Meticulously assembled from a good 15 years' worth of source material, Cong Burn boss John Howes' second Paperclip Minimiser transmission proliferates its predecessor's network of turn-of-the-millennium aesthetics and concepts, bringing us closer to the lost future promised by the mid-digital age. If the debut album rooted itself in 2006, using an era-specific rig to activate its vintage Winamp-ready sound, 'II' pushes the clock forward just a little, recycling an unreleased album that Howes engineered in various locations across the north of England, starting way back in 2011. Working quickly and methodically with his homebrewed "DIY DAW" system, Howes improvised live using the record's bank of sounds, transforming the skittering bio-electronic rhythms, bitcrushed modem whines and inclement Lancs soundscapes into a suite of sleek, bass heavy steppers.



Howes has refined his setup and process over the years to function as an antithesis of contemporary production logic, a system that he can use easily to retreat from the excessive layering, overdubbing and editing that plagues modern electronic music. With only limited separate channels in each track, 'II' sounds both archaic and strangely novel. Showing respect to the early days of techno, when stone-cold classics were jammed out live using just a drum machine, a sampler and a couple of synths, Howes simultaneously acknowledges the promise of the transition to a digital future, as nascent algorithmic technology began to rehydrate stale rhythmic and melodic patterns. Fabricating its wrinkled cyberpunk landscape from shovelware blips and whines, spacious environmental echoes and lustrous, plasticky FM hits, 'II' is dense but never congested. It's a reminder that bass music thrives when it's given the room it needs to breathe.

One of the dubstep scene's unsung heroes, Commodo teams up with jazz innovator Alfa Mist on Deep Harbour, a collaboration that bridges their two worlds, coming out on Black Acre and marking an amazing 100 releases on the label.



The record explores different yet distinct creative directions: a melodic reimagining of late-2000s dubstep shaped heavily by electric piano, and a darker, more abstract interpretation of jazz-influenced half-step. The EP also includes two reimaginings from Anz; her ‘Safe Place Mix’ offering a more subtle, reflective take, while the ‘Defensive Mix’ delivers a rougher, club-focused approach.



“I’ve admired Alfa Mist’s work for some time and wanted to explore a couple of avenues using keyboards,” says Commodo. “One was a more melodic expansion on the late-2000s dubstep sound, the other was a much darker, dissonant take on a jazz-flavoured half-step.” On the remixes, he adds: “Anz is a real producer’s producer with a broad range, and felt like the perfect remixer for this project.”

Stef Mendesidis remixes "Human Error" from Ø [Phase]’s acclaimed "Before This" LP, plus one new original.

Ø [Phase] launches his Modwerks label with his third studio album, Before This.

Cascading Sectors arrives, the 11th installment of the Natural Expressions series, where dub techno's subterranean pulse converges with industrial textures and shimmering ambience. Inspired by the hidden anatomy of nuclear reactor facilities-cooling towers, control rooms, and the silent hum of containment systems-this record explores the friction between technological precision and organic decay.



Across two halves, Cascading Sectors balances warmth and tension. The Dub Side unfurls with deep, gelatinous basslines and drifting delays. 'Spiral' pulses with a hypnotic rhythm, evoking the slow, methodical approach of engines synchronizing as they approach the boarding platform. 'Barycenter' finds equilibrium in echoing chords, while 'Nuclear Fission' fractures rhythms with deep dub stabs. A brief sunlit warmth arrives in 'Sun,' where muted pads and submerged percussion hint at a distant horizon, before 'Sector 5,' where Visitor XIX and legendary producer Mikael Delta weave rhythms and chords into the subterranean grooves.



Flip to the Hard Side, and the machinery seems to rev into overdrive. 'Reflector' drifts through the circuitry like a spectral scan, its metallic hits mapping unseen terrain-each ricochet a signal bending space, collapsing distance. 'Peripheral Vision' conjures surveillance-state unease through echoing textures, and 'Z-Axis' delivers a cathartic finale-a distorted cascade of noise and bass that fades into a white-out.



Recorded with vintage analog delays, tapes, spring reverbs, and modular synthesis, Cascading Sectors captures the analog imperfections at the heart of both human invention and inevitable entropy. Whether you're exploring the control room or wandering the turbine halls in your mind's eye, this album is your passport to an immersive dub techno reactor tour.

Originally released as 2 separate EPs, these sought after tracks are now compiled on one low-priced reissue. All previously issued only on wax, this is the sound of APHEX TWINS's most famous alter-ego, delivering classic rave, schizo jungle and experimentronica galore.

A continuous transmission from a world that almost existed.



This 53-minute compilation brings together fragments from across the Dreamfibre archive, soundscapes shaped by the optimism of early 2000s digital design, where glass, water, and light converge into something both futuristic and strangely familiar.

Blueprintz 03 brings together a curated selection of the most defining tracks released on Metalheadz throughout 2025. The compilation weaves between club-focused material and more atmospheric pieces, featuring long-standing contributors alongside newer names.

Re-upping and expanding our 2020 sufi-flamenco grail on LP and tape format, adding 4 newly unearthed tracks to those previously thought to be Aziz Balouch's only recordings.



Aziz Balouch moved to the Iberian Peninsula from modern-day Pakistan in 1932 in search of work and music. After a childhood spent studying Islamic mysticism and devotional songs in the Sufi shrines of his native Sindh he soon fell in love with the 'deep song' of flamenco and was taken in as an apprentice to the great heterodox cantaor Pepe Marchena after a chance encounter. He dedicated the rest of his life to flamenco and developed an elaborate theory of the South Asian and Sufi origins of the art which he propagated through live performances and publications in London, Spain and Pakistan.



Decades before the arrival of the academic discipline of ethnomusicology or the invention of 'fusion' Aziz Balouch painstakingly immersed himself into a completely different musical tradition seeking connections and drawing inspiration to create a unique performance style which has tragically remained hidden and ignored. These 8 tracks are taken from Aziz Balouch's only surviving recordings, two 7" EPs released in Spain in 1962. On each track Balouch draws on his polyglottism to seamlessly merge Sufi poetry in Persian, Sindhi, Hindi and Arabic with various forms of Andalusian song in Spanish. Accompanied by a single guitar his voice pushes through into the profound depths of human experience to excavate the shared past of flamenco which had been submerged beneath the surface.



Many thanks to Stefan Williamson Fa.

A compilation gathering a cross-section of early gospel choirs and vocal harmony groups recorded between late 1920s and the mid-1950s - a period when spirituals & jubilee traditions merged with blues, jazz and early rhythm and blues, providing the musical routes for the coalescence of the civil rights movement born out of the black church. In the modern world these perennially vital recordings provide a fitting note of resistance for the near-dystopia we find ourselves living through.



Happy new year.