July brought a wave of visionary and genre-defying releases — from the esoteric depths of “Who Owns The Dark” by Cherrystones and Demdike Stare to the emotive electro of Plant43. Ten releases everyone should listen to.
Enjoy!

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☉ Cherrystones x Demdike Stare – Who Owns The Dark? [DDS]

Manchester duo Demdike Stare teams up with London digger and producer Cherrystones, giving life to the infamous three-headed monster. From this brutal collaboration comes “Who Owns The Dark”, their new album released on the duo’s own label, DDS.
If we had to describe it in three words, they’d be: cruel, deranged, esoteric.
This record dives deep into the most unsettling corners of contemporary electronic music — a crossroads of dark ambient, industrial techno, and stripped-down post-punk. No compromises, no safe ground. The tracks feel like they’ve been pulled from a forbidden sonic archive, filled with obsessive loops, ritual percussion, scorched distortion, and sulphurous atmospheres.
There’s a constant sense of danger, of unresolved tension — every sound is laced with a chilling density, as if each piece were a séance conducted with cursed analog machines.
There’s no light at the end. Just one question left hanging: Who owns the dark?
[» listen and support here]

☉ Feral – A Look Within [Hypnus Records]

Feral returns to the realm of psychedelic techno with “A Look Within”, once again releasing on Hypnus Records — the influential Swedish label that has helped shape one of the most distinctive and immersive aesthetics in contemporary electronic music, with Feral as one of its founding voices.
The new EP consists of four tracks, each unfolding with ritualistic slowness, built through atmospheric progressions and layered textures that invite deep, immersive listening. Every piece is a slow-burning spiral, a journey guided by enveloping low-end, hypnotic modulations, and delicate spatiality, where the sound never strikes directly, but rather seeps gradually into both body and mind.
Feral’s signature lies in these dark, contemplative textures — dense yet never oppressive, leaving room for introspection and gently inducing an altered state of consciousness. As the title suggests, A Look Within is an invitation to look inward through sound — not as an escape from reality, but as a means of perceiving it more profoundly.
[» listen and support here]

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☉ Kaisei – Sketchbook [Optic Portal]

With “Sketchbook”, young Australian producer Kaisei delivers a remarkable debut on Optic Portal, sublabel of the highly respected MIRROR ZONE. True to its title, the album unfolds as a sonic notebook — a collection of sketches, ideas, and experiments that reveal both a strong technical command and a sharply defined musical vision.
Across 22 tracks, Sketchbook navigates effortlessly through techno, drum and bass, IDM, ambient, and experimental electronics, offering a listening experience that is as rich as it is cohesive. Despite its stylistic breadth, the album never feels scattered; instead, it’s held together by a clear narrative arc and carefully crafted sequencing, with seamless transitions even between seemingly distant genres.
What makes Sketchbook stand out is its confident versatility: each track explores a specific aesthetic with intention and precision, yet always through Kaisei’s own lens. The sound design shows surprising maturity, with refined textures, intricate rhythms, and a narrative sensibility that reflects a deep awareness of both past and present strands of underground electronic music.
[» listen and support here]

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☉ various artists – Part 3. Echoes [Just breathe.]

Just Breathe. returns with “Part 3. Echoes”, third instalment in its ongoing compilation series dedicated to exploring the liminal spaces of sensory and atmospheric electronic music. Six producers come together here under a shared sonic philosophy: a music that breathes, that unfolds with subtle tension, and that speaks more to emotion than to genre.
Each track emerges as an echo of a collective breath — where minimalism meets the organic, abstraction turns tangible, and electronic textures become intimate, physical experiences. The tracklist is cohesively curated, moving through expansive ambient landscapes, delicate sound design, muffled rhythms, and barely-there melodic fragments. Yet every piece retains a distinct identity, offering a range of emotional tones while staying within a unified aesthetic framework.
One of the standouts is “Module X33” by Möhne Seide — a suspended composition balancing between drone and cosmic ambient, perfectly capturing the spirit of the release in just a few minutes.
[» listen and support here]

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☉ Special Guest DJ – Our Fantasy Complex [3XL]

Special Guest DJ — alias of Ryan Fall, also known as uon, shy, and Caveman LSD — delivers another visionary entry in the ever-mutating landscape of deconstructed club music with his new album “Our Fantasy Complex”, released on his own label 3XL.
Far removed from any rigid form or recognizable structure, the album unfolds within an undefinable sonic terrain, where the elements of electronic music are dismantled, distorted, and reimagined at their core. It’s a record that inhabits the spaces between genres, timelines, and mental states — a shapeshifting continuum where ghosted basslines, subtle glitches, fractured breaks, and liquid atmospheres merge into a hazy, immersive narrative. Joined by Ben Bondy, Arad Acid and mu tate, this is another striking affirmation of the healing, visionary sensibility of the Berlin-based American producer.
As if that weren’t enough, Fall also handled the design and layout of the release. Fantastically executed. Chapeau.
[» listen and support here]

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☉ Benoît Pioulard – Stanza IV [Disques d’Honoré]

