MantisMash - Blisstorted

Artwork: Natan Lenski

Synchronizing the legendary compositional palates of Israeli electronic music and the contemporary design philosophies of forward thinking producers, MantisMash has been churning out a steady stream of psybient blends for well over a decade. With 7 major releases dotting the long arc of the project, and a clear appetite for sonic exploration, there’s little ground that he hasn’t covered in his own interpretation. Continuing that same gradual expansion of the MantisMash catalog, the syncretic Blisstorted EP covers a wide territory of fusions and rhythms.

Grounded in the lucid repetition of psydub and its fraternal siblings, Blisstorted brings breaks, neuro, drum and bass, and glitch-hop into a fresh focus, pulling classic arrangement hallmarks from each respective pool. With heavy emphasis on melody-driven songwriting and crystal clear mixing fundamentals, each of the five tracks hit the center mark for taste, novelty, and a consistent dance-floor mentality. Juicy mid-range synthesis meets crisp soprano tones and sharp percussive cuts in a medley that feels both at home in the MantisMash musical rolodex and like newfound territory for the long-time stalwart Producer. Pushing past the contemporary, often one-track paradigm, Blisstorted spares no ground covered in its expedition across style and impact, and should be sitting squarely at the top of your next crate-digging adventure. 

maingot. - umami.

More from maingot.

In an epoch of instant uploads, self-releases, and numerous operable streaming platforms, faceless producers and creatives have the opportunity to navigate their own artistic projects through relative anonymity. As a soft rule, it's often those anonymous musicians who have a penchant for churning out hype-free, dialed-in compositions that feel a bit like buried treasure when you first discover it for yourself. Nesting in the center of that dynamic is maingot., and they've come to the table with another fresh iteration of smooth hues and discerning grooves; the umami EP.

Who's under the maingot. mask is irrelevant in a conversation about their musical output, as the mask has been firmly in place since their debut. What is evidentially apparent, however, is their command of rhythm and their stoic knack for charged-up songwriting. Combining subtle glitch palettes with jazz and R&B fundamentals, the 5-song package oozes with the sort of grounded, tangible cadence that makes instrumental music so palatable in the first place. Generous chord phrases stack up against sharp, transient percussion and subdued downbeats, giving each song the characteristics of a modest 4-piece act against a noir backdrop. Whether you're a return customer or a recent convert, maingot. has continued to deliver on their reputable sensuality in sound through the umami. EP, and is poised to continue delivering indefinitely into the future.

lxsh - Flora

Artwork: Justin | @cyberart_by_justin

While it's infusion can be felt throughout numerous contemporary catalogs, jazz as a vehicle for glitch music is often surprisingly sparse of the key inflections and rhythmic shakeups that dominate the better offerings of the genre. Taking a sample-collage approach with an emphasis on happy accidents, the multifaceted producer Ixsh has polished off the finishing touches on his latest collection of lush jazztronica, the Flora EP.

A brassy, fluid blend of neuro synthesis, staccato percussive play, and full blown runs through the pocketed corridors of jazz modes and motifs, Flora paints with wide brush strokes of technicolor hues, preserving the charred, tinny nostalgia of old stereophonic recordings with modern production and transient downbeats. The folding of layered harmonies and blaring horns into new, novel phrases and arrangements pairs graciously with the overt audio fragmentation and spurts of vicious low end, pushing past the natural glass ceilings of traditional instrumental compositions. If you're looking for a fresh and audacious take on the notes between the notes, Ixsh's Flora is sure to leave a permanent and sensuous impression.

Smigonaut - Antithesis [+Vinyl Pre-order]

Artwork: Silas Goewey

Breaking through one's individual mold is a hallmark of evolutionary artistry, with the progression of musical knowledge and execution mirroring the progression of a composition. Time and again, Smigonaut has gone to ground in order to synthesize newfound skills with tried and proven fundamentals, showcasing a creative palette that is in constant flux. After taking the time to sharpen every edge and polish every texture, he's finally pulling back the veil on his largest collection of work to date, the Antithesis LP.

