Music Roundup: October 2025
Lots of house music for October
The other day I got asked why I had stopped doing the roundups, and you know what, I didn’t really have a good answer to that, and I did enjoy doing them previously. So let’s give this another shot.
My aim is to make it monthly (the weekly roundups from a year ago were way too much effort) but to include a mix of music and non-music stuff.
So, without further ado, let’s dive in.
Out And About
What’s up with festivals releasing their lineups so early nowadays?
This week, alone, we have Boomtown, Love International, and Dekmantel Selectors releasing their lineups. And last month we had Coachella releasing theirs. I’m not sure about any of you, but it all seems a bit early for me. The winter darkness hasn’t quite got me to start thinking about next summer yet but I’m almost being forced to because these lineups are getting these conversations started now.
Almost as if that’s the whole point.
One of my favourite writers, Shawn Reynaldo, talked about this last year (paywall), about how festivals are releasing lineups earlier and earlier to try and get people to lock in with theirs before the competition get their lineups out. Festivals are becoming noticeably more expensive with Glastonbury at almost £400 (~450 EUR) for its 2025 edition and, coupling that with the seemingly never ending cost of living crisis, this results in people going to fewer festivals than in previous years. So getting ahead of the game is a clear advantage here.
But I feel there’s a certain ruthlessness to this and it’s the almost antithesis to what a large part of the electronic music scene was founded on: Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect. The way that festivals are climbing over one another to get to peoples’ wallets reminds of how the zombies in the World War Z film crawl over each other to get to the humans.
It’s weird, it’s uncomfortable, please stop. At least wait until the body of summer just gone is cold before hyping the next one up.
There’s just this real negative smell to this whole deal and it’s leading me to ask whether the current economic outlook is really that bad. It’s such a stark indicator that something is really wrong in the music industry currently and I’m struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Where does it go from here? Will we get 2027 lineups before summer 2026 even happens? Will I have to dive into my savings just afford to go to a festival now? Is Glastonbury now genuinely just for the super rich?
Who knows.
The Meaning of Vinyl
I also attended a panel talk at Pastiche this week gone about record store culture in Berlin hosted by Chloe Lula, with David Fogarty (of Transmigration and Sound Metaphors), Sabine Hoffman (of Oye Kreuzkölln), Soela, and Kamyar Keramati (of Kimchi Records) on the panel. Whilst the discussion did revolve heavily around the specific record store culture of Berlin, a lot of it was about vinyl culture in general and what these flat pieces of plastic meant to them, from both a professional sense working in store, as a DJ, or personally.
There’s a few points that I would like to discuss from the panel.
To start, the future of record stores and what it could look like was one of the topics mentioned. The panelists were generally optimistic about the scene itself, saying that spaces like Pastiche and their own record stores served as physical meeting points for those interested in the culture. They also talked about how “young people” coming into the stores after vinyl sets go viral were also giving them hope into the next generation of diggers.
However, I found that the panelists were often relating the younger diggers’ entryways into the scene to their own experiences and many lamented about how few younger people there are in the stores and claimed that the future may be at risk due to that. Personally, I think this is a naive take, as all of music has gone through some pretty fundamental changes in the past decade so relating record collecting today to how it was 10, or even 5, years ago is missing a few key details.
Like Spotify.
Ten years ago, Spotify was still growing, and it sold itself as this one stop shop for all the music you’ll ever need. I distinctly remember the hype around it and how aghast people were when you didn’t have an account yourself. “You can literally listen to anything on there.”
But now, it’s becoming evidently clear that people are beginning to become fed up of services like Spotify. From alternative streaming services guides to people questioning the investments of the multi-billionaire ex-CEO, it really feels like people are slowly getting sick of the rental economy where only those at the top are making any money. Your subscription price keeps increasing, but artists are constantly talking about how little they earn from such services. On top of that, you don’t actually own anything when it comes to Spotify. You pay money for the right to listen to the music, so when you stop paying, you lose “your” music.
And I believe that this is beginning to manifest in people starting to collect records. I’ve recently had a friend of mine purchase her first ever record, she doesn’t even own a player, and another is also beginning to grow his collection, and also doesn’t have a player. And they both give the same two responses when asked why they did this:
I want to actually own my music
I want to support artists that I like
They’re bang on the money if you ask me. Bandcamp sells vinyls and has been dropping their fees on their Bandcamp Friday series. Some artists claim that it’s been a lifeline for them and “keeping the lights on in their homes”.
And it becomes your music. You don’t need to maintain a subscription to be able to listen to it.
This is where the scene is headed if you ask me. More and more of my friends are starting to collect even though it’s more expensive than Spotify and every time it’s for the two reasons mentioned above. It’s becoming common to have a collection and I think people are beginning to appreciate having one. And as much as most of the purchasing is done online, this will eventually bleed into the physical stores once people start getting as addicted into digging as my bank probably assumes I am.
