𝔟𝔫𝔤𝔯𝔷 𝔩𝔱𝔡.001

Shackleton - Euphoria Bound [2026, AD 93]

At a festival one morning many years ago, I was walking through a field hours after the music ended when I encountered Shackleton. He was hanging out with someone who knew the person I was hanging out with. The other two started talking and there was nothing for me to do but strike up a conversation with Shack, who I'd never met but whose music I loved. On no sleep and full of nervous energy, I watched myself fly into a long-winded monologue about what I imagine when I hear his music, which, at the time, was a sort of montage of human civilization sliding into ruin — snowcaps melting, stock markets plunging, concertina wire, an apocalyptic Samsara showing the bleak future we all hope isn't coming but suspect probably is. When I finally finished my speech, he stared at me for what could be called several moments, then told me this was literally the worst thing I possibly could have said to him. His music, he explained, is a celebration of life, pure and simple, just unadulterated joy all the way through. OK, I said, but you have to admit it's pretty dark. No, he said. We stood there, unsure where to look or what to say, until our respective companions finished their conversation and we all parted ways. I spent the next day regretting the conversation enormously. That night, Shack spotted me at the bar and came over to tell me that he had, too. We apologized to each other a million times, fought over who owed who a beer, then went off into the night and never saw each other again. I still had my doubts — his label was called Skull Disco, the whole thing just seemed self-evidently morbid (which, go off, I've listened to morbid music all my life). But watching him play that night, I saw what he meant. Here was a room in which people were hitting something close to peak pleasure, dancing manically with eyes closed, hooting and hollering, etc. Whatever the surface aesthetics, Shackleton's music has done nothing but bring joy into people's lives. So yeah, all that in mind, I have no doubt that Euphoria Bound, the title of his 17th album and possibly his best yet (edging out my past favorites, 3 EPs and the collab Pinch & Shackleton), is meant quite literally. In its only deeply strange and unique way, this is a ghost train headed toward nothing short of pure bliss.

PQM - You Are Sleeping [2003, Yoshitoshi Recordings]

Heard this one during my favorite DJ set of 2025, which was ffan, a DJ from Seoul I'd never heard of till then, playing sometime around eight or nine am at Panorama Bar for the Sound Metaphors party. The set had many highlights — Tantra's "Hills of Katmandu", Mr G's "Consequences," which, if memory serves, came right before this one — but in the year since then this one's gotten the most repeat plays of possibly any club track ever to enter my proverbial "crate." On the dance floor that morning I didn't notice what the acapella was about and wasn't sure how I felt about it heard in the cold light of day, with its uneasy mix of human misery and a gurn-inducing reese bassline. In isolation it's a fantastic poem — "The Gospel According to John/You’re Not Sleeping" by John Harris — and over time its place in the track grew on me. (If you'd rather pass on the addiction and sex work content, there's a dub mix, too.) This is a type of track I'd like to find much more of: the dark, trippy side of progressive house, which in my imagination was the soundtrack to '90s New York clubs like Twilo. Yoshitoshi is a '90s and 2000s powerhouse label that released tons of stuff, some of which you probably know even if you don't know what it is (Eddie Amour's "House Music," i.e. the one that goes "not everyone understands house music...") plus a lot of deeper / trippier stuff that's aged really well — check "Psycho X Girlfriend" and "The Baguio Track (Full Igorot Mix).”

Dialog feat. Benji - DOT 4 [2026, DOT]

Every record from this label and production crew has been absolute fire. Dialog is the Finnish artist Rasmus Hedlund and the Dutch producer Samuel Van Dijk, who, on all their EPs so far, have teamed up with the Jamaican vocalist Benji. Their take on dub is neither a modern update nor a revival, it just feels like a modern evolution of the dub tradition, albeit with a European techno twist, which is stronger on this one than the others. DOT 2 is more rhythmically loyal to original dub, and maybe just a tad more interesting for it. But this new batch is still absolutely lethal, all earthy sub-bass, thick grooves and balmy atmospheres. Paul St Hilaire with Rhythm & Sound is an inevitable reference point, but the mood and sound signature here is very much its own thing. DOT continues to be one of my few buy-on-sights right now. (Dialog's ambient LP on the Astral Industries is killer, too.)

Peryl - Phase Alternations [2026, Augmented Research]

Never heard of Peryl before this month but this album is really giving everything you want from psychedelic techno: crazily tactile sound design, twisted and catchy grooves, plus a few monster hooks, namely that melody of infinite gravitas on “Synthetic Dawn.” In terms of pure production value these tracks tend to outshine whatever comes before or after them in a mix. It’s the kind of techno that feels like an overflowing cornucopia of alien, ultra-vivid sound. It's also rhythmically fresh in a way I wish more techno was.

Frazier Chorus - Anarchy In The UK [1989, Virgin]

Without going into details, a friend of mine once found himself DJing in front of a riot in a moment of historic social upheaval — think people raving while armed riot police pressed in on them, little skirmishes around the edge of the crowd, that kind of thing. At risk of minimizing that event, I've daydreamed ever since then about what I'd play in that situation. At the moment this synth-pop cover of the Sex Pistol's seminal punk anthem is my top pick, but in particular a remix which is sadly not available on YouTube: Mike Wertheim's house remix for the 1991 compilation Twitch Vol 1, the first in a series of bootleg remixes of pop, new wave, industrial, EBM etc, like a lesser-known Razormaid (and no connection to the late JD Twitch of Optimo). The first volume is the best one I've heard, thanks in part to this club version of Frazier Chorus's ambient synth pop cover of the Sex Pistols classic. More recently I've started vibing to the original. Aside from being a beautiful piece of beatless synth pop, the combo of neanderthalic punk lyrics and the regal grandeur of the music is exquisitely nonsensical. The first time I heard it I wondered how he'd handle that ending. And sure enough, he breathily croons the one-word line: "destroy..."

𝔟𝔬𝔫𝔲𝔰 𝔬𝔟𝔦𝔱𝔲𝔞𝔯𝔶 𝔟𝔫𝔤𝔯:

Éliane Radigue - Trilogie de la Mort [1998, Experimental Intermedia Foundation]

Couldn't launch this newsletter without paying respects to the French drone GOAT Éliane Radigue, who died this week. Trilogie de la Mort is Radigue's magnum opus, and, for me and many others, the finest iteration of this highly esoteric art form. Performed on ARP 2500 synthesizer, recorded to magnetic tape, inspired by the Tibetan book of the dead, the art of Josef Albers and MC Escher and an imaginary journey around the Himalayas, it's a three-hour consciousness massage that shows the transportive power of electronic music reduced to its rawest form. It's a loyal companion of an album, especially in moments when you need to recede completely from the physical world, or just tune it out as best you can. thank you Éliane and RIP