100% Silk

Akasha System

Echo Lost

100% Silk

Twin moon transmission to Akasha System’s vinyl monument Echo Earth, Echo Lost side-winds a parallel meridian of nocturnal wilderness, fogged coastline, and fiber optic electronics, broadcast from the wooded outskirts of Cascadia. The EP’s six songs sway, swoon, and slide, club sonar refracted by space and solitude, waveforms for wandering stars and distant satellites seen between branches. Concise, crystalline, but covert: echo as emotion, lost in life’s spiral.

Cammi

Look At The World

100% Silk

Fresh, fried, and freewheeling debut by Owosso/Lansing, Michigander Cameron Weede aka Cammi checks every SILK box in the book: teen MPC experiments, thrifted hardware jack, tape noise dumpster dub, longform luxury house, department store boogie, standup comedy groove, etc. Tracked in fits and starts over the past eight years, Look At The World runs on immediacy and intuition, man/machine symbiosis at its loosest and most liquidated. Early years spent jamming improv trombone with free jazz hillbillies eventually led to a love of classic house and cheap gear, with a special fondness for “ugly 90’s FM/romplers and digital synths because it’s all I can afford.”   But limited means don’t mean limited ends: across 54 minutes Cammi cuts a sweaty swath of raw rhythm, busted bass, and plastic passion, from outer rings to inner circles. Take a Look: “I just do whatever’s in my head, it’s all subconscious. I’m def not a purist – about anything, really.”

Force Placement

Vibe Repair

100% Silk

Black Lodge mainstay Jason James explains his freshest Force Placement track pack as “a hazy late night vibe… songs you play on your way home from the rave: bottom heavy enough to stay awake but kind of heady and tripped out.” Sculpted from sketches conceived during early morning post-party sessions, Vibe Repair snakes, slinks, and slides through various fogged comedown rhythms, from noir house to dusty breaks to empty alley jack.   James cites “classic jazz, funk, hip-hop & ambient” as his recent listening cross-section, which slip in and out of focus on these 10 smoky sleepwalker steppers, channeling the bleary bump of a sound system in a busted building down the block on an unlit street. The night’s late but not lost – repair the vibe.

La Vampires Does Cologne

10 Outta 10

100% Silk

Angeleno escape artist LA Vampires returns from retirement with her first set of hot ‘n’ cold heartwave hymns since 2012, this time in collaboration with bicoastal-tronica duo Cologne. A 7-sided dice of pleasuredome pop, synthetic seduction, and emotional fantasy, 10 Outta 10 spins a sensual web of liminal lovesickness and decadent dance, amorous holograms for today’s Age Of Mirage.  From diva-house strut (“HOWUKISS”) to diamond-life lament (“STRANGERS2ME”), the vocal/production design feels sparkling and psychic, a gallery of glamorous masks: romance, rapture, regret. To feel is to feel unreal; to be moved is to be moved away.   “Can you read minds? Can you read mine?”   Recorded on the boulevard of broken dreams, summer 2019.

Mateis E. Aqir

Chrome Upon Guayota

100% Silk

Barcelona-based Russian rhythm reconstructivist Mateis e. aqir’s latest EP emerged during and after a formative sojourn to the Spanish isle of Tenerife in summer 2017, where he slept on the sand, stargazed, and rode scooters along serpentine roads through remote villages. Deeply inspired by the landscape, people, and “new emotions” he experienced, a series of subtle, spiraling, percussion-powered pieces began flowering in flashes and sketches, which were further articulated back in Barcelona. Echo-flexed guitar and circular bass interweave with staggered patterns of bongo and drum machine, alternately evoking a sense of levitation, hypnosis, and vertigo, which approximates his own surreal and revelatory perspective of the trip: “Time exists in us – not us in time. The island’s vibrations made this music play in my head.”

Robotalco

Callisto

100% Silk

Milanese melting potter Sebastiano Urciuoli got his start making hip-hop/house mix tapes as a teen in the 90’s before catching the disco bug and crowning himself Club Silencio, issuing a slew of singles and edits for a spectrum of western dancefloor divisions. In the later aughts he fashioned Robotalco to pursue more eclectic crate-digger fixations like “liquid vibes, 80’s French industrial, futuristic house, and the intangible crossroads of Kingston and Detroit” – which pretty accurately pinpoints the palette of Callisto.   Recorded intermittently between summer 2016 and 2018, the collection cruises an enticing coastline of Mediterranean moods, from soft-focus suntan séance to breezy broken beats to dusk dreamer new wave to dada tropical dub and beyond. Totaling nearly an hour, it’s a vast and varied voyage of rhythm, impulse, and color, a trunk of trinkets gripped at sun-bleached harbor kiosks, showcased on leopard-print slip-mats. Indulge the myth and the moon: Callisto.

