Orphx
A particularly clear expression of the journal’s central idea: club music does not begin or end in a club. Orphx bring composition, noise, dub and physical rhythm into one continuous argument.
Secret Thirteen / Selected from the archiveEssential
Essential
Mixes
Personal selections, unexpected influences and original recordings — a different way into an artist’s world.
The Secret Thirteen archive is built from individual acts of listening. A contribution may open a record collection, preserve a performance or make a new work from sounds gathered over many years. This selection brings together recordings that reveal those possibilities particularly clearly: the patience of HTRK, the research of Demdike Stare, the private work entrusted by Deaf Center and the environments heard through Moniek Darge’s microphones.
We return to these mixes because each gives the listener a substantial way into an artist’s world, and remains useful when heard beyond its original publication date. The selection draws on their source material, structure and the accounts preserved alongside them, with different generations and working methods given space together. The recordings appear in publication order. Taken as a starting point, they open several paths into the wider archive; the reasons accompanying each one explain the choice.
Behind the records
14 recordings / 2012–2018 
Biosphere
An ambient artist revealing the industrial and synth-pop roots of his listening. Its dedication to Pete Namlook gives the selection a personal centre without turning it into a retrospective of either artist.
Ancient Methods
A productive surprise: Michael Wollenhaupt steps away from the sound most readily associated with Ancient Methods. The mix opens a personal listening history that cannot be reduced to a dancefloor identity.
Rrose
A mix that treats DJ sequencing as composition. Lucier, Radigue and Palestine are not ornamental references; their approach to sustained sound changes how the surrounding electronic records are heard.
She Past Away
An invitation into the band’s record collection rather than a playlist built around their reputation. The connections between stark electronics, bass-led songs and theatrical voices make their influences unusually legible.
HTRK
A different measure of a mix: eight long works, given time rather than compressed into moments. Nigel Yang’s selection makes stillness and patient listening central to the archive.
Demdike Stare
Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker demonstrate how research can become a vivid listening experience. The mix moves between eras and recording traditions while retaining a distinctive sense of space and unease.
Clock DVA
A rare opportunity to hear an influential musician organise an account of his own influences. Tape music, jazz, soundtracks and electronic pop become neighbouring parts of one listening history.
Polar Inertia
An original performance, not a conventional DJ mix. It extends the archive’s role from collecting selections to preserving a particular moment in an artist’s working process.
Deaf Center
More than a guest selection: a personal body of previously unreleased work entrusted to the journal. It gives the listener access to the duo’s sketches, alternate paths and developing language.
Helena Hauff
A sharp demonstration of a selector’s identity beyond a single genre. Chrome, KaS Product, Nico and contemporary electronics coexist without their differences being flattened.
Moniek Darge
A listening archive built largely from Darge’s own field recordings and soundscapes. Places, voices and everyday environments become compositional material, widening this selection beyond record collecting into the act of listening itself.
SHXCXCHCXSH
A broad selection held together by precise contrasts rather than genre consistency. The duo’s sense of texture is audible in both the dense passages and the space left between them.
Ike Yard
New York post-punk pioneers heard through the music that continues to move them. Cinematic melancholy gradually gives way to rhythmic pressure, while two then-unreleased Ike Yard pieces connect the selection to the group’s own evolving sound.
An editorial starting point, presented in original publication order.
All mixes