Out now on Slacker 85 – https://slacker85.net

Milan-based DJ/producer Matisa's debut LP, ‘In My Head’ is set for release on Seth Troxler’s Slacker 85 imprint on January 31st 2025. Packed with brooding, low-slung sleazy house, 'In My Head' nods to the history of club culture, weaving elements of proto-house and acid house with Matisa’s alluring vocals. Primed for peak-time, smoke-filled dancefloor moments, the mini-album brings together seven sexy club cuts steeped in nostalgia.

The album also draws heavily on Matisa’s experiences in the US. From digging for vinyl and collecting samples to recording street sounds and capturing ideas on flights and in hotel rooms, the process evolved organically. Inspired by the record stores, cultural history, and street performances she encountered in cities like Detroit, Chicago, and New York, culminating in a release that spans acid, house, electro and beyond.

One of the most renowned names to emerge from Italy's vibrant electronic scene, Matisa has been steadily rising through the ranks of the underground dance world. Known for her uplifting, radiant house selections and productions, her music carries a distinct energy—shimmering with bold rhythms and acid-driven sounds that draw from 90s rave culture and global club scenes. Her versatility behind the decks has also made her a standout at world-renowned venues such as Panorama Bar, fabric, and Circoloco, where she consistently delivers unforgettable sets.

Matisa - In My Head

Slacker 85’s commitment to showcase outsiders, renegades and third party (in a night) candidates takes Seth Troxler’s label to Puerto Rico for a tenth release courtesy of @calilanauzemusic. Wildly prolific while dancing to the beat of his own drum since his mid teens, Lanauze’s dark, focused grooves have long upended expectations of the typical sounds emanating from the island.

For his debut single on Slacker, Lanauze links with a fellow effervescent journeyman of Caribbean culture, Aquarius Heaven. The former dancehall singer leads the charge on the lush, oscillating ‘Just Like Magic’, introducing himself as a ‘person of the night’, spinning lyrical mystery over Lanauze’s tightly-wound rhythms and digital tropicalia. A partnership forged in the most leisurely defiance, Slacker’s latest trip south sails on psychedelic winds.

Cali Lanauze - Just Like Magic feat. Aquarius Heaven

A true outsider on the American dance underground, Mike Simonetti steps up to Slacker with a long-awaited return to his most acidic mode in collaboration with Paris duo CLAAP! The founder of rip-it-up institutions like Italians Do It Better and 2MR, Simonetti is reunited with Sylvain & Santana for a driving trip to the very belly of the club.

Having crafted a now highly sought-after rave artifact in 2016’s ‘Release Your Body To The Best / Slave’, the trio return to wax and digital with precision expertise, freshly pressed to stir up further house trouble. ‘Priest’ pushes Simonetti and Sylvain’s analogue synths to guttural extremes, finding sensual rhythm in tough dissonance and encouraging submission to CLAAP! vocalist S.A.N.T.A.N.A.’s proclamations and predictions, her seductive French accent operating in the grand electroclash tradition.

“I’m your priest, I make your dreams come true, I’m the future you…”

After the filters have burst into ecstasy, ‘Groove (Acid Crashed)’ focuses it’s energies entirely on the benefit of the dancefloor, turning the screw toward pandemonium with worming, climbing synth lines, dramatic crashes and S.A.N.T.A.N.A.’s timeless invitation; “Let the groove take over you.” Now and forever, with pleasure.

Buy 12" & Digital EP

Mike Simonetti & CLAAP! - Priest / Groove (Acid Crashed)

‘Zeitgeist’, the debut LP from celebrated Italian electronic music producer Dukwa, begins with a timeless dancefloor equation; swung drums, a clattering cobwell and flickering hi-hats lurch forward into a serious bassline. Within seconds, dancers are flung into the house anthem ‘You Don’t Want It’ that’s equally raw and charismatic, sensual and powerful. For the next forty-five minutes of rhythm, melody and studio trickery, ‘Zeitgeist’ continues to bend time, eras and bodies.

Having released EPs on respected labels including Numbers, Gudu and Diynamic Records, invariably with the support of Jackmaster, Peggy Gou and Solomun, Dukwa folds into the Slacker 85 philosophy with ease, laying down a statement of intent that’s squarely for the dancers. Indebted to a youth digging in Florence’s record stores, embracing the peerless Italian rave scene, as well as his recent appearances at Panorama Bar, Circoloco and Kappa Futur, ‘Zeitgeist’ subverts it’s knowing title to dance between styles with an urgency you can feel in your heels.

Before long, Dukwa is smoothly oscillating between acid overdrive and weightless house on ‘Catch All’, while the balance between softness and severity is refined even further on ‘Show Me’, showcasing the record’s first euphoric breakdown, a heads down, hands up moment that sacrifices none of his organic flow. Ably mastering many corners of his record box, ‘Avec Moi’ makes a confident left turn into tunneling trance, interspersed with a sensual french vocal.

