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Chilean-born Francisco Allendes returns to Crosstown Rebels for the first time in six years this May. Serving up the three-track What You Do, the title number has already received global airplay via Damian Lazarus himself. Now, the full release will be made available next month and includes a remix by US-legend Harry Romero.

A contemporary dose of four-on-the-floor house, What You Do leaves few prisoners in its wake, as rampant drum patterns converge on a heady combination of kicks, synths and irresistible vocals right the way through. There’s an infectious energy to the track, paving the way for Harry Romero’s similarly up-tempo remix. It’s feel-good, club-ready dance music at its best, packed full of low-slung groove that opens neatly into the closing sequence: Maratone, a stripped-back, techy cut that bears all the hallmarks of a true Ibiza anthem.

Hailing from Chile and now based in Ibiza, Francisco Allendes is a leading light in today’s scene. Be it Loco Dice’s Desolat, Steve Lawler’s VIVA or Damian Lazarus’ Crosstown Rebels, his productions have graced some of the industry’s most well-respected labels. Such quality hasn’t gone unnoticed - he picked up the ‘Best Ibiza’ DJ Award in September 2019 and has gone on to complete several South American tours. A much loved affiliate of ANTS, Francisco has a long standing residency at both Ushuaïa in Ibiza and their affiliated tours, in addition to hosting the weekly radio show.

Seminal American house talent Harry Romero is a well-established figure on the worldwide music circuit. A prominent global DJ and producer since the ‘90s, early productions on Cutting Records and Cutting Traxx helped set the tone for Harry’s career trajectory, opening the doors to a coveted BBC Radio 1 ‘Essential Mix’ in recent years.

Mint Condition - A record label focused on excavating the outer fringes of classic House and Techno. Unreleased mixes, classics, overlooked gems and never heard before material, mined from the last 30+ years of contemporary dance music are the order of the day. From Chicago, Detroit and New York to London, Nottingham and beyond. Mint Condition have got their digging hats on to bring you exclusive heat and those rarer than rare jams that have been in your
wants list for years. Dig in....

Back in 1997, UK house legend Charles Webster, this time under his DJ Profile alias, unleashed these killer tracks. Originally released on the sorely missed London nightclub The End's label, this fine 12" set a benchmark for what would become a very exciting time for the UK's underground scene, both tracks are widely considered to be up there with Charles' most sought after work.

A-side 'Prove It' kicks off with swinging drums that deliver the funk, percussive elements rattle & shake and the low slung bass line keeps the track firmly on the dancefloor. The soothing chords, acid overtones and the evocative vocal hook are mesmerising and soulful.
Over on the flip, 'Realization' is a bumping analogue monster. The kicks are solid, the snares swing and an infectious rolling bass line carries the track throughout. Darker acidic touches sit alongside delicate synth riffs and emotive chords that lift, drift and lose you in a world of wonderfully woozy deep house sonics.

Never has the late night dance floor sounded so good, and this slab of wax is a must have that typifies a halcyon period in underground house history. The tracks themselves have remained exciting and relevant, achieving cult status amongst the most discerning DJs, record collectors and music heads alike. Legitimately re-released with the full involvement of Charles Webster, lovingly remastered by London's Curve Pusher from the original sources especially for Mint Condition. 100% legit, licensed and released. Dug, remastered, repackaged and brought to you by the caring folks at your favourite reissue label - Mint Condition!

The Tel Aviv-born and now Berlin-based Dj & producer Roy Brizman is next on the ever respectable Subtil Records. He delivers two remarkable original cuts, accompanied by a lush remix from the talented Christopher Ledger.

First up is "At The End" wich reflects perfectly Brizman´s moody gentle side, a journey of sounds and beats - super unique.

On A2 "The Swing", a rolling little groove monster that will surely do the magic on any dancefloor.

Christopher Ledger keeps the original low slung minimal house vibes of "At The End" and goes deeper into broken beats with a brilliant remix.

Kerri Chandler’s Kaoz Theory kicks off 2022 with Mr. ID’s Language Of Jazz EP, featuring two remixes from the label boss himself alongside two original cuts.

