summary 
Thursday, 24 May
2x12" // £11.99Single of the Week
Girl Unit returns to the Night Slugs mothership with an EP hefty enough - six tracks - and rewarding enough to be described as a mini-album. We'd almost forgotten how good this fella is, and 'Ensemble (Club Mix)''s boogiedown synths and deadly drum programming instantly set us straight. 'Cake Boss' is quite simply mental, seeming to re-imagine 909-bashing techno brutalism according to the jagging, stop-start demands of a grime dance, and 'Plaza'' is a ghetto-electro bouncer for the jeeps, while 'Double Take' strips away the feelgood synths and pushes the same rhythmic template deep into 'floor-crushing abstraction - it almost wouldn'… Read more
Single of the Week
**First edition with picture sleeve** Slackk (aka Patrice & Friends) makes his first move of 2012 with the eagerly anticipated 'Raw Missions' for Local Action. Named after a former East London pirate station, this is effectively Slackk doing Grime instrumentals from his insider/outsider perspective - he ran the legendary Grimetapes facility from Liverpool for years - and it's effing deadly. Paying tribute to the ranks of Ruff Sqwad, DJ Oddz and Waifer, the EP rolls shoulders from trilling claps and seasick folk/road melodies on 'Blue Sleet' to the bare bones acidic syncopation of '90 Years' on the A-side, thru the G-Funk styles of '… Read more
CD // £8.99Recommended release
Another compendium of fresh, lean UKF-and-beyond productions from stalwart and standard-bearer Roska. As ever, what makes his tunes so potent is their simplicity, but on Roska 2 he really shows off some newfound depth and range too: 'You Dun Kno' sees pensive synth chords underlay what sounds like a looped banjo (!), 'Memories' (featuring Ruby Goe's vocals) mines a rich seam between broken beat and electro, while 'OnRinseSinceZeroEight' is simply one of the best grime productions we've heard in ages. Roska's old sparring partner Jamie George voices the anthemic 'Do You Like This', clearly precision-tooled for car radio deploymen… Read more
Single of the Week
**Hand-stamped white label** Blank Mind - the label what dropped those maaad soca bits from Adrian Lenz/Sandman - do y'all a favour by pressing up two long-out-of-print, late '90s Juke aces from 'The Honorable' DJ Clent. Face up it's the weirdly wired '3rd Wurle' from Clent's 1st 12" on Dance Mania; an hydraulic Ghetto pumper with wheezee horns and glute-pummelling bass. Face down, 'Hit It From The Back' plays inside-out with herky-jerky claps and needling hi-hats locked on a percolating bassline. Original's would cost you a good deal more than this = don't be daft: cop dat!
Recommended release
Impressively diverse 7-track EP from Becoming Real that really takes his sound forward, towards a kind of synthetic psychedelia and techno-pop only tangentially connected to garage and dubstep. 'Zoning' is a total headfuck - it begins like a hollowed-out grime instrumental only to flower into a pixellated cathedral of abstract 16-bit dazzle that even Rustie or Wax Stag would struggle to find their way out of. 'Real's Slow Memory' is a bass-reinforced pop gem driven by the sweet vocals of Alice (Sunless '97) . 'Anthropology' is an investigation of more minimal sounds, its haunting mid-paced pulsations containing more tha… Read more
Recommended release
7even is a label we normally associate with reliably powerful, techno-crisp dubstep, so this has to count as their most adventurous and surprising offering yet. Why? Well, there are vocals, and pretty good vocals at that - particularly impressive is the strung-out, sub-heavy boy-girl duet 'You Live In Me', which sounds like Portishead might if they'd grown up raving at FWD. The same vocal partnership also lights up 'Stop', an uptempo techno stepper, while on 'Forest' the human voices recede into the shadows, allowing us to focus on the low-slung breaks and enhanced bottom-end - it's no exaggeration to say that this one sounds like the … Read more
Recommended release
Well good this, on his latest Bristol lad Gemmy has decided to take on grime and serves up a blasted sawtooth appreciation to all things South London with the phenomenal title cut. This one’s worth the price of admission alone, but just for kicks we get three more bangers too, and while they don’t have quite the same abrasive neck-snapping quality as ‘Tales of the Deep’ they still hit hard, and move in similar grime-baiting circles. Fans of the recent slew of Butterz material or Joker’s more street-focused bangers will be needing this one ASAP. Don’t sleep.
Recommended release
Pasteman & Tanka hold it down for 877 Records with two 808-driven Electro/House rollers. 'Camaro' is the big one - all escalating arpeggios, ass-tapping cowbells and booming bass for your mum's Suzuki jeep. B-side 'Torino' plays it cooler with strutting, dubbed-out House vibes sounding like Wbeeza if he did a record for Swamp 81. Big twelve!
