Bestsellers This Week

Review: Trust the Brazilians to give tech-house a sexy makeover. This eighth (count 'em) compilation from Sao Paulo's Lo Kik Records is about as sensual and fun as tech-house gets. It's full to bursting with the sort of gently uplifting, tech-tinged grooves that offer a sunnier alternative to the 'by numbers' fare often served up by European labels. The artists involved are hardly household names - Paolo Mojo is about the most famous - but that almost adds to the excitement. For maximum fun, check out the tracks from G Castro & Truatti, Freakslum, Rafael Noronha and Xiaha Troden.

Review: The title of Drew 'FaltyDL' Lustman's sophomore album could easily be a cheeky swipe at genre-obsessed reviewers; it's true that many have found it hard to categorize his far-sighted take on electronic music. While firmly rooted in dubstep and electronica, Lustman's music has always taken in a dizzying array of musical influences. Add to this a skip-load worth of great ideas and a distinctive production sound that marks out dance music's greats, and it's easy to see why Lustman's music has got critics in a spin. On You Stand Uncertain, he's stepped up his game. If anything, he's cast his net even wider, throwing two-step garage, UK funky, jazz, ambient, slow house, old fashioned rave and ARP 101-ish synth jams into his musical melting pot. It still sounds like a FaltyDL record (those weird slowed-down vocal samples, quaint musical touches and sneaky cut-ups are still present), but it feels like he's moved from standard definition into glorious, crystal clear HD. Aside from the usual array of brilliant instrumentals - check the floor-friendly future rave anthem "Lucky Luciano", two-step rinse-out "Tell Them Stories", 808 State-sampling "Open Space" or picturesque slow house bliss of "Tell Them Stories" - Lustman has included his first full vocal outings. These are invariably excellent, with the opening and closing tracks - "Gospel of Opal", featuring Anelka, and "Waiting Patiently", featuring Lily McKenzie - perfectly demonstrating his ability to write next-level, emotion-rich electronic music. From start to finish, You Stand Uncertain is a delight to listen to.

Review: Founded in 1995, Planet Mu has gone on to become a force in electronic music, setting the benchmark high and releasing some of the scene's seminal and groundbreaking artists. Blending house, techno, dubstep, hip-hop and all the grey areas in between that have come to dominate the sonic landscape of recent years, Planet Mu have never been afraid to depart from the status quo. Marking the first release of 2011 for Mike Paradinas' lauded label, 14 Tracks From Planet Mu collates tracks from some of the new artists to have graced the Mu airwaves over the past year. There are four exclusives in there, for those that like it hot off the press, and some familiar names like Oriol, Solar Bears, Floating Points, FaltyDL, Ikonika and Boxcutter. Superb stuff.

Review: Dub Police lynchpin Caspa makes an early bid for "certified carnival anthem" with the soca leaning ravestep of "Fulham 2 Waterloo". One massive rave horn gets twisted around a concrete heavy half step rhythm that's poised like a sonic boom to the guts. It's essentially an exercise in the art of builds and drops - the track is shameless in its intentions to make you dance and as such is probably Caspa's best production in a long time. Be sure to check the Roska and Emalkay remixes too! Up next, "Bang Bang" is probably titled so because of the explosive nature of the drum programming - expect evil strains of mid range wobble to cut you in half.

Review: A Chicago native who's been slowly extolling the virtues of juke music over the last few years, Chrissy Murderbot's Women's Studies release dovetails perfectly with Planet Mu's growing interest in footwerk and juke. However despite the creepy, detuned footwerk opener "Break U Off", it's hard to categorise this excellent album. Jammin Gerald and DJ Funk influences combine with a sped-up sample of Dayton's "The Sound Of Music" on single "Bussin Down", while crunk rhymes appear on "Bump Uglies" and there's Major Lazer-esque tropi-pop on "Pelvic Floor" too. Old-school Planet Mu fans will also get a kick out of the furious "Jiggle" - just another strand of this fascinatingly diverse album.

