Deep Dubstep charts

Review: Stateside representing! AxH finally unleashes three secret weapons from his sets on LoDubs. Each one tickling a completely different side of the game and brain, 'Dream Creatures' kicks off like a bulldozer as a multi-layered bassline ploughs into the dance on a Distance style level of heaviness with absolutely no apologies. 'Shade' flips things into the future with some mind-bending drum arrangements and rhythm switches while 'Spy Vs Spy' is total tribal tension, all half time espionage and atmospheric creepiness. May the damagement commence!

Review: TMSV has the honour of closing out another solid year for the Deep Mehdi crew. His debut on the label gives a fine representation of his sound across a quartet of dark dubstep gems. 'The Glow' opens in eerie fashion, with low end oscillations and late night tones leaving long tails in their wake. 'Revenge' gets more tense and taught as it traps you in some edgy loops and 'Housing' layers up what sounds like broken glass, ominous drones and flashing synth work into something brilliantly. 'Stay Closed' wraps things up with fractured melody and plunging bass.

Review: James Blake's debut album is undoubtedly one of 2011's most keenly awaited releases, and its arrival via his own (major label funded) Atlas imprint ensures their is no lull in momentum for a producer who enjoyed a watershed 2010 with releases on Hessle Audio and R&S. The results here differ wildly from his previous sonic excursions - gone are the shimmering R&B soaked melodies of "CMYK" and the sheer experimentalism of the Klavierwerke EP, which saw the young Londoner depart from the confines of the dancefloor and enter a realm where there was only a passing reference to rhythm-based music. Instead we are treated to Blake's own yearning, raw voice, delicate pianos and an underlying sense of melancholy. Ubiquitous single "Limit To Your love" and the crackly sonic terrain evoked on "The Wilhelm Scream" are among the most immediately pleasing moments, but there is much to explore here. It's a fascinating opus and surely the catalyst to a long and fruitful career at the top.

Review: "Stableface", one of the standout tracks from Lithuanian producer Eleven Tigers' debut album "Clouds Are Mountains" found itself pride of place on this 12" release from Soul Motive. Opening with an extended intro of cracked Burial-like atmospherics, the track soon gains a life of its own with its minimal 2-step beat and cracked vocal samples, complete with the kind of intricate melodicism of Four Tet. On the flip side Bristol's Peverelist turns in a fine reworking of the track. Taking the already sparse original and extending its panoramic reach even further, he concentrates on the micro qualities of the rhythms, opens up huge holes in the original's deft tapestry and creates a masterful reworking which brings out the dubstep within its DNA.

Review: Heavy Bounce Swiss Precision.

Review: ZAMZAM goes bang bang once again as the dutty dubstep label hits release number 80. Cause keeps it utterly filthy on the a-side with 'Hiss,' a heavyweight nobler with a menacing bassline that's so fat it wiggles as it walks. Crashing hits and sci-fi synth motifs make this a most astral crawler. 'Palms' has whirring synths and a bassline curried oceans below. Freaky vocal sounds are haunting and dark and add tension to the track as it prowls along through an utter wasteland. Atmospheric stuff, to be sure.

Review: It's hard to think of a DJ with the global profile of Nina Kraviz who runs a label as underground and innovative as trip. The latest comes from Shadowax, who has previously contributed to the label's compilations but now makes her full label debut. Unlike much of the frantic and frenetic material trip has dealt with in the past, this EP slows the tempos and explores more moody and hypnotic techno. Opener "Nikolai Reptile" is a super slow motion and dub rhythm with searching synth lines gently riding up and down the scale, while "Ochen" recalls the icy minimal perfection of Daniel Bell. "What About Me" has spoken word mutterings and paranoid, pressurised kicks that hurry you along and lastly "Mortal Talking" is a flurry of hyper-speed drums and synth loops to fully flip you out.

Review: 1985 Music have assembled another of their carefully thought out Various Artists releases with a view to platforming a wide range of talents. Both newcomers and vital vets are all represented here on the third volume, as well as label staples and label newcomers. Numerous styles and tempos are explored from some of bass music's most exciting talents with the likes of Deft opening up with the haunting glitch-step of 'Scars', Alix Perez laying down a soulful roller with 'Blank Pages' and Visages twisting melons with 'Nibiru'. A jam-packed comp for sure.

Review: Encrypted follow up Mesck's incendiary "ENV020" with two warped and woozy cuts from the enigmatic Manta. "It Lurks" switches the standard MC vocal for a crow screech and spoken word from the devil himself. Gloopy and swampy, this will lock your floor down in slo-mo like gorilla glue. "Zealot" takes us even deeper into the darkness with a wonky off-beat kick palpitations and big graveyard washes lapping over the top. It lurks, it lives, it bangs... The devil's music never sounded so good.

