Premiere: Changing Faces – Inside Your Mind

We’re proud to present the premiere of a sublime deep liquid roller from Slovakian producer Changing Faces out today on Fokuz Recordings. Inside Your Mind brings together crisp breaks, soft melodies and occasional crunchy bass swells for an emotional ride which fits the Fokuz sound perfectly; blissful stuff.

You can grab the track (along with a rather tasty Calibre remix of Impish’s With You) from Beatport, or hit up the Fokuz Store to get it on 12″.

Enei – Rituals LP [Critical]

Enei returns to Critical with his sophomore LP following up 2012’s excellent debut MachinesRituals feels very much like a continuation of the themes found on Machines, with perhaps a slightly broader array of tones reflecting the evolution of Enei’s production in the intervening years.

The moody tech which formed so much of his debut LP (and indeed his discography) is still present here on tracks like Bad Proof and Iron Curtain, but there are also a selection of brighter cuts featuring some excellent vocalists. Frank Carter III (who you should recognise from Ivy Lab’s seminal tracks Oblique and Afterthought) turns in a typically deft and soulful performance on the playful, jazzy Moment of Now, while Charlie Brix steps up to the mic for up front roller Homeworld and the darker and more introspective Just One Look.

It wouldn’t be a Critical LP without a few label roster collaborations and these don’t disappoint either. Kasra & DRS get on board for a pessimistic ode to the music industry on Lessons, providing one of the album’s punchiest tracks. Elsewhere Foreign Concept gets involved on the more melodic and contemplative Forgotten Planet, fellow Russian producer Eastcolors joins Enei for the raved up flavours of Jungle Business and neuro badman Mefjus climbs aboard for the typically relentless Dead Space.

Polished and punchy but with more than enough variation to keep things interesting, this is a solid album from a producer at the top of his game. Check out a minimix of the album’s tracks below and hit up the Critical Store to pre-order on your pick of physical and digital formats; the LP drops Friday 4th December.

Fanu – Polar

Prolific and dedicated break chopper Fanu is back with a new LP that sees him returning to his roots to some extent. As with much of the work that he first made his name with, Polar focuses on break chopping, dark aesthetics and a b-boy sampling style that’s very much cut from the same cloth as Paradox and the other originators of the drumfunk sound.

In terms of originality the album isn’t treading any particularly new ground but as a love letter to the versatility of the funk break it’s a thoroughly enjoyable and accomplished piece of work. Sometimes it’s more than enough to provide a well honed example of a specific style and Fanu is definitely up there with the best when it comes to chopping up drum loops and picking evocative samples.

You can hear the whole LP below via Soundcloud, and better still it’s available on a “pay what you want” basis from Fanu’s Bandcamp page. Crank the volume and enjoy those jungle textures the way they were always supposed to be!

November Roundup Part Two

As usual the D&B scene is throwing more material at our collective ears than we could ever possibly keep up with, so once again we’re here to assist your record buying proclivities with the best of the rest from Audio, Lockjaw, Soul:Motion & Colossus and more… Continue reading

Select Files #2 [CIA Records]

CIA are on a retrospective tip once again with the second volume of their Select Files series and they’ve dug out another fine selection from the label’s near 20 year back catalogue. Leading the charge is the instantly recognisable Squash; that synth riff should bring back some fond memories for the older ravers!

There are tons of other fantastic rollers in the pack here including Marky & XRS’s jazz-hands-inducing Get Down, Chroma’s Knock Knock and Break’s satisfyingly chunky remix of Breakfast Club. Best of all you can grab all 14 tracks for a mere five British pounds from Bandcamp; can’t say fairer than that! Check out the tracks below and grab the compilation at your leisure.

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Dojo Damager: Mefjus – Blitz

Austrian neuro wizard Mefjus returns to our weekly Dojo Damager feature with the title track from his forthcoming EP for Neosignal, Blitz. Three years on from his debut for the Neodigital arm of Phace & Misanthrop’s high class imprint it seems entirely fitting that Mefjus is now back on the main label with a solo EP and trust us, it’s all fire!

Blitz takes a leaf out of Phace’s playbook with a driving, throbbing bass groove set to a heavy drum line. The punchy arrangement makes for an utterly relentless vibe while still feeling more nuanced than the tearout stylings employed by some producers in the neurofunk scene. As the vocal sample so aptly puts it, more impact! Check out the track below and look for the EP dropping next month on vinyl and digital.

