Punch Drunk At Juno Download

Review: Punch Drunk score another winner, finally unleashing Andy Mac's "Everytime" - a track which has become a secret weapon for the Bristol bass cognoscenti. There's a soulful tint to the track courtesy of the deep 2-step bass flourishes and that mournful vocal, though it's offset by some brilliantly snapping beat programming - a truly auspicious debut from the young Bristolian which can quite easily fit alongside any number of different styles! The accompanying track is just as good too, with "Asteroid Belts" delivering the best dirt filled Martian house rhythm this side of a Maurice Fulton production. A fine release from all involved.

Review: Aside from sporting the finest, bushiest beard in dance music, Ralph "Bass Clef" Cumbers has long been a producer with more ideas than most. Just as capable of making thrilling, bass-heavy floor fillers as quirky dubstep and oddball electronica, he's made a career out of surprising listeners at every turn. This latest album - his first for Peverelist's Punch Drunk imprint - is a good case in point. Having seemingly tired of straight-up dubstep and bass music (for now, at least), Cumbers turns his attention to linear electronics, classic Detroit techno and stargazing electronica, laying down a series of delightfully melodic compositions that arguably rank among his best to date. The album's forthright positivity is its most startling feature; clearly, "Clef" is in a good place right now.

Review: After seriously impressing with the debut sounds of Andy Mac last time round, Bristol imprint Punch Drunk step it up a notch further with this monumental release from Bass Clef. The local hero turned Hackney import graces our shelves with his first release in 2011 and it's totally been worth the wait, unveiling the rather glorious sounds of "Rollercoasters Of The Heart". There's an undeniably throwback nod to the euphoric days of rave gone by thanks to the swirls of lysergia tinged stabs and stretched out vox, but it's how Bass Clef marries them to a crisp groove of rolling sub bass and crisp off kilter house drums that has us hooked. Complementing this, "So Cruel" brings the mood down markedly, revolving around a half time swagger and bouncing subs dipped in purple menace which are the perfect foil for the requisite looped up chanteuse. It's the searing synth flourishes that jettison through the track without announcement that lift "So Cruel" to somewhere near the title track in our affections.

Review: Following releases earlier this year on Mordant Music and Further Records, Ekoplekz returns with this intriguing release on Peverelist's Punch Drunk. Taking its cues more from 70s library music and the early radiophonic experimentation of Delia Derbyshire than it does from Bristol's bass scene, this collection of claustrophobic terrors nevertheless displays an undisputed debt to the sounds of contemporary dubstep, particularly on "Soviet Drum Brain Attack", where mangled samples are held together with a tolling bass. For the most part the mood is distinctly avant-garde, with highlights including "Rogue Circuits", which can only be described as the sound of a seasick dial-up modem shifting through a number of increasingly darkening moods, and "Devil Mixture" which is reminiscent of the sound of fearful analogue synthesisers trapped in a gathering storm. But it's final track "Maelstrom" where the influence of dance music is most obvious, as metallic tones brush against skittering snares in a track that isn't unlike a more pastoral approximation of Aphex Twin.

Review: Although he has released a staggering amount of material over the past few years on the likes of Editions Mego and Mordant Music, Ekoplekz's Intrusive Incidentalz Vol 1, released through Peverelist's Punch Drunk imprint remains our favourite of his radiophonic excursions, which makes us particularly excited that he's returned for a second volume. Like the best library music compilations that party inspire his analogue oddities, Intrusive Incidentalz Vol 2 is perhaps how Ekoplekz is best enjoyed, keeping its tracks short and sweet, and evoking 60s sci-fi and misty black and white nostalgia alongside its moments of slow burning dread.

Review: A giant leap for Punch Drunk, this debut LP by Bristol producer Guido could lead to an avalanche of fans for the burgeoning "purple sound" of young Bristol producers like Guido, Joker, and Gemmy. After only a handful of singles and remixes, Guido has fashioned a perfect album that drips with freshness and originality. Combining post-dubstep styles with a pop sensibility and the production clarity of The Neptunes, there's a host of unlikely sounds thrown into the mix that strangely end up working - check the Kenny G-style sample flipped perfectly in the appropriately named "Mad Sax" as an example.

While the album starts off on an exclusively instrumental tip, "Beautiful Complications" bucks the trend and features a deliciously warped female vocal that works a treat with Guido's sparse and gritty beats. As the album steadily grows in energy, tunes like "Way You Make Me Feel" and "You Do It Right" pack more beats into the bars and the album really feels like a journey, not just a random collection of songs. Not only is it an accomplished debut, it's fiercely original and exciting, and comes very highly recommended indeed.

