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.
James Clements on moving from Britain to California, pirate radio, sonic precision and science fiction. A 2012 look at the creative conditions behind ASC and Auxiliary.
Venetian folk records frame a journey through ambient drift, field recordings and slow harmonic change, tracing connections between Italian sound artists and the wintry landscapes that shape their listening.
Twenty vinyl records connect the shadowed edges of post-punk, industrial and synth-pop, with submerged rhythms, frayed guitars and spectral voices drawing a line from early eighties experiments to 2012.
Seventy-eight unreleased works from 2000–2012 form a continuous live set, where fractured rhythms, distorted melodies and microscopic sound events keep shifting the depth and shape of the surrounding space.
Eighteen records bring avant-garde composition, folk song and domestic sound into uneasy proximity, letting spoken voices, stray instrumental gestures and worn recording textures suggest unexpected connections.
Thirty-four pieces unfold as a cinematic collage of ambient, techno and unreleased experiments, with rain, spoken lectures and film dialogue threading through the transitions between suspended melody and pulse.
Pepijn Caudron on casting sounds, building environments for theatre and living with the unseen. The full 2012 conversation, with a separate 2026 editorial following Wormhole.
Thirty-four solo performances become an imaginary ensemble, with strings, reeds, percussion and spoken fragments meticulously layered into a cinematic montage shaped by theatre and the art of sampling.
Scanner builds a cinematic collage around the letter A, interweaving twenty-nine record cuts with film dialogue, scanned conversations and broadcast fragments. His own works meet Aphex Twin, Tim Hecker and Alva Noto in a densely layered exploration of sound and narrative.
36 moves from ambient stillness into the submerged pulse of dub techno, threading twenty records into an autumnal audio collage. Two of his own compositions meet Biosphere, Tim Hecker, Deepchord and Burial in a deeply emotional, continuously unfolding sequence.
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