Rex Riot – Dichotomia
Black Hills – In My Dreams
Lisa Said – Travelling Minus Zero
MFR – CTRL
Tony Kill – Chaos Theory
Demetrius Zozul – Afield
Michael Preston and Oshiro – Yin
#KNO-1 – Love Won’t Let Me Wait
Calm The Waters – Sinking Like a Stone
DJ Winterman – Finale
Fugazi – Ex-Spectator
Dirdy Redzz – Hidden leaf village
nick tha 1da – circular drizzle
Gideon Grove – Wildfires
Scenic MentaL Detours – Skip the Day
Aaron Leitko – Flip Flops (This Can’t Happen)
Pupils – It’s Good To Have Met You
The Rail Runners – One Note Brown
Detox Retox – Dispatches from the Chernaya Rechka
Dr. Nittler’s Elastic Soultastic Planet – Faux Patina

Hurlebaus – Capital Crescent Town
Lilac Daze – Frederick Rock City
Aaron Leitko – Downtown Protoculture / Extended Family (Edit)
Ronny Smith – Lift Off
The Rail Runners – One Note Brown
#KNO-1 – If Only 4 1 Night
Bliss – Still
Scenic Mental Detours – Dots on the Ocean
Soleaux – Cyanide
The Red Lines – There There
PHZ-Sicks – Black Women
Nitemoves – Rosencroix
Yoko K. – huggy robot
Luke Brindley – Threshold
Kindlewood – Desiderium
DJ Winterman – Di Gully
Jordan Clawson – The Play
Once Okay Twice – The Lonely
Daniel Bachman – Song For The Setting Sun I
Brian Forehand – Moonroof

Kindlewood – An Interlude
Cullen Ruff – Longing
#KNO-1 – Love Won’t Let Me Wait
Dirdy Redzz – Drinks at Adams Morgan
Hurlebaus – 1998
The Rail Runners – The Word
Furniteur – Redundant Buzz
Daniel Bachman – Farnham
Peals – Become Younger
PHZ-Sicks – Stream of Consciousness
Yoko K. – attic
Ras Nebyu – Slizzed Up ft. The Arckitech
Elijah Jamal Balbed – What Matters Most – In Life
nick tha 1da – bluburies
Wye Oak – Archaic Smile
Empresarios – Rootsy Jam
Aaron Leitko – 0505#4
Griefloss – Void
Judah – Liv’s Theme Music
Gordon Withers – Revolving Doors

Aaron Leitko – Flip Flops (This Can’t Happen)
Yoko K. – take off
Fellow Creatures – Seance (Shuka)
Drop Electric – What Now, of Paradise?
Detox Retox – Dispatches from the Chernaya Rechka
Waltz Brigade – Strange Names
nick tha 1da – circular drizzle
Jonathan Parker – East Lorain
Abu Jibran – Not Good Enough
Sunwolf – Velvet
Extra Golden – Ilando Gima Onge
Once Okay Twice – I Have An Illness
Restoring Poetry in Music – Luba
Little Hunts – Nocturne (Part 2)
The Wine-Dark Sea – Breaking Through the Cracks of Our City
Night Kitchen – Salt Water Taffy
The Shifters – She’s So Fine
igloo two – the big ego scene
Aquarium – Slow Space
Tone P – Chandelier (Instrumental)

The Mount Pleasant resident stops himself before getting lost in the weeds, however.

“Oh man, nobody wants to hear me talk about this,” he concedes. He loves modular synthesizers — think Moogs, with their knobs, switches and wires — and leaves it at that.

“They’re very niche-oriented and cult-y and, as result, sort of inherently anti-capitalist and DIY,” he says.

He prefers to discuss the non-musical inspirations behind Wasatch Mecha, which
will be available digitally Friday through Atlantic Rhythms, the new locally based label run by his friend, Sean Peoples. (The label also will be releasing a limited run of cassettes.)

Leitko says the EP comes from his desire to create instrumental music with a sense of place.

“If you’re representing a city or a group vibe, it feels better than just being a lonely dude with some synths and a Soundcloud account,” he explains.

On some tracks, this connotes specific people and locations. For example, closer “Harmony Gold” samples Tizita ballads, a nod to D.C.’s Ethiopian community, as well as the 1432R label, which released an EP by Leitko’s Ocobaya project with Protect-U partner Mike Petillo in July.

Wasatch Mecha, the title itself, refers to Leitko’s childhood in Utah. The first word is taken from the name of the Wasatch Range east of his home in Salt Lake City. “Mecha” is a shoutout to the 1980s anime series, Robotech.

“Robotech is very tied up with my memories of Salt Lake City, where I grew up. My whole family was into it,” he says. “It had a lot of robots. And aliens. And singing.”

Leitko and Peoples, the owner of Atlantic Rhythms, have a long history of working together.

“He used to run a D.C.-based label called Sockets, which released a CD-R for me, now mercifully out of print,” says Leitko. “We also owned a van together. R.I.P. van.”

Aaron Leitko and Sean Peoples perform Friday, Oct. 7, at Red Onion Records in D.C.

Here’s another one they did not offer up: “breezily triumphant return.”

Near the end of 2012, Protect-U’s European tour experienced an abrupt and nasty ending: Thieves lifted all of Mike Petillo and Aaron Leitko’s equipment from an allegedly secure back room after a show in Paris. With their gear in the wind, it looked like the pair’s 2012 single “Motorbike” would be the last thing Protect-U would release for a long time.

But thanks to the help of Protect-U’s friends and supporters, Leitko and Petillo raised enough money in a crowdfunding campaign to help rebuild their electronic arsenal. The first audible result of their time working with their new equipment, “Time 2 Technique” places an urgent funk-inspired beat under brighter, more celestial melodies.

The tune will appear on Protect-U’s debut nine-song LP, “Free USA,” out May 13 on local imprint Future Times Records, which Petillo runs with fellow electronic producer Andrew Field-Pickering (Maxmillion Dunbar, Beautiful Swimmers).

Protect-U is scheduled to play Select DC’s Vanguard Festival April 12, U Street Music Hall April 24 with Factory Floor, and Comet Ping Pong May 10 with Peaking Lights.