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In Unfolding Vol. 1, Constrict Music traces the emotional landscape of break-based music with remarkable depth. The compilation feels like a journey through dimly lit warehouses, fog-drenched sound systems, and introspective headspaces where bass and emotion coexist in perfect balance.
Leese draws the listener into a world of liquid melancholy; Rat Princess explodes with fractured rhythms and fearless energy; Medok crafts moments that hover between meditation and momentum; while RandomFX embodies the compilation’s ethos — underground, intelligent, and deeply human.
This LP is more than a sonic experiment. It’s a love letter to the breakbeat tradition, renewed and reimagined by a new generation of artists unafraid to stretch the boundaries of the form.
We spoke with the label and this was the result.
- You call this release “the first in a new era.” What emotions or intentions guided you when shaping this compilation?
By calling this a new era, we mean a change from being strictly seen as a Drum & Bass label and event organiser to expanding our music to more genres. This release is a perfect representation of that shift seeing how diverse it is. - There’s a strong visual identity attached to the LP — how does the artwork reflect the music and this new phase of Constrict Music?
I believe the image goes well with the name of the LP. It looks as if something is unfolding or exploding, going from a close state to an open state. It represents the open minded approach we want to adopt towards break music in general. - How do you balance between the deep, emotional essence of underground music and its accessibility to new listeners?
This is a question we ask ourselves constantly. The most important in this whole music thing for us is to stay true to what we love. Sometimes it means putting out music that we know most people will skip, and sometimes a track resonates with us although it might sound more “mainstream”, so to speak. We think that a lot of people who have been following us from the beginning are in a similar mindset, and it almost always helps the tracks to get the recognition they deserve. On top of that, we love to bring something new to the ears of people who are not into electronic music and it’s usually well received. We might not end up in their daily playlists, but at least we pique their interest. - The project brings together many different artists. How did you foster unity and coherence across so many individual voices?
With this new direction we’re taking as a label, we’re putting the accent on the large genre that we call break music. We believe all of these artists fit in there somehow and this is what makes this album coherent despite all the tracks being very different from each other. - Belgium’s underground has always had a certain raw emotional depth. Do you think this release captures that national energy?
We like to think it does! The cool thing is that we have people from all corners of the country contributing to a single release. People with many years of experience as DJs and producers, as much as people who are putting out music for the very first time.
A lot of tracks on this album are absolutely packed with emotion. It’s a delightful thing to hear, how the artists were able to express themselves on quite a deep level. There’s a delicacy to some of the tracks that makes us want to get to know each individual artist better. - You’ve mentioned the idea of “music diversity with an underground imprint.” What message do you want to send to younger producers through that statement?
I don’t know if we’re in a position to give advice, really, but for us it’s all about being true to yourself and your own feelings. In that sense, we believe artists should not focus too much on what’s trendy but rather on what they really want to create, even if it means getting less attention. It’s a difficult exercise in today’s trend-driven music, but it feels so much better than to conform to something that is not you. - Could you share something memorable or unexpected that happened during the curation or mastering process?
I’m sure our mastering engineer Igor aka Ofrn (big shout out to him) has a lot of anecdotes to share on mastering, hahah. Aside from that we were really delighted to see how fast the artists we were in touch with trusted us with their music. After all we’re still a small and growing label, but we feel the quality of the music we were able to put out with this release totally outweighs our notoriety. We’re really grateful for that. - If you could describe “Unfolding Vol. 1” in three words — both musically and conceptually — what would they be?
True, open, beginning. - How do you hope listeners will feel when they reach the end of the LP?
Hopefully some of the tracks will resonate and they will check out more music from the artists! And hopefully they’ll be on the lookout for our future releases hehe. We’re thinking a lot about our release schedule for 2026. It should be more packed than 2025, which has been a quiet year for us. We’re eager to put out more good music and hope our listeners are too! - BUY