Hyperdub’s first jungle album release in its 20 year history was always going to be major, and this LP effectively shakes the world from top to bottom, made in collaboration by the respectively UK and Australia based Tim Reaper and Kloke. It’s precisely engineered biut rough edged dancefloor dynamism, with breakneck percussion firing under sounds spanning spacey synths to murky bass wobbles. ‘Blood Pressure’ is a total head rush with high-pitched gloopy tones contributing to a feeling akin to the onset of a dizzy spell, ‘Alienation’ is a reese bass-powered menace with percussive chaos, while ‘Juice’ is a more straight-up club reocrd, opening on sparkling synths and a vocal sample, barelling into a melody that sounds a bit like a ‘Show Me Love’ reconfiguration, with ecstatic piano chords hitting in the final throes like a shot of serotonin.

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On his tenth album as Monolake, and the first from the project since 2020, Robert Henke pays tribute to the ‘Studio’, where he’s spent his life crafting layered worlds of mesmerising techno. Fittingly for a tribute to a place where he’s created so much magic, this latest record is a masterpiece. It grips you in a a twisting textural maze, often punchy and direct with bold tones and robust sound design, but simultaneously immersive in the fluid way it’s all woven together and washes over you.

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Blending a distinctly New York brand of low-energy cool with the dirtier stylings of UK dance music, Fcuckers have become the hype band of the moment, instantly landing cultural acclaim and magazine covers before their debut EP even dropped. Now that it’s out we suggest you believe the hype — if the hype is telling you they make fun, addictive tunes without reinventing the wheel. Their sound is relatively straightforward but it’s a formula that works, with Shannon Wise’s chilly vocal style knitting easily into the beats of producer Jackson Walker and drummer Ben Scharf. Opener ‘Bon ‘Bon’ is the standout, with a greazy bassline and Wise’s disaffected intonation pairing into a low-key earworm featuring production flourishes provided by echoey horns and skewed synths, while other highlights include the face-melting bass riff that cuts through ‘Homie Don’t Shake’ and the MIA-esque ‘UMPA’.

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‘KorgMusic2024DemoEL-HELL-EΛ’ is the soundtrack to the most popping Eastern European wedding you can imagine. It fuses traditional Roma style music and Middle Eastern melodic progressions with an electronic-powered approach, hitting dynamic extremes that inspire thigh-smacking, sweat-pouring movement.

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Dar Disku’s self-titled debut album is a perfect representation of the Bahrain-born, UK-based duo’s exultant style. Informed by in-depth research into music-making processes and a huge range of influences spanning styles such as Sudanese funk to Algerian rai, the eight-track LP blends the sound of traditional music from across West Asian and North Africa with an upfront contemporary club focus. The result is a record packed full of infectious, body-moving music that honours, upholds and evolves its inspirations. ‘Dbayli’ kicks off with funky cow bells, bass and bright chords, with a vocal from Algerian singer Yacine El Khaldi crooning above; ‘Ya Nas’ plays out like a psychedelic jam band with intricate interlocking melodies and zone-out drumwork; ‘Baar Baar’, which features Indian-born jazz-disco icon Asha Puthli, is more locked in at its core, with a Moroder-esque pulse beneath the more out-there elements; while ‘Fajr’ is a sparkling, mystical closer.

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The first in a number of compilations planned to celebrate five years of Pressure Dome tees the series up brilliantly with 10 cuts of off-kilter club music. Will Hofbauer’s opener ‘Jugo Máximo’ is a screwball introduction, moving at a measured pace that allows you to take in all its eccentricities, from Wiley-esque grime bloops to jittery melody flourishes and skewed synth tones. Other highlights include the atmospheric pressure Kincaid’s ‘Drench’ and How Du’s ‘Step Up’, Rose Again chopping vocals in a rattling framework and turns into acid, and Talik massaging your mind with ‘Brainspace’.

