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Paul Woolford sets the bar high. Like Babe Ruth calling his home run shot, in 2019 he took to Twitter to let fans know he'd put out four Special Request albums in one year. And then he did it, ending with the appropriately titled Zero Fucks. Naturally, he's applied this psycho dog ethic to his DJ-Kicks mix. His stated goal was to deliver a set that slots in alongside legendary entries like Claude Young's landmark 1996 entry.

From his vocal house team-ups with Diplo to the blistering jungle tracks he makes as Special Request—the retro hardcore alias that's taken over his life—Woolford comes up with a concept, then tailors his work to suit. (For Offworld, he wondered what would happen if Jam & Lewis signed to Metroplex.) As such, we'd be wise to keep his own description of his DJ-Kicks mix in mind: "I always saw the series as a benchmark of quality and a time-stamped gateway into an artist's state of mind," he writes in the press release. "For this volume, I wanted to focus on lush melodics. I kept that as a constant thread throughout, choosing only records I cherish... it's not a 'current snapshot' by any means, more of a chronicle of some of my all-time favourites."

Simon Reynolds' hardcore continuum essays for The Wire, the seminal theory of UK dance music developments from acid house to jungle and garage, contained exactly one reference to disco. But Special Request's DJ-Kicks moves from disco to house and melodic techno to hardcore and jungle, revealing the roots of his current sound. In the first segment, he revels in lush strings, Patrick Adams-style synths and lithe, soul-style musicianship. The admiration for these dance music building blocks is both explicit—the mix launches into motion with John Morales' timeless M+M remix of Alicia Myers—and implicit. Listen to the clear parallel between Morgan Geist's "Lullaby" and Special Request's own "Vellichor" a few tracks later.

In his DJ-Kicks, Woolford plays some of his favourite tracks of all time, in the process revealing the DNA buried deep within his own productions. Following Symbols & Instruments' spacey '90s house cut "Mood (Tropical Dream Revisited)," Woolford drops LS1 Housing Authority's "Life Moves Fast," presumably a new alias of his own. The ethereal pads on both tracks bear a striking resemblance to each other. Similarly, the ahead-of-its-time bassline on Virgo's "R U Hot Enough," from 1985, could have easily served as a building block for a track off Belief System.

However, marveling over previously obscured influences feels like a somewhat pedantic way to enjoy this mix. That Morales Alicia Myers mix? It's the best opening track in recent memory. A fair share of listeners will be checking this mix for jungle and hardcore exclusives, and Woolford comes correct with a bag full of VIP versions, including a hoover-laden remix of FC Kahuna's 2002 trip-hop track, "Hayling," and two Tim Reaper VIPs of tracks off Zero Fucks. (The "Pull Up" VIP nearly improves on the fantastic original.) Sandwiched between these neo-breakbeat anthems is a Sonar's Ghost VIP of another extremely valuable track: 4 Horsemen Of The Apocalypse's "Drowning In Her." From Kirk Degiorgio to AceMo, this mix is anachronistic, mixing the past and the present until they blur together.

There's an obvious emotional component to boshing on your favourite records. Woolford, a Loiner who takes a workman's approach to his prolific output, would almost certainly wince at the following comparison. But as a whole, his DJ-Kicks—prismatic and somewhat subdued—is enjoyable as dance music history, a peek into a prolific artist's hidden influences and, of course, a dance mix with impeccable flow that's also suitable for headphones. In the way that the Mona Lisa meets your eye from every angle, Special Request's DJ-Kicks works on nearly every conceivable level. – Resident Advisor

Tom Jenkinson returns to the vintage hardware used in his early '90s works on ‘Be Up A Hello’ – his first project as Squarepusher following a 5-year hiatus. – Warp Records 

