Copenhagen's RDG kindly compiles his Top 10 vinyl releases of the moment with a varied selection of quality plates. This year saw the release of his debut album "Planetary Sound Fiction" on his very own Circle Vision label, and he's about to drop his next 12" on Boka Records, appearing alongside RDG on the "Storm" EP, due 17th July.
VIPs are becoming more common again with the fast turnover of music in our rapidly evolving musical environment. These enable the producer to continue playing their own tracks in DJ sets but have an edge with a slightly updated version from the released tune. VIPs are mostly never made available outside a select set of DJs, but for the Samurai Hannya series we had a few that were really too strong not to release, so we commissioned a few more to round out the EP. Homemade Weapons is a long term proponent of the VIP and he shows his experience here with his updates of Omen and The Claw, transforming them into entirely different approaches that have been favourites with all DJs that have had these in advance. Roho and Torn strip back their tunes and both provide essential renovations to their initial constructions that propel them back into your crate as essential frameworks to build new blends.
TRUSIK travels eastward again to meet Back to Chill mainstay HELKTRAM whose technoid dubstep constructions have been operating under the radar with just two releases from Banana Stand Sound and Encrypted Audio back in 2016. That is until now.
Sounding like the production line of a steel plant, “Suggestive Effect” gallops with metallic sonics and coilgun snares as the low end ripples and undulates speaker cones apart in its single minded purpose.
“Insecure” fizzes with electromagnetic hum, airlock whispers, clinical atmospherics, and the sonar blips of techno while remaining firmly within the dubstep realm, that is, until midway through when the bassline morphs into something more fluid than the half-time stomp of most dubstep.
Finally, “Iron Box” is a dyed-in-the-wool wobbler. Possessed only by a simple, mindvirus melody, the track lets the sub handle the heavy lifting with the immediately groovy low end science that is within dubstep’s DNA.
Having seen major support from Joe Nice and Goth-Trad across the years, HELKTRAM and Japanese dubstep in general needs more praise for their tireless work in making dubstep a truly global genre. With their eighth release, TRUSIK hopes to expand the record boxes of DJs everywhere and showcase HELKTRAM’s prowess in sub bass science.
Liam Blackburn’s Ancestral Voices project is a nomadic journey of self discovery, exploring expansion of consciousness through sound. Since it’s inception in 2016 the project has traversed from transcendent ambient to jagged 170 bpm beat experiments over the course of 2 full length LP’s and 3 EP’s. In 2018 Liam launched his own label ‘The Fifth Kingdom’ with the entirely beat-less release - Mycelia.
Liam returns to Horo to follow up his second LP ‘Divination’ for the label in 2017 with the next step in his musical evolution - Navagraha.
Navagraha means "nine celestial bodies" in Sanskrit. Each ‘Graha’ is a specific vibration and relates to the nine planets of our solar system, as well as the different parts of our body.
In 1978 Hans Cousto, a Swiss mathematician and musicologist discovered the natural law of the cosmic octave as the link between different kinds of periodically occurring natural phenomena, such as the orbit of the planets, the weather, colours, rhythms and tones.
For the Navagraha project Ancestral Voices has taken Hans Cousto’s ‘frequency’ of each planet and created a unique tuning system which he uses for each track.
The result is a mixture of Ptolemaic, Pythagorean and other ‘Alternate’ Harmonic scales that can create a profound effect on the consciousness of the listener. Steering away from equal temperament opens up an infinite amount of possibilities and more ‘colours’ to paint the picture with.
The fifth Weaponry release is the debut from a global collective of composers called ‘Torana’. The unit initially assumed the name for their role on the ‘Paroxysm’ collaboration, but have since continued to craft the hypnotic cerebral rhythms being presented on the ‘Acrid’ EP.
The launch of Sub Channel Music is the latest achievement of Max Hock, for many better known as Es.tereo or Theme. Shaping the 170 genre for almost over a decade now, his name is undoubtedly linked with musical passion and high production skills. Working with Samurai as Theme has been one of 170s best kept secrets, culminating in the acclaimed ‘Passages’ LP in 2017. The cinematic soundscapes Max Hock has woven with his productions made long waves within the scene and were appreciated from music lovers all over the world.
To gain more musical freedom and follow his inner beliefs, Max Hock now founded Sub Channel Music. Starting off with the magnificent "Earthbound EP", Es.tereo is going back to his roots and creates distinctive dark and tribal soundscapes; mixed with a strong organic vibe. To round this EP up, man of the moment - Homemade Weapons - delivers a fierce remix which erupted dance-floors from Berlin to Washington and has proven itself as a serious weapon numerous times.
Limited hand-stamped 12” Vinyl housed in a dub-plate style sleeve. 300 Copies Worldwide. No repress.
Danish RDG teams up with Austrian DubApe for a colossal collaborative EP for Boka Records. RDG originally appeared on the label nearly 10 years ago via the 'TANK' series. Since that time his productions have gone from strength to strength and this year he released his debut album 'Planetary Sound Fiction' on his Circle Vision label. 'Storm' EP contains 5 tracks of doubled-down Dubstep bass-weight with 'Decoy' venturing into Drumstep territory, the EP is capped off with a special remix of 'Brok Out' from Bristol's Punch Drunk Records legend RSD.
