Back catalogue: Deep Dubstep

Review: Dean Blunt and Arca are back to reign in 2016 with their Babyfather alias, a moody and spectral style of theirs that digs deep into the science of low hertz. The release comes on Kode-9's mythical Hyberdub label, and it's as fitting as one would think: experimental beat structures and odd sonics blend to form a forward-thinking dance sound. "Meditation" is a stuttering, quasi 4/4 groove powered by a grizzly level of bass, and an artillery of black comedy voices spewing from all angles. It's a true UK hybrid, and it is honestly one of our favourite things to come from the label in a while; check the instrumental for a further dosage of weighty percussion. Recommended.

Review: After a decidedly silent 2013 Burial is back on Hyperdub with a new single that points to pastures new for the stealthy producer. "Rival Dealer" is sure to polarize opinion as it takes a positively unexpected route into hardcore breaks, static interference, all manner of oddball speech samples, diversions and switches in dynamics, and a willfully grainy production finish that borders on punk. Depending on where you choose to dive into the ten-minute track the experience could be very different; experiencing it in full is nothing short of a rollercoaster. "Hiders" too is full of surprises, more indebted to pop balladry than anything remotely garage related, and the emotive croon and swooning piano is only magnified by a Yazoo-esque drum stomp at the midway point. "Come Down To Us" is equally heartfelt, all slow release vocals and languid chords yet constantly fractured at the edges, with yet more surprising turns of bombast waiting in the wings over thirteen minutes.

Review: *Burial Repress* The double header of Truant/Rough Sleeper is the second EP from Burial in 2012, and arrives with as little fanfare as the superb Kindred EP did early this year. Unlike that more dancefloor focused record however, this EP harks back to the producer's earlier sound. Of course, being two longform compositions clocking in at 12 and 14 minutes respectively, they're hardly conventional works; each utilises the same liberal use of spectral atmospheres, emotive vocal samples, hollow 2-step beats and nods to jungle as we've come to expect from the producer, but with complex structures that come across more like two sides of an old mixtape recorded from a pair of decrepit turntables. Of course being a mixtape from Burial, this is special stuff indeed - consider it an early Christmas present to yourself.

Review: Repress alert! Wednesday: Hyperdub announce a new three track release from enigmatic producer Burial - his first solo work in four years. Thursday: Said records arrive on Juno doorstep. How's that for service (and secrecy)! The news came just a matter of days after the producer's collaboration with Radiohead front man Thom Yorke and Four Tet arrived on record shelves across the UK and promptly sold out amidst a frenzy of hype. There are three new tracks on offer here, namely "Street Halo", "NYC" and "Stolen Dog". First up "Street Halo" showcases the classic Burial sound; subterranean bass gurgles, trademark clicking beats and barely-there vocal snatches. A sweet childlike vocal pervades the sonic mist on "NYC" while "Stolen Dog" closes out with ethereal vocal harmonies buried deep beneath vinyl crackle. Stunning.

Review: ** REPRESS ALERT ** Given that his sound has now been referenced, copied and bastardised by countless imitators, is testament to Burial's enduring appeal that the announcement of a new EP on a Sunday in Febuary was enough to shake the online music press out of their collective stupors. As an EP it more than stands up to his previous work, and it may even be better than last year's Street Halo EP - where the brilliance of the title track left the EP quite top-heavy, there's no such complaints on Kindred. If UK garage was the touchpoint for his earlier releases, this EP sees Burial further developing a sound that has few obvious points of comparison, whether it's the savage, gnarled bassline of the title track, or the shambling house of "Loner", characterized by its hollowed out arpeggio and ambient crackle. But it's "Ashtray Wasp" that provides the most breathtaking moment, seeing the producer using the distinct musical language he's created and bringing confident melodic elements into play. Of course such descriptions seem trivial when trying to describe this EP - even for Burial it's far beyond what his peers and imitators could ever imagine making.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***


Repress alert! Wednesday: Hyperdub announce a new three track release from enigmatic producer Burial - his first solo work in four years. Thursday: Said records arrive on Juno doorstep. How's that for service (and secrecy)! The news came just a matter of days after the producer's collaboration with Radiohead front man Thom Yorke and Four Tet arrived on record shelves across the UK and promptly sold out amidst a frenzy of hype. There are three new tracks on offer here, namely "Street Halo", "NYC" and "Stolen Dog". First up "Street Halo" showcases the classic Burial sound; subterranean bass gurgles, trademark clicking beats and barely-there vocal snatches. A sweet childlike vocal pervades the sonic mist on "NYC" while "Stolen Dog" closes out with ethereal vocal harmonies buried deep beneath vinyl crackle. Stunning.

