It’s the last Utility Fog of the year, but it’s a doozy! A 2hr live DJ mix of as many of my favourite beats (and some other oddities) as I could fit. It’s like a Utility Fog but with less sound-art and less songs, and MUCH less of me talking. What’s not to love?
LISTEN AGAIN because really I’m so pleased with this mix. Stream on demand from FBi, podcast here – and you can also find the mix as a WAV if you need that high-res (mp3 is at the bottom of the post).
OR just listen right here:
David August – Workout I [99CHANTS/Bandcamp]
Italian producer/composer/DJ David August runs the 99CHANTS label, which over 6 years has released some really interesting ambient music, including from August himself. But he was originally producing tech house & deep house in the ’00s, and on the Workouts EP he returns to the dancefloor with four hybrid tracks – a bit of ’90s ambient house (Future Sound of London meets Jean-Michel Jarre?) with contemporary percussive beats and sampled vocal yelps. Tremendous.
Nick Wales, Rrawun Maymuru – Yolngu (Deepchild Vocal Reconstruction) [Motorik!/Bandcamp]
What better way to really get going with this mix but with the wonderful Yolgnu songman from Northeast Arnhem Land, Rrawun Maymuru (lead singer of East Journey), and composer, violist and electronic musician Nick Wales? They’ve collaborated before for Sydney Dance Company, but this new song, simply entitled Yolgnu, is hopefully the beginning of a bigger project. The song comes with club and ambient mixes from Nick Wales, but also a reworking from Eora/Sydney’s own Deepchild that’s aimed directly at the dancefloor. The song is a wonderful call for pride of the Yolgnu people, and sitting between the classical and electronic worlds, Nick is a great partner with Rrawun to help bring this music to the world.
Use Knife – Coupe d’état (Muqata’a مقاطعة remix) [Morphine Records/Bandcamp]
Belgian/Iraqi trio Use Knife combine Arabic percussion and vocals with psychedelic electronics of all sorts. They released their debut album The Shedding of Skin in 2022, and at the beginning of the year Berlin label Morphine Records (run by Lebanese musician Rabih Beaini) released a 3-track remix EP, Peace Carnival with reworkings by Zoë Mc Pherson, Beaini and brilliant Palestinian producer Muqata’a مقاطعة. “Coupe d’état” is a pun on “coup d’état”, but “coupe” means “cut” (which you Use a Knife for). On Muqata’a’s remix, percussion and a driving synth line are punctuated by shouted vocals, bass hits and glitches.
Low End Activist – They Only Come Out At Night [Sneaker Social Club/Bandcamp]
Jamie Russell appears on these airwaves quite a lot, courtesy of various of his projects, plus his various labels including the brilliant Sneaker Social Club, BRUK, and indeed Hypercolour. I always tend to point at the Cellular Housekeeping album he released under the Patrick Conway moniker, but his Low End Activist project always brings the goods. It’s all about that “low end”, sub-bass, but it’s also always been an “activist” project, evoking not just his rave roots but also the UK’s class divide. Municipal Dreams is his second album of the year after Airdrop, and this one’s chronicling what it was like growing up in the Blackbird Leys council estate outside of Oxford. This is LEA in weightless mode, which means ambient interludes pulsing with bass pressure, and grime/garage/jungle-influenced beats wafting in & out. Of course it’s very, very good.
BZDB – Stockwell [AD 93/Bandcamp]
All this year I found myself commenting on how AD 93, Nic Tasker’s label previously known as Whities, has moved far beyond the leftfield dance music that was once their core material. Despite appearing in this DJ mix, the excellent debut album from BZDB is one of those expansions outwards & sideways, a collaboration between London/Marseilles-based poet Belinda Zhawi aka MA.MOYO and multidisciplinary artist Duncan Bellamy, best known as a founding member of jazz/classical/electronic crossover band Portico Quartet. The elliptically titled album Jump Ship, Sit Lean, Be Still, Stand Tall very much suits their “sonic poetry” tag, whether it’s plaintive strings, soft piano or plunging electro-dub beats that support and undercut the spoken words.
hoyah – Dubblebubble [BRUK]
Sam (Shmuel) Hatchwell has worked as sound engineer and producer for some time, and as DJ has found himself in the revered climes of Berlin’s Berghain. But his solo music, under the name hoyah, is only now really surfacing. The album Set + Setting comes out on BRUK, one of Low End Activist’s labels that has heretofore focused on the more experimental end of jungle/club musics, but hoyah has experimented it way out of the park (sorry for the stretched metaphor). The album is constructed from a base of saxophone samples – masses of them, loaded into his trusty MPC. His self-imposed limitations stipulated that the sax sounds would be the “voice”, there would be no “beats”, and it would mostly be constructed away from the computer. Nevertheless, here on “Dubblebubble” we’ve certainly got percussive sounds – maybe not “beats” – around the lushly glitchy sax samples. As for the artist name, as well as a reference to a truly irritating TikTok meme (“can I get a hoya”), “hoyah” is an obscure word in Biblical Hebrew, a feminine form of “to be”. As tends to crop up in the current climate, Hatchwell seeks to differentiate Jewish lore, culture and religion from the ongoing genocidal actions of the State of Israel. The conflation of Judaism with Zionism, as a tactic to brand any opposition to Israel as antisemitic, has reached a particularly vicious level of hysteria in Germany, and particularly Berlin, so it’s no wonder Hatchwell feels the need to make this statement. Ceasefire now!
Later in the year, Hatchwell released a collection of low-key brilliant hip-hop beats as Ehye אֶהְיֶה, Forgot My Password, also strongly recommended!
