When Beatportal first spoke to Luca Venezia, better known as Curses, about Next Wave Acid Punx back in 2021, it was obvious this was not going to be some neat little compilation project. This was someone emptying out a record bag full of weird, dangerous, badly behaved music and daring you to keep up.

The first 38-track chapter nailed the restless logic of Venezia’s DJ sets: post-punk, krautrock, disco, EBM, new beat, Italo, oddball electronics and big BPM swings all shoved into the same room. No clean lines. No tidy genre worship. Just records that make sense because they hit the body first. Eskimo Recordings had originally approached Venezia to build a compilation around EBM and new beat, two sounds the Belgian label knew well through its deep, scene-specific compilation work. In his hands, though, it became something more personal: a stash of cult records, secret weapons, warped classics and sweat-soaked oddities that helped form the Curses sound.

By the time Next Wave Acid Punx DEUX arrived in 2023, the series had gone even darker. The Halloween release was not a cute coincidence. Venezia loves the season, and DEUX sounds built for it: cold, jagged, wired, a little haunted. This chapter dug into the place where bands and club music start chewing on each other, where guitars, vocals, synths, drum machines and live performance energy all feed the same thing. Acts like Boy Harsher, Poison Point and Throbbing Gristle sit right in that zone. It is music for black-box venues and basement clubs alike. 

Now, with Next Wave Acid Punx TROIS, the third and final chapter brings it back to where Venezia first got swallowed by electronic music. Before he was DJing, he was in Brooklyn punk partying in New York rave rooms, hearing hardcore, gabber, techno, breaks, trance, ambient, drum & bass and industrial and more. That was the education. Not genre as a category, but genre as impact. One room could be violent, euphoric, psychedelic, romantic, ugly and beautiful all at once.

Across 46 hard-to-find, new and exclusive tracks, TROIS connects Detroit techno, proto-trance, breakbeat hybrids, new beat muscle and newer artists still chasing that same raw spark. Taken as a trilogy, Next Wave Acid Punx is Venezia’s map of the records that made him. Strange, sweaty, romantic, aggressive, euphoric and hard to pin down in all the right ways.

Speaking about the trilogy, Venezia told Beatportal:

Next Wave Acid Punx is a deep dive into the music that made me a musician, producer, and DJ. Belgian new beat, Italo disco, post-punk, EBM, proto-techno, electro and beyond. A lineage that resists easy definition, expressed through the curation of three compilations on vinyl and digital.

We recently caught up with Venezia, who went through all three Next Wave Acid Punx compilations and selected three essential tracks from each release. Check it out below.

Next Wave Acid Punx: Chapter One

Cardopusher - Escape From Reality

I’ve been friends and traveled through many different scenes with Cardopusher for over 2 decades. From breakcore to EBM and now his safety trance project is killing it on a whole other different level. To have him on the first compilation with his signature (at the time) punk and raw EBM acid vibes was essential.

Franz Scala - Shortwave Memories

THE berlin don of the Italian-dance wave. To have Franz on the first compilation was a no-brainer, his importance in this sound continues to grow and inspire, so does his sometimes darker edge in tracks like this one.

BPM AM - Come To Me

The Compilation all started with New Beat. I was invited by Nadiem at Eskimo Recordings/NEWS to curate a comp of my favorite Belgian New Beat gems… well… it all kind of took a life of its own from that invite. And one chapter turned into three.

This track was the first New Beat track to get me hooked. The cinematic yet punk energy and slow but heavy-hitting power still hold strong and will forever.

Next Wave Acid Punx: DUEX

BOY HARSHER - MACHINA (feat. Mariana Saldaña) [Dark Mix]

Words don’t do justice on how important Boy Harsher’s sound impacted live electronic music of the last decade. So many bands spawned from the vocal and minimalistic energy and attitude they created. This one is a timeless club ballad featuring the inimitable vocals of Ms. Boan.

Nuovo Testamento - Heartbeat (Curses Remix)

The mega Nuovo Testamento asked me to remix them a few years back, with no release plan or agenda in mind at the time… That remixed kind of became the seed of DEUX: a collection of live electronic acts carrying the DNA of '80s Italo Hi-NRG, acid, and post-punk.

The Hacker - Monopoly

I mean. The Hacker. His impact on underground club music is priceless. This one is still on heavy rotation in my late-night heavier DJ sets.

Next Wave Acid Punx: TROIS

Metropolis - Time Of War (A.C Mix)

A track that hauntingly hits with heavy relevance, given the state of the world… uplifting, urgent, proto-techno at its finest.

Andi, Kendal - Still Human

It’s difficult to pick one solid track that can define the vibe of TROIS, but if I really had to, this would be the one. Channeling all things last 80s, early ‘90s Valencia, Frankfurt, and now.

C.ru.z - No Hay Comunicacion

Valencia’s La Ruta de Bakalao holds a permanent place in my heart. From the legendary Megabeat/Interfront to today’s pioneers, c.ru.z, AMQN, the ventidos 22 scene, this lineage is everything right now for Spain and beyond. An absolute staple in every recent set.

Curses' full Next Wave Acid Punx' trilogy is out now via Eskimo Recordings.

Get it on Beatport.