Back on Planet Sneaker with his infectious, raw-as-sushi take on UK funky, French MPC maverick Kaval presents another four-strong salvo of wavey 4/4 workouts heavy on the drums and loaded with ear-snagging hooks. The past year saw the Toulouse scene stalwart launch his own KVLDUBS 12” series and appear on Parisian label Nowadays.

Kaval certainly sounds in fine fettle as he bowls back our way, kicking off proceedings with the air horn x bass squelch firestarter ‘Lavawheel’. It’s loaded with such hefty squarewave low end it feels like it could fall out the bottom of the speaker at any minute, all the while stamped down by a bouncy UKF thump. ‘Basement Woi’ twists up a knottier rhythm, but the cheeky vocal samples keep flying out of the mix to keep the vibe infectious.

On the B side, ‘Sonic Boom’ has a slightly more techno-spirited demeanour to the production, albeit never at the expense of the hefty subs. That leaves it to ‘Tek Talk’ to mop up with a twitchy construction dancing on the edge of electro in the tweaked-out, early 00s spirit of the word. With bags of personality and equal amounts swagger and fun, on SNKR066 Kaval maintains his position as a free thinker for the possibilities springing from the UK funky formula.

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Building momentum around his moody, alchemical breakthroughs in the techno-bass laboratory, Buckley lands on Sneaker Social Club with a punchy quadruplex that marks him out as an innovative talent in the next generation of low end producers.

Manchester-based Elias Buckley first came to light with a lathe-cut drop on ec2a, followed up over the past two years with outings on Well Street, Dimeshift and S.P.E.C. That sets the tone for exploratory zone Buckley is operating in, and he maintains a forward-thinking slant to his physical, dynamic club weapons on this latest EP.

'City Dweller' rests on a creeping mid tempo 4/4 pulse, all the better to carry slithering layers of sound design that slide off the undulating sub bass throb. Minimalism is the order of the day here, but his approach is shot through with gully zaps and rude swagger that makes this a positively UK- centric affair. 'Carl's Floorboard' makes a sizeable swerve towards brutalist grime mutation, letting the space in the mix swallow you whole around the dislocated bass womps and whipcrack snares.

On the B side, 'Gawy' hits the mark squarely between techno propulsion and soundsystem swagger, plying slippery sound design to the bass blasts and working an offbeat groove designed for maximum lock-in. Making sure there are no doubts about his range, Buckley saves one of the deadliest joints on the record for the closer, whipping up a wide-as-you-like UKG bounce on 'M.O.B.S.O.T.' while maintaining the lean and mean sound that binds the EPs any angles together.

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In a patchwork of IRL sound fragments, humming ambience and sub bass brushstrokes, Bobby Ingham debuts on Sneaker Social Club with a social-realist inversion of soundsystem music that relishes negative space while telling a street-level story.

Bobby Ingham is a 24-year-old multidisciplinary artist whose creative practice across film, music and sculpture was shaped by formative experiences in his native Leeds. Having started to experiment with spoken word, poetry and electronic sound production, he sharpened his focus after moving to London. Homesickness moved him to recreate the sensory impression of his hometown through sound, using snippets of his every day experience with his friends and family as well as archival recordings online related to Leeds. The particular lilt of regional dialect became central to the character of his work — a direct portal into a personal world that could only be rendered by someone who has lived it.

Ingham’s work chimes with that of SSC’s own Low End Activist. Where LEA has repeatedly taken us around the Oxford council estate he calls home, on Angel of the North Ingham lets us stay a while on the streets and in the houses that made him. It’s intimate from the very start — opening track ‘Lynne’ features Ingham’s own grandmother, while ‘I Feel So Good I Swear I Could Fly’ finds Ingham voicing his own poem as he retells personal experiences in a disarmingly mythological manner.

‘1st Memory Of Love For DRXSJKFL ft. Pretty V’ invites Wakefield, West Yorkshire-based artist Voldy Moyo to lay down a spoken word piece that evokes the dehumanising nature of military service and those left behind by it. Where there are no words, Ingham instead speaks with brittle machine rhythms and blocks of texture, swooning synthesised beauty and any emotional shade you care to mention in between. It’s a work that takes you right into the heart of the artist — someone committed to telling an honest story from a viewpoint that seldom gets a second thought.

