Review: The always adventurous Especial label is back on its world travels once more for another cultured EP, this time from Jonne Lyden aka 53X. This is a widescreen bass exploration with trance-tinged steppas looking firmly to the future from the Finnish-born artist. He has a background in punk bands but a trip to Berlin turned his ear and now he makes experimental fusions that draw on everything from industrial to Berghain to Detroit for inspiration. His tunes are mostly started out as live jams and then edited into what we have here - club-ready sounds, rich atmospherics, acid, breaks and hypnotic rhythms.
Review: Back from the vaults and sounding even more vibrant, The First One's Free by amillionsons, originally released in 2005 on Nottingham's Shiva label, has been remastered for its return to the world. Mixing and mashing their sounds with dusty breakbeat influences, hip hop style and sample culture at large, it's an album that references big beat as much as it does the likes of DJ Shadow, Fatboy Slim, Massive Attack and more. While it may be a little more lo-fi than the aforementioned, there's UK pop elements inside as obscure as Armand van Helden remixing Tori Amos. A unique look at when big beat was top of the pops.
Review: Buoyed by the success of the Dimitri From Paris remixes of 'Space Talk', Naya Beat has decided to offer up more new reworks of classic cuts from the disco-era catalogue of Indian singer and actress Asha Puthli. Naturally Space Talk gets another tweak - Maurice Fulton delivers a sparse, percussive, dubbed-out take in his inimitable style -but there are plenty of revisions of lesser-celebrated cuts to enjoy. Yuksek turns 'I Am Song (Sing Me)' into a hybrid storming soul/surging Moroder-disco workout; Kraak & Smaak go all deep disco on the dreamy 'Lies'; Turbitto & Ragz add a touch of delay to the Indian disco-goes-Salsoul flex of 'One Night Affair'; 'Right Down Here' is turned into a spaced-out cosmic disco number by Psychemagik; and Jitwam adds a touch of 21st century weight to suspenseful disco gem 'I'm Gonna Dance'.