For Mankind & East Coast Love Affair

Athens Of The North's close friend and fellow Scot, now Ibiza resident, Pikes resident DJ and island favourite, 'For Mankind' (Russ Forman) had talked about doing a studio collaboration for some time. Last winter, they finally managed to get in the studio and make some music.

Drawn upon their mutual loves of house music, dub and weirdo dance music by the likes of African Head Charge, Larry Heard and Sun Ra. They also added sprinkles of influence from other oddball tracks that make up our more interesting sets. They spent hours just pulling and listening to records from all their collections and talking about music before hitting the studio.

What resulted from the session is a beautiful and exciting blend of everyone's taste - dreamy, minimal, almost techno synthscapes, New York oddball house that sounds like some lost Sleeping Bag test press to almost Música Popular Brasileira.

At one point Russ, (For Mankind) grabbed the mic and hit them with his best pidgin Spanish, this snowballed onto a few more tracks, so they felt it only right the LP should also bear his name. Russ' vocal came as a surprise to them all, loose, funky, wild and carefree, (like the man himself), with positivity and a message: This music is for everyone. We should all work together, help and contribute.

Their good friend Hanna (Philomenah) also brings her giant talent on Brazilian influenced 'I Can't wait', expect to hear a lot more from this Shetland-born singer on Athens of the North and elsewhere.