Back catalogue: Dirty Dubstep/Trap/Grime

Review: Peddling heavy, sweet subs that ooze out of the scoops like syrup, Portuguese low end maestro 3WA makes his debut on Infernal Sounds with four utterly stinking brouhahas. 'Scavenger' starts the commotion on a deep but stern note and things get more and more twisted throughout the EP... 'Minotaur' grunts and growls with a over-sized toxic bassline while 'Mutt's flips from cosmic and percussive to straight-up deranged. Last but not least 'Wandering' finishes the EP on a last lingering groan. Refreshingly woozy.

Review: Chase & Status and Stormzy coming together was always going to be huge. One rules the charts, the other the clubs, and between them they cooked up a massive single that got heard everywhere all summer long, including a special live performance of it in Ushuaia Ibiza. Now you can own it on a slab of vinyl that has been cut nice and loud, which is perfect for the tune - the bass is devastating, the bars from Stormzy are hard, the energy is dark and unrelenting and it's the perfect sort of jungle cross over sound that will continue to be heard everywhere well into 2025.

Review: The 15-year anniversary of Coki's 'Goblin' is upon us and forms part of UKF Dubstep's UKF15 sreies, which also celebrates 15 years of UKF with multiple series of releases spanning drum & bass, dubstep and beyond. Now pressed to 12" black vinyl, and helming up an A-sider's stardom compared to the original Ringo Records 12"'s B-side, 'Goblin' gets the respect it deserves. Once famed and flamed for being one of "the tunes that spawned brostep" alongside 'Spongebob', 'Goblin' is a seriously impish impressor - its snagletooth lead line emblematic of Coki's signature noughts breakout sound - and the track has never sounded so especially powerful and puckish as it does now, with extra reverb and decay effects peppered in. And on the B, fast-riser producer Hamdi provides an asphyxiant B-side, contrasting the original's fanged sludge.

Review: Previously flexing on Wheel & Deal and Artikal, London new-gen 140 talent Darkai now lands on another one of the most respected labels in the dubstep multiverse - Deep Medi. Like all the best 12"s it's a game of two halves as he serves up the rough and the smooth. 'Break Room' is a grizzly, distorted, contemporary hot mess as crushed up drums decay in spirals all around. Meanwhile on the B 'Ogun' goes for much more of a timeless dungeon bound groaner. Booming echoes and snake-like bass, slithering upside your chops. Mood, tension and dynamics all in full effect. High grade.

Review: Heavyweight global fusion... This vinyl only release began on a South African label (Sneja), was composed by a Colombian artist (IAM JDP) and is now being remixed by two respected German producers Sascha Muller and baze.djunkiii. That's before we even get to the actual sonic melting pot. Spacious and intoxicating, doffing its cap to Jamaican soundsystem, US footwork sounds, Latin Baile and South African gqom elements in the percussion and fat dollops of Bristolian bass; Sascha and baze have cooked up something super special here. Limited and unifying.

Review: Say a big hello to the new Modez label here while getting lost in the hard hitting first release from Modelle. It's a bold barrage of bass, Baille funk and dubstep across six sizzling cuts. 'Pursuit' opens up with lithe broken beats wired up with electricity and percussive hits. 'Dum Dumb' is built on a distorted low end with hard-ass raps and brutal drum breaks, 'Razor Rex' arrests the attention with its pulsing bass and bleeping modular synth sequences while 'Petrie's Rage' is a hyper-speed cosmic banger. 'Jeff On God' (feat Parkinson White) shuts down with more low end energy and this time jungle breaks provide the power source.

Review: Apocalypto! Foreign Beggar PAV4N lays down some hard hitting truths with the hard hitting Truth and the results are sizzling in moody futurist fusion. 'Brave New World' (with Saskilla) marches us slap bang into the middle of a 23rd century war, 'Pythons' slithers with so much attitude you can feel squeezing you, softening you up for Pav's lunchtime treat. 'Online Overdose' (with Ashez) hurls us into a neon swing, pinging through the arpeggiated sci-fi swagger before 'Pyrex Jackie' goes straight up Universal Soldier. Metal jacket tackle.

