Back catalogue: Leftfield

Review: While there's no doubt the Middle East has stepped into the electronic music limelight in recent years, catalysed by good (a rebalancing of media focus within dance culture) and bad (controversy surrounding events like MDL Beast and the media's desperation to keep 'breaking new territory' in a world growing smaller by the day), Fatima Al Qadri is not part of this wave. A Senegal-born Kuwaiti, the US-based artist has been doing very good things for well over a decade (2010's 'Muslim Trance' mix is a must hear), creating everything from music exploring meeting points between Arabic traditions and contemporary synth work, to sound installations for renowned galleries. No stranger to Kode 9's Hyperdub, her third outing on the imprint since 2014 puts dark, atmospheric ambient out on the streets of Dakar after dark. Or something like that.

Review: Burial's first full-length EP since 2012's 'Rival Dealer' hears the South London enigma plunge the depths of his newest dark ambient sound, wrenching the emo essences of rave from their breakbeats to produce a purely ambient affair. Spanning every emotion from depression to triumph, 'Antidawn' opens with a cough, in a seeming nod to the COVID lockdowns of recent years. Meanwhile, disparate sections buzz and weave in and out of one another on 'Shadow Paradise' and 'Strange Neighbourhood', never quite landing on their feet before being whisked away again. One of Burial's most defining world-building works.

Review: While he's offered up the occasional remix, William "Burial" Bevan has been rather quiet of late. In fact, this two-tracker marks his first original material for almost two years. Lead cut "Claustro" is an unexpectedly up-tempo dancefloor affair - a sweet and sticky chunk of future-garage that sees Bevan wrap sugary female vocal snippets, spacey chords and bubbly analogue electronics around snappy two-step beats - drenched in vinyl crackle and tape hiss - and a rock solid bassline. It will raise a few eyebrows given his previous work but nevertheless sounds like a summer anthem in waiting. Bevan returns to familiar territory on flipside cut "State Forest", a ghostly, field recording-laden ambient excursion where pedal steel style motifs slowly rise above opaque electronics.

Review: *Burial Repress* The double header of Truant/Rough Sleeper is the second EP from Burial in 2012, and arrives with as little fanfare as the superb Kindred EP did early this year. Unlike that more dancefloor focused record however, this EP harks back to the producer's earlier sound. Of course, being two longform compositions clocking in at 12 and 14 minutes respectively, they're hardly conventional works; each utilises the same liberal use of spectral atmospheres, emotive vocal samples, hollow 2-step beats and nods to jungle as we've come to expect from the producer, but with complex structures that come across more like two sides of an old mixtape recorded from a pair of decrepit turntables. Of course being a mixtape from Burial, this is special stuff indeed - consider it an early Christmas present to yourself.

Review: Burial's first multiple-track release since "Rival Dealer" three years ago: "Young Death" takes the lead with weave of deep, scratchy and evocative human textures while soulful vocal shards yearn and flutter over soft faraway beats. "Nightmarket" takes an even more introspective meander through the shadowy unknown with fractured arpeggios, distant whispers and thick graininess that envelops almost overwhelmingly. As forward, unusual and unique as ever, Burial remains in a league of his own. Limited.

Review: Naturally, there's been plenty of hype surrounding this new Hyperdub 10", which features Burial indulging his often-discussed ambient influences. It's a typically creepy and ghostly affair, with the lack of beats - if not rhythmic elements - only serving to amplify the shadowy producer's impeccable sound design and brilliant use of manipulated field recordings. A-side "Subtemple" is particularly paranoid in tone, featuring as it does chilling melody loops, curious vocal samples, looped vinyl crackle and all manner of layered background noise. Flipside "Beachfires" is, if anything, even more dystopian, with Burial basing the action around the kind of pulsing chords that gust back and forth like an autumnal breeze.

Review: 
After his surprise drop with music writer and producer Blackdown on the Keysound label last month, the enigmatic Burial is now back with a fresh new EP all of his own. It comes on his longtime home of Hyperdub and features two more of his deft designed, ghostly deep dubstep post-nightbus joints. 'Chemz' is a strict raver filled with rushed up sounds, plenty of dance floor love and big hooks that is many different tracks, moods and vibes all rolled into one. As always, these Burial sounds look back to go forwards and do so in thrilling fashion.

