Back in early April, blog favourite Throwing Snow put out the first in a series of two-track releases through Houndstooth that he called at the time ‘built for the summer, yet seen through a wintry prism’. Intended to be more club focussed than the material on the acclaimed ‘Mosaic’ album, the first ‘Lumen/Paint By Numbers’ featured lush tones and melancholic melodies over steadily unfurling beats, which were followed by the more intricate rhythms and pensive atmosphere of ‘Glower/Clasp’ that saw the light of day in the height of summer. The trilogy is now seemingly complete with the release of ‘Xema/Seren’, with the soaring synths and complex inflections from the former sitting cosily alongside some detuned tones and broken beats more associated with a typical Throwing Snow production. Go here for the visual accompaniment for album track ‘Linguis’ courtesy of Los Angeles-based filmmaker Arman Cole if you missed it.

So, there’s been lots about on the internets about the new album from London-based producer Kel McKeown aka Kelpe, and if you’re a fan of his music you’ll no doubt have already come across ‘The Curved Line’. As with its acclaimed predecessor ‘Fourth The Golden Eagle’, which took in a much more organic approach and embraced McKeown’s then newly-found appreciation of analogue equipment, his fifth album to date has been released thorough his own DRUT label. For the uninitiated, this new release mixes both the earthy and the electronic, combining elements from McKeown’s decade long beat-centric release history on label’s such as DC Recordings and Black Acre, while also pushing that sound into new directions. More urgent and upfront than the sometimes sprawling analogue explorations of its predecessor, the ten tracks are intended to be listened to as a whole, rather than as a collection. The digital release will be followed by a double vinyl edition on September 7th, and a some new Sagberg created visuals for the track ‘Valerian’ have recently emerged.

Manchester producer Patrick Holt’s particular brand of Drum & Bass and Dubstep as biome stretches back almost eight years with a debut release on the now defunct Subsonik Records, and since then his single and EP work has been put out on labels such as Black Box, Osiris, Mindset and Tempa. Following the ‘Serenity’ EP on Deep Heads back in early spring, a self-released debut album titled ‘sombre’ has recently emerged on bandcamp, and as you might expect from someone of such pedigree, it’s proving to be a finely executed nocturnal suite which probably falls under the Drum & Bass category. Within the twelve tracks that take in airy hyper-rhythms through to subterranean heavyweight rollers there’s a big accent on atmosphere, and there’s also enough invention in the production to hold your attention throughout, something which can’t necessarily levelled at other long players from this genre. Keep a look out for the ‘Griddled’ EP forthcoming on Kaizen.

Early last year London vocalist Segilola teamed up with Leeds producer Bambooman aka Kirk Barley for the enchanting ‘Somewhere Along The Line’ EP on Canadian independent King Deluxe, something which was quickly followed by Bambooman’s own ‘Dulcet’ EP on Sonic Router. Taking in beat-heavy hip hop through to more upfront garage-leaning rhythms, Barley’s own record was, according to the man himself, ‘made almost entirely out of found sounds and field recordings that I’ve made and processed; sounds I’ve synthesized myself or recordings that were made and donated by friends’, and these techniques were certainly present on the first collaborative EP between the duo. The good news is they’ve teamed up again for another outing ‘Halt’ which is due next month, this time on Health, which features five new original tracks that again perfectly pitch Bambooman’s trademark production against Segilola’s beguilingly rich vocals and intelligent lyricism, for a richly organic sounding, soulful and diverse collection of tempos and moods brimming full of ideas.

In the two years since the release of his acclaimed second album ‘No Better Time Than Now’, Detroit born musician and producer Zach Saginaw has been busy touring, building a new studio and working on numerous other projects, but the release of the ‘Intermission’ EP in October will provide a snapshot of what he’s been up to under his best known guise as Shigeto. Saginaw has explained that the six tracks, that mix percussive polyrhythmic grooves, jazzy instrumental hip hop, and widescreen beatless excursions, aren’t meant as a strong musical message, but rather ‘point to the past, present, and future’, essentially quantifying the artists explorations into finding a solid musical path for any future Shigeto output on Ghostly International.

With a wealth of EP and single releases under the guise of Synkro, almost forty at last count, and some recent work with Indigo under the Akkord moniker, Joe McBride is set to release his debut album on Apollo Records. Taking it’s cue from the early roots of electronic music, ‘Changes’ is informed by a desire to ‘take knowledge from the past and use it to change the future’, and utilises McBride’s new found appreciation of analogue equipment which he picked up on a trip to Japan. The lush cinematic textures and warm melodies you’d expect from a Synkro release are still present over ten tracks that mix ambient, drum & bass, baleraric and dubstep, and while the title track has been floating around for a while now, another taster of what to expect in the form of ‘Midnight Sun’ recently arrived ahead of the September 18th release.

