From a lifetime dedicated to the craft of jungle and breakbeat culture, Yorobi steps up on Sneaker Social Club to deliver her first solo EP. Her prior outing on wax alongside Tim Reaper in 2020 built on years immersed in the scene as a DJ, from her first moves on pirate radio and at underground dances in Amsterdam through to her frequent presence at vital dances like Rupture. She’s worked with the likes of Sun People and dropped heat on labels such as Repertoire, Planet Wax, Parallax and Exit, but now is the time for her to present the full scope of her creative vision across five expansive forays into inventive D&B abstractions, mutant electro and inverted ambient soundscapes.

There are familiar threads detectable in melodic brushstrokes or sharply angled drum edits on these tunes, perhaps calling to mind the most innovative corners of the Logical Progression compilations, a splash of braindance here or a hidden corner of a Photek LP there, but such impressions are juxtaposed with idiosyncratic swerves which make Yorobi’s work entirely her own. Drawing on intensely personal themes through her own rendition of the traditional spiritual ‘Motherless Child’ and indulging her own tangential experiments deconstructing 80s dancehall, reflecting on the limitations of psychology and channeling her inner Aphex, Yorobi runs at the extended play format with an unbound energy which makes for some of the most effervescent, inventive rollers we’ve heard in a long time. If you thought everything that needed to be said in drum & bass had been already expressed through decades of drops, think again. More