Review: After some great releases on Heavy Traffic, Boka Records and Daku, Andrew Howard, better known as AxH, is back with a new one for the ever reliable Artikal Music. Stomping, yet remarkably deep and meditative, 'Monkey Brainz' will hypnotise you into submission with its blunted style of sonar transmissions. Over on the flip, things get much nastier and even abrasive on the pitch black dubstep transgressions of 'Boxknife Chrome' which will leave you feeling like you smoked synthetic cannabinoids.

Review: Fent Plates unleash a big old reissue right here as they revisit on of Vacant's most pivotal records - 'Nocturnal'. Landing after years of self-releases, this was his first label release that put him on the map as one of dance music's most intriguing, beguiling and unique post garage artists. His status still intact, this four year old release still sounds every bit as timeless as it did back in 2017 from the disarming ambience of 'Farewell' to the cosmic two-step of 'Left Behind'. Grab this if you didn't catch it first time around.

Review: It's been a while since we last heard from Kerem Sevincli AKA Iskeletor, an Istanbul-based beat-maker and bass-loving experimentalist who last featured on Tektosag way back in 2013. His return to the imprint boasts a trio of tracks on one-side, with an attractive, etched illustration on the other. He begins with "Afromax", a two-minute flurry of chopped experimental hip-hop beats, mangled bicycle bell and nuts-and-bolts percussion and wonky, shape-shifting electronics. Gantz Seytan remixes, cannily emphasizing the wonkiness of the beats on an outer-space excursion that's near hallucinatory in its twisted, slow motion approach. To round things off, Sevincli offers up his rework of Grup Ses cut "Mimar", re-casting it as a dystopian, ever-changing experimental beatscape rich in redlined sounds and epileptic drumbeats.

Review: The original enfant terrible of the bass music world marks his second long player for 4AD with a sprawling opus of more than 30 skits and skirmishes daubed in his trademark colourful sonic scrawl. There is plenty here that reminds you of the early days of the producer's emergence when dubstep was a younger beast, from the spacious "Horrid" to the measured arpeggios of "Pray For Me", but you'll also find more intricate musings such as the dynamic and dramatic "Memories". Hype abounds on the creepy Funky of "VI-XI", while "Overdose" launches enthusiastically into a jungle tear out. At any given turn, you'll find yourself surprised, lurched from a serene mood into a manic one, only to be tempered again. There's a staggering range of ideas and styles to comprehend here, but would you want it any other way from one of electronic music's most outspoken upstarts?

Review: It seems fitting that the hundredth and final volume in the "FabricLive" mix series should also be its most hotly anticipated. Coming from heavyweight heroes Kode9 and Burial - whose previous back-to-back mix for Mary-Anne Hobbs' show eight years ago has reached near mythical status. The album is a wonderfully full-throttle and mixed-up affair, with the shadowy bass lieutenants giddily flitting between quick-fire sections focusing on South African gqom, footwork, Juke, vintage hardcore, early jungle and more contemporary dancefloor experimentalism, each broken up by typically blazed and paranoid ambient interludes and the occasional surprise selection. There's a lot going on throughout, but that only adds to the fun. In other words, it's a triumphant finale to a landmark mix series.

Review: Hyperdub kick off the vinyl side to their ten-year celebrations with this weighty four-tracker from some of the leading lights from the label's story. Mala is in a strident mood with "Expected, Level 10" carrying through that extra touch of melody from the Mala In Cuba LP. DVA cuts loose with the leftfield scattershot groove of "Technical Difficulties", reveling in tonal experimentation and jagged rhythmic flair to a stunning end. Still locked into the sci-fi trap tangent that characterised Severant, Kuedo turns out the haunting "Mtzpn" and Helix pops up for a remix of Kode9's "Xingfu Lu" that strips down to bare essentials with a little starlit soul rubbed into the framework.

