Into The Woods UK Vinyl & CDs

Review: An enviously sick, fidget-dub-minimal-tech blastoff from Into The Woods, the London imprint whose efforts to push the genre, in a city where it may indeed need more force behind it, are admirable. The first V/A of a new series, ITW have hand-picked an impressing array of artists here; choose your fighter: Crihan, Jay Tripwire & Miller, Vlad Arapasu, and the fast-rising T.Na all feature. First up, it's Vlad, with 'Hidden In The Chaos', whose title invites us to decipher the message coiled about the technical scytale: the track's so-said "chaos" betrays its mad method, its impish persona portrayed through random-modded bass pitch bobs set against a fizzing backbeat. Tripwire and Miller add much texture to the proceedings, sweeping our ears unto a journey into what sounds like frayed cabling and clairaudient voices; then T.Na seriously impresses with truly, properly balanced beat and bass elements, with evil demonic gurgling and laughter aplenty, on 'Nicky'; and finally, Crihan rounds things off on a note of gruff, grit-laid wizardry with 'Hocus Pocus'.

Review: Rominimal stalwart Teo Bajdechi aka Sepp presents the next release on London's Into The Woods. The man from Constanta delivers three wondrous tracks on the About Us EP; the title track is the kind of rolling and hypnotic tackle that you've come to know from the artist that's aimed squarely at the main room dancefloor, before heading to the afterhours on the woozy microhouse of 'Kiss'. Over on the flip, serves up what is probably his most experimental and off-kilter track yet on the playful 'Delta Quadrant'.