Back catalogue: House

Review: In hindsight, the summer of 1997 saw the release of some genuinely brilliant and ground-breaking dance albums - not least Chemical Brothers' second studio set, Dig Your Own Hole. As this expanded 25th anniversary edition proves, the album was the musical high point of the often painfully shallow big beat movement - a thrill-a-minute ride that races between funk-fuelled, break-heavy hits ('Block-Rockin' Beats'), rock-tinged heaviness (the title track), fuzz-fuelled post-techno hedonism (''Electrobank'), La Funk Mob-influenced trip-hop ('Pikup'), heady ambience ('Lost in the K-Hole') and riffs on the Beatles' 'Tomorrow Never Knows' ('Setting Sun' and the incredible 'My Private Psychedelic Reel'). CD two will delight fans, featuring as it does a quintet of previously unreleased tracks and alternate versions, with the opioid pulse of 'Cylinders' and the slamming 'It Doesn't Matter (alternate mix)' standing out.

Review: For her volume in K7's legendary DJ Kicks series, Cinthie Christl has delivered a righteous, life-affirming, no-holds-barred club mix that spends much of its time (though by no means all) showcasing old school and contemporary (if self-consciously retro-futurist) garage-house and deep house jams. That means groovy basslines, bumpin' beats, infectious organ motifs, diva vocal samples and surging piano riffs aplenty. Of course, there are diversions -see the crunchy breakbeat dreaminess of Ben Hauke, the squelchy Chicago deep house of 'Emergency Tech' by Boo Williams, the micro-house of BMW and the acid-fired shimmer of Anna Wall - but it's the loved-up brilliance of the classic-sounding house cuts from the likes of Terrence Parker, Adriyano, Ruff Stuff, Amir Alexander and Niles Cooper that linger longest in the memory.y.