Description
Release Date Friday 10th October 2025
All pre-orders will be dispatched/made ready for collection on that day.
Don Philippe announces new instrumental album Velvet Breaks – out October 10th on Sonar Kollektiv Lo-fi textures meet emotional depth across a meditative, analog- inspired journey.
Sonar Kollektiv proudly announces the new album by lo-fi veteran Don Philippe. Titled Velvet Breaks, the fully instrumental record drops October 10th, 2025 on vinyl and digital formats. With its textured production, broken rhythms, and a distinctly analog warmth, Velvet Breaks is a slow-burning, introspective work – a meditation on fragility, erosion, and beauty in decay.
Don Philippe, real name Philippe A. Kayser, brings decades of musical experience to the project. A professional drummer in the 1980s and later active as a pianist and guitarist, Kayser has worked since the 1990s as a composer and producer from his own studio. He is also a co-founder of the legendary German hip-hop group Freundeskreis, a pioneering act that helped define the sound and culture of German rap.
Since 2015, Don Philippe has focused on instrumental hip-hop, releasing over ten solo albums across various independent labels and building a global fanbase on streaming platforms. His music bridges the soulful subtleties of jazz with the grit of classic boom- bap, always delivered with a delicate, cinematic touch.
On Velvet Breaks, that mastery is on full display. From the crackle of dusty drum loops to the hazy elegance of Rhodes melodies and tape-saturated fragments, the album builds a fragile world where silence and space are just as important as sound. The track titles read like a poetic deconstruction — “fibers displaced,” “torn,” “a rupture, ” “entanglement” — tracing a conceptual journey from tension to release.
The album unfolds like a narrative, with each track title suggesting a step in a process of unraveling: “fibers displaced,” “edges,” “a rupture,” “tension,” “entanglement” – culminating in the title track, “velvet is broken.”
There is no need for words here. The beats speak for themselves, telling a story in fragments, textures, and ghostly grooves.
TRACKLIST:
A1 – velvet breaks
A2 – a rip
A3 - fibers displaced
A4 - displacement
A5 - edges
A6 - torn
A7 - unraveling
A8 - exposed
B1 - tension
B2 - at the seams
B3 - stiff
B4 - a rupture
B5 - of composition
B6 - a clear thread
B7 - entanglement
B8 - velvet is broken
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