RECORD OF THE MONTH | INTERVIEW: DEEP TEKNOLOGI | INTERVIEW: TERROR DANJAH
A Made Up Sound
“Sun Touch”
(A Made Up Sound | AMUS002)
Purchase on Boomkat
Dave Huismans is probably best known for his work as 2562, a project that exists on the knife-edge running between dubstep and techno. As great as this material is, I’ve found his releases under the A Made Up Sound moniker even more fascinating, since that’s often the place where he pushes his sound down stranger avenues. Last year’s “Rework / Closer” 12″ is my favourite thing he’s released to date: this sort of dusty techno-leaning dubstep that could almost have been dug up from some Detroit deity’s basement. On this new release, Huismans strips things down a little, so “Sun Touch” emerges from metallic clank, loosening and tightening the beat until he settles on a groove. The track is mostly elaborate percussion: tight, crisp drum programming that still seems to swing. A funky, sinuous bassline winds itself among the foundations, melodic accents provided by hisses and clanks before a staccato keyboard phrase punches through the sounds of malfunctioning machinery. Everything is funky, Huismans seems to be saying, as long as you’re listening right. “Drain” is more ominous, wavering layers of drone given form and substance by the kick of the beat underneath it, until the amorphous swirl resolves into mysterious shapes glimpsed through the mist. It’s late-night haunted house and more proof that the A Made Up Sound name is still Huisman’s outlet for his more left-field tendencies. Let’s hope he continues to explore these areas, because I can’t get enough. The 12″ is rounded out by “Untitled (Original Shortcut),” a rough demo of last year’s “Love in Outer Space” (one of the strongest cuts on the 2562 [i]Unbalance[/i] album) which strips down the elaborate final product into a lovely snippet of raw, Drexciyan aquatic electro. [SO]
Joy Orbison
The Shrew Would Have Cushioned The Blow EP
(AUS Music | AUS1026)
Purchase on Beatport
Let’s just get the skeleton out of the closet: “Hyph Mngo.” Okay? There. Now, this. “The Shrew Would Have Cushioned The Blow” chops and dices a vocal sample and sprinkles it finely over soft-focused beats and gently pulsing synths just as on that already-legendary track, but it’s no simple retread. After a dangerously similar intro, instead of hitting with the euphoric drop as you’d expect it to, the track instead simmers into a more relaxed groove, content to simply cook instead of hitting you over the head with its hook. You might think it underwhelming, but another “Hyph Mngo” would have induced more deserving yawns than this earnest slice of downbeat. B-side “So Derobe” takes things down a notch further, taking an understated beat that punches at just the right times, glorious synth arpeggios, and an irresistible vocal sample that trickles down the track like a rushing creek eventually culminating into a waterfall — think Joy Orbison doing sparkly, modern R&B. Actress predictably fucks things around a bit on his remix of “Shrew”, unscrewing all the joints in the track just slightly so that it’s a wonky, off-centre mess, barely able to keep from toppling over and never sounding quite proper. It plays games with expectations, reapeating the main synth melody ad nauseum at what sounds like the completely wrong speed, introducing a stark 4/4 beat almost randomly, and playing a completely unrelated speech sample. There’s also demented keys, wheezing machinery, and almost hilariously, the vocal sample from the original track left almost untouched — completely as is, as if reminding you that this is actually a remix and not just a new Actress production. No, Joy Orbison’s single for AUS is not destined to be another seizure-inducing crossover smash, but it’s something else entirely — a mature set of tracks that might be just as good for sitting down to dinner as dancing. [AR]
Rude Kid
Jack Daniels EP
(No Hats No Hoods | NHNH009)
Purchase on Boomkat
No Hats No Hoods bless us once again with another fantastic release, this time from Rude Kid who seems to be out to show Terror Danjah that he can’t have it all his way in the instrumental grime stakes. The title track is ridiculous right from the gate, when that raved-up beat drops a few seconds in, you’re swept up in this amazing propulsive rush, this synth-squelched house absolutely flying past in a sweaty, gleeful tangle. It lays waste to categorisations in the thrill of the moment, bathing in the glow of that utterly intoxicating beat. After a track like that, you’d think the momentum would be squandered, but as soon as his version of “London Town” opens with piano chords and stomp, you know there’s nothing to worry about. It slides