Back catalogue: Progressive House

Review: Sasha is back with another standout release on his own label, Last Night On Earth, this time joining forces with Jody Barr. After recent collaborations with Super Flu and Sentre as well as his solo hits like 'Florian Drift' and 'How to Wear Raybans Well', Sasha remains a leading figure in the melodic house and techno world. Jody Barr, with releases on Krankbrother, among others, brings his rugged, hardware-driven sound to the mix. Their track 'Phaxon' is an elegant, emotive affair, while Einmusik's remix adds a darker, club-ready edge.

Review: Secretsundaze, both the label and party, is now helmed by James Priestley alone. Here the long-time London staple embarks on a new journey with his first solo release which features a fresh pair of originals. The EP opens with 'Doesn't This Sun Feel Great' which is a slick, speed house cut that is pent up with joy and celebration and has some twisted vocal manipulations and superb percussive details. 'The Real Sun' is similar in that it features plenty of live percussion, some tropical bird calls and humid synth lines that will get big reactions in the club. On the B-side, Drua's remix brings a psychedelic tech-house edge, while Giraffi Dog closes with his '700 Lakeside Remix' which is a little more sundown and sultry.

Review: Shat is a place in Yorkshire (well, the nickname a village called Skelmanthorpe). Shat is something you hope to never do. Shat is also the alias of an artist who makes progressive house with a 90s twist. This outing is a third on the Party Tricks label and it opens with some swirling celestial pads, dream-scape beats and dusty hits that get your head amongst the clouds. 'Dwingeloo' is a faster slice of progressive techno with freewheeling pads and raspy basslines. Two remixes on the flip that things into very different territory but both of them are going to prove effective in the right setting.

Review: The debut album from Ukrainian collective Noneside unites musicians and visual artists under the inspiring words of poet Taras Shevchenko, who said 'Make love, o dark-browed ones.' Framed by a painting from contemporary artist Iryna Maksymova, the music explores the trance and tech house that is destined to bring souls together on the dancefloor this summer and beyond. Shjva opens with fresh and mashed bass and sleek trance pads that are subtle but effective. Lostlojic layer sup deep, bubbly techno drums and bass with an angelic vocal tone and Saturated Color's 'Trancia' is a speedy, scuffed-up tech groove for late-night cruising. Peshka and Yevhenii Loi offer two more future-facing trance-techno fusions packed with feels.

Review: Simic's contribution to Accessory's eighth release is a masterclass in minimal house that ventures into frosty sonic landscapes. On the A-side, 'Third Dream' opens with delicate precision, utilising airy percussion and sparse melodies that leave plenty of room for the listener's imagination to wander. Its hypnotic, minimal structure feels perfectly at home in a late-night set, inviting dancers to get lost in its clean lines and steady pulse. 'When The Foot Falls' follows, maintaining the minimalist ethos but with a touch more warmth, weaving intricate rhythms into a seamless, immersive journey. The B-side shifts the mood with 'An Introduction to Frost', bringing in the krautrock-inspired textures that lend the record its icy allure. There's a deliberate pace to the track, each layer added carefully, building a shimmering, crystalline atmosphere. This progression is taken a step further with Apt E's 'Glacier Dub' remix, which plunges even deeper into the chill, transforming the original into a dubbed-out, weighty exploration of sound. Apt E's treatment introduces a spaciousness that reverberates with echoes, as if the track is playing out in a vast, frozen cavern. Simic's deft balance of minimalist house and krautrock elements results in a release that is equally suited to introspective listening and dynamic club environments. It's an impressive addition to the Accessory catalogue, showcasing his versatility while remaining rooted in the colder, more experimental corners of electronic music.

Review: It's been a while since we last heard from Jack Hamill aka. Space Dimension Controller; his latest releases for Hypercolour and Running Back are of course stellar, but Aus Music in particular haven't been a home to the galaxian weltgeist since 2021, and fans know he is the kind of artist to bring a unique inflection to each label, despite his style commanding a palpably cosmic throughline. 'Final Quest' centres once more on SDC's own character invention Tiraquon - an intergalactic, jet-packed traveller whose ambitions know few bounds. On 'Jet Free', we hear Tiraquon re-don the jetpack like a power-fantasying teenage boy to an Evangelion, slowly regaining confidence by way of a brilliantly swung future disco buildup. Then comes 'Cryfaze', which bedazzles to the point of blindness, and 'Tiraquon's Final Quest', an apogee of acid synthesis and variety. And finally, Tiraquon touches down in France for a 4x4 '1 4 U', dedicated not to the indulgent drives of IDM/acid, but rather the beachside sun-up moods expectant of summer.

Review: An homage to the destructive force of entropy in the form of dungeon-esque techno by Strange Haze, 'Time Destroys All Things'. "Beyond the realm of human desire, there is a darkness..." "Well, that's why I'm with you!". So goes the conversant sample on the A1 'Possessions', a track determined not to overlook the inherent appeal of the more sinister and sadistic ends of human motivation, no matter how innocuous at first glance. The instrumental palette is machinic, though the end of 'Time Travel' begets the image of a troubadour time lord, where too much spacetime teleporting may lead to tunnel-visioned bouts of 'Amnesia'. Finally, the title track hangs looser, preferring to work in a coldwave come electro lysis, in which juvenile vocal shouts and emergent arps unfold throughout.

Review: Reissued 30 years on, SYT's 'Deep Drift' first hover-slammed its way onto our turntables as a spinoff EP of the much-nattered-about Shave Yer Tongue free party, which took place every Sunday night somewhere in suburban West London. The night's founders, Scott James and Christopher Hayne, took on this duo-deistic alien guise as a response to the tractor-beaming blisses they'd experienced on the dancefloor, yet which they could not find solid enough expression for in words. 'Siren' and 'Loop Hole' span allotropic forms of the same style, quantum superpositions of trance: cascading, welcoming, introductory; then cautionary, hovery, supernatural. 'Drift' goes big on the surround mix with extra boxy kicks; 'Jitter' then serves as a bleeping, free-teknikal enervation in trance, and is by far the best on the record, for its unguent stereo design and strobing synth patch layers.

Review: While most party DJs lament their wedding gigs while lauding their fun cool jobs, Wedding Acid Group - the openers of this latest V/A by Undersound Recordings - marks a point of going beyond mere cultural Stockholm syndrome, not just making light of our matrimonial masters, but redirecting those cheugy energies into a killer beatific-corrosive intro.AThen come three more riveting uplifts of a blissful and bouncey variety, from 'Do As I Say' by Albert Ess to 'Singlestranded' by Systelman to 'Love2' by J. Mono, seguing from industrial anvil clankage to a nightbus-bound house closer.