Review: Woi and indeed oi, Wembley-smashing Ram Raider Andy C returns with his first tune in almost two years... And it's a bit of a sizzler. Going right back to his Nightlife 1 / 2 roots, at the peak of his tenure at The End, "Til Dawn" is a funky rough-house roll-out loaded with a few cult samples, some pristine slap bass work and a proper fuzzy sense of grit. Heads down business all the way, there's a strong case to say this is his best tune in over a decade.
Review: The beast has landed! Ram Records' most important releases in recent times, the pioneering label celebrate quarter of a century with this insane collection of 25 seminal cuts and 17 selected reversions. Roots and future all in check, every cut reminds why Ram and its founder Andy C have the status they do in drum & bass. Total Science's tasteful jazz touches on "Cool Down", Metrik's growling Aston Martin style rebuild of "X-Ray", Bladerunner's precision update on "Quest", Shimon's personal update on his and Andy's "Night Flight", Chase & Status's elephantine shake-up of "Valley Of The Shadows". We're just listing perfect remixes for the sake of it now... You already know how big a deal this is.
Review: 48 tracks, six exclusives, two mixes: Viper have already developed a strong-armed reputation for compilations over the years but this is taking things to a whole new ridiculous level. Investigating bass music's widest corners, the heady concoction of tracks ranges from premier league bangers (Wilko's remix of The Prodigy, Noisia & The Upbeats "Dead Limit", Andy C's "New Era VIP") to fresh-baked underground rollers (Dossa, Locuzzed and NC-17's drone-jump buzz-cut "Ninja", Dub Elements' deep space neuro-edged shredder "Metaverse") to lower tempo tear-ups from the likes of Pex L, Au5, Flux Pavilion and Doctor P and Specimen A. With heaps more in between, this accurately reflects just how exciting and closely linked all bass-laced genres are right now. Venomously immense.