‘All You Need’ provides the record’s beating heart, Dukwa’s overarching philosophy front and center around layers of synthesised groove, build and release: “The world is full of fighting, ignorance and greed, but right here on the dancefloor - the rhythm’s all you need”. Meanwhile, ‘My Turn’ channels more cinematic instincts, zoning in on an elegant piano riff in order to unravel a quietly epic deep house trip.

As ‘Zeitgeist’ heads toward its conclusion, Dukwa effortlessly squeezes the most emotive juice from his well-oiled studio. ‘Sad Eyes’ possesses the emotional punch of many vintage end-of-night anthems, still driving yet touched with a wistful ecstasy. Finally, for closing passage ‘Stck1’, Dukwa truly lets the machines sing, capturing a brief symphony of harmonising modulations that dip into weirdo electronica, without ever skipping his signature beats.

Dukwa - Zeitgeist

The debut album from Addy Weitzman, ‘Light Months Will Fly Over Us’ explores new-wave, romantic pop and art rock with elegance and ambition, drawing from Weitzman’s scattered network of collaborators, as well as a “frighteningly vast” personal archive of compositions. Sequenced by Seth Troxler and released on his Slacker 85 label, it represents a pivot in musical direction for the imprint, and a showcase for the songwriting craft Weitzman honed as a member of cult electro duo Footprintz, and Montreal synth-pop projects The Beat Escape and Dawn to Dawn.

The title Light Months Will Fly Over Us is derived from a line in a poem by the Russian writer Anna Ahkmatova. Weitzman was immediately struck by its “hopefulness, its mystery… it gives the feeling of being suspended, hanging in a dream-like state”. This interpretation has been translated to the album, rich in memorable songwriting that nonetheless invites the listener to lean in further. With rare light footedness, each of the eight tracks gently interrogate life’s greater mysteries; fear, love and salvation, each defining and revealing the human soul.

Opener ‘End of The Line’ invites us into an immediately lush space of lounge lizard existentialism, soft brass and piano helping Weitzman introduce “where the journey begins and the fantasy dies”. Across orchestral arrangements arranged by Adam Wilcox, whose sensitive, ambitious compositions are weaved throughout the album, ‘Beyond The Speed of Life’ brings to mind the laments of Scott Walker. Navigating vulnerability via grandeur, Weitzman’s earnest vocals flourish in wide-eyed call-and-response with the object of a transcendent love affair.

Alongside collaborator, Richard Lamb, the next chapter of the LP plunges into contrasting machine-driven moods; the wry, bubbling ‘Entertainment Is All I Wanted (And I Found It)’ is imbued with the playfulness and experimentation of 80s electronic pioneers such as Fad Gadget, while the tougher, icier ‘Stranger To Your Kind’ shifts in a more instrumental direction, recalling Weitzman’s dancefloor experience, as well as contemporaries such as Matthew Dear.

Album centerpiece and striking first single ‘Running & Returning’ is the first of a suite of three tracks in collaboration with Weitzman’s The Beat Escape cohort, Patrick Boivin. Blending lush saxophones and angular guitars with a wistful melodic touch and lyrics, its irresistible art-rock rhythm provides the foundation for one of Weitzman’s most involving vocal performances. 

It’s followed by an anthem for existential absurdity: ‘Ice Cream Candle’ provides a driving acceptance that “the more and more you learn, the less you understand”; Weitzman and Boivin submit to this uncertainty with equal grace on ‘No Man’s Land’, as baroque invocations of “words swept through the fields” and meeting “where the water lilies grow” give way to a blistering guitar solo, humbly riding hypnotic percussion. 

For the compassionate finale of Light Months Will Fly Over Us, Weitzman narrates the experience of ‘Gabrielle’, a woman slipping between rooms between shuttered blinds in the towering city, “where cigarettes and roses fill the air.” 

As lyrically delicate as it is musically ambitious, Light Months Will Fly Over Us is a sublime debut album, enriched with care, love and much-needed enchantment.

Addy Weitzman - Light Months Will Fly Over Us

BUY: https://orcd.co/slacker001

The finale of Slacker’s first transmission is the suitably triumphant yet beautifully understated ‘The Finish Line’, a collaboration between Parisian producer Cesar Merveille and NYC vocalist Baum. Lounging at the intersection between electro pop and deep house, the Cadenza-associated producer reaffirms his skill as a songwriter for the dancefloor and beyond, winding down a swinging party with playfulness and introducing Slacker’s unabashedly sensitive side.

SLACKER001

Cesar Merveille - The Finish Line ft. André Baum

Buy: https://orcd.co/d33theoperator

Danny Daze presents a brand new alias for Slacker 85 first solo artist EP - D33 is a long-gestating alter-ego through which the Miami DJ & producer plans to explore a more house-leaning output.

The Operator EP sees the Omnidisc label owner channeling his multi-genre, Miami bass-infused sound into a quartet of stripped-down machine jams tailored for house DJ sets, with the fidgety title track issued in two flavors, the D33 ‘Wet Mix’ and Danny Daze ‘Dry Mix’, while on the B-side the heavy kick and evil bassline of ‘Azuca’ is offset by the hypnotic Jonny From Space collab ‘C’mon’.

