March: 9 drum 'n' bass releases you need to hear this month

Kyrist 'Venomous' (Dispatch LTD)

Gritty tech grooves have been Kyrist’s calling card as she’s slowly edged towards the centre of the radar over the last three years – and now, as Dispatch’s first-ever female solo release, the mission just got real. The title track of this outstanding full EP is irresistible: check the way those synth growls bubble and circulate in step with the dancing snares, causing hypnotic sonic ripples, like a dark cloak whirling and scything through the soundscape. Dancefloor tech at its best.

9/10

Various 'Hospital: We Are 21' (Hospital Records)

300 releases and now 21 years in, and still with a universal dancefloor sound that’s not too noisy, too deep or too gentle, there’s a strong case for arguing that Hospital is the most successful d’n’b label of them all – but frankly, who cares about debating that when you’ve 70 tracks, 20 new exclusives and two full-length mixes from Nu:Tone to dive into? The prized pearls are so numerous you’re guaranteed a netful wherever you look: Fred V & Grafix vs Metrik’s ‘Tension’ is electro night-rider heaven; Serum’s ‘Blow Them Away’ is knotty, low-slung tech fun; Bop’s ‘Space Girl’ is intricate glitch gold. From Noisia to Kimyan Law, the extended Hospital habitat is vast and unrivalled – and all here.

9/10

Kusp 'Getting By/Lustre' (Context Audio)

Burgeoning deep-end UK label Context hits release number five – and on this evidence, it’s in for a massive 2017. The only thing linking both sides of this release is precision engineering, because its sonic scope is jawdropping: ‘Getting By’ decorates some monstrous, glacial half-time detonations with low-slung, gold-toothed hip hop snippets in a devilishly wonky combo that’ll surely catch Alix Perez’s ear. The flip, meanwhile, plays it about as straight as it can get – a soft-focus liquid melter that’s gorgeously polished. Impressive, diverse fare from a producer and label to watch.

7/10

Phace 'Plastic Acid' EP (Blackout)

A release with a hypnotic, hyper-shiny cover alone that’s been turning heads ever since it dropped, German tech puglist Phace’s ‘Plastic Acid’ EP kicks off with the fight-inducing tech howitzer ‘Beyond Number’, its Noisia-standard precision scattiness setting the tone for a right old electro-tech ruckus. The title track is a monster concoction of brutish industrial tech and jump-up silliness, its frenetic synth arpeggios suddenly squashed flat and shot out into the soundscape like huge tectonic plates – it comes on like a Muse track fed into a buzzsaw and reborn 3,000 years into the future.

8/10

Various 'Three Squared' EP (Dust Audio)

The impressive Dust Audio and its sister operation Turbine caught our ears with a superb Antagonist EP at the back end of 2016. Its new series of EPs feature three different artists bringing one track each on a shared theme, with Red Army & Clima’s standout ‘Murder In Dub’ setting the tone here: it’s fluttering juggernaut tech that’s far from thuggish despite being hewn from industrial elements. The bouncy dancehall half-time vibes are neatly clipped with electric bleeps and squiggles to create something as funky as it is venomous.

7/10

SpectraSoul 'Second Chance' EP (Ish Chat)

Three releases in on Ish Chat and the quality bar remains obscenely high. Again, this is an EP that that marries the duo’s trademark pitch-perfect liquid futurism with some serious rough-housing, and each of the four tracks are absolute head-turners. The title track and ‘On & On’ drench us in high-spec lucid liquid brilliance, while ‘Beat Keeps’ teleports into another galaxy entirely with some hyperactive half-time genius that would make even Rockwell swoon. Better still, closer ‘Fade Away’ channels the spirit of Dillinja’s classic sluicing synth lines and turns them into monstrous demon roars that hammer down as the weighty breaks roll through. Try finding us a more impressive EP anywhere this month.

9/10

Klax 'Rekanize' EP (Critical)

Brighton’s Klax crew hark back to the golden age of south-coast nights in the early 00s, and now score a full EP on Critical having graced the ‘Systems’ sub-series back in 2015. It’s something of a showcase: from the half-time tech-crunk of the title track and the wonkier noodlings of ‘Risk It’ to the high-energy tech bullet of ‘Flouro Riddim’ and Burial-style vocal washes of ‘The Sway’, the boys nail all styles effortlessly.

8/10

Dom & Fierce/Dom & Xanadu 'Just Loop It/UltraViolet' (Dom & Roland Productions)

Riding high on the wave of hype that followed last year’s mind-blowing Metalheadz album, Dom channels past and future in one devastating 12”. Old don Fierce joins up for an unvarnished slugger that has all the spectacularly messy hallmarks of a Quarantine tech assault: simple, metronomic, rapid-fire break volleys and gunning sub-bass thunder, knotted together with no-nonsense industrial itches.

Meanwhile, protégé Xanadu detonates the horizon with a jaw-dropping percussive tech workout that goes the full 360 degrees. Sublime piano and flute whispers herald a creeping liquid intro, before the sky falls in and we’re enveloped in spacious live drum breaks that carry a whiff of Ulterior Motive magic. From here, the track keeps on mushrooming into break-laden mayhem, its headspinning industrial agility unrecognisable from its blissful, meditative origins. Stunning.

9/10

David Louis and Stranjah 'Lethal' (Repertoire)

Hertfordshire’s Repertoire label is all set for a huge 2017, coming off the back of Tim Reaper’s stunning ‘Lanterns’ in December and its Dead Man’s Chest remix wizardry. The title track from this new EP from Stranjah and his Canada-based protégé David Louis is soaked in cavernous bass nodes and agile break patterns; there’s a delightfully misty, sugary quality to the way the breaks brushstroke over the deep-end kicks in the early part of the track, its harder edges softened deliciously as sonorous low-end bursts boom metronomically away beneath. This is a finely tooled jungle sculpture that’s just impossible to resist.

7/10

Ewen Cook is Mixmag's drum 'n' bass editor, follow him on Twitter