Raime is the London-based duo of Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead. They were responsible for the first two 12″ releases on Blackest Ever Black, back in the Autumn/Winter of 2010. But their first contribution to the label came even earlier, in the shape of their You Can’t Hide Your Headcrack mix, first released as a free, limited edition CD-R in Summer 2010. This idiosyncratic selection not only provided a context for their own work, but also proved influential, helping to stimulate wider, renewed interest in late ’70s and early ’80s iconoclasts like Ike Yard, Rema-Rema and German Shepherds. The Raime EP, or simply EP, was released in September 2010 and announced the arrival of a serious talent, its three sample-based tracks quite unlike anything else around. The duo’s cavernous, technically outstanding but invariably emotive, expressionistic sound was a breath of fresh, if forbidding, air; so too were their very particular, unorthodox inspirations and reference-points (the result of years of obsessive crate-digging). A couple of months later came the tense, stark ‘If Anywhere was here he would know where we are’, backed with an expansive, career-best remix of ‘This Foundry’ by Regis. These 12″s quickly earned them a cult following, one which has grown significantly in subsequent years. In 2011, Halstead and Andrews were commissioned by Unsound Festival New York to produce a 5.1 surround sound installation aligned with the festival’s “horror” theme; a recording of the work, entitled The Three Chambers Of Our Entities, was released as part of a limited edition set (together with a mix CD-R, Living In The Gaps We Cannot Jump).  That summer, the two-track Hennail EP showcased the Raime sound at its most rhythmic and robust. 2012 saw the release of the duo’s debut album, Quarter Turns Over A Living Line. Moving away from the sample-based strategies that characterised their early work, Andrews and Halstead looked increasingly to live instrumentation for their first full-length work, mounting intensive recording sessions for percussion, guitar and strings before painstakingly piecing the album together at their home studio. The gothic and industrial signifiers in their music remained, but more submerged and oblique than ever – no more pronounced as influences than jungle’s percussive dynamism and doom metal’s oppressive weight, or aspects of techno, modern composition and dub. The 7-track album was released to considerable acclaim, and in its wake the duo toured extensively, presenting an audio-visual performance created in collaboration with Dakus Films. Having “come out” as Moin, the mysterious artist behind a 2012 split 7″ with Pete Swanson on our Confessions sub-label, Halstead and Andrews delivered a three-track Moin EP on Blackest Ever Black proper in September 2013, capturing their own unique, rigorously processed take on post-hardcore guitar music. They are currently at work on what will be the second Raime long-player, due to be released on Blackest Ever Black in June 2016.

With every Downwards release comes the pleasure of knowing Karl O’Connor hasn’t packed it in for a tropical island somewhere, and the label has been electric this year. Following a fresh Clear Cut EP from DVA Damas, Downwards boss Regis took it upon himself to remix Australian drone band My Disco alongside Lustmord, while JK Flesh slipped out his surpriseNothing Is Free 12″ before turning heads even more with a brutal LP of brick-wall techno for Speedy J’s Electric Deluxe. Furthermore, Kryptic Minds man Simon Shreeve has delivered two 12″s this year following Samuel Kerridge’s Fatal Light Attraction LP which opened Downward’s account for 2016. The label now open its doors once more to the sounds of Jan Grebenstein, a German artist who was given a debut on Downwards in 2014 with a self-titled EP. He returns with a three track 12″ called Strong Proud Stupid and Superior, which leads out with a title track featuring vocals from caps-happy SEEFRIED, whilst the B-side features Grebenstein remixes of tracks the German artist had previously made with Joscha Bauer of post-metal and hardcore band Abest. Should you be in Berlin following its late-September release, Grebenstein and friends will be performing at Berlin’s OHM space alongside fellow Downward act OAKE and Samurai Music warden Geoff Presha. Meanwhile the DNS Tumblr suggests the label are also planning The Immortal Eye, a 4 track vinyl sampler featuring music from DVA DAMAS, Autumns, Grebenstein and Layne – expect that sometime in October.

Jonathan Krohn, a Chicago-based electronic music artist and graphic designer who is operating under Stave alias. Moreover, together with Karl Meier he is working on the industrial techno project Talker. Their self-titled debut LP album has been recently released on the critically acclaimed Downwards imprint. Johnathan is also a part of experimental rock group Male, which is now defunct. Krohn solo works were released on Repitch Recordings, Flingco Sound System and Trensmat. Judging from the facts mentioned above it is clear that in the last couple of years Krohn firmly rooted his musical concepts into the worldwide electronic music ‘soil’ and is about to grow and expand even more. His recent live performances in New York’s Bunker (with Regis), Berlin’s Contort or various Brussels’ underground venues are good proof of this. Stave’s production combines a great palette of influences mostly taken from the 1980s/1990s Chicago-related punk/rock scene. Steve Albini (Big Black and Shellac) is another source of inspiration for him. This is how Krohn interprets Albini’s music: “Albini’s got that real metal on metal, tinny guitar sound, low end bass and tuned drums… to me that sounded like… techno.” [1] Probably this is why later Krohn chosen to investigate the harsh and metallic world of sound, which in the end was transformed into his stellar, purely analog electronic music with a strong feel of identity. Repetitive machinery rhythms, grunge sound textures, glitchy percussions and stone-cold effects are the fundamentals of Stave’s turbulent recordings.

Layne is the experimental electronic project of San Francisco artist Rachel Aiello. Layne blends modular synthesis, field recordings, auditory textures, and sparse rhythms creating a tense uncanny atmosphere. She is a recent addition to the esteemed Downwards label and will be featured on The Immortal Eye with DVA DAMAS, Autumns, Grebenstein, due out this October.

Former bassist in The Soft Moon and longtime San Francisco DJ, Justin Anastasi is the creative head and producer behind the club night VX and co-founder of the SF based Surface Tension DJ collective.