New Music: Robert Hood, Daniel Avery, Main Phase Drop

Estimated reading time: 2 min

Nine releases bridge Detroit minimal and genre-fluid experiments

The slate foregrounds Detroit minimal techno—Robert Hood's Soul Sonic Force EP on M-Plant delivers serrated, driving purist cuts—while Main Phase's ATW038 mines stripped-back UK club minimalism, the producer citing a return to "dark, smoke-filled rooms" over spotlight hooks. Daniel Avery's Tremor (Midnight Versions) reframes his October LP as club-ready edits, and Farsight inaugurates his Situations imprint with deep dub and breaks on Situations 001. (Original source)

Elsewhere, genre-fluid experiments dominate: SAULT's surprise Chapter 1 blends orchestral funk and R&B, while Sam Slater's Lunng folds drone metal and hypnagogic ambient with features from Bendik Giske and Maria W Horn. (Robert Hood - Apple Music) Ciro Vitiello's notes from the air draws on shoegaze and dream pop for STROOM, and Cute Door's "Flashlight (Turn Me On)" opens b4's weekly series with breathy club-pop.

Club reworks and stripped-back UK rollers dominate

Where the overarching slate mixes spectral ambient and orchestral surprise-drops, the club-facing core leans hard on DJ tool functionality. Hood's M-Plant EP re-affirms his classicist Detroit minimal identity—serrated, driving, untouched by the gospel flourishes of his Floorplan alias—while Avery's Midnight Versions reimagines each Tremor album cut as a full-bodied club track, a recontextualization aimed squarely at the DJ booth rather than traditional remix treatment. Main Phase's ATW Records three-tracker eschews anthem hooks entirely, prioritizing slow-build tension over spotlight moments, and Farsight's debut on his own Situations imprint foregrounds dubwise sound design and broken-beat structures, signaling producer-run infrastructure built around hypnotic, loop-driven utility. Even Cute Door's breathy, vocal-driven single arrives via b4's weekly release series, extending a 2025 catalogue cut into the new cycle through platform-led serialization rather than conventional album-campaign logic. (ROBERT HOOD - YouTube Music)

Veterans launch labels as dub breaks resurface

Three producer-run imprints anchor this week's most tactically minded releases. Robert Hood returns to M-Plant—the label he established in 1994 as an outlet for uncompromising Detroit minimalism—with Soul Sonic Force, a two-track EP that doubles down on serrated, loop-driven functionality. (ROBERT HOOD - Forced Exposure) Across town in London, Main Phase's ATW038 lands on ATW Records, a three-part dispatch whose slow-build rollers and stripped palette prioritize hypnotic tension over anthem dynamics. Meanwhile, Farsight inaugurates Situations, his new imprint dedicated to dub-heavy engineering and broken-beat architecture; the Situations 001 four-tracker foregrounds reverb decay and stepped percussion, signaling a commitment to sound-system weight rather than crossover appeal. (Robert Hood – Artists - Insomniac)

Sources

• Original source
• Robert Hood - Apple Music
• ROBERT HOOD - YouTube Music
• ROBERT HOOD - Forced Exposure
• Robert Hood – Artists - Insomniac (2021-08-31)

How we reported this

We reviewed the original coverage from RANews and cross-checked key details against the sources above. If something is unclear or changes after publication, we’ll update this post.

About the author

Tom Rander — is a journalist and electronic music specialist who has spent years documenting the intersection of club culture and technical innovation. With a background rooted in both the booth and the press room, Tom founded Rander.io to provide a more rigorous, expertise-driven alternative to mainstream music blogs.