Golden Features - Sisyphus (LP) - Blue Vinyl Vinyl

Golden Features has always known how to turn a dark room into a moving organism, but Sisyphus feels like the moment Tom Stell seals that instinct into a proper statement. The Sydney producer’s second album arrived in 2023 with a clenched jaw and a big, pulsing heart, the kind of record that pulls your shoulders forward without asking first. He’s sharpened his tools since Sect and the BRONSON project with ODESZA, and it shows. The kicks bite, the synths glint like streetlights on wet bitumen, and the tension hangs in the air long after the last track stops.

If your entry point was Vigil, you’ll know the drill. It’s a precision strike built on a muscular low end and a melody that reveals itself in glances, not grand gestures. It’s that patience that pays off. Golden Features has always teased the drop, but here he bets on the slow burn and wins, charting a line between peak-time release and a kind of cinematic dread that keeps you hooked. Then Touch arrives and cracks the surface. Rromarin’s vocal is soft without getting lost, threading through a lattice of bass and hi-hats like a whisper in a busy room. It’s a collaboration that makes complete sense; her Melbourne-honed cool adds colour to his monochrome palette, and the hook hangs around for days. If you’ve worn out your Sect LP, consider Sisyphus vinyl your next essential spin.

What hits hardest is the sense of intention in the sound design. There’s a club logic at work, but he resists easy payoffs. A lot of the album lives in this twilight zone between techno and broken beats, with EBM-tainted basslines rubbing up against pads that feel almost pastoral. You can hear the lessons from years of touring and those long studio stints. The drums sit heavy but never smear, while the mid-range synths do the storytelling, snaking around motifs that pop back up when you least expect them. It makes for a cohesive listen, front to back, not just a run of singles.

The title isn’t just an artful flourish. Sisyphus speaks to the grind that often defines dance culture, the repetition that turns into ritual. Stell has talked in interviews about the allure of process, of pushing the same stone up the hill because that’s where the revelations live. You hear that in the way he sets up patterns and lets them mutate by inches. A clamp here, a release there, and suddenly you’re three minutes deeper without noticing. It’s proper DJ brain, but with a producer’s ear for texture.

There’s also a sense of space I didn’t expect. Several cuts let the kick drop away to leave a skeletal frame of percussion and reverb, and those breaths make the heavy moments hit even harder. The sequencing helps too. The record moves like a club night, from flinty opener into the sweatbox middle stretch, then out through a cool-down that still carries a pulse. It rewards a straight-through listen on a decent system, where the subs can do their work and the high-end shimmer doesn’t turn brittle. If you’re the sort who still buys Golden Features vinyl for the living room ritual, you’ll get what I mean.

Sisyphus also lands as a neat chapter marker in the broader Australian dance story. Golden Features came up in the same era that pushed acts like RÜFÜS DU SOL and The Presets into the mainstream, but he’s always felt a shade darker, more warehouse than festival mainstage. This album deepens that identity rather than chasing radio. Local heads clocked it straight away, and you could hear the singles running hot on triple j while still being tailor-made for shadowy rooms and late sets.

From a collector angle, the physical release is worth hunting down. The low-end is carved with care, and the mix opens up nicely on wax. If you’re browsing a Melbourne record store, spin a copy before you make up your mind and you’ll likely walk out with it under your arm. And for anyone outside the CBD, it’s easy enough to buy Golden Features records online through the usual suspects. Sisyphus vinyl sits neatly next to Sect and the BRONSON LP, and if you’re building a shelf of Australian dance classics, it earns its spot. Golden Features albums on vinyl tend to disappear fast in the world of vinyl records Australia, so don’t sleep on it.

Sisyphus isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. It just turns it with conviction, grip and a kind of nocturnal grace. The hooks are understated, the production is dialled, and the mood lingers. Put it on after dark and let it roll.