Outlines

04/07/2025

Artist: MA
Title: VWV
Label:
Release date: 4.07.2025
Format: digital / cassette (edition of 50)
Mastering: Fischerle / Heyting / Carnap
Artwork: Marta Sieczkowska

In 2024, Japanese vocalist MA recorded an album together with producers duo IFS. “REIFSMA” was a meshing of MA's spontaneity with IFS' production machinery. Extended vocal techniques, multi-layered narratives and original expression gave IFS's tracks a disturbed and hypnotic feel. After the critically and audience acclaimed “REIFSMA ”, MA returns to the Guides label with the solo album “VWV”.

“VWV” is MA's second solo album, the first, “AMA,” was released on Morphine Records. The two albums are closely related, complementing each other. “VWV” is a reverse transcription of the word “AMA,” which means, in turn, heaven or universe. But visual and semantic connections are not the only thing at stake. “VWV” and “AMA” both focus on the elemental, unpredictable, risky and sometimes wild. The narrative in the works is not chronological, concentrating rather on what is simplest in language, expression and the body. MA lets his thoughts flow without assigning them to anything or giving them any specific direction. His verbal and vocal practices are close to stream-of-consciousness, MA often refers to word games.

On the musical level, we get extremely spare material, in which the voice dominates. However, MA does not shy away from the sonic layer either, enriching the tracks with rough, dirty, industrial sounds. The nature of these recordings evokes associations with the plunderphonic tradition and the “borrowing” of new contexts. “I used recordings of vocals and sound ideas that came to me, which I'd recorded as rough drafts, and edited them.” - MA naturally expands the semantic field of plunderphonics, treating his ideas as something potentially strange, not-yet-mine, which is instinctively processed when he gives it a voice. In his practice, MA is careful to note the nature of the spontaneous self-alienation and what comes in its place. He is like a sound poet who responds with his voice to every slightest impulse of narrative and potential atoms of meaning ready to be externalized.

“VWV” resembles the universe after the Big Bang - it is spreading radially in all directions, trying to encompass and express “everything” at every moment, simultaneously.

27/06/2025

Just before the holiday break, it's time to announce the next album. It is special in that musically it differs completely from what has been released so far, whether in outlines or guides. Interestingly, the album's author is the vocalist who co-wrote one of the best releases to come out of both labels' catalogs. Preorders for MA's solo album, titled VWV, begins today. The release is scheduled for July 4.

24/06/2025

Our friends from super duo JANKA have just released new album ("YAMANOTE") at Outlines label. On this occasion, we give them our show, where Daniel Drumz and Hatti Vatti show what's currently on their minds. Tune in! ...and don't forget: DUB IS THE WAY! Tracklist: JANKA - Piesek Dub JANKA x CRZKNY -...

21/06/2025

Make Believe Melodies is one of my favourite places on the internet to provide information about the most interesting musical phenomena in Japan. This time, one of the most recent posts featured CRZKNY's album released on . Thank you!

Choose Life

20/06/2025

Podczas tegorocznej edycji Avant Art Festival we Wrocławiu i Warszawie wystąpią IFS MA. Polscy producenci (Mateusz Wysocki i Krzysztof Ostrowski) oraz japoński wokalista MA zaprezentują premierowy materiał z ich drugiej płyty, która ukaże się nakładem outlines/guides na początku września.

During this year's Avant Art Festival in Wrocław and Warsaw, IFS MA will perform. Polish producers (Mateusz Wysocki and Krzysztof Ostrowski) and Japanese vocalist MA will perform premiere material from their second album, which will be released on the outlines/guides in early September.

13/06/2025

Artist: CRZKNY
Title: Deadly Outlaw
Label:
Release date: 13.06.2025
Format: digital / cassette (edition of 50)
Mastering: Fischerle / Heyting / Carnap
Artwork: Marta Sieczkowska

In 2017, outlines released just the second EP in its catalog. It was one of three cassettes that initiated the groove series and was dedicated to the Japanese footwork producers responsible for creating a new reduced version of the Chicago-based musical genre. The author of the aforementioned EP was CRZKNY, a leading figure in the Japanese footwork scene, who has been consistently creating his highly distinctive and radical musical project for more than a decade. His music, along with the work of DJ Fulltono and Skip Club Orchestra, was an extremely important influence on the initial direction of the outlines. In 2025, CRZKNY returns to the label with a new album.

“Deadly Outlaw” is an album featuring eight tracks that are a kind of meditation and reflection on techno by the Japanese producer. The starting point here is the work of such iconic figures of the techno scene as Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin with his Plastikman project and Basic Channel. CRZKNY, however, does it in his own way, embedding the classic foundations of minimal and dub techno on a 160 bpm engine.

The structure of the album is divided into two parts. The first is the tracks in the TR-01-TR-04 section, which on the one hand recall the spatiality of Plastikman's recordings and Jeff Mills' classic loops, but with carefully caught-up layers full of rasps, murmurs and crackles, they create a hypnotic and disturbing listening experience.