Benoît Pioulard returns with “Stanza IV”, a new chapter in his long-running series of ambient compositions originally conceived in 2015 as a daily practice of sonic introspection. This stunning album also marks the tenth release on his own boutique label, Disques d’Honoré.
Stanza IV was born in a deeply personal context: following the death of his father and a period of emotional upheaval, Pioulard turned once again to music as a form of meditation and healing. The result is a work that retains the series’ signature delicacy, while reaching new levels of depth and textural complexity.
Each piece unfolds slowly, patiently — long, immersive compositions crafted with meticulous care, built around rich sonic textures and eloquent silences, where the sound matter itself seems to breathe, remember, and resonate with life. This is ambient music in its most vital, intimate, and evocative form.
The album is accompanied by a full-length collection of reworks from artists such as Markus Guentner, arovane, Clarice Jensen, James Devane, MJ Guider, and Viul. A super-limited deluxe edition (now sold out) featured handcrafted packaging, each copy including an original Polaroid, tote bag, photo zine, a specially curated tea blend, and a glow-in-the-dark pin. For those who missed it, a “standard” edition is still available: pressed on yellow pollen vinyl and packaged with a numbered, signed insert and exclusive pin. A quiet triumph — tactile, thoughtful, and deeply human.
[» listen and support here]

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☉ Đ.K. – Signals from the Stars [Midgar]

Space becomes an inner landscape on “Signals from the Stars”, the new EP by Paris-based producer Đ.K., released on Midgar Records. Across a handful of tracks, Đ.K. transforms cosmic distance into emotional closeness: synthetic impulses that read like memories, waves that breathe like hearts, and patterns that unfold into cavernous horizons.
The production is carefully calibrated, with a keen attention to texture: analog tones surface with clarity, framed by generous reverb and sculpting filters that emphasize depth. This is not mere atmosphere for its own sake; the EP balances melodic tension and rhythmic discipline, moving between cinematic ambient and contemplative techno without resorting to clichés. Tiny details — a click, a decay, a subtle modulation — gain narrative weight and guide the listener through a slow, immersive drift.
Rounding out the release, Severja — Midgar’s founder and art director — provides a refined artwork that resonates with the music: more than an illustration, it extends the record’s sonic universe,.
[» listen and support here]

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☉ SND & RTN – ECHO LTD 013 EP [Echo LTD]

With the thirteenth installment in its series, ECHO LTD continues its unwavering exploration of the most refined corners of dub techno. The Rotterdam-based label—a trusted name for genre connoisseurs—entrusts this new chapter to the seasoned duo SND & RTN, long-standing contributors to its catalogue.
Across four tracks — The Mole, The Vacuum of Space, Rhudaur, and Noise Factory — SND & RTN reaffirm their signature style: minimalist, deep, and atmospheric dub techno, constructed with meticulous attention to details. There’s no room here for quick thrills or euphoric peaks. Instead, the duo crafts slow-burning soundscapes where every element — delay, reverb, pulse — is perfectly calibrated.
The result is immersive and meditative, striking a rare balance between hypnotic introspection and club functionality. Pressed on gold marbled vinyl in a limited edition, ECHOLTD013 is a small treasure for those who appreciate restrained elegance and sonic depth. Yet another flawless release from ECHO LTD., further cementing its central role in today’s dub techno landscape.
[» listen and support here]

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☉ Kommune – Oast [Second Circle]

“Oast” marks the return of Kommune, a short-lived but inspired trio composed of George Thompson (aka Black Merlin), Kyle Martin, and Jonathan Nash. Originally active between 2014 and 2015, the group emerged from a series of unstructured analog jam sessions, driven purely by sonic exploration.
Released on Second Circle, sublabel of the acclaimed Music From Memory, this LP features four long-form compositions extracted from those live sessions — fully improvised, recorded in real time, with no overdubs. The result is a hypnotic blend of ambient techno, minimalist yet immersive, balancing open-form structure with subtle rhythmic pulses. It echoes both the cosmic drift of kosmische musik and the inward gaze of contemplative techno. There’s a constant tension between order and entropy, control and surrender — an organic dialogue between machines that resists rigidity while preserving coherence. Though these recordings are nearly a decade old, they sound fresher and more purposeful than much of today’s electronic output, offering a rare sense of sonic maturity and creative urgency.
[» listen and support here]

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☉ Plant43 – Feeding the Machines [Plant43 Recordings]

Emile Facey — better known as Plant43 — releases his tenth full-length album “Feeding the Machines”, while also marking twenty years of activity in the world of electro. As always, the album lands on his own Plant43 Recordings, and it feels less like a conventional release and more like an artistic statement: a sonic autobiography and a meditation on the relationship between man and machine.
From the outset, it’s evident that Plant43 has chosen to step beyond the razor-sharp precision for which he’s widely respected. As he himself has explained, he intentionally embraced imperfection, recording sounds directly from his modular synths, capturing the subtle, unpredictable nuances that emerge through real-time, physical interaction.
The result is a body of work that feels deep, honest, and strikingly personal. Feeding the Machines fluidly moves through territories of classic electro, full of mechanical groove and resonant low-end pulses, while also dipping into sophisticated techno. The album showcases a remarkable stylistic range, all held together by Facey’s unmistakable sonic signature: futuristic, melancholic, and charged with a rare kind of emotional intelligence.
[» listen and support here]