Juno Recommends Drum & Bass: June 2024

Review: A shrewd business move from Coco Bryce? The underground drum & bass lodestar has named his latest full-length record after the Japanese pop genre, between which there appears to be no relation. We're left to wonder whether it's purely a coincidence, save for the fact that the latter's popularity makes it seem like less of one. Whatever the case, the mood of Coco's latest record errs less on bangers and more mash, completely sidestepping the apparent need for most producers working mainly in realm of singles and EPs to suddenly play up to a concept when it comes to making an LP. No; from 'Slow Motion' to 'Blow Me Over', City Pop is muted, revelling in the joy of pure breaks science and soft chordal experimentation. The extra tasteful sample-work of 'Idle Minds' and blooping minimalisms of 'Your Mine' go on to testify that this is a subtle listen, perhaps one that only an artist at the height of their career can indulge, after all the points have been proven and statements made.

Review: Aphrodite's Jungle Classics 94 To 96 presents a nostalgic trip back to the original jungle era with remastered tracks from the iconic releases APH-12, APH-13, APH-22, and APH-23. This limited edition vinyl release, curated by Triple Vision and Aphrodite Recordings, features timeless classics like 'Tower Bass,' 'Shine,' 'Wanted It More And More,' and the Booyaa Remix of 'Amazon II.' An impressive catalogue taht goes a long way to explaining the big part of the influential role he played in shaping the jungle and drum & bass scene during the mid-90s.

Review: Bubbling breaks producer Cheetah brings debut jungle heat for his own label with a leading remix-edit of Adina Howard's 'Freak Like Me', backed up by three equally velocitous vroomers on the A2 and B. Mastering the art of the melodic-aggro contrast trailblazed by M-Beat's 'Incredible', 'Freaks' is a worthy ragga-jungle cut to match; the mood is timestretched across the three ensuing sides with 'X-Rated', on which eerier vocals dance like mirages across a magnum-fire amen cutup, and 'Gangsta', on which the focus is its comparatively peppery subs. 'Gorgon Donettes' flips the Donettes with a pitch-shifter-happy breaks version.

Review: Conjunctive drum & bass titans Seba and Paradox test how arid they can go with 'Thinking & Perceiving', their latest record top up their own self-titled imprint. The track, which also comes backed up by 'Unfold' on the B, pits an airtight techstep drumline against what sound to be impossibly earthen basses, both of which come eerily heralded by a sagacious vocal sample of unknown origin - "a reflection of the mind of this echo" - 'Unfold' is equally as learned in sound as it is transitorily dry, with its many passing moments of uncertain break-patterning held together by atmospheric glues made up of rising basses, lasery descensions and faint dream murmurs.

Review: Irish drum & bass.. icon? pioneer? Powerhouse? All are fair descriptors of Calibre, the machine-like music maker who has turned out thousands of equally high-quality tunes for more than 20 years. Whether ambient, tech house or drum & bass in nature, they are always better than most of the competition. His own Signature label has been home to most of it and that is where he lands now with this latest 12", another impossibly tasteful two-tracker. The title cut is a lively one with bustling breaks and chopped vocal stabs that bring the joy. On the flip is 'Think Again', a deep, soulful roller with exquisite pads and driving drum & bass energy. Pure class.

Review: Cosmic drum & bass voyager ASC once again proves that his sound is like no other, topping up his now likely uncountable backlog of time-dilatory journeys with a fresh four-tracker, 'Moving Through Dreams'. Indeed, for those in the know, the boundary between outer space and inner unconscious astrals can be blurred; it's clear ASC is clued in in this regard, with this hat-trick-plus-one of both rollers and breaks frenzies showing off an understanding of the format than only seasoned somn-journalists can handle. On the dreamier end of the spectrum, there's 'Things Left Unsaid', a wordless foray into the latent parapraxes that only real dream work can consciously upturn; and on the wilder end of things, there's 'Contrast', which apposes, in stark *contrast* - the industrial scrape of a techstep break with the depth-scouring swells of nebulaic pads n' basses.

