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Istanbul-based digger and producer Grup Ses’s mix for Ransom Note is a trip through the cassette underworld of 1980s Turkey, when drum machines and synthesisers went from novelty to the centre of the arrangement. It opens with a sampled tape skit asking whether you’re stressed or tired, then prescribes the cassette as the cure, to be played anywhere from the hamam to a minibus. From there it moves through electronic pop, arabesque hybrids and Anatolian-tinged studio pieces, with a Turkish cover of Mory Kanté’s “Yé ké yé ké” along the way, before closing on two slow jams. The backdrop is the 1980 military coup. In its wake, the studio, rather than the band, became where Turkish pop was made, and the new machines spread fast. The records here are full of Junos, DX7s and Yamaha RX11s, but also stranger local tools like the Bojidar RB Alaturka Ritm-Box, a rhythm box built around traditional Turkish rhythms. Some producers used the gear to chase the international pop sound of the moment. Others pushed it towards arabesque or Anatolian pop, and plenty of these records never travelled beyond a small cassette or vinyl run. Many of them are gathered on DALGA – A Selection of 80s Pop Oddities from Turkey, compiled by Grup Ses for Zel Zele, the Istanbul and London-based label and NTS Radio show. Neriman and Füsun Önal show the glossy, global-pop side, while Mehmet Pekün and Zor Beyler fold electronics into arabesque. Tele Tempo, a studio project arranged by Özkan Turgay with drums by Koral Sarıtaş, takes the Anatolian route. Vedat Biçkin’s “Darbuka Bongo Kavgası” splits darbuka and bongos across the stereo field over a drum machine groove, and Grup Ses calls it the most inventive production on the record. Six of the tracks have never left their original cassettes until now. The mix sets a few of them beside lesser-known finds from the same years, so the compilation sits in a wider scene. The title is Turkish for “wave”, and the sleeve uses Antonio Cosentino’s painting “69 Volkswagen” (2003), which comes from the same everyday Istanbul imagery the compilation celebrates. For Grup Ses it also goes back to childhood. His earliest musical memory is MFÖ’s “Peki Peki Anladık”, which was constantly on at home when he was three or four. He has been digging and releasing records since 2007, with six albums of his own and archival work for Ironhand Records, Sucata Tapes and Zel Zele, including the label’s Café Türk and Bahtiyar Taş reissues. DALGA is vinyl-only and comes out on October 30, 2026 via Zel Zele Records. “Anca Gidersin” is already out as a digital single, and Bandcamp pre-orders include an instant download of Zor Beyler’s “Bir Mumdur”. Fulll interview here: https://www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/grup-ses-the-ransom-note-mixtape/

There was an Old Drive in a Case, Who held ten long years in its space; It went blink with a hum, And said, “Now I’m numb!” Then the Screen wrote “Not Found” on its face. A Man at the Claptrap HQ Said, “I know what a Man ought to do: Make some Acid that bites, Proto House for the nights, And a Sad String to see it all through.” Said a Mancunian chap, Ruf Dug, “I shall give the A1 a good tug!” It came back, so they say, As a killer that day, Very tasty, and snug as a bug. So, children, whatever you do, Keep a second and third copy too; Back it up! Back it twice! (It is cheap, it is nice) Or you’ll sing the File Management Blues. Nearly six years after his last full EP on Claptrap, Vanity Project returns with ‘File Management Blues’, made after a backup drive meltdown wiped over ten years of studio files from Claptrap HQ. The EP has four original versions on a theme, plus a rework of the lead track from Manchester’s Ruf Dug. It runs from uptempo, club rollers with swirling pads and biting acid lines to downtempo dub chuggers, spanning acid, proto house, and balearic, with a melancholic digital string melody running through it all. The release notes sign off with a reminder: always back it up, kids. ‘File Management Blues (w/ Ruf Dug Remix)’ is out 6 November on Claptrap (CLPTRP008), on 12" vinyl. A1. ‘File Management Blues’ A2. ‘File Management Blues pt.2’ B1. ‘File Management Blues (Ruf Dug Remix)’ B2. ‘Everybody Talkin’ ‘Bout (File Management)’ B3. ‘File Management Dub’ Produced and written by Vanity Project. Remix produced by Ruf Dug. Design by Lorenz Klingebiel. Claptrap on Bandcamp: https://claptrap-clptrp.bandcamp.com/ Pre-order via Rubadub: https://rubadub.co.uk/products/file-management-blues-w-ruf-dug-remix

