032: June's best music 🔥

A vintage summer for club music albums 🌞

Jul 10, 2025

Have you clocked the amount of really, really good club music albums that dropped this month?

‘Dance’ albums usually get bogged down by flimsy concepts and performance anxiety, but a broad range of club producers have come through with punchy LPs that represent their respective sounds perfectly. See below for a full suite of brilliant albums out of Miami, Warsaw, Munich, Houston, LA, Lisbon and, of course, London.

It’s worth noting that all of these records arrive via indie labels – TraTraTrax, Dekmantel, glint, YOUTH, Tempa – or are self released, free of an overbearing major or pushy A&R team.

Hope you enjoy the writing this month. Feels like a lot of this music is saying something in terms of scenes and experimentations and ~emotions~ and all that good stuff that’s inherent in great records. Or maybe it’s just the romance of midsummer…

A couple links from me: Check out some Tropical Waste / 160 Unity / LDN club culture lore from me on the debut Rinse FM show from Mixmag Editor Patrick Hinton. Was great to get into the history of Waste (and Waste Mail!) And the latest 160 Unity radio show features an interview with SHERELLE and guest mix from Oyubi. Essential listening imo.

Happy digging! <3

I have no recent club photography to share so here’s some naturally brutalist midsummer textures from Westward Ho! in North Devon

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Tracks & EPs 🔌

Big Dope P ‘Aphasia’ Big Dope P’s signature hybrid of juke, French Touch and rap has really come into its own these last couple years. ‘Aphasia’ is taken from latest EP ‘Boogie Bass Traxx’, strapping raw ghetto house percussion up with bug-eyed grime melodies, 70s disco fills and gleefully deep low-end. This is how you get the party started Listen
BLUMITSU ‘Metamorphic’ BLUMITSU’s boiler suits, science experiments and taste in human-machine electro evokes legendary Detroit duo Dopplereffekt. The pair – producers Jossy Mitsu and Bluetoof – take this form of afrofuturism and add dubstep and techno into the mix, concocting their own lab experiments that send a signal back to the 313 from towering UK soundsystem stacks Listen
Florentino ‘evol/ǝʌol’ Florentino has been dialled into the slinky 130bpm sweet spot for a while now, creating subversive house music that connects his Colombian heritage with his hometown of Manchester. From the ‘Systems Of Reflection’ EP, ‘evol/ǝʌol’ begins with deep, acidy pads and a libidinal, dembow-inflected beat before a bassline that could only come from the North of England wreaks total havoc. Funky and playful, with mastering that’s definitely been designed to test soundsystems Listen
georg-i ‘Torn In Two’ The first release on CCL’s subglow label (great name, btw) is from Bristol’s georg-i who turns in an EP of reassuringly WTF?! club music that blendersises EBM, math rock, slow/fast, prog and no wave. ‘Torn In Two’ is just one of the cuts of intense, stuttering, towering rhythm that’ll make you feel like you’re trapped in a strobe Listen
Junior ‘Shwo’ Slick polyrhythmic footwork that marks the first release on Bristol’s Works records in a year. Supple and colourful, landing somewhere between the algorithmic precision of Beatrice Dillon and the video game influences of Heavee Listen
melba ‘angel 777 EP’ Sugar-rush club music that’ll give you an instant contact high. Newcastle producer/DJ melba zeros in on technicolour 160, wiring together juke, footwork and Jersey club beat patterns with fluro synths and dancefloor-hyping vocal snips, bringing to mind Fractal Fantasy, Machinedrum, Playboi Carti and Travis Scott. Written with no-rules energy and tooled up for club soundsystems, this is one of the best new club releases you’ll hear all year Listen
Nectax ‘Raytracer’ SHERELLE and Naina’s Hooversound imprint gets dibs on this rocket from Newcastle producer (and melba collaborator) Nectax. ‘Raytracer’ is a juke-jungle-grime mutation that blends bass weight and rhythmic freneticism perfectly. Full propulsion guaranteed and already a 160 Unity anthem in the making – this one did the business at our party with RP Boo and DJ Spinn back in Feb, with Kode9 also playing cuts from Nectax’s unreleased arsenal of footwork-jungle fusions Listen
RONI ‘celestial’ RONI’s debut EP features remixes and collabs from Bitter Babe, Dj Babatr, Ma Sha and Peder Mannerfelt, situating the Parisian DJ/producer amid the incendiary club musics of Bogota, Caracas, New York and Stockholm. The tracks wear their influences loud ‘n clear, adding to the boisterous international club scene but it’s moments where RONI disrupts the formula – like on Ma Sha collab ‘rhiza’ – that things get really interesting, reflecting a penchant for fwd-thinking track writing that’s already been displayed via the curation of her excellent Nehza label compilations Listen
SHERELLE ‘READY, STEADY, GO! (BIG BOOTY DUB)’ Shezza’s dropped a handful of DJ-friendly reworks of key tracks from her recent debut album. Here, her footwork-techno fusion ‘READY, STEADY, GO!’ gets jacked up to seven minutes, increasing the hard, rhythmic pressure Listen
Shirley Temper ‘The Office Party’ Who’d be on the invite list for Shirley’s office party? SHERELLE, Jeff Mills, DJ Funk, Hixxy, Big Ang and, of course, Samurai Breaks and D’tch, who’ve put out this killer EP of hybrid UK booty music on their Supersonic Booty Bangers label Listen

