This is a special one, a family one.
Rosie Ama (Cain), as I’m sure you all already know, is a London-based DJ, radio host, and founder of Human Endeavour Records. She’s been in the fam a while now, operating on the outer fringes of dance music… which is exactly where you want to be if you're trying to avoid mainstream success and financial stability.
Having cut her teeth as a writer and editor for online music platforms Stamp The Wax and this here Ransom Note, Rosie demonstrated such exemplary dedication to underground culture that we eventually had to take disciplinary action against her. The subsequent court settlement led to the founding of Human Endeavour; sometimes the best label launches emerge from legal disputes, rather than business plans.
Officially launching in 2022 (once the legal paperwork was finalised), it serves as a platform for artists operating in the deep, dark and hypnotic corners of electronic music and has welcomed artists like Anastasia Zems, Justine Forever, Nandele, Medicine 8 and Thomass Jackson over the years.
Before doing her own thing, Rosie made up one half of Kiara Scuro alongside friend Nadia, a DJ and production partnership that released music on Fabric Originals, Ritmo Fatale and Faux Poly, as well as long-standing radio residencies on Rinse FM and Balamii Radio. After a decade together, she’s gone solo turning her full attention to the label and her monthly Noods radio show, Melodic Odds, that showcases her love for sleazy low-slung chuggers, leftfield acid house and synth-driven 3am groovers.
Whilst I’d never tell her this to her face, it’s actually a delight to welcome her back to the fold - this time without the need for lawyers - for a mix that captures her hypnotic, trippy vision of what dance music can be when nobody's watching the figures…
Let’s get going then, shall we…
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Asa Moto: The Ransom Note Mix
Hailing from Ghent, Belgium, Asa Moto is the dynamic electronic music duo of Oliver “Oli” Geerts and Gilles Noë—a pairing forged in 2012 that has since become one of the most inventive forces on the continent’s club circuit.
Signed to Soulwax’s DEEWEE label, they blend analog synths, voice, funk and uncanny grooves into a sound both club-potent and artistically bold. Through acclaimed EPs like Martino and an ever-evolving live show, they invite you to dance differently—together.
November see's the pair return to the imprint with a new EP called 'Music For Disc Jockeys Pt.1'.
This mix is a tour de force if you will, they cram 82 tracks into one hour and somehow manage to make that make sense. We have no idea how they've managed it but somehow in a precariously bonkers fashion... it works.
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In Search of Unicorns: A Horror Soundtrack Mix by VÍZ
Hungarian Transylvanian artist Réka Csiszér aka VÍZ with an irresistible soundtrack for Halloween, following the release of her sumptuous second album ‘Danse Des Larmes‘ on Heat Crimes earlier this year.
Read more at Ransom Note.
@user-273556483 @heat-crimes
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Seeds Mix 005: 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.
Strictly Kev likes the company of plants whilst working on music so that's handy for us isn't it?! We're assuming he's talking about a beautiful Calathea sitting in the corner for inspiration, tho his dream plant setup - a conservatory packed with Romanesco broccoli, trippy Caladiums, and Persian Shields - is something we'd be well on board with too.
Enough of the plant talk for a second and back to the music, ambient music to be clear. For those that weren't squatting in South London back in the early 90s, Openmind were the four-piece behind the mighty Telepathic Fish - the legendary ambient afterparty that transformed chill-out rooms from dub-playing afterthoughts into proper destinations.
Kev, along with Chantal Passamonte (Mira Calix, RIP), David Vallade, and Mario Aguera, started in a shared house above a shop with no neighbours to complain/bash the door down. What began as art school parties quickly grew into Sunday afternoon sessions in squatted venues - a former dole office in Brixton and even the derelict Roundhouse on New Year's Day. They hosted everyone from Aphex Twin to Mixmaster Morris among wall-to-wall mattresses, UV installations, and Coldcut's Matt Black with his boundary pushing video projections.
The idea was simple: recreate that post-clubbing comedown vibe but on a massive scale, as an "aural and visual blanket" for club-rattled minds. They even published a fanzine called Mindfood and worked at the scene's hub, Ambient Soho record shop, helping shape what Simon Reynolds called a "wombeldelic sound-and-light bath" in contrast to the current trend of hardcore and it's relentless assault.
Thirty years on, that spirit's having a comeback. Events like London's A Loose Ting are bringing back the bedding and the hushed reverence, while Berlin's Overflow is going full sensory overload with vibrating mattresses, fountains, and harpists. New York's Planetarium gatherings have people mostly horizontal, inspired by psychedelic therapy sessions. There's even and ambient sauna in South London you might have come across via the wonder of Music To Watch Seeds Grow By's recent takeover. Our very own Watching Trees dabbled in said chill out space this year, pairing the abstract and the ambient with projected dappled sunlight visuals from the mighty Jamie House. Turns out people still need those little havens away from the madness, especially in this day and age!
Also handily 30 years on the Openmind crew have just compiled the first-ever Telepathic Fish retrospective for Fundamental Frequencies - a double vinyl love letter to those hazy early-90s mornings when the music finally slowed down.
For this Seeds Mix, Kev has leaned into his love of minimalism and systems music - repetition built from layers of loops offset against each other to form subtle polyrhythms. There's a deliberate avoidance of drum machines here in favour of organic percussion, and around the eight-minute mark, a section from Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia that captures the feeling of being deep in the forest, phone abandoned, discovering that paradise was just a forage away.
Full interview here: https://www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/seeds-mix-005-openminds-leave-your-phone-at-home-discover-paradise-after-a-forage-in-the-forest/
@strictly
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PREMIERE: Gramrcy & John Loveless - Lucid feat. Tony Morris [Phantasy Sound]
A collision of rave outsiders: Morris’s unlikely pop mystique meets Gramrcy and Loveless on the FWD dancefloor… lnk.to/GJLPH149
In Berlin where the bassweight bubbles bright, Lived Gramrcy and John Loveless, deviant and polite, They stirred a pressure-cooker full of electroclash stew, With ISDN-line scramble and a hint of something new.
“Oh!” cried Tony Morris (former teacher, taxi man), “I’ll hypnotize with repetitions, catch me if you can! I’m Scotland’s most unlikely pop sensation, don’t you see? A cult figure cabaret, as deviant as can be!”
They mixed it up on Phantasy Sound with textural delight, The earworming anchor bobbed and bounced all through the night, From FWD-era gumption to the disco esoteric, They created ‘Lucid’ madness, quite atmospheric!
The festival-rupturing Highdive had ruptured long before, Now ‘Feel So’ tipped the scales toward the ecstatic dance floor, With post-punk percussion prancing, hi-NRG in tow, From Chicago down to Rimini, watch the bassline grow!
Said Peggy Gou and Daniel Avery, “What a splendid sound!” While 2ManyDJs spun it ’round and ’round and ’round, And Moschino’s models strutted to the supreme release, As rave outsiders intersected in their bubbling masterpiece!
So if you seek the throbbing beat of something deeply odd, Find Gramrcy and John Loveless – that peculiar duo’s squad With Tony Morris chanting in his late-sixties prime, Making lucid nonsense music, one earworm at a time!
Three years after their all conquering ‘Highdive’, Gramrcy and John Loveless return to Phantasy with ‘Lucid’, a pressure-cooker of FWD-era bassweight and electroclash scramble anchored by the hypnotic vocals of Tony Morris.
Listen below, pre order here: https://lnk.to/GJLPH149
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.
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