A new venture for Big Hands, under the moniker Andrea Ottomani, resuming his partnership with trumpeter Abraham Parker.
Trialled triumphantly in recent live shows, the opener comes good on the promise of the duo’s triumphant debut for Trule: gliding, hypnotic, and moody, with rueful, burnished brass interjections riding dubwise steppers.
Then a pair of distressed, halftempo d&b rhythms: a call to arms, and a troubled circling of the wagons. Waltz For Matis winds up proceedings with a deep, spooked Fourth World excursion, with skittering marimba.
Another ace EP.

Fresh, funky and expertly percussive, troubled but warmly engaging — a trio of upful, atmospheric house excursions to mark the debut of this collaboration between Bristol luminaries.
‘Planet Spanner itself is acid-edged, with radiant chords, layers of rolling percussion and psychotropic FX unfurling from a nasty bassline. Things go deeper on the flip in two solo productions, moody and dubbed-out, with tough drums.’
Hand-stamped, in silk-screened sleeves.
Deep Street round three.

With Ekoplekz and Andres mixes.

Two deep half-steppers; both killer.

An ‘electro-acoustic’ approach to UK Garage, allternately banging and evasive, teeming with detail.​​​​​​​

‘A psychedelic voyage into the afterlife’, with Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Herbie Hancock, Thundercat… The 4LP set adds the instrumentals, all on 180g vinyl in printed inner sleeves, outer sleeves and rigid box and lid, with a download code card.

Two half-tempo IDM dubs; their signature FV transitoriness consolidated by two heavy remixes.
Valentino Mora carves out peak-time techno weaponry; Notte Infinita turns in a high-tech, sub-heavy roller. Woofers gonna woof.

‘Combining steppy dance music, lush detail and a diaristic tone, Jack Chrysalis’ debut album dials between music that is destined to catch the ear of the club-goer and the heart of the dreamer.
‘His signature propulsive mutations of organic techno and UK garage sound strongly in tracks like Another Year and Coldharbour, but Chrysalis threads in more introspective moments, which llend a sense of atmosphere and a deeper running mood to the album’s overworld, heightening endorphin hits from the garage swing and affording a little more bittersweetness to its textures and secrets.
‘Whether in rush or retreat, each track on this album emerges with its own emotional resonance. There’s a sense of seasons turning, or a twilight quality that’s hard to fully pin down. “Owl music” became shorthand for Jack’s tunes, a way for Mana to capture a prescient, nocturnal flight within their environment.’

A stirring, percussive four-tracker. Wintry and submersible; smudged with mist, then silvered and clear as a bell, by turns. Bitten Dream is dark, atmospheric, hypnotic; Via Tekh summons vintage Objekt; Shrine despatches twisted 8-bit granularity into early Livity Sound and Carrier territory; lulling, ambient Catharsis lets go.

“My dad had a sound called Billy The Clown alongside Fatman Sound in the sixties. I found JTS and Music House (mastering and dubplate studios). JTS is run by Keith who owns Jah Tubby’s, a sound that started in 1971. Then you had Chris at Music House who had a band called Black Slate, he was doing dubs for all the reggae men.
“When I found Music House, it was easy. I told Chris, ‘this is the new thing coming, it’s called hardcore’. When he first heard it, he said ‘this is mad music man’. I said ‘Chris, this is the future’. He found it a bit mad because he was used to cutting reggae and this new hardcore stuff was a bit noisy for him but over time he got used to how I wanted the cut loud.”
“The first person to get all my dubs was Top Buzz, reason being Mad P is my older brother who worked with Mikey B and Jason Kaye. We started together in London. We said, ‘right, you lot run the DJ thing and I will pump you with the dubplates from Ibiza Records.’ That’s how Ibiza grew so quick and Top Buzz grew at the same time.”

With an Actress.

‘The second of our odes to soundsystem culture. Logos back-burners the weightless sound for a minute and brings forward a chop-up laced with such tasty ingredients as the Bloom-era Aardvarck white labels, Shed’s Panamax Project and Wormhole-era Ed Rush and Optical.
‘To cap it off, Ossia delivers one of the heaviest remixes of the year. The ice-cold grime sensibilities of Eska infused with the militant sound of early Aba Shanti I on that Jah Lightning album.’

Long-gone, under-the-radar garage bomb from quartermaster Daphni.

“In the beginning of the pandemic we decided to take a turn and move to a small beach close to São Paulo, right in the middle of the rain forest… water definitely took a major role in our lives. We were living right in between the ocean and a waterfall, it´d rain for days on a roll sometimes and it was an open house where we had the sound of rain 360 degrees around us… I kinda think our music has a little of those different dynamics of water in its different states. Also, it might seem strange but São Paulo is a city in the water too, and it has a very chaotic relationship with it.”

‘The music itself is difficult to pin down: always kinetic and driven by fluid, nimble percussion, with a freeness to the sound overall, but also discipline, as the pair harness and channel the elemental force from which they’ve drawn their inspiration. At times the lines between Takara’s skittish percussion and Boregas’ idiosyncratic synth work and sound manipulation blur into flowing rivers or torrents of sound — here, both water and sound have the ability to awaken in us different memories, and emotional or physical states.
‘We could say say their sound contains clear influences from jazz, classic dub, krautrock, and the outer limits of post-punk. Contemporary allies include Holy Tongue, Shackleton, Oren Ambarchi…’

A moody, dubwise, to-the-barricades brew of jungle, rave, dubstep, and techno.
Over the five cuts, an opening, evocative, littoral play between discombobulation and mysticism gives way to mounting abrasiveness, before fetching up in the inner chambers of the temple room, echoing and spooky, with acoustic percussion.

A mouth-watering collaboration; plus flips from Al Wootton and Ottomani Parker.
‘The opener Last Breath is a late-hour pelter: relentlessly moody and hypnotic, with heaving sub-bass pulses. Tunnel Drift switches lanes with its distinctive tech-stepping 90’s throwback style; a forward-thinking take on a nostalgic sound.
‘Al Wootton’s contribution is characteristically fresh and inventive dubbed-out house, with his signature layering of atmospheric textures, and a deep and groovy bassline.
‘After a blissful opening, the Ottomani Parker excursion overlays driving percussion with horns, keys and live hand-drumming; an uplifting finale.’