Release Notes
Label: Dragon’s Eye Recordings
Release: Mixed Signals III
Date: June 12th, 2026
Mastered By: Lawrence English
Artwork By: Braulio Lam
Good morning, dear friends, faithful readers, and random stumblers. It’s April 30th, and we are at the end of this month, slowly rolling into May, and then, a long-awaited summer. Today, I am premiering a wonderful video for you for a track titled “Serifa” by Fax + Braulio Lam. It is taken from their upcoming album, Mixed Signals III, due out in June via the influential Dragon’s Eye Recordings, curated and operated by the one and only Yann Novak, who is currently the featured artist on Headphone Community. That’s right – Yann is just coming to the end of his residency on our platform, where we spent the entire month talking about his music, his art, and his label, sharing some deeply personal insights, vulnerable moments, and, of course, all of the beautiful music, not only composed by himself, but also appearing on his imprint, which is how we land on this upcoming release. But I didn’t need this particular trajectory in order to arrive here – Ruben Tamayo and Braulio Lam have been on my radar since the first volume of this trilogy, which is now complete. The first installment came out in 2020, followed by the second two years later, for which I premiered another video titled “Visions“, and now, we arrive at the third, for which they also share this video, created by Braulio’s cousin Garret, who goes by his alias Toazt.
Where MIXED SIGNALS was grounded and earthy, and MIXED SIGNALS II stretched outward and upward into cinematic expanse, MIXED SIGNALS III is their most intimate and personal yet. Across four tracks, the album traverses ambient landscapes, minimal guitar excursions, and synth waves. Braulio Lam’s acoustic guitar steps into the foreground with fresh confidence; its melodic presence, no longer obscured by reverb, is now in sharper focus, offering an almost folk-like sensibility. At times, Fax is in the foreground, offering synth lines that feel in dialogue with Lam’s guitar, while at others dissolve into the background, not as a side character, but as the architect of the landscape being conjured. This harmony culminates in “Serifa,” where the two voices feel truly in conversation. Beyond these moments, as throughout the trilogy, their individual contributions are indistinguishable, seamlessly intertwined in the meditative swirl. The result feels like two friends wandering together as one, leading us through a grainy and perfectly framed landscape.
For me, the sounds of Mixed Signals, along with its title, conjure the images of greyscale nostalgia, with echoes of news anchors’ emotionless diction, as they provide the latest false update on the disaster that occurred in Chornobyl, in late April of 1986 [that’s 40 years ago now], assuring the public that everything is under control, and that the deathtoll is actually negligble, even as the western news reported serious casualties. Mixed signals indeed. This awful memory [and yes, I witnessed this in person and remember the announcements] is not directly correlated with the beautiful sounds and images appearing on my screen as I watch “Serifa”, but they are, nevertheless, there. Perhaps this stunning, vast, and desolate landscape is just another reminder that after we all destroy ourselves, the planet will breathe a great sigh of relief. The music evokes this gorgeous predicament, and for that, I am thankful to Braulio, Ruben, and Yann.
