Taken from SBKT070: estoc - Are We Doomed to Bow to the Stupid and Cruel?
Release date: 26th June 2025
Artwork & Design: Amber Jean
Mixing & Digital Master: Nori Kin
Vinyl Master: Raphael Valensi

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estoc presents the newest manifestation of her artistic practice: an attempt to make sense of a world seemingly hellbent on violence as its chief export. Art written as a direct response to the conditions felt both at home and watched across oceans through a phone. This album exists as an acknowledgement that our fates are inextricably intertwined, yet, our (temporary) comfort is extracted from the third world. Across 10 tracks the question is: Are We Doomed to Bow to the Stupid and Cruel? Answers are posed and then brushed away, like dust from a shelf. By the end, nothing is settled and we are left with more questions than answers.

Collaborators and co-conspirators weave in and out of the compositions, their presence felt as both adornment, and as integral infrastructure. DJ Haram opens the album with ‘Heretic’. Her voice swims through crackling noise, throbbing basslines — a guided meditation as much as a late night conversation. ‘The Weight’ follows directly after. AZADI.mp3’s smoky chants hover in the air above a smouldering fire of trip hop drums and synths, devolving to a miasma of distortion and swirling screams. The next song, ‘Where Do We Go Now’, builds and swells with rumbling synths, arriving fully as breaks crash forward and Military Scientist’s voice cries out over a chaotic sea. The first solo composition of the album comes in the form of ‘The Poison of the Centre’. A solemn yet off-balance meditation of drums, cut over an uneven and shifting beat. This rhythmic fervor is multiplied tenfold on ‘No Glory’, a harsh bath of bass and drums, constantly fighting for space to breathe through the manufactured scarcity of the mix.

‘Scorched Earth’ lends us our first breath of fresh air. Mia Carucci sings a lullaby over growling instrumentation, Exploited Body’s co-production threatening to boil over at any moment. A momentary break in the clouds, a beam of sunlight shines through before being quickly swallowed back up by the storm; gone as quickly as it came. It is here that we plunge even deeper, as the heartbeat of ‘Heaven Defined for Another’ rattles through. Machinery and exasperated breathing become inexorable, both driven to their breaking point by a rolling wave of thunder. This mechanical terror roils forth on ‘Cradling’. Miedo Total sets clattering steam and cogs over crying strings that threaten to throw themselves to pieces. The penultimate entry sees Violence lend voice and production to ‘Bones Broken, Many Things Left Unsaid’ — a deep terror lurches, shuddering and crashing like ocean waves. A gentle chorus of strings ushers in the final piece, ‘Scratch a Liberal’ — a rare, but fleeting moment of tenderness on the album. Heavy towers of bass throw the composition into shadow, tension builds and grows before collapsing in on itself, revealing the fear and violence at the core of this project. At the end of it all, we are left alone to contemplate what is to be done.

estoc -  Heretic (ft. DJ Haram)

estoc - The Weight (ft. AZADI.mp3)

estoc - Where Do We Go Now (ft. Military Scientist)

estoc - No Glory

estoc - Heaven Defined For Another

estoc - Cradling (ft. Miedo Total)

estoc - Bones Broken, Many Things Left Unsaid (ft. VIOLENCE)

estoc - Scratch a Liberal

estoc - The Poison of the Centre

Taken from SBKT073: ABADIR - Kitbashing
Release date: 15th October 2025

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Conceived as part of an A/V show with visual artist Nicolò Cervello, ‘Kitbashing’ marks ABADIR’s third album for SVBKVLT.

A growing number of people spend an extensive amount of time watching, scrolling, liking, commenting on and sharing content, whilst at the same time feeding a constant stream of personal data to social media platforms. Social media can be fun and informative, or draining and dark. Either way, their algorithms are purposefully designed to lock users in a continuous state of scrolling. The more time spent online, the more desires, interests and emotions are fed into the algorithm for consumerist ends and reality is reduced to a timeline of curated aesthetics.

Using audio snippets from reels, suggested posts, and sponsored ads, sound objects are cut, micro-edited and meshed together into a collage. Tension is built gradually before falling into a release. Rhythms keep expanding and contracting, simulating the pace of random scrolling on mobile devices. ‘Kitbashing’ is an attempt to break the algorithm: subverting the dynamics by feeding on the algorithm instead of only feeding it.

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Concept by Nicolò Cervello and Rami Abadir
Artwork by Nicolò Cervello
Mastered by Raphael Valensi

Kitbashing

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ABADIR - Kicks and Clickbaits

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