Review: Wild breaks from the wild west; Welsh beat sculptor Abstract Drumz gets busy on the mighty Over/Shadow. Four cuts heavy, each one designed to slap your rave silly. 'Just A Ride' opens the EP with atmospheric aplomb. Brisk pads and live jazzy breaks set the scene, hitting hard in all the right places. Elsewhere 'I Like The Rain' galvanizes AD's Celtic status with unhurried charm before 'Ethereal Remix' gets a lot more frenetic. Finally 'Culture '24' closes the EP with some of the heaviest chops of the set. Wallop!
Review: California-based, British drum & bass musician ASC returns with more homages to late 90s atmospheric drum & bass on his excellent sub-label Spatial. Anyone who has been following his work and the releases that he's put out on his Auxiliary label and sub labels in the past few years should know what to expect. Following on from last month's excellent full-length Next Time You Fall, 'Undercurrents' is four tracks of impeccably produced ambient jungle. The first cut, 'Ocean Breeze', has a simpler rhythm than you would expect from him, which could be a hint at a more liquid future direction. The next three cuts are classic ASC: cut-up, spaced-out breaks interspersed with dreamy vocals.
Review: Torbay's Simon Huxtable delivers another deep experience with this two-track release that shows off his mastery of atmospheric drum and bass. With a career spanning over three decades and more than 100 releases, Huxtable's touch remains as refined and emotionally resonant as ever. 'Waveform 13' opens with a classic amen break, balanced by lush, spacious pads and a liquid sensibility that merges the raw energy of jungle with the calm of ambient textures. On the flip, 'Waveform 14' is a melodic jewel. It glides through dreamy soundscapes, awash in harmonics and detail, with that signature Aural Imbalance smoothness. There's a quiet euphoria embedded in its flow, evoking a sense of peace without losing its dancefloor backbone.
Review: Following his powerful Waveforms 13-14, Aural Imbalance returns to ASC and Presha's 90s jungle inspired imprint with 15-16. As always with the label, the tracks are just numbered and as always with Simon Huxtable's AI alias, there's a full focus on the drums and powerful sense of atmospherics. 15 slaps hard with choppy breaks while an ice cold pad whips up early Tango & Ratty or Krome & Time vibes. 16 is a little more driving and looser, more Justice and Modern Urban Jazz in its flavour. Both hit the spot. Make sure you do, too.
Review: Bristol producer Borai (Boris English) and London's Denham Audio (Peri Ashwood) pulled off a remarkable feat with 'Make Me/No Good', an unequivocal release put out on Higher Level Records in 2019. Repurposing the unmistakable hookline from Donna Allen's g-funk jacker 'Serious' from 1986 into a fully re-recorded sample all their own, 'Make Me' set alight the feet of the breaksy raver, striking serious gold in the classic formula of easily-recognised old-school-soul vocals and sculpted tearout heft. As anthemic as its original B-side, 'No Good', the original latter half of the record now comes substituted by Big Ang's Rave To The Grave mix, whose blooping trooper sound design and mains-hum Reeses provide an ecstatic alter. A can't-go-wrong reissue by the Room Two camp.
Review: Decoder brings his deliciously dark take on drum & bass to this new one from Over/Shadow. It drills deep into the heart of a smoky, strobe-lit dance floor while also offering plenty of mental soundscapes to explore with your eyes closed. 'DT103' has crisp breaks and warped bass under shards of broken, glassy melody and 'DD1' then floats on a more skeletal rhythm with grazing background pads and apocalyptic bass. The Technical Itch remix brings even more in-your-face textured percussion and 'MB29' shuts down with a cosmic exploration and skittish drum patterns.
Review: Let's step back in time as Future Retro reissue this walloping four-piece from 2023. A multi-mate affair, the entire 12 is packed with contemporary jungle talent. On side A we have the German misfit Chromz going toe-to-toe with bossman Reaper on two ice cold cuts. 'Forever Dubbed' is a dreamy, choppy serenade with more unexpected twists and turns than an AI drawn hand while 'Diff Selection' is all about that rattling snare. Flip for two startlingly fresh cuts from Bristol badboy Artificial Red; 'Subconscious' is all about those big splashy drums and cosmic whirls while 'Something I Know' sends us off to other planets as the EP comes to an end. Solid.
