PLOY レコード& CD

Review: Fresh from a surprise - but no less surprisingly sublime - appearance on Timedance, Ploy returns home to the Deaf Test imprint he set up as a vehicle for his productions back in 2022. As usual, what's on offer is a fresh-but-nostalgic set of cuts full of audible nods to heavyweight dancefloor styles of the 90s. The A-side boasts two top-notch takes on 'Vortex': the bleep-and-breaks style sub-heavy shuffle of the 'Stripped Mix' and the early 90s UK techno heaviness of the more expansive 'Busy Mix'. Over on side B, trippy and energy-packed throb-job 'In Your Head' is followed by the moody bass propelled breakbeat house of 'Eyes On You' and the early Orbital-esque excellence of 'Sending'.

Review: Ploy pays homage to the urban-mythical nightclub Venue MOT Unit 18 with his new EP 'Unit 18', which has seen a home to his equally legendary club night Deaf Test - named after the artist's deaf left ear. Stinky, Ninety One and Unit 18 are "three rave tracks" in the artist's own words, rushing and dragging through system-ready sonics and with undeniable influences from UK drill, to bassy techno, to dubstep.

Review: Deaf Test is a brand new label from DJ and producer Ploy. It has been conceived mostly as a vehicle for his own music, but he has said he will also explore collaborative projects and more club-focussed music on there label in good time. The name of the label is a reference to the fact that Ploy has been deaf in one ear since his childhood. The boss himself steps up to inaugurate it with an EP featuring a mix of baile funk, broken beat and bass music. It comes a couple of years after his debut album Unlit Signals back in 2020.

Review: Following a fine run of releases on Timedance a few years back, polyrhythmic techno king Samuel Smith has decided to strike out on his own. The talented producer's first single since 2018 is genuinely brilliant, with Smith first serving up a hot-stepping, dancehall and bhangra-influenced monster (the soon-to-be-everywhere 'Rayhana', where looped vocal samples, sweat-soaked drums and weighty bass catch the ear), before wrapping exotic, psychedelic, Indian-sounding lead lines around a rumbling broken techno groove on 'Dark Lavis'. Smith rounds off a superb EP with '5g Beats', a hard-to-pigeonhole drum workout peppered with stuttering vocal snippets, fractured electronics and 8-bit bleeps. In a word: terrific!