Review: Horsepower issue forth what one can only assume is some old material they've been sat on. Like a ray of funky sunshine amidst the foggy murk of what they spawned, the downright freshness of the tracks on The Lost Tapes is so bright it blinds your ears. "Boogaloo" shuffles with a micro-house kind of freakiness, as quirky key stabs and vocal grunts bounce off the razor-sharp hats. "Landslide Remix" rocks the subs hard and keeps the beats slender, while "What We Do" ups the ante in terms of pace and detail. Who are we kidding, every track is absolute gold from masters of the 2-step scene.

Review: The Cambridge-via-Barcelona producer takes two tracks from his beautiful and critically acclaimed album Night & Day and gets Falty DL, Planet Mu head honcho Jake Slazenger, and garage/funk/2-stepper, Shortstuff in on the refix/remix treatment to add a little je ne sais quois to the equation. The exotically evocative "Coconut Coast" appears in its original form - humming, singing, chiming and cooing. Falty DL teases it into an altogether different shape; more tense, with a greater emphasis on the hazy vocal element and pared down rhythm. "Memories" is transformed into a simmering slice of rumbling bliss, with shuddering b-line and shimmering, glass-y tones courtesy of Jake Slazenger, whereas Shortstuff's focus on drone and texture adds a further sonic slant.

Review: It's a disregard for pretention that makes Matt Cutler's music work so appealing, whether it be the exuberant 90s house approach on last album Emerald Fantasy Tracks or his earlier hip hop-tempo bump. Galaxy Garden starts off on a more esoteric tip with the tropical electronica of "New Colour", which captures the cheeriness of Plaid, or more recently Oriol on Planet Mu, in its sunshine chimes. By the time we get to "Lying In The Reeds" we're up to a house tempo that harks back to the softer side of early Detroit, playing with melody in a way that made Kenny Larkin stand out early on. It's when "Crystal Caverns 1991" starts up that we reach the most blatant distillation of old-skool; kicking off a breakstep beat with sweet but punchy 90s synths, the track cuts into a deadly rave motif without so much as a pause in the beat and it's like being back in, er, 1991. It would be easy to write off an album like this as derivative, but no-one can listen to the music itself and call it an imposter. Every track reeks of originality, whether it be the surprising track structures, the superbly detailed production, even the evocative imagery that the music conjures up. If you ever needed an album that felt like wide-eyed, innocent joy, this would be an excellent place to start.

Review: An engaging and interesting four-track EP here from 3 Hrs on the Black Butter label, which kicks off with the title track "Absolutely" - a shimmering little number with glistering synths, rumbling bass, ribbiting beats and chopped up, repeated vocal snippet. "Clap Work", up next, continues in a similar vein, with faded, clapping beats, booming sub bass and distanced, echoing vocal element, with repeating insistence to "clap!" Penultimate cut "Fear To" is an eerie, ominous slice of darkness, whilst "Nite Time" slows the pace down, with a stripped back soundscape as the EP draws to a close.

Review: The story behind this release is a smile-inducing one; Parisian producer French Fries rushed the decks during a Claude Von Stroke set in Paris. "They were playing a new sound, some nasty bits sitting somewhere between juke and bass music and I knew we had to get this vibe on Dirtybird no matter what," recalls the American. And here it is, with "Yo Vogue" arriving at a time when interest in the resurgent NY ballroom/voguing scene is at a high. The pitched-down vocal intoning the words "I wanna see you vogue b*tch" is backed by splashing, reverbed hats, frankly mental rave stabs and a killer bass line. CVS turns in his own remix, a heads-down affair the chops the vocal with effortless ease, while the Leroy Peppers version goes deep on the atmospherics and plunges deep into the murkiest depths of sub bass.

