V/A – 15 Years of Butter Sessions

Community has always been at the heart of what Butter Sessions does. A lodestar for psychedelic techno and house, the last 15 years has seen the Melbourne/Naarm imprint grow from teenage blog to underground powerhouse. Their prolific release schedule has featured outings from Jennifer Loveless, Jayda G, Physical Therapy, Mousse and Roza Terenzi, while their events have snowballed from 200-capacity basements to multi-stage all-dayers.

Founders Corey Kikos and Maryos Syawish, AKA Sleep D, met at school in Frankston, a coastal suburb about an hour’s drive from the CBD. Cut-off from the city’s club scene by age and distance, they made the most of what their area had to offer, immersing themselves in under-18s nights, scouring record shops and music forums for new mixes, and making and sharing tunes with friends online and IRL.

Talking to DJ Mag in 2023, the duo explained: “Starting a label became a way for us to meet other people and slowly form a community that has grown over the last 13 years. Now, it’s about sustaining, advancing and enjoying the process.” Their 15th anniversary compilation pays witness to this, mapping the label’s journey across a three-disc line-up of new tracks from friends, collaborators and boothmates.

Disc 1 looks back to their foundations, and the spirit of global collaboration and curiosity that shaped Butter Sessions’ early identity. Sleep D’s percussive dub link-up with Japanese DJ and producer Kuniyuki Takahashi on ‘2015 (Kuniyuki Dub Version)’ calls back to the first anniversary of their club night Mania, which marked Kuniyuki’s first show in Australia, and one of Butter Sessions’ first international line-ups. From closer to home, Naarm’s Hasvat Informant contributes a pounding piece of kaleidoscopic techno, while duo Albrecht La’brooy build a celestial soundworld from soft melodies and shuffling electronics, all before Bangkok’s Sunju Hargun injects psychedelic rhythms and sinister synths into a captivating disc-closer.