years (DubbyMaple Bootleg)
9. Griffit Vigo - Ree's Vibe (2020 remastered)
10. Cruel Boyz - Cruel Drumz
11. Itti - Feedback
12. Griffit Vigo - Ups and Downs
13. フェイス羽賀ー研二 - DOTE JUKE
14. Griffit Vigo - Run
15. Hrto - flourish
16. Dominowe - Asamben (Trip To Switzland)
17. Emo Kid - Table Funk
18. Dominowe - Ingozi (Original Gqom)
19. Itti - Insomnia
20. Griffit Vigo - Drumm Hand (Griffit Vigo's Ancestral Mix)
21. La Dame - Kinnara (The Untouchables Remix)
22. Griffit Vigo - Shanga Dedi (original mix)
23. wrk.dat - Stalker
24. Mafia Boyz - Toyizi Ley'ngane
25. SNKLS - ESSENCE I
26. Citizen Boy - Indaba Ka Bani Besibenuza
27. Fetus - Bug Bait

Gqom Werkz II

1. Dominowe - Africa's Cry
2. Itti - Data Lake
3. Citizen Boy - Hlasela (feat. Thalerh)
4. CRZKNY - Draping 8
5. Pro-Tee - The New Age Gqom
6. SNKLS - ESSENCE V
7. Griffit Vigo - DJ
8. Dominowe - Dark Valley (Core Tribe)
9. Skip Club Orchestra - Draping 6
10. Mafia Boyz - Teaspoon La Goh
11. Mafia Boyz - Woza
12. Skip Club Orchestra - Draping 1
13. Griffit Vigo - Come To Durban
14. Uncle Texx - The Ruler's Back
15. Formation Boyz - Rise Up Again
16. wrk.dat - Chit Chat
17. Formation Boyz - Kicker (Gqom)
18. Fetus - Figurine
19. Formation Boyz - 23 remix
20. DJ Fulltono - Draping 11

Gqom Werkz I

Piotr Kalinski and Daniel Szlajnda are artists who hold a special place in the Polish independent music scene. Their solo achievements date back to the first decade of the 2000s, providing an important foundation in the development of the local music scene.

Daniel Szlajnda is associated by many Polish listeners with aliases such as DJ Taśmy and @danieldrumz, as well as his series of eclectic funk-hip-hop mixes “Electric Relaxation.” The culmination of these achievements is the album “Untold Stories,” released in 2015, on which, as Daniel Drumz, he showcases multiple takes on club music. However, it was the later two albums “Komorebi” and “Order in Chaos” that opened a new chapter in the producer's work by shifting his sonic explorations towards modular ambient - released already under his own name, i.e. Daniel Szlajnda.

The solo beginnings of Piotr Kaliński, known mainly as @httvtt, fall on the period of dynamic development of the dubstep scene in Poland, and his productions maintained in this style, were among the first Polish releases published abroad. He has 4 solo albums and also contributes to such projects as the ambient instrumental Hinode Tapes, Nanook Of The North (with Stefan Wesolowski) and @j_a_n_k_a, which is the result of a collaboration with Daniel Szlajnda.

The JANKA project combines both producers' love of dub, modern electronica, Japan and a good dose of humor, which can be found in the twisted titles of each track. Their music has been released on labels such as U Know Me Records, The Moth Club, Yuku and Newdubhall.

Released in guides EP “YAMANOTE” is a complete set, on which there are clear (in the musical, title and visual layers) inspirations of Japan, being for both artists and guides label owner Pawel Dunajko an extremely important point of reference. Both producers, in their work, often take this Far Eastern direction, and they regularly visit Japan, both solo and with JANKA concerts. In 2024, the Yuku label released JANKA's twelve-inch, recorded with Japanese minimalist footwork icon @crzkny. Similar to the cassette “YAMANOTE,” the vinyl for Yuku combines a fascination with experimental footwork and dub-techno aesthetics.

