Search:dr bass

New Kanada enters the third season with two white hot electronic tracks. "White Mouse" is an acidic stormer which winds it's way from old-school house - into serious dark club territory. With a shifting, swinging bassline, tough metallic toms and some killer drops - this one is a weapon in the mix. Sounds like Tevo Howard meets Luke Slater. Kind of. "Spectrum"'s deep, digital radio dub floats freely - somewhere between Baby Ford and a broken FM receiver. Drifting melodies, haunted white noise and serious house beat. A track for late night driving, and early morning warmth.

Our next Stil vor Talent 12 sounds like a mysterious, alien soundscape transmitted straight from outer space to the peak-time dance-floors of planet Earth. Edu Imbernon has already demonstrated a brilliant ear for pulsating house music on his remix for Niconé & Sascha Braemer's 'Dreamer'. Here, he once again teams up with fellow Spaniard Triumph, while SVT favourites Kellerkind and Niko Schwind are on remix duty. The title 'Mystery Inside' couldn't be more fitting to the meteorite shower the duo conjure up with the aid of vocalist Sutja Gutierrez on the A-side: sharp hi-hats lead straight into a moody bass-line that meets a beautifully rounded kick and percussion-workout. Things get otherworldly as synths start flying through the speakers, finally beaming you to another galaxy once Gutierrez' heavily spaced out vocals set in. On the flip, Kellerkind slows things down considerably and builds on the original's UFO-synths, while Niko Schwind cherry picks his favourite parts of 'Mystery Inside' and contextualises them within his own 80s synth motif and fat breakdown. Extraterrestrial warning: the Spaniards have landed!

SLEEP D's BACON EP is the next offering from Sydney's excellent DEATH STROBE imprint

SLEEP D are a couple of young cats from Melbourne, the production duo are sure to be an integral part of the deep house explosion coming from their city, spearheaded by the likes of Tornado Wallace, Fantastic Man and the Melbourne Deepcast crew.

The record has a range of flavours all tied together by a fundamental warmth and soulfulness.
The title track flows and floats in a dreamlike state, whilst simultaneously nailing the groove from beat one.
Bubbles vs The Cat takes it up a notch, entering the club realm with rich bass and tight rhythms.
Their remix of Chet Faker's Love & Feeling is certain to give any dance floor a collective orgasm, oozing an erotic strangeness as it heaves and thrusts away, while Ischa has a tickle of Techno thrown into the mix and, despite its druggy sedation, has a hidden energy for dancing feet.

Four track instrumental EP from LA producer Devonwho. Sun-drenched synths and G-funk vibes are the order of the day here; 'Strangebrew' and 'Sleet' zip along with their low-slung bass and melodic purple keys while on the flip 'Cactus' takes the pace down a bit. Slow jamz with a fast feel, these three rolling 4/4 workouts are rounded off with a fresh rework of the title track from fellow West Coast funakateer B Bravo (Frite Nite, Brownswood). Comes in picture sleeve with free download code.

With his sophomore album Ghost People appearing on 2011's end of the year charts for the likes of Mixmag (#6), Clash Magazine (#9), DJ Magazine (#9), Data Transmission (Album of the Year), Martyn returns to Brainfeeder to release a follow-up 12' this March.

