Beats News

WAREHOUSE FIND

Nick The Record & Dan Tyler return with the fifth mission...

Hardly surprising these celebrated EPs are consistent best-sellers and enduring staples in any expertly packed crate.
Always built for the floor, and assembled from the finest secret ingredients, not to mention thoroughly road-tested - Record Mission drops another essential EP !

Sprung Disco bass work, dubbed out arrangements, tough rhythm sections and more funk than George Clinton's sparkly tour socks.

Enjoy! .

'Break The House' is a brand new label from the crew who brought us the highly successful 'Rave 2 The Grave' series. This time, fusing rare & classic influential house hooks with a modern & highly original breaks house vibe.

We don't skip cat numbers around here. It was predestined that ENiGMA Dubz would appear on the DUPLOC050 milestone release. The Birmingham based dubstep don has been working with us since literally the first day of the YouTube channel. Almost 10 years later ENiGMA Dubz is a well established artist and is regularly featured on his home labels DUPLOC, Deep Dark & Dangerous as well as his very own imprint Morii Records.

Where "40 Fathoms" and "Silverback" are sound system shellers, "Earth Giants" runs on a heavier vibe while the digital bonus track "Too Close To The Sun" is a melodious masterpiece. All by all his DUPLOC050 shows how strongly versatile ENiGMA Dubz' sound is.

After debuting their label with the return of Headhunter, the TRUSIK team returns with their second vinyl release from the ever-illusive Ruffcut faculty member Tremble. Tremble has quietly made his presence known with reggae influenced tunes that are simultaneously roughly hewn, yet meticulous detailed in sound design. For TRSK002, Tremble gives us Too Much Terror', which with all the daily attacks on civilians across the nations of the world, seems prescient. What starts out as sound system inspired roller slowly morphs into a technoid fusion of dread sub weight and dub techno chord flourishes. On the flipside, Tremble simmers the tempo down to the 130ish range with Bwoy'. Dancehall indebted sub detonations output cut vicious shapes while filtered Rasta portents gradually build into a technoid climax. Two killer sides for the concerning DJs! For TRSK002, TRUSIK has incorporated artist Ben Ladieu's immaculate pen and ink drawing into the overall aesthetic of the release. Ladieu's work is often dense, multi-layered and full of little hidden details that draw comparisons to 80's DIY punk flyers and Zeke Clough's contributions to seminal dubstep label Skull Disco and Woe to the Septic Heart.

We Welcome smooth criminals ADMNTi and T. Jacques back to the Dansu Discs family with their split ‘Platform Alteration’ EP. Both sides providing heavy basslines with added groove. If you’re not already ready to return to the dance-floor, then this one will give you that much needed assist.

We have really enjoyed the launch of our Dirtybird White Label series. So far this year we have been able to release some outstanding records across a wide range of genres.

Up next, the eclectic sounds of the series continues with an extremely talented LA producer, Danny Goliger. Our friend Justin Jay who also helped kick off the entire white label series, turned us on to Danny's music.

Danny weaves a tapestry of sound, vibes and emotion across four pieces of unique, left-field electronica. We love it.

REPRESS!

London’s very own; Lavonz, Perception, Ollie Rant and Ell Murphy link up for an extra special project. Their ‘Beat City’ collaboration delivers everything you need and more for your 2021 ‘Summer of Love’.

First up on the A side, 2 vocal UKG slammers, featuring stunning vocals from Ell Murphy, before the flip takes you into the slightly darker side. Classic 2-step for those peak time dancefloor moments…

Von D & Rico O.B.F team up to deliver a masterclass in dub.

An Avrin returns to Scuffed Recordings with four new originals and a remix from Sonia Calico.

An Avrin has been a firm favourite of the UK label since his 2019 appearance on the Scuffed Presents Vol.3 compilation with the track ‘Cave People’, which saw heavy rotation from DJs like Ross From Friends and rRoxymore. Returning to Scuffed the following year with the ‘Clodhopper’ EP, the London-based producer further developed his wobbly, esoteric sound, which draws extensively from a range of electronic influences.

Since then, An Avrin’s catalogue has become a go-to for under-the-radar club heat, with a string of self-released EPs and an appearance on Bristol’s Slippery Sounds marking him out as a vital name to watch.

The ‘Parisian Pitstop’ EP is his second release on Scuffed, and sees An Avrin building on his previous work while also expanding his horizons into different tempos and styles.

The A-side opens with the one-two of the title track - which is as good a primer on An Avrin’s sound as it’s possible to have - and ‘Stumbler’, both high-impact tracks with raucous breaks bouncing off warped vocals and relentless bass.