Yetsuby – Poly Juice [All My Thoughts/Bandcamp]
Back in 2021, the world was introduced to a trio of female Japanese electronic musicians making clever, experimental & fun music as Computer Music Club. Uman Therma, Yeong Die, Yetsuby have all continued producing and DJing, and Uman Therma and Yetsuby are also well-known as Salamanda, but Yetsuby’s last album My Star My Planet My Earth won Best Electronic Album in the 2023 Korean Music Awards. It really is excellent, mixing electronic pop (not sure I’d characterise it as K-Pop) with IDM & jungle-inspired beats. Her follow-up b_b avoids easy genre labels. There are hints at jungle and bass music, and IDM updated for the 2020s, and if not quite pop then a unique take on hyperpop. Some tracks are beatless but they’re far too restless to describe as ambient. Most importantly, Yetsuby’s command of melody and of immersive production is undeniable. Don’t ignore!
GILA – Fruitful Angst [Lex/Bandcamp]
Almost 4 years since his last full-length, Denver-based GILA returns with Domain Expansion. By and large it’s in the same space as his earlier work – bass-heavy beats with strictly controlled breakbeats leaving plenty of white space, and space for head-nodding. While GILA’s bass roots are probably more in southern US hip-hop & trap, there are clear nods to UK bass too, including LTJ Bukem-styled d’n’b.
Riddla – Be Like [DRMTRK/Bandcamp]
Bridging the gap between contemporary African music and grime is Riddla, a musician of Ghanaian descent born in Germany and now based in Nottingham. He’s been working with various South African musicians on his productions. On the latest single “Trumpets” it’s Zulu “mother of Afrorave” Toya Delazy but, great through that track is, I really like Riddla’s own vocals on the b-side “Be Like”.
Innode – Air Liquide [Editions Mego/Bandcamp]
Now to Austria, where Editions Mego was based, under the loving leadership of Peter Rehberg until his untimely death in 2021. Innode are a trio that certainly reside in the radius of Mego’s influence: glitchy textures joined with postrock/krautrock momentum with synths rather than rock instruments. On drums is the great Steven Hess, a central member not only of black metal/drone/noise band Locrian but also minimalist electro-acoustic trio Haptic (both of which also had excellent releases in 2024!). Stefan Németh is best known as a member of the wonderful Radian whose music is probably the closest to what we find herein. And finally Bernhard Breuer is a member of live techno band Elektro Guzzi and various rock and improv outfits. I really loved Innode’s second album Syn, which came out on Editions Mego in 2021, and grain is similarly inclined, based around rhythms both glitchy and organic, created by layering different takes from the musicians on drums, percussion and electronics, and all held together with judicious synth work. If you like the postrock of Tortoise and their ilk, or moreso the European style from Kammerflimmer Kollektief, Radian, Trapist and so on, this should scratch that itch very comfortably.
(Yes, I played this last week too, but enjoyed it as a transitional piece here!)
Or:la – Chant (Midland‘s ‘Arpeggiate Me’ Remix) [fabric Originals]
Irish producer Orlagh Dooley aka Or:la is the founder of the experimental house/techno/bass label céad (Gaelic for hundred). Her new album Trusting Theta came out on fabric Originals on September 20th, but ahead of it UK producer Midland took the very minimal funky electro tune “Chant” and overlaid lavish pulsating synths – hypnotic tech-bliss.
Bodhi – Tri-Fold [Hotflush Recordings/Bandcamp]
Here’s one that I didn’t play during the year, but it’s a veritable banger. Cardiff duo Bodhi, aka Luke Welsby and Olly Howells suit Scuba’s Hotflush Recordings to a tee, bringing the party vibes with syncopated piece of bass’n’breaks aimed straight at the heart of the dancefloor.
Gremlinz & Jesta – Big White [Metalheadz/Bandcamp]
Following numerous 12″s on Metalheadz as well Gremlinz’ UVB-76 and DROOGS labels, the power duo of Gremlinz & Jesta released a full album in 2024 through the ‘headz, The Lee Garden Historical Preservation Society (it’s named for a Chinese restaurant in Toronto, where the pair originally met). There’s some quality breakbeat stuff at lower tempos, but mostly it’s drum’n’bass with plenty of jungle love. There’s a lovely vocal tune featuring enthusiastic Ukrainian-born d’n’b singer flowanastasia, and among the dark’n’heavy electronics there are also hints at jazz and organic sounds. A great entry into the annals of Metalheadz albums.
Mazza Vision – Sun Riser [Sub Rosa/Bandcamp]
Claude Pailliot and Gaëtan Collet were both members of Tone Rec, the eccentric experimental electronic/postrock band who released a few albums on the great Brussels-based Sub Rosa label in the 1990s. They then then took a left turn into a kind of electro-clash as DAT Politics, which I never enjoyed as much as Tone Rec, so it’s interesting to find the core pair with a new project called Mazza Vision, which turns back to weird noise-rock-tronica. That combination of glitch, krautrock and drone makes Ohm Spectrum a perfect match for a particular thread of Utility Fog music. Love love.
Mick Harris – We can now [Mick Harris Bandcamp]
I played a lot of Mick Harris this year, including as part of the reformed PainKiller, but not from this particular selection of weaponry, Blare Weight Unit. Often touted as the originator of punk’s d-beat, he left grindcore pioneers Napalm Death in the early years (as did Justin K Broadrick) and by the early to mid-’90s was producing bass-bin destroying industrial dub as Scorn (initially with another Napalm Death fugitive, Nicholas Bullen). It could also be argued that Scorn was dubstep a decade before the genre came to be, but Harris has also made various types of jungle & drum’n’bass as Quoit, ambient as Lull, techno as Fret… and more. Under his own name, in the mid-’00s he made a collection of “HedNod Sessions” that could be classed as “illbient”, or dubby instrumental hip-hop. Those being the first four HedNod Sessions, in 2021 on his Bandcamp he dropped HedNod Five, and continued these live studio jams up until this week’s HedNod Twenty, which he reasonably enough feels is enough for now. Nevertheless, unlike those head-nodders, this one’s a bit of heavier, nastier industrial techno, still with a clear dub tilt.
