Ratskin Records was founded in 2005 in order to release the music of its founders. Some 93 releases later, the Oakland, California based archival imprint has risen to meet the needs of its community, evolving into a collective that centres issues of disability justice viewed through an anti-racist and decolonial lens. Many of Ratskin’s artists are living on the margins of society – a fact reflected in the label’s commitment to prioritise artist empowerment over capitalist considerations. This playlist contains selections from several of Ratskin’s recent releases, along with a nod to the label’s underground noise origins.

Beast Nest
“Relief/Refuge”
From Sicko

Five years ago, the Ghost Ship warehouse fire claimed the lives of 36 individuals with ties to Oakland’s experimental music community. In the aftermath of this unspeakable tragedy, Sharmi Basu played a vital role in mobilising a mutual aid network for those in immediate need. As Beast Nest, Basu transmutes the trauma of this period in their life into rich and complex electronic soundscapes. Their debut LP Sicko tackles themes of mental health, mourning, grief, survival and self-acceptance. It opens with “Relief/Refuge”, a trip through the bowels of a labyrinthine underworld constructed from found sound, gleaming synths and trance-like rhythms. By the end of the journey, the listener might feel as though their soul has been melted down, ready to be cast into a new mould.

Lexagon
“Kiev”
From Feminine Care

The title of Lexagon’s new album is both comedic and tender; evoking images of a supermarket tampon aisle as readily as it suggests nurturance. The solo project of multimedia artist Alexa Christine Burrell, Lexagon weaves songs from layers of hushed vocals, downtempo beats and moody hooks. One of the most atmospheric and contemplative compositions on the album, “Kiev” is built around organ tones that swell and recede beneath a bright and lofty vocal loop. As the piece progresses, the voice disappears and the music begins to slip out of tune in what feels like a gesture of cosmic uncertainty.

Wizard Apprentice
“You Won”
From Dig A Pit

Tieraney Carter’s official roles in the Ratskin Records collective include content strategy, creative direction and empathy. As Wizard Apprentice, Carter channels that empathy into music that feels both challenging and healing. “You Won” opens their 2019 album Dig A Pit, a frank, disarmingly beautiful meditation on receiving emotional abuse from an intimate partner. “I’m offering this song to you as a trophy for what you’ve won”, Carter sings, their smooth, clear voice piercing the spare instrumentation like a ray of light entering a darkened cavern. Carter’s songwriting is made even more sublime through the album’s smouldering 1960s-esque production – recorded in Seattle by Kenneth M Piekarski and featuring a host of Northwest supporting talent.

Dax Pierson
“Catch”
From Nerve Bumps (A Queer Divine Dissatisfaction)

“Catch” is an irresistible bit of goth-inflected synthwave from Dax Pierson’s LP Nerve Bumps, co-released by fellow Bay Area imprint Dark Entries Records. The album’s parenthetical title references a quote by the choreographer Martha Graham, who once declared that it is “a queer divine dissatisfaction” that drives artists to create. A gifted multi-instrumentalist who was left with limited mobility following a tour bus accident in 2005, Pierson uses cutting edge digital technologies to produce sensuous grooves that leave no inner portal unopened.

Headboggle
“Funk Randy”
From Digital Digital Analog

The latest from Headboggle, aka San Francisco sound artist Derek Gedalecia, is filled with bite-sized high energy snippets of zany beats, goofy glissandos and quasi-cinematic oddities that would not feel out of place in the Orange Milk or Hausu Mountain catalogues. On “Funk Randy”, Gedalecia summons the immortal spirit of Mort Garson, squirting spooky synth weirdness over a slinky bass line that disappears as quickly as it came.

Tyler Holmes
“Heart Token”
From Nightmare In Paradise

Like tender blossoms bursting through broken concrete, the songs on Nightmare In Paradise grew out of Tyler Holmes’s traumatic experiences into something delicate and beautiful. Equal parts lo-fi bedroom folk and lush, baroque pop (complete with backup vocals and cello) “Heart Token” comes on like something already deeply remembered the first time one hears it. Holmes’s layered vocals and memorable hook carry a poignant anthem to the power of vulnerability: “Love in ribbons/the beauty of what you’re giving when you let your heart show”.

Golden Champagne Flavored Sweatshirt
“Animals Calling Animals”
From Expectant

Combining shadowy beats and industrial grit with voices collaged from a variety of media sources – from televangelists to Alex Jones – Golden Champagne Flavored Sweatshirt’s debut Expectant offers a playful yet excoriating reflection of our hyperconnected culture. With track titles like “Human Animal Chimera” and “Animals Calling Animals”, the enigmatic producer draws the listener’s attention to the fluid boundary between the human and the rest of the animal kingdom. The album ends with the visceral workout of the latter, which Claire Biddles described as “a build-up of bile that explodes into a relentless swamp of heavy electronic loops and screams” (The Wire 446).

Coral Remains
“Empire”
From Empire Underwater

At the time of their 2014 LP Empire Underwater, Coral Remains were the trio of Ratskin co-founder Michael Daddona, Ryan King and the late Jsun McCarty, who was among those who passed away in the Ghost Ship fire. The plodding beats, fritzed out electronics and possessed vocals of “Empire” evince the trio’s deep roots in the Bay Area harsh noise scene, while the judicious use of negative space and evocative textures firmly establish Coral Remains as masters of their craft.

Read more about Ratskin Records in The Wire 457. Wire subscribers can also read Emily Pothast's report on the label via the digital archive.