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With Neolithic Neon, Appleblim creates a kaleidoscopic reflection of the spirituality inherent within electronic music — the ineffable frequencies and communal traditions that spring from exploratory synthesis, deep-rooted rhythms and myriad other sonic codes.

Throughout his third album for Sneaker Social Club, Laurie Osborne continues to express a fascination with the ancient resonance held within modern rave as he guides his own studio practice towards more purposefully analogue processes. It's reflective of his desire to let go and trust his instincts within the more chaotic realm of voltages and signals, not to mention turning to a wider spread of instrumentation and opening up to noisier avenues. This direction defines the character of Neolithic Neon, which bristles with the living imperfections of the gear in the context of incisive and wide-ranging cuts touching on jungle, dubstep, techno, electro, acid and experimental electronic music of all stripes.

Across Osborne's solo output from 2018's Life In A Laser to 2021 tape Infinite Hieroglyphics, a strong melodic sensibility spills out of the richly layered production. It's equally audible in his Wrecked Lightship collaboration with Adam Winchester, and it charges Neolithic Neon with its star-gazing, contemplative streak. From the knotty plucks and licks weaving through opener 'Moorland' to the vaporous synths darting across the top of hardcore conductor 'Thunderstorm', a dreamlike evocation takes the sound off terra firma, musing on cosmic events and our connection to the enormity of the universe.

Eternally in thrall to the maverick vocabulary of pioneering beat scientists and fuelled by the inspiration of great thinkers dwelling on our purpose and place, Neolithic Neon unfurls big ideas without heavy-handed messaging. Instead, it trusts in the universal and time-honoured language of experimentation and rhythm to present its ideas, true to Appleblim's legacy to date while opening a new chapter in his ongoing sonic quest.

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2x12" LP Vinyl w/ Gatefold Sleeve + Photo Book Zine

Music never exists in a vacuum — every scene and sound evolves from the non-stop exchange of ideas between different groups and cultures. Traditions get passed down from one generation to the next, and then individual heads take influence from their own unique perspective. Sometimes, certain people strike upon fusions that spark massive new movements, but even those rarest innovations came from somewhere.

Jon E Cash knows this more than most — the legendary beats he started putting out at the turn of the millennium had their own disparate roots and influences which he had the motivation to put together into a sound he called sublow. There wasn't any other reference point for this music — when he took the first white labels of 'Drop Top Bimmer Kid' into Blackmarket Records in Soho, London, he had to describe it to a puzzled Nicky Blackmarket and J Da Flex as being, "between garage and hip-hop."

Playing catch-up in 2004, Rephlex Records nodded to sublow when trying to introduce a wider audience to the sounds which had been tearing up the London underground. "Grime. Sublow. Dubstep... It's Music. Different people call it different things depending on when they discovered it." But Jon E Cash's sound was rooted in more than the UK garage that had dominated the clubs through the late 90s, reaching way back to his pre-teen days when the first waves of hip-hop culture crossed the Atlantic and broke in the UK.

25 years on, it's a fine time to reflect on the impact of the music Cash made at the turn of the millennium. History looks back favourably on what he and the Black Ops crew were doing with sublow in the early 00s. The timing meant it ran in parallel with what was happening over East with Pay As U Go, Roll Deep et al, and of course there was crossover. Every DJ and every MC was on the hunt for the best beats they could find. But there's a whole different swagger to sublow — a different web of influences, a different intention and so a different outcome. It's still there in the beats Cash is making more than 20 years later — his 3dom Music label is carrying upfront productions with that sublow DNA coursing through their veins. Whatever the beat or the tempo, the drums are still hard as nails, and the bass is tuned for maximum rave damage.

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The Activist returns to Sneaker Social Club with a fresh double-drop of mutant grime futurism featuring deadly flows from Tia Talks and Jammz.

Low End Activist first came through centred on link-ups with grime MCs before widening the scope of his sound with purely instrumental, conceptually-charged albums. This sure-shot double single reaffirms his affinity for outsider grime production as a vessel for deft bars from breakthrough talent and seasoned mic veterans alike.

On 'False Idols' and 'Atomic Clock' there's an emphasis on sharply angled, glitchy production that bends and warps well outside the established formula of MC-focused beats. Constantly shifting, hyper-detailed and front-loaded with walloping slabs of bass, both cuts are devastating in either vocal or instrumental form. Tia Talks pulls no punches stating her truth on the former, while Jammz muses on the endless battle against time on the latter, continuing the peerless run of avant-grime that courses through the Activist's back catalogue.

