Two Years to the Day After SUBDUED FOR TOO LONG, RUSTHOL Answers with II: CONFLICTION CORE
Two Years to the Day After SUBDUED FOR TOO LONG, RUSTHOL Answers with II: CONFLICTION CORE
A Finnish Producer’s 17-Track Album of Ambient, Breakbeat and Chillout Built Around Inner Conflict
RUSTHOL released II: CONFLICTION CORE on 11 November 2025, a 17-track ambient and breakbeat album that runs to about 82 minutes. It came out two years to the day after the first album. It also opens a story about inner conflict that is meant to carry on across the records still to come.
RUSTHOL’s II: CONFLICTION CORE title track now sits on our electronic playlist, and the coverage sits in one place on RUSTHOL’s artist profile. The album came to this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Press play, then read on for the seven years of singles behind it.
Before CONFLICTION CORE, RUSTHOL Spent Seven Years Building a Catalogue of Singles
RUSTHOL is an independent electronic project from Helsinki, Finland. The first release on Spotify is a remix from October 2018, and original singles followed from 2019 onwards.
The Nordic thread showed early. In July 2022, KULNING, PRIMITIVE put kulning, the Scandinavian herding call for bringing cattle in from mountain pastures, at its centre. Heavy distortion then bent the call into something darker. RUSTHOL filed it under hard wave, and that October Illustrate Magazine gave it a full review.
In 2023 the range widened. ALTERNATES leaned into future garage in July, and THE LAST HOUSEBENDER EP followed in August. Then, in September, FUXWITHIT picked out ALTERNATES in a round-up. The same piece also heard drum and bass and UK garage in the catalogue. Finally, on 11 November 2023, the first album arrived: SUBDUED FOR TOO LONG, with seven tracks.
After that, the singles kept coming. JUCHE opened 2024 and POLECAT followed in February. Then 2025 brought PV, RESYKLA, TRENCH STEPPER, GALAXY MINI and SAGAMI before the second album was ready.
Several of those singles also came in parts, such as FUWATTO I/II, JUCHE I/II/III and PV I/II. Splitting one idea into chapters is a habit that suits a project built on story.
CONFLICTION CORE Gathers 17 Tracks About Conflict, Addiction and Decline
II: CONFLICTION CORE is the long version of that story. Its subject is the turbulent side of life. It covers fractured relationships, conflict inside and outside, addiction and sensory overload. It also follows the slow decline of places and of the self.
Every track came out as a single first. PV, RESYKLA and SAGAMI came out during 2025. The other 14 went up on 10 November, the day before the album. So the album works as a set of finished pieces in a deliberate order, running from CONFLICTION CORE to TAINTED DOOM.
The lengths vary widely. SVOBODU is over in two minutes and 22 seconds. PV, by contrast, stretches past eight minutes, and HKI GHOSTS runs to nearly seven.
On the title track, RUSTHOL, also known as Roope K. Rustholkarhu, composed the music and handled the production, mixing and mastering. Meanwhile, neith sang and recorded the vocal part, a return after the two released honeymoon together in January 2023.
SAGAMI brings in MODERO, the rap side of the same artist, together with Booney. Later, Crushaders join on OVERWHELMER. The other 14 tracks carry RUSTHOL’s name alone, with ambient textures and breakbeat rhythms setting a heavy, nocturnal mood.
Doing everything in one pair of hands has a famous precedent in this corner of electronic music. Burial made Untrue with Sound Forge, a basic audio editor, and Hyperdub released it in November 2007. The album later earned a Mercury Prize nomination. II: CONFLICTION CORE comes from the same kind of single-handed studio work, stretched across 17 tracks.
What Comes Next for RUSTHOL After CONFLICTION CORE, a Story Built to Continue
The album is meant as a foundation rather than a final word. RUSTHOL plans to continue its story on future records. The release also carries easter eggs for listeners who want to dig. Even the album page on Bandcamp is cryptic, carrying little more than the words Inner Conflict, the title and the number 77.
Telling one story across several albums has worked before in Nordic electronic music. In 2022, Röyksopp released the three Profound Mysteries albums between April and November. Each came with short films and visuals for every track. RUSTHOL works at a smaller scale, but the idea of a world that grows record by record is the same.
Since the album, the rap side has kept moving. MODERO released Vitun idiootit with RUSTHOL in December 2025, then Diamonds on My Diva in February 2026. As a result, the two sides of the project now feed each other.
MusicDrops.News’s curator team: “II: CONFLICTION CORE rewards a full listen. Seventeen tracks that each stood alone as singles add up to one long, heavy story. The guests also arrive exactly where the album needs a new voice.”
The album suits listeners who want ambient, breakbeat and chillout with weight behind it. It also suits anyone who enjoys a record with clues to follow. For curators in Finland, Sweden, Germany, Poland, the UK, the US, Canada and Australia, it is electronic music with a story attached.
Start with the album player at the top of the page and play it in order. After that, go back to SUBDUED FOR TOO LONG to hear where the story began.
II: CONFLICTION CORE is also on Bandcamp. Follow RUSTHOL on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, and find every link on Linktree.
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