Hot on the heels of Djouls' new regular column, the playlist of physical CDs and vinyls sent to us by labels and artists, here's our monthly mix of goodies extracted from both those records and Loik's digital diggings. The duo has earned quite a reputation selection-wise and have cooked last weekend a one hour mix of brand new music, the 4th in the 'Bag of Goodies' series... Expect some brand new just released tracks from Bjorn Torske, Dafuniks, DJ Format, Kinny, Kojato and The Afro Latin Cougaritas, Mr Scruff, Pepe Deluxé, two soulful gems from the latest Eccentric Soul compilation, slow-mo...

Raffertie - Mass Appeal
(12"/Promo CD/Digital Single) Ninja Tune ZEN12306, 2012-02-03

Contextually, the Mass Appeal EP fits neatly as a natural successor to Raffertie's most recent release, the critically-acclaimed Visual Acuity EP. This time it's more about the subtlety of groove and patchworks of sonic colour, rather than out-and-out dancefloor madness. The dexterity of its musical content, like that of VA, reveals itself in the elastic manipulation of its rhythms and timbres. From the burrowing focal clarity of the epic One Track Mind to the unnatural spinning, air-like quality of Brevity, this EP has a life completely of its own. Closing track Courage Boy is littered with traces of Raffertie's own voice, but rather than giving sole focus and attention to the voice as a lead line, he focuses on the texture of the sound, like any other instrument woven and balanced within the music.

DJ Food - The Search Engine
(CD/Digital) Ninja Tune ZENCD176/ZENDNL176, 2012-01-23

Eleven years after the last DJ Food album release (Kaleidoscope), Strictly Kev and various friends, associates and like-minded collaborators return with a new full-length. The Search Engine distills the best parts from three EP’s worth of material into a continuous 56 minute album of unbridled creativity and laser-sharp focus. Collaborations abound in the form of vocal appearances from Natural Self (aka Nathaniel Pearn), JG Thirlwell (Foetus, Steroid Maximus etc.) and The The's Matt Johnson. The latter reprises his vocal on a cover of his own track GIANT, nearly thirty years after its first release. Musical hook-ups include 2econd Class Citizen, who trades sample-attacks with Strictly for the suite of nine tracks that make up the 11 minute Magpie Music. Dr Rubberfunk lends his drumming skills to the opening track and old DJ Food partner PC and Solid Steel's DK add their own ingredients to the mix. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all to those who associate the DJ Food name with the early 90s Jazz Brakes records is just how heavy The Search Engine is. Styled as a kind of psychedelic rock album made with samplers, Strictly Kev has not been afraid the frug the fuck out, with thundering drum work and fuzz bass perhaps the central muscial signature of the work.

Plug - Back On Time
(CD/2xLP/2xLP + Ltd Ed 12"/Digital) Ninja Tune ZEN177, 2012-01-09

The new album & a lost classic from Plug, aka electronic icon Luke Vibert, Back On Time is a collection of unreleased eccentric d'n'b tracks recorded over 15 years ago. Released on Ninja Tune on 9th January 2012 (24th January in N.America), it follows the highly-acclaimed Plug album from 1996, Drum 'n' Bass for Papa which was originally released by Blue Planet Recordings. Sounding brand new as well as being an uncovered gem, Back On Time is a release that anybody interested in the progression of dance music should be very curious to hear and enjoy. We had published a

Deco Child - Pray
(Promo CD/Digital Single) Ninja Tune ZENDNLS304, 2012-01-09

Twenty two year old Alex Lloyd (aka Deco Child) was walking through Battersea one day, looking at the ground, when in front of him, scraped into the pavement with the edge of a coin, he saw the word, "PRAY". As well as inspiring the track of the same name, it stands as a fitting metaphor for what the electronic musician does - scratching away at the edifices of recorded music to express emotion, exhilaration, devotion. Deco Child makes beautiful, emotional electronic music. Pray itself is blessed with a swelling sense of euphoria, tinged with a kind of wonder that will remind you of heart-quickening revelations made behind a 2 a.m. cigarette. Nocturne takes a different direction, Lloyd layering Ben Dodson's pristine vocals over delicate romantic piano before flinging them out into space, dropping a deep, dub-tinged groove which loses none of the earlier section's emotional heft. The original tracks get a diverse set of treatments at the hands of the remixers... With a strong focus on melody that places his sound in the company of Four Tet and Floating Points, Deco Child has already remixed Dan Le Sac and counts These New Puritans amongst his fans. This, his first release for Ninja Tune, showcases the breadth and range of his musical referents and bodes well for his forthcoming debut album in 2012.

