Mystery Man: Life in a tube - Original and Remixes (Overxposure) - 12"

Dunno if he's referring to activity inside a science laboratory containment unit or his day to day travels on the London Underground. Either way, this is a half decent collection of rhythmically refined revisions from the folders marked 'techno' and 'electro'. Containing both the elegant clinical sheen of Berlin to the wonky off-chord trickery of Detroit.

Enduser: Pretense / Blood & Metal (Outbreak) - 12"

S'alright. A million and one other variations out there like it. Unless Jungle does something pretty interesting quick sharp, I'm gonna start to delete most of it off my hard drive and eBay it out of my flat.

The Others: Africa (Dub Police) - 12"
Rusko: Acton Dread (Dub Police) - 12"

The definition of digidub is "A sub-genre of reggae. Usually created by Europeans exclusively on computers." So does that mean dubstep is the modern equivalent? Judging by the efforts of these two releases, the answer is "fuck, yes". There are ever-so-tiny moments of genuine invention and Rusko's effort is slightly better. But on the whole, this conjured up horrific images of the likes of Dreadzone. Now there's a warning.

Skream: Skreamizm Vol.3 (Tempa) - 2 x 12"

I couldn't even bring myself to write some words about that album. But I'll summarise it in one now: shite. The gnarly looking teen behind the counter at Soho's Black Market Records mumbled something about "keeping the scene alive" as I purchased this attractive release. Needless to say, I wanted to punch the silly cunt square in the face. I think I'm going to have to stop going to that shop, it no longer fits in with my principles.

Mr G: Atmosphere EP (Careless) - 12"
Mr G: U Askin'? (Rekids) - 12"

Mr G (aka Colin McBean) used to be one half of humourless techno duo The Advent, whose brand of machine clatter I could never warm to. But all is forgiven with these two impressive releases that inject new blood into the micro-genre titled Black London Techno. On the 'Atmosphere' release it's the B-side that is the winning track. Brooding, street-lit basslines and Motor City-inspired beats punctuated by unintrusive soulful vocals. The Rekids release is even better though, a rolling Reese-style rhythm underpins morphing basslines, pseudo-acid melodies and snares that slowly compress.