Things have been a bit quiet lately for us Dan Guidance fans. After a productive period, which in Dan Guidance terms means three albums in four months, all we had to sustain us in 2025 were May’s Upside Down and November’s The Light EPs. Apart from his collaborations and remixes of course, he isn’t a man to take things too easy.
But things are looking up, as the end of January saw the release of his Star Chaser EP, recorded with Blade, and now a brand new solo EP, Winter Wilderness, which is released Friday February 27 on his own Portal Recordings.
The Star Chaser EP with Blade is, as you’d expect, a superb slice of modern drum & bass, perhaps a bit more up and in your face than other DG tunes, but none the worse for it. The EPs title track features driving rhythms that carry low bass frequencies and high end harmony. The drums in particular never keep still and keep changing as the track goes on, keeping us on our toes. It is everything that is currently good about liquid DnB, a clash of fast mutating beats aimed at the dancefloor and enough melody to keep us humming the song long after it has finished.
Growler is a more skeletal affair, with the main melody being suggested rather than made totally clear. A treble rich drum trail takes us into perhaps darker territory, where bass notes snarl at us unexpectedly. New World Await is again rich with skittering percussion and swathes of synth washes. Keyboard stabs ricochet through the speakers and we find ourselves unsure whether to take to the dance floor or head to the chill out room for some down time. Either would be good at this point.
Star Chaser finishes on a high with Floatation, the EP’s most upbeat number. Dan Guidance’s genius lies in the way he can combine upbeat and downbeat in the same song whilst also adding in layers of lush sounds. It is a difficult tightrope to walk, but all four tracks here pull it off superbly.
There’s something about music this good that just gets under your skin and makes you want to hear it again as soon as it draws to a close.
So, with the bar set high by another collaboration, what can we expect from Dan’s first new solo material of 2026?
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The EP starts with the first of five tracks, Folklore, which sets things off with delicate guitar arpeggios and some subtle piano tones. It is perhaps calmer than the Star Chaser material, but buoyed along by smooth liquid beats. Again, Dan’s gift for melody is at the fore, not matter what else is going on, there is always a firm eye on hooks and phrasing.
The song is reduced to a few spectral components around the halfway mark, with eerily detached choral chants and some piano keeping it going. When the drums kick in again, the effect is massively uplifting.
When The Skies Froze is a different beast entirely, with huge pounding drums high in the mix. Still present though are the hooks and the effect is one of mixing light and shade together at the same time, which is perfectly apposite for this time of year. Which is where the EP gets its title I suppose. Clever little sort isn’t he.
Give Me Life rides on a stream of angularly syncopated drum beats and gentle piano that again demonstrate the fine art of balancing that goes on in Dan’s work. The stop-start nature of the percussion seems at odds with the smooth flow of the vocals, but it somehow meshes together to create a dreamlike experience.
Never Again starts off with some jazzy flourishes but soon heads into Liquid territory and features some of the most sumptuous vocals you will hear. There isn’t a lot going on for large parts of the song, in terms of musical backing, with the glorious vocal making the song’s backbone. When keyboard trills come in the song achieves a perfect unity. Really, in this day and age there is no good reason why Never Again shouldn’t be a breakout hit that will take drum & bass overground once and for all.
Winter Wilderness closes with the title track, as cold swirls of keyboards blow around us, thawed by snare heavy percussion and warming layers of bass and treble. There is an almost Eastern feel to the track as keyboard sounds appear, swathed in echo, before slowly fading away. There is indeed a shadowy winteriness to the song and the EPs sleeve art of a barren tree in a blue grey misty landscape is the perfect visual representation of what we are listening to.
It isn’t easy to conjure up such images and such emotion with electronic music, but it is this that Dan Guidance excels at most. Each track, to be felt as much as it is to be listened to.
As the days start to get longer and the cold starts to retreat a little, we have a timely reminder that there is beauty in the cold, that frost glitters and that, if we take the time to look around at where we are now, there is much to celebrate about life.
It is good to have Dan Guidance back. 2026 is already a better place for having him in it.
Star Chaser is out now via Soul Trader Records. Purchase from Bandcamp
Winter Wilderness is out Friday via Portal Recordings. Purchase from Bandcamp.