New releases last eight weeks: Techno

Review: BT Gate X-138 returns to Greyscale with Gravitational Grooves, deepening his relationship with the label following 2023's kV Pylon. Ten sousing sonorities hear him reshape his signature dub techno sound with growth-mental finesse, emitting foggy atmospheres and slicing percs. 'Inertia' leans into soft chords and faint crackle before giving way to the stripped-down shuffle and understated melodic turns of 'Gravity', while 'Orbit' builds over and delay-heavy phrasing; 'Float' offers a breather with its ambient drift, while an embossed 'Mass' sears the ears with churlish mood-texture. Touchstones such as Konigsforst and In Moll are alluded to most subtly.

Review: There's a strong argument to be made that 1993's Orbital II, popularly known as 'The Brown Album', is the Hartnoll brothers' finest single album - a sublime fusion of bustling breakbeats, heady vocal samples (many provided by then unknown vocalist Alison Goldfrapp), twisted acid lines, memorable melodic motifs, and rush-inducing breakdowns. Here reissued in remastered and expanded form, the set - which includes fan favourites 'Lush 3', 'Halcyon' and the superb 'Impact (The Earth is Burning)' the album sounds as fresh and forthright as ever. This time round, it includes a second CD featuring key cuts from the two-part 'Raddicio' EP (including two takes on the Scott Walker-sampling 'The Naked & The Dead') and superb revisions of Lush 3 by Underworld and Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia.

Review: Last year, the Hartnoll brothers gave their debut album, 1991's 'Green Album' (officially simply titled Orbital) the deluxe reissue treatment, offering an expanded quadruple CD edition backed with a detail-packed hardback book. They've now moved on to its similarly superb sequel (the 'Brown Album') from 1993. It gets a similar treatment, with a freshly remastered version of the original album (CD1) being joined by two discs of single versions, B-sides, remixes and 'Peel Session' cuts (including legendary Underworld and Psychik Warriors Ov Gaia takes on 'Lush 3', and the duo's own originally US-only extension of 'Impact'), and a fourth CD containing a previously unreleased live recording from the Limelight in New York in 1992. Oh, and a fine hardback book telling the story of the album. An early Christmas present for Orbital fans!

Review: Karl Hyde and Rick Smith continue to offer-up remastered CD reissues of gems from Underworld's vast back catalogue. Here they return to 1996's Second Toughest In The Infants, a set - co-produced with then third member Darren Emerson - which cemented their growing status as one of British electronic music's true headline attractions. While not as admired as its predecessor, it remains a fantastic full-length excursion - an inventive and frequently inspired collection of peak-time-ready epics that borrow liberally from progressive house, techno and spacey drum & bass (see 'Banstyle/Sappy's Curry'). It also contains a number of genuine stunners, not least the bustling 'Confusion The Waitress', the acid-fired insanity of 'Rawla', and the trance-inducing early morning hypnotism of 'Air Towel'.

Review: Recorded and released after the crossover success of 'Born Slippy [Nuxx]', Beaucoup Fish remains Underworld's most commercially successful album. The third and final set to be recorded with then third member Darren Emerson, it has fewer rough edges and in-your-face grooves than its predecessors whilst still retaining the band's rave-igniting sound of the 1990s. Now remastered and reissued on CD for the first time since 2017, it's a set that has aged well. For proof, check the woozy slipped deep house of 'Cups', the breakbeat-powered, acid-fired peak-time insanity of 'Shudder/King of Snake', the rushing release of 'Push Upstairs', the heady ambient bliss of 'Skym' and the drum & bass-influenced warmth of 'Something Like Mama'.