2021 saw Kerri Chandler’s Kaoz Theory continue to move from strength to strength, unveiling material from the likes of Dutch rising star Chris Stussy and of course Kerri himself, here we see the imprint wrap things up with a new addition to the roster, Casablanca, Morocco-based artist Mr. ID.

Up first on the release is ‘Track ID1’, a collaboration between Mr. ID and Youssef Grirane featuring Rita Mdn. It’s a unique six-minute journey through jazzy pianos and organ licks, intricate organic percussion and mesmeric, textural atmospheres. Kerri gives it the remix treatment in style extracting all of the jazziness of the original and retwisting things with the classic Chandler authentic house feel. Next, Chandler employs his revered 623 alias for the ‘623 Again Mix’ version which strips things back to low-slung drums, bumpy stabs and emotive piano lines.

The flip side houses ‘Track ID1’ in all its original glory before ‘Track ID2’ closes out proceedings seeing Mr. ID join forces with Younes Akhraz, rhythmically shifting to a jazzy 4/4 drum groove while wandering keys and warm subs fuel the mystical vibe.

DJ Feedback:

Sasha – Tasty

Laurent Garnier – Love the whole EP

Jimpster – Jazzed up piano house heaven! Love It!

Lea Lisa – Lovely remix by Kerri

Mr. V – Kerri delivers the goods once again!!!

Anja Schneider – Great. Love It.

Archie Hamilton – Nice

Andrew Treagust - Man that's some crazy production – really like it!

Mike W - absolutely classic release. how on earth could you go wrong? the world needs more piano!

Fish Go Deep - All tracks sounding great here. ID1 is a lovely warm groove and Kerri's remixes inject a little dancefloor bump to proceedings.

Daniel Troberg – incredible music

Kiki Navarro – excellent single, loving all the mixes special ID1 and the Kerri Chandler Main Remix

Ben Lovett – Remix mastery from Chandler – wonderful meeting of piano and drum – fire.

Sergio – Excellent example of classic house with personality

Hector Samper – Amazing EP!!!

Superlux Records continues its release schedule this December with a debut EP from Taymor Zadeh. The four-track Life Goes On EP includes three originals from the UK-based artist, as well as a special remix from One Records co-founder, Subb-an. Speaking on the production process behind the EP, Taymor describes how “ Life Goes On was made using a tb303, roland mc505, a 909 which I borrowed from a good friend, some vocal samples from old tape recordings and a load of imagination.”

The A Side gets underway with Bubbleworks , and Taymor’s “imagination” is plain to see. It’s a no-nonsense club-ready cut, with thick hats and an up-tempo lead bassline residing next to an array of bubble-sounding pops throughout. That same late-night feel continues into Life Goes On , as eerie vocals flitter between pulses of acid and punchy, whip-like drums. On the B Side, Gekula takes the lead. Fast-paced with clear minimal influences, we’re graced with eight minutes of dancefloor-geared delight as distorted voices reside atop a driving kick-hat backbone, before Subb-an’s remix continues in the same vein, taking us deep into 5 AM territory with glitchy synths and plenty of dark, low-slung percussion.

With an ethos of quality over quantity at his core, Taymor Zadeh has carved out a bespoke sound within the electronic music sphere. In recent times his releases have been welcomed by Stephane Genacia’s Highpath Records as well as Luca C’s See Double imprint, a testament to his keen ear for production. Berlin-based Subb-an is a leading figure in the UK minimal scene. As co-founder of One Records, 2020 has seen the label celebrate ten years of releases with a two-part vinyl sampler, including tracks from the likes of Anna Wall, Matthew Johnson and more besides.

Los Angeleno and all around swell guy Dino Soccio has been building his rep as a premier selector and editor with his own Pleasure of Love edits series, and now joins the RNT ranks with an EP of rarified rework gold.

