BASS RECOMMENDATIONS MAY 2013

Review: The So Submissive EP sees some of 90s house revivalists most ubiquitous characters collide on a clear red slab of vinyl. It marks the return to Madtech for the dreadlocked Citizen following his debut for Kerri Chandler's label last year and comes backed with a remix from like minded duo Waze & Odyssey. Citizen is on typical form here, with both the title track and "Stronger With You" characterised by doleful vocal treatments, crisp drumming and pensive, soul infused melodic touches. Waze & Odyssey elect to rework the latter track, perhaps due to the more interesting vocal sample and offer a more jacking rendition that comes replete with a fidgeting undercurrent.

Review: Glasgow label All Caps bust down the house with their third release in as many years - clearly a label dedicated to quality over quantity - and it's their best yet; no mean feat considering how high the "WTF" factor was on their previous release, Stacks Riddim from Helix. We're not sure exactly what TFB stands for, but this 12" finds Idle Hands and Livity Sound regular Kowton on imperious form with a self styled ode to grime group Ruff Sqwad that captures perfectly All Caps dual love of techno and grime. Pariah and Blawan are handed the honour of the first remix on an All Caps release, and their collective effort as Karenn does a magnificent job of translating the raw energy of Kowton's original as a mangled, one take techno behemoth cast from hardware.

Review: Tis the season for new artist specific labels; here drum freak Randomer inaugurates the RNDMR White Label series with four powerful productions. North Londoner Rohan Walder has matured into one of the finest current exponents of gleefully dark roughneck techno, having dabbled in both D&B and dubstep early in his career. This 12" sees Randomer continue to refine his raw signature sound across four productions, and includes the long awaited "Search It Out," a real devastating weapon which has been in the hands of Ben UFO and Surgeon for some time.

Review: When Peggy Lee slinked around in the 50s to the sultry strains of "Fever", could she ever have imagined that half a century later, people like Romare would be turning her tune into a weed smokin', love makin' slo-mo RnB jam? Unlikely to say the least, but "Your Love (You Give Me Fever") is on the money and respectful, if different to the original's mood. Elsewhere on Romare's latest Black Acre release, "Jimi & Faye" is a warped take on blues, "Taste Of Honey" recalls the days of daisy age hip-hop and "Hey Now" is a weary and haunting piano lament.

Review: We don't usually condone lying here at Juno, but when you tell seven of them across a beautiful nine track debut album, it's absolutely acceptable. Applaudable, even. Highlights across this deep, tightly woven bass adventure include the Portishead-style trippy dubtronica of "Comos Los Cerdos", the somnambulant drones and breathy washes of "Lies", the nagging techno loopery of "Dam" and the trembling graveyard soul of "Arcana".

Review: Always a tricky customer to get a handle on, just when you think you know where James Connolly is headed with his release arc he swerves back the other way, from chart-testing pop-inflected jams to raw club destroyers. On this latest march on his Night Slugs stomping ground, Connolly is definitely looking to rock the dance but he's not holding back on the musical elements either. On "Not Mad" there's plenty of boogie flavoured synth flares to inject some colour into proceedings, while the title track gets into an almost Autechre-styled disposition with it's mechanical warmth conundrum. "Signal" manages to conjure a powerful blend of electro funk dynamics and sci-fi moods that it's very hard to argue with.

Review: Speak to Bok Bok about Night Slugs and it's clear grime has played a huge influence on what they do so it makes total sense that the label should coax some music out of grime originator for their White Label series. Known for Known for seminal beats such as "Anger Management" and "Real", P Jam's return from a four year production hiatus looks to spread further than this 12" with contributions to the forthcoming Grime 2.0 compilation and Terror Danjah's Hardrive label primer too. The A Side has P Jam dropping a 130bpm jungle cover of a famous Frankie Knuckles track which you'll immediately recognise when those strings hit - and how good does it sound to hear Amens on a Night Slugs release? Face down P Jam offers a skeletal dub take on the same track which is all about the jagged squarewave bass line.

Review: Although it has only one release to its name - Happa's Beat Of The Drum - London club night turned record label Church is looking to be an imprint to keep close tabs on, especially on the strength of this second EP, from young London producer Rumah. Although his debut from last year demonstrated an atmospheric, syncopated style of bass music, "Stutter" shows a marked progression into swung techno styles, with a weighty track full of concrete rhythms and glassy synths; "Murmur" is similarly powerful, throwing acid flecks and sunken vocals into the mix. Meanwhile, Apes & Seb Wildblood offer their own take on "Stutter", tempering some of the original's more ferocious attributes with some subtle dub techno elements, while James Fox refixes "Murmur" into a slinky, mid-tempo house groover, whose swelling synths offer something considerably deeper.

Review: Make You sees Praveen Sharma and Travis 'Machinedrum' Stewart return to their Sepalcure project roughly a year after their last release together. Arriving through Hotflush Recordings, this five track collection immediately aligns itself to the adroit drum programming heartbreaking melodies, chopped guitar cuts and infectious tremelo vocals of previous Sepalcure output. Indeed the title track sees Sharma and Stewart lean on the oft-used money note skills of Whitney Houston, though the results are steadfastly more musically interesting than the numerous shallow house tracks that have emerged of late with a similar ploy at the core. "He Said No" gets the balance between hopeful and mournful just right, whilst the tunnelling drums of "The Water's Fine" shift in an out of focus in a manner that should sound immense on a proper system.