“YAMANOTE” EP features six tracks, each offering a completely different variation for footwork aesthetics and 160 BPM tempo. The rich multi-layered ambient space is driven by a pulsating dub bass. Sometimes JANKA's music is reminiscent of the crystalline productions of Move D and Benjamin Brunn, with a difference that it is put through various kinds of noisy effects.

The entire album opens with the minimalistic track “Goodweather Dub,” a sort of tribute to Nagoya's Goodweather club and its owner Eri Ishii, who is an extremely important figure animating the independent music scene in Japan. The title track “Yamanote,” set to subtle and unobvious breaks, playfully winks at the popular Tokyo subway line. “Mono Dub,” is a classic sped-up dub footwork. “Ale To Ty Dzwonisz Dub” is built around the repetitive non-obvious sound of a ringing telephone. “Lolska Dub” is a languidly deep half-tempo, and the final “Mute Dub” is a perfect ambient close to the whole.

JANKA - YAMANOTE

In 2017, outlines released just the second EP in its catalog. It was one of three cassettes that initiated the groove series and was dedicated to the Japanese footwork producers responsible for creating a new reduced version of the Chicago-based musical genre. The author of the aforementioned EP was @crzkny, a leading figure in the Japanese footwork scene, who has been consistently creating his highly distinctive and radical musical project for more than a decade. His music, along with the work of DJ Fulltono and Skip Club Orchestra, was an extremely important influence on the initial direction of the outlines. In 2025, CRZKNY returns to the label with a new album.

“Deadly Outlaw” is an album featuring eight tracks that are a kind of meditation and reflection on techno by the Japanese producer. The starting point here is the work of such iconic figures of the techno scene as Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin with his Plastikman project and Basic Channel. CRZKNY, however, does it in his own way, embedding the classic foundations of minimal and dub techno on a 160 bpm engine.

The structure of the album is divided into two parts. The first is the tracks in the TR-01-TR-04 section, which on the one hand recall the spatiality of Plastikman's recordings and Jeff Mills' classic loops, but with carefully caught-up layers full of rasps, murmurs and crackles, they create a hypnotic and disturbing listening experience.

In the second part of the album (TR-05-TR-08), CRZKNY evokes the spirit of the music of other iconic figures Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus. Their Basic Channel project in the '90s of the twentieth century revolutionized the sound of techno, which both producers filtered through the Jamaican sonic tradition. Pushed to 160-bpm, CRZKNY's tracks still have a heavily reduced character, but space and reverb come into the forefront.

Each successive CRZKNY release manages to surprise. Whether it's minimalistic gabba or ironic footwork sampledelia, the Japanese producer's music always offers an intense hybrid extreme.

CRZKNY - Deadly Outlaw (preview)

SIDE A
A1-MA
A2-TAMAMONO
A3-IKU
A4-HUQSEN
A5-FULUELL
A6-HILAC
A7-XJOVYA
A8-WARABE
A9-NCEPHZB
A10-IZRE
A11-SUGATA

MA - VWV Side A (preview)

SIDE B
B1-JA
B2-SHILL
B3-REI
B4-OHW
B5-RERU
B6-SOLEKARA
B7-ENE

MA - VWV Side B (preview)

IFS meets … is an artistic and curatorial project by @kook-on and @fischerle, resulting from their collaboration with three vocalists: @ultrama00, @agf-antye-greie, and @spalarnia. The starting point was the creative process between the producers and vocalists, expressed in attention to the needs of the other person, sharing inspiration, working in the studio, organizing a shared space, and performing together.

