Back catalogue: UK Garage

Review: Irish producer Iglooghost continues to redefine electronic music with a conceptually rich and sonically dense third album. Drawing from the desolate landscapes of a coastal UK town overrun by primordial detritus, the record fuses UK garage, coldwave, drill and more into a visceral, cinematic experience. Created while squatting in a Kent coast garage near a sewage plant, Iglooghost's surroundings heavily influenced the album's dark, aquatic tone. Blending relentless percussion with eerie melodies, the album unfolds like a near-future sci-fi soundtrack. Tracks like 'Germ Chrism' deliver pummeling trap-meets-IDM chaos, while slower cuts like 'Spawn01' evoke the hushed intimacy of early Portishead. Iglooghost's vocals take center stage, ranging from snarling hooks to delicate whispers, imbuing the music with a surreal humanity. Thematically cohesive yet wildly experimental, the album's soundscapes mimic waterlogged radio transmissions, stuffed with textures, rhythms and cinematic interludes. Despite its grim undertones, a cartoonish, surreal charm runs throughout, melding genres and abstract storytelling into relentless, goosebump-inducing club music. This record reaffirms Iglooghost's mastery of world-building and his ability to craft a vivid, otherworldly atmosphere from the interplay of sound and narrative.

Review: Z Records proudly presents volume 3 in its 90s house and garage compilation series, this time presented by Jeremy Underground, a man who should need no introduction when it comes to all things house and garage. Underground (assuming that is his real surname) shares his third house selector's compilation on this one, digging deep, deep inside his record collection, making a spectacle of his ability to decide, to delimit, to include, to exclude, to tastefully separate sonic wheat from chaff. As has become obviated by this series, some of these knocky 2-steppers - these garagey housers - are to here be released on one flavor filled CD & vinyl compilation. So attune your ears to its private exclusivist 2-step grooves; avariciously launch your energies at the attainment of mid-2020s UK garage DJ royalty, till your forefingers and thumbs bleed from all the spindle pinching.