Bass charts

Review: The good folks at Baroque Sunburst are back with a 12th EP that once again takes minimal and tech house into new realms. Jay Duncan is at the buttons and 'Bitten Dream' opens up with dark moody and abstract sound swirling around a cosmic world. 'Via Tekh' is another out-there sound with beautiful ambient pads and warped, sparse bass keeping you afloat. 'Shrine' keeps the sophisticated sounds coming with more deft designs and original drum sounds and 'Catharsis' then closes down with a smooth and absorbing fusion of synths and drums from a reduced palette.

Review: Seven arresting, original new exercises from E-Saggila aka Canadian producer Rita Mikhael. She wears her love of dub on her sleeve - see the slow motion skank of 'Amnesiac' aming others - but not in the usual reassuring, bubbling echoes of dub techno, aiming for something much more angular and alarming. "Breaks remain staccato hammers," says the blurb, with maximum accuracy, "and kicks are cast to negate cardiac systems," while the rhythms veer from off kilter to nailed down and the sonics vary from the lush to the caustic. This territory to the left(field) of electronica is over saturated with identikit productions, but Mikhael does it like you've never quite heard before.

Review: Canadian artist Tiga and Scotsman Hudson Mohawke's creative bond thrives on, they say, a mutual love of "hardcore romance," which is a unique blend of euphoria, melancholy, and raw friendship power. From 2019 to 2023 in Los Angeles, their mutual inspirations shaped L'Ecstasy, which is their debut album on Tiga's Turbo label. It was originally envisioned for 6am rave catharsis but then the project evolved to embrace 90s rave influences. It features chill-out ambient tracks like 'Exit Warehouse at Dawn' and 'LMZNIN' but also bangs with more immediate anthems like 'IN ORDER 2,' 'VSOD,' and 'Ascending into the Clouds', all of which leave indelible marks. This album captures this accomplished pair's journey through sonic landscapes and celebrates the highs and lows of their musical kinship in a space of creative ecstasy.

Review: Since 2018, the Marble Elephant duo has been colliding drum & bass, deep dubstep and future garage into suns that are both physical but rife with emotion. Truth is a full length which goes deep into their style and shows how versatile they can be. There are atmospheric, immersive sound worlds like the title cut next to glitchy, skeletal garage workouts with sunny melodies like 'Believe', ambient jungle soothers like 'Serenity' and Burial-esque late night cuts like 'Discovery'

Review: Get ready for a wholesome spread as Coco Bryce makes his debut on the cult BXL Underground and feeds us our supper this eve. First up a little liquid refreshment in the form of 'Bubble Tea'. Zesty, punchy and reviving; this 'Soca Tek' vibe is laced with a dizzy array percussion all hitting in harmony or counterpoint. Pure natural energy. Need to line your stomach? Chow down on the techno flavoured 'Tiger Bread'. Rich in all your favourite 4x4 vitamins, this one stamps so hard you might just lose your appetite.

Review: DJ Plead & rRoxymore make for a fascinating duo and take aim squarely at the floor on this new outing, Read Round City, for Smalltown Supersound. Opener 'Celestial' is a loose-limbed rhythmic jumble with hand claps, trippy xylophone patterns and deep bass that lulls you into a trance while 'Read Wrong' is a more reggaeton-inspired sound with snappy snares and warped synth sounds. It's gluey and gloopy and subtly colourful. 'Round Echoes' is a third and final cross blend of techno, dub and house that picks up the pace and heads off into the cosmos but retains an organic feel thanks to the marvellous wet hand claps.

Review: Portuguese producer and Enchufada label owner Branko is back with his fourth full-length solo album and once again he pushes his own high standards even further. Soma was recorded in Lisbon over a three-day jam session that saw him asking plenty of top local Lisbon-based musicians to improvise over rhythmic frameworks. The resulting man-hours live recording was the blueprint for the album which Brano then worked into the compelling and worldly tunes you have here with vocals from the likes of London, Cape Verde, and Brazil, including Jay Prince, June Freedom, BIAB, and Tuyo.

Review: Wherein Dutchman Vincent lays down a heartfelt study of the soul entitled 'Pre Melancholy'. His findings are as follows... Before the melancholy one can expect a wave of emotions and pressures, all of them ingredients for a tumultuous storm that flies in a whole flurry of directions. Technoid drum & bass causing anxiety with every rolling fill ('Mono No Aware'), timeless breaks triggering moments of unsolicited joy ('Agent Of Distraction') and spacious leftfield that's so disarming and abyssal that it comes in two forms ('Yonghegong Lama Temple Exit F'). Embrace the melancholy.

Review: Following mesmerising Marseilles mutations from the likes of Syqulone, Kabylie Minogue and Lisa More, Cain ? Muchi return to Gros:Oeuvre with their remarkable debut album. A heady tagine of grime, beats, techno, global bass and contemporary electronica with a title that either refers to famed Moroccan popstar or, far more likely, relates to meaning as 'universe', Dounia is a beguiling clash of western electronics and eastern bars, lyrics, and vocal harmonies. Fractured and macabre throughout from the distorted hardcore bass highs of 'J'wadi' to disarming vocal cries of 'Majdouba' this post grime, pre apocalypse opus is a trip from edge to edge.

Review: Catherine Grace Garner hails from Missouri but is base din LA. It is there that she has made her name as a pop singer and songwriter who first started uploading tunes under the Slater name. Now working under the more stylised alias of Slayyyter, she is back with a sophomore album. It comes two years after her head turning and self titled debut and is another rule breaking mash up of pop, trap, experimental and electronic sounds. Tin pot percussion clatters about over big beats, euro-dance grooves are finished with her own emotive vocals and stadium-sized pop anthems bring lung-busting vocal performances. It's a wild ride, for sure.

Review: It makes perfect sense for the London trio of Carlo Anderson, Matthew Benyayer and Thomas Edwards to issue their debut Dark Sky album on Monkeytown as they've gradually become more and more affiliated with the network of labels overseen by Modeselektor. So how exactly does Imagin sound? It covers alot of the bases we've come to expect from both Dark Sky and Monkeytown; there's the skywards pointing melodic flex of the opening title track, a smattering of vocal numbers (such as lead single "Silent Fall"), some bass heavy floor burners ("Voyages" and the neck snapping "Odyssey" stand out) and plenty more to boot.