Hidden Dreams EP

Four tracks on Cabaret Recordings, the Tokyo label run by So Inagawa and DJ Masda since 2013 — one of the most quietly respected underground imprints in Japan, named RA’s Label of the Month. CABARET039. The label roster includes Binh, who also releases on Perlon, which places this Tokyo operation squarely in the orbit of Berlin’s minimal infrastructure despite being eight thousand kilometres away.

Samuel Jabba is from Bogotá. He co-runs Pleasure in Mind Records there, and his discography stretches across labels in Tokyo, Berlin, London, and Barcelona. The Hidden Dreams EP is four hypnotic doses of tech-trance — acid textures layered over hard beats, the closer “Future Mind” especially minimal, skeletal but tonally unafraid. The B-side features Torrent, a recurring collaborator who also appeared alongside him on the Cymatix 003 compilation.

The geography is the thread. A Colombian producer on a Japanese label distributed through European channels, with a Berlin-rooted artist (Binh) as labelmate. The underground techno network used to run on a Detroit-Berlin-London triangle. Records like this one suggest the triangle has become a web — Bogotá, Tokyo, Mar del Plata, Cairo — with the same 303s and 808s as common language.