Back catalogue: Breakbeat

Review: French finesse with German fusion... Willis Anne makes his Shall Not Fade debut with this killer 'Movement' EP. As with previous missives on his LAN imprint, the beats roam and romp freely between footwork, jungle and ghetto-tek with strong twangs of Detroit bringing it all together. Highlights include the wonderful layers of organs and vibrant chords of 'Direct Effect' and the fully-swung breakbeats and bellowing sub of 'Unison'. Get moving.

Review: Diagonal Records gives itself over to Australian rising star Jonus Eric, who is sure to have a big year if this is anything to go by. His new EP follows on from a fine recent outing on Gerd Janson's Running Back and once again it finds him serving up six tracks of sample-rich, psychedelic house music with a loveably rase aesthetic. it; shard not to hear the sounds of Theo Parrish echoing through the mechanical house sounds of opener 'Darkwhirl' then the funk-driven 'Crimewave' cuts more loose, the gnarly 'Shapeshift' contorts body and mind and 'Polarity' is a 90s IDM-infused finale. What a trip!

Review: Rhythm Section's latest favourite, (Oliver) Gallegos, evidences his mastery over the art of what we like to call the "speech tune" - a format almost as old as time. Think Rum & Black's 'Slaves' or Underground Resistance's 'Transition'; the formula is as such; a slow-built dance beat, at least over 110BPM by our estimation, over which a rousing historical speech plays out throughout the track. Though this form lends well to a 90s rave aesthetic, Gallegos finds himself at a post-comedown period of history, indeed in which "rave" is often bittersweetly thought to be anachronistic; and in which house music often reigns supremer. So, then, does he bring a record-breaking, body-moving homily vocal sample to an incredibly arranged set of house arpeggiations and medley-style sample cut-ups, working in a sort of auditory bricolage but nonetheless bringing them together under a seriously reflective memorial dance-dome.

Review: Santiago-based Drumma label is back in full swing with its first release in a couple of years. Before the pandemic they had releases from scene heavy hitters such as Luciano, (iO) Mulen, Barac and Livio & Roby. For this one they've chosen Miami-based up-and-comer Idana who presents the immersive and multi-layered minimal techno experience of 'Cantan Los Pajaros Modulares' featuring an array of atonal blips and bleeps underpinned by clipped and hypnotic polyrhythms. Over on the flip, the mesmerising energy continues on the wonky breakbeat-driven roller 'Telepatic'.

Review: This is space music, but not as we know it. The Chapelle XIV Music universe is a world unto its own, with leftfield designs, haunting celestial atmospheres, and a dark sense of futuristic dystopia. The third part of the first volume of their compilation series is another broad and brilliant one that takes in some cosmic outlying jungle from Frenchmen Janet as well as Elli Form's minimal melodic madness and juke beats on 'Mirror' next to the reflective synths and elastic bass of RRoxymore's 'Dirty Spoon' and NSDOS's refractive world of melodic dreams, 'BACT-OS'.

Review: Earlier in the year, Transmission Towers delivered one of the debut albums of 2024, the vivid and kaleidoscopic Transmission One. Now Sheffield veteran Crooked Man (AKA DJ Parrot, formerly a member of bleep pioneers Sweet Exorcist and chart-bothering 90s eccentrics All Seeing I) has delivered his "crooked transmissions" - radically re-shaped revisions in his distinctive style. On this first 12" in a series, he first reworks 'Everything', turning it into a richly percussive mutant house workout piled high with mind-mangling electronic motifs, reverb-laden drums, punk-funk swagger and echoing vocal snippets. On 'My Shadow (Crooked Shade)', he re-imagines the track as a fuzzy, lo-fi and deliciously dubbed out breakbeat roller - all sweat-soaked drums, booming bass, dreamy pads and trippy vocalisations.

Review: Howard Dodd (Tongue, Anoesis, Oxidation, Doc Bozique) takes control on the third Anoesis release on Cosmic Soup. Supercade is one that's been long anticipated by fans of their well designed breakbeat sounds and their first since 1995's Blood & Sweat on D*Fusion. As such there is a hint of 90s post rave magic to the 11 cuts here, all with cosmic intent and deep grooves - tunes that have you lost in a reverie on the heart of the dance floor but with your gaze turned skyward. Essential stuff.

Review: Named after their infamous Brixton club night, Basement Jaxx's second album Rooty saw them continue to push the boundaries of pop and club music. The album mixes classic house with generous lashings of punk, funk, R&B, jazz, hip hop, 2-step and pop song-craft in a mad genre crash that works like a charm. It features the massive tracks 'Where's Your Head At', 'Romeo' and 'Do Your Thing'.

Review: Dark Entries welcome back the inimitable Doc Sleep aka Melissa Maristuen for a superb new album of ghostly and ethereal house and techno. This is a welcome follow-up to last year's ambient and IDM exploration, Birds, and shows another side that draws on Maristuen's years of queer clubbing. It fuses aspects of New York house, Berlin techno and West-coast breakbeats and is "a love letter to the West Coast's magnificent natural landscape, the light of the Pacific sunrise." That is reflected in the sublime synths and silky rhythms which manage to both move your body but also captivate your mind. It's another cracking album from the Doc.

Review: Daniela La Luz returns with her third album, System Reset, on her own label Dimension Of Being Human. Created after her long illness and her father's death, it parallels the planet's delicate state and the duality of joy and mortality in life. Written in Berlin and Munich, the artist connects past, present, and future as she sings in English, Polish, and Arabic. The AI-generated artwork complements her music's blend of light and darkness in a record that stylishly spans jazz, house, techno, pop, wave, electro, ambient, and dub while offering both dance-friendly tracks and beatless interludes. It's a poignant and personal work.

Review: 'Connection' feels more direct in emotion than some of The Maghreban's early works, sonically encapsulating an up-close and personal feel that reflects the personal qualities of the artist (Ayman Rostom), and his East African and Middle Eastern roots, more than anything else. I was becoming more comfortable with connection whilst making it, rather than keeping to myself.More driven by drum-machine loops, and the cinematic mysteries one can fit around it, it's also got features from rapper Nah Eeto and singer Abdullah Miniawy, painting a smokey, dark and modal-jazzy picture of (a haunted) house.