Review: RECCOMENDED
Nothing says "Britain is shit but we do make great music" quite like those rare instances when you get a new Burial release to ponder over. The man, the myth, the mystery, the zeitgeist, anyone who thought the ghosts of garage had been left behind in late-noughties and early-teens best get ready to recognise that, while, Antidawn is very much anything other than that lazy genre term, it still packs the spectre of that atmosphere.

A fact that has to make you start questioning labels in general. There's always been something grittily realist about Burial's work, while at the same time it exists in fantasy worlds parallel to our own. Like wandering through the city at twilight and realising a whole other plane exists, you just never looked for it before, this latest addition to the oeuvre takes all those notions and ups the ambient, resulting in a journey that's textured and direct without ever breaking from a strange, alien serenity that still feels weirdly human.

Review: Is there any artist in electronic music that releases as little music yet remains as highly revered as Burial? We can't think of any. As it happens, this new Streetlands EP is actually the hallowed UK producer's second outing of 2022 after the ambient offering Antidawn back in January. As always it finds him back on Kode9's Hyperdub label. 'Hospital Chapel' is eerie atmosphere and lo-fi samples, 'Streelands' is another sparse ambient cut that is full of melancholy and 'Exokind' is the soundtrack of a faraway planet with distant solar winds and only the smallest of microbial activities for you to tune into before a signature angelic vocal brings the beauty.

Review: After a decidedly silent 2013 Burial is back on Hyperdub with a new single that points to pastures new for the stealthy producer. "Rival Dealer" is sure to polarize opinion as it takes a positively unexpected route into hardcore breaks, static interference, all manner of oddball speech samples, diversions and switches in dynamics, and a willfully grainy production finish that borders on punk. Depending on where you choose to dive into the ten-minute track the experience could be very different; experiencing it in full is nothing short of a rollercoaster. "Hiders" too is full of surprises, more indebted to pop balladry than anything remotely garage related, and the emotive croon and swooning piano is only magnified by a Yazoo-esque drum stomp at the midway point. "Come Down To Us" is equally heartfelt, all slow release vocals and languid chords yet constantly fractured at the edges, with yet more surprising turns of bombast waiting in the wings over thirteen minutes.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***


Burial's first full-length EP since 2012's 'Rival Dealer' hears the South London enigma plunge the depths of his newest dark ambient sound, wrenching the emo essences of rave from their breakbeats to produce a purely ambient affair. Spanning every emotion from depression to triumph, 'Antidawn' opens with a cough, in a seeming nod to the COVID lockdowns of recent years. Meanwhile, disparate sections buzz and weave in and out of one another on 'Shadow Paradise' and 'Strange Neighbourhood', never quite landing on their feet before being whisked away again. One of Burial's most defining world-building works.

Review: After first emerging with his cosmic electro project back in 2009, King Britt is back on Hyperdub after last year's The Phoenix album with a short but sweet collection of blissed out beat-scuffing business. "Sonic Six" is a true heavens-scraper with its dense layers of broken beats and wistful key lines, loaded with emotive intent and crushing bass. "Faith" meanwhile takes the scenic route through twinkling arpeggios and swooping pads over a blissful 12 minutes, before "Past" meanders into some strange soundtrack-ready excursions of the highest calibre. It's another stark and surprising artistic statement from one of Britt's most adventurous aliases, and it sits just right on Hyperdub.

Review: Fhloston Paradigm might seem like a shadowy name from some bedroom producer somewhere in London, but in case you didn't know, it's actually King Britt's alias (almost) strictly for Hyperdub. The UK producer has produced some of the best house and broken beat of the early 2000s, and he still remains a cult hero, a dangerously underrated artist from the commercial world. This newer sound contains aspects of his old work, but we can hear experimenting a lot more with the sonics and arrangements, so much so that "Nimoy" is a veritable genreless track, spitting out sick beats and waves of bass from all angles without any care in the world. "Return" is a sublime synth excursion without even a shadow of a kick drum, and "The Hour" follows suit with a mystical sea of warm harmonics and structured pad patterns. Recommended.

Review: Earlier in 2021, UIQ boss Lee Gamble headed back to Kode 9's Hyperdub label to complete his trio of recent albums. First was 2019's In A Paraventral Scale, then came Exhaust in 2020. This final part A Million Pieces Of You was written when "the subjective experience of overload came to a halt, giving way to an overbearing sense of loss, burnout and a desperate need for hope." And there is certainly a sense of tension, dejection and then hope in the fizzing electronics, icy ambience and stark minimalism of this music. Machines meltdown, broken beats collapse and distant synths then draw you in deep as things rebuild.

