Back catalogue: All genres

Review: No production outfit keeps a pace of output quite like Vibez '93. The latest four-track record from the shadowy d&b profuser now hears them summon sampled echoes of A Tribe Called Quest and Digable Planets respectively, culling choice acapella selections from the debut albums Low End Theory and Reachin', exegeting the former's titular theory for a hard transpose into sheller drum & bass. 'Electric Relaxation' and 'Check The Rhime' are blown out across a two-side jazzstep liquescence, while 'Cool Like That' and 'All Night Long' make for finer-brushed summer steps.

Review: Vibez 93 offer an eclectic mix of bootlegged drum & bass remix styles on their latest unknown artist EP here. In the ten-or-so minute interval that makes up the A-side, we span hip-d&b to instrumental liquid: 'That Once' functions as a rattling remix version of Beyonce's 'Yonce', acapella culled from her Homecoming Live album. Then 'Teardrop', you guessed it, serves an incredibly well-mixed version of Massive Attack's eponymous pre-eminent. B-siders 'Honey' and 'Who Got Me' move increasingly r&b come d&b, the B1 plot-twisting Erykah Badu's 'Honey' and 'Who Got Me' reworking Alina Baraz.

Review: Vibez '93 top up their seemingly ever-flowing V/A series with a fresh one. 'Return Of The Mack' continues their recent spate of hip-hop flips, with Biggie Smalls, Mark Morrison and Sunshine Anderson adorning the various rollages on display here. Given the historical interplay between hip-hop and drum & bass, the fusion is unsurprisingly neat, though '93 lends things an extra energy we're confident few others could summon.

Review: UK drum n' bass producer Madcap's production credits extend all the way back to the early 90s, when LTJ Bukem was heralding him as a fledgling, yet time "fantastic" DNB visionary. Now a fledgling no more, 'Saxon Street' is his latest jungle offering for Rotterdam's Vibez' 93, and is a nonstop EP of fluffless breaks cruisers ('Fall Down') and impeccable, Brandy-sampling bouncers ('Combination', 'See Her').

Review: Vibez 93's Flights Booked EP brings a fresh take on drum & bass with a blend of melodic rhythms and distinct vocal styles. The title track, 'Flights Booked,' opens the EP with a downtempo groove that carries a futuristic vibe, enhanced by a unique hip hop lyrical flow that sets it apart from typical drum & bass tracks. 'All I Need' follows with an energetic burst, maintaining the EP's momentum and showcasing Vibez 93's knack for dynamic beats and engaging melodies. On Side-2, 'Blue Dream' stands out with its rhythm and blues vocal flow layered over crisp drum & bass production. The smooth vocal performance contrasts with the energetic rhythms, creating a great party track, before the EP closes with 'Selfish,' continuing the exploration of diverse soundscapes while staying rooted in the drum & bass tradition.

Review: A cheeky new haul of waspish, sampleholic drum & bass from Vibez 93, the jungle producer-outfit whose exact articulation as an artistic identity, we can never quite place. But this is one of the exact reasons we've warmed to his craft, aside of course from the sparsely calculating yet vasodilatory ecstasy emissive from their music. 'Never Say Never' coolly samples the eponymous Brandy song - a morbid fixation of the jungle and 2-step garage scenes, to name but one - to the point of hardly even needing to quantize it to the breaks-grid, and yet it still works. 'Believe' complicates matters with boxier breakbeat blisters and emphatic "mashup!" jeers, while 'Touch' makes a subtler series of contacts, tacitly stroking both lobes with no less aggro beat clutches and high-reg plucksynths. We end on 'My Luv', another cool reprieve from the fatally unrelenting grind of breaksweight.

