Back catalogue: Leftfield

Review: Calypso are back with another clutch of exciting mavericks orbiting the weirder end of the contemporary club spectrum. There are minimal wave influences to be tacitly detected on Nicola Cruz's "Tu Recuerdo" as well as kind of stripped back acid freakiness, while in FE's "Tarde O Temprano" there's even more gritty, industrial tinged bite in the billowing surges of machine rhythms. Quixosis takes some wonderfully lilting traditional percussion and gives it a freaky treatment which makes for the kind of slow jam Weatherall would have wielded with aplomb. NTFL finishes this ear-snagging compilation off with the plaintive, Dembow-tinted "Vacio".

Review: Lee Gamble's UIQ imprint is back with some painfully killer material! Martins Rokis aka N1L makes his debut with six slices of freaked-out electronics and vaporous industrialism, all wrapped up in a familiarly UIQ sort of flavor. There is little that one would consider 'normal' about this EP, and it's fair to say that nothing about it sounds stale of regurgitated. In fact, this is perhaps some of the weirdest, more far-out material that we've heard from the label, which is sort of another way to say to say that it's the oddest material on our carts this week. It ain't ambient, it's not mechanical enough to be techno, and it certainly doesn't fall under the 'bass' umbrella. What we do know is that it'll appeal to those wanting something completely different, and a range of tunes to make the crowd turn their head with disbelief. TIP!

Review: Provocative performance artists NDB are best famed for their insanity-inspiring live shows and uncompromising, experimental sounds on labels such as Dominick Fernow's Hospital Productions. Now the Italians make the leap to the mighty DFA with two very contrasting productions; the title track is a pneumatic, droning, exercise in cyclical shamanism, developing and mutating with distorted mischief throughout. "Clelia Clelia", meanwhile, is a straight-up Latin techno jam. Pacey, percussive and sweatier than a chubby fellow in a packed sauna, it's probably the most dancefloor minded track the duo have done to date. Unique.

Review: London-based, Belgian-Congolese artist Nikisi has launched her own label and this is the first release. Given that she has such a unique and singular sound it's a wonder she hasn't started her own thing before now. Cutting utterly loose here she layers up hard, flat drums with white noise and what sound like ancient drones to make for a hard but hypnotic weapon. It's dark but light, controlled but chaotic. 'Phantasmagoria' explores the same dichotomies, with poly-rhythms pummelling away beneath haunting synth drones up top. In between is the glitchy 'What Comes Next?', another stark, inventive track that is challenging yet rewarding.

Review: Whether it's a new name, a Felix K alias or a just another alias, we'll probably never know. But Hidden Hawaii Sub introduces No to their sub-roster with another soon-to-be sought after and untitled relic. "Track 1" sounds like the low-end hum of a walk-in refrigerator that's been left on for too long, while "Track 2" creatively blends granular dub techno with pitched-down drum and bass. On the EP's B-side, "Track 3", provides some quick and raw to the bone jungle beats which is almost like a Felix K dub to Sandwell District.

Review: Paris label Collapsing Market has scored something of a coup here by tempting Lust For Youth frontman Lars Hannes Norvide away from regular home Posh Isolation. NNN is the latest missive to emerge from his recently minted Norin alias, which was apparently established to allow for more "techno-focused" productions. The four tracks showcased here are far from straight-up techno club tracks, of course, with rhythms created from cyclical electronic motifs, rather than traditional drum machine percussion. Winding, creepy and occasionally intense, the tracks bob and weave seductively, seemingly tempting listeners to succumb to the Swede's unsettling musical vision.

Review: When it comes to delivering hallucinatory, deeply psychedelic blends of IDM, ambient and techno, Juriaan Terpstra AKA Nthng has been consistently ahead-of-the-game. So much so, in fact, that he's curbed some of the trippy and mind-mangling aspects of his personal style on Sub-Sonar. Instead, he's reached towards the picturesque, first unfurling some dew-fresh ambient melodiousness ('Looking Outside'), before sonically doffing a cap to his dub techno roots on the deep techno loveliness of 'Liberate Truth'. He delves even deeper on the impeccable title track, adding bleeping lead lines to sumptuous chords, becalmed aural textures and smooth beats, while '1 2 Butterfly' is a dreamy and loved-up foray into late 90s, LTJ Bukem style ambient D&B.

Review: RECOMMENDED
There will always be something deeply, infectiously romantic about the early-mid-1990s electronic and dance music scene. It was a time when, comparatively speaking, commercialism was yet to fully make inroads in the landscape, when producers were still often anonymous and few people really knew what DJs actually looked like, the only visual cues distorted by smoke, strobes, and chaos.

The result is there are many, many, many troves for newcomers to discover. Nuron, or Nurmad Jusat, is just one of those, but definitely up there with the most rewarding. Whether you call work like this three-piece EP techno, ambient, or a combination of the two it packs levels of musicality many creators can only hope to aspire to. Elements of Detroit, electro, trance, progressive breaks and more, boxed up in a lush, tranquil but highly usable package equally at home in the dance or mid-Monday morning.

Review: Nitechord is an enigmatic ambient-tech duo that makes a striking debut here with Lume having previously released only two remixes. It was a demo tape from 2022 that impressed the Past Inside the Present label with its raw allure and it is that work which appears here nearly unaltered but for mastering from James Bernard. The opener unfolds with atmospheric guitar loops anchored by a steady kick and bass, 'Near' brings a hint of twang to expansive guitar tones and in 'Dim,' layered drones and melodies rise and fall like petals. Add in the suspensory sounds of 'Absent' and 'Carry' which blooms into a full orchestral swell and you have an immersive, introspective suite of sonic bliss.