Albums & Compilations 💿

Club South ‘Pop Trunk’ Club South is the record label repping for Texas, pushing releases and a mix series under the guidance of its founder Royo. This comp from the Houston-based imprint spans a wide range of club styles from producers across the state and seems like an excellent snapshot of the local scene there. One for the diggers who are up for exploring beyond the beaten path of the East and West coasts and the Midwest Listen
Introspekt ‘Moving The Center’ Dubstep’s early days were tribal, fans rallying round the distinct sounds of labels like Tectonic, DMZ, Deep Medi, Dub Police, 3024, Hotflush, Kapsize, Punch Drunk, Skull Disco – the list could go on – and, of course, Tempa. LA DJ/producer Introspekt’s debut album on Sarah Lockhart and Neil Jolliffe’s foundational dubstep label uses Tempa’s signature dark garage style as its blueprint (Horsepower Productions, El-B, the proto-dubstep of ‘Cape Fear’) but, excitingly, also creates a co-mingling of styles that just wouldn’t have happened back then, like the techno wobble of ‘Fractal’ and the way the “Ha” sample lights up the murk of opener ‘The Transmission’. The “Ha” also summons the femme energy that powers the album, activating a number of female vocals and samples that are woven into its relentless low-end grooves, exploding another reality of those early days – the dubstep boys club. Introspekt and peers such as Mia Koden, Sicaria, Beatrice M., Carré and Darwin are committed scholars of the OGs but have built a new movement of their own, and ‘Moving The Center’ is a major statement of intent Listen
jb glazer ‘Cool Leather’ One of the best shows I’ve been to recently was the glint music label night midweek at Ormside. I went to check live shows from ex.sses and feeo, as well as DJ interludes from maya vika, and was excited to see some names I’d not come across before, one being jb glazer, who delivered overblown low-end and lofi melodies from somewhere in the dry ice. ‘Cool Leather’ is a collage of South London disintegration loops, dream pop recorded during a dream within a dream, no wave, waves of white noise, night bus music that you’d now listen to on a Lime Bike while crossing the city at 3am, solo piano smudged by sub bass pushed into the red and the squelch of haunted acid. An up close ‘n very personal collection of songs Listen
Krenz ‘POLSKI SKLEP’ It’s sometimes said that Polish producers are too indebted to the sounds of the UK and North America but, when the music’s this good, why not beat ‘em at their own game? The cover of ‘POLSKI SKLEP’ portrays Krenz in the driver’s seat of a tricked-out car overlooking the night lights of Warsaw and the album runs like your best friend has taken charge of the Bluetooth connection during a particularly good joyride. Familiar sounds are spliced ‘n diced into new combos – the jungle-drill of ‘BRYKIET JUNGLE’, the breakbeat-driven tear-out dubstep of ‘GOSIA V12’, the Polish mumble rap of ‘SZMANTY’ – and airbrushed with a zippy, hyperpop sheen, then sequenced with rollercoaster timing that’s reminiscent of the first half of ‘ASTROWORLD’. And it’s defiantly Polish, featuring a cluster of guest MCs and Krenz’s own bars, including a touching tribute to his grandma – perhaps the first time a Babcia has been saluted in contemporary rap music Listen
