Like the quiet rustle of silk sweeping across a stone floor, b0n’s arrival on Magic Carpet bears the elegance of surprise. Hailing from the southern Russian city of Pyatigorsk – a place nestled between myth and mineral springs – the emerging producer takes flight with four meticulously crafted cuts. Known previously for his outings on underground strongholds Mixcult Subee and Broox Records, b0n now leans confidently into Lisbon’s cherished imprint, delivering an EP that skims the stratosphere between UKG’s percussive bite, progressive house’s transcendental depth, and breakbeat’s anarchic spirit. Here, on Magic Carpet innovation entwines with nostalgia, and time folds in on itself — if only to reassemble the rave.
Opening proceedings like a sunrise unfurling over a mist-draped skyline, “Breakflow 33” is a proggy breakbeat incantation laced with the soul of UKG’s golden hour. Metallic hi-hats flit like dragonflies over dew-tipped pads, while ominous vocal snippets echo through the ether, hinting at rituals half-remembered. The track glides forward with cinematic poise — its breakdowns pull you momentarily into shadow before the groove surges back like a heartbeat rediscovered. This is club music steeped in storytelling, a warm machinery powered by breath and bass alike.
Where “Breakflow 33” meditates, “Sasha Palomal” races. Here, b0n conjures a full-tilt progressive breaks odyssey, its bassline slithering beneath a lattice of hallucinogenic textures and crystalline melodies. It’s the auditory equivalent of running through a strobe-lit forest — eyes wide, pulse quickened, each sonic detail a flicker of bioluminescent weirdness. The tempo is unforgiving, yet beneath the speed lies nuance: micro-melodies glint like shards of colored glass in the track’s undercurrent, inviting the curious ear to dive deeper.
If there is an afterparty in the astral plane, “Positive Morph” plays as its soundtrack. A reverent nod to the twilight years of early 2000s progressive – think the hazed euphoria of BT or John ‘00’ Fleming’s darker hours – this piece unfurls like incense smoke in a dusky warehouse. Moody and refined, it drapes breakbeat rhythms in velvet chords and ghostly motifs, creating a sense of forward movement drenched in déjà vu. It’s not revivalism – it’s reincarnation. This is the past reimagined through a future-facing lens, a transmission from a memory that never quite belonged to us.
Closing the record is perhaps its most bittersweet offering. “Fractures” is a melancholic breakbeat coda, its Goa-inflected pads and skewed samples painting scenes of sun-drenched abandon. But even in its radiance, there’s a pull — a descent into the abyss, as if the dancefloor were dissolving into light. Echoes of Habersham flicker throughout, but the reference feels more like kinship than mimicry. In the end, “Fractures” is a farewell disguised as a liftoff, a reminder that euphoria and melancholia often arrive in tandem
Just when it seems the progressive renaissance has reached its final verse, b0n composes a new stanza — one that hums with both reverence and rebellion. His EP “Breakflow 33” unfolds like a palimpsest of club culture: traces of old ink resurfacing beneath a fresh stroke, subtle salutes to forebears woven into a forward-facing narrative. With these four cuts, b0n doesn’t just honour tradition — he reanimates it, reassembling fragments of rave memory into something intimate, intricate, and utterly of the moment.
Words by Sasha Pliskin
Torture the Artist 