At the record’s best, tracks pelt off the starting blocks and hit top speed without ever looking back. Lead single Vortrack’s eerie, submerged acid is all blots and splatter like octopus ink, fathoms deep. Susurrous hi-hats slowly creep, disguising the imminent jetstream of drum breaks, cymbal crashes and screaming synths. There’s the thrilling toxicity of freaky acid cut Speedcrank, while Nervelevers, a glitch and breaks romp that never stops rolling with the punches, proves an album highlight. The opening tunes’ hooky melodics feel almost uncomfortably reminiscent of chiptune, and elsewhere there are pretty but unmemorable beatless passages, stretching the stylistic range of the record. Ultimately Be Up a Hello is a fun albeit bumpy ride through future-retroism, best felt in the moment itself. – The Guardian

Jlin returns with the first fruits of her new work since last years ‘Free Fall’ EP. ’Dark Lotus’ is a transition between 'Dark Energy’, her debut album, and her forthcoming ‘Black Origami’ full-length.

A-side ’The Escape of the Blvck Rxbbit (ft. Avril Stormy Unger)’ is the more traditional of the two tracks, starting off proceedings with a constantly switching rhythmic structure and a stop-start sweeping hoover stab panning between the speakers, descending bleeps and Avril's vocals cut into shapes and pushed through effects.‘Nyakinyua Rise’ races headlong into uncharted territory, with a fierce barrage of djembe drums over pounding bass, punchy war cries and jubilant uluations that paint a tension between hot aggression and weightless ecstasy. - Bandcamp

With an obsessive determinism to sharpen her sonic palette, Laurel Halo finds a home at Honest Jon’s with a graceful and fascinating blueprint for releases yet to come on her latest, In Situ, a double EP marked by perfectionism. The record appears to hearken back to her first instrumental release, 2011’s Antenna, a collection that saw her shifting away from her heady, abstract pop material to become more attuned to making music with sound and shape as the focus. As with In Situ, those songs were ambient, ecological sketches. With the current release, the basic structure of each of each track is revealed at their very beginning, followed by a reconfiguring as each progresses. In a way, it’s similar in approach to Actress‘s work on Splazsh, or much of Drexciya‘s output. There’s a speculative feel with this approach, especially given her introduction of modular-synth work and her dub and world-music influences.

The EP begins with the pointedly titled “Situation”: Built around high-frequency bells, an aquatic, drifting piano line and staunch drums, the song’s feel sits between that of a mesmerizing Basic Channel workout and the spectral ambience of Oren Ambarchi‘s Suspension. The track swings and topples, as it develops and dissolves all at once. On this track, as on the others, is no structural payoff, per se—no “ah ha” moment in which the pieces all come together to wash over the listener, as with her past works. Instead, there’s a drifting aura, ushering you from one track to the next.

Elsewhere on the EP, there’s a sense of her desire to build a more congealed, material music, picking up where Aphex Twin left off with his ambient works. “Nebenwirkungen” recalls a standard Hessle Audio cut or a track from Kassem Mosse, but stretched out and dismantled even more than they allowed.

The aim here seems to be slippage: Rotating, percussive synth lines build momentum as broken techno drum patterns attempt to bridge together the individual melodic parts, submerged in deep bass pressure. This is readily apparent on “Drift” which uses a muscular, all-consuming kick drum as the core, while various metallic objects funnel around caught in the broken established groove. The closer, “Focus 1,” takes on Afro-jazz with a Vladislav Delay mindset, scooting along for eight minutes while a improvised lead piano line glosses over.

In Situ is ultimately beautiful in design, and speaks quite a bit to where Laurel could potentially go, now that she’s spent some time exploring her understanding of sound design and club music. You can definitely hear her thinking her way through each track, treating each as packets of sound, to be observed and experienced in a loop. - XLR8R

"This is the new album by Modeselektor. It has been in the works for two years and was made within a month. It’s a record offering essential Modeselektor, a record formed by experience, self confidence and the usual madness. It raises a question and answers it straight away. „Who Else” is yet another counteraction to boredom and formulaic approaches. Hear Modeselektor casually kicking against the pricks. Somebody’s gotta do it. Who else?" - Monkeytown Records