Build Your Own Reactor

Various

Build Your Own Reactor

Liquid (UK)

Ding and indeed, Dong. Build Your Own Reactor is a real shot in the arm, particularly for a UK scene that’s had so many people around the world writing it off over the last few years. Build Your Own Reactor sees England back on form – and if you don’t want to know the scores, look away now. Scorb vs ODT’s Green Eggs and Ham is one of the best opening tracks of the year. Mellower than Scorb’s solo output, a confident and baggy groove sets in and proceeds to slowly pick up more and more edge. It’s an utter ninja of a track, with typically great Scorb production: the sounds have a dubby, eerie depth. Top marks. Mexico’s Tron has been causing one hell of a buzz lately, and from Spirited Away it’s easy to see why. Think a very polished fullon sound, with a sort of progressive-trance approach to layering and tension, with a smothering of nighttime trance chucked in for good measure – like Logic Bomb inviting NRS round for tea one Sunday. Morphogenetic’s Everything Is… has a lazy, almost drunk groove to it. It adds layers of acidy noises and demi-riffs over the top, and its swirling, seasick feel work a treat. Voice Of Cod are back, with a taster from the upcoming album in the shape of Heart Of Gold, thankfully not a Neil Young cover. Trademark Cod bass is the order of the day, with a ticklish couple of midrange riffs driving you up to a proper-job run with tasty peaks and drops. We like. BioTonic’s Shamanic Mathematic has a nice couple of riffs in there, and a fair amount of a squelch in the middle bit, and  Banana Gigalo from Z Man has an adorable synth line that keeps it going like strings control a puppet… a phenomenal sound and begs to be played on a big rig. S-Range’s Welcome To Paradise kicks off with a wonderfully quirky reggae intro, and falls effortlessly into 4-4 before becoming a wonderful piece of immaculate fullon that could only come from this bloke. Bloody hell. Just then, Ecliptic comes in with a piledriver in the shape of Not Human, a thundering metallic spikey ball of a tune. It has an incredibly futuristic sound to it, with these razors stuck around the edges, that makes it all sound like a sort of very funky alien disco (which I suppose is what it is.) Finally Fromem_Ory closes the album with Chameleon, a damn near perfect bit of trance. There’s a lot of buzz about this bloke at the moment, and this explains it: beautifully-layered, pensive trance with a real-music feel to it, coupled with this energy that sort of magnetises the middle of it, drawing you in like so few tunes do today. Very, very good. Build Your Own Reactor is a pretty fucking awesome album, with excellent showings from the new artists giving it a firm foothold as a cream-of-the-crop album emerging from the UK this year.