White Asega co-owner Jack Dixon wrote New Curtains after a friend who was coming wildly off the rails told him he was a good producer but his tunes were boring. The original version was really sparse and about 300bpm. When Jack moved to New York the parts got lost, so he remade the track a dozen times. This was the version we all liked best, although Jack never wants to hear it again in his life. It sounds tough and tropical. Our friend Troy Gunner remixed it, and turned it into something so loud and slamming it will knock your teeth out.
After telling Jack to stop making boring music, Mark Kodiak spent two horrendous years working with Jamie Kodiak on a song they've called Taargus. It nearly destroyed their friendship forever but we think it was worth it. It has brutal weapon sounds, nasty snares and an incessant “yo” that has been described as “annoying and unnecessary”. The artist Tom Pounder has created a blinding video for it that contains brand new colours. French born bass genius Bambounou stepped up to remix the track, taming the wild stems into a hypnotic earlymorning House stepper.
It took us approximately 2000 exhausting Facebook group chats, four crossAtlantic flights and one divorce to get to this point. We hope you will enjoy this record for the rest of your lives.
You have no idea what is coming and it’s an absolute delight. A knocking percussion line reveals itself slowly to a frantic acid pattern. Clinical beats race onwards while the melody teases, tenses and uncoils. When you think you can’t go higher, then comes the vocal and boots it into the stratosphere.
InnerCytem - Airbag.
A soft, delicate melody climbs around shaken percussion and a booming bass/kick combo - perfect juxtaposition of beauty and power. The central melody fades in and out of cycling clicking notes and muted clashing, through a burbling, hissing break, and a gated exit. Constructed with care and devotion.
Casual Violence - Briefly Sexual (Siege Remix).
Thunderous kicks, clipped percussion and a classic 90s hook power this track frantically onward. Drawn out ethereal buzzing notes introduce stripped bleeps and a crushing, emotive vocal after the break. Underworld on very dark steroids.
Retsof - Suns
The knockout blow. A wildly pulsating bassline doesn’t let up for one second, obliterating any possible thought but the groove. Overshadowing even the punchy beats, isolated claps, chattering hats and slowly progressing atmospheric chords, this is a truly stunning piece of musical weaponry.
a1. Innercystem - King With The Beats
a2. Innercystem - Airbag
b1. Casual Violence - Briefly Sexual (Siege Remix)
After 2 years of honing, crafting and sonic manipulation, Books’ debut ‘Station’ album is ready for earthly transmission and this is the sampler to the album. A reimagining of Drum & Bass dynamics, the album will explore expansive depths juxtaposed against impossibly finite intimacy of mind.
We introduce Comfort Zone, a young producer from Montreal, who has been making music for around 7 years now. He is inspired by "music from late 90s/early 00s video game soundtracks and the occasional snippets of electronic music I heard as a kid". We find that statement very much reflected in this release, as he masters the challenge of blending mysterious samples and different styles to form harmonious compositions.
On one side of the 4-track EP we have 2 groovy House tracks, reminiscent of early 2000s House by the likes of Lance DeSardi, Ian Pooley and Atjazz, on the other side 2 classic Jungle tracks which uphold our tradition of releasing timeless music.
Few artists to emerge from North America’s drum & bass culture have made such a significant or enduring impact as San Francisco trio Bachelors of Science.
Formed in 2005, group has spent the better part of a decade writing memorable music, carving out an unmistakable signature sound that spans the full emotional scope of the genre.
Two full length albums and numerous memorable releases on some of drum & bass’s finest labels had already secured Bachelors of Science’s spot amongst North American D&B’s elder statesmen when the group founded Code Recordings in 2012 - a label dedicated to honing the Bachelors’ own sound as well as the scene’s finest up and coming talent.
Now in 2015, Bachelors of Science is proud to present its third full-length outing and first for Code - The Space Between.
a1. Bachelors Of Science - Before You Go (feat. Dylan Germick & Audio Angel)
a2. Bachelors Of Science - On The Line (feat. Collette Warren & Ben Soundscape)
a3. Bachelors Of Science - Backfoot Dub (feat. Emcee Child)
a4. Bachelors Of Science - Everywhere We Go (feat. Soultrain Locomotive)
a5. Bachelors Of Science - The Space Between
b1. Bachelors Of Science - Kanto
b2. Bachelors Of Science - Satisfy
b3. Bachelors Of Science - Cartier
b4. Bachelors Of Science - Control
b5. Bachelors Of Science - Don't Hold Back (feat Dylan Germick)
Burgeoning club label Nervous Horizon follow up label boss TSVI’s recent ‘Sacred Drums’ EP with a new EP from Houndstooth, AUS and R&S signee, Second Storey.
