dna

Kompakt techno, nice warm sound palette which sounds great on my stereo. The Field LP has been getting a lot of attention, but this is more engaging I think. 'From Here We Go Sublime' is more self- consciously lo- fi , appealing more to indie types than the sleek sounds here. Will likely sound very dated in a few years time since it sounds utterly modern now. Probably the fate of all but the very best techno, but the lovely op-art cover will keep me pulling it off the shelf. LP ends with the very New Order- ish 'Beautiful Life'. Video for 'Beautiful Life'

I'm becoming increasingly interested in dubstep . In theory it should be exactly my kind of thing, being being part of the British dance music continuum from jungle to garage to grime, and having a heavy dub influence. I absolutely love the Burial album, but it does seem rather isolated in the scene, more of an auterist take on the style than an embodiment of it. That said, I have recently enjoyed both the Soul Jazz Box of Dub comp and the Dubstep Allstars Vol.5 mix. The Soul Jazz thing makes explicit the close relation of dubstep to modern digital reggae/dub, and the Allstars mix has a pleasing reference to spiritual progenitor The Orb, using a swathe of 'Loving You'.

Soul Jazz offshoot label compilation. Is the perfect accompaniment to sanding and varnishing your hallway, I find.

Had a bit of a trawl through my K&D 12"s. The Bone Thugs 'n' Harmony remixes are brilliant, and a couple of white labels are great, too. No idea about track names. Why did they ever stop releasing stuff as a duo? I like Tosca and Peace Orchestra, but the best K&D tunes are untouchable.

After a couple of weeks living out of boxes in my new house, and a couple of years before that where my living room has been too small to house my records, I've finally managed to reunite my vinyl and turntables. The acoustics of the new living room are much better than in my flat, though I've yet to experiment with the positioning of the satellite speakers.