Ruf Dug returns to Pinchy & Friends, following up last year’s Thru The Night / I Love You?, with 6 new tracks of dance-floor diversity. Buttoned Down begins things with a busy, fidgeting footwork / juke drum pattern and flickering flashes of jazzy keys. Playfully, percussively throwing in “found sounds” a la Close (To The Edit) by Art Of Noise. Pomegranate Dub segues into some synthetic skanking. Its snake-charming melodica casting a spell that’s part Ennio Morricone’s The Man With The Harmonica (from Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West) and part the voodoo juju of Sabres Of Paradise’s King Tubby-sampling Ysaebud. Open Air grumbles and growls as its grungey bass strings are slapped, and a funky wah-wah guitar chops out some white knuckled post-punk-funk, similar, say, to 23 Skidoo’s tight, taut, locked grooves. Its second act is an echoed horn section that summons Kip Hanrahan’s Kerouac in Cuba jive.

Watching is barmy bottom-end heavy slo-mo Italo that treats us to trippy gated ringing, faux flutes, and sunshine-like blasts of synth. Something about the production kinda reminds this reviewer of Human League’s Love And Dancing. Yep, it’s that good. Pipes mixes early UK acid house with a party of Zouk-y pretend brass. Its machined percussion and bubbling b-line recalling the plugged-in passion of Factory Floor. Night Blossom then finally blooms like a slightly more chilled take on the opener. Still shaking a big bass drum / surdo and marching snares to a broken Afro / Brazilian rhythm but countering this with cool, calming chimes.

Ruf Dug’s Asking For Trouble E.P. is out now on Pinchy & Friends.