The best new singles this week
Quality sounds, handpicked by the team
SINGLE OF THE WEEK
Donato Dozzy – Afterhouse Series Volume 2 (Afterhouse)
Back in 2017 Donato Dozzy slipped out a low-key drop on a one-shot label which saw him swapping out expansive, submerged techno meditations for a grubby kind of outsider house with blurry edges of the party in mind. The drums were tough, the grooves held down and there were synth hooks aplenty, but it was still reliably weird. The fans were split between those who appreciate surprise from their most treasured artists, and those who want to know what they’re getting. Dozzy certainly has the fanbase to inspire such polarising reactions, but one suspects he’s not too worried either way.
In a week when he’s also offering up a very different kind of stew with Sabla on Gang Of Ducks, he casually revives the Afterhouse series with a second volume, which is at once the same but not the same as volume one. This is still very much loopy, sweaty gear for dancefloors precariously close to complete disarray. ‘Loop Loop Loop’ is a squashed and feverish incantation, packing that dense, compressed sound which splits the difference between eyes-closed dream state and waking nightmare.
‘Toru’ is a much slower affair with one eye on the chug squad, absolutely tool-like in its construction but again slithering with an atmosphere sticky enough to lose your shoes in. ‘Magosa’ stays determinedly down around that sub 100 bpm range, sneaking in some airy half-chant loops but mainly focusing on the dirty thump of the overcooked drums. By comparison ‘Mak’ is positively sprightly, but it’s still way off to one-side as an insistent loop of something approaching gamelan, processed and repeated until it loses its original form.
Perhaps those who love melting into the undulating sound bath of a Voices From The Lake record will find themselves a bit unsettled here, but Dizzy has made his name on this kind of minimal hypnotism. What’s special about this record is the shift in sound palette and a powerful sense of space and time slow-creeping out of these tracks like a cloying fog.
OW
There’s no mistaking that legitimate crunch of OG jungle material, and when it’s multiplied by the particular mellow twist of Bristol’s soundscape, it’s hard to beat. The years of copycats and second-rate breakbeat just fall away, and of all the pioneers orbiting Full Cycle and V Recordings, Krust especially shines. Okbron previously carried two archival cuts of his back in 2020, and the alliance is formed once more to deliver us some more unbelievable, unreleased gold.
The story with these two joints is a little hazy, which is fair enough when we’re considering a time warp of nearly three decades and the scant paper trail of dub plates and white labels. ‘I Believe’ certainly sounds like a 1994 cut, and it finds Krust indulging his jazzy impulses to the full. The drums are nimble and deft to a fault, skittering at all times around the textbook dank noir licks, diva coal snippets and woozy pads. It’s stripped back in many ways, but the drums alone are bursting with energy.
‘Accepted Meaning’ on the flip does reportedly have a little more provenance, having been previously aired during Donovan Bad Boy Smith’s set at Dreamscape 11 in 1994. The drums are even more skittering here, but there’s also a rougher tint to them, and the melodic elements push forwards more directly than on the A side. Both tracks have their merits, but vitally they also hang together very naturally thanks to the gold-standard work carried out on the mastering.
It might be argued from a mastering engineer’s point of view that gritty, red-lining end results are an abject failure of the process, but in the case of these tunes, the crust on those rasping snares sounds like the source material came straight from that Dreamscape tape. Conceited distortion or not, it makes the listening experience feel wholly more honest – this is how the music was meant to be heard, and we’re here for it.
OW
Rainforest – Bullet Riddim (45Seven)
Rodrigo Alvarez is holding it down for jungle and drum & bass in Mexico, making his second appearance on the ever-excellent 45Seven label out of Leipzig. For the uninitiated, 45Seven are pushing a very particular kind of sound where dub and jungle get fused with a very literal intent and pressed up on short, sharp seven-inches. Alvarez was last on the label way back in 2016 when he was still relatively new to the scene, so it’s interesting to gauge how he’s evolved in the mean time.
Well, suffice it to say that ‘Bullet Riddim’ holds true to its title, offering up a killer blend juggling roots skank and scattershot break damage with undeniable flair. What Alvarez manages so effectively is to deliver production fireworks while retaining the gritty soundsystem punch associated with 45Seven and its explicit Jamaican influence. The sound positively whips past in a flurry of toasting MC calls, filter-sweeping snare rushes and echo chamber blooms, rich in detail and never messy, but you can sense the texture of the overall sonic like it’s passed through a roughly strung up stack in a village dance.
If ‘Bullet Riddim’ is indeed a powerful weapon, ‘Runaway Riddim’ rings true as some kind of avant-garde abstraction on jungle drum programming pulling away at breakneck speed driven by a madcap percussive palette. The bass warps with a slightly more modernist twist, but it’s the hopping accent on the beat which will send a dance into a frenzy, coming at an unexpected but utterly addictive angle. Rolling under four minutes, this one will be prime for multiple pull-ups to stretch out those deadly curveball drops. It’s the kind of fresh but wholly legitimate approach which makes you think a lot of drum & bass and jungle producers just aren’t trying hard enough.
