Future Beats – The Album [31 Recordings]

The relaunch of Doc Scott’s 31 Recordings imprint has been the cause for much celebration across the scene, and the label’s output has been absolutely stellar. Rounding off 2014 in style, they’ve unveiled a massive 24 track compilation featuring artists from across the D&B spectrum, and frankly pretty much all of it is excellent.

The huge selection takes in half-time beats from Sinistarr and Ital Tek, future jungle from Moresounds, liquid rollers from Bungle and Calibre, rowdy techstep from SCAR and plenty more besides. Special mentions have to go out to the broody, militant syncopations of House of Lanterns’ Take Control, the ethereal atmospherics of Hidden Turn’s Dream of Tron and the bleepy, atmospheric vibes of Gremlinz Forlorn, but honestly the whole LP is of such a high standard that picking favourites is pretty tough. Check out clips of all the tracks below and head over to the 31 Recordings store to preorder the compilation on vinyl or digital now – the release drops on December 15th.

Nuage – Prints Of You [Translation Recordings]

Nuage returns to Translation with the first glimpse of material from his forthcoming LP for the label. Lifestyle sees him teaming up with Gerwin for a deep, mellow slice of 170BPM electronica aimed firmly at the living room rather than the dancefloor, while Prints Of You drops the tempo and explores similarly lush territory; soulful influences abound and the musicality is breathtaking.

The release also features some excellent remixes, with Silent Dust turning in a hyperactive footwork rework of Sunday Morning and Planet Mu alumnus Ital Tek turns in a skittering, bleeped up mix of Prints Of You.

Clips of a fair bit of the rest of the album’s tracks have also now surfaced, the highlight of which for me is another Gerwin collab; Slow Moves brings together shimmering synth work, a laid back drum shuffle and some suitably manipulated vocal snippets for an effortlessly cool slice of downtempo electronica with a housey switchup after the breakdown. That housey theme gets explored further on Indigo Girl and Keep Me Warm, among others, with plenty of smooth melodies and head nodding kick-lines. It seems like lower tempo beats will dominate this record which is a shame given Nuage’s talent for deeper D&B, but the quality of material on show here is still great.

You can pre-order the vinyl sampler or the CD/digital version of the album via the Translation bandcamp – physical copies will be out in the wild on September 8th with full digital for the album following on September 29th.