On the B-side is ‘Plata’, which builds tension with more melodic elements, before crashing into thunderous kicks and glitchy grooves. An Avrin ups the ante on ‘Is It?’, the last of the four originals on the EP, and the highest tempo of the bunch.

Taiwan-based producer Sonia Calico rounds off the release with her remix of ‘Plata’, a rowdy rework that pits grimey bass up against intense, rolling percussion.

Early DJ support has come from Surgeon, Emerald, Naina, Ciel, and Louise Chen.

General Ludd sculpt bizarre auditory mazes built within the fracturing constraints of western dance musics. These tremors ripple from the dear green place of Glasgow, Scotland; beguiling a physical cathartic experience for the dancer disillusioned with the horror and folly of our times.

No stranger to making sick beats in their own right, Lampa and Senncoria have teamed up to deliver 5 slices of absolute sublime music for Deep, Dark & Dangerous.

We simply had to give this release the vinyl treatment! The EP traverses the landscape of sound design from middle eastern inspired melodics, crunchy gnarly basses, triplet rollers to chill vibes, it's a diverse yet cohesive release full of high notes.

Put together during the first lockdown of 2020, this record explores the eerie and the dreamlike - a moment in time when reality felt like fiction; a figurative void in real life.

Translating as ‘from afar’ or ‘from a distance’, ‘Comme de Loin’ is derived from Clara de Asís’ recording; exploring the ambiguity between ‘the concrete space and the imaginary space’. This collection of music unites a diverse range of artists interconnected through an aesthetic quality, a freedom in exploring the void.

It’s 4am and I’m standing on some grass. There’s a small stone at my feet - a perfect circle on all sides - so I pick it up and walk over to the canal. He steps out from the bushes and I throw the stone into the air with as much height and backspin as I can. His shiny eyeballs roll up to watch it spinning in the black. It slows, stops, then falls to earth. When the stone hits the water there is no splash, just a short, dull thud. He doesn’t reply and skulks back into the bushes on his toes. - Jacob Dwyer

Mastered by Marco Pellegrino @ Analog Cut

First run of 200

Soul Mass Transit System returns to Time Is Now with the weighty ‘Blocked’ EP featuring a collaboration with legendary vocalist Killa P.

Mysterious producer Soul Mass Transit System has been pumping out some serious twelves this year, with killer cuts on labels such as Warehouse Rave, Time Is Now & Rhythm & Vibe. His latest outing ‘Blocked’ EP is the rising producers weightiest work to date, lead track ‘Blocked’ featuring legendary ex Roll Deep member Killa P does some serious damage, backed with three rolling UKG cuts of groovers and movers, best played loud.

From the deep depths of Noord Brabant (NL), high school friends and long term collaborators Klont and Whistle aka Wessel and Luuk join forces once again. Growing up a mere few towns away from each other and even appearing in the same punk band albeit at different times, the meeting of minds occurred over their shared persuasion for absurdist humour and a fairly unconventional music taste.

They knew they had something special in their pursuit of gnarly breaks, textures and all things on the curveball spectrum, as Klont the ultra music nerd approached with a desire to sculpt sound whilst the breaks disrupter and club-goer-outer Whistle brought his all-around disruptive energy to the table. Separated by the pandemic they practiced their musical efforts away from each other with lots of late night video call jam sessions fiddling with ableton to produce a certified booty shaking masterpiece for ANUS Records.

Amatori’s second various release, a dark/dub 12” EP on heart murmurs, emotional changes, and turbulence.

Heart sounds are noises generated as a Lub and a Dub that occur in sequence. Emotions can interfere with the force and rhythm of the heartbeat and murmurs can be a normal condition or a symptom of abnormality. The album goes through different emotional states of the 4 authors living in unprecedented times.

The music by Yan Kruau & Michele Ottini was first released in 2017 on 60 tapes only. Subject To Restrictions Discs makes them available on vinyl for the first time. Very raw, somewhere between darkwave and electro with soundtrack elements, the 6 tracks on “L’ultimo Di Noi” explore a yet not so common musical world. This release is limited to 200 copies.

A new label from the team behind the "contemporary jungle" imprint Repertoire. Rave styles from the UK garage, hardcore and techno continuum.

Long running Techno label Don’t kicks off their 22nd year with a really big one!

Serbian Techno artist LAG has always had a very distinctive style and here he makes his Don’t debut with a 4 track EP that builds impressively on that existing sound resulting in an inspired whirlwind of colour!
Sounds like: Explosive 2-Step Techno with dub flourishes topped by a wicked energy.

