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Aquasky

Our resident booty, breaks and bass obsessive, Sometimes Sean, loves mixing up styles. Trance and grime, however, should not be allowed within 2,000 miles of each other, as a new Lethal Bizzle remix proves this week.

God bless Aquasky (pictured, above). These guys were making bass heavy party tracks whilst Diplo was still stuck in his DJ Shadow phase and no-one even knew who Sinden was, except maybe his mother. However the shoe is on the other foot now and Aquasky, a bit like Dr Who, have been reborn (again) with a more up to date sound.

You could see the change coming with 2007's Have a Good Time. A Miami bass inspired breaks number featuring dirty south rapper Acafool, whilst the flip had a remix by the then "just getting big" Count & Sinden. The new sound is an official change of direction though and the Deep Fat Frequencies EP hits the floor as they mean to carry on.

The EP features guest vocalists Sporty-O and Gouldmouf on tracks like Outta Control and You A Star respectively. Top end spiking basslines are a plenty, as are the influences - crunk, rave, r&b, breaks, speed garage. It's the sound of '09 at its peak, and I can't wait to get hold of the other tracks they've lined up in their new sound arsenal.

Lethal Bizzle is back again this week with his grimey breaks style on Going Out Tonight. The beat shifts up into a steady pattern as opposed to Go Hard's raw break, and the deep square bassline drives the track along. What's interesting about this release though is RobotSonics remix - a tech-funk number! Curiously I didn’t see Bizzle's style transposing to this style of music, but it does work and it'd make for a useful track to bridge between genres.

Just remember to ignore The Real Funk Remix, however. Bizzle's eclectic mix of styles usually works pretty well, and Aquasky's r&b/breaks/bass music hybrid definitely does the trick. But Real Funk's take on Going Out Tonight takes elements of grime and drops them on top of a shit trance track. Sometimes people get it right, but other times the results are just so wrong! And on that note, I'm off to bleach my ear drums.