Hyperdub Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Lee Gamble is an artist who excels in delivering post-modern music with a strong sense of sentiment and history. Just look at his breakthrough Diversions 1994-1996, in which the ambient threads in first wave jungle were blown out into grandiose chasms of sound. On this latest album, he's taking a similar approach to source material, but this time the focus is on pop earworms in which all kinds of emotive, catchy sonics get dissolved and reformed into vast, unpredictable shapes. Vitally, the emotional dimension is maintained no matter how unrecognisable the original samples are, as Gamble continues his fascinating path forwards and backwards through time.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***


Lee Gamble is an artist who excels in delivering post-modern music with a strong sense of sentiment and history. Just look at his breakthrough Diversions 1994-1996, in which the ambient threads in first wave jungle were blown out into grandiose chasms of sound. On this latest album, he's taking a similar approach to source material, but this time the focus is on pop earworms in which all kinds of emotive, catchy sonics get dissolved and reformed into vast, unpredictable shapes. Vitally, the emotional dimension is maintained no matter how unrecognisable the original samples are, as Gamble continues his fascinating path forwards and backwards through time.

Review: Darryl Bunch Jnr has been operating in the Chicago footwork scene as Heavee for some time now, most notably collaborating with the legendary DJ Rashad as well as luminaries like Zora Jones and Sinjin Hawke. Following up on the promise of his Audio Assault EP for Hyperdub a couple of years ago, Bunch Jnr comes good with an album that broadens his palette without losing focus on the rhythmically intriguing, uptempo framework of footwork. Skittering beats and staggered vocal samples abound, but there's also some soulful synth work and artful sound design which nudge this work into its own sphere, upholding footwork's instinct for innovation and deepening the Heavee creative stamp in the process.

Review: The third album by IDM's next-gen darling Loraine James is here and similarly to her last works, Gentle Confrontation is an ever-shifting, collaboratively-focused album. If the name is anything to go by, then the aim of the game is to offer a sonic blueprint for artists trying to quietly, subtly, resist the status quo, while also keeping the family close and remaining level-headed and happy. Examining her past and present, James offers with everything from transstep trances made with RiTchie and George Riley, to math-rock and emo-infleuenced tracks ('One Way Ticket...') and even self-sung ballads ('2003').

Review: Loraine James continues to trust her instincts and serve us some of the most honest and original music within the leftfield electronic sphere right now. Having recently paid tribute to the work of Julius Eastman on Build Something Beautiful For Me, now she retunes to Hyperdub with the record she claims the teenage version of her would have made. The label text makes explicit reference to the likes of DNTEL and Telefon Tel Aviv as well as math rock, but James is also way out in her own zone metabolising such influences into unique expression. There are some wonderful guest spots from the likes of RiTchie, Marina Herlop and Eden Samara, while James herself centres her voice for some of the album's most poignant moments. Gentle Confrontation is another outstanding chapter in James' ever-intriguing story.

Review: Hyperdub continues to stamp its authority down on a wide variety of electronic music, in this case throwing the light, bouncing club-ready sounds of Canada's Jessy Lanza into the mix of a back catalogue that touches on everything from ambient to dubstep and footwork. But, while we open on the snare-happy garage-house of 'Don't Leave Me Now', and tracks like 'Drive' also look to the dancefloor, things don't stay there long. 'Don't Cry On My Pillow', for example, is a low stepping piece of alternative electronic soul. 'Big Pink Rose' opts for synth refrains and staccato drums to create a steamy, heady neon r&b brew with added yacht. 'Double Time' deconstructs pop balladry and makes it sound lo-fi yet huge, 'I Hate Myself' seems to take a lead from tropicalia-hued, leftfield electronica.

Review: Jessy Lanza has always been quintessentially Hyperdub. A label helmed by garage, dubstep and bass DJ and producer, and academic music theorist Kode 9, the imprint has relentlessly pushed the kind of dance tracks that are unashamedly direct yet unarguably clever. Beats that acknowledge the delicate balance of fun and accessible with underground and intelligent. 2023's Love Hallucination, Lanza's fourth studio album, only adds to the evidence. It bubbles with pop sensibilities, sing-along worthiness and timeless infectiousness, but does so in an incredibly thoughtful, natural-yet-razor-accurate way. From two-step to slo-mo funk, r&b and steamy electro groove, it presents the kind of songwriter who makes sure chart and radio friendly doesn't always mean throwaway or one dimensional. Infinitely repayable stuff.