Kassie Krut – Hooh Beat [Fire Talk/Bandcamp]
Formed after the break-up of Philadelphia math-rock band Palm, Kassie Krut morph math’s rhythmic drive into electro-noise-rock, with drum’n’bass-influenced beats that merge live playing with sampled choppery, chucking in street sounds, feedback and hefty bass with catchy pop hooks. It’s wild that this is released at the start of December, although tracks have been trickled out for the last few months. Noise-pop is a genre Fire Talk‘s got down pat, and Kassie Krut are a welcome addition.
Alan Johnson – Portal [YUKU]
Alan Johnson isn’t a person at all – they’re a duo. Between 2013 and 2020 they released just three EPs, but both 2022 and 2023 gave us excellent four-track EPs on Sneaker Social Club. They now find themselves on YUKU, a label whose aesthetic is not that dissimilar to SSC, but tends to take the bass & breaks into more experimental territory – which is reflected in the 6 tracks on Glory Days, the duo’s longest release yet. Like the Stillness EP‘s sampling of Bro. Samuel Clayton with Count Ossie’s orchestra, Glory Days uses Jamaican voices through various tracks, and the dub side of bass music is strong, as is the sense of space.
Delta – Doorstop [99cts/Bandcamp]
There’s still room in the world for ye olde skool dubstep, and this was one of the best of 2024, coming from Birmingham producer Delta, with syncopated, hammering beats that veer between grime and dubstep, and plenty of wub-wubs.
Ben Pest X Kursa – Totally Kippered [Love Love Records]
Mutant bass from two heavy operators from the UK, Ben Pest and Kursa. All the tracks here are somewhere around grime or dubstep, but inflected/infected with jungle/d’n’b, techno and electro. But the bass slams on all these dancefloor weapons.
James Massiah meets Lord Tusk – Open Up [Accidental Meetings]
Another I didn’t spin on the show, although God knows why as it’s a techno-dub narcotic that I’ve been loving a lot. UK poet & DJ James Massiah here chants his “Open Up” invocation alongside London’s Ibrahim Abba-Gana aka Lord Tusk, with that bassline rumbling throughout.
Maral – big hands reggaeton [PTP/Bandcamp]
Patience (صبر) is the new collection from LA-based musician Maral, a varied mix of tracks from throughout her musical life, going back as far as 2013, often referencing her Iranian heritage. I discovered Maral circa her 2020 album Push, but her significance was solidified with her incredible remix of original anarcho-punks Crass the following year – so it’s notable that among the tracks here are her forays into punk, albeit filtered through the beat-making lens. And that’s a Crass sample in the last track, “big hands reggaeton”. Rather than her usual home of Leaving Records, Patience (صبر) is released on Geng’s ever-relevant activist label PTP, and also notable is the track “retrofit”, featuring another PTP artist, the multi-talented Sierra Leonean-American YATTA, whose multi-layered vocals add an extra aura of disorientation to the proceedings.
Slolek – Object Desire [Of Paradise/Bandcamp]
With only a couple of EPs to his name, UK artist Slolek has already perfected a post-genre mélange of dubstep, dub techno and jungle. The cavernous sounds on his Object Desire EP travel through all those styles with syncopated subs and slow/fast beats along with dubby ambient passages that wouldn’t be out of place on a Future Sound of London record. The first two tracks on this EP – thumping minimal drum’n’bass and choral ambient dubstep – are pure gold, way up in the favourites of the year.
The God In Hackney – Bardo! (Al Wootton Mix) [Junior Aspirin/Bandcamp]
This one I didn’t play because it only came out at the beginning of December. Three or four years ago I discovered transatlantic band The God In Hackney via the cover CD on an issue of experimental music mag The Wire. “The Adjoiner” is still one of my favourite tracks from their second album Small Country Eclipse, which was followed in 2023 by The World In Air Quotes. We’re talking left-field art-pop with leanings to ’80s pop experimentalists like Peter Gabriel or Magazine, but with everything and the kitchen sink thrown in, whether krautrock, drum’n’bass, free jazz… Now, unexpectedly, with actual new stuff somewhere on the horizon, comes a two-tracker of bass remixes from two of England’s finest, Etch and Al Wootton. Wootton preserves the weird out-jazz of the original, which is handy because next up…
Nubya Garcia – The Seer [Concord Jazz/Bandcamp]
Odyssey, the second album from London-based saxophonist Nubya Garcia, garnered praise from all around, for good reason. The album features brilliant performances from the cream of young British jazz players, along with sumptuous arrangements for strings and collaborations with women from the jazz world (Esperanza Spalding) and soul (Georgia Anne Muldrow). The incredible piano-led single “The Seer” is a jouyous, catchy piece of jazz, and I adore it – but earlier this year the one I played was the last track, “Triumphance”, in which Garcia’s love of reggae shines through, the jazz chops flying over low-skanking dub bass and drums. I’m pretty proud of fitting “The Seer” (conveniently at 140 BPM) into tonight’s set though!
