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.
Gosh Snobo’s farewell to a chapter of mixtape-making is a carefully re-edited mosaic of voices, folk, chamber music and electronics — twenty-four records woven into a strange, luminous whole.
Early house records reveal a formative side of an exacting electronic practice, as organ chords, expressive voices and supple sampled rhythms turn precise transitions into a warm, quietly hypnotic flow.
Unsettling ambient music, intricate electronics and fragments of acoustic instrumentation follow a winding path, moving between weightless detail and rhythmic tension without settling into a single style.
Frank Maier on forgotten recordings, cassette culture and the work of assembling an archive. The original 2013 interview accompanies an eighteen-track Vinyl-on-demand mix.
Children’s voices connect home recordings, pop songs and unsettling film scenes, moving from unguarded play to electronically altered speech in a sequence that gradually complicates its initial innocence.
Field recordings, homemade instruments and minute electronic processes are remixed into a continuous sound world, where fragile changes in volume and texture bring movement to seemingly static layers.
A single vinyl take connects stark industrial rhythms, spectral voices and submerged bass, moving through records from 1981 to 2013 with the tension and physical immediacy of a carefully paced live set.
She Past Away shares 23 favourite tracks from the roots of their darkwave sound. Stark electronics, distorted guitars and dramatic voices trace a personal route through post-punk and gothic rock.
A sustained electroacoustic composition unfolds through layered dissonance, sudden instrumental gestures and microscopic detail, extending Ziqquratu into a dense, slowly transforming architecture of sound.
Two hours of field recordings, fragile piano and minimal electronics unfold at an attentive pace, letting small glitches, rustling textures and suspended melodies drift between open space and quiet tension.
Rrose connects experimental composition and electronic music in a mix that unfolds like one sustained work. Sweeping tones, unstable rhythms and recurring pieces reshape the listener’s sense of space.
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