Welcome to this weeks In Strict Tempo. Apologies for no newsletter last week but I was at the International Music Summit conference in Ibiza, so didn’t find the time to get down my thoughts. Earlier this week a family funeral took me up to Scotland for three days, so apologies also for the lack of music reviews in this edition. Next week will be another bumper edition for sure.

IMS this year felt better than previous years. I’m still not too sold on the new location, but the food and drink offerings in the conference itself were more affordable and diverse, and the programming wasn’t just themed all around one flavour-of-the-month topic, although the overriding subject was on Reclaiming the Dancefloor (one question I overheard whilst passing a panel was ‘from whom?’, and that got me thinking although I wasn’t able to stick around for the answer).

It does make me wonder however, what happened to all the AI & NFT companies that sponsored the event heavily a few years ago - you don’t hear from those guys any more…

One highlight from me was making my IMS panel debut, discussing with colleagues about our labels recent purchase by Create Music Group. I hope that gave those listening plenty of food for thought, and it certainly opened a few discussions afterwards.

Anyway, overall a nice three days in the sun, a good chance to catch up with peers and friends and discuss issues, tips and tactics. Despite the pedestrian tech house, the finale at Dalt Vila remains an incredible location to reflect on it all, and I always come back from the event energised to be more creative in my own musical endeavours.

There aren’t really any hot-takes from IMS that I haven’t covered before, and sometimes it’s nice just to take something at face value for what it is.

One non-IMS bit of news from me this week: I was asked by the Association for Electronic Music for my thoughts on how artists and labels can make their music heard in a highly competitive marketplace. You might not agree with it all, but you can read the article here.

Next week I’ll be back with a lorry-load of new music reviews. Thanks for reading!

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Hello all, and apologies for the lack of In Strict Tempo Communications over the past couple of weeks. Things should be back to normal now.

The big news over the last week or so? Boards of Canada might be back. Mysterious posters, video tapes mailed out to people, thousands of posts on Reddit… all the ingredients are there. Is it time to reappraise Tomorrow’s Harvest? It’s up there with their best. Anyway, here’s a YouTube video which seems to be the first track from an upcoming album.

Record Store Day this Saturday. Your local shop will probably have some kind of event on, and a large queue of scalpers out the door. I haven’t noticed any gems in the list this year, but there’s probably a few okay titles in there (as well as a lot of dross).

Next week I’ll be at IMS. If you’re there too let me know. On Thursday I’m participating in a panel about life after an acquisition, wearing my label hat. Come say hi, I’m there Wednesday-Friday, and likely at Pikes one of the evenings…

New Music

Anyway, enough of that - there’s lots of cool stuff out, some of which I’ve missed since I last wrote, so here’s a chunky list of new music.

Appleblim - Liminal Tides [Quiet Details]

Appleblim goes ambient! Absolutely out-of-this-world soundscapes from the dubstep pioneer and Skull Disco co-founder. This is a bit more than just what you’d call ambient tbh, featuring the considered sound design you’d expect from someone who’s worked closely with the likes of Shackleton & co.

ex_libris - 003 [ex_libris]

Not streaming yet, but Bandcamp is your friend here. A third volume of cosmic techy leaning “house” from the one formerly known as A Made Up Sound. 10/10 as always.

Terrence Dixon - When Stars Remember [Tresor]

Proper hypnotic tackle from one of the best to ever do it. Take that first track and pitch it waaaay down and let him take u places you’ve never been before…

Cancer House - The Moth [Motion Ward]

Already being proclaimed by many as one of the albums of the year this one sold out pretty much as soon as it landed… there’s a repress en-route, but in the mean time make do with the digital. What do you call this? That’s up to you, but it sits somewhere around the slowcore/post-rock axis wistfully floating around the place with methodical precision and a DIY feel at the same time.

Iivana Mišukka & Arja Kastinen - Iivana Mišukka [Death Is Not The End]

Remember that Michael O’Shea reissue from a few years back? You know, the zither one. Yeah that. If you like that you’ll love this.

Shed - Everybody [Dekmantel]

Shed on Dekmantel? Didn’t see that one coming. It sounds lazy to say this sounds like typical Shed, but it does. If you’re this good at doing what you do then why change it?

Donato Dozzy - Hypno Trance [Spazio Disponible]

Again, just on Bandcamp for the time being… I was expecting more trance if I’m honest, but this is still pretty hypnotic so all good there.

Shinichi Atobe - Silent Way [Plastic & Sounds]

I’m told this is Atobe’s first self-released LP, after a run of records with DDS. On first thoughts it’s pretty decent, something that I think will reveal itself more with every new listen. Some tracks are deffo in the classic vein, others a little more pedestrian, but still better than 90% of what passes for house these days

Pan-American - Fly The Ocean In A Silver Plane [kranky]

When I was younger we used to go on holiday to this one place in the south of France where they would do this big sandwich called a Pain American. Essentially it was a baguette filled with French fries, frankfurter and Dijon mustard, and it was probably one of the best things my fifteen year old appetite could have imagined. Tried one again a couple of years ago and it was fucking horrible. Anyway… nice album this, post-rock summer round two?

Raime - Can You Repeat That Please? [DDS]

Blink-and-you’ve-probably-missed-it-already mixtape from Raime diving deep into their UK roots backgrounds, reggae, dub, street soul and all things in that orbit. Hunt down the files if you missed the tape. Don’t ask me.

Index for Working Music - Bunker Imitations II [Tough Love]

I previewed this one a few weeks ago, now the full thing is available on digital and vinyl via World of Echo affiliated Tough Love. I loved the last one, this one’s great too.

Francesco Leali - To Dance Is To Resist [Until Riots]

One of the most innovative composers working in music today, Milan’s Francesco Leali returns to his Until Riots imprint with the score to the film of the same name, tracking a couple dealing with identity, homophobia and the effects of war in modern-day Ukraine.

Speedy J - Ctrssalms 17 (Cold Render) [STOOR]

These past few weeks have been full of suprpsies haven’t they? Boards of Canada, Untold, Appleblim and now Speedy J back with some new music, his first solo album in 20 years, and the first thing I’ve listened to since that collab with Surgeon a couple of years back.

aloisius - vernacular [life is beautiful]

Meandering calmly through gentle valleys of melodic pianos into the reflecting pools of shoegaze-heavy guitars this album wears its influences on it’s sleeve, but still keeps a few tricks hidden to reveal themselves to the adventurous listener.

Tara Clerkin Trio - Silently [World of Echo]

A second new single from Tara Clerkin Trio on World of Echo - on second thoughts, who even needs new Boards of Canada?

RJD2 & Supastition - According To… [RJ’s Electrical Connections]

RJD2 was part of that absolutely peerless era of stuff on Def Jux that sounded like almost nothing else on earth, but better than 99% of hip-hop that was floating round at the time. He’s been steadily putting stuff out since, but nothing’s grabbed me in the way of Deadringer, June or The Horror did back then. This is alright though, I’ll probably dive into his catalogue again and see what I’ve been missing.

You can get all these records from any reputable record shop, a few I recommend include Boomkat, World of Echo, Rubadub and All Night Flight but remember to support your local indie record shop too!

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A little roundup of bits this week, with Spotify especially being busy, launching their new Song DNA feature which uses “AI” to provide some additional context and information around the songs. So far this just seems to be scraping information off record company websites and the WhoSampled database (which Spotify bought last year). Is it a useful innovation? Potentially, although it seems like a bit of a lazy roll-out just getting AI to do the work. A properly curated selection of ‘sleeve notes’ on key releases however… that could be good.

Spotify have also announced this week that one of the ways they’re looking at combating streaming fraud is by allowing certain artists to ‘lock’ their profiles, and not allow new releases to go live without approval. Sounds good in theory, but with my label hat on I can only imagine the fuckery when an artist forgets to approve a track in time for release date… It seems Spotify have thought of that too, though, and will allow artists to grant labels/distros a ‘key’ that gives them pre-approval

RA have dropped a few interesting articles this past week, a look at songs named after clubs, which wasn’t really that great if I’m honest, and almost certainly prompted by someone listening to that Rosalia tune on repeat in the office, and a rundown of early electroclash, that was much better. They cut off the electroclash article at 2001, which was probably when it just started to really get as close as it could be to the mainstream. There’s still some incredible tunes in it though, hearing La Rock at Berghain will forever be one of my favourite clubbing memories. It prompted me to go back to that sensational Miss Kittin Live At Sonar 2005 album, show me a better run of tracks committed to CD than the Windowlicker-Dexter-The Difference It Makes section and I’ll show you a liar… Finally they’ve just published an oral history of Corsica Studios, which I haven’t read yet but am very much looking forward to reading. You can find my tribute the the Elephant nightclub here.

In Strict Tempo Book Club: I’ve just read Mark Ronson’s memoirs. Maybe not the typical artist covered on In Strict Tempo, but the book doesn’t really go into his time as a superstar producer/DJ, ending with him producing that Nikka Costa album at the start of the Millennium. No mention of Amy Winehouse, Ooh Wee or Uptown bloody Funk (a tune I absolutely cannot stand and would wipe from history given the chance). The story starts as Ronson, moves to New York as a teenager, learning to DJ and making his way in the cities club scene. One thing that does come through, is not only that is Ronson very aware of his privileged upbringing and the optics of white kids playing hip-hop to Black audiences, but also that he seems a genuine music nerd, with the knowledge to match his DJ chops. It’s pretty name-droppy in places, as you’d expect, but it’s an interesting enough read nonetheless.

Plus, if you missed it a couple of weeks ago, I uploaded a new Ceremony mix that’s well worth a listen.

New Music

DJ Gonz - Magical Negro Overdrive [SELN]

SELN co-founder DJ Gonz brings the highest levels of energy possible on his debut album, ticking off loads of boxes here, from BEB to Actress to Mika Vainio and everything in-between

Untold - HEK036 [Hemlock]

Bandcamp only for now, streaming fans, I’ll revisit the full release when it makes it way to DSPs. Untold drops two new tracks on his Hemlock label previewing a full EP in a couple of weeks. Prince Ruperts Drop is a slice of prime Untold, a roller in every sense of the word. It’s Not My Fault But It Is My Problem dials up the kicks and can only really be described as “chunky”. Looking forward to getting my ears round the rest of this.

Shed - Applications II EP [Illian Tape]

Did I have new Shed on my 2026 bingo card? Probably not, but I’m glad someone out there did. Typically progressive techno joints from the main man. Not on Spotify I’m afraid.

Mammo - Lateral [Short Span]

Yu Su - Foundry [Short Span]

Two new ones here from the label that can do no wrong. The Mammo album floats and meanders through an ever expanding space, crossing all aspects of the percussive spectrum, whilst the Yu Su album, of which only a couple of tracks are available at the moment, is quite simply one of the best things you’ll hear all year, with a stellar cast of collaborators including Dip In The Pool, Memotone and Seefeel. Can’t TIP! this one enough.

Alan Braxe & Fred Falke - Intro (25th Anniversary Mixes) [Smugglers Way]

Let’s face it, one of the most influential dance records of all time, and cornerstone of the whole ‘French touch’ movement. Anyway, both artists have remixed it fresh for ’26, neither of the new mixes really adding much to the OG, but it’s always nice to hear a new take on an old classic

Underworld - Kittens (r31_for2026) [Self-Released]

Speaking of which… As part of Underworld’s 2026 live shows (ultimately for the 30th anniversary of Born Slippy.NUXX) they’ve been playing in two parts, culminating with a second half of frantic, 150mph techno, including some edits and updates of old favourites. This is one of them, which they’ve been playing to close out the first part of recent shows, a Beaucoup Fish era staple given an update for a new era.

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Welcome to this weeks In Strict Tempo - work has been crazy this week, so it’s just a short & sweet one from me, but fear not: there’s still some good music below.

Have you listened to the latest Ceremony mix yet? This one’s a tribute to a much-missed night that happened in Reading in the early 00’s - but above that it’s just a really good mix full stop, from someone that’s been a big inspiration to me over the years.

Anyway, onto the music highlights this week…

Monic - You Can Rest Now [Osiris Music]

Once a producer of darkside D&B & techno, as well as forays into dubstep as Kryptic Minds - Simon Shreeve returns to his Monic alias for this collection of long-form ambient pieces. If I ever get a chance to wander around a nuclear power station, this will be in my headphones as I do.

Richard Skelton - Ixiolite [Corbert Stone Press]

Gourgeously open, yet melancholy piano pieces here from Richard Skelton, a real master of being able to evoke so much, with so little.

Olof Dreijer - Echoed Dafnino [Rabid Records]

The first track from the debut full length album from Olof Dreijer. Better known as part of The Knife and for his untouchable records as Oni Ayhun, Dreijer’s been using his real name recently for a slew of releases on AD93, Dekmantel and Hessle Audio. Upbeat, poppy, with elements of a Latin American street party, I can’t wait to hear the rest of this

Tara Clerkin Trio - Somewhere Good [World of Echo]

A new single from Bristol’s Tara Clerkin Trio, who over the course of one album and a handful of EPs have placed themselves as one of the most exciting new voices in UK jazz. This isn’t really jazz, not as you’d expect, but it obviously draws a lot of it’s power from the Trio’s format and instrumentation. Like jazz, don’t like jazz, whatever - you’ll find much to like about this.

VA - The Thinking Of The World Began Pounding In Our Ears The Moment We Hit Shore [Stroom]

What is this? Compilation? Artist project? Who knows. Ultimately a collection of tracks loosely held together by the guiding hand of Florian TM Zeisig most of them featuring additional artists plucked from the same pool, including More Eaze, Don Lyons & Cal Fish. Twelve tracks, covering many bases, RIYL Cocteau Twins, Pedastal, those comps from Time Is Away and A Colourful Storm, that kind of stuff.

Index for Working Music - Bunker Intimations II [Tough Love]

Sticking in that World of Echo extended universe, this new one from sister label Tough Love only has a couple of tracks available so far, but follows up from last years Which Direction Goes The Beam with another excursion into England’s Hidden Reverse, if that means anything to you, you know what you’re looking for. Come in.

When I interviewed Sandwell District at the start of last year Karl O’Connor said something that really resonated with me.

…this is the whole problem with the world now. Nothing can happen at a local level anymore, because you've been told to look globally. Well, no. It was great. Being local's great.

In a world where we can reach anyone, anywhere at the tap of a screen it often means artists and labels are expected to have a global vision, after all - why constrain yourself to just your local area when the world is your oyster? But things don’t work like that, and pretty much any artist would have started off in their local scene, playing clubs and bars nearby to them, building an audience in the surrounding area.

Sometimes that audience grows outwards, from one town to the next, to a bigger city, to national and continental popularity, but sometimes it doesn’t - sometimes a local scene stays that way, burning brightly and inspiring people to do their own thing, to make their own tunes, start their own labels and put on their own nights.

This Ceremony mix comes from Amsterdam-based DJ Foggy Snares, and pays tribute to the Kraked night that took place in Reading in the early 2000’s. You probably won’t have heard of it unless you happened to live there in that time, and even then it might have passed you by. But the importance of Kraked to those who attended still resonates to this day, and there’ll be a thousand other scenes across the country that were just as influential on a local level.

In his own words…

Foggy Snares is the ghost of a former resident DJ at Kraked - a monthly event (in fucking Reading of all places) of live electronics and lazy DJing. Fuelled by hash cakes, real ale, and a lot of goodwill from the friends and volunteers, the night ran in it’s original form from 2001-2004. The locals were joined by the likes of V/VM (pictured here in pig mask), Venetian Snares, Duplo Remote, Shitmat, Wrong Music, Mira Calix, Wevie Stonder, Team Doyobi, Jason Forest, DJ Scotch Egg, Mike Teknoist, The Producer, μ-Ziq, Global Goon, and a host of other guests. All of this went down at the Rising Sun Arts centre, which still stubbornly sits there amongst new-build flats for transient professionals, designed to fall apart in next to no time.

Editions followed elsewhere (somewhat illegally) - on small beaches along the Thames in central London, in backrooms of Tekno parties and on countryside rave sites. It all culminated in the now legendary in ‘The BIG Dirty Squat Party’ (Acton) , where the majority of the crew and other hangers on were arrested and carted off in a rozzer hired coach just after sunrise.

The mix here was recorded live during a Big Toilet event at W139 Gallery, Amsterdam a few years ago. It was meant as a tribute to those silly times. It was originally broadcast on Big Toilet Radio. https://www.bigtoilet.radio/.

Foggy doubts anybody in Amsterdam that afternoon would have given a much of a shit about all of the above... but they seemed to be getting into the beats.

Shout to Mikerak, Tizz and the B.Y.O.S. crew...

Not much going on this week so we’ll crack straight on with the music, but first:

Someone’s uploaded a whole pile of tracks to Soulseek using AI Homer Simpson vocals. Luckily I haven’t heard any of them yet, other than what was reported in RA/Mixmag but it doesn’t do anything to convince me that AI is anything other than a pile of shite. Hopefully they don’t infect Soulseek to the degree that the fake/glitched uploads from major labels fucked up Kazaa & Limewire back in the day. That video of Homer doing Born Slippy in front of a crowd of dancing animated characters will be the last thing my mind sees as I die of thirst in a barren desert next to an AI data centre…

Anyway. Monday sees the first Ceremony mix of the year from… well, you’ll have to wait and see. It’s quite a special mix, and something that really fits in with what I’ve been trying to say via In Strict Tempo for a while now. It’s pretty wild, so keep your ears peeled for that one. If you fancy a refresher, the previous instalments are on Soundcloud.

New Music

Seefeel - Ever No Way [Warp]

The first single from the upcoming Seefeel album, their first since 2011. After a fairly comprehensive recent reissue campaign across their early Too Pure stuff as well as the bits on Warp it’s nice to hear some new material from Mark Clifford & co.

Carla Dal Forno - Going Out [Kallista]

Ah now this is special. It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Carla, her last album coming back in 2022 and only a single track on a A Colourful Storm compilation has kept us going so far. Whether you know her as part of the dearly missed Blackest Ever Black/Low Company cinematic universe, or are just discovering her music for the first time you’ll be sure to enjoy this.

KAKUHAN - KAK [Nakid]

Sparse elemental electronix here - a good example of a producer doing what they can with space as much as they can a chunky kick drum. There seems to be a real resurgence of this IDM-type stuff coming about at the moment, and I’m here for it.

Dagmar Zuniga - in filth your mystery is kingdom / far smile peasant in yellow music [AD93]

Originally released on tape last year, AD93 continue their run as *the* record label of these times, quietly releasing some of the most interesting, beguiling and damn near essential music to soothe us into oblivion as the world ends. If this is what is playing as the rapture comes, then we can all be contented that we’ve had a good run of it…

Rustie -AMENTET [Records DK]

He’s back, and he’s noisier. Some of that usual Rustie sound palate is here, but there’s an edge to this, razor sharp and jagged.

Low Jack - Market [Bambe]

Metallic techno here, only the most adventurous DJs will get the best out of this, but deployed right, will induce all kinds of madness in the dance.

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The discourse about streaming has been going on almost as long as streaming itself, and although the main DSPs continue to add users at a steady rate, streaming already seems like it’s past it’s golden era, if it ever truly had one. The download hangs in there, kept alive by a hard core of people who wish to maintain an archive of music, but it’s heyday is long gone.

But one format persists, and by most metrics, continues to grow. If there’s one thing that can teach us any lessons, it’s the format that’s always been there - the humble vinyl LP. People buy LPs for all sorts of reasons - the audio fidelity, which many claim is superior to digital (a whole other discussion, and one I’m not going anywhere near!), the collectibility, the financial support for the artist, the artwork, the convenience of having to put them all into a cardboard box and carry them to the car every time you move house, but no-one advocates for digital releases in the same way.

So why does physical endure even as the digital narrative continue to evolve? Already the LP has outlasted the cassette tape, CD, minidisc, digital download and is currently undergoing a long-running resurgence even in an age of unlimited access to music via streaming. One of the things I’ve often thought about physical music is that it’s already curated before you even get to it - the artist has already had to decide to press it to vinyl, a label has already had to back it, a distributor has already had to support and sell it, and a shop buyer has already had to allocate money to buy copies in. That’s four or five people who’ve already co-signed the record as being something that’s worth listening to.

Counter that with digital music, and whilst those roles of label and distributor still exist and are still important, it’s all too easy for an artist to bypass them, and put out a record without anyone else hearing it. The odds against said record getting any kind of traction are huge, but the dream of release still exists for many, even if there’s no real demand for it.

Then there’s the scarcity of it - in this age of constant access people are always searching out what others don’t have. We’ve seen this across society, in ever-rising prices for artworks, vintage trainers, classic cars and all sorts. Anything finite is coveted, and vinyl records are amongst them. Whatever the rights or wrongs of ‘vinyl culture’ people want to have something unique and the increase in special editions, coloured vinyl variants etc plays into that. On top of that, these editions can offer something a digital stream cannot, in that there’s a pile of context around the record, in artwork and sleeve notes etc.

Of course, you can apply most of these things to the CD and cassette too, and they’re both again growing in popularity after years of decline, but it’s the vinyl record that really captures the imagination.

So how does digital music take these lessons and apply them? They already tried the ‘digital scarcity’ thing with NFT’s which was a colossal waste of everyones time, money and energy, so how do we try and get that ‘must have’ ownership desire into digital products? Maybe we delete music from DSP’s after a given time, or only put it up for certain release windows, a bit like how the Video & DVD market used to operate? Some labels have experimented with making digital releases available for a certain period then pricing the download (on Bandcamp at least, where this is easily possible) at hundreds (or thousands) of pounds. That obviously relies on the music not being available on any other digital platform though.