T5UMUT5UMU – 武者 Musha [Sneaker Social Club/Bandcamp]
You can never tell what Japanese producer T5UMUT5UMU‘s going to sound like, except that it’ll be exceptional bass music with complex percussive beats at any tempo. That stays true on his first release for Sneaker Social Club, 玄 Gen. The opening track, heard tonight, drives forward with its syncopated bass, sparse beats, and spoken Japanese samples. In fact whether it’s flute or percussion or words, each track on the EP has some kind of element that evokes T5UMUT5UMU’s home country, even if glancingly.
Atrice – Multiplex [Ilian Tape/Bandcamp]
On Munich’s singular Ilian Tape label, Swiss duo Atrice came back into the fold in February, with an EP that rivals their brilliant Ilian Tape debut Q from 2021. The five tracks on Multiplex span bass forms from breakbeat techno to jungle, always syncopating, always changing. Premium dancefloor stuff.
Skee Mask – Reminiscrmx [Ilian Tape/Bandcamp]
Since his days as SCNTST, the Münich producer now known as Skee Mask has liquidly flitted between techno formations, drum’n’bass syncopations, and ambient soundworlds. His latest full-length for Ilian Tape, Resort, contains plenty of breakbeat-like rhythms but is mixed with the beats further back than club music would do, even once the beats gain a foothold three tracks in. It’s more like a well-worn cassette mix kept in the car for those long drives – there’s definitely a Boards of Canada feel. Truly lovely stuff from a contemporary icon.
Clark – Donk Jewel [Throttle Records/Bandcamp]
Although ex-Warp prodigy Chris Clark is a frequent visitor to these airwaves – whether making top-notch IDM & techno, or quasi-classical soundtrack-related stuff – but I didn’t play this particular oddity for some reason. “Donk Jewel“. I love it – manic Disklavier patterns pitter-pattering percussively.
Batu – Other Means [Batu Bandcamp]
Since his brilliant Opal album in 2022, Timedance boss Batu has gone down some ambient side-quests and is now dropping single tracks at odd intervals. With “Other Means” we have fast-moving percussive techno with syncopated bass and kicks, very very nice.
Panoptique Electrical – For Bells [sound in silence – CD edition/Panoptique Electrical Bandcamp]
Of late, Jason Sweeney, Adelaide icon of ambient, idm, indietronica before it was a thing, etc etc, has been delving into the experience of growing older as a queer person, approaching the questions this raises from many angles. Recently there was an album of songs under his Sweeney moniker: Ageism. But as Panoptique Electrical he’s in instrumental mode, usually making drawn-out windswept music, whether drone or shoegazey postrock, so For Years (available on CD-R from Greek label sound in silence, including a limited edition with bonus tracks) is a collection of sound-art explorations, the titles playing on different ways the first word operates in phrases: “For Years” describes time, “For Em” is dedicated to a person, “For Piano” is performed on that instrument… It’s nice to imagine that “For Ruins” is composed for ruins as an instrument… Even so, the piano and the bells here are drawn out into deep drones. Contemplative, spacious music.
Sasha Elina / Eva-Maria Houben – My Sweet Love [Sasha Elina Bandcamp]
Different Songs, Vol 1, the new album from London-based Russian singer Саша Елина / Sasha Elina finds her interpreting the music of four contemporary composers, with compositions for solo voice and voice in duos with piano and guitar. The album’s opening track, an a capella by German composer Eva-Maria Houben called “My Sweet Love”, is captivating sung in Elina’s fragile voice, but I didn’t think the empty space was possible for radio at the time (I hope you agree it works bewitchingly here!) Directly following it is a song by Argentinian composer & guitarist Tomás Cabado (or should I say “A Song”, as that’s its title?), and I recommend it too, along with the rest of the album.
Yally – Payday [Diagonal Records/Bandcamp]
Powell‘s Diagonal Records celebrated 10 years of releases with a big 4 x 12″ compilation, but also emitted some bonus bits like this. Yally is Raime‘s alias for more explicitly jungle and bass music – and Raime are also Moin in collaboration with Valentina Magaletti, as heard in Best of 2024 Part 1. Here they’ve contributed a taut piece of minimalist jungle, and because warped vocal samples are their thing, there’s a dramatisation of, they claim, some early email exchanges they had with Powell.
When 2 – Away [Blorpus Editions]
You might know Mike Meegan for his music as RXM Reality, usually released on on-point labels Hausu Mountain or Orange Milk Records. Meegan’s music is a hyper-everything stew of metal, pop, rock, whatever, all banged together into shapes resembling IDM, jungle, footwork and techno – and plenty of glitch. So on paper you’d think that his new project When 2 – whose debut album Here is released on Blorpus Editions, run by Max Allison/Muqks, one half of Hausu Mountain – would be just an extension of RXM Reality. Here Meegan is directly inspired by the genius of Carl Stone and his specially-developed Max/MSP patches the let him create skittering glitchscapes. And what we get is indeed like the bastard son of Carl Stone and RXM Reality – hyperspeed granular rides through samples of pop and rock, which I mostly can’t identify, stuttering and crashing into kaleidoscope visions of jungle or footwork – see how comfortably “Away” segues out of the drum’n’bass ahead of it. Really this is masterful stuff.
Meegan actually had THREE albums out this year, each one masterful in its way. RXM Reality’s No. 1 in the World was everything chaotically RXM to the max, and somehow at the end of the year there was Works, back on Blorpus under his own name, with something a bit more like composed music, albeit entirely in Meegan’s unique voice.