OW
Dam Swindle and their Heist Recordings home base are an irrepressible force in deep house. The story goes that 10 years ago, the duo of Maarten and Lars founded the imprint in after already rooting themselves as staples of their local Dutch scene. But this was only the first hurdle; their longest-lasting impact would only come later, when their music found itself fitting with the modern viral music era. In the online music world, certain tracks just do it for people, sometimes for ineffable and rather fickle reasons. Other times, there are clearer reasons. Dam Swindle fall into a mixture of both camps, as their 2013 track ‘The Break Up’ managed to push all the right buttons, while still poking out from the chaff with its extra Chicago-ey funk and chromatic organ pulses. We know a fair deal of the reason why it was a hit, and that’s the production: surroundy but compressed, it commands a powerful sound and a rock-solidly bass-centred mix. When it comes to production, this careful balance between ‘mid’ and ‘side’ are key ingredients if you want to make it big as a dance music artist, in most capacities.
Sure, one hit could take the world by storm, but what was less anticipated was for Heist to become an underground hitmaking powerhouse. Over the next 10 years, many more fellow contemporary names from Fouk to Adriyano would make equally powerful boomers, all while nailing a sonic identity for the label over time. Such a revolving cohort of regular, quality tracks now serves as the impetus for a new V/A series which looks back on the tracks Swindle feel have defined Heist’s sound, and which have even shaped the deep house fanbase’s consciousness. From Scan 7’s pure future-garage-house stabber ‘The Best Is Yet To Come’, to the sampledelic and unusually dadaist ‘Werq. Feel. Gruv. Vogue.’, it’s an absolute corker.
JIJ
Menzi & Scratchclart – Beyond Gqom & Grime (Hakuna Kulala)
Ironically, when someone states they’re going “beyond gqom and grime”, you instantly know where to calibrate your ears. The respectively South African and UK-centric club sounds have been hotbeds of experimentation as well as definable blueprints since their inception, but genre tags can be restrictive as well as illuminating. At least you know someone like Scratchclart (aka Scratcha DVA) isn’t going to take an obvious route given his impressive legacy as a sonic provocateur across the bassweight spectrum since breaking through around 2009. Menzi meanwhile has been pioneering gqom from his hometown of Durban, initially as one half of Infamous Boiz and then more recently solo, equally marked out for an unconventional approach which recently manifested in the Impazamo EP for Hakuna Kulala.
The prospect of these two sparring on tracks and versions is instantly an exciting one, and it’s instantly apparent we’re not getting anything obvious or predictable. Scratcha’s ‘RnG Remix’ of Menzi’s ‘Shandis’ is clothed in finest robes of ceremonial synth voices, simmering in tension and loading gqom’s pervasive moodiness with a strong yet ambiguous emotional heft. Menzi meanwhile takes Scratcha’s ‘Drm Walk’ and keeps it hovering in mid-air, dropping at an acute angle with an unnerving amount of space swirling around it.
The pair join forces for ‘Q’, which leans in heavy on cinematic tropes from speech samples and cocked guns to dramatic synth refrains, but still the fundamental minimalism of the root genres holds sway over the patient, stop-start progression of the track. Things are much more visceral and upfront on the slamming Menus remix of Scratchclart’s ‘IC3’, an absolute feast for the drum-minded. That just leaves it to ‘Nasty Nasty Nasty’ to mop up with something which perhaps sounds the most like a pointed fusion of grime and gqom. After all the stylistic acrobatics and surprise swerve turns, it’s quite grounding to hear a more direct crossing of swords, but either way this EP is a perfect example of why it’s always interesting when artists start throwing their separate styles into the blender and pouring out the juice.
OW
Lurka – Molten Drum EP (Damage)
Ben Tregaskis is on a roll, it would seem. Often regarded as one of Bristol’s best kept secrets, the long-serving bass scientist has wielded his proficient Lurka-branded sound design snarls across the likes of Hotline, Black Acre, Timedance, Wisdom Teeth and plenty more. More recently though, he’s collaborated with Batu and Bruce, the latter of which for the intriguing and distinctly outré XRA project. Meanwhile he flouted all expectations late last year with the Powers 12” for his own Make Your Own Meaning label, pivoting towards a distinctly minimal tech house-minded sound and making it work in the process.
Seemingly needing different outlets for different avenues of exploration, now Lurka is getting busy with the Damage label he quietly inaugurated last year, delivering a second release which comes on like his established sound taking the blue and red bills at the same time. There’s high-spec architectural sonics shifting around in the mix of these tunes more often than not, expertly mixed into the fold with the more fundamental rhythmic elements. There’s a lot of chaotic information being flung around, and yet everything feels finished with a noticeable finesse.
The writhing textures of ‘Molten Drum’ are infinitesimally complex in that modernist, deconstructed kind of way, but they don’t derail the sense of mutant groove at the heart of the track. ‘Machine’ still knows how to lock in for the sharp attack of a solid snare, even if there’s a plethora of impulses, scrapes and tangles messing around in the background. It feels like this is an EP absolutely crafted with the modern DJ in mind – the kind of people you find throwing it down across a 100+ BPM range in the space of an hour, running six CDJs and shredding on the FX. It’s not as ADD-riddled as that might sound, but it certainly is fiercely, fabulously futuristic in its demeanour.