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Jon Hopkins’ new album ‘Ritual’ feels like one giant leap into interdimensional transcendence. Opener ‘altar’ hums with anticipation in its long, droning ambient tones and sense of steady buil, perfectly teeing up the following seven tracks of audio bliss, powered by choral beauty and epic synthesisers, like floating through the gateway to heaven, or at least the heavens above. No wonder NASA is sending his music to the moon.

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Japanese techno master Shinichi Atobe seems like a straightforward person. The opening track of his new EP is called ‘Saxphone and Bass’, and features brassy melodic quavering amid deep textures. Having been considered a press-shy recluse, he disppelled this notion after giving his first interview this year by shrugging that no one had ever asked him for one before. In it, he gave short, to-the-point answers. It cut through the mythology around the man who made one the best-received dub techno EPs this century, 2001’s ‘Ship-Scope’ on Chain Reaction, then took 13 years to put out another, in an enjoyably direct way. We don’t need complex backstories and insights when his music contains so much depth. Since 2014, the releases have been landing much more steadily, with this latest surprise drop another sterling EP of immersive, shadowy techno that can diverge into head-spinning throbs or crackle with a sense of ethereal wonder. Plenty to get lost in here.

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Making her debut on Scuffed Recordings, Dublin’s Small Crab brings textured percussion and growling basslines to the fore on her latest EP ‘Batomu’, a three-tracker marrying dubstep, deconstructed club, and low-slung 160. “I wanted this to be one for the dancefloor,” Small Crab says on the new release. “The centrepiece is the bassline”.

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With his first solo EP release in more than six years, Spanish dancehall trailblazer Merca Bae delivers an exhilarating journey through jungle and breaks, onboarding the likes of Muskatt, Jubilee, WOST and JASSS to supply their own breakneck renditions of his original cuts on the new 7-tracker.

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Ethereal, transcendent breaks are almost always guaranteed on a Sensu production, and on her latest offering via Attack Decay Sweet Release, she’s back in business – club nostalgia and soul-stirring vocals are central to ‘Pieces’, a four-track release brimming with euphoria. With an additional feature from Lawrence Hart, this EP comes neatly together with influence from UK garage, house, jungle, and more.

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Last year we saw Nines drop not only the highly anticipated ‘Crop Circle 2’ but also the surprise release of ‘Crop Circle 3’. Now, the UK rap star is calling it quits. Retiring from music, this final album is fuelled by his witty yet hard-hitting nature. In true Nines fashion, this project is filled with storylines on cannabis, girls and the hustle. On top of his final album, Nines has also announced his last-ever show which is to take place this November at London’s O2 Arena. Nines is dipping from the rap game with a surprise mic drop.

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Or:la has finally released her debut album. The fabric release is fuelled with swirling drum beats from the marching sound of ‘Fired Up’ to the spasming sound of ‘Chant’ and the deep echoes of ‘Patriarchy Purge’. When creating this piece of work Or:la was inspired by both Irish and Greek mythology and “sapphic love, friendship, and defiance against the still-never-ending injustices against the feminine”. Features on the release include Eliza Rose, Mary Lake and SOAK.

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Since his debut in 2015, Floating Points AKA Sam Shepherd has been a household name in the world of electronic music and the dancefloor. Now, almost a decade later, he is continuing to release perfection. In what feels like a pinnacle release for the artist, ‘Cascade’ has taken the world by storm. Each track individually flickers through tempo, style and mood, but the album as a whole feels like one strong piece of music. We are somehow transported from the twinkling sounds of ‘Ocotillo’ into the more driven techno of ‘Afflecks Palace’ without in a cohesive journey. The standout track on the release has to be Shepherd’s tribute to Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder’s disco classic ‘I Feel Love’, ‘Birth4000’.

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Swedish producer Axel Boman returns with a highly experimental and playful four-track EP that defies standard definitions of the deep house genre. Inspired by a period of intense isolation when the artist was staying on an avocado farm in Colombia, the album is a portrait of what happens when all the distractions of everyday life are stripped away, and true, unadulterated creativity is allowed to flow.

