There’s been a quiet hum around this one for a while now. Whispers. Half-memories. A song buried in the static. It broke surface for a moment in ’24 via a leak on a surveillance media feed. The heads got hungry. It was referred to as ‘the harmonica one’.

Now, finally, it’s here in finished form: De Laatste Rit (The Last Ride), a hypnotic transmission built around a chunky SEM synth line that pushes ever onwards, slowly, steadily, through spent circuitry. It’s cosmic disco at its most cinematic: John Carpenter and Morricone grind it out on a Rimini dancefloor.

It’s the second release on Big Strings Attached, Abigail Ward’s DIY microlabel for music that might otherwise slip through the cracks. This time, she teams up with young folk outlaw Oliver Cross (Paraorchestra, The Patterers), who delivers an ecstatic harmonica solo — a howl from another realm. Less a guest spot, more a spiritual breach.

Designed to repel algorithmic analysis, De Laatste Rit ain’t gonna be turning up on any mood-based playlists any time soon. It’s for the deep listeners, the tuned-in, the cosmically credentialed. Anyone whose spirit is deemed too closed, too clenched, too cowed by the hetero-authoritarian hate machine will simply hear silence when they press play. But for those on the right wavelength? This is a doorway.

De Laatste Rit is accompanied by two Versions. The first comes courtesy of dub techno mystic J.S.Zeiter (Kontakt, Lempuyang), who briefly emerges from his Cheshire hermitage to lay down a characteristically amniotic rework aimed squarely at the centre of the ultraworld.

The second is a fragile, fragmented live analogue dub created by Outsider (Joni Newham, Saffron Music) that uses absence as an instrument in its own right.

The four artists involved have but one request: play only at the deepest hour on a system that can handle a serious low-end ritual.

Dedicated to the memory of M. L. Cuckson, who may or may not still be listening.

50% of the net profits from De Laatste Rit (The Last Ride) will be donated to Medical Aid for Palestinians on behalf of Oliver Cross.