Juno Recommends Bass June 2021

Review: RECOMMENDED
Considering the way this Scotch Rolex LP begins you probably want to strap-in. Tewari opens with seriously brooding atmosphere, before Nigerian vocalist MC Yallah explodes into action with a twisted take on bass and grime. One track later and we've descended into the depths of distorted screams and vicious but muffled power riffs, meaning there's really no turning back.

It's quite the introduction to an album that goes on to represent the vanguard of East African electronic music right now. While generalising about large areas of land has never been wise, the last decade or so has seen a long-overdue recognition of how fertile the region is in terms of innovation in electronics, and unsurprisingly the latest outing on Nyege Nyege imprint Hakuna Kulala is one for the essential pile. From trippy, downtempo with tangible bite, to pseudo-techno packing filtered horns, it's not your average record.

Review: 10 years old... Depending when you were born, this reissue of Mount Kimbie's benchmark-setting album will either make you feel a little old or open up a whole new musical world. Either way, it's aged incredibly well as the duo took the dubstep essence and reinterpreted it through more of a hip-hop and beatmaker context. Sketches, all conjured up with heavy levels of emotion and textures, Crooks & Lovers still sounds like no other album and hints at some of the more melodic beat work (think Flume) that came a few years later. Highlights include the gentle lollops of 'Would Know', the glitchy dark garage funk of 'Blind Night Errand' the Clark-like dreamy skips and bubbles of 'Ode To Bear' and the overwhelming emotion of 'Maybes'.

Review: Big Science co-honcho, Female:Pressure member and renowned broadcaster and DJ in France, NVST lets loose on Serious Trouble with her debut EP - 'Stop Violence Motivate Violence'. Two originals, one remix, all dark matter; NVST's title track comes with the subtitle Ridinglikeyoustoleit and bubbles like a subterranean juke-rave-garage beast. Elsewhere Big Trouble's Benedikt Frey gets murky on the remix as he pitches everything down into a disarming, stern dancefloor sludge. Finally 'Breakos Blancos' shuts things down with another slo-mo shatter-fest with classic 45 King breaks fracturing and firing all over the place. Fighting talk.

Review: San Francisco's Farsight is no stranger to Scuffed Recordings, though the Renegade EP marks the first time one of his EPs for the imprint has appeared on vinyl. It's a pleasingly entertaining, action-packed affair that begins with a massive dollop of rave nostalgia in the shape of 'Renegade', where hip-house vocal snippets, mind-melding stabs, Yorkshire bleeps, booming bass and crunchy breakbeats collide with seriously sizable results. 'Tied Hands' is a jumpy, glitchy and metallic-sounding chunk of breakbeat/post-dubstep fusion, while 'Until Next Time' sounds like deep space hip-house with added 21st century sub-bass pressure. Speaking of hip-house, the Interplanetary Criminal Remix of 'Renegade' makes the track's inspirations even clearer via some warehouse-ready, late 1980s stabs, speed garage-influenced beats and funk-fuelled bass.

Review: Two years after he launched his self-titled label, Breaka fires it up for the first time in almost 12 months. This time round, he's joined by collaborators Bakey and Fazer Ray. The latter contributes to the two A-side tracks, 'The Loudest Woiioii Ever' - a tough, chunky and fuzzy sub-bass-driven romp that sits somewhere between dubstep and broken techno, and the deeper, slower and genuinely UK garage influenced goodness of 'Phone's Ringin'. With its bleepoing melodies and sparkling synth sounds, the latter is as picturesque as it is heavy. As for Bakey, he first features on the pulverising, sub-heavy '90s D&B revivalism of flipside opener 'Club Dynamics', before playing his part on the rubbery, percussion-rich bounce of EP highlight 'Pro Perc'.

Review: It's always nice to stumble across an EP that tries to do things differently and defy easy categorization. That's exactly what's on offer from this EP from debutant D3U5E, whose only previously outing was a contribution to Corrupt Data's Hardcore Will Never Die compilation. On side A, he first fuses elements of dubstep, elecro and psychedelic electronica on the fabulous 'Free Mars', before unveiling an off-kilter breakbeat/electro cut that's powered forwards by 8-bit electronics and gargantuan sub-bass. Over on the flip he joins forces with Gav on two tracks: the ghostly, ambient techno influenced dubstep of 'Of The Gods' and the more raw, mind-mangling UK bass heaviness of 'Mutant'.

Review: One of the bass world's most enigmatic and interesting artists returns to Planet Mu with his fourth and arguably most beguiling album. Completely void of genre-trappings or tempo formats, each cut seems like an unbounded meander through BR's thoughts. Slow, spacious and free-spirited, as with his previous works, it's a deeply woven tapestry of references and influences that range from his formative days on pirate radio ('Harwhich Road') to his interest in literature ('Palace Of The Peacocks') to tongue-in-cheek sonic fun ('Larkin Around') Welcome to the labyrinth.