Nazar ‘Demilitarize’ (Hyperdub)
Nazar’s debut album ‘Guerilla’ offered a brash take on kuduro inspired by his experiences fleeing the Angolan civil war and displacement abroad. On the follow-up, having found love and had to contend with his mortality due to ill health, his sound has evolved to more pensive territory, while still keeping the sense of size and power. “I wanted to make it almost metaphysical like creating sci-fi,” noted the Hyperdub artist. This manifests through heavy reverb, distant melodies, introspective vocals, blurred genre lines and skeletal rhythms that move unpredictably.
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Barker ‘Stochastic Drift’ (Smalltown Supersound)
Ambient techno master Barker follows up his 2019 debut album ‘Utility’ - heralded as the best of that year by Mixmag - with a second flawless record of transcendent, glistening soundscapes. It sees the producer leaning into freeform experimentation and an erratic approach that channels the anxiety and randomness of life into something breathtakingly beautiful.
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DJ Koze ‘Music Can Hear Us’ (Pampa Records)
DJ Koze’s music has always felt otherworldly: shimmering, tingling and wheezing through its textural explorations, from jangling electronica to syrupy house and cosmic techno. His latest LP ‘Music Can Hear Us’ dials up the sense of having your mind expanded through an intergalactic wormhole, even by his lofty standards.
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V/A ‘Pattern Gardening’ (Wisdom Teeth)
Big release, minimal sounds. Facta and K-Lone’s Wisdom Teeth curates 22 tracks from the cream of electronic music producers specialising in wiggly, dubbed-out trips. There’s the trickling melodies of Polygonia, atmospheric haze of Iglew, echoey bliss from Loop LF, Daisy Moon serving up moodier bassweight, Duckett squirreling through unstable metallic tones, and plenty more in this superatlive compilation.
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Carré ‘Body Shell’ (Tempa)
Carré’s impressive form in the realms of dubstep and bassweight hits new heights with a three-track EP on the legendary Tempa imprint. Opener ‘Body Shell’ is a flawless execution of the form pioneered in the early 2000s, opening with sweeping atmopsherics before plunging into irresistible throbs with lighter toplines dancing above. ‘Clicked’ is dark and unstable, while ‘Faded Form’ is pulls you through palpitating rhythms with moments of space in between adding to the heady effect.
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Mineral Stunting ‘Come Rain Come Shine’ (Drift Ritual)
Eamon Ivri mints new label Drift Ritual with a fresh release from his Mineral Stunting alias. The 11-track album ‘Come Rain Come Shine’ is an intricately layered and captivating LP. Opening on damp metallic pangs with ‘The Drip and the Drain’, it builds out with hazy chords and crunchier tones with unpredictable patterns setting the tone for a dense and immersive listen. Cuts like ‘Chasm’ and ‘Sink Dub’ feel eerie with dissontant tones, while ‘Junk Repurpose’ and ‘Botte Chain Dub’ are more mystical via glistening notes and sense of space. It feels alive, breathing, and yet often uncanny, as it pulls you into its mesmerising blend of digital and organic soundscapes.
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Djrum 'Under Tangled Silence’ (Houndstooth)
Six years in the making, Djrum’s highly-anticipated follow up to 2018’s ‘Portrait with Firewood’ was always going to be an earth-moving experience. But ‘Under Tangled Silence’ feels like much more than simply another stellar addition to this electronic virtuoso’s groundbreaking catalogue, instead, his application of electronic and instrumental elements places the LP as a work of art. With much of the inspiration behind the record coming from a “catastrophic” tech meltdown in the early throes of lockdown, that saw Djrum lose the majority of his work, ‘Under Tangled Silence’ deals with our reliance on technology as well as a strained search for perfectionism — instead allowing flawed, cracked elements to band together to create melodies of their own. It can be heard within the glitchy depths of ‘Hold’, where the artist platforms trickling keys against a glitchy backdrop, made up of his own corrupt audio files, and the soft piano of ‘Unweaving’ that despite its quintessential acoustic flavour was created using a MIDI keyboard, with Djrum editing it later to give it a romantic, corporeal flair. A masterpiece in 11 tracks.
