Juno Recommends Bass: August 2023

Review: Neil Landstrumm is one of the UK's most underrated but high-achieving artists if you ask us. He's done it all over the years and has been pivotal to a number of different in-between sounds flourishing into scenes. Here he lands on a fellow UK institution in Swamp 81, once a home to cutting-edge bass and now offering an outlet for Landstrumm to explore the cosmos. He does so with his usual mix of quirky sound designs and heavy grooves on 'Minimoo' which is both serious body music but also playful and charming. 'Aintgotnojob' is a twisted juke-inspired B-side with reverberating low ends and tightly looped vocal phrasings that melt the mind.

Review: Elle Andrews and Jon K's MAL label is back in quick time with another brilliant barrage of bass heavy joints in the form of Pressure II. It's packed with new and exclusive dance floor explosives right from the off as Avon Blume cooks up jazzy broken beat jungles on '3 Minutes Short'. Elsewhere there are more brutal Amens from Soltura on the dark dystopian twister that is 'Whip'. Duster Valentine offers up a minimal hotsepper in 'A Study Of Asoa' that might be the sort of music Skream was making had he not abandoned bass. Time Cow wins title of the year with 'Real Pirates Don't Say Okie Dokie Then' while King Maceeyar gets deep and insular and Jana Rush layers up deft rhythms and slight sine ways on 'Pink Guava.'

Review: Wherein Dutchman Vincent lays down a heartfelt study of the soul entitled 'Pre Melancholy'. His findings are as follows... Before the melancholy one can expect a wave of emotions and pressures, all of them ingredients for a tumultuous storm that flies in a whole flurry of directions. Technoid drum & bass causing anxiety with every rolling fill ('Mono No Aware'), timeless breaks triggering moments of unsolicited joy ('Agent Of Distraction') and spacious leftfield that's so disarming and abyssal that it comes in two forms ('Yonghegong Lama Temple Exit F'). Embrace the melancholy.

Review: Always one to keep us on our toes, NVST follows up last year's Drum In The Bass Of Attention with another wide-armed display of power. From utterly savage, uncompromising breaks ('Filled With Oil') to the more deconstructed, experimental spoken word exploration ('Fourisfourisnoanswer') via funkier, more groove-based cuts ('Slack It Off'), she weaves between worlds with a fizzy balance of unpredictability and joyous danger. Nothing is off the table.