Back catalogue: Electro

Review: There is some serious electro talent on this new EP from Fanzine, starting with now US-based, UK-favourite Carl Finlow. His machines are in fine fettle once more as crisp, kicking electro rhythms are overlaid with bright, silvery, pixelated melodic fireworks on the sublime 'Organoiods'. Hoax Believers get more gritty with the sheet metal snares and in-your-face arps of 'Short Circuit' while Sound Synthesis offers something moody and unsettling on their 'Vertex43'. Univac will make your eyes water with the abrasive textures of 'H Beat.'

Review: Kulture Galerie is back with more wax and the third time proves a charm here with Doc Sleep, Rambal Cochet, The Jaffa Kid, Mesmerist, Jack Bags and Undsidedly all coming correct under the stewardship of label head Filippo MSM of Metropolitan Soul Museum. Cochet kicks off with some trance-infused prog techno, Doc Sleep offers jacked-up and analogue house, there is lithe cosmic tech from The Jaffa Kid and twisted machine sounds from Jack Bags, while Undsidedly's dreamy electro and The Mesmerist's peak time synth techno close down in style.

Review: Although they would go on to become one of New York's most iconic hip-hop crews, the Ultramagnetic MC's were fresh-faced newcomers when they first popped up on Next Plateau Records - an imprint better-known for its proto-house and post-boogie releases - in 1986 with debut single "Ego Trippin". As this first ever seven-inch edition proves, it remains a stone cold classic: a heavy, stripped-back "golden era" gem in which the group's multiple MC's aim to get the party started over an iconic beat and weighty electronic bassline. As with the original version, it comes backed by flipside "Funky Potion", a scratch-happy, similarly constructed number full to bursting with effervescent rhymes, crunchy beats and distinctive bass.

Review: Ulysses is the founder of Scatalogics Records and he first dropped this EP there back in 2003. More than two decades on it stands up to modern floors so gets a reissue courtesy of DAMN. 'Stripped Down' combines percussive house drums with free-roaming synth sequences and cosmic radiance into something bright and breezy. 'Immaterial' is a darker sound with gritty electronics and vocoder vocals for a retro-future feel. Both of these are the sort of characterful cuts to switch up the mood and groove in any set.

Review: Beyond the visible spectrum, there lies infrared and UV, after which... well, we're not quite sure, because we're not photonics engineers! But it sure sounds as though French producer Umwelt (real name Frederic Poncet) has lifted the optic veil, and can only begin to relay it to us not by using his words, but in a next-best kind of speechless semiosis: hard trance. What sounds like an entire gamut and more is spanned on this relentless tunnel-borer of an EP, whose light-trailed front cover easily matches the record's breakneck trance mobility. 'Bodyhost' is like a future motorist-rhapsodist's madness, redlining the limiter with no relent. 'Holographic Existence', meanwhile, is an incredible, drumless monsoon, and an impending modern classic for trance DJs, going heavy on the G-force SFX and tactile synthesis to produce a terrific transcendence of the speed limit, even without the kick of the drum.

Review: Staunch industrial electro from Univac, following up a strong string of releases on fellow label 30D. The Spanish producer quite clearly follows in the tradition of artists on the messier and grittier end of the classic electro spectrum, such as Mark Broom or Andy Rantzen. From 'Magnet Funk' to 'Sample This', you can expect to have your boomboxes more than rattled when whacking this one on the system. Electrified laser blasts stand in for snares on some tracks, while an exaggerated schismogenesis characterises each of the track's separate parts, forming an unstoppable whole.

Review: Everything about this new marbled vinyl 12" is unknown - the artist, the label, and even the track titles. It is the purest way to put out music and avoid the cult of personality and in-built bias that comes when hearing an artist's name or seeing the label they release on. Thankfully the music has plenty to say as it traverses myriad different club-ready styles from lithe minimal bass music to icy electro that makes the heart flutter via more slow, twisted, dubby rhythms for late night back rooms, while the crushing breakbeats of 'Track 5' also stand out for their sheer forcefulness.