'ARP3' has been slaying London dancefloors recently in the hands of Shepherd himself, Ben UFO and Joy Orbison: a natural sequel to 'Vacuum Boogie', it's a glorious, near-transparent nine minutes of house music, repeatedly set rolling forward, adrift on rough, churning clouds of low-end. Opener 'Myrtle Avenue' immediately invites Parrish comparisons - a single overarching theme is drawn out and explored over ten minutes. His rhythms are elastic and swung, buffeted by chunky pulses of sub-bass. While the connection to US house especially is apparent enough, Shepherd's music is distinct in its involvement with our own dance music history. At 37 minutes long, its five tracks span more stylistic ground than many full-length albums - between them they draw in Theo Parrish-style machine funk, garage-infused house and the sort of nocturnal soul he's recently been producing for Fatima. Shadows is Shepherd's most expansive release to date, and cements his reputation as one of the UK's most adventurous producers.

It's been a pleasure to follow the ongoing development of Sam Shepherd's music - what's so striking about his output as Floating Points is that it's been hyper-focused and deeply individual right from the get-go (if you require a case in point, cast your ears backward to 'Vacuum Boogie', one of the most arresting and emotionally involving house tracks in recent memory). Watch this space for our next instalment. Today's column features the heftiest missive so far from London soul/funk/house prodigy Floating Points, some floor-destroying music from Bristol, London and Berlin and more dark abstractions from Actress and Raime. So it feels good to be seeing this year's lot out in style.

It's likely to be the year's last straight-up reviews version of this column, barring a sudden rush of releases come late December (unlikely, given that release schedules usually wind down for a couple of weeks around then). Hello, and welcome to another edition of Hyperspecific.

Soundhack review