Review: The fourth and final EP from SB81's hardcore odyssey B292, here we find the Wolverhampton artist tying up loose tendrils with a beguiling collection of the album's eeriest pieces. 'Music For The Mind' warms up on a rolling tribal note before things get glacial on 'Patterns Of Thought'. Prepare for more ambient textures on the B as 'Shadows' exists strictly to give you the chills and the creepiness of 'A Beautiful Nightmare' closes the EP on a chilling Halloween style note. Sweet dreams.

Review: Four unreleased tracks from 1997 come back to the surface, recasting the luminant talents of Danny C and Mike Pears in a more contemporary light. Alleged to have been preserved on DAT for the last 27 years, there is still a consistent, clean quality to these four bits. Opener 'Blueprint' and its successor 'Dubwise' establish a utilitarian futuristic sound, betraying something of the now less popular sound that bridged jungle to techstep. The vibe on the former track lays down a mechanistic yet jazzy feel, with its semitonic Rhodes chords contrasting well to the track's outlying machinic qualities. 'Looking To The Future' and 'Groove Creator' similarly portray two death-driven, repetitious images of an automatic future.

Review: UK up-and-comers Eusebeia and Aisatsaana team up for an incredibly deep, bass-conscious, nigh sonar-systemic new drum & bass EP, 'Transnformation'. Few artists in this circuit dare to delve quite so abyssal; if anyone's ever seen the nuclear subnautical sci-fi thriller The Deep, one will know just how risky, how odds-bucking the attempt to plunge the deepest of the ocean's depths truly is. Clearly, only the best sonic submersible wearables will have cutted the mustard in aid of salvaging the jetsam-makings of this thriller; frankly, we're blown away by the ear for layering and bass heard on this EP, whether on the snareless impacts, shock-absorptions and depth-charges of 'Shed A Light' or the dim but angelic underwater intellibreaks lodestar that is 'Wayfinder'.

Review: Simon Huxtable's Aural Imbalance is one of drum & bass's most cultured projects. It's a pretty prolific one too, with great new music coming on a steady basis on labels like his own Spatial and Okrbon. It is the former he returns to now with a lush translucent blue vinyl 12", Retrospective Feelings. 'Blue Sky' is a deft mix of ambient cosmic synth work and meticulous drum patterns that suspends you in mid-air. 'Starburst' douses you in dazzling light and 'Frozen Tears' is deeper, tighter, more melancholic. 'Moonlit Clouds' is the classy closer which again pairs a lightness of rhythm and melody into something heavenly.

Review: Spatial is the connoisseur d&b label run by Simon Huxtable aka Aural Imbalance and as well as dropping a new EP from the boss himself this month, JLM Productions also steps up with a fine limited edition purple slab of brilliance. These sounds are more textural and dense than the boss's, with 'Permeate' plunging on heavy drum breaks, while 'Orogeny' is a busy one with crashing hits and more sub-bass drilling down low. 'Subsidence' douses you in widescreen cinematic pads while the drums flutter about the field and 'Lamminar Flow' brings things to a close with a more bright melodic touch and cruising grooves.

Review: Wingz presents Ghost, his debut artist album on Overview Music. Nearly two years in the making, this is Wingz' most complete body of work to date, grasping the form of drum & bass whilst lending sounds to it that buck the trends of its usual palette. Casting vocalists Rider Shafique, Collette Warren and Luke Truth in new and unorthodox beat-zones, Wingz' take on drum & bass borrows from neuro and jump-up, but dares to bastardise the breaks and craft their composite sounds from scratch. All dreamers, the tracks here likewise balance weight and brightness, murk and contrast, supremely well, painting a portrait of an artist with an integrated shadow.

Review: Good 2 Go, hailing from the UK, deliver another instalment - the third in a trilogy - of the Steel Circuit Chronicles, their most recent series to explore the bleeding edges of drum & bass as we move into the future, or at least, fantastic visions of it. Abandoning any recourse to retroism or conformity, the label boldly depict a futuristic cyborg standing aloft in an eco-urban fantasy on its front cover, and back this up with a sleek cyan splatter record, housing three killer, housing three future-mecha-angelic contemporary drum & bass cuts by Blame, DJ Sappo and Sync Dynamix. The first of said three artists sets the tone with 'Fireside Angel', which subverts the Roman tradition of the household deity with long-held buzzchords and soulful shouts. Then there's 'Can't You See' and 'I Can't Do It Alone', which continue to resound like echoes from a future street-time; the latter track is particularly interesting, opting for an unusually timed bass thrum and deeply affecting synth swells, which contrast to the vocal with a muted sonic chiaroscuro.

