Picks Of The Week (21.02.26

1. Unglued - Timestretch: Future [Hospital Records]

Recommended if you like: Noisia, Waeys, Break

While I usually try to direct my weekly hours of investigative stalking towards the newer and underpresented artists out there, I just can't ignore when an established name drops a gem like this. Especially if it's someone that's as overdue a feature as fellow subreddit contributor /u/junglued aka Unglued!

1.1. Timestretch: Past (1994 - 2018)

At the time Joshua Brown, the Brightonian bass music boi we're discussing here, started appearing in our scene circa 2018, all I knew about him came from the first two interviews he did on UKF, which both made it sound like there was nothing else to tell about him before the whole thing with the glue and the post-it notes. Maybe it was all part of the marketing plan and intentional, but we're long past any of that, so let's properly rewind this tape to the very start, and go from there.

Back in 2004 times, little Joshie Brown and his uncle-cousin Stoppy went on regular fishing trips. However, this was not a mere quest to catch some fish, this ambigiously related amphibiously curious person also pulled out all the Stops in the music department, to educate little Joshie in the art of Jungle. Weekends full of tuna, one might even say. Around the end of that decadent decade, Josh was already so far down the fishing hole that he even started learning the ins and outs of procuring his own mackerels - and how to blend them together. All self-trout too!

However, by the time he was ready to release some of these into the wild, the tides of time had already pushed Josh through currents of different speeds and styles, towards the shores of House, Techno, Bass, Acid, and, well, a bit of Jungle. As Josh Brown, he delivered plenty a banger for Hanover-based label This Ain't Bristol (well yeah, it's Hanover) from 2016 on, but he also spread his musical musings onto imprints like Country Club Disco, Relief, and Room Temp. While juggling careers as an astrophysicist, as a professional Bloons Tower Defense player, and as a secondary school physics teacher, he also built up a reputation of someone who can throw down, with shows in France, Germany, and even Sun and Bass! That wasn't the only crossover with DnB he was toying with at the time though, in 2017 he also released 'Gully Dub', his first officially released foray into the genre - originally conceptualised as a gift to Benski, head honcho of the aforementioned Bristol-denying imprint and a bit of a jungle lover himself!

While he was definitely seeing some success with this approach so far, with all sorts of blog features and support by the likes of Billy Kenny, DJ EZ, Hannah Wants, Low Steppa, Maximono, Shiba San, and surely many more names I don't know much about, he was also a little bit stuck. Like he was glued to something.

1.2. Timestretch: Present (2017 - 2026)

Joshua was just going about his day, sending out a couple free downloadable tunes to Nu:Tone's mastering company to get, well, mastered. But lucky for us, Nu knew exactly what Tone to strike in response to the truly sick tunes he was finding in his business inbox - "these are so sick they need to be sent to a Hospital as soon as possible!", to paraphrase a bit. Once a dub pack was prepared, Tony "The Colster" Colman and Chris Goss jumped at the chance to sign the young 'un, and even got him involved in 2017's Hospitality In The Park on the quite fittingly named Incubator stage - and their compilation for the event! Still kept anonymous by way of sticky notes on his face, Josh began his seaward journey as Unglued with a hearty 'Ay!'

While still juggling both projects in 2018, it was, in hindsight unsurprisingly, the Unglued side that was quickly winning out this war of the genres, thanks to a couple of well-performing compilation singles, his first-ever EP Deep, Dark & Dirty, and a little bootleg of his, of High Contrast's If We Ever. Quickly turning from fun bootie to literal tune of the summer, it did not need much convincing to turn this one official, and thus into one of 2018's most iconic tunes that not only resulted in a Best Remix award win, but is still being played out regularly to this day. In a way it was probably also massively responsible for his second place in the Best Newcomer category. With how much emphasis I'm putting on this first big hit one might think him a one-hit wonder fluke, but far from it. The literal following year would already prove the opposite to be true!

As the last Josh Brown releases were rolling out, he not only finally unveiled his own face as the one behind the madness unfolding in our very ears, he also delivered yet another instant classic to our dancefloorsteps: Malware, with Phace. Probably the most played song at Let It Roll 2019, other than this little tune called Solar System. Over the next few months building up a steady repertoire of collaborave weapons with legendary MCs like LowQui, GQ, Dynamite, DRS and Degs (I love 'Levitate Your Mind' so much) and seriously sick producers like GLXY and Whiney, Josh danced back and forth between throwback jungle-infused acid-inspired anthems and forward-thinking filth, a dichotomy most thoroughly explored in the journey through time and space that was his first-ever album, Interplanetary Radio, in 2021!

