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Ian Kim Judd Has Better Taste Than I Do

2026-02-18 · 11:03 UTC ·First Floor ·5 min read

Brief

Shawn Reynaldo’s First Floor newsletter hands its weekly recommendation slot to Ian Kim Judd, a New York-based DJ and founder of the OST label, to spotlight a record suited to a bleak winter stretch in NYC marked by the city’s biggest blizzard in nearly a decade and a prolonged cold spell. Reynaldo situates Judd as a connector between music curation and tech: his NTS show Fifth World has run since 2017, his OST label specializes in the overlap of ambient, experimental electronics, and damaged pop forms, and he also worked as a web developer/engineer on Nina’s early buildout. Judd’s pick is Nový Svět’s Desde Infiernos De Flores on Quirlschlängle, the imprint run by Würzburg duo Brannten Schnüre. He describes the 2022 release as a 19-track compilation from 2004-05 sessions whose collage-like sequencing moves across trip-hop, folk, and chillout fragments, giving it a distinct gravity despite clear affinities with adjacent experimental catalogs.

Why it matters

First Floor’s Feb. 18, 2026 guest-recommendation column profiles NYC DJ, label head, and engineer Ian Kim Judd through a single album pick for a harsh New York winter.

Key details

  • Judd has hosted the monthly NTS show Fifth World since 2017, runs the OST label in New York, and is described as focusing on independent and underground music rather than dancefloor-oriented DJ culture.
  • The piece notes Judd also worked as a web developer/engineer and helped launch Nina, a young music platform centered on independence, avant-garde sounds, and online/offline community-building.
  • Judd recommends Nový Svět’s Desde Infiernos De Flores, released by Quirlschlängle in 2022; the album contains 19 untitled tracks drawn from recording sessions in 2004 and 2005 and is framed as more mixtape-like than a conventional album.
  • He characterizes the record as spanning trip-hop, chillout sketches, threadbare folk, and harder-to-classify material, compares its feel to early Wino, parts of the Stroom catalog, and loose HTRK, and says the sold-out LP is unavailable on digital stores but can be found via a YouTube upload.
Cleaned source text

title: Ian Kim Judd Has Better Taste Than I Do

author: First Floor

content_type: newsletter

publication: substack.com

published: 2026-02-18T11:03:28+00:00

source_url: gmail://19c7072e2ecb4b2d

word_count: 1134

A guest recommendation from the NYC-based DJ and OST label founder.

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Ian Kim Judd Has Better Taste Than I Do

Shawn Reynaldo

Feb 18

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First Floor is in many ways a one-person operation, but every Wednesday, the newsletter fully cedes the spotlight to an artist, writer or other figure from the music world, inviting them to recommend a piece of music.

Today ’s recommendation comes from Ian Kim Judd, who could be described as a DJ—his monthly _Fifth World _show on NTS has been airing since 2017 —but rather than chasing dancefloor euphoria, he’s far more interested in stoking the flame of independent and “underground” music culture. Based in New York, he long been a champion of the city’s weirdo fringe, and during the past few years, that sensibility has also colored his OST label, which has quickly established itself as a reliable outpost for anyone interested in the intersection of ambient and experimental sounds with distorted remnants of electronica and stray fragments of (at times quite earnest) pop. Though the label doesn’t have an official manifesto—or at least not a public one—its latest offering, Organ Tapes’ _一包烟 (Yi Bao Yan)_— feels like a pretty good indicator of where Judd’s head is at.

A web developer / engineer by day, he was also a key member of the team that gotNina off the ground, and while he certainly didn’t do it alone, the young platform’s emphasis on independence, avant-garde sounds and the building of community—both online and IRL—seems to be very much in line with Judd’s worldview. (Full disclosure: I previously wrote a monthly column for Nina, although it ended more than a year ago and Judd was never my primary contact at the company.)

At the end of the day, the guy is an independent music lifer, and someone who ’s far more interested in expanding his record collection than stockpiling industry clout. (That said, he did appear as a guest on the first-ever episode of the _Clout Farm _podcast back in 2023.) Here, he shares a record that A) is now almost impossible to find and B) has helped him cope with the doldrums of a harsh New York winter.

Nový Svět – Desde Infiernos De Flores (Quirlschlängle, 2022)

We’ve had ourselves a particularly heavy winter in NYC this year—our largest blizzard in nearly a decade followed by a long and gnarly cold spell that locked the landscape into stasis. Times like this, you tend to fall into music, films or food that meet the moment. Cook a little chili, watch a little Béla Tarr (RIP) and listen to a little Brannten Schnüre.

For the uninitiated, Brannten Schnüre are a duo from Würzburg, Germany who make a singular, surreal style of folk music. Their sound comes together to create these profoundly moving, mosaic-like pieces that speak to something very deep within all of us. Can’t recommend them enough, but this isn’t about them.

Brannten Schnüre happen to run their own little imprint, Quirlschlängle, releasing limited runs of not only their own work but also records from artists who live in the same sonic universe. One of those records that really stands out to me is _Desde Infiernos De Flores_ by the veteran Viennese duo Nový Svět.

Featuring 19 untitled songs collected from a session in 2004 and 2005, it functions more like a mixtape than an actual album. The music spans a wide range of sounds: kitchen sink trip-hop, sleazy chillout sketches, threadbare folk and music that’s honestly beyond any sort of signifier or reference. Though a lot of tunes on here fit perfectly alongside early Wino works, much of the Stroom catalog or HTRK at their loosest, the record has its own strange gravity.

It’s hard to pinpoint particular songs that summarize the experience of listening to this record—I’d recommend listening to it in its entirety. While it doesn’t seem to live in any digital stores online and the LP is long sold out, a good samaritan uploaded it to YouTube. Go find it there.

First Floor is published and overseen by Shawn Reynaldo, a freelance writer, editor, presenter and project manager. Find him onLinkedIn and Instagram—and make sure to follow First Floor on Instagram as well—or you can just drop Shawn an email to get in touch about projects, collaborations or other potential opportunities.

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