Back catalogue: Minimal/Tech House

Review: Detroit house hero Kyle Hall returns with his biggest project in some time in the form of Transmissions, a new double album on his own well-regarded Forget The Clock. All six tracks have enigmatic, functional titles and the music is as idiosyncratic as ever. Each one veers more towards techno than is Hall's usual style, with pulsating synth lines and tight, dusty drum tracks making for stripped-to-the-bones grooves. Later on, things grow ever more abstract with twisted acid lines screwing their way through the increasingly ragged and roughshod drums. These are perfectly imperfect jams from a master of the form.

Review: Kyle Hall and Steven Julien have been working together on and off for a whole decade now as Funkinevil. To mark the occasion they have pulled together their first two releases - namely 2012's 'Night / Dusk' and 2013's 'Ignorant' - on one new double album that very much sums up their raw house sound. The Detroit-London duo draw on plenty of their hometown's signature aesthetics, from well swung drums to soulful synths, and the results are still fresh sounding and captivatingly deep. Importantly, all these years later, there is still real emotional punch in these tunes as well as damn good grooves. Essential stuff from this vital pair.

Review: Herck is back with a seance album that has had fans on tenterhooks in anticipation. It's another masterclass in minimal and tech sounds that get weird and abstract but never at the expense of soul or groove. This double 12" comes with super artwork as well as great tunes. The first sets the tone with silky synthetic sounds and icy, stripped-back rhythms. From there the sound sources range from water droplets to filtered vocals, cosmic waves to industrial futurism. It is an utterly compelling trip for mind, body and soul.

Review: Chicago extraordinaire Jamal Moss aka Hieroglyphic Being's third solo album is titled There Is No Acid In This House, and sees him return to Soul Jazz Records. Using his idiosyncratic electronic sound, Moss takes influence from the experimental minds of fellow Windy City innovators such as The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Sun Ra, through to icons of his hometown's house music scene like Ron Hardy, Marshall Jefferson, Lil Louis and others who have defined Chicago's musical universe over the last half a century.

Review: The inimitable Jamal Moss comes forth with his second offering for Madrid's Apnea records. 'The Moon Dance' unfurls over 11 tracks- in turns pensive, elegiac, and slammin'. Between the sedate expanse of opener 'When The Earths Shadow Falls On The Moon' and the final cymbal strokes of gauche, machine funk closer 'Mawu', Moss lifts us on yet another Afrofuturist space flight of fancy, passing through superclusters of deep house, tactile techno and stroboscopic piano jams along the way.
Standout moments include the smoove-as-u-like-it intergalactic lounge jazz diversion 'The Moondance Moon Walk Version'; its steezy stride-piano vamp seamlessly intertwining with Moss' signature babbling acid intrusions, the irresistibly groovy bump of 'Tethered 2 The Divinely Spaces With In' and the hypnotic sway of 'Celestial Poems Of The Lady With 10000 Names', which opens up from Terrence Dixon-esque introspection into broad windy city string washes and synapse-tickling bleeps. With this collection, Moss pens yet another crucial chapter in the seemingly bottomless hieroglyphic being scroll. While 'The Moon Dance' is one of his most accessible and harmonious works to date, it doesn't lose an ounce of the rawness and immediacy of his previous work. Essential listening!

Review: Marc Leclair may have become best known for his Akufen work in the 00s, but his Horror Inc work is surely some of his finest. Taking the slinky micro house he pioneered and turning it to more cinematic purposes, his last album under the name was 2013's incredible Briefly Eternal on Perlon. Now he revives the project with this expansive suite for Ohm Hourani's Anoma label, which is appropriately tipped towards jazzy subtleties within machine music. With each release, Horror Inc becomes a deeper, subtler concern, and so it goes on this record where the springy, swung patterns are offset by half-hidden melodic murmurs and a generous dose of mystery as Leclair takes his conceptual project further into the realms of playfully spooky micro jazz.

Review: The 90s East Coast house scene owes a real debt to John Howard. He was a pioneer of the era who led the way with his mix of groove, soul, jazzy rhythms and fresh breaks. His best work has become the subject of a new series of reissues from Repeat who kicked off with his Scianloic 12" and now drop this hand-stamped double 12". Shessions is packed to the brim with innovative early house grooves that are up there with your favourite artists from Chicago and Detroit - or at least should be. Our pick is the shimmering late night glow of deep house delight 'Can't Need Sunlight'.