Staff Picks: 26th February 2021

Review: There is a heavyweight selection of names on this first release from Norm Talley's promising new label Upstairs Asylum. Firstly, the man himself is a Motor City heavyweight who links with fellow luminary Omar S on the opener 'Muggy Detroit Heat.' It's an intense and steamy house track that bristles with raw melody. On the flip, French house icon D'Julz reworks a tune by Norm in cahoots with the one and only Moodymann. This one is all cuddly chords, romanic vocal chops and warm, rough edged house beats for those cosy basements.

Review: The always pleasingly leftfield French maverick Pepe Bradock has been busy of late. Now he returns with a third instalment of his on going Dactylonomy series and again breaks all the rules. Opener 'Major' is choppy house with knackered kciksand frazzled pads swirling round the groove. Next up is a more hunched over and heavy house kicker that is dark and filled with industrial texture. 'Finger-Snapped' is one of Bradock's most straight up house tunes for a while, and it bangs. The harmonies, garage-flecked drum work and wigged out synths all get you going, only for the closer to be a brilliantly raw stomper.

Review: Word on the street is that Alister is the next big thing to come out of the Motor City. The song writer and producer must be hotly tipped, frankly, because the one and only Omar S has taken him under his wing and recorded and mixed these two new tunes, which are tasters from his full length album to come in the spring. They bare all his hallmarks too - crunchy, dusty drums, rugged chord vamps and prickly perc. 'Starlight' is all that with an added vocal, while 'Matador Beach' is more trippy and nocturnal, with a delicate falsetto lost in pinball melodies and ricocheting hits.

Review: Plastik People bring some more garage heat to their Ltd sublabel with the outstanding double hit of DJ Deller and Heritage. Deller is in control on the A side with the rolling breakstep funk of 'Nobody Does It Better', maximising on a soulful male vocal, killer hats and a Lately bassline to die for. On the flip, Heritage is a rougher affair that breaks the beat up and goes in hard on the wobbly subs, keeping things sparse and deadly for a surefire club weapon. It's a perfect foil to the upfront soul vibes of the A side, making this an incredibly useful record to pack for two vastly different reasons.

Review: The fourth multi-artist EP from blog-turned-record label Innate takes the imprint's inherently warm and far-sighted sound into new intergalactic directions. Offering a quartet of cuts from established producers and rising stars, all inspired by dreams of cross-cosmic travel and the alluring weightlessness of deep space. 004 explores the love of stargazing electronics in much greater deapth.

The A-side is all about melodious and spacey electro with Dutch legend Aroy Dee making a rare appearance away from his acclaimed M>O>S Recordings label. "Leegte" A1 is impressively immersive, cloaking a jaunty bassline and lo-fi beats in sumptuous aural textures and glassy-eyed chords. Accompanied by Innate label regular Gilbert, "Furthest Planet" A2 is a deep roller whose lilting lead lines, shimmering electronics and tumbling acid lines are little less than life-affirming.

On side B, the sound subtly shifts towards the multi-coloured, sci-fi shimmer of techno. Newcomer Jonski, (aka Bristol electro producer Zobol) drops "Venusian Surface" B1 - a classic interstellar jam full of vivid chords, echoing synth squiggles and alluring leads that rise above a classic tech-funk bassline. Last but not least, effervescent Welshman DJ Guy (Unthank/Other World Music) slams down an energetic techno stomper in "Aphelion Orbit": boasting brilliantly breathless drum programming, illuminated by the celestial shimmer of accompanying chords. A perfect conclusion to Innate's most action-packed release to date.

Review: Pinder has been spotted making sterling moves around the UK garage resurgence alongside Peaky Beats, but now he's going it alone on the seemingly unstoppable Instinct. It's great to hear this promising producer in full flight, dropping the kind of high-definition, willfully crafty 2-step that by rights should have dancefloors popping off. With enough smarts to satisfy the headphone shufflers too, these four tracks play with classic UKG tropes in artful ways, displaying a razor sharp instinct for how to maximize impact with the right hook at the right time.

Review: This limited-edition EP gathers together some serious heat from the bulging back catalogue of veteran Brooklyn MC Jeru The Damaja, a rapper who has been busting out flows since the early '90s. The A-side is all about 1999's '99.9 Percent', a classic chunk of conscious, laidback NYC hip-hop that remains one of the mic man's greatest musical moments. Here you get both the original vocal and instrumental takes, with the latter offering a chance to bathe in the MC's own superb beat. Turn to the flip for the even more laidback and hazy 'How III' - seemingly an alternate take on a track from the same period as '99.9 Percent' - and the faintly foreboding boom-bap goodness of 2003's 'True Skillz', a lesson on rap etiquette aimed at wannabe-MCs.

Review: Uluru returns with Smile Davis on fine form as he pays tribute to the legendary and late reggae icon Toots Hibbert. Davis flips a beat using parts from Toots tunes first made in the late 60s after he was arrested for possession of weed. The original was one of the first tunes to break out of the Caribbean and make a mark on the wider world and it remains potent to this day. On this version, underground MC Blurum13 delivers some sharp lyrics that spread a message of peace and unity. On the flip is the deep dub and contemporary edge of Italian artist Skanky Puppy's 'Humble.'

Review: New name, but a very trusted source. Mr K reveals his new alias Hijinx on Jack Sparrow's Navy Cut by way of three mind-bending bass jams. 'Venom' starts the march, all grumpy and full focus on the curmudgeonly riff, before 'Tru' takes us up a few gears. Skippy and mischievously unpredictable in the drums, there's a slo-mo jungle menace running throughout before we collide head-first into the humungous finale 'Addict'. Tense and foreboding, Hijinx isn't playing around here. And neither are Navy Cut as all profits go to the Ben Raemers Foundation.