Plasma Audio are back with another slamming release and the A side is our pick for this week’s Dojo Damager! Dutch technical wizard Icicle teams up with Ozzy native Safire for a relentless onslaught of scuzzy low end punishment and precise neurofunk drums. The lead melody has an air of the technoid sound pioneered by the likes of Raiden which is just the icing on a big bass-laden cake; tasty business! Check out the clip below and pick this one up from your favourite digital outlet now.
Time for another look at the best of the rest for the past couple of weeks with new releases from London Elektricity, No Rules & Torn, Hex and more…
After a short hiatus, Blu Mar Ten Music are back with more effortlessly beautiful music, this time from US producer Akuratyde. The Embrace EP occupies the same sort of musical space as artists like Kiyoko or Ulrich Schnauss; glistening pads, an air of melancholy and the influence of ambient and IDM characterise the recordings far more than the influence of conventional D&B, particularly on the EP’s first two tracks. Embrace and Lights In My Eyes both relegate beats and bass to a modest supporting role behind the swathes of reverb drenched chords and lush sonic imagery, creating a sense of distance and longing.
The second half of the EP sees a slight shift towards more beat driven compositions, with Time Left Behind exploring the halftime tempo with crisp but understated percussion under a warm blanket of sub bass and blissful echoing melodies. Sway closes the EP out with what could well be a love letter to Seba or Blu Mar Ten themselves, the release’s most “D&B” track. As usual Blu Mar Ten Music are right on the pulse, bringing us fantastically creative work from a new name we’ll certainly be keeping an eye on in future! Check out the clips below and hit up the Blu Mar Ten Bandcamp to grab a copy right now.
This week’s Dojo Damager comes from German neuro powerhouse Phace and Bristol wunderkind Culprate who bring us the dangerously tweaked out vibes of Logic Bomb. If the sound of a super computer completely losing it’s silicone mind could be digitised and imbued with a hefty layer of sub bass, the result would be this; relentless scattershot percussion and savage bass stabs combined with that ultra precise Phace engineering makes for quite a tune!
Check out the Noisia Radio premiere of the track below and grab it as part of the Phace & Friends EP on Critical from Nov 13th.
For whatever reason D&B supergroups seem to be making a bit of a comeback at the moment; whether through coincidence or design in recent times we’ve seen the emergence or re-emergence of The Levels, Bad Company, The Binary Collective and now Module Eight. It’s probably not a coincidence that dBridge is at the centre of so many of these collectives new and old either; being one of the scene’s primary innovators for a couple of decades gives you ideas that are worth sharing, one assumes.
Module Eight sees dBridge teaming up with fellow Exit contributors Loxy, Resound, Kid Drama and Skeptical for thirteen tracks collaborated on entirely online (presumably due to busy schedules and Resound’s location in Finland rather than London), and the results are impressive. If the old adage “too many cooks spoil the broth” has any relevance to D&B, apparently five cooks still isn’t too many!
Legacy feels surprisingly consistent for an album with so many producers behind the console; while there are certainly little hints here and there of each producer’s individual style, you’d struggle to put your finger on any one personality dominating any of the compositions. Guessing where one musical mind ends and another begins might prove amusing for the heads, though we’d challenge anyone to come up with any particularly solid conclusions.
Thematically the album is dark and complex, but in the refined way we’ve come to expect from Exit rather than the ADHD hyper-complexity of some of the more dancefloor oriented D&B business. Flickers of the autonomic sound shine through in places, though in general more in rhythm than tone; the lush futuristic synths of tracks like Seems Like are largely absent in favour of creepier, colder soundscapes which evoke urban grit more than future soul. There’s also more than a passing nod to the classic techstep sounds that both Loxy and dBridge helped to develop, particularly on Ghost and Legacy.
With a solid mix of dancefloor appeal and deeper sound design and texture, it’s difficult to fault Legacy, and the more discerning crowd will definitely lap this up. Check out the clips below and hit up the Exit Bandcamp to pre-order a copy ahead of the release this Friday.
Sully is a name that may not be familiar to many within the D&B scene but should ring bells for anyone who keeps an eye on the 140BPM arena; Sully made his name with dark garage and dubstep productions for the likes of Urban Graffiti and Keysound. More recently his output has begun to focus on jungle, which brought him to the attention of Fracture and his Astrophonica imprint.
So to the Flock EP, and it’s undeniably retro sound. The use of classic breaks and fairly stripped back compositions give the four tracks here an authentic jungle sound, but Sully manages to avoid the cheesier genre tropes which would turn this into a tedious copycatting of early 90s material. The deceptively simple arrangements allow the carefully chosen elements of each track to shine and Sully’s obvious love of the jungle sound to come through perfectly, all buoyed along by crisp, modern mixdowns.
