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.
Thirty-two records connect industrial abrasion, pop hooks and electronic experiments, tracing Rémy Pelleschi's influences through unexpected encounters between The Prodigy, Pan Sonic and Desire.
Jonathan Krohn revisits the Chicago connections behind his electronic music, tracing punk's metallic force through Big Black, The Jesus Lizard and the wider orbit of Touch and Go.
Elias, George and Antony on the beginnings of FASMA and the underground around it. A 2015 conversation about Athens, local artists, independent spaces and the festival they wanted to build.
Two live cuts form a shifting architecture of fractured rhythms, fine percussion and glimmering ambience, each small electronic gesture opening onto a different pattern or texture.
Film scores, dialogue and sound effects become a story of their own, moving from the unease of Persona and Videodrome to the suspended beauty of Philip Glass and Arvo Pärt.
Helena Hauff weaves records from 1974–2014 into a narrative beyond genre or period. Nocturnal songs, abrasive punk and industrial pulses reveal influences not always apparent in her own productions.
Deaf Center opens its private archive with twelve previously unreleased recordings from 2003–10. Alternate versions and unfinished pieces illuminate the intimate, shadowed world behind the duo’s released work.
Joseph Sannicandro turns 55 recordings into an exploration of inner space, weaving ambient drift, fragmented melodies and electronic experiments around Bianchi and Uggeri's Between the Elements.
Darrin C. Huss revisits the records that shaped Psyche's early sound: synthesizer experiments, singular voices and new wave songs that found freedom beyond rock's familiar structures.
A collage poised between dreams and waking, where Delia Derbyshire, Mica Levi and Roly Porter meet in layered voices, abrasive textures and the slow, unsettling logic of an imagined film.
Davide Carbone dismantles his own material and rebuilds it live, moving through submerged breakbeats, industrial anxiety and dense drones towards a final release of acidic euphoria.
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