Raffa L – I Want You

Blimey… I know Unrivaled Music get a lot of love on this blog but they've excelled themselves here!

There are six mixes of I Want You on offer. In its Original form, it's a chugging deep/tech house groover with a slightly Robert Owens-esque, treated male vocal, 90s organ sounds used quite subtly and some seriously buzzy rave bass. And then as for remixes… you're spoiled for choice, really. There's the (UK) garage-y refix from Liam Geddes. There's Danny eM's head-fried, wibbly pass. There's a tuffer, techier rub from Dan Styles.

And then there's not one but two outstanding mixes from Dexter Ford. His Up Mix really lets that rave bass shine through and teams it somewhat surprisingly with nu-disco synths, with great results. But his Down Mix… that's as satisfying a journey into inner (head) space as you're gonna take all week, a dubby affair with the production aesthetics of deep techno, the sexy slink of deep house and STILL with that buzz bassline in full effect.

The latter pass, as you can probably tell, takes top honours for me, with Geddes' rub a close second. But this is outstanding stuff all round, truth be told – go seek.

Out: This week

About: You can find Unrivaled via the Endemic Digital Facebook page.

Dan Styles - Smokey EP

In honour of the UK government's ridiculous ban on tobacco displays in shops… here's the latest from Essex-based Hype Muzik. It's a two-track affair so I needn't detain you long, so you can get on with trying to guess which shops sell fags and which don't.

Smokey itself is a deep, minimal techno joint, with a spacey, tripped-out kinda feel. Meanwhile on the B, People Say operates in similar territory, but this time with a female vocal and enough funk flowing through its veins that it could appeal equally to deep house or even future garage floors.

However, as the powers that be would no doubt much rather you listened to Nicki Minaj, One Direction and other bland corporate shite instead, expect legislation pushing quality, head-centric electronic music like this under the counter any day now.

What did you think this was, a free country or something?!

Out: This week

About: Hype Muzik is of course part of Norman H's Stripped Muzik empire.