Swin
Stay At Home EP (repress)

Heads-down tackle! Pedro Goya follows releases on Yoyaku, Brique Rouge and Bloop with his first EP on Lisbon’s Carpet & Snares. Filled with moody grooves, sinuous acid and funky drums, these tracks meld Pedro’s esteemed engineering chops with his strong sense of movement and timing. This EP isn’t just about fireworks, it’s about your brain gradually switching off and the music taking over, leaving only your body, moving in the night.

Portuguese producer Mardel debuts on Carpet’s Circuits series with a tight set of modular jams. Precise, at times introspective but with a driving motor pulse underneath, the three electro tracks touch on acid and bass as they launch into space. For its part, the ten-minute lead track, ‘Ducks In A Pond’, is a dreamy dubby epic, full of surprising textures and watery flourishes.

Following a hotly tipped first instalment, the Family Trip series continues with a second VA [RIDE19] featuring artists from the Magic Carpet family, celebrating five years of the label. In contrast to the first record, Disc 2 steers us into deeper, clubbier territory with bold basslines, chuggy goodness and mesmerising atmospherics. True to form, there’s an understated wild card on the B2, offering a transcendent cruise to the 5th dimension. Strap in!

Magic Carpet ring in the new year with a standout debut EP from English-born, Berlin-baked artist Jack D. With senses honed by days spent front left at clubs like Hoppetosse, Closer and Fold, Jack delivers four superb tracks bursting with energy and quirk. Somehow fusing wonk with groove, his style feels both strangely familiar and highly original at the same time. One for the heads!

naive's 20th release epitomizes what the Lisbon-based label, run by Violet, has become cherished for: imaginative yet timeless, soothing yet moody, melodic yet sonic music. Entitled 'Computer Hermetics', this new record is an EP by UrbnMowgli, a fairly new Berlin-based artist who began releasing music in 2020. The opening track, 'Fast Love Life', is a 145 bpm electro-bred, breakbeat-driven emotive dancefloor banger. It features menacing stabs juxtaposed with beautiful pads and acid-drenched arpeggio motifs that lend it a oneiric quality. 'Oracle Algorithm' picks up the 303 spirit and delves into trippier territories, densening the dreamlike, expansive atmosphere while infusing the record with electro-driven grit. Closing side A is 'Warschauer Rush-Hour', a futuristik, high-tempo twisted electro banger that's both tough and playful. 'Immaterial Desires' inaugurates side B--an ode to adventurous drum programming and intricate sound design in the form of a percussion-punctuated curveball belter. 'Digital Dawn' brings it all back home to the heart and closes the record with its deepest, most immersive moment, giving us big bass lines that alchemically converse with angelic bleepy melodies as if soundtracking a soulful sci fi movie that doesn't exist yet.

Clever sonics, elegant chords, and dazzling color painted in broad strokes on Obstructor's Taboo.