Juno Recommends Dubstep November 2018

Review: It was only a matter of time before Boofy landed on Pinch's Tectonic. Both Bristol. Both magnetised to the fringes. Both responsible for untold low end hurters like these... "Back In The Box" is a heavy pressure cut with pneumatic kicks and ominous stretched brass textures while "Herbie" is a highly strung piece that's stripped back to just drums, subs and an eerie faltering lead and builds and twists when you least expect it. Flip for the churchy chords and rattled percussion of "In My Head" before "Perfunktion" closes with jazzier chords and a stone cold steppy kick arrangement. Classic Boofs.

Review: Sleeper man Alex Fox debuted the GRAMZ alias earlier in the year via a two-track 12" on Sentry Records built around paranoid sonic textures, serious bass-weight and rolling 140 BPM beats. For this 10" outing on Crucial, Fox has taken a deeper approach, ratcheting up the smoky atmosphere while retaining sizeable low-end pressure. "Joken" and flipside "Get Them Bags" are hazy, ultra-deep dubstep workouts, with both doffing a cap towards hip-hop and grime (check out the manipulated MC vocal samples on the latter, in particular), as well as the crackling sonic textures of Burial. "Joken" rolls along nicely while remaining pleasingly subdued, while "Get Them Bags" has a little more sonic strut. Both, though, are excellent.

Review: One of the heaviest, fire-stoked albums of the year returns in deluxe form. Metropolis and Vulgatron are sounding sharper, wittier and aggier than ever while the beats are powered up by some of the most respected and forward thinking artists in the game from Feed Me to Bangzy, Flux Pavilion to Alix Perez. A full spectrum assault that flexes from cyborg b-boy ("Flashback") cinematic panic ("The Mission") hazy introspective soul ("Crash & Burn") to come to bed 24th century R&B ("Bosh"), Foreign Beggars went categorically in on this. Jump on this if you missed the first time around.

Review: As a DJ, promoter and producer, Version boss Orson has been championing dubstep in Germany longer than almost anyone else (fact: he made his production debut way back in 2010!). These days he's an established figure internationally, releasing music that's every bit as good as that made by the sound's British pioneers. "Life Gamble", which opens his latest EP, is something of a peach. Built around a headline grabbing, digi-dub style bassline, the track is deep, dreamy and melodious, with ambient sound washes offering a neat contrast to his ricocheting dubstep beats and blazed audio textures. Flipside "12:09", meanwhile, is a far more straightforward proposition, with the German bass-head serving up an intoxicating dancefloor stepper rich in stabbing bass and echoing electronics.

Review: Ol' Pushy's getting freaky on the Omega 3 oils again. "Too Much Tuna" is the sound of satiation, all woozy and satisfied with dreamy arpeggios, otherworldly clicks and pops and a gentle but stern bassline heartbeat. Dig deeper into the feast for a wonked out tripletty chat with little green men on "Martians", a bleepy bewilderment on the strange slides and glides of "Reptoid" and an unapologetic kick in the circuits with the grunting, frazzled "Computer Takeover". Turn on, tuna in, do not drop out.

Review: Following his recent collaboration with Sepia on Wheel & Deal, Chonkmob's Koma gets busy on Encrypted with three dastardly originals. "Moonlight" is murky and all fogged out with devilish tendencies while "Uncle Sullivan" takes a trappist approach with its lavish lead strikes creating drama on every up and down. "Deep In The Crease" (with Dalek One) is all about the hip hop breaks, gritty sleaze, off beat samples and sweary cockney. Need a more trippiness? Jump on Murk's remix.

Review: Rarefied bring Sibla & Zygos together on this positively stinking piece of wax. Neither party a stranger to the label, and both armed with a particularly prominent sense of wonk and grit, the result is a triptych of grizzlers that will melt the pants of every member in the dance. "The Path" is pure electricity whomping back and forth, oozing over the kicks. "Haunted" is pure static, rusty chimes and occasional screams before the toxic bassline bites its way into the blend a little later than usual. "Sigil" closes the show with more of a rolling groove, hypnotic vocals and more beautifully pranged out textures. Rarefied bang on the money once again.

Review: Last spotted on Encrypted's Codedinsound V/A album in 2017, Denver's Malleus returns with his first full EP for the label. If you've been following his sounds on the likes of Gourmet Beats and Foundation Audio, you'll know exactly what's up here; swampy, otherworldly textures, trippy aesthetics, warped and weirded out sound designs. "Damien" takes the lead with demonic graveyard arpeggios and pressurised kicks while "Dragging The Lake" is swampy, grotty and gloopy in consistency but poignant and barbed in emotional energy. For maximum wonk jump on "Grinn" while militant nightmare heads should jump straight onto the finale "To Kiss The Witch's Flesh". Filth.

Review: Bristol bass fusionist Peverelist looks back a decade to the heady hurly burly of 140 music in 2008 and his intrinsic role within its development. "Bluez" remains as timeless and breezy as it ever did. Lightly touched and clearly inspired by the Goodlooking chapters of jungle, it's now been remastered to stand up against today's productions. Meanwhile on the B we have the long lost dub "Und_92". A much dubbier technoid piece that, in hindsight, was a key stepping stone en route to his respected position in techno today. Ageless.

Review: It's been a while since we last heard from Kerem Sevincli AKA Iskeletor, an Istanbul-based beat-maker and bass-loving experimentalist who last featured on Tektosag way back in 2013. His return to the imprint boasts a trio of tracks on one-side, with an attractive, etched illustration on the other. He begins with "Afromax", a two-minute flurry of chopped experimental hip-hop beats, mangled bicycle bell and nuts-and-bolts percussion and wonky, shape-shifting electronics. Gantz Seytan remixes, cannily emphasizing the wonkiness of the beats on an outer-space excursion that's near hallucinatory in its twisted, slow motion approach. To round things off, Sevincli offers up his rework of Grup Ses cut "Mimar", re-casting it as a dystopian, ever-changing experimental beatscape rich in redlined sounds and epileptic drumbeats.