The record kicks off with the meteoric energy of 'Star Beaming', a rolling interstellar disco stomper, then lays back with the low-slung 'Fred’s Groove' and jazzy balearic groove of 'Laid Back', finishing off with the bouncey early-'80s boogie feel of 'Forgot'. All dusty digger’s delights, simonized and edited to perfection for maximum vibes!

2023 Repress

A heaven-made match is now complete with Gerry Read's debut EP for Pampa Records. The British producer's distinctively twisted, lo-fi sound, combined with Pampa's deep-vein instinct for quality quirks, ushers in a new phase for two of house music's most celebrated names. The opening bars of 'It'll All Be Over' are immediately evocative, hinting at the patchwork style to come. Twangy banjo strings and a foot-stomp beat seem to herald a folksy arrangement, but that isn't to be. Soft floaty pads rise up to form an unlikely partnership, softening sharp edges and adding sophisticated melodic expression. Once a compressed vocal sample is introduced, the entire structure reveals itself and begins to spin and loop in the style of iconic French house productions. Propelled further along by the endearing drama of flooded bass drum kicks, falsetto voices and xylophone pings, 'It'll All Be Over' is immediately memorable and expertly architectured. Read's second cut, 'Satyricon,' is woven in the spirit of micro-house. Sharp waveform cuts, timely pauses, loops of noodling keys and hints of percussion shakers combine for a low-slung psychedelic effect. With the sunniness of a vintage folk-pop sample and sultry snatches of Spanish dialogue added atop a deep mid-tempo shuffle, Read secures his place alongside the Bradocks and Leclairs who came before him. On the flipside, Pampa's figurehead takes an expert turn at the controls of 'It'll All Be Over (DJ Koze remix).' The original's jagged edges are buffed out, and shined up into a gleaming disco house anthem. With its artfully timed strumming breakdowns and cowbell accents, it is an appetising teaser of the forthcoming summer.

Repress

Sam Binga returns to drop his debut EP for Critical Music. Inviting back the infamous Redders for vocal duties, picking up where his trail blazing single AYO and the much loved 'Lef Dem' from Critical's 'Underground Sonics' LP left off. A deft combination of low slung beats and bass with a nod to the jungle tradition.

On her first Harmony Index album, multi-instrumentalist and producer Nico Leibman spotlights the feelings that are most difficult to express, bringing out the friction between her dreamy hooks and harsher sonics. Written almost like a DJ set, the album shifts intentionally between piano-led trip-hop, lounge, dream pop, 2-step and breakbeat house, not languishing in nostalgia but defining a language that's rooted in desire, surrender and forward motion.

Until now, Leibman has been best known as a touring musician, working alongside artists like Jessica Pratt and Ana Roxanne, while slowly putting together new solo material in-between frequent tours. The album was written in bursts over the course of five long years and provided Leibman with a much-needed outlet - a chance for her to lock into her personal musical preoccupations, like Janet Jackson's 'The Velvet Rope', Everything but the Girl's 'Walking Wounded' and Prefab Sprout's 'Jordan: The Comeback'.

It's this era of pop - when nascent technology collided at force with skillful, soulful songwriting - that provides the album's backbone, fleshed out by Leibman's potent meditations on a spectrum of experiences in Los Angeles. And as the record was evolving, Leibman let long night drives crack her creative world open. Embracing the city's notoriously cinematic romantic side, she used the car as a "little chamber of limerence," in her own words, enabling her fantasies and acting as a test system for each song. "If it wasn't hitting in the car," she says. "It wasn't going to be on the record, period."

This sense of motion is evident almost immediately on 'Recognize', when Leibman's breathy words are carried into the night by choppy, uptempo breaks and resonant pads. So even when she simply coos over chugging guitars and bass on the first half of 'Enough', the drop into a low-slung breakbeat is implied. "Another digression, a break in this tension," she sings. "Was I foolish to believe that this was never your intention?" Leibman's tales of disillusionment are imbued with power, buoyed by her pitch-perfect production, with additional help from co-producer Cesar Maria.

