Photek & Pinch ‘Acid Reign’ / ‘M25FM’ Photek Productions [PPRO16VS](Preview)

Two collaborations between two highly respected producers. Photek’s ‘Closer’ marked the 50th release on Pinch’s Tectonic last year, and some time in the studio together has produced these standout tracks. Acid Reign first appeared in January on Pinch’s FabricLive mix compilation, his ‘dubplate version’ described by Fact mag as “a slow-burning half-stepper with a twisted acid melody fighting for air in an oil spill; as claustrophobic as you like, basically.” M25FM appears on Photek’s instalment to the highly respected DJ Kicks compilation series, it’s another acid-tinged track, taking us into much deeper territory.

Coni – Luz In Pool / Suma / Crush [CCB002] (preview)

Landing as the second release from the new French label ClekclekBoom Recordings, young newroller Coni drops us sensitive, deep but yet powerful tracks with sensual r’n’b reworks that would make any female moan. Combining groovy sophisticated house and naughty/soulful bass on the lead track “Luz in Pool”, the parisian takes us to a delightful journey where you’ll be losing yourself. On the flipside, “Suma” is mixing up an uplfiting 90′s r’n’b vocal with a very effective UK Funky drum line. The laid back G-Swagger “Crush” favoring a modern half-tempo 808 rhythm with a sweet subtle voice adding to a haunting purple synth coloration. This 3 track EP is full of heaviness and is already listed as favorite by many established big names. This number is not to be missed!

a Coni – Luz In Pool
b1 Coni – Suma
b2 Coni – Crush

Blu Mar Ten – Love Is The Devil (album preview)

Love is the Devil is Blu Mar Ten’s follow-up to the runaway success of previous album, Natural History and showcases another development in the trio’s consistent work at the cutting edge of Drum & Bass, musically, conceptually and technically. From the epic vistas of Into the Light, the intricate musicality of All Thoughts Are Prayers, the brooding darkness of Hollow Men, the sweetness of High Hopes, the shockingly technical Blue Skies and the ethereal Sweet Little Supernova, the album represents two years of solid work and delivers tracks of pure quality from every known corner of the genre and some that have yet to be invented. Love is the Devil is another step in Blu Mar Ten’s mission to stretch Drum & Bass into new forms; sometimes beautiful, sometimes poignant, sometimes aggressive but always lovingly crafted. Love is the Devil features collaborations with a range of talented names from dance music and beyond. Blind Soul: This achingly melodic track features the deft touch of Drum & Bass wunderkind Stray. Whisper: Based on an original track by Dave Randall (Faithless / Slovo), Whisper showcases the vocal skills of dance music legend Kirsty Hawkshaw. The Fourth: A deeply melancholy track featuring brand new US singer / songwriter Jenni Potts. Jenni’s bittersweet delivery brings an unexpected twist to The Fourth’s intricate production. Another Year: Fresh from working on Bonobo’s new album project, Mike Lesirge of London brass trio Killer Horns brings his talents to Another Year in the form of oozing, sultry sax work. Still the One: InsideInfo is renowned for his thundering basslines and pounding drums. Coupling his skills with Blu Mar Ten’s denser orchestration has given birth to Still The One, the first mutant offspring of this unlikely musical hookup. Sweet Little Supernova: Reprising her work on Natural History, Rochelle Parker turns in a sensual and ethereal vocal performance. Into the Light: Having already had his work picked up by Hospital Records, fresh UK talent Airwalker joins Blu Mar Ten to deliver a blistering attack of synths and drumwork on Into the Light, a definitive set-opener for any DJ. High Hopes: Classically trained and with an ear for uplifting orchestration, INtrepid brings the full force of his talent to High Hopes turning in a dense matrix of live instrumentation, from the sax to the xaphoon.

Blu Mar Ten – Love Is The Devil

Release date: 31st Oct 2011

Tracklist:
Into The Light (feat. Airwalker)
All Thoughts Are Prayers
Blind Soul (feat. Stray)
Damage
Five Summers
High Hopes (feat. INtrepid)
The Beginning
Made In London
The Fourth (feat. Jenni Potts)
Another Year (feat. Mike Lesirge)
Problem Child
Love Is The Devil
Sweet Little Supernova (feat. Rochelle Parker)
Hollow Men
Whisper (feat. Kirsty Hawkshaw)
Blue Skies
Still The One (feat. InsideInfo)
All Or Nothing

http://www.blumarten.com/shop

Emalkay ‘Eclipse’ Album preview Dub Police [DP055]

This clip showcases tracks taken from the Vinyl format. Pressed on 3×12” Vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with the full 11 track CD inside.

