New releases last two weeks: Minimal/Tech House

Review: Berlin-via-Tokyo artist Courtney Bailey lands on Naarm's Animals Dancing with a debut packed with hypnotic force. Three versions of 'I Wanna Feel You' form the core: the Berlin cut drifts in slow and hazy, Bailey's bilingual vocal wrapping around a rubbery acid line and slinky percussion. Tornado Wallace's Tokyo version ramps up the pressure with sharper drums and a more focused low end, while the short version distils its essence into a tooly spiral. 'Animals Ate The Mushroom' is a wild-eyed polyrhythmic trip, bristling with shakers, broken FX and warped animalistic calls. 'I See The Future' edges closer to dancefloor propulsion, FM bass flickering beneath spectral vocals and birdlike synths. Released on Wurundjeri Country, this marks the offering number 12 from the label and a powerful first move for Bailey. Equal parts lucid and dreamlike, it imagines a world just out of reach: a city populated only by animals, where language breaks down and rhythm takes over.

Review: Italian duo Lorenzo Fortino and Brody return with their third collaborative release, further refining a sound that drifts between deep house, electro and moody, politically conscious techno. Their work has always carried a sense of purpose, but here it feels more dialled-iniless ornamental, more direct. Opener 'Our Truth' stretches over seven minutes, layering synth washes and sparse drum work around processed vocals that feel halfway between meditation and manifesto. 'Homemade Mould' is tougher, rooted in chunky house drums and dubbed-out atmospheres, tapping into the rawer side of their shared palette. On 'Deep Freedom', they introduce vocalist Veronica Marini, whose debut here is remarkableiher voice rises with clarity and control through a lyrical call to action that's both elegant and forceful. That same control shapes 'Leave Those Memories', where she softens into something more introspective, folding jazz phrasing into a smoother, bittersweet house groove. Both tracks also appear in instrumental form digitally, but it's Marini's presence that elevates them into something quietly luminous. While rooted in the familiar structures of club music, this release reaches for something deeper and often gets there.

Review: Danny Howells is one of the UK's natural electronic music treasures. He was there in the early days of prog and remains a singular artist who now debuts on another fine institution in Radio Slave's Rekids. His new EP that blends deep house warmth with subtle progressive flourishes and finds him teaming up with keyboardist Elliot Herrington. The title track shimmers with late-night fuzz, while 'Thrunk' builds around a rare-for-Howells bass-first approach that has already made it a favourite among selectors like Honey Dijon, DJ Sprinkles and Jennifer Loveless. All in all, another triumph for Howells.

Review: Infinity Plus One channels the murky heat of 90s Detroit into four cuts that throb with machine soul and analogue bite. Based in the UK, the producer debuts with a raw but focused blend of electro, house and technoihis nod to the Motor City filtered through a distinctively UK lens. 'Innocent Beginnings' pairs chunky kicks with haunted synth washes, laying the groundwork with a bass-heavy strut that feels both grounded and widescreen. 'Dusk And Darkness' leans darker, stitching 808s and breaks into a rolling, rave-adjacent groove, all tension and propulsion. On the flip, 'Stand For Love' dips into classic deep house mode, slowing the pace for a moment of emotional clarityigentle pads circling a tender vocal loop. Closer 'Ubiquity' rides a twisting bassline into atmospheric club gear, its big stabs and lurking low-end pulling dancers into a heady zone. A full-spectrum debut that honours the roots but refuses to settle in them, this is warehouse music made with reverenceiand a sense of forward motion.

Review: Definitive Recordings throws it back to 1994 for 'Do It' a house classic by Las Americas, which is a legendary project by David Alvarado. Newly remastered for 2024, this edition includes the original version as well as a refreshed Chuck Phulasole remix and two dynamic new takes from Italian producer St. David, who brings his vintage-inspired style in all its glory. He delivers a playful 'Big Tool Mix' with vocal flips and infectious grooves alongside a funkier 'Drum-Tool Dub' packed with sharp guitar licks. The original's hypnotic basslines and soulful vocal hook still shine, while Phulasole's deeper remix adds rich keys and Moog warmth. Lovely stuff.

Review: Andre Schmid aka The Mountain People is back once again with another sophisticated distillation of house, techno and minimal on his self-titled label. 'I Kid You Not' is brilliantly subtle with whimsical and soft melodies drifting over dynamic drum work. It's late night and absorbing stuff. 'Up The River' is a little more wonky and lump with the drums rising and falling under glistering hi-hats to alluring affect. The whole of the flip is given over to 'The Nothingness', a stylish dub house sound with well worked synths smeared across the mix and leaving neon tails in their wake. It's a forward-thinking cut for discerning dancers.

Review: Peverelist stands as a defining figure in UK electronic music, shaping the intersection of bass-driven sound system culture and forward-thinking techno. Emerging from Bristol's fertile underground scene, his work as a producer, DJ and label head has been instrumental in pushing the boundaries of UK dance music. Closing out his long-running series, he distills his signature sound into four meticulously sculpted tracks. 'Pulse XVII' bookends a skeletal, stepping groove with shimmering synth strings and crisp chord stabs, injecting a dose of Motor City euphoria into his typically weighty framework. 'Pulse XVIII' strips things back to bare essentials, constructing a taut, jacking house cut from pulsing low-end and precisely placed percussionia masterclass in restraint and impact. The energy escalates with 'Pulse XIX', where dub techno textures are reworked into something sharper and more urgent, its rolling momentum underpinned by a driving rhythmic core. 'Pulse XX' then flips expectations, shifting into leftfield steppers territory with elastic bass motifs and alien hooks, recalling the producer's earlier experiments while pushing his sound into fresh terrain. It's a fitting conclusion to a project that has consistently balanced dancefloor functionality with a forward-thinking approach.

Review: Danish prodder S.A.M. shucks out a meaty new one through Kalahari Oyster Cult, urging 90s Eurodance down a spiritual path. Having already led several labels to fruition, S.A.M. now moves as a solo artist between bold anthemic highs and intimate, meditative lacunae. 'Right To Disobey' evidences his desire to wrench the best frequent and amplitudinal possibilities affordable to the modern day producer, with hugely scooped vocal hooks and widescreen pannings bringing a next generative mood. It's only up from there, with 'Mastermind' maintaining a mindful but still detail-hungry stasis, and 'Crush' ending on moody minor second chords and raw, tweaker-jank percussions.

Review: In the formative years of his career in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Ricardo Villalobos frequently utilised a handful of alternative production aliases - first Minta Spacew (one EP way back in 1993) and then more frequently Richard Wolfsdorf. Tia, first released way back in 2000, was the Chilean minimal maestro's second outing under that alias and has become a sought-after EP in recent times - hence this Rawwax reissue. A-side 'Echt Rot' is typically Playhouse-era Villalobos, with cut-up vocalisations, odd noises and spaced-out electronic snippets riding a crunchy minimal-house beat and looped, mind-mangling TB-303 bassline. Title track 'Tia' features simmering orchestral samples clustering around a typically wonky, stripped-back beat, while 'Feurwasser' sounds like the blueprint for many of his later minimal techno workouts.