‘Spin Cycle’, comprised of three tracks written in the same warehouse space Storey shared with TSVI and fellow NH boss, Wallwork, earlier this year, details a micro-world of new ideas that Storey manifests within a sprawling, hyper-specific web of weird and wonderful bass abstraction. “It’s not often you go to a viewing and your potential house-mate actively wants you to make noise with no restrictions”, he says reflecting on first meeting TSVI while looking for a new place to live in London.
Energised by this new sense of creative freedom and boosted by a support network pro-vided by the extended NH crew (“Gugli (TSVI) and Tommy (Wallwork) were buzzing off these tracks when I played them”), Storey is at the top of his game across the EP.
From the fuzzy, looping programming on the title-track, written as if in a ‘spin cycle’, to the swinging, crunchy pressure on ‘Critters’ and the muffled, industrial-tech tones to ‘Sludge 3D’, ‘Spin Cycle’ plays right into the NH ethos — making music that sounds like nothing you’ve heard before.
6 tracks of fuel flamed floor movers. Dos, Ray Kandinski, Gallery S, Anthony Fade, Dj Bowlcut and Dj Longdick have all outdone themselves and the fuel keeps burning Baby. Acid infused tracks Floor Moovers all you want in 6 tracks.
David Meiser – Epsilon A one bar hook plays centre stage, morphing continuously (plucked, hammered, played, organic and synthesised) as waves of intensity build and recede. Simplicity and endless variation in sound built around a measured beat.
Kereni – Mutual Gravitation Taking a deep direction and fat sound, the beats roll and snake their way through glitches and handclaps into two huge melodies at a frantic pace. Reverb, echo and delay and just a hint of acid at the breakdowns show the true depth of this piece.
Jake Conlon – Cry of the Necromancer The “cry” is a cycling whisper from the grave, slowly building in intensity and menace and overtaking the trademark hard kicks and clipped percussion that characterise Conlons productions. Fine, minimalistic, machine techno.
David Meiser – Epsilon (Louis Ray Remix) Ray puts the original through a turbocharger, winding up the bpm, widening the kicks and percussion and reworking the hook into a straight up dance floor missile with just a touch of dub.
Pau Encinas also known as Cauto returns after several years of ̈apparent ̈ inactivity. His previous EP, 35/8, was published in 2011 via Disboot. Since then until now, he has worked on several collaborations and remixes. One of the reasons for Disboots existence is to promote and release young and local talent. Cauto, without exception, is an essential one of these.
From his first release on Dj Rupture ́s Dutty Artz in 2008, Pau has been developing his skills as a producer and talented musician rooted in his background in Catalan folk music. The culmination of his musical evolution is the crystallisation of his new Lp.
"Prova A Veure Si Ets Capac De Menjar Pedres" (Try to see if you can eat stones) is his latest work and first Lp where each word in the title is the name of a track, and each of these must be understood as an aqueous sequence rather than a kind of feature sound. In each of its 9 songs deep bass, jungle rhythms and organic textures abound which have little to do with the barrenness of its title.
"Prova A Veure Si Ets Capac De Menjar Pedres" materializes two years of work created between Berlin, Barcelona and his hometown Banyoles. This beautiful Lp was recently presented live at Sónar 2016 in an all-hardware liveset where Cauto was accompanied by Dani Guijarro (Headbirds) long time friend and collaborator in other projects such as C156.
Kirkham's newest album comes in the form of a project under a new identity; Mikarma.
The album is a cathartic project for the accomplished electronic musician. A catharsis of emotion coupled with a restriction in studio equipment that leads to new creative means and avenues. Speaking on the reasons of the self-imposed minimal studio set up he states "Sometimes when you have too much equipment wired up it can be overwhelming and you end up just playing around for the most part."
It become apparent that there was a need for the producer to get the best out of his parameters, a process he was already familiar with "When we started back in the 90's we had a minimal setup... and because of that you would get the most you could out of each bit of kit."
Kirkham goes on to elaborate on the cathartic nature of the album "Breaking up in a relationship with the woman you love is a really draining emotional experience, I'm a person who finds it hard to outwardly express my emotions, I hold it in which is pretty unhealthy but i think writing music releases some of the pressure built up. The sad thing is my best work is normally when I'm at my lowest."