Cocktail Party Effect – Reset [YUKU/Bandcamp]
Berlin-based South Londoner Charlie Baldwin, who releases music as Cocktail Party Effect, isn’t fond of blurbing his own music, and fair enough – often beats are just nice beats, and Baldwin’s background in sound design makes for lush listening. His second release on YUKU for 2024 is Gulper Eel Ballons, a 10-track album taking in ambient sound-design and all forms of bass music from dubstep & grime to techno & almost-d’n’b, integrating the complexity & weirdness of IDM. Super stuff whatever words describe it.
gi – feedback [Absorb]
In June I was able to play an exclusive preview from a brilliant young Eora artist, gi, who has one other proper release to her name, the Orange Chorus Blonde Reveal EP that came out from Nipaluna label Altered States Tapes in October 2023. The album Thought Makes Music came out from Naarm’s Absorb label in August, and it’s remarkable, unique and futuristic. gi‘s music is characterised by very organic-feeling textures bubbling around, shuffling forwards & backwards, accompanied by incredibly intricate, fast-moving beats that never quite shape themselves like jungle or footwork rhythms, never quite coalesce into discernible barlines. It’s beautiful and unapologetically avant-garde.
Stefan Goldmann – Struma [Macro/Bandcamp]
Speaking of lopsided beats, Stefan Goldmann has been a 4/4 Berlin techno & deep house god for over 2 decades, but is also connected to the classical concert hall via his Dad, composer Friedrich Goldmann, and his interests range widely to take in field recording, abstract sound-art, jazz and more, as attested by the long discography of Macro Recordings, the label he runs with Finn Johannsen. For some time he was interested in strange tunings, culminating in the custom, bent microtunings of 2019’s Tacit Script. The same year, Veiki began a new phase exploring unusual beat cycles in techno, repeating in 7, 9 or 11 crotchets (or beats, if you like). This was followed in 2022 with the Vector Rituals LP, in which the strictures of bar lines were further loosened, through the phasing of odd time signatures as well as micro-shifts in tempo and note placement. These rhythm experiments culminate now with the full-length album Alluvium, which blends crossing time signatures with polyrhythms at various tempos. There’s everything here: rapid-fire percussion which can sound like tablas, drum machines and even the shadows of cut-up breakbeats; haunted drones and translucent melodies a la Aphex Twin’s SAW II; thumping syncopated sub-bass as heard tonight… There are tracks with the beats and rhythms barely heard through the murk of sonic textures, and there are tracks that would be techno slammers or even drum’n’bass if only the bar lines lined up. Goldmann is prolific by any standards, and this is one of many recent works that I’d unhesitatingly recommend.
By the way, this year Macro launched a subscription on their Bandcamp, giving access to archival releases, everything from this year on, and plenty of exclusives which are brilliant in their own right. Not enough people have signed up for this IMHO.
Fanu – Green Fields Forever [Straight Up Breakbeat]
I’ve certainly played a bit of Fanu this year, but this particular storming piece of jungle only came out on December 6th, so it too had to wait for this special to get an airing. It’s part of the latest group 12″ on Finnish drum’n’bass mainstay Straight Up Breakbeat, although you can get the single direct from the man too if you like (I do recommend the comp though). Fanu aka Janne Hatula has been a formidable presence in the jungle/drum’n’bass scene since the ’90s, and teaches DAW skills, mixing and mastering – his Patreon is full of great walkthroughs and tutorials, like chopping your own breaks, tightening up your bass, etc etc.
T-Mirage – Existence [Odysee Recordings/Bandcamp]
Tilla Kemal aka T-Mirage founded the Odysee Recordings label in the 1990s, releasing material from Source Direct, Photek and other legends. The label’s been run for a while by Andy Odysee (see below) but this excellent 3-tracker from Kemal came out this year… Photek-style precision-tooled d’n’b. I didn’t play it during the year, as I kind of only have limited space for drum’n’bass & jungle, but loved this a lot.
Sam Link – Sheepish [YUKU]
The second release on YUKU from Midwest US producer Sam Link follows on from his first, 2022’s Hestitate. Like that release, Concerta has 6 tracks, drawing from UK bass music, jungle, footwork and idm. There’s a ruthless funk to these tracks, a syncopation from Link playing fast & loose with his breakbeats and chopping bass and samples in & out of step. It works because Link has a clear, instinctive command of flow – irresistible.
Azu Tiwaline – Brain Rattled [Maloca Records/Bandcamp]
HIIIT are a versatile ensemble, formerly known as Slagwerk Den Haag (I first heard them in Lunch Music, a brilliantly weird collaboration with Netherlands-based composer Yannis Kyriakides). Renaming themselves after many decades to indicate that they’re no longer just a percussion ensemble, HIIIT have been producing a number of collaborations – you can see a bunch of YouTube videos of music made with Jlin. SIIIX is a project released by Brussels label Maloca, which is presented as a compilation – HIIIT are not actually credited unless you look at the description. Each artist, from drummers Valentina Magaletti & Julian Sartorius to producers such as upsammy and Azu Tiwaline, created sketches over which HIIIT improvised layers of sound which were then given back to the artists to create new pieces. French-Tunisian DJ Azu Tiwaline’s version is a percussion-heavy take on her beautiful dub techno & bass music.
Klahrk – &3&4 [SFX/Bandcamp]
London producer Ben Clarke spells himself Klahrk, presumably so that at least written-down he won’t get confused with (Chris) Clark. Blistering is Klahrk’s second release on Zoë Mc Pherson & Alessandra Leone‘s SFX label. These tracks are driven by thundering bass hits syncopating under chittering percussive beats and glitched vocal snippets. Futuristic doomclub.
Aroma Nice – 12 Hours [YUKU/Bandcamp]
For Czech label YUKU, here’s UK jungle maniac Aroma Nice with three archival tracks and a remix by his mate Earl Grey (longtime drumfunker/junglist). Proof if we need it, following last year’s Lost Realms and this year’s Old Haunts, that Luke Fashoni is up there with the best of them in terms of incredibly technical and funky jungle production. Seriously good shit as always.