Bludwork

Portal Of Hope

100% Silk

Slippery 6-track expansion pack to AFK & Bludwork’s banging wax debut, Loyalty N Service, finds the pair flexing further spheres of smokescreen house, busted bounce, and dream sequence R&B, both together and solo. Portal Of Hope captures the casual cold flow of drum machine synergy, afterhours bass, rooftop reverie, heads in a cloud, pathfinding the dance floor. Two tracks showcase Blud’s recent forays into cloaked vocal modes but the rest are instrumentals: stripped back, funked forward, and zoned to the speaker cone. Hope springs eternal. Mastered by Matt Tammariello.

AFK & Bludwork

Loyalty N Service

100% Silk

South Cali classmates AFK and Bludwork come from oceans apart – South Korea and Georgia, respectively – but their intertwined friendship and singular musical chemistry are proof that true vibe unions transcend geography. The pair initially bonded over teacher pranks and 420 habits before rendezvousing off campus to link rigs and jam live electronics, eventually culminating in the six smog-smeared low-key bangers comprising their vinyl debut, Loyalty N Service.  Alternately coastal and concrete, the songs slide between smoky sunset house (“Akina Memory,” “That Pain”) and funked up warehouse bass (“No Equal,” “Searchin”), tag-teaming melody, MIDI, and drum machinery into compelling composites of Pacific motion and emotion. Blud is blunt about their bond: “AFK is one of my most cherished friends; I’d do anything for this guy.” This is music from the heart and for the heads, pensive and propulsive, loose and liquid, raw and rising. “One of our biggest inspirations is the Rush Hour films. We’re the best Black and Asian duo since those guys.” Mastered by Eric Hanson. Sleeve design by Britt Brown.

Body San

Midnight

100% Silk

Reigning vibe-wave don of the City of Roses returns to the SILK chalet bearing four fresh afterhours anthems ripe for repeat rinsing. Midnight takes its name from Body San’s special-ordered strain of Nag Champa, and exudes a similar air of nocturnal promise, streetlights reflected in glass brick fountains and condominium windows. Brandon Knocke’s knack for Memphis design funk and skymall fusion hits an apex here, flexing a full spectrum of rhythmic reveries: fluid, jazzy, joyous, sensous.  Song to song and side to side Midnight flaunts a panoramic rooftop view of leather interiors, fern-accented foyers, and supreme motion software. Midnight is 12 AM, 12 inches of bump ‘n’ bounce ‘n’ body euphoria, music for low lit silhouettes unified in emotional response. Somewhere a clock strikes, a ball drops, and day turns to dawn.  Recorded and mixed by Brandon Knocke in Portland, Oregon. Mastered by Eric Hanson in Los Angeles, California. Design by Britt Brown.

Cherushii & Maria Minerva

S/t

100% Silk

***CHECK STOCK!!!  Received a 7.7 rating from Pitchfork.  In the fall of 2013 Maria Minerva mapped an eight show United States trek up the west coast and across to Chicago but, being newly emigrated and without car or driver’s license, needed a traveling companion who did. Given the grueling itinerary only one road warrior / joie de vivrist came to mind: dear friend, penpal, and SILK sister Chelsea Faith aka Cherushii. The two covered over 3,000 miles together, performing in bars and towns not known for leftfield electronic patronage. In subsequent years the pair shared bills, traded tracks, and remained close—even playing live together a few times—yet the dream of a proper collaboration always loomed. The tragic Oakland fire of December 2016 cut short such plans but not before they’d written, recorded, and mixed the better part of six songs. With the devoted assistance of David Last, Adam Gunther, and Brian Foote these recordings were posthumously polished and finalized. Drawing on Minerva and Faith’s most vibrant Venn diagram overlap, the tracks evoke mirror-lined music video sets, downtempo night drives, rainbow eyeshadow, glittering skylines, and sweaty discotheques, flowing from lush to lavish, highly finessed and full of feeling. It’s the sound of true union, Faith’s divine dancefloor DNA threaded through Minerva’s chic pop hooks, rhythmic and revelatory, the best of both beautiful worlds. The collection closes with a swooning ambient edit by Glassell Park hardware-whisperer Leech, Minerva’s voice dubbed into a gauze of otherworldly emotion: “I’m going astray.”