A selector with fifteen years of crate-digging under his belt, fiercely devoted to the underground and always hunting for the next evolution of UK club music. Adam Curtain is a serious selector, he always has been. As the brains behind Trouble Maker, Curtain has spent well over a decade pushing and pulling at the seams of UK club music. Whether he’s steering his own imprints, releasing tracks on Love International and Alien Communications, or putting a masterclass on genre-fluidity through its paces at Houghton, Glastonbury, Fabric and Closer in Kyiv, he treats electronic music as a sonic canvas. His sets are a masterclass in momentum, effortlessly sliding between tech house, breakbeat, electro, techno and house without breaking a sweat.  Tune in, read the interview below and let Mr. Curtain take you for a spin. https://www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/adam-curtain-the-ransom-note-mix/

James Allison and Tia Cousins finally make good on years of talk, turning a Planes, Trains and Automobiles sample into a fuzzed-out, bass-heavy dancefloor rush. There once was a fellow who boarded a plane, And a fellow who boarded a train, And a fellow who honked down a wrong-numbered lane – And nobody knew which was which, it was plain. “I’m the Wrong Guy!” cried one, with a wobble of hips, While a guitar came loose at the seams of his lips, And a bassline rolled thundering up through his ribs, Till the whole rattling carriage dissolved into blips. They danced through the tollbooths, they jived through the fog, Half rock and half rhythm, half man and half dog, With a Cure-shaped shadow and a Fall-tinted frog Keeping time on the tarmac in 4/4 log. So – plane, train, or car, friend, it hardly matters who, When the bassline turns hazy and the guitars cut through – For deep in the static, both wrong guys and true Get messed with entirely, and dance the night through. Long-time friends James Allison and Tia Cousins finally get round to a collaboration years in the talking, built off a sample Tia spotted lurking in the theme song of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Two studio sessions later, ‘Messin’ With The Wrong Guy’ strips out the “annoying” bits of the original and rebuilds it as a hazy, bass-driven track laced with fuzzed-out guitar – James continuing the rockier lane he opened with his ‘Make Dance Rock Again’ edits, Tia bringing the ear for a curveball that’s shaped her Noods Radio show from day one. Already road-tested at Convenanza 2026, where Rosie Ama dropped it late in her set and brought the house down. Free download: here: https://jamesallison-mdra.bandcamp.com/

clay. presents Surface 01, a VA compilation bringing together 15 artists, established and emerging, making what the label considers some of the most exciting electronic music right now - a testament to the countless forms of leftfield dance music coming out of the UK and beyond, and a small taste of what’s to come. “Ammonite – So” is the atmospheric conclusion to the 13-track record, brimming with emotive textures and crystalline vocals. Surface 01 is out 25th September via clay., mastered by Lurka (Dave N.A. handling “Pancake Parade” himself), with cover artwork by Selina Landis - a 3D print with pewter inlay, hand-finished and digitally edited.

Amélie Ravalec is a London-based Parisian film director, photographer and DJ, known for her documentaries on avant-garde and underground music and art, including Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers (2025), Art & Mind (2019), Industrial Soundtrack for the Urban Decay (2015) and Paris/Berlin: 20 Years of Underground Techno (2012). The first episode of her series Solstice, Sumarsólstöður, won 25 awards and 15 nominations in 2025. She is also the author and designer of Japan Art Revolution: The Japanese Avant-Garde from Angura to Provoke, published by Thames & Hudson in 2025. She began her career in electronic music, co-founding record label and events platform Fondation Sonore in 2011, and has since released DJ mixes for The Quietus, The Brvtalist, XLR8R and others. Her latest DJ set, A Realm of Impossible Intensity, moves through cinematic soundscapes and heavy electronics, from ritual chanting to martial industrial, dark ambient textures and modern classical strings, weaving soundtrack extracts from her own films alongside tracks by Nick Cave, David Lynch, ANOHNI, Hildur Guðnadóttir and Kangding Ray.