Reeko – Tomorrow Doesn’t Exist [Samurai Music/Bandcamp]
The most unexpected forays into drum’n’bass/170bpm in the last 2 years have come from longtime techno mainstay Reeko, aka Architectural, aka Spanish producer Juan Rico. The Berlin-based Samurai Music has already been exploring the space where minimal drum’n’bass meets techno, and perhaps for that reason Rico sent them a demo which became his first EP for the label, Confront the Serpent, last year. This year he followed up with TWO great 170bpm hybrid releases: Tomorrow Doesn’t Exist earlier in the year, and then the incredible six-track mini-album Urmah. There’s a lot of dub techno in these head-nodding tunes, but also explosive percussion and breaks. It really is a hybrid style like no other, dazzling at its best.
Sote – ADTVESSPXLUT [Diagonal Records/Bandcamp]
Surely by now Ata “Sote” Ebtekar needs no introduction. Since the early ’00s he has made uncompromising, complex electronic music, starting with 2002’s stunning Electric Deaf EP on Warp Records. I bring this up because his latest release, Sound System Persepolis (his second on Powell’s Diagonal Records) references hardcore techno in its rather twisted ways. Ebtekar said goodbye almost immediately to the breakcore/junglism of his very first few EPs. He’s really pioneered the integration of electronics with Persian classical and Iranian instrumentation, and he’s developed some amazing methods for sound processing in the meantime. But Sound System Persepolis, despite referencing the ancient Persian city, doesn’t feature any West/Central Asian instrumentation, and as far as I can tell it uses Western tuning. The rhythmic programming recalls the untethered approaches of Mark Fell and Rian Treanor, Vladislav Delay and perhaps even Russell Haswell, but with Sote’s distinctive sliding tones. It’s a kind of return to the Hardcore Sounds From Tehran mixtape but with everything Ata’s learned about audio alchemy in the meantime. Insane and brilliant.
This was Sote’s second album of the year – earlier SVBKVLT released Ministry of Tall Tales, a sorrowful contemplation of the geopolitics of the moment.
Leon Mar – Acellular [Subviral/Bandcamp]
In 1997, one of the greatest drum’n’bass albums was released – the self-titled album from Arcon 2, which took the template of techstep, which was just beginning to take over the drum’n’bass world, but built dazzling complexity into the beats, among swooping basslines and atonal pads. Arcon 2 was the drum’n’bass alias for Leon Mar (real name the inverted Noel Ram), who had worked with Future Sound of London in their studio (FSOL released one 12″ from him under the name Oil). So anyway, at his Subviral Bandcamp you can find the Arcon 2 album and various 12″s remastered, along with some collections of d’n’b/jungle productions – but here we have an entirely new jungle tune, released as “Leon Mar”! “Acellular” is fierce and relentless, just what we needed.
Andy Odysee – Waterblade Warrior [Odysee Recordings/Bandcamp]
Andy Baddaley also goes way back. An old schoolmate of Jim Baker of Source Direct, he joined Tilla Kemal’s Odysee Recordings a few years in, lending his jazz & classical chops to the dark & deep sound. He’s now co-manager of the label as it revives old releases by Source Direct, Photek and others, while also releasing new music – in particular from Badalley under Andy Odysee (fka Angel Dust, Cloaking Device and other aliases). Odysee Black Volume IV is the latest in a series of releases aimed at expanding the label’s outlook, but Badalley’s broad musical background always shines through anyway. “Waterblade Warrior” is an incredible exercise in programming skill, an updated take on Photek circa “Ni-Ten-Ichi-Ryu (Two Swords Technique)” which in all honesty should be on all the dancefloors.
Ruby My Dear – Monksy [Analogical Force]
Spain’s Analogical Force tends to take what I consider a more electro approach to IDM – but they’re gregarious in their tastes, as seen with the five-track EP Smooth Working from the one & only French breakcore legend Ruby My Dear, one of the most musical breakcore producers. Of course there’s plenty of IDM in Ruby My Dear’s lexicon, and there’s even a slower track (downtempo?) on here, but also the splattercore breaks and melodies that are his bread & butter.
Cleo AD – Charge Init (feat. Pharu) [YUKU]
Here’s YUKU digging up brilliant young artists who you may not find anywhere else. Cleo AD is Sebastian G from Leipzig, who’s been involved with the bass scene for a while, and brings elements of grime and low-slung hip-hop with that deconstructed club vibe, and beats that run from sub-140 to jungle and breakcore. Crazy stuff.
Madobe Rika – Opening party [Virgin Babylon Records]
There’s some confusion about whether Madobe Rika, the idoru breakcore pop star discovered by World’s End Girlfriend‘s Virgin Babylon Records, has her names in that order or Rika Madobe – I know that one is the typical Japanese order with family name first, but I’m not sure which is which. In any case, Infinite Window is the debut album proper from the artist, who has previously released some incredible EPs of what might be vocaloid-style pop with breakcore production (they’ve referred to her as a “virtual girl”), and then snuck out a few singles ahead of this album. There are some slightly more subdued tracks here too, like the pretty piano of “Opening party” – at least until things start accellerating and glitching! Super fun, super kawaii.