These tracks have been tearing up discerning dance floors in the hands of LAG and label owner Jerome Hill, with ‘Znoj’ also being featured on OBJEKT’s much lauded 2020 Essential Mix. So, with testing completed it's time for a deserved release on Vinyl and Digital with full artwork sleeve by Atact.uk!

The next ten-inch cut of the Time Is Now series comes courtesy of Nicky Soft Touch. These four tracks are a taste of things to come, handpicked from an as-yet-unannounced double LP the
Bristol native has had in the works since 2019.

Nicky Soft Touch's recent outings include two dusty hip-hop dubplates on London's Ghost Notes Worldwide; for Lonely City Sampler he explores a more British sound. Using a tape deck and a pile of old jungle tapes, cut-up snippets were crafted into an audio collage balancing ambience with rave style crescendos. Driving dubwise bass dominates 'Lost In A Sea Of Rolling Eyes'
while disrupted breakbeats meet stuttering chords in 'Lonely City Cut 4'. The closing track's
garage-inflected UK techno beat is haunted by spaced out diva vocals, a melancholic mover for
city nights.

Lonely City Sampler drops December 10th via Time Is Now.

Second album from Nori, Tunisian producer influenced by north-african trance rituals and bass music. Expect something between The Maghreban, Guedra Guedra, Khalab, infused with UK-esque bass music.


This second album IRUN acts as a sequel to the first, creating an amalgam of then and now by combining archival field recordings from diverse African folkloric traditions with electronic beats. Contrary to DRUP, where Nuri prefered short song forms studded with abrupt contrasting changes, IRUN has longer tracks that allow the polyrhythmic grooves to expand and morph, echoing the techniques of trance music from North Africa.

With this new album, Nuri brings the listener into a cloud of layered sonic details that build a multisensory experience. Reworkings of West African songs and South African children’s songs add a joyful note to this playful exploration. 6 of the 8 songs are titled after a color in the Tunisian dialect, tinging the audience’s imagination with nuances as they listen.

Nuri is the artist name of Mohamed Amine Ennouri, a producer and percussionist from Tunisia that is now based in Copenhagen. Since the release of his first solo album DRUP in 2017, Nuri has grabbed the attention of audience and industry with his unique approach to electronica, an afro-futurism inspired sound spiked with live percussion. On stage, Nuri appears masked like a shaman conducting a ritual to take you on a journey through your own senses.

Nuri began his career as a kit drummer in Tunis, playing in bands of many different styles. From grunge rock to Tunisian wedding music to avant jazz, he was exploring and expanding his musical vocabulary. Ennouri became fascinated by cinema and decided to take an education in film sound production and animation. Working with a visual medium led him to join Atelier D, a dynamic multi disciplinary studio at the heart of Tunis’ underground subversive art scene led by sculpture Abdelaziz Ben Gaid Hassine. With this collective Ennouri worked on many performances that combined film, improvised music, and dance. In 2010 he was invited to the island of Bornholm in Denmark to produce a play co-written with butoh dancer Ainara Lopez. This was a seminal experience for Ennouri, where he connected deeply with both the artist community living there and the open Nordic landscape.

In 2013 Nuri moved to Lyon, France to collaborate with musicians living there. It was during this stay that he first met the Shouka collective and immediately connected with their vision of combining contemporary electronic sounds with archival recordings of disappearing musical traditions of North Africa and the Middle East.

However Bornholm continued to call to him, so in 2014 Nuri moved to Denmark. It was there, while isolated on a remote farmhouse on Bornholm, that the project Nuri was born. Inspired by this environment of expansive sky and sea and the extremes between the almost endless summer light to the long dark winters, Ennouri wrote his first album DRUP. In 2016 Shouka added DRUP to its catalog, pressing 600 vinyls. The same year Nuri gave his first live performance in Copenhagen, opening for Clap! Clap!

Since that time Nuri has been touring regularly throughout Europe, was given the Danish OOaward for artistic achievement, and put together a management and booking team from agencies Tone Chamber in Copenhagen and My Favourite in Paris.

"Previously unreleased, Manchester, 1991. Betonska hits hard with their second release travelling back to an essential period of dance music history. A record blending rave, downtempo, ragga, dancehall, and early hardcore/breakbeat; a crossover which continues to shape and define some of the most innovative sounds of contemporary club culture.

