Similar to the well-known Fact Magazine, Ransom Note (R$N) is a full blown music, arts and underground culture magazine. With an audible and readable enthusiasm, the R$N crew relentlessly delivers reviews, interviews, DJ sets and whatnot. Especially the artist-to-artist interviews give revealing insights into the diverse islands of underground culture. The whole thing has a distinctly British touch, with a lot of influences from UK Garage but also the comparatively open minded approaches to more experimental styles that has been rooted in UK dance music not just since 90s IDM. In political terms, too, R$N refuses to participate in the widespread club hedonism and lets new memes of Boris Johnson constantly popping up in their Musings category. The fact that they don’t try to come across as a global format maintains a certain charm. And even if you don’t always understand everything from the regional political corner, in the end you know where this special humor is rooted.

And yet, with big magazine comes big responsibility. With a constantly activated ad-blocker, you might not notice that on first sight, but Ransom Note is pleasantly free of advertising. In order to be able to cover costs in spite of all this, a Bandcamp platform is already in place, on which music and merch is offered. Recently, when entering the site, are politely asked for support in the form of a Patreon subscription. We can only hope that the supporter mentality will become more evident over the next few years. Especially when you regularly call yourself to mind that in underground music culture, from musicians to record labels to music magazines, a lot of love is put into it but quite often it doesn’t even cover the material expenses.