Enter the Magnetic Heliosphere.

Mikkel Rev returns to A Strangely Isolated Place with Evocation, his third full-length album shaped deep within the forests of Norway. 

Since Mikkel’s debut, The Art of Levitation first arrived in 2023, Mikkel has been quietly building his own corner of the ASIP catalogue. Last year's Journey Beyond expanded that vision further, revealing an artist increasingly comfortable balancing the emotional pull of early trance with a more reflective, ambient-leaning approach. While his work elsewhere naturally gravitates towards the dance floor through his own collective, Ute Recordings and other club-focused outlets, his ASIP releases have always evolved differently. Beginning with a larger body of material that’s gradually shaped together, each album seeks to find a narrative without a dancefloor in place; one that moves naturally between momentum and stillness, carrying something of the spirit found in those early-'90s records that drifted effortlessly between peak-time energy and the quiet hours in room two. 

  astrangelyisolatedplace · Mikkel Rev / Evocation (ASIPV057) [Previews]  

Long-form compositions like "Step Inside" and "MRI" favor gradual development over immediate impact, while "Dream Sand" introduces shimmering rhythms that subtly shift the album's momentum and pace. The piano-led "The Infinite" offers a definitive nod to the enduring emotional pull of classic trance before "Sanitorium" closes the record with one of Mikkel's most restrained and affecting pieces to date.

Evocation continues Mikkel Rev's remarkable run on ASIP, extending a catalog where echoes of trance's formative years find new expression through the communal energy and natural surroundings of the Nordic forest gatherings that have become an integral part of his world.

Ventral Is Golden returns on artwork duties, with Lupo handling the mastering and cut. Released on August 28th as a gatefold double LP on dusty purple smoke and digital. 

Buy on Bandcamp

Buy at Space Cadets (UK/EU orders)

 

   

Last Wednesday, Lux Claridge planned to speak out against a proposed 1,000 acre data center in their town of Emporia, Kansas. They left in handcuffs after a city commissioner ordered them arrested for clapping.

“It was annoying,” Claridge told 404 Media. “So what happened was I clapped for the previous speaker. She hadn't even gotten back to her seat before I stopped clapping. My wife was on the way up to the podium. The time for my wife's speech hadn't even been reset yet [...] you see the 51 seconds remaining from the previous speaker. So I don't know what I was disrupting exactly, but I was not clapping the entire time.”

The big topic in Emporia, a town of 20,000 people, is the proposed Flint Hills Digital Campus — a massive data center that would eat up prairie land near Claridge’s home. There’s been several zoning and city commission meetings about the project and Claridge has been there for many of them.

“They’re talking about a gigawatt facility and our local power facility pushes out maybe a gigawatt on a monthly basis, which is something I brought up on my first speech, June 3, I was like, ‘Where are we getting this power from? Because Wolf Creek’s not going to do it,’” they said. Wolf Creek is a local nuclear power plant. “We’re talking millions of homes of power, that’s how much energy we’re talking about here. It’s not thousands, it’s millions.”

Claridge is not opposed to data centers outright, but they do think the current Flint Hills Digital Campus is a terrible idea. They planned to restate their position at the city commission meeting last week where they were arrested. “I was going to basically just call them out on all the potential lies that seem to be surrounding this. It was the week before [...] The news broke that Gary Pinkston, the developer behind this, under sworn testimony in his bankruptcy case, said has no idea what the digital campus project is. He has no interest in it,” Claridge said. “He said the Kanza Park [the LLC behind the project] is his daughter's thing.”

An open letter to the community from Pinkston appeared in both the Emporia Gazette and on the website for the Flint Hills Digital Campus. In the bankruptcy hearing, Pinkston’s creditors asked him if he’d written the letter. “And he said no. And he said he couldn't tell us who did write it. And we're like, ‘Hold on, what's going on?’” Claridge said. “So I had like four points of, you know, kind of catching them in some inconsistencies and asking them about it. You know, who is this Gary guy? Does he work for this or not?”

During the meeting, the commission warned the crowd to stop clapping multiple times, but Claridge walked into the room after the warnings. “We continued to clap, though eventually it started moving to snapping fingers, all beatnik style,” Claridge said. “I did that a little bit too, but in total, I clapped for 13 speeches. I snapped five times, and there were three warnings, a final warning. Then I finally got arrested.”

