The Unearthed Sounds crew members have compiled their weekly picks containing collectively, in no particular order, our favourite tracks/releases of the week.
Here are the selections individually from the crew:
Wilfy D returns for another solo release on the Vitamin D imprint. After the success of his debut release VITD001 Wilfy D returns to showcase a different side to his production. As usual expect no nonsense vocal driven UK Garage cuts, this time on a strong club ready housey tip. This release leans more to the 4 to the floor sound with a slinky smooth 2 Step belter on the B. Essential cop!
Close affliates of Loefah’s Swamp81 imprint with countless dubplates in circulation but few actual releases, Traces are one of dubsteps quickest rising duos.
Scrub a Dub has been showcasing some of best new talent of late from ALXZNDR, Josi Devil and Rapture 4D and Traces are no exception dropping three prime cuts on the next 12”.
Each track sounds equally fresh while reminiscent of the dubstep glory days in the mid 2000s. Mungo’s have been championing these tracks for some while and back when a dance was a thing, they were damaging dance foors!
Mission #5 from Challenger Deep: Stillhead steps forward, brightening the darkest of places. The descent begins with an approaching menace from the deep, deftly handled by the helmsman. The Scottish mastermind then delves further still, delivering a forward thinking piece of electronic dub music, forged in the ceaseless depth of the abyss.
No digital, no bandcamp, always exclusive to physical and online record shops.
The latest drop on Sneaker Social Club comes from D&B standard-bearer Jasper Byrne, aka Sonic. While he’s been active in the scene for over 20 years, in many ways Byrne’s strong artistic identity and omnivorous spread of influences embodies the current rude health of creative D&B. In his refined, detailed and dynamic productions you can hear ideas that reach far beyond playbook genre totems to arrive at something genuinely fresh and unique.
Across his career Byrne has brushed up against some of the most important labels – Metalheadz, Reinforced, V Recordings, Infrared, Hospital, RAM and scores more, as well as operating his own Space Recordings. Finally dropping a debut album last year on the excellent Western Lore, Byrne demonstrated the depth and breadth of Sonic in jaw dropping fashion, and we’re thrilled to be presenting a swift follow-up with Eye of Jupiter.
Byrne’s confident grasp on melody comes to the fore throughout this album, but crucially these phrases, lead lines and hooks are delivered with a subversive slant that surprises and delights in equal measure. The swaying choral tones and MIDI strings on the lead in to “Prince Of Cambridge” land somewhere between Art Of Noise sample-a-delia and new age splendour, offset by the rugged, rolling break. There’s equally a grandiose quality to the organ breakdowns in “Accidental Junglist”, albeit one poured into a blender with echo chamber acrobatics and a generous dose of phaser-based manipulation (calling to mind A Guy Called Gerald’s pioneering work on Black Secret Technology).
Tracks like “The Bells” move into bolder territory still, swerving obvious structures for something altogether more experimental and expressive, all while grounded by harmonic principles and with space to welcome a break when required. The sound design on “20 Yr Riddim” equally reaches beyond the usual confines of D&B to reach a percussion-heavy peak of invention with the capacity to bang as hard as any straight-up track you care to think of.
Even with the space and skill to roam into intriguing pastures, Byrne’s art lies in his ability to make the wildest ideas accessible, and his most accessible tracks still brim with individuality. There’s an immediacy to opening track “Stranded 2019” which draws you in from the off, balancing emotive swoon and a perfectly pitched bleep lick with the rudest, roundest bass and some especially dexterous drum science. That it sounds so easy on the ears and yet so unlike any other tracks in current circulation is all the proof you need that Sonic represents a high watermark for modern drum & bass.
a1. Sonic - Stranded
a2. Sonic - Eastside
b1. Sonic - Prince of Cambridge
b2. Sonic - Accidental Junglist
b3. Sonic - The Bells 2018
c1. Sonic - 20 Yr Riddim
c2. Sonic - 357
d1. Sonic - No Rest (Stealing Voice)
d2. Sonic - Rolling Hills
d3. Sonic - Aila
Egoless - Before / After EP [Yellow Vinyl Repress]
Danish duo Lyra Valenza (aka Hjalte and Jens Konrad) operates on the outskirts of contemporary electronic dance music. Armed with a playful approach and a patchwork of digital and analogue equipment, Lyra Valenza carved their own space in the Copenhagen scene by genre-blending Jungle, UK Garage, and Footwork into a mix of forward-facing and euphoric dance music for 2020 and beyond. A testament to the duo's unique approach to sound design, they were selected for this year's SHAPE - a platform for innovative music and audiovisual art from Europe.
Lyra Valenza's latest EP, Nightshade Edition, is a package of sweet and dangerous cuts to the taste of dystopian romance. The prime dance floor material hits with metallic percussion and bursts of fluttering synths tuned with just the right amount of trance. From stepping UKG, to lush digital soundscapes, the four breaks heavy tracks are hyper-modern sonic experiments processed through a retrospective haze.
The Nightshade Edition EP is released on Lyra Valenza's own Petrola 80 label. It follows their 2018 debut EP "Scan Deliver" on UK imprint Opal Tapes and an appearance on this year's Kulør 006 compilation.
Jack Workforce welcomes his first guest producers to the Must Make imprint, handing over three cuts from his Late Night Soundtrack project to three stellar remixers; Break, Tim Reaper and Halogenix. All three have delivered absolutely elite-level reimaginations of the Workforce cuts, spanning and encapsulating the entirety of the Drum & Bass genre; from Break’s straight-up reworking of ‘Overnight Express’, twisting the DNA of the original cut and crunching up the tones of SP:MC, to the legendary Tim Reaper’s jungle reworking of ‘Two Words’, which absolutely turns the original on it’s head, and finally to the detailed, brutal but emotive take on ‘Your Loss’, delivered by Halogenix.
a1. Workforce - Overnight Express ft SP:MC (Break Remix)
