XL Recordings

12th Isle founding member Stewart Brown and London-based percussionist Pike present six tracks born out of preparations for live shows at Cafe Oto and The Three Wheel Drive festival, the culmination of collaborating on No Direction from the first Material Things album. Inspired by various traditions of experimentalism, the pair touch upon reference points such as Eliane Radigue and Nurse With Wounds Soliloquy for Lilith (on Coastal Town), as well as the wider canon of motorik, dub and drone practitioners over the past 60 years. Concerned with the interplay between early exports of free jazz and more modern electronics, Rain & Cymbals builds on the projects first outing with a more refined approach to production and a clearer modus operandi, combining ambient pads with additional synth work by Dan Macintyre, multifaceted percussion work and heads-down, emotive minimalism.

Refuge Worldwide

Reconnecting across continents, Iti and Axon Growth Factor trace their roots back to the hazy inner-city suburbs of Meanjin/Brisbane, where a shared love of hardware led to evening jam sessions after work. Now split between London and Naarm/Melbourne, their new EP rekindles that same spark, capturing the immediacy and warmth of their machine-driven approach. Produced and mixed by Itrat Memon (Iti) and Bevan Dias (Axon Growth Factor). Artwork photography by Phresh. Mastering by Chris McCormack of Blacklisted Mastering. Pocketmoth 2025.

The Cycle Bender series reaches its fifth edition on Optic Portal, marking the first appearance of crp, a clandestine Swiss production collective. Across six tracks, they navigate the full spectrum of deep electronics; driving, and unpredictable.

nagoyaka na kaze / 和やかな風 (quiet wind): a collection of forward-thinking electronic experiments sourced from central Japan - co-curated by Nagoya artist abentis for Facta & K-LONEs Wisdom Teeth imprint. The project profiles a close-knit community of music makers operating in and around the Japanese city of Nagoya: one of the countrys most populous and industrial cities, but one all too often overlooked in terms of its cultural significance. Curated in close collaboration with local scene organiser Yuya Abe - aka abentis - the record seeks to capture the creative energy of a community of artists making hard-to-define, future-facing electronic music away from the clamour of the bigger cities. In Nagoya, theres a strong culture of supporting artists. Even if you pursue music in your own way, as long as its good, youre encouraged to keep doing what you want, explains abentis. Within that environment, my generation has been able to freely bring in elements we like from all kinds of genres, combine them in our own way, and express ourselves individually. If you go to Tokyo or Osaka, that kind of freedom isnt something you can take for granted. Spiritually, Nagoya fits the mould of cultural hotbeds like Bristol, Detroit or Melbourne, showing that some of the most innovative creative communities form away from the glare of the capital cities. Like Detroit, Nagoya is principally known for being a major auto manufacturing hub, famous for being the home of Toyota Motors - but behind the scenes, it is quietly harbouring one of Japans most vibrant and forward-thinking electronic music scenes. In a good way, Nagoya is a bit removed from the cutting edge, so you find people making all kinds of music, explains Karnage. If youre making music, you feel like part of the crew, and people of different ages mix together without much hierarchy. The citys music scene is characterised by a freedom to mix genres and an open-door approach to creatives of all disciplines. The artists featured come from a diverse set of backgrounds, ranging from hip-hop to noise music, but have found a common collective identity in their omnivorous approach to genre. As such, the record moves fluidly between shimmering ambient and new age (Am Shhara, DHYAN, daiki hayakawa), psychedelic minimal house (Methodd, abentis), abstract, low-slung downtempo (baptisma, Nasty Soupman) and spaceage steppas (Karnage). Id say the way ambient, new age and that kind of sound design are blending nicely with dance music feels somewhat new, says baptisma, the crews eldest member and de-facto scene leader. Responsible for bringing artists like Basic Channel, Mala and Jan Jelinek to the city, baptisma has been crucial in establishing underground electronic music in Nagoya since the 90s, and now helps cultivate the next generation of local talent. Artists and DJs are seamlessly mixing ambient and new age with techno, house and bass music. I think thats a really interesting development. nagoyaka na kaze has its roots in a one-off event held in October 2024 as part of the 10 Years of Wisdom Teeth Japan tour. Curated by abentis in collaboration with Facta & K-LONE, the showcase featured live sets from eight artists based in and around Nagoya at one of the citys key dance music hubs, Club JBs. Each of the artists features again here, on record, presenting an original commission produced especially for the project. The records art direction was led by Yudai Osawa - in-house designer for Kankyō Records, the much-loved Tokyo record shop run by H. Takahashi - and features original photos by Hayato Watanabe.

