Miami. The home of Crockett and Tubbs, Booty Bass, and one of the worlds biggest dance music conferences. The home of DJ Salim Rafiq, known as the “King of Bass”. On this second instalment of Fuel’s ‘Sound Off’ series, Raqif cranks up the bass over some of London’s finest breaks, producing an excellent CD that plays with your mind as much as it plays with sound.

Starting off with Cold Fusion Mafia’s Rinds Goulash, the listener is bombarded with phat, squelchy basslines that simply do not let up, over a driving, badass electro breakbeat. Each song is layered with samples, scratches and basslines, the tunes mixing seamlessly into one another in a cacophony of beats and breaks that astound the ear and enliven the body with its intensity. Other tunes include Tippers Subalicious, Donut, and Furlong, Si Futures Eurostar, and the Dexorcist’s Connect One, with my favourite being BuckFunk3000’s Future, which is very reminiscent of Mr Oizo.

This is the closest I’ve heard breaks come to the intensity of bass found within drum and bass’. It’s very hard, quite abrasive but rather enjoyable, and would be enjoyed by those who love the “fuckoff” basslines of dnb’s harder purveyors of sound, as well as those who like the originality of sounds found in the likes of Freq Nasty and Tipper. However, it will fit uneasily with people used to the Adam Freeland or Kid Kenobi style of breaks, who seem to enjoy melody over basslines. Oh, and for those who are into manipulating sounds, there’s an additional 22 tones and basslines provided for your mixing and manipulating pleasure.