The 12' leads with "Hello Darkness", previously unreleased and exclusive to the release, Martyn shuffles through a rhythmic bassline and feeling of, indeed, darkness from the very first beat. In typical Martyn fashion, the track skips its way through genre conventions, landing in a flux between 2-step, driving techno and old rave (the latter specifically heard in his ethereal and scaling upper melodies). "Hello Darkness" could lend itself to the rawest, grittiest warehouse, yet simultaneously breeds a subtle feeling of elation and release, and keeps the listener guessing with a variety of quirky sound collages.
It also features a remix of "Bauplan", Night Slugs bosses L-Vis 1990 and Bok Bok bringing the most sinister corners of London into their remix, with a heavy grime lean and a pervading feeling of tension. Erratic samples (sounds of a tweeting bird one moment, the cocking of a gun the next) appear in-between a snap beat, metallic stabs and an apocalyptic build-up of percussion and synths. Pulsing in and out of a highly volatile atmosphere, almost as if the track is alive and breathing, this "Bauplan" almost feels like an unrelated beast until Martyn's melody lines start to unfold halfway through the track.
To finish there is an exclusive remix of "We Are You In The Future", a favourite from the Ghost People LP amongst critics and DJs across the board. Techno's notorious man in the red mask - Redshape - steps up to create a deep and dark Detroit interpretation of Martyn's freewheeling, sci-fi-enhanced joyride. Laced with ominous vocal samples ('It may be an accidental side effect of the drug'), the future takes on a slightly more dystopian feel with Redshape's melancholic strings, unpredictable percussion builds and a lingering, creeping reinterpretation of the track's original melodies. A definitive nod to the epic work of Derrick May and Carl Craig, with a hint of Kenny Larkin's intricate builds.
"By the time the imitators catch up, he'll be light years ahead." DJ Mag

Up and away / To your journey to the sun / Drink your rocket juice / Fly away (Hey, Shooter).
High up in the skies, amongst the clouds, Rocket Juice & The Moon was born. Literally. It happened back in 2008, when Damon Albarn, Flea and Tony Allen convened on the same Lagos flight, to play and exchange musical ideas in that city as part of the Africa Express collective. Relishing a shared enthusiasm for one another's work, and bonding immediately, there and then the triumvirate laid down the blueprint for Rocket Juice.
Still, more than a year passed before conditions were set for three weeks together at Albarn's West London studio, recording and refining two-dozen startlingly out and deeply funky instrumental grooves. The next stage was to invite onboard some extremely talented friends, with further sessions in Dallas, New York, Chicago and Paris... Erykah Badu, no less, queen of contemporary soul. Three companions from Africa Express: Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara, whose debut album has topped World Music charts since its release last Autumn; her multi-talented compatriot Cheick Tidiane Seck, whose prodigious keyboardism has lit up releases by artists ranging from Youssou N'Dour to Hank Jones; the young, Ghanaian rapper M.anifest, quizzically existential, switching seamlessly between Twi and English. And the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, long-time stalwarts in the Honest Jon's set-up — since one of the team discovered them busking near the shop in Portobello Road, on his lunchbreak — with a second album for the label due in May... Finally, the tracks were dispatched for mixing to Berlin, to be meticulously honed, polished and envenomed by Mark Ernestus, one half of the legendary Basic Channel and Rhythm & Sound partnerships.
The result is Rocket Juice & The Moon — out March 26, 2012, on Honest Jon's Records — a triumphant exploration and proliferation of kinetic Afro-funk rhythms: organic, exuberant, communal music-making, evidenced by the project's live debut on stage as part of the Honest Jon's Chop Up in late 2011, which hit London, Marseille, Dublin, and Cork to such great acclaim (witness the flurry of smart-phone film-clips uploaded in the days thereafter).
From the inaugural bars — that absurdly funky slice of instructional timekeeping, 1-2-3-4-5-6 — the liquid pulse of Fela Kuti's classic recordings drives the action through a suite of 18 shape-shifting compositions. The greatest drummer in the world has never sounded so good as he does here. His intricate cross-patterns jostle and lock with Flea's nimble, rumbling bass riffs. Joined by Seck on There and Extinguished — 'when you dispose of something burning, be sure it's out' — Albarn's keyboards spray synth fusillades up top, over, and under... splicing into the mess of wires running between the freaked Afro-disco of William Onyeabor and the space-jazz-moog of Sun Ra. The HBE brings extra intensity and drama to Leave-Taking — likewise Flea's trumpet to Rotary Connection — teasing out the haunting melody coiled in the mix.
Where the best of vintage Afrobeat sides sustained their concentrated energies over the course of sprawling, marathon jams, RJ & TM manages something altogether different: the group bottles the idiom into capsules of funk... and real songs. Beautifully buoyed by Erykah Badu's unmistakable vocals, Hey, Shooter brilliantly traverses metaphysical spaceways sans any semblance of noodling. Lolo and Follow-Fashion — featuring the open-hearted sensuality of Diawara's singing, M.anifest's quick, brawny science, and more brass blasts — play like its musical cousins or codas. Indeed, the album's shrewd sequencing creates the composite effect of tracks working both individually or within the context of an extended song-cycle.
The lovely ballad, Poison, is bittersweet and ruminative: 'If you're looking for love, beware the signs / They will paralyze you one by one / Poison, it will only break your heart.' Down-tempo and dubby, Check Out and Worries amplify the range of styles and moods. And by the time of Fatherless — a chugging Afro blues that evokes John Lee Hooker lost in Lagos, one gets the sneaking suspicion there's very little outside the reach of this collective's inventive musical grasp.
There is, in fact, a palpable openness pervading Rocket Juice & The Moon — the sense of a limber willingness to follow creative impulse — right down to how the group acquired its name. When Ogunajo Ademola — the Lagotian commissioned to do the album's cover artwork — dubbed his submission 'Rocket Juice & The Moon', it quickly morphed into the formal name of the project, like trying to hold onto mercury.
Surely, the stars above also approved.

