Back catalogue: Breakbeat

Review: Plenty of neologistic fun can be had with the work "break", but we must admit that "breakflow" is a new one on us. Lisboa produtor b0n impresses such sonic and titular genii with a new, green-goo-hued four-track EP on Portgal's fantastical Magic Carpet label, spanning clean future progressive and garage-acid tempos. The title track and 'Sasha Palomal' only tease the unortho-breaks with tricky garage beats and straighter but admittedly still formative breaksteps; it's only by the point of the B-siders 'Positive Morph' and 'Fractures' that any such fluvial breakbeat is properly put back together and course-corrected. Be warned, the latter track moves through the nicely rare variants of freestyle and "electrance"; careful not to dance yourself to breakdown.

Review: San Francisco-based Indian duo Baalti really do bring plenty of freshness to this, their third EP outing. They have said this is their most personal and authentic rase to date and it is about as kinetic and impact as house music gets, all infused with myriad samples from their own heritage. Those nostalgic South Asian flavours derived from classic Indian, Pakistani, and Bangaldeshi sounds are carefully sprinkled into percussive workouts, leftfield dancefloor rhythms and club-ready grooves. A perfect fusion of modern electronic music as traditional Asia sounds.

Review: There's an abundance of crafty, ear-snagging gear coming out on Telomere Plastic these days and the steady stream of VA releases are a handy window into some of the freshest operators in the more creative ends of minimal tech house. Baenglund is having a jolly time of it tweaking out the freaky synth riffs on 'Funk Inspector', while Aspetuck creates a teasing, strung-out after hours sound which tips towards electronica on 'As The Fog Rolls In'. Anderson brings a little trance influence to the crooked groove of 'Aquabound', and Watch Patrol softens the edges with an acidic bubblebath on 'Wandering In The Garden'.

Review: Brooklyn is not often somewhere you think of when it comes to minimal, a sound more usually associated with European artists these days, unless of course, you're talking about early US originators like Dan Bell and Robert Hood. This release suggests that view is wrong with a trio of classy cuts. Mike Berardi's 'Helicopter Ride' is lively and jazzy and rides a nice broken beat. Samuel Padden's 'String Theory' is more icy and paired back to a minimal cosmic trip and Jay Tripwire's 'Floorboards' a wonky late-night charmer.

Review:  Billus is a new name to be emerging from the Melbourne scene and here he shows his mastery of groove and percussion. There is a real lightness of touch to the breakbeats of the opener 'Cubic'. They mean you instantly take flight and drift through the skies next to pillow melodic clouds that cast your mind adrift. It's deliciously deep and colourful stuff. 'Shifting Sands' is another mix of suspensory chords that pan all around and bubbling, percussive drums that are hard to define. 'Splay' sinks into a watery world of dubby chords and skeletal but compelling beats and 'Under The Canopy is melodic minimalism of the highest order.

Review: The Betonska label is on an ongoing mission to release and re-release hidden gems and wantless must owns from the past. This time it's D.Wave's unrelenting yet funky techno offering Biotone that gets pressed up. The title tune is pure, thrilling club music with high-speed Millsian techno vibes. 'Mellectro' plays with a broken rhythm and alien sound designs that are as good for brain as body and 'Oscilloclast' then dresses a perfectly fused jungle techno sound with warped video game pads and 'Paper Tigers' ends on an all-out peak time gem.

Review: Community minded eclecticists Neighbourhood continue their unifying work with the latest boundary-bender from label co-boss Birke TM. With each cut sitting in a different tempo territory, he paints a vivid picture. 'I Dream Of Jeannie' is a mid-paced 160 jungle breeze while 'Eden' is a classic atmospheric two-stepper that wouldn't have gone amiss on GLR back in the day. Flip for a tempo dip as both cuts on the B smoulder with slow beauty. 'Sanctuary' hits like a cosmic UR escapade while 'Never Lose Touch' bids us an emotional and heartfelt 150BPM farewell. Visionary.

