Mole Audio Vinyl & CDs

Review: Mole Audio present a very special new quart of tracks from Daktari (Oliver Linge & Olaf Pozsgay), who've teamed up for a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration with vocalist and dub legend Horace Andy for an original set of versions. Actually, it's a welcome comeback for both artists; Daktari also haven't released anything since the brilliant back-to-back waxes for Luxus in 1997, then 1999. Now that the Y2K scare has abated (25 years later, no doubt) Daktari are back with 'Rasta Forever', which moves minimally and spatiously, and manages to sound much "slower" than its dancehall tempo would initially betray. Andy's star line has to be, "we don't smoke spliff, we smoke chalice," alluding to the kind of cannabis smoking pipe often used by Rastafari. Alt mixes from DB ART, Rhauder, and Zion Train transition from greezier dancehall, to something more dub technical, to a bubblers' delight in a more classic sound; all do stellar reparative justice to Andy's towering, implicit demand for dues and honour paid, and, true to the Daktari name, prove amply effective at remedying our symptoms.

Review: This lovely, dub infused EP brings low-end warmth to four tracks that smartly blend Afrobeat and techno. Didier DLB is a rare groove aficionado and has been a vinyl collector for nearly three decades and he draws on that vast reserve of sound to defy genre boundaries and explore sound with scientific precision and a deep love for rave culture. 'Groundation' is an icy, aqueous and cavernous sound with lithe broken beats and an elastic rhythm while 'Tanger Sunset' is moody and unsettling with waves of synth coming and going and keeping you guessing. Then come the off-balance stomp of 'Enhancer (dub)' and futuristic sounds of the minimal 'Afrodubism'.