Hailing from South Africa, SFR lays down his first imprint for Wheel and Deal. Vha Venda: Tribal style vocals open to stomping 808 half step roll out building into a broken 4×4 skank. Nci Nci: Carrying the latest Wheel and Deal 4×4 electro style with gritty LFO'd bass and skipping drums. Dance floor smasher.

After more or less owning 2011 with a surprise album, a collaboration with urban crooner Colonel Abrams, an ahead-of-the-game reissue of Marc Kinchen and the all-conquering "Here's Your Trance Now Dance", FXHE don Omar S kicks off a new year with Wayne County Hills Cops Pt 2 (where, we ask, was Part 1?), a hook-up with the mysterious OB IGNITT. The eponymous A-Side is characterised by the kind of glistening synths last seen on "Here's Your Trance...", with a rugged analogue bass line giving the track with the requisite bump. A tired cliche it may be, but this could easily soundtrack an 80s cop movie: clearly Omar has this in mind given the 12"'s title and the fact the record's centre label features a doctored image of Eddie Murphy from Beverly Hills Cop! On the flip, Omar S provides his own remix, drowning the synths in dubby textures and showering them with shuffling hats for a more heads-down take. Another killer 12" - business as usual at FXHE, then.

Here we have a new label and it's some of the best Techy Drum and Bass we've heard for a while. Counterstrike and Cooh do what they do best and bring their trademark tight production along with a load of bass that'll rumble any bass bin. Looking forward to hearing what else this exciting label has up its sleeve.

Hailing from Dubstep's home town of Croydon, Wheel & Deal Records introduce Surge. With a signature deep and base driven sound you'll come to recognise instantly, trust us when we say, you'll be hearing a lot more from this guy.'Leech' starts us off with a hauntingly atmospheric vocal track featuring vocalist Phxis. Sub heavy with marching beats and harmonic tones, this is a perfect mix of angelic vocals, and hard metallic beats. With exclusive support from N-type & Walsh.'Swaying Mantis' sounds exactly as you'd imagine. Intelligent beats, heavyweight and dramatic, you may have heard N-type starting many of his sets over the summer with this one. Unapologetically bass driven with relentless sway this one will get in your head and stay, in a good way!

Originally released on EMI Sweden, original copies of this album still change hands in excess of $500.

This was Doris' jazz album though it contains more than a hint of Joni Mitchell, Led Zepellin and the like. Backed by her husband Lukas Lindholm on bass she was able to lay down some seriously funky bass lines on tracks like Don't and Beatmaker. On You Never Come Closer, an experimental track that was way ahead of its time, Janne Carlsson unleashes a fearsome sound on drums helped by Bernot Egerladh on organ.

Second release on iS Records, The A-side, The Future Never Was combines sparse beats and pads held together by a growling stuttered bass, which gives the track an industrial feel but on a techno/house tip. On the flip, Fake The Feeling, draws on sounds beyond the current trend for vintage analogue in an original take on the house blueprint. The B2 track Out of Orbit is 4 minutes 48 seconds of Tech soul, for the floor or the headphones.

