Juno Recommends Bass October 2020

Review: Back on the buff stuff! Rising UKG act Y U QT return to Warehouse Rave who they released their debut with this time last year, with another sassy five track session. All garage styles covered from the sweet sunshine vibes ('Can I Say', 'Sundae Gelato') to the twisted rave jumps and stutters ('I Believe') to the headsy hip-twisters that have a jazzy mind of their own ('Liquid Magma') Cute.

Review: Nervous Horizon return with a special collaborative project from Object Blue and label co-boss Tsvi. Both sitting in the no-genre / body music hinterland, across three tracks they merge both of their uncompromising styles to create a unique mutant sound. 'Thought Experiment' stutters and flares with a wrought tension that's gradually released over rolling, skittering kickdrums (and subverted to pummelling levels by Loraine James on her remix) 'Turing Machine' bridges jungle with techno over a sparse 130 breakbeat. 'Syntax' closes the show on the most forthright note of the set. Pounding kicks and lightning breakbeat strikes, this hits with the militancy both artists share.

Review: 10 years since his debut release on Night Slugs, three years since his debut album Tears In The Club, Fade To Mind co-boss Kingdom returns with his highly anticipated sophomore Neurofire. Featuring the likes of LUVK, Kayla Blackmon, Pheona and Tiara Thomas, in a way it's still business as usual; the LA artist is still soothing our souls with his unique take on contemporary R&B, but here he shows even more of a musicality and dynamic range than ever before. Powered by smouldering beat work but playing much more with the minimalism, space and strange textures and glitches; with tracks like the broken beat style soul track 'High Enough', the contemplative slow-rave story 'Cell Splitter' and powerful opener 'No More Same', Kingdom is revealing even more of his musical universe. A highly accomplished second album.

Review: Two proper peaches from the melodic end of the house/techno spectrum from Samantha Poulter aka Logic1000. 'Perfume' sees the Sydney-born, Berlin-based DJ and producer adding several layers of bittersweet vocals to a chunky and lightly-embellished-breaks house groove. Flip track 'Blossom' comes up equally smelling of roses with a more progressive-slanted instrumental vibe that's equally playable. The sweet smell - and sound - of success.

Review: Neil Landstrumm on Exit Records.... This was only a matter of time. Where Neil has consistently stood in techno, dBridge has in drum & bass. The pair are kindred spirits and it's freeform, guileless analogue jams like these that really highlight their shared interests and approaches. Created using pretty much only an MPC and Moog, jamming in the way the Scottish maverick always has, each cut hits a machine funk rawness; 'Chincy' is Neil's take on trap with rainbows of 80s electronic showered over the mix, 'Cutlass' is straight up '93 jungle while 'Eighty Four' is your quintessential electro body popper. A match made in analog heaven.

Review: At time of release, the knee pit or upper shin of the weirdest year in our time, we may feel like we're owed some type of steak or cake day, but German duo Otto have much healthier meal plans... It's Clam Day, and there's more than enough of this hearty brew to share. Flavours include the sweetness of buoyant pop, the savoury tanginess of oddball electronics and sharp twangs of 16-bit innocence, baked slow and low in a lo-fi oven over 12 tracks. Particularly tasty dishes include the woozy shoegaze stew of 'Chlorine', the delightful D&B-meets-Megadrive-in-Toy Town splashes of 'Sprained My Ankle', the garage band blues-cum-2020 global anthem 'Wash Your Hands' and the final floaty hoorah 'Microplastics In My Bloodstream'. Political but laced with a soothing optimism. Ideal for fans of Clarke and Jim Noir alike, this is perfect chowder for our lockdown-ravaged souls.

Review: Ten years on and Clubroot's second album still sounds like a universe of its own. Created during that exciting flux between dubstep blowing up and post-dubstep becoming saturated, Clubroot - very much like Burial - sculpted a genuinely unique sound. It's one that touched on all influences in the bass canon while standing entirely on its own. His second album II MM did this especially as he moved us through the intense maze from mournful ambience to deep driving emotive breaks and graveyard UKG and back again. A precursor to the wave movement that happened a few years later, whichever corner of the continuum he's exploring there's a consistent sense of sketches and loose ideas being captured just before they leave his mind. Natural, raw and forever unhurried. This has stood the test of time incredibly well.

Review: Following releases on the likes of Houndstooth and Nervous Horizon, Loraine James returns to Hyperdub with another unique release. Picking up where her breakthrough album 'For You & I' left us, it's another wily and collaborative affair as she brings in voices that don't often find themselves over futuristic beatscapes like Loraine's. 'Nothing' sees Lila Tirando a Violeta lament over a post-apocalyptic trance setting before Tardast raps in Farsi over the prang pads and glitchy beats of 'Marg' and Jonnine brings post-soul honey over the lavish beats of 'Don't You See It?'. For the finale, however, Loraine goes solo with 'The Starting Point.' Sparse, strange and scratchy throughout, it suddenly opens out into a bright and emotional conclusion. 'Nothing' always leads to something...