Review: In a world saturated with easily digestible sounds, aya's music is a welcome jolt to the system and the debut album from this Huddersfield-raised, London-based artist is a bold and uncompromising album that challenges norms, questions truths and celebrates the spectrum of queer experiences. Through a tapestry of fragmented sounds, distorted vocals and experimental electronic textures, aya crafts a deeply personal narrative that resonates with both vulnerability and defiance. Tracks like 'Somewhere Between The 8th And 9th Floor' and 'What If I Should Fall Asleep And Slip Under' delve into the depths of self-discovery, their introspective lyrics and haunting melodies capturing the uncertainties and anxieties of navigating a world that often feels hostile. 'Dis Yacky' and 'OoBrosThesis' inject a playful energy, their distorted vocals and tongue-in-cheek humor offering a counterpoint to the album's more introspective moments. 'Emley Lights Us Moor', featuring Iceboy Violet, is a standout, its ethereal vocals creating a sense of otherworldly beauty. Aya's refusal to shy away from difficult topics and her willingness to experiment with sound and language make this album a powerful and thought-provoking work that pushes the boundaries of electronic music and challenges listeners to confront their own preconceptions. It's a challenge to the often-limiting tropes of queer art.

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: Longstanding White Peach fam MOREOFUS returns with this ferociously wide-armed four-tracker. 'Too Far' and 'Okay Look' go hard from the off with big spiked out riffs and sacks of swagger. Real brute force 140 jams. Need a little more sweetness and swing? Flip for 'Blame' and 'Sixteen'. The former a sassy piece of dark garage with occasional flurries into unapologetic electro bassline. The latter a walloping slab of steppy techno that sites somewhere (quite breathtakingly) between funky, garage and breaks. Sweet.

Review: A vrooming new V/A comp from London's bass music bacchanals 1985 Music, following up a sellout show at the Roundhouse earlier in 2024. Helmed up by pensive liquid purveyor come bass musical all-rounder Alix Perez, the label now compile several star tracks from throughout the year, setting them side-by-side on wax for the first time. Including trax by Perez, Drone, Cesco, Visages, Hijinx and Onhell, the general movement is from sociopathic grimescape though to bear trap tricksiness, shortly tied up in an extended jungle and d&b coda on the B; Paige Julia's 'Indisputable' is as brazenly fearless as Flowdan's opening flows are, though a continual liquefaction occurs therefrom; the best element heard towards the end has to be the erratic bubblegum cutups heard on Visages' 'Dol Guldur'.

Review: Three years since this formidable French troupe turned lead to gold on their debut, Visages' alchemy continues to bubble over with this utterly exceptional sophomore. Spanning the whole rainbow of styles from neo soul to grime to dubstep and a pungent range of dnb strains, this really is a unique and beguiling universe of sounds, themes, brutalist moments and poignant motifs. Complete with lyrical guidance from the likes of Strategy, Verbz, Chimpo, Snowy and others, there's a powerful adventure to be had among these tracks from the furious futurism of the opener 'Transhuman Music' to the woozy jazzy echoes of the closer 'Kintsugi', this is nothing short of outstanding.

Review: Remarkably surreal club reconstructions from Uruguayan ur-producer Lechuga Zafiro. 'Desde los oidos de un sapo' ('From The Ears Of A Toad') is a truly elastic entanglement of designed sound refit for the floor, though we'd not be surprised if a private laboratory set aside for the safe containment and study of sonic bio-anomalies would hope to acquire this one too. Zafiro flexes his hylid hamstrings on this wriggling wet lurch through post-Baile sonics and field recorded club jamborees, emphasising the naturalistically percussive and fretfully textured. Basing his musical identity on field recordings of hard materials - metal, wood, rock, glass - as well as, somehow, animal tissue - from toads, birds, sea lions and pigs (let's hope they were at least taxidermied first) - these seven cochlear leapfrogs make for a highly exploratory sonic escape; Zafiro dares to define the next applicative generation of sound design for the dance.