Theo roars into a fierce, uglier-than-ugly edit, with no let-up for thirteen minutes, when it crashes to a standstill: a hurtling, mesmerizing ride, multi-layered and clustered with synth washes, bleeps and alarms, galloping drums, clattering percussion.
Burnt's Shangaan variation is perforce more chilled, lithe, reverberating. The drums are crafted and fatback, with moody vocal interjections and haunting keys, chocka with dub thrills and spills, lethally spiked with bass.

2024 Repress
Following the legendary first two, stoically super minimal records “SOG 1“ and “SOG 2“ that provide ecstasy disguised as boredom on Kompakt Extra/Speicher in 2007, and the outstanding beautifully bizarre “SOG - Abweichung“ on Profan in 2010, we are now listening to “FREMDE HÄNDE“. Like its predecessors, this SOG stands in the tradition of „The Art of Omission“ with Wolfgang Voigt variegating his preference for the bluntly straightforward quaver bass in two different forms. The A-side contains a tonally noncommittal sequence ambling across the keyboard in quantised form, reminiscing of the arpeggiator (accompaniment function) function of early 70ies' and 80ies' synthesizers. On the B-side, daring and thoroughly unquantised quaver rhythms rock around a bass drum that, as the only straight element, tries to keep the whole thing together. The result sounds a little like a delirious Can Live.

Nach den legendären ersten beiden stoisch-superminimalen, als Langeweile getarnten Ekstase-Platten “SOG 1“ und “SOG 2“ auf Kompakt Extra/Speicher in 2007 und der überaus skurril-schönen “SOG - Abweichung“ auf Profan in 2010, hören wir nun “FREMDE HÄNDE“. Auch diese SOG steht natürlich ganz in der Tradition der “Kunst des Weglassens“. Wolfgang Voigt variiert hier seine Vorliebe für den stumpf-geraden Achtelbass auf zwei verschiedene Weisen. Auf der A-Seite haben wir eine tonal unverbindlich über die Tastatur wandernde Sequenz in quantisierter Form, die an die Arpeggiator (Begleitautomatik) Funktion früher 70er und 80er Jahre Syntheziser erinnert. Auf der B-Seite kreist die Achtel-Rhythmik in eher rockigem Sound ganz und gar unquantisiert und rhythmisch gewagt um die Bassdrum, die das Ganze als einzig gerades Element versucht zusammen zu halten. Das klingt ein bisschen wie Can live im Vollrausch.

Rockwell's rise to prominence as a rare, distinctive talent has been exciting the electronica music circuit the world over. Critical, thankfully, being the trusty forefront for all things audio-aesthetically delicious, presents the 'Aria EP' - 4 tracks of sound sublime, exemplifying Rockwell's refreshing angle on energy in the club combined with the characteristic, meticulously playful technicals, precise and thrilling as ever.The charmingly rustic intro of 'Aria' unleashes striking Flinstones-esque wooden triplets, scaling the track as stirring vocals weave through; haunting and uplifting at once, the title-track exudes sheer class. Slightly more buoyant, 'Live For The Moment' infuses an energetic tempo with profusions of ear-carressing funk and those ever-characteristic percussive twists - naughty all over. Swiftly plunged into apocalyptic darkness, the Ulterior Motive boys take a sinister liking to 'Noir'. Distinctly menacing and genuinely frightening, what better to bully the atmosphere than Hell-raising bass and staccato violins. Listen out for the breakdown bass - horrific and enriching, this track is dark by Devil's definition. Icing on the cake collaboration with underground legend Untold comes in the form of 'Rehoku Sunrise', a tribal earthy worldly masterpiece of running drums and raw, wild samples, glazing the soul in bliss. Bellissimo.

To kick things off Riskotheque and Matt U unleash 'The Elephant Man'. An eeire atmos creeps in, accompanied by dissonant chords. The drop snaps to a pulsating sub bass, driven by crisp and sharp beats. A serious low end work out, guaranteed to work the bass bins. On the flip Droid Sector and Draft Portal lay down some solid beats which rolls into a trance influenced riff acompained with dreamy vocals from Kira Anniles.