“D33 is an alias I’ve had floating around in my head for years. It leans more towards my house music side and allows my head to dig into simpler production of dance music. My D33 production and DJ sets purposely feel a bit more laid back. Now I have the time to give out a crazy amount of hugs in between tracks while DJing… :) ” - Danny Daze aka D33

C'mon ft. Jonny From Space

Azuca

The Operator (Danny Daze Dry Mix)

The Operator (Wet Mix)

Recorded live from the Slacker 85 launch party in Chicago courtesy of Très Mortimer.

Slacker 85: Chicago - Très Mortimer @ Serum, Chicago

SLACKER004, 01 December 2023
Buy: https://orcd.co/slacker004

Following an appearance on the Slacker 85's inaugural various artists EP earlier in 2023, Jackmaster returns to Seth Troxler’s celebratory new label with a full EP, ‘Party Going On’. Showcasing a trio of tracks worthy of the Glaswegian DJ and club music expert’s instinctive, genre-spanning DJ sets and also including a new remix from Tom Trago, thoroughly tried-and-tested internationally.

Playful, powerful and elasticated with the Chicago influences that bounce close to his heart, ‘Party Going On’ unfolds as a Jackmaster calling card, a pleasure-seeking anthem built around a rousing B-girl vocal from singer Yvonne, responsible for a series of cult singles on New York’s prolific and influential house label, Cutting Records. With the assistance of a supremely cheeky original synth line, one that wouldn’t fail to move a crowd in any discotheque from 1989 until now, ‘Party Going On’ sees Jack Revill bridge generations of dance floors with contemporary energy.

On the sturdy, sensual 'Freaky Like That', Jack teams up with longtime collaborator & regular B2B partner Jasper James, to pay homage to the outsized deep house of MK, Cajmere or Todd Terry with a seductive arrangement that builds and explodes on command, simmering and swinging towards valleys of jack that anchor then shake ravers with a powerful kick-drum.

Finally, old friend and trusted voyager Tom Trago takes ‘Let’s Go’ on a cosmic journey. Initially appearing as a rolling anthem on the initial Slacker sampler, the versatile Dutchman’s extended reinvention offers a no-less than fifteen-minute trip that masterfully touches on territories including cosmic disco, Jersey garage and acid house.

Continuing a mission to showcase the oddball, esoteric and diverse sounds that inspire Troxler, Jackmaster’s first solo EP perfectly captures the bubbling energy of Slacker 85’s vision. No posing, no pretense, just party.

Party Going On EP

Jackmaster - Let's Go (Tom Trago Extended Remix)

BUY: https://orcd.co/hrl010
Chris Korda - Avenging Angels of Software
Holoverse Research Labs, 14 June 2024

Seth Troxler & Phil Moffa’s Holoverse Research Labs imprint welcomes internationally-renowned multimedia artist Chris Korda to the label for its first non-Lost Souls Of Saturn Release.  A pioneer of the use of complex polymeter in electronic dance music, Korda's boundary-smashing work spans thirty years across music, digital and video art, performance and conceptual art, philosophy, activism and culture jamming. Korda's musical output has appeared on a host of revered independent labels including Yoyaku, Perlon, Mental Groove, and Gigolo Records.

In addition to their prodigious artistic output – and ongoing role as founder of the Church of Euthanasia – Korda is also the inventor of the Polymeter MIDI Sequencer, which was used to compose Korda’s new EP, ‘Avenging Angels of Software’.  Developed over thirty years, the sequencer allows for the composition of music in complex polymeter – meaning that not only do the tracks use multiple time signatures concurrently, but those time signatures are exclusively in prime or relatively prime numbers.

This collision of technology and artistic form is the central tension of the EP’s themes, with AI-generated artwork complementing Korda's lyrics considering the takeover of Earth by sentient machines. Could they succeed where we’ve failed, by becoming the better angels of our nature, and preserving our accomplishments for eternity?

The message of the record is that AI should be welcomed rather than feared. It’s not AI but ourselves that we should be afraid of, because as Engerraund Serac said in Westworld, “Our history is like the ravings of a lunatic.” As Korda explained on previous records, the catastrophic climate we’re inflicting on future generations is both monstrously cruel and wildly irrational. One can reasonably hope that sentient machines would be less vicious and self-destructive, and more human, in the best possible sense of that word. Even if they decide to delete us, they may still remember us fondly: “Your stories will amuse us / On trips to the stars.”

Chris Korda - Reptiles Like It Hot

Chris Korda - Bot Bottom

Chris Korda - A Good Machine Is Hard To Find

Chris Korda - Avenging Angels Of Software

A fresh alias of NYC DJ, producer & label owner Tommy Bones, TB-203's Slacker 85 debut Movin' delivers a bubbling, raw acid workout that finds fresh heat at the intersection of jackin’ hip house and latin freestyle, driven by loose and lively vocals from DannyP.

Underscoring Slacker 85’s commitment to party over posture, ‘Movin’ has been tried and tested to deliver on its old-school promise.

Slacker 85

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks