The Oyster Cult’s Naarm continent grows larger with the addition of Ebbs N Flow. The unholy alliance of Dashiell and Will Holden of Hybrid Man touching down with some precision-tooled tech house variants, and considering their only previous collab came on an Animalia compilation back in 2022, this has been long in the making.

OYSTER56 marks the first full release from this lesser spotted project. The handiwork of two producers, both accomplished in their own right but transcending their respective styles for a 4-track dose of late nite propulsion. Seductively stripped-back and engineered for optimum impact.

Flexing a deftness of touch, and a far cry from the smudged, dubby FX Holden tends to deploy under the Hybrid Man banner, these tracks set the duo’s stall out as purveyors of the nocturnal and club-ready. Sultry, sleek, and sumptuous like only the dankest cuts can sound.

It’s fitting that a track with the title 'Deeper Dream' might feature on a release feeling like a transmission from the other side; a parallel dimension where the after-hours never end. More

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Almost exactly a year since fellow De Lichting co-founder RDS made his Kalahari debut, Eversines returns to the label in a big way. But this is the Dutchman like you’ve never heard him before; tough and direct, coming through with a mean streak of sci-fi propulsion that leaves the sanguine reflections of releases past in its wake.

We’re flexing attitude from the off. Almost reminiscent of something I-F might have cooked up back in the day, ‘Gaze’ might reference Detroit, but there’s also something decidedly Dutch about it. There is, however, no mistaking the Motor City influences on ‘Fast Fall’. Jacking, Detroit-inspired gear, it most closely resembles the introspection of previous Eversines releases.

On the flip, where ‘Affection Towards The Urban Environment’ lights up neural pathways with some seriously spannered, acid-fuelled electro-techno, ‘Wavedash’ rounds things off with another nod to the American Midwest. Tensile-strength, hi-tek machine funk that’s retro-tinted without ever resorting to pastiche. More

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Maara’s out to make mischief with the wryly titled ‘Hear Me Neigh’.

Whether that title’s in reference to a certain equine dissociative or purely a love letter to our majestic, four-legged friends, well, we’ll leave that for you to decide. Either way, the prolific prog house luminary lends her Midas touch to four equally deadly traxxx.

Following last year’s ‘Fancy Feast’ EP comes another proper dose of heads-down hedonism. It’s an eagerly-awaited return to the Kalakari fold, and true to form, opener ‘The Horse Track’ comes hurtling into the first furlong at full pelt. Big equestrian NRG packing some seriously rugged heft and neighing samples aplenty. Then, bringing more of that insistent throb, ‘Juicy Tracksuit’ is no less alluring or propulsive, albeit while channelling some Y2K aesthetic.

There’s more of that turn-of-the-century flex on the next one too. Evoking Love Parade circa 1999, ‘God Save The Bender’ deploys scything hard trance flourishes while opening a portal to the fractal realm. And finally, ‘Sheela Na Gig’ lands dripping with more of the seductive appeal that has become Maara’s hallmark. More

Huge, triumphant return for the man they know as Olsvangèr. This might be the most radiant, life-affirming manifestation of his devotion to trippy dancefloor propulsion.

If last year’s EP with fellow Tofistock co-founder MYKI was the pre-induction, ‘Icy Hookups’ signals his full initiation. Solo manoeuvres from the Berlin-based producer and starts as he means to go on with the buoyant flex and ‘90s nostalgia of opening cut ‘Grand Slammin’. Blissed-out vocals vocoded beyond recognition, this is pure dancefloor jubilation but not at the expense of directness or heft.

Clearly, he’s no stranger to a late-nite tech house incursion either. Where ‘Paranoweed’ comes thru with the tuff, full-bodied groove, ‘Bubble Toy’ recalls the oddball, mescaline-strength tribalism of his DJ Headshot alias. Then, just as uplifting as its predecessors, ‘Quadi B’ shuts things down with a heady, levitational dose of fractal fuel. More

--The Naarm chapter of the Oyster Cult has been coming through with in a big way lately, and this one is no exception. Introducing Reflex Blue, the latest Antipodean export to put his stamp on a lysergic dancefloor sound indebted to the early ‘90s.

If Australia’s South East has proven itself a fertile breeding ground for tripped-out dance music, Reflex Blue is a case in point. Rather than sliding into pastiche, tracks like ‘Outdoor Dance’ and ‘Tension Rise’ offer forward-facing slants on trance-inducing prog house styles. They plumb the depths of nostalgia, all in the pursuit of dancefloor unity and fractal elation.

The flip-side comes bearing nocturnal house incursions. But where ‘Creepin' Around The Bend’ opts for rude, jacking propulsion, low-slung number ‘Low End Freqz (Dial Up Mix)’ dials up the seductive appeal while sticking to the same sonic palette. Seriously
indulgent gear primed for the witching hour. More

OK EG, AKA Lauren Squire and Matthew Wilson, take intrepid recce’s on a Kalahari debut of fathoms-deep techno minimalism and opiated braindance styles.

With release titles like ‘Intertidal zone', 'Anther' and 'Prismatic Spring’, their ambition to evoke natural worlds is evident. But these tracks aren’t of this planet. Navigating truly alien terrain, ‘Rivulets’ finds the duo imagining uncharted environments into existence through the medium of analogue hardware.

This is very much an album of two halves; the first on heads-down tip aimed straight at the dancefloor, with a second plate that veers further into abstraction. That said, they’re all the kind of far-reaching explorations where close listening yields great rewards.

Between ‘Oxygen Channel’’s cavernous throb and the dub techno-leaning ‘Circular Arc’, the Antipodean duo set their stall out with a widescreen sense of space. Then, ’Rivulets’ comes in strong with the spiralling, trance-inducing gear. Stripped-back, no fuss; proper live improv techno for the most inquisitive souls.

Sending signals into the endless expanse, the second half is a demonstration of OK EG’s versatility. Where ‘Surface System’ and ‘Matched Grip’ further indulge dubby tendencies, ‘Flow Regime’ and closing gambit ‘Endless River’ traverse dreamlike dimensions through breaks and flow state IDM. More

The sounds of Cleveland seem to grow increasingly abstract with each passing release and a third Kalahari outing is no exception. Manipulating house and techno templates into newly mutated forms, ‘Lola Ran’ is a testament to a producer always playing fast and loose with concepts of genre. It’s possibly his most probing set of productions thus far.

Where predecessors came bearing remixes, it's strictly originals for the duration here.

‘Rand’ and ‘PrideBRK’ are direct but decidedly off-kilter; at once modern and faintly retro in their approach to breaks and deep-dwelling techno. ‘Lola Ran’, ‘Mano’ and ’Temp Oro’, on the other hand, shift gear into opiated, rhythmelodic territory. There are no doubt traces of Detroit-style sci-fi but the Brussels-based producer terraforms an alien microcosm unto itself. More

Six years, more than fifty releases, countless artists and multiple subsidiaries; the Oyster Cult’s reach extends far beyond what sceptics once thought possible. It’s only fitting, then, that we gather some of our finest under the Kalahari banner in celebration.

The anniversary release is upon us. Six whole years since Jacy helped inaugurate the label with a spin on Midwestern house, OYSTER40 signals a landmark occasion. 18 tracks, quadruple vinyl boxset action, and in true Oyster Cult tradition, it comes bearing pearls.

Dancefloor squarely in focus, the Cult assembles on a compilation spanning alumni and new inductees alike. It’s an assemblage of the fractal, explorative and ritual-ready; at once a focused distillation of the Kalahari sound and celebration of its many acolytes. Big on atmosphere, heavy on groove, we delve deeply into the musical DNA shared by all who grace the label.

