In 2013, Adel Souto started contributing articles about underground music to a friend’s blog; when the blog went under, he took the best of what he had written and turned it into this zine. “Enigmatic Audio” is a mixtape fanzine that shares 17 different playlist-article hybrids full of music you’re not gonna hear from more mainstream sources. Accompanied by a 136-track .zip file, Souto explores everything from poseur punk to tunes made by cults and murderers. I especially enjoyed reading the short history of freebie promotional records that came printed on cereal boxes — as a record collector it’s a little mind-blowing… the idea of listening to music etched into CARDBOARD?!? I wanna track down one of those rarities and give it a spin.

Adel also spends a good chunk of the zine acting as an auditory Anthony Bourdain, introducing music from international locales — Cuba, Thailand, Cambodia. These articles were some of my favorites; the tracks he chose to highlight were stellar, and I’m especially excited to listen to more Luk Thung, a genre of Thai folk music.

It goes without saying that zines aren’t blogs, and blogs aren’t zines… but if Adel ever wanted to resurrect the music blog where “Enigmatic Audio” got it’s start, I’d be thrilled, as I always appreciate having more new-to-me music to listen to. Adel has a great ear for compiling playlists and writing articles around them. Or maybe there’s an “Enigmatic Audio” vol. 2 in our future? Let’s hope so!