'End Of Times' on the A side is a dark futuristic beast of a roller sure to get your blood pumping on and off the dancefloor. On the flip 'Hondonadas' features a more experimental approach maintaining the right balance between dark and light with lush pads and breaks washing in and out of the soundscape. A must for the more concerning drum and bass heads out there.

Omar S treats us to a second release in the space of a week, with a much deserved reissue of some 1996 Roy Davis Jnr rawness across the A Side. The Stevie Wonder classic "All I Do" gets chopped up, laid over a killer Chi town beat filled with instantly gratifying raw drum edits and augmented by some evil bass thumps. Relentlessly brilliant and sounds just as fresh some 14 years on. Echoing a current trend this side plays outwards from the inside groove. On the flip Omar S teams up with DJ B Len D for the bongo heavy deep groove of "Da Teys" a track that's characterised by melodic keys which increase with curveball drama as the track progresses.

Known in many circles for his wonderful dubstep excursions comes San Francisco native 'DJG' with his excellent take on Drum & Bass. This is his first release when it comes to D&B and we are very proud to be releasing these amazing tunes! Welcome aboard!

A. HYDRATE A deep menacing vibe kicks things off a a steady kick while claps and thick snare are sprinkled throughout leading up to a thunderous reese that will challenge any system. Muffled horns and vocals keep things interesting leading up to a subterranean breakout takes things into dubby territory! A truly wonderful piece of original music!

AA. HYDRATE ( CONSEQUENCE REMIX ) Known for his work with the Autonomic crew, Consequence seemed the perfect match to recreate an already wonderful tune and does a great job with this remix. A hazy intro with dusty crackles leads into the tune's signature kick with claps. Dubby stabs with a drawn out horn take things deeper before the bass punches through.

Consequence has taken his signature minimal sound and added upon the original for a truly deep, original recreation. These are the kind of remixes we like! Dub Dub Dub!!!

Dubsided continue to release bass heavy electro house, and we welcome the follow up EP to Sticky K's previous Dubsided release. 'California EP' is a wonky 4 tracker stacked with all the right elements and surprising hooks.

Check out the mad vocal drops in 4 minutes into 'California', cheeky and a little barmy

2024 Repress

Hurray! PROFAN is back from the future to complicate things again. But let's have a look back in the past: in the mid-1990s, Wolfgang Voigt, under his innumerable aliases (M:I:5, Digital, Grungerman, Wasserman …), unsettled the minimal world and its straight grooves with his right-at-the-threshold-of-pain abstract techno. As a DJ, you sometimes even thought that the vinyl was scratched. "Distort the listening habits until they break up" has always been the leitmotiv of this exceptional artist from Cologne. In 2000 however, after having created another promising trademark: WASSERMANN - W.I.R. that - in spite of or because of its unconventional structure (abstract beat, German vocals) - ranked among the number one hits in any important club and DJ charts and which was even remixed by Sven Väth, Wolfgang Voigt decided to discontinue the label for a while. PROFAN produced two sublabels each devoted to the refinement of specific minimal variants: STUDIO 1 and FREILAND. FREILAND in particular was and still is one of Voigt's projects that manifests his artistic and deconstrucivist approach to the aesthetics of techno beats. FREILAND's concept is radical: the only reference to techno is the bass drum and a sound reduced to the utmost that is moving around it. No wonder that now, eight years after the last PROFAN release, Wolfgang Voigt is back under his alias FREILAND. With KLAVIERMUSIK (piano music), Voigt continues his way towards atonality and electronic art music. The straight bass drum still is the only pulsatile instrument and sometimes it is not even that. WOLFGANG VOIGT / FREILAND - KLAVIERMUSIK is radical, puristic, uncompromising, elegiac, difficult, defiant, true and absolutely necessary. The record, including artcover designed by Wolfgang Voigt is strictly limited.. Greed sucks.

Destination PUB ! Let's drink a good beer, while listening this fat hard Bass to open the chakras !

Loud sound thankx to a massive pre-mastering a an excellent cut. A bit original, to avoid the style to become boring...