Review: Anyone slightly confused by the appearance of Laurel Halo on Hyperdub with last year's album Quarantine will find that Behind The Green Door makes her case for inclusion on the label much clearer. Rather than a continuation of the vocal-led, enveloping soundscapes of that album, this four track EP is futuristic club music from start to end; "Throw" sends jagged percussion and splashes of piano across fiercely competing basslines, while "Uhffo" contrasts its inky black low end with more reflective synth moments. "Noyfb" combines a UK funky style rhythm with tunnelling bass pulses and dubbed out chimes, and "Sex Mission" ends with a 4/4 techno track that loses none of the producer's unique palette. Fans of the recent manoeuvres on PAN will be all over this EP, which comes highly recommended.

Review: The news that arch mystic sonic brewers Hype Williams had been signed up for single duties on Hyperdub might have seemed odd at first, but listening to the four tracks here proves that it was a sound move. There's a bewitching sensation that creeps over the hazed, lo-fi beatdown jams that ensures you keep flipping the vinyl over repeatedly to seek out the subtle sonics beneath. At times it sounds like Dean and Inga have been watching Akira on the reg, with the chimed melodies present on "Rise Up" and "Badmind" certainly reminiscent of the iconic anime's soundtrack. As with previous output from the group, Kelly Price W8 Gain Vol II is likely to split opinion but for those ardent fans this is an essential purchase.

Review: 700 Bliss are DJ Haram and Moor Mother, and together they've come together to deliver a guttural take on noise rap. Packed to the brim with fuzz, like gravel clogging a phone line, Haram and Moor's vocal deliveries are clownish and playful, and hear back like mere fragments of thought, pushing against the notion of a sustained narrative. Lafawndah, Muqata'a, Alli Logout and M. Tellez all feature on various vocal and production appearances, while techno is even ticked off on a few Afro-diasporic dance music forays ('Anthology'). A postmodern revisionist history of dance music in LP form.

Review: Multidisciplinary artist Fatima Al Qadiri aligns with Hyperdub to release Asiatisch, a keenly anticipated debut album that's described as a "simulated road trip through an imagined China". First coming to prominence on the UNO label in 2011, Al Qadiri has subsequently provoked critical acclaim for the 2012 Desert Strike EP for Fade To Mind that played on her time spent living in Kuwait as a child, while her work under the Ayshay moniker for Tri Angle explored vocals in a unique manner. Asiatisch expands on the political themes of Desert Strike in a new and unexpected way, and acts as a homage to the style of grime known as "sinogrime". Asian motifs and melodies are prominent throughout whilst conceptually Al Qadiri runs through "the fantasies of east Asia as refracted through pulpy Western pop culture". If that wasn't enough to sell you on the concept, opening track "Shanzhai" is a "nonsensical Mandarin" language cover of Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U".

Review: Multidisciplinary artist Fatima Al Qadiri aligns with Hyperdub to release Asiatisch, a keenly anticipated debut album that's described as a "simulated road trip through an imagined China". First coming to prominence on the UNO label in 2011, Al Qadiri has subsequently provoked critical acclaim for the 2012 Desert Strike EP for Fade To Mind that played on her time spent living in Kuwait as a child, while her work under the Ayshay moniker for Tri Angle explored vocals in a unique manner. Asiatisch expands on the political themes of Desert Strike in a new and unexpected way, and acts as a homage to the style of grime known as "sinogrime". Asian motifs and melodies are prominent throughout whilst conceptually Al Qadiri runs through "the fantasies of east Asia as refracted through pulpy Western pop culture". If that wasn't enough to sell you on the concept, opening track "Shanzhai" is a "nonsensical Mandarin" language cover of Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U".

Review: It has been almost two years since the Fatima Al Qadiri's debut LP dropped on Hyperdub, and we're as excited now for her follow-up as when we'd heard the first one. This is because Qadiri provides us with everything to satisfy our need states; through an awry and granular sound, the artist is able to transmit a whole spectrum of moods and feelings. This makes Brute an album for anyone, and it can be enjoyed both by the party-goers and the moody corner-dwellers. The intro is a detached sort of skit that distances itself form any sort of shape, but so we're dropped in a post-futuristic world of pseudo grime, broken, detuned techno and tropical electronica. To be honest, there would be no other place for it than the mighty Hyperdub. Big release.