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The latest wayward soundsystem sonics on the Social come from Wroclaw in Poland courtesy of dadan karambolo. As part of the strictly legit SPLOT crew karambolo is spearheading a vibrant community of bassweight freaks digesting all the best misfit club music from the cracks between — a hint of dubstep, a twist of techno and plenty of advanced sound design, all poured into a thoroughly modern, richly realised brew.

Having previously snuck tunes out on SPLOT’s in-house label and the respected Awkwardly Social crew out of Berlin, karambolo delivers an extended statement with his Sneaker Special Club debut. Subtle pressure is the order of the day as he zeroes in on evocative soundscaping and a subdued mood, all while piling on ample low end intensity and edging some sharp angles out of the meditative roll. Even when minuscule slithers of amen breaks sneak into ‘Awkward Expression’, the ambience remains somewhere between dream and dread while ‘Huskarl’ scatters industrial jackhammers across a vast tundra of drone.

‘Done For’ steps forward a touch more forthright with its grime-coded bass spasms, deploying the kind of bludgeoning physicality and ruthless reduction you might associate with fellow Sneaker alumni, Mars89. ‘Burbot’ also switches the script for a cheeky B3 that toys with 80s electro chopped into a snappy breakbeat and underpinned with a sticky synth line. Sidestepping direct dancefloor routes in search of different ways to achieve movement in the club, karambolo has more than matched the over-arching Sneaker ideal with an assured, original transmission from the outer limits of the soundsystem.

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Just when you thought every holy grail must have been unearthed by now, here come Basic Unit with their deep cover late 90s masterpiece Timeline, the dankest darkcore-electronica-tech step album you've likely never heard.

Ben England and Rick Dallaway formed Basic Unit and debuted on Moving Shadow in 1997. They also moved on Nocturnal, a cult label that reached beyond D&B to platform some more experimental sounds. It was a short-lived label with some ominous footnotes — 'Several people involved with Nocturnal have vanished or are dead' reads the label's Discogs description. But in 1998 Nocturnal put out Timeline, a CD-only album from Basic Unit that cut a sharp, scathing figure against most D&B of the era. England and Dallaway embraced the album format as a chance to go deep, inhaling their inspiration from early days Autechre as much as Source Direct and boiling down the results to a steely, minimalist framework.

The likes of 'Resolution' are desolate, stark workouts that feel fractured and raw enough to align with early grime, complete with the strings, but the rhythms move in mysterious formations designed to confound like the most bloody minded electronica artists of the late 90s. Blown out bass and scattered flurries of machine gun breaks, squashed tundra drones that sound like they were pulled from 10th generation VHS b-movies and bit-crushed animal grunts fit for a Mega Drive beat 'em up. The sonics are redolent of the times, but Basic Unit chisel them mercilessly into their spartan vision, deploying brain-frying beat science with a stern restraint.

It's the kind of record that gives so much while holding so much back — a deadly tease that has flown under the radar for too long. This is the sort of shock reissue material that gets us gassed at Sneaker, and we're proud to be giving it a re-boost and a first ever outing on wax, all the better to shock you out.

"Unlistenable...Might Make Sense In 50 Years Time"
Mixmag - 1998

"I find Timeline...utterly riveting, like being beamed to a parallel universe where everything is just a little bit different and you can’t work out why."
Ben Cardew - Line Noise - 2025

"one of my favorite late 90s drum & bass albums"
"I would sell my first born for a vinyl release of this"
"How the hell did this release fly under the radar?"
Selected Comments From the Discogs Listing - 2021- 2025

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Sneaker Social Club is pleased to direct your attention to this sparse and weighty club gear incoming from a sizeable new talent on the scene, Beton Brut.

Following on from his previous drops on Plasma Sources and Coyote Records, Beton Brut steps onto this latest platter with a surefooted sound. It’s informed by weightless grime, minimal techno and brittle electro, but he carves his own incisive path towards the hoods-up-heads-down Dancefloor.

This is stark, moody gear to get lost in — the dexterous sound design slipping around the rhythm core of ‘Tobacco Earthworm’; gleams in high-definition, but never at the expense of the eerily stripped-back atmosphere. ‘Booters’ snips up a clutch of clippings from grime and scatters them across the timeline in a scrapbook style, making a deadly, dislocated love letter to the sound in the process. Approaching mutant, hybrid club music with a considered poise, this is exactly the kind of forward-thinking bassweight gear that Sneaker thrives on.

