The wheels had slowly stopped turning; the whole world had shut down. What marked danger for humanity, wielded freedom for nature — now plant and wildlife could thrive in places that had once been impossible. Some travelled to the glistening waters of the canals, while others took to the sky in search of new climes to mate. It's amazing what can happen when the power's switched off for just a moment...

Two years ago Berlin-based producer and musician Guava took care of the second release for London's Control Freak Recordings, and now he's returning for his second EP, ‘The Dolphins are Back in Venice’, but this time he's bringing a few friends along with him for the ride. Fellow producers LUXE and Breaka join for two of the four tracks, all of which showcase Guava's dexterity at merging digital and analog practices. Coming via the label's hand-stamped white label series, the release matches syncopated rhythms and weighty low end with self-sampled guitar licks and playful melodies.

The Dolphins Are Back In Venice

PREMIERE: Guava & Breaka - The Dolphins Are Back In Venice [Control Freak]

Casting a self-reflexive lens over his roots via the medium of crushing, future-rushing soundsystem sonics, Low End Activist returns to Sneaker Social Club with a full-length of monumental proportions.

When the Low End Activism 12” ignited on Sneaker in 2019, it paid tribute to the Blackbird Leys estate in Oxford, UK, where LEA originates from. In the shadow of social inequality and strengthened by the unity of the multi-ethnic community, Blackbird Leys still imposes a powerful influence on LEA’s work, even as he’s stepped out onto Seagrave for last year’s Game Theory album and notched up the first couple of releases on his own self-titled label.

On this new album, Hostile Utopia sums up the conflicting emotions attached to memories of home – how it’s possible to feel nostalgic for the griminess of urban and suburban Britain, its ordinary tales of bitterness and frustration, but also its intrinsic passion and solidarity. At a time when social division is actively engineered by Machiavellian forces, real conviviality at street level feels like an impossible dream.

LEA communicates these tensions through a style which is becoming his signature – dynamic bass torsion and chiseled, fractalised rhythms slugging around the 130 mark. It’s moody like a UK-themed record ought to be, but it’s not morose. There’s fierceness in every snap and rumble, as the legacies of hardcore, jungle, dubstep and grime pour into the casing prior to the gunpowder lighting.

On previous LEA releases, the MC roll call has pointed to some of the most vital voices touching the mic in the present day. Flowdan, Sikka Rymes and Trim all had something different to impart over the riddims, and now Hostile Utopia expands on that with the most extensive show of lyrical strength yet. Mez lights up the woozy, abstract grime swerve of ‘Mercenary’ in a musical style. Emz brings a ruthlessly sharp verbal steez to ‘GetGet’, Killa P gets busy toasting over ‘DFRNT STYLE’ and ‘Superhighway’ carries the dexterous hip-hop flow of Cadence Weapon.

In between those standout tracks, LEA expresses just as much in the production. Tracks brimming with stories to impart, laden with symbols masquerading as samples and draped in aural garb that firmly places Hostile Utopia in a place, a mood, that could only belong to the UK. It’s a hybrid sound just like the society it sprang from, and therein lies its power.

Low End Activist ft.  Emz - Get Get

Three years after their first collaboration, culminating in the release of “The Passenger”, Om Unit and Martyn are back on 3024 with another four track exploration of tempo and vibrations on a new EP called “AJ^6”.

The two ‘veteran’ producers have been highly prolific over the past years, with Om Unit making waves with his massive Acid Dub Studies project as well as new work under his Philip D. Kick alias, and Martyn spearheading and mentoring a robust group of new musicians responsible for no less than five (!) compilations on 3024. What brings the two producers together in the studio once again is the constant hunger for new and interesting sounds on the outer rim of the ‘bass continuum’. Instead of tirelessly rehashing old tropes they are continuously inspired to write new music that’s both current as well as firmly in their aesthetic profile.

‘Basilisk’ and ‘The Trenches’ are great examples of the duo blending odd tempos with dub wise heaviness. ‘Basilisk’ has already been doing some serious damage on the dance floor with its punchy 107 beat structure and headzy breakdown, while the almost imperial march of ‘The Trenches’ introduces a bubbly bass line. ‘Illroy’ and ‘Dragonfly’ both inhabit a dreamier, more melodic universe and have a timeless, ambivalent quality to them, somewhere between a lost b-side of an early 00s Hospital Records release and something on Scuffed. Enjoy!


Expertly mastered by Bob Macc at Subvert Mastering

AJ^6

Buy on Bandcamp

Martyn X Om Unit - Basilisk (3024-OMM2)

Burn & Heal

Worstis

siphonic - zeroday

Snapchat- Addisongroove
@denhamaudio_
Out now on vinyl only. Hitting records stores in the next few days OR buy direct from : https://rwdfwd.com/products/addison-groove-footcrab-edits/


Follow denham audio for updates on their music here: https://soundcloud.com/denhamaudio


Buy It Here

Footcrab - Denham Audio Edit / AG Edit - OUT NOW.

Pangaea - Router (HES006)

Bash (AKA Julio Bashmore) graces Trules fifth release and the first in a series of ten inch white label singles with Jubilee, a sub heavy, minimal, UK garage dub that manages to marry the sparser techno vibes of his Conch releases with the subtle anthemic quality of his other alias. A real dance floor sneak bomb.
Al Wootton provides a two-stepping dub remix on the B-side, chopping the drums and echoing everything out to infinity.

Bash - Jubilee (Al Wootton Remix)

Pugilist steps up on Trule with a four track EP of sound system club heaters across various styles and BPMs. From the broken UK garage of the title track, the crunching breaks of Untitled with ILK, the dubwise Junglism of Adversity with Tamen, and the techno dancehall variation of Portal. Something for all the dancers.

Heavy Lies The Crown

Taken from the Pink Dolphins EP by @Sam_Interface (formerly known as SNØW)
Out September 25th - smarturl.it/pink-dolphins

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