Bass charts

Review: Nazar, the nom-de-guerre of an anonymous Manchester-based producer, presents their sophomore album Demilitarize, following his acclaimed 2020 debut Guerrilla, released amid the pandemic. Nazar's first album securely firmed the artist's name within and beyond the Hyperdub diaspora, thanks to its unique melding of Angolan kuduro music with rough textures, field recordings, and media clips, retelling the story of his family's exile from the Angolan Civil War. Nazar is the son of Jonas Savimbi, a former general of the Angolan independence movement; after Angola's emancipation from Portuguese colonial rule, Nazar relocated to suburban Brussels. More recently, he fell seriously ill with tuberculosis contracted in Angola; battling mortality, the new album reflects a mix of introspection and blossoming love, which contrasts the warring rawness of his debut. Demilitarize is dreamier, with Nazar's submerged, mantra-like vocals at the forefront, evoking artists far-removed from the crumby, unedifyingly rough kuduro that characterised his first EP 'Enclave'. Nazar explains, "I wanted to create something almost metaphysical, inspired by the cyberpunk anime Ghost In The Shell." The sound is delicate, with relatively sculpted rhythms enveloping his own recorded voice throughout.

Review: Multidisciplinary artist Fatima Al Qadiri aligns with Hyperdub to release Asiatisch, a keenly anticipated debut album that's described as a "simulated road trip through an imagined China". First coming to prominence on the UNO label in 2011, Al Qadiri has subsequently provoked critical acclaim for the 2012 Desert Strike EP for Fade To Mind that played on her time spent living in Kuwait as a child, while her work under the Ayshay moniker for Tri Angle explored vocals in a unique manner. Asiatisch expands on the political themes of Desert Strike in a new and unexpected way, and acts as a homage to the style of grime known as "sinogrime". Asian motifs and melodies are prominent throughout whilst conceptually Al Qadiri runs through "the fantasies of east Asia as refracted through pulpy Western pop culture". If that wasn't enough to sell you on the concept, opening track "Shanzhai" is a "nonsensical Mandarin" language cover of Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U".

Review: Frequent Jeremy Greenspan and Morgan Geist collaborator Jessy Lanza was hailed as a future star on the release of her 2013 debut album, Pull My Hair Back. That album projected her as some kind of New York freestyle chanteuse dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, backed by an all-electronic band fascinated with the potential of future R&B and left-of-centre synth-pop. This belated follow-up, which was once again produced in cahoots with Jeremy Greenspan, is even better. Colourful, vibrant and attractive, the ten songs are truthful to their '80s NYC inspirations, but smartly avoid the pitfalls of such blatant retro-futurism. In other words, it's a superb collection of future R&B and pop gems.

Review: Hyperdub continues to stamp its authority down on a wide variety of electronic music, in this case throwing the light, bouncing club-ready sounds of Canada's Jessy Lanza into the mix of a back catalogue that touches on everything from ambient to dubstep and footwork. But, while we open on the snare-happy garage-house of 'Don't Leave Me Now', and tracks like 'Drive' also look to the dancefloor, things don't stay there long. 'Don't Cry On My Pillow', for example, is a low stepping piece of alternative electronic soul. 'Big Pink Rose' opts for synth refrains and staccato drums to create a steamy, heady neon r&b brew with added yacht. 'Double Time' deconstructs pop balladry and makes it sound lo-fi yet huge, 'I Hate Myself' seems to take a lead from tropicalia-hued, leftfield electronica.

Review: Jessy Lanza has always been quintessentially Hyperdub. A label helmed by garage, dubstep and bass DJ and producer, and academic music theorist Kode 9, the imprint has relentlessly pushed the kind of dance tracks that are unashamedly direct yet unarguably clever. Beats that acknowledge the delicate balance of fun and accessible with underground and intelligent. 2023's Love Hallucination, Lanza's fourth studio album, only adds to the evidence. It bubbles with pop sensibilities, sing-along worthiness and timeless infectiousness, but does so in an incredibly thoughtful, natural-yet-razor-accurate way. From two-step to slo-mo funk, r&b and steamy electro groove, it presents the kind of songwriter who makes sure chart and radio friendly doesn't always mean throwaway or one dimensional. Infinitely repayable stuff.