Ransom Note

Ransom Note
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Ransom Note is an online music, arts and culture magazine. We provide a home for readers and writers with boundless enthusiasm, esoteric knowledge, fierce opinions and impeccable taste. With our core team immersed in all aspects of dance music, we publish news, articles, and interviews covering the greatest in innovative, underground culture from across the globe. We offer regular, exclusive music and mixtapes from our favourite artists, and publish features shining a light on everything from the freshest new artists to the untold tales from rave history. Alongside this we offer musings on film, books, life, and art, generating some context and controversy as an antidote to the reheated PR that clogs up the internet. Our office is fuelled by Tunnock’s Bars, cat memes, hangovers and a ridiculous, never ending love for our culture. We're always interested in getting new writers on board – feel free to get in touch if you’ve got a story to tell. With love until the grave.

  1. PREMIERE: Stranded – Arch Groves [Double Phantom Records]

    21 HRS AGO

    PREMIERE: Stranded – Arch Groves [Double Phantom Records]

    Stranded's new EP 'The Dead' arrives at that hour when the city finally shuts up - all sub-bass rumble and skeletal beats, the kind of thing that sounds best through headphones on the last bus home. It's got that Bristol thing in its bones: dub's cavernous space, post-punk's wire-tight nerves, hip-hop's head-nod. Opening track "Arch Groves" sets the tone for the whole record - vocal samples drift like smoke through low-end weight and slow-burning unease, swelling and receding without ever fully resolving. The guitars don't lead so much as lurk at the edges, scraping and hovering. It's the sound of something haunted, patient, built for dark rooms and quiet contemplation. Stream it here and pre order the EP: https://www.theransomnote.com/music/premiere-stranded-arch-groves/

    4 min
  2. Seeds Mix: Live @ Brian d’Souza - Live @ Bush of Ghosts

    2 DAYS AGO

    Seeds Mix: Live @ Brian d’Souza - Live @ Bush of Ghosts

    Deep in the woods at our very own Bush of Ghosts stage at Watching Trees, Scottish producer Brian d’Souza, aka Auntie Flo, brought his ‘Plants Can Dance’ project to life in a five-hour ambient set beneath a canopy of trees. Drawing from the playlists he’s been curating for Imperial College’s psychedelic therapy trials, d’Souza transformed the clearing into what he describes as “a sanctuary away from the main stage,” where human – and non-human – audiences alike could experience music designed to mirror the quiet intelligence of the natural world. This 90 min excerpt captures the heart of that nocturnal performance, guiding listeners through the Ascent, Peak, and Descent phases – a journey filtered from the vast database of ambient music d’Souza has amassed over five years of running Ambient Flo radio. The setting itself became integral to the experience: darkness creating a natural sensory deprivation that, as d’Souza notes, allows listeners to become “more absorbed in their other senses, including the sounds they hear.” At the core of d’Souza’s ‘Sunflowers’ next instalment for our Music To Watch Seeds series: auntieflo.bandcamp.com/album/music-to-watch-seeds-grow-by-007-brian-d-souza-sunflowers lies a profound botanical truth: sunflowers practice cooperation over competition. Recent research reveals that when these plants encounter nutrient-rich soil between neighbours, they deliberately root elsewhere to avoid conflict – a form of underground etiquette that challenges our traditional understanding of survival of the fittest. D’Souza’s album captures this behaviour sonically, using biodata from his son’s sunflower in their London garden, converted into sound through his modular synthesiser via Instruo’s Scion module. This live performance extends that concept into the forest, where ambient music fulfils its original definition – having enough space to mix with environmental sounds, creating a novel soundscape at all times. As d’Souza reflects on Peter Wohlleben’s ‘Hidden Life Of Trees’ and its description of forests as interconnected social networks, the Bush of Ghosts set becomes a meditation on what he calls “the More Than Human world” – a space where silence represents the fragility of life, and where trees, unlike festival-goers, “aren’t going to leave the dancefloor if they don’t like a track.” The result is an invitation to forge a deeper connection with the natural world, to witness how plants can indeed dance. Full interview here: https://www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/seeds-mix-8-brian-dsouza-live-bush-of-ghosts/ @auntie-flo @watching-trees

    2h 1m
  3. PREMIERE: Soreab - CU3 [POLAAR]

    3 DAYS AGO

    PREMIERE: Soreab - CU3 [POLAAR]

    Italian London-based producer Dario Picchi aka Soreab follows up his collaborative EP alongside Om Unit with an unremitting, hi-spec vision of techno, grime, dub, and industrial on new album 'CU' [short for 'Completely Unstable']. Pure digital age angst, scintillating torque and radical soundsystem minimalism. On album highlight 'CU3', which we're serving up as a premiere, Soreab hurtles into surgical, adrenalized, tunnel vision techno with a sound design depth. Proper concussive machine funk futurism for journeys to the void and back.

    6 min
  4. PREMIERE: A-Tweed - KrautTxeepToon [Sketchy Lines Records]

    6 DAYS AGO

    PREMIERE: A-Tweed - KrautTxeepToon [Sketchy Lines Records]

    The beautifully unhinged "Kraut Cheap Tune" is like stumbling into a broken arcade in some lysergic hinterland where the machines have learned to improvise. A-Tweed strips away the usual constraints here, letting the tracks breathe and mutate across odd terrains, somewhere between krautrock's hypnotic sprawl and chiptune's glitchy nostalgia. The Rome-based producer, known for his elastic approach to tempo and texture, opens up new space on this EP for Sketchy Lines Records.  Toulouse Low Trax delivers two takes on "Junk Foot," each one pulling the original into different orbits, while Kamoun's rework of "Dixan Cheap Tuning" offers another dimension entirely. Fresh dimensions indeed – this is A-Tweed at his most exploratory, and the results are properly compelling. Out February 24th on Sketchy Lines Records.

