New releases last two weeks: Uplifting Trance

Review: Bassland Prophecy was a Southern California music collective featuring Alex Xenophon, Stuart Breidenstein who is ex-Skylab 2000, vocalist Alissa Kueker and Maxx Vaxx of Euterpre and Butterfly Garden. Their 1996 tracks 'Nine/Deeper' and 'Blue and Purple Starship of Trust' were thrilling genre collisions that have since become hard to find. The originals were long thought lost but have, in fact, turned up and been remastered and reissued by Bristol's Sex Tapes From Mars. Their sound was crafted using gear like the Juno 106, Yamaha FB-01, Roland S330 sampler, Sequential Circuits Pro-One with external MIDI, and various guitar pedals, all tools that helped forge their distinctive, otherworldly prog house sound.

Review: Dublin-born, now Manchester-based, Krystal Klear returns to Running Back with six club tools steeped in nostalgic shimmer and functional bite. Known for his arpeggiated anthems and deep-dive devotion to the dancefloor, this batch hits a familiar sweet spot-melodic, muscular, and tinged with longing. 'Pancake' sets the tone with glassy synths and driving drums, while 'Hammeroid' and 'Detol Samba' veer into tougher, trippier terrain with twitchy percussion and ravey chord stabs. The italo-flavoured 'Offenbach' glows with bittersweet pads, before 'Deathlagg' and 'Celtic Samba' close in more dramatic fashion-euphoric, strange and full of motion. These aren't reinventing the formula, but they don't need to. It's dance music for dancers: unpretentious, dialled-in, and built to last until the lights come on.

Review: "Tonight's the night... tonight we make it right!" Trance, tok and hardstyle elements combine with allusive pedigree on the latest release for Terminal M, productively secured by Ukrainian producer Skober - a consistent presence on the Euro-techno circuit. Known for his tight, no-frills approach to peak-time, big-biz techno, Skober has here crafted an anthem for restitution and justice, capturing the mood of victorious catharses promised and by the just act. 'I Will Show You', meanwhile, sounds to celebrate the dirtier work gone into upholding just causes, with the A-side's gumption-packed tenor assuring us of our survival in the face of moral grey areas and means-to-ends: "don't be afraid, you're safe with me..." .