Ovelha Trax's Bandcamp page is a digital goldmine of high quality underground productions that straddles electro, breaks, ghettotech, bass music, and rave in equal measure.
The latest VA compilation to bolt the Ovelha stable is Planet Section; a fourteen track collection that does an incredible job of summarising the label, its prior releases, and the direction it is heading. If forward-thinking electronic music with genuine bite is your bag, sling this hard-as-nails collection over your shoulder and get busy.
Straight out of the gates, Planet Section has you pulling that iconic pigface while you look your friends dead in the eye, rhythmically pointing towards your speakers as if to elicit their contorções do rosto.
We kick off with some old-school b-boy style electro courtesy of K.A.T.A and Ruksby's Ballawurrus; the most disgustingly wonked-out bassline and kick combo we've heard all year. Absolutely the kind of track that makes you jerk around like a short-circuiting robosapien.
Scan Mode takes us to Planetary Boundaries with the type of infectious electro that would encourage a Mekon to bruck out all over Dan Dare's windshield. Then we're treated to our first encounter with ghettotech courtesy of Wild Savage's Ghettotech Punk; a track that pummels harder than Jax's bionic arms.
Jay Luv delivers an incredibly gloopy cut next with Scraping Brains, taking a plasma scalpel to the inside of everyone's skull; an insistent saw wave synth sending grey matter flying all over a cavernous bottom end.
The cybernetic baltering of Drill-a-Rat's Mellowmaniac swings in with a sonic blow to the temple; surgical percussion programmed alongside some utterly preposterous synth work. All this before Flo's imposing Dangerous Gaze marries a menacing lower register with caustic chiptune battle sounds.
Unfound brings the first half to a close with the hi-NRG electro funk of Swallows in the Stargate, complete with the anguished cries of a digital being as its soul is bitcrushed into binary code.
NXTEL's Radioactive lives up to its name, obliterating every Geiger counter in a 250 mile radius with some seriously sub-atomic electro. The bottom end dominates here; turn your sub up.
True Self poses a Data Problem; an absolute woofer-wrecker and possibly our favourite on the compilation, though picking one isn't easy. Glitchy, staccato vocal snippets complement the gut-kicking bassline perfectly.
Signal Takeover by Electronin features perhaps the filthiest breakdown on the entire album; a low-steppa grind so unforgiving that even Slipknot would be shitting in their collective boilersuit.
K-Won goes hard with the Detroit ghettotech-infused detonator that is PushPush, an intimidating track loaded with edge and delivered with precision. Denivek, however, operates within a significantly more chaotic realm; the rave-flecked hyper-tech of Deep Life crushing every molecule of oxygen out of our lungs.
Virtual Dos Machine takes the penultimate spot with the machine funk of Defeito, boasting some wonderfully placed acid squiggles layered over tuff beats and a delightful reverse cymbal sample.
Closing the collection with a nod to his Serbian roots is Bereva, capping the compilation off perfectly with a skittering rave finale featuring melodic motifs borrowed directly from Serbian folk music.
Grab it on Bandcamp. We guarantee your neck will be snapping itself within the first bar.