Back catalogue: Footwork/Juke

Review: Finnish underground icon Sasu Ripatti returns under his most frequently used pseudonym, Vladislav Delay, for another bout of Dancefloor Classics. The series has already established a loyal following, and the fourth episode is enough to explain why, even if you've not encountered any of the preceding instalments. Music for imagined dancefloors is how the official release information puts it, it quickly becomes clear just how vivid that imagination is. Throwing down a string of footwork inspired cuts, the four tracks here are frantically upbeat and packed with filthy, jacking potential. But they're also deep, at times ghostly - or at least a little eerie - and ground in a desire not just to make people move, but also push sounds forward into new territories. Never an easy line to tread, the overall results hit as hard as the beats themselves.

Review: Dark Vektor's 'Universos Infinitos' was first released a couple of years ago via HC, and the label have now resolved to reissue the record, by popular demand, on vinyl. Privileging a full-throttle, cosmic electro sound - one that makes full use of the digital medium's spectral potential, yet still echoes something of the imperfect medium that is space-time - 'Universos Infinitos' invites us to consider the vast expanse of the cosmos through a chrome-tinted radio telescope. From the off, of the title track, we hear analogous readings of vocoded pulsars and sidereal stabs, both of which are received loudly and clearly by our technilicious giant satellite dish. 'Darkness Around Me' is more an intermittent sound-source, perhaps signalling the cosmic presence of a partially botched nova - or even a Dyson sphere - through its equally ecstatic square waves and washout vocals from singer Marinetta. The Lost Boys deliver a rogue and vampiric schranz version on the B, shortly followed by an even archer footwork remix from our newest favourite outer-space visitor, Kaxtelian.

Review: We don't know who is involved in this brand new Diner's Club International project but we do know that they have put together three superb new records, all of which are landing at the same time. We also know they have come from Detroit, specifically Joy Rd on the West Side, and so come drenched in plenty of the swaggering attitudes you would expect. Diners Club International Part 1 fuses electro, ghetto and techno into booty-shaking cuts designed square for the club. The rhythms are infectious, the drums booming and the vocals bawdy, so snap these up before they're gone as quickly as they arrived.

Review: DJ Slugo is a legendary producer who very much helped to define the sound of the equally legendary Dance Mania label back in the day. Now Subterranean Playhouse has put together a collection of his most influential works across the juke and footwork spectrum on one vital 12". 'Bang Dem Walls' kicks off in signature style with hard-hitting rhythms and ghetto vocals. 'Like It Raw (feat DJ Deeon - 2002 remix)' is another hardcore dancefloor banger with jittery rhythms and turbocharged stabs and 'On The Low (feat Double AC & DJ PJ)' is exactly the sort of short but sweet and impactful jam that DJ Slufo is such a master of.

Review: Hyperdub kick off the vinyl side to their ten-year celebrations with this weighty four-tracker from some of the leading lights from the label's story. Mala is in a strident mood with "Expected, Level 10" carrying through that extra touch of melody from the Mala In Cuba LP. DVA cuts loose with the leftfield scattershot groove of "Technical Difficulties", reveling in tonal experimentation and jagged rhythmic flair to a stunning end. Still locked into the sci-fi trap tangent that characterised Severant, Kuedo turns out the haunting "Mtzpn" and Helix pops up for a remix of Kode9's "Xingfu Lu" that strips down to bare essentials with a little starlit soul rubbed into the framework.

Review: STG Soundlabs' first drop is a wild ride. First up, Suit & Tie Guy goes up against Dorian Electra on 'Fa$t Ca$h (Easy Credit & The Economic Cra$h)' which gets remixed by Objacktivist into eight minutes of bendy deep house with lashings of Ibiza soulfulness. The Lorenzo Vektor is a wild footwork remix with drums piled up on top of one another and the vocal chopped and diced into pieces. On the flip is a star-gazing synth house exploration of outer space and then a killer electro-funk jam. One of the most unpredictable EPs we've heard in ages.

Review: Introducing Diner's Club International, a new and anonymous collective, we have been told on the low down, that is here to keep clubs bumping. They hail from Joy Rd on the East of the city of Detroit and are here to keep the ghetto tech scene going strong with a vast array of breathless new rhythms across three different records. Their MO is to get in and out quickly with each track - short, snappy sketches packed with attitude, cut-up vocals and spongy drum and bass patterns. As physical as all these cuts are, they also have a real human heart thanks to the warming pads and well-deployed r&b stabs. These are red hot so do not sleep.

Review: By the time Double Cup landed in 2013, footwork had already well and truly infiltrated global dance music culture, with DJ Rashad held high as one of the true visionaries of the Chicago-born sound. Still, Double Cup seemed to break through and take the genre even further out, turning more people onto footwork's hugely innovative potential and fuelling its interpolation with other scenes in the UK and elsewhere. With Rashad's tragic passing in 2014, it also serves as a swan song of sorts, loaded with the weight of a genius gone before his time. If you don't already have this one etched in your memory banks, now is the time to play catch up.

Review: Chicago's standout beat innovator DJ Slugo is back to reclaim his throne as the self-proclaimed "king of ghetto house" with this new seven-track album. It is packed with some of the most real and raw ghetto sounds of now with hip-house and Miami bass also checked into the mixer and spat out the other side in time for Record Store Day 2025. Killer dance floor weapons are everywhere you listen here - 'Drop It Low 112707' has chopped and screwed vocals and corrugated drums and bass. 'Back Da Fuck U' (feat Missy - remix has tumbling kicks and bass and sleazy vocal samples and 'F*ck These Hoe' is as silly as it is seriously effective.