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Review: 2016 sees Coyote arrive at a decade of posing the question Is It Balearic? Replicating the compilation shaped celebrations surrounding their fifth anniversary, the landmark is noted with this fine 2CD collection. The compiling skills of Balearic chieftain Max Essa are called on for the first disc selections, with Coyote taking care of business on the second for a fine horizontally-minded celebration of all things Balearic encompassing 22 tracks. Tempos nudge back and forth, different vibes coming to the fore along the way as a dash of steel drum is replaced by forthright synth glistens and upright basslines. Legends mingle alongside future heroes, Foolish Felix and Baldelli impressing as much as Last Waltz and Clandestino. As the end nears, up pops Prins Thomas's classic Diskomiks of Downtown Party Network. Here's to another ten years Is it Balearic?

Review: Very little is known about the collective of musicians behind the SAULT project, but their music in many ways speaks for itself. Earlier in the year they delivered Untitled (Black Is), a heartfelt, angry and righteous set of soul, funk, drill and spoken word tracks that provided a brilliant commentary on what it means to be black in 2020. It's a contender for album of the year, for sure, and the good news is that this speedy follow-up is every bit as essential. It's undoubtedly more celebratory than its predecessor, but every bit as musically detailed, combining cutting-edge electronics and all manner of infectious rhythms with enlightening vocals and all manner of live jazz, soul, punk-funk and jazz-funk instrumentation (as well as some seriously evocative orchestration).

Review: Very little is known about the collective of musicians behind the SAULT project, but their music in many ways speaks for itself. Earlier in the year they delivered Untitled (Black Is), a heartfelt, angry and righteous set of soul, funk, drill and spoken word tracks that provided a brilliant commentary on what it means to be black in 2020. It's a contender for album of the year, for sure, and the good news is that this speedy follow-up is every bit as essential. It's undoubtedly more celebratory than its predecessor, but every bit as musically detailed, combining cutting-edge electronics and all manner of infectious rhythms with enlightening vocals and all manner of live jazz, soul, punk-funk and jazz-funk instrumentation (as well as some seriously evocative orchestration).

Review: Over the last seven years, Dicky Trisco's Disco Deviance label has become one of the most reliable sources to top-notch disco and boogie re-edits, delivering a string of must-have, vinyl-only releases. Given that their last CD roundup of 12" releases dropped back in 2012, Digital Deviance Volume 4 is well overdue. Predictably, it's packed with dancefloor dynamite, from the lolloping disco bump of Rahaan's "Make Me Whole", and Pete Herbert and Dicky Trisco's "Get To You" (a near perfect instrumental rearrangement of France Joli's "Gonna Get Over You") , to the organ laden madness of Dimitri From Tokyo's "SFunky". Best of all, though, is "Don't Stop Me" by The Popular People's Front, a heavily percussive romp through bumpin' disco-funk pastures.

Review: classic 2010 Theo Parrish album Sketches back in stock on CD.

Review: Of all DJ duos currently operating in British dance music, Belfast boys Bicep might be the hardest to pin down (Optimo aside, of course). Certainly, this debut album is not easy to pigeonhole, though it is an enjoyably cohesive listen. This is largely down to two factors; the frequent use of deliciously colorful and loved-up synthesizer parts, and the duo's innate ability to utilize beats tailor-made for dancefloor devastation. So while keen dancefloor historians may notice sly (and not so subtle) nods to '89 rave, U.S house and garage, Italo-disco, late '90s progressive house, jungle and early British hardcore, the album never sounds anything less than a fine set of Bicep tracks. Expect it to be one of the biggest albums of the year.

