CONTROL VOLTAGE

October 3, 2012 – Trap, wobble, drop: If Bassnectar's new "Freestyle Mixtape" were a cereal, they'd have to call it "Rave Crispies."Posted today as a teaser for his forthcoming Freestyle EP, due out October 16, the 42-minute mix is heavy on the West Coast bass-music producer's own output, including collaborations with Angel Haze, DC Breaks, Zion I, and Mimi Page; it also features Bassnectar's own edits of songs by Hudson Mohawke, Zed Bias featuring Juice

October 2, 2012 – Cosmo Vitelli's I'm a Cliché label has long kept the flame burning for the wonkier side of French dance music, with releases that bob nervously in the space between classic house and techno, Italo disco, new wave, EBM, and styles even further afield: A recent EP from Dixlexsix touches on the Slits, Chicago footwork, Daft Punk, and Melt Banana, while somehow managing not to sound like a gâchis chaud.

October 2, 2012 – Solange Knowles' new single "Losing You" is a remarkable song in its own right, with a breezy fusion of singer-centric R&B, 1980s pop (cf. the Cars' "Drive"), and lanky, mid-tempo hip-house beats.

September 28, 2012 – There's nothing like four days of crappy hotel internet to drive home the fact that the music industry churns out way too much product these days. Talk about glut: After four days offline, it took me five or six hours to download, unzip, and file all the promos that had arrived in the meantime. And that's just the administrative part: I still haven't listened to squat, beyond deciding which bits will never merit a second airing.

September 21, 2012 – After a short break, the Control Voltage Friday Five is back! Appropriately, today's selection is all about letting off pent-up energy, from Blawan's sly sadism to Theo Parrish's total percussive meltdown.

September 19, 2012 – A first encounter with the music of Disclosure is enough to make you wonder if it's 2000 all over again, given the way they sling bump-and-flex 2-step rhythms peppered with jewel-toned vocal snippets and diamond-tipped rimshots. There's a lot of old-school U.K. garage going around at the moment, but Disclosure often sound particularly, uncannily, like the second coming of MJ Cole or the Artful Dodger.