Review: Is there a more prolific yet consistently high-standard producer in any genre, or in fact any art form, than Irish man Calibre? Seemingly forever, the low key but high class talent has been kicking out the jams across the worlds of drum & bass, ambient and even tech house in his earlier days. Now the Signature label boss is back once again with another impeccable one-two on this Peso 12". The title cut is a pent up bumper with killer bass and soulful vocal flourishes. 'My Chances' is a little more edgy and raw, direct and hard hitting but still with well worked vocals samples which could originally come from a Bob Marley record, if you ask us.

Review: A collaboration project with renowned artists Rob Le Plar, Hobzee, Sicknote, Uneven and Metro: Tony Justice - not to be confused with the electro-house duo Justice - creates music that intertwines the contemporary essence of urban life with the smooth, sophisticated sounds of jazz. His compositions blend modern beats and rhythms with the soulful melodies and improvisational elements characteristic of jazz, creating a vibrant fusion that resonates with the urban atmosphere - though perhaps this is a fusion that Justice himself would hesitate to call 'jazzstep', despite the immediate associations to the sound; we'd wager he's more particular about what he makes than a mere genre name could signify. Despite the clear influences, 'Swimming On A Bicycle' demonstrates this unpigeonholeability enough, perhaps most evidently in the track 'Beat Echo', which opts for a growling bass and smeared live drums, both of which upend the jazzstep style in a uniquely tense mood-move.

Review: Proper pristine, technical drum & bass here from the Transmute crew, expending far more effort than most junglists in fleshing out the body, weight and polish of each constituent sound. Mostly forgoing sampled breakbeats, the 'DUOS' EP hears refreshingly unusual sound design choices dance over a more straight-up rollage in the rhythm section(s). From the opening washer pads of Abstract Drumz & Optimystic's 'Energy To The Universe', to the closing techstep clanks of Sicknote & Escher's 'Trouble Part 2', this EP brings a variety of emotions to a gestalt whole, unified by its consistently clean production.

Review: Holland's Cat In The Bag Records returns for a fresh addition to their Alley Cats series/alias, on which lead brain Tommy The Cat gathers the works of his various roster of mewlers, runts, slinkies, mogs and toms. What emerges is a crepuscular liquid jungle V/A that skews on a classic iteration of the sound; each tune here trusts its whiskers more than any other sense-organ, feeling its way through layers of lamplit atmosphere and each landing with the force of a cat with its back buttered. Opening with 'Walking Down Memory Lane', it recalls the work of old skool greats like Peshay, while TTC emerges for two new ones to top things up, offering up hip-hop breathing-rooms on 'Wat It Iz' and 'Word On The Street'.

Review: Sweet murderation! Russian roustabout Andrey HoT gets scorchio on his latest blaze-up for DanJet - 'Cold Blooded Murdarah'. Thing Remarc getting up close with Benny L and that's where we're at. Need more drummage? Roll on for Barbitura's Re-Hot remix. Flip for more Russian rawness; DJ1312 and Dima Pulsar's 'Jungle Ting' has all the edits and Dread bass style reverse warps you could ever need while 'Dark Room' closes the EP with a palpable whiff of tension. Yum.

Review: Objectiv returns to Flexout with a brand new single that blurs the boundary between rollage and jump-up. With the former term referring to drum & bass that keeps things on the subtler side - keeping things moving on a furtive tip rather than over-shelling or shredding via tawdry sound design - 'Seasoned' is a well-spiced fusion with the latter, which refers to a snappier form of the genre known for its 'jumpy' sound. B-side tune 'The Goons' is a raw, reverb-heavy yet no less crisp number, borrowing flavours of neuro, hip-hop and earlier jump-up for a heady freebooting stew.