Back catalogue: Electro House

Review: Ali Berger has long been known for crafting soulful, dynamic house music whether through his label Trackland or releases on Spectral Sound, Clave House, Firm Tracks, and FCR. He also performs solo or with Davis Galvin as Hits Only when his unique touch always remains evident. This new 12" features four tracks that blend uplifting and introspective house vibes and it oozes class. Opener 'Sun Rising On Harmony' boasts an infectious bass line and melody, while 'Inside,' offers a classic acid house feel. On the B-side, you have the lovely 'Thoughts Like Light Snow' which delivers an alluring electro twist, while 'Mint Leaf' closes with a rich bass line and intricate details.

Review: Brique and Babu step up for two tracks each on this nice and cosmic new tech house offering from the Quinoa Cuts label. Brique get first with a deft blend of silky synth designs and snappy tech house drums. It's both driving and physical but nice and heady at the same time. His 'Customer Service Meltdown' has more textural, fizzy synths snaking their way through the crispy tech beats, then Babu's 'Apollo' has an acid-laced sound and cyborg vocals piped in. Last of all is 'American War' with more tight, bobbing beats and electro-tinged rhythms.

Review: Sweat It Out Records kicks off their tasty Sweat Sampler series with their first volume, cutting niftily across four exceptionally sweaty bops, spanning tongue-in-cheek deep tech reworks and downtempo disco delights. First off is the dream team of Cid and Havoc & Lawn, whom together deliver a hilariously effective house version of America's 'A Horse With No Name'; this is shortly followed by Saturday Love, Kon and Furious's 'Come Out', a rejigged nu-disco samosa packed with some rare vocal spices; then there's 'Give It To Me' by Marco Lys and Ben Miller, a bass-driven bouncer unafraid of lasershot winddowns, injunctive vocals and risers; and finally, there's Set Mo's 'Could I Be', the anthem of the bunch, whose buildup and drop is alarming, affecting, cumulatively awe-striking.

Review: Irish man down under JJ Fortune has been setting out his stall over the past few years as an intriguing new talent in the minimal tech house scene thanks largely to his releases on his own Rizzwax label. Time & Space features another four fresh productions that fold all manner of influences into fresh and fruity party starters. You'll hear breakbeat, bass and garage influences creeping in around the insistent thrust of the 4/4, making for another sure shot for anyone who likes spicing up their session with minimal which looks beyond the limitations of the genre.

Review: Juaan's debut on Kalahari Oyster Cult channels the Argentinian producer's ability to merge gritty, hypnotic house and electro with an unmistakable dark edge. With these four cuts, he expertly navigates a sonic landscape where urgency and allure coexist in perfect harmony. 'O Bianco O Negro' opens with a deep, rolling bassline, leading into acidic bursts and sharp percussive hits. It's a track that demands the dancefloor's attention, moody and relentless. 'Ladron' takes a slightly more sinister turn, with rumbling synths and a touch of tension, while still maintaining Juaan's fluid, dancefloor-driven momentum. Over on the B-side, 'Puntual' drops into an intricate mesh of stuttering rhythms and hypnotic arpeggios, perfect for those late-night sessions. Closing with 'Apego,' he draws the EP to a close with a darkly seductive groove, laced with eerie atmospheres and an unyielding forward motion. Informed by 90s influences but firmly grounded in the present, the EP delivers the kind of atmospheric, high-octane dancefloor heat that's made Juaan a standout talent in the underground scene. It's dark, sleek and perfectly calibrated for the dancefloorian intoxicating blend of funked-out futurism and dystopian allure.

Review: Who are the internet OGs, and who has a right to claim the internet as territory anyway? Present day acid house musician Rio Kawamoto queries us this in EP form, blasting us right on back to the era of static gif-laden webpages and firewall chinks, before platform-centric neoliberal whitewashing of the internet took hold. From 'Straight Outta GeoCities' to 'AOL' to 'Marathon 2', this is an extremely compelling time capsulate of the late nineties and noughts internet told through the lens of acid house. The EP makes deft use of noizy flat beats, farty cyberspatial sound design, and offbeat Kylie Minogue-ish organ hits for good measure (on Mogwaa Calle's version of 'Real Player'). The saying "you've got mail!" will never get old, not least when you find this one in package form on your doorstep.

Review: It's 10 up for TVIR and to mark the occasion they have a fantastic five-track outing from Komponente. 'Gash' is a fizzing, dense and slow-motion cut with a grinding low end and some serious bounce in the drums and bass. It's both fun and menacing all at once and has real anthem potential once the vocals come in. 'Flowers' has a brighter melodic touch but also lashings of spiky acid and 'Sanctuary' is then a deft tech house workout with suspensory and angelic vocals. 'Mind Revolt' is an unhinged mix of ghoulish laughter and bright sine waves, then 'Veronika' shuts down with a meditative broken beat.

Review: "Underground dance music" got its name for a reason: the black market is where the good stuff is! The ninth release on the underground-allusive, daytime-elusive Undergroove label moot a congregation of sound spivs, turntablist tricksters, deep house dealers, and many other scraggly clientele, for a fresh and unregulated yield of homegrown Lyon talent. Said to have channelled electro house and garage house going in, lord knows what has come out the other side, but we can aver its dankness: Lazer Man and and Funktroid nod to twin moods of desperation and forbearance commonly seen in criminal underworlds, with the stoic grind of the street represented in unfazed, steely electro beats. Real fiends only let loose on the B-side, where Local DJ's 'Dreams Of Radio' and Aladdin's 'The Ali-ens' quell any residual fears through glitchy purples and ghostly tech backings.

Review: Occibel cranks up the decibels on this new outing for the fledging label Playful. The artist taps into a fresh tech and minimal sound from the off with 'Behind The Walls' spinning out on disco stabs and phased basslines. The kinetic 'Look Around You' then pangs more prickly drum programming and spaced-out synth work with sensuous spoken words and 'Freak' layers up balmy pads and bright, shiny and sugar melodies for a nice colourful exploration. 'The Mess' shuts down with more menace thanks to its monstrous bassline and snappy drum hits.