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.
Afro-Cuban batá recordings become control signals for a modular synthesizer. Nine digital tracings retain the unstable pulse of human percussion while pulling it into unfamiliar forms.
Polar Inertia slows the pulse to 112 BPM for a specially recorded studio improvisation. Edited from a night of experimentation, the live set drifts through cinematic noise and gradually emerging rhythms.
Wendy Carlos’s demonstrations of synthesis frame a study in fractured rhythm, from algorithmic percussion and techno to a pop song dismantled and reordered by the likeness of its sounds.
A musical autobiography traces the shared impulses of minimalism, Dutch post-punk and tape experiment, with personal notes on the records that shaped a lifelong commitment to DIY sound.
Electroacoustic works, field recordings and traditional music converge in a patient exploration of trance and ritual, where layered fragments find a shared space beyond their origins.
Acoustic objects, voices and electronic noise become materials for an architectural study of sound, moving between close physical textures and cavernous spaces charged with tension.
Recorded live in one take as summer gives way to autumn, twenty-three selections draw voices, cello and electroacoustic detail into a personal sequence of familiar comforts, new discoveries and changing seasons.
Adi Newton celebrates the journal’s third birthday with 14 formative selections. Tape experiments, jazz and early electronics reveal the influences behind Clock DVA’s approach to composition and sound.
HIV+ opens his home-studio record bag for a noirish, predominantly vinyl selection. Unknown Pleasures releases meet industrial, EBM and dark-wave records in a tightly sustained hour of tension.
Studio tests, discarded edits and live fragments from 2009–2014 are spliced into a split-channel collage, turning rave synthesis into unstable patterns assembled between Alloa and Barcelona.
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