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With a clutch of EPs under his belt spanning a wealth of pallets, Henzo narrows the focus on his debut studio album “The Poems We Write For Ourselves” - a culmination of persistent iterations over several years, distilling his sonic milieu into something that feels decidedly his own. The album proper is coupled with a debut live performance which reinterprets the tracks and splices them with omitted material from the time of writing - recorded in full in the intimate confines of Manchester’s growingly infamous Stage and Radio basement. Honing his craft in the shadows of Lancashire, Poems is an expansive reflection of the producer’s time spent away committing to the scope of an LP.

A thread of stratified sound design weaves throughout the record, but with a discerning dancefloor proclivity mostly prevalent. Cold opener “Noggin” riffs on noughties Raster-Noton a la Byetone rebuilt with fractal tear out DnB, with closer “Indulgence” following suit on a puckered plod of Dub Techno ambience. More club-focussed moments come in the form of “Rustica Slump” and “Blue Will...”, the former’s sickly sweet vocals resolved by the latter’s stoic UKG/Techno rudeness. “A Bouquet of Clumsy Words” channels mechanical shuffle with a stripped back 2/4 pulse whilst maintaining a firmly FWD>>energy alongside “Plant Your Roots In Me” on a similar vector - swapping out a straight kick pattern for a bludgeoning 808 assault on an early Hessle-indebted tip.

“Take Stock, Touch Grass” harks to golden era ClekClekBoom and Night Slugs with a bare bones kick and vocal motif, updating the formula with a tweaking lead line that places it firmly in the contemporary space. “Swell:Shrink” sings from the same sheet with a shrieking, space age wobble doing the heavy lifting, knocking the pace back to a shoulder-lean swagger on a slow fast conundrum Henzo has shown his flair for on previous releases.

The outliers to Henzo’s more known approach, “Worm Grunting” with Belfast’s Emby, an amalgamation of halfest time DnB and illest mannered Road Rap, plus “The Rest Is The Mess You Leave”, a starkly anti-retro Ghettotek endeavour, give grounds to the LP. Clearly rooted in the comfortable universe of the dancefloor, these tracks expand the producer’s realm into loftier heights as he graduates into long play land.

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Sneaker Social Club welcome a veritable supergroup of bass heavyweights in the form of Legion. Made up of Trends, Boylan, P Jam and D.O.K., this four strong collective first came to light with the We Are Many 12" on Artikal Music in 2021, and now they regroup for another four-strong payload of soundsystem pressure that embraces the darkness in devastating fashion.

The Sister Abigail EP leads with 'Rastaman', an ice-cold half-step drop that summons the spirit of early dubstep in its raw minimalism, eerie atmospherics and snarling low-end wobble. Without an ounce of fat, it's a lean workout of drums and bass that finds catharsis in simplicity without compromising on high definition detail. 'Souls' locks into a jerky groove to set the dance off at acute angles, nudging the textures up a notch without disturbing the spartan mood of the release. 'Sister Abigail' pushes the underlying malevolence of the Legion sound to the forefront with dissonant sheet-metal tones while packing the rhythm section into a tight, vicious formation of gnashing, chrome-plated teeth. 'Play That Vibe' seals the deal on the EP with a hard-thumping, propulsive groove that calls to mind the techy development of dubstep in the 2010s — a taut, tracky throwdown to keep the intensity on a rolling boil.

Drawing on the grounding principles of OG dubstep with a sharp line in crisp, modernist production and a ruthless economy of arrangement on display, Legion prove many cooks can still result in a potent, brutally focused broth.

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Still sniffing out the gnarliest bassweight swerves on his rounds in the underground, Dogpatrol makes his way back to Sneaker Social Club for another four cuts of irreverent, misfit rave damage.

Hailing from Offenbach (DE) but with a sound more indebted to UK styles like breakbeat hardcore, dubstep and garage, DogPatrol has been a natural fit on Sneaker. The slanted approach he takes to his influences results in a mutant style that shuffles and slams in all the right places without sounding like anything else out there.

