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.
Field recordings, jungle, industrial electronics and Swedish underground music meet in a restless selection, finding continuity between records whose textures and intentions pull in different directions.
From orchestral collage and early rock to digital microsound, a private listening canon reveals an ear for reduction and structure, with personal commentary on every record in the sequence.
Abstract rhythms and spacious electronics unfold almost in full, allowing each piece its own time and atmosphere. A Swedish studio recording shaped by an image of sound as wind, waves and tides.
An Arte Povera-inspired selection connects film fragments, improvisation and electronic minimalism, searching for beauty beyond commercial value through fragile melodies and slowly shifting shadows.
Field recordings, haunted voices and organ tones drift through imagined ruins and sacred spaces, weaving a densely layered selection whose patient transitions suggest a single continuous composition.
Graphplan imagines the emotions of a fading city through dramatic noise, cold ambient and haunted silence, moving between utopian longing and dystopian futures.
Uwe Schmidt on musical identities, the move to Chile and the difficult path to individuality. A conversation about ambiguity, language, education and learning to see reality.
Andrei Tanasescu traces a journey between Bucharest and Toronto through Romanian experimental music, binaural field recordings and the fragile recollections of The Caretaker.
Ruben Aguirre Barba, also known as manwithnophase, explores urban utopia and dystopia through a cinematic narrative of sound, distortion and social unease.
Gonçalo F Cardoso on cultural collisions, field recordings and the physical life of a record. The London label’s original 2014 conversation accompanies an exclusive sixteen-track Discrepant mix.
Belgian collaborators connect early electro, acid and contemporary abstraction through close editing, threading their own archive material into a sequence of contrasting textures and rhythmic forms.
Privacy
Your choices.
Saved stays on your device. Statistics and external players need your permission.