On 'Don't Pretend', she sings softly and soulfully over decelerated Timbaland-inspired beats and a dubwise bassline, aided by additional production from Purelink. And 'If' marks the point where she lets go, infusing her euphoria with melancholy as her voice soars alongside the album's most infectious piano riff. Fittingly, the album concludes with 'Trust', a song about surrendering to the possibilities of love that works as a potent metaphor for the album's evolution. Over the course of five years, Leibman learned to let people in, finally trusting the process. "It's also a fantasy of what it would feel like to finally be in love again," she laughs, accepting that it's still just a fantasy. But it's this hope in unfulfilled longing that gives the album its unique character, defining a bold, unguarded voice in LA's experimental pop landscape.

Ecstatic’s dreamiest cadets bliss out on a new album of acoustic and electric guitar, harmonium and synth tapestries, notably nestling a Romance cameo within a genteel toggle of atmospheric pressure.

Back on (side) road after releasing quietly acclaimed kosmische gem ‘I Had too Much to Dream Last Night’ back in 2021 and the lysergic lushness of ‘Listen to the Sky’ a couple of years later, Celestial suggest a more sublime return to earth with the shine-eyed wonders of ‘I Can Hear the Grass Grow’, an album that soothes to the supine in eight shimmering parts of pearlescent melodic motifs marbling harmonious backdrops intended to tenderly comb nerves straight.

The duo take their role as seductive sandmen with a curious melodic wit that leaves something to the imagination whilst nudging it along the album’s narrative thread. A courtly flamenco lick flickers in opener ‘The Endless Stair’, one of the most restrained recordings we've heard from the childhood friends; blessed with just a little reverb and echo, as if a mic's been lowered into some dimly lit basement while Celestial puzzle out mystifying, interlocking harmonies. It hits a mid-point between John Fahey's raga-inspired Americana and Vini Reilly's rain-soaked Northern blues - the emotion throbs from every note.

Celestial's music is never too polished, giving it the fuzzy, uninhibited flair of a long-lost mail order private press and instilling it with a level of humanity that's rare to discover in the new-new age. Even when mysterious labelmate Romance turns up to ornament 'Mermaid Boulevard' with backmasked electronics, it's their low-slung Ry Cooder-esque guitar/bass that provides the narrative anchor, while the title track and spongiform analog textures of ‘Song For The rainy Season’ dial it right down to a Harmonia-via-BoC pastoral sublime. Vini Reilly and Eno’s influence is most surely felt on the swaying elegance of ‘Sweet Sleep, Angel Mild’, with a central motif that lingers on the mind long after it’s stopped playing, whilst their closing couplet perfectly resolves the cycle with a melancholic kiss-off for the ages.

Dutch artist Maurits Verwoerd, aka Nachtbraker, makes his first outing on Up The Stuss with ‘Bodu Imchi’, a four-track collection that highlights the breadth and curiosity that have long defined his work. Drawing from a world that stretches from ambient and cinematic music to dub, jazz-inflected electronics and house, the Amsterdam native has developed a sound that can feel both deeply considered and completely instinctive. Releases across Aus Music, Peach Discs, Heist Recordings, Dirt Crew and his own Nachtbraker and Quartet Series labels have established him as one of the more distinctive voices within the Dutch house landscape, with support from artists including Jamie xx, DJ Seinfeld, Raresh, Shanti Celeste and Axel Boman.

Across ‘Bodu Imchi’, those influences come together in a record that feels fluid, slightly strange and constantly alive. Warmth sits alongside subtle unease, hypnotic grooves give way to more playful rhythmic ideas, and intricate melodies drift through low-slung foundations without ever becoming overly polished. There’s a sense of late-night discovery throughout, the kind of music that rewards close attention but still carries enough physicality to move a room and keep packed dancefloors moving with a locked-in approach. Four tracks, one evolving atmosphere, and a meeting of musical worlds that feels right at home on Up The Stuss. It’s a release that finds character in the fine details: unexpectedtextures, subtle rhythm shifts and elements that seem to appear out of nowhere before then disappearing again. It’s an EP that moves between heads-down focus and hazier hours, capturing the curious, nocturnal spirit that runs through his work.

