Fatboy Slim
Praise You / Right Here Right Now (RSD22)

Each track of Oberst & Buchner's debut album "Sfumato" is rich with anticipation and residue - it feels like being taken on a very controlled journey through space and time by another life form. The two friends and musicians from Vienna and Berlin shift themes and melodies gradually into one another, producing billowing pieces of music with soft and foggy outlines. Just like you can get lost in the perfection of a single brush stroke in a renaissance painting from up close, if you step away you can't help but admire the planning, skill and instinct coming together in this album and every single track. The two producers almost seem to make use of the sounds that are not there, triggering our expectations and creating premonitions in our minds.The complex sound patterns are frequently juxtaposed by simple, almost naive melodies that make everything feel innately known but alien at the same time. On "Eye Liquor" the feature guest Tobias Koett brings just the right amount of fragility and humanity to offset the moodily awakening fantastic sonic beast beneath. With analogue sounds the two celebrate the past and the future, creating murmuring, breathing streams of consciousness. We couldn't be more excited to see where the travels lead.

ELECTRIC JALABAEl Hal The FeelingStrutElectric Jalaba comprises six accomplished musicians with an empathy that feels telepathic and a groove that immerses. In Arabic, the mother tongue of Moroccan-born singer and guimbri player Simo Lagnawi, a leading practitioner of Gnawa music in Britain, they call this indefinable quality, “El Hal” – “The feeling”. “It’s the feeling that comes when we’re playing and totally forgetting where we are,” says producer and bassist Olly Keen. “The feeling of being grabbed by the music and lost in the groove.”El Hal is the new third album from Electric Jalaba and their first release in five years. It’s a multi-faceted work that finds the band tighter than ever, deploying a vast cache of influences across nine tracks improvised and developed in their south London studio then deftly produced by Keen. Some tracks pay homage to the origins of Gnawa music, whose repertoire of Arabic-language praise songs contains remnants of West African dialects – Bambara from Mali, Fulani and Hausa from the Sahel region – that point to a centuries-old migration.

The third album on Black Focus continues the South London tradition but this time in the form of one of the originators: a triple OG, Steve Spacek. Spacek recently released a solo record through Alexander Nut’s imprint Eglo, dBridge’s Exit Records as Blackpocket, following on from his work with Ninja Tune under the Beat Spacek moniker and collaboration with Mark Pritchard as Africa HiTech on Warp.He’s also made formative work with legendary artists J Dilla, Raphael Saddiq, Q Tip and Common and made early drum & bass tunes with his brother dBridge. It’s an incredible career resume and an honour to be releasing this new work. ‘Houses’ sees Spacek return to his Detroit influences, with house music at the heart of this record as it's foundation but as with all Spacek’s releases, it transcends genre and focuses more on swing, melody and feeling.There are elements of soul, jazz and R&B interlaced within the DNA of his electronic music, alongside his signature falsetto vocals. The entire project was produced using iPhone and iPad apps, an approach Steve champions and feels liberated by using technology to join the past with the present. Describing the project his own words: “It’s been well overdue for me to be releasing some 4/4 House vibes!This music has been a big part of my musical journey from dot. Mainly from two angles. The first is, of course, the early rave scene in London and the UK in general, with all its early iterations. Techno from the D, acid, (happy) hardcore, what we use to call dub house (pre jungle), coming into Garage and Balearic to name a few. The other angle is the music production angle: I’ve always used the basic 4/4 template as a means of being able to learn a new piece of recording equipment.Whenever I get any new beat making hardware or software, I’d always make a house beat. I find it the easiest music to make and have always joked about how I can knock up a house beat in 10 minutes! Well now I have an LP’s worth to share! Taken a tad longer than 10min but hey ;) Enjoy.”

An absolute neck twister that majestically blends Acid House, UK Bleeps & West Coast Style Hip-Hop with refined, delicate & grimey production techniques. It’s a smile & groove attracting cross-over fit for House/Techno as well as R’n’B/Hip-Hop floors.

This record with multiple influences, ranging from samba to Afrobeat through soul and French chanson, is a real ray of light that makes you want to escape and takes you far from home. Once again, the unstoppable digger and beatmaker surprises us and shows us how well he masters the art of sampling.