On the recording you can hear commissioner Monica Duncan tell the police chief to toss out the next person who claps. Claridge had just finished their clapping for a speaker. Their wife was at the podium. “He instead just walks right up to me, tells me to get out, and then, well, you saw what happened. I went to the floor.”

In footage of the meeting published on social media and Emporia’s city commission page, Claridge tells the cops they have a first amendment right to speak. The police ask them to leave and Claridge tells them to “drag me out.”

“I felt like I had a right to be there to voice my concerns,” Claridge said. “I am fully of the notion that clapping is a First Amendment right that I have. I can exercise that as long as I'm not disrupting, and I still argue that I was not disrupting at all. But I basically told them that you know, yeah, I have a right to speak. I'm here to speak. I have a right to clap, and if you want me out, you're going to have to drag me out. And I just stood firm and, well, sat firm and said ‘drag me out’ a couple of times so they knew for sure what I was about.”

They said that the police charged them with disorderly conduct and came back two hours later to add interfering with a law enforcement officer. Emporia PD has refused to share a copy of Claridge’s arrest report with 404 Media, saying it “could interfere with ongoing investigative efforts.”

Claridge said their wife crowdsourced a bail fund from the local community and they were out of jail about eight hours after they’d entered. “They told me my court date was September 10 in the morning,” Claridge said. “Thankfully, while I was in jail, a family friend who's also an attorney texted me and said: ‘Hey, I think you might have some legal trouble coming up in the future. I would be happy to represent you.’ So I do have a lawyer. He seems pretty gung ho about all this, and so I'm really excited to see how this all shakes out in the court.”

The charges haven’t stopped Claridge from talking about the data center — they’ve been commenting on news stories about Emporia and the arrest on social media. “This is a First Amendment thing so you bet your butt I’m going to be speaking out and talking,” they said. 

The arrest is a strange twist of fate. Claridge said they’d had a good relationship with the commission before this. “Monica was actually my quote unquote ‘favorite person’ on the commission, as loosely as I can use that word. So I was very shocked when it was her that probably ordered the arrest,” Claridge said.

The city had even invited Claridge and their wife on a fact finding mission to Pryor, Oklahoma in June. Pryor is home to a massive data center campus that hosts clients like Google and DuPont so Emporia and some of its citizens went to learn how Pryor was feeling about it. Claridge filmed portions of the trip and uploaded them to YouTube.

“I was really impressed with what I saw in Pyror, Oklahoma. I saw all the ad valorem taxes go into things like schools and fire department upgrades. Like the town was wonderful down there, and they brag about how they don't take any state or federal money for their school system. It's all paid by the data center, and I think that's brilliant,” Claridge said. “I would love to see something like that if we can make the benefits outweigh the costs. So you know, do your due diligence. Look into what's being done, what's being promised, and if you don't like it, you know you can always petition and restructure your government or recall your government. That's basically what we're working on now. We got three petitions in the works to try to restructure the city commission into more of a city council situation.”

Claridge isn’t against data centers as a rule, they just want to make sure it’s done right. But the oddities around the bankrupt developer, the current plan to use 1,000 acres of prairie land, and the combative attitude of the city commission are problems. Claridge pointed out that there are already large tracts of land zoned industrial with buildings that have been empty for 20 years. “We have all these properties already ready to go, even in an industrial park four where they want to extend this park. But instead, they just want to build brand new buildings on prairie lands and lands that are like really in people's backyards,” they said.

There’s another meeting in August and Claridge said that the arrest won’t stop them from attending. “From my perspective, these are my representatives and they’re beholden to me and my fellow community members and so I’m definitely going to go and try to make my voice heard,” they said. 

Claridge also said they plan to give a speech in the near future, but they haven’t worked out the details. “And I've heard that a lot of people are planning on coming and being goofy, you know, or a standing ovation or different gestures or whatever,” they said. “They really just make fun of the commission for being so upset over clapping.”

On July 20, Jacob Petrosky stood in front of the Casa Grande, Arizona City Council during a public comment session and made an announcement.

“I've spent the last several months talking to people all over Casa Grande, and one thing keeps coming up: Safety. So, today I'm excited to announce a new company called Shepherd Safety,” he said. “Our mission is simple. Keep government officials and their families safe.” It would be no different than how the city monitors its citizens using Flock cameras, he said; he planned to launch satellites that would use AI to monitor “where government officials go, where they stop, who they meet with, and when they return home.” 