Body San

Midnight Companion

100% Silk

Ace ambidextrous addendum to Brandon Knocke’s latest limited vinyl offering, Midnight Companion crossfades a dreamer’s delight pirate mix of unreleased originals, flowing through glow-fi house, balcony bump, decadent noir, and assorted velvet rope rhythms. Both sides slip and slide with signature Body San swing, out late with nothing to lose, skipping steps up to the roof, a 36-minute 360 skyline of magic hour motion and distant city lights. Bring yourself, bring a friend.

Dearly Departure

Genesis

100% Silk

Santa Clarita daydreamer Daniel Crook flipped his DX-7 to dent tuition at California Institute Of The Arts but while there fell in with a crew of fellow hardware heads and began making periodic pilgrimages downtown to soak the city’s thriving warehouse scene. His own productions soon followed, inspired by the moodier fringes of LA’s nocturnal underground as well as the “dark gothic energy” of certain fatalist new wave.  Genesis spans 40 minutes across eight tracks, crisscrossing stained glass house, lovesick jack, and varied states of rhythm delirium into a raw, reflective self-portrait of empty streets and midnight memories. Crook’s process is part planned and part exploratory, mapping melody in advance then ripping live takes at a table of synths in his bedroom. From cobwebbed dub-dance (“Serpent”) to cyber-mechanical disco (“Move”), the songs feel intuitive and imprecise, grainy screengrabs of systems in flux.  Most are solo instrumentals but Crook’s classmate Bludwork guests on the sci-fi sequencer trance “Infrared” while local morbid beauty duo Morticia My Angel haunt the mic for “Words Unspoken.” Even his own voice makes an appearance on “Own Perceptions,” mixed into a glimmering grey haze, pulsing and poignant: “I don't know what to do with me / no more.” Mastered by Matt Tammariello. Design by Britt Brown.

Olsen

Dream Operator

100% Silk

Manchester miasma-house specialist Andrew Anderton aka Olsen sculpts swirling, stream-of-consciousness rhythms inspired by subliminal perception, hyperspace anime, and reflections on how the mind works. His latest is also his haziest, tracked at home on analog synths bathed in echo, tape-hiss, and found sounds, conjuring a liminal realm between sleep and reality ruled by a shadowy figure: the Dream Operator. Opaque acid, mumbling voices, and decayed keys whisper in the periphery, tethered by black hole bass, a narcoleptic kick, and dusty claps. This is music for “the space between,” where the dream operator takes control, and “shows you an image of a tree, soft fruit growing… night falls, and the black dog serenade continues.” Compelling contemporary warehouse noir by a producer poised for heady depths. Mastered by Matt Tammariello.

Precipitation

Earth / Sky

100% Silk

The latest capsule collection from pensive Vancouver visionist Zefan Sramek aka Precipitation presents a more binary take on overcast house and half-light ambience, split between a rhythmic “earth” side and a smeared cirrus “sky” side. Tracked live to tape and padded with Pacific Northwest field recordings of rainy forests and wet meadows, the pieces soar, sink, and spiral like small birds blown by the wind, isolated and adrift. Past cuts for Ville Nouvelle (in the duo Aquatic Language) and Jungle Gym have shown Sramek’s versatility with vignette melody and soft-focus atmospherics but Earth / Sky distills them even further, into a muted, melancholic expanse of elemental conditions and emotive hypnosis. Mastered by Eric Hanson. Video stills by Zefan Sramek.

Cyclist, The

Alabaster Thrones

100% Silk

Last year’s altered mind opus, Sapa Inca Delirium, showcased The Cyclist at his most eclectic, spanning ayahuasca break-beat and rave jungle pop, but his latest EP returns to the uniquely kinetic and shredded mode of churning electronic rhythm he both named and perfected: “tape throb.” Alabaster Thrones collects four of Andrew Morrison’s recent and most vibrantly blasted house constructs, tracked at his home studio in Birmingham, UK during “the height of mania – a time when I had no time.” The context translates: this is urgent, accelerating music, shifting gears at high speed in dim twisting tunnels. The title is “a deflation of grandiosity” cribbed from Ulysses (“…a noble race, rulers of the waves, who sit on thrones of alabaster, silent as the deathless gods”), though Morrison’s meaning is more personal: “It’s a reminder to level yourself and think of all those around you.” A captivating capsule of ravaged forward motion for a ravaged forward-moving age. Mastered by Eric Hanson. Design by Britt Brown.