Birmingham-based producer Emalkay, who is set to release his hotly anticipated debut LP ‘Eclipse’ First making a name for himself with early releases on his own Morphic Sounds imprint, Emalkay has continued to push the boundaries of underground bass music ever since, delivering a slew of huge releases on the way. Having been an integral part of the Dub Police stable ever since his ‘Explicit / Heroics’ 12” for the label in 2009, Emalkay has gone from strength to strength with a series of heavyweight tracks that includes the phenomenal ‘When I Look At You’ and recent smash ‘Crusader’.
Comprised of 11 tracks, ‘Eclipse’ is a bold and powerful album encapsulating perfectly everything that makes Emalkay such a prodigious talent, effortlessly showcasing the depth and diversity of his sound while always remaining true to his inimitable style. As addictive as it is hard-hitting, the album doesn’t just provide a collection of dancefloor tracks, but a confident and coherent artistic statement.
A brilliantly confident and varied debut album, ‘Eclipse’ is set to cement Emalkay’s place as one of the biggest and most exciting producers working in bass music today.

Various Artists: 116 & Rising (Hessle Audio)

One of the reasons ascribed to dubstep’s continuing success has been its ability to absorb influences from across the entire electronic spectrum, and no label has been more key to its continuing evolution than Hessle Audio. Started in 2007 by David Kennedy, Ben Thomson and Kevin McAuley, the label quickly became a benchmark for quality, through releases from (the then) new artists like TRG, Untold and James Blake, as well as a vehicle for their own productions.With 18 releases over the past three years, the imprint is renowned for its impeccable quality control. Kennedy is their most prolific producer, under his Ramadanman and Pearson Sound monikers, now amalgamated into his own name. Ben UFO has always stayed true to his initial love, that of DJing almost as curation: he demonstrates this biweekly on his Rinse FM radio show and at Hessle’s Fabric residency, having been one of the first to start playing with the tempo to allow for older house and garage influences in his sets. Pangaea defined his sonic palette on a self-titled EP, a landmark of 2010, with minimal rolling basslines, vocal-driven melodies and more than a nod to the music’s old school roots.

The compilation exists as a way to unite the entire Hessle roster, as well as allowing them an avenue to put out work by friends and producers they have been unable to work with so far.The first disc is all new work plus a second has a selection of choice cuts from the back catalogue.There’s also work from producers who they feel have shaped the label’s aesthetic, like D1’s ‘Sub Zero’, whose sub bass stabs were a staple of the early DMZ sets that they initially united over back in 2005. One of their close affiliates, Addison Groove is also featured, his anthem ‘Footcrab’ having done so much to bring the tough tempo of juke to the world’s dancefloors.The subtle pitch-shifting of a looping hip hop vocal and the polyrhythmic patter of rim shots and cymbals on ‘Fuk Tha 101’ are unmistakably his. Another producer previously unreleased on Hessle is synth-mad Randomer whose ‘Brunk’ features an industrial strength kick and finishes up with ghostly pads invoking musique concrete.The disc is rounded off by Bristol’s Peverelist, whose own dub-soaked productions, as well as those released on his label Punch Drunk, owe so much to that city’s rich musical traditions. On ‘Sun Dance’ synth chords bring to mind the dystopian drum n bass of DJ Krust, the track driven forwarded by paper-like hi-hats and cymbals.There’s a single claustrophobic Hammond note held through to the close alongside the echoing sounds of water dripping in a cave.

Disc one kicks off with the spritely chimes and shuffling beat of Elgato’s ‘Music’, whose muted vocal chant was used to such beautiful effect in Kennedy’s recent FABRICLIVE mix. Untold bring’s detuned chords, jangling glass and a cheeky synth line, breaking down into mutant funky house. Blawan’s ‘Potchla Vee’ reveals some unexpected instrumentation: the skittering of what sounds like the cogs of a clock gives little breathing room to the assault of tribal drums and processed grunts.The Pearson Sound track ‘Stifle’ seems to slow things down, with an adenoidal vocal snippet acting as counterfoil to the percussive snap of the drums, delicate EQing and synth washes providing characteristic texture. Once again on ‘Twice’, Joe demonstrates the effectiveness of unexpected drum sampling, with a disconnected beat cooked up out of error bleeps and the tap of a typewriter. Pangaea’s own contribution is a rave homage; oscillating between synth stabs and a filtered ragga MC sample, the track is layered with a bouncy acid bassline, creating a phantom jump up effect. Romania’s TRG was Hessle’s first release and here builds on his mutant garage template, with a reverb-soaked drum kit jostling against some analogue pads and a seagull-sounding distorted warble. James Blake, re-edits an earlier Hessle release, bringing the processed vocals to the fore much in the style of his recent album. It’s soul music that’s undecidedly electronic, the vocals screwed and chopped into the background, a virtuoso display of arrangement ordering a lacklustre pair of cowbells, a chorus of shuffles, croaks and pads into an infectious slow burner.

