Urban Underground UK

Until the power of digital connectivity truly kicked in, the only way to find great music on the urban underground was to inhabit the urban underground — now it's only a couple of clicks, swipes or scrolls in any given direction, but the internet's a really big place, and the inner space of the underground is now huge . . . so we're going to point you in the right direction with this selection of standout tracks from the most progressive and innovative artists out there. SBTRKT, the masked raider of the post-dubstep era, gets us underway with "Living Like I Do", Katy B gets remixed by Skream ("Lights On") and Débruit brings mad Congolese/Parisian flavour with "Soles Sweat".

Young guns Kidkanevil and Pariah re-write the mix-skills rulebook, in Next Steps.

The urban underground has always been a productive melting pot — a place where all sorts of creative juices are stirred into the mix, and various layers of inspiration feed off each other — but now that an endless variety of digital tools has become available, the results are more spectacular than ever before. Yorkshire lad Kidkanevil (aka Gerard Roberts) is natural-born beat-programmer who has always made a point of sourcing his sounds from far and wide, and with "5th Gear" (featuring Lateef and Yarah Bravo) he underscores the hip-hop narrative with a smoky, sampled flute run. London-based young gun Pariah, meanwhile, shows a masterful touch with the tempo of debut single "Detroit Falls."

The urban underground takes us from tribal drums to soulful brass, in Deep Cuts.

The more time we spend in the urban underground, discovering sounds so fresh you can sup them straight from the source, the more sonic threads and patterns start to emerge, and the better we can join the disparate dots. For example, we can trace the sampled brass connection that links Katalyst and Steve Spacek's "How Bout Us" with Souleance's "Manana", and we can explore the percussive framework that puts Karizma's "Drumz Nightmare" (check out those truncated Gregorian chants) in a related orbit to that of Dwongo Lab's more energized "Control Steppa". Where's all this taking us? There are no limits and no boundaries — only endless possibility.

Not so long ago, any quest to locate the urban underground would have involved a journey through obscure basement venues and back-end clubs, located by trawling small ads and picking up reliable word-of-mouth wherever it was dropped . . . but now all that has changed. The margins of sharp, fresh urban music are, as they have always been, a hive of creativity, but their geography belongs to the ether, that great audio cloud where crowds can be sourced, tunes can be tested, and budding talents can come to life. The raw DIY materials are iPads and apps; the means of distribution are free and universal; and the levels of artistic control are liberating — the only missing ingredient is talent, and that's why we've put together these Essentials, uniting Ahu with DnS, Boxcutter with Electric Conversation, Izzi Dunn with Dubbel Dutch. The urban underground just got rebuilt as a digital kingdom, and these tunes will help you get connected.