New releases last two weeks: Psy/Goa Trance

Review: Following his acclaimed 'Love Dub So' EP, Nick Barber's Doof returns to Mysticisms with The Love Mixes-early, raw recordings from cassette-only archives. Made in 1990-91 while studying philosophy in Cambridge, these tracks fuse the spirit of Pink Floyd and Goa's Full Moon parties with the rise of UK trance culture. Crafted with minimal gear and pure DIY energy, the recordings capture the wide-eyed excitement of a scene still being born. Hand-dubbed and passed around at afterparties, one tape reached Mute Records and it was that which sparked Doof's Novamute debut. Now remastered, The Love Mixes offers an unfiltered window into the roots of electronic trance.

Review: Norwegian producer Ekkel, co-founder of Ute Records, returns with four sharply drawn tracks for Seismic's third release. His blend of 90s-indebted progressive textures and rhythm-forward minimalism remains intact, though with new, more interior inflections. 'Hradec Fog Fever' is the steadiest of the lot-clean, rolling percussion and tight low-end restraint-but it's 'Owl Foot' that lingers, pairing whispered vocal snippets with eerie atmospheres and subtle motion. On the B-side, 'Drum Ring' builds unease through gritty kicks and unresolved phrases, echoing trance motifs without ever fully revealing them. 'Endphase' teases a moment of release via distant melodies, but soon undercuts it with brittle, clipped drums. This is dance music in a minor key-focused, evocative, and unusually meditative. A smart addition to Seismic's emerging catalogue, and a compelling statement from one of Norway's most consistently interesting underground names.

Review: French techno alchemist Vardae is the latest artist to feature on German experimental drum & bass label Samurai Music. Vardae has dabbled with 85/170bpm speeds before, most notably on his excellent 'The Kaipos' EP. This time we get a full EP's worth of deep techno-influenced drum & bass, a sound that is familiar to anyone following recent trends in the deeper scenes of techno: acid lines, forest drums, mystic vocals, etc. The opener 'The Light Motion' is a halftime groover with fluttering percussion propelling it forward. The second 'Chaeming Your Soul' has a more recognisable drum & bass rhythm underneath, bringing to mind Overlook and UVB-76's back catalogue with powerful acid washes over the top. 'Voices Of Depossesion' has a conventional four-to-the-floor beat but at a blistering BPM and 'Flaming As A Cloud' ends with an excellent drum & synth-ony. One for fans of Marco Shuttle, Pessimist, et al.

Review: Hailing from Marseille, Zar Electrik conjure a hypnotic synthesis of North African rhythm, West African instrumentation and contemporary electronics. Their debut full-length surges with ritualistic energy-'Berma soudan' leads with elastic gumbri grooves, while 'Bala dima' overlays call-and-response chants with pulsing low-end and dubby atmospheres. 'Koyo' anchors the set in driving, gnaoui-inflected trance, propelled by electric kora and pitch-shifted vocal snippets. Elsewhere, 'Sahrane Lile' is drenched in oud melancholia, and 'Chouf enour' spirals into eight minutes of slow-building, ambient-rooted psych. Shorter sketches like 'Interlude 51' and 'Choukrane likoum' offer breathers between the denser percussion workouts. Drawing from wedding music, souk rhythms and Berber funk with evident care, the trio land somewhere between festival catharsis and basement heat. It's not simply fusion-it's groove as inheritance, filtered through FX units and Mediterranean sun.