BEANS – ZWAARD 1 [BEANS Bandcamp]
This BEANS album with Vladislav Delay beats is the second release to have the honour of appearing twice in our best-of specials this year…
An editorial in The Wire this year waxed lyrical about how forward-thinking Antipop Consortium were in the late ’90s & early ’00s, and I do kind of agree – their mix of IDM and glitch with avant-garde lyricism while staying true to hip-hop was pretty groundbreaking, although I always found their releases kind of hit & miss, and they didn’t touch me, somehow. After a long silence, the band is getting back together, which is good news – although when I say silence, that’s only as a collective (er, consortium). High Priest of Antipop has been active with experimental sound and melding jazz with electronica as Hprizm, and BEANS, BEANS just does not stop, and dude is dedicated to abstract raps with experimental electronics. In March 2017 he released three albums all at once (see the bottom three albums on his Bandcamp music page), and there’s been at least one album a year since then – I recall Nibiru Tut being rad too. Well, BEANS is a good enough reason to check out ZWAARD, his latest album, but there’s another hook: the whole thing is produced by Sasu Ripatti aka Vladislav Delay. Crazier still: Mr Delay sent BEANS a bunch of sample tracks to start a collab, material from about 10 years ago, and BEANS insisted on making his tracks directly from those demos – only a little tweaking from Vlad. If we go looking, we’ll see that 2013-2014 was when a series of phenomenal tricksy dance EPs came out under his surname Ripatti – they’re there on his Bandcamp, Ripatti01 to Ripatti07, footwork/idm hybrids that were the precursors of the recent Dancefloor Classics EPs. So honestly they sound up-to-the-minute, and a perfect sound base for BEANS to riff on. Ridiculously great stuff.
SUMAC – “World of Light” Moor Mother remix [SUMAC Bandcamp]
One of the essential tracks of the year IMHO, and one that’s maybe slipped under a lot of people’s radars?
Aaron Turner’s legacy in heavy metal is unassailable, from his bands ISIS and Old Man Gloom to the brilliant Hydra Head label he ran for many years. A little like Old Man Gloom, SUMAC are a kind of supergroup, with Turner on guitar and vocals, backed by incendiary drummer Nick Yacyshyn of Vancouver hardcore band Baptists, and bassist Brian Cook of hardcore/math-rock bands Botch and These Arms Are Snakes. With SUMAC, Turner’s vision was of an incredibly tight, punishingly heavy sound, and what’s remarkable is how the members achieve that with incredible restraint. Turner also likes to subvert the usual tendency of metal to focus on the grotesque and destructive side of human nature, and no moreso than on SUMAC’s latest album, The Healer. Two of the tracks clock in at 25 minutes each, and the shorter ones are a mere 13 minutes, so I couldn’t really play them, but along with the album comes a bonus EP of two remixes. Raven Chacon‘s is excellent and freeform, but Moor Mother‘s is – as always – insanely good. It starts with urgent beeping and almost immediately distorted bass from SUMAC drops under Camae Ayewa’s rapping. It’s already apocalyptic enough, full of tension, and then we drop down to whispers and delayed guitar strums before the gigantic simultaneous hits of bass, guitar and drums smash down, with Aaron Turner’s sampled growls. No less heavy than the original in only 4 minutes and 5 seconds.
Match Fixer – Rats [SE:CD]
Naarm/Melbourne musician Andrew Cowie has released music under the name Angel Eyes, but switched to instrumental experimental electronica as Match Fixer some years ago. I was hooked from just about the start, through to an excellent album last year on Melbourne’s Nice Music, but it’s still great to find him now on the Berlin-based SE:CD, which launched last year with the great exael. Cowie’s music bears the influence of IDM and contemporary experimental sounds, but with a sure understanding of techno and bass musics. New EP Done brings him as close to jungle/drum’n’bass as he’s been, with an album promised around the corner from the same label. And MAP/Medical Aid for Palestinians are the beneficiary of any Bandcamp purchases.
rkgk – train2catch [Retrac Recordings/Bandcamp]
Big thanks to Miles Bowe, whose January Acid Test column in Bandcamp Daily introduced me to the music of River Everett and Caybee Calabash, who together make up bagel fanclub. The duo’s music is an intense ride through chiptune breakcore and idm, heavily reminiscent of the Kid606/Datach’i/OVe-NaXx/early VSnares days. Harsh but with heart, seen through a hyperpop-smeared lens, this is fun and cheeky music that sometimes mines beauty from its relentless distorted digital maximalism, and the same goes for their recent separate work. River Everett, based somewhere in the US, makes ultra-lo-fi hypnagogic ambient synth stuff as New Mexican Stargazers, but as rkgk contrasts those tape-distorted longform wanderings with breakneck digital cuts’n’breaks, and like his predecessors from the ’90s and ’00s imbues every track with genuine melody. I recommend you go4it. The other half of bagel fanclub is Caybee Calabash, across the pond somewhere in the UK, whose many aliases can be found at slutpunk.bandcamp.com. I would happily have included Calabash or bagel fanclub, but in the end this was the one that fitted best.
3Phaz – YKK [Love Boat/Bandcamp]
Boutique Turin label Love Boat have released a compilation of experimental European and MENA artists to raise money for MAP. It’s called We Will Stay Here – Music for Palestine and is all recommended. Here Egyptian producer 3Phaz chops up vocal samples and sub-bass and tumbling percussion clattering at double speed.
Buffalo Daughter – ET (Densha) – AMBIENT KYOTO Mix [Anniversary Group/Bandcamp]
The world is incredibly fortunate that Buffalo Daughter not only exist at all, but are still making creative music 30 years after their inception. In the way of the best Japanese bands, they’ve always combined pop with heavy rock with electronica and hip-hop, and so they continue. The one thing to come out this year was a set of two extended & warped mixes made for the AMBIENT KYOTO installation/exhibition thingy in 2023. The original tracks are on their 2021 album We Are The Times, and neither remix is ambient at all – rather they’re deconstructed, in a modern take on the original 12″ mix, adding unexpected elements. Basically, just so great.