Cyclist, The

Beat At The Heart Of The City

100% Silk

A six song sidekick to The Cyclist’s latest extended play offering, Alabaster Thrones, these two magnetized sides span nine years of hermetic hardware experiments conducted in itinerant living arrangements across Derry, Liverpool, and Birmingham. From toy tape loops and echobox gauze (“Diorge Grian” – Irish for “Derry sun”) to shredded soul (“Lucille”) and tightly coiled dub noir (“Cologne Halls”), Beat At The Heart Of The City showcases Andrew Morrison’s singular ear for vibrantly damaged dancefloor energies. Tensions and raptures rev and unravel in intuitive asymmetries, evoking cold clubs, deserted streets, dazed gardens – bleary beauty for crumbling kingdoms. Of the feverish rhythm delirium “One Day In The Life Of Ivana” Morrison even credits illness as muse: “I deeply remember being extremely sick at the time.” It’s grim up north. Mastered by Eric Hanson.

Pleasure Model

The Executive

100% Silk

Amsterdamaged dancefloor industrialist Antoni Maiovvi’s futurist EBM alter ego, Pleasure Model, returns to SILK with a second slate of sleek, surveillance state cyber-jack: The Executive. Recorded in late summer 2016, the album’s eight tracks pulse with android anxiety and pirated voltage, hotwired circuitry snaking through bleached neon tunnels towards strobe-lit ziggurats. More mechanized and weaponized than its predecessor, Kendo Dynamics, these two sides swerve from replicant rave (“International Geographic,” “Sound Investment”) to matrix hacker hardware (“Labelmouth,” “Belinfurbellt”) to liquid chrome catwalk (“Body Double,” “Alumni Precursor”), in the spirit of Bunker, Clone, and Crème. 41 minutes of metro-gnomic sequencing and streamlined code for artificial intelligentsia.

V/a

Silk To Dry The Tears

100% Silk

Sorrow’s only silver lining is the selflessness it inspires in others. The nightmare of last year’s fire in Oakland left so many of us shredded, shattered, and speechless. But a communal compassion surged up in response, with artists, allies, and acquaintances from all over the globe re-connecting and re-committing to the power and potential of independent music as a healing, unifying force. So many SILK friends and family reached out expressing the desire to contribute creatively to a relief effort that it was obvious the emotion needed an outlet. Silk To Dry The Tears collects 31 such songs from a spectrum of 100% Silk alumni and affiliates, threaded across four sides of fogged house, fantasy acid, nocturnal electronics, sleepwalker pop, and rhythmic reveries of varied internal states. Totaling nearly 170 minutes, it’s a sprawl and a statement, shared in the spirit of inclusion, endurance, and empathy. Music brought us together; music will keep us together. Mastered by Matt Tammariello. Design by Britt Brown.  50% the profits will be donated to Safer DIY Spaces, an Oakland-based coalition offering guidance, financial assistance, and labor to non-traditional creative community spaces.

Claus, Michael

Memory Protect

100% Silk

Bay Area beacon Michael Claus operates from an overtly Pacific perspective in his house and techno constructs, shaping fog and bass along shorelines of elusive rhythm. Though active since 2004 he’s only in the past few years begun issuing tracks under his own name to the public domain, the latest collection of which goes furthest in embedding amorphous acid and cloud-soft synths into introspective coastal jack. Memory Protect maps eight hazed designs sourced from three years of work, misting the difference between movement and meditation, atmosphere and anticipation. Past collabs with Nackt hinted at a subtle touch for hypnosis and heightened sensory environment but here Claus captures his essence in its freest, most fluid state. Bodies of water, oceans of memory – what collects, continues. Recorded in San Francisco, 2014-2017. Mastered by Matt Tammariello.

Inner Self

O.E. Outside Experience

100% Silk

New York producer Andrew Stefano’s freshest guise reflects the different headspace he was seeking last fall, shifting gears from his ongoing jungle fusion project, Trust Image. O.E. Outside Experience finds him flexing more muted and melancholic shades of broken beat, jazz techno, and high-stepping warehouse hybrids, inspired by notions of internalization and exploration – plus “a lot of Detroit shit.” The seven tracks traverse therapeutic contrasts of rhythm and reflection, solitude and celebration, crisp percussion offset with smeared synths, vaporous texture, and acidic bass. A decade of music making has honed Stefano’s instincts for motion, melody, and atmosphere, which he wields here with a distinct, dynamic touch. The Self speaks. Recorded at his home studio in Brooklyn on a mix of hardware and software in late 2016. Mastered by Matt Tammariello.

