MUSIC

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

The latest work from London-based electronic artist Brbko arrives via noted imprint Scenic Route. Spanning nine tracks, the album explores themes of afterlife, faith, and growth, articulated with a firm resolve to resist absorption into fleeting trends. Tight, driving beats and shadowed sound design meet avant-garde vocal treatments, traversing the boundaries between experimental hip-hop, grime, ambient, and electronic music. Collaborations with Andrew Aged and Cajm further enrich the palette, as flickering soundscapes capture urban solitude and inner conflict with striking immediacy. A vivid sonic statement, strictly limited to 100 copies.

A multidisciplinary artist and curator, Violaine Morgan Le Fur (aka Violence Gratuite) has spent the last few years sharpening her creative perspective, developing documentaries, producing exhibitions, and directing music videos and short films. 'Baleine à Boss' isn't just her debut album, but her first venture into music production; Le Fur had only begun to experiment with music software a few weeks before dubbing the record, a fact that makes this unique set only more bewildering. Singing and vocalizing candidly and producing each track alone, she sounds profoundly polished, invoking a beguiling haze of chanson, rap, no wave and experimental electronics that hovers around the margins of pop and the avant-garde.

Le Fur grew up in Paris's sprawling suburbs, and was provided with a diverse coterie of influences by her Breton mother and Cameroonian father. She's channeled her ancestry into her work before, splicing material from her mother's film archives with her own footage recorded in Bamiléké land to develop the autobiographical documentary 'À L'ouest' back in 2017. As Violence Gratuite, Le Fur thinks more cryptically, considering the vast forests of western Cameroon, lands ravaged by generations of bloodthirsty men and looping pulsing techno rhythms with fractured trap and the ghosts of French pop.

Her voice stands out proudly on opener 'Iséo', layered into a charming mantra over a brittle, grime-y beat assembled from stuttering samples and 8-bit blips. Acrobatic yet somehow casual, Le Fur splits her delivery, singing in French over undulating chants and spectral coos. And she switches up the flow on 'Olive', rapping in an icy cool deadpan while spiky synths bubble around jerky, Neptunes-like stabs. Then, on the nocturnal 'Smooth Operation', Le Fur guides us towards a moonlit ritual, crying sweetly into the darkness as hand drums and dreamy plucks chatter in the background.

On the title track, Le Fur strips the rhythm down to a moody, skeletal rumble, using rubbery drums and trapped chorals to mire herself in negative space. Speaking in a low rasp, she brings to mind Tricky's eeriest early material, or the wonkiest output of French no wave hybridist Lizzy Mercier Descloux. But the record switches gears relentlessly, lurching towards the Caribbean on 'Ragga Nieztches' and into spannered dembow on the hypnotic closing track 'Bad à Bras le Corps'. 'Baleine à Boss' is an unpredictable, labyrinthine suite that refuses to stay static, a variety show that's as comfortable in the club as it is at a fest noz.

hexed!, aya’s second album, confronts the desperation and dysfunction of addiction. Internalised phobias and suppressed traumas, haunt the corridors and golden hours once romanticised on 2021’s im hole; daymares concealed by nocturnal afters-hopping and key bag circles. Opener ‘I am the pipe I hit myself with’ exposes the gray portrait secreted somewhere between the 8th and 9th floors of her previous record. ‘I used to say some shit for sure’, ‘I used to say it when I was me-less’. hexed! is about what happens when aya turns the lights on.

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.

Anderson do Paraíso is one of the most influential and seminal DJs and producers behind the downtempo and dark baile funk sound of the city of Belo Horizonte. At 27 years old, the artist gained notoriety with songs that draw an unusual ghostly atmosphere full of suspense and mystery to the frantic whirl of the famous Brazilian beat.

Anderson started producing music in his bedroom in 2012, taking the Tamborzão funk from Rio de Janeiro as a reference. But his sound went through a profound transformation between 2015 and 2016 when he started attending Baile do Serrão, the street party in Aglomerado da Serra—the largest favela in Belo Horizonte and the second-largest group of favelas in Latin America.

When Anderson started going to Baile da Serra, the funk parties in Belo Horizonte were also experiencing a remaking in their geography and sound. The city has a funk scene whose history goes back to the 1980s. However, until the 2000s, the main bailes took place in closed spaces, on sports club courts, like Baile da Vilarinho. The music back then was closer to hip hop, with MCs singing verses about the hard times in the hood, violence, crime, hope, and faith in better days ahead.

