Back in stock: Drum And Bass

Review: Tides is the latest album from Hybrid Minds, whose efforts have landed him at the forefront of the contemporary pop/drum & bass race of late. Hot off the heels of an initial LP release, this CD edition of Tides tops up the album's format-ography. The album sounds as huge on optical-digital as it does analogue; every track is effortless in its glossy command of space and bursting vocal synergy, calling attention to Hybrid Minds' collaboration-heavy approach to creation (every track bar one is a feature track, the best of which include Tom Walker, Grimm and Charlotte Plank).

Review: Given the uniqueness of his madcap and mind-altering trademark sound, the release of any new album from Tom Jenkinson AKA Squarepusher is big news. Given that his last new full-length landed four years ago, the arrival of Dostrotime has got an awful lot of experimentalists in a bit of a lather. Like many albums that have surfaced in the last couple of years, it was apparently inspired by the "novel, eerie, sublime silence of lockdown", with the title being a reference to "how time passed differently". Quite how this plays out within the music itself is open to interpretation; for the most part, what's on offer is prime Squarepusher - all distorted, full-throttle acid lines, mutilated experimental D&B beats, analogue electronics and rasping, strobe-lit nods to raves,