On Repeat: 15 years of A Love From Outer Space

On Repeat: Harold Heath looks back at some of the best electronic music albums of 2025 in this special series for 5 Mag.

A Love From Outer Space celebrates 15 years of Sean Johnston and Andrew Weatherall’s legendary/infamous A Love From Outer Space club night.

Compiled and mixed by Johnston (Weatherall tragically passed away in 2020, aged 56), the vibe here is 4/4 but s-l-o-w: in contrast to the pace of contemporaneous house and techno, ALFOS never knowingly played a record above 122 bpm, preferring the mine the riches of dub-disco, hypno-trudge, acid chug and all manner of psychedelic, tripped out, low tempo slow burners. In setting up their aesthetic, Weatherall and Johnston were doing that thing that the very best DJs do, finding some kine of previous unthought commonality between disparate music, defining or uncovering a very particular dancefloor mood and direction by selecting tracks from here there and everywhere, as long as they meet the criteria for the pairs’ particularly musical vision: tunes that have space and time, that slowly deliver their goods, that grind, twist, mutate and grow, that sometimes come with their own particular flavour of euphoria or elation, however twisted, alternative or obscure it may be – tracks that chug but smolder.

You get lots of highly sought-after rarities, including glittering Balearic gem Neville Watson’s Blow Monkeys remix, Jay Shepheard’s 2011 epic, tense, huge-warping-bassline remix of Cisco Cisco’s “If You Want Me,” cooly sequenced Italo disco from Discoscuro, and 2017’s bubbling arpeggio’ed sequenced synth-disco “None” by LAARS.

Would I ever have paid attention to Niv Ast’s “Jungle Marvin,” a track with Plastikman-esque rolling 606 type drum patterns, and a very low key, moody groove that ups the ante substantially with the addition of a massive overdriven gnarly guitar riff, where both central elements just repeating over and over, eventually forcing you into submission, without it’s recontextualisation here into a potentially ecstatic bass and rhythm thudder? It’s a rhetorical question, but you get it, the answer is no, definitely not. That’s why this is a great comp. That, and the more prosaic fact that it’s filled with dubbed out sickly thudders, unstoppable broken disco dub instrumentals, and tripped out goth chuggers.

⚪️ 15 years of A Love From Outer Space Tracklisting

Various Artists: A Love From Outer Space (Material Music / 12" Vinyl + CD + Digital)
1. Blow Monkeys - Save Me (Neville Watsons's Dub) (08:09)
2. Jonny Sender - Zhivago Zhivago (09:47)
3. Cisco Cisco - If You Want Me (Jay Shepheard Remix) (07:10)
4. Laars - None (07:11)
5. Duncan Gray - Gone & Forgotten (feat. Dominic Silvani) (07:14)
6. Secret Circuit - JungleBones (Tiago Mix) (06:31)
7. Bongo Entp. - Drømmen (SIRS Remix) (05:48)
8. Feon - Round Earther (05:50)
9. Darlyn Vlys - Wuzu (Tyu Tribe Remix) (07:22)
10. Niv Ast - Jungle Marvin (06:17)
11. Kimo - Whirl (06:57)
12. Bal5000 - Bleu Infini (07:55)
13. Discoscuro - Discoscuro (06:24)
14. Popular Tyre - Feel Like A Lazer Beam (07:43)
15. Class B Band - Repli-can (Edit) (06:01)
16. Phil Kieran - Find Love (Andrew Weatherall Remix) (07:42)
17. Jazxing - Neu Nostalgia (Das Komplex Remix) (04:56)
18. Das Komplex - 89 (08:04)
19. Brioski - Calling 626 (08:54)
20. A Love From Outer Space (Continous Mix) (01:13:58)
21. Niv Ast - Jungle Marvin (Sean Johnston ALFOS Edit) (06:48)

⚪️ Disclosure Statement

This record was not submitted as a promo.

✳ On Repeat: Harold Heath’s 2025 In Albums /

❇   On Repeat: Joe Morris and Some Kind of Paradise
❇   On Repeat: 15 years of A Love From Outer Space
❇   On Repeat: Black Artists Database’s V/A Synergy Vol 3 compilation
❇   On Repeat: Unspecified Enemies and Romance In The Age of Adaptive Feedback
❇   On Repeat: DJ Bone and The End of Never
❇   On Repeat: Futuristic Sonics for the Soul on rRoxymore’s “Juggling Dualities”
❇   On Repeat: Maurice Fulton’s sparkling house album “Night Blooming Cereus”
❇   On Repeat: A decade of Ron Trent tracks come together on “Lift Off”

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