PREMIERE: Black Meteoric Star - 5am Open Air Sunrise [Dark Entries/Ransom Note Records]

From the coastline to the dance-floor. Daichi's ear was formed early. Weekends spent at Oppa-La in Enoshima absorbing whatever the room had to offer, left a mark that still runs through everything he does. From there the path naturally progressed, co-founding Vinyl Youth, a collective whose energy has carried through Korea and onto the stage at Rainbow Disco Club. His productions tell a similar story. Edits and originals landing on MM Discos, Crue-L and Not an Animal, each release finding ears far beyond Japan. This is music with a sense of place. Read more: https://www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/daichi-the-shine-a-light-on-mix/

akarta’s Strange Fruit with the last track from their Drips EP is something super special. Pouvoi Moteur – French for “motoric power,” since you asked – is exactly what that sounds like: locked-groove krautrock discipline shot through with kosmische shimmer, the kind of track that makes the road ahead feel endless and the destination irrelevant. The ghost of Can’s engine room is all over it, that locked hypnosis that somehow never quite repeats itself, while Cluster’s smeared electronics hover at the periphery. Aryadiaz, who conceived it partly out of an obsession with factory machinery and, apparently, partly with German beer, describes the 4/4 pattern as feeling like “breaking through space and time.” We’re inclined to agree. Out now via Gentle Tuesday Recordings, with a vinyl release to follow through Loide and TipTop Records. Stunning stuff. https://strangefruit.bandcamp.com/album/drips

Adispatch from the holy island, via Alabama. Two guys from Muscle Shoals, Alabama -0 the city that quietly wrote half the soul records you’ve ever loved — making shoegaze concept albums about a tidal island off the coast of Northumberland. On paper, it shouldn’t work. In practice, Holy Island, the debut from Adam Morrow and Jamie Sego’s Sister Ray Davies, is one of the more beautifully stunning records to land this year: motorik folk, walls of fuzz, delay pedal disco, and genuine literary heft, released via the always excellent Sonic Cathedral and drawing comparisons to mid-period Flying Saucer Attack, Souvlaki-era Slowdive and a long-lost Spacemen 3 outtake. They are, by their own admission, complete beginners as DJs. We handed them the airwaves anyway. What came back is exactly what you’d expect from two people who learned to hear music through Nuggets compilations and Delia Derbyshire records, who want biblical noise and dream of piloting the Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound. It’s a mix that’s charming and oddly coherent: dub basslines, psych and proto-electronic tangents, the kind of selection that could only have been assembled by people who think in pedals and reverb tails rather than BPMs. A journey with a clear first step, even if the destination remains gloriously unclear. Not a DJ mix in any conventional sense, just an excellently varied record collection let loose.

Owain K is a stalwart of the Bristol underground. For many years he has cut his teeth running parties, curating labels and producing music. A bit of an unsung hero of sorts in our eyes - his musical knowledge is vast and in this day and age he represents exactly the sort of character and dedication a DJ should have. For years he has been on a quest to explore new music, digging for hidden gems and helping to push the sound forward without gimmicks or the sort of delusional grandeur we've become accustomed to from a DJ in the social media era. His blog and record label Innate is widely acclaimed amongst those in the know and its rare we'd kindly say as such about another site. Only kidding... This mix is a serious addition to the series and showcases a deep understanding of nuance and sound as he weaves and winds between house, electro and the eclectic spaces in between.

Human Endeavour’s ‘Dancefloor Designs’ returns with two club-focused remixes from Parris and GoodMostlyBad. Launched last year as a way to reimagine previous label material for the club, the second chapter in the series revisits tracks from Nandele’s ‘Maputo’ EP and Reda Saiarh’s contribution to the label’s first ever release. First up can you feel the sun co-head Parris works his magic on Mozambican artist Nandele’s ‘Chapa 100’. Originally released at the beginning of 2024, here the track is morphed into a bright, skippy drum tool with plenty of sub bass to carry the groove. The second remix comes courtesy of Scuffed Discs and Bad Tips producer GoodMostlyBad who strips back the sassy new beat of Reda Saiarh’s ‘Kiki’ into a sleek and sophisticated acid-meets-NYC ballroom number. Human Endeavour is part of Ransom Note Records’ family of sub-labels, curated and run by former R$N Editor, DJ and Noods Radio resident Rosie Ama.

Dark Entries and Ransom Note present a defiant comeback from Gavilán Rayna Russom, featuring remixes from Russell E.L. Butler and Borusiade. Gavilán Rayna Russom built Black Meteoric Star in Berlin in 2006, less as a project than as a form of protection: a performance identity that could carry truths she wasn’t yet able to live openly, a vehicle for the intersection of electronic dance music and queer resistance. In the years since her reach has been wide, her presence felt across stages and in studios that stretched well beyond the underground, but Black Meteoric Star has always remained something distinct. An avenger. A keeper of a more radical flame. ‘5am Open Air Sunrise’ captures something very specific: that hour on the dancefloor where exhaustion dissolves into transcendence, where the body gives up resisting, and something more honest takes over. It was recorded live, which means the contributions from Russell E.L. Butler and Borusiade are less remixes than full reconstructions, each expanding the emotional landscape while preserving the original’s energy. Rayna has been clear about what’s driving the return: “Black Meteoric Star is one of those characters I created for survival. And this moment demands its return.” With a full album waiting in the wings, ssh! – this feels like an opening statement worth paying attention to. Dark Entries make for natural co-conspirators on something this uncompromising.

