Juno Recommends Drum & Bass May 2018

Review: Following last year's exemplary album from the Manchester-based soul man Zed Bias, Exit unleash the first batch of remixes, and they come from two of the best in the game. Calibre flips "Give Up The Ghost" with rolling subtleties and a warm, alluring drive that only he can do. Skeptical takes care of the B-side with a similarly on-point twist on "Pick Up The Pieces" where a menu of alien tones and textures lurk and linger in the cavernous spaces. Both deliver.

Review: As the sun still sets on their evergreen third album How We Live Spectrasoul deliver a series of killer remixes and versions to celebrate. First up is this golden twist from Calibre. Immaculately redressed to highlight the delicate emotion and beauty of the original, it's yet another heart-stopping work of art from the singular Signature bossman. Spectrasoul themselves take care of "Say What" themselves by twisting up the swaggering halftimer into a beautiful rolling moonlit 170 jam while "Remember Me" closes the wax with its spacious plucks and barbed vocal. You won't forget this in a hurry.

Review: Heaviness klaxon: Digital is unleashing his fifth album right now and it's one of his best bodies of work in his 22 year production history. The tone is set by the currently unavoidable "Motherland". Smashed by the likes of Storm for well over a year now, its vocal charm and beat weight are so well balanced you'll never want the track to finish. Elsewhere Seba applies his own stripped back charm on the mystic "Silver Lining" while Villem taps in for an Aztec odyssey. Ridiculously on-point. And there's more to come.

Review: Dub One does drums properly. But if you're checking a Foundation X release, you'll already know this. Serious bleeding edge rhythmic magic, chopped, varied and fluid in their flow; both cuts contain some of his finest sculpts to date. "Brothers Unite" washes with graceful, restrained chords that give a huge amount of space for the breaks to really shine while "What Goes Around" adds a little dubwise pressure with dreamy washes and sci-fi edits. Pure drumfunk bliss.

Review: Since 2003, the Intrigue crew has been providing Bristol clubbers with regular doses of liquid funk and musically expansive drum and bass, first at their regular parties and, since 2008, on their offshoot label. Predictably, there's much to enjoy on this celebratory 12". Old pal Break steps up first with a veritable warm summer breeze of a roller, "Mind's Eye" - all punchy, snare-heavy beats, acoustic guitars, rumbling bass and dreamy freestyle vocals - before Superior Selectionz and Ben Soundscape join forces for the slightly more weighty but no less attractive "Justa". Over on side B, Soundscape returns to action alongside Ryogreen and Protone on the wobble bass-propelled stepper "Ruffneck", while Lurch - a lesser-known stalwart of the Bristol scene - delivers some delicious, Afro-tinged liquid funk alongside Joakuim. Rock solid.

Review: It's been seven months now since the death of Rob Dickeson AKA Apex stunned the drum and bass community. "Echoes" is the last known track that Dickeson completed and is being released by Hospital Records in order to raise funds for Help Musicians UK's Music Minds Matter campaign. It's rather good, too, with poignant pianos, stirring strings and melancholic chords floating over a snappy, liquid funk beat. It's accompanied on the flipside by a fantastic, floor-friendly "Super VIP" mix of "Yearning", a soaring 2006 cut Dickeson produced alongside Jim Gash as Unknown Error. Top tracks and a worthy cause: this should be an essential purchase for D&B heads everywhere.

Review: The mighty Digital delivers the second vinyl instalment of his Total Control album and it's a devilish dark affair. The moment those drums on "Total Control" hit you with hardcore mischief, you know what type of mood Digital is in right here. No prisoners taken! Dig deeper for the crystaline rave ripples "To Meeeeeee" with long time compadres Spirit and Q Project before "So Fine" closes the show with crafty rolling breaks and dubwise dynamics. Digital is in a good place right here.

Review: German jungle subversion: Martin Heinze delivers his debut album Kerner and it's every bit as beguiling, unique and forward-thinking as his back catalogue on the likes of Med School, Commercial Suicide and Warm Comms foretold. Back on Hidden Hawaii for the first time in years, Kerner is his most explorative and wide-ranging piece of work to date: the minimal techno ricochet of "Kickoff", the industrial whirlwind breaks of "Krine", the ever-distorting elastic bassline venom of "Gryphe", the echo chamber cosmosis and reverse-warping of "Human Error", the playful steps and trippy dribbles of "Shades", the suspense and release of the tribal pounder "Impending" and the cathedral-like chimes and reverbs of the far-out finale "Maxicle"... Seven examples of genuine 170 innovation.