Review: Terrace keeps it concrete with the second release on Kniteforce's vinyl-only imprint Deadly Dubs. Following big street smashers on Karma Recs and recent outings on Erupt there's a distinctly euphoric foundation to the vibe running throughout ranging from opening salvo of pitched up vox and pianos of 'Aappy Happy' to the closing acid house style piano evangelism of the finale 'Quadratic'. Elsewhere 'Show N Tell' has us melting at the knees and begging to stay one more night with Uncle Phil and 'Come Down' has us all doing award winning air piano. Happy days.
Review: Dom Angas has come a long way from his Moving Shadow singularity 'Can't Punish Me', which soon saw(tooth) an enviable career in techstep well underway. The nominally double-taker artist now issues 'Reimagination', throwing back to another shadowgraph from the MS era, 'Imagination'. This tune appealed best to the dystopian rollage crowd: there's no drop, but rather a straight barrage of hyper-crunchy cybergoth Reesework and parched beats. His new 'Reimagination', from now, continues to channel the mood but this time with added hope and angelics, shortly before a forget-me-not VIP of the original track reveals a wicked Star Trek sampling darkside version: "There are times when I find myself transfixed by a shadow on the wall, or the splashing of water against a stone. The hours pass, the world around me drops away, replaced by worlds being created and destroyed by my imagination."
Review: Myor Massiv operates as a furtive extremity of the larger Dutch publishing house MYOR, owned and operated by none other than Coco Bryce. Though Bryce needs no introduction as an unstoppable force in the modern day breaks sequencing game, we nonetheless must restate the special intent of the sublabel: these are relatively experimental "massives", swapping out functional flathead beats for heavier, pozi-driven drillings. That watery, pitch-warped breaksy mid-90s jungle era is given a full audit on this new 13th addition to the label, and things gets increasingly weird, wet and wild: 'Trouble Yu' especially sounds like a bong-hitter from another universe, its impact unsuspectingly poking through a wacky, radiophonic, space dubbed texture.
Review: We need to go back to 2017 for this one. Dub & Wheel is one of Kid Lib's many aliases and 'The Firmament' was one of many unfinished (but very playable) WIPs that Tim Reaper was spinning heavily at the time. One thing led to another and he completed the WIP with so many ideas and energy, it ended up into two versions. Fast forward to 2024 and they finally see the light of day in all their uncompromised choppy choppy glory. And now comes the obligatory reissue as a record like this was never going to stay in stock. Grab it while you can!
Review: Breakbeat wizard Fanu returns with another multi-genre mash-up diving deep into the sounds he's mastered over the years: jungle, drum & bass, hip-hop and beyond. His rhythmic versatility and fearless approach to production is present and correct once more from the off:' 'Strobelight' is a tightly programmed workout with dark bass blasts offset by heavenly vocal coos. 'Ether' is even more involving with a lurching rhythm and snappy hits, and 'Free Fall' then casts you adrift in the cosmos, floating on the swirling pads with a more airy, spacious atmosphere. 'Coma'(feat Arcologies)' is a blissed out closer with more gentle but still dynamic drums. Ether shows Fanu's still pushing the envelope, one break at a time.
Review: True to the name, FFF's releases do tend to make us teeter on the edge of profanity, inciting us to utter a hearty "FFF...!" whenever one of his pre-drop seatbelt warnings is sounded. With what sounds like a copyright lapsed, twilight zoney TV sample musing on the terror of true freedom kicking off the opener 'No Holds Barred', we're inducted into a true blue jungle asepsis here, with an unstoppable, untainted 808s extending over both tracks, full time and halftime alike. Only the breakbeats on the A singe the mix to the point of well done break steak, where the track's atmospheres are otherwise clean and twinkly; FX's remix, on the other hand, hovers dirtily and indubitably between jungle techstep and trip-hop, delivering a consciousness expanding mind mutator.
Review: Rotterdam producer, vocalist and DJ, Skyes (Mike Everling) is one of Fokuz's favourite upstartists, this being his third contribution to the label after a brilliant opening Minos collab 'Looney Tunes', then followed by an equi-tastic toon jungle four-tracker from 2024, 'Never Say Never'. This time he's got a 'Jazz Hangover', with 'Holding Back' bringing crudely resampled bloops and vocal ohs, and 'Send Away' enlarging the junglist massive through filtered dub triggers and rousing brass. Don't sleep on the B-sides either, where the title track sobers us with a dose of breaks mechanisation following an implied overindulgence in jazz humanity.