Review: Fresh faced deep house bod Contakt slides over to the equally youthful Icee Hot imprint and brings a healthy amount of techno influence with him in the process. "Tessera 04" in particular shimmers with dubbed-out chords and a stripped down beat, looking for a more spiritual kind of headspace whilst lead track "Nobody Else" gets busy with bright piano chords pounding out at a militant pace. It's a fusion of energy and depth that should work wonders in the dance, while Ghosts On Tape shed the deepness and focus on rave hysteria in a stomping house stylee for their remix of "Nobody Else". That leaves it to Robert Hood to get technical on an intricate and masterful remix of "Tessera 04" like only he can.

Review: Have a word! Rustie's added a wily, technicolour body-slamming recipe to the trap cookbook. The result? A full-throttle audio rainbow but instead of a pot of gold sitting pretty at the end, there's massive bucket of bass. Heaviness doesn't begin to describe its visceral nature. "Slasherr", meanwhile, sees more classic Rustie theatrics - all halfstep and warped and twisted, as its title suggests, it will indeed tear your floor apart.

Review: After launching in dancehall style with Kahn & Neek's Backchat last year, Bristol-based Hotline Recordings move to dubstep on this second release containing two bonafide bangers from Lurka. Known for his collaborations with Commodo and searing solo productions for the likes of Black Box and Box Clever, Lurka's sound shares elements of Coki's harsh mechanical wobble and Mala's propulsive rhythms, however his Hotline single is something quite different. "Full Clip" has all the sonic hallmarks of his previous productions, but ratchets the pace up to a ridiculous 175BPM halfstep and smears his basslines in what sounds like a vocoder; "BR Greaze" is similarly paced but combines his shackling rhythms with "Dominator"-inspired hoover synths. Great stuff and impeccable sleeve design once again.

Review: London three-piece Vondelpark have been slated for big things ever since the release of their debut EP, Sauna, in 2010. A few setbacks (including the loss of all of the recordings originally slated for their first album) and acclaimed singles later, they aim to fulfill their early promise with this re-recorded debut LP. Their sound - fluid, dreamy, other-worldly and occasionally Balearic - sits somewhere between E'd-up shoegaze, the atmospheric simplicity of James Blake, and the sort of saucer-eyed dream-pop that once used to be the preserve of Brian Wilson. Such effervescence makes for a warm and endearing album, full of emotion-rich songs, subtle soundscapes and wide-eyed grooves. They may not be the finished article just yet, but this is an impressive debut.

Review: Lrusse & Bleecker sound as if they're as Dutch as Audio Culture itself. Turns out they're actually from Bristol, and this is their debut EP. Fusing lo-fi fuzzy house with generous dollops of bass and an almost Detroit sensibility, there's more than a touch of the Weatheralls throughout the release. Core moments include the off-kilter funk of the bass whinges on "Peier Field", the wafting jazz horns of "Angiogram" and the sludgy sci-fi groove on "Contact". An accomplished debut.

Review: A 70th release is no mean feat for any record label in today's climate and Tectonic Recordings celebrate such a landmark in requisite style here as label boss Pinch teams up with UK funky veteran Roska. Fans of Tectonic should be familiar to the sight of Roska and Pinch together with the label dropping their "Paranormal Activity" effort back in 2011; "Shoulda Rolla" trades the trundling forward momentum of that track a halfstep arrangement driven by a thick, stuttering bass. It's seeped in the atmospheric classicisms of dubstep as you'd expect but there's still plenty of rhythmic innovation here to keep it sounding fresh. On the flip, Roska goes solo with the snap heavy new cut "Asbestos".

Review: An intriguing bass collection here from Taz and Rwina label boss Akka. Boundary pushing is the name of the game as the likes of classic electro, ghetto bass, trap and deep D&B are all thrown in the melting pot. "Illusory" leads with a Starkey-level injection of technicolour euphoria, "Mobius" is a much darker joint with some very cool retro gamer samples hidden in the mix, "Paul Is Dead" is the love child of juke and D&B while "Trapped In 82" whisks us down a much slower, smoochier avenue. Sexy, slick and very forward thinking.

Review: The creative renaissance of Nubian Mindz continues apace with the TV Watches You 12" for the Phuturshock Music label. The elder statesmen out there will recognise Nubian Mindz as broken beat veteran Colin Lindo whose deep, syncopated approach to beat programming graced the likes of Irma, Delsin, Rush Hour, Reinforced and Dego's 2000Black. Lindo signalled the end of a five year hiatus away from music earlier this year with the Hacker Wacker EP for Disko404, and this new three track 12" demonstrates he's on top of his game. Lead track "Dutty Beach" displays his prowess for tricked out drum arrangements from the off, with the mood switching from hopeful to plain out dutty with aplomb, whilst the title track operates on a devious slant through subaqueous techno filtered through with Lindo's own singular style. On the flip, Lindo doffs a sly nod to his Alpha Omega material with the ruff junglist/dark garage hybrid "Many Poly".

Review: Observances marks the first official release from South London-based producer Shape Worship, following a couple of self-released demos that caught the ear of Exotic Pylon chief Jonny Mugwump. The producer is quoted in a press release as saying he enjoys "the creative use of repetition, open collaboration, the enjoyment of mistakes and sub-bass", and on first listen Observances seems to contain a number of sonic reference points - "Concentration" is subtly reminiscent of Vacuum Boogie, for example - albeit with a clear depth to the production that suggests Gillett is intent on carving his own sonic niche. The six tracks on offer use broken beats as their foundation upon which Gillett teases out gently rippling arpeggios, with "Seaglass" a particularly spectral showcase of his talent.