Back catalogue: Broken Beat/Nu Jazz/Nu Soul

Review: Steven Julien has been in his own musical world since he first started putting out beats. He blends everything from hip-hop and house to funk and soul in his always emotionally raw, frayed edge sounds. Because of that breath in his sound, the Londoner is the perfect candidate for a DJ-kicks mix and so it proves as he journeys from the sofa to the club and back again with tunes of his own next to jams from across the ages and the genres. Ryuichi Sakamoto, Brothermartino, My Girlfriend and more all feature in a well-mixed, well-programmed set that contrasts bright keys with dirty basslines, and boogie funk with more sleek machine rhythms.

Review: To get away from the 'one track after the other' compilation concept K&D checked in at Havlis Super Sound where their man Alex (don of the echo chambers) has a secret dub-laboratory. There K&D did a dub session on the selected tracks to inject some dynamics and life into it. They took two bottles of Highland Park whisky and their old dub-echoes from the cellar and did a smoked-out dub echo-orgy.

Review: This clear wax edition feels like an invitation into Worcestershire-born global traveller Will Holland's inner circle i not just as a selector but as a connector of people, scenes and sonic microhistories. Across the two LPs, his DJing reveals the subtle hand of a musician: textured, tempo-flexible, deeply in tune with the artists he features. JJ Whitefield's 'The Mind Is A Palace' and Alfa Mist's slow-burner 'In My Defence' lay the introspective groundwork, while The Heliocentrics and Dialect bring fuzz and abstraction into view. Side B pivots to percussive warmth, from JKriv's whistle-led 'Pifeiro Malandro' to Holland's own dusty 'Twang', before the humid swagger of Frente Cumbiero and a tripped-out remix of 'Theme From Selva' usher in Side C. Things then spiral toward the club, with 'Eko Eko', 'Throw Dat Azz' and 'Scintille' all bringing punch and release. The final stretch, featuring The Maghreban, Meridian Brothers and Sobredosis, casts a glowing ambiguity over the mix i just like Holland's sets, it ends not in resolution, but in feeling.

Review: Stretching across four sides of vinyl, this double LP from Worcestershire-born producer, bandleader and serial collaborator Will Holland traces his journey through transcontinental rhythms and dusty dancefloors. The carefully spaced tracklist opens with JJ Whitefield's deep-thinking 'The Mind Is A Palace', before the record quickly dips into London fusion with The Heliocentrics and Alfa Mist's 'In My Defence'. Dialect's fragmented ambient textures play the foil to Holland's own 'Twang', while JKriv's 'Pifeiro Malandro' evokes smoky Rio funk as filtered through downtown New York. Later on, Frente Cumbiero and a rework of 'Theme From Selva' provide a humid middle section before things sharpen up. Club-leaning selections like 'Eko Eko', 'Scintille' and Anna Morgan's 'Throw Dat Azz' burst across the later sides, pushed by bass pressure and broken-beat finesse. Meridian Brothers' 'Un Grande Nubarron Se Alza En El Cielo' and Sobredosis's 'No Llores Por Mi' bring an eerie sweetness to the close i a reminder that for Holland, emotion and groove are always entwined.

Review: The last few years have really seen Paul Woolford reach the top of his game in many different ways. Be it bowel emptying rave as Special Request, festival baiting piano house tunes or chart topping pop dance crossovers under his own name, the man is proving himself to have a real golden touch. He sure does crank out all these tunes at a prolific rate, too, but you still feel he does everything with meticulous precision. This DJ Kicks is a case in point. It touches on all the many different facets of his sound from glossy and feel good house to early Chicago classics, post-rave dreamscapes to brutal jungle breaks. What a legend.