“Why can’t someone know the entire history of dubstep and still love Ariana Grande?”

This is a question that is often at the forefront of Eden Samara’s mind. It makes sense: the Canadian singer and producer’s own output straddles pop and underground electronic music. “Pop music shouldn’t be a guilty pleasure for dance music heads!” she animatedly asserts from across the table at an east London cafe. “We’re living through a pretty fucked up time – everyone is ready to embrace fun and simplicity.”

It’s rare to find an artist whose music engulfs you in such a way as hers, and warrants comparisons to the enchanting immersion of Björk or the cinematic allure of Enya. At once appearing to bare all yet be fiercely guarded, it’s a deeply complex treatise on life’s hard times.

A level of introspection and intimacy is something that’s palpable in laced’s productions. Creating and sharing this music is a means by which she can reconcile herself with the duality that exists within all of us, constituting part of a new wave of musicians exploring the tension between club music and listening music.

Loraine James’ kaleidoscopic SOPHIE tribute is an apt rendition of the late pioneer’s all-too-short musical career. The Hyperdub signee and former Crack cover star’s tumultuous mix interweaves SOPHIE’s own productions with those that took them as inspiration, including the covert collaboration with Jeffery Sfire. Here, James transitions unapologetically between the balladry of It’s Okay to Cry to the abrasiveness of Tony Perez’s dark ambient track Rite. It’s a homage to SOPHIE’s dexterity and range, as well as the wicked sense of humour that threads through their work.

Listening to Painful Enlightenment is like being a blindfolded passenger in a bumper car driven by Jana Rush: close enough that you share the sensation of each impact, but distant enough to never feel in control. And here is where the Chicago producer thrives – that space that teeters on the edge of total chaos, but deploys just enough restraint to outsmart you. At times, this sounds like brooding bass throbs and spasmodic hi-hats that are peppered with what sounds like vocal samples lifted from porn (Suicidal Ideation). Others, melancholic piano chords and meandering guitar solos depict Rush’s nuanced interpretation of her experiences with depression, like on the title track. You could call this a footwork album, sure, but what’s inside is a devilishly complex treatise on life’s roller coasters.

Audiences at any musical performance are more or less always open to being taken on a journey. In fact it’s exactly what they signed up for. My job as a live audio-visual artist is to rethink the parameters of that experience, taking the narrative carried within the music and enhancing it through visuals, lighting, even temperature control. In the past I’ve worked with artists like Actress, The Bug and Matthew Herbert; labels like Ninja Tune and Kompakt; and festivals like CTM and Unsound to provide immersive experiences for crowds seeking to elevate that journey to another visceral level.

On Quiet As Kept, F.O.G., Whiston uses his typical maximalist club music as a jumping-off point for something more personal, toying with ambivalence to interrogate memory and trauma. He samples his own past tracks, peppers them with new recordings and blends futuristic club mutations with sounds rooted in the past. Quiet As Kept F.O.G. also includes live string quartet recordings, other decontextualised samples and layers of electronics and processing that position it somewhere between a symphony and a soundtrack for a psychological thriller that maps Whiston's childhood years, both real and imagined.

With a site decorated by outdoor gyms and Boohoo-sponsored ad banners, it’s easy to feel as though you’ve stepped inside the Love Island villa at Hideout Festival; its location illuminated just as much by the radiant sun as the sea of fluorescent bikinis. Everyone here is dressed to the nines, and their appetite for dance music resolute – even in the heat of a Croatian July.

In some respects, ‘Imitation Plantae’ is exactly what you’d expect from a Galiter release. 5 off-kilter tracks which laugh in the face of genres, maintaining just enough of their stylistic tropes to make them recognisable before screwing them up and making something totally new. In reality, it’s hard to know what to expect from Galtier – an artist who basks in unpredictability and uncanniness.

Departing somewhat from his previous output, an introspective full-length album released on Mexico’s I

Rookley presents the ninth addition to the Aimend catalogue – the imprint he established in 2017 as a platform for the moody atmospherics which he produces as meditations on the city as place and environment. The 7-track LP entitled ‘Playground’ is at once introspective and outward-facing, casting the intimate sensation of human flesh as well as the alien hardness of metal. Translated in three singles already made available, this at times sounds like mournful synth swells (‘Garage’) and at other