Ransom Note

Following the release of a new DJ Kicks mix, we reflect on a changing approach to dance music with the ever-versatile @teedofficial.bsky.social...

In conversation with Tom Sharkett...

REVIEW: A strong first @primavera-sound.bsky.social Porto for us. The gentle disbelief of those who’d been before turns out to have been entirely warranted. One of Europe’s best cities for a weekend, and one of the best reasons to visit it. We'll be back...

If there is one thing that could induce us to kill each other, it's the conflict-driven business model of the big social media companies. When will the government insist that a harmonious society is more important than their goddamn profits?

Seeds Mix #11: Patricia Wolf's Wander in the Garden Her recent release on Music To Watch Seeds Grow By; Yarrow emerged from weeks spent at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado, working alongside ecologists studying plants and pollinators: www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/...

VIDEO PREMIERE: Dracula’s Daughter shows up uninvited, bleeds on your carpet, and rewinds itself. Girls Chat Room – Babystar & James Weissinger (one half of Zillas on Acid meet filmmaker Ari Ratner “somewhere between a VHS birthday party and a waking nightmare" www.theransomnote.com/music/premie...

And another thing that dropped over the weekend was this lovely little walk down memory lane with @theransomnote.com - a playlist of all the stuff I was listening to when starting the band. So expect dEUS, Mogwai, BoC, Autechre, etc. www.theransomnote.com/music/playli...

Much love to our friend Jim Ottewill for his ace interview with Truus DeGroot on his ace 'Deeper Into Out of Space' Substack substack.com/home/post/p-...

Hazy, hopeful stardust on the spring air – locked-groove krautrock discipline shot through with kosmische shimmer. Jakarta’s Strange Fruit, with the last track from their Drips EP on Gentle Tuesday, is something super special... www.theransomnote.com/music/premie...

We’re bringing Telepathic Fish (Mixmaster Morris & DJ Food), Kayla Painter (Live), Stella Z & Weirdo Therapy to the chill-out space at this year’s edition of Field Maneuvers. Returning to its secret Norfolk location 21–23 August. Read on for the wider lineup: www.theransomnote.com/music/field-...

A collision of timelines, Xylitol's 'Blumenfantasie' is one of the most quietly assured records you’ll hear this year. Catherine Backhouse talks us through the album & memories of raving in East Berlin in the early 2000s www.theransomnote.com/music/track-... @planetmurecords.bsky.social

Dark Entries & Ransom Note present a defiant comeback from Gavilan Rayna Russom aka Black Meteoric Star, ft remixes from Russell E.L. Butler & Borusiade "Black Meteoric Star is one of those characters I created for survival. And this moment demands its return" www.theransomnote.com/music/news/g...

A collective of musicians from the North of Ireland’s underground and alternative scenes has come together for Occupied Minds, a genre-spanning solidarity compilation featuring David Holmes, RÓIS, Phil Kieran, Elaine Howley, Huartan, Rory Friers and more. www.theransomnote.com/music/news/u...

.@caughtbytheriver.bsky.social are back in the physical world this May, with a weekend at Elmley Nature Reserve on the Isle of Sheppey. 150 people, 3,300 acres of marshland, Modern Nature Andrew Wasylyk... Music to Watch Seeds Grow By on the bill too. Details: www.theransomnote.com/music/events...

The Japanese selector and producer DJ Nobu turns inward for a five-track meditation on Buddhist philosophy, out 27th March on @fabriclondon.bsky.social Originals: www.theransomnote.com/music/news/d...

Seoul-based ambient duo Salamanda – Uman Therma (Sala) and Yetsuby (Manda) – are the latest artists to contribute to Music To Watch Seeds Grow By... Their entry, Seeds 008, arrives April 16th and takes a single basil plant on a windowsill as its entire world. www.theransomnote.com/art-culture/...

Sally Rodgers and Steve Jones, as A Man Called Adam, have been making records about the natural world since before it was the done thing... They bring their Remember Nature project to Tate Modern as part of Gathering Ground: www.theransomnote.com/music/events...

With the current climate doing its best to grind things down, sometimes making music with your people is all you can do & LA’s underground is responding in kind. Point Winona Sound Library Vol 1 gathers some of LA’s finest under one roof @ Los Feliz hilltop: www.theransomnote.com/music/premie...

"Music that makes you feel deeply human, as you’ve never felt before." @theransomnote.com @joshuaidehen.bsky.social. ☀️ www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/... ☀️

Paraiso: Portugal’s Rave History. Making its UK premiere at Rio Cinema, Dalston 28 May 2026 as part of Dock N' Roll the 81-minute documentary/love letter digs into the decentralised, DIY rave scene that swept the country in the 90s... www.theransomnote.com/music/parais...

Inner Rhythm Mysticism and R$N are joining forces for a new series of intimate London parties. The first one lands at Vespers Club on April 18th with Trystero (live) Salon des Amateurs affiliate Philipp Otterbach, Tia Cousins & Manuol Bone. www.theransomnote.com/music/irm-x-...

In shadowy Arch Groves where the Stranded did dwell, With sub-bass that rumbled like a low midnight bell, The guitars they did scrape at the edges and hover, While dusty beats floated from one side to the other.

Laurent Garnier, A Love From Outer Space, Decius, Tia Cousins, Pete Herbert's Music for Swimming Pools and many more join Heidi Lawden, Luke Una, Jimpster and Greg Wilson for this year's Campo Sancho edition... www.theransomnote.com/music/events...