Review: It has been almost two years since the Fatima Al Qadiri's debut LP dropped on Hyperdub, and we're as excited now for her follow-up as when we'd heard the first one. This is because Qadiri provides us with everything to satisfy our need states; through an awry and granular sound, the artist is able to transmit a whole spectrum of moods and feelings. This makes Brute an album for anyone, and it can be enjoyed both by the party-goers and the moody corner-dwellers. The intro is a detached sort of skit that distances itself form any sort of shape, but so we're dropped in a post-futuristic world of pseudo grime, broken, detuned techno and tropical electronica. To be honest, there would be no other place for it than the mighty Hyperdub. Big release.

Review: RECOMMENDED
It's not hard to hear where this album title is coming from. Fatima Al Qadri is a Senegal-born, Kuwaiti musician and conceptual artist who has definitely taken some inspiration from the timeless feel of Arabesque. A patient sense of spatiality and gradually evolving atmospheres that feel as though crafted over the course of several millenniums, Medieval Femme feels both rooted in tradition and forward thinking.

You won't be surprised to learn, then, that this collection of powerful tones finds inspiration and source material in aeons-old poetry from the Arabic world. Some of that even forms the lyrics of the vocal numbers, while it all helps inform the overall feel of the record. It's deep and meditative, but never loses itself too much in structureless ambience, instead choosing to offer some incredibly well formulated tracks that are as challenging as they are instantly enjoyable.

Review: In a world saturated with easily digestible sounds, aya's music is a welcome jolt to the system and the debut album from this Huddersfield-raised, London-based artist is a bold and uncompromising album that challenges norms, questions truths and celebrates the spectrum of queer experiences. Through a tapestry of fragmented sounds, distorted vocals and experimental electronic textures, aya crafts a deeply personal narrative that resonates with both vulnerability and defiance. Tracks like 'Somewhere Between The 8th And 9th Floor' and 'What If I Should Fall Asleep And Slip Under' delve into the depths of self-discovery, their introspective lyrics and haunting melodies capturing the uncertainties and anxieties of navigating a world that often feels hostile. 'Dis Yacky' and 'OoBrosThesis' inject a playful energy, their distorted vocals and tongue-in-cheek humor offering a counterpoint to the album's more introspective moments. 'Emley Lights Us Moor', featuring Iceboy Violet, is a standout, its ethereal vocals creating a sense of otherworldly beauty. Aya's refusal to shy away from difficult topics and her willingness to experiment with sound and language make this album a powerful and thought-provoking work that pushes the boundaries of electronic music and challenges listeners to confront their own preconceptions. It's a challenge to the often-limiting tropes of queer art.

Review: Hexed or vexed, either way Aya sounds pretty pissed off about something. Which is no bad thing. There's a lot to express rage about right now. But that's not really what this is about. Instead, as the blurb explains, this is a record which "confronts the desperation and dysfunction of addiction." No longer "me-less", this is what happens then the lights are turned on and both audience and artist see the real portrait for what it is. And that's pretty hard to define. There are moments here that erupt into niche-bassline levels of unabashed bouncy overbite silliness. At other times, it's freaky deaky broken grunge-electro. Then we descend into sludgy staccato mayhem. Fans of Rainy Miller, Iceboy Violet, and Arca take note - this is comparable, in the sense that it's pretty much incomparable.

Review: Previously known for their pioneering and, at times, outstanding work as Hype Williams, Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland have decided to change tack with a suitably eclectic and unusual full-length for Hyperdub. Black Is Beautiful is an odd but endearing collection that leaps between sounds, styles and genres almost at will. Opening with a blast of fuzzy jazz-rock, its 15 tracks variously touches on skewed dream-pop, E'd-up downtempo curiosities, wrongspeed electronica, calming ambience, woozy demo-pop, skittering, smacked-out rave rhythyms, droning madness and impossible-to-define strangeness. It could just be the album of the year.

