Back catalogue: Dubstep

Review: Dubstep longtimer Rednote presents his very first LP, also marking a first for the New Zealand label Iron Shirt. The story goes that only after a fecund period touring the Leeds underground scene, followed by a period of respite clawed out during lockdown, did Rednote catch the breath in which to hone his craft in LP form. With a title like Sanctum, we catch glimpses of the producer in a sanctified enclave, away from the deathly intrusions and bustles of the relatively Babylonian scene, all too easily seen to be a haven for musical responsibility shirking. There's something ever so ineffable or subtle about Rednote's sound, a sound that is mostly seen on display here. It persists in the drums and atmospheric tensions as a softened but no less hard-hitting mise-en-scene; the emphasis isn't on just bassweight or incitements to dance, but more on realising the otherwise unwrought possibility of crafting highly visual scenes - shady back-alleys, unscrupulous markets, nighttime wastes - out of the dubstep form.

Review: The debut full-length from Bangladeshi-Canadian producer Raf Reza fuses UK soundsystem culture with his own deep-rooted Bangladeshi influences. Raised in Tokyo and musically shaped in Toronto and Glasgow, Reza blends dub, bleep, breaks and jungle with Baul music samples and vintage Bengali film soundtracks here and it results in a brilliantly original style. The album explores sonic futurism and asks how diasporic and Dhaka-based electronic cultures can intersect. With a unique mix of field recordings, semi-obscured monologues and dubwise textures, Reza's identity-driven narrative comes to life and cements him as a bold, genre-bending voice in cultural fusion and sound.