Review: First released on 12" in February 2009 as the flip-side to "Orchestral Lab", Guido's wonky masterpiece "Way U Make Me Feel" gets a digital release on Peverelist's Punch Drunk imprint. Arpeggiated synths and blasts of saxophone back Yolanda's unforgettable vocal performance for a track that went instantly into Bristol bass music folklore. This also serves as a timely entree for Guido's debut album Anidea - stick May 24 in the diary for that one.

Review: Coming soon after the 'Worth The Weight: Bristol Dubstep Classics' compilation, new Punch Drunk signing, 22-year old Joe McGann aka Kahn makes his debut on Peverelist's home grown imprint. "Like We Used To" starts with a gorgeous, warm, warping synth line, clipped, snarling beats and lustrous vocals, which are chopped up and rearranged James Blake style. Continuing on, delicate drums are paired with rolling subs, at times rather reminiscent of Scuba's "Three Sided Shape" and perhaps more strikingly of Sepalcure's recently released Fleur EP. The mellifluous melodies Kahn carves out here are at once charming and compelling. This is not to undermine "Helter Skelter", of course, which is an equally excellent slice of musical sunshine over on the flipside. Here, colourful swathes of synths - like a more chilled out Night Slugs release - dance mischievously around deep, dubbed out bass, whilst tense synth chords simply bristling with energy pepper the piece. Expect big things from Kahn in the future.

Review: It's been three years since Peverelist released anything on his own Punch Drunk label; of late his productions have come out primarily on the Livity Sound imprint he runs with Kowton and Asusu, or on Hessle Audio. Here he returns to Punch Drunk in triumphant form, using the truncated Pev name to drop two versions with fellow Bristolian Jacob Martin, best known for his solo productions as Hodge, and his work as one half of Idle Hands house duo Outboxx. Entitled Bells, the single sees two takes on the same track; given both Martin's house credentials and Ford's dubstep past and recent forays into slower rhythmic terrain it's no surprise that both tracks are steady, mid-tempo house imbued with Bristol's bass-weight heritage. "Bells (System Mix)" employs syncopated kicks and dub chords over its tunnelling bass, while "Bells (Dream Sequence)" is a more linear Chicago-inspired house cut with distant chimes and abstract synth textures, sounding not unlike some of the dreamier fare released on MOS Recordings.

Review: Having previously impressed with a single for Dublin's All City last year, Tessela's effort for Peverelist's Punch Drunk is simply one of the heaviest things you'll hear this year. The primary feeling given off by "Channel" as it whips into life is one of chunkiness. The synths slam like weighty percussion, while the box-jam beats snap and crack with an MPC kind of funk that it's hard to achieve through simple quantizing. The sound space that Tessela occupies is certainly a brave one, as it neglects to pander to notions of mixability and consistency, darting around in impulsive flurries of snare rushes, madcap sampling and slowly mutating melodic phrases. On "D Jane" the lead-in holds back on a relatively steady groove (albeit populated by a delirium of samples), only to jerk into the main section on a completely different swing so as to pull your ass in the opposite direction.

Review: Punch Drunk present another hitherto unfamiliar name in the form of Zhou, reminding you just what made dubstep so alluring in its infancy. The gorgeous chords which form the centrepoint of "I Remain" come on dark and exotic at once, while the devastatingly simple beat rolls and bumps with understated ripples of percussion. "Noburu" on the flip is a far more daring affair, as distant drones and low-end textures rumble in beatless space. For a first release on a prominent label limited to two tracks, it's an artist with utmost conviction that opts to fill a side with a few minutes of textural ambience. Highly recommended.

Review: Zhou's Punch Drunk debut back in 2011 was on of the darkest records to come out of Bristol since the demise of Skull Disco; although they've been active with various Young Echo related side projects since, this full return for the duo has been long awaited. Featuring tasty full sleeve designed by Tape Echo's Alex Digard, the single contains two takes on the same kind of classic West Country dub dread; "Locust Tree" takes terrifying atmospherics and powerful zombie halfstep rhythms that sounds like Shackleton's early material stripped of its flesh and left nothing but clattering bones, while "Locust Dub" takes much of the same backdrop and fills it in with more of a steppas rhythm and pulsing low end. The only criticism we can draw of this is that it makes you wish Zhou could produce more - essential.