Iris is back! This time with a brand-new long-player under the name Irisplus with many featured guests.

Lazy, stumbling slacker songs with multilingual vocals, expanding the melodic, riff-driven sound of previous Iris releases like “Surrender”. Watch out for the full-band live version!

Flute by Falyakon: Music/Ghost
Vox by TRii: Fog, Spoof, EG Land
Extra guitar/percussion by TRii: Deeds
Vox by Falyakon: يا ليل ,قرش و عتيق
Vox by Employee: Fernando, Crossings
Vox by Mo Chan: 今日も明日も

All songs written, produced, mixed and recorded by Iris. Mastered by The Bastard and Maximilian Schweizer. Graphics by Non-CN. Pressed by Disk Media Service.

Two of the most revered female voices in recent memory get the rework treatment from the shadows, resulting in a double dose of low-slung, deftly sampled, house heaters.

Having built a reputation through an impressive run of standout releases on labels such as Life and Death, United Identities, HOME//GRXWN. and Berg Audio, coupled with an ever-growing presence behind the scenes, Dutch DJ/producer M-HIGH arrives on Up The Stuss for his label debut with ‘What’s Going On’ - a four-track collection that shifts shape as it moves.

A friendship dating back years, with Chris having been a key early supporter of M-HIGH’s productions, regularly digging through fresh sketches and unreleased ideas while both artists carved their own individual paths, that connection now comes full circle here with a heavily anticipated first outing on the label that has long felt inevitable - it was simply a case of when.

Never holding still in one form for too long, he plays with tension and release across the individual tracks, balancing airy, vocal-led moments with weightier, more grounded rhythms, allowing each idea room to unfold without losing momentum. There’s a constant sense of motion that runs through the record from the first minute to the last, yet it’s an EP that showcases distinct sides to his growing sound across each production. Melodic passages drift in and out of focus, giving way to tougher, more angular sections before circling back again.

Subtle nods to classic house touches, from organs to retro-leaning motifs, are reframed through a more off-center lens and direction, while flashes of electro influence and low-slung grooves keep things unpredictable for the later hours. It’s a record that feels built for both peak dancefloor use and also the in-between moments, when the energy shifts, the room resets, and the direction isn’t quite locked yet.

Warehouse Find!

Time to welcome Soul 223 to the label with his debut Delusions EP entitled Fear Of Stopping. Something of a complete legend in our eyes and ears, Steve Pickton has been releasing top drawer tuneage for over two decades both as Stasis on influential labels such as B12 and Peacefrog and more recently as Soul 223 on equally well regarded imprints like Delsin, Soul Jazz and Neroli. Always one to shy away from any limelight or self promotion it's true to say that this underrated British producer remains something of an anomaly, staying true to his underground roots where faceless, shadowy and obscure reigns supreme over the latest over-exposed cover star. This ethos naturally carries through into his music where you will always find both expansive beauty and unrefined rawness in equal measures ensuring his tracks always sound fresh rather than over produced or contrived.

Fear Of Stopping opens the EP with a low-slung disco groove providing the backbone for intermittent pad washes and reversing stabs. The focus here is firmly on the drums and simple conga riff with thankfully very little else to deter you from this sublime slice of abstract dance music.

Next up we have a remix from another ridiculously talented producer who chooses quality over quantity, having only ever had one release under his own name, albeit for one of the most respected labels in the world; Rush Hour. Maxi Mill came to our attention having released one of the tracks of 2011 namely To The Next. On this, his first ever solo remix he brings a brilliant bump to the EP with a raw, warehousey and bass-heavy workout. Just the right amount of strings and pads keep the deep vibe intact but the filtering bass and jacking drums definitely take this one to the floor.

Flipping over we have Walberswick in it's Hoist Covert Mix incarnation. Almost thirteen minutes of spaced out, deep Detroit house music awaits you, ready to lure you in and cocoon you with it's warm and hypnotizing machine funk. Lovely to hear the old Stasis influence working it's way into this one sounding both decidedly old-school and completely futuristic and otherworldly as only the best tracks ever do.

