A journey through Japan’s quietly radical independent underground of the late ‘90s and early 2000s. Drawn from small-run CDs, obscure compilations, and deeply interconnected label networks, reflecting a moment where ambient, glitch, IDM, and experimental club sounds flourished into new forms — shaped by a generation of artists working across clubs, galleries, and record shops.

Created by [Cameron Cullen](https://www.instagram.com/cam.eee_/) 
Find the full tracklist and related episodes on NTS: https://www.nts.live/shows/the-nts-guide-to/episodes/the-nts-guide-to-data-haiku-music-from-japan-s-cd-era-electronic-underground-8th-july-2025

NTS Guide to: Music from Japan’s CD-era Electronic Underground 080725

Interview: https://truantsblog.com/2025/truancy-volume-353-james-k/ 

Soundcloud: @jamesk_1

With her forthcoming album ‘Friend’ set for release on @ad93rec in September, james K weaves memory and emotional directness into a sprawling map of love, euphoria, and intentful listening.

Music by Conna Haraway, Idoplumes, Terra Utopia, Marco Shuttle, Akio & Okihide, Marina Herlop, Carmen Villain, Konduku, MARMO, Pugilist, Pod & more...

Access the download and full tracklist (TBC) on our Patreon (patreon.com/truants). However if you need anything leave us a nice comment here with @jamesk_1 tagged and either of us will get back to you with an ID! Your support helps cover all our costs allows Truants to continue running as a non-profit and ad-free platform.

james K

Truancy Volume 353: james K

For RA.1000, DJ Sprinkles' first mix in over a decade is a powerful meditation on the genocide in Gaza.

Dance music often relies on simple narratives: release, escape, unity. But those narratives can often feel inadequate, and even at times, hollow. Or, as Terre Thaemlitz might bluntly put it, just "shitty."

For her first mix in around 15 years, Terre Thaemlitz AKA DJ Sprinkles, challenges us to think differently. "I felt this 1000th podcast should reflect the moment in which it was made," she told us in her Q&A.

And what is this moment? Every day since Israel's 2023 assault on Gaza began, an average of 28 children have been killed. That's an entire classroom, every day, for over 600 days (at the time of writing). It's a staggering figure that only captures a fragment of the listless cruelty imposed on the strip.

Faced with such a genocide, what can music really do? How political can it truly be?  For their RA.1000, Thaemlitz gives us an unflinching rebuke to the idea that music should provide escapism. The mix weaves ambient fragments and jazz passages, woven around samples from Israeli media and the voices of outspoken Jewish critics like Gabor Maté and Norman Finkelstein. 

The result is not just a protest, but a document of our time. For Terre Thaemlitz, music is never just music. Her RA.1000 serves as a reminder that in an age of relentless suffering, the most political act is to reject the illusion of escape, and search for something greater.

Read the interview and find the tracklist at ra.co/podcast/1013. Listen to all RA.1000 mixes, as well as the complete history of the RA Podcast, at https://1000.ra.co

RA.1000 Terre Thaemlitz / DJ Sprinkles

Purelink - Side B [KZU003]

Car Culture, the not-dance-music alias of long-time NTS resident Physical Therapy, collages fuzzy folktronics, found sounds and unexpected edits into foot-gazing soundscapes.   
Find the full tracklist and related episodes on NTS: https://www.nts.live/shows/car-culture/episodes/car-culture-6th-november-2025

CAR CULTURE 061125

Manchester-based techno experimentalist Andy Stott runs things for an hour - part of a Modern Love Takeover.

"An hour riffing on Voodoo Ray, recorded 1st - 5th Dec 2025, shout to Gerald!" 
Find the full tracklist and related episodes on NTS: https://www.nts.live/shows/guests/episodes/andy-stott-13th-december-2025

Modern Love Takeover: Andy Stott 131225

Stumble into 2026 with the 3XL favourites' uncanny vision of ambient. 

 It's become a tradition that the first RA Mix of every year eases listeners into January with soft, gentle and unhurried tones. For RA.1020, though, crimeboys take a different approach.

Made up of Ben Bondy, Special Guest DJ and Pontiac Sterator, the US trio are all loosely associated with 3XL. Over the past decade, the Berlin-based label, run by Special Guest DJ, has helped define a strain of ambient that foregrounds strangeness, texture and eccentric detail.

