Review: New Year doesn't officially kick off until Viper smack you silly with their yearly "Drum & Bass Annual". 2017's edition smacks even harder than usual with no less than 10 exclusives including a Culture Shock/Dimension style roll out from Misfit, Halflight's "Communication Failure" that has enough power to cause a civil war and North Base's "Woman" that has so much seductive soul power to cause a mess in your trousers. Elsewhere The Voss & NC-17 pay respect to the Book Of The Bad on "Mojave" and Blaine Stranger sends you off to cosmoses unknown on "By Your Side". And that's just a handful of the unreleased cuts amid some of the label's biggest releases in recent times.
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.
Review: New Zealand hype professor Trei returns with his first full single of the year: "Tonto". Packing collaborative heat from fellow countrymen The Upbeats, "Tonto" is halftime turned on its head. While most halftime tracks focus on the space, this focuses on filling the space but minimising the kicks. The end result is a truly unique concoction that's tailored for crowd slaying. "Shangri-La", meanwhile, is a straight up traditional banger like mamma use to make. If your mamma is a whizz in the studio and knows her way round a gully sound palette that is.
Review: Twenty eight tracks, 12 exclusives, one mix... Viper smash down the doors of 2016 with an all-encompassing document that portrays D&B broadest, baddest landscape in great detail. Among the out-and-out classics of last year ("Dead Limit", "City Of Gold") you'll find some of Viper's most exciting smashes of the last few years ("One's Own", "What R U Doing?" "Universes") and, most importantly, 12 tracks that have yet to be releases before... Ranging from J Majik's muscular, monster-stomping return ("Drop It") to Toronto Is Broken's savage, skippy tech funker "Zero One", Viper aren't messing around at all on this one.
Review: Fifteen years. Can you believe it? Actually, the question we should be asking is; can you remember what the world was like without before Technique was championing the darker end of high energy drum and bass? Featuring absolute classics from the likes of Drumsound & Bassline Smith, Crissy Criss and Technique's own intelligent production scientist, it also features music from Trei, whose recent EP took is a must-check! There are also bone shaking tracks from brand new and up and coming artists like MaxNRG and Kronology whose productions sit perfectly alongside the greats.
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