Opia Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Longhair steps up to the London label Opia with four more fresh cuts of future-facing electro. Up first is the zippy brilliance of '7up' with its fizzing lines and splashy hi-hats. 'Lunchbox' is another cracker with burrowing synth lines and lots of percussive energy that adds to the bumping bass. 'Salty Context' gets busy with a more trippy synth style that takes you to the stars over corrugated beats and 'Surf & Turf' closes out with a mix of all of the above plus some loon bird class, shiny bells and organic drum sounds.

Review: Having made his Opia bow in 2018 on the label's second release - where he shared vinyl space with Steve Marie - it has taken Luis Malon a fair old while to return to the London-based imprint's loving embrace. The good news, though, is that he's delivered a genuinely memorable, melodically bold and pleasingly imaginative collection of cuts. Compare and contrast, for example, the spacey, percussive and far-sighted tech-house bounce of opener 'Des Antenna', and the cut that follows, the bleep-and-bass-meets-intergalactic-deep-house loveliness of 'Nines'. Over on the flip, he does a bit of sci-fi soundtrack daydreaming on the cheery melodies-meets-dark bass excellence of 'Travelling Across', before wrapping fizzing, mind-mangling electronics and twisted acid lines around a crunchy breakbeat on 'Fly Or Die'. Impressive!

Review: North London musician Sam Beste is the creative force behind Vernon Spring, a long, carefully fangled project intersecting jazz, soul, ambient and experimental music. Pulling on a string of recording artistic greatness, part-inherited from his dad's record collection which packed Thelonious Monk and D'Angelo, Beste soon found himself in the world of the studio, working with the likes of Amy Winehouse, Kano, Gabriels and Joy Crookes. The Vernon Spring is his own claim to individuation, and the new LP follows twelve elegant songs, considering values of family loyalty and global responsibility in uncertain times, as they clash and harmonise in unpredictable step. Piano, electro-acoustics, spoken word and tactile ambient careens underlie the record, and features from Max Porter, Aden and Iko Niche help curate an equipoised, grounded mental mood.