Review: Fresh from her Med School missions, Moscow's A.Fruit maintains the leftfield beat heat with another savage session, this time on Om Unit's evergreen Cosmic Bridge. "Make Them Shake" is a loopy ghetto/technoid mutant barbed with all manner of strange squelchy textures while "Polykarp" flips the motion sensors with a surprise drop into iced soul chords and skippy breaks. Meanwhile on the B we're struck with more beguiling gold: with its jazzy chords and pneumatic kicks "Deep Insight" stalks like a cat but punches like a bear while "Before You Go" brings us home on more of a mystic, percussive spacious trip. Crucial through and through, neither A.Fruit or Cosmic Bridge are messing around here.
Review: Planet Mu's Boxcutter steps over to Cosmic Bridge with a very special five track EP. Taking off where he left us with his material as The Host, it's a 160-flavoured psychedelic jamboree as we're smacked and soothed in equal measure. "Not The End Of The World" is a near-beatless trip to the furthest boundaries of the universe, "Dream Gator" is an Om Unit style breakbeat jam that jitters with icy funk, "Daylight Saving" drops the tempo a little with a loose swaggering beats and several layers of subtle bass, "Gno515", meanwhile, takes an infectious hi-hat roll and uses it to drive a spaced out roller with muffled bass that's itching to break free. Finally we hit a calming sense of Zen as "Tibetan Metastate" rolls out with fractured eastern charm. Spacious and dynamic, it's an emphatic finale to a spotless EP. Beautiful.
Review: Munich badman Danny Scrilla returns to the label that introduced him to the world, Om Unit's Cosmic Bridge, with a fine 12". Hardly the most prolific of artists, Scrilla has committed just two Eps worth of material to wax since Cosmic Bridge issued his Flash Power 12" back in 2012 so the chance to assess where the German's sound is currently at is most welcome. A hefty four tracks feature on the True Sight EP, commencing with the epic synths and percolating textures of "Helium" which clearly takes its name from the high pitched vocals. "Rigel 7" meanwhile shows off Scrilla's quite wondrous talent for instrumentation, and "Jello" offers a line into more darkside atmospherics with some truly snappy percussion. Om Unit pops up on final cut "Free Flight" which skilfully blends in elements of dark sparse sounds, jungle, and left-field techno.
Review: Having appeared on Cosmic Bridge's agenda-setting "Dark Matter" album in September, Leipzig's Es.tereo quickly follows up with his own persy statement. Four tracks deep, it's his first full label debut: "Ultima's Breath" sets the tone with dark tunnelling bass plucks and skittish breaks flying across the spectrum while "Temple Of Ra" strips things back and ups the trippy factor as he makes the drum chat and chirp to each other. Flip for "Ancestral Path" where the space between the drums is filled with growing, classic rave pads that gradually become the focus, rising and rising on the second drop before "Flying Disc" closes the show with a springy necksnap combo of drum textures from breaks to electro. All those in favour say "Ra".
Review: Brand new to Cosmic Bridge, Houston man Graphs will be familiar to all who follow the Ground Mass imprint. Beats so future they make hoverboards look antique, atmospheres so cold and moody they make funerals look like comedy clubs, Graphs' style fits Om Unit's label perfectly. Highlights include the wasp-in-a-metal-tunnel bass drones of "Broken Legs", the weeping synths of "Falling Forward" and the Amazonian tree frog funk of "Sever The Heart". Life-affirmingly progressive.
Review: French murksmith Moresounds continues his jagged beat assault with four straight-up gems on Om Unit's Cosmic Bridge. "Ting N Tings" is every rave tape pack and Vibealite flyer in the world condensed down into a short, sharp, energetic and multi-layered shock. "Mutation Experts" flexes back on a system-primed halfstep that cleverly mutates into a skippy breaks energy midway, "Ruff Times" murks up the feels with a stripped back percussive rolling aesthetic that's laced with seriously far-out instrumentation while we sign off with the sedate shimmers and tones of the guitar-strumming, bongo-stroking Balearic nodder "Positive Yourself".