Vakula invites us on a sonic journey with his latest album titled Cloud Bloom. Composed of four tracks, this album explores the depths of deep and dub techno, creating atmospheres that envelop the listener in a unique experience. Most of the instruments are organic, complemented by analog synthesizers, giving it a warm and authentic touch. Each track is an exploration of sonic textures that evoke dreamlike landscapes and moments of introspection. Its an ideal offering for those who appreciate immersive sounds and a hypnotic vibe.

Quadratschulz returns to Clone / Dub Recordings with a sonic ode to Tokyosix beautifully crafted tracks inspired by the neon-lit nights and electric pulse of the city. Drawing from the spirit of Japanese electronics, arcade culture, and city pop nostalgia, he blends crisp rhythms with emotive melodies and playful synth work. Its a journey through dreamy downtowns and rain-soaked alleyways, full of warmth, precision, and imagination. Of course, Japanese electronics play a key roleled by the unmistakable playful sound of the Roland TB-303 weaving through the tracks like a main character. Braindance for the dancefloorQuadratschulz in top form.

Anjunachill

17 Steps

Mood Hut

Phantasy Sound

Studio Barnhus

CHROMA

Konx-om-Paxs Phantasy 2 is a mind-bending fusion of modular synthesis, and immersive sound design. Developed alongside a hallucinatory visual performance, the single drifts between the pointillist trance riffs, modular chaos and the melodic nostalgia of Boards of Canada. Scholefield crafts a beatless yet kinetic world where granular textures, analogue synths, and custom-built noise machines collide.

InFine

Striking out in a new creative direction while retaining her trademark dimensionality and shapeshifter styles, Yu Sus first singles for Short Span set the pace for whats to come in 2026. Folding together certain elements of minimal, the warm shade of downtempo, and the momentum and horsepower of techno, Foundry and Bonita highlight the producer and DJs keen ear for detail and textural variety, carrying the depth and sensitivity which has always made her music so alluring and kaleidoscopic as it twists between genres. But these are also club tracks and the most dance-forward release from Yu in a minute.The two tunes were engineered as exclamation points and decentered grooves when built for live sets throughout 2025 at festivals like Mutek, and serve as a taste of the bossier, growling end of her forthcoming albums full range. In the interim Yu Sus practice has continued to push boundaries. Her Polyphonic Eating series, begun in 2022, has evolved into a transformative approach experimenting with modern culinary environments, applying concepts of Oliveros-inspired deep listening and the heightening of perception through a theatrical marriage of multisensory elements, set in intimate venues. Her relocation from Vancouver to London and immersion in a new location also contributed towards developing perspectives on sounds and sonic inputs that ultimately shaped the direction of these tracks.

Oathcreations

Anjunadeep

Noumen returns to Central Processing Unit after a six-year absence with Altum. This bumper record, the Ukrainian artists fourth release for the Sheffield label and first since 2019 double-LPObscurium, serves to remind us all why Noumens music has been lauded by the likes of Mixmag and Resident Advisor in the past.Altumis a consummate piece of contemporary electronic production, a technoid exploration of outer-edges electronica that nods to genre greats like Autechre while still maintaining its own unconventional charm. Across well over an hour of music here we find Noumen repeatedly playing punchy mid-tempo beat work off of some more cerebral tuned synths.Altumkicks off with the epic Oion - beginning in that Autechre/AFX mid-tempo zone, full of deep-sea bangs and whirrs, the track slowly builds to a final stretch of delay-drenched keys which set us free amidst the outer cosmos, almost Sun Ra-style. Its a perfect liminal-space roller and an apt scene-setter forAltum. Oion provides a blueprint for several of the albums other highlights - plenty of the joints here adopt that same approach of hitting hard with the drums and soft with the synths. Second track Splitter takes on the baton from Oion while souping up the kick to warehouse levels; the beats in Far Wind splutter like a needle skipping on a mid-90s Tresor drop; Fate Carette, all eerie looped synth leads, is a highlight as the album enters the home straight. The rhythm production (which, it should be noted, is exemplary throughoutAltum) is ratched up in intensity on a handful of numbers. Telemask displays a delightful breakbeat - if youd told me this was sampled from golden age A Tribe Called Quest, Id have believed you. Mid-section anchors Awe and Axis are glitchers in the Mike Paradinas mould, with the latter showing off some pleasing steel pan-esque synth leads for good measure. And whileAltumgenerally maintains a processional pace throughout, there are points where Noumen toughens up the drums for club deployment - Unveilness shows off a real chunkiness in the low end, closer Spurling Sign plays a satisfying rolling groove off of ever-layering synths, and the title-track is an alien machine-funker in keeping with fellow CPU electronauts like Silicon Scally and Cygnus. Noumens third album for Central Processing Unit is a pleasingly hefty double-LP which builds on the zany invention of acts like Modeselektor and Autechre to delightful effect. FFO: Autechre, Aphex Twin, Modeselektor, Bochum Welt, LFO