Review: While he's offered up the occasional remix, William "Burial" Bevan has been rather quiet of late. In fact, this two-tracker marks his first original material for almost two years. Lead cut "Claustro" is an unexpectedly up-tempo dancefloor affair - a sweet and sticky chunk of future-garage that sees Bevan wrap sugary female vocal snippets, spacey chords and bubbly analogue electronics around snappy two-step beats - drenched in vinyl crackle and tape hiss - and a rock solid bassline. It will raise a few eyebrows given his previous work but nevertheless sounds like a summer anthem in waiting. Bevan returns to familiar territory on flipside cut "State Forest", a ghostly, field recording-laden ambient excursion where pedal steel style motifs slowly rise above opaque electronics.

Review: Ahead of their hotly anticipated second album, LV are in rabble-rousing Kwaito mode on their new single for Hyperdub. Re-aligning with rowdy MC Okmalumkoolkat on the lead track "Sebenza", it's he who holds the song together with his assured flow while the groove splays manically around neon daubs of melody and hyperactive beats. "Get A Grip" pumps a cheeky trade in peak-time floor wrecking goodness, full of the crafty production that L.V. have made their name on, while "Zulu Compurar" cools things off for a brief stint in technological lyric references and a gentle Funky excursion. As ever the synths rule the day, buzzing and humming with an innate wonkiness that creates the very charm of this singular music.

Review: Hyperdub kick off the vinyl side to their ten-year celebrations with this weighty four-tracker from some of the leading lights from the label's story. Mala is in a strident mood with "Expected, Level 10" carrying through that extra touch of melody from the Mala In Cuba LP. DVA cuts loose with the leftfield scattershot groove of "Technical Difficulties", reveling in tonal experimentation and jagged rhythmic flair to a stunning end. Still locked into the sci-fi trap tangent that characterised Severant, Kuedo turns out the haunting "Mtzpn" and Helix pops up for a remix of Kode9's "Xingfu Lu" that strips down to bare essentials with a little starlit soul rubbed into the framework.

Review: Instalment # 2 of Hyperdub's rapid-fire assault on 2008 continues to mine the same rich bleep seam which kicked off with Kode9's remixes of 'Find My Way' and 'Skeng', rolled on through Quarta 330 and marks time right now with Ikonika. This latest release, 'Mush', bloods another pair of selectors fresh to the label; both Zomby and the on-fire Glaswegian producer Rustie. They have built up a dedicated following based on a string of off-key productions, with the ferric-oxide-like one hailed in a recent post on Dubstep Forum as "Autechre fighting Four Tet while grime and dubstep make bets in the background". Their first Hyperdub outing is headlined by Zomby's epic bleep symphony 'Mu5h' (yes, with a 5), a dramatic and melodic 8bit stepper, while the new retooling of 'Spliff Dub' - one of the scene's biggest tracks in the last 12 months - claims equal honours on the flip. Where Zomby's original followed on from the classic 1980s 'Sleng Teng' school of digital dancehall, Rustie's glitched version scuttles along with wonky denatured percussion, jiggy groove, speaker busting bass, blaring synths and a chopped-up vocal instructing you how to 'keep the evil away'.

Review: Woof! Hyperdub bring together two of the most recognisable and enigmatic artists of recent times on this 10", as Zomby and Burial square down ahead of the former's new album for the label. Zomby's Ultra LP is undoubtedly one of this year's most anticipated albums and "Sweetz" suggests it may be a very moody affair indeed. Whilst rooted in UK dance, Zomby and Burial do look elsewhere for inspiration too. Just under seven minutes long, "Sweetz" veers through various sub-heavy soundscapes with intermittent rhythmic patters and a distinctive looped vocal sample whose pitch changes with dramatic effect.

