Over/Shadow Vinyl & CDs

Review: Wild breaks from the wild west; Welsh beat sculptor Abstract Drumz gets busy on the mighty Over/Shadow. Four cuts heavy, each one designed to slap your rave silly. 'Just A Ride' opens the EP with atmospheric aplomb. Brisk pads and live jazzy breaks set the scene, hitting hard in all the right places. Elsewhere 'I Like The Rain' galvanizes AD's Celtic status with unhurried charm before 'Ethereal Remix' gets a lot more frenetic. Finally 'Culture '24' closes the EP with some of the heaviest chops of the set. Wallop!

Review: Originally released in 2023, this reissue highlights one of ASC's many excursions in the ambient jungle wilderness. His first album on London-based drum & bass label Over/Shadow, The Depths Of Space is eight tracks of blissed-out, atmospheric jungle. Originally starting as purely a drum & bass producer in the late 1990s, ASC has since developed his sound over the decades. After honing his ambient chops with his excellent albums for Canadian label Silent Season, these ambient washes on The Depths Of Space form the backdrop to the central, immaculately programmed breaks. Since 2023, ASC has released plenty of music following this format, but for anyone who missed it at the time, or has just discovered his sound, this is a must-buy.

Review: Decoder brings his deliciously dark take on drum & bass to this new one from Over/Shadow. It drills deep into the heart of a smoky, strobe-lit dance floor while also offering plenty of mental soundscapes to explore with your eyes closed. 'DT103' has crisp breaks and warped bass under shards of broken, glassy melody and 'DD1' then floats on a more skeletal rhythm with grazing background pads and apocalyptic bass. The Technical Itch remix brings even more in-your-face textured percussion and 'MB29' shuts down with a cosmic exploration and skittish drum patterns.

Review: Exclusive! Over Shadow unleash these two super-hot rarities from around 93/94. Both big tunes on dubplate at the time, especially 'Close Your Eyes' which was a big tune in Fabio's early Speed sets, they finally see the vinyl light of day after all these years. 'Close Your Eyes' is a beautiful atmospheric whirlwind while 'Destroyer VIP' lived up to its name. Still sounding heavier than a helicopter over 30 years later.

Review: Sometimes it all just gets too much, and we need to take a Break From Reality. Or so the most recent album from DJ Trax suggested - albeit its sound evoked a skew towards the murkier, more nervous and dubious aspects of psychic burnout. The atmospheric drum & bass brilliant's eponymous album was released in 2023 and plunged the abyssal depths of the inner cosmos, in so doing playing up the straighter grooves gleanable from jungle. These three new ones, however, surface from the depths somewhat, adding a new original ('Point To Prove') and two remixes from Ricky Force and Nookie & Binary State to the addendum. All tracks make for an impressively glassy, risen-and-fallen coda; by the end, we've completed a round-trip back to the depths.

Review: Bristol's Technical Itch returns with a long-awaited full-length on Over/Shadow and it serves up a relentless dose of darkside energy hot on the heels of the 2024 prelude single 'Fear & Fantasy. Here, Mark Caro dives deep into his signature sound which is a blend of moody steppers, cinematic dread and brutal amen workouts. It's everything fans have come to expect from the master of atmospheric darkness, all wrapped in precision engineering and raw intensity. With nods to techstep and futuristic jungle alike, this is Technical Itch at his uncompromising best and a heavy, immersive odyssey through the darker corners of drum & bass.

Review: Vromm is back on the Over/Shadow label with a new EP of spaced out and cosmic electronic energy. 'Molecular' is a restless mix of breaks and jungle effects, lots of squelchy sonic details and off-grid hits. 'Prism' is a moody and stripped back one with a minimal rhythm but plenty of gliding synth tension in the air then Kid Drama steps up to flip the opening cut into a rolling stomper with big horns. 'Zoom' closes out with more shiny metal surfaces, distant buzz saws and glistening melodies over a loose, jumbled rhythm.