Robotek Reagan launches his own new creative multiverse Void Space Institute with a pair of sensual, emotional, “feel good to feel sad” and uplifting drum & bass tracks. This creative endeavour will be home to everything from music to videos, art to fictional literature and philosophy which tell a science fiction story across the 13 universes of VSI™. Musically, the label will focus on a broad spectrum from techno to minimal, drum and bass to breaks, IDM to ambient and electronica from Robotek as well as a range of other signings. Robotek himself has been best known as one half of the now-disbanded Superfreq duo Dance Spirit.
Over the years he has played the likes of fabric London, clubs in NYC and festivals like Coachella, Desert Hearts and Piknic Electronik. Currently based in LA, this new solo project sees him dip back into his roots as a sci-fi anime fanatic with a vital and varied new sound. And now especially for DMCWORLD, he shares his Back To Mine indulgences…
1. Tricky – Like A Stone (trentemøller Remix)
I discovered this little electronic trip-hop gem while living in a cabin in the woods in Lake Tahoe last year in 2021, thanks to my well algorithmically tuned Spotify (can we say this word anymore?) Release Radar. I promptly went to Bandcamp and purchased it. Something about this song is just so dark but so sexy—it just makes me feel like a badass when I’m out walking with my headphones with it playing; my entire demeanor changes. Want a hit of cool? Well, this is it, and it’s addictive as fuck.
2. Aphex Twin – abundance10edit (2 R8’s, FZ20m & A 909)
There’s too much amazing Aphex Twin music out there that fuels my imagination and makes me feel connected with the warped beauty of life, but out of them all, this might just be my absolute top favorite. I don’t think I’d ever heard rhythms and percussive work done like this before, and while it’s chaotic, there’s this sublime, somatic otherworldly beauty that peaks through in the melody and “abundance” vocal sample. Audiogasms all day; worthy of my repeat one list (this whole list might be considered a repeat one list).
3. Rolando Simmons – Squenz 16 42 53
May 2021: I’m back in LA after a year and a half in Lake Tahoe, where I spent the beginning of pandemic-land quarantined with close friends secluded in the beauty of nature. Being back in a big city again was a massive culture shock! To go from solitude and the quiet life and then ripped from the hands of peace and thrust into the accolades of human ingenuity—the concrete jungle of chaos and immediacy—was a lot. So what was the first thing I did? I went to the record store. Ed, the amazing gentleman who runs Stellar Remnant in Downtown LA, is precisely what you want from a record dealer. “I like this and this and want something like it,” I say. Within seconds he’s got five records pulled, and this Rolando Simmon’s EP was one of them. It was definitely my favorite find of last summer, and I felt it really captured the mood of life’s moment.
![ROLANDO SIMMONS - Squenz 16 42 53 [2020]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/A-P7ElSBn28/0.jpg)
4. Oneohtrix Point Never – Last Known Image Of A Song (Ryuichi Sakamoto Rework)
This song will forever transport me back to the lake house in Lake Tahoe; four friends and I were serendipitously warped there by the hands of fate in March of 2020. At this point, being a house of (mostly) DJs and having had the foresight to bring DJ equipment with us, we fully succumbed to the “let’s do a live stream on Twitch” sensation rocking most of the world. “Modern Therapy” was the imaginings of Christian Barr made manifest through hours of hard but viciously rewarding work. We also had the perfect background setting for the streams: the lake. As such, this song will forever stir up visual images of pine trees, blue skies, the crystal blue lake, and the peace of solitude.
5. Undeworld – Altitude Dub
For me, this is one of those songs that’s just absolutely perfect in every way. It’s carefree but foreboding, and something about it is supremely mystical and ancient feeling. Released later summer of 2019, I almost feel like this song predicted the impending chaos of the pandemic, but then again, the mystical, alchemical quality of the lyrics allows the music to relate to most moments in life. Beauty made manifest, a real testament to the spirit of life being made real through musical alchemists of the highest caliber. The sheer beauty can be blinding at moments, bringing me to tears. (AT HOME EDIT TIP: of the Altitude Dub with the Altitude Dub Continuum, which is a 30 minute cut with Australian Cult band The Necks as it didn’t have the vocals, and it’s such a journey.)
6. Nobuo Uematsu – Hollow Skies
You might say it’s a guilty pleasure if it weren’t so damned good. This song is from the ‘Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 1’ video game soundtrack. When I first played through the game and heard this song, I would stop Cloud moving and listen for an unreasonable amount of time, so here’s a 25-minute in-game video for ultimate loop enjoyment. In some ways, it kind of reminds me of Altitude Dub in that it’s got that ancient and mystical time and place feel. It also has a slight Pink Floyd melody vibe! As for the Final Fantasy games, well, they were a massive part of my childhood, so I’m incredibly biased. Try not to enjoy this song. I dare you. (Maybe I’ll do a bootleg remix!)
7. Mark Pritchard, Thom Yorke – Beautiful People
This is an artist collaboration that is wildly soul-fulfilling. Mark Pritchard’s Global Communication project was one of my early electronic music discoveries as a teenager in high school at the end of the 90s. Thanks to some unique music servers on the mac file-sharing community platform Hotline, I discovered an abundance of electronic music early on. Fast forward many years until maybe 2018, I rediscovered Global Communication under his real name: Mark Pritchard. Since then, I’ve been drinking up everything he releases, with a thirsty ear for his superb musical craftsmanship.
8. Toshifumi Hinata – Midsummer Night
I discovered Toshifumi Hinata in Tahoe in April of 2020. The snow was still a bit off and on, and it was a delicate soundtrack for the end of winter into spring solstices. It fit many moods for many daily drives and walks in Tahoe. It’s almost too serene to listen to in LA. Its beauty feels out of place amid the city, accentuating the violence of untamed human nature and the brutality of society. But amongst the pine trees and clear blue skies, fresh mountain air, and connectedness with nature, it elevates the affinity of the spirit with the cosmos to a new intoxicating level of existence.
9. Brian Eno – LUX (Nicolas Jaar Remix)
This song is just splendidly beautiful. I’m a sucker for melodies of a precise nature that invoke a certain emotional feeling, and this music captures precisely that. This song is a whole mood.
10. CAN – Shikako Maru Ten
We’ll close it out with a light jam, and this jam slaps. I love the simplicity of it. It’s an acoustic groover. I’m such a sucker for a jam on a melodic/rhythmic theme, which is probably why I love electronic music so much! It’s another one of those songs that makes you feel cool.
11. Dedekind Cut – Tahoe
Ok… so I know it was only supposed to be 10 songs, but I’m anti-authoritarian, and I figure I’d really close out with this song—and I also like the number 11. This song appeared in my life in February of 2019. About a month later, the pandemic started to seem potentially worrisome, prompting my friends Chris and Christian and I to head to Lake Tahoe to escape living out what felt like might be the end of the world in the city of Los Angeles; what a better way to go down in flames than in the hands of nature? This song definitely set the theme and mood for a significant turning point in both the world and my own personal life.
Artist: Robotek Reagan
Title: NXT2U(XTC)
Label: Void Space Institute
Release: Out now
Cat No: VSI-00000
Format: Digital
