Artists will never come unprepared to a party. They always bring a toolbox packed with tracks that are truly dance floor destroyers. âWhatâs in Your Toolboxâ features artistsâ secret weapons, aka, the tracks they donât leave out of their USB. This installment of What’s In Your Tool Box features, Third Culture.
On X, his new artist album out today (July 3) on Octopus Recordings, SIAN offers provocative instrumentals, synth-pop laden compositions and industrial-influenced techno, all seeping with mystery and darkness.
Influenced by industrial, darkwave, synthwave and classical electro, the 18 tracks on X â including previously released singles âSubzero,â âLike A Drugâ and âFreakuencyâ â showcase SIANâs versatility as a producer and explores his ideas behind the meaning of X.
Fearlessly blending raw, sulphuric, warehouse schooling with apocalyptic sci-fi production, Sian’s Concentrate EP revs the engine mercilessly with these new rave weapons.
Techno tastemaker Sian owns Octopus Recordings and has previously released on acclaimed labels like Pokerflat, Soma and Bedrock, among others. Born of his undying admiration for overdriven drum machine circuits and petrol dipped synth lines, with this release he label head man goes heavier and more feverish than ever before.
Techno tastemaker Sian owns Octopus Recordings and has previously released on acclaimed labels like Pokerflat, Soma and Bedrock, among others.
While not foregoing his other projects, 2019 saw Sian introduce fans to a new sound — one that harkens back to the glory days of electro, synthwave and darkwave. Drawing comparisons to artists like Terrence Fixmer, Blackstrobe, and Vitalic but with a contemporary spin, this new sound has found a home on deadmau5’s mau5trap imprint where, following the projectâs first component, Ultraviolet 1.0, Sian satisfied listeners this year with the second installation of his project: Ultraviolet 2.0. His ever-evolving sounds flow throughout each track with his implementation of acid sounds and varying sound design techniques, and it is his craft that earned him direct support spots for deadmau5âs highly anticipated The Cube V3 tour in 2019.
Beyond his work on Ultraviolet 2.0 this year, he’s booked shows worldwide as Sian, and in summer packed out the Pink Tent at HARD Summer with his second project AMOK with Will Clarke.
6AM is no stranger to Sian’s work, but with so many new projects now on the go, we found it fitting to sit down with the LA resident to discuss them all, and how he juggles each on his very busy schedule.
On December 6th Octopus Recordings brings their newly-launched Warehouse Series sub-label sound to Miami for Art Basel, featuring label favorites Sian, Michelle Sparks and Juheun (Live), as well as special guest Drumcell.
Octopus Warehouse Series is a series of raw, harder-edged, stripped & boosted tracks, that define the sound of the Octopus Warehouse parties.
The event will take place at SQL Miami from 10pm to 5am, with tickets available on Resident Advisor.
Raised in the same fertile music community that spawned his former label boss and mentor Richie Hawtin, Marc Houleâs obsession with electronic sounds goes back to the noise of â80s video games and vintage synthesizers. A decade-long career of seminal records on Hawtinâs Minus label, as well as his own Items & Things imprint, helped define the beloved minimal sound of the mid-â00s (âOn Itâ), before transcending the limits of the sub-genre completely by incorporating industrial, disco and new wave influences (âUndercoverâ).
2018 has already welcomed the arrival of a brand new project, and a key focus for Marc in the form of his Marsian project alongside Octopus Recordings boss Sian. Having released their debut EP on the imprint last month, the duo will combine this May to deliver their debut live show at the Octopus Showcase during Movement 2018, with a second EP and a tour of the Americas also scheduled for the coming months.
The milestone 100th episode of 6AM’s Global Vibe Radio comes from LA resident and Octopus Recordings boss Sian. All tracks featured can be found on Octopus, Octopus Black or are still unreleased.
WORK by 6AM and Obscure present the 4th annual Octopus Recordings Showcase in Detroit on 05/26 during Movement weekend: Info and tickes here.
Two of the most prominent artists in the electronic music scene, Sian and Marc Houle, have both been known as extraordinary outsiders, operating barely within the limits of their genre. Throughout the years they have both stood their ground and bucked the trends, expectations and rules, opting to create very distinct paths to explore their artistic freedom.
Now, Sian and Marc Houle have finally come together for a new collaborative project called Marsian. The project began as a studio pairing, which has now culminated in the release of their first EP entitled X-Rays, from which we are premiering the title track for you today.
Marc Houle kicked off 2017 with the launch of his three-part album series on his own label Items & Things. The first of the trilogy “Sinister Minds” was released back in March consisting of 9 tracks that showed the different sides of Marc, traveling through a selection of styles and soundscapes.
Items & Things announced three remix packages, the second installment coming armed with remixes by both ChloĂ© and Sian, with their take on the textural synth and vocal work of Marc in his original track “Sinister Mind”.
In honor of the occasion we took the time to chat with Marc about Items & Things and to ask him for his 10 top releases since the label’s inception, all of which you can find below! The Sinister Minds Remix package was released today, December 15th, and is available on Beatport.
Sianâs latest project, Capital Crimewave, broke the barres between techno, acid and hip-hop by fusing the genres and taking them in directions not many other artists had eve ventured to.
The album was fearless, unapologetic and transcendental in the way it broke  those invisible boundaries between warehouse techno, urban hip-hop, mind-bending acid, dubbed-out electronics and countless other future genres in between. The massive 20 track LP saw Sian bind together his diverse catalogue of machine-made sounds into one cohesive audio experience that is unlike anything he had previously released on Octopus Recordings, or any other label for that matter. We interviewed Sian and vocalist AG Fernandez at the beginning of April right before the LP came out, digging deeper into the whys and wherefores behind this exciting and innovative project.
For the remix pack Octopus Recordings looked hard into the current state of affairs and chose some purely unique and fearless artists who all had one thing in common: a clear signature sound that defines their entire body of work. The package features the high art dance floor freakiness of Lee Van Dowski; the low slung, post-soviet mechanics of Maksim Dark; Japanese new-school perfectionism from Hoshina Anniversary and of course the sheer, raw energy blast that is Black Asteroid, which we are premiering today.
Purchase Capital Crimewave Remixes on Beatport, and listen to the premiere of Black Asteroid’s remix of “King Pest” below exclusively through 6AM.