Review: Previously known for their pioneering and, at times, outstanding work as Hype Williams, Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland have decided to change tack with a suitably eclectic and unusual full-length for Hyperdub. Black Is Beautiful is an odd but endearing collection that leaps between sounds, styles and genres almost at will. Opening with a blast of fuzzy jazz-rock, its 15 tracks variously touches on skewed dream-pop, E'd-up downtempo curiosities, wrongspeed electronica, calming ambience, woozy demo-pop, skittering, smacked-out rave rhythyms, droning madness and impossible-to-define strangeness. It could just be the album of the year.

Review: Of all the artists past and present who claim to let their music do their talking for them, Burial is one of the elite band of whom this truly is the case. In fact, so reluctant is he to engage with the cult-of-personality hoopla that surrounds almost every modern producer and musician of merit, that he remains a genuine recluse; he has never appeared live, only one obliquely-angled publicity photograph is known to exist, and the number of interviews he has given can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Yet despite this, his music speaks loud and wide, and the world has been listening ever since his 'South London Boroughs' EP debut on Hyperdub in March 2005. His eponymous album, which began life as a low-key release in May 2006, is now widely regarded as the benchmark release of the ever-widening dubstep genre, picking up unanimous critical acclaim along the way, and ending the year heavily featured in many 'best of' polls. Now Burial returns with 'Untrue', a new record of weird soul music, which lovingly processes spectral female voices into vaporised R&B and smudged 2step garage. Vocal lines are blurred, smeared, pitched up pitched down and pitch bent until their content is cast adrift from their original context and they whisper their saccharin sweet nothings into the void. The album continues with the debut's crackle-drenched yearning and bustling syncopations, haunted by the ghosts of rave, but also reveals some new Burial treats with a more glowing, upbeat energy. Kicking off with the skittering 2step syncopations and vocal science of 'Archangel', 'Near Dark' and 'Ghost Hardware', before long it descends into a space of radiant divas and ambience. Where 'Burial' first was humid, suffocating and unrelentingly sad, 'Untrue' is less sunless. Many of the tracks are so sweet, they become toxic, underscored by the almost geological rumbles of growling basslines. Unlike the overpoweringly melancholic prevailing mood of before, Burial's sound is now better defined as a downcast euphoria typified by the epic, muted optimism of the album's last track 'Raver'. Forget central heating the radioactivity of this album is all that you'll need to keep you warm this winter. 'Untrue' is available as full 13 track digipack CD, including recent underground hit 'Ghost Hardware', and 9 track DJ friendly double vinyl set, from which some of the beatless pieces have been edited.

Review: This first album on Kode9's deeply-respected Hyperdub label comes from the mysterious Burial, who carves out a sound which sends the dormant slinky syncopations of UK garage, via radio interference, into a padded cell of cushioned, muffled bass, passing through clouds of Pole's dense crackle dub en route. 'Burial' - the album - explores a tangential, parallel dimension of the growing dubstep ouevre, using sounds set in a near-future South London submerged underwater. You can never tell if the crackle is the burning static off pirate radio transmissions, or the tropical downpour of the city outside, taking its loud-quiet aesthetic neither from the latest digital glitch software nor a mere nostalgia for vinyl's intrinsic physicality. In their sometimes suffocating melancholy, most of these tracks seem to yearn for drowned lovers, as haunted echoed voices breeze in and out, on roads to and from other times. The smouldering desire of 'Distant Lights' is cooled only by the percussive ice-sharp slicing of blades and jets of hot air blowing from the bass. Listen also for a fleeting appearance from Hyperdub's resident vocalist, the Spaceape, unravelling his cryptobiography. 'Burial' is a renegade signal from other frequencies, a tidal wave of seductive low-impact noise submerging all but the crispest syncopations, and is well on course to be universally welcomed as the standard-bearer for creative vision built upon the grime and dubstep blueprint.

Review: William Bevan has now been operating long enough under the Burial alias to be awarded a celebratory "best of" compilation by Hyperdub, the imprint he's been releasing on since 2005. This is no ordinary retrospective, though. It deliberately ignores the celebrated early portion of his career, with the artist choosing to focus not only on tracks made and released in the last eight years, but also those tucked away on B-sides and the darker corners of his EPs. It offers a fine snapshot of the subtle evolution of his sound, quietly creeping between the hushed field recordings and glacial synthesizer lines of "Nightmarket", the intensely up-beat breakbeat madness of "Rival Dealer", the haunting, near 14-minute melancholy of "Rough Sleeper" and the future garage rush of recent single "Claustro".

