<p><span><span>- Hip hop, as any good student of music history can tell you, started in The Bronx. The more nerdy history students, in fact, could pinpoint the exact block where Kool Herc started spinning breakbeats. From that point on, the history of hip hop is often the history of localities. Compton, Brooklyn; East Coast and West; the Dirty South. Often new developments in the genre are traced back to one location - trap from Atlanta, grime from East London.</span></span></p>

- Does the nervous energy of Radium Dolls leak out from the seams of their debut EP Bel-Haven despite having been shut up with the rest of us, for six months, or because of it? Probably both? There’s an uncomfortable, frenetic quality to the Brisbane band that dances off-kilter and up in your face, like a conversation with someone speeding off their dial. It’s difficult to know whether you’re being entertained or about to be headbutted.

<p><span><span>- So here’s a washy ambient opening. Dub-wise stereo delays drift above. A sharp indie guitar lick cuts through everything, then a drum’n’bass beat drops, then shouty distorted punk vocals. So (straight up) I count five styles in thirty seconds, and <em>Trouble In Paradise</em> from mysterious newcomer Ali Jef is just getting started.</span></span></p>

<p><span><span>- Melbourne label <strong>Music In Exile</strong> has recently released a new EP in their REMIXED series. On the 12” we see <strong>Ausecuma Beats</strong> reworked by <strong>River Yarra</strong>. Ausecuma Beats are a nine-piece group led by djembe player <strong>Boubacar Gaye</strong>, with its members originating from Australia, Cuba, Mali, and the Senegambian region of West Africa.