Review: Previously known for their pioneering and, at times, outstanding work as Hype Williams, Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland change tack with a suitably eclectic and unusual full-length for Hyperdub. Black Is Beautiful is an odd but endearing collection that leaps between sounds, styles and genres almost at will. Opening with a blast of fuzzy jazz-rock, its 15 tracks variously touches on skewed dream-pop, E'd-up downtempo curiosities, wrongspeed electronica, calming ambience, woozy demo-pop, skittering, smacked-out rave rhythyms, droning madness and impossible-to-define strangeness. It could just be the album of the year.

Review: Of all the artists past and present who claim to let their music do their talking for them, Burial is one of the elite band of whom this truly is the case. In fact, so reluctant is he to engage with the cult-of-personality hoopla that surrounds almost every modern producer and musician of merit, that he remains a genuine recluse; he has never appeared live, only one obliquely-angled publicity photograph is known to exist, and the number of interviews he has given can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Yet despite this, his music speaks loud and wide, and the world has been listening ever since his 'South London Boroughs' EP debut on Hyperdub in March 2005. His eponymous album, which began life as a low-key release in May 2006, is now widely regarded as the benchmark release of the ever-widening dubstep genre, picking up unanimous critical acclaim along the way, and ending the year heavily featured in many 'best of' polls. Now Burial returns with 'Untrue', a new record of weird soul music, which lovingly processes spectral female voices into vaporised R&B and smudged 2step garage. Vocal lines are blurred, smeared, pitched up pitched down and pitch bent until their content is cast adrift from their original context and they whisper their saccharin sweet nothings into the void. The album continues with the debut's crackle-drenched yearning and bustling syncopations, haunted by the ghosts of rave, but also reveals some new Burial treats with a more glowing, upbeat energy. Kicking off with the skittering 2step syncopations and vocal science of 'Archangel', 'Near Dark' and 'Ghost Hardware', before long it descends into a space of radiant divas and ambience. Where 'Burial' first was humid, suffocating and unrelentingly sad, 'Untrue' is less sunless. Many of the tracks are so sweet, they become toxic, underscored by the almost geological rumbles of growling basslines. Unlike the overpoweringly melancholic prevailing mood of before, Burial's sound is now better defined as a downcast euphoria typified by the epic, muted optimism of the album's last track 'Raver'. Forget central heating the radioactivity of this album is all that you'll need to keep you warm this winter. 'Untrue' is available as full 13 track digipack CD, including recent underground hit 'Ghost Hardware', and 9 track DJ friendly double vinyl set, from which some of the beatless pieces have been edited.

Review: There's always been something rather special about King Britt's ability to effortlessly switch musical focus between projects and aliases. Contrast, for example, the retro-soul giddiness of Sylk 130, the electronic polyrhythms and heavy bruk of Oba Funke, and the trippy electronic darkness of his work under the baffling Fhloston Paradigm pseudonym. This debut album under that alias - on the back of a handful of singles a few years back - is predictably magical, mixing spaced-out textures and stargazing synths with off-kilter rhythms, loose jazz beats and Detroit-inspired grooves. Dark and atmospheric, with a touch of the Jeff Mills about it (certainly conceptually, if not aesthetically), The Phoenix makes for mesmerizing listening from start to finish.

Review: There's always been something rather special about King Britt's ability to effortlessly switch musical focus between projects and aliases. Contrast, for example, the retro-soul giddiness of Sylk 130, the electronic polyrhythms and heavy bruk of Oba Funke, and the trippy electronic darkness of his work under the baffling Fhloston Paradigm pseudonym. This debut album under that alias - on the back of a handful of singles a few years back - is predictably magical, mixing spaced-out textures and stargazing synths with off-kilter rhythms, loose jazz beats and Detroit-inspired grooves. Dark and atmospheric, with a touch of the Jeff Mills about it (certainly conceptually, if not aesthetically), The Phoenix makes for mesmerizing listening from start to finish.

Review: Lee Gamble is an artist who excels in delivering post-modern music with a strong sense of sentiment and history. Just look at his breakthrough Diversions 1994-1996, in which the ambient threads in first wave jungle were blown out into grandiose chasms of sound. On this latest album, he's taking a similar approach to source material, but this time the focus is on pop earworms in which all kinds of emotive, catchy sonics get dissolved and reformed into vast, unpredictable shapes. Vitally, the emotional dimension is maintained no matter how unrecognisable the original samples are, as Gamble continues his fascinating path forwards and backwards through time.