Review: Seven years have passed since Burial first stopped us dead in our tracks with this universally acclaimed second album.. Sounding so different, so removed and far away from anything else, it changed the game entirely - and created a whole school of imitators in its wake. Now repressed by Hyperdub, this is a rare opportunity to grab it on fresh wax. Even if you have this on other formats in your collection, the dusty weight and chasmic crackles sound so much better on vinyl.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Split/tear to the top of the outer sleeve, heavy creasing to the bottom right corner, records in excellent condition***


Seven years have passed since Burial first stopped us dead in our tracks with this universally acclaimed second album.. Sounding so different, so removed and far away from anything else, it changed the game entirely - and created a whole school of imitators in its wake. Now repressed by Hyperdub, this is a rare opportunity to grab it on fresh wax. Even if you have this on other formats in your collection, the dusty weight and chasmic crackles sound so much better on vinyl.

Review: Hyperdub's year of excellence continues apace with the release of Playing Me, the long awaited debut album from Cooly G. Emerging as a key figure in the UK funky scene some four years ago via some highly prized Dub Organiser CDrs, Cooly's musical progression has been charted via a series of EPs for DVA Music and Hyperdub. On this thirteen track album what is most apparent is the confidence this South London producer has in her own singing, a voice that sounds dipped in pain and anguish at times. At others Cooly utilises her vocal delivery as an integral part of the music, which draws from all manner of UK music history of recent times whilst very much sounding part of her modern house template. Oh and there's a Coldplay cover to end the LP too...

Review: Now spread across a double-pack for full appreciation of the spread of ideas that come popping out of this collection, KMS's remix album was long overdue a vinyl release. Whether it be the intense heartbreak of dBridge's take on "Without You", or the beat science of T++ ripping down "Miles And Miles", there's something here for everyone who likes leftfield electronics. Cooly G especially shines with her re-voicing of "Spin Me Around", not least when the rockabilly dread of the guitar comes in towards the end. What shines through is the tension of the original album, looming oppressively over the new versions in magnificent fashion.

Review: Nine years deep and still sounding as future as ever, Kode9 and The Spaceape's first album is historic in so many different directions... It's the first ever Hyperdub album, Kode9's sonic scope and barbed soundscapes and Spaceape's paranoid poetry and rhythmic narratives complement and tailor each other in a way no other dubstep-related producer and MC have ever sounded (before and since), the beats remain a unique, diverse, creative dynamic almost a decade later... And, sadly, the late Spaceape's stories now come laden with added portent poignancy. All proceeds from this reissue go to Stephen Samuel Gordon's family; if you haven't got this on vinyl you know what to do.

Review: The ten year celebrations from Hyperdub continue apace here with the second of four planned label compilations arriving with the stated intention of casting "some sunshine" over the label's sometimes "dread filled reputation". Arriving on just one disc this time round as opposed to two, the fourteen tracks nevertheless features productions from DVA, Morgan Zarate, Cooly G, Jessy and Burial among other Hyperdub regulars, who are joined by the vocal talents of Dam-Funk, Fatima and others. Perhaps most exciting is the inclusion of an unreleased track from the defunct partnership of Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland; fans of the latter will also be intrigued by Kode9?s "Lies Lies", which features the talents of Inga in her new solo guise, copeland.

Review: Having been slowly but surely groomed by the label since first emerging some two years ago, Walton now delivers a long-player of his slick, melodic bass music for Hyperdub, sounding right at home in the hinterland Kode9's stable inhabits. There's a degree of electro intent at work on the warm and easy-grooving "Need To Feel" that kicks the album off in earnest, but you're just as likely to get side-tracked into the glossy purple-isms of "Can't U See" with its trappist beats and dreamy undertones. Elsewhere "You & Me" captures a feverish industrial house conundrum full of oddball sampling, while "Memories" splays out its rhythm across a spacious mix of attention-deficit sonics and measured bass stabs. There's a fresh approach at every turn that keeps you on your toes throughout this bright and bold debut album.