Q&A – Fade

The ever prolific Ukrainian producer Fade has had a pretty big year with a slew of releases across a bunch of labels. His latest venture sees him releasing a full album of collaborations on his own Faded Music imprint, and the quality remains as high as ever. We thought it was high time we caught the man for a quick Q&A, so read on for Fade’s thoughts on all things D&B.

DNB Dojo: It’s been a pretty busy year for you with releases on DSCI4, 117, Avantgarde, Grindhou5e, and of course your own Faded Music imprint. Have you got any particular highlights? How do you decide what music to send out to other labels and what gets released on your own?

Fade: Yes, I have been producing a lot of music lately and I’m happy to see it released. The main reason for creating Faded Music is that I had so much good unreleased music, that hadn’t got attention from other labels. So if I really feeling track and it’s not been signed anywhere I put it out on Faded Music.

DD: The collaboration LP you’re dropping soon features a massive array of different artists, some better known than others. How did the different tunes come about? Who was your favourite producer to collaborate with?

F: That was idea to collect together artists that I find interesting with different tunes, different moods. All that stuff has been produced in different times, but I can say that we worked on this compilation for around a year and I am really happy with the results.

I think my favourite collab partner is Peter NC-17. Making collabs with him is always fun. We just finished one track and are working on a couple more.

DD: On the subject of collaborations, if you could pick any artist living or dead to work with, who would it be?

F: Hard to say…if I had to choose someone from current bass scene it would definitely be Noisia. From other music I’d pick Cypress Hill.

DD: Living in Ukraine the recent political turmoil must have been difficult. Is it hard to make music under those circumstances, or do you draw inspiration from what’s going on around you?

F: I’d not say that it’s difficult. Let’s say true. War between Ukraine and Russia is really horrible, a few hundred kilometres away every day people are dying. This year is the  hardest in the history of our country. And for sure it’s hard to think about music, but when you are living in such a stressful situation for more than half a year, you start to learn how to abstract and music is one of the ways to not dip into depression.

DD: What’s on the agenda for the rest of 2014?

F: I have got some releases coming on labels such as DSCI4, Beta Recordings, Different and Alphacut.

DD: Any shout outs?

F: I wanna say big ups to those artists who been involved to this project. Abiotic, Nitri, Heavy1, NotioN, Fathom Audio, Meth, 2SHY, Dess. Thanks to James for PR works, my wife Julia for amazing artwork. And all listeners for supporting our label!


You can check out clips of the LP below; watch out for it dropping at all good digital stores from July 28th.

Gerwin – Lying Portraits / Soul Truth (Remixes) [IM:Ltd]

Gerwin’s excellent Lying Portraits single was one of the highlights of IM:Ltd’s output in 2012 so the news it was getting the remix treatment from none other than Zero T and Bungle was music to my ears, if you’ll forgive the pun.

Zero T “reprints” Lying Portaits to great effect, replacing the stepping beat with a rolling liquid break and dropping the 2Shy vocal entirely, leading to a deeper, more cinematic vibe, though retaining some of the bassline’s edge. Meanwhile on the flip, Bungle turns in a deep, dark rolling mix of Soul Truth, with the majesty of his work for Soul:R but a bit more oomph on the low end.

Check out the beats below and watch out for the release dropping on vinyl and digital from October 16th.

Teddy Killerz – Violence EP [Eatbrain]

With a promising opening salvo of releases from label owner Jade alongside the likes of Mindscape, BSE, Neonlight and Mefjus, I had high hopes for Eatbrain from the beginning. Their last release from Telekinesis really raised the bar though, and their 7th release from Teddy Killerz continues in that veign; right now, Eatbrain is the label for big, angry neurofunk.

The titular Violence opens the EP in style with some serious bass riffage and a pounding drum line combined with some subtle touches of sound design and an insistent hook. 2SHY steps up to provide vocals for the near obligatory MC-imbued track Blackout, but despite the fairly generic vocal the track doesn’t disappoint, providing heaps of warped neuro bass, another cheeky wee hook and a slight swung kick-led beat.

Newcomers Mizo & Zendi come to the table for the third track; Bad Omen kicks the atmosphere up a notch on the intro with some pretty epic synth swells building the track up over filtered breaks before a huge drop that brings to mind Task Horizons excellent work on the Evolved EP. The break even features a melancholy guitar solo before some apt cinematic sampling and another huge drop. Finally Jacob sees the duo stripping things back to a heavy, swung beat with little more than a kick and a snare, and a whopping great beast of a bass riff.

Watch out for this one dropping June 10th on vinyl and June 24th on digital.

Gerwin – Lying Portraits / Soul Truths [IM:Ltd]

IM:LTD‘s latest release sees Gerwin coming in with two genuinely interesting slices of D&B that occupy a strange halfway house between styles, merging the growling basslines of techstep with the soulful melodies of deep liquid. It shouldn’t work, but it does! Opener Lying Portraits sees Gerwin team up with Nuage and MC 2Shy, who excels himself with a deep, well written rap vocal (which makes a change from the hordes of average gritty rhymes in D&B right now). Over on the flip Gerwin utilises a nice R&B sample to build the track before the growling bassline takes over.

Look out for this one at all good digital outlets from December 10th!