VA - WZY4.5 (2024)

Woozy’s annual WZY.5 compilation summit gathers for its fourth instalment, celebrating 9 artists of dubwise disposition that maintains the label and its founder EMA’s spellbinding tradition in futurist soundsystem music. No Sir, Maude Vôs, Jossy Mitsu, Chewlie, Beaabea, Mantra, Introspekt, Ila Brugal and Honeydrip all feature for another bumper showcase of ambitious club sounds.

WZY4.5’s welcoming address looks to No Sir’s Dilate, an elastic-shock of icy swagger that rudely snaps under the serious sub pressure. Maude Vôs’ Faerie Ring gurgles with psy-eye wonder amidst its half-time hypnosis, before the chromatic piston-breaks of Arena bounce around Jossy Mitsu’s irresistible kinetics. Chewlie’s Blaze Of Sobriety is a crooked stepper of wide-eyed abstraction that swivels on an addictive head-nod lurch, while Pixelate’s taut trip through Beaabea’s stern kick-drum ballistics offers some dastardly club drama. Mantra then signals the rave siren, meditating on a percussive half step before igniting the jungle (dub) tekno fervour of Bedrock. Introspekt’s naughty 2-stepper Digital throbs in a see-saw of LFO menace and crisp swung-drum mechanics, before Moth’s blunted dancefloor haze illuminates Ila Brugal’s effortlessly rolling groove. On closing remarks is Honeydrip with Aspire, a zooted stepper of heavenly breakbeat joy that skanks sub-heavy style to its and WZY4.5’s glorious conclusion.