However, in the mid-2010s, the bailes were popping up in the streets of favelas. And it was there that a completely new musicality emerged. The MCs focused on verses about sex, drugs, and having fun, while the beatmakers began to invest in more minimalist and ambient arrangements, with slow pace and full of reverb, highlighting beats with high frequencies, as heard in "Sadomasoquista" and "Duvida Não Letícia". This is the sound of Funk BH (or Funk Mineiro), a scene that has been influencing musicians on a national scale as Belo Horizonte DJs and MCs amass hits on streaming charts and go viral on TikTok.

Anderson do Paraíso— o "queridão", the "dearest," as he is also known— is one of the sound architects of this music. His signature is the contrast of electronic elements (such as the robotic sounds of "Todas Elas ao Mesmo Tempo" and the trap hi-hats in "Pincelada de Angolano") with classical music instruments, such as the piano in "Se Faz de Santinha," the violins in "Aula de Putaria," the soprano backing vocals in "Quarentena Cheia de Ódio" and the timpani used as snare in "Blogueira Que Virou Puta". "União dos Rlk" is a collab with two other producers, Ph da Serra and Vitin do PC, that showcases a intricate sound craft and a futurist vision of the genre in mixing different types of baile funk beats in a single track.

Brazilian funk became internationally known for its chaotic energy. However, Anderson's music has an unorthodox and innovative approach that strips down its elements for a radical minimal sound, underlining silence to build a cinematic suspense. "Blogueira Que Virou Puta" showcases the whispery voice of MC Paulin do G floating in a refined and sparse structure oscillating between sensuality and terror, while the haunted bells of "Chama as Sua Colegas' and the choir of "Ultimo Medo do Ano" conjures an haunted aura of baile funk. And yet people create different ways to dance to this sound, stretching the boundaries of the dancefloor.

Hakuna Kulala debut from Kampala’s Catu Diosis — 7 tracks of mutant afrohouse, slanted Batida, and slow-burn Kuduro pressure. Deeply rhythmic, fiercely physical, and thrillingly unplaceable.

Stepping out from her work as a choreographer, MC, and co-conspirator with Rian Treanor, Catu Diosis delivers a remarkable first statement in Anyim — a body-moving, genre-splintering set that folds East African club DNA into warped afrohouse, achingly reduced Batida, and kinetic vocal meditations.

Opener “Chaa” sets the tone with a stunning post-rock/gqom splicer featuring Uganda peer R3ign Drops — all stuttering kicks and scorched atmosphere. From there, it gets deeper and stranger. “Legi” and the title track “Anyim” push into stripped rhythm experiments: skeletal percussive grids punctuated by breathy, mantra-like vocals, evoking a kind of ceremonial minimalism.

Across the record, Catu Diosis keeps things raw but fluid, staying close to the body and the floor. The beats swing but never settle, rooted in Kuduro’s momentum but constantly fracturing into unexpected pockets. It’s music as movement, shaped by a dancer’s ear for timing and a producer’s instinct for subversion.

One for the heads and the dancers alike. RIYL: Nazar, Nídia, Rian Treanor, Nkisi, Chino Amobi, Slikback.

Yallah Gaudencia Mbidde has always been ahead of the curve. ‘Gaudencia’ is her third full-length since 2019’s acclaimed breakout ‘Kubali’, but she’s been active for far longer than that, working tirelessly on the East African circuit since way back in 1999. She had to wait until time and technology caught up with her, and until she had found a kindred spirit in Berlin-based French producer Debmaster, who returns as the sole architect of this dizzying new set of forward-facing beats and tongue-twisting rhymes. If its predecessor, 2023’s electric ‘Yallah Beibe’, had looked outward, welcoming collaborations with Lord Spikeheart and Ratigan Era, and external production from Hakuna Kulala staples Chrisman and Scotch Rolex, ‘Guadencia’ digs deeper into Yallah and Debmaster’s collective psyche, laying out a revolutionary narrative that tramples over genre boundaries and questions rap’s elemental purity.