On the topic of the online / physical store divide, as much as people talk about how the attendance in store is dwindling, no one seems to be making much noise about the rampant elitism in the scene. Online, it mostly manifests itself as toxic Reddit communities so as long as you don’t spend your life engaging too heavily with these Subreddits, then there’s no real impact to your record collecting experience. But in real life, it’s hard to ignore it.
Even I feel judged walking into these record stores, and I’ve got a goddamn blog about this stuff. I often find that the atmosphere can be stiff and unwelcoming in store, especially the more niche, genre specific ones (looking at you Sound Metaphors). And there’s this odd pause that some people do after talking to you about a given artist / track / album / mix / compilation / technology / soundsystem where they’re almost waiting to see if you know what they’re referring to. And if you don’t (god forbid), then it’s like you’ve failed some test and they’re now “the more knowledgeable one”. To be fair to the stores themselves, the staff are commonly the more welcoming people. It’s the surrounding clientele that I find that are the largest perpetrators of this kind of nonsense.
This prentetious undercurrent was running amok in some of the questions posed to the panel after the conclusion of Chloe’s questions. One guy (it’s almost always men) asked what got the panelists into record collecting, DJing with vinyl, and running their own stores which is a great question, only to finish it with “because it’s an addiction, isn’t it?” and your classic wink wink nudge nudge.
Buddy, it’s not about you, you didn’t have to say that last bit. You had a perfectly good question already.
This always happens in panels. Questioners with a mic love having the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of the given field and ask super specific questions that mostly serve to validate their own knowledge and you can tell they’re doing this because they will often continue their questioning after the panelists have given their answers as if they expected the answers they received.
You’ve asked your question, now get the fuck off the mic.
There was a literal networking session after this panel talk where I imagine you would have all the opportunity in the world to have these lengthy discussions with the panelists in person. Why do we have to be witness to your dick swinging?
As you can probably tell, this absolutely enrages me. This also happens in tech panels, which is where my career lies. But until this elitism is addressed and newcomers are marketed as being welcome to the scene, I struggle to imagine how those just starting their collections are going to be jumping at the opportunity to be surrounded by what can be such an oppressive culture.
To round off what is now becoming a bit of a lengthy rant. The panel was interesting and thought provoking, that unfortunately left out what I think is the best bit about record collecting.
The experience.
There’s more I would like to say about this one day. But, there’s something different about showing someone a piece of music on a vinyl compared to anything digital. It’s something physical you can hold and refer to when talking about what that music means to you. It’s much more effort to use and transport these flat discs compared to just pulling out your phone and queueing something on Spotify. So when you do do this, it adds a certain weight and meaning to the music you’re hearing. And this is what it’s all about.
After all, inconvenience is the price of community.
Anyways, onto the music.
Music Recs
Starting off with one of my favourite artists, Anish Kumar, and his recent collaboration with Baalti on their new project: Stunt Doubles. Their “part 2” EP is the selection this week with The Fastest Boxer In The East as my favourite from it. A fun, desi house beat, it’s got this addictive drive to the bassline.
Decided to treat myself on the last Bandcamp Friday and I picked up Andre Zimmer’s Saved My Life EP and Demi Riquismo and The Trip’s Don’t Go Away EP on vinyl. Both of them are progressive house boppers with some hands in the air moments. Invisible Sandwich from Andre’s and Don’t Go Away from Demi and The Trip’s are my top two favourites.
I’ve been following Asa Tate (previously known as Tech Support) for quite a while now with his Inside Out EP being one of my earliest Bandcamp purchases. His latest EP though, Replica, has become a recent favourite, with Replica being my top track from it. It’s got this incredible energy that I would kill to hear on a dancefloor soon.
And to wrap up this month’s (short) selection, we have Moderat’s self titled debut album and Skee Mask’s Resort album. Both of which were unexpected birthday presents! I’ve never sat down and given Moderat the attention they deserve so this was the perfect opportunity to dig in, and what a delightful album that is. Skee Mask’s I had never heard of before, and I was blown away by the production quality. Interestingly, I found that it’s nicer to listen to it on a vinyl than digital, and I’ve not quite worked out why…
Bonus Content
So yeah, October is my birthday month, and to celebrate in Berlin I ran another Satsuma Sessions for it and had a number of my London friends to visit. As nights go, this was a mess with the bar running out of alcohol pre midnight (although I was low key proud of that), but it was a lot of fun. Fortunately, I had the foresight to record the set, and posted it last week. So if you fancy listening to 3 hours of questionable mixing and repeated tracks, then dig in!
And final bonus content for the month, is Caribou, Floating Points, and Fred Again’s drumless NTS show. They charged a fee for every percussion in a track they played which I thought was a fascinating exercise to get to know your music better. No idea what I would play but it made for great listening.
Until Next Time
Well that was fun. See you in a month.
That Andre Zimmer EP 😮💨