Review: Lee Gamble has always operated at the fringes of expectation and experimentation. This new album Models continues that trend as he "liberates sonic spectres to inform a suite of illusory anthems, subliming vulnerable, half-remembered fragments of dream pop, Soundcloud rap and trance in the process." The voices on this album are cybernetics that sound almost worlds as they add future nostalgia to the inverted pop sounds. Elizabeth Frazer's surreal poetry is smudged into the record as Gamble takes the idea of pop produciton to its very end. A beguiling listen it is too.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***


Lee Gamble is an artist who excels in delivering post-modern music with a strong sense of sentiment and history. Just look at his breakthrough Diversions 1994-1996, in which the ambient threads in first wave jungle were blown out into grandiose chasms of sound. On this latest album, he's taking a similar approach to source material, but this time the focus is on pop earworms in which all kinds of emotive, catchy sonics get dissolved and reformed into vast, unpredictable shapes. Vitally, the emotional dimension is maintained no matter how unrecognisable the original samples are, as Gamble continues his fascinating path forwards and backwards through time.

Review: To say that Lauren Halo's peculiar brand of organic-electronic fusion is "acclaimed" would be an understatement. Her 2012 debut LP, Quarantine, was named as The Wire's album of the year. Here, the Ann Arbor raised producer continues to dazzle with another off-kilter selection of curious compositions. Veering from tipsy, near ambient soundscapes (see the unruly "Serendip" and psychedelic "Melt") to clattering percussion jams ("Oneiroi"), via deep techno ("Chance of Rain") and blissful musical simplicity (the piano lament of "Out" and beatless tropical jazz of "Dr Echt"), Chance of Rain is every bit as enthralling, unusual and inspiring as its predecessor. That's high praise indeed.

Review: To say that Lauren Halo's peculiar brand of organic-electronic fusion is "acclaimed" would be an understatement. Her 2012 sophomore set, Quarantine, as named as The Wire's album of the year. Here, the Ann Arbor raised producer continues to dazzle with another off-kilter selection of curious compositions. Veering from tipsy, near ambient soundscapes (see the unruly "Serendip" and psychedelic "Melt") to clattering percussion jams ("Oneiroi"), via deep techno ("Chance of Rain") and blissful musical simplicity (the piano lament of "Out" and beatless tropical jazz of "Dr Echt"), Chance of Rain is every bit as enthralling, unusual and inspiring as its' predececcor. That's high praise indeed.

Review: After making sizable impressions with her initial EPs and King Felix side project, Laurel Halo's move to Hyperdub sees a stark debut album that positions her as a strong and unique voice among leftfield electronic producers. The most notable progression is in Halo's vocals, crystal clear in the mix while all around her ducks fervently from clarity. There's an incredible wall of sound feeling to the music she crafts, as bold layers of synths and treated samples blur into one another with a fuzzed-out psychedelia that whirls incessantly around in wistful fractals of melody. Through all of this, there's no forgetting who is behind the music as her powerful vocal delivery pins the wayward music down.

Review: Given her stratospheric rise in recent years, it's something of a surprise to find Dust is Laurel Halo's first album since 2013. It's the Michigan native's third full-length excursion and was apparently recorded over a two-year period at the EMPAC performing arts centre in upstate New York. Interestingly, it's even more difficult to pigeonhole than her previous sets, with Halo and collaborators - including Lafawandah, Michael Salu, Maxmillion Dunbar and experimental percussionist Eli Keszler - gleefully fusing elements of wonky electronica, skewed R&B, drowsy synth-pop, neo-classical, humid Balearica, creepy jazz and off-kilter ambience. In other words, it's a hugely vibrant and entertaining set that's more than worthy of your hard-earned cash.

Review: Given her stratospheric rise in recent years, it's something of a surprise to find Dust is Laurel Halo's first album since 2013. It's the Michigan native's third full-length excursion and was apparently recorded over a two-year period at the EMPAC performing arts centre in upstate New York. Interestingly, it's even more difficult to pigeonhole than her previous sets, with Halo and collaborators - including Lafawandah, Michael Salu, Maxmillion Dunbar and experimental percussionist Eli Keszler - gleefully fusing elements of wonky electronica, skewed R&B, drowsy synth-pop, neo-classical, humid Balearica, creepy jazz and off-kilter ambience. In other words, it's a hugely vibrant and entertaining set that's more than worthy of your hard-earned cash.

