Pure Space has always been a platform with a long memory and sharp ears. Emerging from Andy Garvey’s beloved FBi Radio show, the label has spent the past five years mapping the outer edges of club music and ambient experimentation across Australia. Known for its strong curatorial hand, Pure Space’s first reissue, Black Smoke (2025 Remaster), feels like a return, a time capsule that links its present vision to early foundations.

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To revisit the roots, you start with someone who planted them: ARIA Award-winning Sydney-based electronic music producer Andy Rantzen. Rantzen may be best known to some as one half of Itch-E & Scratch-E, an act that helped bring rave culture to mainstream Australia in the ‘90s, but his solo output runs much deeper and stranger. Tucked between ambient experiments and raw acid jams, Black Smoke first appeared in 2001 on the Deep Blue compilation by Creative Vibes, and has remained a low-key cult favourite among heads ever since. Now, nearly 25 years later, it returns remastered, accompanied by three never-before-heard alternate mixes uncovered in Rantzen’s DAT archive. Each version reimagines the original’s tek-inspired framework with subtle shifts: one heavier, one more acidic, one slow and brooding.

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Minimal Collective premieres Alternative Mix 1, where sharpened percussion slices through thick bass to reveal a moodier, heavier core. As the label reflects: “Nearly 25 years on, Black Smoke remains vital. A reminder that some frequencies never fade, they just keep mutating.”

Full tracklist

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1. Black Smoke (2025 Remaster)

2. Black Smoke (Alternative Mix 1)

3. Black Smoke (Alternative Mix 2)

4. Black Smoke (Alternative Mix 3)

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Black Smoke (2025 Remaster) will be out on July 17th, 2025. Pre-order a copy via Bandcamp.