Closing the EP we have Birdbrook Rain dropping the BPM's for a beautifully sparse track that brings with it an almost desolate and disconnected feeling, echoing synths providing a naive melody while a dusty pad shifts simply beneath. A little slice of magic concluding a fresh and interesting EP, we hope you agree.

Somewhere between the after-hours haze and the first flicker of sunrise, Nebraska re-emerges - this time with a twist in the signal. Long respected for his deep-cut sensibilities and dancefloor intuition, Ali Gibbs returns to Delusions Of Grandeur not just as Nebraska, but with a handover to his new alias: Dubl Drat. The Alter Alter Ego EP plays like a transmission from both sides of his creative psyche - one rooted in warm, groove-led house and disco mutations, the other drifting deeper into dubbed-out, heady abstraction.

The A-side opens with Alter Alter Ego in its Nebraska OG Mix form - a crunchy, funked-up mid-tempo burner. Chopped Rhodes solos flicker in and out of the mix while a rolling bassline locks into a low-slung groove - equal parts party-starter and late-night dancefloor hypnosis. Next, The Teckel Track slides the tempo down into a proper slo-mo four-on-the-floor bumpy groove. Fat stabs punch through layers of glitchy FX while a melodic bassline snakes underneath, forming a hazy, infectious earworm tailor-made for those early-night mood-setting sessions. Closing the A-side, Olive (Dubl Drat Dub) signals a shift. Here, Gibbs leans fully into his Dubl Drat persona, dissolving structure into a blissed-out dub excursion.

Chopped breaks scatter across the stereo field, chiming melodies echo into the distance, and granulated percussion parts build a dense, immersive landscape - one to get lost in rather than dance through. Flipping over we have Alter Alter Ego (Dubl Drat Remix) which reconfigures the title track into a stripped-back boogie workout. The groove is leaner but no less potent, driven by a killer bassline and punctuated with signature Rhodes licks - pure, understated club pressure. Finally, Olive (Nebraska Version) offers a gentle comedown. This alternate take softens the edges, introducing additional guitar textures that drift into Balearic territory. It’s nostalgic, introspective, and quietly expansive - a closing chapter that lingers long after the last note fades. The Alter Alter Ego EP isn’t just a new release - it’s a dual-state exploration, a conversation between rhythm and space, between Nebraska and Dubl Drat, and marks the last ever Nebraska release as Ali closes the chapter and the alias for the final time.

Noesis is the transatlantic convergence of ST’Pauls, Bristol lyricist Wish Master and New Orleans producer Wino Willy—a dense, meditative body of work where razor-edged wordplay meets smoked-out, rhythm-forward production. Rooted in underground rap tradition but unbound by geography, the album moves between introspection and assertion, pairing Wish Master’s intricate flows and philosophical leanings with Wino Willy’s textured drums, warped samples, and low-slung Southern bounce.

The result is a cohesive, head-nod-driven record that feels both cerebral and visceral—two distinct scenes speaking a shared language through sound. Noesis is not just a collaboration; it’s a dialogue across oceans.

‘Falling Backwards’ is the debut album from Him & Earl via Wah Wah 45s, serving up a mystic brew of desert blues, English folk, Americana and stirring southern soul, with tentacles stretching out into psychedelia and prog, across 11 hot and hazy tracks.

Singer-songwriter Olly Him and DJ, producer and composer Wyndham Earl both have deeply-dug roots in the south coast of England, with the former making his name as a solo artist before exploring his soulful folk/prog sound with a number of live acts, and the latter collaborating on albums and sharing stages with Bonobo, Khruangbin, Alice Russell and TM Juke, having remixes released by Tru Thoughts and Mr Bongo Records and releasing his solo projects on his Time Spun imprint.