Review: Spanish producer Nueen and Manchester vocalist and rapper Iceboy Violet, who you might well recognised from appearing on Hyperdub releases by the likes of aya and Loraine James, come together for a collaborative work that follows the story of a four-year-long relationship. As you can imagine, therefore, it takes in peaks and troughs, emotional highs, depressive lows, and plenty in between that will all feel all too familiar to anyone who has ever fallen in and out of love. Drill-laced beats are laced with intimate melodies, and excitable chords spiral out of control while a menacing ambience percolates up from below. It's a powerful listen with a relatable narrative.

Review: The title for West London producer Ikonika's second album Aerotropolis supposedly refers to a city centred around an airport, and was apparently chosen because the album is "about height, getting high and become distant". It supposedly underwent more significant polish than her previous productions and it shows; lead single "Beach Mode" sounds like a classic '80s house track, while "Mr Cake" glimmers with all the sheen of classic US boogie and the shimmering arp of "Eternal Mode" shows hints of disco in its DNA. But Ikonika's connection to the darker strains of UK dance music still shine through; the thick bass and syncopated rhythms of "Manchego" are pure grime while the monolithic "Mega Church" sounds like futuristic, high concept dubstep. Incredible stuff.

Review: The third album by IDM's next-gen darling Loraine James is here and similarly to her last works, Gentle Confrontation is an ever-shifting, collaboratively-focused album. If the name is anything to go by, then the aim of the game is to offer a sonic blueprint for artists trying to quietly, subtly, resist the status quo, while also keeping the family close and remaining level-headed and happy. Examining her past and present, James offers with everything from transstep trances made with RiTchie and George Riley, to math-rock and emo-infleuenced tracks ('One Way Ticket...') and even self-sung ballads ('2003').

Review: Loraine James continues to trust her instincts and serve us some of the most honest and original music within the leftfield electronic sphere right now. Having recently paid tribute to the work of Julius Eastman on Build Something Beautiful For Me, now she retunes to Hyperdub with the record she claims the teenage version of her would have made. The label text makes explicit reference to the likes of DNTEL and Telefon Tel Aviv as well as math rock, but James is also way out in her own zone metabolising such influences into unique expression. There are some wonderful guest spots from the likes of RiTchie, Marina Herlop and Eden Samara, while James herself centres her voice for some of the album's most poignant moments. Gentle Confrontation is another outstanding chapter in James' ever-intriguing story.

Review: ** Belated vinyl edtition ** Kode 9 makes a much awaited return to his own Hyperdub stable with a new album, and that is exactly what we were wanting to hear from the one of the founding fathers of contemporary UK bass music. His explorative style is perfectly suited to the album format, and "Zero Point Energy" is the perfect opener to a stunning sequence of events - large folds of bass deconstruct over sci-fi sonics and sink into the pensive melodic flux of tunes like "Notel", and "Void". There is also plenty of beat-laden material here, so don't worry, and "Holo" even ventures into a bit of jump-up juke, but there's no point trying to dissect Kode 9's music; the album is all made up of hybrid tunes, and it's exactly the sort of music that pushes boundaries further and genres to their very edges. Quality, of course.

Review: While Kode 9 has forever been on the cutting edge, pushing bass culture and surrounding discourses to the very limit, Escapology is without doubt the Hyperdub boss's most conceptual and boundary-blurring body of work to date. Part of a wider project which involves a game, an installation and layers of political discussion and concerns, his fourth album is part soundtrack, part ambient immersion and part club bangers. Ice cold and jarring at points ('Sim Darien', 'Astro Darien'), mindbogglingly heavy and physically flippant at others ('Uncoil', 'Lagrange Point'), Escapology commands full attention as it sucks you deeper and deeper into Kode 9's pragmatic and concerned vantage point. An album that will keep on giving for many many years to come.

Review: Four years have passed since Jessy Lanza last offered-up an album, the Jeremy Greenspan co-produced leftfield space-pop masterpiece that was "Oh No". While plenty has changed in Lanza's working life since then - she now lives in New York and improvises more with "modular and semi-modular" synthesizers - her commitment to delivering a genuinely unique take on 21st century synth-pop remains. Those versed in the work of the Junior Boys will hear the hand of regular collaborator Jeremy Greenspan in the chords, melodies and synthesizer settings, but "All The Time" is undoubtedly Lanza's vision. Combining her usual glassy-eyed vocals and ear-pleasing, often melancholic synth-pop sounds with the colourful vibrancy of future R&B and grooves that subtly reference all manner of styles (dubstep included), it's most perfect underground pop album you'll hear all year.