From here on out, things just kinda kept growing bigger and bigger. Tours around the entire world, massive festivals all around, and huge releases out the wazoo. I'm going to be real with you and take the lazy way out, and just vomit out some names for you to go "ohh" and "ahh" to: On the production side he worked with Benny L, Askel & Elere, Waeys, Lens, Whiney, Pola & Bryson, Urbandawn, Azotix, Hugh Hardie, Deadline, Molecular, Circumference, and probably more; he worked with vocalists like Singing Fats (RIP), Collette Warren, Javeon, Esther Durin, Doktor, Duskee, Elsie, Cimone, SOLAH, Sweetie Iris, Paige Eliza, and surely a couple on top; he released on Hospital (duh), Bou's Gossip, Soulvent, Critical, Shogun, Overview, and mayhaps a few more one-offs I missed; he remixed Cyantific, Gardna, London Elektricity, Shapeshifter, and not that many more hopefully; and he released his second album, What On Earth!

At the tail end of all of that, so a bit less than a year ago, he kicked off a brand new timetravellin' EP series called, you guessed it, Timestretch. After Past and Present last year, we've now arrived back at the Future section of it all - which means we finally get to talk about the tunes!

1.3. Timestretch: Future

While Past saw him emulating the literal sound of old, this Future iteration sees him channeling the spirit of old Jungle, as the music of the future it was heralded as back in the day, by twisting the current scene's landscape into something only a timetraveller would come up with. Whether intentionally or not, he even opens with something reminiscent of another surely extraterrestrial group of artists. Who Dis, you ask? The comment section will surely tell you. Subliminal influences aside, this one is an absolute ripper of a tune. Not only is the way its building up its immensely powerful melody, one charge at a time into an avalanche of drums and infinitismally stretched madness, incredibly effective, what Josh brings to the table as a conclusion to all of this is just stunning. With absolutely otherworldly production that is so clean it fills the entire room it's unleashed in - every nook and cranny, every square picometer of your ear canal no matter how protected - and a melody that is well and truly goosebump-inducing, this one-drop-machine is something to behold. Somehow, the second time this synth bomb is unleashed hits even harder, in ways I struggle to comprehend and formulate coherent sentences about.

Speaking of insanity, let's jump on over to In My Mind. Together with critical audience and Critical Music darling SMG, Josh has built something that can rip apart the fabric of time and space itself. An impossibly large leviathan ripping through the galaxies of our mind like a knife through butter is just the beginning of this particularly crazy journey though - we are also treated to bass earthquakes violently shaking underneath us, before our sanity is fully ripped apart, with break-heavy syncopation and lethal distortion ripping out the cables holding the last pieces of our poor grey matter hardware together. Now that we've fully lost our minds, the duo ups the ante once again, with a second drop so gargantuan I'm running out of words to describe its effects accurately. I am so looking forward to hearing this one live.

Stop numero three Downslider builds up an atmosphere that really channels that old-school feeling of an unknown yet entrancing light in the distance pulling you into its orbit, before brutally ripping it all apart with an absolutely chonky stepper riddim. Snares so sharp they could enroll in ivy league colleges, bass distortion so weighty your momma gets jealous - what more could you need! Lastly, Josh battles things out with none other than Tian on Hibernate. Hosted by small talk champion and sleep enthusiast Comma Dee, this one wastes not a single second and launches us into a battle for the ages as soon as structurally possible. Josh's futuristic brain-twisters fire off sounds forcing you to pull all sorts of faces, while Tian responds with an absurdly mean bassline of his own, with only Comma providing us with some much-needed relief. Killer combo right there!

1.4. Conclusion

Outrageous, enormous, iconic - a truly stunning finale to an incredible series. The future is bright(on).--- title: "Picks Of The Week (28.02.26 - 06.03.26)" date: "2026-03-09" tags: ['Viper Recordings'] draft: false summary: "Lexed - Psychosis EP [Viper Recordings]"

1. Lexed - Psychosis EP [Viper Recordings]

Recommended if you like: Dr. Apollo, LMNOP, A.way

When talking about the boom that drum & bass is experiencing right now, news outlets usually end up talking about the Jungle revival or the Worship crew putting on the world's largest DnB headline shows, which are both great topics in their own rights, but end up dominating the narrative a bit. In fact, this boom is, in many ways at least, a worldwide phenomenon, with all sorts of local scenes outside the usual ones you hear about absolutely thriving. To give a bit of a glimpse into one of the countries seeing some truly incredible developments these past few years, Spain, let's talk about how Girona-based up-and-comer Lexed has been taking over the dancefloor scene, one banger at a time.

