New releases last four weeks: Trance

Review: Ukrainian producer Volodymyr Gnatenko returns to Kalahari Oyster Cult with 'Mershiy' - a long-awaited follow-up that trades the drive of his last appearance on the label for something deeper and more exploratory. Spread across six tracks, it drifts between ambient dub, acid and pointillist electronics, with flashes of trance and IDM woven through. There's a widescreen, cinematic quality to it - detailed, immersive and immaculately spaced. Ushering in faded memories of 90s ambient, only re-imagined through a hi-def lens. Repeated listens reveal ever more off-world textures, insect rhythms and a creeping sense of unease. It's introspective, meticulous and beautifully produced.

Review: In January 2025, Al Wootton visited Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio, which is home to a rare archive of vintage drum machines. Once there, he recorded the unique rhythms and quirks of these machines and captured their raw character. Back in the UK, he transformed those recordings through processing and layering to create this new EP, Rhythm Archives. The result is a stripped-back but impactful exploration of rhythm that draws from industrial, dub, post-punk and proto-techno influences. The record stands as both a creative tribute to the iconic machines and their makers and a nod to MESS's mission of preserving electronic music heritage and making it accessible through public engagement and education.

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.