Maybe the answer is that we don’t, that we don’t need to project some kind of rarity on a digital release when a physical product can exist alongside it. Maybe it is that there is simply just too much music being released at the moment and we need to gatekeep access in some way that still allows for DIY and up-coming artists to reach an audience whilst also blocking out all the AI-generated shite, but also providing a home for catalogue. It’s quite a challenge, and I’m not sure any one answer is correct.

I’m not advocating for one minute a return to a purely physical marketplace - for one it’d be impossible, but it would also discount a whole slew of great music that only exists in the digital realm. Perhaps we need those four or five people - call them curators if you wish - to co-sign a record before it makes an impact. What I’m suggesting is that maybe we apply some of the aspects of physical music to our digital strategies - and whilst it would take a brave artist to do so, sometimes fortune favours the bold.

I’m always interested in digging into various release strategies, especially at the DIY end when it’s not always possible to spend a lot of money engaging pluggers and agencies, and I’m always happy to chat to anyone wanting to push their own music - if that’s you then reach out!

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New Music

Bim Sherman - Ghetto Dub [Week-End Records]

Killer ’88 dub reissue with Sherwood, Jammy & Tubby at the controls. Part of a wider reissue programme, this one takes it deep into outer space into new worlds of echo.

Nashpaints - Everyone Good is Called Molly [Mirrorworld]

Early AOTY contender from Nashpaints covering pretty much every base from Spiritualized to MBV to 60’s jangle-pop and everything in between, unmistakably 2026 but honestly, could have been any time from 1950 until now. It’ll make sense when u hear it…

Quelza - Above The Clouds I Finally Found Peace [Ostgut]

I’ve got friend of the newsletter Jack Murphy to thank for the heads up on this one - there was a time when I’d be all over anything and everything Ostgut, but I’ve slacked a little on that front. Anyway. Heavy pressure is the name of the game here, initially I was minded to think of Burial, but the pace soon ups into something I’d be head nodding along to in the corner of Cable circa 2011.

Squarepusher - K2 Central [Warp]

New ‘pusher, and from what I’ve heard he’s back in his solo electric bass era… looking forward to hearing a bit more of this

James Blake - Trying Times [Self-Released]

First outing for JB in a few years and it sounds like he’s going back to the tried and tested methods that made him blow up back in the early 10’s. On first listen, it’s not blowing me away, not like those first singles did.

re:ni & Biggabush - Bass Is The Space [Ilian Tape]

Multi-generational dub-tinged spaced-out techno here from re:ni & her father, Rockers Hi-Fi man Biggabush. re:ni’s one of the best out there and this is a release well deserving of your ears

Ben Vince - Street Druid [AD93]

There’s a case to be made that AD93 is possibly the best label operating at the moment, at least from a consistency & originality point of view. Never quite sure what they’ll put out next, this month sees saxophonist Ben Vince (former collaborator with Rat Heart, Joy Orbison & Cucina Povera amongst others) release this stunning, evolving album of organic sounds, the instrument expertly treated and combined with other samples, field recordings and loops to create something that rewards repeated listens.

Fred Again / Underworld / The Streets - Born Slippy/Weak Become Heroes [Live]

If I had a pound for everyone who’d sent me this over the past week I’d have enough to treat myself to a couple of pints, at least. Not really sure what’s going on here or what’s willed this mashup into being, but Mike Skinner goes it alone over Born Slippy before Karl Hyde takes over. Shouldn’t work, kind of does, now let’s move on and just go back to enjoying the originals can we?

Mark Vernon - Sounds of the Modern Hospital [Death Is Not The End]

I pity the poor guy at Boomkat who’s got to come up with 500 words about this - it’s essentially a collection of field recordings recorded in a Scottish hospital a decade or so ago. Some hums, some drones, a lot of bleeps, the real highlight is “MRI Scanner”, which I can imagine would be fun to play at peak time in a rave.

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The hot streaming topic this week (when is there ever not one?) is that Spotify want to allow users to be able to ‘remix’ songs within the platform. At a time when there’s already millions of new releases going onto the platform every month, and the fact that the vast majority of stuff on there won’t ever attract more than a handful of streams, I’m unsure of why anyone - most of all Spotify who’ll have to host all these remixes - thinks it’s a good idea.

DSP’s are already fairly poor in supporting official remixes from labels - their thinking (and I agree with them on this to a point) being that pushing remixes on the platform will just encourage labels to flood each release with remixes in order to boost release radar popularity and game the charts. We already saw something similar in the 1990’s when major labels would commission loads of remixes of the most unlikely songs (Armand Van Helden’s remix of Cotton Eye Joe, anybody?) in order to push tracks higher up the charts. Remixes delivered to DSPs tend not to get anywhere near the same amount of support in playlists even if they’re a genuinely original new version of the track.

Looking deeper at the announcement, it looks as if Spotify are going to use “AI” too allow users to remix content on the platform. Quite how this going to work remains to be seen, and this just gives more credence to the viewpoint that AI is just attempting to answer questions nobody is asking. From a rights holder perspective, who gets the final approval on these remixes, and more importantly who gets paid? The user who types “Beatles day in the life techno remix” into whatever shitty AI tool they’ll use to power this? Spotify themselves? I mean they’re not going to implement this tech for free are they?

I saw an interesting viewpoint the other day in that the proliferation of AI slop we’re seeing all over the internet is actually because most people aren’t actually that creative. AI tools only shit out as good as they get put into them, and most peoples prompts just aren’t that good. I’m sure a decent musician or graphic designer could use an AI model to enhance their work if wanted, but if someone like me - someone who isn’t a musician - wanted to make something good then I’m not going to be able to. Could I have the vision to remix a track the same way the best artists can? Not a chance.

I still think we’re due an AI reckoning, when eventually there’ll just be so much crap flooding platforms that actual good music will be completely lost and impossible to surface. How these platforms deal with that is what’s going to define the ones who survive and the ones who drown in a sea of terrible AI remixes.

Personally, I love a good remix, and enjoy hearing them, especially if they’ve been crafted with the intention of adding a new twist to an old favourite. There’s definitely a home for remixes in the streaming landscape, and they’re still an important part of release plans, as well a crucial tool to drive a record in the clubs. But allowing anybody to create a remix based off a prompt? I’m not sure that’s going to add much to anything, for anyone.

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This Week’s Music

VA - The Black Hill, The Glass Sky [Somewhere Press]

Dreamlike, ethereal compilation of new music from the always-excellent Somewhere Press. One of those comps that will go on to prove timeless, no doubt.

Quiet Husband - Lands [N3Wlow]

Another selection of fragmented, nightmarish techno from Richie Culver’s Quiet Husband alias. There’s a strong dreamlike thread running through this weeks In Strict Tempo, and this one fits the bill perfectly, Culver’s considered approach to sound design lifting this above the raft of 4/4 that passes for techno these days.

Velv.93 - Lobelia [Stroom]

Scandi ambient recalling the mid-90’s heyday (Biosphere, etc.) of the genre via Sweden’s Velv.93. Slowly evolving like a deep fog rolling across icy plains, let this one encompass you.

Intertoto - Siccar Point [What About Never]

Remember the Intertoto cup? Even 90’s football die-hards will not-so-fondly remember the weird tournament that was a pathway for qualification for the more prestigous UEFA cup, and was won by such giants as Guingamp, Malaga and err… Fulham. Anyway. This is nothing to do with that, but instead an album of broadly dubby techno, the likes of which is enjoying a bit of a resurgence right about now.

Asher Levitas & Margaret Fiedler McGinnis - Through These Red Windows [Beyond The Valley]

Four foggy, drifting pieces from sound artist and Old Apparatus member Asher Levitas, joining multi-instrumentalist Margaret Fiedler McGinnis for this short EP of haunting tracks. The tracks recall a recurring nightmare suffered by Levitas and I reckon it would spook me hearing this kind of stuff in my dreams.

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This weeks In Strict Tempo is going to get straight into it, matey, and dispense with the usual music news - in truth, there’s not all that much going on that I can be bothered to comment on right now. Behind the scenes I’m busy and should have a new Ceremony mix ready in the next couple of weeks, plus some more ready to go over the next few months.

Before we get to the tunes - a quick question: How do you listen to the playlists I share here?

Now that’s out the way here’s this weeks music.

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New Music

Jeff Sova - Belvedere Point [Athens Of The North]

Athens dig deeper than pretty much anyone else, and here they find some lost music from 90’s Detroit that sounds like nothing else the City was offering at the time. Sure there’s a debt to Mills & Co, but it owes as much to the likes of Tangerine Dream and Japanese new-wave as it does proper techno.

Shackleton - Euphoria Bound [AD93]

I’m only three tracks into this but it’s already reset my brain for what I want to hear in 2026. More on this once I’ve given it a couple more listens

Xterea - I’ll call you later [5Gate Temple]

Proper head-screwing IDM business, this. Never really liked the term IDM, but it seems to have stuck for this kinda gear. Fuck-yer-earholes drums, soundsystem destroying tackle from minute one.

John T. Gast - Infant [5Gate Temple]

A 5GT double header this week with label honcho John T Gast coming correct with this furious, mesmerising trip through the dark fantastic. Anyone else getting a bit of Muslimgauze from this one?

RIP Magic - 5words [DFA]

I got that LCD Soundsystem book for Christmas, I’m currently reading through it. Hate them or love them, in my eyes they’re a fucking fantastic band. This one has been produced by James Murphy and could well have been a LCD B-Side. Comes backed with a Maurice Fulton mix too.

Sternpost - unworld.afterpop [Concentric Circles]

The best kind of weirdo gear here, from the master of archival business Concentric Circles… Hard to put a name on what you’d broadly call a folk-pop album, but the sum being so much more than that.

Rhythm & Sound & Paul St Hilaire - Showcase [Rhythm & Sound]

No need to say anything about this that hasn’t been said already. Just go and bliss out to it.

Beck - Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime [Capitol]

An interesting collection of covers from Beck - an artist I’ve not thought about in a while. Downtempo takes on the likes of The Korgis, Elvis & John Lennon, Midnite Vultures this isn’t.

Larrison - Connectors Vol. 1 [Freedom To Spend]

There’s only a couple of tracks of this one streaming right now, made from a solo copy of a cassette tape that found it’s way to Jed Bindemann & Pete Swanson. Could easily be a library LP, I’m minded to recall the C4 Schools theme from those old videos they made you watch when the teachers didn’t have a lesson planned.

Annie Hogan - Death Rituals [Downwards]

Two new ones from Goth Goddess Annie Hogan, on her new spiritual home of Downwards. This has been a pretty fruitful partnership between Hogan and label boss Regis so far, and long may it continue. These two new ones are dark in the extreme, swallowing all light yet somehow reflecting back to the listener exposing Hogan’s vulnerabilities, and strength as a singer. New album coming soon!

