Sneaker Social Club Vinilo y CD

Review: The always naughty Sneaker Social Club label taps up D3U5E for this fresh bass fiver tracker. It's a celebration of the UK's rich heritage of electronic music with the plunging bass and massive thwacking hits of 'Quasar' kicking off. There are dusty jungle breaks to 'Dust Particle', twisted dubstep contortions on 'HAL9000' and fizzing broken beats with a real urban menace on 'Deckman.' Closer 'The Abyss' is a collab with Gav that rides a more zoned-out and atmospheric groove and completes a varied and vital EP once more from this crucial underground label.

Review: Over the course of his career to date, shadowy London producer Filter Dread has proved to be one bass music's most imaginative producers, offering up a range of EPs that snugly sit in the cracks between sub-genres. On "Ice Rave", his debut album, he continues this approach, romping through a collection of weighty, club-ready cuts that variously touch on dancehall/140 fusion ("Ice B8ass"), eight-bit electro ("Space Conga"), mind-altering post-grime intensity ("Time To Let Go"), hybrid hardcore/dubstep insanity ("Ice Rave") and mutant tech-funk (the skittish and doom-laden "Tekker Wave"). In other words, it's a sub-heavy sprint just overflowing with ideas.

Review: Following last year's Final Departure on Keysound, J Shadow returns to the realm of albums with his second LP, this time on Sneaker Social Club. Ominously titled The End Of All Physical Form, it's business as usual as J plays between the genres, murking up boundary lines with a raw sense of funk and emotional energy. Sitting somewhere between breaks, garage, grime and drum & bass, the whole body of work is a whirlwind attack of the senses that works well both for home listening and dancefloor demolishing. From the breakbeat bombardment of 'Arsu' to the much slower, undiluted eski-beat heaviness of 'Prototype' by way of the turbo charged futurist finale 'No Gravity', J Shadow has delivered something special here... And it sounds best on the physical form of a 12".

Review: Sneaker Social regulars Alan Johnson return to the label with more unclassifiable gems. All flexing that bewitching, beaty brew of percussion, smoking 808s, shattered beats and crafty sampling, each cut hits with a direct physical groove. From the System-level dubsteppy title track to the more organic haze and swoons of the finale 'People Of The World', the UK duo have once again weaved a fine line between so many genres without committing to any. Tonnes of love..

Review: After making a big impression with his first 12" on Senaker Social in 2019, Low End Activism is back with a superb full length. It finds him 'sum up the conflicting emotions attached to memories of home' as he explores his own sonic roots through the prism of future-rushing soundsystem sonics. The tracks are wrought with street level tensions and urban and suburban gimme, with darkness adn frustration. But there is also home and solidarity in these sounds which are sure to unite people of all backgrounds on the world's dance floors.

Review: LEA is back up to his activities as he comes crashing back onto planet Sneaker Social with three beautiful broken beat fusions. All sitting around that dubstep/techno/23rd century garage axis, the focus is on the groove, the subs and that lean, timeless funk he's made his signature. 'Sent West' sounds like a dark B-side of a 2005 CoOp joint, all mean and minimal but suddenly opening up into a jazzy flourish. 'Neurosis', meanwhile, subverts the two-step vibe for a spacious dub jam that could work across a multitude of genres before the brilliantly titled 'Dry Chat Wet Rag' closes off with a slo-mo jungle breakbeat fix. Moist.

Review: Breakbeat will never die, and we know this for a fact, so long as EPs like 'Breakbeater' continue to be released. Homing on the style's audiophilic edges, producer Paradox produces something squarely in the middle of classic breakbeat hardcore, drum n' bass and breakstep here, with the title track needing little but womping kicks, ultra-designed breaks and the occasional whispery vocal sample and bass lick to satiate our cravings for the sound. The B, 'Detronic', deconstructs the trope even further, dubbifying the break's metallic 2-stepping edge by plunging it into Basic Channel-esque ricochets.

Review: Grime legends Trends, Boylan and Slimzee have made independent names for themselves over the years for their enduring contributions to the underground; the former two artists first cropped up on our radar after a string of horror-movie-themed grime bits which first proliferated virally on the internet. Slimzee, on the other hand, has been there from the beginning, co-founding the legendary Rinse FM pirate station among other things. We can't contain our excitement for this fresh, psychotic release for Etch's Sneaker Social Club; returning to the trio's penchant for oppressively trappy instrumentals, there are newer explorations in breakstep and garage, fleshing out the many teeth-gritted possibilities of the eight-bar rhythm. Haunting, atrophied sonic skeletons from a dream trio.

Review: One of the foremost female frontrunners in the Dutch jungle/rave scene Yorobi makes her debut on Sneaker Social Club with this powerful slab of wax justice that ranges from the ambient title track 'Eden' to a contemporary breakbeat interpretation of a traditional black spiritual 'Motherless Child'. Between we have the eerie tension and percussive drama of 'Stabs', the sweet dreamy shuffles of 'Model Patient' and the gentle transportive charm of 'Rhode To Knowhere'.