Andy C has been running UK drum and bass for so long that a new single from him barely counts as news anymore, which is exactly why Body Cage caught me sideways. The Bloom Twins sit up top with a cold, close-miked vocal that sounds like it was tracked at 4am in an empty flat, and underneath it he does the thing he has always done better than anyone: a bassline that keeps to a walking pace and still feels like a threat. He built RAM Records and more or less wrote the rulebook for how a DnB track is supposed to breathe, and you can hear that in how little he over-arranges here. Nothing is rushed. The vocal gets room to sit, the drums stay patient deep into the track, and when the low end finally commits it reads as earned instead of switched on. I have had it on since this morning and the part that keeps pulling me back is not the drop, it is how long he makes you wait for it. Thirty years deep and he is still finding ways to make a floor lean in before it even moves.
January
Chrome Daydream
Chrome stars, jelly hearts and holographic colour. A nod to the glossy, optimistic graphics of the early web.