between moody neon synth squiggles and euphoric garage anthem as if they’re all part of one beautiful continuum, and in his hands they are. Over the other side, things get grimier as “Emergency” rolls on swagger drums and guttural synth gurgles, chopped to staccato fragments and then reassembled into a sticky, glutinous groove. It’s lurid, demented funk, and it’s fucking fantastic. All that remains is for our favourite gremlin to come crawling out of the woodwork to provide an assist for the final track “Beat Crawler.” It’s all filthy strings and purple flourishes and grinding low end, building into this swaying chorus that seems barely able to keep it together, only to slide everything into place at the last second like a magician’s trick. Seriously huge, inspiring business and I know I’m being greedy when I want more, but this is too good not to crave second helpings. [SO]
Martyn
Remixes 1/2 / Remixes 2/2
(3024 | 3024006/3024006)
Purchase Vol. 1 on Boomkat / Purchase Vol. 2 on Boomkat
Coming off of his amazing Fabric mix and equally amazing LP Great Lengths, Martyn casually blesses us with two remix 12s. These aren’t just any remixers — Zomby, Redshape, Ben Klock, Illum Sphere, and Roska. Dude has connections and a wide-ranging taste, which ultimately means that there is not a single boring second on this separately-released double pack. Zomby stretches his antagonism over five minutes for his remix of “Hear Me”, about double the duration of the typical Zomby-torture. It makes for a dizzying and disorienting five minutes, and it sounds more like a Zomby track than anything else — but it’s one infused with Martyn’s elegance, his taste for unfurling rhythms, and his preference for sparsely mixed, uncluttered tracks. It’s a Zomby onion, where every layer of the track is visible and easily separated. Redshape turns “Seventy Four” into a gauzy, understated techno odyssey that builds excruciatingly slowly to… nothing. It’s all ride and no destination, never once jumping the gate and blanketing everything with luxurious sound waves or billowing across the room — but the ride itself is so enjoyable that forgoing the climax doesn’t feel like a sacrifice anyway, and it makes for a neat trick. He even reinforces the narcotic, slow drugginess of it all by humorously rearranging the vocal sample into “four-twenty.” Ben Klock wins ‘best remix’ honours with his breathtaking reconstruction of “Is This Insanity,” replacing Martyn’s dubstep beats with an insistent house beat and pinning Spaceape’s unmistakable presence down with his own typical ambiguous industrial sounds, machines rubbing together and turbines whirring, all made eerie by a sci-fi synth flourish that whines insistently underneath Spaceape’s fluid vocals. Illum Sphere brings lush psychedelia to “Brilliant Orange,” layering malfunctioning dubstep percussion over a bed of synth washes that sound like they’re being played back on a dissolving tape, like something lifted from a Basinski track. Roska, on a digital-only bonus track, gives Klock a run for his money with his minimal and cold funky rework of “Words,” backing dBridge’s breathy vocals with barebones percussion and a synth riff so porous and thin that you could poke holes through it with your finger. All of these remixes are riveting in their uncompromising reinterpretation of Martyn’s material, and the releases themselves share in Martyn’s good-natured hybridism; here we have five disparate styles and remixers sitting next to each other, and never do they feel out of place or lost next to each other. It’s an essential piece of wax (or data) for anyone even remotely interested in techno, funky, or dubstep. [AR]
D1
“Jus Business” / “Pitcher”
(Dub Police | DP035)
Purchase on Boomkat
Ignoramus alert: I have to admit that this is the first D1 material I’ve ever heard. There are holes in my early dubstep education, but this 12″ has me scrambling through the Tempa back catalogue looking for more. A-side “Jus Business” opens with snatches of dialogue from The Wire, Stringer and Avon standing at the brink of their friendship dissolving into betrayal and bloodshed. “That’s right. Jus’ business,” Avon says sarcastically and the beat drops, dark and heavy, all swollen bass throb and frantic drum propulsion. When it inevitably breaks down, it’s surprisingly beautiful; a fragile, mournful melody rides atop a loose piano riff before the beat comes back in, some deep-down rave hurtling into the night and leaving a trail of loss and regret behind it. “Just dream with me,” the sample says, but we know how this ends. On the other side, “Pitcher” opens in sepia melancholy, synth wash pinned down by a loping beat before the melody gets tweaked up into a