Back catalogue: All genres

Review: MELMAK's new 12" is entitled All Stars: The Rave Years which gives you an idea of what to expect. These are high-tempo, dense and rave ready sounds from the drum & bass vanguard. There is plenty of space out cosmic energy to the exploratory leads of X Termal's 'Tragnal Kozze' then 'What If' (The Doulo Klan edit) is a tightly coiled stepper. Bugger lays down a hyper speed rhythm with drilling bass and slapping hits on 'No Silence Now' and Umbra's 'The Big Dumb' is a real slow-motion churner with textural synths and alien sound designs. All four are ready to get the party going in different ways.

Review: Great deep techno with two respected artists bringing their favourite cuts on this collaborative split release. Goettingen's finest Kosta Athanassiadis aka XDB delves into the sublime sound of resonance on the hypnotising dub techno cut 'C.O.N.' on the A-side. Over on the flip, you've got Dresden's Stephan Schindler - better known as Kryptic Universe - with 'Cloud Riders' an emotive deep cut for the late night. Limited copies on blue wax.

Review: X Press 2 are dons of the UK house scene. They have turned out everything from sleazy underground house anthems to Ivor Novello Award winning dance-pop crossovers with David Byrne. Unlike many of their generation, they are still full of fresh ideas too - rather than churning out the same old sounds or copying whatever is du jour, they have really nailed a smoky, strobe-lit and club-ready house sound with new album Thee. It is full of their signature chunky grooves, seemingly simple but effective hooks and rock-solid baselines that will get any floor in a right old state.

Review: X-Ray Pop play live at Rockomotives Festival in 2020. The cult band was first formed back in 1984 by Didier Doc Pilot and Zouka Dzaza and are said to be inspirations for the likes of Beastie Boys and Stereolab. Their set at Rockomotives marked a triumphant return to the stage for the group with Charlotte Barfuss and Zouka Dzaza providing vocals, Doc Pilot on space guitar and Olivier Gicquel on drums amongst others. The setlist takes in tunes from four albums - Surrealistic Pilot, Fuzzy Soundtracks, All that Jazz and The Dream Machine - with psychedelic jazz mixed with novo beatnik overtones.

Review: Talk about being ahead of their time. Not only did XTC get the jump on everyone else (inadvertently) by predicting the letters XTC would change the course of Western European youth culture from the mid-1980s onwards, they also offered a very early stylistic premonition of the sounds that would, temporarily, usurp rave and associated genres as the pre-eminent adolescence, teen hood, and early adulthood music.
Formed in 1972, XTC are one of those examples of why we shouldn't really listen to what the hype men and women are saying. Struggling to break ground during their formative years - arguably their most fertile creatively - nevertheless the cult followers could see what was there. Most of the rest of us waited for another decade or so, at least, before realising this combination of elaborate pop, punk and art rock was actually prepping us for post punk, power pop and Britpop. Go 2 makes that very clear indeed.