Seoul duo Salamanda. Uman Therma (Sala) and Yetsuby (Manda) have turned their gaze to the most unassuming of subjects: a single basil plant on a windowsill There once was a Basil who sat in the dusk, When the light had gone thin and the day shed its husk, He gazed at the glass where the garden grew small, And pondered his fate in the last of the hall. A wine of deep blue in a vessel unclear appeared on the sill as the midnight drew near, The Basil regarded it, leaf pressed to pane, And thought several thoughts that he couldn’t explain. Does he know? said the snail, who was still on the glass, That all things must come, as all things come to pass? The Basil said nothing, but widened one arm, And accepted the evening with dignified calm. In Seoul, two small people called Sala and Manda Composed from the windowsill, neither meander, They caught the blue hour and the wondering mind, The fate that all well-tended basils will find. Oh Basil, oh Basil, you left-of-centre thing, With your atoms and rituals and quiet suffering, You lived your full day from the sun to the dark, And went out, like blue wine, without even a mark. Music To Watch Seeds Grow By, returns for its eighth entry with Seoul duo Salamanda. Uman Therma (Sala) and Yetsuby (Manda) have turned their gaze to the most unassuming of subjects: a single basil plant on a windowsill, tracking its full day from morning light to whatever it is basil dreams about after dark. We’re premiering the album’s closing track, ‘the blue wine’, a final mysterious reverie in which the basil seems to contemplate its own fate, somewhere between acceptance and wonder. It is the still point at the end of the day: the light gone, the snail departed, the photosynthesis done. What remains is something like thought, or the plant equivalent of it. Manda puts it well: does the basil know what it’s for? Would it resist, accept, or even feel something close to joy? ‘the blue wine’ doesn’t answer that. It just sits with the question, which is probably the right thing to do… @8salamanda8

Simply Nothing is a dubbed-out analogue synth workout like only these two know how.  Carefully constructed percussion, with George Hume's bass sitting beneath a veil of spectral vocals courtesy of Sarah-May Brown. On the EP there's a two other original tracks plus a remix from the excellent Hybrid Man does what Hybrid Man does best, pulling the hypnotic core of the original. Simply Nothing is out now on Lunatic Music.

Giorgi Pipia is a Georgian DJ and selector originally from the western region of Georgia, now based in Tbilisi—one of Eastern Europe’s most influential underground electronic music hubs. Deeply connected to the city’s evolving club culture, he is a resident at the community-driven club Left Bank and a regular radio host on Rinse FM France, where he showcases his wide-ranging musical taste and experimental approach to DJing. Known for his curiosity and open-minded approach to sound, Giorgi Pipia builds sets that draw inspiration from multiple cultures and genres. His selections often move fluidly between techno, electro, breakbeat, and experimental electronic music, while incorporating rhythms and textures from diverse global scenes. This cross-cultural approach has become a defining element of his style, allowing him to craft sets that feel both exploratory and cohesive. We invited him to the series and the result is a long playing mix which demonstrates a deep understanding of flow.

With the current climate doing its best to grind things down, sometimes making music with your people is all you can do – and LA’s underground is responding in kind. Few collectives embody that spirit quite like the Elbow Grease and DISCOS XXX crew. SSRI – the Sound & Spirit Research Institute, a studio brainchild born from the meeting of DJ Dex aka Nomadico of Underground Resistance, Kosmik of The Black Lodge, and Dave Aju repping Elbow Grease. Three heads, one singular vision. “Omnicallora” came to life the way the best things do – organically, hardware in hand, passed around in round-robin fashion with the Suzuki Omnichord at the centre of it all. The legendary instrument’s Italo-leaning character bleeds through every bar, complete with robo-vocoder flexings, waxing lyrical about pre- and post-fader feedback, before Aju took it home to Point Winona to mix and shape it into its final form. The result is a West Coast tech stomp that wears its Italo influences with pride – undeniably fun, undeniably them. The track lands as part of Point Winona Sound Library Vol 1, the 20-track joint venture between Elbow Grease and DISCOS XXX aka DX3, gathering some of LA’s finest under one roof at the Los Feliz hilltop palace itself. Curated by the legend that is Tavish and Dave Aju, it’s a geographic statement – warehouse-wrecking and rooted-futurist in equal measure. Point Winona Sound Library Vol 1 drops March 6. Pre-order over at Bandcamp.