After the Dahlia Black and Unknown Shapes collaborative projects, Blue Daisy returned to solo ventures last year with an industrial strength mix of underworld beats and bass on the ‘Psychotic Love’ EP via 37 Adventures, and since then he’s seemingly been locked in the studio making the ‘Darker Than Blue’ album which is out at the end of September through his new home R&S Records. Brutally honest and imbued with a punk attitude and aesthetic, the record is described as ‘an intense downward spiral of a journey fuelled by uncomfortable truths, sleepless nights, love, loss, religion, faith and doubt’ with the twelve tracks taking the London-based artists own experiences and distilling them ‘into a cinematic meditation on the clash between the forces of dark and light, yin and yang, good and evil’. The track ‘Alone’ explores the sobering reality that we are born and die alone, and that no one person’s experience is the same, as Blue Daisy continues ‘we’re out here alone, we are for a moment, not forever, but a limited time, so why find comfort in the form of what others see as comfortable? I find comfort in my solitude… only I can change my mind’. [via]

The King Midas Sound project which comprises Kevin Martin aka The Bug alongside vocalists Kiki Hitomi and Roger Robinson debuted back in 2009 with the acclaimed ‘Waiting For You Album’ on Hyperdub, and a move to Ninja Tune a couple of years back which was signalled by the single ‘Aroo/Funny Love’ saw the trio shift direction from the heavyweight, heady twenty-first century lovers rock of the debut, into an area ‘where drone melancholy and fuzz blisteringly collide’ that was described as ‘My Bloody Valentine in Dub’. In the intervening period each member has been busy with their own individual ventures, but they’ve come together again for a series of collaborative projects, the first of which ‘Edition 1’ is out in September. Featuring Austrian guitarist and electronic musician Fennesz, the nine track collection, which has been likened to ‘a fog reaching out into nothing, and encapsulating everything’, utilises improvised guitar tracks, samples, and unreleased material from Fennesz’s archive, and will be followed by three further editions featuring as-yet-unknown collaborators each with individual conceptual themes.

The follow-up to the beatless ‘Loyal’ debut album by Heathered Pearls is still heavily intertwined with visual imagery and ambient textures, but has changed direction to reference a time in the Brooklyn-based producer Jakub Alexander’s earlier life when he’d travel back from parties in Detroit with friends and ‘usually listen to something deep and easy on the ears…this was a perfect time to let your mind wander’. At that time he discovered artists such as Terrence Dixon and Lawrence; ‘who can find this elegance in techno beyond the dark warehouse’, and who’s heavily repetitive, melodic and deep electronic music has shaped his move into the new beat-centric sound. With titles such as ‘Sunken Living Area’, ‘Holographic Lodge’ and ‘Thought Palace’, the imagery conjured up in the new ten-track release is described by Alexander as ‘a stunningly bleak, uncharted landscape of man-made cement and artificial foliage’ as opposed to the ‘indirect, huge, heavy, slow ocean waves off in the distance at night’. Body Complex is out via Ghostly on August 7th.

Bass Music heavyweights EPROM and Alix Perez aka ARP.101 previously featured together on the ‘MODUS’ EP by UK outfit Foreign Beggars at the end of last year, and while each respective artist produced a separate track for that release, news has emerged of a forthcoming fully collaborative venture which is set to drop at the end of the month. The four-track ‘Shades’ EP will be out through Los Angeles based Alpha Pup, who say ‘the release tickles the limbic system with gravity-distorting bass and inspired hooks’ and is apparently influenced by footwork, early rave and g-funk. With track titles mostly taking their cue’s from Greek mythology, a taster of what to expect has recently dropped in the form of the bass bin bothering ‘Chiron’.

In terms of physical releases, we haven’t heard much from Los Angeles based artists Thomas Wilson aka Sweatson Klank, formerly known as Take, since his twenty-five track ‘You, Me, Temporary’ opus on Project Mooncircle a couple of years ago. That doesn’t mean to say the reknowned beat-maker hasn’t been busy, as a cursory glance at his Soundcloud is met with a wealth of free downloads, mixes and bonus material. Probably best known for low slung beats, future bass and moody R&B, his latest offering is the track ‘Nightcap’ which conjures images of a nocturnal urban setting, and after an engaging introduction evolves into some fluid, melodic drum and bass. [via]

We’re barely into summer but news has emerged that acclaimed Hamburg producer and Golden Pudel resident Helena Hauff will return to Werkdiscs for a debut solo album in September. After making her recording debut on the label run by Actress a couple of years ago, she’s seen a steady rise to prominence with a brand of frazzled, noisy, lo-fi techno and distilled acid house jams on labels such as Panzerkreuz, Lux Rec, and Handmade Birds. While the grimy, machine-tooled sonics of the EP releases haven’t exactly reflected Hauff’s excursions into the dark, genre and decade spanning musical subcultures of her Golden Pudel sets, the new album titled ‘Discreet Desires’ might be set to change that with the ten-track release being described as ‘the embodiment of Helena’s deep-seated beliefs about music as a radical force and unifying movement’. The first taster comes in the form of the new wave leaning ‘Sworn To Secrecy Part II’.

As the release date of the aforementioned dubwise and jazz-tinged ‘True Sight’ EP by Danny Scrilla draws ever closer, further news has come from the Cosmic Bridge camp detailing an upcoming four track EP from label boss Om Unit. ‘Torchlight Vol.1’ will see the artist otherwise known as Jim Coles release his most progressive take yet on some space-age dub-futurism, raw breakbeats, immsersive downtempo and frenetic grime and footwork rhythms, which are the result of, in the producers own words, ‘many studio jams using outboard gear and less rules…applying these almost non-techniques to the 160bpm bass music template’. To mark the announcement of the release, he recently shared a new label-centric mix that combines music from the last four years alongside forthcoming material, including the previously mentioned Danny Scrilla and Om Unit EP’s, plus previews from new signings DJ Madd, J Kenzo, J(ay)A.D. And Neuropol.