02am is an 4 track ep by the young producer hekkla from eindhoven in the netherlands. the first track is sunset strip , a slowly build house track that moves like the last waves of heat at the end of a hot summers day, walking home feeling satisfied, all ready for the night. saturday morning sentimentality is a hard to pinpoint track that sounds like the bastard son of a trio between the melancholic side of cyndi lauper, alphaville and the echoes of a cheesy saturday morning cartoon theme song from the late 80 s. on the other side memories of tau ceti feels like tumbling into space with only the memories left of a good time on an alien world, accelerating faster and faster but still enjoying it, even though you know that the vacuum of space will eventually kill you. finishing with the hardest track no math , because, boys and girls, it s no math... hand stamped artwork by frank koedood.

articulat is the (new) artist name of ovidiu stanciu, a romanian dj/producer living in rotterdam. under the moniker manikin, he worked on several concept albums with titles like popular mechanics, taxim and grandma s attic revival over the last couple of years. while selecting tracks for this debut ep it felt like curating a best of , and we chose to put three thriving and pounding slow-beat bangers on the a side, and to show more of articulat s versatile style on the b-side. expect experimental electronic songs inspired by themes like steampunk and romanian folklore, very precisely engineered to experience storytelling in the most physical way.

the 8th instalment of am records contains 4 percussive edits by afrobot, the grooves function as dj tools for various occasions.
-soca trance- will bring some extra heat on the dance floor, it s a heavily cut-up, rough electronic soca rhythm with fragments of looped steeldrum melody on top. -i m alive- is another latin banger, a piece of proto house with some lush vocals in the background and a synthesized tropical bird flying over. on the flip, kalao is an underground afro/french drum track with lots of flanged percussion, cheering black vocals and an elephant passing by. body & soul is the most discoish edit of all: a hypnotic groove with a killer baseline (and a flute sound) interrupted by an uplifting drumbreak.

05am contains two bollywood bangers, loudly pressed – each on a 45rpm side of the record. afrobot s cut is a raw and fast percussive acid track, just wait till that 303 comes in, indians already knew in 83 what to do with that machine. for the other side thee j johanz, big bollywood expert and collector, delivered an edit that could be considered the bollywood answer to yali yali, that jesus christ super star theme in a funky bolly disco version, updated for nowadays club systems.
frank koedood drew us a monkey this time!

the 04am a-side contains two south-african 80 s bubblegum tracks, revamped by young dj and producer perdu. he provided the tracks with delicate intros and rearranged them with new percussion, synths and deeper basslines. on the flip afrobot delivers two kind of new beat cuts, making the originals more abstract by some heavy chopping, reducing the amount of samples used, and adding disco breaks to the track jungle. handstamped with another drawing by frank koedood.