Yet again, it’s Yallah’s dexterity on the mic that sets her apart from her peers. Rapping, singing and ad-libbing in English, Luganda, Luo and Kiswahili over Debmaster’s time-fluxing beats, she formulates her own idiosyncratic flow without worrying about being lost in translation. “Even if they don’t understand, it’s the impact that I leave on them,” she told The Quietus in 2022. “Music speaks to the hearts of the people.” And this time around, Debmaster meets her lyrical innovations head-on, developing a sound that’s correspondingly multi-lingual. On ‘Kujagana’, his microtonally-skewed synth arpeggios liquefy into bass-heavy 808 drops and ear-piercing snaps, and Yallah puppeteers the rhythm and the harmony, rapping in double-time and crooning a haunting chorus. The ghosts of breakcore wind around ‘Lioness’ meanwhile, with ruptured distortions, spliced percussion and scraped ASMR FX that repurpose the rave canon while Yallah boldly asserts her position. “Watch me,” she commands through the wall of warped noise.

Jet engine whirrs and ominous, rolling beats underpin Yallah’s high-speed chat on ‘Wantintina’, and the mood is ruptured by wiry, wordless vocal chants. It’s apocalyptic music, but not without cracks of light – between the distorted interference and ritualistic drones, Yallah’s animated rhymes push her emotions to the surface, as if she’s wrenching herself out of harm’s way. And she’s never more flexible than on ‘Yalladana’, chanting, evangelizing and switching up her flow without warning, accompanying Debmaster’s widescreen airlock hisses and torched blips with accelerated prophetic observations. Yallah and Debmaster have cultivated a single voice on ‘Gaudencia’, figuring out a way to alloy dynamic, modern production with the world’s most ambitious oddball street poetry – it’s taken Yallah over two decades to find her congregation, but it was worth the wait.

Bristol-based, London-born auteur ThisisDA has spent over a decade at this point furrowing out his own niche in the experimental rap landscape. Across a slew of under-the-radar solo releases and eclectic collaborations, he’s routinely peered beyond the boundaries of traditional hip-hop, taking a refreshingly open-minded, eclectic approach to his art. Working alongside jazz collective Sumo Chief, playing throughout Europe with Klein and breaking bread with bedroom pop viral superstar Eyedress, ThisisDA has always refused to stay in the same spot for too long, and his latest full-length offering is a testament to that spirit.

Dizzyingly inventive, ‘Fast Life’ crackles from idea to idea, gesturing to drill, grime, electro and trap but refusing to adhere to any conventional template. Featuring collaborations with Hakuna Kulala’s master beatmaker Debmaster – who’s racked up production credits on records from MC Yallah, Aunty Razor, Ratigan Era and more – and Welsh-born vocalist Mimi Jones, the album’s bound together by ThisisDA’s boisterous personality and lightheaded wordplay. “Elevate you like the rapture, it’s an independent matter,” he quips on the euphoric intro to ‘Breakout’ before handing the mic to Jones, whose seductive coos foreshadow a barrage of DA’s most tongue-twisting rhymes.

On ‘Tell Him’, Debmaster spaces out weightless synth stabs and skeletal, grimey kicks, leaving ThisisDA to grandstand for a moment. “Dat boy there is a pussy, flip the coin if you push me,” he spits, molding his voice into an android croon. But it’s not all bravado; there’s a more solemn flex to the ‘808s & Heartbreak’-inspired ‘End Up’ as ThisisDA recalls the trappings of the lifestyle, underpinning his words with soulful AutoTuned cries. Elsewhere, on ‘Captain’, neon-flecked Southern rap excesses rumble through DA’s squelchy, haunted soundscape, and its this wide-eyed, boundless fusion that sets him way out on his own.

“I wanna brush my hands between the clouds and claim that sky,” he exclaims on the album’s lulling closer ‘Change That’. With ‘Fast Life’, ThisisDA aims high and leaves the rest of the scene in the dust.

 (Clear vinyl with Japanese obi) While the previous album was a huge success as a work representing the year 2021, this album, "NO THANK YOU," shows that Little Sims, aka Simbiatu Azikawo, now 28 years old, does not care about such success and sticks to his own convictions. This is a demonstration of his attitude. The songs are glossy, straightforward, and powerful, and are truly punk, giving the middle finger to the fame and expectations that come with success, the conformity required, and all the limitations that come with it. Working with Inflow again, this is Little Sims' most free, bold, and spontaneous work to date.

Also available is "On Stage Off Stage," a 40-minute documentary on the band's latest tour! The film is a spectacular film that includes not only the live performance, but also off-shot footage of Little Sims enjoying tennis on their days off, interviews with the staff who support Little Sims' activities, and the moment "NO THANK YOU" was released without notice.