Review: Transmitting out of Australia and packing some serious Antipodean rave heritage in their collective bones, Boo-Boo, Mace & Nutcase return with some precision tooled rave wreckers for those who like their electro-techno fun and freaky. Boo-Boo (aka Andy Rantzen) and Mace (Paul McDermott) are perhaps best known for their work reaching back to the early 90s as Itch-E and Scratch-E, while Nutcase has plenty of behind the scenes credits to his name. On this collaborative release The veterans trip through gritty, low-rolling breakbeat and spiky, bleepy electro on 'Digital Rubber' and 'Hejaz' respectively, while Rudolf C delivers tweaked out version of 'Digital Rubber' that feel indebted to the freakier end of the rave spectrum.

Review: Aquasky's massive rework of the classic Booka Shade tune "Mandarine Girl" finally gets laid down on wax. Already seeing huge support from all the key jocks including Stanton Warriors, Vigi & many more.

Review: Club Glow powerhouse and all-round Bristol bass-bin baiting badman Borai returns to his Higher Level label with three new drops of elevated breakbeat science. As well as his work alongside Denham Audio, L Major and Mani Festo in Club Glow, Borai has been busy landing uptempo slammers on Hardcore Energy, Vivid, E-Beamz and Infiltrate in the past couple of years, and he returns to home turf in peak shape.


The A-side lights up with the dizzying break-juggling ruffness of 'Lights On', a surefire call to squeeze the last juice from the party, while 'Bobbi' opens the B side treading an artful line between deep and depraved as immersive tones face off against taut, driving rhythms. 'Sargasso Sea' smooths the proceedings out good and proper in true B2 style with a pitched-down slice of soul-charged broken beat that smacks where it counts, Borai's established instinct for forward-facing melody shining through in the interplay between 90s keys, diva vocal samples and illustrious pads.

Review: Bristol producer Borai (Boris English) and London's Denham Audio (Peri Ashwood) pulled off a remarkable feat with 'Make Me/No Good', an unequivocal release put out on Higher Level Records in 2019. Repurposing the unmistakable hookline from Donna Allen's g-funk jacker 'Serious' from 1986 into a fully re-recorded sample all their own, 'Make Me' set alight the feet of the breaksy raver, striking serious gold in the classic formula of easily-recognised old-school-soul vocals and sculpted tearout heft. As anthemic as its original B-side, 'No Good', the original latter half of the record now comes substituted by Big Ang's Rave To The Grave mix, whose blooping trooper sound design and mains-hum Reeses provide an ecstatic alter. A can't-go-wrong reissue by the Room Two camp.

Review: Brako continues to go it alone with self-titled releases on a self-titled label, and why not? When the tunes are this good you don't need the extra boost of a big name label. There are just two of them on this punchy EP, the first being 'Bandit' which has a snaky bassline and loose-limbed groove. It is run through with spaced out pads, gurgling cosmic lines and silky hooks that are finished to perfection with a great neo-soul vocals. On the flip, 'Police' is a more dubbed-out and stripped-back tune with elastic rhythms and heady pads. Great work.

Review: Dance music is rife with megalomaniacal personalities eager to carve their names in, well, whatever the techno equivalence of blue-plaque posterity is. Here, however, the producer Brother Nebula (Lance DeSardi), from Texas, flips the desire to delusively status-climb for such trifles on its head, inverting the idiom "delusions of grandeur" in naming their EP 'The Grandeur Of Delusion'. Informed by delusion or not, this is a grand EP, rendering the problematic of grandiosity somewhat moot: from dark future garage faceoffs ('Ice Giant', 'God's Green Earth') to brooding halftime ice floes ('The Grandeur...'), Nebula has thoroughly honed his craft since relocating to London, not failing to blur genre categories across borders, nor to compel with huge, still technical broken beats.

Review: In the summer of 2023, Upgrade Records launched via a nostalgic, party-starting EP from the previously unheard artist In 5 D (likely an alias for someone a bit better known, but don't quote us on that). For the label's return, long-serving DJ/producer Buckley Boland (best known for his releases on Made To Play, Black Riot and One Records) is the man at the controls. What he's delivered is a nostalgic, sample-rich affair that combines the angular wonkiness and mind-mangling noises of early-to-mid-2000s tech-house with nods towards vintage acid house, electro-house and the hard-to-pigeonhole house filth of the (long gone) Music For Freaks label. Basically, it's all fun-time, party-starting fare, with the bump-and-squelch of 'Daft Sandwich', the bustling brilliance of 'Nude Night' and the break-sporting hustle of 'S/A/M Real Man' standing out.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Slight surface marks, record slightly warped***