Lauren Duffus ‘Can’s Gone Warm’ RnBass from a rising Londoner who makes sense of the city using smoggy basslines, sharpened amens, synths that blur like lights in a long exposure photograph and her own spectral vocals. FFO: Kelela, Tirzah, Rainy Miller, MssingNo etc. Looking fwd to hearing more Listen
Nídia & Valentina ‘Estradas (Versions) Great to see remix albums come back into fashion these last few years, from Kelela’s ongoing remix LPs to, of course, ‘Brat and it’s completely different…’. Nídia & Valentina remind the world of their crucial 2024 album ‘Estradas’ by connecting it with cutting-edge producers such as Kelman Duran, SHERELLE and Dj Anderson do Paraíso. Instant cop Listen
Nick León ‘A Tropical Entropy’ The cover of Nick León’s debut album sets the scene perfectly: a softly warped and distorted view of an urban beach at either sunrise or sunset, the silhouette of a city skyline in the distance offering the promise of the best night of your life or the quiet reflection of another sleep deprived dawn. The LP’s finale, and last year’s summer smash ‘Bikini (with Erika de Casier), has already introduced us (“meet me at the beach, you’ll find me daydreaming”) and now we go further into the story, where warm, gauzy, lysergic colours swirl, animating each chapter of León’s sonic narrative. He skims across tempos and energies with the kind of skill that, once the 32 minutes is up, will make you want to spin it all over again Listen
Polygonia ‘Dream Horizons’ There’s a movement of trippy club music that I’ve mentioned here via the mixes of softi and DJ wiggles and which esteemed peers like Chanel Kadir have been contextualising further (see: low-end psychedelia). Now, Polygonia pushes on into the deep with ‘Dream Horizons’, a 70-minute immersion into propulsive rhythms and ecological sound design, where irresistible loops and fractal melodies are designed to blow your mind. Many of the tracks weigh in at a dancefloor-friendly six minutes leaving no doubt that Polygonia wants to push audiences toward the light in the live setting, but the energy and detail throughout makes ‘Dream Horizons’ a fantastic headphone trip too Listen
Sam Binga ‘Club Orthodontics’ Sam Binga presents 14-collabs that span his vision of rib-snapping, screwface-inducing, gun-finger-raising dance music. It’s fun and frenzied, a snapshot of what low-end fiends are getting their trainers dirty for here in the UK right now: mutant grime, snarling UKG, soundsystem techno, souped-up electro and homages to regional sounds like ghetto house and gqom Listen
Sixsixsevenfortyseven - Wounded Dogs Psychoactive dub rituals performed by NVST and Zohar. Potent, cavernous, industrial sonics for soundsystem disciples who want to experience ego death via low-end vibration. All the heads who tread that line between terror and euphoria (King Midas Sound, early Raime, NPLGNN etc) will dig this. Out on YOUTH so you know it’s the high grade Listen

Waste Mail Playlist 🚨

Listen to all of the music included in this issue of Waste Mail via a playlist on Buy Music Club, which allows fans to curate lists of music available to buy via Bandcamp