He said he’d already started compiling profiles on their vehicles, spouses vehicles, children's vehicles, and planned to combine that data with Bluetooth signals, advertising IDs, and commercial data sources, “so our authorized users can replay the movements of every government official and their immediate family,” he said. Local businesses would be invited to join the network, to “protect” officials while they shop, eat at restaurants, and move around the city. 

After laying out his plan and its benefits for the government officials before him, Petrosky revealed that it was all satire. “I would never do this to you,” he said to the council members. “Could I? Probably. But I wouldn't because it's wrong. Just like what you guys are doing to us is wrong.” 

Petrosky told me he never expected or intended to be the face of opposition to Flock cameras in his small town. And the clip, which has since gone viral on social media, only shows one angle of one moment that’s part of a much longer fight.  

Casa Grande City Council unanimously approved a 10 year, $10 million contract with Flock last year, and since then, Petrosky has spoken against the partnership several times at city council meetings. “You know, I'm actually a little bit embarrassed by the video. I did not feel good about it,” he told me. “The looks... You don't get to see the looks on [council members’] faces. They didn't understand it was satire in the beginning until the end, and the looks on their faces were like, we hate you and we're gonna get you. They were not happy, they were very upset.”  

What Happened When Flock Came to My Town

My small town in South Carolina will soon have more Flock cameras than police officers.

Casa Grande City Council members did not immediately respond to 404 Media’s request for comment.

Petrosky said he’s not trying to be “a troll,” but after asking the council to consider the invasion of privacy they were inflicting on constituents, including asking them to consider putting Flock data behind a warrant, his patience was wearing thin. “So it didn't feel great, but I wanted it to sink in,” he said. “I'm not looking to go viral. I don't want to be an online personality, but what I really just want is maybe just a little bit of privacy.” 

Petrosky said he first noticed Flock cameras going up in Casa Grande last year. It wasn’t until then that he started getting civically involved. “I registered to vote this year. I'm very transparent about that. I could care less about city council or politics or any of that. I'm very much a nerd,” he said. “They did this deal last year, and then all of a sudden, like 200 cameras appeared in our city, pretty much almost overnight. It was really crazy. In fact, they deployed them so quickly that it freaked me out.” He realized that he couldn’t enter or leave his neighborhood on a paved road without being tracked on a Flock camera. 

Petrosky launched a website, DeFlockCG, along with a petition that asks Casa Grande residents to voice specific demands, from limited third-party access to camera data and repercussions for abuse of the system, to removal of Flock from the city altogether. Almost 900 people have signed the petition so far.

Local news outlet Pinal Central reported earlier this month that a public records request revealed that the city has installed about 140 of the planned 200 cameras as of late June, with half being license plate reader cameras while the other half are pan-tilt-zoom cameras. 

The city’s website about its Safe Cities Initiative says that in addition to assisting in solving crimes and increasing transparency for the public, the initiative and cameras are intended to “prevent crime before it occurs.” The website only mentions Flock in reference to using the Flock OS system to connect cameras and technologies, but links to a “transparency portal” and how to register privately-owned cameras into the network go directly to Flock’s own web pages. On Flock’s website highlighting the Casa Grande partnership, the company quotes Casa Grande Police Chief Mark McCrory: "In the past, investigators relied on slow, manual efforts to gather video evidence. Now, with registered cameras securely integrated into our Real Time Information Center, we can access vital footage faster—turning information into actionable intelligence when it matters most."

Flock ‘Objects to Our Removing Their Equipment’: Emails Reveal Why a Town Put Bags Over Its Flock Cameras

“For the time being, if you or someone on your crew has availability to secure black plastic bags (or something else) over the cameras, that would be great.”

In May, Casa Grande City Council voted unanimously to give police access to elementary school cameras through the Flock partnership. 

Last week, a 404 Media investigation revealed that police departments around the country have used Flock cameras at least hundreds of times to search for specific people with specific characteristics, like “heavy-set male with a black and white hat” or “person on skateboard,” and these searches sometimes reference people’s race or signs of their political affiliation.

Several cities and small communities around the country have canceled their contracts with Flock, citing privacy concerns and the potential for abuse. Petrosky said he primarily wants the city to require a warrant for accessing the data collected by cameras. 

Petrosky knows his “announcement” at the council meeting was absurd, but the absurdity was the point. “It's incredibly stupid, and then it's also just incredibly inappropriate. The thought of tracking and associating them with their children and their spouses and all of it,” he said. He would prefer to keep to himself, and doesn’t relish these moments in front of the council, the entire town, the police department, and now, the whole internet. “Never in my wildest imagination would I ever be in a position like this. I don't want to be famous. I just want this to go away. I want these things to at least just be put behind a warrant.”

