Back in January 2025 I sent an email to Kevin Gan Yuen of bay area noise favourites SUTEKH HEXEN. This email was just a 'Hello, this is the guy who's been engaging with you on IG'. Then I realised that since I started posting my weekly mixes via portcorner.com at the beginning of Covid 19, I had featured SH tracks in 7 mixes... its up there with some of my all time favourite bands such as Coil, Sunn o))) or Autechre.
So around May I asked Kevin if he'd be interested in putting together a playlist of some of his favourite music for a new mix, and what would be the first guest curated entry in more than 5 years and 200+ mixes. Clocking at almost 2 hours, this is a surprising compilation of songs, and a novel challenge. Stitching together such a disparate medley goes against the grain of my kind of mixes which are always mood/thematic/genre specific. I'd never mix breakcore with black metal (sorry Igorrr) but there's always a first.
Going through the songs, there's hymns of teen angst reveries and romance, forever classics and as you'd expect, a bunch of contemporaries to the sound of Sutekh Hexen. A list became a mix, it weaves between dreamy and ominous, the reference and the unknown, the enjoyable and the unsettling, a testament to Kevin's rich tapestry of influences and sensibilities, balancing what is in his own words: 'that grey area which is the shadow from the light'.
Listen to the mix here.
Images are courtesy of Kevin, from his personal photography collection, with significance to what is presented in the mix.
Introducing V.A.M.O.S. (Verge Advanced Modular Optimised System) - our disruptive, modular, shape-shifting system that showcases our ongoing approach to circular and sustainable production. We've been making shoes for 20 years and have the know-how and the drive to see through our contribution to change in consumerism and waste.
With this effort we invite our target audience to think needs rather than wants, to dramatically reduce consumption and prioritise their products quality and longevity.
the Sutekh Hexen boot project, October 2025
The V.A.M.O.S (Verge Advanced Modular Optimisation System) program is the core of our approach to fighting the evil of consumerism. An initiative that highlights the pressing need for change and the adoption of sustainable routines and practices in new product development and production.
Stemming from our own experience as makers, we became first-hand witnesses of the broken, immoral capitalist-endorsed relationship between industry and market and have decided to do something about it.
The important keywords to take away are: Standard and Timeless. Upcycle and Recycle. Repair and Reuse. No Over Production.
We are grateful for the chance we have to contribute to change, doing the stuff we love, in our very own community, with the makers we have known for years and can call friends. All our materials are sourced with supply chain traceability, most of them available in a 5 km radius. All our materials are hand picked and upcycled from existing stocks in these very same factories we are making the product, chasing the arcadia of circularity.
We make products through optimistic eyes, not trying to reinvent products every season which will entail needless design, sampling and selling efforts. Putting out garbage for the sake of newness, to generate newsletters and worthless social media. To desperately pay mounting bills at the expense of exploited staff and interns.
Returns will be repaired, resold or donated. Our products will have little marketing material, no hand tags, no exaggerated labels, we don't use what we don't need. Consumerism is an environmental disaster and a spiritual void. Do not stress about it. Do something about it.
![]()
Editorial / Manifesto
Who Owns The Dark?
Devised To Resonate. Noise is Resistance
The Verge proposes a transformative roadmap to how we can create a brand on the verge of making sense of the inextricable relationship between fashion and music. Through work of collaboration with a painstakingly curated selection of challenging and unfettered artists, leading the way in the realms of experimental music, way left of the current field, from esoteric to the extreme.
Our aim is to translate our combined conceptual visions, production values and experience into timeless fashion products. A collection of signature exemplars made with intention, ignoring fads and embracing the path to minimise the devastating effects fashion has on our planet.
We have worked in fashion for 20 years and have experienced first hand what it is to live in a near constant state of cognitive dissonance, in a ruthless culture of non stop consumerism, where needless, useless new products are churned in with every scroll of a screen, where distinguishing the good from the bad and the ugly is becoming an alarmingly difficult task.
We have worked in fashion for 20 years, sourcing products in footwear and apparel to some of the most forward thinking brands and fashion houses in the world. While doing so we have experienced, first hand, what it is to live in a near constant state of cognitive dissonance, in a ruthless culture of non stop consumerism, where needless new products are churned in with every (doom) scroll of a screen, where distinguishing the good from the bad and the ugly is becoming an alarmingly difficult task.
Our aim is to translate our combined love for fringe experimental and underground music, artistic visions and production values into timeless products, touching on signature standards, which will resonate with a new crop of consumers looking for honest and elevated products they can relate to, both classic and contemporary. (Pic: Pedro Falcão. From Ruin by Candura & Rui Chafes at Serralves, Amplifest, Sept. 2023)
Products with a twist, that are made to the highest standard, at a selection of local factories in our hometown in the north of Portugal. People we know for years and can call friends. Products that are made to endure fads, while embracing the path to minimise the devastating effects fashion has on our planet. (Pic: Portcorner Archive, 2018)
We live in a fast fashion world, feasting off the ghoul of consumerism and creating a huge environmental impact and spiritual void. We can't ignore its contribution to pollution, resource depletion, and climate change. The Verge is us doing our part through collective catharsis. (Pic: Rest On Your Arms Reversed by The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud, 1999)
![]()
Editorial / 10 Albums Manifesting The Verge - Part 1
#1: Bathory 'Blood Fire Death' 1988
It’s sometime in August 1993. Another lazy Sunday afternoon, no a.c. 35 celsius, at Pedro's house. Some other guy plays a very different record. It’s Bathory’s ‘Blood Fire Death’.
I had listened to inspired intros, from classical to Vangelis - I even had several tapes filled with short, often eerie, mostly atmospheric and instrumental pieces I called (and still do) "intermissions" that I stitched between long tracks, right after an abrupt close or just carefully used as inspired fillers to reach a tape's full capacity - but listening to ‘Oden Ride over Nordland’ while staring at the rather peculiar cover art of the album (for a metal release) sends energetic chills down my spine. This is another one of them (ever so scarce) experiences when you find yourself listening to an album for the very first time and you already know it will go down as a special one, because you're already dropped a few 'wow' on the first couple of tracks.
#2: The Young Gods 'L'Eau Rouge' 1989
#3: Emperor 'In The Nightside Eclipse' 1994
#4: Today is The Day 'Temple of The Morning Star' 1997
#5: Godspeed You Black Emperor 'Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven' 2000
#6: Sunn O))) - 'Flight of The Behenoth' 2002
#7: Lurker Of Chalice 'Lurker Of Chalice' 2005
#8: Krallice 'Dimensional Bleedthrough' 2009
#9: Deathspell Omega 'Paracletus' 2010
#10: Rafael Anton Irisarri 'A Fragile Geography' 2015
Established in 2025, the Verge aims to translate our combined conceptual visions and production values into timeless signature fashion products, which will endure needless fads, while embracing the path to minimise the devastating effects fashion has on our planet.
Devised to Resonate. Noise is Resistance.