First release of this new EXPLOSIVE RECORDS sister label: JUMPING IS NOT A CRIME! DJ ERIK 2K offers a superb jumpstyle production based on the all time classic 'On the Move' by Barthezz..In total 4 powerful (re)mixes which will set fire on all jumpstyle floors, very well done!

This is Worldwide suicide. An excellent Drum & bass electro italian record. Rare stuff ! Toolbox co-production.

original Screen-print sleeve

Shadow Play, the brand new label owned by Parisian artist Le Loup and his partner Pura, drops its second release courtesy of the bossman himself alongside Chris Carrier. The two men got together in the studio and cooked up some tasty goodness. The first of four tracks on this release is the intergalactic opus 'Phoenix Lights', which works off serene pads that transport you out into the cosmos, along with a warm, soothing bassline and electronic chirps and bleeps. 'Research Programm (Outro)' takes us into more obscure realms, as Chris Carrier and Le Loup sample a scientific vocal and create a mesmerising bed of sounds underneath it. On the flip we kick off with 'Clouds Reflection', another track which features a sample from an old instructional video. This track has minimal composition, with dreamy astral pads, shuffling beats and a grumbling low end. In the second half Chris and Le Loup introduce more twinkling FX, to engage and hypnotise you... To bring the EP to a close we're presented with 'V-Shape', which begins with a layer of clever drum programming aimed straight at the hips. Once you're moving get ready for the juicy bassline, and a sultry top end that grips you and gripping progression. The perfect to end an utterly fresh EP...

The Spinning Plates imprint returns this October with Club Winston’s ‘Guzzle’ EP, comprised of four gritty club workouts from the London artist.

The UK’s Club Winston has been steadily unveiling a series of tripped-out club ready cuts via his own UKGEORGE label over the past few years along with remixes from the likes of D.Tiffany and Tim Reaper. Here though we see him join the roster of Spinning Plates with his latest collection of works, an imprint that’s played host to material from the likes of SHKN, Neksha, Andy Rantzen, DJ Spider and Bruno Schmidt since its inception in 2015.

Title-track ‘Guzzle’ leads, laid out across five minutes with a menacing arpeggio bass lead, howling atmospherics and crunchy analogue drums. ‘Hell’ follows and tips the focus over to heavy doses of sub bass, intricately dynamic, modulating drums and intense swells of processed synths throughout.

Opening the flip-side is ‘Chart’, upping the energy levels with a pacey 4/4 drum groove while twitchy resonant synth lines, low-end pulsations and cavernous reverberations ebb and flow throughout. ‘Partook’ then rounds out the release, a cinematic ambient composition which lays focus on swirling, textural pads, glitched out resonant bleeps and fluttering low end hits.

The unstoppable Spaziale Recordings set their sights on an absolute Paradise Garage classic from 1982 - the much sought after and instantly recognisable ‘Together Forever’ by Exodus. This fully licensed, remastered reissue comes housed in a full picture sleeve and contains a killer DEF Mix from Stefano Ritteri alongside the original extended vocal and dub versions.

Bursting with passion, ‘Together Forever’ is a record that was destined for greatness. A Larry Levan favourite, and for good reason. Produced by Errol Mattis and featuring one of the most sampled vocals in house music, there’s a triple threat of plucked basslines, clavinet power and joyful horns backed with the kind of percussion that ignites a rarely witnessed tribal energy within. It’s had crowds in fits of frenzies ever since its release and every collection deserves this gem nestled within it.

As well as the original extended vocal and dub versions, Stefano Ritteri steps up to add his own special touch, giving it some proto house power. He echoes and manipulates those fiery vocals, introducing each element gradually from the acid tinged topline to the layers of drum machine heat, gradually building the suspense to pure fever pitch.

We’re extremely proud to present Leaving Time, a new EP by Christoph de Babalon. The EP has all the menace and grit that the Hamburg-born, Berlin-based producer is known for, but packs a potent, dance-ready punch that breaks new ground.