    5 min
  5. Thomass Jackson: The Ransom Note Mix

    28 JAN

    Thomass Jackson: The Ransom Note Mix

    Thomass Jackson has built a sound through bands, traditional instruments and massive raves held in Buenos Aires. From releases born in friends’ studios, world tours as a bassist for Capri on Gigolo Records, and a steady run of releases on Gomma, Correspondant, Multi Culti, La Dame Noir and Viscera Transmissions - Thomass clearly knows what he’s doing. By the late 2000s his sound blended to more psychedelic and percussive rhythms, which developed into playing across countries that include China, Lithuania, Serbia, Bolivia, Mexico and Germany to name a few - along with sharing booths with the likes of Manfredas, Jennifer Cardini, Tiger & Woods, In Flagranti, Blond:ish, Horse Meat Disco and Mike Simonetti. Based in Mexico City, Thomass Jackson delivers  a mix that contains bass-first selections, weird corners and slow hypnosis into full-body motion. Music that doesn’t chase drops and trusts the listener to stay. For The Ransom Note Mix, it felt right to hand him the controls. Press play. https://www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/thomass-jackson-the-ransom-note-mix/

    58 min
  6. Tiago & Shcuro pres. Scam Dust - The ’Shine A Light On' Ransom Note Mix

    23 JAN

    Tiago & Shcuro pres. Scam Dust - The ’Shine A Light On' Ransom Note Mix

    When two generations of Lisbon’s underground collide, the result is visceral, raw, and uncompromising. Scam Dust is Tiago and Shcuro – two artists channelling decades of experience into something that sounds like Detroit techno filtered through Sheffield’s industrial grit with a distinctly Lisbon sensibility. Tiago, Lux Frágil resident and ‘DJ’s DJ’, returns from a seven-year hiatus from music. Shcuro, Paraíso co-founder of the excellent and scene documenter, breaks free from solo frustration. Living in neighbouring beach towns outside the capital – Parede and Carcavelos – they’ve made Gastric Pulse: saturated acid, industrial-tinged techno, and sonic dirt of the highest order. This is music built for systems, big systems. Music designed to make you move and break shit. Pure punk in electronic form. The title’s a joke about acid music taken literally (see also: “Enzyme Breaks,” “Pepsin Drive”), but the music isn’t playing. Felt right to ask em for a mix right? This mix captures their first session together – Bileebob, Conrad Schnitzler via Marcel Dettmann, Plastikman, Jamal Moss. Techno at the margins where things get uncomfortable. Coffee grains and Pepper X. @shcuro @simatudo

    1h 5m
  7. Seeds Mix #7 - Susannah Stark’s mixtape for walking to Carbeth from Glasgow

    21 JAN

    Seeds Mix #7 - Susannah Stark’s mixtape for walking to Carbeth from Glasgow

    For Glasgow-based artist Susannah Stark, the walk from the city to Carbeth becomes a meditation on paying attention, on taking your time with things, on letting roots guide the way. In Stark’s work, sensitivity isn’t fragility; it’s a form of attentiveness, a willingness to be present with the human voice, with the spaces between sounds, with what emerges when you slow down enough to notice. Her approach to creating music mirrors the patient rhythm of plant growth – something we like around these parts – not forced or rushed, but allowed to unfold at its own pace. “Pay attention to the roots!” Stark says. It’s a gardener’s wisdom that applies equally to music-making. Sometimes the most beautiful things emerge when we’re open to what’s already there, quietly waiting beneath the surface. For this mix, Stark draws on her love of vocal harmony and polyphony, choral music and modular synthesis – the human voice and electronic landscapes working together like walking and listening, movement and stillness, roots and growth. Her “Minor Gestures” album on Nightschool Records explores these same territories: softness, rhythm, encounters between beings, and the different dimensions of speech and sound. @SusannahStark | @nightschool

    1 hr
  8. PREMIERE: Kabinett - Warning Sign [Natural Selections]

    9 JAN

    PREMIERE: Kabinett - Warning Sign [Natural Selections]

    Raw, rhythmic, intricate percussion and off-kilter melodic ideas woven into proper post-punk territory from the Bogotá producer. The opening salvo from Dance On The Volcano, the Bogotá producer’s mini-album for Natural Selections – five tracks of intricate percussion and off-kilter melodic ideas woven into proper post-punk territory. Raw, rhythmic, and unapologetically tense. Out Jan 22nd on Natural Selection. https://www.theransomnote.com/music/premieres/premiere-kabinett-warning-natural-selection/

    4 min
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About

Ransom Note is an online music, arts and culture magazine. We provide a home for readers and writers with boundless enthusiasm, esoteric knowledge, fierce opinions and impeccable taste. With our core team immersed in all aspects of dance music, we publish news, articles, and interviews covering the greatest in innovative, underground culture from across the globe. We offer regular, exclusive music and mixtapes from our favourite artists, and publish features shining a light on everything from the freshest new artists to the untold tales from rave history. Alongside this we offer musings on film, books, life, and art, generating some context and controversy as an antidote to the reheated PR that clogs up the internet. Our office is fuelled by Tunnock’s Bars, cat memes, hangovers and a ridiculous, never ending love for our culture. We're always interested in getting new writers on board – feel free to get in touch if you’ve got a story to tell. With love until the grave.

Information

  • Creator
    Ransom Note
  • Years Active
    2014 - 2026
  • Episodes
    500
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved
  • Show Website
    Ransom Note

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