Lone At Juno Download

Review: Ever a dazzling and surprising upstart in the UK scene, Lone once again slaps his multicoloured hand across your chops with a loose and funky take on the wonkier side of house music. Wigflex is certainly the right label to be dropping this kind of track, being particularly adept at knowing a cheeky dose of silly but slick party fodder when they hear it. The beats bump hard on this tune, but really it's the loping lead melody that makes this the kind of jam that will stop the dance in its tracks and cause mass-hysterical body popping.

Review: R&S Records gift us a rather fine prelude to Galaxy Garden, Lone's forthcoming album, in the form of the resplendent rave of Crystal Caverns 1991. A true highlight of that set, "Crystal Caverns 1991" is reminiscent of the producer's former glory "Pineapple Crush", though there's a lot more rhythmic intricacy at play here. Kicking off a breakstep beat with those sweet but punchy 90s synths that Cutler is renowned for, 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. Up next, "Vulcan Mill Acid" is equally self explanatory, an alien 303 workout with added cowbell that slips into steel pan territory without any of the wetness of a Jammy xx production.

Review: Lone debuts on the R&S imprint with this six-track release that demonstrates a growing maturity in the new sound the Nottingham based producer unveiled on last winter's impressive Emerald Fantasy Tracks. Shy of that mini LP by only three tracks, the productions that form Echolocations tighten the focus to 90s Detroit and Chicago, though the distinctive melodic stabs that characterised EFT remain - something that's apparent as soon as the huge drop in "Coreshine Voodoo" arrives! Elsewhere "Dolphin" delights via the vast swathes of melodies that wash over the intricate layers of percussion that build and drop with expertise whilst "Approaching Rainbow" is perhaps Lone at his most rhythmically rigid, with mellow bursts of colour and texture arising from the rasping Strafe-esque drums.

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.