Sintaro- Looking for Her Denim [All Centre]

Sitting somewhere on the Deep Medi/2010’s Planet Mu axis Kyoto based Sintaro melds body rattling dubstep with glitch & grime elements. One of the most original things I’ve heard in some time.

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Welcome to this week’s In Strict Tempo, there’s not much happening on the news front right now - Aphex Twin has become the most listened-to artist on YouTube, overtaking Taylor Swift… kind of. Swift is still the most listened to artist on YouTube, and probably all other DSP’s, but AFX is currently riding a wave of virality which has bumped his audience up recently which has bumped his listener stats up.

Pitchfork has decided to hide its infamous numerical scores behind a paywall. For a fiver a month you’ll be able to not only see what their writers think an album scores on a 10 point scale, but also assign your own score and comments to the release.

Anna’s Archive - the activist group who scraped a load of metadata and audio files from Spotify before Xmas are now being sued by Spotify. Remember when the RIAA used to sue people for downloads by assuming each download had the value of a $20 CD? Wonder if Spotify will assign a similar monetary value to each MP3 and if it will be a fraction of a penny…

Anyway, on to the new music - here’s what’s been filling my ears this week.

New Music

Ugne & Maria - Zotasphere [Hands in The Dark]

A new collection of downtempo electronica from Lithuania via Belgium duo Ugne & Maria here - just pure bliss, this, floating around between ambient & dub all in the name of aural exploration.

David Shea - Meditations [Room40]

Is 2026 shaping up to be the year of ambient? David Shea beams down to Room40 with this 8 track album that serves as the perfect anditode for all the shit going on in the world right now.

Surface Access - Transfer [Other People]

Or is 2026 gonna be the year of Dub Techno? I sure hope so. Nicolas Jaar turns his hand to the genre once again under his Surface Access alias. Chain Reaction, Basic Channel, Scion… all the usual Dub Techno reference points are here, and this sits nicely amongst the best of them.

Picture - Eeeeeeeeee [Short Span]

VA - Short Tracks [Short Span]

One new one, one that dropped on CD just before Xmas from Matthew Kent’s Short Span. Basically everything Matt touches sounds like gold, and you probably know that already so drop what you’re doing and ‘av a listen. Bandcamp only.

The Dengie Hundred & Gemma Blackshaw - Songs For Isserley [Somewhere Press]

Somewhere press follow up that amazing Ugne Uma 7” that sold out in a flash with this digital-only long-form piece that recalls being stalked across the misty highlands by a spectre, the theme of which was taken from the book that inspired Jonathan Glazer’s Under The Skin.

Thought Leadership - IV of Cups [Be With]

Have you ever wished there were more bands like the Durutti Column? Then your prayers have been answered. Thought Leadership originally released this as a limited tape and now Be With have pressed it to a just-as-limited LP, which drops in March. Don’t miss this one.

Picture of Health - Average Glow [Trillion Media]

Debut single from Cambridge band Picture of Health here, nice n’ scuzzy just how we like it. Turn it up to 11. They’re playing the Blue Moon tonight, see you there.

Anthony Child - of the Beginning [Old Technology]

One from late last year from Anthony Child, back in his synth noodling guise. This stuff’s pretty good, but if I’m honest I prefer him when he’s in balls-to-the-wall techno mode. Last year’s Surgeon album was one of the best in many years.

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Hello all, welcome to this weeks In Strict Tempo. As usual at the start of January, music consultancy firm Luminate put out their annual industry report, and as usual it generates a tonne of debate and attention-grabbing headlines. This week, it was the turn of the United Musicians & Allied Workers Union, who dropped a post on Bluesky saying that Spotify have de-monetized 88% of music on the platform.

Now, while that’s a headline-grabbing message, it’s simply not true. For one, the Luminate data only looks at 2025 releases, as in things that have been released that year. Nothing that already exists on the platform that has over 1000 streams has been ‘de-monetized’. Spotify announced their new royalty threshold in 2024, so anyone releasing music in 2025 should have been well aware of the new rules.

Do I agree with the policy? Not really, but I can see why they’ve done it. The royalty generated from 1000 streams isn’t going to make much of a difference to anyone, although we have to appreciate that Spotify is just one income source of many for musicians. We also need to take into account how Spotify pay rightsholders. They have a set pool of money that gets divided up based on track popularity. You’re getting paid from the same pool as Taylor Swift, and the more releases that are eligible for that pool the less there is to go round for everyone, from Swift downwards. This policy (rightly or wrongly) means that of 253 million tracks on Spotify, only the top 26.5 million have been paid out on. That means for mid-tier artists, who are getting 1000-100,000 streams they should be looking at a bigger payout than they would have previously.

Of those 253m tracks on Spotify over 120 million of them have under 10 streams. This is stuff that even the artist & their friends can’t be bothered to listen to (although I’d wager a lot of it is AI slop). You have to ask yourself, really what’s the value of this stuff being on Spotify? A further 60 million (so 180m out of 253m, almost 70%) has under 100 streams, again a fairly tiny amount, although one that probably starts to affect niche and DIY musicians. Add on the next 40-odd million that has done between 101 and 1000 streams, and it certainly begins to look like there’s simply too much music that isn’t getting listened to out there. This is all 2025 releases, by the way, not what’s already been uploaded previously.

What’s the answer to all this? I saw someone suggest Spotify raising the royalty threshold to 250k streams, which would certainly increase payments significantly for anyone streaming above that number, but it would also exclude a huge amount of musicians from ever earning money from the platform. Unsurprisingly the suggestion did not go down well with the usual suspects. I don’t have an answer, but it’s clear that something needs to be done about the sheer amount of AI crap on streaming services. Bandcamp this week announced they would be banning AI created music from their platform (although how they’ll identify and police this remains to be seen). My suggestion would be for the major DSPs to tighten up the list of approved distributors they work with, and stop the DIY distro platforms from having access. Of course this isn’t without it’s own issues (many rappers, as well as pop stars like Ed Sheeran have used these platforms to host their early tracks, some probably still do), but it was never the case that you could get your releases in a record shop without a distributor, so maybe more curation is what’s needed, even if it’s a sledgehammer style use of the term.

I spent a nice couple of hours speaking with Matt Anniss, author of the excellent Join The Future this week about his PhD looking at the rave culture in East Anglia. I was too young to really experience the big outdoor raves in the area, but around the turn of the millennium was a regular party-goer at a number of unlicenced and semi-legit parties in local village halls and backrooms of pubs & restaurants which I thought it would be interesting to share as a kind of ‘alternative’ to the traditional rave narrative. It was a very interesting and enlightening chat learning about Matt’s links with the area, the differences between Norfolk & Suffolk, and the area’s impact of dance music in general.

Work (and life) has been manic this past week, so I haven’t really had much chance to listen to new music. I haven’t listened to a huge amount of anything this week tbh, just some old Weatherall mixes, and this new one from my colleague Rupert Ellis, playing B2B in Valencia which fits that kinda vibe. I’ll make up for it next week for sure, but enjoy the mix below in the meantime.

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Hello. Happy New Year! It’s not too late to say that is it? Anyway, I hope you all had lovely festive breaks, and wild/calm New Years Eves depending on your desires. Me? Mine was nice thanks, saw lots of family and friends, caught a chest infection, eat and drunk way too much. New Years resolutions? Not really - try and get out a bit more I guess, thirteen months of working exclusively from home has taken a bit of a toll on me, so that’s something I’m gonna try and change.

Anyway, lots has gone on since the last In Strict Tempo, so let’s have a brief catch-up before I make some guesses at what might happen in the upcoming year.

It kind of passed me by, but the end of 2025 marked the end of the first quarter-century since the new Millennium. That’s kind of mad when you look at it, in December 1999 I’d not long left school, and was working in a DIY shop, I couldn’t drive, couldn’t drink (legally) and really had no idea how things were gonna pan out from there. To mark it a few of the dance music publications did “tracks of the century” type lists, I’ve already briefly mentioned the Quietus’ list, but RA and Mixmag added to the festivities with their own selections. I was kinda proud to see that I’d had a hand in (one way or another, label or distro-wise) in three of their top 25, not that I would take any credit for it. I thought about doing my own list, but you can probably guess a lot of it (Top 3: Transition, Marionette, Two Months Off).

Some sad news over Xmas in that Phonica’s Nick Williams lost his battle with cancer. I doubt there’s many people reading this that haven’t bought records off Nick at some point. We weren’t close, but I’ve bought plenty of records from him and always found him a helpful and knowledgable person to deal with. Love to his family and friends.

The big news you probably saw was that an activist group have scraped Spotify and managed to extract terabytes of data including audio, artwork & metadata. I guess in theory anyone could use that to build their own free (and obviously unlicensed) streaming service, albeit one that doesn’t feature anything released after July 2025. I suppose the point was to show they could, rather than to actually do anything meaningful with the assets. Who’s going to store that much stuff on a HD? More interesting was their admission that they only managed to archive around 37% of audio files from the service, but that those 37% accounted for something like 97% of streams on the platform. So much stuff on DSPs just doesn’t get listened to, and with the growth of AI that’s only going to increase.

This newsletter marks the 100th edition of In Strict Tempo, which is pretty amazing when I think about it. I did a gratuitous back-slapping post just before the break so I won’t bang on about it, but I’m looking forward to seeing what 2026 holds for the newsletter. I’ve already got some nice mixes lined up for the Ceremony series.

Anyway, enough of that - onto the main subject. 2026. What’s gonna happen, what’s not? I might well be wrong about all of this, and a lot of it is probably wishful thinking, but hey ho…

The Streaming Discourse Will Continue

Of course it will. If I’m honest, I’m trying to use Apple Music a bit more this year, but Spotify is still the main player in the streaming landscape for good or ill. I can see a ‘big’ artist (or two) removing their catalogue from streaming DSPs (not just Spotify) this year, but I don’t think that’ll be enough to move the dial completely. That said, I think there’s a future away from streaming, but I don’t think it’ll happen this year. Last year saw some interesting start-ups come out of the woodwork, but I’m not sure any of them are just right, right now. The biggest problem we face is the public’s general apathy towards music, something you could say is a symptom of the streaming era and algorithims only playing us what we like. What’s the point in discovering new music when all of our favourites are just a click (or voice request) away?

Scenes Will Start To Compartmentalise

Whatever does eventually challenge the main DSPs probably won’t be a full catalogue ‘all-you-can-eat’ type service, but something aimed more at individual scenes and genres. Like it or not, the subscription economy is hear to stay, so whatever does come about needs to have a really good value proposition to 1) pay artists and labels fairly and 2) be cheap enough to be an add-on to the full catalogue services. There’s a way to figure this out, I’m sure of it, and whoever does will be on to a winner, but we need to remember, we don’t need to build a new Spotify, we need to build a new digital record shop, with curation at the forefront.

