Ransom Note

Ransom Note
  • 5.0 (4)
  • MUSIC
  • UPDATED DAILY

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: The Shape of Things To Come - What Is Your Definition [Calypso Records]

    23H AGO

    PREMIERE: The Shape of Things To Come - What Is Your Definition [Calypso Records]

    Wonky organic grooves from Alf Champion and MDHNTR via Calypso records new compilation There once was a Shape who could dance, With pockets of electronica trance, It wobbled its form through the Definition, And questioned each note and condition, While singing quite badly about circumstance. “What is,” asked the Shape, “this peculiar sound? That bounces and bobs all around and around? Is it liquid or solid or something between? The strangest device I have ever seen!” Said a very confused polka-dotted hound. The Definition replied with a riddled refrain: “I am what you hear when you listen again, A thing that is not, yet somehow it is, A shape-shifting, drift-curious quiz, That dances through corridors, valleys, and rain.” And they walttzed through the Calypso till dawn broke its spell, Those two nonsensical friends, who got on quite well, For a Shape needs Definition as much as it’s true, That Definition needs Shape to be something brand new, And that, my dear reader, concludes this strange tale to tell. “What Is Your Definition” sits in that liminal space between organic groove and electronic. It’s the sound of something taking shape… which leads rather nicely onto Calypso Vol. II, a nine-year endeavour where Iñigo Vontier and Thomass Jackson assemble 16 voices across the spectrum of the experimental electronic Press play and find out what you’re listening to. Or better yet: ask what your own voice is.

    5 min
  2. Daichi: The 'Shine A Light On' Mix

    3D AGO

    Daichi: The 'Shine A Light On' Mix

    From the coastline to the dance-floor. Daichi's ear was formed early. Weekends spent at Oppa-La in Enoshima absorbing whatever the room had to offer, left a mark that still runs through everything he does. From there the path naturally progressed, co-founding Vinyl Youth, a collective whose energy has carried through Korea and onto the stage at Rainbow Disco Club. His productions tell a similar story. Edits and originals landing on MM Discos, Crue-L and Not an Animal, each release finding ears far beyond Japan. This is music with a sense of place. Read more: https://www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/daichi-the-shine-a-light-on-mix/

    1h 5m
  3. PREMIERE: Strange Fruit - Pouvoir Moteur [Gentle Tuesday]

    APR 1

    PREMIERE: Strange Fruit - Pouvoir Moteur [Gentle Tuesday]

    akarta’s Strange Fruit with the last track from their Drips EP is something super special. Pouvoi Moteur – French for “motoric power,” since you asked – is exactly what that sounds like: locked-groove krautrock discipline shot through with kosmische shimmer, the kind of track that makes the road ahead feel endless and the destination irrelevant. The ghost of Can’s engine room is all over it, that locked hypnosis that somehow never quite repeats itself, while Cluster’s smeared electronics hover at the periphery. Aryadiaz, who conceived it partly out of an obsession with factory machinery and, apparently, partly with German beer, describes the 4/4 pattern as feeling like “breaking through space and time.” We’re inclined to agree. Out now via Gentle Tuesday Recordings, with a vinyl release to follow through Loide and TipTop Records. Stunning stuff. https://strangefruit.bandcamp.com/album/drips

    5 min
  4. Sister Ray Davis's Spectacular Ransom Note Mixtape

    MAR 31

    Sister Ray Davis's Spectacular Ransom Note Mixtape

    Adispatch from the holy island, via Alabama. Two guys from Muscle Shoals, Alabama -0 the city that quietly wrote half the soul records you’ve ever loved — making shoegaze concept albums about a tidal island off the coast of Northumberland. On paper, it shouldn’t work. In practice, Holy Island, the debut from Adam Morrow and Jamie Sego’s Sister Ray Davies, is one of the more beautifully stunning records to land this year: motorik folk, walls of fuzz, delay pedal disco, and genuine literary heft, released via the always excellent Sonic Cathedral and drawing comparisons to mid-period Flying Saucer Attack, Souvlaki-era Slowdive and a long-lost Spacemen 3 outtake. They are, by their own admission, complete beginners as DJs. We handed them the airwaves anyway. What came back is exactly what you’d expect from two people who learned to hear music through Nuggets compilations and Delia Derbyshire records, who want biblical noise and dream of piloting the Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound. It’s a mix that’s charming and oddly coherent: dub basslines, psych and proto-electronic tangents, the kind of selection that could only have been assembled by people who think in pedals and reverb tails rather than BPMs. A journey with a clear first step, even if the destination remains gloriously unclear. Not a DJ mix in any conventional sense, just an excellently varied record collection let loose.

    1h 38m
  5. Owain K : The 'Shine A Light On' Mix

    MAR 26

    Owain K : The 'Shine A Light On' Mix

    Owain K is a stalwart of the Bristol underground. For many years he has cut his teeth running parties, curating labels and producing music. A bit of an unsung hero of sorts in our eyes - his musical knowledge is vast and in this day and age he represents exactly the sort of character and dedication a DJ should have. For years he has been on a quest to explore new music, digging for hidden gems and helping to push the sound forward without gimmicks or the sort of delusional grandeur we've become accustomed to from a DJ in the social media era. His blog and record label Innate is widely acclaimed amongst those in the know and its rare we'd kindly say as such about another site. Only kidding... This mix is a serious addition to the series and showcases a deep understanding of nuance and sound as he weaves and winds between house, electro and the eclectic spaces in between.