Leaving Time begins with the snarling subs ‘The Upper Hand’, and momentum builds through the panoramic breakbeats of ‘I Trusted You’ and dubwise groove of ‘Steps Into Solitude’ to reach the symphonic release of ‘Got to Let Go’.

This record encapsulates everything we love about Christoph’s music – it’s doom-laden, introspective and crafted with intent.

In short, it’s CDB on a 140 / fwd tip - fuck the chairs!

About Christoph de Babalon:

Christoph de Bablon first became known for his work on Alec Empire’s Digital Hardcore Recordings in the early 1990s and has championed a misanthropic take on drum and bass that has stood the test of time.

A punk-influenced fusion of jungle, breakbeat and dark soundscapes, his signature sound has become the stuff of legend – Thom Yorke once said Christoph’s pioneering debut album 'If You’re Into It, I’m Out Of It’ was the “most menacing record” in his collection.

After a brief hiatus composing music for theatre (we’d like to hear what that sounded like), recent releases on labels such as A Colourful Storm, V I S and AD93 have sparked renewed interest in the German producer, and with much excitement from his loyal following of die-hard supporters.

Kaspi & Stride is a new project from Justin Tripp, best known as one half of the Georgia equation. Leanings has its origins in rigorous yet laid back studio sessions, dual personal practice sensibilities that seem to get at Tripp’s creative ethos as well as any descriptors might. The material here was born out of collaborative studio sessions with multi-instrumentalist Jimy Seitang (Conga Square/Stygian Stride) - the “Stride” of K&S. The music from these sessions has been reworked and recontextualized by Tripp to form the eight tracks found on the record. These compositions are heady and diverse, anchored by infectious drum patterns and intricate electronics, capably occupying a somewhat hard to define space between “club ready” and “home listening.”

“Vishing” throbs with a wide-eyed intensity, infused with the type of deceptively rudimentary synth stabs and bass swells that wouldn’t be out of place on an early Hype Williams record. With contributions from Mary Lattimore and Jon Leland, “Kaptoxa” charts a more ethereal, if no less dizzying, course. Indeed, this is an album that navigates dense, tactile passages and airy, celestial planes with aplomb, making a case for Tripp’s prowess as both composer and arranger with equal priority. The most important thing is to keep moving.

Amsterdam might be susceptible to grey skies and rain as any other, but cup your ear to the music flowing out of the Dutch capital, and another story emerges. The Mauskovic Dance Band are a prime example of an act who have been dialing up the sunshine over the river Amstel in recent years.On Shadance Hall, their first release of 2020, they concoct a tantalising brew of no-wave, psych rock, cumbia, power dub and numerous other colourful shades of global grooves.

No stranger to Dekmantel as one of half of electro-grouping Bruxas, Nicola Mauskovic leads his percussive troupe through a heavy, trippy, disco fiesta with this, their first debut on Dekmantel Records.
The Mauskovic Dance Band’s epic sonic journey on Shadance Hall began deep in the Welsh valleys. Partnering dusty drum machines alongside phat layers of congas, assorted bric-a-brac of percussive tools, and distortion-soaked guitars, Mauskovic’s ensemble suspend the tempo and turn up the grooves. on this soundsystem-inspired, post-punk odyssey. The resulting soundsystem-inspired concoctions are a mixture of 130bpmbeats (‘Ventura Phase’), Jah Wobble-influenced bass rhythms (‘Squeeze Dogs’) and Carnival-ready soca-jams (‘Theorie Amerikaan’).

Taken back to Amsterdam’s famed Electric Monkey Studio (a favourite for Ghanian great Ebo Taylor and Dutch youngbloods Jungle By Night alike, Mauskovic teamed up with engineer Kasper Frenkel to mix down the record. Here the two acted as Mad Professors, experimenting with the recordings and making multiple versions of each track by creating tape loops, bouncing the audio back and forth and layering the resulting recordings in waves of reverb and echo. In classic dub style, the band ended up with dub edits, rich in space echo, reverb, crush, and dub-goodness, completing the second half of Shadance Hall like a funky palindrome. It rounds off an expressive EP steeped in musical history, bursting with inventiveness, projected at the listener as a maze of influences to get lost within.