My Heart Is A Beating Drum

Cave Circles (Rough Peel Records)

Basslines buck and thud. Drumbeats stutter and smack. The latest vinyl release from Wellington’s sonically adventurous Rough Peel Records, this fine EP showcases four tracks of tough, funk inflected dancefloor techno. Propulsive and relentless, this is club music with not an acoustic instrument in sight. It’s the sound of a skilled drummer bending cold circuitry to a warm human purpose, generating the kinds of skittering, hypnotic beats machines make so well. Highlights? Azmoni throbs and percolates like a prime Moodymann track, LLVLLC is minimal tech-house with a cunning march beat, and the title track grafts jazz synth stabs onto bumping sub-bass, like an Aro Valley beatnik version of Detroit techno. Limited to 200 copies in hand-painted sleeves, so get in quick. – Grant Smithies