Spatial Vinyl & CDs

Review: New Jersey's standout drum & bass star JLM Productions is a releasing powerhouse, having gone strong since at least the mid-90s with his Reinforced alias - and now with a return to his JLM name, here releasing under ASC's Spatial Recordings. Implied to be a pioneer of a certain subset of atmospheric drum & bass, this new album, Variations On Being, harnesses this credo to brilliant effect, rightly representing Jamie Myseron's craft as one that brings with it a deep spiritual fecundity. With Buddhist, Vedic and Hindu titles like 'Dharma', 'Artha' and 'Kama', backed up by a Hellenic haul of tunes on the B-side with titles like 'Physis' and 'Hexis', each track here riffles with a pulsive energy and exquisiteness, as if to suggest the movement of a pure font of spirit, not bound by the formalisms of much drum & bass (the sound is unashamedly expansive, unafraid of giving way to pad and synth wash at the relative expense of heavy-hitting drums).