DJ Mixes 🎧

Assyouti - Canino FM Assyouti’s set at last year’s Unsound was one of my favourites of the festival, a sprawling journey through various forms of deconstruction. While the deconstructed club lineage has gone harder, faster and trancier in recent years, Assyouti aligns dancefloor experimentalism with dub, dubstep and slow/fast, his DJ sets constantly toying with time, space and varying shades of ferocious energy Listen
Bobby Beethoven b2b CRYSTALLMESS - Draaimolen All you need to know about this mix is that there’s a blend of Ruff Sqwad and Ciara, which epitomises the hard/soft and avant garde/pop style of DJing that is the signature of this intergenerational DJ link-up. Bobby Beethoven, fka Total Freedom, is one of the OG instigators of experimental club and CRYSTALLMESS has been keeping the torch burning. The pair run through footwork, bouyon, batida and techno, with other stand-out moments including an amen-riddled edit of Mac DeMarco, a finely-timed Tems acapella and a fabulous blend featuring Girl Unit’s ‘Wut’ Listen
Bok Bok live from Night Slugs - Rinse FM A new live recording from the Night Slugs boss perfectly encapsulates the deep, sensual, rib-rattling club sound they’ve been busy synthesising for several years now. This is a steamy session of deep house, gqom, amapiano, stripped-back US club and Bok’s own edits, remixes and productions. It feels like a crystalisation of Bok’s current sonic vision as Night Slugs hits its 16th year Listen
Commodo - Ilian Tape 117 Where were u when ‘Space Cash’ dropped? Hard to believe it’s over a decade since Commodo’s brand of digitised bassweight helped respark a flagging dubstep scene but facts is facts and now he’s rightly hailed as an OG with who brought a singular style to the genre. This session is a lovely exercise in stylish, squelchy, half-time bangers Listen
Hooversound w/ Nectax Nectax celebrates his ‘Raytracer’ EP on Hooversound with an NTS appearance that pings between his own turbocharged 160 productions and classics from the Chicago footwork OGs, meshing the UK and Windy City scenes really nicely Listen
Introspekt live from Horst If you enjoyed the Introspekt album then this live recording from this summer’s Horst festival will take you deeper into her dark garage inspirations. The blends bounce between Introspekt’s own music and a heap of vintage, swung 140 that keeps things cold ‘n funky throughout. The perfect tonic for these hot summer days Listen
Nondi_ - Heads Know Tape 033 Totally sublime production mix from club experimentalist Nondi_, where heart-wrenching melodies and guttural bass bumps emerge from a blizzard of radio static and ambient disintegration Listen
Om Unit - Kiosk Radio An hour from Om Unit in which the OG UK producer gets locked into the pocket, skimming across soundsystem styles with a particular focus on rave euphoria, rude basslines and aquatic dub. The blends are surprising but super slick, the seamless sound of a DJ who’s done their time on the road and knows their collection inside out Listen
SIM - Slowtechers 4 Big fan of SIM’s slo-mo club music and have been meaning to get round to dropping an episode of his Slowtechers mix series into the mailer. Better late than never: the latest Slowtechers rounds up muscular, rhythmic, technoid sub 140bpm club music that bubbles just beneath boiling point very nicely indeed Listen
SYNTAX - Keep Hush Upfront mix of high tempo, Bangface and Balter-adjacent rave that chews up grime, electro, juke, tekno and jungle before spitting it all out in a big, fluro glob. Syntax out of Manchester keeps things well under control, moving through highs and lows despite the relentless energy Listen

With Love from Tropical Waste ✌️

Talking about the history and intentions behind Tropical Waste / 160 Unity / Waste Mail etc on Rinse FM
160 Unity radio show with SHERELLE and Oyubi on Voices Radio
160 Unity parties return in early October and mid December. More clues soon…
A live recording of one of my warm up sets is now available via Moveltraxx on Apple Music!
I had a mix of summertime footwork and jungle go out on Relate Radio in the Netherlands recently. Thanks to Haney Lee for the invite, SoundCloud upload incoming…