Review: Vibez 93 veers heavier than usual on their latest almost weekly jungle top-up, released again on their eponymous label (it's been so long, and yet it's still so not clear, as to whether Vibez is one person or many different "unknown artists"). So too is 'Brain Storm' an ironic name, since most brainstorming is usually done in silence, whereas this is just utterly cyclonic, flaunting an equally apt potential to the compel the body. On the A1, a suspenseful set of whodunit piano plinks pepper an otherwise industrial-strength dose of breaks shreddages. We're barely afforded any time to 'Cool Down' neither, not least since Vibez' idea of downtime amounts to little less than a further set of gnashings by the same backbeat. Only do 'Amigo' and 'Vulkaan', on the B, meanwhile, fully wrangle the listener with the ragga influence that was only teased so flirtatiously on the A, with straight-up taped-and -elaid soundclash samples, and lesional rapid-echo breaks, aplenty.

Review: Vibez '93 has established itself as an essential destination for anyone interested in modern jungle iterations, not least the deeper end of the spectrum where ambient atmospherics meet with sharply-sliced breakbeats. Just check this new 12" on the label, credited to Vibez '93 itself and diving into some pitch-perfect amen juggling dreamscapes across four tracks. The pads are richly melodious, the beats rolling, the subs massive - sure, you might well hear the sound Bukem and co. pioneered back in the 90s on the likes of 'Affluence', but who could ever tire of that immaculate sound when it's done so right?

Review: Vibez '93 is on a roll, as we recall several of the Fokuz Recordings sub-outlet's best works through a throng of EP reissues. The 'Execution' EP is on the moniker's dirtier and rawer side, launching the listener's fledgling pirate voyage with 'Wheel Up' (its breakdown driven impeccably forward by acapella vocals from A Tribe Called Quest's 'Scenario'), followed shortly by the atmosfear-strikers 'Skazka' and 'Execution', and finally coming in to land on the axe-touting 'Execution', recalling the earliest of dark LTJ in its messy-hazy breaks, tribal calls and wiggly sound effects.

Review: The mysterious Vibez '93 are as prolific as they come; the 'Bad Kingdom' EP is certainly not the first of this productive drum & bass project/imprint's outputs to make it through our floodgates this year. Four slices of various productive forces - ranging from paddy jungle ('Jelly Swim'), to an unusual foray for '93: drilled-out techstep ('Labrea'). Otherwise, expect no nonsense, as this record spans both casual and not-so-casual floorfillers.

Review: From deep within the Fokuz empire, Vibez 93 continues to bring the fiercest blend of old-skool junglism and nu-skool production flair to utterly essential cuts for the widest of raves. On 'Midnight Owl' the pads spell out a smoky, immersive atmosphere, but that doesn't mean there's any hold back on the rolling breakbeat science. 'Violet' is a bit breezier in its demeanour thanks to some mellow chord licks and 'Forgotten' plummets into dank surroundings for a proper slice of breakbeat science as we've come to expect from this essential modern jungle label.

Review: Vibez '93 bring four new effective jungle heaters to the fold, as ever welcoming yet another unknown (perhaps the same all along) artist. Here they successfully hark back to he early days of jungle (again, as ever), conveying the full retroactive meaning of the sound, 'Then & Now', in conjugating a full sonic sentence. Such is the way with carefully composed music, "lyrical" in comparison with well-written verse; the vibewise arc of the record is sinusoidal, with the title track kicking things off with a colossal shellage, preceding only the glossiest, least viscous of industrial liquids, 'Lucky'; with Vibez 93, ours never really runs out. Then there's 'Danny's Keys', a midnoon synthesis of the two, an outlet for plinky pianos and urban sonic sunshine; then 'Nero Noctis' casts a benevolent shadow upon all the land, guiding us through territories rendered invisible by way of an intense propulsion forward.

Review: Fokuz Recordings' Vibez 93 sidesteps its total usual unknown artistry for a set of liquid drum & bass flips on 12", whose original artists are this time named. On the A comes an impactful, knockabout and yet tenor-toned pair of pop rerubs, of Racoon ('Love You More') and Dustin Tebbutt ('Resin') respectively. Then the B brings up a lighter and equally snappy energy, the record backing itself with strong claims to a free-flowing liquid langue, here with versions of DJ Spoony's 'Gabrielle' and NxWorries' 'Where I Go'.