Venetian Snares: Filth (Planet Mu) - CD

It's a seasonal thing for me, but during a certain time in the year, for about a month, I can cope with listening to the genre known as 'breakcore'. Actually that's wrong, I dont really bother listening to everything, just Venetian Snares. Over the course of 10 years and 23 albums. He's pretty much rendered all other practitioners in the genre obsolete.

'Filth' is a porn-obsessed homage to hi-speed acid techno. The ubiquitous Roland 303 Bassline runs riot throughout the ten tracks, but jostles for space amongst the kinetic breakbeats, rave yelps and inward-collapsing euphoria. Suspicious track titles aside - 'Chainsaw Fellatio', 'Splooz Guzzlers' and 'Pussy Skull' are just some of the delights - the breathless razor-sharp precision and attuned production still astonishes.

Jus Wan: Action Potential (Apple Pips) - 12" - Originally released November 2008
T++: Audio1995#8 / Audio1995#8_2 (Apple Pips) - 12" - Originally released December 2008
Ramadanman: Humber (Apple Pips) - 12"

Appleblim's new label continues it's beautifully packaged crusade of fully merging the worlds of dubstep and techno. Actually I got ahead of myself there as the Jus Wan release is probably the weakest thing they're released to date; perfunctory and totally forgettable.

T++ (or Torsten Profrock to his mum) is one half of Monolake and whilst I've always found their output a tad too dry, his solo work is always interesting. So he offers up what is Apple Pip's weirdest release so far. The A-side is an echo-chamber drenched exercise in precise loops. It doesn't seem to do much, but totally engages for the duration. But the Ramadanman release is nothing short of impressive. The lead track ('Humber') seems to glide and cruise along motorik highways at a sedate pace. The Sven Weisseman remix goes one better and allows reflection and spatial awareness to smother everything. Berlin sounds stapled to a South London shuffle.