Back catalogue: Breakbeat

Review: Hey boys, hey girls... Chemical Brothers are back with some superstar business and all is well with the world. Instantly slipping into their signature, 'No Reason' smacks with everything we love about Tom and Ed. Big funk bassline, cheeky party samples and a presence that could get everyone from your nan to your naughty next door neighbour dancing. 'All Of A Sudden' takes us up a few gears in a way that only the Chemmys can; unrelenting laser bass marching music that pushes and pushes and pushes to the very end. Here we go!

Review: Mtkvarze Records launches itself into the underground world with three producers who are well known to anyone who attended the club of the same name's 2023 season. Sohrab, a Mtkvarze's resident artist who is based in London, opens up with dark melodic flair, Tbilisi's Cobert then gets tripped out and acid on 'Old Taiko' and Levan Grdzelidze, the man behind the top Glispy Records, offers both cuts on the flipside. 'What Happens After' is a quick, rugged tech cut with wiry effects and twitching synths and 'Warm Hands' is future house with warm, smeared and painterly pads softening the kinetic drum work.

Review: In hindsight, the summer of 1997 saw the release of some genuinely brilliant and ground-breaking dance albums - not least Chemical Brothers' second studio set, Dig Your Own Hole. As this expanded 25th anniversary edition proves, the album was the musical high point of the often painfully shallow big beat movement - a thrill-a-minute ride that races between funk-fuelled, break-heavy hits ('Block-Rockin' Beats'), rock-tinged heaviness (the title track), fuzz-fuelled post-techno hedonism (''Electrobank'), La Funk Mob-influenced trip-hop ('Pikup'), heady ambience ('Lost in the K-Hole') and riffs on the Beatles' 'Tomorrow Never Knows' ('Setting Sun' and the incredible 'My Private Psychedelic Reel'). CD two will delight fans, featuring as it does a quintet of previously unreleased tracks and alternate versions, with the opioid pulse of 'Cylinders' and the slamming 'It Doesn't Matter (alternate mix)' standing out.

Review: The Chems, as they are affectionately known by fans, continue to serve up the most blistering big room breakbeats, techno and electro fusions each time they play one of their famously spellbinding sets. They are revealing all about their accomplished and decorated career in a new biography that arrives the same time as this new album, For The Beautiful Feeling. It's a double 12" of high-octane sound, maximal grooves and a mad guest spot from none other than Beck. Fans will love it, whether newcomers or diehards who have been with the pair since day one.

Review: Chris Clark does a new album every few years or so, but few have been reissued let alone this seminal project from 2006 - which saw to an as yet unheard collaboration with longtime lo-fi electrists Broadcast. Now released, 'Herr Barr Improv' gets added to the compact slew of slippery and proto-wonky experimental electronic cuts, as it should have done originally. The track is is a breaksy 6/8 sneaker, and an early example of Clark's wide-ranging inspiration.

Review: Our love for Coco Bryce is well-documented on these pages. To get news of a new album from the legendary Dutch drum & bass producer, then, is, well, music to our ears. Computer Love is a double pack on his own label MYOR that explores downtempo sonic landscapes, deep drum & bass and occasional forays into UKG and breakbeat. It's a kaleidoscopic listen with meticulous craft in each tune and overflowing with fresh melodic ideas as well as his famous smart samples. Previously released singles 'Night Safari' and 'Trust Issues' are standouts amongst a slew of other more left-of-centre sounds.