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Indira Paganotto Launches ARTCORE’s First VA – ‘Face To Face Miami Week 2024’

DJ, producer and label head, Indira Paganotto will release ‘Face To Face Miami Week 2024’ on March 21st via her ARTCORE label. The ten-track album features an alchemic brew of hard dance styles concocted by a stellar cast of talent. In 2022, Indira launched her forward thinking imprint to further establish her brand of pulsing, high-intensity techno and to celebrate those artists who share her musical philosophy. After 7 releases, she looks to further make good on that promise with her label’s first VA.

BEC has reached the top of her game in a short time, after being head hunted by Pan-Pot, following plays at Burning Man, Tobacco Dock and The Warehouse Project. She is a ‘self confessed’ studio geek and wastes no time in setting the pace with opening track ‘Loca’. She constructs an Arabic-infused soundscape by juxtaposing enchanting vocal and flute melodies with rotating techno percussion. 

Luca Agnelli and Rian Wood collaborate for ‘Kiss Like This’ which for all its glossy vocal retains a visceral rawness amongst flashes of synth and unrestrained bass. Both hailing from Italy, Rian has drawn his influences from Hard Rave, Old School and Gabber. Luca is the founder of his Eturia Beat label since 2010 but has been featured on many more including NineTimesNine, Blackworks and Soma.

The appropriately titled ‘Lose Control’ by emerging new alias TEUTON does exactly that harnessed by the Digital Mindz original he applies his own take on the hardstyle number. A man behind a mask, mysterious in his identity, he started his music career over 30 years ago in the hardcore and goa trance scene.

Returning ARTCORE producer CHRS’ ‘Skeptical’ and brand-new artist PARKERSTRANGE with their track ‘123’ traverse a rave-psy-techno tightrope melding elements of each genre together in a cauldron of caustic electronica. Rich in style, and bold in its application of samples and atmospherics. The whole VA is intelligently executed, and this couldn’t achieved without artists like Italian multi-instrumentalist Giorgia Angiuli whose track ‘Ego Is The Enemy’ glides into life ascending through a melodic mist of fluttering dance motifs and monastic ambience. Giorgia is a live artist, and a classically trained musician who’s performed at Timewarp and Ultra.

Ecuadorian artist Lara Klart continues this vein of haunting but beguiling musicality on ‘Aleluya’ employing Miriea Clua on violin to instil a chordophone elegance atop a driving, deep techno pattern. 

Joining forces on ‘Power Of Silence’ Rhygar and Stëh collaborate for the first time, they provide a refreshing range of techno aesthetics. Including Zeshin’s ‘Sushy Party’, a new psy-trance alias by Mattia Trani, who’s sound is inspired by Japanese 00’s gaming. His track is fuelled by a giddy, anime like charm that stems from the sugar-coated vocals which dance across waves of juddering drums and cooling synths. 

The curtain closer, Joel Bird’s ‘Existentialism’ warps and surges with a celestial resonance amid a fusion of stomping claps a ceaseless percussion the track gently evanesces and fades into a calming ether. Joel is a young 20-year-old producer who’s work has been supported by KI/KI and Theo Nasa, this single marks his first release.

All tracks on the latest ARTCORE VA will be available on the 21st March.

03 TEUTON - Lose Control (Extended Mix) [ARTCORE Records]

Buy here: found.ee/exhale-va005

Release: 26th July 2024

It’s almost impossible to believe that a label with so much international notoriety is still within its first ten releases. Still, Belgian Techno protagonist Amelie Lens’ EXHALE imprint is set to make even more noise with its ninth release. Following a spate of well-received singles from Amelie and the latest offering from fellow Antwerp native BYØRN, EXHALE prepares itself for an impressive fifth VA, featuring 14 selected cuts from 16 artists in total. A slew of internationally recognised names and rising new-age talent, welcoming back some familiar faces alongside some debutants, including two collaboration tracks.

Led by Amelie Lens’ ‘Underneath The Strobelights’, featuring her trademark vocals she paves the way for EXHALE VA005. Fellow Antwerp local NOVAH debuts on the label, after her notable b2b sets with BYØRN of late, her track ‘Inner Odyssey’ is followed by VENTUR’s ‘Let It Kick’, a track that lives up to its name. Young Irishman Luciid also makes his first appearance with the epic cut ‘Era Of Us’. BYØRN is back with another massive offering in ‘Our Destiny’, followed by SWART, who also returns with ‘Extazy’ a hard hitting pacy vocal peak timer. Teletech resident Alex Farell makes his debut alongside Farrago, in their first collab together on ‘All Systems Go’, with its spoken vocals and pummelling bass, before French producer ARDL at just 21 debuts with ‘Hyperactive’, with his focus on raw sounding techno.

Another duo of back-to-back debuts sees the elusive FLKN drop ‘Rumble’, influenced by 303 sounds, he makes things dark and distorted. UK-based Aaron Hibell with the vampiric ‘1999’, its bouncy fast bass it makes it the grooviest techno track of the VA. Berliner Afem Syko’s known for his unpredictable, vibrant sets offer his track ‘Slingshot’, backed up by returning American powerhouse and Terra Novae label founder Chemtrailz who become loved for his trance-inducing techno hybrid sound, teams up alongside Hani with their track ‘Goddessblood’. Italy’s Rian Wood comes in hot with penultimate cut ‘Anima’, as he expresses his passion for music through hard techno, neo rave and old school influences. Closing off the colossal VA is French talent, La Kajofol who recently released on ARTCORE. She seals the release with the irresistibly signature ‘Black Rhapsody’. Her music brings a unique style of her own which she calls ‘Mystical Techno’, infusing hypnotism into psytrance and techno with her eerie vocals.

Championing the diversity of the modern-day techno paradigm, EXHALE’s latest VA dips its toe into a myriad of genres, with nods to psytrance, breakbeat, hardstyle, classical and even drum & bass across thirteen freakishly heavy dancefloor-primed stompers. It’s everything you’d want from a release that showcases artistry in its simplest form.

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