Back catalogue: All genres

Review: Diesco & Vince Void pay homage to the early 90s golden era of house music while channelling the spirit of progressive, Euro house and classic rave on this new four tracker. Each piece captures the warmth and euphoria of that formative time while pushing the sound into fresh contemporary territory. With a clear reverence for the past, 'El Tigre' opens with some big rave horns and lush prog beats a la Sasha & Digweed. 'Untitled C' is another retro-future prog sound with widescreen pad work, '8-Bit' is an unabashed revival of 90s rave with prominent horns and pianos leading the way and 'Jobby' is a trance-tinged closer full of Ibiza energy.

Review: FoxBam Inc returns with its fourth EP featuring a powerful mix of floor-shaking productions. The release includes contributions from Gez Varley, best known for his work with LFO and classic tracks like 'Quo Vardis' alongside Italian acid producer Vikkei and label founders Foxtrot and Egebamyasi. This new one opens with the acid-heavy 'Battle Scars' while Vikkei delivers the hard techno 'Hip 'n' Crack.' Egebamyasi explores bass-driven wobbly dubstep with 'Mandubchester' and Varley's 'Saturn One' brings cinematic vibes to his signature techno style. Launched in 2023, FoxBam Inc is already becoming a key player in the underground.

Review: Dubstoned Records is back with more fresh wax and heavyweight Rub-a-Dub rhythms, this time straight from Seville. Produced, mixed and dubbed by Variedub, 'Give Dem' features the powerful vocals of Tenor Mario, who is also part of Cool Up Records, and whose energetic delivery always cuts through. Rafael Arcos brings his signature guitar flair while The Sherlock Horns light up the groove with tight brass from Toni Martin on trombone, Pedro Caballero on sax and Mr Monkeyface on trumpet. Anchoring it all is Agustin Paris on bass. It's a deep, dynamic cut that blends roots tradition with local talent and comes with a flip dub for extra low-end heft.

Review: French techno alchemist Vardae is the latest artist to feature on German experimental drum & bass label Samurai Music. Vardae has dabbled with 85/170bpm speeds before, most notably on his excellent 'The Kaipos' EP. This time we get a full EP's worth of deep techno-influenced drum & bass, a sound that is familiar to anyone following recent trends in the deeper scenes of techno: acid lines, forest drums, mystic vocals, etc. The opener 'The Light Motion' is a halftime groover with fluttering percussion propelling it forward. The second 'Chaeming Your Soul' has a more recognisable drum & bass rhythm underneath, bringing to mind Overlook and UVB-76's back catalogue with powerful acid washes over the top. 'Voices Of Depossesion' has a conventional four-to-the-floor beat but at a blistering BPM and 'Flaming As A Cloud' ends with an excellent drum & synth-ony. One for fans of Marco Shuttle, Pessimist, et al.

Review: DJ Balduin's Mountebank Scientific label tells us that VICARI is "a child of Sheffield's iron hymns and scientist of the subconscious dancefloor." The music he serves up on this new EP tell us he likes stripped-back minimal and tech for the wonky we hours of the morning. 'Freefall' is a skippy rhythm with pulsing synth modulations, 'Pipe Dreams' cuts loose on chunky house drums with off-kilter percussion and 'Dontlikewhatyoudointhere' is another roughshod, dusty and deep house jaunt with a mix of glistening digital melodies and muffled bass. 'Serious Misintentions' is the most trippy and electronic of the lot - a late-night collision of controlled chaos.

Review: Interdance impressed with its first couple of forays onto wax and now its third release packs in more fresh talent from South America's underground. On the A-side, Buenos Aires' Vinz delivers two standout tracks: 'Instinto,' a raw, trance-tinged techno trip straight from 1992, and 'Transradio,' which is a cinematic journey with pounding drums and acidic synth lines burrowing deep. Flip to the B-side for Uruguayan producer Juan Dairecshion's deeper, more hypnotic sound on 'Rebel Rebel,' which rides a steady four-on-the-floor pulse, while 'UR Love' dives into murky, Detroit-inspired territory with eerie vocals and twisted melodies inspired by the group name-checked in the title. A bold, mind-bending four-tracker built for serious late-night floors.

Review: Detroit vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Javonntte is contracted by Marcel Vogel and Tim Jules for the smooth, disco-splashed house cut 'Just Because', now hearing a long-awaited 12" release on Lumberjacks In Hell, the clav-loving label named after the 2018 Vogel release of the same name. Known for his deep musicality and effortless brio, Javonntte's soulful touch now drops anchor on the original's groove, letting open the possibility for the three distinct remixes by Floyd Vader, Lyma and Stefan Ringer to follow. There come etched a future-leaning electro r&b cut, a Portlandian Yoruba house hitter, and a complementary post-boogie bust-up respectively.

Review: Second time around for Royksopp's superb contribution to the popular, post-club focused LateNightTales mix series, a beloved volume that first hit record stores back in 2013. For the uninitiated, it sees the long-serving Norwegian twosome offer up an attractive blend of synth-heavy Scandolearic shufflers (their own cosmic pop number 'Daddy's Groove'), dubbed-out soul (Rare Bird), swelling synth soundtrack fare (Vangelis), neo-classical (Johann Johannsson), reverb-laden accapella beauty (Prelude), sun-soaked blue-eyed soul (Richard Schneider Junior), nods to the KLF's Chill Out album (Acker Bilk), seductive slow jams (Byrnes & Barnes), vintage Balearica (Andreas Vollenweider, John Martyn) and atmospheric new wave (XTC, This Mortal Coil).

Review: The Iron Curtain stood as one of the defining metaphors of 20th-century division: a shroud drawn between East and West, described by Winston Churchill as obscuring all knowledge of life on the other side. But while the world fixated on ideological rifts and military standoffs, a parallel story unfolded in the Soviet Union and its satellite states: the quiet, defiant blossoming of jazz. This second of a two-part Jazzman compilation mini-series lifts that curtain, tracing the emergence of bold, genre-spanning jazz from the early 60s to the 80s. These recordings reflect the arm-in-arm influences of hard bop, modal, cool and Latin jazz, refracted through the lens of European folk traditions and hard-distilled through filters of restriction, secrecy, and sometimes outright prohibition. Pressure makes diamonds, and jazz, ever adaptable, flourished in spite of it all: the secret spirituals of an easily overlooked era.