Series 33 Pt. 1

Solid Rock

TRIPS Album

11 Benedikt Frey - My Cat & Me (Lullaby for L)

He sat upon a little hill beside the bridge and looked out upon the river which passed down beneath. It was hard to see the ripples of the water but for the occasional flicker of the headlights which whizzed by up there on the overpass. Some people came out here from time to time to spot the northern lights but there wasn't much moving in the wayward sky this evening. 

There was a near silence in the air, the occasional scream of something wild in the woods in the distance would echo across the snow capped fields. 

He took a deep breath and watched as it filled the air with fog.

Don't Be Afraid has always represented the very best of the underground, a prominent label with a commitment to the out there. Label boss makes a triumphant return with a new EP.

PREMIERE: Semtek - Northern Lights [Don't Be Afraid]

After a 12-year gap since the release of two albums and two Eps, Linda Mirada presents her new album ‘Qué largo es el verano’. Featuring a collaboration with North Satellite, production and mixing by Metro Area’s Darshan Jesrani, contributions from Bart Davenport and Daniel Collás of the Phenomenal Handclap Band.
Linda Mirada’s new album got off to an unforeseen start a few years ago when she proclaimed - “I’m going to record a record in Italian”.  To this day that idea has still not been carried out, but her first record in twelve years has since materialized. It doesn’t feature a single song in Italian, but it breathes the spirit of the early 80s pop in southern Europe with flashes of Italo disco.
The idea of recording an LP was born from a conversation with Daniel Collás that opened an unexpected door. What began as an exchange about musical affinities activated the need to reignite old ideas that had been put aside. The vertigo of composing and recording music gave way to the pleasure of working on songs. Time in the studio, collaborations and stories that grew as they came into contact with melodies were all guided by intuition, fertile disorder and the complicity of those who crossed paths in the process, plus a few coincidences. The result is a sensational collection of songs that moves between intimate hedonism and gentle melancholy. There are echoes of the most sophisticated sounds of the 80s, the candor of early electropop, influences of Mediterranean pop and splashes of disco. All with a fresh look, without indulging in nostalgia or clichés.
‘Qué largo es el verano’ is an album made with joy and care. It channels Mirada’s influences into songs that shine with their own light. These seven tracks – plus a PHB Dub - crystallize a very personal way of understanding music as an everyday space, where the production is not the main focus, but with an intention in each note and in each chosen sound. This album brings Linda Mirada back to the forefront of a little-trodden but necessary territory; that of Balearic pop made with sensitivity and elegance. And the single in Italian is sure to come one of these days.

🛒: https://lindamirada.bandcamp.com/album/qu-largo-es-el-verano
youtube: https://youtu.be/xv8pAoT5Lcc

https://soundcloud.com/lindamirada

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PREMIERE | Linda Mirada - Obstaculo

Hot seducers. Two of them. On one 7inch. The A-Side is called “Happen”. It comes from prolific Tokyo based DJ and producer Hoshina Anniversary. A simple drum machine groove, a manic melody, witching siren sounds, psychedelic voices, some soft chords, and soulful high-pitched singing, somewhere between Dam-Funk coolness and Ian Svenonius- The-Make-Up sixties pop longing. One for warm sexy nights under neon lights. Out there in psychic realms. The flip brings a Dolphins interpretation. Yes, that feverish trio behind R.i.O., consisting of Nadia D'Alò, Benedikt Frey and Menqui. Their freshly recorded version comes with haunting nonchalant singing, displaying the tunes core melody as a more prominent actor of the play. Michael-Mann-Pop- Nostalgia with a baroque touch, that waves dark-ish. Even some Jon Hassle feeling is in there. Hoshina Anniversary disclosed, that the original song is inspired by jazz musicians like Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Jaco Pastorius and Keith Jarrett. None of them is directly stylistically audible. But their kind of blue is all over. On the A as well as on the B. Twice soul music for the free.

https://riolabel.bandcamp.com/album/hoshina-anniversary-happen-rio20

Hoshina Anniversary - Happen (Club Mix)

Fall

LOST (Mastered)

After bending boundaries on the acclaimed labels Optimo Music and Höga Nord, Rudolf Abramov resurfaces with a fierce new statement - inaugurating Aquasonic Records, the freshly minted label founded by one half of the duo.
They unveil a sweeping collection of rare recordings, drawn from the shadows of their enigmatic Berlin studio.
This debut full-length album unfolds like a sonic tapestry, threading krautrock, new wave, dub, psychedelia, experimental electronics, ambient, and jazz into a singular, genre-bending experience.
True to form, the duo assembles a diverse ensemble of guest collaborators, fusing layered musical worlds into a cohesive, concept-driven whole.
At its core, the album captures a dynamic interplay: acoustic instruments recorded with raw intimacy and spatial breath meet the hypnotic churn of modular synths, samplers, and analog machines. A vivid document of process, presence, and unfiltered sound, resisting definition, yet wholly their own.