artist:Various
title:116 & Rising
label:Hessle Audio, UK. (Distributed by S. T. Holdings, UK.)
formats:3×12”, double CD & digital
release:16.05.11

CD 1
01. Elgato – Music (Bodymix)
02. Untold – Cool Story Bro
03. Blawan – Potchla Vee
04. Pearson Sound – Stifle
05. Joe – Twice
06. Randomer – Brunk
07. Pangaea – Runout
08. Cosmin TRG – Bijoux
09. D1 – Sub Zero
10. Addison Groove – Fuk Tha 101
11. James Blake – Give A Man A Rod (Second Version)
12. Peverelist – Sun Dance
CD 2
01. Pangaea – You & I
02. Untold – Test Signal
03. Blawan – Fram
04. James Blake – Buzzard & Kestrel
05. Untold – I Can’t Stop This Feeling
06. Joe – Rut
07. Ramadanman – Blimey
08. TRG – Put You Down
09. Joe – Level Crossing
10. Pangaea – Why
11. TRG – Broken Heart (Martyn’s DCM Remix)
12. Ramadanman – Don’t Change For Me

Jack Beats ‘Up All Night’ (Skream Remix) (CHEAP033) (Preview/Stream)

Limited Vinyl promo on April 18th featuring the original mix and this Skream Remix on Cheap Thrills

Another massive remix from Skream

Teeth – Shawty/Shawty (FaltyDL Remix Preview)

Teeth comes with ‘Shawty’ for his debut 12” release on 502 Recordings, a hot melting pot of underground dance influences from jungle, techno and 2 step garage to dubstep and beyond. FaltyDL deals with a future blues mix on the flip/ Original mix has support from Benji B on Radio 1, Ben UFO, Oneman, Braiden, Seb Chew, Pearson Sound and loads more..

They Live – Cancel Standard [EXITLP007] Exit Records (LP Preview)

Released on 12″ Vinyl / CD on 28th March 2011.
Exit Records bring a new project to the table with a collaboration between Consequence and Joe Seven. Consequence made his debut on Exit in 2009 with his highly acclaimed album ‘Live For Never’ capturing the attention of electronica fans world-wide with his organic and unique take on Drum n Bass. Also having been a staple part of the Autonomic camp since day one, he’s slowly but surely developing his sound and delving deeper into the unknown. This time he teams up with another new Exit artist Joe Seven (who has an imminent solo single) and together they have created the They Live alias to showcase what happens when these two minds meet in the studio.
The album is very much intended to be listened to in the order it has been presented, as a whole body of music meant to capture your senses and lead you across a soundscape of atmospheres, textures, differing tempos and a variety of percussion elements.
In the same way as a silent movie can stimulate your sense of hearing, Cancel Standard does the opposite like an imageless movie, giving you the soundtrack and letting you imagine your own visual elements. Each track sets its own scene that is part of the bigger picture, creating a body of music that can offer the listener detachment from their immediate surroundings and escapism into an alternate reality.

Instra:mental Resolution 653 LP Sampler ‘Thomp’ / ‘When I Dip’ [NONPLUS013] (preview)

Released on March 21st
get a taste of the album on the Resolution 653 sampler 12” (NONPLUS013) with electro x juke style tracks ‘Thomp’ and ‘When I Dip” which have both been savaging dance floors worldwide over the last few months in the sets of DJs such as Loefah, Addison Groove and Benji B amongst others.

LOL – Squeeze Me (Official Video)(Nonplus Records)

LOL is a bit of an unusual project, it’s just a thing in it’s own right, it’s not ‘for’ anything or anyone in particular, it’s just an LP made by three bored people who like music that sounds like it did before the advent of the internet. The project was recorded in the bedroom of a warehouse conversion in Hackney Wick (bedrooms can be incredibly creative spaces, seeing as most of us were conceived in one).

They wrote about self-obsession, social anxiety, drug abuse, and failed relationships using pre-21st century recording devices such as VHS tape, 70′s valve microphones, analogue synths, cheap Argos catalogue guitars, and 80′s drum machines.

The resulting music was sent to a handful of people they thought were similarly musically inclined; people deeply into producer culture who never rabidly stuck to one way of doing things, in the hope that they might like it too. After a few positive responses, it was decided to keep the project close to where it was created and London based label Nonplus+ Records proudly put their name behind it.

The name was chosen after a text conversation about potential band names – none of which sounded right – with the last suggestion being “Polterchrist?” which was replied to with a simple “lol”. lol sounded neat so that was it. They liked the fact that it used to be an abbreviation for ‘lots of love’ but now just means ‘laughing out loud’. It seemed to fit the cheap, cynical nature of what they’d written about… oh and it looks a bit like a person with their hands in the air.

The debut album is due for release in March.
For the time being the 12″ Vinyl LP Pt.1 is out now on Nonplus Records.