The pair first met in 2015 when Wyndham produced some songs for now defunct hypnotic Afro-folk outfit Creatures Of The Deep, of which Olly was a founder member. They instantly clicked, but after the group broke up it was a few years before serendipity brought them back together; a chance encounter at a gig saw them begin hatching plans to make a full album under the name Him & Earl with Olly writing the songs and Wyndham arranging and producing the project.

After so long floating in the creative ether, the connective power of these songs has been strikingly immediate. The debut Him & Earl live show in early 2026, before any tracks had even come out, blew Olly and Wyndham’s expectations out of the water as their five-piece band found themselves toe-to-toe with a sellout crowd – a sweaty room full of happy music fans, on an otherwise bleak January night, throwing shapes to live percussion showdowns, losing themselves in psychedelic guitar and bass wig-outs, and singing along to choruses they’d never heard a note of before.

Since then, the first two singles “Bottled Up” and “Away” have had high profile airplay from the likes of BBC 6 Music’s Huw Stephens and Cerys Matthews, and Radio X’s John Kennedy, adding to widespread tastemaker and specialist support around the world, as excitement builds for the album.The LP’s introspective and philosophical lyrics are brought to life by a sonorous yet strangely uplifting sound palette that morphs by stealth into a darkly propulsive, psychedelic and bluesy trip.

Opening song “Away” taps straight into a key theme of the record – journeying, in both a physical and mental sense, and the quest to move on and embrace the unknown – and its sunny guitars, trumpet and violin barely even hint at the tumultuous sonic adventure that’s set to unfold. A stronger indication comes in the title track,“Falling Backwards”, as its elegant web of staccato finger-picked hook, fluid piano melodies and strings unfurls into a six-minute exploration of what Olly describes as “going through every day normality while feeling close to chaos and like things could fall apart at any moment… when there is a myriad of different things holding everything together and if one thing goes wrong everything can fall apart around it.”



“Better Days” swiftly restores a sense of upbeat calm, with lively Kora and Afrobeat-inspired guitar licks, atmospheric trumpet and a harmony-clad mantra of hope on the horizon; the folky “Bottled Up” continues that blissful notion with undulating finger-picked guitar, earthy clarinet counter-melodies and celestial murmurations of delicately plucked strings. The magnetic pull toward more mysterious horizons comes via the dusty twang of Wild West-esque guitars on “Open Road”, a nomadic journey of self-discovery through spacious sonic plains embellished with eerie flickers of flute and clarinet. This leftward turn gathers pace in the trancelike

psych-prog depths of “Preside”, an instrumental cut at the album’s pivotal halfway point. Hypnotic, guttural desert blues-infused riffs on “Inside” channel the feeling of a psychedelic or spiritual trip where, in Olly’s words, “something clicks and you understand things on a different level – it makes you see inside yourself and see things in a different way.” “Shadow overhead” brings a lighter touch to a darker subject – the feeling of paranoia and being locked away from the world – drawn from Olly’s own experience and also his years of working in and around mental health.

Exuberant horns lend hope to loosely looping suspense on “Blindside” (about being caught out by the unexpected, and searching for something to see or hear to pick you up again) and then mesh with urgent strings, low-slung guitars and subterranean bass on “Around Again”, which explores the modern fight to stay afloat amid the endless churn of information and distractions. Still plumbing the bassy, bluesy depths of this journey into the psyche, “You Can Only Know” is a dreamlike revelation about finding someone or something that helps to make sense of the world. Luminescent synths duck and weave, while a rock-solid bass riff is tracked by a soul-soothing four-part “hey hey” harmony, reassuring as a glowing lamp in the window at the end of a life-changing trip.

Consistent funk operator Ralo is back with a brace of tunes that will shake your bones loose. First up is 'Broken Way', a magnificently jumbled rhythm made from languid bass and kicks, peppered with organic percussion and heated through with soft synths. It's atmospheric and real, like the overheard soundtrack to a party happening in your kitchen. 'Djembe' then brings out some brassy horns to take things to the next level. They jump out of the low-slung drums and add jazz, soul and colour that cannot be ignored. Gledd and Monsieur Van Pratt step up on the flip with cultured reworks that turn things up to 11.