LTD EP Vol. 2 [Soul Trader]

Soul Trader Record’s latest EP sees a number of the scene’s biggest names teaming up for a Various Artists EP with heaps of liquid soul. BCee kicks things off with the beautifully emotive strains of Thought I Knew, bringing his signature rolling style and slightly muted euphoria to the table for an outing that provides plenty of evidence as to why he’s still a mainstay of the scene after all these years.

Elsewhere HLZ turns in a silky smooth roller on Broken Lights and McLeod (seen without Villem in a rare turn here) gets playful on the sultry and understated Stolen Kisses. For those with a taste for the more upfront stylings there’s also a fresh cut from Salaryman and an interesting drumstep remix of Random Movement from Simplification and Translate. Can’t argue with that! Check out the clips below and look for this on vinyl and digital from Nov 27th and Nov 30th respectively.

Hydro, Habstrakt, War & Mateba – The New Age [Utopia Music]

Mako’s Utopia Music imprint has been relatively quiet lately, probably due in no small part to Mako’s increasingly busy release schedule and his work on an LP for Metalheadz with DLR (which we can’t wait to hear).  Busy schedule notwithstanding, it seems the label is still getting some love as evidenced by their first new 12″ since Inner Revolution dropped at the start of the year.

Both tracks on the latest release come from super-collab style lineups, with Hydro at the centre of each. He’s recruited Habstrakt, War and Mateba for a chunky halftime outing on The New Age, which is all heaving sub bass and perfectly placed percussion, plus a few ominous pads for good measure. The track carries a really deep, tribal vibe and the overall effect is absolutely hypnotic.

Over on the flip Hydro is joined by Samurai Music/Auxiliary mainstay Sam KDC and unknown quantity Modabke for the achingly beautiful Voyage Nocturne. This one goes well outside of what can really be called D&B, hitting more of a downtempo/ambient vibe but still with those super crisp drums and an element of dark bass gargling away in the background behind the wash of jazzy licks, spacey synths and other instrumentation. If the first track was hypnotic this one is full on trance-inducing, and defies a worthy description.

Utopia Music continue to be one of the most exciting and innovative labels in the game, and we hope their strong tradition continues around Mako’s journey to the upper echelons of the scene! Check out the clips below hit up your favourite store to grab this on vinyl or digital right now.

Aversive – Fortress EP [Black Tuna]

Vancouver label Black Tuna have been carving quite a name for themselves over the past year with top notch D&B, Glitch-hop and Bass releases from local producers and some bigger names too, and their latest release from newcomer Aversive shows the label moving from strength to strength.

Kicking things off with the heavy, old school tech stylings of Tech Itch-style title track Fortress and then moving into the aptly titled bass vibrations of Didgeridoo, Aversive certainly has a good grasp of low end heft, and the crisp production never seems in danger of becoming muddy despite all the bassweight flowing around.

You Know sees Aversive teaming up with fellow Canadian Miss Fudge for another hefty roller, while Night Sky closes things out nicely with a spacey, liquid tinged roller with a hint of tripped out psychedelia in the pads. All in all it’s a powerful statement of intent from a producer we’re sure has plenty more to offer! Check out the clips below and hit up your favourite digital store to grab this right now.

Competition: Win Tickets to Rockwell’s LP launch!

After years of waiting Rockwell’s debut LP is nearly upon us, with the album dropping on CD, vinyl and digital from Nov 27th via Friction’s Shogun Audio imprint. Featuring some big collabs with the likes of Phace, Breakage and Sam Binga and a wide variety of material, there’s everything from the unashamedly pop stylings of Faces to out and out D&B bangers like Rave Cult and Itsok2behapp-e with plenty of room to take in hip-hop, grime and future bass in between. It’s a fantastic album from a man who has clearly spent time ensuring he won’t be pigeonholed.

To celebrate Obsolete Medium’s release Rockwell is throwing a launch party on Nov 25th at The Brewhouse in London featuring a special past/present/future 100% Rockwell set and sets from “undercover Shogun artists” whose identities shouldn’t be too hard to guess from the tongue in cheek names on the lineup. Full details of the event can be found on Facebook.

Best of all we’ve got a competition to run! We’ve got a signed copy of the album and two tickets to the launch party to give to one lucky winner; all you have to do is like the DNB Dojo Facebook page and send an email to competitions@dnbdojo.co.uk with your name and the subject line “Rockwell Competition”. We’ll draw the winner on Monday 23rd – good luck! Please note the album will be available for collection at the event only – make sure you can get to the club if you enter!