“I loved the naivety of it, and it’s about trying to bottle that feeling.” Toby Tobias has never really stopped. Since 1992, when he first got his hands on a sampler, some amen breaks and a stack of horror film samples, he’s operated under a run of aliases and studios, but Alphonse was always the one closest to the bone – a direct line back to hearing it all for the first time on Kiss FM and in the raves, before he knew what any of it was called. He’s put records out on Klasse Wrecks, Hypercolour, Emotional Especial and Kalahari Oyster Cult, run a label of his own in Voice Notes, and built a career propping up the counter in Croydon before anyone was paying him to be there. WhatsApp Image 2026-09-11 at 12.00.20 His latest, ‘Spirit of the Night’ with Seraphina Simone, is the kind of record that took its time. Written in a single session at Glastonbury in 2017, it sat through lockdown, a new baby and a handful of other projects before it finally clicked as a late-night acid house record, built around a snaking 303 line and Seraphina’s vocal, and spun out into four mixes pulling in four different directions. It’s out now on our our very own Ransom Note Recs. We locked him in for a mix and a chat. Check it out below. https://www.theransomnote.com/music/premieres/alphonse-see-me-in-3d-ransom-note-mix/

Berlin-based DJ and producer Anna Kost has carved out a distinctive space between techno, bass music and experimental electronics. She has released material on the likes of Soma, Faux Poly, ÆX and more having established herself as a DJ in the German capital appearing at the likes of Tresor and RSO. As a producer, she draws upon an array of influences, tending to focus on deeper, emotionally lead material which dances atop club based sounds and sensibilities. This mix is made up entirely of her own unreleased material and demonstrates an unrivalled potential as she plots her next steps.

We're premiering Kerobokan, the title track off Rocco Universal's new EP - out 18 September on Cosmic Tiger, CT004, vinyl and digital. Rocco Universal is the alias of Patrizio Cavaliere, who also happens to run Cosmic Tiger itself - started as a blog in 2019, gone quiet for a while, now back as what he calls a slow-moving but trusted archive of interviews, conversations and dancefloor oddities. He writes for Juno and Mixmag Asia, holds down a residency at Potato Head Bali, and has previously landed productions on Leng and Soul Clap. The EP is four cuts of cosmic machine funk, recorded on analogue synths with feeling put well ahead of control - saturated drums, thick bass, melodies that take their time getting anywhere. Shaped patiently around that Bali residency, the tracks move through cosmic disco, proto-house, electro-funk and psychedelic chug, each one finding its place beneath evolving twilight skies. Whoever's naming the tracklist deserves a mention too - Mutiny On The Sex Raft opens things, Floating Free closes them. Kerobokan sits third, named for the stretch of Bali it was shaped in - slow-burning, intuitive, built for the point in the night where nobody's watching the clock. Kerobokan, below. The EP's out 18 September on Cosmic Tiger.

Buenos Aires bassline, Guadalajara hypnosis – we’re premiering Pinto’s deep, stripped-back take on Javier Ferreira’s Mercury… Javier Ferreira built a bassline from mercury and light, Multi-instrument magic from Buenos Aires to the night; He broke the rhythm loose and let it drive, Through peak-time thunder, after-hours haze, A groove gone liquid in a silver blaze, Deep and functional, and somehow still alive. Then Pinto came along, all sampler and swing, Stripped the groove right back till the silence could sing; Guadalajara hands on a Mexican night, He hypnotised Mercury, slowed down the spark, Turned peak-time to prayer in the after-hours dark, On Playground Records, ten September: liftoff flight. Ferreira’s Argentinian – Buenos Aires born, Barcelona based – and has been at this fifteen-odd years: DJ, producer, mixing engineer running his own studio, Soundsfera. He co-runs NINEFONT with his brother Gabriel, a hundred-plus releases deep, and has put tracks out everywhere from Suara to Rotten City. DJ Mag LA called him one of Argentina’s top five techno DJs back in 2017; these days he’s as likely to be found teaching, having co-founded academies in Buenos Aires (Insound) and Barcelona (BesideSchool). Deeper is three originals where deep basslines, broken rhythms and driving house grooves collide – detailed but functional, working just as well at peak time as three hours past it. The remixes pull in two directions: Pinto takes Mercury deeper and darker, stripping the groove back till tension carries the track instead of rhythm; François Del Mundo & Rem’s Martinez go the other way on a separate cut, adding a soaring arpeggio and turning it into a straight-up club weapon. Pinto’s from Guadalajara – a Bar Américas resident since 2007, founder of the Localafiesta night, part of the Vatos Locos crew, known for running a sampler as an extra mixer channel back when nobody else was bothering. His read on Mercury fits: strip it back, let it hypnotise rather than hit. Mercury (Pinto Remix), below. Deeper is out 10 September on Playground Records, mastered by Submarea Estudio. GRAB THE FULL EP HERE: https://javier-ferreira.bandcamp.com/album/deeper-inc-pinto-fran-ois-del-mundo-rems-martinez-remixes