Deeper Kenz

S/t

100% Silk

Wayfaring American producer / DJ Deeper Kenz named his project in homage to the “cinematically intense” Northeast Philly hood where he resided intermittently for nearly eight years. Surrounded by dive bars and decrepit lots, he turned inward and crafted a set of recordings “designed as tools to light up a small but intimate community of dancers and lovers.” The A side skews lean and linear, crisp percussion laced with shaded bass and violet textures, while the flip goes more mirror ball delirium, sweat and heat and disco samples “chained up and grooving to the unceasing rhythms of the big city machine.” Indulge, internalize; motion is meaning. Recorded in Kensington, Philadelphia, 2013-2016. Illustrations by Mariah Welch. Mastered by John Flynn at Balance Mastering, UK and Eric Hanson at Maven Mastering, Los Angeles.

Åmnfx

Moscow Beat

100% Silk

Russian producer Vasily Skobeev’s recording alias, Åmnfx – an abbreviation of the phrase “amen to FX” – alludes to the transformative power of multi-effects on devotional music. His own tracks convincingly demonstrate this principle, routing piano, drum machines, samples, soft synths, and field recordings through a selection of pedals and amplifiers to condense and color the sound, adding grit, grain, space, and shadow. Moscow Beat ranges from moody memory house (“Forget,” “In The Café”) to wintry minimal tech-dub (“Build A Home,” “Strictly Dub”) to wavy rhythm deliriums (“Wayback,” “Moscow Beat”), all sourced from recent insomniac workshop sessions: “Most of the good ideas come around 4-7 in the morning, when you’re tired as a dog.” Previous offerings on Opal Tapes, Neo Violence, and Dirty Tapes impressed but these eight FX-flexed cuts trace a fuller portrait of an artist at the threshold. Cover image by Sasha Popov. Mastered by Matt Tammariello.

V/a

Sensate Silk

100% Silk

To commemorate the label’s catalog centennial 100% Silk spread its threads coast to coast and station to station for 11 faded blazers and future classics from a fresh cast of characters spanning Okayama to Berlin, England to Echo Park, Boston to British Columbia. Despite such distances the rhythms run parallel: lithe, low-lit, lush, and lost in sense memory. Sensate Silk swirls 75 minutes of smeared neon house, glitter decadence, skyscraper shuffle, flatliner acid, lovesick loops, mutant pulse, rave reverie, and tactile electronics into an expansive voyage of motion, mood, and meaning. Roster includes: Keita Sano, Cromie, Sage Caswell, Inoue Shirabe, Jack Novin, Donny, Badia, PARC, Helios Mode, Nackt, Westcoast Goddess. Defend the dream; feel the feeling. Mastered by Alex Nagle.

Kaazi

Zen Travel

100% Silk

Emergent New York City producer Kaazi conceives of his woozy rhythm experiments in lofty terms – utopian extensions of self, alternate windows of perception, “something to move beyond the static,” etc. – but their mesmeric and transportive properties need little explanation. Zen Travel voyages through nine winding, textured terrains of breathy acid funk, foggy jungle dub, and violet vaporous house, inspired by youthful trips to Tokyo and the adventurous synthetic fusion of Hiroshi Yoshimura and Yasuaki Shimizu. Recorded in the summer and fall of 2015 using a Bass Station, Prophet 600, and minimal palette of FX, the tracks were born from long-form improvisational sessions, then later edited for brevity and essence. The titles gesture at the mood and motion of each microcosm – “Air,” “Tropics,” “Skate,” “Street,” “Cruise” – but taken as a collection Kaazi conjures a sense of expanse, altitudes, flux, and feeling, where the dance floor and the devotional dissolve as one. Mastered by Rioux. Artwork by David McLeod.

Bludwork

Nightmare

100% Silk

Debut public collection of smooth and sorrowful rhythm glides by Long Beach student / soul enthusiast Bludwork feels equal parts loose and lost, vibe-y and vulnerable. Nightmare traces six subtle shades of sunset melancholia through sculpted improvisations of intuitive inner space house, inspired by gospel, southern rap, and rejection. Since starting the project his final year of high school Turner has honed his hardware configuration and emotional palette, arriving at a sensual fusion of midnight melody, muted bass, slippery percussion, bold samples, and spare design, ideal for solitude or celebration. For music so rich and reflective it’s apt he credits family as formative, particularly the “beautiful chords that warm my heart from soul and gospel records my dad used to play when I was young.” New dancefloor nostalgias for the Now by a distinct coastal talent. Mastered by Matt Tammariello.