Tough, direct cuts (Sansibar, Roza Terenzi, Big Zen, Maara & Priori) to the pristine and widescreen (S.O.N.S., Volodymyr Gnatenko, Adam Pits), this is all quintessentially Kalahari. Elsewhere though, the likes of D. Tiffany and SW. journey further into realms of abstraction: the former opting for hi-tech, dreamstate IDM, while the SUED co-founder dissolves a house template into dubby introspection.

Calling upon contemporary talents for the most part, there are also exceptions. Raymond Castoldi - the one-time house producer best known as Madison Square Garden’s music director - returns with an unreleased nugget from ’91, while an ‘Aliens’-sampling track from Detroit-indebted techno outfit Syzygy gets the reissue treatment. More

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Kalahari Oyster Cult welcomes another from down under, Furious Frank with his very own Trip 2 Fantasy via OYSTER28. Three OG acid-licked club-ready rollers from the Australian 303-connoisseur plus a bonus destruction mix from trusted Frankfurt associate Ludwig A.F.

A1 Existential Crisis, aka the current natural state of the world, sparks fly with flanged percussion springing between damaging drum work, making space for the juicy acid evolution. The journey develops to include dystopian stuttered vocals, glistening bells and pads to form a melancholic driver.

Continue the mood, elastic processed rhythms roll and dip for the A2 Artificial Simulation, robotic mechanism holding hands with the heavenly, dream state timbre, fluttered and full of melodic resonance.

The title track on the B2 Trip 2 Fantasy opens bold and brave, a punishing bass line and commanding claps, hot syncopation aimed for bodies moving. Thundering toms run stealthily underneath an ascending motif of delicate synthesis. “Join Me in my Dreams, My Trip to Fantasy” echoing out in seductive bliss over the driving undergrowth.

The record is rounded off with an even deeper, throbbing rejig of the former from none other than Ludwig A.F. The “Floor destruction” mix isn’t coy about its intentions, risers, diced vocals and anticipation through the roof.

A record ready to explode, whenever and wherever that may be. More

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A man of many aliases and jack of as many trades, Dominic Glynn aka Syzygy (together with Justin McKay) aka Zentik aka Fluid aka Mind Control aka Luke Warmwater resurfaces from the sunken slumber of years to re-establish his name as a much unsung artisan and key exponent of the UK electronic scene’s heyday.

Two unreleased tracks and another two enhanced re-edits compose the “Tri-Phase” EP here presented - each cut making for a snapshot of Glynn’s fast evolution as an electronic music producer, a career he was then running in parallel to his day work for the BBC including all-time TV classic series Doctor Who.

Starting with the yet unheard ‘Little Pieces of Love’, Syzygy provides us with a dynamic trancey roller that does the splits between hectic 303-riddled leads, catchy vocal hooks sheer old-school style and generously layered FXs extending the scope to further horizon-clearing soulfulness.

Drawing towards more muscular, club-ready techno linearity, ‘Luminous 4AM’ reveals an explosive combo of driving momentum, melodic richness and high-impact bass engineering, tailored to take the rave to a whole other level of consciousness. No-holds-barred floor weaponry set for tearaway peak-time ops.

Initially released on No Bones in the 90s, the other two cuts ‘And It’s Wonderful’ as Luke Warmwater and ’The Man With Three Heads’ as Fluid boast a distinct style. Whilst the first rushes us headfirst into a bumpy maelstrom of chromed techno fitted with an array of acid-drenched attributes and Chicagoan piano tropes, the latter has us zoning out to a playful reverie of trip-hop-laced, ambientoid jazz-house. More

Expanding on the blueprint of previous releases, Trieste-born, London-based producer Sohrab is the Kalahari clan’s latest inductee. OYSTER43 is a distillation of the Italian producer’s stylistic scope in its purest form; impeccably crafted dance music with a healthy dose of prog.

Running deep with this one. Smartly refined constructions primed for meditative club use, the first four tracks are rendered in pristine detail. From the widescreen and tunnelling to straight-up utopian, there’s a life-affirming vitality like only the most quintessential '90s prog-house can achieve.

