This latest release focuses on club-adjacent trajectories, moving from ambient to UK garage and rave-infused tracks.

After releasing music on the netlabel Bad Panda Records, Japan’s Azoth Records, and Shanghai’s very own FAN Records¸ Norf is back in 2023 with his new EP “With My Eyes Shut”, where every track is marked by a distinct club feeling, along with stitched-up vocals and drums bursting away at the seams.

All tracks on With My Eyes Shut, recorded between 2021 and 2023, have one element in common: the Akai MPC2000XL, deployed by Norf to blend and sample ambient, garage and techno influences, stitching them back together inside the machine.

Norf’s work recalls the instrumentals of Madlib, DJ Shadow, and Mobb Deep’s Havoc, but his rhythms and vocal lines clearly recall today’s UK club scene. This new EP is an intense 5 tracks project, where the layers and the arrangements are stripped back as much as possible with only one goal in mind: to sound the best way possible when played live in clubs.

Norf showcases ambient influences on Hiremi Cries (with the 303 modulations exploding at the end of the track), UK patterns on Twenty-five and No Sight No Mercy, ending the project with rapid-fire rave infusions on the closing track Sumire Tears.

Norf will be premiering this ambitious new project in its entirety at Manifesto Fest in Rome, along with Kode 9 and Nathan Fake, on November 18^th 2023.

Stream and purchase “With my eyes shut” HERE.