The Smigonaut catalog is first and foremost marked by its bevy of tones and styles, with few aural stones left unturned and unexplored. Consequently, Antithesis is a 12-track dive into every stylistic choice under the Smigonaut purview, running from Neuro-hop to breakbeat, drumstep to drum'n'bass, even going so far as to touch on the steady-beat end of the rhythmic spectrum. Each song is both a contained arrangement and an individual piece of the larger puzzle, pushing high-fidelity sound design and crisp engineering to the upper limit while maintaining the powerful songwriting that separates Smigonaut from the contemporary pack. For fans of virtually every flavor under the glitch-out sun, Antithesis is sure to be an instant add to any discerning audiophile's listening rotation.

Dysfunctional Family - A Day At The Beach

Artwork: Veronika Trasko

The contemporary cross-pollination of electronic genres and styles has a way of bringing out the very best of daring, boundary-pushing musicians and creatives. Hailing from Essenbach, Germany, the contemporary producer and songwriter duo Dysfunctional Family has a bevy of obvious talents all suffusing together; from synth work to drum programming, harmonic interplay, and the massaging of the vibe, their work has a way of setting the bar a few notches higher, and is consequently gestating a particularly driven sound. As a result, The Rust is extraordinarily excited to present their latest minted works, the 10-track LP A Day At The Beach.


Walking through the front door of the album puts the listener on prime, beachfront real-estate; A Day At The Beach is quintessentially a collection of downbeat, IDM-infused tracks that flip between pulsating low end and extremely lush compositional dialogue. The overarching musical narratives are brought to life through potent Reese synthesis and hyper-dextrous percussion anchored to the interplay of chords, leads, lone piano lines, and a panoply of glitch motifs and manipulated audio artifacts. The beauty of the album is both its expansive palette and it's incredibly tight songwriting fundamentals, showcasing a creative mind that's as compositionally focused as it is exploratory, and the marriage of risk and reward plays out across every single track on the LP. Regardless of where your tastes lay on spectrum, A Day At The Beach has the right blend of ingredients and right attitude to appeal to any and all ears and minds at large.

Aeon Voyage - Energy

Artwork: Ayla Alvarez @desygn.la

Through studious years of patient learning and experimentation, Aeon Voyage has gradually suffused the right elements to bring his project into the contemporary lens. Pushing a penchant for frenetic impact to its maximum gear, his latest minted tracks bare all the hallmarks of hyper-saturated, roaring bass music, channeling multiple grooves and a smattering of brackish synthesis. As such, The Rust is incredibly excited to host the release of his most recent exploration in power through sound; the Energy EP.

Combining a history of drum and bass and half-time fundamentals with advances in synth programming and resampling, Energy comes screaming out of the gate with a fierce bite, throwing away any possibility of smooth egress in favor of white-hot bass lines and brick-wall dynamics. Each track is imbued with the pulse of a mid-set climax, keeping the rhythm fully torqued and in its respective pocket. Even at its lightest moments, the EP retains a shredded textural quality that feels as raw as it is specific and purposeful, maintaining its optimal cruising speed throughout each additional timbre and riff. For fans of all things abrasive, brawny, and laser-focused, Aeon Voyage’s Energy EP has your name written all over it.

Zonra - Time Is A Tool

Artwork: Katie Hale

Subverting compositional and design tropes each step of the way, the Zonra project has maintained a striking consistency in its escape from the norms of conventional electronic music. Straddled somewhere between the dance-centric sound of contemporary bass music producers and the aural experimentation developed by IDM pioneers, Jackson Hale achieves a stable balance between groove and intrigue with each subsequent release, moving that needle closer to either end whenever the need arises. In time-tested fashion, his latest LP is a work of beauty from every angle, and as such, The Rust is incredibly excited to premiere Time Is A Tool as our 61st label release.