Independence Will Disappear…

It’s no secret that lots of independent labels and distribution companies have been bought up by the majors, or at least major-affiliated firms. More Indies will go this way in 2026, as the Industry doubles down on catalogue acquisition.

But Independents Will Grow

But down at the grassroots level, truly, genuinely exciting music will continue to be made. Communities will foster, scenes will grow. New artists will release music, new labels will start, new club nights will crop up, even though it’s really fucking tough out there. It’s not all doom and gloom.

We’ll See Something Really Original

What was the last truly new music movement? Dubstep? PC Music/Hyper-pop? It’s been some time since something new broke through, something like we’ve never heard before. I don’t know where it’s gonna come from, I don’t know what it’s gonna sound like, but I live in hope.

AI Will Continue to Dominate Our Feeds

And it will continue to be really, really shit.

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New Music

A few bits that have caught my ear recently

Daniel Lopatin - Marty Supreme OST [A24]

Here’s a hot take: film scores only work in the context of the film you’re watching. I can’t think of a single one - possibly with the exception of Blade Runner - that I’d listen to separately. Anyway, I’ve no interest in this film, no interest in it’s soundtrack, and no interest in matey pretending to be a Scouse rapper or whatever he is.

Shackleton - Crushing Realities [AD93]

Label of the moment AD93 call on Shackleton to deliver a typically weighty slice of murk in advance of a new album coming later this year.

Monolake - Hong Kong (Reissued)

Basically Ground Zero for Dub Techno. Reissued in a limited yellow vinyl edition by Boomkat

The Other People Place - Lifestyles of the Laptop Cafe [Warp]

Regularly voted as one of the best electronic albums of the 2000’s, it was out of print for years before Warp reissued it a decade or so ago. If you missed it then, get it now.

Old Saw - The Wringing Cloth [Lobby Art Editions]

When I eventually retreat to a cabin in the woods to see out my days in a hermit-like existence this will be the only kind of stuff I’ll listen to. Could easily be from the 1920’s as much as the 2020’s. I don’t know much about this but it’s not left the speakers since I first heard it.

Field Commander Ali - She Was Picking Flowers [World of Echo]

World of Echo dip back into the rich vein of the Aussie underground with this lo-fi treat. Straight Outta New South Wales, this’ll be one of those records that captures your soul.

James Pants - Night Guard [Not on Label]

Cassette only release of unreleased beats and pieces from US producer/beatmaker/multi-instrumentalist James Pants. We’ve not heard much from him in a while, so to get a new mixtape (lovingly mixed by the Cologne via Amsterdam duo of TBZ & Pissflaps) is a real treat. Available via Rush Hour and other good record shops!

Welcome to this, the last In Strict Tempo of 2025. Whether you’ve been reading since the start, or are a more recent subscriber I’d firstly like to extend my heartfelt thanks for following this Substack. Over 250 of you read it every week, and the open rate looks pretty good, so hopefully you’re enjoying what you read. As always I’m open to feedback, comments or just general discussion at owen@instricttempo.com.

At the start of the year I shared my musical New Year’s resolutions - so now’s as good a time as any to look back on them and see how I did.

I managed to get sell a good few hundred records to a local record shop earlier in the Summer. I wrote about attachment and letting go here. So far, I haven’t missed anything. I subscribed to The Quietus, Hearing Things and renewed my subscription to the Wire. I’ll be doing the same again in 2026, except for Hearing Things which I never found myself reading more than a handful of articles on. As for releasing more music; I kicked off the Ceremony mix series with a mix of my own, and did an hour mix for LDLDN’s NTS Radio show, so I guess that counts. I cancelled my Twitter/X account earlier in this year as it had become a far-right cesspit, and I’ve no time for any of that in my life. I still use Bluesky, but I’m nowhere near as active on there as I was on Twitter.

As for In Strict Tempo - only you can be the judge of whether it’s improved this year. I’d like to think it has, I added the Ceremony mix series, I’ve interviewed artists, which wasn’t something I intended on doing initially, but have been well-received. I also started adding Apple Music playlists after some reader feedback. Growth-wise, I’ve added around 100 subscribers this year, and lost maybe ten or so, which sounds about right to me.

I mentioned there was a couple of offline In Strict Tempo projects in the works, and they still are - things just move slowly when you’re juggling a newsletter and a full-time job and family life. Keep them peeled in the new year, you won’t be dissapointed.

All that’s left for me to say is I wish you all a great festive season, and a happy new year. I’ll be back in early January. Until then, enjoy the holidays!

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Best of 2025

No new music reviews this week (even though there’s still some great stuff coming out) but rather a chance to look back at a bakers dozen of records I’ve enjoyed the most this year, new and old, in no particular order…

Wah Wah Wino - WINO-E [Wah Wah Wino]

Heads and tails above almost anything else released this year - pretty much everything the Wino crew has put out has been buy-on-sight gold. This one was a journey from start to end, one minute you’re Room 1 in Corsica, the next holding it down in Clink Street, ending up spinning out somewhere off Tottenham Court Road, having just come out of the ship… absolutely essential.

Carrier - Rhythm Immortal [Modern Love]

When Guy Brewer debuted his Carrier alias with a run of 12”s a year or so ago we all hoped it would lead to this… Landing somewhere on the axis of concrete dub techno and DnB it was some of the most original music these ears had heard in a long time. Short of re-animating Chain Reaction, there was never going to be any better home for it than Modern Love.

Microcorps - Clear Vortex Chamber [Downwards]

Alexander Tucker’s Microcorps project quietly released a previous album on Alter and a bunch of recordings on the Tapeworm a couple years back, but nothing had the seismic impact of Clear Vortex Chamber, which saw Tucker throw out an albums worth of material and start afresh. Experimental techno of the highest order, it never subtracts listenability from interestingness, and keeps you coming back for more with every listen.

Sandwell District - End Beginnings [Point of Departure]

We didn’t see this coming did we? Last year was the turn of British Murder Boys, this year’s Regis side-project saw him reuniting with former friend/foe Function for a stunning tribute to departed member Silent Servant. If, like me, Feed Forward is your GOAT electronic album then you’ll have nothing to fear from this.

TRjj - Music for Desert Reboot [World of Echo]

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve played this. Originally released as a tape during the pandemic it was one of those cassettes that absolutely deserved a wider audience than the medium allowed. It’s cliche, but there really isn’t anything else out there that sounds like this or captures the sheer sense of space that the album artwork suggests it was recorded in.

Conrad Pack - Commandments [Lost Domain]

“I really thought we had found the new dubstep and it was going to be a world-changing genre shift”. When you’re always looking for something new it can be easy to miss what’s right under your nose, and sometimes what that is is just straight up percussive techno.

Surgeon - Shell~Wave [Tresor]

Another one that doesn’t stray too far from the lane Surgeon returned with an album of ‘ard as nails, backs to the wall tekno, the kind of stuff he’s been consistently the best at making since the early 1990’s. Sometimes that’s all there is to it.

Low End Activist - Airdrop II [Peak Oil]

It’s one thing to run one of the best, and busiest labels currently operating, but another thing altogether to release your music on a completely different label. Low End Activist, the brains behind Sneaker Social Club & Bruk set the bar so high in ‘24 with the first Airdrop and full-length Municipal Dreams, it was hard to know how he was gonna top it. Airdrop II (swiftly followed by III) is the sound of London’s 24-7 underbelly, snatched breakbeats emerging through the basslines as you cruise the A406 at 100mph.

Lautern Der Seele - Unterhaltungen mit Larven und Uberresten [World of Echo]

Every now and again you get one of those records that no matter how much you enjoy it, is just impossible to describe. This is one of those. No words, just listen.

The Shadow Ring - Hold Onto ID [Blank Forms Editions]

Mad to think, that whilst Oasis was topping the charts, this was also put out there into the world. Call it what you want, avant-rock/post-post-punk/experimental alternative or however else you want to label it, it’s one of the most intriguing and rewarding British albums of the 1990’s.

The Lo Yo Yo - The Lo Yo Yo [Concentric Circles]

Just absolutely wonderful, this. Originally recorded as a demo tape before their debut album, The Lo Yo Yo was formed from the ashes of Family Fodder, with John Pearce and Mick Hobbs (later of Officer!) adding Carrie Brooks and the vocals of Joey Stack to create one of the best pop groups you’ve never heard of. Do yourself a favour and give this a listen, you won’t regret it.

Mentocome - Mentocome [Amok Age]

Weird German post-industrial Electronics from the early 1990’s? Sign me up. Probably not for everyone this, but those who seek out the less common sounds will find their reward here.

Durutti Column - Return of The Durutti Column [London]

Simply put, one of the best albums ever recorded.

That’s it for this week, and for 2025. Again, thanks for subscribing, reading, sharing and commenting on In Strict Tempo this year.

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I didn’t see much in the way of Spotify Wrapped this year - at least from the people I follow. A few shared it (and no shame to anyone who did - whatever you feel about Spotify or Wrapped or streaming in general it’s still very interesting to see your data presented in an easy-to-digest format). Personally I didn’t share mine because they put their price up by a pound this year, and I’m a petty type of person. The service hasn’t got any better (you could argue it’s got worse, as artists and labels I like have left the platform), so I don’t feel particularly enthused about it at the moment. I think 2026 is going to be an interesting year for Spotify as they decide how best to deal with the gradual shift away from the platform (personally, I don’t think they’ll care too much), and I’m sure they’ll continue to report a billion new subscribers in every quarterly release to shareholders or whatever, but it will only take one or two (brave) major artists to desert the platform to see that shift get more groundswell. I don’t think it’s panic stations yet, but one things for sure, the DISCOURSE we all love so much won’t be going anywhere.

Those year-end lists keep coming, with World of Echo (in typically esoteric zine form) RA and The Quietus amongst those adding to the noise this past week. Obviously the one we’re all waiting for is the Boomkat end-of-year behemoth, which is a highlight of the year for me. The most interesting thing I’ve seen this list season though, was The Quietus’ list of the 25 Best Dancefloor Bangers of the 21st Century so far. I’m surprised this didn’t generate much debate online (or if it did, I didn’t see it). I mostly agree with the list - obviously Transition should be much, much higher, and Easy Lee is shite and should have been replaced by Dexter, but the only glaring omissions I can think of are Two Months Off (of course), Marionette and maybe Rival Dealer. You could probably make an argument for some more commercial stuff too (DFA mix of Deceptacon, Bodyrox, Inspector Norse) but on the whole it’s a pretty bang-on list.

This is almost it for In Strict Tempo this year. There won’t be a newsletter next week, but I’ll be back with some my own End of Year list on the 19th, before winding down for the year.

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New Music

Voices from The Lake - II [Spazio Disonibile]

A pre-Christmas treat from Donato Dozzy & Neel, returning for a full-length album together for the first time in over a decade. The original was a classic and one of the most influential albums of the decade, I’d put a large wager on this one being just the same.

