September: 7 bass releases you need to hear this month

Quavius 'Quavius' (Lustwerk Music)

While we wait for new music from Galcher Lustwerk, we can enjoy the first new artist on his Lustwerk Music label. Like Galcher, Quavius employs both dreamy beats and laidback raps, but whereas the former fits into the house genre, the latter veers unexpectedly into different areas of rhythm. The eight tracks range from deep house instrumentals to spaced-out funk, but all share a mellow vibe. The naked honesty of the bedroom productions combine with the soft tones and nimble cadence of his voice to create a fascinating document of the growing crossover between hip hop and dance music.

8/10

Ziúr 'Collar Bone' (Objects Limited)

Regular readers will recognise Berlin producer Ziúr’s name from her killer debut EP ‘Taig’. ‘Collar Bone’ is taken from her new release ‘Deeform’, on Lara Rix-Martin’s label for non-binary/female-identifying artists, Objects Limited. The whole release is quality, but this cut in particular is one to savour. It vibrates with percussive energy: even the trills from the stretched vocal samples and the synth phasing contribute to the track's stuttering forward motion.

9/10

Delroy Edwards 'Hangin' At The Beach' (L.A Club Resource)

Delroy Edwards’ label L.A. Club Resource has been going since 2013 and during that time became notable not just for his own releases, but because it reissued a number of Memphis rap rarities. For an artist who was ostensibly working in the house and techno mould, it pointed to ears that were bigger than his own scene. While most artists tend to get more refined as they get older, Edwards seems to have gone the opposite direction, and ‘Hangin’ At The Beach’ is as casual as its title suggests. Sold as his debut LP, it actually sounds more like a collection of meandering, often downright experimental sketches: there are 30 of them in total, two-thirds of which are less than two minutes long. It sounds distinctly lo-fi, too, bringing to mind both the tape hiss of Memphis’ Lil Noid and the early sound of Ariel Pink. Edwards now sits somewhere inbetween the noisy electronics of LIES, the lo-fi aesthetic of ‘90s Memphis gangster rap and hazy hypnagogic pop. But while his musical journey has become a richer tapestry, it also requires a lot of patience in order to be appreciated.

6/10

Exit Sense 'Amor 107.5' (The Astral Plane)

Now ubiquitous in the digital age, edits of chart hits are like training wheels for fledgling club producers. It’s interesting, then, to have a concept record revolving around them. On ‘Amor 107.5’, Exit Sense imagines a radio station at the end of the FM dial that’s less tuned to a dead channel and more a portal into commercial radio afterlife. The Miami-based producer is obviously less concerned with the genre exercises that edits so often are. Instead he takes a cue from Elysia Crampton’s erstwhile project E+E, which specialised in classic mash-ups drawn from unlikely sources. Exit Sense achieves a similar effect using the same idea: instantly recognisable pop vocals and passages from modern composition or avant-garde sources, combined with (presumably) homemade beats. Partly, it works because of the quality of the instrumental sample choices, such as the fluid free-jazz saxophone cacophony paired with Rihanna’s ‘Diamonds’ or the atonal strings teamed with Young Thug’s ‘NASA’. Tricks such as the use of strings appear too often, though, and the novelty of the sound starts to wear thin eventually. But it still creates high expectations of what Exit Sense can accomplish without relying on the celebrity pull of edits.

7/10

Jabu x SKRS 'Oran VIP' (No Corner)

This 7” pairs the Bristol-based, Young Echo-affiliated post-trip-hop duo Jabu with Vancouver’s dub experimentalist Seekers International. Even on paper, you can tell that’s going to work. A-side ‘Oran’ started life as a Jabu dubplate, while B-side ‘Bwoy Test VIP’ was a SKRS instrumental before each got their hands on the other. Even before treatment, Jabu wouldn’t be miles away from something like King Midas Sound (albeit a more rudimentary version), and SKRS has a warm energy and looser groove that brings their work together more in line with something of that quality. But Jabu vocalist Alex Randall actually sounds closer to Inc. vocalist Andrew Aged’s soul/r’n’b croon than it does Roger Robinson’s otherworldly murmur, giving the whole thing a greater turn towards those genres.

8/10

Six Sunsets 'Opaque' (Sublow Sound)

If you’re as old as we are, you’ll remember that ‘sublow’ was a term for early grime. Sublow Sound isn’t a grime label and Newcastle duo Six Sunsets aren’t a grime act, but it does serve as a reference point that immediately brings to mind Britain’s longstanding and unique club culture. No surprise, then, that the title track kicks off with the sounds of UK hardcore rollage and resonant bass, dropping in alternately ravey and rudeboy vocal snips with a few laser synths for good measure. It’s followed by an only slightly later-era, stripped-down version of early jungle on ‘This Sound’, with both tracks resembling the kind of modernised throwbacks Zomby made on ‘Where Were U In ’92?’ (albeit slower at 130 bpm). Third track ‘Angel Porn’ uses elements of bassline, grime and hardcore, but loses their effectiveness and gets confused in what it’s trying to accomplish. Six Sunsets have some work ahead of them in refining their production techniques, but this is is a fun spin on classic genres by people who are probably too young to have been there the first time around.

7/10

WWWINGS 'PHOENIXXX' (Planet Mu)

Here’s an intriguing prospect: three Russian electronic producers who have never met in person – calling themselves Lit Internet, Lit Eyne and Lit Daw – instead connecting via Russian social media site VK and collaborating using an instant messenger program. Throw in a healthy mix of international collaborators including Bala Club’s Endgame, NAAFI’s Imaabs and Lao and NON’s Chino Amobi and you’ve got a riotous clash of internet audio. As Lit Internet soberly reminds us in the press release, post-Soviet rule is a struggle for many living under it, which explains the music’s harshness. It’s true that initial plays feel something like a sensory assault, not least because the music is constantly morphing into something else. You might catch snatches of recognisable samples, but most sound as if they’ve been put through any number of digital effects. While a club aesthetic is clearly at play, beats take a backseat to bombast and affect.

7/10