Review: Originally unleashed in 1993 via Underdog Recordings, 'Fugitive' by Dave Wallace (Aquasky, Mad Dog) and Shaun O'Hara (Aurora) finally returns in its second pressing, this time on black wax. First reissued in 2019 as part of Vinyl Fanatiks' yellow vinyl Quattro series, the much-demanded jungle 12" now lands again after six years, cut from the original DATs by Simon at The Exchange. A cult Bournemouth production, 'Fugitive' gained notoriety after Bukem double-dropped it at midnight during Dreamscape NYE 1993/94, an essential, heads-know moment in UK rave history. This reissue comes com-pressed to 200 copies, and at just one per customer, it'll surely stay a sought-after snapshot of breaks-heavy euphoria from the scene's salad days.
Review: Infamy, Infamy, they've all got it.... On rotation because this absolutely pops hard and is far too good to be trivialized with an old Carry On quote! 11 years have passed since the artist also known as A1 Bassline returned to his Infamy alias for these two brutalist jungle jams but they still sound shockingly good to this day. Abrasive, choppy, and loaded with tightly coiled energy. This is proper jungle, the way it's always been on Inperspective. Grab this now if you haven't already.
Review: OG business! Majik and his label Infrared have been charming the dance since the very roots and he's back once again with this superb trio that originally ran last autumn. Fresh to wax, 'Ghost Train' charges along with real old school hardcore vibes, especially with those booming detuned synths. Things get deeper as we skip further into the EP; 'Above The Clouds' is goes all icy and introspective while 'July' closes with a nod to Detroit. Powerful.
Review: Warsaw producer Kampinos delivers a knockout trio of tunes for GAMM here that collide soulful drum & bass with deep musical roots. The standout opener is 'Good Looking Pepe,' which flips Pepe Bradock's seminal house love-in 'Deep Burnt' into a lush, jazzy roller a la LTJ Bukem. On the B-side, 'Joi' explodes with gospel fervour and raw amen breaks to make for an irresistible jungle anthem built for dancefloor uplift. Rounding things off, Kampinos offers a rich, emotive refix of Little Simz's 'See You Glow' which is both warm and intense. This is rather unexpected yet effective outing for GAMM with a fine mix of soul and roughness.
Review: Brenda's debut for Rupture LDN is a love letter to the dancefloor in all its phases, from early anticipation to late-night transcendence. Hailing from the UK and embedded in the country's long rave lineage, she draws on 4x4 jungle techno, deep d&b and spoken word to map out a personal and emotional arc. 'Come Undone' captures the energy of the night in full swingirushing breaks, euphoric pressure, the kind of track that commands the room. Elsewhere, 'Benda Brenda' and 'Total Danger' are raw-edged and jungle-rooted, while 'Rolling With Fabio' is deeper and more rolling. It all closes on 'A Deep Shade of Rave (Outro)', a poem dedicated to her long-running Ferry to the Underworld sessions at Corsica Studios. Spiritually full, physically rinsedithis EP nails what it means to live for the rave.
Mason Vs Princess Superstar - "Perfect (Exceeder)" (vocal club mix) (6:43)
David Guetta & Mason Vs Princess Superstar - "Perfect (Exceeder)" (3:45)
Mason Vs Princess Superstar - "Perfect (Exceeder)" (1991 remix) (3:25)
Review: 'Perfect' by Mason is one of those tunes whose melody everybody knows, but few, save for the timeliest of Eurodance heads, can recall the name of off the top. Later rehashed alongside American rapper Princess Superstar, the track invaded the Western collective cochlear cortex circa 2005, whence its plucky drive-lead roused dancefloors and iPod shuffles the world over; an eerily engineered earworm arising seemingly out of nowhere. This reissue from Armada hears a comprehensive set of interpretations from various EDM giants in the years after its release, perhaps motivated by the track's use in the 2023 film Saltburn. Aside from a David Guetta re-up, the 1991 pop-d&b is a sleeker slew of ultrafast beats, as though the original's distinctive pluck line had been pre-primed for shelling at faster velocities.
Review: Silent Force Recordings drops a heavy 10" teaser ahead of the much-anticipated The Last Transmission album. This sampler of it features two standout cuts from Pixl and Murder Most Foul, who ramp up the excitement for what's to come. Gritty, atmospheric, and razor-sharp, both tracks tap into the label's signature blend of deep breaks and futuristic dread. The sound designs are pristine and the beats heavy so it's a fine preview of the full-length project due later this year-raw, cinematic drum & bass built for dark rooms and loud systems. Silent Force isn't playing here.
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