Demdike Stare x Dolo Percussion – DOLO DS 1 [DDS]
I didn’t play this either, but it’s a really excellent loose take on percussive breakbeat from some masters of the arcane. Demdike Stare are Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker, as well versed in the hardcore continuum of UK bass styles as they are in wyrd folk and dark English lore. Dolo Percussion is Andrew Field-Pickering, also known as Maxmillion Dunbar. This collaborative EP is released on Demdike’s DDS, but even though they have a Bandcamp they’re pretty bad at updating it, so it’s most reliably found via Boomkat. Extremely damaged breakbeat deconstructions.
DJ Die & Addison Groove – Gunsmok£ [Gutterfunk]
Bristol Reprazent! The relatively small UK city of Bristol has played an outsized role in UK soundsystem culture since the ’80s – famously with Massive Attack and Portishead, but before that with Massive Attack precursors The Wild Bunch, and the always underappreciated Smith & Mighty. On the other hand Roni Size and his Reprazent crew were instrumental in the rise of jungle and then drum’n’bass, outside of London itself, and their success earned them the Mercury Prize in 1997, arguably when it still mattered. Roni Size himself was certainly a talented producer, but I’d argue that Krust and DJ Die were the greater beatmakers. Die now helms the GutterFunk label, promoting great bass music from Bristol and beyond. On this new track he joins with a fellow Bristolian of the following generation, Addison Groove, who came up out of the dubstep scene (under the name Headhunter) around 2006 and is no stranger to d’n’b collabs. In fact Die & Addison Groove have worked together since at least 2013, and this one’s a fierce’n’filthy bit of jungle/drum’n’bass.
Godwin. – Massive Attack – Teardrop (Durag Bootleg) [Godwin. Bandcamp]
Irish producer Godwin. may mostly produce beats for r’n’b and hip-hop artists, but he’s always loved the illicit remix/bootleg/edit too, and Bootleg Durags Pt. 2 (like its 2023 predecessor Durag Bootlegs) is a fine example, with junglist takes on a few recent and less-recent tracks. Massive Attack‘s “Teardrop” isn’t one I would’ve chosen for the jungle treatment, but in Godwin.’s hands it retains its beauty while gaining from the breakdowns and drops.
Sully – Nights feat. Salo (Not Just A Dub Mix) [Astrophonica/Bandcamp]
Another I didn’t play – why? Sully is one of the originals of the jungle revival, coming up out of early grime productions, and his output is relatively slow these days, but of two 2024 releases, in March he released a single through Fracture’s Astrophonica featuring young Manchester vocalist Salo. Absolutely precision-tooled beats and bassline, the kind of stuff Sully is unbeatable at really.
Tim Reaper – Scorched Earth A1 [Future Retro London]
London’s Ed Alloh aka Tim Reaper is one of modern jungle’s finest exponents, and the collaborations and artist EPs he releases give prominence to many others in the scene. A Reaper-only 12″ is always likely to be quality, and Scorched Earth sees him experimenting with the structure of his breaks in pretty amazing ways. The way the beats are chopped on this first track is pretty dazzling, while still keeping the feet moving on the dancefloor. A weird, fierce flip on jungle-tekno that I keep returning to.
John Rolodex – Seeing Around Corners [Over/Shadow/Bandcamp]
Canadian d’n’b hero John Rolodex has released a lot on his own Machinist Music (which also releases other artists, mind you), but he’s recently had a digital release and then one vinyl/digital on Metalheadz. He can craft a pure d’n’b tune with machined tech-step beats and basslines, but there’s usually also some crazy beat-fuckery going on too, which brings us to the title track of Seeing Around Corners, his new EP for Over/Shadow. Pure darkness Arcon 2 style. If you like the moodiness of dark drum’n’bass but the complexity of jungle, this EP’s a must.
Benny L & NV33 – Forever [TrES-2b]
Another perfect piece of d’n’b that just didn’t end up fitting on a show during the year, here with excellent East London MC NV33. Released by Benny L on his own TrES-2b label, it’s got a bassline Dom & Roland would be proud of, and cinematic dynamics.
Chimpo – Charge it 2 Da Game [Box N Lock]
Manchester’s Chimpo is a charming character whose personality makes it into all his tracks. I just adore the down-to-earth, personal style of his MCing & singing on his own tunes, although as a d’n’b (and other UK bass music) producer he’s as good as anyone. This is one of his classic d’n’b pop tunes, equal parts home truths and dancefloor filler. I didn’t play it earlier in the year, whyyyy.
Olivia Block – Violet-Green [Black Truffle/Bandcamp]
Chicago sound-artist and composer Olivia Block has, since the late ’90s, comfortably straddled the linkes between musique concrète, noise, and contemporary composition. Block has often been able to bring poignant emotion to her electroacoustic constructions, albeit in a different way from the deeply personal work of claire rousay with which we started tonight’s show. But The Mountains Pass, her new album and first on Oren Ambarchi’s Black Truffle, takes her work into the unfamiliar territory of song, incorporating Block’s voice and lyrics for the first time, along with drums from the great Jon Mueller. Naturally, these songs are nevertheless somewhat abstracted, fragmentary things, appearing out of long electro-acoustic passages, where Block sings of endangered wolves and mysterious bird die-offs among cut-up piano, droning organs and trumpet. This is a stunning, beautiful album that you owe it to yourself to explore in full, and like Wendy Eisenberg’s “In the Pines” (which I played in Best of 2024 Part 1), this is a 2024 highlight that I’m really glad to have snuck in at the end here!
Listen again — ~217MB