Review: Over the years, Sam Shepheard's work as Floating Points has become increasingly ambitious, moving further away from his dancefloor roots and closer to spiritual jazz, new age and neo-classical. Even so, it was still a surprise when Shepheard announced Promises, a 46-minute piece in 10 "movements" featuring the London Symphony Orchestra and legendary saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. It's an undeniably remarkable piece all told; a constantly evolving fusion of neo-classical ambience, spiritual jazz and starry, synthesizer-laden soundscapes notable not only for Sanders' sublime sax-playing and Shepheard's memorable melodic themes, but also the intricate, detailed nature of the musical arrangements. It's a stunningly beautiful and life-affirming piece all told, and one that deserves your full attention.

Review: And so it is that we say a teary goodbye to Claremont 56's superb Originals series of decidedly Balearic compilations. While a bespoke vinyl box set featuring tracks from the series is due at the end of September, this is the last official installment. This time round, NYC-based, Tokyo-raised Frenchman Alex From Tokyo is the man at the controls. Predictably, his selections are spot on, from the laidback, jazz guitar-flecked bliss of his own Tokyo Black Star re-edit of Pepe California's "Meli-Fali", and the wide-eyed synth-Balearica of Violets' "Sunset", to the tongue-in-cheek post-disco funk of Electric Guitars' "Night Bears", and the 1983 proto-house/boogie dubbiness of Tia Monae's "Don't Keep Me Waiting (Dub Mix)". In other words, it's as impeccable and essential as the rest of the series.

Review: There was naturally much excitement when A Moon Shaped Pool, Radiohead's surprise ninth studio set, popped up on streaming and download services back in May. Here it gets a CD release, offering those who prefer physical products a chance to bathe in its' woozy eccentricities. Seen by some as a return to their arty rock roots following an extended period spend exploring electronics, the album's 11 tracks draw on a variety of influences (krautrock, ambient, Pavement, James Blake, Stockhausen, intense melancholia etc.), with predictably impressive results. Occasionally elegant, string-laden and grandiose, always beautiful, and sometimes intensely moving, A Moon Shaped Pool is undeniably up there with the band's best work.

Review: Having re-invented himself as the UK's favourite funk and soul selector via shows on BBC 6 Music, comedy actor-turned-Corrie cab driver Craig Charles brings his wildly successful Funk & Soul Club brand to CD for the first time. Pitched at newcomers rather than confirmed diggers, it features a mix of well known nu-funk floor fillers (The Apples' version of RATM's "Killing In The Name", Nostalgia 77's ubiquitous White Stripes cover), lesser-known cuts from modern soul 'names' (Speedometer, The Haggis Horns, The Bamboos), older gems (Al Wilson, Incredible Bongo Band), a dash of reggae and a few curveballs (Treva Whateva's long-forgotten banger "Singalong"). Good times guaranteed.

Review: Of all the artists past and present who claim to let their music do their talking for them, Burial is one of the elite band of whom this truly is the case. In fact, so reluctant is he to engage with the cult-of-personality hoopla that surrounds almost every modern producer and musician of merit, that he remains a genuine recluse; he has never appeared live, only one obliquely-angled publicity photograph is known to exist, and the number of interviews he has given can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Yet despite this, his music speaks loud and wide, and the world has been listening ever since his 'South London Boroughs' EP debut on Hyperdub in March 2005. His eponymous album, which began life as a low-key release in May 2006, is now widely regarded as the benchmark release of the ever-widening dubstep genre, picking up unanimous critical acclaim along the way, and ending the year heavily featured in many 'best of' polls. Now Burial returns with 'Untrue', a new record of weird soul music, which lovingly processes spectral female voices into vaporised R&B and smudged 2step garage. Vocal lines are blurred, smeared, pitched up pitched down and pitch bent until their content is cast adrift from their original context and they whisper their saccharin sweet nothings into the void. The album continues with the debut's crackle-drenched yearning and bustling syncopations, haunted by the ghosts of rave, but also reveals some new Burial treats with a more glowing, upbeat energy. Kicking off with the skittering 2step syncopations and vocal science of 'Archangel', 'Near Dark' and 'Ghost Hardware', before long it descends into a space of radiant divas and ambience. Where 'Burial' first was humid, suffocating and unrelentingly sad, 'Untrue' is less sunless. Many of the tracks are so sweet, they become toxic, underscored by the almost geological rumbles of growling basslines. Unlike the overpoweringly melancholic prevailing mood of before, Burial's sound is now better defined as a downcast euphoria typified by the epic, muted optimism of the album's last track 'Raver'. Forget central heating the radioactivity of this album is all that you'll need to keep you warm this winter. 'Untrue' is available as full 13 track digipack CD, including recent underground hit 'Ghost Hardware', and 9 track DJ friendly double vinyl set, from which some of the beatless pieces have been edited.

