Hyperdub started as a webzine in 1999 and became a London record label in 2004 under Steve Goodman, better known as Kode9. The early singles came out of the city's embryonic dubstep scene, but the catalog never stayed there. Burial's night-bus transmissions, Jessy Lanza's chrome R&B, DJ Rashad's footwork and Loraine James's fractured electronics all found a home under the same red logo. If you want the sound of 21st-century London bass music without a genre lecture, this is the cleanest door in.
These ten records are a starter path through the label, from the first Kode9 and The Spaceape sides to later albums that kept Hyperdub strange and necessary. Treat them as a listening order, not a ranking. Each one opens a different room in the same building.
1. Kode9 and The Spaceape: Sine of the Dub / Stalker (2005)
Hyperdub's first catalog number, HYP001, is still the right place to start. Sine of the Dub / Stalker pairs Kode9 with the late vocalist The Spaceape on a dub remake of Prince's "Sign o' the Times," with a seedy flip of Junior Boys on the B-side. The shop page calls it an essential Hyperdub release, and it is: low, dread-filled and already more than a genre exercise. Play it loud enough to feel the sub-bass, then notice how little else the tracks need.
2. Burial: Burial (2006)
William Bevan's debut as Burial arrived as a double vinyl with the beatless atmospheric pieces restored from the CD era. Distant Lights, Southern Comfort and the Spaceape feature map a South London night of crackle, garage ghosts and train-clank rhythm. It is the album that made Hyperdub impossible to ignore. The official shop still carries the self-titled set as a catalog cornerstone, which is the right signal for newcomers.
3. Kode9 and The Spaceape: Memories of the Future (2006)
The duo's debut album, sold directly on Hyperdub's store, stretches the early single's mood into a full statement. Spaceape's voice sits half-spoken over Kode9's sparse, compressed riddims. Play it after the debut Burial album and you hear two sides of the same city: one anonymous and mournful, one philosophical and barbed. The album title still fits; the future it remembered never fully arrived.
4. Burial: Untrue (2007)
Untrue is the Hyperdub album most people find first, and for good reason. Vocal chops float over 2-step skeletons; "Archangel," embedded above, is the shortcut into the feeling. Hyperdub marked the label's 20th anniversary with an exclusive clear vinyl edition of the album on its shop, which tells you how central it remains. For neighboring night music with more techno pulse, Unknowndivide's dub techno starter guide is a useful parallel track.
5. Ikonika: Contact, Love, Want, Have (2010)
Sara Abdel-Hamid, recording as Ikonika, brought brightly colored synth leads and video-game brightness into Hyperdub's darker catalog. Her debut album is the entry point: melodic, club-ready and proudly synthetic. Later releases such as SAD on the current shop keep the alias active. Start with the debut if you want Hyperdub that smiles without going soft, then follow her singles when you need something that moves a room.
6. Jessy Lanza: Pull My Hair Back (2013)
Jessy Lanza's first Hyperdub album made R&B feel like it had been redesigned in a lab and then sung with real feeling. Soft synths, clipped drums and a voice that stays intimate even when the production turns clinical. Later EPs on the label, including collaborations with Teklife affiliates DJ Spinn and Taso, show how far her network stretches. If your path into electronic music runs through songcraft rather than DJ tools, this is the Hyperdub record that meets you halfway and then rewires the furniture.
7. DJ Rashad: Double Cup (2013)
Chicago footwork hit a global audience through Hyperdub, and DJ Rashad's Double Cup is the album that carried it. Rapid sample chops, R&B hooks and dance-floor urgency at tempos that still startle. After Rashad's death, Hyperdub continued to support the Teklife circle, including the Nextlife compilation whose proceeds support his family. Double Cup remains the clearest full-length introduction, and it still sounds faster than most of what followed it.
8. Laurel Halo: Dust (2017)
Laurel Halo's Hyperdub years moved from club abstraction into songs that still refuse easy genre tags. Dust is the album where voice, percussion and electronics feel hand-built and restless. It sits downstream from Hyperdub's bass roots without sounding like dubstep at all, which is part of the label's point. For more experimental listening adjacent to this mood, Unknowndivide's Kranky Records guide offers another independent path through patient, left-field records.
9. Loraine James: Reflection (2021)
London producer Loraine James folds broken rhythms, soft melodies and personal space into records that feel both intimate and physical. Reflection is a strong starting album; later Hyperdub releases such as Detached From The Rest Of You continue the thread on the current shop. She is the clearest proof that Hyperdub's 2020s roster is not a nostalgia project. The drums stutter; the emotion does not.
10. Burial: Rival Dealer (2013) and later EPs
After Untrue, Burial largely worked in EPs, and Hyperdub's shop still stocks key ones including Rival Dealer, Street Halo and Truant. Rival Dealer opens outward: longer forms, hardcore flashbacks, and a sense of hope that the early albums kept buried. Treat the EP run as a second album cycle rather than leftovers. For UK bass history that precedes this era, Unknowndivide's trip-hop starter guide covers an earlier Bristol lineage with its own night logic.
Where to go next
Browse the live catalog at hyperdub.net for Fatima Al Qadiri, Foodman, Nazar, Proc Fiskal and new footwork and bass hybrids as they land. Pair this list with Unknowndivide's Warp Records essentials if you want another UK independent catalog with a different accent. Hyperdub's lesson is simple: stay close to the city's underground, keep the artwork stark, and let the albums argue about what bass music is allowed to feel like.
