Back catalogue: Drum And Bass

Review: Rua Sound continue to lay down timeless jungle and breakbeat sorcery with this wide-armed set from Russ Brooker. Wrapping up a busy year with releases from the likes of Noroi, Prayer and San, Russ sets his deep space phasers to stun in three vivid ways; '97-99' lives up to its name with an industrial techstep you'd expect from such a title, 'Microfilm' goes for much more of a wild drumfunk vibe while 'Breathe' closes the EP on a slower, dreamier note. Full spectrum vision and textbook delivery, we suspect Russ will be back on Rua in the future.

Review: Prolific under a variety of different aliases between them, Italian artists Big Hands and Banishsh continue to push the limits on the latter's new SM000 imprint. Sitting right on the edge of a variety of genre hinterlands, there are notes of jungle, dub, techno and IDM running throughout. Big Hands' 'SWGGN' vibes with the most upbeat feeling and flow while Banishsh's 'OP' version hits with much more of a dancehall bounce and sense of bass tension and the '55' deconstructs and dubs things out even more. Stark behaviours.

Review: DanJet proclaims itself to be the first Russian drum & bass label, which might be up for debate, but at the very least it would have been one of the first when it first operated in 1997. Spearheaded by DJ Dan, the label drops its fourth vinyl and chooses to, erm, pay tribute to The Prodigy on the A-side via Dan and Dima Pulsar's 'Hyperspeed'. There are more than a few elements from Experience twisted into modern d&b forms on this track, no doubt sure to please older heads and younger generations of ravers alike. Barbitura's 'One In The Jungle' on the B-side is an all-out tear-out driven by sirens, dark side bass and blistering breaks.

Review: The second release from Fushara & Ben Kei's Constellations imprint brings more of the very same hard-hitting beats-and-basses; we've got blissed out, edgy sci-fi-vibed synths and huge spacious atmospheres, all of which were first heard on the first released. A delightful follow-up, these track are primed for headphone listening first and foremost, despite their (in our opinion) just-as-good club-readiness. First up, 'Nightmare On Wax' delivers a string of eerie cosmic horrors - dormant xenomorphic sonic eggs on a silver platter - by way of endlessly tricky breaks variations and soulful sampled wails into the silent void that is space itself. The creep factor continues into the B, with 'Paranoid Park', taking its namesake from the bleak emo film and bringing with it an intense combination of psychotic mutterings and gourd-string tremblings; Ben Kei's contributions, meanwhile, are weightier and sparser, dare we say harder-hitting; 'Aperture' comes as the "tribal" highlight, channelling a huge sense of weight in its bass stabs and well-rounded break.

Review: Good 2 Go bite down hard into 2024 with a brand new series entitled Steel Circuit Chronicles. A concept that sounds as good as its title suggests, we kick off with this exceptional deep jungle triple-header. The legendary Blame takes the lead with the percussive slab of drama that is 'Robot Revolution', a cut that packs some serious layered drum welly. He's backed up all the way by two more impressive individuals; G2G bossman Lee Croucher dons his Sync Dynamix alias for the atmospheric dream 'Don't Give Up' while mid 90s Ram artist Flatliner ends his own hazy, cosmic twist to conclude the EP. Timeless and stunning.

Review: ScruScru is a name you might well recognise but it is fair to say you might not recognise his work on this first release from Talkbox. He shows a very different side off the back of plenty of top edits that bottle up plenty of disco and Bossanova vibes. Here he has teamed up with Russia's dubplate don BR Selecta for an EP full of energy and joy. 'YEAH YEAH' is happy-go-lucky garage with pitched-up vocals and lively drum, 'Get My Gruv' is a kinetic two-stepper and 'Cyberrave' is just that with its all-out synth madness and flurries of breaks, then 'Serious Talking' closes out on a darker jungle tip. A varied and vital 12' for sure.

Review: Super-techy three-track jungle business from Sub Code Records, welcoming producers Lavery and Bow Street Runner for an "extremely limited" 12" pressing. Lying somewhere on the interstice of ragga and technical jungle - with a few soul and breakdance samples thrown in - we start off with the ruff sampleage of Lavery's 'Dead Soundboy', which happily chops and changes between pleasingly stereo'ed breaks and halfstep toasted breakdowns. The bread doesn't come out burnt, with Bow Street Runner's 'Butterfly Bass' grilling things just right, with its militant dancehall acapellas and no-holds-barred laserblasts leaving us hardly prepared for the track's sudden soul interjection. The collaborative closer 'My Yout' is by far the wickedest sound, with an untreated flute trill and entrancing break chop bottling a dubious mood; the listener is squarely placed in the narrative position of the yute in question, whom we gather is in the midst of being ordered to pass the rudeboy...

Review: 26 years ago Blame embraced the dark forces of the Sith (a good five years before the Revenge movie) - and it finally got a release in 2021. Now comes the VIP. Even more score-like and dramatic with its energy and intention, this will have you unleashing force destruction before you can even whip out your sabre. 'Lost Science' is another unreleased gem from the same late 90s era. Big jazzy drums, caverns of space and a sense of cosmic jazz that's hard to find in contemporary breakbeat music. The dark force is strong on this one.

Review: Just as they were likely originally intended, two of Calibre's said-to-be most coveted productions come remastered fresh from the vaults, and reissued on black vinyl via the sonic conservationists over at Signature. First comes the 2001 remix of Badmarsh & Shri's 'Signs', to which Calibre lends an extra rolling signification, its no-nonsense industrial break and tensing, two-note pads doing most of the legwork here. Then there's the original 'Soul 80', a unique fusion of dub-delayed chipmunky vox splices, modular synth piques, and a massive, untechy breakbeat.

Review: A neat complement to their ever-steady white label production - they're often found plugging up the perennially insatiable hole that is the popular demand for new jungle - Okbron Records flaunt their expressive side here, welcoming producer Bungle for a terse eight-track album revolving around drum & bass' latter-day sonic post-structures. The new album Long Distance indulges the esser-cited leitmotifs of the drum & bass arch-genre, such as halftime; Bungle flaunts the ability to tease out familiar emotions in the listener, without, however, succumbing to its same formalistic constraints (no, the snare does not always have to be on the second and fourth beats). Clean, plummy, hypnotic and verging on bursting, the likes of 'Unfold', 'Long Distance' and 'Caught Leaving' impress with their verging between light-footedness and controlled bassweight, as if to suggest this producer is constantly striving towards a perfection of the sound.

Review: Kniteforce is back with a third no-frills hardcore outing and this one casts it all the way back to 1993, when Bay B Kane dropped this Forwards In Reverse album on Whitehouse Records. It has been fully remastered and officially licensed for this reissue which is sure to win it a whole new raft of fans. There is a real lust for this sort of authentic old-school energy right now - barreling breakbeats, raved-up synths and brain-frying pads that cause utter carnage on the dance floor. Even all these years later it still sounds as good as anything in its genre.

Review: Bong-Ra's Bikini Bandits Kill! Kill! Kill! commemorates two decades of groundbreaking electronic music with this special 20th Anniversary Edition. Originally released in 2003, this reissue showcases the Dutch producer's mastery of breakcore, jungle and hardcore techno. With its relentless energy and intricate rhythms, tracks like 'Miss Strap-On USA' and 'Blood & Fire' deliver sonic assaults that defy convention. The album's fusion of aggressive beats and cinematic samples creates a dystopian soundscape that is both exhilarating and unsettling. Bong-Ra's visionary approach to sound manipulation shines through each cut and means this anniversary edition a must-have for fans of experimental sounds.