Growing up in Uganda, multi-disciplinary artist Ian Nnyanzi (aka Masaka Masaka) always knew he wanted to make music, he just needed enough time and breathing room to figure out what exactly his contribution had to be. He cut his teeth fashioning rudimentary hip-hop beats at a friend's studio on Makindye, a hill that overlooks Kampala's balmy Murchison Bay, and quickly realized that he wanted more. "Out here, everyone seems okay to listen to the same thing," he explains, and Nnyanzi wasn't interested in following the crowd. During regular commutes across the city, his mind was being cracked open by sounds from Dean Blunt, Slauson Malone, Arca, Jpegmafia and Vegyn; he knew he needed to show Kampala something similarly distinct.

'Barely Making Much' is a sprawling, ambitious album that's as sculptural as it is explorative, reaching through genre membranes and refusing to stay still for a second. Masaka Masaka wrote it over a fragmented two year period at Nyege Nyege's Kampala studio, and tapped into a jumble of interconnected sounds, from jungle and experimental hip-hop to techno and smoked-out, dubwise ambient music. He was particularly absorbed by the loose, open-minded production style he heard from Manchester's Sockethead, who makes an appearance on 'Before I go', a frayed tapestry of stuttering snares and floury breaks that billows into jazzy euphoria.

On 'cut right through', Masaka Masaka bends fictile piano hits through a lattice of Afro-Brazilian-style vocal chops, trap hi-hat rolls and serrated, synthesized bass thumps. Airy and energetic, the track makes an unexpected left turn when the hats transform into insectoid rasps that cushion a woody hand drum patter. Elsewhere, Nnyanzi isn't afraid to go straight for the jugular: on 'elv9t' he sets atmospheric, back room pads against booming, soundsystem-ready Southern rap subs, and on the kinetic 'let me out', he remolds hard techno in his image, knocking the 4/4 kick off grid to perplex seasoned dancers, and hammering the nail in further with swirling, psychedelic synth fuzz.

Even when Masaka Masaka's working in a more contemplative mode - like on the hypnotic title track and the fragile cinematic finale 'it's okay to dance alone' - he maintains the momentum, swirling otherworldly vocal loops and erratic percussion into pools of melted ambience. 'Barely Making Much' is a charming, hyperactive debut that wears its influences on its sleeve, playing like a lysergic, literate mixtape packed with layers and subtle gestures. Cool-headed and mysterious, it exposes the twilit side of the Kampala underground.

Electronic music producer, vocalist, and performer AYA, known for his incisive experimental sound and challenging lyricism, releases his 2021 book and digital album “im hole” on one-press limited edition color vinyl! The album brings together the experimental sounds of her early years, the humor she displayed in her DJ sets and edits, and the identity-shaking lyricism of her live performances, and has been named “Best New Music” by Pitchfork since its release, as well as one of DJ Mary Anne Hobbs' best albums of the year! It was also selected as one of DJ Mary Anne Hobbs' best albums of the year, and has received high acclaim. Using fragments of rhythm, noise, and sound, the artist freely transforms themes of language, dialect, gender, and sexuality to weave an autobiographical narrative, while at the same time breaking the self-absorbed loop that queer art tends to fall into, and questioning preconceived notions and stereotypes. The title “im hole” represents the ambiguous balance between self-realization and sexuality, and includes a provocative perspective on the trans experience as it is culturally described. In terms of sound, the album deconstructs existing sounds and words and reconstructs them in unexpected ways. The storytelling is characterized by a sharp sense of humor that shines through the despair, and the multi-layered and challenging sound draws the listener in as dubstep merges with detailed melodies and delicate sound textures. This is a piece that will once again offer a taste of the charms of the new album, which is scheduled for 2025.