Review: Having headed up the My Style mix and compilation before, Dub Police label boss hands the reigns over to D1, who provides us with a run down of what's hot in dubstep in 2011. Picking out some runaway classics of the year - cuts such as Redlight's enormous "Source 16" with its thunderous, elastic band bassline and booty shaking appeal, Caspa's ode to the underground "Fulham 2 Waterloo" and the bleepy, synth soaring "Turn Me On" from Subscape, which draws the album to a close - alongside some of his own material, it's an on point selection. Listen to the continuous DJ mix for an all round experience.

Review: The Black Butter crew deliver another EP of essential jungle inspired cuts from a number of big names. RackNRuin & Hostage collaborate for "Dangerous", a breakbeat infused roller filled with roaring bass wobbles, nicely offset with some eski synth action, whilst Pixel Fist remixes Warrior One's "The Jump Off", delivering a huge dubstep inspired breakdown, complete with exceptional flow from Durrty Goodz. Finally, Tomb Crew deliver an electro house inspired cut laden with tropical percussion and dirty bassline action with a garage flex in its insistent rhythms, coming to a soaring glitch fuelled climax. Well worth checking!

Review: This collaboration between Marco Del Horno and DJ Swerve ticks all the UK funky boxes. Wobbly, bass-heavy riddim? Check! Touchy-feely breakdown? Check! Essential MC vocal to whip the party into a frenzy? Check and check! In addition to all of these things, there's also a solid instrumental dub (handy if your own MC of choice wants to spit some bars) and a string of solid remixes. Skeptiks provide an aggressive dubstep take, whilst Kutz employs some fantastically organic (maybe even live) drums on his energetic revision.The standout mix comes from Woz, who drops a sonic assault of military drums and bowel-bothering bass.

Review: Despite Claude VonStroke's many years of experience as a producer, it's only on this excellent track, in collaboration with Jaw, lead singer of the dOP crew that he's worked with a vocalist. All VonStroke's hallmarks are there; the funky, minimal bass, rhythmic snap, but the falsetto vocal delivery adds a welcome human element to proceedings, whilst the spacious, suspended organ note adds a touch of majesty to an already excellent track.

Review: After releases on Squelch and Clap, Matt Relton aka Kidnap Kid steps up with this new trio of songs for Black Butter. Already boasting DJ support from Skream, Redlight, Martelo and Jaymo, the EP gets off to a killer start with the swirling 2-step of "Vehl", which fans of Deadboy will instantly take to, while "Lazarus Taxon" smoothes out proceedings a little with a boogie acapella thrown over a bubbly, chopped bass beat, while the creeping intro to "Be More" and the ushering in of some stellar snares might just be the highpoint of this hugely impressive EP.

Review: It's a rare thing for electronic music producers to make impressive returns - think of recent re-appearances by Orbital or Future Sound of London - but this is different. Like Luke Slater's decision to relaunch Planetary Assault Systems, Juan Atkins's comeback as Model 500 serves as a reminder that when it comes to making music from another dimension, the Detroit native has few peers. The key difference between Atkins's return and Slater's latest vision for PAS is that Control doesn't sound that different to classic Model 500 material. Granted, the production sounds punchier and clearer, but this has perhaps more to do with the production tools than the song craft. Yet at the same time, Atkins is ploughing a furrow that he first explored almost 30 years ago, and it still sounds relevant and vital. Maybe contemporary music's lack of a distinctive edge means that the approach that Atkins developed long ago still resonates, but irrespective of the explanation, "Control" connects on a number of levels, be it thanks to the wobbly bassline, deadpan robo vocal or combination of dreamy synths with niggling bleeps and blips. The same sense of adventure, that feeling that music could transport the listener to another place, still applies. "The Messenger" is a typical Detroit techno groove, its shuffling, jerky rhythm playing host to a small universe worth of effects, tones and riffs, accentuated by sharper modern-day production techniques. It goes to show that Atkins's magic touch is a powerful as ever.