‘1200kcal’ rides jagged, dusty drums that come on like drunken UKG, offset by rubbery bass arps that add a cosmic lick to proceedings. ‘Baby Flame’ has a nastier outlook hinging on a bludgeoning synth splat that calls back to the Control Tower brand of warehouse electro from the early 00s. Making sure no-one is second guessing the scent Dogpatrol is tracking, ‘Ya Playin Yaself’ dips into a dubstep-minded half-step roller with naive keys run through a giddy signal chain. ‘Offgenbach HBF Riddim’ completes the set with a breakbeat cut n’ paste job which tracks back to the source with strong echoes of The Blapps Posse’s raw and funky approach.

The reference points are just slight hints of familiarity, but Dogpatrol comes across as inspired as ever digging up the bones of cult rave signifiers and chewing them into his own unique shapes.

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Is anyone in France keyed into the sound of UK funky as sharply as Kaval? Sneaker sets out a strong case with this four-tracker of cool and deadly shufflers which take that insistent groove and give it a different lick.

Kaval has got plenty going on in Toulouse, where he’s riding the online airwaves with the Egregore Collective and got his name all over the Riddim Supplies series 12”s. Those with their sticky fingers on all the best bits of wax the past few years might have stumbled across those records in the racks. Elsewhere, he’s also locked in with the Ruff Club crew who are bringing the DIY free party vibe to Toulouse under railway lines, in abandoned buildings and anywhere they can sneak a genny, a system, some lights and a vibe. All this is to say Kaval is the real deal, doing things the proper way, and it shows in his tunes.

The cuts on this record are absolutely built for the dance, functional like a DJ record should be but not at the expense of the flair. ‘Combo II’ has fun slipping snatches of MCs around utopian synth licks, while ‘Pistolaser’ is spilling over with crafty micro edits and snappy samples that bring the limber groove to life. The crooked beat and rounded square wave bass is a given, and Kaval wields the rhythm section with poise, but it’s the playful energy he brings to the top end which really lifts his gear. It’s no wonder his tracks have been bumped by the likes of Nick Léon, perfectly bridging the gap from funky into the deft Latin-tinged zones explored by the Miami heavyweight.

It’s records like this that prove exploration of UK funky, like so many club genres, has so much more to give to the dance.

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True Sneaker Social die-hard Etch returns with a monumental new album. Scream of the Butterfly shows the depth and breadth of one of the illest producers operating across the many spheres of club music with a distinct “you ‘kay?” slant.

From the moment the low-end pressure and loaded samples rear their heads on the opening track, Zak Brashill demonstrates his intent to sculpt Scream Of The Butterfly as a proper album — an end-to-end listening experience full of peaks and troughs which focus on sonic storytelling much more than club functionality. Throughout his imperious output to date, the man like Etch has displayed an affinity for sound design to match his instinct for what bangs on the spectrum of dubstep, garage, jungle and hip-hop, but now he’s gone postal on soundworld-building, with a grip of heavyweights drafted in to help set the scene.

Fellow Sneaker alumnus J-Shadow lends his maverick footwork science to ‘Star Fallen’, while UK rap anti-royalty Lee Scott brings his unmistakable Runcorn drawl to dusky head-nodder ‘Not Surprised’. UK bass-synth-ambient enigma E.M.M.A drops in for the moody, meandering midpoint ‘Stepford Lives’, and Killa P and Emz deliver blazing bars to the double dose of ‘Prayer Wheel (Left You Fi Dead)’ and ‘Heat Map’ respectively.

Elsewhere Brashill follows his own razor-sharp instincts into warping stop-start drum science, widescreen downtempo with teeth, seasick synth studies, moody-but-cosy 140 and lots more besides. Nothing comes as standard, but Scream of the Butterfly is ruff when it wants to be, subtle and spacious if the vibe demands it, and consistently packed full of the detail and intrigue that we’ve come to expect from one of the most inventive and reliably sick producers in the contemporary bassweight firmament.

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The dark lord of the dance returns to Sneaker with the 'No Favours' EP, another ominous set of non-conformist shellers rough-cut from obsidian and set in steel.

We first broadcast our love of Christoph de Babalon's distinctively destructive, hard-boiled hardcore via the Evident Ware compilation back in 2020, but a longer release has been an ambition of ours ever since. From his early years on Digital Hardcore through his prolific return in the 2010s across a broad tapestry of underground operators, de Babalon has left a fascinating trail of albums, EPs and scattershot tracks behind him that feed into the cult fervour around his music.