Review: It would be fair to say that Studio K7 has pulled off something of a coup in getting Kenny Dixon Jr. to agree to compile and mix the latest installment in the long-running DJ Kicks series. It is, somewhat remarkably, the legendary Detroiter's first commercially available mix set. This triple-vinyl edition features a whopping 19 cuts - all in unmixed form - from the 30 track mix. Musically, it's a blazed, jazzy, soulful and groovy as you'd expect, and contains a mixture of downtempo beats, nu-jazz and hazy house cuts from the likes of Flying Lotus, Dopehead, Peter Digital Orchestra, Nightmares On Wax, Soulful Session and Lady Alma.

Review: Well, here it is ladies and gentleman: the debut Mount Kimbie LP. Released on Scuba's increasingly influential Hotflush imprint, Crooks & Lovers is an aural delight from start to finish. From the trademark vocal snatches and playful bleeps of "Would Know" to the twangy guitar line and wonderfully chopped vocal melody on "Before I Move Off", this is as fine an exploration of the post-dubstep world as you're ever likely to hear. The duo create a sonic landscape in which every sound matters, with sparse instrumentation, warm pads and typically delicate vocal refrains produced with intricate poise. There are highlights aplenty, but the melodic flourish of "Carbonated", which is just so damn warm and fuzzy it's ridiculous, stands as one of the finer moments - it's like dubstep meets R&B meets the XX. This is quite patently music that could only have been made in the here and now, which in itself is an achievement not to be understated. Indeed, Mount Kimbie have set a high watermark for electronic music in 2010 - who will be able to keep up?

Review: The Sources series of record label retrospectives, compiled by renowned crate digger and journalist Bill Brewster, has previously delivered excellent retrospectives on Easy Street and Fresh Records. Here, Brewster turns his attention to another New York institution of the late '70s and early '80s, popular disco imprint Sam Records. As with previous instalments, Brewster tells the story in loosely chronological order, highlighting both well-known classics - think Vicky D, Komiko, John Davis & The Monster Orchestra and K.I.D - and lesser-known gems. It's these latter selections, including the Evasions' brilliant "All Wrapped Up", Underground's smooth "Behind My Back" and the alien boogie of the Webboes' "Under The Wear", that make this an essential purchase for disco and electrofunk heads.

Review: Back in the early 2000s, Mark E made his name with a series of re-edits on the Jiscomusic label. Those early explorations - long, loopy, glassy-eyed and chugging - effectively defined his distinctive production style. He returned to these roots in spectacular style last year, with a series of similarly minded edits under the E Versions alias. Here he gathers together those cuts on CD for the first time, delivering rubs that variously touch on yearning, deep Balearic house ("I Don't Know What This Is"), heavy loop disco ("Child Star", "The Shoe"), strobe-light, warehouse-friendly tackle ("Mingo") and Madonna ("Magazine", a fantastically chugging, basement-friendly revision of "Vogue").

Review: The connection between Dr. Atmo and Mick Chillage goes back to one of the finest labels to ever grace this planet, FAX records. Many will remember the defining collective for their deep, extended excursions into the far-reaches of ambient mysticism - a style that is still revered to this day. Ruhleben sees a welcome return for Dr. Atmo who, after appearing on some of the very first FAX releases under his own name and different guises throughout its tenure, has been somewhat elusive of late with side-steps into other genres. Now, partnering with another FAX alumni and a foundational figure within today's ambient music genre, Mick Chillage, the pair have returned to their roots and a defining style of ambient music.