    1h 27m
  6. Reda Saiarh - Kiki (GoodMostlyBad Acid Reflex) [Human Endeavour]

    MAR 25

    Reda Saiarh - Kiki (GoodMostlyBad Acid Reflex) [Human Endeavour]

    Human Endeavour’s ‘Dancefloor Designs’ returns with two club-focused remixes from Parris and GoodMostlyBad. Launched last year as a way to reimagine previous label material for the club, the second chapter in the series revisits tracks from Nandele’s ‘Maputo’ EP and Reda Saiarh’s contribution to the label’s first ever release. First up can you feel the sun co-head Parris works his magic on Mozambican artist Nandele’s ‘Chapa 100’. Originally released at the beginning of 2024, here the track is morphed into a bright, skippy drum tool with plenty of sub bass to carry the groove. The second remix comes courtesy of Scuffed Discs and Bad Tips producer GoodMostlyBad who strips back the sassy new beat of Reda Saiarh’s ‘Kiki’ into a sleek and sophisticated acid-meets-NYC ballroom number. Human Endeavour is part of Ransom Note Records’ family of sub-labels, curated and run by former R$N Editor, DJ and Noods Radio resident Rosie Ama.

    7 min
  7. PREMIERE: Black Meteoric Star - 5am Open Air Sunrise [Dark Entries/Ransom Note Records]

    MAR 18

    PREMIERE: Black Meteoric Star - 5am Open Air Sunrise [Dark Entries/Ransom Note Records]

    Dark Entries and Ransom Note present a defiant comeback from Gavilán Rayna Russom, featuring remixes from Russell E.L. Butler and Borusiade. Gavilán Rayna Russom built Black Meteoric Star in Berlin in 2006, less as a project than as a form of protection: a performance identity that could carry truths she wasn’t yet able to live openly, a vehicle for the intersection of electronic dance music and queer resistance. In the years since her reach has been wide, her presence felt across stages and in studios that stretched well beyond the underground, but Black Meteoric Star has always remained something distinct. An avenger. A keeper of a more radical flame. ‘5am Open Air Sunrise’ captures something very specific: that hour on the dancefloor where exhaustion dissolves into transcendence, where the body gives up resisting, and something more honest takes over. It was recorded live, which means the contributions from Russell E.L. Butler and Borusiade are less remixes than full reconstructions, each expanding the emotional landscape while preserving the original’s energy. Rayna has been clear about what’s driving the return: “Black Meteoric Star is one of those characters I created for survival. And this moment demands its return.” With a full album waiting in the wings, ssh! – this feels like an opening statement worth paying attention to. Dark Entries make for natural co-conspirators on something this uncompromising.

    5 min
  8. PREMIERE: Salamanda - the blue wine [Music To Watch Seeds Grow By]

    MAR 17

    PREMIERE: Salamanda - the blue wine [Music To Watch Seeds Grow By]

    Seoul duo Salamanda. Uman Therma (Sala) and Yetsuby (Manda) have turned their gaze to the most unassuming of subjects: a single basil plant on a windowsill There once was a Basil who sat in the dusk, When the light had gone thin and the day shed its husk, He gazed at the glass where the garden grew small, And pondered his fate in the last of the hall. A wine of deep blue in a vessel unclear appeared on the sill as the midnight drew near, The Basil regarded it, leaf pressed to pane, And thought several thoughts that he couldn’t explain. Does he know? said the snail, who was still on the glass, That all things must come, as all things come to pass? The Basil said nothing, but widened one arm, And accepted the evening with dignified calm. In Seoul, two small people called Sala and Manda Composed from the windowsill, neither meander, They caught the blue hour and the wondering mind, The fate that all well-tended basils will find. Oh Basil, oh Basil, you left-of-centre thing, With your atoms and rituals and quiet suffering, You lived your full day from the sun to the dark, And went out, like blue wine, without even a mark. Music To Watch Seeds Grow By, returns for its eighth entry with Seoul duo Salamanda. Uman Therma (Sala) and Yetsuby (Manda) have turned their gaze to the most unassuming of subjects: a single basil plant on a windowsill, tracking its full day from morning light to whatever it is basil dreams about after dark. We’re premiering the album’s closing track, ‘the blue wine’, a final mysterious reverie in which the basil seems to contemplate its own fate, somewhere between acceptance and wonder. It is the still point at the end of the day: the light gone, the snail departed, the photosynthesis done. What remains is something like thought, or the plant equivalent of it. Manda puts it well: does the basil know what it’s for? Would it resist, accept, or even feel something close to joy? ‘the blue wine’ doesn’t answer that. It just sits with the question, which is probably the right thing to do… @8salamanda8

    3 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
4 Ratings

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
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved
  • Show Website
    Ransom Note

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