Ransom Note

Istanbul-based digger and producer Grup Ses’s mix for Ransom Note is a trip through the cassette underworld of 1980s Turkey, when drum machines and synthesisers went from novelty to the centre of the arrangement.

It opens with a sampled tape skit asking whether you’re stressed or tired, then prescribes the cassette as the cure, to be played anywhere from the hamam to a minibus. From there it moves through electronic pop, arabesque hybrids and Anatolian-tinged studio pieces, with a Turkish cover of Mory Kanté’s “Yé ké yé ké” along the way, before closing on two slow jams.

The backdrop is the 1980 military coup. In its wake, the studio, rather than the band, became where Turkish pop was made, and the new machines spread fast. The records here are full of Junos, DX7s and Yamaha RX11s, but also stranger local tools like the Bojidar RB Alaturka Ritm-Box, a rhythm box built around traditional Turkish rhythms. Some producers used the gear to chase the international pop sound of the moment. Others pushed it towards arabesque or Anatolian pop, and plenty of these records never travelled beyond a small cassette or vinyl run.


Many of them are gathered on DALGA – A Selection of 80s Pop Oddities from Turkey, compiled by Grup Ses for Zel Zele, the Istanbul and London-based label and NTS Radio show. Neriman and Füsun Önal show the glossy, global-pop side, while Mehmet Pekün and Zor Beyler fold electronics into arabesque. Tele Tempo, a studio project arranged by Özkan Turgay with drums by Koral Sarıtaş, takes the Anatolian route. Vedat Biçkin’s “Darbuka Bongo Kavgası” splits darbuka and bongos across the stereo field over a drum machine groove, and Grup Ses calls it the most inventive production on the record. Six of the tracks have never left their original cassettes until now. The mix sets a few of them beside lesser-known finds from the same years, so the compilation sits in a wider scene.

The title is Turkish for “wave”, and the sleeve uses Antonio Cosentino’s painting “69 Volkswagen” (2003), which comes from the same everyday Istanbul imagery the compilation celebrates. For Grup Ses it also goes back to childhood. His earliest musical memory is MFÖ’s “Peki Peki Anladık”, which was constantly on at home when he was three or four. He has been digging and releasing records since 2007, with six albums of his own and archival work for Ironhand Records, Sucata Tapes and Zel Zele, including the label’s Café Türk and Bahtiyar Taş reissues.

DALGA is vinyl-only and comes out on October 30, 2026 via Zel Zele Records. “Anca Gidersin” is already out as a digital single, and Bandcamp pre-orders include an instant download of Zor Beyler’s “Bir Mumdur”.

Fulll interview here: https://www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/grup-ses-the-ransom-note-mixtape/

There was an Old Drive in a Case,
Who held ten long years in its space;
It went blink with a hum,
And said, “Now I’m numb!”
Then the Screen wrote “Not Found” on its face.

A Man at the Claptrap HQ
Said, “I know what a Man ought to do:
Make some Acid that bites,
Proto House for the nights,
And a Sad String to see it all through.”

Said a Mancunian chap, Ruf Dug,
“I shall give the A1 a good tug!”
It came back, so they say,
As a killer that day,
Very tasty, and snug as a bug.

So, children, whatever you do,
Keep a second and third copy too;
Back it up! Back it twice!
(It is cheap, it is nice)
Or you’ll sing the File Management Blues.

Nearly six years after his last full EP on Claptrap, Vanity Project returns with ‘File Management Blues’, made after a backup drive meltdown wiped over ten years of studio files from Claptrap HQ.

The EP has four original versions on a theme, plus a rework of the lead track from Manchester’s Ruf Dug. It runs from uptempo, club rollers with swirling pads and biting acid lines to downtempo dub chuggers, spanning acid, proto house, and balearic, with a melancholic digital string melody running through it all. The release notes sign off with a reminder: always back it up, kids.

‘File Management Blues (w/ Ruf Dug Remix)’ is out 6 November on Claptrap (CLPTRP008), on 12" vinyl.

A1. ‘File Management Blues’
A2. ‘File Management Blues pt.2’
B1. ‘File Management Blues (Ruf Dug Remix)’
B2. ‘Everybody Talkin’ ‘Bout (File Management)’
B3. ‘File Management Dub’

Produced and written by Vanity Project. Remix produced by Ruf Dug. Design by Lorenz Klingebiel.

Claptrap on Bandcamp: https://claptrap-clptrp.bandcamp.com/
Pre-order via Rubadub: https://rubadub.co.uk/products/file-management-blues-w-ruf-dug-remix

A selector with fifteen years of crate-digging under his belt, fiercely devoted to the underground and always hunting for the next evolution of UK club music.

Adam Curtain is a serious selector, he always has been.

As the brains behind Trouble Maker, Curtain has spent well over a decade pushing and pulling at the seams of UK club music. Whether he’s steering his own imprints, releasing tracks on Love International and Alien Communications, or putting a masterclass on genre-fluidity through its paces at Houghton, Glastonbury, Fabric and Closer in Kyiv, he treats electronic music as a sonic canvas.

His sets are a masterclass in momentum, effortlessly sliding between tech house, breakbeat, electro, techno and house without breaking a sweat. 

Tune in, read the interview below and let Mr. Curtain take you for a spin.

https://www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/adam-curtain-the-ransom-note-mix/

James Allison and Tia Cousins finally make good on years of talk, turning a Planes, Trains and Automobiles sample into a fuzzed-out, bass-heavy dancefloor rush.

There once was a fellow who boarded a plane,
And a fellow who boarded a train,
And a fellow who honked down a wrong-numbered lane –
And nobody knew which was which, it was plain.

“I’m the Wrong Guy!” cried one, with a wobble of hips,
While a guitar came loose at the seams of his lips,
And a bassline rolled thundering up through his ribs,
Till the whole rattling carriage dissolved into blips.

They danced through the tollbooths, they jived through the fog,
Half rock and half rhythm, half man and half dog,
With a Cure-shaped shadow and a Fall-tinted frog
Keeping time on the tarmac in 4/4 log.

So – plane, train, or car, friend, it hardly matters who,
When the bassline turns hazy and the guitars cut through –
For deep in the static, both wrong guys and true
Get messed with entirely, and dance the night through.

Long-time friends James Allison and Tia Cousins finally get round to a collaboration years in the talking, built off a sample Tia spotted lurking in the theme song of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Two studio sessions later, ‘Messin’ With The Wrong Guy’ strips out the “annoying” bits of the original and rebuilds it as a hazy, bass-driven track laced with fuzzed-out guitar – James continuing the rockier lane he opened with his ‘Make Dance Rock Again’ edits, Tia bringing the ear for a curveball that’s shaped her Noods Radio show from day one.

Already road-tested at Convenanza 2026, where Rosie Ama dropped it late in her set and brought the house down.

Free download: here: https://jamesallison-mdra.bandcamp.com/

clay. presents Surface 01, a VA compilation bringing together 15 artists, established and emerging, making what the label considers some of the most exciting electronic music right now - a testament to the countless forms of leftfield dance music coming out of the UK and beyond, and a small taste of what’s to come. “Ammonite – So” is the atmospheric conclusion to the 13-track record, brimming with emotive textures and crystalline vocals.

Surface 01 is out 25th September via clay., mastered by Lurka (Dave N.A. handling “Pancake Parade” himself), with cover artwork by Selina Landis - a 3D print with pewter inlay, hand-finished and digitally edited.