You're doing a hundred and forty through Vice City at 2am, six stars flashing, a fleet of police helicopters circles overhead, and the radio is playing some heavy UK Garage cuts. That, ladies and gentlemen, is peak gaming.

The hype for GTA VI is now at fever point. This week alone saw artists from every genre not-so-subtly hinting they're involved, and given Rockstar's borderline suspicious ability to find the best British electronic music, the playlists should be fire. Remember iFruit radio in V? UK Garage, Jungle, Drum & Bass, Grime, an entire strand of British music condensed into one in-game station. This, more than the graphics, more than the map, more than anything else, is the bit I’m most excited about. Get the soundtrack right and that police chase is a true experience.

V set the bar properly high too. Soulwax curated Soulwax FM. Flying Lotus curated FlyLo FM. If Rockstar keep that standard for VI, we are, and I do not say this lightly, in for an absolute treat.

Record of the Week: Fonzo - ok den

If you don't know Fonzo, get to know. He's one of my genuine favourites, operating in a very specific and very good middle ground somewhere between techno and Garage/UK Bass: rolling drums stacked under a dark, relentlessly energetic bass sound. 'Boujee', out earlier this year, has barely left my most-played list since, and his 'Productions Only' mix is nearly as good. 'ok den' does exactly what you'd want: glitchy, percussive textures over a long, drawn-out bass, with the drums never once letting the energy drop.

Elsewhere, Skeptic - Want U Back brings a funkier cut built for swaying through the Autumn warehouses, held together by a genuinely distinctive synth melody. ALSOTIMO - Let Me Go goes Speed Garage with a heavier bassline, and Scruff Recordings keep earning their weekly spot in this newsletter.

MUCKANIKS has also dropped a full EP of free download dubs this week. What an absolute treat.

Plenty more to get your ears around.

Tom (japanese.knotweed)

The good: a club night for Cable Street's 90th, and the money goes to strikers
Ninety years ago, working-class East Londoners physically stopped a fascist march through their streets. This October, the follow-up is a rave. Sports Banger and King Alpha Sound System are curating a night at Kachette on 3 October to mark the anniversary, with every penny handed straight to Unite's striking members. Turns out the best way to mark beating fascists is to dance on the memory of them.
Read it on Mixmag

The bad: Universal says DistroKid's $2bn valuation runs on AI slop
DistroKid built a $2 billion valuation partly, Universal alleges, by nodding through unlabelled AI tracks built to game the algorithm, all while sitting out the industry's new anti-fraud coalition. Streaming royalties come from one fixed pool a month, so every fraudulent stream in there is a real one not paying you.
Read it on Complete Music Update

The ugly: Suno licensed three majors to look legit
Suno signed up Warner, BMG and Believe as partners for its new v6 model this month, presumably hoping the room would feel more respectable. UMG and Sony took one look and sued anyway, arguing v6 was built on the outputs of Suno's earlier, openly-scraped models, and is therefore just as compromised. Their verdict: "the same poisoned tree." Hard to argue with that.
Read it on Music Week

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Neffa-T @ SECTION: Speaking of finding the golden blend between Techno and Bass, here's someone frankly better at it than almost anyone else doing it. Neffa-T's calling card is three-deck vinyl mixing and blends complicated enough to make you wonder if he's cheating somehow. He won't be a stranger to most of you, and he certainly wasn't a stranger to Glastonbury 2025, where I watched him absolutely demolish a smaller stage at Silver Hayes. So when a full YouTube set turned up, ready to be burned straight into my retinas and eardrums, I was, without exaggeration, made up. You know what to do: grab a beer, sit down, don't move for the next hour.

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