Back catalogue: Drum And Bass/Jungle

Review: Silent Force are d&b classicists who always bring the quality with their timeless sounds. And that very much continues to be the case with this first release for the new year. It's a collab between Opal's and Kimbr that opens with 'Alive', a breakbeat lead banger with looping drums and raw snares. 'Undergrowth' is a silky number with a menacing late-night feel in the groaning pads and tense drums. 'Demon Poetry' brings some darker vibes with a prying, distorted, menacing bassline and 'Keep Things Balanced' is another well-controlled, potent drum & bass workout with jungle influences and a dystopian energy to it.

Review: Ready to take a deep dive? Some long lost Orca dubs resurfaced on Deep Jungle last year and here comes the reissue. One of Kosheen co-founder Decoder's earliest projects, Orca's ripples date back to around 92 and seminal labels like Lucky Spin. Here we have a few reloads and few unreleased moments from that era. Highlights include the wonderfully rushy 'Spacetek' with its bellowing pads and springy beats and the didge-blasting wobbler 'Skylab' but the whole EP is fantastic. Have a whale of a time.

Review: Deep Jungle have delivered once again as some seminal sounds from Lucky Spin have been unearthed and reissued. Destination 1995; a West Country trio named Orca are making their name for themselves in the jungle phenomenon. Featuring early sounds from Decoder (one half of the chart-topping Kosheen years later), each of these breakbeat bust-ups carries a certain air of Bristol grit and euphoric rave energy. 'Intellect' is all about the savage drum chops while 'Sample & Hold' goes in more for the deep swing. Timeless vibes. Have yourself a whale of a time. (Not sorry)

Review: Since its relaunch in 2017, Deep Jungle has been killing it by serving up previously unreleased tunes from the 90's next to represses of select rarities and new tunes in the vibe of the classic 93-96 era. Here we have Orca ensuring we all have a whale of a time (hey, hey) while lost in the precision-tooled breaks and snares, hits and lunging basslines of 'What Kind Of World.' 'Camyx' is a more trippy sound with liquid synths shimmering and raga vocals during the beatdown. 'Echoes' is a driving and physical workout with high seed loops and minimal pads.

Review: Outer Heaven explores a range of tumbling tempos on this exploratory new EP for UVB-76 Music. 'The Observatory' has a grand scale - the drums ping about a wide stereo field, the fizzing synths, groaning vocals and scattered hits all cover a large area with you locked in the midst. 'More Hardcore' is a jungle cut that takes flight on dusty metal drum breaks as vocal apparitions and sci-fi effects dart about above. Closer 'Minority Industrial Complex' is a heavy and industrial dub with great height in the drums and a hint of dystopia never far away.

Review: Peaking once again; Vinyl Fanatiks off-shoot AmenTec (which is a collaboration between Amen Brother and Emotec) welcome old-but-new artist Ova Doce for his debut label EP. The result is a wide-armed homage to all forms of breakbeat and hardcore in the form of two originals and two remixes. 'I Feel Your Touch' is one of those end-of-night slo-mo dreamy breakbeat jams, all poignant and emotional (think Hybrid's early work but much grittier) while 'Love Me Once' goes straight for the Vamp-ish 2am hardcore feel. Meanwhile in remix country, DAWL flexes some tightly coiled electro charm while Escape Earth whips up the d&b. Easy Doce it.

Review: Jim Coles' decision back in 2010 to implement a swerve in his sonic trajectory away from his hip-hop past as 2tall in favour of a more all-encompassing approach that touches on various strands of bass culture as Om Unit has paid off and then some. Subsequent releases on Exit, Autonomic, Civil Music, Metalheadz and his own Cosmic Bridge imprint have all shown Om Unit eminently capable of tempo shifting productions that appeal to fans of Bass music, Drum & Bass and footwork alike. The latter has been explored further while the Dream Continuum collaboration with Machinedrum on Planet Mu and his Philip D. Kick alias where the link between Chicago's juke heritage and UK Jungle was explored. All this and more is included on Threads, a debut Om Unit LP for Civil Music that deftly collates various strands (or threads) of his production career over the past fifteen years for a cohesive 15 track set that veers through of hip hop, dubstep, jungle and even house.