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Carl Bee, the ‘Sinfonia EP’, on Diynamic Music.

The title track is the real keeper. It does the opening-up part with a filter sweep that goes on for a while, so the tension you feel is actually just a slow change in brightness over the same loop. No new element arrives until well into the track. It’s a small, honest piece of work for an artist who sits at four figures of fans, and not everything on this label is a big swing.

“Flava Selekta” is the thin one on this EP. It’s not bad, just not the reason you’d write about it. It moves through a false build that never really pays off in a new way, then settles into a loop that’s fine but does not add anything beyond what the title cut already showed.

“Mangatune” is a tool. It gets one line and that’s it. It passes as a functional DJ track, but there’s no need to give it a paragraph. The EP works as a whole if you take the title cut and use the others for mixing. That is the honest way to listen.

Cassian, ‘Dun Dun’, on Afterlife.

He’s not just some name riding the wave of a big label; his own number is real, 5,462 Deezer fans, a different situation from Adam Sellouk earlier this run. That’s the difference here; there’s substance behind the hype.

‘Dun Dun’ (the title track, the one you’re here for) starts with a tension-building intro that feels almost suspended in time. Then it drops. And the drop is where the magic lives: a vocal chop tucked underneath the main riff that does this brilliant trick, same mechanic as that red axes track that was doing the rounds in June, but with a different pitch each time it repeats. It keeps you hooked, keeps your ears working, keeps the floor guessing.

It’s a weapon for the main room, pure and simple. The kind of record that doesn’t just fill a floor, it clears the bar area.

The flip side, ‘Memento’, has its own character, though it doesn’t try to outshine the A-side. It’s flatter, doesn’t build the same way, and feels more like a piece there to complete the release rather than one that’ll be causing chaos at 3 a.m. Not a criticism, just a statement of what it is. ‘Dun Dun’ is the headline act here, and it earns that spot.

One of the pair's rare solo missives, and it came out June 28, 2024. So no, it isn't new, but it has been sitting in the rotation just right all summer. Shall Not Fade has been on a roll with these leftfield house cuts, and this one is a proper box ticker for the label's ongoing mission.

The track is literally called 'UP', and it does exactly that. It moves with a strange, stop-start momentum that doesn't let you settle. There's a vocal chop that keeps coming back at slightly different pitches each time, feels deliberate not just looped, like it's nudging you awake every few bars.

Red Axes has always been good at that weird balance between dancefloor function and pure oddity, and 'UP' captures it perfectly. It's not the biggest track on the label this year, but it might be the one you keep coming back to.

The sun is coming up, the tent is half-empty, but you're still moving, that's this record. That specific moment when the weird ones start making sense.

Adam Sellouk lands on Afterlife with ‘The Antidote’, a three-track study in tension, release and everything in between.

‘Chronic’ gets its hands dirty early, a thick, rolling groove with a vocal loop that digs in and doesn’t let go. It’s built for the main room, but it’s not in a hurry. ‘Confusion’ is the quiet standout, a four-bar stumble in the middle that finds its way back to the beat before you’ve even worked out what’s wrong. It’s the kind of detail you miss the first time and can’t unhear after. ‘Poison’ closes the record with a deeper, more patient cut, all smeared pads and a low-end that sits just under the skin.

It’s a solid debut, but the real story is the context. Adam Sellouk arrives on one of the biggest labels in the genre with just 891 Deezer fans to his name. That’s not a footnote, that’s the whole point. The label is carrying the name here, not the other way round, and that’s a rare thing in 2024. It means the music did the talking.

The record still works late, past the point where people are dancing hard. It’s background enough that conversations can carry on over it, but it’s still doing something if you actually listen. That’s a hard line to walk, and Sellouk walks it well.