Review: Prolific producer SATL made his first appearance on Integral Recordings late last year, joining forces with fellow Fokuz Recordings regular Malaky for a fine collaborative EP. Here he goes solo, showcasing four of his own productions over two sides of wax. There's plenty to enjoy throughout, from the yearning, bluesy vocals, snappy breakbeats and poignant pianos of "Everything Anything", to the hot-stepping, deep D&B dreaminess of EP closer "The Void". Also worth checking is the lucid, kaleidoscopic flutter of "Dreamworld", where drifting vocal samples and sumptuous chords smother a crunchy, jungle-influenced rhythm track.

Review: If you're after bowel-bothering, pant-wetting junglist darkness, DJ Monita's Skeleton Recordings label is always a good place to look. Certainly, there's plenty of moody, full-throttle fun to be found on this double-header. Jem One handles the A-side, serving up the creepy horror-jungle bustle of "Footsteps" - all razor-sharp old school breaks, dystopian vocal samples and macabre aural textures - before opting for a more hot-stepping feel on the equally as intense "Frequency". Australian jungle revivalist Vince Rollin gets busy on the B-side, peppering a wild rhythm track with end-of-days noises and mind-altering sub bass on "Prometheus", before joining the dots between original jungle and neurofunk on punishing EP closer "Symbiosis".

Review: Man of many aliases Kenny Pitman (AKA Kid Lib and Dub & Wheel) impressed us when he first donned the Peter Darker pseudonym late last year for a fine outing on 7th Storey Projects. Happily, the Sheffield jungle revivalist is in equally fine form on this fantastic follow-up. He kicks things off via the intricately-edited madness of "Soul Caliber", where 8-bit video game noises surge above Amen Andrews style, heavily chopped-up jungle breaks, before reaching for the sub-bass on the more rolling, hardcore-era "jungle techno" flex of "Destiny (Peter's Choice)". The fun continues on the flipside, where both "Nights R Darker" and "Peter's Pals R-Ace" offer pulsating, energy-packed romps through Pitman's brilliantly observed, retro-jungle universe.

Review: Bizzy B's Junglist returns with a fresh wax outing from Toronto's Vinyl Fixx and the title says it all; "Weapons Grade". It lives up to its moniker, too; a savage splash of brutal choppage it's laden with a range of references and samples that you're likely to recognise... And consequently kick right off to. "Good Body Gal" continues the theme of new-old with a familiar bassline and some warm-as-toast dancehall bars while "Saints & Sinners" pummels us into the ground with some venomous tech funk the freshness of which we haven't experienced since at least 1999. Throw in a killer remix from ADSR and you've got yourself an absolute stinker of a session. Feed your jungle fixx today!

Review: Since establishing the series back in 2016, Tim Reaper and Dwarde have made sure that each Globex Corp 12" comes packed to the rafters with ethereal and atmospheric drum and bass. Predictably, you'll find more of the same on the series first outing of 2018. Reaper is naturally in the thick of the action, first joining forces with Worldwide Epidemic for the spacey and bass-heavy, jungle-goes-techno stomp of "Track 1", before working alongside Dwarde and Gand on the dreamy deep jungle of "Track 2". Turn to the flipside for Reaper and Dwarde's bouncy, breakbeat techno workout "Track 3", where deep space chords float above a decidedly hectic rhythm track, and the sub-heavy jungle jazziness of Dwarde and Gand's "Track 4", which makes great use of some cheeky MC Hammer samples.

Review: Currently in a state of creative flux, ducking and diving between the realms of halftime and heavy D&B hurtage, 170 workouts and 140 monsters, Reso is back in the hot seat after several years focussing on scoring for games. This second instalment of his RX0 series is a great example of him in all-out balls-out mode: "Avenoir" is a bone rattling drumfunk beast, "Chibaku Test" is a white knuckle grizzle fest charged by pure break grit. Essential for all: No one does D&B like Reso.