Blind Pigs - Even A Blind Pig Finds An Acorn Every Once In A While [BRUK]

Downtempo machine-funk at it’s very finest here, on the Sneaker affiliated BRUK label. Think Dam-Funk doing the Blade Runner soundtrack and you’re not a million miles off.

In Transit - In Transit [FELT]

I think this is the first thing I’ve reviewed that has been on Apple Music but not on Spotify, something the artist/label is well within their rights to do, of course. Anyway. It’s been a fruitful year for Dave Huismans aka A Made Up Sound, firstly returning as ex_libris, and now dropping into the ether as In Transit, exploring a more ambient side to things. A great album and one I’d encourage you to seek out.

Bok Bok - Blood Moon EP [Einhundert]

Oooooh remembers Night Slugs, eh? They were pretty much the label du jour in London’s mid-10’s clubbbb musickkk scene, but seemed to go a bit quiet a few years back. Label head Bok Bok has continued to release music, and his latest is this nice and heads-y EP on Berlin’s Einhundert

The Durutti Column - The Return of The Durutti Column [London]

Okay it doesn’t feature their best song (Otis, since you ask), but The Return of… is by far the best Durutti Column album, and perhaps the best album to come out of Manchester period. Now reissued (thankfully in a normal sleeve) it’s true that no home should be without a copy.

Jeff Mills - Live At The Liquid Room [Axis]

Did you know none of my colleagues know who Jeff Mills is? Unbelievable. Listening to Live At The Liquid Room (now re-released in a 30 year special edition CD) should be part of the interview process if you want to work in dance music. Anyway, listen again, and snap it up if yr CD is fucked/stuck in a car.

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If you’re anything like me, your social media this week would have been flooded with people who went to one of the recent My Bloody Valentine shows in Dublin, Manchester, London or Glasgow. Honestly it feels like ninety percent of the people I follow on Instagram were there, but I wasn’t.

Why? Well it’s not for any dislike of the band, that’s for sure. Loveless remains one of my favourite albums of all time, and the collection of their earlier EP’s was never off the stereo where I used to work, and Isn’t Anything is a record I always enjoy going back to too, although nowhere near enough as Loveless. If I’m honest I don’t listen to 2013’s M B V that often, but that’s not because I don’t like it - it’s just one of those.

My worry wasn’t even the ticket prices, or the fact it was at Wembley Arena. Although they were expensive, and Wembley is a crap place to get to for any reason be it music or football, that still wasn’t what put me off.

My main reason for not going then? The noise. My Bloody Valentine have long been notorious for playing at a punishingly loud volume, and several people I know who went to their 2008 show at the Roundhouse suffered hearing damage after the gig.

I’ve long struggled with my hearing. As a teenager I lost most of the hearing in my left ear, which as you can imagine was devastating for a young music lover. I had tonnes of hearing tests in hospital, MRI scans, all sorts. Luckily my right ear is fine, but there’s still times it causes me grief, being in a big group in a noisy pub or having a conversation with a passenger whilst driving (being a passenger is fine). At dinners with friends I’ll always dive in and grab the seat on the left end of the table so no-one sits next to me on that side. At weddings, I just apologise and hope that whoever’s on my left isn’t that interesting.

There’s some benefits. Being able to sleep in a noisy room the main one, but that’s pretty much it. So you can understand why I didn’t want to risk putting my remaining good ear through the kind of punishment MBV are known for.

Recently I tried some of those bone conduction headphones that my wife had bought for running with. It was a revelation of sorts. The sound quality was crap, as you’d expect, but being able to hear properly in stereo for the first time in over 25 years was amazing. I lost my AirPods a few weeks ago so replaced them with the latest version, which have some kind of built-in hearing aid which was pretty clever to use, but I’d feel like a bit of a wally putting in AirPods to talk to someone. I’ve never worn a hearing aid (my doctor advised me that as I’d go through 14 years without one it would upset my balance by using one) so it’s just been something I’ve got on with.

How does all this affect my listening to music then? On the whole it doesn’t - at least not through speakers. I might miss a bit of clarity compared to someone with two healthy ears, but the songs I remember listening to pre-hearing loss sound much the same as when I listen to them now. Listening through headphones is tougher, especially on a track where different elements are panned heavily to one side or another. There’s a couple of examples off the top of my head - Golden Brown by the Stranglers and Helicopter by Bloc Party are the only two I can think of, I’m sure there’s loads of others. Luckily it’s not a technique used all that often in dance music.

Live music is different - I always carry earplugs, and I don’t care what people say - they do make a difference to the sound. I’ve tried a few brands and they all tend to block out a lot of the atmosphere of a gig too, that general low-level background noise that’s the difference between being in a buzzy place with lots of people or an empty room. I still enjoy live music, but I enjoy it more when I’m not wearing earplugs but that’s not a risk I really want to take, especially as I get older. Would I have risked suffering more damage just to see MBV? I’m not sure I can take that risk.

Early on in my career it was always something I kept quiet (who’s gonna employ someone in music who’s deaf?), and it’s only recently I’ve started ticking the boxes marked ‘do you have a disability’ on equality monitoring forms, and even then I still think I probably shouldn’t, as it doesn’t really cause me that much bother in day-to-day life.

I guess what I’m saying is look after your hearing, guys. You’ll miss it when it’s gone.

No New Music Reviews this week - I’ll make up for it next week. As things start to wind down for Xmas I reckon I’ve got a couple of newsletters left for the year - one of which will be a Best of 2025 type thing. I’m going to try and fit in another Ceremony mix before the year is out too.

Thanks as always for reading!

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First up, welcome to this week’s In Strict Tempo, and a big hello to all new subscribers. Thanks for signing up and I hope you enjoy reading. I’m always open to feedback and music suggestions at owen@instricttempo.com

• We start off on a sad note with news in yesterday that Mani from the Stone Roses & Primal Scream has died at the age of 63. I was never a massive Roses fan, but enjoy revisiting their first album from time to time. After leaving the Roses he joined Primal Scream - that really is some legacy isn’t it? Being part of two of the most influential bands this country has ever produced. It’s probably fair to say that after Screamadelica the Scream got into a bit of a rut. Give Out But Don’t Give Up was a return to bluesy rock, and wasn’t really that well received, and it was hard to see where they went next. Mani joined in 1996 and played on Vanishing Point & XTRMNTR which are both 10/10 albums in my book, as well as on Evil Heat & Riot City Blues, which were still pretty decent. It’s fair to say the Scream were probably at the height of their powers during this time proving Mani’s versatility as a bass player. He also tried to keep things together during a chaotic (to put it lightly) set at Glastonbury in 2005, with Bobby completely and utterly fucked. I last saw the Scream in Glasgow in 2022 where Mani appeared as a special guest. RIP.

• Ever paid a fortune for a gig ticket on the secondary market? Yeah, me too. Apparently that’s gonna become a thing of the past though, as the government are banning people from reselling tickets for anything higher than face value. In theory, a great idea. Some of the markups on tickets for this summers Oasis tour were insane, and I’m sure other artists suffer the same. In practice though? Well, it’ll probably make it slightly easier to get gig tickets, but if anything I imagine companies like Ticketmaster (who resell tickets above face value via their platforms) will just bump their fees and ticket costs higher anyway. A gig has become part of the experience economy now, and people will pay big money to capture the moment for their socials. A ticket for a decent-sized act at Brixton or Wembley Arena is already getting on for £100 with fees, I can’t imagine this legislation making them any cheaper.

  Granted, it’s not as much of an issue in the world of underground & DIY music, but these platforms won’t discriminate when it comes to adding fees on, so it’s likely the knock-on effect will be bad news for everyone.

• Apple Music have added a load of DJ sets from the Hacienda to it’s online offering. DJ sets are one of the things that really sets Apple Music apart from it’s competitors, being able to handle sets with unreleased tracks, edits and stuff that isn’t on the platform means that DJ’s have pretty much unlimited freedom to play almost whatever they want. These 11 mixes were recorded between 1987 and 1996 from artists such as Mike Pickering, David Morales, Jon DaSilva and Frankie Knuckles, all mastered in top quality. A proper snapshot in time from the much-mythologised club.

• I’m already starting to see Best of 2025 lists begin to crop up. Bleep have gone early with theres, as have Rough Trade, and I’ve seen a few others too. It’s always one of my favourite things about the festive season, seeing all these end-of-year lists, often with a bit of additional context around the records with the benefit of hindsight and famillarity. I’ll do my end-of-year list a bit later in December.

• Elijah can always be called upon for a hot take, and in a recent article with Beatport he suggested “there aren’t enough DJ’s”. I can assure him there are. In other news Pioneer/Alpha Theta have launched a new DJ controller in conjunction with none other than Elijah. Fourteen hundred of your English pounds to you, guv.

• If you follow me on social media you’ll have seen already that I was a guest of LDLDN on his NTS show last Saturday. I’m not a DJ, I’m not all that good at mixing, but I do enjoy playing good tunes for people, so it meant a lot when I got some lovely feedback from listeners. It’s online here for you to listen back to, if you so want. I start around 31 minutes, but the whole show’s a good’un.

• Spotify have bought out WhoSampled, I guess they’re going to integrate this into their app somehow, perhaps showing the ‘history’ of certain songs. If I’m honest, I’m surprised it was Spotify who bought this and not Apple Music, given the latter’s track record of adding genuinely innovative and value-adding stuff to their offering. Will WhoSampled justify the extra pound a month Spotify want to charge? For some people, perhaps. I’m still not sure and am considering my future on the app in light of it. For that reason too - consider it my own little protest at enshittification - I won’t be sharing my Spotify wrapped stats this year. You all know what I like, and you all know Born Slippy will be in there somewhere, as it is every year…

  One issue I can foresee with Spotify featuring WhoSampled data in it’s app is will it bring to light unauthorised sample uses in tracks? I’m sure there’s a load of stuff on the platform that hasn’t been cleared properly and I can see it opening a huge can of worms as old rights holders realise they’re losing out on income and go after the producers who sampled them. One thing’s for sure, it’s going to be a good time to be a music lawyer.

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Absolutely loads of it to get through this week, and all of it absolutely amazing. Let’s go…

Jon E Cash - Sublow [Sneaker Social Club]

Sneaker come correct with this compilation of tracks by grime pioneer Jon E Cash. Consider this an education, an introduction to one of the most overlooked UK producers, and an artist who joined the dots between UKG, Grime & Dubstep.

Sandwell District - Forbidden [Point of Departure]

Feels like we’ve been super blessed on the Sandwell front this year, with a new album, EP of demos and now another new track from Regis & Function. End Beginnings has just been named an album of the year by Bleep, with a special gold vinyl edition, and limited live EP being made available.

Low End Activist - Hope III (Demdike Stare Stressed Version) / Airdrop II/III [Sneaker Social Club/Peak Oil]

A busy one for Low End Activist, perhaps the hardest working producer in the biz. First up enlisting Demdike Stare for a foggy remix of Hope III adding some much-needed Manc murk to the proceedings, and next up a double drop of albums on Peak Oil, on a cold grimewave tip.

