Back catalogue: Balearic/Downtempo

Review: Nunorthern Soul's fourth vinyl outing encourages you to sit back, relax, and sink into some truly horizontal sounds awash with Balearic bliss. James Bright kicks off the session with the warm glow of 'Amber' and its slowly percolating beats and painterly synths. Be.Lanuit's 'Nana A Leon' has a starry eyed charm that will get you gazing off into the night and elsewhere Norht Of The Island's 'I Feel' has a chugging groove and exotic synth work bringing plenty of colour. This is a high class EP of richly detailed downtempo brilliance.

Review: Cold Busted has long been setting the standard for hip hop and instrumental goodness. As well as serving up the latest in their Jet Set series this month, they also invite Belgian beatmaker and fine sonic journeyman Sim Nagai to make an entry into the same much-loved series. 'In Rotation' opens with funky drumming and pitch-shifted guitar licks before Latin flavours wash over 'Cuban Delirium,' a deeper beat with reverential pianos. There is a pure beachside bliss to 'Palm Dreams' with its tumbling drums and hits and languid vocal samples and 'Copacabana Sand' completes the trip with a nice shuffling beat and some gorgeous acoustic string work.

Review: 1990s electronica duo Neural Network - renowned for their contemporaneity with the likes of Biosphere and Autechre - are currently seeing a large reissues campaign at the label Re:discovery. These 'Excerpts' highlight the bulk of their work made from 1993-1997, which, unlike their albums, didn't gain label / distributor traction at the time. This EP focuses on the lattermost year, compiling four wobbly, bubbly, depth-plunging and serene cuts - all with 808s or 808-ish snares mired in serendipitous pads - into a neat EP.

Review: Noema's new album ONE has been artfully reworked here by a range of a talents from divergent electronic worlds. Up first, Kalabrese presents a suberb re-imagining, layering funky keyboards, live drums, and his signature vocals atop the original track. Lauer follows with a leftfield disco piece featuring a lively arpeggio synth, live drums and an infectious melody. Mehmet Aslan's remix brims with rhythmic textures, playful melodies and funky electro breakbeats and Panthera Krause delivers an energetic dance anthem propelled by mind-bending arpeggiators and syncopated chords. Lastly, Shubostar injects her infectious "cosmic disco" sound into Noema's funky and surreal universe, adding a groovy twist to the mix.

Review: NT is Nail aka Neil Holliday, one half of Bent and a master of UK tech house. But here he shows a different side across six majestically Balearic groovers. That draw on everything he has done before to send you out to sea on gentle waves of shining synth goodness, downtempo bliss and dreamy, chubby, soft focus drums. 'Beside Boa Linn' is a soothing summer sound to kick off then 'Going Out To Feel It' is a spiritual house cut for sundown, and 'Don't Hide Away' is slow motion disco brilliance. The trip continues with the star-gazing 'Evening Fixture', Eddie C style guitar licks of 'Walk In Romance' and romantic lullaby 'Dreams On Hold.'

Review: There is plenty of psychedelic colour to this latest EP from the Spanish Baffling Noise label. It appears to be the first release from Numbat who has a love of long, winding, slow-motion synth patterns that weave their way in and out of deep, dubby, stylish drums. That is certainly the case on 'Southern Exposure' (Hybrid Man remix) while 'Amalgamate' is leggy house music with happy melodies and 'E-Break' then heads off through the cosmos on solar winds, trippy melodies and warm drums. 'Southern Exposure' is a chubby, dubby, sludgy techno head wrecker in its original form.

Review: A fresh, atmospheric sound is proferred by South Carolina singer and producer Nancy Blues in the form of her latest vinyl LP Exit Simulation, in which she cuts through the intertwined hazes of childhood memory and personal psychogeography to produce a veritably ultra-ambient dust cloud of sound in 13 tracks. At its core, the album trickles faintly forth from the watershed that is neo-soul - multi-layering her voice; harmonizing; pitting honest, raw rimshots-n'-crackles against contemporary stylistic cornerstones like lo-fi and night-bussy ambient electronica - all to evoke, convincingly, the mood of stasis in which she finds current solace in her current home of Charleston. Evocative of having found a newfound time and place to reflect, Blues conjures up the weekends of her youth, spent mesmerized at the ambient music of the slow-paced devotionals performed by the local Oklahoman church band.

Review: Despite selling out instantly on first press back in November 2018, it is only now that Nujabes' first solo album "Metaphorical Music" makes it to wax once more. This most spiritual of hip hop records - first released in 2003 - brings together downtempo, trip hop, instrumental, classic era boom bap, neo soul and funk into an accomplished collection of tunes that pack a dance floor as well as heartfelt punch. The album showcases some of the best music that the hip hop genre is capable of. Do not miss this, as it won't be around for long.