From the darker pad sounds and slightly creepy vibe of Helios to the Squarepusher-esque IDM melodies of Hours, Miles and Still… this is a welcome love letter to a sound at once long gone and at the same time ever present in its lasting influence on so many scenes. Check out the clips below and grab yourself a pre-order via the Astrophonica bandcamp ahead of the Nov 27th release.
Ivy Lab’s sonic journey since the trio’s pre-alias collaboration in 2012 on the sublime Oblique has been a treat to watch. While initially known for silky smooth liquid rollers, it didn’t take the Lab long to start experimenting with a distinctly different style of beats that they refer to loosely as “halftime”, starting with the infamous Sunday Crunk and continuing with many of the tracks on the Twenty Questions EP.
That “halftime” moniker really doesn’t do the style justice though, especially since it’s a term used to describe a lot of the deeper, half tempo music created by producers like Homemade Weapons and Cirrus that has little if anything to do with the hip-hop infused sound that Sabre, Stray and Halogenix have pioneered. “Halftime Hip-hop” might be closer to the truth, but as yet noone has really found a suitable handle for their mixture of LA bass, crunk, hip-hop and glitch.
All of this brings us to now, and Ivy Lab’s decision to separate this “halftime” material from their more traditional D&B excursions, start their own 20/20 label and release a full album of it. With nary a 2-step breakbeat in sight (or should that be earshot?) this is a firm division of styles, with the trio already having stated that we can expect more D&B via Critical Music in the future.
The results here should definitely appeal to fans of EPROM, Alix Perez, and anyone who appreciates the swagger and funk of this style of beats. Low end heft, sexy vocal cut ups and great use of space define a confident and exciting sound from a production team that surely have tons more to show us. Get your groove on with 20/20 Volume One – you won’t regret it! The album is out now via the 20/20 website, and there’s a sick album mix by none other than the legendary DJ Craze below.
Royalston is one of the many highlights of Med School’s diverse roster, and with good reason; his prolific and unusual take on D&B continues to be a breath of fresh air in a scene with far too many copycats and producers all too willing to stick to the well trodden path.
His second full length for the label in as many years is full of eclectic delights, with a plethora of influences coming together across the fifteen tracks, bound together by meaty 170BPM underpinnings. The willingness to play with the formula only adds to the impression that Royalston has very much found his stride, confident in his own ability to experiment and express.
The titular People On The Ground proves to be one of the highlights, building up through a piano led, trip-hopy first verse before tearing out into an unexpectedly massive second drop. Elsewhere we’re treated to the eminently bright and chunky Blight Mamba, the creepy synths and insistent tribal rhythms of I Saw The Face Of A Person and the madcap, helter skelter breaks of XOR to name but a few.
While phrases like “tore up the rule book” and other similar hyperbole are vastly overused in reviews and press releases alike, it’s certainly true that Royalston’s work walks an interesting line; the tracks here feel fairly DJ friendly in structure but certainly aren’t bound by traditional D&B tropes to any great extent. Indeed that he manages to walk this line is quite a feat in itself, let alone that the results are so pleasing.
DJs looking to throw the crowd a few curveballs and listeners looking for a break from predictable 2-step rollers should definitely check this out; even in a year of strong D&B albums, this one stands shoulder to shoulder with the best of them. Check out the album minimix below for a flavour of the tracks and hit up the Hospital Store to grab it on vinyl, CD or digital now.
Think you know your D&B snare drums? Well this might be the test for you…to celebrate the release of their forthcoming MethLab // 1 EP, the team at MethLab Agency are giving away a copy of the EP and a t-shirt to whoever can correctly identify the 15 MethLab artists behind each snare in the clip below, with one each from Allied, Audeka, Billain, Broken Note, Cause4Concern, Current Value, Disphonia, Disprove, Kursa, Maztek, Minor Rain, The Sect, Rawtekk, Signs & Silent Witness.
You’ve only got until Friday so get to it! Full details on how to enter (and how to get your hands on the pack of 30 free snares) are on the Soundcloud page here…get guessing crew.
This week’s Dojo Damager comes courtesy of the Metalheadz camp as they wind up for the release of Artificial Intelligence’s new Timeline LP later this month. For the first LP sampler’s exclusive track AI have teamed up with fellow ‘headz alumni SCAR for a perfect blend of the rough and the smooth, and it’s been doing the damage here at Dojo HQ!
Lulling us into a false sense of security with a lush, soulful intro before piling into a scuzzy bassline and those indestructibly solid breaks, Letting It Go is sure to rip up any dancefloor with its pure rolling danger. Heavy business! Hit up the Metalheadz store to grab the sampler on vinyl or digital now and watch for the full album dropping Nov 20th.