Sound as research, selection and a living archive.
01 / PortraitIceland, 2017
OriginPanevėžys, Lithuania
PracticeSound / Curation / Visual art
ArchiveSecret Thirteen / Since 2010
Publications252
01 / Biography
Sound as archive, matter and memory.
DJ S13 is the artistic identity of Justinas Mikulskis (b. 1986), founder and editor of Secret Thirteen, an independent music journal established in 2010. His work as a DJ, sound artist and curator operates between audio archaeology, journalism and visual art.
01
Origins & atmosphere
The sonic identity of S13 was formed in the post-industrial landscape of Panevėžys. Brutalist factories, material decay and the quiet pressure of a post-Soviet city sharpened an early sensitivity to texture and darker sound. At ten, with help from his engineer grandfather, he constructed his first DJ mixer. An uncle’s record collection — black metal, punk and 1970s rock — opened a route toward anarchism, philosophy, science fiction and a life built outside conventional cultural structures.
02
The evolution of sound
Early roots in jungle and drum’n’bass, including productions for Liquid V and Vampire, quickly expanded into a more abstract language. S13 sets move between industrial rhythm, ethnographic field recordings, new wave, drone and academic composition. Each performance is treated as research: material is not repeated, but reorganised into a new narrative of pressure, space and time.
03
Performance & curation
S13 has appeared at Berlin Atonal, Arma17, Norbergfestival and Unsound events, sharing programmes with Mika Vainio, Esplendor Geométrico, Demdike Stare, The Soft Moon and Fennesz. Mix commissions include Electronic Explorations, Headphone Commute, Seek Sick Sound, Cashmere Radio and other independent platforms.
04
Across disciplines
Mikulskis approaches sound as both a physical and visual entity. His wider practice includes abstract industrial assemblages made from metal waste, lectures on musical narrative and industry context, and sonic installations such as The Energy System of the Užutrakis Manor Orangery as a Sonic Negative. He continues to build Secret Thirteen as a durable resource for future listeners.
02 / On stage
In the room.
Performance footage and selected posters from the archive.
Audra Festival / Kaunas, 2022Photo by Vytenis Sidabras
Digital Tsunami / rotating frameSūpynės Festival / filmed performance, 2019
Berlin Atonal / 2014Holotone Showcase / Berlin, 2016Space Love / Arma17, 2014Polar Inertia / KablysUMBRA / Kablys, 2014Undogmatisch / Berlin, 2015Audra Festival / 2022Sūpynės Festival / 2019Digital Tsunami Camp / 2022
03 / Personal archive
External transmissions
Documented mixes and radio shows, 2008—2024. Recent recordings open a listening page; earlier recordings remain in the original download archive.
Justinas Mikulskis as a guest: conversations about making music, listening and building Secret Thirteen. DJ sets and his own editorial work are archived separately.
Demdike Stare brings 23 rediscovered records into a shifting dialogue across eras and cultures. Electroacoustic composition, improvisation and electronic rhythms retain the duo’s distinctive atmosphere of mystery.
The composer and Home Normal curator on damaged tape, emotional honesty and the work of an independent label. The original 2013 interview, with a separate 2026 editorial on the care that sustains it.
Sine waves, environmental sound and industrial song reveal three decades of formative listening, with near-complete pieces allowing tiny shifts in texture to emerge beside moments of unexpected warmth.
Oren Ambarchi shares the records that accompanied his travels: twenty-six richly melodic selections, from Pat Metheny and Fleetwood Mac to Blue Gene Tyranny, revealing the song-centred side of his listening.
Nigel Yang of HTRK lets eight expansive pieces unfold almost in full. Beginning with a midnight raga, the mix explores inner calm, lucid dreaming and the crystal beauty of sound.
Unreleased bass experiments and early drum and bass thread through shadowy ambient music, tracing a personal collection where suspended textures give way to restless percussion and sharply drawn contrasts.
Pirate-radio energy, fractured electronics and jungle collide with film dialogue and stray voices, forming a densely assembled collage whose abrupt turns reveal the playful logic beneath its restless surface.
Acoustic guitar, exploratory jazz and contemporary composition unfold in an unhurried sequence, where delicate improvisation and resonant strings make room for intimate songs and quietly shifting emotion.
The ART+COM co-founder on space, experimentation and the work that joins digital systems to physical movement. His 2013 conversation accompanies kinetic installations and a separate 2026 reflection.
Musique concrète, orchestral dissonance and raw noise overlap across eighteen sections, with recurring compositions, metal and jazz dissolving into a continuously shifting study of pressure and texture.
Poetry, choral voices and contemporary composition open onto stark electronics and crushing guitar, building a dramatic sequence in which fragile stillness repeatedly gives way to overwhelming physical force.
The Singapore producer on a restless studio practice, creative advice and sound’s spatial possibilities. A 2013 conversation that reaches from musical beginnings to architecture and the industry ahead.
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