Review: Om Unit, or Professor Do-No-Wrong as we prefer to call him, steps up to his own Cosmic Bridge imprint once again for four ridiculously on-point bass jams: "Wagonist Riddim" thrusts the half tempo axis so hard it's inside out with the drums on slow but the bassline on fast. "Spiritwerk" is a straight up jungle homage with a knife-dicing vocal most of us will be more than familiar with. "Midnight Oil" lollops with tribal drum work that's so physical you can feel yourself being punched repeatedly while "The Lake" lives up to its title... Tidal grooves ebb and flow of a waterfall drum arrangement while instrumental elements land and flicker with organic glee. Very much like the eco-system it takes its name from.
Review: Cosmic Bridge founder, longstanding beat sculptor, futurist, absolute don: Om Unit continues to compose some some of the most beguiling, bewitching and immersive compositions in the bass sphere. Self is his third and most explorative album so far as he guides and glides us through powerful atmospheres, dynamics and textures from palpitating ambient such as the opener "Cold Love" and harmonic "Passages" and warped light fractures of "Fieldofdreams" to neoclassical motifs on rolling tracks such as "Out Of The Shadows". Other unmissable highlights include the haunted Rider Shafique sermon "Nothing", the jittering cosmic soul of "Make Believe" with DRS and Amos's heart-pulling mystic soul of "What I Can Be". One of those albums that continues to offer more and more with every listen, Om Unit has created something incredibly special here.
Review: Cosmic Bridge builder Om Unit continues to demonstrate near-Calibre levels of proliferation and precision. Nine months and two singles have passed since his first "Torchlight" EP and he returns with more deliciously unclassifiable slo-mo, halftime heaviness. If you're instantly won over by the deep throaty gurgle in the slurring bass on "Connector", then you'll definitely be elevated by the deep dream twinkles and arpeggios of "Adventures In Eden". If you're not shaken and stirred by the rim-shot breakage of "Mothership Riddim" then you'll definitely be buried deep in tubular bass bliss of "Transformation" or, indeed, tripped out by the growling bass and cavernous space of "Angry Buzz". Yet another immaculate creation that defies the standard pigeonholing.
Review: Om Unit returns after the summer's techno session on Idle Hands, hitting hard with his second "Torchlight" EP of the year. It's every bit as deep, diverse and experimental as you'd want it to be. And it features none other than Krust as the lavish 80s synths and dense layers of "Underground Cinema" ensure the EP's soul truly is in motion. "Fuzzd An Soup" retains a certain sense of classic jungle magic with its tight infectious hang drum patterns and textures. Finally "Lightbody Transfer" is the complete switch with its sedate, torpid kicks and underwater atmosphere. Immaculate.
Review: TMSV is hitting it hard this year. This is his third jungle-flecked release in as many months, having smashed it on Artikal and Rua Sound earlier this year. Now he's delivering the goods on Om Unit's Cosmic Bridge... And it's every bit as raw, choppy and dizzy as you want it to be. "Over Out" fires with relentless drum edits and vocal processes, "Torpedo Riddim" is lesson in molten lava bass, "King David Riddim" is all about the percussive textures while "Rolla" lives up to its name with some precision sample magic and kicks that bowl for days. Super sharp stuff, TMSV have been on such a roll.
Review: Om Unit takes it to the bridge once again. His label's first V/A collection since its evergreen "Cosmology Selections" in 2017, it's another vast plain ripe in sonic depths and textures from some of the most left-minded, boundary-fusing captains in the bass game. Featuring two crucial link-ups from the bossman himself with two kindred spirits Djrum and Synkro plus a whole cosmic cornucopia of voyages from the likes of Danny Scrilla, J:Kenzo, Vromm and stacks more, every track is a highlight in its own beguiling way. No label flares with the same level of dark vitality, there's more than enough for our brains to chew on right here.
Review: Madrid's man in London Vromm has already made some resounding moves on the likes of Critical and Doc Scott's seminal 31 imprint but this could be his boldest move to date on this Cosmic Bridge debut. "For The New Age" is a powerful future soul slicker, all shiny, hopeful and sprung with jazzy flourishes, "Restart" switches to a slimline, jittering cosmic jungle aesthetic while Cosmic Bridge builder Om Unit himself taps in for a beautiful collabo finale "Stargazing". Freeform in its feel and focus, it's a near 10 minute trip that's once again tinged with a jazz mindset thanks to its heavy layers and percussive variations. Beautiful.
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