Recommended release
Body High captains and all-round party-starters LOL Boys follow-up that ace Hot City collabo with a killer 23-track mix CD for spiritual brethren UTTU. With the exception of DJ Haus' 'ardcore infection 'Can't You See', Capracara's 'House Of Dolls' and a couple others, it's pretty much a perfect cross-section of their tightly knit US niche, crammed with tracks from DJ Soulja-Man, Todd Edwards, Nadus, Massacooramaan, DJ Funeral, Dubbel Dutch, DJ Dodger Stadium and, of course, theyselves. Starting out with Todd Edwards recent redo of Musical Youth, you know this is going to be stacks of fun and it doesn't disappoint, progressively he… Read more
Recommended release
Three deep-fried Boogie-Step burners with heavy grime and a Brazilian influence. It's not a simple concoction, but it's one well within Swindle's means. A-side 'Do The Jazz' syncs strummed guitar, tickled organ and Bossa scat on the intro before flipping into synth-strike Boogie-Step and back again. B-side 'Under The Sun' runs from halfstep sway to taut double-timed kick drums and raving synths, while 'If I Was A Superhero' comes off like Roy Ayers with a copy of fruityloops.
NYC-based Californian ex-pat Stryker Mathews debuts on Skream's Disfigured Dubz with a pair of melancholic modern House/Bass swings. With its pitched vox, moody bass and tinkling, trilling polyrhythms the frontside 'Binary Shake' sounds something like dBridge meets Mount Kimbie, while the brittle drums and plangent gamelan-like patterns of 'Batty Koda' curve into Geiom-style exotic steppers styles.
Hardcore Dubstep weaponry. Kromestar pulls no punches with the metal-tearing mid-range synthlines and trilling Trap 808s of 'Noiz', while Dark Tantrums hinge on silvery hi-hats over abyssal bass swerve on The Growler'. No messing, mate.
Recommended release
**Hand-sprayed screen-printed sleeve includes A3 poster** Senseless set off the 2nd 12" celebrating their 5th anniversary. Frontside is a grimy ruckus called 'Void' from up-and-comers Mak & Pasteman, fitting East London claps to fragrant vocals and body swerving bass for fans of J Sweet, Jam City, or Rossi B & Luca. NKC bruks open the B-side with a shrill but bassy bubbler named 'Errthing' crossing the lines between Ballroom and Dutch House styles, while German production duo JTRP - best known for their aces on Deep Teknologi - unload the bassbin-crumpling torque of 'Nothing To Do Here', forward styles!
Super-taut, crystalline fusion of Hip Hop, Footwork and Electronic club music with a world-wide dancefloor outlook. XLII hails from Tokyo and his dynamic constructions are brimming with the sort of electric energy you'd expect from that city. 'Dilated' is a sharp slowfast burner with steel-tipped 808s, skewed synths and elastic bass stabs while 'No Cure' rocks up a rapid, outsider take on Chicago Footwork and 'Thro Yo!' works with flash, Amon Tobin-styled synthwork and ultra-criss drum programming beside the robotic ragga of 'Rasclap'. Starkey gives 'Thro Yo!' a fractal Grime overhaul and ex-Various P… Read more
Precision engineered doublepack of powerful Dubstep torque from Icicle. On his first record of 2012 Icicle unleashes the Industrial-strength 'Acid Step' and the tribal twyster 'BNC' - both of which previously appeared on his ace Rinse mix - beside the bubblin' tuck and parry of 'Get A Job' and the jack-steppin' beast 'Together In The Dust'. Tip!
Tuesday, 22 May
Monday, 21 May
Welding together contemporary dance music and traditional Angolan kuduro isn’t easy by any stretch, but Portugese act Buraka Som Sistema actually pull it off with ‘Tira O Pe’, and do it without a hint of arrogance. The framework of ‘Tira O Pe’ is still distinctly kuduro, but the sounds – rich bass, bubblin synthesizers and choppy drums are far more recent. The set of remixers don’t have it so easy, and the fragile rhythms of the original are lost in many of the treatments, that’s not to say they don’t work; far from it, but to work on both levels at once is pretty difficult. The R… Read more
Featured Download
UNO NYC have assembled a killer remix package for Fatima Al Qadiri's 'Genre-Specific Xperience' EP. Girl Unit reworks 'How Can I Resist U' with a freestylin' Electro flex and white flash synth bursts, while DJ Rashad gives our percy 'Vatican Vibes' a pensive yet pummelling Juke overhaul and Kingdom gets to grip with 'Corpcore' on a percolating future Bass tip. New York's Dutch E Germ is a new name to us, and on the strength of his smartly diffused 'D-Medley' remix we hope to hear much more from him. P'raps best of all though are Dubbel Dutch's sparse and infectiously bubblin' re-do of 'Vatican Vibes' or Ikonika's exceptionally iced-out, droning and beautifully sculpted take of 'D-Medley'. Recommended!