The most excellent Nandele Maguni steps up with the cHai EP on his own label. the ace-ly name Awesomakossamusic - four tracks, written, recorded, produced and mixed solo at Empty House Studios. We're premiering VIOLA, today. Not a new name round these parts, Nandele opened Rosie Ama's Human Endeavour with Incomati on the label's Trains of Thought comp back in 2022, then returned with an extended solo EP of his own, Maputo, in 2024. Maguni has been dragging Mozambique's underground into rooms that didn't know they even needed it till they found it ever since: Cotch International, a spot on Tresor's roster, records built from psychedelia, hip-hop and rhythm that defies any real categorisation or genre box. cHai goes further back. Chai's an administrative post in Cabo Delgado's Macomia District - the place where the armed struggle against Portuguese colonial rule began on 25 September 1964. No history lesson though: Maguni runs it through analogue machines and raw, unpolished textures until it sounds like it's arriving from the future, not the past. VIOLA is rhythm first, textures close behind - the same push-pull between ancestral and synthetic that runs through the record.  Get it on, let's go:

CHLOÉ is a serious DJ. She always has been and we say that with the utmost respect.  For many years CHLOÉ has been a key operator amidst electronic music, steadily releasing her own material, running record labels and pushing the underground forward. Her own imprint Lumière Noire remains pivotal in the evolution of a darker, more rugged side of things drawing upon influences from Post Punk, House, Electroclash and beyond. Her own sets are packed of similar sounds, often weaving and wandering between the spaces which sit on the periphery of the genres, pairing the similarities from each.   Over the years CHLOÉ has performed at just about every trendy 'nightclub' out there. But that's never really been the point. For her it always has been and always will be about the music, the scenes which surround it are simply the accessory to the crime.

