West London's most forward thinking Drum & Bass party, Forces Electric, returns to the subterranean lair that is Ginglik this coming Friday 25th May.
Heading the bill are heavy hitting northerners,Octane & DLR. The pair have made a name for themselves with a hard and techy palette of bass and drum, verging on the experimental but firmly locked on the dancefloor. Releasing music via, among others, Dispatch Recordings and that mighty institution Renegade Hardware, they're 9 years in the game now and bubbling along nicely. Get practicing your screwface NOW.
Next up on the bill is Berlin's Es.tereo. On a deeper tip, there is a disticntly German influence to music from this producer's corner. 170 BPM rhythms are decoded and streamlined, timed against lush, washy synths and injected into impossible reverb environments. The result is what I imagine Monolake would come up with, had he been a drum & bass head.
Forces Electric curators Oliver Yorke & Candie will also be taking to the decks. Reflecting their love for all things drum, expect to be hit by the deep and introspective, to the hard and serious. The pair have been hard at work, with various bits and pieces in the pipeline,. Just check their soundcloud pages to see what I mean. Expect to hear a lot of these fresh dubs and more on the night. I'm also told we should expect a joint release from them on Plush Recordings soon. More on that soon...
Forces Electric aims to reflect the intelligent side of Drum & Bass. During the last few years this sub-strand of 170 bpm has exploded in popularity around world, due to the rise of breakaway artists like dBridge, Alix Perez, Commix, and Instra:Mental, which is redefining the dancefloor. This is the antidote to all the DJ Hazards, Wilkinsons and Original Sins of this world that have been trying their hardest to eradicate the music from Drum & Bass music for so long now... But you've probably read my moans about the rise and fall and rise again, of Drum & Bass already, so enough of that. If you want the good stuff, the minimal, the maximal, the autonomic, and the deadly, make sure you head West next Friday.
No advance tickets, but it's just £6 before 10pm (£8 after) at Ginglik, 1 Shepherds Bush Green, London W12 8PH
Pal Joey & Teedy G - Life Accapella Dauwd - Ikopol John Tejada - Mono On Mono Mak & Pasteman - Heat (Bondax Remix) Chris Brann, P'taah, Tiombe Lockhart - Dance Until We Die (Kenny Dope Remix) Doc Daneeka & Benjamin Damage - Battleships Klubfilter - Illumination (In The Garden Of Love) Maribou State - Got Me Down (Bondax Remix) Unknown - Unknown Sepehr - Apple Bottoms Noi - Imperfections Groove Armada - Oh Tweek To Me Kill Frenzy & Nick Monaco - This1that1 Machinedrum - Van Vogue Justin Martin - Ruff Stuff Unknown - Unknown Justin Martin - Hood Rich (Extended Edit) Robag Wruhme - Tulpa Ovi
The American producer treads an invisible line between serious dancefloor and psyched-out weirdness. A highlight from the mix is his track 'Hood Rich' which is a spaced out booty shaker, peppered with pitch-twisted vocal samples and a booming, delay sync'd bass line which reminds me somewhat of Metro Area's Miura. It's very good.
Last night I stumbled on this actually rather excellent compilation of unknown artists, over on I Love Bass Music's Bandcamp page. You can listen and download from the player below:
Styles range from the dubstep & garage influenced, to slower BPMs reflecting disco & boogie. And then there's all this weird stuff in between where it gets very interesting indeed.
For 17 artists who, as far as I know are quite unknown and potentially unreleased, the level of quality on this release is high. It's also a 'name your price' priced album. So you could download it for free (if you are the evil sort), or if you're one of the few who believes an artist should get paid for their effort, you can choose to pay them as much as you like.
I Love Bass Music appears to be frantic collective of Canadian music enthusiasts who are posting, sharing and generally bigging up the music they love in every way they can get their hands on.
The track was recently aired on Pete Tong's BBC Radio 1 show, but has also drawn some controversy after a fan posted the track on YouTube accompanied by a montage of some seriously scantily clad 'models', which seems to be a growing trend for YouTube music uploaders. Obviously I'm going to post the video...
The video compelled young producers to release a statement on Facebook -
"Hey guys, just to give you a heads up on the video that's currently on YouTube for 'What's In Your Head'. It's not an official video that either us, or the label have anything to do with. Thank you to the person who created it and to everyone who has enjoyed it, but we are also sorry if it has caused any offence to anyone. We are in the process of commissioning an OFFICIAL video for one of the other tunes on the EP."
Well, sex sells, doesn't it.
Disclosure made a huge impact on both the mainstream and underground very quickly, with a slick, clean and tough sound, that oozes the kind of confidence that a seasoned producer brings to the buttons. Yet, the pair released their first tracks last year aged 17 and 19 years old. That is bare-faced talent, right there. 'What's In Your Head' continues an incremental development of their sound, still full of good ideas and progression.
My favourite has to be the remix they did for Jessie Ware. Always goes down well wherever it's played:
OK, so it's me again. Drowning in the sea of information, music and very occasionally witty banter that is the internet, I have been once again distracted for too long by the REAL WORLD. That is the place where I actually make a difference - and also get paid. I ask you once again to forgive.
So to business - there are so many things I want to post on here - but I've got to start somewhere. I have been planning to write about one of my favourite artists, Om Unit, as well lots of other things, for quite some time, but for now you're just going to have to copy and paste that name in Google to see what I mean. More on him later. What I think you should hear right now though, is Moresounds.
Moresounds is a French producer (say what you like about the French, but can't deny they are bloody good on the buttons) who is about to put out an EP onCosmic Bridge (label boss: Om Unit), which is a collection of serious mutated hip-hop / dub / juke jungle business. He did this mix unreleased material along these lines, see & enjoy below:
It's pretty refreshing and punchy. Lots of ups and downs. Lots of subs...