Featured Download
Last we heard of Deutch bass-head and best bud of Mr. Apparat Phon.O, he was crafting fluorescent Euro-rap with ex-Funkstoerung bloke Chris De Luca, but forget all that – he’s on 50 Weapons now and has a brand new MO. ‘Black Boulder’ is Phon.O’s take on the UK funky/2-step sound and who better to re-engineer that sprawling niche than someone with his production smarts? From the very beginning it’s clear we’re listening to something that has been sharpened by a diamond tipped blade – sure there are references to Burial, 2562 and Martyn (to name just a handful), but Phon.O’s crisp, clean production elevates ‘Black Boulder’ into plac… Read more
Featured Download
After releasing on practically every Dubstep label in the game, Truth drop two halfstep heavyweights on Tempa. 'Last Time' plays out a darkly seductive, highly pressurised jungle vibe hinging on swollen subs and darting breaks under cinematic synth arcs. Working with vocalist Yayne, 'Dreams' comes as close as it gets to Kryptic Minds' hallowed halfstep dramas.
Featured Download
Superb debut drop from a mysterious East London operator by the name of Buzzin10. The three tracks of his 'Basement Mood' EP are pieced together from samples twocked off of old tape packs - mainly Garage Nation's legendary late '90s cassettes of DJs like EZ, Ray Hurley, Karl "Tuff Enuff" Brown and co - and fused with really trippy, sparing melodies reminding of classic AFX, Zomby or Drexciya. If you ask us it's one of the best things Frijsfo have released, and that's saying something when you consider their killer Sully releases. Highly recommended!!!
Featured Download
Idle Hands sustain the vinyl pressure with two nimbly crafted 2-step/Electronic-pop infusions from Kahn. Following sessions of computerised halfstep, rooted '06 styles and mercurial garage, 'Margeaux' continues his tradition of flipping styles on each new single. Here, we'd gauge possible inspiration from the likes of Four Tet, Floating Points or Gold Panda's widely appealing electronic soul grooves. Part 1 works a wispy, diced up vocoder vocal into a deftly scissored 2-step fray, while Part 2 reveals the vocal with clearer enunciation blurred into a dreamier, dubbed-out framework of glancing garage swing.
WONDER FEATURING TRIM
Wonderland Records
MP3 Download // £1.70
FLAC Download // £2.50
Cat. Number: WND007
Featured Download
Wonder reprises his role as Grime producer with a deadly riddim for Trim on 'Something You Know', backed with a weighty, rolling House remix from Kozee. Better watch yer bassbins when sampling the original - the bass is set to eye-quivering levels and those drums are trained to bite. Kozee's Graver remix doesn't hold back on the bass either, only this time the drums are more sprightly, dancing, allowing more room for Trim's strangely Guru-like delivery. Get on this, it's wicked!
Featured Download
Dramatic dread halfstep motions from the barrel of Compa. 'Security' is the one you need: a deftly detailed drum pattern rendered 3D with dynamic echo chamber FX guaranteed to spark up the dance.
Featured Download
Hardcore Dubstep weaponry. Kromestar pulls no punches with the metal-tearing mid-range synthlines and trilling Trap 808s of 'Noiz', while Dark Tantrums hinge on silvery hi-hats over abyssal bass swerve on The Growler'. No messing, mate.
Review to follow shortly…
DEV79
Some Smut Only Comes Around Once
Made In Glitch
MP3 Download // £3.99FLAC Download // £4.50
Cat. Number: MIGREC23
Finger-licking fluoro Grime/Electro-House from the one like Dev79. Perhaps taking notes from Jimmy Edgar's hypersexual aesthetics, 'Some Smut Only Comes Around Once' has one thing on its mind, and it's not nice. This is some nasty ish, from the distorted burn of 'Roscoe's Twist Up' to the rutting bass filth of 'Proper Gagging' and the grinding, pounding delirium of 'She Want The'. Remixes highlights have to be Loon's broad-bottomed slowfast mix of 'Roscoe's Twist Up' and the Knight Riderz booty scrambling Moombahton refix of 'Proper Gagging'.
Sunday, 20 May
Review to follow shortly…
Review to follow shortly…
Thursday, 17 May
*Senking returns to Raster with another double-headed set of slowed-down, rugged and dark transmissions.* Senking's 2nd EP follow-up to 2010's heavyweight 'Pong' LP sees him add chiming harmonies and even vocals to his abyssal bass contours. With gargantuan A-side 'The Dance Hall Walk' he lasers warped and glooming features into a hulking iceberg sculpture, perching a blunted text read by Michael Cramm over unshakeable, plunging bass ballast. This will sound shocking on a big rig! B-side's 'Closing Eyes' swipes away any extraneous sounds to leave a desolate scape of plangent, ringing tones skidding acr… Read more