As this EP demonstrates in reliably gritty fashion, the magic in the German producer's music lies in his ability to take the tropes of jungle and hardcore and subvert them through signal chains which owe more to noise and industrial than dance music. The structure of his tracks is equally maverick, pushing and pulling according to its own whims rather than following the dancer-centric energetic flow of a standard club record. Somewhere in this alchemy between classic ingredients and confrontational experimentation, he evokes the original chaotic spirit of hardcore when it seemed anything was possible within the music.

'For Nothing' is the perfect example — a tunnelling odyssey of ferrous atmospheres, roundhouse drums and bass bloated into the red on a force-fed diet of saturation. 'Total Deceit' turns up the pressure on the break chopping science de Babalon is capable of, teasing gamelan flurries and elegiac swirls that hit at the emotional depth he can wrench amidst such bludgeoning material. 'Jaded Memory' funnels Mentasm bass into a strange new form amidst staggering, tightly clipped drumfunk, leaving enough space for haunting ballroom reveries stretching out across the mid-section. That leaves it to 'Dearth Mill' to mop up with gloriously creepy detuned piano notes slopping over each other in between the most ferocious blasts of drums on the whole record.

You didn't expect something straight-forward, did you?

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Bassline veteran and all-round soundsystem sorcerer Marcel Deptford lands on Sneaker Social Club with two ruff-n'-tuff rave-n'-b re-flips that run as a prelude to big things to come.

This is the first time you will have heard a record under the name Marcel Deptford, but he's got serious skin in the game with an imposing history in the legendary bassline scene from the late-00s. His records as DS1 are the stuff of legend for anyone keyed into the Niche-centric sound, but more recently he's put out some serious heat as Haider running his own Breaker Breaker label and popping up on Aus and the like.

If you're a fan of millennial RnB there's every chance you'll recognise the vocals that breathe life into Deptford's two tracks for this Sneaker release. Moving beyond simple edit territory, the voices are bedded deep down into gritty rave productions that boast the kind of dirt bag sonics that call straight back to the OG days of breakbeat hardcore. 'Rock The Boat' has bloated bass pushing into the red, clattering breaks chopped up with a rugged swagger and a dreamy, haunted dose of dub poured all over the vocals.

'Make It Hot' has a lighter, swung feel which nods to garage, but there's still plenty of weight on the low end. Once the lead vocal sample steps back to open up the space, Deptford's knack for strong melodic hooks comes through in a blown out arp line which the bassline dutifully follows.

Hitting every sweet spot from the low-down dirty rave receptors via moody head-nodding restraint on to iconic vocals, Marcel Deptford shows exactly what he's capable on this release ahead of a more extensive dive into his legacy, due further down the line.

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Vinyl in Screenprinted PVC Sleeve inc. Photo Book.

On his latest full-length, Low End Activist swerves towards weightless grime and suspended hardcore miniatures to tell a very personal story. The UK-rooted producer continues his habit of zeroing in on a distinct approach for each release, leaving a logical breadcrumb trail of soundsystem science in his wake as he channels decades of bass absorption into 14 atmospheric cuts that prize patience and precision over obvious club functionality.

Municipal Dreams plays out as a semi-autobiographical tour through the Blackbird Leys estate that the Activist grew up on. It’s a lived reflection on inequality and the ripple effect it has in working class communities, using the sonic palette to set the mood and scattering pointed samples throughout to spell out the story.

In sampling the exhaust of a stolen Subaru Impreza, ‘TWOC’ looks back to the recreational car theft which was standard entertainment for the kids in his community. There’s an underlying idea that this ‘council estate sport’ wouldn’t have been so prevalent if there were public services and opportunities presented to the scores of disaffected youth looking for somewhere to direct their energy and frustration.

In ‘Just A Number (Institutionalised)’ LEA alludes to the shattered juvenile detention system, growing up seeing friends and family members locked up at ease with little to no support on being released back into society, just meant that the same cycles of behaviour would play out over and over.

‘Violence’ samples from a short film shot by the drama division of the Blackbird Leys Youth Club to evoke the physical threat which formed a background hum to life on the estate. The industrial mechanics of the local car factory, which served an integral role as a workplace for many in the community, gets sampled in ‘They Only Come Out At Night’ while the ‘Everyone I look up to are either junkies or criminals’ sample in ‘Broke’ looks to a lack of positive role models.

