@schmeltzerr 
IG: https://www.instagram.com/szmele/

Ear Feeder vol. 68 by Schmeltzer

On June 27, 2025, a long-dormant signal reactivates from Hamburg's hidden places: Helena Hauff and F#X return as Black Sites with R4 on Tresor Records—their first full-length album and the first release under the moniker since 2014. Like a hieroglyphic recently discovered and translated, R4 feels more like a long-awaited resumption than a comeback.

Recorded to tape with minimal editing or post-production the record is a classic example of the symbiotic relationship that can come from the interaction of human and machine. This punk ethos isn't invoked through distortion alone, but through method; in the album's breaking from the received wisdom of hardness tethered to speed as most of the tougher pieces are lower BPM and vice versa (with one notable exception in the mind-melting stomp of BLOKK).

Across ten tracks, Black Sites traverse a landscape where genre dissolves into intention. It migrates through electro's danceability, acid house's corrosion, and into the liminal realm of machine funk—a genre coined by Andrew Weatherall, which sounds like the results of technology dreaming of soul where the emphasis is on live execution, on immediacy over perfection—a sound forged in the act of creating, not polishing.

In a 2013 interview, around the time of the first Black Sites EP, Hauff was quoted as saying that she wants "things to fit together properly, but on another level, I really want them to make sense together." That principle animates R4: The album's form reveals itself in time, with each movement echoing and amplifying the others to create a synergistic whole.

From the opening crawl of C4 (a name that like the music foreshadows the explosions to come) to the end-of-the-night bliss of MOTHERJAM via the intense peaks of BLOKK, 707, and classic acid track 3D it's clear that R4 is a work made with serious intent; a refutation of a world where streaming has made the two-minute single the dominant musical form again. R4 demands immersion, not just attention. It is not a collection of tracks, but a singular, recursive experience: a mirror in which sound and listener repeatedly rediscover one another.

BANDCAMP

Black Sites - II

@syzuk launches his new Vitalizm label with a suite of UK-inflected club heaters

‘VTLZM001’ lands 25th May – have an exclusive first listen to ‘Fidget’

More info: https://djmag.com/listen/premiere-syz-fidget

Premiere: Syz ‘Fidget’’

Sub Basics & Henry Greenleaf - Ropes

Testbed Assembly

Maximal Liberation Exercise

Dro Carey - PLACID CENTURY

Farkas - L'eau

'Binder': lnkfi.re/TECLP027D
Tectonic Sound: lnkfi.re/TECLP027

2025 marks 20 years of Tectonic: The Tectonic Sound compilation lays down the gauntlet for the future direction of the imprint. Split across 6 x 4-track 12”s, double CD, ltd boxset, and download, the compilation comprises many producers making their Tectonic debut, including re:ni, Beatrice M., Yushh, Flora Yin-Wong, and SICARIA, alongside stalwarts like Om Unit, RSD, Peverelist and Kahn & Neek. It’s an exhilarating 24-track journey through experimental, bass-heavy electronic music, with almost all tracks created by the artists specifically with Tectonic's sound in mind - at the intersection where dubstep and techno meet.

Order the compilation, out 18 July: tectonicrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/tec…und-vol-1

Tectonic Sound:
1. Pinch “Tectonic Sound”
2. Peverelist “Feel Something”
3. re:ni “Sunrise On The Superloop”
4. V.I.V.E.K “Gone W3st”
5. Beatrice M. “Poison”
6. Om Unit “Strobes (The Warning)”
7. FJAAK & J.Manuel “Binder”
8. Cocktail Party Effect “Smiling Worm”
9. 2562 “Overcome”
10. Yushh “Ghost Of What”
11. Appleblim “Ghost Coast”
12. Flora Yin Wong “Virga”
13. Kahn & Neek “Motion Light”
14. SICARIA “Rhassoul”
15. Gemmy “Domino Effect”
16. Pinch & Neffa-T “This Is This Isn’t”
17. Shed “Scapes”
18. Sophia Loizou “Revenant”
19. J.Sparrow “Genesys”
20. Cortical “Ram”
21. Ipman “Xenohypnostic Mind Control”
22. Distance “Heresy”
23. RSD “Roll Off”
24. Coki “Angel Of Death”

FJAAK & J.Manuel - Binder

Berlin-based artist Marie Tjong Ayong delivers a captivating four-tracker with her "motherland" EP, which unfolds like a sonic ritual—earthy, dubby, and steeped in natural rhythm. Navigating fluidly between dub techno, grey area, downtempo, and breakbeat, the EP carves out its own genre-blurring identity. The sound is rooted in a warm, organic atmosphere, driven by percussive detail and an unmistakably natural flow.
You can sense Marie’s background as a trained jazz trumpeter in the subtle musical intelligence that underlies each movement. From the driving, rhythm-heavy opener "freshelle" to the introspective, bass-laden "tiger balm", the EP continuously shifts form and energy. "desert of boredom" maintains the dub-soaked aesthetic while injecting a more forceful groove, before "rodeo of the bugs" rounds things off with deep, muted dub techno and refined percussive finesse.

Preorder: qeone.bandcamp.com/album/motherland

Release date ~ August 5, 2025

--

About Marie Tjong Ayong

Marie Tjong Ayong is a Berlin-based producer, vinyl-DJ, and trumpeter.
Her sound weaves percussive lushness, warm harmonies, and genre-defying grooves into immersive, abstract sonic spaces. Airy, dreamy, and deeply groovy, her music invites listeners into a world shaped by texture and emotional depth, often reconnecting with her roots through layered sound design.
Born in 1994 to a jazz musician and a music teacher, Marie picked up the trumpet at the age of 12. From 2014 to 2019, she studied jazz trumpet at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln.
Her versatility and unique voice have since made her collaborator in a wide range of projects—from modern jazz ensembles like Leon Plecity’s Extraordinary Machine to Afrobeat and hip-hop collectives such as HYPNAGOGIA. She is also a member of the Rundfunk-Tanzorchester Ehrenfeld, the house band of ZDF Magazin Royale with Jan Böhmermann.
Marie Tjong Ayong’s work blurs boundaries—not only between genres, but between the tangible and the imagined.

www.instagram.com/marietjongayong/
www.soundcloud.com/user-577926608
www.marietjongayong.bandcamp.com/album/trio

Written and produced by Marie Tjong Ayong
Mastered by Klangstellwerk (Niklas Bühler)
Artwork by Lindsey Wang (@Polygonia)

Preorder

Marie Tjong Ayong - motherland [QNE015]

New content everyday.

Support Artist : @jamthieves

Forthcoming the 31st of July on : @jamthieves

Jam Thieves - Mighty Junglist VIP [Premiere]

UKF Premier - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG-NMwCieRA

Buy: hypeddit.com/unquadilium

For our first foray into the 140 BPM space, we have brought together some of the most exciting names in recent years for 8 pure stygian riddims. Featuring returning names to NYX as well as new friends, this compilation encapsulates the pure sound of the labels vision.

FJAAK & J.Manuel - Binder

Tectonic Recordings