Review: Four years have passed since Jessy Lanza last offered-up an album, the Jeremy Greenspan co-produced leftfield space-pop masterpiece that was "Oh No". While plenty has changed in Lanza's working life since then - she now lives in New York and improvises more with "modular and semi-modular" synthesizers - her commitment to delivering a genuinely unique take on 21st century synth-pop remains. Those versed in the work of the Junior Boys will hear the hand of regular collaborator Jeremy Greenspan in the chords, melodies and synthesizer settings, but "All The Time" is undoubtedly Lanza's vision. Combining her usual glassy-eyed vocals and ear-pleasing, often melancholic synth-pop sounds with the colourful vibrancy of future R&B and grooves that subtly reference all manner of styles (dubstep included), it's most perfect underground pop album you'll hear all year.

Review: Given that Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan is the man at the controls, it's perhaps unsurprising that this surprise debut full-length from little known Canadian chanteuse Jessy Lanza drips with smooth, synthesized sweetness. Packed with Greenspan's trademark melancholic, Metro Area-ish synths, but built around Lanza's fragile, otherworldly vocals, Pull My Hair Back is a contender for the best leftfield pop album of the year. Variously touching on synthesized R&B, deep boogie, sparse torch songs (see the sublime title track) and starbust wonkiness (the beautifully off-kilter "As If"), Lanza and Greenspan have delivered an impeccable, unassuming delight. Recommended.

Review: Frequent Jeremy Greenspan and Morgan Geist collaborator Jessy Lanza was hailed as a future star on the release of her 2013 debut album, Pull My Hair Back. That album projected her as some kind of New York freestyle chanteuse dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, backed by an all-electronic band fascinated with the potential of future R&B and left-of-centre synth-pop. This belated follow-up, which was once again produced in cahoots with Jeremy Greenspan, is even better. Colourful, vibrant and attractive, the ten songs are truthful to their '80s NYC inspirations, but smartly avoid the pitfalls of such blatant retro-futurism. In other words, it's a superb collection of future R&B and pop gems.

Review: Frequent Jeremy Greenspan and Morgan Geist collaborator Jessy Lanza was hailed as a future star on the release of her 2013 debut album, Pull My Hair Back. That album projected her as some kind of New York freestyle chanteuse dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, backed by an all-electronic band fascinated with the potential of future R&B and left-of-centre synth-pop. This belated follow-up, which was once again produced in cahoots with Jeremy Greenspan, is even better. Colourful, vibrant and attractive, the ten songs are truthful to their '80s NYC inspirations, but smartly avoid the pitfalls of such blatant retro-futurism. In other words, it's a superb collection of future R&B and pop gems.

Review: Hyperdub continues to stamp its authority down on a wide variety of electronic music, in this case throwing the light, bouncing club-ready sounds of Canada's Jessy Lanza into the mix of a back catalogue that touches on everything from ambient to dubstep and footwork. But, while we open on the snare-happy garage-house of 'Don't Leave Me Now', and tracks like 'Drive' also look to the dancefloor, things don't stay there long. 'Don't Cry On My Pillow', for example, is a low stepping piece of alternative electronic soul. 'Big Pink Rose' opts for synth refrains and staccato drums to create a steamy, heady neon r&b brew with added yacht. 'Double Time' deconstructs pop balladry and makes it sound lo-fi yet huge, 'I Hate Myself' seems to take a lead from tropicalia-hued, leftfield electronica.

Review: Jessy Lanza's skewed, left-of-centre take on electronic pop has helped her deliver a string of inspired albums, though few are quite as joyful, bold and ear-catching as Love Hallucination. It was created following her move from San Francisco to Los Angeles, with a string of musical friends and collaborators - Jeremy Greenspan, Jacques Greene, Tensnake and Paul White included - lending a hand with the production. The results are undoubtedly inspired, with UKG-influenced synth-pop nuggets, drowsy electronic disco and AM radio-friendly synth grooves being joined by future r&b bullets, bass-heavy pop-house throb-jobs and undeniably Balearic workouts. In other words, Love Hallucination is another inspired full-length excursion from one of the best in the business.