Under the Radar - June

Ahead of his appearance at Ar Ais Arís this weekend in Galway, we were listening to Denham Audio’s 4 part breakbeat release. The EP’s main elements revolve around soft glimmering compositions before getting into the nitty gritty rave sounds. There’s good usage of samples throughout with one interesting one coming from Anthony Hopkins in Westworld when he’s talking about Consciousness. Our pick is ‘Do You Sell Hardcore?’ with its water droplet-like noises and thunderous kicks.

Lxury is carving his own path with his blend of energetic dance music that has layers upon layers of rich joyous sounds. Each track uses buttery smooth vocal snippets like those in ‘If You Ever’, ‘Oblivion’ and ‘TT’. ‘LF1 ft. Vondelpark & Lucky I'm Luke’ is a strong call for love with powerful lyrics akin to the euphoric feeling created by Joy Anonymous.

‘Feeling Horizontal’ wouldn’t sound amiss as a release from Blawan alone, but this is the combined efforts of Blawan and Pariah for their label Voam. It’s squelchy, bassy, and erotic. ‘Happy Birthday’ gives you the feeling of trudging along in heavy mud with thick basses and a peppy whistle sound. ‘From Hunk To Husk’ does not stray away from the pattern created in the first two tracks with more rippling basses and an additional uncomfortable noise of what sounds like a balloon about to burst. ‘When Lutes Were a Thing’ races to the finish of the EP with plucked basses and flangers at a high tempo.

Olof Dreijer offers dancing ear-worms that fill every space of sound and colour. It has light and bouncy synths dissipating around a bass that gets more involved over the track’s life. The album is just as bright and colourful with very satisfying colours and textures.

A Plant Bass’d favourite, Glaswegian dynamo Ten Years Lost delivers a first full length LP on Jensen Interceptor’s sublime International Chrome. A mesmeric wiz through oceanic electro scapes with elements of Memphis rap, techno and hip-hop, it’s an 808 fused treat preen alongside a full throttle acid tech remix from Brazil’s White Prata.

Two track release with busy sliding basslines in No More and thumping kicks in Setting Me Free. The housemeister creates funky movers by chopping up fun vocal snippets with piano stabs.

Flying right Under The Radar this month goes to Kevin McHugh (also going by Ambivalent). He is seen as a ‘reliable voice on underground dancefloors around the world’ and has played in New York, Barcelona, Paris, and Berlin where he now resides. LA-4A’s day to day life owning and operating a full service audio post-production mixing and mastering studio, Valence Studio, gives you an idea of what sort of experimental and rich sounds he will be able to produce. The 11 tracks range in tempo and energy but some standouts are the bass driven tracks like ‘Deep Down Karma Hounds’, ‘Swordfish’ and ‘Outgesourct’. Folio, or be it Kevin’s Portfolio, is a solid album to get the headphones on for.

Record Label Grid gathers a compilation of thirteen tracks from prominent artists in the bass scene. Strong tracks in particular from Ronan with ‘Shadowbox’ and Jabes with ‘Gaol Figure’. The highest quality productions from Grid on this one.

“Not dubstep, no DnB” is the description given for this EP from the Bristol natives. What do we have then? A mix of bass goodiness from the likes of Drill rapper SBA Karma hopping into the ring in ‘Any Weather’ for a boxing match with an evolved grime beat and MC Jakes contributing vocals to punchy ‘Wicked Set’. Slow bangers that hit hard.

DJ Stingray’s Micron Audio is one imprint we always keep a watchful eye on. If futuristic mechanised electro is your thing, there really is no better place to look. Belgium’s 6SISS is next in line with the incredible electroids of BOTS. Inspired by our increasingly technologically advancing world, BOTS soundtracks a not too distant future set to be defined by Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing with 4 incredible strips of clone techno and industrial electro.

Danish hard dance enigma HEDO HYDR8 coughs up yet another panel beating instalment of the IDENTITY SAMPLER series. Armed with two kick heavy electro-tek thumpers in 'BLOOD DANCER' and 'PIERCER', with the former receiving the remix treatment from none other than Amor Satyr, HYDR8 pushes the limits of heavy once more on this blitzing collection of sound system testers.

RAW’s summer series returns with more sun soaked hard funk groovers from acts like Pagan, Bours?, Bad Boombox & more. An increasingly essential compilation that gathers greater stead with each year, this edition sees the first in the series to feature original productions, a move away from the previous fun lovin’ summer edits that have soundtracked past festival seasons. Don’t worry! They still slap just as hard! (If not more..)

Mining elements of XTC Factory’s ‘Take Me Away’ with Strike’s club classic ‘U Sure Do’, Bogotá’s BRENDA fuses his growingly signature guaracha Club with a sprinkling of LATAM pop on this quirky ode to rave inspired by their recent touring of Europe.

Influential Czech label Genot Centre closes its doors after 8 years in the dance supplying unconventional club trax from a roster that has boasted seminal acts like KAVARI, HDMIRROR & Lišaj to name but a few. Bryce Helms produces the 53rd and final release on the imprint with an otherworldly collection of fever dreams that digest everything from hard house, glitch bass, distortia and breakcore in a most symbiotic, mutational fashion.

Tunnel chasing fast breaks from the menacing HOOVERIAN BLUR released courtesy of UK bass stalwarts WNCL. Hard ass techno and jungle hybrids from an artist capable of sending crowds and listeners alike to dimensions far beyond with their unique twist on the breakbeat.

Fuckin ‘ell! Just your average Sneaker Social release at this stage. Breakbeat ballistics from Trends & Boylan (plus a Slimzee featuring) who carve out a series of head rattling organic drum runs across an underlying throttle of dubstep foundation. The weight of bass here is a frightening prospect that seems to only gather greater momentum with each passing track.

A selection of workings unusual from the typical releases of Fiesta Soundsystem, trading in his familiar breaks and bass explorations for an experimentation in breakcore, ambient and IDM. These are a collection of off kilter productions that the UK producer has been coughing up since 2021 and it’s an interesting listen to say the least.

Montreal’s audio bambino has been delivering a consistent flow of alternative dance music structures since its foundation in 2020. Portugal footwork favourite Mujipuki only adds to their pristine back catalogue with a fun punch of juke & footwork on this two tracker of love ‘n bass <3. ‘She Made Us Drinks’ comes accompanied with an endearing coming of age music video recently shot in Glasgow by Ben McLaren.

The creator of the engrossing raptor house sound, Venezuela’s Dj Babatr shares two original productions of his typical high energy sound with a host of remixes from club heroes such as Kode9, Badsista, Florentino & more. The punchy Changa sound undergoes an incredible series of fusions with footwork, baile funk, trance & beyond.

An absolute riot of a track from Janaway on the ever impressive London based Racket Recordings. Fusing Brazilian funk and jungle, ‘Changa Chant’ creates a force field of ricocheting snares and pummelling bass with destructive tendencies. A proper system killer!