2562 At Juno Download

Review: Made up of on field recordings taken by 2562 on a 2010 trip to Jordan, Air Jordan is based on a similar concept to his 2011 album Fever, which was made up of samples exclusively from disco records. But while that record reflected its source material in its more overt dancefloor focus, Air Jordan reflects the dry heat of the Jordanian landscape in a dusty cloud of broken beats and cracked textures. "Solitary Sheepbell" creates a hazy mirage out of its pitched bell samples, whilst the arid, hesitant rhythms of "Desert Lament" mingle with the kind of bustling atmospherics that place you at the centre of a busy marketplace, a theme carried through in the booming industrial beats of "Jerash Hekwerken". It ends on "Nocturnal Drummers", a suspenseful fusion of dehydrated percussive samples which caps off the producer's most concise work to date. Highly recommended.

Review: This appendix to 2562's recent album Fever takes "Aquatic Family Affair", arguably the biggest track from the LP, and delivers an extended recut. The track itself is a sublime garage-techno hybrid of the highest order, as a deep, bass pulse throbs between a skittering beat, and huge organ chords flow across the surface. There's nothing massively different from the album version, but it does provide a DJ friendly version with slightly extended drums. The B-Side is occupied by an epic Shed remix of "Wasteland", taking the playful tone of the original and turning it into a typical warehouse rattler complete with alien sound effects buried deep within the reverb. Taking the already skeletal original and somehow adding a much greater sense of scale, Shed uses the percussive components as a backbone, straightening out the rhythm with a huge kick drum, and giving the whole thing a much moodier vibe by dropping some huge chords at just the right moment.

Review: For a producer who earns a living patrolling the moody sonic terrain between dubstep and techno, the third album from Dutchman Dave Huismans under the 2562 alias is his most raucous yet. A notable progression has been made from the dense atmospherics and subterranean bass that characterised 2008's Aerials and the dark textures of 2009's Unbalance, both of which saw release on Bristolian imprint Tectonic. Fever - released via Huismans' own When In Doubt label - has a more insouciant slant, albeit buried beneath several layers of robust drum programming and hanging synths. The stuttering rhythms and disorientating panning of "Winamp Melodrama" opens Fever, followed by the whirring effects and muffled vocal loops of "Cheaters". The chaotic drum programming on "Juxtaposed" brings to work the mind of fellow genre ignorer FaltyDL, before "Intermission" marks the album's halfway point and paves the way for Huismans' most outlandish moment, namely the unrelenting party techno stomp of "This Is Hardcore". God only knows which disco records he sampled for this one - but it's enamoured with bucket loads of groove and swing. Essential listening from start to finish.