Album: Electribe 101 - Electribal Soul

A glorious lost gem from the feverish first flush of British house music

There’s a period of British club music that deserves to be much better appreciated. Before hardcore and jungle, before the Underworlds and Leftfields and other arena acts, came a generation who were much closer to the most song-based US house music, to considerable success.

Saturday Night Fever, Peacock Theatre review - crowd-pleaser stays true to its roots

★★★★ SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, PEACOCK THEATRE Iconic film on stage heats up the West End

Iconic film on stage heats up the West End

Wind the clock back 45 years and the Big Apple was bankrupt, the lights had gone out and many native New Yorkers were packing their bags. Gangs controlled whole neighbourhoods, drugs were the currency of choice and, for a kid with no college, prospects were strictly limited. The movie Saturday Night Fever captured this social decay, illustrating the crisis of confidence that suffused so many big Western cities.

Album: Bed Wetter - A Life in the Day

The producer also known as Man Power gets personal in public on an immersive journey through the emotions

A Life in the Day is the second album from Bed Wetter, nom de plume of DJ, producer and experimental artist Geoff Kirkwood.

Music Reissues Weekly: Jon Savage's 1977-1979 - Symbols Clashing Everywhere

MUSIC REISSUES WEEKLY Jon Savage's 1977-1979 - Symbols Clashing Everywhere

Personal take on three years when disparate outlooks could happily coexist

The title borrows from the lyrics of Siouxsie and the Banshees’s August 1978 debut single “Hong Kong Garden”: “Harmful elements in the air, Symbols clashing everywhere.” It also refers to Marcus Garvey’s prediction that on 7 July 1977 two sevens would clash with damaging consequences, a forewarning acknowledged that year by Culture’s Two Sevens Clash album.

Albums of the Year 2021: Toya Delazy - Afrorave Vol 1

★★★★★ AOTY 2021 TOYA DELAZY - AFROWAVE VOL 1 Dance music from Zulu musical astronaut

The globalisation of dance music personified in a Zulu musical astronaut

2021 might not seem the most likely of years for the globalisation of dance music to intensify, what with the lack of travel and the lack of... well... dancing. But, in fact, thanks partly to the enforced time spent online which led to a lot of discovery for a lot of people, and partly to a simple yearning to get back out there dancing, the connections made have been wild. And no record exemplifies this quite like Toya Delazy’s Afrorave

10 Questions for musician and DJ Pete Tong

10 QUESTIONS FOR PETE TONG Musician and DJ on his latest EP and his musical life thus far

On his latest EP and his musical life thus far

Perhaps appropriately, when I called Pete Tong for his 10 questions I was hungover, on the phone in a park after a night at a very good party. It’s a sign of the times that things are appearing to return to a relative normal, despite the threat of Omnicron and a precipitant winter lockdown.

Album: Katy B - Peace and Offerings

★★★★★ KATY B - PEACE AND OFFERINGS Peckham club queen's soulful return

Peckham club queen's return after a lengthy hiatus, and she's feeling soulful

“Flashbacks / driving in your car volume pushed right up to max / all those late nights I’d try to drink them back” These are almost the first words you hear on this record, coming in as South London Afrobeats producer P2J’s bass tones roll in on the opener “Under my Skin”. And they’re a perfect introduction to the theme and mood of the record too.

Album: Amon Tobin - How Do You Live

Perennial electronic wizard pushes yet further into unexplored, sometimes loud, always compulsive terrain

Amon Tobin is hard to pin down. His music has mutated over the years. He initially fitted in with Ninja Tune’s late-Nineties/early-Noughties roster of post-hip hop stoner breaks, heavily jazzed. But in more recent years, he’s wandered into an area where glitchy soundscaping and avant-classical experiments are laced with warped sampling. Then there’s his industrially heavy Two Fingers crunch-step project.

Album: Rudimental - Ground Control

Latest from London dance-pop quartet is half bland but half bangin'

To coin a cliché, the fourth album from London pop-dance success story Rudimental is a game of two halves. The first is off-putting and dull but halfway through, the band seem to wake up. There are 16 songs on the album. The eighth, “Handle My Own”, is the first one to make the ears prick up, and from track 11 on we’re in continuous business.