1.1. Let's Santia-go (1999 - 2020)

First things first, our protagonist Tomas Ignacio Gallardo Carril here isn't actually from the Iberian Peninsula, he's originally from Chile, or more specifically its capital Santiago! In fact, his entire backstory is quite the unusual one. For instance, he wasn't even that into music back in school! Or more specifically, he found the music lessons his school offered to be rather lackluster, and thus always preferred other forms of art. It took him attending his first Techno parties to change his mind on that front, and once the Skrillex-led wave of unorthodox, in-your-face dubstep started flooding the airwaves of 2012, he knew he had to get involved as well. However, with Chile not offering him a whole lot of career prospects in the music business, he instead decided to become a teacher in physical education, and keep this music thing as a hobby - for now.

Just like a staggering amount of his up-and-coming peers, Tomas only truly got his production groove on once the pandemic opened up previously unimaginable amounts of free time - of which he basically filled every single available minute with working on tunes. While the early years were still a bit slow on the release front, he did manage to show off his heavyweight takes on classic genres like Slap, Tech and ordinary House and Techno, via imprints like Clipper's Sound, Addicting Records, Digital Empire.

However, the more minutes, hours, and days he spent on getting deeper into this production rabbit hole, the more he itched to finally properly start his production journey, so one fateful day in 2021 he took the leap of faith. Ditching his job, and leaving friends, family and, like, his entire life in Chile behind, he packed his things and moved all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, to Spain! In the North-Eastern city of Girona, he rebuilt his entire life from scratch, connecting with this all-new scene and seeking out guidance via a production school, with especially his mentor Debice being a major influence for this brand new life of his. He even introduced him to DnB!

But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

1.2. The Lexecutioner (2024 - 2026)

Things picked up a considerable amount from 2024 on. Not only did he start working with a manager and added the Future prefix to his extensive House production catalogue, he also finally crossed the skill threshold required to cause some serious damage in the drum & bass scene! Together with MAD1AD, DISTRAKT, Iriis and TRANS:T, and on his own, he fired off one dancefloor anthem after the other on Spain's very own Automata, the US dancefloor machinery taking over the world that is Manifest, and even legendary Dutch Neurofunk forge Blackout, via their Adaptations series - that one might have been a little heavier than the others.

While this burst of prolificness already lead to Tomas achieving a significant level of underground infamy, it turned out to be just the very beginning of his journey. Not only has he continued his reign on Manifest and Automata both as the leading artist and as a remix subject, he's also expanded his label horizon with appearances on Play Me, Overclockin, Salia Sounds (where Spaniard Wiguez works as an A&R!), Viper and even DnB Allstars - the first-ever Chilean artist to do so! Once again, all of this has been achieved through both solo and collaborative pieces, with other members of Spain's new wave of drum & bass talents like Xtinctor, Jrace & Albert White and Melic, and more international partners like German-man S.I.O.N. and US of A-ian ICONS joining the ever-growing list of collabros. As the cherry on top, Tomas even earned the trophy for Most Voted Artist at Spain's newly founded Drum & Bass Awards at the end of the year!

Now, after another collab made its way onto Bassrush, an Insomniac Radio guest mix was transmitted on the digital airwaves, and a feature on UKF's 'Ones To Watch' series went live, he's back on Viper Recordings, with a full-on solo three-tracker - so let's check it out!

1.3. Psychosis EP

Shell Down, the opener for the quite aptly named Psychosis EP, combines Jamaican vocals, the finest dance hall drum patterns and Latin American melodies with such forceful sound design that you can't help but shake your behind a little, even when you're sitting down. Super-charged spears of pure distortion that will pierce through even the thickest of emotional armors, the odd yoioioi, and a second half that pushes all of these sick elements another few inches further into insanity - this one's a banger alright.

Turning up the energy a little further, Trapped In My Head wastes the least amount of time possible, launching into a double-time MC performance that immediately gives way to a goofy yet somehow menacing jump up melody, aaand we've already arrived at the drop! Absolutely delivering on these hectic and brain-rotting expectations, an assortment of sounds straight out of the asylum begins assaulting your very being. With a deranged arrangement of bone-rattling sirens, otherworldly, sploinky, bouncy castle type synths, and supremely distorted Reese basses, this one not only keeps you on your toes, it might even cut off a pinky or two if it feels like it.

Lastly, we bring the madness to a place of two-step riddims and amphibian noises, on Mad Stepper. Similarly low-octaved and Carribean, the sampled MC and his trusty companion of truly scary amounts of reverberation take us to a place of whompy fake outs, CHECK CHECK CHECK's that will activate the neurons of every professional raver out there, fantastic froggy wobbles, overly distorted, dissonant but somehow still melodic stabs, and insanely distorted beastly screams. What it says on the tin, really.

1.4. Conclusion

One of Chiliberia's finest newcomers delivering three Lexemplary slices of delicious destruction.

Other heaviness from this week:

V O E - Rise Again
Circadian, Pirapus, Mila Falls - Slow Motion
Sano - Gravity
Gino, Sub Zero - Champion