OW
LNS & DJ Sotofett – The Reformer EP (Tresor)
After their collaborative LP in 2021, Sputters, LNS and DJ Sotofett return with something fresh for Tresor which instantly feels different to what they did before. Clearly tapping into the mentality of an EP versus and album, they’re aimed squarely at the club with the rampant tempo of ‘Reform’ and its fizzy, synapse-stroking synth waves. Compared to so much fast techno these days, there’s something recharging about the track even as it absolutely slams, and even for that reason alone the EP is a triumph.
Of course it’s not the only thing to celebrate here, and the richly rendered, dynamic trysts of ‘Plexistorm’ offer an inspired approach to electro. ‘Electric Terraforming’ meanwhile is a more melancholic kind of early 00s take on the sound with more than a little braindance synth warble in its veins. ‘909 The Controller’ has an icier, minimal wave tint which speaks to the pair jamming freely and with curiosity in the studio, capturing some of that open-hearted sincerity which makes OG minimal wave so compelling. Throw in some surprise triple-time beat loops which sound like singeli and you’ve got yourself a winner – a record which doesn’t repeat the ground covered on their last release while retaining the deep sense of expression associated with both artists together and alone.
OW
Roger Robinson – Summer (Do You Have Peace?)
Making good on the promise of their beautiful low-key path crossing back in 2019, Roger Robinson and Jabu connect once more for another heartbreak trip from collective experts in the field. Young Echo and Do You Have Peace? alumnus Amos Childs produced the beat for ‘Stay’ four years ago, and he returns with another exquisitely fragile backing for Robinson’s eternally heart-rending voice.
On ‘Summer’, threadbare CR-78 pops cut an icy figure atop cracked fragments of piano and Robinson passes through a bewildering shimmer of reverb. It’s not so much the sensation of balmy longer days as the distant, wistful memory of them from the opposite end of the Gregorian calendar.
‘Feel Bad Smile’ is more overtly rainy day, cast in worn out chords and tape hiss, Robinson’s voice augmented by the pick up of every slight click around the lips, every whistle of air, as though it were fingers sliding up and down the fretboard. No one can make yearning love so consistently compelling and relatable, and Robinson is once again the perfect match for Jabu’s own sad-eyed beauty. To match such plaintive emotional melodics with a steady, all-encompassing layer of noise simply adds to the bittersweet perfection. One can only hope there’s a whole album of this partnership on the way.
OW
Berk Offset – Intraface (Accidental Jnr)
If you’re into a certain strain of wonky techno from the 2010s you might have stumbled across Berk Offset. The low-key German producer slipped out delightfully skewed releases on the likes of Musik Krause and Snork Enterprises over the years, and while it’s a style that has always remained reliably unfashionable, in its obtuse angles and innate funkiness it’s always stood out from the crowd. Now Offset finds a natural home on Accidental Jnr, a label with roots in this jazz-minded approach to oddball machine music.
On Intraface, the sound is certainly redolent of bygone eras, full of the twitches and glitches of the most militant minimal and sporting a groove hanging on the precipice of total collapse. ‘Unnardiburges Geharse’ centres around a lopsided bass wobble with only hard-swung bits and bobs for company. There’s an almost concréte quality to the sound palette, best typified on the mechanical propulsion of “Befreiung 45’, pursuing total alienation in the sonics of the track but never stiff like so much techno is. If you enjoy the unhinged end of the club, it’s a sound which remains as distinctive now as it did in decades prior.
OW
Dreams – Paraxotica / Vessel (Dance Data US)
Dance Data is a relatively new label from the US who focus on both new and archival releases – taking the (evidently ironic) approach of treating dance music as mere ‘data’. But despite the name and statement of intent, the music heard on this recent new EP from label boss Dreams is relatively human and holistic, not overly ‘robotic’ or cold or calculating. ‘Paraxotica’ and ‘Vessel’ are futuristic dark garage and a drum & bass tracks respectively. These are apocalyptic art forms if we’ve ever heard them before (we have), but Dreams brings them a human touch. These bits could only come from a DAW-bound hand, with tissuey sinews, tendons, and keratin knuckles – not iron ones.
‘Paraxotica’ will instantly appeal to anyone attracted to the atmospheric sound of net-bound labels and/or mix series like pi pi pi or 3XL. Extra-soft drum soft edges and pressurized bursts of gas evoke the feeling of what El-B might witness should he have never come back from an unfortunate nitrous oxide trip. ‘Vessel’, meanwhile, dubbifies a nice array of Reesey subs, filtered breaks, and panned R2D2 bloops, pointing them all in one direction and one direction only – (Forest Drive) West. Things grow darker and more “tribal”, with fast djembe and longer basses unfurling towards the latter end of the track. We’re overall in awe of Dreams’ world, which sounds just as mysterious as the odd X-ray-scanned entities portrayed on their EP cover.
JIJ
This week’s reviewers: Jude Iago James, Oli Warwick.