Public Money - Amulets EP [Crane Operator]

An incredible debut on Crane Operator from London’s Public Money, channelling forest-era GAS, Actress and all the good bits of hazy, lysergic electronics with none of the fluff. Looking forward to hearing more from her.

Jamie Liddell & Luke Schneider - A Companion for the Spaces Between Dreams [Northern Spy]

I’ve long been a fan of Jamie Liddell, from the super_collider days into the Warp Neo-Soul era, and now he veers off into another new direction, teaming up with Luke Schneider for this collection of looping, evolving electronic pieces inspired in part by Liddell’s Ketamine therapy.

Oneohtrix Point Never - Tranquilizer [Warp]

I’ll admit I sometimes struggle to get my head around 0PN, for every Returnal & R+7 there’s also a lot of stuff that I just can’t gel with, stuff that seems a bit too clever for it’s own good. First listens suggest this new one seems like it’ll be in the former, which bodes well.

The Bug vs Ghost Dubs - Implosion [PRESSURE]

I mean, this collaboration was always on the cards wasn’t it? As soon as Ghost Dubs dropped his critically acclaimed debut album last year it was always clear that fellow disciple of the subwoofer Kevin Martin was going to want to join forces with him. Each artist takes a track in turn here, with The Bug’s track titles each referring to a temple of dub, Plastic People, Mass, Leeds West Indian Centre and so on.

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Welcome to this weeks In Strict Tempo. Normal service resumes this week as I take a look at what’s going on in the world of music.

• First up: In Strict Tempo hits the airwaves this Saturday! Natural Frequency Records main man LDLDN kindly invited me onto his NTS Show for a little chat and to play some tunes that have in some way influenced In Strict Tempo. Tune in if you’re about.

• Sticking with radio for a minute: If NTS is the sound of independent London, then Clyde Built Radio is it’s Glasgow equivalent. There’s some excellent shows on there, and they’ve hosted some of the best in the business. They’ve just launched a crowdfunder to secure the future of their station, chip in a few quid if you can.

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/clyde-built-radio

• It feels like we haven’t spoken about Spotify for a while doesn’t it? This week The Sabres of Paradise (who I interviewed earlier this year) have removed their catalogue claiming that the platform “undervalues artists and underserves listeners”. Lots has already been said on the subject, and I’m sure we’ll revisit it again, but the decision was made with the support of Warp Records, Gary, Jagz and the estate of Andrew Weatherall.

• Talking of Spotify, they’ve just bumped their prices up again. £12.99 now. It’s getting to the point where I’m considering switching over to Apple Music full-time, but seemingly they keep adding subscribers according to their latest numbers. I’m not sure what all these people are listening to (I’m not really seeing any noticeable increase in streams) but numbers look good to the shareholders and ultimately that’s all that matters to them, right?

• Every now and again a startup comes in with big plans to change music consumption, and the latest of these is Cantilever which for five pounds a month will let you listen to a rotating cast of ten ‘curated’ albums. It’s backed by some big indie labels including Rough Trade, XL, 4AD and Young (all of whom you’ll note are part of the Beggars Group) as well as Warp. The Guardian ran a feature on it, along with a mention of some of the other challenger startups including Subvert & Nina Protocol, which seem like the two with the most traction. It’s a nice concept but I’m not sure they’re going about it the right way. There’s loads of places that’ll recommend you a curated selection of albums (for free) for you to listen to, and the beauty is you can listen to them indefinitely on the streaming platform you’re probably already paying for. There’s probably a better way of monetising this, but at the moment it just feels like yet another subscription to pay each month.

• Whilst we’re on the subject, the Spotify Viral Charts in the Netherlands seem to have been hijacked by a load of AI-generated right-wing music. The Viral Top 50 chart (which is auto-generated by what’s getting heat in a certain territory) is full of anti-immigrant tracks, and clearly someone is listening to them in great numbers. Given that the far-right are generally a fairly fringe, unorganised bunch of people I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some bot involvement here, but the question remains how this kind of shit ends up on the platform in the first place - I’m pretty certain hate content goes against their content policies, and there was a big thing about a lot of the neo-Nazi power-electronics stuff being removed from streaming platforms a decade or so ago, but it seems like it’s making a comeback, and of course, AI is helping enable it.

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New Music

What’s been tickling my ears this week then?

VA - Going Back To Sleep [A Colourful Storm]

I love these Colourful Storm mixtapes. I Won’t Have To Think About You and Still In My Arms are both absolute classics, a masterclass of curation of underground indie music. This one features new music from The Reds, Pinks and Purples, Carla Dal Forno, The Sprigs and Rat Columns amongst others.

JJJJJerome Ellis - Vesper Sparrow [Shelter Press]

A sublime album ticking all sorts of boxes here, from jazz to electronica (but in a good way, none of that coffee-table jazztronica shite here) to spoken word to disintegrating soul, it’s a great soundtrack to a rainy Friday morning.

Leila - Courtesy of Choice… (25th Anniversary) [XL]

After her debut Like Weather got reissued a couple of years ago it was only a matter of time before Courtesy of Choice got the same treatment, expanded with a load of previously unreleased material. One of those rare albums that was miles before it’s time, it’s definitely worth a revisit in the hope that the rest of music might have caught up with her.

Who’s The Technician - ? [Wah Wah Wino]

Struggling to think of a label these days that sells out in a flash like anything Wino does? New one here from the Irish crew, probably sold out already, here’s a taste of what you’re missing.

Silent Servant - In Memoriam [Tresor]

Cause it would be In Strict Tempo without some Techno, a one-two from Tresor here, with a new one en-route from Dopplereffekt, and possibly the first time a record had been featured in In Strict Tempo twice: the late Juan Mendez’s final release as Silent Servant is getting a repress, so no need to feed those Discogs vultures.

Thanks as always for reading, as always I’d love it if you told your friends, colleagues, enemies who happen to have good taste in music about In Strict Tempo!

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This week I sit down and chat with musician Chris Clark - Clark released a number of essential IDM-leaning albums on Warp beginning in 2001, before setting up his own label -Throttle Records- in 2019 where he has been releasing music since.

Today sees the release of Clark’s latest album Steep Stims, an album conceived during his live performances and rooted firmly on the dancefloor. Having been a long-time fan of his work, and having enjoyed the pre-released singles I wanted to speak to Chris and find out more behind this album and the practice behind it.

In Strict Tempo: Hi Chris, thanks for taking the time to sit with me today. You’ve got a new album coming out, so let’s start with that.

The press release describes Steep Stims as a “return to the rave”, and you’ve said in it that it reminded you a bit of making your debut Clarence Park, which is -it’s fair to say, a bit more experimental, and a bit less ‘dancefloor’ than this one. So was it always the intention to make a more clubby, ravey album?

Chris Clark: No, not really. I tend to not pay too much respect to my conscious intentions. When you’re making music the worse thing is to sorta second guess what it should be rather than just being absorbed in the process of making it. As soon as you have a few pieces, it started to get a momentum of it’s own and starts to take shape.

I have this weird thing with music- because I write so much of it, and I have this horrifying thing sometimes where I write stuff and I don’t even remember writing it, it just happens in this fugue state, so quite often what you consciously want from music is not really the pure enjoyment of it, you set up all these rules and procedures, the pure enjoyment is the escape from that, from whatever your ego tells you, it’s liberating. It almost starts to make itself, there are always surprises and non sequiturs.

This is a very long-winded answer, but I didn’t start with the intention of making a clubby record, it just invariably happened as I’ve been playing live shows of this material for the last couple of years, so in a way it was informed by that.

Whenever I play a show, I’m really buzzed by the feedback I get, which is completely different to the simulated feedback on social media, which isn’t really what I’m in this for. I love gigs, the communal aspect of playing a show and hearing your music played loud. I came back from these shows and realised I had an album on my hands as I would work on the tracks much more because I was enjoying it, I was lost in it, so in that sense, it comes from playing shows a lot.

IST: That was going to be my next question: Did you get a chance to test any of these tracks in the club, did you give them out to any DJs or DJ yourself?

CC: I gave them to a few friends, but mainly it was me testing them in the live shows.

IST: You said you got into a fugue state when you’re making music - does that come easily, to you or do you need to dim the lights for example and really get into it?

CC: It comes pretty naturally to the point where I’ll be on a train making music on my laptop, and I’ll miss the stop I want to get off at. It doesn’t always have positive outcomes. But it’s an obsession.

IST: On this album then, it says here you made it all with just one synth?

CC: Maybe 80 or 90% is made with the Access Virus, but there’s also some Korg Kronos, but yeah mostly the Virus, those massive Hoover sounds, and the trance riffs

IST: It’s quite a distinctive sounding synth isn’t it?

CC: It is, but the thing is I don’t even really like trance!

IST: It’s okay, no one admits to liking trance. We’re all friends here.

CC: But seriously, when I was 15 or 16 trance was the only electronic music I had access to, and the only thing I liked about it was that it was electronic, it was mind-blowing because it wasn’t guitars. But then I heard Jeff Mills - Live At The Liquid Rooms and it just changed everything. I never made trance, I never wanted to make trance, I was just really interested in sequencing on an Atari and an old hardware sampler, I was excited about that, not like a genre of dance music in particular.

It’s this thing of making creativity a bit difficult for yourself and getting enjoyment from that. It would have been easy for me to make a record with sounds I know and love, that I’m familiar with. There’s something about using a palette that you don’t really find yourself in, and sorta turning it your way without even realising it. It’s amazing, like sideways trance I guess…

The thing about the Virus is it’s quite hard to program. I find it quite fiddly, and the outputs clip a lot, the reverb default is like far too long and muddy- but it sounds amazing. Combined with tape, a desk, It’s a really powerful sound, I love it.

IST: Do you find imposing limits on yourself, like to just one or two synths, can actually be quite freeing?

CC: I’ve got an old DMX drum machine, and I love it. But it’s really hard to use because the kick is quite naff and out of balance with the rest of it to my ears, so I end up pitching it-the hi hats are powerful, I made a more powerful kick out of the hi hat than the kick the other day. The kick is really thin and the snare is massive, but it forces you to be creative. And I love that because with computers it’s endless, it’s overwhelming, too much.

IST: Like you’ve got access to every instrument, every synth and drum machine ever made? The same with music and Spotify

CC: Yes, by being everything it becomes nothing. I feel like music, or the way it’s consumed-just that word “consumed” is in a bit of a sorry state at the moment, you forget what it is. I have people I know, people who follow music quite closely, who’ve asked me if I’ve used any AI on the album, and I’m like “no, I didn’t”. I wouldn’t even let a human alter the notation, let alone an AI.

IST: I read the other day that Deezer just removed something like 70% of music from it’s platform because it’s just generative AI, and there’s lots of research showing that around 50% of music on Spotify doesn’t even get streamed 5,000 times.