“Plants don’t suddenly transform from one state to another; growth is gradual, and a lot of it happens unseen.” Having spent an album taking the passion flower through birth, bloom, and death, KiF Productions turns a plant’s year into a single day. The Seeds Mix is two hours made for doing nothing in particular – garden, common land, park bench, wherever there’s room to potter, stare, and let time pass without checking it. No lifecycle to hang it on this time, just a day. Dawn eases into focus for the first hour, dusk pulls everything inward and quiet for the second. IMG_4869 Sound-wise, it’s the same juxtaposition that ran through Passiflora – birdsong, wind, bells and found nature sitting right up against synthetic tone, warmer where it can be. KiF have form for throwing in fake, synthesised birdsong purely to mess with the spotters, so don’t take anything chirping out of the speakers entirely at face value. As the mix moves from day to night, the sound follows: brighter and busier in the early stretch, sliding towards darker, slower and more dreamlike as the light drops, the shift gradual rather than a hard cut. IMG_2130 It’s not made in a vacuum either. Simon Armstrong from Errant slipped them a couple of tracks that ended up soundtracking dusk. Rob at Be With handed over a Hatchback cut before it even hit his own label. Gardens In The Sky drifted in via a mix from our very own Tia Cousins for Test Pressing. It is less a finished object, more the latest exchange in an ongoing conversation between friends who keep sending each other music. IMG_9267 Our old friend Keith McIvor haunts this one too, gently. His lockdown-era Tranquillity Mixes are where KiF first heard Inoyama Land, who show up in the dawn section, and a Saturday morning set at Watching Trees’ Bush of Ghosts this year fed straight into the whole thing taking shape. Asked what plant they’d be, Will and Tom eventually landed on a coppiced hazel in a holloway – practical, long-lived, on good terms with humans, and sat under centuries of falling leaves (“plenty of samples,” as they point out) – two hours of KiF thinking like that particular tree. Sit down, shut up, watch the light move. Full interview here: https://www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/seeds-mix-12-kif-productions-dawn-to-dusk-mixtape/ Music To Watch Seeds Grow By 010: KiF Productions (Passiflora) here: https://kifproductions.bandcamp.com/album/010-kif-productions-passiflora Tracklist: (Dawn) The Habbiyya – Two Shakuhachis Iasos – Undulating Bell Harmonics Harold Budd – It’s Steeper Near The Roses (For David Sylvian) Raul Lovisoni & Francesco Messina – Prati Bagnati Del Monte Analogo Laaraji – Essence (Excerpt) Inoyami Land – Bananatron Spacetime Continuum – Ping Pong MDA Analog – Rainful Memories Hatchback – And The Walls Became The World Around Us M&M – Garden In The Sky Dieter – Ecstasy Roedelius – Tempera (Dusk) Bruce Haack – 17 Gifts For Free Children Deux Filles – Birds Old Jared – IV. Forest Pond Priscilla Ermel – Gestos De Equilibrio (Excerpt) Another Fine Day – Life Before Land Paz Sounds – Trees & Birds Hampshire & Foat – Lullaby Jonny Nash – Smoke Rings Green-House – Soft Coral The Black Dog – Chesh Ashra – Deep Distance Underworld – To Heal Virginia Astley – Out On The Lawn I Lie In Bed Orchestra Of The Swan – An Ending (Ascent)[Arr. For Violin, Harp & Orchestra by David Le Page] Brian Eno – Strange Quiet

Tracklist - Jörg Kuning - Dripgroove John Tejada & Arian Levista - Word Problems Jay Haze - Boring Acid John Spring - Strange 4424 DMM Daniel Stefani - Move Me (Guido Schneider’s Dark Side of the Moon Remix) PMT - Innuendo (Principled Dub Mix) Rework - You’re So Just Just (Original Mix) Stefan Braatz - Mon Amour feat. Eric D. Clark (Instrumental) Tibi Dabo - Desert Hike Eden Burns - Telephone Terror (Original Mix) Will Hofbauer - Mudpuller (Eden Burns Whistle Beatz Remix Dub) Psychederek - Thinkin’ Bout U, Pt. 3 (Mars) Jon Dasilva & Skyskrapa Feat. Donald Waugh - Sun Brings Joy (Triangulation Dub) Queen Atom - Tributemaki Hilel Lev - Kino DJ Chrysalis - A Place Like A Place Benoit & Sergio - Walk And Talk (Original Mix) Elmass - Shank 03 Urban Sound Lab Presents Miss Yankey - One Less (Main Send)

Natural Selections label head strips out Jackson’s looseness and replaces it with gritty disco punk… There was a young Jackson called Thomass, Whose grooves were decidedly bonkers, He twisted his rhythms, And psychedelicisms, And built wonky house out of conkers. Carlo Sine said “I’ll take that Jam, And flip it as hard as I can,” He made it go gritty, A punk disco ditty, For sweaty rooms and also Milan. Natural Selections cried “Ten! We’ll never see grooves like these again!” So they pressed it on wax, Paid the Submarea tax, And Portobello Mafia rode out of its den. Thomass Jackson has been hovering around the Natural Selections orbit for a while now — guest mix here, remix there — but somehow never quite landed on the catalogue proper. That changes today. Portobello Mafia is his first official release on the imprint and it sounds exactly like you’d want it to: wonky, playful, slightly psychedelic house music that tilts just far enough off-axis to keep you guessing. Both originals do that thing where the groove feels wrong until it feels completely right. We’re premiering Carlo Sine’s remix of “Jam” today, which takes the EP somewhere else entirely. The label head strips out the looseness and replaces it with grit – punk disco built for the part of the night when the small talk stops and everyone just gets on with it. Portobello Mafia EP is out August 13. Stream below.