On "SHAME", producer 2K88 (Przemysław Jankowiak, fka 1988) invokes the era and spirit of PL SOUND, a local genre inspired by British soundsystem music but infused with the social, urban, and sonic themes that developed during Poland’s post-communist transformation. "SHAME" is a progressive, bass-fueled transmission built from scraps of hip-hop’s past; it’s a cinematic vision of Y2K Polish rap that’s in constant flux, where every detail is just as important as the whole structure. Sampling the Polish canon of beats from the low-rent districts of the nineties, 2K88 plunders tracks already based on samples and channels the experiences of the generations that grew up with those sounds, struggling and celebrating with them. And just as he did with his previous projects Etamski and 1988, 2K88 draws out, processes, and ages his elements in an echo chamber, asking questions and formulating answers. Jankowiak works on the fringes of genre: traces of ambient, dub, rap and jungle flicker into low-lit urban rhythms, chunky nightclub basslines and paranoid production touches. This is in keeping with his new, futuristic handle, 2K88. Not for a second does he succumb to today’s omnipresent nostalgia, instead putting reconstruction before deconstruction — he finds whole worlds in his scraps, and in the long-gone turn-of-the-millennium period, whose liminal qualities feel like a precursor to the unease of the present moment. The end-of-the-20th-century paranoia has only intensified in the past 30 years, and paranoia, as Philo Gant once said in the 1995 sci-fi film "Strange Days", is “just reality on a finer scale”. By that logic, 2K88 offers a picture of the grittiest reality blown up to truly awe-inspiring proportions. ______________________________________________________________ 2K88— fka 1988, aka Przemysław Jankowiak — is a music producer, graphic designer, and audio director raised in the Poland of the 1990s and on the pioneering rap records of that time. The rawness, chunkiness, and paranoia he took from this period have always been an integral part of his music. They were there when he made his first homemade beats and stayed with him when, in the following years, he distanced himself from hip-hop, going deeper into the world of sampling experiments and the post-genre avant-garde. Later, he and Robert Piernikowski created the universe of the duo Syny - an irreal spectral/ontological phenomenon built out of memories, dreams, and bass, rap, dub, and smoke. Since the end of Syny, Jankowiak has let loose his beatmaker impulses on a collaborative record with Warsaw’s legendary MC Włodi, created the album Ruleta [Roulette] with over 30 featured guests, and struck up a dialogue with the electronic soundsystem work that’s fascinated him for years on the Ring the Alarm EP. He’s also created chart-topping avant-pop with Brodka and a mimetic soundtrack to “Splinter”, but it is SHAME that is the album we might call his sonic résumé.

One of UK Grime’s most shadowy figures comes of age with a killer full length debut released in collab between True Panther and DJ Python’s Worldwide Unlimited, brimming with an incandescent energy arcing from OG to contemporary eras. It's fully addictive gear, joining unexpected dots between hook-heavy pop and weirder modes, on a tip somewhere between Vegyn, Dean Blunt, Playboi Carti, Klein & Junior Boys - just v v good!!!! Previously appearing on these pages as a guest (alongside Charlotte Church!) on Klein’s stunning ‘Harmattan’ album, Jawnino has been actively issuing prime zingers since 2019’s cult self-release ‘It’s Cold Out’, building a robust rep for his effortless and unique takes on grime, drill, jungle, and rap. Noted for his animated style of “melancholic chaos”, Jawnino flows ambidextrous on whatever’s in front of him, and ’40' gives him a whole new playground in which to romp; spelling out his dare-to-differ slant on a colourful instrumental palette supplied by new hands - Woesum, HNRO, Brbko, 3o, and Cold - alongside more experienced guest features and remixers - James Massiah (aka Babyfather’s DJ Escrow), Bok Bok (remixing here as One Bok), Airhead, Evilgiane - with breezy fresh steez and classic storytelling that transcends eras. Blessed with a naturally uncompromising yet broad appeal, Jawnino’s music speaks to life in 2020’s London with an observantly perceptive quality, delivered behind a mask of anonymity. His music is also artfully aware, exhibiting an appetite for variation that sees him glyde equally well on ohrwurming choruses on ‘2trains’, as he does at soulful grime for the club in ‘Dance2’ - an update of his ‘Good Thing Bad Thing Who Knows’ EP nugget that we swear sounds like Junior Boys - while also finding a wry humour in broken Britain on the timelessly drizzly melancholy of ‘It’s Cold Out’, a new expansion of his debut cut produced by Poundshop, Oliver Twist and Cold - and that’s only the opening trio. Characteristic of his generation’s attraction to the most salient aspects of the preceding 20 odd years, Jawnino proves just as adept at jumping on tight D&B to tell tales of weekend excess (‘Lost My Brain’) as screwed boogie forging binds with US spar MIKE (’Short Stories’), or shuffling in the twilight of ‘90s R&B (‘Wind’). A particular standout of drill drama ‘Westfield’ characterises his ability to boost the energy by factors, and likewise dial it right down and draw us closer in on his description of popping percocet, molly and shrooms in ‘sentfromheaven’, also here in Bok Bok’s finely retuned version, nagging ’til the end beside Airhead’s piquant retweak of ‘Cant Be’. For anyone losing faith in rap soundalikes, Jawnino reaffirms a love for classic forms pronounced in new ways.

