December: 18 albums you need to hear this month

KiNK 'Playground' Running Back

Strahil Velchev, aka KiNK, is a bona fide maestro when it comes to live performances, combining his enviable hardware with a knack for thrilling audience participation. We’re pleased to report that the Bulgarian producer is equally home on record, too, and has ripped up the plain-sailing rule book with ‘Playground’, his second album on Gerd Janson’s Running Back label. Drawn-out opener ‘Soar’ is obliterated by the mesmerising pounds of ‘Organs’, while ‘Yom Thorke’ is a sensational musical masterpiece: it’s a nine-minute voyage that starts all tightly wound before it begins to rumble with a robust density and grooving synths, and then eventually whirrs back on itself. ‘Suncatcher’, with its searing rave sounds and drum sequences, is an instant classic, and ‘Perth’ is built around a four-note disco melody. Employing so many different sub-genres in such a distinct fashion could have sounded incoherent, but ‘Playground’ triumphs by enforcing how house and techno form its main DNA. Leah Connolly

9/10