Back catalogue: Broken Beat/Nu Jazz

Review: Unusually adept, jazzdancey sonic handicraft from new Rekids signee, Quiet Village. If we at Juno could issue some kind of official rosette or emblem for 'wicked production skills'- on par with a master builder's sextant-engraved headstone - then we'd award Quiet Village with one such memento in a heartbeat. 'Reunion', pressed onto vinyl for the first time here, hears a loose yet effortlessly rhythmic drum break furl, dance about a smooth, nighttime jazz progression for sax and piano. It's giving visions of a down-and-out PI in an 80s neo-noir/romantic drama genre fusion, except this protagonist has just tuned into Rinse FM for the first time - and Rinse FM, in this alternate reality, exists in the 80s. The 'Reprise' version is equally as evocative, sans-ing the drums to allow space to listen to just the melodics, just the overarching ambiences. It's as if Quiet Village know that the true force of the tune, its essence, rests in the core mystique of the aforementioned instrumental combo; the ghost of the drums may continue to play back only in our minds, yet we continue to dance.

Review: This clear wax edition feels like an invitation into Worcestershire-born global traveller Will Holland's inner circle i not just as a selector but as a connector of people, scenes and sonic microhistories. Across the two LPs, his DJing reveals the subtle hand of a musician: textured, tempo-flexible, deeply in tune with the artists he features. JJ Whitefield's 'The Mind Is A Palace' and Alfa Mist's slow-burner 'In My Defence' lay the introspective groundwork, while The Heliocentrics and Dialect bring fuzz and abstraction into view. Side B pivots to percussive warmth, from JKriv's whistle-led 'Pifeiro Malandro' to Holland's own dusty 'Twang', before the humid swagger of Frente Cumbiero and a tripped-out remix of 'Theme From Selva' usher in Side C. Things then spiral toward the club, with 'Eko Eko', 'Throw Dat Azz' and 'Scintille' all bringing punch and release. The final stretch, featuring The Maghreban, Meridian Brothers and Sobredosis, casts a glowing ambiguity over the mix i just like Holland's sets, it ends not in resolution, but in feeling.