Juno Recommends Bass Best of 2018

Review: Bristol bassheads Lurka and Batu have long been friends, so its little surprise to see them join forces for a collaborative effort on the former's freshly minted Fringe White label. The untitled track lurking (sorry) on the A-side is an analogue affair built around heavy sub bass, metallic rhythms and flashes of vintage Motor City electronics, as if the duo has reinvented Yorkshire bleep for the broken techno generation. Flip for a metronomic 4/4 slammer with subtle UK funky influences (particularly in the mutilated, Serato's-gone-mental melodies), and a sparser, more electro influenced cut that bounces, bobs and weaves impressively.

Review: Hot on the heels of his Tectonic EP, Berlin-based Brit Hugo continues on his expedition into more broken territories with five fractured forays on E-Beamz. "Where Your Body Begins" sets the tone with menacing bass tones blasting beneath slow jungle rolls before being countered by the Bicep-flexing drifter "The Only Constant Is Change". Deeper again; "Alien Shapes" is the teeth grinder of the set with its rasping, rising venomous acid and brittle breaks, "Circles" re-soothes our soul with a rippling beatless floatation sensation and "Faith In Chaos" throws us in a big bubbly bath of acid for a final hoorah. Hugo Massive more like...

Review: It's been a while since Blackest Ever Black turned the key in their A14 machine but it's clearly in working order as Beneath takes us for late night drive through the murkiest of bass/techno/breakbeat hinterlands. "Cloudy" is a sludgy, warped jam that would sound just as good in an Om Unit set as it would a Radioactiveman selection. For a little more grunt flip for the stripped back and rolling "Outsource" where the industrial strength drums suddenly get wrapped up in a short series of pure chord uplift. Hardboiled just as A14 likes to cook them; let's hope both parties don't leave it so long next time...

Review: De Grey launched last year with a 12" from Webstarr, and now it follows up with the raw, rough and ready sound of Jack Angle. "Week-End" is a lithe, percussive beast of a track that matches bloated kicks with glassy hits for a tracky but distinctive end result. "6PNHHPE" is a looped up, off-kilter affair that sports an industrial techno thread but heads into stranger territory with ease. "Stablilizer" is a more balanced, melodic affair but again those distinctive metallic tones pervade the mix and inject some real character into Angle's music. "Selta" takes this approach and whips it up into the most lively, peak-time minded belter on the whole record, sneakily tucked away on the B2.

Review: Having recently notched up 100 releases, Tectonic begins a new era by offering up a suitably weighty collaborative release from Peng Sound regular Ishan Sound. On side A, the Young Echo member joins forces with Hodge - owner of the nicest hair in techno - for the deep and dreamy dubstep shuffle of "C5", where fluid riffs dance above a blazed but powerful beat. Muttley lends a hand on flipside cut "Still Smoking", an altogether livelier and more aggressive - if still suitably deep and hazy - 140 BPM workout that comes complete with stabbing, grime style riffs and some serious subsonic bass.

Review: It seems fitting that the hundredth and final volume in the "FabricLive" mix series should also be its most hotly anticipated. Coming from heavyweight heroes Kode9 and Burial - whose previous back-to-back mix for Mary-Anne Hobbs' show eight years ago has reached near mythical status. The album is a wonderfully full-throttle and mixed-up affair, with the shadowy bass lieutenants giddily flitting between quick-fire sections focusing on South African gqom, footwork, Juke, vintage hardcore, early jungle and more contemporary dancefloor experimentalism, each broken up by typically blazed and paranoid ambient interludes and the occasional surprise selection. There's a lot going on throughout, but that only adds to the fun. In other words, it's a triumphant finale to a landmark mix series.

Review: Last spotted on Warp on the inaugural volume of their Cargaa series in 2015, Nigga Fox returns to the UK institution with his debut label EP "Cranio". As always with the Lisbon underground kingpin, fusion and ardent experimentalism characterise the project as we're shifted and beguiled in equal measure at the rising paranoid acid tendrils on "Sinistro", the thumping obese kicks on "Poder Do Vento", the jarring techno necksnap of "Maria Costa", the lucid dreaminess of "KRK", the obscenely tripped-out voodoo instrumentation on "Waaba-Jah" and accordion squeezing technoid sketch "Karma". Singular.

Review: Cape Town's CTS dive straight into a new year with the show-stopping "If You Want To". Rolling on an unhurried break with rich emotional textures, it pulls you into their world with a molten persistence that never sits still. Remix-wise Gacha Bakradze adds a little Balearic charm with maintaining the spirit of the original's liquid, perpetual groove development while Edmondson brings us back to the bruk with a broken beat, slightly UKG vibe. There's no ifs about it, you will want to.

Review: Loic Berger's previous releases under the E-Unity alias have seen him shun easy genre categorization, instead fusing elements of techno, electro, breakbeat revivalism and guttural house. This EP for FTD is similarly hard to pin down. A-side "Tallarita", sits between a four-four beat or hardcore era breakbeats, with the curious selection of musical elements atop - creepy stabs, chiming melodies and pulverizing analogue bass - only enhancing Berger's thrillingly mixed-up mood. Over on side B, "3.6" brilliantly mangles a two-step rhythm and combines it with all manner of weirdo electronics and weighty bottom-end pressure, while "Everlasting Legacy (Functional Mix)" is a hot-stepping blend of super-spacey synthesizer melodies, chiming ambient motifs and bustling, dub-wise dancefloor riddims.

Review: Kl.ne and CRESC continue to developed their APHTC project with two new rhythmic spells on brand new kinetic body music label Arcane Patterns. Wild freestyle percussion, fractured breaks and an all round physical sensation to both sides, once again we're hurled into unchartered sonic territory. "When Grounds Shift" sideswipes from the off with a curious polyrhythm that sits somewhere between IG Culture Shackleton. "Gravity's Pitfalls" rolls with a little more of a conventional sense of techno and tribal momentum while still sounding like nothing else on this planet. Follow the patterns...

Review: Charlie "Kasket" Baldwin returns to Pinch's formidable Cold Recordings stable, an imprint focused on "new movements in the ever-evolving UK hardcore continuum". For his second salvo for the label, Baldwin serves up four floor-friendly cuts, beginning with the off0kilter drum rhythms, savagely chopped hip-hop vocal samples and trippy stabs of "Lemons". Those searching for heavy sub-bass action should start with the pulverizing low end and polyrhythmic punch of "Bangers", before flipping the disc and dropping the needle on "Quite", a hot-stepping affair that draws influence from both dubstep and UK garage without particularly sounding like either. Further mind-altering insanity can be found on closer "Flat Football", a wild and entertaining mixture of scattergun drum hits and wayward electronics.

Review: Like many artists, Siete Caforce's releases were few and far between early in his career. Six years have now passed since his digital-only debut and he's now ready to make his vinyl bow. The four tracks that make up Agnosia are largely impressive, drawing influence from a variety of bass music styles - think 140, dubstep and UK funky - as well as gritty industrial music, the dark textures of pitch-black D&B and the rhythmic bounce of tropical house. It's an intoxicating blend that feels all the more potent thanks to his superb percussion programming and love of heavy low-end pressure, with the tribal "Susurro" and stabbing, occasionally dreamy opener "Risa" being our picks.