Deep in the woods at the Bush of Ghosts stage @ Watching Trees, Scottish producer Brian d’Souza, aka Auntie Flo brought his ‘Plants Can Dance’ project to life in a 5-hour ambient set. Brian’s ode to the Sunflower is out on the 19th Feb, launch party on the 21st www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/...

Craven Faults, North Yorkshire's enigmatic answer to Tangerine Dream, favourite of 'the gothfather' Robert Smith + remixer of The Cure curates a special playlist ft. Can, Laurie Spiegel, The Velvets & more ⚙️ 🎛️ @cravenfaults.bsky.social @theleaflabel.com

Between innocence and anger, Ghazi Barakat’s Pharoah Chromium project delivers a devastating meditation on Gaza on his latest work, Chronicles on Discrepant www.theransomnote.com/music/news/p...

The Berlin University of the Arts' Master’s program in Sound Studies & Sonic Arts, faces elimination amid budget crisis for Berlin’s only university-level degree program in a field where the city has international renown. www.theransomnote.com/music/news/b...

When two generations of Lisbon’s underground collide, the result is visceral, raw & uncompromising. Scam Dust is Tiago Lux Fragil resident and ‘DJ’s DJ’) and Shcuro of Discos Paraiso channel Detroit filtered through Sheffield with a distinctly Lisbon sensibility www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/...

Since founding Plus Instruments in Eindhoven in 1978, Truus de Groot has carved an uncompromising path through the experimental underground. Five decades into her restless creative journey, her 9th album as Plus Instruments, ‘Unnoticed,' lands on Feb 11th. www.theransomnote.com/music/news/d...

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, a mini-album for Natural Selections. www.theransomnote.com/music/premie...

Scottish producer Brian d’Souza aka Auntie Flo is launching Season Two of Music To Watch Seeds Grow By ambient/seed series. The release explores recent botanical research revealing how sunflowers navigate cooperation and competition through their root systems. www.theransomnote.com/art-culture/...

Madrid-based Italian producer @bawrut.bsky.social is relaunching his SILENCIO imprint nearly a decade after it delivered the underground hit “Ciquita,” this time with a deeply personal project, bridging electronic music and social activism.

Matthias Kremsreiter and Christian Schoppik combine for a new collaborative album exploring the liminal space between waking and sleep on @quindirecords.bsky.social

After more than a decade of mainly navigating instrumental territory, Kristian Craig Robinson aka Capitol K has circled back to where it all began... He talks us through his 10th album track by track... www.theransomnote.com/music/playli...

Taking a sharp detour from the dancefloor, Bozzwell returns with something altogether more mysterious...

'Like Holy Tongue playing a marathon set in the enveloping Königsforst of Wolfgang Voigt’s GAS project' Audio-visual trio Plants Heal recently released their new album 'Forest Dwellers'. Check out their enlightening playlist of music inspired by healing plants 🌿 @quindirecords.bsky.social

Jonathan Kusuma strips the excellent Strange Fruit’s original back to its essence and rebuilds it as something altogether more hypnotic. Listen: www.theransomnote.com/.../premiere...

Gone To A Rave: @phatmedia.bsky.social pres UK Rave Flyers 88/89 Before the algorithms, before the Instagram flyers, there were photocopies. Crude, urgent, immediate. Flyers thrust into sweaty palms outside record shops, stuffed into pockets of the initiated www.theransomnote.com/music/interv...

Post-punk provocateur Autumns has been catapulting angular weapons over the ramparts since 2014. As he joins R$N with the ferocious EP ‘Through the Construction of Grace’ EP the “lanky, ginger man from Derry” offers up a mix for us... www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/...

A surreal, darkly luminescent world 🎛️ 🔬 🌌 @marionettelabel.bsky.social

OUT NOW! Underground hero, Autumns brings us a selection of rhythm and bass work outs on his latest EP, Through the Construction of Grace! 🌀😵‍💫 Out now exclusively via our Beatport / BandCamp - link below! ransom-note-records.lnk.to/ThroughtheCo...

FLAVOUR OF THE LABEL MIX Anna Logue Records has been a beacon for those who understand that the early 1980s represented a golden age of electronic music – a brief, brilliant window when artists armed with synthesisers, drum machines, and raw creative vision crafted something genuinely revolutionary

Seeds Mix #5: Openmind's "Leave your phone at home & discover paradise after a forage in the forest" Telepathic Fish co-founder DJ Food aka one part of Openmind takes us on a trip into the world of 90s chill out. www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/...

Recorded in a small village on the Costa Brava – surrounded by seagulls, tramontana winds, and sea urchin-covered rocks – this mix comes from Parisian-born Antoine Harispuru, better known as Golden Bug.... www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/...

This Sunday Shaho Qadir, a Kurdish Londoner and double amputee, will embark on a heroic journey. Starting in Glasgow and propelled by his immense upper body strength, he will travel by wheelchair all the way to Gaza. www.theransomnote.com/music/events...

'Space can be crumpled like paper into an infinitesimal dot. Time can be extinguished like a blown-out flame. And the laws of physics, which we regard as sacred and immutable, are anything but' A Journey Beneath the Surface William Basinski @ The Rectory Lisbon www.theransomnote.com/music/review...

And whilst you know all this balance & wellbeing is the ‘right thing’ to do, and admittedly you do feel quite good, but with all these reclaimed weekends that once belonged to beautiful reckless abandon, what do you do now? Turns out, you go to Salto Festival. www.theransomnote.com/art-culture/...

Watching Trees announces dates for 2025 Further sonic rambling in the North Wiltshire countryside with Optimo (Espacio) will take place between 29-31st May 2026. Sign up details here: www.theransomnote.com/art-culture/...