This energy comes through immediately on RA.1020.  Listen to the first ten minutes and you might not quite feel soothed. Stick with it, though, and a different logic begins to emerge, as church bells, corroded electronics and industrial abrasion give way to long passages of dub pressure, shadowy rhythm and low-lit propulsion. 

Across two hours, the trio draw a map of influences both internal and external to the 3XL universe, from foundational reference points like Skinny Puppy, M.E.S.H. and DJ Krush to artists embedded within the label’s wider orbit, such as Perila, james K and Critical Amnesia. Together, these selections trace a throughline from '90s industrial and jungle into dub techno, experimental club and contemporary ambient's more unsettled edges. 

RA.1020 isn't comfort listening in the conventional sense, but it does offer its own form of recalibration and release. Stay put, and you'll be rewarded.

Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/1039
@triplexlarge
@benbondy
@pontiacstreator
@specialguest-dj

RA.1020 crimeboys

recorded on the first day of 2026

thank you for listening.

Ambient Mix 1_1_26 Track List

Paralell Manifesto - Intro (Original Mix)
Gallery S. - Air Casey - We'll Get You There
Fracture - Same Time Next Week
Zubin Kanga - Single Form (Swell)  (Nailah Hunter's Reflection Remix)
Robert Dietz - Any Plan(t)s This Weekend
Quiem - My Tiny Engine
Lido - :: TIME BANDITS :: 
Gallery S. - The Beautiful Ones
Anthony Linell - 3ITPOH
Fracture - First Aid Kit (Slow Ambient Mix)
Edmondson - Remind Me In An Hour
Gallery S. - Paralyzing Tranquility - Digital Manifestation 
Quiem - On My Mother's Birthday
Jichael Mackson - Intro (Original Mix)
Tom Vernon - Pour It (Ambient Mix)
Fred P - Quantum Leap
Tom Vernon - Unfolding (Ambient Mix)
SEPH - Ígnea SPX21
Igor Dyachenko - Melted Reality
Tom VR - Well Are You Hope?
Igor Dyachenko - Deviate
Lawrence - Birds On The Playground
Gallery S - The Relief of Silence
Igor Dyachenko/Corell -Spectral Tracing
Yamaneko - Adrift
Gallery S. - One Of Us - Searching
Cocktail Party Effect - Lack of Wrong Format
Quiem - Your Singular Courage
Anthony Linell - 6ITPOH
THERE IS NO SPOON
chewlie - Spring Feat. Julie Valmond (Yotah's Healing Remix)
MoMA Ready - Intro
Gallery S. - Empty Shell - The Weekend Has To End
Quiem - Sun At Paral-lel (Original Mix)
Space Afrika - After They Entered It Was Only Evident
Joaquin Cornejo/Mowes - Ñachag
Packed Rich/Marco Zenker - Arrival / Will We Stay The Same
AZARI - TELEPORTAL
MoMA Ready - Ocean Walker II ambient intro
Quiem - Shout


ambient mix 1_1_26

A round up of the new generation of artists, songwriters and producers taking the template of trip hop from its '90s origins into the future – from genre traditionalists a.s.o., to hypnagogic auteurs like James K to the experimental sonics of the[ _West Mineral Cinematic Universe..._](https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/a-new-wave-of-dark-ambient-artists-wants-to-make-you-uncomfortable/) 
Find the full tracklist and related episodes on NTS: https://www.nts.live/shows/the-nts-guide-to/episodes/the-nts-guide-to-trip-hop-revival-7th-january-2026

NTS Guide to: Trip Hop Revival 070126

design

For the third instalment of “Cowboys And The Sounds Of,” an Editorial mix series from longtime contributor @napmusick , we’re treated to the sounds of sad country music and trains passing by. The combination is unexpectedly heart-wrenching, as if the sound of trains bring us back to an era of long goodbyes and far distances. Three years in the making, Rincon’s two hour collection of cosmic country and folk is a testament to the enduring heartbreak and beauty of the genre. 

Daniel Rincon makes music under the moniker @napmusick ,  is one half of Ambein Baby and La Fe, and runs an experimental electronic label @sonidoisla out of Montreal.

Artwork by Rebecca Ladds

Cowboys And The Sound Of Trains - Daniel Rincon

now posting on https://soundcloud.com/user-202286394-991268468 
https://www.nts.live
https://www.instagram.com/nts_radio/

NTS Guide to: Music from Japan’s CD-era Electronic Underground 080725

NTS 2024-2025