As a series, Upfront was conjured up to celebrate the artists, labels, collectives et al who operate outside conventional boundaries (sonically or indeed geographically), have their aesthetic clearly defined and could perhaps use with additional spotlighting, too. All the above applies to the couple behind our thirtieth mix. You know when it's a Silk cut.

For many people, mentioning the Californian label evokes a certain point in time whereby a kind of web-scene began crystallising around what Britt Brown succinctly nails as "loose, lo-fi house music." They broke Ital to the world; guided out the triumphant first Fort Romeau LP; dropped gorgeous, pastel-coloured 12"s from the likes of the Browns' own LA Vampires, Beat Detectives, Octa Octa and Bobby Browser – whose Still Browsing is still, for this author's money, pound-for-pound the strongest release in the catalogue.

Skip forward to the present day, and an element of the distinctiveness has been lost; chalk that up to saturation of the market. But quietly 100% Silk has been having a really, really good year – and look set to continue the rich vein of form over the next six months and beyond, if this Upfront is anything to go by. A slew of familiar faces crop up in the shape of that man Browser, Jupiter Jax and The Cyclist (twice), plus a handful of new signeés and some unheralded names to boot.

Curdled acid bangers nestle up against soft-lit understated numbers but, true to form, a healthy proportion of the songs on offer are glistening and groovy, some even with glassy vocals recalling long-since-forgotten synth-pop trios (or thereabouts). Amanda terms it a 'Mixfile', which sounds about right: take a breather, fetch a cool one and most of the time you'd be forgiven for thinking your player had skipped over. Around the 36 minute mark a hi-NRG chugger dissolves straight into a spot of downtempo keyboard and click track. It's not not not fun.

On balance, it's a testament to the label's depth of output, and the vivid imagination of the minds behind it. Long may they reign in their own idiosyncratic way.