Sneaker Social Club 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: Out Of Joint record shop chief 8Ball makes his debut on Bristol's Sneaker Social Club, with a brand new full length titled Eleusis. His releases on the Grade10 label (which he runs with mates in his hometown of Leicester) are a celebration of 'the afterparty and are rife in moody atmospherics and post-hardcore references.' A very diverse collection of tracks, ranging from dark ambient on 'Can't Hold On' and the near skeletal dub reductions of 'Equator' on side A, to the deconstructed techstep of 'Many Shapes' on the flip. Elsewhere, there's pure euphoria heard on the ambient hardcore of 'Planetz' and the twisted, bass-driven IDM of 'Tigers Eye'.

Review: When breakbeat hardcore and "darkcore" were slowly morphing into jungle around 1992-93, few artists delivered quite as many revolutionary and mind-mangling cuts as Northampton's Foul Play. For proof, check out this must-have retrospective of their earliest EPs on Hypercolour. From start to finish, it bustles with proto-jungle gems, from the mangled rave stabs and boisterous breaks of "Dubbing You" and the warehouse-ready voodoo of "The Alchemist" (a kind of prototype liquid tune which also pays tribute to Nightmares on Wax's earlier "Aftermath"), to the blistering rhythms and bassbin-bothering sub business of "Screwface" and the early ragga-jungle brilliance of "Ragatere". If you have any interest at all in the development of UK bass music, then you need this in your life.

Review: Following last year's Final Departure on Keysound, J Shadow returns to the realm of albums with his second LP, this time on Sneaker Social Club. Ominously titled The End Of All Physical Form, it's business as usual as J plays between the genres, murking up boundary lines with a raw sense of funk and emotional energy. Sitting somewhere between breaks, garage, grime and drum & bass, the whole body of work is a whirlwind attack of the senses that works well both for home listening and dancefloor demolishing. From the breakbeat bombardment of 'Arsu' to the much slower, undiluted eski-beat heaviness of 'Prototype' by way of the turbo charged futurist finale 'No Gravity', J Shadow has delivered something special here... And it sounds best on the physical form of a 12".

Review: At long last, the vinyl editions of last year's link-up between prolific Scottish enigma Neil Landstrumm and the ever on-point Sneaker Social Club have finally landed. Eight tracks in total, exceedingly broad in their flavour, they tap into that free-for-all spirit that Landstrumm made a name for himself with back with Si Begg in the mid-90s. Vibes range from the cosmic trills and ghetto thumps of 'SOWAHH' to the straight-up hardcore fury of 'Milano' by way of the heavy subs and tunnelling dynamic of the free party jungle smasher 'The Truth'. Yell yell... So good they named it twice.

Review: After making a big impression with his first 12" on Senaker Social in 2019, Low End Activism is back with a superb full length. It finds him 'sum up the conflicting emotions attached to memories of home' as he explores his own sonic roots through the prism of future-rushing soundsystem sonics. The tracks are wrought with street level tensions and urban and suburban gimme, with darkness adn frustration. But there is also home and solidarity in these sounds which are sure to unite people of all backgrounds on the world's dance floors.

Review: If timeless warehouse music and bass-heavy rave revivalism is your thing, there's a fair chance you already own some Soundbwoy Killah records. Whether you do or not, we'd heartily recommend checking the shadowy producer's debut album, "Halcyon Daze". It's little less than a breathless, saucer-eyed romp through heady fusions of dreamy UK garage, melodious jazzy jungle, loved-up breakbeat hardcore, African-influenced tribal percussion and gargantuan low-end pressure. It's all arguably a little more relaxed and sunrise-ready than some of his 12" singles - this is an album, after all - but that's not a criticism: in fact, the album's sporadic ambient moments are uniformly excellent, sounding like long lost early 90s classics.