Kirkham's newest album comes in the form of a project under a new identity; Mikarma.
The album is a cathartic project for the accomplished electronic musician. A catharsis of emotion coupled with a restriction in studio equipment that leads to new creative means and avenues. Speaking on the reasons of the self-imposed minimal studio set up he states "Sometimes when you have too much equipment wired up it can be overwhelming and you end up just playing around for the most part."
It become apparent that there was a need for the producer to get the best out of his parameters, a process he was already familiar with "When we started back in the 90's we had a minimal setup... and because of that you would get the most you could out of each bit of kit."
Kirkham goes on to elaborate on the cathartic nature of the album "Breaking up in a relationship with the woman you love is a really draining emotional experience, I'm a person who finds it hard to outwardly express my emotions, I hold it in which is pretty unhealthy but i think writing music releases some of the pressure built up. The sad thing is my best work is normally when I'm at my lowest."
This January JoeFarrwill make his Bloc debut with a three-track EP, titled 'RPM'.
Farr has a diverse catalogue, with three well-received releases on Turbo as well as records with DSNT, Leisure System and Power Vacuum. Few producers can claim to have remixed Tiga and been remixed by Truss.
Though Farr has an extensive history with Bloc., this will be his first outing on the label, a release that incorporates sounds that both Bloc and Joe are famed for. The first track, 'RPM' features prominently in the Bloc festival trailer and is the soundtrack to the 2016 weekender. Hissing high hats and an atmospheric baseline quickly develop into an explosive anthem designed to get feet moving. 'Rolling and Thatching' conveys an immediate punch of 90’s acid, followed by techno heavy 'Workout Three' with crunching beats and an unremitting delivery worthy of the Berghain dance floor.
Alex Coulton's productions are driving, abrasive techno workouts with a lo-end sensibility and abstract tendencies. It's a great honour to be able to serve up both these slabs on the Bloc platform.
Post Sandwell District, Function has formed a new partnership in the spirit of unrelenting techno alongside Ed Davenport. Together as Function/Inland they have crafted an entire side of this EP into a rolling, forceful dance- floor assault.
a1. Alex Coulton - Freefall
a2. Alex Coulton - Antagonise
aa1. Alex Coulton - Freeland (Function/Inland remix)
Vinyl will feature Individual, hand illustrated sleeves. Distraction combines thundering bass elements from darker techno with deeper, emotive pads and flourishes to create a meditative yet driving late night groove. Best used to hush dance floor chatter in favour of getting heads down and putting a shift in. Static and Choke also play with juxtapositions of light and dark elements, with Choke being the firmer of the two. Both offer sounds ideal for creating trippy and introspective dance floor moments, while not allowing those hard fought for energy levels to drop.
Limited Edition of 300 copies worldwide w/ special colour print gold & black, 140 gram 12" vinyl.
Tre, the third release from Italyʼs BACKWORDS, is an intimate, muscle-and-sinew-deep exploration of the mysterious meeting point of man and machine – here, Pardo and vintage synths, drum machines and miscellany from the second half of the last century. Twitchy beats, crackling textures and layers of tape distortion conjure a hallucinogenic universe that owes as much to heavy dub as it does to the techno-futurist optimism of the early modular synth pioneers.
Recorded over a period of two years, Tre is the result of an intimate process that is strongly connected to an image of a bigger body, a complex sound ecosystem, where analog debris take shape through subtraction and precise layering. Below/Above and Arpoon begin with one “movimento” before slipping into another, approaching different time/space perceptions and juxtaposition of timbres and sounds with playful experimentation. The woozy looped basslines, distorted vocals and overstretched strings of Wait! suggest, in fleeting glimpses, the shadowy figure from whom all of these sounds flow. Pas de Chance clashes old samples against new granular synthesis and sequenced acid bass trying to find a meeting point between alien elements. Tanzania is a first take improvisation, simple and wild, in which static fuzz, sandpaper hisses and percussive clangs are cloaked in analogue warmth from a 1970s Amek BCII mixer and a Moog Prodigy…
BACKWORDS is the solo project of Pardo (Michele Pauli), a founding member of Milanese dub/electronic outfit Casino Royale, Italyʼs single-handed riposte to the Bristol trip-hop scene (1995 album Sempre più vicini prod. by Massive Attack remixer Ben Young was named by Rolling Stone as one of the 100 greatest Italian records of all time). He now runs the Florence-based electronic label OOH-sounds and curates the experimental festival Hand Signed, which has featured Bill Kouligas, Beatrice Dillon, Philip Jeck and Masayoshi Fujita, amongst others.