Akasha System

Vague Response

100% Silk

Proper extended-play collection of clouded quartz electronics and hushed house designs by pensive Portland producer Hunter P. Thompson aka Akasha System following a pair of promising prior tapes – Sea Glass (self-released) and Twin Optics (issued through his own Cloudbank imprint earlier this year). Vague Response finds him in peak form, leanly tracing muted melodies with fog, bass, glass, rhythm, and reverb. There’s a touch of the current Pacific Northwest scene to these pieces, heavy on vibe, texture, and space, but Thompson cites a 2015 trip with an ex to the temples of Mt. Koya near Osaka as his central inspiration: “These songs helped me close the door on a chapter of my life while opening another into the future.” Compelling portals of shaded motion and dancefloor introspection cut from the dreamer’s cloth. Mastered by Joel Shanahan.

Foans

Frontier

100% Silk

The latest slate of rarified Rocky Mountain nocturnal house moods by sharpening craftsman Andrew Dahabrah distills his production instincts to their starkest, most sensual essence. Tight, tense rhythms intertwine with sinuous bass lines overcast by fluttering software gauze and dizzy sequencer patterns, evoking thin air, cold roads, icy peaks, oxygen deprivation. Since 2013 the FOANS discography has deepened at a steady clip, morphing through pixelated ambience, trip-hop abstraction, and bedroom techno – capped by last year’s Schema cassette for austere Danish electronics imprint Speaker Footage – but Frontier synthesizes the project’s strengths in a uniquely persuasive manner: lush, strung out, blissed out, bleary. Dahabrah paints the picture succinctly: “These tracks were made late at night.” Fluid city hazes in high altitudes by a deepening talent.  Mastered by Alex Nagle.

Ludzha, Buz

Basslines For Life

100% Silk

Buz Ludzha belongs to the “tape throb” lineage Andrew Morrison more prominently pioneers as The Cyclist, but filtered through an even more blasted, resinous speaker cone. Last year’s debut single on All City, Love Repetitive Rhythmics (aptly named, btw), traced the template but his newest EP, Basslines For Life, delivers on its title, going harder and stretching further into his unique splinter mode of wrecked EQ’s: grainy drum machinery, gain-streaked synths, decayed soul samples, motorik dancefloor manoeuvres in the dark. All four tracks are mixed hot and humid, swarming cassette textures churning over conveyor belts of blown-out bass, warehouse rhythm, and salvaged voice, through seas of strangers towards speakers you feel as much as hear. Communion demands desire; believe or be leaving. Black vinyl 12 inches with center labels designed by John Michael. Mastered by Eric Hanson.

Pleasure Model

Kendo Dynamics

100% Silk

Bristol giallo disco meta-morphist Antoni Maiovvi flexes a fresh facet of his production arsenal as Pleasure Model, mapping leaner schematics of vintage cybernetic dread through stark drum machinery and cold fluorescent synthwork. Kendo Dynamics is his debut under this divergent replicant guise; it presents a persuasive world of fiber optic paranoia and technoid effacement. The album’s eight tracks trace various nuanced parallels of brooding arpeggiator jack (“Calmstone On Sea,” “Bealichtbach”), voidist new wave (“Mounnrocc,” “Dreams Of Crystal”), and blasted sci-fi body music (“Eat Itself,” “Abandonment Issues”), coaxing a mood of melancholic circuitry and souls on the brink. Data is DNA; every self, a subdivision. Slit the skin and count the pixels. One of Maiovvi’s finest futurist hours. Recorded at Mantueffelstr, Berlin, in Fall 2015.

Potions

Pushing The Cuboid

100% Silk

Eight new nubby acid permutations by Chicago’s premiere liquid electric projectionist, Potions. Sourced from a set-list of 2015 live staples, Pushing The Cuboid expands Tom Owens’ melting microchip fusion to include a more warped spectrum of bubbling concoctions. Recorded to a Tascam 4-track and digitally mixed with limited overdubs, the album oil-spills an array of fantastical wavelengths: moonbase monorail cruise (“Heel Lift,” “Space Mountain”), rubbery sarcasmic jazz (“Goof Forward,” starring Rob Frye of Bitchin’ Bajas on mult-tracked horns), outer rings cosmos shuffle (“Cool Ride”), cyber warehouse lurch (“Detroit Heart Strings”), etc. As always with Potions, there are no solid states, only alchemic flux – dissolving textures, rhythmic wobble, heavy phasing, cuboids pushed through unstable grids. In addition to Frye (whose flute and bass clarinet color the entire B Side), PTC also shows influence from Owens’ visual collaborator, Jillian Musielak, who projects mutating textural environments during performances. Speaking of: a string of spring dates throughout the heartland and west coast have been mapped to occasion the new release – catch his liquidity live if geographies allow.

