While much of the Northern Hemisphere remains hunkered down during the dark winter months, folks closer to the equator are already gearing up for Carnival’s street festivities, which culminate next month ahead of Ash Wednesday. While it probably won’t be warm in Quebec come Mardi Gras, Montreal’s Poirier is nonetheless starting to heat things up with some new high-energy riddims, and will release a new EP, Soca Road, on January 17 through the Mixpak imprint. For those engaging in the pre-Lent revelries, the release date will give you plenty of time to incorporate the tracks into your set atop a Carnival float, while the rest of us can use the record’s island vibes to channel some Caribbean warmth up north. The artwork for the release is above, while a streaming preview of the record can be found below.

It’s been over 30 years since the last full-length release from the combined efforts of UK musicians Vince Clarke and Martin Gore. That album, Speak & Spell, released by the then-nascent Mute imprint, launched Depeche Mode into the mainstream and provided the band with its most recognizable song, the indelibly saccharine “Just Can’t Enough.” Late last year, the pair came together as VCMG for the release of “Spock,” the first single from the duo’s forthcoming full-length effort, Ssss, which is fittingly being released by none other than Mute on March 13. The 10-song album will be rooted in techno, a far cry from the syrupy synth-pop of the musicians’ first mega-hit, but is sure to draw on the pair’s 30-plus years of experience producing electronic pop music, both in Depeche Mode and other projects like Yaz and Erasure. The second single from the album will be “Single Blip,” which, like “Spock,” will receive the full remix treatment. Details on that are on the way, but the full tracklisting for Ssss is already available, and can be seen below.

1 Lowly
2 Zaat
3 Spock
4 Windup Robot
5 Bendy Bass
6 Single Blip
7 Skip This Track
8 Aftermaths
9 Recycle
10 Flux

Earlier this week, the London-based imprint Orca dropped its fifth release, “Immunity” b/w “Squeeze,” by recent Berlin transplant XI. Both tracks offer haunting bits of broken UK garage rhythms marked by plenty of low-end punch, but “Immunity” is hazy with a relatively slow tempo while “Squeeze” is upbeat and punctuated throughout with short vocal stabs. Take a look at the artwork and stream samples of both songs below.

“Immunity”

“Squeeze”

In a recent article on Clash, the online culture hub reports that dubstep diety Mala (whose XLR8R podcast we still can’t stop listening to) is finishing up an album he recorded with Cuban musicians. Apparently, the DJ/producer was coerced by Gilles Peterson, who has been traveling to the island nation for several years, to make the trip. As the Brownswood label head and BBC radio host explains, “I basically took Mala over [to Cuba] with me and we spent the first few days recording Latin rhythms and we took those back to the UK and he’s been working on that. We went back and made the album, but when I was making the album I would be in studio one and all the musicians would come through and play a straightforward type of album. Then when they were done with me they would basically go through and see him and he would do his interpretation of the Cuban thing for his own album, which is going to be coming out in February.” Peterson went on to say he has another chapter of his own Havana Cultura project in the works, which will reportedly drop around the end of February or beginning of March. Needless to say, word of a new full-length LP from Mala has our attention absolutely piqued, and we’ll be bringing you any and all updates once they arrive.

The anonymous UK producer behind one of our favorite albums of 2011, Patten will follow up the release of his GLAQJO XAACSSO LP via No Pain in Pop—not to mention threesubsequentremix EPs—with a repressing of the stellar album that includes fresh edits of the material by the artist himself. You can stream and download two of those cuts, “V” and “IX,” below, and pre-order your copy of the album here. And if you’re in the London area, make sure to catch Patten’s first audio/visual performance at Camp on January 19, the details of which can be found here.

Eccentric UK grime figure Wiley has a handful of new bits to share with us before the release of Evolve or Be Extinct on January 19—including a new track, video, and interview. Just yesterday, the MC/producer spoke with Time Out London about bringing back his club night, Eskimo Dance, this Saturday, the mainstream success of grime, and The Beatles. Wiley also shared a new tune from his forthcoming album, called “Highs and Lows,” which you can listen to, along with the odd workout-inspired music video for his new “Boom Blast” single, below.