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Hot Squid

by Ciel & Mathis Ruffing

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  • Streaming + Download

    Pre-order of Hot Squid. You get 1 track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.
    Purchasable with gift card
    Download available in 24-bit/44.1kHz.
    releases February 27, 2026

      €6 EUR  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Includes digital pre-order of Hot Squid. You get 1 track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.
    Download available in 24-bit/44.1kHz.
    shipping out on or around February 27, 2026
    Purchasable with gift card

      €14 EUR or more 

     

1.
Hot Squid
2.
Hot Squid (Roza Terenzi Remix)
3.
Little Voice 05:01
buy track
4.
Late Summer
5.
Bong Bong

about

Previews: soundcloud.com/punctualityrecords/ciel-mathis-ruffing-hot-squid-incl-roza-terenzi-remix-pnct008

Stepping up for Punctuality number 8 is the dynamic duo of Ciel and Mathis Ruffing. Needing little introduction, both artists are prolific producers and collaborators across tempos and genres. Toronto-based Ciel has released music on labels like NAFF, Peach Discs, and !K7, while Berliner Mathis Ruffing’s work can be found on International Chrome, Infinite Drift, and Strictly Strictly, to name just a few.

Bonding over a shared love for the techno stylings of Claude Young and early 2000s tech/prog house from labels like Future Groove and Slide, the duo’s collaboration began with a spontaneous jam in Ruffing’s Berlin studio during the summer of 2022. With an organic studio chemistry, the pair continued to jam over the following years. Hot Squid is the result of these studio experiments: five tracks of sleek, muscular, contemporary tech house that fluidly distill the creative visions of both artists—slick, shimmering grooves, heavily weighted for the dancefloor.

The title track, Hot Squid, weaves dubbed-out waves of FX and low-end sonics around metallic, staccato drum bursts, sci-fi pads, stuttered vocals, and syncopated snares that flit and flicker around a rolling bassline reminiscent of golden-era UK tech house from the late ’90s. Roza Terenzi’s remix flips the original into a modern, low-stepping tek roller—a mind-bending re-fix that puts more focus on the snaking vocal groove and a sparser percussion arrangement, filled out with lustrous textures and razor-precise sound design.

On Little Voice, glossy synths and spiraling atmospherics cascade around a mesmeric vocal line, while tightly wound, minimal drum loops give way to a swaggering bassline that barely relents throughout the track. The result is a satisfyingly boshy, groove-driven roller, fit for the dancefloor at any time of day.

Late Summer maintains the EP’s high-grade production standard in the form of a dreamy, electro-leaning tech house number, resplendent with deep, pummeling kick drums, woozy low-end, and organic sonics. Its plucked melody and introspective pads nod to halcyon-era IDM and the Detroit techno that inspired the duo in creating Hot Squid.

The release culminates in Bong Bong—a meditative dancefloor tool suffused with ASMR-like nature documentary samples that lend the track a psychedelic intimacy. Careening percussion lines and swooning chord stabs anchor the rhythm, while the title’s "Bong Bong" mantra hums beneath the surface, carried along by barely perceptible sub fills and ultra-processed percussion. A cohesive, unique, and enduring take on seminal tech house and Detroit techno from Ciel and Mathis Ruffing.  

credits

releases February 27, 2026

Cat Num.: PNCT008
Format: 12” / Digi
Written & Produced by Cindy Li & Mathis Ruffing
Mastering & Cut: Marco Pellegrino
Artwork: Alexander Alien
Release Text: Eoin Ryan

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Punctuality Berlin, Germany

If you play with ice, you're guna get freezed.

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