Review: To draw a line under the last five years of superlative edit work, Mark E has compiled this second volume of the Selected Tracks & Edits series which will please the edit obsessives no end. Both tracks from Mark E's debut release, the 2005 Scared EP on Jiscomusic, are present here in all their glory and it's a mark of the producer's talent that they sound just as fresh some five years later. "Scared" in particular is pretty much the blueprint for a successful slo mo disco house edit, with the groove of Womack & Womack's "Baby I'm Scared of You" being extended over some ten minutes Theo style, with Mark E adding elements of instrumentation with a guile not matched by some of today's edit cowboys. "Formed" occupies the space marked "End of night set killer" on this CD that "Sun Shadow" the superlative reimagination of Labelle's "Moon Shadow" did on the first volume. Elsewhere unreleased secret weapons such as the opening "Often Think To Myself" or "Darker" where the brooding chug is transformed into a glorious piano led 80s soul instrumental make this a worthy conclusion to some four years of edit dynamite.

Review: Twenty years ago it sounded like an oddly poignant evocation of pre-millennial tension. Two decades later it stands as an eerily prescient glimpe into the technological alienation and dislocation of of a new era. Yet more importantly, OK Computer is no more or less than a sparkling, dramatic and moving collection of songs that haven't lost any of their impact in the interim. The sound of a band stubbornly refusing to follow up the stadium-strafing stylings of its predecessor The Bends - and instead bursting headlong into experimentation and wild creativity -is portrayed in still more vivid colours by the alarmingly strong collection of out-takes and B-sides collected herein, Yet there's no getting away from the chill and spark that marked out OK Computer from everything surrounding it in the post-Britpop malaise, and continues to do so in the pre-Brexit counterpart.

Review: They may only have emerged in 2019, but Inflo's socially conscious, politically charged, impossible-to-pigeonhole Sault collective has already delivered a string of vital albums. Nine, the crew's latest set (and first of 2021) is every bit as incendiary, versatile and impactful as its predecessors, with the 10 collected tracks touching on everything from drowsy R&B, spoken word, classic soul and post-punk rock, to UK bass mutations, gospel, jazz-funk, Charles Stepney style excursions and hazy downtempo beats. Mixing live instrumentation, electronics and a wealth of guest vocals, Nine is a genuinely stunning, thought-provoking album full of razor-sharp lyrics and brilliantly executed musical movements.

Review: William Bevan has now been operating long enough under the Burial alias to be awarded a celebratory "best of" compilation by Hyperdub, the imprint he's been releasing on since 2005. This is no ordinary retrospective, though. It deliberately ignores the celebrated early portion of his career, with the artist choosing to focus not only on tracks made and released in the last eight years, but also those tucked away on B-sides and the darker corners of his EPs. It offers a fine snapshot of the subtle evolution of his sound, quietly creeping between the hushed field recordings and glacial synthesizer lines of "Nightmarket", the intensely up-beat breakbeat madness of "Rival Dealer", the haunting, near 14-minute melancholy of "Rough Sleeper" and the future garage rush of recent single "Claustro".

Review: Like the best instalments in the long-running DJ Kicks series, this mix from Motor City Drum Ensemble man Danilo Plessow gives a far better insight into his musical inspirations than his own productions ever could. While there are, naturally, great deep house moments included (Tevo Howard, Mr Fingers, Latecomer etc), these largely take a back seat to Plessow's other musical passions. So, we get soft-focus electric jazz (Sun Ra), dub wise explorations (Tony Allen, Basic Channel), sweet soul (Peven Everett), dusty afro-funk (Geraldo Pino), urgent leftfield disco (Loose Joints, Walter Gibbons) and even a dash of instrumental jazz-funk (James Mason). That it all makes sense musically, flows brilliantly and is effortlessly entertaining is testament to Plessow's skill as a DJ.