The title track, ‘Space Drag’, is warm and fuzzy, with acid sensibilities and an echoey Swedish vocal that gives the song its ancient, chant-like quality. Meanwhile, ‘Acid Left And Right’ is more club-ready, with rising synth stabs, delicious chords and infectious hi-hats. With ‘Forever Latino’ Boman takes us in a completely new direction yet again, pairing light-footed Latin percussive elements with spaced-out psychedelic dub. To close, ‘Ohh Baby’ is perhaps the most typical Boman track on the EP, with euphoric keys and filtered female vocal making it a highly palatable listen.

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Space Ghost looks both forwards and backwards at once, taking what he can from his forebears, and using that knowledge to make something new and original. His latest project, ‘Dream Tool’, is evidence of that. Taking cues from both synth funk and deep house (Ron Trent springs to mind while listening), the album is filled with groovy basslines, soaring synth landscapes and delicate piano melodies.

Marking the debut release on Space Ghost’s own imprint, ‘Dream Tool’ really is what it says, a tool bringing the Oakland producer one step closer to realising his aspirations. “This is something I’ve been dreaming up for a while,” he says of Peace World Records. “But this year finally felt like the right time to dive in. I’ve been chipping away at it all year and I’m finally ready to share my first record.”

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If you’re looking for something fresh, try ‘Estradas’. A debut collaboration between Afro-Portuguese producer Nídia and Italian drummer Valentina Magaletti, the nine-track album sits somewhere between the electronic and the acoustic. Like a battle, it flicks between the two, Nídia’s dark synths and programmed loops constantly interrupted by Magaletti’s experimental percussion, played out on congos, bongos and a marimba. And yet, together, the result is something quite extraordinary and harmonious, as intricate polyrhythms skip over one another and deep, brooding melodies resound throughout. Clearly influenced by both kuduro and batida, ‘Estradas’ brings acoustic percussion to a club setting. Stand out tracks include the celestial ‘Ta A Bater Ya’ and woozy ‘Mata’.

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While the initial singles from LSDXOXO’s long-awaited debut album ‘DOGMA’ had hinted at a continued shift in direction for the club-titan-cum-songwriter - a pop-punk-tinged exploration of seduction and heartbreak - the final product feels less like a divergence, and more a deftly-weaved tapestry of his artistry so far. While yes, ‘DOGMA’’s A-side sees its fair share of moments where LSDXOXO the newfangled pop star come to the furore (see the ’00s R&B reminiscent ‘GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS’ and the irresistibly catchy ‘GHOST’), the B-side pairs up frenetic, experiential club genre markers with decadent live drums, guitars and keys. The sizzling analog beneath a cacophony of dithering hi-hats on ‘BLOODLUST’ feels like a stroke of genius, while there’s an unmistakable clubland energy to the bass heard on ‘BLACKLIGHT’ — while ‘WASTELAND’ sees electric guitar riffs melt into shuffling kick drums below the artist’s vocals, which are pitched up, down and sideways to give the illusion that there are multiple voices repeating the same chant-like lyrics.

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What do you get when you combine buoyant Bay Area rave and the raucous energy of a new-age Baltimore club? If JAILING and Farsight’s new collaborative EP is anything to go by, the answer is ‘WHISTLE TIP’. The latest release from Local Action sibling label Clasico, sees the pair meld frenetic basslines, peppy percussion and extravagant breaks together to create an unrelenting four-tracker, plying references to UK techno, dembow and piano house upon a foundation of kick punch. Proper club music.

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Proving fun, effervescent dance music can still pack a punch, Oh Annie Oh’s debut EP on Jamz Supernova’s imprint utilises the same full-throttle energy found in her DJ sets. Described by the Seoul-born, London-based artist as a “concept album,” inspired by “the moment in the breakup where you just don’t care anymore“ — ‘Block N Delete’ nails the unhinged chaos and full-tilt respite of going back to the streets, with a mixture of bouncing kicks, murky bass and piercing hats across four tracks that hold their own as dancefloor heaters individually.

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