From the very beginning, IFS has been characterized by interpersonal relationships and creative collaboration. Initially, it was an exchange of ideas between the initiators of the project, Krzysztof Ostrowski and Mateusz Wysocki, but as IFS developed, the musical horizon began to expand to include additional artists who brought new quality to the producers' work. This interpersonal dimension can be heard particularly clearly on IFS albums and tracks recorded together with rappers ALchinBond, M.STO, Prykson Fisk, Kosim, Bryndal, Ńemy, and Mada. However, it was the album recorded with Japanese vocalist and post-rapper MA, entitled “REIFSMA,” that broke all genre limitations. Released by the Guides label, the album combined Ostrowski and Wysocki’s fascination with a tempo of 160 BPM with MA’s avant-garde vocal strategies. The musicians performed at the Unsound festival, and their debut album was very well received by critics and listeners. Two years after the release of REIFSMA, it was time for a second album.

Initially, the new album was supposed to be just an EP containing three new songs supplemented with remixes of selected tracks from the debut album. However, the idea for the REIFSMA remixes turned into a compilation, which was released in 2024 together with the reissue of the debut album. In turn, the three new tracks that were created at that time marked the beginning of work on the next record.

IFS meets MA - 波動 (HADOW)

For quite some time now, there has been a noticeable revival of trip hop among the media, record labels, DJs, and producers. This genre, which shaped my musical sensibility in the 1990s, is still close to my heart. That is why the growing wave of nostalgia for those times and its revival in a new, contemporary form served as a pretext for me to filter my favorite trip hop productions through a sound close to the outlines label. In this way, the music of legendary trip hop icons such as Nightmares on Wax, Laika, and Silent Poets has been mixed with tracks by DJ Fulltono, Sun People, Janka, and DJ Rashad. The result is a futuristic throwback to the past.

1. Nightmares on Wax - Nights Introlude
2. Nikes - Pete Drake Flip ft. Kruxx
3. Laika - Almost Sleeping
4. DJ Rashad - Trap Bakk
5. Laika - Good Looking Blues
6. Plastikman - Hypokondriak - Sun People Edit
7. Silent Poets - Through The Fog
8. Silent Poets + Roba - Save The Day [dub version]
9. Kode9 x DJ Fulltono - TKO
10. Nicolette - Song For Europe
11. Janka - Yamanote Dub
12. Waldeck - Children of the Ghetto (Blackwing Remix)
13. Sleepsang - Calico
14. DJ Strawberry - tekktekk (D.J.Fulltono Remix)
15. Laika - Oh
16. Silent Poets + Kirsty Hawkshaw - Where The Sidewalk Ends
17. DJ Fulltono - Melt In To The Floor
18. Silent Poets + Virginia Astley - Don’t Break The Silence
19. Fetus - Figurine
20. DJ Shadow - What Does Your Soul Look Like (Remix)

triphop160

Artist: IFS meets AGF
Title: East-West Logistics
Label: guides
Release date: 10.10.2025
Format: digital / cassette (edition of 60)
Mix & mastering: IFS
Artwork: Marta Sieczkowska

IFS meets... is a series of three releases in which the IFS duo (Krzysztof Ostrowski @kook-on, Mateusz Wysocki @fischerle) produce, curate and host guest vocalists. The first publication in the series was an album recorded with Japanese artist MA. The next is a record created with activist, sound artist and vocalist @agf-antye-greie known as AGF. The last album planned in the series will be a release featuring Wojciech Kosma - @spalarnia.

The impulse to record the album with AGF was a project as part of the Bydgoszcz Experiment Studio, during which the three of them - Ostrowski, Wysocki and Greie-Ripatti - met for three working days in Bydgoszcz, with their final event being their performance together at the cult club MÓZG. The material recorded during the rehearsals and concert was what the artists used to create the album. East-West Logistics is a release that focuses many different strategies and experiences. Such as the fact that Greie-Ripatti, Ostrowski and Wysocki are all artists who come from Eastern Bloc countries, whose memory goes back to the regime changes of the 1990s. Another common fact is that all three live far from urban metropolises, in small towns. This is worth keeping in mind when you start listening to East-West Logistics. 

