Another week closer to oblivion, but at least the music’s good. We’ve scoured the internet once again to bring you the latest and greatest DJ mixes and radio shows (providing they meet the criteria). As ever, we’ve gone through a range of sounds and styles, including rap, jungle, grime, house music, Jersey Club, Amapiano, gqom, bassline, Afro-tech, acid and beyond, it’ll just be more inclusive from now on. This week’s highlights include a celebration of Bristol’s contributions to jungle, some grimey industrial power slammers and a pick of the year’s best garage.

So, without further ado, here are this week’s best mixes.

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Although he’s fond of taking detours into the worlds of D&B and jungle, Smokey Bubblin’ B has been firmly in his house and garage bags this year. As is tradition for the season, ol’ Smokey’s put together a thrill-ride look back at as many of the garage world’s best from this year. It’s been a stacked year for all things 2-step related, but he’s made a Herculean effort to cover as much ground as possible, with bouncers from the 1Forty family, some Conducta, a Disclosure VIP and then rounding off with a Gmix from Shall Not Fade family member Prozak Smoke.

Razzler Man, head of Renk Groove Recordings and also one half of Tribal Brothers alongside LR Groove, is probably most closely associated with the new wave of UK funky, but like a lot of his ilk it’s actually a little more complicated than that. Funky’s spirit is ever-present in his sets and productions, but so is gqom, Afro-house, tribal house, amapiano and anything else with deep, bassy grooves (some nice, jumpy drum patterns don’t seem to go amiss either).

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The meeting point between UK funky, tribal house, hard drum, amapiano and so on has given us a deep well of creativity in UK’s underground club scene and it’s selectors like AYAYA that are driving it. If you’ve been following that whole amorphous world, she’ll already be on your radar. For her latest Balamii set, for example, she takes the smooth and velvety side of amapiano and toughens it up with some big and punchy perc tracks. No wonder there’s such a long line of radio hosts and DJs queuing up for a guest mix.

Photography: @mm35gus__

As part of the Sector 7 family, Brighton-hailing Jook’s productions, mixes and radio shows have remained one of the few constants you can still rely on. But as reliable as his consistency is, ‘comforting’ is probably the wrong word. Take his latest show, for example, an immersive deep-dive into the dark, grimey, industrial recesses and surfacing in more percussive but just as fearsome territories.

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Late last month, Tomas Fraser’s Coyote Records welcomed a new producer to the family, Beton Brut, with the release of his two-track Nervous Network. A grimey double bill of jackhammer percussion, knuckle-whitening mid-range and a piercing Gods Gift sample, it bookended a big year that he kicked off with Raw Materials in February. As the icing the cake, he’s just put out this mix of the kind of rawness that inspired his productions, including beasts from Walton, Mumdance & Logos, WEN, Gage and a warped bootleg of Dizzee’s “I Luv U” in the final stretch.

Photography: Elliot Bourne

Sadly, there’s no escaping the downer 2021’s ending on, but we can do is throw it back to the summer, i.e. ‘happier times’. This new one from London-based 1020 Radio and Loose FM resident Ryo Kurashina was recorded back then and you can practically hear the palpable optimism and ‘we’re-over-the-worst-of-it’ giddiness we all fooled ourselves into believing in. A heady escalation of broken beat steppers with a load of bounce a few techy touches, slap this one on when it’s time to step the pre-gaming up a gear.

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Speaking of happier times, Ploy’s had about as good a year as you could hope for. Besides being lucky enough to make it across the Atlantic for a couple of shows in New York and Miami, Ploy also set up his own label, Deaf Test, last month. For the time being the plan’s to keep the label for his own releases, but he’s already hit the ground running with the recently released Rayhana EP. To celebrate, he’s put together this new session of high energy stompers from across the board, all woven together for a cross-section of the kind of sounds that influenced the new EP.

Photography: Ryan Swanscott

As we all know, jungle is indestructible. Even at its lowest ebb, it was still doing just fine, but as we head into 2022 jungle’s in better health than ever. There are tonnes of DJs and producers pushing the sound in completely new directions, and one person who probably deserves a little more credit is Sheba Q. We’ve shouted about her before, but this new solo dolo session is up there with the best of them. Starting out slow, she opens with some percussive house, a little funky and deep house, gradually raising the temperature before fully letting rip with her bag of rap-flecked jungle scorchers.

Photography: @scruffykittn

Footwork-jungle hybrids are by now widely appreciated as an ever-reliable source of joy and heart palpitations. One of the people responsible for getting the word out is Anna Morgan, the co-founder of New York/Los Angeles-based Worst Behavior who also runs the Footwork Jungle blog. This week she served up slammers from Sinistarr and Hyroglifics, Spinn and Rashad, Addison Groove, Samurai Breaks and even found some space for a Sade jam.

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For the past couple of weeks, Manchester-based jungle, D&B and hardcore outlet Certain Sound have been posting daily mixes built around specific themes. We’ve had atmospheric D&B, new school jungle, classic hardcore and more. The latest comes from Kola Nut who’s revisiting the endless well of beauties produced in Bristol in the ‘90s. Not exactly short of material, you’ll be pleased to know Roni Size, Krust and DJ Die all get pride of place.