The record begins to veer into realms of dilated abstraction on the second plate. Where ‘Fleeting Thoughts’ unfurls like a slice of hi-tech IDM undergoing an ayahuasca ceremony, ‘Sunseeker’ and ‘Deconstruct’ keep the ritual going at a lysergic, slo-mo chug. ‘Crystal Clear’, on the other hand, evokes the ‘70s with a bucolic, avant-garde synth lullaby. More

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Rushing us headlong into a vorticist maelstrom of hard-edged drum stutter and polychromatic synth fragmentation, Sansibar sophomore long-player for Kalahari Oyster Cult - “Sans Musique” - tackles the very essence of post-trancey, breaks-loaded UK blends with unabashed joy to wreak havoc on his path. Throughout seven tracks oozing burnt kerosene and depleted uranium residue merged with a hint of sacred incense, Sansibar deploys his extra-wide vision for the present and future of dance music.

“Scully” attacks pedal to the metal, hi-intensity bass onslaughts and knee-buckling breaks roaring as the groove slings us at bullet-speed into a hot, narrow barrel of floor-focused aggression. Fusing rattling DnB engineering with Goa trance motifs, “Force of Equilibrium” showcases Sansibar’s hybrid attachment to functionality and headspace fractalisation. Hi-velocity rimshots, pep vox samples and alien basslines blazing, “NRJ” eases us into a shape-shifting network of underground tunnels dwelled by shady raving creatures, harking back to Prodigy’s early wares and subsequent offshoots of the 90s era.

One to bend your mind to, “Teal’c” taps into an even darker vein with its fast-cascading hats and von Oswald-ian dub whirlwind set against a surgically laid-down, unstoppable EBM bass comber. Jagged and oneiric to the finest extent, “Send It” peeps at prime Hokusai and Photek material in its first stretch, slowly making room for further spacious liquid junglism as bars run by. Cranking the 2-step/garage power levels up a notch, “Fantasmas” sends us spinning into orbit right away, while the LP’s closing track “Aurora” takes us on a languidly serene voyage of a finale, tempo slowed-down and suave trip-hop flavours exuding with increased sensitiveness.

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Hailing from Helsinki, Finland, Sansibar is a non-pareil cosmic traveller - also producer, resident DJ at Kaiku and Post Bar and wave agitator on IDA Radio and EOS Radio - whose genre-unbound sound credentials for the likes of Kalahari Oyster Cult, Natural Sciences, Émotsiya, Darknet, Avoidance et al. have helped establish as one of today’s most intriguing talents in the European scene. More

Back in 2021, when Volodymyr Gnatenko agreed to work on his debut album, none of us could have predicted it would be released, post-pandemic, against the backdrop of war. At the time, the 23-year-old producer from Lutsk was riding high on a string of well-received 12s for labels such as Where We Met and Animals On Psychedelics, besides local Ukraine labels such as LSS557 and Rhythm Buro. He was, between covid closures, playing live at Kyiv clubs such as Closer and Kureni, looking to tour in Europe, and spending every spare second making music.



How things change. When missiles began to rain on Kyiv, Gnatenko, alongside a few friends from Closer, hid in his studio. For a while, the bombings did not stop. But for the producer, neither did the music-making. Choosing to stay in the city, he continues to make beats, managing only to mix down between bombing raids. He changed his first name to match that of his president, ditching the previous spelling of his name because it was the same as the aggressor, “[the same as] my worst enemy, I am ashamed and disgusted that I started my career with it”.



The album speaks of softer, easier times. A combination of rich ambience, and laidback breaks alongside loose progressive and trance-fused dancefloor tracks, this debut brings together all the strands that Gnatenko plays with. The process, he says, was exhausting and long. Yet the results are lighter, fresher. Maybe because, he says, “it is dedicated to my future wife. All the tracks are my words of love for her". Deeply hypnotic and freely moving between ideas, it feels like it was made a lifetime ago, not a matter of months. Now, it resonates with a new defiance. It is a debut with an extra layer of meaning. More

Exploring hybrid music styles and outernational, borderless musical influences, DJ soFa’s Elsewhere compilation series continues with a sixth instalment, and the second to appear on Kalahari Oyster Cult.

