Mysterious dubstep duo Various Production have skulked back into view.

Since 2002’s European EP, Adam Phillips and Ian Carter have been operating under the cover of darkness, putting out a stream of brittle, angular dubstep 12″s without much in the way of bio or press. As 2004 calling card ‘Hater’ and 2006’s The World Is Gone (released on XL) demonstrated, the pair were often closer in spirit to Portishead than Digital Mystikz, incorporating doleful vocal hooks and acoustic instrumentation into their sound; it’s hard not to read their influence in recent records from Old Apparatus and LHF. After a rush of late 2000s productivity and a collaborative LP with poet Gerry Mitchell in 2009, the pair have confined themselves to a steady stream of singles on their own, vinyl-only Various label.

As Juno Plus report, Various have started a new digital label, Version. The imprint will kick off with a digital single, titled ‘Worse’, on Monday. The track – whose lovely artwork is available to view above – is a stop-start house track full of rickety clockwork percussion and some Rob Base whoops. The pair will follow up with a new 12″ on Various, ’12seven’/’KEY’, later in the month. Both again see them trade dubstep for swung house, although the doomy atomspherics and tactile programming of their best work are still present and correct. The artwork for the latter is above. Both releases are available to stream below.