Substack contributors are rejecting the company’s decision to flag AI generated writing on the newsletter publishing platform, with several creators saying the new AI detection features are a “witch hunt.” Some Substack users who use AI to help them write or edit articles say the new policy unfairly discriminates against them, while other users who don’t use AI in their writing at all are worried that Substack will mistakenly flag their writing as being AI generated and tarnish their reputation. 

“I’m not going to apologize for using AI in the creation process. I wrote for 20 years without AI, I could do it again if I wanted to,” Mack Collier, who has a small Substack called Backstage Pass, wrote. “My output would fall, my posts would be less structured, and it would be more obvious that they needed a good editor. Using AI improves the overall quality of my writing. That’s why I use it.”

“These detectors are notoriously, wildly inaccurate,” Alice Lemee, a ghostwriter and digital writing coach, said in a video she made about Substack’s new AI detection features. “All it takes is one false accusation for a writer to have their reputation almost irreversibly tarnished.”

Substack announced the AI detection features on Tuesday in a post from CEO Christ Best, who said that “It’s getting harder to tell what’s real on the internet” and that “when content made by no one takes over parts of the internet that are supposed to be human, it pollutes the commons and makes it hard to discover and hear human voices.”

Best explained that Substack has partnered with the AI detection tool Pangram, which is now built in to Substack and allows any user to scan a piece of writing. Pangram then produces a percentage-based score determining how much of the writing was AI or human generated. (Disclosure: Pangram previously bought an ad on 404 Media). We’ve covered research from Pangram, or research that relies on its AI detector before, showing how AI generated writing is flooding every corner of the internet. 

As we’ve previously reported, AI detectors are not perfect, and Pangram itself is not immune to labeling human content as being AI, and labeling AI as human. Max Spero, the CEO of Pangram, recently told us that the company is constantly working on minimizing errors, and that it estimates its false positive rate at roughly one in 10,000.  

“We have now built the mirror image. Pangram is a real machine, trained on vast amounts of text to make a probabilistic guess, and we have pointed it at your writing to work out whether a person is hidden inside,” Sam Illingworth, a professor and the author of Slow AI, said on his Substack in a post titled “Substack’s AI Detector and the Return of the Witch Hunt.” “To decide if there is a human on the other end, Substack asks a machine.”

Substack also added a way for users to add a “How I make this” statement, where they can explain their writing process and disclose if they use AI. 

“We’re not against people using AI to assist their work, and we think people should be free to choose which tools they use to express themselves,” Best said. “Some on the platform are human-writing maximalists, others are publicly exploring the frontier of using AI tools while sweating the details to make work they stand behind. We use AI all the time at Substack to write software, do research, and build product features like clipping, translations, and more. But people should know what they’re getting.”

“I think the best way for Substack to address this is to invite further dialogue,” Illingworth told me. “I actually really like the new feature that lets authors tell their readers how they construct their newsletters using AI, and this is the kind of dialogue they should encourage rather than ascribing a score that we know to be incorrect. My worry is that not only do these AI detectors generate false flags for non-native English speakers and neurodiverse writers, but they also remove any opportunity for dialogue because they start from a position of suspicion. Whereas what we need to be doing is developing opportunities for trust between readers and authors.”

"The tools we've introduced today are intended to increase transparency and give readers more context, not to prohibit or penalize AI-assisted writing. They do not impact discovery on the platform,” a Substack spokesperson told me. “We're also encouraging Substack publishers to add a ‘How I make this’ statement, where they can explain their process directly, including how they use (or don't use) AI, and set expectations for readers. Creators can disable detection on their posts pre- and post-publication, as well as report and remove scans on their own work that they believe are mistaken. Find more information on how the features work here.”

Substack’s attempt to detect and label AI generated content was also celebrated by many readers who are exhausted by AI slop and other internet platforms that can’t or don’t want to label it. I just published story about how there is so much unlabeled AI slop on Spotify that people are now creating their own sites to detect and label it without the company’s help.  

But the backlash from some Substack users shows that companies can’t just flip a switch if they want to ban or give users the ability to filter out AI content from their feeds. As the flood of AI writing and images we see online and the real world every day makes clear, generating slop is easy. What we’re going to do about it is still an unsolved problem.