Previous Zonra records have featured an amalgam of shredded synthesis, mean breakdowns, and carefully threaded melodic elements. Unsurprisingly, Hale flipped the script entirely for Time Is A Tool; The LP’s opening moments involve smooth harmonies egressing into smooth cadence, and that relationship carries on throughout each track. Choice waves of tension and release, told through the intentional splaying of tones and textures into glitched-out symphonies, creates a permeable catharsis within each fold of the record, slowly churning the listener towards the album’s zenith. Opting for slow, caressing tempos and chord phrases reminiscent of serene lullabies, the traditional throaty bass lines and hyper-compressed downbeats are put out to pasture in favor of a record filled to the brim with particularly intentional and resoundingly magical moments of introspection and rest. For those keen on finding their next sonic journey amidst a crowd with a dancefloor focus, Time Is A Tool is assuredly the album you’ve been searching for.

Shapesift - Attic Salt

Artwork: Ayla Alvarez

Working with deliberate focus and a taciturn presence, Shapesift has been steadfastly designing and minting a bespoke catalog of psychedelia-infused electronic music. Across several previous releases, he’s experimented with potent blends of contemporary sound design and time-tested, narrative songwriting. With a superb consistency across his productions, he’s got a firm hold on the ears of his contemporaries, and as such, The Rust is incredibly excited to host his most recent release, Attic Salt.

Attic Salt has all the hallmarks of Shapesift’s notable production palette coupled with a vibrant maturation in his arrangement capabilities and creative risks. Fusing psybient rhythms and melodic tropes with high-octane bass synthesis is a bridge between two often disparate genre umbrellas, and yet this unusual methodology is precisely what struts his dialed-in compositional finesse. Taking the path less traveled, Attic Salt traverses both cerebral and feisty atmospheres, displaying a powerful handling of force and precision with stunning clarity. For appreciators and collectors of niche and novel electronic music, Shapesift’s Attic Salt should be the next addition to your growing collections.

MALAKAI - Breathing Room

Art: Jules Schaeffer

Patience in production has always been a particularly sharp knife in MALAKAI’s artistic multi-tool; from his earliest releases and onward, his deliberate walk-over-run attitude has continuously paid off in the form of an increasingly dynamic and meticulously curated release palette. Consequently, Breathing Room is inarguably the most dynamic MALAKAI release to date.


Breathing Room wastes no time in setting up the pitch, opening up with the fresh break-beat cuts that have already begun to poke through MALAKAI’s discography. Maintaining cruising speeds throughout the entire journey, the EP combines his time-honed penchant for harmony and atmosphere with rambunctious rhythms and the right dash of emotional sizzle. For new and recurrent appreciators of salient, stirring music, Breathing Room is sure to be a revolving favorite.

Wessanders - Talking Points

Art: Ashton Jones

Wessanders’ journey towards the zenith of his own creativity is, by design, filled with curious and unexpected turns and jaunts away from the typical. His aversion to the mundane and clear attraction to ideas and compositions beyond the pale has begotten him a rock-solid catalog of original music, and his latest addition to his growing arsenal typifies the pleasant surprises constantly under his purview. The Talking Points EP contains his clearest, cleanest executions to date, showcasing a producer and composer with a clear bent for breaking the mold.

Talking Points comes jam-packed with the effective and infectious midtempo that Wessanders cut his teeth on, updated, and upgraded to reflect his current command over sound design and arrangement archetypes. Through both melodious narratives and rambunctious low end, he achieves the storied balance between rocking a sound system to the gills and inflecting on pure groove. Rounding off the end of the EP is perhaps the most ambitious Wessanders production to date, featuring a full-fledged journey through the newfound contemporary power of dnb. It’s a complete package, giving listeners a taste of both his time-honed territories and recent explorations within the wide umbrella of bass music. If you’re a fan of pristine palettes and complex arrangements, Talking Points is undoubtedly the next stop on your journey into the novelty of sound.