New releases last eight weeks: UK Garage

Review: The fledgling Jackpot Recordings label is back with a second serving up club-ready goodness with Club of Jacks at the helm. There is a healthy dose of classic elements to these tunes - 90s vocals, deepness, soul - not least the opener 'Always' with its diva wails and balmy pads draped over nice silky drums with a majestic piano breakdown. 'Gorgon Dub' is a fat bottom house cut with mid-tempo drums and rigid percussion atop a dark bassline throb. 'Think Of You' is a warm and breezy one with loved-up pads and r&b vocal chops and 'Soundboy' gets more naughty with some garage-inspired drums and bass primed to pump the party.

Review: Rhythm N Vibe label head Marc Cotterell strides into 2025 with a killer new three-track EP featuring plenty of his signature garage and house crossover jams. 'Annihilate The Rhythm' gets things underway with some rave-ready sirens and tightly programmed beats and bubbly bass. UK talent JACKARD steps up to remix and does so with razor-sharp hi-hats and low-slung kicks that bring the sleaze. 'Floor Dance' then brings the funk with some playful chord sequences and swirling pads and fFeed Your Soul' shuts down with aching vocal hooks and old school piano energy over some fresh US house drums.

Review: REPRESS ALERT!: For the latest release on his consistently impressive Mate Records imprint, Madrid stalwart Rafa Santos has turned to Parisian twosome Groove Boys Project. Their take on house tends towards the nostalgic and musically expansive, and the four tracks assembled here fit that description. They begin by joining the dots between Kerri Chandler style garage-house and dreamier European deep house on 'Keep On Dreamin' (Club Mix)', before expertly fusing elements of new age house, Italo-house and solo-laden US deep house on 'Sunrise (Underwater Mix)'. Over on the flip, 'The Jazz Palace (Long Ride Mix)' is a vibraphone-solo laden chunk of rolling deep house warmth and Rawai hook-up 'Djoon Trax (937 Classsic Mix)' sees the duo add delicious jazz guitar solos to a sun-soaked deep house groove rich in rubbery synth-bass.

Review: Keefy G has been lighting up the dancefloors of his native West Yorkshire and beyond for some time now. His sets are as slick as his hair and here he branches out with some fresh slabs of wax on the mighty Dungeon Meat's new Slabs label. It's a hook-up that makes sense given that he grew up listening to sets by label founders Tristan and Brawther and his own take on their template is compelling indeed. 'Like Dis' is rock solid deep house with crisp drums and slamming bass. 'Wildstyle' lays down another heavy house groove with glitchy perc and well-treated vocals that add plenty of sleaze.

Review: Crosstown Rebels compere Damian Lazarus teams up with fellow musician and singer-songwriter Jem Cooke, with new track 'Searchin'': a primeval precognition of the big bad boss man's upcoming fifth album on the label, Magickal. Though it's been released digitally with a focus on Bullet Tooth's remix on the B-side, this blue-innered vinyl edition compiles all three of the track's versions, also clocking a sure-to-be much-spun Radio Slave remix on the B. The original is an FM-led brooder with posterities of bleep techno and darkside fidget house. Cooke's vocals belt searchingly against burbling synthwork, while Bullet Tooth's remix takes a tempting dark garage turn, risking briar-shod paths of bass as Cooke's refrain is made gothic. Slave's version is, as ever, hardly slavish, preferring a more tensile daytime vibe of subtle piano and muted vox.

Review: "Underground dance music" got its name for a reason: the black market is where the good stuff is! The ninth release on the underground-allusive, daytime-elusive Undergroove label moot a congregation of sound spivs, turntablist tricksters, deep house dealers, and many other scraggly clientele, for a fresh and unregulated yield of homegrown Lyon talent. Said to have channelled electro house and garage house going in, lord knows what has come out the other side, but we can aver its dankness: Lazer Man and and Funktroid nod to twin moods of desperation and forbearance commonly seen in criminal underworlds, with the stoic grind of the street represented in unfazed, steely electro beats. Real fiends only let loose on the B-side, where Local DJ's 'Dreams Of Radio' and Aladdin's 'The Ali-ens' quell any residual fears through glitchy purples and ghostly tech backings.

Review: The Plastik People label kicks off its new year with a trio of top garage jams from Romeo Louisa. 'Challenges' is a perfect feel-good sound with silky smooth chords and nice dusty drums and hi-hats all topped off with a classic vocal packed with emotion. The irresistibly catchy vibes continue with 'Lost Bottle' which is another timeless US house sound of the sort the Dope Jams crew became so well associated with. Last but not least is 'Keep Me Deep', another perfect blend of US garage and house with horns, deep kicks and lush chords.

Review: It feels like most every week Burnski starts a new label that is immediately as good as all his others, and here is this week's case in point: Reliance is a new outlet from the super producer and it kicks off with ODF who you may know from a brilliant remix of Special Request. 'Yeah (Uh!)' opens with bubbly basslines and neon melodies and is a timeless garage bumper. '2 Turn' then brings the funk with tight bass and lovely silky drums, 'Rattlesnake' is more dark and menacing thanks to the trippy samples and low end and 'Back To 98' is a stateful shot of garage nostalgia direct to the veins.