Loka - Passing Place
(CD/Digital) Ninja Tune ZENCD175/ZENDNL175, 2011-11-28

Loka, Ninja Tune's cult psychedelicists, purveyors of cinematic music that disturbs and troubles and intrigues rather than comforts, return with a new album, Passing Place. With many acts finding considerable critical acclaim in the music world right now through adventures in the outer reaches of psychedelia/jazz/classical, it's worth remembering that Loka have been ploughing this field with stunning results ever since their debut track on Ninja Tune's 10th birthday compilation Xen Cuts in 2000 when they emerged from the same fertile alt-Liverpool scene as Pop Levi, Zukanican and Super Numeri. The debut album proper was Fire Shepherds in 2006. Since that album, co-founder Karl Webb left Loka, leaving Mark Kyriacou to carry the banner. Mark re-grouped with members of the live Loka band and went about sketching out ideas later to become Passing Place… The result is their most confident and cinematic album yet. Less claustrophobic and inward than before, the new album has a wide-screen, rolling hills vista feel to it. It is an album seeped in reflection, but containing a wide-eyed thinking of the days to come. Welcome to the timeless world of Loka. And as a bonus, there's an exclusive mix made by Loka for Paris DJs, The Daily Bread, to download here.

Loka - Sam Star / Temporary External
(Digital Single) Ninja Tune ZENDNLS293, 2011-11-21

Loka, Ninja Tune's cult psychedelicists, purveyors of cinematic music that disturbs and troubles and intrigues rather than comforts, return with a new album, Passing Place and, to build up to it, The Daily Bread, an exclusive Paris DJs mix, and the Sam Star EP, which sounds like Broadcast after munching an acid blotter and staring at a Boyle Family light show. Temporary External features vocals by Lido Pimienta and Brass layers by the welsh brass band Seindorf Beaumaris Band, comes on like the soundtrack to an anticipatory biopic of Robert Wyatt, made while he was still a school boy and. The 2econd Class Citizen remix of album track The Sound Stars Make allows the original's atmosphere of hazy menace to build for three minutes before hardening up the beats and building to a rhythm-led crescendo. Loka is an ever evolving band, drawing on influences from jazz to classical to BBC radiophonic to 60's psychedelia and much more. With a career on Ninja Tune that dates back to the year 2000 but has resulted in only one album (2006's critically acclamied Fire Shepherds) the band continues its compelling and innovative journey at its own stately pace. The eagerly awaited second album Passing Place, due for release in November 2011, is beautifully dark and disorientating with haunting vocals and brass interludes.

Loka's discography isn't hard to follow. All of this psychedelic jazz band's records have been released on leading UK label Ninja Tune. It all started with an exclusive, cinematic, trippy track on the label's 10-year anniversary collection Xen Cuts in 2000. Then 4 years later the band released their first single, the marvelous Beginningless, proving once more that Ninja Tune was THE 21st century jazz label at the time. 6 months passed before Loka re-imagined a Blockhead track, Sunday Seance, as a flurry of drums and gorgeous stringiness. Their first album, Fire Shepherds arrives in 2006 and...

FaltyDL - Atlantis EP
(12"/Digital) Ninja Tune ZEN12298/ZENDNLS298, 2011-11-14

Drew Lustman aka FaltyDL releases his debut EP with Ninja Tune and it's an absolute cracker. Over its four tracks he shows the range and grasp of rhythm, atmosphere and melody which have made him one of the most exciting producers in electronic music right now. Title track Atlantis is distinguished by a complex, swinging, relentlessly danceable beat, unfeasibly low bass hits and a melancholic tune which sits somewhere between Fourtet and classic rave. Can't Stop The Prophet shows the DNA of Wagon Christ (an early influence) spliced with the sonics of post-dubstep and the restless energy of an ADHD toddler, ending with a first-love junglist wig-out. My Light, My Love, seemingly sampled and built out of the sonic spaces between notes and beats, is perhaps the deepest moment on an incredible EP, while The Sale Ends takes us once more back to the skipping feel of a fractured, interplanetary two-step.

DJ Food - Magpies, Maps & Moons
(12"/Digital/promo CD) Ninja Tune ZEN12299/ZENDNLS299/ZENCDS299, 2011-11-07

Finishing the trilogy of EPs started in 2009 with One Man's Weird Is Another Man's World and The Shape of Things That Hum, comes Magpies, Maps & Moons. Another five track 12", wrapped in a poster cover by 2000ad comic artist Henry Flint, and featuring more collaborations to add to the growing Food roster. In vocal form we have JG Thirlwell - aka Foetus, Steroid Maximus and Manorexia amongst many others - providing a vocal for the lead track, Prey. Having been a fan of JG's work since the late 80's this was a dream come true for Strictly Kev who remixed a Foetus track for free, alongside Amon Tobin on 2002's Blow album for Thirlwell, on the provision that they collaborate in the future. The other collaboration comes from London resident Aaron Thomason aka 2econd Class Citizen on the 11 minute plus audio montage, Magpie Music. The two met up earlier this year after Kev had raved about Aaron's debut LP A World Without on Germany's Equinox label. Rather than sit down and work on a single song the pair decided to swap samples and create short pieces in isolation before comparing and critiquing them, then remixing and working them into a long form piece. All this, with various tracks from the previous EPs, will add up to the album, The Search Engine, released in Jan 2012, which cherry picks the best 10 tracks, remixing or editing them along the way, and adds a final collaboration to boot.