On a musical level, the artists used every possible excuse to transform their time spent together into verbal and sound material. Recorded junk sounds were incorporated into the album's audiosphere, fragments of conversations between AGF, Ostrowski and Wysocki became part of the lyrics, and the artists' city walks proved to be an important framework for AGF's poetic stories. Antye Greie-Ripatti, returning to outlines after her 2017 instrumental EP, this time focuses primarily on her voice, which becomes the focal point of the compositions created by IFS. 

East-West Logistics can be read as a horizontal movement of meanings: between subject and object, between world and individual, between present and past, between voice and sound, between east and west. On the one hand, AGF leans into psychogeographical intuition – she creates spaces for herself, inhabits them and sets new borders for private experience (the title tracks East-West Logistics and Semi-periphery). On the other hand, there is a touching and personal reflection (Limits and Force to feel). There is also room here for a more abstract and experimental formula (Neuro.logical and C– operator). In terms of sound, IFS try not to interfere with the field of view created by AGF. Although the musical texture is sometimes dense, it provides a well-balanced complement to Greie-Ripatti's voice.

While the first album in the IFS meets... series was a combination of an atomised language and post-footwork rhythms, East-West Logistics operates more sparingly. In contrast to MA's frenetic and jittery expression, AGF's voice oscillates between spoken word and singing, on the one hand being calm and attentive, and on the other precisely describing the observed world. IFS, by contrast, has managed to produce a soundscape that simultaneously complements the Greie-Ripatti narrative, but can also function as an independent sound story.

IFS meets AGF - East-West Logistics

In September, with the album 波動 (HADOW), the guides label launched a series of three releases in which the producers duo @ifs_raps (Krzysztof Ostrowski and Mateusz Wysocki) sum up the results of two years of curatorial and production collaborations with the vocalists invited to participate in the project. The first release in the IFS meets... series was an album recorded together with Japanese artist @ultrama00. The next was East-West Logistics, created with activist, sound artist, and vocalist @agf-antye-greie, aka AGF. The latest album in the series, currently being released, is Łąka, featuring Wojciech Kosma, known as @spalarnia.

Wojciech Kosma is a singer, poet, and performer. He is one of the most important Polish voices addressing the issues of difference and diversity. In his lyrics, he touches upon the problems of exclusion, intolerance, and violence. In the Spalarnia project, Kosma often uses the work of icons of 20th-century Polish popular music, juxtaposing its traditional meanings with an unobvious sensitivity (Ciało świeci niezgodą na przemoc, 2021, Dym Recordings; Wolne Tańce, 2024, Alicja).

Łąka consists of seven tracks recorded in 2023 at the Madzonga studio in Bydgoszcz. The very first notes of the opening track, Bujność, evoke associations with Tricky's Pre-Millenium Tension or Nearly God. The subsequent recordings maintain a raw, dense atmosphere in which slowed-down ambient loops become fragments of an unstable rhythm, and angelic post-burial vocals intertwine with Kosma’s voice, filled with emotion.

All the songs on Łąka are a poetic showcase for the vocalist. We find ourselves in a world of tenderness, intimacy, eroticism, rejection, hurt, and suffering. Kosma's language is simple and universal, yet at the same time, one can sense a deep reflection in it. He does not try to name hermetic or difficult-to-describe truths, but rather attempts to describe the world using words that are accessible to everyone. Kosma's voice and lyrics form an inseparable whole, which sometimes takes the form of an impassioned prayer or epiphany. Despite the difficult topics addressed in his songs (Jebać biedę, Gratis), Kosma does not leave the listener with a sense of hopelessness. His lyrics are rather an invitation to empathy and collective empowerment.

The album recorded with Spalarnia, which concludes the IFS meets... series, appears as an intense and vibrant finale. It is possible that Łąka is Kosma's most emotionally profound attempt among all his albums to date, revealing the delicate and rapid tissue of the singer's sensitivity – spoken, sung, and played.

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