Rudolf Abramov - Monday Jazz (Aquasonic Records)

A mantra-like modular bass riff carves its path in endless sub-aquatic dubby rhythm, steady and hypnotic. Above it, a laid-back slide guitar drifts with ease, gliding from Hawaiian tides, past Goa’s shores, and out across the wide American desert.
From the depths, a saxophone swims through an ocean of reverb, shimmering as a hidden current.
Time and space stretch until Chris casts his line, lifting us gently above the surface - soaring with migrating birds on smoky, tender swing.

This is the final track before the full album drops on Oct 17. RELEASE PARTY Oct 18 at Orangerie, Berlin

Mark The Date

🛒: https://rudolfabramov.bandcamp.com/track/monday-jazz
youtube: https://youtu.be/f_O5ovMjV7E

https://soundcloud.com/rudolf_abramov
https://soundcloud.com/aquasonic-records

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PREMIERE | Rudolf Abramov - Monday Jazz

Back on Hivern Discs, Iro Aka present a digital-only EP that takes their sound deeper into the club. Inspired by the golden age of deep progressive with fast rhythms and repeating patterns, the duo’s subtle and unexpected details make Out-T unmistakably theirs.

artwork by marutonkun
mastered by Marco Pellegrino

Speed V

A collision of rave outsiders: Morris’s unlikely pop mystique meets Gramrcy and Loveless on the FWD dancefloor… lnk.to/GJLPH149

In Berlin where the bassweight bubbles bright, Lived Gramrcy and John Loveless, deviant and polite, They stirred a pressure-cooker full of electroclash stew, With ISDN-line scramble and a hint of something new.

“Oh!” cried Tony Morris (former teacher, taxi man), “I’ll hypnotize with repetitions, catch me if you can! I’m Scotland’s most unlikely pop sensation, don’t you see? A cult figure cabaret, as deviant as can be!”

They mixed it up on Phantasy Sound with textural delight, The earworming anchor bobbed and bounced all through the night, From FWD-era gumption to the disco esoteric, They created ‘Lucid’ madness, quite atmospheric!

The festival-rupturing Highdive had ruptured long before, Now ‘Feel So’ tipped the scales toward the ecstatic dance floor, With post-punk percussion prancing, hi-NRG in tow, From Chicago down to Rimini, watch the bassline grow!

Said Peggy Gou and Daniel Avery, “What a splendid sound!” While 2ManyDJs spun it ’round and ’round and ’round, And Moschino’s models strutted to the supreme release, As rave outsiders intersected in their bubbling masterpiece!

So if you seek the throbbing beat of something deeply odd, Find Gramrcy and John Loveless – that peculiar duo’s squad With Tony Morris chanting in his late-sixties prime, Making lucid nonsense music, one earworm at a time!

Three years after their all conquering ‘Highdive’, Gramrcy and John Loveless return to Phantasy with ‘Lucid’, a pressure-cooker of FWD-era bassweight and electroclash scramble anchored by the hypnotic vocals of Tony Morris.

Listen below, pre order here: https://lnk.to/GJLPH149

PREMIERE: Gramrcy & John Loveless  - Lucid feat. Tony Morris [Phantasy Sound]

24 instrumental compositions explore themes of transformation, alienation, and existential anxiety through the lens of lo-fi aesthetics and dark trap. The warmth of Roland's analog synthesizers contrasts with the cold absurdity of modern existence — like Kafka's characters trapped in endless bureaucratic corridors, sounds get stuck between the walls of a tiny room.
The album is a diary of sleepless nights where the boundaries of reality blur, a human transforms into sound, and sound becomes a document of internal trial. Recorded on obsolete equipment in an impossible space, it becomes a testament to how creativity is born not despite limitations, but because of them.
Each track is a small confession, written while waiting for something inevitable that must happen before dawn. © 2025 Legenki.

Synthetic Guilt

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