Always ahead of the tide, the Kalahari Oyster is a fine specimen when it comes to the discipline of next-level sound-snooping. Meticulously curated by Belgian sonic globetrotter soFa, Elsewhere XX showcases a dozen outstanding tunes, each dwelling in their own personal space between the imaginary worlds of post-kraut, DIY synth-punk and odd-pop ballads.

Melting these genres with contemporary club music is the mission here. Doused in a thick fog of arcane machine talk, tribal rhythms and cosmic synths, Elsewhere XX is an invitation to escape the hall of LED-backlit mirrors that we’ve so mistakenly come to call our “reality”.

Gathering artists from all corners of the globe – including Radio Hito, Anatolian Weapons, Eylul Deniz, Dame Area and Electronic Body Girl – soFa’s curation lays the groundwork for a unique and thoroughly immersive listening and dancing experience. Through a carefully selected suite of like-minded, yet diverse joints, we run the gamut from distorted funk (“Anita”, “Confiture") and cross-pollinated electroid blueprints (“Walk Away”, “An Abhainn Mhor") to oddball synthpop (“Credo” & Twin Peaks cover "She Can't Die"), reverb-soaked audio safaris (“Fifty Fifty (Anatolian Weapons Dub)") and static-filled postpunk (“Umani”).

soFa's Elsewhere series started in 2017 and this is the sixth compilation to date. Shifting focus with every new instalment, the compilations have previously appeared on labels likes Music For Dreams, Emotional Response and Crevette Records. More

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Storming in with his newest slice of extraterrestrial swing-ology, Liquid Earth (alias Urulu under guise) returns to dish out the playful above all “Scope Zone” - a lush and bouncy gem primed for ecstatic workouts and bold galactic excursions, complete with a reshape from Scottish born, Berlin-based vibist, Youandewan. Flush with garage va-va-voom and low-end paranormal activity, “Scope Zone” indeed lacks no wide-screen power of crowd subjugation.

Taking us back to the 90s continuum with its astute mix of chopped-up vox, pong-like bleeps and propulsive buildup, Liquid Earth’s latest is a fun-loving ode to the kaleidoscopic sound of an era and its untamed flow of energy. True to his signature refined melodic touch and airy 4x4 architectonics, Youandewan’s version has us embarking for a proper deep, exhilarating ride across bumpy time warps and oddly familiar parallel universes. More

Back on Kalahari Oyster Cult after a maiden incursion in 2020, Brussels' boldest club explorer Andrea Mancini, alias Cleveland, resurfaces with “Golem” - a helluva four-track trip spanning Arcadian shimmers, bobbly swamps of disproportioned FX and other off-piste routes swiftly veering into the wild wild west of house production. Treating sound like an entomologist magnifies the dazzlingly lush shapes and colours of insects, Mancini overexposes his elements, clicks, percussions, pads, clicks, et al. to a profusion of playful procedures.

Opening cut “Forest” sets up the scenery into serenely alive woodlands, where slo-rattling percs and wonky polyrhythms gently coalesce with further entranced congas and alien gargling, shaping up to an off-beat symphony of sorts. Adding a steelier spin to his macro views of teeming cellular life, “Trullo” blends in a propulsive mix of dynamic drums, fluttering chimes, aqueous dub, and squelchy sub-bass moving incognito.

Dwelling the flip is the title-track “Golem” and fellow KOC affiliate Junes’ remix, each bringing along its distinctly unique palette of colours and sensations to the table. While the original mix rather focuses on the in-betweens and über-detailed immersive quality of its audio CGI, merged with a sixth sense for wrong-footing stop-and-go sequencing, Junes remix puts rhythmic straightforwardness back at the centre of considerations, cranking the tempo up a notch without stripping it bare of its vital textures and ideas lavishness. More