Produced by Philip Kirby, with vocals/rap by Martin Merchant (together Two The Hardway). On the A side Graham Massey (808 State) accompanied them on the synths, and Howard Walmsley played the saxophone on the B1 and B2. All tracks were recorded in ’91 in Phil’s house, where “funnily enough Massey co-wrote ‘Army of Me’ with Björk!”. Find more info about it in the text below.

The whole release consists of solely ’91 originals: a deliberate choice to not take it out of context. The A side serves two versions of ‘Who Said?’, a mysterious midtempo jam with a jumpy acid line, organic yet punchy drums and a mesmerizing lead synth, played by none other than Graham Massey. The instrumental version has a more elusive feel to it, while the Vocal version tops it off with toasting by Manchester’s very own Martin ‘Sugar’ Merchant. Both tracks were pressed on the earlier test pressing from ’91, but have never been released officially before.

The flipside boasts two mesmerizing versions of ‘Hot Number’. Driving proto-jungle rhythms and Sugar Merchant’s ragga vocals, are fused with secondary vocals by Phil and a saxophone solo by Howard Walmsley to form a seamless and smokey sonic concoction that will get bodies moving. Whilst the B1 surfs on a slick breakbeat rhythm with a deep bassline, the B2 bounces on a 4/4 beat with a pulsing hardcore bassline.

To top it off, the B3 and final track in the running order is a deep and dub track. Originally produced in the 90s, but recently finished by Phil, ‘Blossom Street Dub’ has an added synth line and an iconic King Tubby filter which help to enhance a time-warping, headrush effect. This track, alongside the ‘Hot Number (Alternative Version)’ B1 tune, will both be pressed for the very first time on vinyl, having been absent from the original ’91 test pressing. "

Just over 20 years since its original release on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex records, DMX Krew’s classic We Are DMX receives its much needed first reissue on Cold Blow. It expands the original LP into a full 2xLP gatefold with four(!) bonus tracks, including instrumentals and the beloved Denki No Merodi now for the first time on 12”.

We Are DMX is a testament to the true depth of Ed DMX’s musicianship. From catchy electro pop sing-alongs to melodic dance tracks defying pigeonholes, the album was crafted almost entirely by Ed himself. True to the original album credits, the reissue is mastered by the legendary Matt Colton and is housed behind the iconic artwork by Manuel Sepulveda of Optigram.

Just over 20 years since its original release on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex records, DMX Krew’s classic We Are DMX receives its much needed first reissue on Cold Blow. It expands the original LP into a full 2xLP gatefold with four(!) bonus tracks, including instrumentals and the beloved Denki No Merodi now for the first time on 12”.

We Are DMX is a testament to the true depth of Ed DMX’s musicianship. From catchy electro pop sing-alongs to melodic dance tracks defying pigeonholes, the album was crafted almost entirely by Ed himself. True to the original album credits, the reissue is mastered by the legendary Matt Colton and is housed behind the iconic artwork by Manuel Sepulveda of Optigram.

“Rituals”, Flore’s second album is the map of a new continent and worrisome dark lands inhabited by a primal energy. 10 music pieces, 10 clues shaping a musical territory where nothing is given, where everything has to be conquered. From “Aether” to “You were here”, “Rituals” explores multiple facets of an electronic music crafted with meticulosity. It seems here that all of Flore’s path to this second album, every influence, every idea, every reference is digested, understood, reinterpreted and feeds into new shapes, layers of textures, indented rhythmics and menacing bass lines.

An imaginary African continent presides to this exploration, cleansed of clichés and stereotypes, more present in atmospheres than drums. The narration of Rituals is a tortuous promenade starting with “Aether” a mid-tempo introduction to the journey, stumbling on “Coded Language” and its obsessive enigma dressed in lace-like beats, to “Sigui So”, named after the Dogon ritual commemorating Earth regeneration, unfolding its hypnotic percussions evoking an ancient gearing. “Rituals” an uncomfortable and hazy musing and its counterpart “Psykhé part 3” are like each side of the same intoxicated dream. On to “Numen” the almost martial injunction to the dancefloor, “A thousand years”, the electro gem sewn into an insane bass, “Congos” the majestic invitation to a collective exultation rite. It is the nostalgic and atmospheric poetry of “You were here” which closes down this exploration, like a regret.

“Rituals” is a very sharp piece of work by Flore who delivers the result of 20 years of work, experiment, encounters and curiosity, all knitted together in these 10 pieces of music. This album is the outcome of 5 years of work launched with the eponym audio/visual live performance and prolongated by 3 EP’s released on POLAAR. “Rituals”, even if dark in its essence, transpires a savage energy, and open doors to new musical landscapes constantly oscillating between interrupted daydreaming and furious dances. Altogether, “Rituals” draws the portrait of a threatened universe healing in collective sarabands.

