Optimo Trax Vinyl & CDs

Review: The latest clutch of dancefloor destroyers to emerge from the Optimo Trax camp come from well-traveled producer Jose Manuel, AKA Black Pepper founder Domenico Cantarella. Rather curiously, the EP begins not with one of Cantarella's own productions, but rather his brilliant - and previously unheard - remix of Andrew Liles' "The Great Beast In Outer Space". It's a thrillingly loose but percussively dense affair, where flamenco guitars, ethnic melodies and satanic growls weave in and out of the producer's heavy tribal beats. This high standard is maintained throughout, from the exotic, nu-disco-meets-tribal-meets-acid oddness of "Folklore", to the clarinet-laden, stretched-out goodness of "Ritual".

Review: According to JD Twitch's sales notes, Luke Solomon and former Greenskeepers man Nick Maurer decided to join forces as Powerdance in reaction to "the bland, soulless dance music that's infiltrating clubs the world over". Certainly, there's little bland or soulless about opener "Mysterious Space Plane", which not only jacks harder than Ron Hardy after a face full of amphetamines, but also boasts a typically eccentric vocal from Maurer (this, incidentally, is given additional prominence on the accompanying, beat-less Reprise version). Elsewhere, "More Fire" takes TB-303-driven acid house into deep space, while "Fire Beat" offers a stripped-back, percussion heavy take on the same cut.