Jensen Interceptor - Interception (2025)

On 11th September 2025, Australian producer Mikey Melas aka Jensen Interceptor will release Interception via his International Chrome label. The album, his second long player following 2018s Mother, is something of a state-of-the-nation that finds Melas consolidating several eras of his career, past and present, to form a distinct new sound that is the most experimental work he has produced to date. In 2024, a freak accident at an event he was playing left him with multiple broken bones in his foot. The forced downtime became an opportunity for introspection, allowing him to revisit earlier projects and explore new musical territories. Blending his signature electro with genres such as IDM, footwork, and baile funk, Melas used this recovery period to fuse old influences with fresh global sounds. Since I started making music Ive always made music geared towards use in my DJ sets but theres always been an urge to explore the deeper side of electronic music. That time off after the accident gave me the space to dive into genres and really experiment. The accident came at a time when he had already spent time, like so many others though the COVID-19 pandemic, assessing his next move. A full tour schedule had left him feeling constrained by the limitations of working in a single genre. As such, Interception is the end point of this reassessment and the start point of what Melas sees as the next stage of his musical evolution. I really wanted to challenge and, I guess, prove myself in other spheres, to take my music to a new place. Ive never wanted to be too repetitive and found that expectations, imagined or real, were forcing me to get stuck on a specific sound both in my productions and DJ sets. This renewal is reflected in the title of the album, which eagle-eyed fans will note is the same as the first EP that was released under the Jensen Interceptor moniker, and the emotional and personal nature of the LP is likewise mirrored in the abstract impressionism of the artwork created by fellow Australian, Brodie Kaman, the artist behind the visual look of Lady Gagas recent Mayhem LP as well as works for FKA Twigs, Nine Inch Nails, and more. The design—resembling oil drifting across a microscope slide—uses a mix of vivid pastels and moody darks to express the albums emotional depth: a collection of distinct elements coalescing into something richer and more evocative.