Review: Of all the artists past and present who claim to let their music do their talking for them, Burial is one of the elite band of whom this truly is the case. In fact, so reluctant is he to engage with the cult-of-personality hoopla that surrounds almost every modern producer and musician of merit, that he remains a genuine recluse; he has never appeared live, only one obliquely-angled publicity photograph is known to exist, and the number of interviews he has given can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Yet despite this, his music speaks loud and wide, and the world has been listening ever since his 'South London Boroughs' EP debut on Hyperdub in March 2005. His eponymous album, which began life as a low-key release in May 2006, is now widely regarded as the benchmark release of the ever-widening dubstep genre, picking up unanimous critical acclaim along the way, and ending the year heavily featured in many 'best of' polls. Now Burial returns with 'Untrue', a new record of weird soul music, which lovingly processes spectral female voices into vaporised R&B and smudged 2step garage. Vocal lines are blurred, smeared, pitched up pitched down and pitch bent until their content is cast adrift from their original context and they whisper their saccharin sweet nothings into the void. The album continues with the debut's crackle-drenched yearning and bustling syncopations, haunted by the ghosts of rave, but also reveals some new Burial treats with a more glowing, upbeat energy. Kicking off with the skittering 2step syncopations and vocal science of 'Archangel', 'Near Dark' and 'Ghost Hardware', before long it descends into a space of radiant divas and ambience. Where 'Burial' first was humid, suffocating and unrelentingly sad, 'Untrue' is less sunless. Many of the tracks are so sweet, they become toxic, underscored by the almost geological rumbles of growling basslines. Unlike the overpoweringly melancholic prevailing mood of before, Burial's sound is now better defined as a downcast euphoria typified by the epic, muted optimism of the album's last track 'Raver'. Forget central heating the radioactivity of this album is all that you'll need to keep you warm this winter. 'Untrue' is available as full 13 track digipack CD, including recent underground hit 'Ghost Hardware', and 9 track DJ friendly double vinyl set, from which some of the beatless pieces have been edited.

Review: Woof! Hyperdub bring together two of the most recognisable and enigmatic artists of recent times on this 10", as Zomby and Burial square down ahead of the former's new album for the label. Zomby's Ultra LP is undoubtedly one of this year's most anticipated albums and "Sweetz" suggests it may be a very moody affair indeed. Whilst rooted in UK dance, Zomby and Burial do look elsewhere for inspiration too. Just under seven minutes long, "Sweetz" veers through various sub-heavy soundscapes with intermittent rhythmic patters and a distinctive looped vocal sample whose pitch changes with dramatic effect.

Review: High pressure manoeuvres from Ilian Tapes on this mysterious and highly limited one-off run. 'Pulse' is a Samurai style slab of hybrid dub techno that's layered in grains and textures whole 'Procedure' flips the UK garage two-step vibe into a distorted, crunchy and physical groove that's not dissimilar to Tim Wright's early work on Mute. Once again, a very special release from Ilian... Blink and you'll miss it.

Review: Torsten Profrock’s T++ project has continually spread its wings since conception in 2005. Championed by fans of techno, dubstep, experimental and drum & bass alike, his latest EP for Honest Jons (and rumoured to be his last under this monkier) showcases the amalgamation of styles and sounds that has earnt the German such a far reaching fanbase.



If it does prove to be the final T++ release ever, then the alias will have left us with the most expressive and energetic of his works. Adding a real sense of personality, Profrock unearthed a handful of samples of the singer and ndingidi player Ssekinomu, recorded in East Africa in the 1930s and 40s in the label’s vaults for this release. Skilfully, the producer works these snippets into the complex rhythm structures, giving his music a human touch that has never been seen before. Profrock looks to the radical fringe of UK garage for the snapping 2 step vibe in these rhythms that remain central to all four tracks on the EP. This results in a clutch of tracks that take on an immensely tribal and subconsciously innate feel. They morph new structures from the forms of 2 step, techno and drum & bass around which Profrock wraps twisted FX and weighty sub bass to create one whole, throbbing organism.
So with quite possibly his final release, T++ leaves us, rather fittingly, with a record that sounds at once both ancient and modern. It has a totally unique tone, like a form of tribal language that can only speak to and be understood by today’s culture through these sub-heavy, atmospheric sounds.

Review: From the eastern sorcerer who gave us 'Dying On Acid' a few years ago on Deep Medi comes 'Pusher Acid', one of the most beguiling EPs Gantz has cast our way in some time. Six tracks over two 12"s, there's a real measured pace and sense of tension running across the collection as we gradually build up to the pensive, fierce and well-chiselled title track. Elsewhere we have the eerie cinematica of 'Sleepless Elite', the left-footed lollops and slug-like bassline of 'Chiral' and the palpitating, slo-mo seduction of the vinyl-only cut 'Spineless'. Keep pushing on.

Review: Although Rhythm & Sound and Basic Channel man Mark Ernestus has worked with or remixed many different artists over the years, we didn't expect him to join forces with D&B scene stalwarts Calbre and DRS. Yet that's exactly what's on offer here, as the Hardwax founder delivers two typically deep, dubbed-out techno outings crafted from portions of the pair's collaborative cut 'Badman', which is due to feature on Calbre's forthcoming sixteenth studio album, Feeling Normal. Both 'Bad' and 'Badder' are typical of Ernestus' ultra-deep and hypnotic style, with snippets of the duo's original instruments, beats and vocals echoing in and out of a warming, all-encompassing, sub-heavy groove. In a word, it's superb.

