Numbers Vinyl & CDs

Review: Here's something of a pleasant surprise: Studio Barnhus co-founder Kornel Kovacs turning up on Glasgow's masters of all things dancefloor-friendly, Numbers. While there's a little more of a garage swing to opener "Lighthouse" - think darting string samples, booming sub-bass and energetic deep house drums - the Swede doesn't seem to have wandered that far off-piste. So, we get some undeniably classy, jazz-flecked deep house (the rubbery and flexible "Gangsta"), a surging, saucer-eyed dose of piano revivalism ("Malon", featuring Marcus Price, and some suitably jumpy drums), and, best of all, the late '80s Paradise Garage Latin house brilliance of "Pantalon". Stellar stuff, all told.

Review: 'Done Me Wrong' is one of trailblazing Glasgow label Numbers' essential cash cows. The track is etched into the brains of most clubbers still out today, owing to that short but sweet, mid-2010s interregnum that somehow bridged the gap between UK funky, post-dubstep, future bass and Night Slugs adjacent 'wave'. As is the case with the Hyph Mngos and the Midnight Request Lines of the era, producer Mosca seems to have touched a collective nerve with this one, one that lent the 'Done Me Wrong' a self-starting energy that served to promote itself; or perhaps that's an illusion, as it was, of course, rinsed to death on Rinse FM, and included in many a post dubstep DJ set too. Whatever the case, 'Done Me Wrong' and its inverse 'Bax' reflect the playfulness of a transitory era in bass music, being two of those tunes that, despite all our genre namedrops, never quite fit into any neat box.

Review: Perko is one of those newer-school experimental artists whose fingers straddle many pies, but who nevertheless refuses to allow this inner tendency towards versatility to hold him back. The FELT label owner has welcomed artists as far-flung as Civilistjavel! to Moxie into his inner circle; and the fruits of this open-mindedness are more than translated into his latest EP for Glaswegian dance legends Numbers. 'Prang' errs on the side of playfulness, giving some hot seconds of pure danceable flavour. Huerco S lends his usually-texturally-rich addprod to the nominal A-sider, a rather impressive future-garage-acid cut that recalls some of Objekt's earlier stuff, while regular collaborator and mournful vocalist-producer Cucina Povera crops up on the ambient dub plunger-into-the-sound that is 'Sisu'.

Review: Back in 2012, Glasgow operation put their reissue hats on to present a new edition of Multi Ordinal Tracking Unit, "a secret weapon and personal favourite" from late 90s UK techno types Unspecified Enemies that the label's founders all experienced in their formative years at Club 69. Some two years on and with Numbers now a globally recognised label, unreleased material from Unspecified Enemies pair Louis Digital and CiM features as the label's final release of 2014. Lead cuts "Ms.45" and "Chip Mode" have been sourced from a tape CiM and Digital sent to Rubadub back in '99 with DJ Chip's Dancemania classic Imported Booty Music the apparent influence here. It's quite evident too in the frenzied and furious tempo Unspecified Enemies implement throughout the record with the final superbly titled "Lifestyles Of The MiniDisc Era" a real fckn highlight.