In the summer of 2023, Upgrade Records launched via a nostalgic, party-starting EP from the previously unheard artist In 5 D (likely an alias for someone a bit better known, but don't quote us on that). For the label's return, long-serving DJ/producer Buckley Boland (best known for his releases on Made To Play, Black Riot and One Records) is the man at the controls. What he's delivered is a nostalgic, sample-rich affair that combines the angular wonkiness and mind-mangling noises of early-to-mid-2000s tech-house with nods towards vintage acid house, electro-house and the hard-to-pigeonhole house filth of the (long gone) Music For Freaks label. Basically, it's all fun-time, party-starting fare, with the bump-and-squelch of 'Daft Sandwich', the bustling brilliance of 'Nude Night' and the break-sporting hustle of 'S/A/M Real Man' standing out.

Review: Analogue pressure from Bufobufo, who stops over in Japan for Cabaret Recordings after earlier international stints with Art Of Dark, Partout and Furthur Electronix. His second single for the label, founded by So Inagawa and DJ Masda, proffers a hypnotic blend, binarising the mood with the sliding melodes of 'Watercourse' and 'Armour Plated' with comparatively sparse and gritty perc-slaps of 'Wood Ant' and 'Cinnabar'. That strange but difficult-to-nail split between of hypnotic intrigue and immediacy is well and truly nailed.

Review: The Red Bul & Gyn label made a good impression with its first release and now the founders Thomas Bulwer and G Glynn step up with a second collaborative EP of fresh tech and minimal. 'Caffeine' is a shot of energy with its rising synth lines and dramatic sense of intergalactic space travel over a busy, acidic bassline. 'Like It Ruff' is an old school throwback with rap vocals and electro beats, then 'Acid Wash Conflict' is a thumping tech house sound with unsettling pads. 'Techno Talk' closes down with a mid-tempo electro sound and retro-future edge.

Review: FOXBAM INC is back to build on the momentum of their first EP with a second one that packs a mighty punch. This one kicks off with EBY, who this year has been cooking up acid for 40 years and here offers the warped low ends and garage-techno power of 'Goldtooth'. Foxtrot vs Ma Bla then mashes up old school samples with earth-shattering bass on 'Deep Down Inside' and bRz vs Stije is a double-time hard techno stomper with warped synths and twisted bass that is inspired by and named after ISCO, a concept from Einstein's general theory of relativity that makes predictions about the dynamics of black holes.

Review: Guachinche Records captures the best of the Andalusia and Tenerife breakbeat scenes led by the renowned groups Mutantbreakz and Bubble Couple. Their debut vinyl release, GUACH001, is a compilation that perfectly embodies their musical essence and quality. It kicks off with 'Old Groove,' a standout track by Rasco and Bubble Couple and featuring memorable piano and basslines. Suga 7 follows with 'Hideaway,' offering a taste of the Canary Islands with high tempos and playful bass. The B-side includes Mutantbreakz's intricate track with guitar, piano, and vocals, culminating in Raverman's epic 'Sayonora' which is a stunning piece of acid electro-trance.

Review: London underground night train riders Deadbeat Records prioritise techno-breaks handmade for late night and early morning dancefloors, times when both the best and worst comes emerges from each of us. Their inaugural Deadbeat Breaks compilation hears six out of ten full digital curations brought to a shadowy, space-invaded black vinyl truncation, with modern talking synth vomits from Olly Rant, booty bass hups from Hunter Starkings, hackney parroting hurtles from Rnbws, and a closing breakstep broil from Hooverian Blur.

Review: Three years in and Guachinche are proving themselves to be an essential outpost for UK hardcore and rave styles in Spain. Making their interests abundantly clear, their latest 12" is a VA affair simply titled The Rave. You know exactly what to expect from this release then, and DJ Rasco and Bubble Couple more than deliver on the rolling breakbeat and euphoric piano of 'Old Groove'. Suga7 mixes things up a little with some trancey elements folded into a deft, moody workout, while Mutantbreakz brings all the emotions to 'Keep It Up'. Raverman completes the set with a sound which is closer to the US big beat style of the late 90s, complete with some cyberpunk acid lines and a thread of mysticism in the breakdown. If you want big, bold rave styles, this record has got them in abundance.