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.
Establishing good communication between underground media outlets and up-and-coming artists is not always an easy task. Secret Thirteen identified essential points for making things smoother.
Berlin Atonal returns to Kraftwerk with world premieres, audiovisual performances and spatial sound installations, spanning electronic music’s pioneering and contemporary generations.
A first departure from techno revisits the vinyl that shaped an early musical life: new wave, industrial and dream pop, linked by memories of taped radio shows and the intimacy of shared records.
An ambient dub genealogy links Birmingham’s Oscillate circle with electronic pioneers, tracing a time when shared curiosity mattered more than genre boundaries.
Field recordings, circuit-bent textures and slowly shifting atmospheres form a layered collage, bringing mathematical precision into contact with ritual, memory and the physical effects of sound.
Unpublished archive recordings meet modern composition and spoken text in a meditation on repetition, accompanied by a manifesto that treats reproduction itself as an artistic method.
Sasu Ripatti on making his own sound, setting traps for improvisation and staying critical. A conversation about music beyond instruments, scenes and expectations.
Ensemble Economique builds an entire mix inside Ground Zero’s Consume Red. Field recordings, his own material and twelve overlapping sources form a dense, dreamlike composition rather than a linear playlist.
Racehorses Are Resources connect Detroit’s early blues memory with hip-hop, noise and improvisation. Their debut mix unfolds through unreleased collaborations, poetry and the meeting points between musical traditions.
Industrial electronics, tape experiments and fractured rhythms form a soundtrack to an imagined post-apocalyptic film, where patient transitions let moments of calm gather into dense sonic pressure.
Twelve sonic lullabies trace a path through gamelan, Kenyan song, minimal pop and abstract electronics, using warm repetition to summon the private images and parallel worlds of half-sleep.
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