Municipal Dreams isn’t a one-note indictment of life on the estate, ‘Innocence’ captures the simplicity of a child at birth before their environment has time to shape them. The Hope interludes cut through the grim honesty of the longer tracks while a subtle thread of wry humour finds its way into some of the talking heads cutting through the signature LEA murk.

But honesty is the operative word here, and the message feels all the more meaningful at a time when the UK’s social divisions are laid bare in the wake of a devastating stretch of austerity. Returning to Blackbird Leys to shoot images for the photo-zine and album cover, the Activist found the local community centre being demolished. The local pub stands derelict, its faded Welcome sign a grimly ironic portent of the options facing children of the estate in the wider world.

Funnelling his memories, hopes and fears into a singular twist on the bass weight tradition, LEA captures evocative scenes that land somewhere between kitchen sink realism and rave futurism.

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Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
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East London’s Darren Roach steps to the plate for the sixth Bank of Switches release.
Following on from recent releases on Limousine Dream, Palace Trax, Bass Culture & more, the Studiotek Records boss delivers a driving low slung groover. Perfectly placed percussion sits on top of a rolling bass line, combining analogue warmth with techy futurism. A great tune for early on in the night as well as early the next morning, The Pyrotechnists is a perfect example of Darren’s knack for creating timeless tracks that do the business on the dancefloor.

Flip the record for a remix from Luke Humbles. With a string of releases under his belt from labels like Midnight Social & Symbiotical, this is the FUMP resident’s first production pressed to wax. In his trademark style, Luke pushes the energy of the original but retains the rolling groove. Sprinkled with psychedelic swooshes & trippy bleeps this remix is made for the heads down crew.

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More

This is the debut release on Superflux — a label out of New York run by DJ Brisket and Tamahori. It’s a dubby, pad-driven, deep house EP from four artists who all lived in the Midwest before landing in Brooklyn.

A1 – “Slow String (original mix)” is a straight-ahead deep house groover from Daniel Chavez, who has releases on Deep Club, Muted Noise, and Sole Aspect. Floaty pads, intricate drums and smart bass programming make for a warm and chunky tune. For fans of Brawther, Alton Miller, Ron Trent

A2 – “Slow String (Adam Raphael Dub)” is a remix from Chavez’s longtime friend and collaborator, Adam Raphael. He injects a heavy dose of West Coast tech-house into the original, like a combination of Bluem, Grayhound, and Tweekin’ for a 2025 audience

B1 – “The Blue Line (fleet.dreams remix)” is from the Mansions resident who also helms his own vinyl label, Vinezza. He takes a really driving and lush focus on this remix which evokes styles of Dana Kelley, Eddie Richards and Terry Francis Jr. He secured the coveted Hardwax “tip” on his solo EP last year, and delivers that level of discerning taste and skill here.

B2 – “The Blue Line (original mix)” is the track from IT-XPO that has anchored the release since day one. A thoughtful way to start the night, or for a soft landing in the morning sun. Heavy Shinichi Atobe and DJ Sprinkles influence here.

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More

After a sold out first release, NY’s Superflux is back for Round Two with a debut release from arguably the most unsung hero of the Midwest underground. Uplink is a [REDACTED]-based hardware specialist known for their work running a series of labels and organizing parties that have helped define the region’s sound for more than a decade. Crafted using time-honored tools of the trade, these four dubby, tracky, and raw cuts – lifted from live stereo board recordings – will sit comfortably alongside releases from STL, Skudge, and MRSK.

The A1, Audio Sport, is a dubby groover with almost-steppy hats and bit of bite; a reverb-drenched lattice of delayed pads bends your sense of time and space until you realize you’re 12 hours into the warehouse function and someone’s just thrown a piano off the roof. A2, Blue Untitled, is a deep stomper reminiscent of the early WAX records. A big & shifty bassline turns this into a true head-nodder. B1, Temporary Machine 1, is a more subdued dubbed-out tech house cut anchored on a rolling bassline and flanked by dusty percussion and prescriptive stabs. Proper warm up tackle or hazy after-afters fodder: the choice is yours. Connoisseurs of a fine B2 rejoice – this one is it. Dokta is a moody, tripped out late night techno affair with a dash of bounce for good measure. All that hisses is gold.

Written by Colin Boardway

Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More