Review: Deep Medi murkers Kaiju return to Mala's label with another bulldozer EP - 'Troll'. The title track sets the tone and mood with its raw, curmudgeonly mid 2000s style groove. Elsewhere 'Counter It' looks more towards the club sound with its rifle-like kicks weaving a steppy storm beneath the tense, oppressive atmospheres before 'The Terrible' closes the EP with some incredibly unique and stark bass textures. DO feed the troll.

Review: At long last, Von D makes his Deep Medi debut and he's packing some serious Egyptian-Greek wisdom for the ride. We kick off with "Chestlick", a tune that lives up to its name with thick sludgy waves of low-end dynamics oozing out of the speakers. It's followed by the EP title track "Hermetica". Featuring the vocals of Sinerise, there's a deeper sense of contemplation as the wonky loose beats swagger with dubby hypnosis and all manner of trippy layers. Finally Von D signs out with "Symbolism". Tapping into the traditional dub style with consummate ease, it's the sound of Von D delivering an EP we've been eager to see for a long, long time. Salute.

Review: London-based producer Silkie started working on this album around two years ago, without knowing he was making an album, he claims. Being able to concentrate and enjoy being in the flow and without the pressure of creating a fully formed product allowed him more musical freedom. When the idea of a full LP was born, he approached it 'like a label would', listening to the music that resulted and trying to weave a cohesive thread through the track selections - capturing a snapshot in time of his musical journey. The result is Panorama, which sees him return to Mala's Deep Medi Musik with his brand of deep dubstep and experimental beats, which venture deep into the exotic and reach near psychedelic moments.

Review: The Banshee EP was one of the last musical projects the pair of Glume and Phossa worked on together in Bristol before they left the city to live elsewhere. Lead single 'Banshee' has been played for years on the circuit and always got great reactions, so the pair sat down to write three more tunes to go with it for the sake of this EP. That was during lockdown so they haven't been road tested yet but rest assured when they are, the club will erupt. Each one hits deep, with trippy synth motifs from the Orient on 'Jitter', warrior energy on 'Vessel' and more broken beats on 'Sunken.'

Review: Manchester's Lack is back on Livity Sound a year after his last masterclass on the Inside EP. Once again he takes out his scalpel and does some precision work together together UK bass, minimalism, dub and techno. Every track is floaty light yet muscular. The drums hit hard but are also somehow barely there. Floating ambient pads drift next to skeletal jungle rhythms and dark bass hops or lurches beneath the precision drum programming. 'Grapefruit' is a downtempo opener to get the vibe going, then the quiet artistry of 'Microshift' gets the party going, 'Make It Circular' is for the heads at 5am and the fluttering melodies of 'Constant' make a shout for tune of the EP.

Review: Portugal's 3WA is next up on the long running UK label Boka on a special, limited edition 10" vinyl with a unique metallic sticker design. This outing follows big tunes for 3WA on the likes of Crucial Recordings, Foundation Audio and Earth & Stone and serve sup more big bass drops and heavy rhythms. 'Sea Witch' is a cavernous tune with shards of lighting beaming down through it from above as flute leads hypnotise and the drums tumble ever further down below. 'Whale' then stutters on wobbly bass with watery chords up top adding to the sense of space.

Review: After a couple of years in which he released very little - somewhat surprisingly - Dom Tarasek AKA Commodo returned to action in May via the creepy trip-hop-meets-dubstep paranoia of 'Loan Shark' on Black Acre. This speedy follow-up for the same Bristol-based label is similarly terse and tense, with impressive A-side 'Stakeout' showcasing Terasek's ability to blend punchy dubstep drums with musical motifs and foreboding electronic sounds more often heard on 1960s British spy movie flicks and unsettling B-movie horror flicks. Elsewhere, 'Transit' is a deeper, darker and far more paranoid affair marked out by some intriguing percussion programming, while 'Crooked Law' sounds like Mezzanine-era Massive Attack after several hits on an oversized bong.

Review: Fresh from tidy 2019 EPs on Sector 7 Sounds and System Music, Drone returns to the latter label with his first missive of 2020. There's plenty of highlights stretched across the EP's two slabs of wax, with our favourites including the creepy mix of deep dubstep rhythms and Autechre style melodies that is "20 K", the slow-burn headiness of "Flooded" - where picturesque watery melodies ride a skeletal beat and vibrating sub-bass - and the aggressive late night dancefloor paranoia of "Fear". SP:MC provides a tasty rework of that cut, focusing the action on a crunchier rhythm track and pulverising waves of distorted analogue bass.