Clarke, Hubert Jr

Al Dente

100% Silk

Impressionistic dub-house devotee Hubert Clark Jr. fluctuates through several deviations of Sydney afterhours circuit specialties on his debut, Al Dente. Alternately wired and unwound, classic and contempo, vibed soul and lean house, the EP threads soft-focus funk into longform live voyages, naturalist emotion, dance as relaxed delirium. The vocal samples (“I’m not into this to be traveling around the world / I’m not into this to impress anybody”) evoke a mood of reflective idealism, spirits undiminished, hope in spite of it all. Dusted with memories and reveries of Heavenly, Picnic, and Mad Racket parties, hallucinated Omar-S demos, newer Sex Tags sides, and various nations under a groove, HJC’s 4 originals (plus a remix by Adelaide vibe squad MBM) feel like a beginning, a submerged energy swelling to the surface. Lean back, ride the rise. Black vinyl 12 inches in stickered sleeves designed by Peta Farago with smiley meatball illustrations by John-Henry Pajak and Geordie Cargill. Mastered by Eric Hanson.

Booth, James

Human Rites

100% Silk

Mancunian producer James Booth holed up in various Hulme flats and half-studios with nothing but an old iMac to craft the six lushly overcast house designs comprising his vinyl debut, Human Rites. And, as is sometimes the case, the limitations were liberating: “With all of my gear in storage I downloaded a couple of plugins and tried to breath some life into them… with none of my old dusty buttons and keys I ended up focusing more deeply on the melodies and sound of each instrument.” Building on the misty-lensed techniques of his 2013 SILK cassette, Reunion, Booth’s new set of tracks feel even more nuanced and rain-streaked, streetlights dissolving through night bus windows, suburbs and moors glowing grey in the motorway’s false dawn. Structurally these songs swirl more than peak – synth lines spiral woozily, rhythms flex and fade, emotions come in and out of focus. He sees it similarly, describing Rites as “music for processes and passages; time elapses and we change.” Personal music for an impersonal world. 33 RPM black vinyl 12 inches in SILK label jackets designed by Roland Tings. Mastered by Eric Hanson.

Cherushii

Far Away So Close

100% Silk

San Fran rave loyalist Chelsea Faith aka Cherushii centered her 2nd EP around its title track, which feels like some Balearic brunch dream-jam floating in the ether off the pier of a Mediterranean isle – swooping coastlines, seagulls, liquid sky sax (courtesy of jazz multi-instrumentalist Marcia Miget), sex surfer acid. Loop it and lose yourself. The record’s other three cuts stake her map across varied terrains, from psychedelic catwalks (“Set You Free”) to sensual moonlight (“Nightsteps”) to peak hour DJ booths (“Sweet Spot”). Far Away So Close finds Faith at her freest and most focused, glitter in her eyes and the dancefloor in her fingers. Music for bodies in motion, no matter the ocean. In SILK label sleeves designed by Spencer Longo. Mastered by Eric Hanson.

Mr. Bronson

Trans Pacific

100% Silk

Melbourne hardware flatliner Mr. Bronson (aka Andrew Broughton) strips tracks back to their strobing skeletons, lean sequences of poly-synth and 707, a spiraling infinity window across Oceania. Motion does not equal movement; Pacific vertigo is its own reward. The eight woozy waveforms of Trans Pacific traverse overlapping strands of tranced acid, throbbing bass, and minimal synthesizer design, alternately stealthy and slogged, a low-slung speedboat in the dusk approaching Ball’s Pyramid. Previous limited lathes on his Bad Party imprint have explored similarly endless grids but the cuts collected here cruise the furthest into Mr. Bronson selfhood ritual, raw constructs of mantric pulse and drum machinery, gear in flight. Mastered by Alter Echo.

Nackt

Virex

100% Silk

A decade-plus duration of Bay Area electronic community building has distilled Johnny Igaz’s production alias Nackt down to its rubbery, resinous essence. Virex captures the project in its purest state: all live, all hardware, traced in curvilinear acid. The collection flows from fog machine night-stalk (“Full Coat,” “Ford”) to grooved mothership jack (“Black Widow,” “Trash Brothers”) to 303 soul ("Husk"), cut with verve and variance. Outpost party co-founder CM-4 shares much of the writing and production credit, frequently joining Nackt for live hardware PA performances. A squad of other SF house associates – Michael Claus (Outpost), Jason Key (Rotation), Doc Sleep (Jacktone) – cameo with drum patterns, 303 design, and additional production duties. Both alone and in collaboration Nackt conjures a riveting chemistry: lean, liquid, mechanized, and mesmerizing. Mastered by Matt Tammariello.

