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Shlomi Aber enters 2008 with the not unenviable weight of expectation on his shoulders. Picked to shine by journos, DJs, producers, in fact pretty much the entire dance music fraternity, after a steady upward curve of releases over the last eighteen months, he's swapped the element of surprise for a genuinely deserved reputation for idiosyncratic house, bathed in lush synths and inventive arrangements. In this time the Israeli graced everything from Cocoon and Ovum to Renaissance, Toolroom and his own Be As One imprint and was transformed from his country's best kept secret to a globe-spanning artist.

So, pressure to deliver is raised, and following his debut album at the end of 2007, it's to Josh Wink's Ovum that he returns to follow up to last summer's epic Freakside, a release that proved he was more than a one trick pony, with a pair of similarly glitchy, twitchy slices of underground techniness.

Title track Tokyo Shanghai is all bleeps, flicks and reverbs, discordant synths rattling around like nails in a jar, while all the while a slow, grooving bassline lumbers under the track. But it doesn't quite break free of its shackles. While there's definitely all the ingredients that made up his previous visit to the label, it doesn't seem to have quite the same magic. There's nothing amiss with the execution, but the sum of the parts don't quite form the whole.

Quivery is a different beast. From the outset, the wandering 303-esque acid tweaks are a throwback to the days of baggies, whistles and smileys, a welcome contrast to the slightly colder flip. There's atmospheric wooshes, and deft drops, and the percussion is tight, but the overall effect is still a little thin. While there's no denying the EP will sound fantastic on a huge, warm system, it's a little lost otherwise. Not filler by any means, but treading water rather than exploring new depths for one of 2007's brightest stars.