warning siren and the bass comes rolling in. It moves so fast it that the laser-beam keyboards fly off behind it in the slipstream, victims of the track’s relentless forward movement. When the beat pulls back, it feels like the track slows down, but it’s all just sleight of hand, a trick to get you off balance so that when it crashes back in again, you’ll almost feel the G-force. As a bonus track, we get a version of “Pitcher” that slows down to 128bpm. Listening to the two versions back to back is almost surreal, like you’re watching time slow down before your eyes, people walking past wading through treacle as the world spins sluggishly on its axis. It’s a neat trick, but possibly works even better when you reverse the effect and the world around you disappears into a blur as the full-speed version of “Pitcher” takes hold. If his past holds more treasures like this, I can’t wait to uncover them. [SO]
XI
“000” / “Slippin”
(Immerse Records | IME015)
Purchase on Boomkat
Toronto’s XI takes us to the outer reaches of the atmosphere with this hugely impressive chunk of spacebass. “000” endlessly and methodically ascends toward the heavens with its powerful, clattering polyrhythms cushioned by bass drops and neurotic sampled speech — it would sound paranoid were it not so ebullient. On the flip, “Slippin” takes us out of the space station for a breathtaking spacewalk with jerky, zero-gravity drums that feel like they’re anxiously pushing forward through the weightless abyss into a magnetic storm of churning, colliding synths — synths that sound somewhere between something self-consciously spacey and vintage AFX acid sublimity. That the single manages to be so evocative with such basic elements is pleasantly surprising, even exciting, and places XI at the precipice of what is quite possibly yet another branch in the already-crowded bass music oeuvre. Never does he resort to gimmickry, or stoop to baser elements of production; his sounds are clean, punchy and sparkle with a clarity unusual for dubstep. With this single he has produced something sexy, sleek, contoured, and aerodynamic, like a stealth fighter plane shooting through a pitch black night sky so quickly that the clouds look like stars. It feels unmistakably futuristic, forward-thinking, and its vision is completely unforgiving — but despite that it’s above-all accessible. Lacking the threatening bass wobble of dubstep’s most popular producers and the sometimes-alienating angularity of its more experimental scientists, it’s a happy medium that feels more like a natural synthesis than a compromise. [AR]
Fantastic Mr Fox
Sketches EP
(Black Acre | ACRE016)
Purchase on Boomkat
Fantastic Mr Fox first came to my attention with his remix of Untold’s haunted dancefloor track “Yukon,” which recast it as splintered wonk’n’b, a forerunner of James Blake’s fantastic Untold remix from last year. Besides that, he’s released 12″s on Black Acre, Hemlock and 2nd Drop with partner Rich Reason, but this is his first official solo EP. “Sketches” works with tight syncopations, beats scissoring underneath these queasy, blurred melodies that seem to distort under the rhythmic pressure. Partway through it dissolves into eerie ambient clutter, a ghostly vocal snippet drifting out of the murk before the beat reasserts itself. Overall, it’s reminiscent of Brackles viewed through a glass darkly, things wrenched ever so slightly wrong in the translation. “Brickabrac” steps fast and nimble, lush samples crumbling into glitchy detritus and being made whole again, while “If I” has a nice line in choppy vocal snippets, harking back to classic garage styles. The EP is rounded out with a Sbtrkt remix of the title track, slowing things down a bit to allow the melodies to breathe more freely, revealing them to be these late-night smears of melancholy, a soundtrack to riding home in a taxi while the world outside is turned to watery smears by the rain running down the windows. Neon-lit figures move like blurs and you can’t tell which one might be her. It’s a beautiful, affecting track, especially when the strings-slow burn behind the beats in the breakdown or when the melody crystallises in the outro, vague shapes coming into focus just in time to watch her walking away. [SO]
Desto
Desto EP
(Noppa | NOPPA005)
Purchase on Boomkat
