been DJing for over a decade now on radio and in bars/clubs (started with DnB/jungle, but play a mash of styles these days) and spent four years in the UK too, DJing at a bunch of spots over there.. a mix of human (hiphop, reggae) and instrumental electronic shit of various bpm's.

i don't follow the really chin-stroking stuff too much these days-- i had my share of that in the late 90s/early 00s (i was pretty much a Ninjatune street-teamer when i first started posting here 8 years back, if anyone remembers ignoring me then)... plus there's too many bedroom producers making too much bleepy sameness today, too. (aka the "I just downloaded Ableton and Reason and now I'm Richard D James because I smoke too much weed and can't make anything with a bit of funk to it" crew)

i still seek out the occasional snippet, but not fanatically. Plus I only listen to vinyl at home, and most of the recent obscure stuff doesn't go anywhere near that format

having said that, apart from the dancefloor electro/breaks stuff, there's one new downtempo artist i've been diggin this year, and that's the weird ginger warrior known as Binster.

http://www.abandonedsheep.com/

^^ scroll down on the right to listen. 'Elegant, Deadly, Precise' and 'Abandoned Petrol Station' are my favourites, but there's some beauty on there for sure