Back Catalogue

Review: Rinse's own Royal T has been listening to UKG for as long as he started stealing bootlegs from his brother. With the advent of online mixtape technology and the worlds of grime, bassline and UK funky at his feet, the Southampton-based producer's latest offering is a filthy culmination of sticky dancefloors, hastily-printed rave flyers, pirate radio and the dawning of crisply ironed trap. There's a feeling of nostalgia about the whole EP for times when listening to grime at the back of the bus really was the pinnacle. Nostalgia too often comes with negative connotations - rather than stale Royal T brings his own modern edge to the retrospective bubbles he creates with each track. It's a celebration rather than a museum piece. Long live the spirit of the underground.

Review: A contemporary of Dance Mania artists DJ Deeon and DJ Slugo in the 90s, RP Boo is credited as a founding father of the footwork genre; his Ol' Dirty Bastard sampling track from 1997, "Baby Come On", is widely regarded as the track responsible for spawning the genre. Having released footwork albums from Young Smoke and Traxman in recent times, Planet Mu look to this godfather for their latest full length project. Even within the small footwork scene Legacy is a unique album; taking the sample wizardry to far out, often abstracted places, RP Boo nevertheless grounds his experimentalism with easily recognisable samples (Justin Timberlake, Queen), making his productions as raucous as they are idiosyncratic. Essential stuff.

Review: Oliver Ho's more minimally minded venture signs up for the Halocyan imprint with an EP that ably demonstrates the creative paths those that evolved from the maligned scene were able to adopt. There's still an air of restraint about "Last", with its sparing use of drums where repeated synth phrases will suffice, and it makes the hat all the more exciting when it comes in as an afterthought at the end of the bar. "Dumb" is more aggressive in its demeanour, not least because of the abrasions afforded by the lead synth, while the drums clang out an industrial march of doom. Al Tourettes and Appleblim bring their shared vision to "Last", working that poised bassline into a snappy and finely garnished groove of garage mutation. Steve Moore takes "Dumb" and fits it to an urgent kick, piling on some trademark soundtrack synths that add the perfect amount of tension to the track.

Review: Although it has only one release to its name - Happa's Beat Of The Drum - London club night turned record label Church is looking to be an imprint to keep close tabs on, especially on the strength of this second EP, from young London producer Rumah. Although his debut from last year demonstrated an atmospheric, syncopated style of bass music, "Stutter" shows a marked progression into swung techno styles, with a weighty track full of concrete rhythms and glassy synths; "Murmur" is similarly powerful, throwing acid flecks and sunken vocals into the mix. Meanwhile, Apes & Seb Wildblood offer their own take on "Stutter", tempering some of the original's more ferocious attributes with some subtle dub techno elements, while James Fox refixes "Murmur" into a slinky, mid-tempo house groover, whose swelling synths offer something considerably deeper.