Roche

Dawn Of The Next Cycle

100% Silk

Ben Winans’ work as Roche resists niches and deadzones, threading through various outer rings of electronic trance, proto-techno, and unnamed house. His latest logbook of tracks, Dawn Of The Next Cycle, spirals as deep as ever into red-eyed trips of pulsing, gaseous patterns, electric body music reflections on “a world at war, a world that is falling apart, or perhaps reforming.” Shades of tribal jack, slap bass, submerged disco, cyber club, and programmer haze interweave and evaporate; nebulous melodies swell and dissolve; cycles dawn and die. Adapt or collapse – both man and machine. Even more than on previous releases, here Winans wields an innerspace touch, sinuous and circular, heavy-lidded like a horizon line. It’s always darkest before the Dawn. Recorded in San Francisco, California and mastered by Matt Tammariello.

Auscultation

L'étreinte Imaginaire

100% Silk

Auscultation is Madisonian-gone-Oregonian musician Joel Shanahan’s outlet for slinkier, more subliminal productions, as inaugurated on last year’s sprawling self-titled debut for 1080p Collection. His sophomore set, L’étreinte Imaginaire (which translates generally as imaginary embrace), was recorded off and on across France and Wisconsin throughout the last year, during and between various regional tours. The album’s seven selections swerve through jazzy, sunflared house (“Black Window,” “Composure Fuzz”), glimmering rhythm (“Stranded Love”), and misted, moody electronics (“Drop Off,” “Lost You In The Fog”). As with Shanahan’s work via Golden Donna and elsewhere, structures spiral and slide, textures phase in and out of focus, and a mood of heavy longing hovers in the headphones. Even so, the sense of focus and craft-sharpening here is unambiguous; these pieces are among his most plasmatic, pensive, and aerodynamic. Slow growth on a shadowed vine. The embrace may be imaginary but the touch feels real. Mastered by Alter Echo.

Cherushii

Memory Of Water

100% Silk

Released in advance of her Far Away So Close EP – although recorded almost a year later – Memory Of Water pools together eight dazed Cherushii excursions through sci-fi opera house, digital dolpin-scapes, cloud city slow-dives, ultraviolet synth-wave, and ambient Koi ponds. This is distinctly her least DJ-dedicated collection to date, exploring sprawls and spirals and planetarium modes not intended for dancefloor consumption, although ex-tour sister Ms. Maria Minerva does cameo on “Thin Line,” a prize pearl of Estonian discotheque-pop about “trembling on a tightrope caught between sweet seduction and mass destruction.” But overall these tracks reveal Cherushii's introspective side, vibing rich veins from new wiring schemes, chilled champagne, and Mission District memories. Mastered by Matt Tammariello.

Paradise 100

Northern Seoul

100% Silk

Brussels-based rhythm nationalist Graham Peel aka Paradise 100 returns to the recorded realm after 20-plus months off the grid with a four track EP of “micro fugues” designed to evoke a sense of “hazy ecstatic awe.” That’s one way of putting it. Like his last SILK outing, 2013’s The Loin King, Peel’s pieces pulse with tactical patience, carefully Jenga-piling synths, drum programming, and samples (voice, xylophone, etc) into fluid, curvilinear forms spiked with off-sync hooks, stark breakdowns, and filtered acid bass. Northern Seoul spans a quadrant of moods, from sunblind jack to dusk terrace to shattered glass piña colada, “when we wander around a foreign place for the first time.” Second time’s a charm, apparently. Subtle Seoul-searching by a craftsman out of the lights and off on his own. Pro-dubbed tapes in label J-cards. Mastered by Eric Hanson.

V/a

Sunset Silk

100% Silk

Five years flies by in a flash, but feels like an eon. Sunset Silk reflects on the label’s half-decade dim glow in the distance of dance with new tracks and remixes by Prison Garde, Jupiter Jax, James Booth, C.L.A.W.S., Cruise Family (a vintage unreleased 11-minute recording), Strategy, Sapphire Slows, Afterhours, Roche and his brother CB Radio, as well both Bobbys: Draino and Browser. Though the rhythms come far-flung – Montreal, Malta, Vienna, beyond – the approaches feel unified, faded, fogged, and heavily felt. Woozy coastal house, MIDI new wave, cosmic techno, Oakland dark jack, ripper acid, vapor grooves – the forms fluctuate across 60 minutes of shapeshifting SILK. Body music for the arc of sinking suns. Mastered in Portland, Oregon by Alter Echo.