In the second part of the album (TR-05-TR-08), CRZKNY evokes the spirit of the music of other iconic figures Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus. Their Basic Channel project in the '90s of the twentieth century revolutionized the sound of techno, which both producers filtered through the Jamaican sonic tradition. Pushed to 160-bpm, CRZKNY's tracks still have a heavily reduced character, but space and reverb come into the forefront.

Each successive CRZKNY release manages to surprise. Whether it's minimalistic gabba or ironic footwork sampledelia, the Japanese producer's music always offers an intense hybrid extreme.

30/05/2025

The time has come to announce another release this year. I've invited an artist without whose Outlines/Guides sound would not be what it is today. It was the work of this Japanese producer, among others, that pushed me to launch my own label and promote music close to the aesthetics he created together with DJ Fulltono and Skip Club Orchestra. CRZKNY's new album, a reduced and dubbed techno hybrid, will be released on June 13. After releasing an EP on Outlines in 2017, CRZKNY, returns to the label with a radical new music project.

The cover was designed by Marta Sieczkowska, the mastering was prepared by Mateusz Wysocki. Limited edition of 50 tapes.

28/03/2025

Artist: JANKA
Title: YAMANOTE
Label:
Release date: 28.03.2025
Format: digital / cassette (edition of 60)
Mastering: Fischerle
Artwork: Marta Sieczkowska

Piotr Kalinski and Daniel Szlajnda are artists who hold a special place in the Polish independent music scene. Their solo achievements date back to the first decade of the 2000s, providing an important foundation in the development of the local music scene.

Daniel Szlajnda is associated by many Polish listeners with aliases such as DJ Taśmy and Daniel Drumz, as well as his series of eclectic funk-hip-hop mixes “Electric Relaxation.” The culmination of these achievements is the album “Untold Stories,” released in 2015, on which, as Daniel Drumz, he showcases multiple takes on club music. However, it was the later two albums “Komorebi” and “Order in Chaos” that opened a new chapter in the producer's work by shifting his sonic explorations towards modular ambient - released already under his own name, i.e. Daniel Szlajnda.

The solo beginnings of Piotr Kaliński, known mainly as Hatti Vatti, fall on the period of dynamic development of the dubstep scene in Poland, and his productions maintained in this style, were among the first Polish releases published abroad. He has 4 solo albums and also contributes to such projects as the ambient instrumental Hinode Tapes, Nanook Of The North (with Stefan Wesolowski) and JANKA, which is the result of a collaboration with Daniel Szlajnda.

The JANKA project combines both producers' love of dub, modern electronica, Japan and a good dose of humor, which can be found in the twisted titles of each track. Their music has been released on labels such as U Know Me Records, The Moth Club, Yuku and Newdubhall.

Released in guides EP “YAMANOTE” is a complete set, on which there are clear (in the musical, title and visual layers) inspirations of Japan, being for both artists and guides label owner Pawel Dunajko an extremely important point of reference. Both producers, in their work, often take this Far Eastern direction, and they regularly visit Japan, both solo and with JANKA concerts. In 2024, the Yuku label released JANKA's twelve-inch, recorded with Japanese minimalist footwork icon CRZKNY. Similar to the cassette “YAMANOTE,” the vinyl for Yuku combines a fascination with experimental footwork and dub-techno aesthetics.

“YAMANOTE” EP features six tracks, each offering a completely different variation for footwork aesthetics and 160 BPM tempo. The rich multi-layered ambient space is driven by a pulsating dub bass. Sometimes JANKA's music is reminiscent of the crystalline productions of Move D and Benjamin Brunn, with a difference that it is put through various kinds of noisy effects.

The entire album opens with the minimalistic track “Goodweather Dub,” a sort of tribute to Nagoya's Goodweather club and its owner Eri Ishii, who is an extremely important figure animating the independent music scene in Japan. The title track “Yamanote,” set to subtle and unobvious breaks, playfully winks at the popular Tokyo subway line. “Mono Dub,” is a classic sped-up dub footwork. “Ale To Ty Dzwonisz Dub” is built around the repetitive non-obvious sound of a ringing telephone. “Lolska Dub” is a languidly deep half-tempo, and the final “Mute Dub” is a perfect ambient close to the whole.

14/03/2025

A preview of a release that has been maturing for several years, finally to be released by Guides on March 28. Today, you can pre-listen to the title track promoting the whole thing, and a cassette preorder has been launched on bandcamp. The cover was designed by Marta Sieczkowska, the mastering was done by Mateusz Wysocki.

Piotr Kalinski (Hatti Vatti) and Daniel Szlajnda (Daniel Drumz) are artists who hold a special place in the Polish independent music scene. Their solo achievements date back to the first decade of the 2000s, providing an important foundation in the development of the local music scene.

The JANKA project combines both producers' love of dub, modern electronica, Japan and a good dose of humor, which can be found in the twisted titles of each track.