Earlier this year, mysterious things started happening within the Transmat Agency. All the artists on the roster – with the sole exception of Derrick himself – left suddenly. No explanation was ever provided for this mass exodus. And May himself also found himself without a manager, again with no warning.

Then changes started happening on social media. The website and Instagram page were suddenly rebranded and scrubbed clean of any mentions of Transmat or Derrick May. The new name was Nyaera Agency – with “nya” presumably meaning new. It came with the sort of new logo you only get from paying a bunch of whippersnappers who think they’re being artistic far too much money.

None of this was ever elucidated. No one involved even made the slightest attempt to elaborate on what was going on – and even my investigations haven’t been entirely successful. The only thing that’s definitely certain is that Patricia Altisent ceased to be Derrick May’s manager sometime during this period and she took all of Transmat’s artists with her. Rumours that this was her “price” have never been substantiated.

The majority of Nyaera’s social media platforms are old Transmat ones, but with new signs over the doors. It’s a bit like what happened with Gerald Ratner’s jewellery shops in Britain in the 1990s after he unfavourably compared one of their products to a 99p prawn sandwich – only less successful.

Shiny, overpriced new branding might well be all over the place, but a bit of digging around reveals the real grubby history of the place. Such as on Nyaera’s YouTube channel, which forgot to make changes to their About section…

At the time of writing, the channel has 25 subscribers and the last video was uploaded on May 18th – over six months ago. You’d almost get the impression things aren’t going very well…