Eustress
Exit
Kino Disk
Since its inception in early 2024, Kino Disk has been at the forefront of a very particular and newly emerging corner of ambient dub techno that seems less preoccupied with the typical hallmarks of the genre and more interested in channeling its essential spirit through a darker—and at times downright foreboding—lens. With 17 releases under its belt, all cut to limited-run 7-inch or 10-inch vinyl (not including a CD compilation of its first 10 releases), the Chicago-based outpost has quickly established itself as an essential, buy-on-sight source for the exact kind of dub-adjacent sounds that I crave. In the Kino Disk universe, immersive warmth is outlined by a certain enigmatic mystery, and the creeping darkness of modern existence is acknowledged and embraced.
For its inaugural, much-anticipated first full-length, the label brings regular contributor Eustress (a.k.a. Heath Gillespie) back into the fold for the first time since 2024’s Patsy, a collaborative EP with mos fet. Where Patsy felt claustrophobic and waterlogged—imagine the cloying darkness of a submarine slowly filling with seawater as it subsequently runs out of air—Exit is spacious and crystal clear, its shadowed depths pierced by shafts of light to reveal a shimmering, vibrant ecology. Unlike many modern dub techno releases, Exit isn’t another example of pleasant-enough Basic Channel worship; it’s a work that seeks to actively venture towards unexplored new territories.
On “Exit 2,” a flickering synth line carves through the mix like an electric current through liquid, offering a refreshing clarity to a sound that’s so often defined by blurred edges. The slow, rolling pulses of “Exit 3” sweep the listener forwards on tumbling sonic waves, while “Exit 4,” which brings to mind Vladislav Delay’s Anima, shifts and morphs like the elaborate camouflage of a deep-sea dweller evading predators. The journey is undeniably aquatic in nature—a trope that, admittedly, is often present on even some of the most creative dub techno albums—and other reference points are there if you look hard enough. Yet that familiarity is pierced by something that feels downright unknowable. Exit is like an alien light emerging from the depths, reminding us that despite everything we know about the ocean, that knowledge only represents a small fraction of its infinite vastness and complex mystery.
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