Focusing on electronic music that lives in the grey areas between hip-hop, house, techno, dubstep and drum 'n' bass, Gilles Peterson's cohort Alex "Patchwork" Stevenson has selected 15 of the freshest, boundary-blurring artists in the world for the inaugural Brownswood Electric compilation. One of the year's most exciting collections, Brownswood Electric moves in a less jazzy direction than previous Peterson-powered releases, focusing instead on producers who prefer to get their kicks from MIDI bass controllers rather than Fender Rhodes.

As we've come to expect from Brownswood Recordings, the quality threshold never dips, yet the sound evolves more drastically than, say, the Bubblers series, crisscrossing from one underground club scene to another. In lesser hands, this eclecticism might come feel disingenuous, but Stevenson's "future motion" selections never jar — if anything, the undulating song tempos and varying intensity of the bass and drum patterns gives Brownswood Electric a living, breathing soul that other compilations often forgo in their pursuit of commercial uniformity. Like all of the best mixes, it takes you on a journey — but cuts out the DJ's ego.

The compilation kicks off with the downtempo, Dâm-Funk-esque P Funk sounds of B Bravo's "Computa Love," before moving into the scattered… read more »