Secret Witness
Volume One

Six years, more than fifty releases, countless artists and multiple subsidiaries; the Oyster Cult’s reach extends far beyond what sceptics once thought possible. It’s only fitting, then, that we gather some of our finest under the Kalahari banner in celebration. The anniversary release is upon us. Six whole years since Jacy helped inaugurate the label with a spin on Midwestern house, OYSTER40 signals a landmark occasion. 18 tracks, quadruple vinyl boxset action, and in true Oyster Cult tradition, it comes bearing pearls. Dancefloor squarely in focus, the Cult assembles on a compilation spanning alumni and new inductees alike. It’s an assemblage of the fractal, explorative and ritual-ready; at once a focused distillation of the Kalahari sound and celebration of its many acolytes. Big on atmosphere, heavy on groove, we delve deeply into the musical DNA shared by all who grace the label. Tough, direct cuts (Sansibar, Roza Terenzi, Big Zen, Maara & Priori) to the pristine and widescreen (S.O.N.S., Volodymyr Gnatenko, Adam Pits), this is all quintessentially Kalahari. Elsewhere though, the likes of D. Tiffany and SW. journey further into realms of abstraction: the former opting for hi-tech, dreamstate IDM, while the SUED co-founder dissolves a house template into dubby introspection.Calling upon contemporary talents for the most part, there are also exceptions. Raymond Castoldi - the one-time house producer best known as Madison Square Garden’s music director - returns with an unreleased nugget from ’91, while an ‘Aliens’-sampling track from Detroit-indebted techno outfit Syzygy gets the reissue treatment.

Back in 2011, the REPITCH label debuted with "REPITCH 000", a brief compilation that featured tracks from the three originators: Pasquale Ascione (Ascion), Davide Carbone (D. Carbone), Nino Pedone (Shapednoise). Since then, the imprint has been a key player on techno's experimental fringes, pushing music that joins the dots between industrial, noise, bass, and hard dance. In ten years, they've released music from artists like Sote, Zenker Brothers, AnD, Sleeparchive, Regis, and VTSS, and to celebrate their anniversary, REPITCH has fittingly assembled another forward-thinking selection of tracks following on from 2017's acclaimed "Dys Functional Electronic Music.""Dys Functional Electronic Music X" is a state of the union from Ascione, Carbone, and Pedone that highlights not only their label's scope but its intentions for the future. Ten years in, the trio are just as motivated by broadening club music's horizons as they are filling dancefloors, and that's never more obvious than on opening track 'Mastice Riddim (VIP Mix)' from Shapednoise and Gabber Eleganza. The two producers meet at the exact intersection of their styles, with Pedone splitting Alberto Guerrini's fictile trance arpeggios using his patented hi- definition sound design and trunk-rattling drill rhythms.TSVI and Randomer excavate a similar mid-point on 'Overbite,' following on from 2021's "Reflex" EP with a booming, mindboggling fusion of warehouse techno and cybernetic dancehall. Pasquale Ascione's contribution 'Plugged (Heavy- Rotation Mix)' is a disarming future-retro cut, distorting vintage breaks with psychedelic bleep techno synths, while Carbone's 'Hypnotic Experimental Dance' does precisely what it promises, blotting grinding hardstyle kicks into dissonant waves of psychedelic electronics. Los Angeles ravers Baseck and Aura T-09 throw shades over the Cali sunshine on 'Angelz', losing gabber rhythms in tweaked DSP fizz but never dropping the crucial momentum.On the flip side, Italian mainstay DJ Plant Texture turns in a breakbeat slow- burner that sounds like Sheffield via Rotterdam but never dips into empty nostalgia. Russia's versatile Buttechno, meanwhile, brings a weightless sensibility to progressive minimal, layering cauterized harmonics over driving warehouse kicks and dreaming gently of the big room. The compilation switches gears at this point, centering a pair of rave-ready hard dance constructions from fwd-thinking Greek producers DJ Loser and MarcelDune, before grinding to a halt on sci-fi-tinged closer 'Digital Hoarder' from Low Income $quad's Strahinja Arbutina.

ABT024 - CA - 2012Tender Opposites by TOPS

Over the past decade, Vienna-based Florian Stöffelbauer – also known as Heap, has built a consistent reputation as a skilled DJ, producer and Neubau’s label head.Isla is proud to present his latest effort “False Hope” which explores the intersections between industrial, electro and dark wave – all with a leftfield twist.As diverse as it is powerful, the 7 tracks featured here almost feel like nocturnal tales, chalking out Heap’s observations wandering through the streets of a silent city, with cigarette smoke permeating the air and sirens ringing in the distance.

One of the most effective ways of exposing the nature of any sphere is when it is interrupted, in a kind of alienation effect, by children. Whether one imagines that troops of them storm the foyer of a luxury hotel, occupy public squares and buildings with a view to getting on with their specific activities, whether they shape the profile of public political assemblies, whether owing to a security lapse they enter a television studio in large numbers during a live broadcast - in every case the reified character of each context, its rigidity, and the fact that the sphere is always that of adults, immediately become apparent as well as what is play and what is not and what is work and what is play and what is playing and who is playing with what or whom for what or whom?

Two years have passed since their previous Inflict LP and we don’t really know how what recently happened impacted on the band’s mastermind Michael but what’s sure is that Veil Of Light are now a fully grown-up band.Landslide is their fifth full-length (and their third on Avant!) and it’s definitely their most elaborated album.Ten new songs, rather than the usual eight, with a perfect balance of Coldwave-inspired intimate atmosphere and synthpop catchy melodies. Musically speaking it’s still clear where the Swiss duo draws their influences from, right in between New Order’s moodiness and The Klinik trying one softer, less brutal approach to their Electro. But a new sense of privacy is reflected all through these new tracks, enhanced by lyrics now more personal than ever.The Prayer Wheel is a page torn out of a private diary, Love And Money is a mechanical mantra for a no-way-out situation; Suburban War is a confession of defeat whispered at night, No Return is the last dance before reaching the point of.This is the kind of record that takes its time, and takes its toll, we just need to sit down and listen because there’s much to discover.