Moresounds' breath Control EP is out on May 21st, on Cosmic Bridge.
BONUS: If you head over to Lowriders Collective, you can read a bit more, and download the final track from the EP, Cannabis, for free. Links to read and download below:
Hello, it's your distracted author here. Apologies for the posting hiatus, real life can be quite demanding sometimes, and unfortunately it's the blog that seems to suffer every time...
Getting back to normality on this otherwise completely uneventful Monday morning, I humbly present volume 2 of the Soul Fools series of disco-muscle-flexing mixtapes: Works best on an battery powered boom box.Promise I'll be back soon! Until then.
Livity Sound is a new label project being lead by Bristol's Peverelist. Better known for being one of dubstep's household names - as far as the deeper side of the genre is concerned - Peverelist (or more recently, just Pev) started Livity Sound to house the more techno-influenced music that he, and fellow label mates Kowton and Asusu have been producing recently.
I personally find this music absolutely fascinating. Pev's mixes really breathe life into this style - something I find impossible to do myself when dealing with this particular falvour of techno-influenced bass music. Best just leave it to Pev then...
So this week's Friday mix is an extract from Benji B's Radio 1 show from last month, that Peverelist rather helpfully posted online just over a week ago, showcasing this new direction. Have a listen:
And, if you like this, you can also download another similar, but somewhat more comprehensive mix he did for Sonic Router from a while back:
Livity Sound take over Room 1 at Fabric on 6th April.
My, what a lovely, sunny Monday it is here in lovely south London.
I'm starting my week with a free EP of remixes from futuristic garage maestro Ollie MacFarlane. Ollie's is the last record to be released on Dual Signal Records, which has had a string of eclectic releases since it was set up in May 2010 by Kynch & Toronto Is Broken.
Straight out of Bristol, Ollie's sound is packed with colour, detail and soul. The EP kicks off with his VIP rework of the original - which breaks up the euphoric 2 step flow into a dark, halting dubstep break. Remixes from Velvet Crab, DSR's Toronto Is Broken, Phortysiks and Sepia, take the distant soulful vocal sample and wrap it round a deep house groove, a 140BPM jungle smasher, a searing dubstep tear-out and a minimal-ised garage joint respectively.
However, my personal favourite has to be the last track - the original. It's a pumping 4x4 number, which effortlessly balances the beautiful processed vocals against a wobbling old-skool bassline rigged to explode a dance floor.
The EP is free to download, either single tracks via Soundcloud, or you can cop the whole thing in an rar file here:
There was never a doubt in my mind about what would be this week's Friday Mix, when my good pal LarrySun dropped this technical disco-house bomb, fresh at only 24 hours old.
LarrySun & DJ Buds - both featured previously on this blog, both have a shared love for things disco, and have teamed up under the collaborative title Soul Fools and have been making waves around South London with their rather successful 80s/90s disco night, Boogie Nights.With a huge following already in tow, the night seems to have tapped into a crowd of Londoners thirsty for classic soulful jams.
They've also recently set up with Clapham's Hed Kandi bar where for the past few weeks they've been taking over Thursday's proceedings with their box full of slamming funk, disco and house tunes.
Larry's words:
"Did this mix in ableton, but it's based on loads of mixes I've done live in serato when playing out. Never had the time to sit at my decks to work out and record it so it was mostly done on mega busses with people giving me funny looks as I nod my head to the beat.
I wanted to represent the vibes i'd usualy take you on a longer set but condense it into an hour, I hope this mix will be part of your soundtrack for summer 2012!"
Tracklist 1. Jellybean feat. Elisa Fiorillo- Who Found Who 2. The O'Jays- For The Love Of Money 3. Persius-Russian Girlfriends 4. Lionel Richie- 1000 Kisses(Ejecta Edit) (+Jay Z Izzo aca) 5. Debonair -Winter Madness (+Afrika Bambaataa Get up and Dance aca) 6. Faith Evans- Love Like This (Waifs & Strays bootleg) 7. Talking Heads- Naive Melody 8. Yacht- Psychic City (Classixx Remix) 9. Midnight Star- Midas Touch 10. Friendly Fires- Hurting (Tensnake remix) 11. Marvin Gaye- Sunny (Mercury Edit) 12. Bobby Brown- My Perogative (Joe T Vannelli light mix) 13. Grum- Can't Shake This Feeling 14. Britney Spears -If U Seek Amy (U-Tern Disco Remix Instrumental) (+ MC Neat- Ain't No Stoppin Us Aca) 15. Steve Silk Hurley- The Word is Love 16. Hercules & Love Affair- Blind (Frankie Knuckles Rmx) 17. Randy Crawford- Give Me The Night (Peter's Vocal Mix) 18. Boogaloo Crew- Nice Up The Function (+ Armand Van Helden- Sugar Is Sweeter) 19. Rogerseventytwo- You Take Me Higher (+ Doug Lazy- Let It Roll Aca) 20. Reboot - Enjoy Music (Crazy P Remix) 21. Paul Johnson-Get Get Down (Wiley-Fame&Money Aca) 22. Supafly- Erotic City 23. Freak Power- Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out 24. Junior Senior- Move Your Feet (Unknown Bootleg) 25. SBTRKT-Pharoes 26. Hot Chip- The Warning
Just a quick one to big up team THEM, who are holding another excellent party this weekend at Elephant & Castle's Corsica Studios.
Saturday's proceedings include DJ sets from 2562, Pinch, Dark Sky, Pariah, Kinky Leighton, Ruffick and more. I'm also told that a very special guest will be gracing buttons in the main room. Make no mistake. You don't want to miss this.