In the ever-evolving and inbreeding world of bass, it’s all about innovation; new sounds and styles are forged as indiscriminately as pennies, and so producers who either choose to tinker with existing sounds often run the risk of being ignored. Desto is one of these, sort of — the Finnish producer’s third release, on Noppa recordings, sounds a bit like a state-of-the-genre manifesto — he doesn’t do much new here but what he does choose to assimilate into his repertoire, he executes really well. Opening track “Gremlinz” is a Bristol pastiche, picking up on Joker’s huge fuzz bass and anthemic synths, combining it with Punch Drunk’s psychedelic wobble and turning it into something nearly perfect, that shimmers and rotates magnificently like some sort of iridescent purple disco ball. “Dark Matter” is a slice of militant house, pairing gargantuan bass drops with a menacing horn sample and a skittering beat, while “Wizard of War” is a full-on Zomby skank, unforgivingly and frantically winding up and unravelling its synth hook until you feel completely green. Then the bass hits you in the gut and you fall to the ground, a little bit sick and a whole lot incapacitated; it’s a wild ride but the pain quickly turns to pleasure, and the way Desto manages to stop the beat in its tracks without ever feeling forced or herky-jerky is impressive. Just when you think it’s over, the track repeats its nasty prank and by the end of it you’ll probably want to rest for a bit. Closer “Cold VIP” wraps things up nicely with a subdued garage beat and a mournful synth melody that sounds like rays of aurora borealis finding their way through in between the contours of the clattering percussion. All things considered, Desto’s EP is not a groundbreaking release; in fact, each track feels like a sort of snapshot of a certain regional sound or genre, but all imbued with a wonderful sense of colour and subtlety. Desto’s music is above all accessible — even the disorienting “Wizard of War” is more fun than it is menacing, the stark “Dark Matter” more anthemic than threatening. [AR]
Royal-T
1-Up or Shatap EP
(No Hats No Hoods | NHNH008)
Purchase on Boomkat
I wasn’t allowed a Nintendo growing up, so I never got to experience the thrill of jumping on toadstools, defeating Bowser or rescuing Princess Peach. It wasn’t until this year that my sons and I played through the new Wii reboot of Super Mario Bros and I finally got to fulfil those childhood dreams. Then we heard this track, with power-ups and new lives scattered everywhere like the best hidden area you’ll ever find and now it’s our new favourite song. Apparently a massive grime riddim on the underground circuits last year, it’s taken a while to wend its way to suburban New Zealand households but it’s getting major play here now. It’s not just the Mario samples; it’s the way the massive synth hook crashes down again and again over that choppy tropical percussion, pausing only to play the samples out like hooks. It’s raw and it’s funky as hell. Martin Kemp’s remix hollows things out, putting the spotlight on the intricacies of the rhythm rather than that massive synth but without losing any of the funk. These two tracks alone would be enough greatness to go around but the Rockz remix paints things a demented purple, unspooling this lurid synthline over pixellated landscapes like Joker slumped in front of his TV screen after an all-nighter. And the remaining tracks are much more than just bonus material: “Mega” comes on like Guido gone grime, triumphant orchestral flourishes leading the way into the jaws of this massive bassline that stomps like giant Bowser, a track that in the hands of J-Beatz becomes even more dystopian, a cinematic city stroll that gets lost down dark streets where all the lights have been smashed and even the shadows have blades. The original “Beat Fighter” is gleefully rolling 8-bit funk that begs you to dance, but Bok Bok’s remix is just massive – its dizzy chiptune splatter, downwards-spiralling melodies and beats in free-fall make it feel like it’s chasing its own tail down the rabbit hole, like a grimed-up version of Peverelist’s “Clunk Click Every Trip.” “Gargoyle” closes things out with Carpenter strings and enormous bass wobble – that same sort of pugilistic, exhilirating take on ‘dubstep’ that Terror Danjah brings to the table. It’s really an album length experience, but this so-called EP is more brilliant evidence that grime, dubstep and funky are continuing to merge into one glorious whole. No Hats No Hoods: more please? [SO]
F
“Energy Distortion” / “Energy Distortion (Untold Remix)”
(7EVEN | 7EVEN012)
Purchase on Boomkat
