Coming soon: Deep House

Review: Brooklyn record distributor Atypical-dopeness offer the next edition in Joaquin Joe Claussell's Unofficial Edits & Overdubs series. Following a four-tracker of largely unnamed tracks released in 2020, Iboga continues the series, this time with an iterative avatar to top up Claussell's ever-moving house continuum. Claussell's output has lately taken on an ancestral turn, influenced by the hallucinations caused by chewing the roots of an iboga plant, a chemico-spiritual fixture of initiation ceremonies found across Central Africa (whether Claussell actually did take ibogaine isn't clear). What we do know is that, in dialogue with his heritage, Claussell found himself inspired by these initiatory rituals and so set about producing this eleven-track heart-rouser, fusing the overdubbed recorded sounds of Gabon, Cameroon and Congo with his own summative, spiritual, salubrious house sound.

Review: Edinburgh-born Barry Can't Swim made a solitary splash with Loner, now reissued some months after its initial release on CD. The album dived deep into the producer's personal landscape, shaped by a year of self-reflection and a global total live show wipeout, finding romance in the contrasts between adolescent aloneness and global superstardom: in the 21st century, we find it a relief to believe they're hardly incompatible. Lead single 'Different' has in the time since set itself apart on dancefloors the world over, its euphoria meeting a patchwork of influences, while always seeming to conjure some wonder and speculation as to the man behind the beats: always navigating identity, (dis)connection and change.