Omura is Fracture and Sam Binga’s fantastical Electro LP. The duo set out on a study of the creative process and to explore the relationship between magic and art via their love of world-building acts such as Drexciya and The KLF.

The music was built piecemeal, sometimes sweating through 72hr sessions in a tiny studio in Hornsey, other times bouncing files up and down the virtual M4 between Bristol and London. “We took chords from 30 year old digital synths, worked entire tracks around them before suddenly pitching them down entire octaves, revelling in the digital flotsam that suddenly jumped out at us.” The process was fluid and never questioned. The raw creativity flowed, almost as if channelled from an external source. Visions of an ecosystem appeared - Sea, Land, Air and Earth - held together by mythical creatures and technology. So strong was the energy, that the duo felt compelled to name it and offer gratitude. “Never in our wildest dreams did we foresee that simply writing music with no deliberately stated goals or aspirations would somehow end up with a full magic ritual in a forest on the edge of London. Somehow it felt right and has ultimately left us to consider what else is possible when you let go and just allow things to play out?”

An unknown whale, migrating across an uncharted sea. Eyes staring from the sky, from the trees, from the roots. Joy springs from the earth, life bursts through like sunlight. Virtual mountains captured on obsolete media, slowed down to the pace of a glacial lake. The threads exist outside the ego and offer guidance.

Strategy and Cartridge unveil their new alias "Regents" in the form of a 4-track EP straight out of Manchester on Deep, Dark & Dangerous.

The beats are as gritty, full and bassy as you would expect from Cartridge while Strategy's bars are as cold as they get. Both absolute masters of their craft, Regents combine to create something new, unique and quintessentially Mancunian.

orange marbled vinyl

"How does it feel to reminisce? That was something I wanted to try to capture in soundwaves. I tend to reminisce a lot. About the good and bad parts in the past, and everything in between. I try to remember which specific parts in my life made me who I am today. Thinking about those events is going to make me feel a certain way, and i wanted to try to convert these feelings into songs.

Reminiscing to me, is also a very visual experience in my head. So I decided to take sounds that were close to me from the past and make something cinematic that still works as a full song. I've been using a lot of granulated sounds, which is almost like a shattered memory reconstructed into a new one, as your feelings can change recovering the same memory. So you can close your eyes and go on your own reminiscing journey, discovering loads of layers weaved through these soundwaves."
- Sam A La Bamalot

Stereo's debut album ‘Together’: Deep Ethereal and Drone Beats with early 2000s TripHop reminiscences.

With the found sounds, raw samples and distorted drums, the author invites to follow his melancholic and sometimes heartbroken journey through different and yet similar emotional states: from recovering from an injury to contemplating about the human role in the universe.

"Die Insel" is the first release from Amatori, a various track 12” EP that invites the listener to a magical journey. It explores the five authors' inner sound in its purest form and proposes a way back to our origins: The tribe.

It’s all about timing! This release wasn’t on the schedule, but when we’ve received the demos of Igaxx (that we didn’t knew earlier), it made evidence that it should be release on Macadam Mambo as soon as possible. All ingredients were here to make a very special record. The fully analog music produced by the Tokyoite, Shota Ikawa aka Igaxx, immediatly rang a bell to our memory : Irdial Discs, the legendary UK label that we instantly connected with his music, the long housy loops, the deepness of the atmosphere, the tropical jungle sounds was not without remembering Aqua Regia or Pluto to name a few… the EP alternates infectious ambient tunes, hypnotic beats and dance music. It’s the kind of gem that could very quickly become a classic, TIP.

Rips joins the ranks on Foamplate's imprint 'Plantpower

Second edition of Night Defined Recordings’ new compilation series launched last year. NDVAX02 gathers tunes of longstanding old hands alongside rising talents. Four songs that find their common ground in a strongly pronounced emotional and melodic level.

D Brown, New Zealand's answer to Fatboy Slim, returns with another cut up frenzy - this time updating Bob Marley's "Mr Brown" to the 21st Century. As well as adding extra crunchy beats, he throws in vocal samples by Q-Tip, Capleton, Nas, Eric B and Rakim, Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Beastie Boys! And just when you thought you had the tune licked, in drops a heavyweight riddim plundered from Terminator X's "Mash It Up" = guaranteed floor filler for the discerning beats, hip hop and reggae community.