August: 10 drum 'n' bass releases you need to hear this month

Djinn 'Dark Reference' EP (Foundation X)

Turning heads and screwing up faces as she goes, FDX’s Mancunian powerhouse Djinn is making waves with her uncompromising jungle arias. There are four knotty, intricate, sledgehammer-tough slices here, on her first full EP for Skitty’s label. ‘Nine Grounds’ is a relentless hornets’ nest of fury, while the clean, spacious lines of ‘Destructive Consequence’ are reminiscent of ‘Valley Of The Shadows’. The title track, meanwhile, is a meditative, deep-end exploration coated in brooding layers of mentasms.

8/10

Dabs & Disprove/Was A Be & Dabs 'Thor (Breaks Remix) /Jitters' (Avantgarde)

Dabs and Grotesque’s Avantgarde label has been on its game since 2011, here notching an absolute pearler of a 12” as Break zips into tech skanker ‘Thor’ with some trademark groove and sizzle. It’s a track pushing an enormous number of buttons, but still keeps the space intact – much like flip ‘Jitters’, which finds Fabio from new Shogun signings Was A Be grabbing some studio time with Dabs, resulting in a thunderous jungle fling-down that pits old-skool snare acrobatics against hoovering, low-end tech murder. Two devastating dancefloor breezeblocks.

8/10

SPY 'Coldwave' (Hospital)

Instead of a new album, prolific Brazilian SPY has opted for a triple salvo of ‘Alone In The Dark’ mini-releases that includes this beauty from the second of the three EPs. Euphoric trails staircase their way to a cutaway drop, where that dubbed-out, detuned head-nodder of a bassline takes over, raided incessantly by synth implosions. But it’s only just begun, as the morphing bassline trickery finds new sonic pollinations as it rolls. SPY is an absolute ace behind the decks, and a cut above the usual producer pack.: if he’s on a festival line-up, don’t miss it.

8/10

Concealed Identity 'Hermetica' (Narratives)

Expansive, luxurious and dreamy breakbeat voyages are Narratives’ signature, even with the label in its relative infancy. Here, Concealed Identity picks up where previous release ‘Levanter’ left off, dropping down a gear and enveloping us in another subterranean mosaic of clicks, ghosting horns and slender harmonics, although less riddled with drum switches and fills.

8/10

Bladerunner 'Jungle Jungle' (Get Hype Records)

Three-note bassline guru Bladerunner is a true master of luxurious and euphoric dancefloor jungle cuts, taking bassline warmth and agile snare energy and coating it in luxurious pads. This is all polished up to a sheen that’s like silk to the ears.: you’ll be earwormed by that shivery “My head is a jungle…” vocal all day, as the breaks step crisply through and you realise there really is nothing better than 3am jungle euphoria.

8/10