When Facta and K-Lone’s Wisdom Teeth label commissions a prompt, the results are reliably stellar. On compilations including Club Moss and To Illustrate, some of the most tasteful producers in clubland have locked into unusual tempos with verdant results. The label’s new compilation, Pattern Gardening, sets its sights on minimal, tech house, and microhouse — genres that Facta had already been key to reviving with his 2023 EP Emeline. Across 22 cuts, Sub Basics, Piezo, Polygonia, and others throw it back to the early 2000s. On rRoxymore’s Nightbite, woody snare clacks and shuffling shakers juxtapose utopian leads. The liner notes for Pattern Gardening reference “Balearic terraces and dark UK club basements,” and “Nightbite” occupies a sweet spot between paradise and debauchery.

Though he is less fond of dramatic japes and provocative trolling, it feels safe to call Bryan Müller’s Skee Mask persona the Aphex Twin of our moment. The German gear hoarder and elusive stoner spent 2024 churning out polished, vital records that pushed back on the gritty textures he came up touting. In spite of its title, the 11th installment of Müller’s Ilian Skee series, Stressmanagement, dials the nastiness back up — a fitting way to follow his announcement as a newly minted Tresor resident. On “Panic Button,” a metallic breakbeat and serrated bassline are interrupted by whooshing sound effects. This one is a flashing neon warning.

Some of my earliest memories hearing house music are over taxi cab speakers as a child. Steffi and Virginia’s euphoric new Dekmantel album, Patterns Of Vibration, strikes a similar nostalgic shade. Across eight tracks recorded in rural Portugal, the Panorama Bar staples embrace unabashedly timeless tones that are almost novel in their familiarity. “7 In The Morning” is Chicago with a dose of Amsterdam, all sultry Korg M1 organ stabs, distorted cowbell, and soulful vocal lines, courtesy of Virginia, that brush up against each other. Steffi and Virginia are romantic partners, in addition to long-term collaborators. “7 In The Morning” finds the middle aged couple harkening the flutter of youthful lust.

Spurred by an unexpected return from Sandwell District, the Birmingham sound is back in the zeitgeist. Anthony Child has followed up his unforgiving 2023 Surgeon LP, Crash Recoil, with the equally bleak album Shell~Wave. Issued by Berlin institution Tresor, the record draws brutality from a simple three piece hardware setup. Aiming to answer the question of what techno means to Child, “Divine Shadow” is uncompromising and urgent. Harsh synth blasts hover in clusters over a kick-and-hat driven beat and a dub echo that fills out the high end. Staticky and tense, “Divine Shadow” reinforces that, for Child, simplicity and playing nice do not go hand in hand.

Peverelist’s Pulse series has aimed to showcase a more upbeat, albeit not quite positive side of the Bristol-based dubstep innovator. The Livity Sound label founder’s final Pulse installment, Pulse Decay, toys with luminescent techno, but with a sharp edge that is quintessentially Peverelist. Across the eight minutes of “XIX,” foggy pad stabs contrast brittle treble. It injects Peverelist’s influential bass sorcery with subtle, but bounding nods to Detroit.

The Los Angeles rave scene can be insular and hard to penetrate, geographically positioned to prioritize different artists than the ones who dominate bills in London, Berlin, and New York City. Since 2021, the label and event series Fast At Work — and the Canary Test venue it now throws events at — have appeared as tasteful electronic champions in SoCal. Once again based in her London hometown, Fast At Work co-founder Carré delivers prime old school dubstep on her new EP Body Shell. On “Clicked,” reverberant synths shriek behind taut percussion and abrupt sound design. As the hipster bass fad dwindles, the track is proof that the more controlled sounds it carved room to revive are eternal.

Anthony Naples’ new full-length, Scanners, is the most driving record he’s released since 2019’s Fog FM. Across 10 tracks, tech house beats call back to the New York City staple’s outsider house days with less lofi scuff. “Lifetimes” is deep and sumptuous, leading me to imagine watching the sun rise through silk curtains in the wake of a long night dancing. Naples is a studio whiz and possesses a deceptively nuanced rhythmic hand. “Lifetimes” puts these traits front and center, painting with crisp, focused hues.

It seems like Skull Disco label founder Shackleton has lost interest in the “step” while becoming heavily obsessed with the “dub.” On recent collaborations with Six Organs Of Admittance and Holy Tongue, earthy folk and psychedelia have been smeared into spooky abstraction. Shackleton’s latest effort is a partnership with GNOD singer Marlene Ribiero; it finds the duo operating under the band name Light-Space Modulator. Across the AD 93-issued The Rising Wave, Ribiero’s eerie voice takes the center stage while crinkly beats and gamelan indebted melodies intertwine in the background. On “These Things,” Ribiero’s intonations remind me of Beth Gibbons, cresting atop Shackleton’s womblike base of primal drones and rattles. It’s sophisticated and nightmarish all at once.

Nazar’s 2020 debut, Guerilla, established a feisty spin on kuduro. The Manchester-based producer’s parents served as UNITA rebels in the Angolan Civil War, leading Nazar to be exiled to Belgium. This turbulent, anxious upbringing encouraged him to turn to music as a way to ponder estrangement from his father. Nazar’s second full-length for Kode9’s legendary Hyperdub label, Demilitarize, is delicate and anxious. The record puts a psychedelic, semi-lucid spin on themes of budding love, respiratory illness, and awareness of mortality. The liner notes reference Frank Ocean and Arthur Russell, and these oblique touchstones are particularly clear on the track “Unlearn.” Nazar’s English-Portuguese lyrics are shredded into glitchy ribbons over murky synths and a choppy kuduro beat. It mimics a bittersweet daydream refracted through a kaleidoscope.

Following a summer of widely acclaimed festival DJ dates, it became clear that Felix Manuel was gearing up to make 2025 a banner year for his long standing Djrum alias. His new record for fabric’s Houndstooth imprint, Under Tangled Silence, infuses jazz, IDM, and ambient with the insistent skitter of club music. The album sparked during Covid lockdowns, but a melted laptop forced Manuel to start over from scratch. The end result is mesmerizing and singular, landing somewhere in between Pharoah Sanders and Autechre. Live instruments — including harp, piano, and cello from Zosia Jagodzinska — are rendered as silhouettes of their timbres. Nowhere is this uncanny magic more present than on “Waxcap.” Swirling pianos and a dubstep laced groove are infiltrated by tumbling bloops and bitcrushed swells. Over a decade into Manuel publicly tweaking the Djrum formula, he’s precariously balanced the roles of composer and DJ on Under Tangled Silence.