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Review: We've no idea who Low Jack is, but he (or she) seems to know what they're doing. This debut EP variously touches on clanking grooves, analogue fetishism and the sort of sparse deep house that recalls sweaty Chicagoan basements and grubby house parties. The title track drips with voodoo, offering a hardware obsessive's take on 808 tribal. The thrillingly midtempo "Look At My Pyramid", meanwhile, sounds like a face-off between Maxmillion Dunbar and Disco Nihilist. "The Manifest" is strangely druggy, while Geelong turns the title track into a balls-out 125 BPM techno thruster. Impressive stuff.

Review: The plague in the title could easily refer to the glut of samey Chicago-inspired tracks. Thankfully, Photonz don't suffer from this malaise. Instead, they do a fantastic job of pushing acid-led electronic music into new directions. The title track sees a woozy bassline and wood block beats as well as lithe drums cosy up to a gurgling 303 line. It's the bassline's mencing tones that dominate however, as they skip over the lithe drums that appear later on. Maetrik favours a straighter bass-heavy approach on his remix, with tight drums and sharp percussion prevailing. Meanwhile, Photonz deliver more surprises in the shape of "Bach Beetle", whose robust bassline and coruscating drums imbue it with an inherent intensity, despite the mid-tempo it grooves at. Highly recommended.