CC: The main thing for me, is that they don’t measure the quality of the listen. Does something count as a play if it’s playing in an empty H&M in a shopping centre?

I like the idea of listening to music in the background, but I can’t relate to it. It’s like-you don’t read “in the background”. I can sit and listen to The Cure, maybe just two tracks and it will be full of meaning-and then I won’t listen to them for another year because I’ve got so much out of that one listen. It’s just all about quantity it seems, not quality, but it’s not really being examined.

IST: We’re touching more on industry topics now, and that’s something I wanted to ask because your last few albums have been released on your own label, whereas you were on Warp for a long time before that. How do you find the process of self-releasing as opposed to working with a label?

CC: I co-own Throttle Records with my manager Greg Eden, but it’s really good because it means I don’t have to get batted round other artists release schedules, I can release when I want, I can release what I want. We outsource things like press and the artwork, although I still work with Alma Haser, I worked with her since I was on Warp and I’ve got a really good connection with her. So really, I don’t feel the need not to self-release if you see what I mean. It’s not easy, and it was a bit daunting at first.

There’s still good indie labels out there still, but there’s also the pressure to do more Instagram, to become abit of a tv presenter and stuff like that, whereas I prefer to just write music.

IST: So back to the new album, was there anything in your previous albums that informed or influenced this album in any way?

CC: Clarence Park is in the spirit of it - where every track was done in one take, the demos came together quite quickly. With Clarence Park I couldn’t save anything, I had to finish every track in the session. Now there’s all these YouTube tutorials, I feel like they often teach people the wrong thing. They teach you how to fit in, rather than stand out-like ‘what do you want to say?’. Not literally, but what is the thing that excites you in music? What’s meaningful? I never love a track purely because of how it’s been mixed, but I can appreciate it. I can appreciate the nice plate and cutlery etc. But I like music that brushes up against the limit of the medium.

So that’s how the spirit of Clarence Park relates to it, it was a bit more free. It’s revitalising in a way, just listening to the demo and realising it only needs a little bit of work. My wife’s really good at it because if I play her two mixes, she’ll choose the one that feels best, and it’s right. She’s not like ‘the high hats are clashing with the synths on the third bar” you need to sidechain that to 3 different stems with 8 x 0.5db cuts every third bar.

If you listen to Loveless, what modern mixdown rules do these comply to? But it feels alive, it’s like Jeff Mills again, it feels alive. But we can’t play it in shopping centres.

I really love the idea of supermarkets playing really unearthly, eerie ambient. Not playlist stuff, tweaked foley, interesting harmony, It would be amazing.

IST: Did you ever see the video of Mike Tyson entering the ring against Michael Spinks in Vegas back in 1990? He comes in to this really dissonant noise that sounds like chains rattling and things like that. And it’s terrifying for this poor guy about to get beaten to a pulp by Tyson, hearing this most haunting noise whilst he’s waiting. For a long time people thought it was Coil, but it was actually just the sound engineer who worked for the casino who made it.

CC: Incredible. It’s good to imagine the context for your music, to make it feel vital. Imagine you’re wanting to take over the world with your music. I mean, my music probably won’t get played in supermarkets, but I love the idea that it could. That it doesn’t make any “normal” sense, and makes the world feel uncanny and weird, because life is very strange and we’re all nuts.

Thanks to Chris and Duncan at 9PR for the interview. Steep Stims is out on all major streaming and download platforms now, and also on vinyl.

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New Music

Onto this weeks new tunes…

Clark - Steep Stims [Throttle Records]

You’ve read the interview, now check the album out. Clark returns with an album of clubbier tunes, but still with enough attention to sound design to keep you listening. Straight up 4/4 belters this is not, but they’ll still do the damage on the dancefloor.

Hydroplane - A Place In My Memory Is All I Have To Claim [Efficient Space]

It was Efficient Space who bought Hydroplane back into public consciousness with a timely reissue of their 1997 debut a couple of years back, before record shop par excellence World of Echo compiled a collection of tracks shortly after. Now, after 24 years Melbourne’s Hydroplane are back with a new album, and it’s everything you’ve ever wanted.

Aicher - Defensive Acoustics [Downwards]

Downwards bring My Disco/Eros man Liam Andrews out of cold storage for this new album of concrete jungle. As stark and icy as a ten-stretch in a cell in Siberia this is the sound of metal machine music at it’s very harshest. Cannot recommend this highly enough if that’s your sort of thing. No streaming, so you’ll have to commit to the vinyl.

Claire M Singer - Gleann Ciuin [Touch]

A new album of longform, evolving organ works by Claire M Singer, inspired by the Cairngorms you could easily lose yourself in the mists of this record.

Tapes - Photos of my Frog EP [Jahtari]

Quirky little six tracker of digital riddims from one half of Rezzett. Something to make you think it was summer again.

Ugne Uma - Rage Love Strange Love/Someone Called Donna [Somewhere Press]

Hazy 7” from Lithuania’s Ugne Uma. The A-Side calls to mind Hype Williams-esque smoky murk, whereas the B side gives a Vivien Goldman vibe with a Levene-influenced bassline.

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This week marks the second anniversary of In Strict Tempo, and stunningly, the ninety-third edition of the newsletter.

I conceived In Strict Tempo after a boozy chat with a friend in Amsterdam at ADE back in 2023 - it came about after we spoke about maintaining the fire after almost two decades working in music. This can be a brutal industry at times, and whilst it can be great fun, it can also be extremely stressful, sometimes feeling like you’re pushing a rock uphill against the constant stream of new releases whilst dealing with the internal and external politics of it all. In Strict Tempo was my way of reminding myself why we got into this in the first place - for a love of music, and to share that music with others.

I’m not a great DJ, and I’ve no desire to live that lifestyle, so for me my favourite way of sharing music has always been talking about or writing about it. I worked in record shops for years, and at a label and distributor for a long while too, so I think I’m well-versed in being able to get people excited about music, but in my current role I only do that to a small section of the industry, and only about the music we release, which sits in it’s own niche. I wanted to share the stuff I’d be listening to outside of work, the stuff I’d talk about in the pub, or round friends houses, and at the same time casting a somewhat cynical eye over the things that go on in the wider industry. I think it’s healthy to be cynical you know. It keeps you on your toes, and means you don’t get washed up in a flash flood of hype. Sometimes it means you’ll miss things, but I feel one of the most important qualities someone can have is being able to admit they were wrong on something, or reappraise their opinion. That goes for all things in life, not just music.

The first In Strict Tempo started how I meant to go on - writing about HMV. It’s a topic I’ve revisited a lot over the last couple of years, and is a place that was dear to my heart. I won’t go on about it here, but you can see the first newsletter below.

Over the years I’ve added to the newsletter, this year I started a mix series and have featured mixes from the likes of BALF, Volte-Face and Semtek. I’ve also interviewed a number of people, and although I didn’t intend to do those, I think they’ve been a nice addition to the newsletter.

This all reads a bit self-congratulatory, so thanks for indulging me for a minute. I really believe that the future of music isn’t in multi-national, all you can eat style streaming services, but in smaller, more local communities. That’s where stuff starts, on the ground, at grass roots. Streaming is obviously a controversial topic, and whilst it can make stars of some artists, it’s not an approach that will fit everyone, especially those on the fringes, where we are. Things like newsletters and Discords, platforms like that, with a sense of ownership, and a sense of curation will be where the next interesting stuff comes from. It’s probably already started…

What’s next for In Strict Tempo? I’m really enjoying writing it, and subscriber numbers are growing nicely. It’s going to stay free, for reasons I’ve shared before, and there’ll be some more interviews, some more mixes and we’ll see what else. I guess all that’s left to say is thanks for the support over the past couple of years, and thanks for sticking around (I think I’ve only lost three subscribers in that time). I always appreciate any feedback you have, and if you want to share it with your friends I’d appreciate that too!

New Music

Now all that bollocks is out the way, let’s get on to the new tunes I’ve been feeling the past couple of weeks.

Lauten der Seele - Unterhaltungen mit Larven und Überresten [World of Echo]

Christian Schoppik returns to his Lauten der Seele alias for this new album out via World of Echo. It’s one of those that is so all-encompassing you can’t really describe what it is - ambient doesn’t do it enough justice, it’s not rigid enough to be folk, and there’s a lot more here than just field recordings. Either way, it’s a late contender for album of the year, and one that will reward you on every listen.

Carrier - Rhythm Immortal [Modern Love]

Another AOTY contender here, I’m pretty sure this is gonna feature in at least 90% of Boomkat lists. Carrier has been working under this alias for a couple of years now, having become bored of DnB & Techno. Who can blame him really? He’s settled in Antwerp and got on with creating an album that will probably become one of those all-time classics.

British Murder Boys - Get In Line [Downwards]

One of two tracks quietly dropped by Britain’s Best-Loved Absurdist Space-Rock duo. You know the score with BMB, pick this up or regret it forever.

DJ Persuasion - Danny [Ulterior Motives]

DJ Persuasion checks in to the Overlook hotel and gets down to the business of cutting dubs. Ready for yr Halloween raves there’s only 30 of these in existence so head to Bandcamp & cop before it’s too late.

OKO DJ - As Above, So Below [STROOM]

I stuck this on the Eurostar the other day and fell asleep shortly afterwards. To be fair I was pretty knackered, and it soothed my tired ears into a pleasant dozy state. Read into that what you will, but it’s something I’m gonna need to give another listen when I’ve got a bit more energy.

emer - Fog [Short Span]

The other morning I had to drive to Stansted in the fog. I saw two car accidents in a short space of time. Keep your distance people! This new one from Matthew Kent’s Short Span sticks with the mellow dubby sound the label’s becoming known for. Rate this.

Jasmin - Bite The Hand That Feeds You [Hessle Audio]

Sounds like a bit of a return to form for Hessle, this. Hypnotic techno for the heads.

I wasn’t going to write an In Strict Tempo this week, as I’m away in Amsterdam for ADE (an event that marks the second anniversary of In Strict Tempo, but more on that another time), but after seeing that Dave Ball had sadly passed away yesterday, it would be remiss of me not to mention it, given the name of this newsletter.

Long-time readers will know I chose the name from the sales notes of a Regis cassette put out by Blackest Ever Black, which led me to Dave Ball’s album of the same name, and it soon became a firm favourite.

Ball was best known for his work with Marc Almond in Soft Cell, having a number of hits including Tainted Love, What and Memorabilia. Shortly before parting ways with Almond he recorded In Strict Tempo in 1983, before finding more chart success in the 1990’s with Richard Norris as The Grid. This post isn’t meant to be a comprehensive tribute to Ball, many others will be able to do that much better than I can, but I didn’t want to let the sad occasion pass without mention.

There’s no new music this week, but if you’re unfamiliar with In Strict Tempo (the album) I implore you to give it a listen below.

David Ball: 1959 - 2025