Money Mark, a. k. a. Mark Ramos-Nishita, made his name playing keyboards with the Beastie Boys, and he's an expert at pulling funk out of anything with buttons on it-the more obsolete, the better. Push the Button, his second album, finds him moving away from the instrumental soul-groove quickies of his previous LP, Mark's Keyboard Repair, and toward, well, new wave songs-with singing. Ramos-Nishita's songs are unexceptional but pleasant; his arrangements are what make them work, especially the delicious keyboard parts. About half of Push the Button is still throwaway instrumentals-75 seconds of bossa nova, two minutes of organ-and-melodica doodling. They're Money Mark's real forte and have a genuine soulfulness that comes more easily to his hands than to his voice. -Douglas Wolk.

It may come as a shock to the purists, but after two albums of pushing abstruse drum & bass to minimalist and epic extremes, the East Anglian producer has thrown a heap of new sounds onto his percussive palate. To some, Solaris is going to sound like a chicken in search of a roost: both "Can't Come Down" and "Mine To Give" are pure 1988 old-school Chicago house. The latter even features that era's legendary vocalist, Robert Owens. "Terminus" and "Junk" pay loose homage to the nu-school breakz template, while "Halogen" and "Lost Blue Heaven" are beautifully poised, damaged electronic torch songs. There's even some drifting ambience too. But what's missing in terms of coherence is more than made up for by the visceral power of Photek's production. Intense, stripped back and wielding more brute force than Leftfield's "Swords", there's a menacing beauty at work here that reinforces Photek's reputation for tingling sonic sculpturing on a grand scale. -Calvin Bush.

Rather than following in the montage/cut-up lineage of What's That Noise? and Let Us Play, Coldcut's latest album is an overt attempt at crossing over to a wide audience. Of course, what Coldcut view as `crossover' is far from the insipid cheese we're normally subjected to via the mainstream music business. Suffice to say that even the most heartfelt song-writing on Sound Mirrors (and there certainly is some) comes with a sonic edge that will make Coldcut/Ninja aficionados proud. Utilising the vocal talents of Saul William (the cinematic "Mr Nichols"), Chicago house guru Robert Owens (the emotive "Walk A Mile") Roots Manuva (the dancehall anthem "True Skool") and Mpho Skeef (two-step anthem "This Island Earth"), Coldcut explore political/humanist themes across a rainbow of sounds and beats. It's their most accessible album since their chart-bothering work with Yazz and Lisa Stansfield in the 80s, but Coldcut still emerge with their rebel credentials impressively intact. -Paul Sullivan.

Ex-Plastikman techno artist Richie Hawtin's latest release continues his predilection for stripped-down beats and less-is-more aesthetics, slamming down the needle on a record of merciless mixes and remixes. It's quite a workout, with relief coming only in the form of occasional, slightly quieter thumps. Hawtin works with slices of his own material, along with the ruthless concoctions of Jeff Mills and a selection of other DJs from Detroit's influential techno community. Other eclectic influences make their way onto his turntables, the most obvious being a flash of industrial rock courtesy of Nitzer Ebb. Most of it gets swallowed up in Hawtin's metronomelike devotion to rote bpms and hard, minimalist stylings. Still, when it's done with this level of driving force, the sheer momentum is enough to force your limbs into involuntarily movement. From the opening pulse of Ratio's "Early Blow," Hawtin extrapolates on a short beat structure with perfectly rhythmic precision, growing and building through a series of melodyless phases. The album peaks with the Nitzer Ebb break, leading into Hawtin's short, irresistible remix of his own "Orange/Minus 1" then abruptly stopping with one of the album's few respites-a quick clip of movie dialogue. It's a brief pause, and the omnipresent beat restarts only slightly less demanding and brutally danceable than before. Hawtin's record is a stellar example, at a time when twisted jungle beats rule the dance floors, of getting people to dance a lot more by using a lot less. [+]

In the late 1980s, as American house and techno imports flooded Britain and the Acid House movement was sweeping the nation, brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll were busy building Britain's own interpretation of the sound. Named for the illegal "Orbital" raves taking place around the M25, they dragged their equipment from party to party, playing live PAs of their homegrown dance music to enthusiastic crowds of revellers. Their 1990 single "Chime" was (and still is) the anthem of many a British raver, and their self-titled 1991 debut remains a classic. Opening with the exquisite mid-tempo anthem "Belfast", and containing the "Chime", "Satan", and "Fahrenheit 303" singles, this album captures the innocence and energy of the nascent rave scene. -Matthew Corwine.