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Bambounou 'Levantarse' (BAMBE)
For his first solo release since last year’s ‘The Life of a Touring DJ’, Bambounou removes all the bells, whistles and memes for a stripped-back double single that demonstrates his sweaty, hypnotic club banger prowess. Title-track ‘Levantarse’ features a nail-biting build-up as the French producer introduces each element in quick succession, eliciting the same anxious feeling of approaching the top of a rollercoaster; upon its peak, that energy gives way to an undeniably sexy tech-house track, pairing buoyant bass and sultry vocals. Whereas ‘Touch Me’ delivers glitched-out bounce and high-energy groove constantly meandering toward the edge of a breakdown. Dancefloor chaos at its finest.
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Skee Mask ‘Stressmanagement’ (Ilian Tape)
If this four-tracker is truly a practice in ‘Stressmanagement’, then we reckon Skee Mask has visited his fair share of rage rooms. Intense, hard and hot-blooded, yet irrefutably playful, the German producer’s return to Illian Tape crashes and bashes through rapid-fire jungle, dithering electro and bolshy breaks — all tied together with an everything-but-the-kitchen sink array of percussion. While the mannerisms of each track vary - with ‘Panic Button’ dishing out some early '00s rave and ‘TR Nautila’ sailing across a glitchy, hypnotic storm - all four maintain the same incensed ferocity. Hand us a baseball bat and call us Tempa-T, cause this EP makes us want to kick a HD TV.
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Dyslecta ‘Fulcrum’ (Tenuous Links)
Taking inspiration from the nature that surrounds his hometown in East Yorkshire, Dyslecta’s latest EP ‘Fulcrum’ is, sonically, a sharp contrast to the area’s natural beauty. Four murky club cuts line the record to dizzying effect – a journey through dubbed-out techno and hard, mutated bass.
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CRRDR & BRENDA ‘Hit & Run’ (TRAMPA)
Colombia’s CRRDR and BRENDA team up to “showcase the versatility of Latin electronic music” this month with new three-track EP ‘Hit & Run’, exploring the darker side of Latin club. A rhythmic workout from start to finish, this three-tracker goes through the paces of guaracha, high-speed reggaeton, and monstrous bass music.
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MRSHL ‘English Weather’ (Infernal Sounds)
From its subtle breakbeat opener ‘90’s Spesh’ to gnarly 140 closer ‘Spinnin’’, MRSHL’s latest EP, ‘English Weather’, is a masterful dive into bass music. Getting spins and support from the likes of SICARIA and Neffa-T, this five-track release takes a UK-focused approach to dubstep from a rising US producer.
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Vegyn & Air ‘Blue Moon Safari’ (Parophone)
Reworking a classic is never easy, especially a whole album’s worth of beloved tracks, but Vegyn didn’t back down to the challenge when asked to reimagine Air’s seminal debut album ‘Moon Safari’ back in 2023. Released some two years later, the spine-chilling classic gets a new trip hop edge with added breakbeats and guitar riffs on ‘Blue Moon Safari’, made to feel like a “3:AM hallucinatory dream”.
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SHERELLE ‘WITH A VENGEANCE’ (Method 808 x WAV)
Looking for that tune to take your set to the next level? Well, you’re in luck as SHERELLE has just dropped 10 scorchers which are bound to set the dancefloor ablaze. ‘SPEED (EDURANCE) will get the blood pumping through your veins while ‘FREAKY (JUST MY TYPE)’ is a sultry and groovy anthem that you could listen to on repeat. Filled with punchy stabs and high-intensity footwork, this project has SHERELLE leaving no crumbs.
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2hollis ‘star’ (Interscope Records)
In an exploration of modern hyperpop, trap and glitchy dance music, 2hollis has created ‘star’. This hybrid project sees him work as both the sole producer and songwriter across a vast proportion of the tracks, as well as link up with the likes of Playboi Carti’s producer Jonah Abraham. The album as a whole feels like an out-of-world experience as we teleport through a vast range of tracks from the club-worthy ‘you’, the slower and headphones-friends ‘girl’, to the distorted bass of ‘sidekick’.
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Confidence Man ‘5AM (LA LA LA)’ (A CHAOS / Polydor)
Janet Planet, Sugar Bones and the Veil Boys have called in a huge list of iconic artists to take on remixes of ‘3AM (LA LA LA)’, planning on “keeping ya hugged and drugged up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year”. We’ve been treated with the likes of Orbital, swapping out the breakbeat of ‘FAR OUT’ with echoes, Fcukers flipping ‘REAL MOVE TOUCH’ with an ‘90s acid house vibe, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard bringing sparklu euphoria to the moody ‘SICKO’, and much more.
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