French dubstep label 7even have been quietly releasing fantastic twelves for the last couple of years or so from names like Likhan, Helixir and the mysteriously titled ‘F’ (quick picks: Likhan’s smoke-and-steel “Qumran / Daione Sidhe” and F’s spooked heavyweight killer “The Untitled Dub / Phantom”). This new 12″ is the first track from his upcoming Energy Distortion album and finds him in typically ferocious form, sculpting a sleek groove that gleams metallic in the light. There are echoes of Basic Channel in here, dubbed out chords drifting through the throbbing mechanism of the beat. Snatches of vocal and cyclical bleeps drift past, but this is primarily a matter of percussion, F’s immaculate syncopations doing the driving. It’s a perfect soundtrack for walk through the industrial district in the dead of night, where the factories clank and clatter to themselves, breathing out fumes into the cold air. On the flipside is none other than Jack Dunning, one of Britain’s premier mesmerists, who this time tones things down a little. It opens in a haze of synth tones before the bass pulses come in, this lovely wash of sound swirling in the air as the beat throbs underneath, finally coming to the boil with this huge, tumbling bassline that seems to obliterate anyone in its path. Melodies bob to the surface but are eventually dragged back under by the force of that subterranean rumble. On the whole, it’s a little more straightforward than we’ve recently come to expect from Untold, but it works really well and complements the original perfectly. A great little teaser for what’s sure to be a fantastic album. [SO]
Cosmin TRG
Now You Know EP
(Tempa | TEMPA048)
Purchase on Boomkat
TRG (now prefixed with real name ‘Cosmin’) makes a sudden return with his decidedly non-dubstep EP for Tempa — it’s equal parts funky house, techno and dubstep. Now You Know’s six tracks are rolling percussive machinations, indiscriminately crushing everything in their path. These tracks are unstoppable, big dumb dance tracks that feel a bit like a gigantic puppy tackling and licking you all over, kinda gross but admittedly enjoyable. Opener “Twilight Riddim” storms from the start with horror movie strings, huge drums and synths that start to feel like standing in front of a jet engine, “Discotek” turns things appropriately disco and somehow incorporates a vocal sample in with all the thrashing percussion making it catchy as well as everything else — as if it wasn’t sensory overload before. “Siberian Poker” is the funkiest here with its fidgety drums and cascading bleeps, and “Since Last Night” and “Strobe Lick” bring the more traditional dubstep styles, the former a relatively contemplative track with shimmering phased pianos and (what else) pounding drums, and the latter’s half-step coasting on thick slabs of bass. But the unquestionable peak is the gorgeous “Purple Lights,” decked out in a full-on ravers’ outfit with fluorescent-framed sunglasses and everything. It’s a fuzzy blur of disorienting strobelight synths and gloriously convoluted percussion; at any moment there’s the relentless, rollicking drums, the softly filtered, cushioned techno percussion and an insistent house kick that pops up every once in a while as well. It somehow manages to bridge the gap between dubstep, techno, trad house, funky house, and even a little bit of trance without sounding too laboured. You’d think an EP with six straight bangers — absolutely no rest, no ambient interlude, nothing of the sort — would be a little bit much, but Cosmin TRG is so good at building momentum it would have been foolish for him to stop. Perhaps most ironically, the EP finally unwinds itself with its most traditionally dubstep moment — who the hell knows where he’s going to end up next? [AR]
The launch of Local Action and the release of T Williams EP. F has a killer album dropping in March, Scuba is set to blow some minds with his Triangulation LP, Breakage builds a Foundation with a little help from his friends (Burial!), Kyle Hall will singlehandedly redefine dubstep with his release on Hyperdub, unless James Blake gets to it first with amazing releases out on Hessle Audio and Brainmath in March. Screw Loose Records is set to explode with Statix’s fiery “Mind Over Matter” finally gettings its overdue release in March followed by even more destruction later in the year, and DJ Madd has a slew of promising releases lined up, most notably two records on Boka. Planet Mu has releases from Starkey, brand new signee Rudi Zygadlo, Swindle, and more in the pipeline. Butterz will continue its hot-streak with the all-star Quality Street EP, Well Rounded will continue its rapid ascent with an EP from Hackman, Joker will (hopefully) finally release his epic dubplate “Tron,” and RAMP will unleash Computer Jay’s “Maintain” backed with remixes by Ikonika and FaltyDL, not to mention a fantastic EP on Rush Hour by the latter. And, of course, we’ll be back in March with some deep interviews and a few surprises.
RECORD OF THE MONTH | INTERVIEW: DEEP TEKNOLOGI | INTERVIEW: TERROR DANJAH
If you’re a producer or label and have tracks you would like to submit for consideration for the column, e-mail Andrew Ryce.