About the cover-art: ʻSTAY GOLDʼ is a new mixed-media piece by the New York artist duo Lovett/Codagnone commissioned specially for the albumʼs cover. With a practice that draws on radical criticism, literature, cinema and punk music, Lovett/Codagnone work across different art forms to examine identity, power structures and underground resistance tactics.
Metal Position is a record label founded by Steve Murphy and DJ Octopus focused on kick drums and bass lines. The first EP comes with four tracks from the deeper side of DJ Octopus. More info: www.metalposition.com
Bristol based 'Arkist' has always been a versatile producer and as a result has an impressive rage of releases under his belt, with revered imprints such as Hotflush and Hypercolour. Recently he has been experimenting further in the studio and is ready to present his first 12inch in few years, under a brand new alias - Astrocat.
In this debut, self-titled EP it is instantly apparent that vocoder-infused funk and disco of the highest order can be expected from this new Astrocat guise. The EP is full of vintage talk box vocals, warm spacey chords and infectious basslines that bring classic records from the likes of Zapp and The Rah Band into mind.
With 5 tracks this EP has a lot to offer. Wether it be the raw, funked up james of the opener 'Small Talk' and title track 'Astrocat' or the more chilled, woozy grooves of 'Nightflare'. With features from Mr Woodnote and a dub remix from Appleblim this EP's roots sit firmly in the South West. Local legend DJ Die even lent his vocoder to the studio for some of the recordings.
The dutch producer Halp releases his debut 12" on Golden Mist Records. 'Polar' EP is a contemporary artifact plated by sino-grime, where beautiful and warm melodies are melted in the cold world of machinery. A manifest to the unknown territories that our civilization is exploring, where the development of 'Artificial Intelligence' and the border between humans and machines is being narrowed.
Forte Techno is a UK label ran by Ross Alexander and Steven McDonagh that has a firm focus on championing the underground, as the imprint returns with their second vinyl only package.
The first venture featured David Meiser, Ross Alexander, Jake Conlon and Kereni, picking up support from luminaries such as Bas Mooy, Radial, Sunil Sharpe, Rebekah, DJ Hyperactive, Thomas Hessler and many more.
This time there are 4 original tracks by all UK based artists including Paul Mac, Binny, Ross Alexander and John Mitchell.
Binny - Machine 101 Liverpool's Binny is a hot talent and one to keep an eye on following his releases on Dax J's Monnom Black, CLFT and Orbis. Lead by a quirky rolling acid line that skips and jitters with raw analogue warmth, it has unexpected twists that keep the listener in a sense of excited suspense. Fused with the taut rhythms of a 909 drum machine the track has a timeless sound guaranteed to have wide spread appeal.
Paul Mac - Don't Leave Me Paul is widely considered a legend of the UK scene, having chalked up more than 20 years in the music industry. Spearheading label projects such as Stimulus and C-Side he has also released music on the likes of James Ruskin's Blueprint, Oscar Mulero's Warm Up and Heiko Laux's Kanzleramt. When you hear the quality of Paul's track on this release titled "Don't Leave Me" it's clear to see why he has earned legendary status. Full of energy, it's driven by a heavy sub bass, squelching acidic buzzes and a subtle melody hook that makes it perfect for dark rooms and sweaty dancefloors.
Ross Alexander - Evening Talk
The first of the flip side tracks is supplied by the label boss who has a back catalogue of releases which include labels such as A.Paul's Naked Lunch and Joseph McGeechan's Backwater Community Records. "Evening Talk" is powered by a pulsating lead synth that is as funky as it is infectious. Dark and menacing the track has a hypnotic groove that’s intense and perfectly formed for peak time DJ sets.
John Mitchell - Contaminated Circuitry Originally from Dublin (Ireland), John's previous releases have been on DJ Hi-Shock's Translucent and Electrorites' Shout Records amongst others. "Contaminated Circuitry" is tough and sinister with a menacing melody part which leads the track, which combined with scything strings creates tantalising tension. Oversized and immensely powerful, it’s the perfect track to finish off this already epic mixed artist EP.
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