Dancehall might have emerged in Jamaica, but over the last few decades the popular genre's tendrils have stretched out across the globe. In Kampala, Ratigan Era is adding a distinct Ugandan twist to dancehall, fusing it with East African humor and hyper-melodic afrobeats elements imported from Ghana and Nigeria. The versatile MC grew up listening to Jamaican music like Vybz Kartel, Busy Signal and Mavado - in his hometown of Kawempe there was almost no way to avoid it - and it blurred into the background, blending with local church music, US hip-hop and radio pop. He developed this diverse range of influences into a completely unique Afro-dancehall flow that simmers between Luganda, patois, Spanish and English, reflecting the melting pot of cultures and dialects that characterizes contemporary Africa.Ratigan broke out with a memorable feature on Pallaso's Ugandan hit 'Nsaba', a track that echoed throughout the country booming from nightclubs, motorcycle loudspeakers or from convenience stores. Now he's assembled his first album "Era", a furiously inventive interweaving of rubbery vocals and memorable chants backed by futuristic beats from Hakuna Kulala's most boundary-pushing producers. Congolese producer Chrisman takes the reins on 'Gorilla Attack', providing a downtempo groove that echoes recent Jamaican chop deployments from breakthrough artists like Skillibeng and Skeng. For his part, Ratigan ducks and dives between Chrisman's gqom-inspired low end womps and corrosive synths, commanding attention with his smart, dextrous flow and tongue-twisting lyrics.The Modern Institute and Golden Teacher's Richard McMaster handles 'Top Strike Force' leaving space in his wiry, minimal beats for Ratigan to flit between anthemic repetitions and ice-cold AutoTuned wails. On stand-out track 'Badman Style', Ratigan's guttural patois is measured against a dizzy trap-dancehall hybrid beat from HHY & The Kampala Unit's Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, aka Lithium Beats, while on the surreal 'Drop it Down', Japanese mad scientist Scotch Rolex brings out Ratigan's cheeky sense of humor with toytown bleeps and laser zaps. MC Yallah collaborator Debmaster appears on 'Gan Dem', meeting Ratigan's double-time raps with soundsystem destroying rolling subs, and veteran US noisemaker Kush Aurora sprinkles magic dust on 'Cool and Deadly', galvanizing the link between global bass mutations, Jamaica and East Africa.And despite the grab-bag of producers and inspirations, "Ratigan" is a strikingly coherent listening experience that accurately snapshots Kampala's colorful froth of sounds and phrases. Ratigan's outsized personality is welcoming and captivating, providing the sights, sounds and smells of the city with a frenetic rhythm that's as intimate and local as it is far-reaching. It might just be the future we so desperately need.

We're excited to bring you this collaboration between Spanish Producer Nueen and Manc vocalist / rapper Iceboy Violet, who has previously sprinkled their magic dust across Hyperdub releases from aya and Loraine James. The album traces the arc of a four year relationship, In Iceboy's words - 'fondly memorialising its highs and documenting its lows, trying to process and reflect positively and then ending with the ecstatic but ominous spark of new love.' Between them they've made an album that's magical, intimate and heartfelt, sometimes anguished but ultimately re-enchanting.

Iceboy and Nueen mutually admired their like-minded approach to making ambient music on recent solo releases and started swapping ideas for collaboration. Nueen sent beats at an almost overwhelming rate, which matched the speed and sharpness of Iceboy's emotions while they processed the end of the aforementioned relationship, creating songs which helped them process and navigate through the mental fog. The tracks were finished with Iceboy zooming in and chiselling the details, all finished in 3 months.

Nueen's music responds with foggy, but richly detailed grainy production. There are Smudgy, drill-laced beats contrasting with curdled, spiralling chords and at times he seems to isolate elements from Burial's palette and intensifies them, like SM FID's fire-like crackles. At other times, he draws out a malevolent ambience which feels elemental and troubling like on Cement Skin. Friends and collaborators switched up some of these songs, with artist Harriet Morley as the first voice on the album and Dawuna adding their rugged silky background vocals around Still's descriptions of black hair braiding and lives intimately intertwined. The album's final track, Kiss Me Again is blessed with young Manchester singer Bennettiscoming as a softening foil to Iceboy's coarse rapture.
You Said You'd Hold My Hand Through The Fire is an immensely affecting and lucid album, powerfully wrought and ultimately hopeful.