Staff Picks: 19th February 2021

Review: The third trip from the Air Miles camp is one filled with dreamy breakbeat bliss. 'Gondwana At Noon' is a floaty light track with its head firmly in the clouds as twinkling keys and angelic vocals drift by up top. Pure post-rave comedown lushness, it then gets suitably mashed up for more peak time action, firstly by Jeigo. This time the drums hit harder, with icy hi hats and loopy snares all tumbling in freefall. Nathan Micay brings some more old school video game sound effects and Mollystrips it back to a long legged deep house delight. This is tender techno for E-ed up dance floors.

Review: Although Rhythm & Sound and Basic Channel man Mark Ernestus has worked with or remixed many different artists over the years, we didn't expect him to join forces with D&B scene stalwarts Calbre and DRS. Yet that's exactly what's on offer here, as the Hardwax founder delivers two typically deep, dubbed-out techno outings crafted from portions of the pair's collaborative cut 'Badman', which is due to feature on Calbre's forthcoming sixteenth studio album, Feeling Normal. Both 'Bad' and 'Badder' are typical of Ernestus' ultra-deep and hypnotic style, with snippets of the duo's original instruments, beats and vocals echoing in and out of a warming, all-encompassing, sub-heavy groove. In a word, it's superb.

Review: Greek label Pi Electronics bring together four native producers for this various artists EP that takes no prisoners, two years after the first such compilation. It features tracks taken from the full length comp of the same name - the rest will no doubt come on their own wax later - and opens with a 10 minute recording by Orphx and JK Flesh (Justin Broadrick) that is taken from a live show they did in Amsterdam. Vofa's 'Agosame' is another thrilling bit of blistering, lo-fi techno and Fragedis goes hard with the brutalist drums and dark, caustic textures of 'Disillusion.'

Review: Politics Of Dancing's popular P.O.D Edits series returns for the first time in three years to deliver two more peak-time reworks, this time courtesy of scalpel fiends Olivier Romero and John Richard. To be honest, we have no idea what they've re-edited, but the results are undeniably impressive. Romero handles side A and serves up a dark, dense and intense epic - all deep, loopy bass, percussion-rich tribal house grooves, wonky spoken word snippets and pitch-black aural textures. Richard takes a different approach, successfully tooling up a roling house excursion rich in wayward acid lines, layered speech samples, half-whispered vocal and undulating lead lines.

Review: Portuguese sci-fi soundsmith Norbak is a regular on Oscar Mulero's Warm Up Recordings. His new double album is a compete artistic statement that goes from scene setting ambient open to deep, heady and hypnotic techno then on through intergalactic minimal that Jeff Mills would surely admire. His style is smooth and subtle, his drums elongated and supple, and it makes for escapist music that works perfectly well even at home on headphones. 'The Third Morality' is a devastatingly spare yet emotive track that turns you inwards and is one of many highlights.

Review: Favorite Recordings presents Voiciii, the third album by Voilaaa - the nom de plume of Bruno 'Patchworks' Hovart. It features guest vocalists such as Pat Kalla and Lass who he has worked with previously, but also new ones such as David Walters, Rama Traore and Ayuune Suule. There's also the addition of saxophonist Boris Pokora. The LP is a tribute to major artists of influential African sounds, such as Fela Kuti and Manu Dibango: from the empowering groove of 'Women Can Do', the late night boogie-down antics with a message on 'Water Get No Enemy' to the spiritual life music of LYMYE-A' - a delightful album from start to finish.

Review: Brownswood's latest must-check offering gathers together fresh musical inspirations and jazz mutations from South Africa, shining a light on some of the country's most forward-thinking musicians. The set was curated by pianist/songwriter Thandi Nithuli and Siyabonga Mthembu of psychedelic jazz-rock fusionists Brother Moves On, a pair whose disparate musical approaches and open-minded attitude successfully shaped the album's eclectic, fluid flow. Highlights are plentiful, from the deep downtempo jazz-souk of 'Umthandazo Wamagenge' by Brother Moves On and the discordant, dubbed-out post-rock/jazz fusion of Wretched's 'What is History' (featuring black panther Kwame Toure and Winnie Mandela), to the warming acoustics of Sibusile Xaba's 'Umdali' and the organic, exotic spiritual jazz opus that is Iphupho L'ka Biko's 'Abaphezelu'.Simply stunning.

Review: Ahead of the release of Special Request's frankly spellbinding new DJ Kicks mix, !K7 serve up an EP with three of the standout cuts from it. The brisling melodies and rugged electro of 'Vellichor' open up and immediately take you to the stars. Then comes a collab with fellow Leeds artists and someone Woolford has always been keen to praise, 96Back. Their 'Petrichor' - the word given to the smell after fresh rainfall - is a moody piece of ambient with flashes of synth, sweeping filters and pensive pianos, Closing out is 'Compassion,' a frazzled bit of cavernous bass with icy chords and melancholic feels.

Review: You'll struggle to find any deeper or more alluring tracks in Norm Talley's catalogue than 'Powder', the wonderfully hypnotic, locked in and subtly spacey opener from the Motor City producer's 2011 EP on Mixmode, Tracks From The Asylum. It's a good thing, then, that Talley has decided to reissue the sought-after EP on his own label. The Detroiter doesn't put a foot wrong throughout, with the chugging, beatdown-inspired brilliance of 'Lost', which boasts some sublime piano solos, and the up-beat hustle of 'Private Party' being equally as essential as 'Powder'. Speaking of that track, Delano Smith's 'More Powder' version is also worth a listen, featuring as it does slightly bolder synth riffs and a tougher, techno-influenced groove.

Review: After releases from Krust and DJ Trace, new Tempo Records sub-label-cum-project SPEED returns with 'Call & Response' originator Source Direct. The results are every bit as heads down, rolling and hypnotic as you might have hoped, with two tracks of equally crisp, spacey goodness.

The title number takes us down a jazzy avenue, sun-kissed crooning guitar chords layered over the top of a deeply textured arrangement, resplendent with timeless futurist melodies and sharp, hi-end percussion. 'Game Play', meanwhile, goes straight for the meatier palette, electric guitar riffs set at a grizzly low-end and the beats themselves seemingly packing gnashing teeth. Make no mistake of it, this is classic Source Direct stuff, but that only goes to show just how forward his productions have always been.

Review: Haws hits double figures here with a double good EP that marks the occasional in suitably high class fashion. Adam Pits is the man on the controls and is always one to come up with the goods. He launches off with 'Gazza', which has a screw-face bassline that rubs away filthily underneath dusty garage beats. 'Solar Wave' is a more heady and serene cut that glides through the galaxy on a wave of cosmic warmth and then the final of the originals is 'Element X', a slow motion and blissed out cut with new age ambiance. Danish house king DJ Central brings his usual smoothness to a remix of 'Solar Wave' before Priori layers up dreamy broken beats to close.