The Unearthed Sounds crew members have compiled their weekly picks containing collectively, in no particular order, our favourite tracks/releases of the week.
Here's the selections individually from the crew: Max: MAHAKALA03 Mat: SEN013 Albert: PSTI019 Morgan: MR111 Rich: NVRLP001 Georgia: UTTU103 Jon: SYSTM029 Rob: HAZE011 Chris: NCLTD003
Never Ready Records is honoured to release the first full length album from Deep Sky Objects (DSO), the production moniker of Stillcold Records founder Andrew Doubek and Alexander Dennis aka Eprom & one half of Shades.
A Montana native, musician, DJ and avid record collector, Doubek relocated to Berlin in 2000 for a number of years before ending up in the London Borough of Hackney. A chance meeting between the two artists while DJing in San Francisco circa 2005 led to a long running duologue of shared productions and the release of a 2011 EP on Doubek’s Stillcold Records imprint. After more than a decade in Europe representing the best of underground dance culture via his Bodymusik Radio sessions and DJing warehouse parties from East London to Brooklyn, Doubek returned to the US permanently to pursue writing & sound for film, now residing in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, Eprom was steadily honing his productions and live shows, fusing West-Coast bass with glitch & garage induced dancefloor pressure to much acclaim, garnering support from the likes of Flying Lotus, ?uestlove, DJ Shadow, Mark Pritchard, Aphex Twin, Craze, Rustie and The Glitch Mob seeing him constantly touring and developing a distinguished reputation for his live show’s visual displays and overall art direction.
The DSO project was slowly given life over the course of the past 10 years, resulting in the Deep Sky Objects LP.
From the soulful house groove of ‘Brothers + Sisters’ to the broken bass and pummeling drum propulsions of ‘Lethwei’, ‘Shook’ and ‘Selah’ to the swung lo-fi techno of ‘Rays + Secondaries’, the artist’s shared love of astronomy, Detroit techno, UK rave and soundsystem culture has been distilled into a sonorous amalgam of insensate bass, trenchant synth finesse and densely layered rhythms. The LP comprises field recordings, found sounds, analogue synths, expert drum programming and direct instrumentation creating a Voyager record and sonic artifact intended to guide the listener’s understanding of what one epoch in electronic music meant to the space-bound inhabitants of planet earth, while it was still here...
a1. Deep Sky Objects - Brothers + Sisters
a2. Deep Sky Objects - LDN 1768
a3. Deep Sky Objects - Lethwei
a4. Deep Sky Objects - T.M.K.F.
b1. Deep Sky Objects - The Chant
b2. Deep Sky Objects - Selah
b3. Deep Sky Objects - Shook
b4. Deep Sky Objects - Rays + Secondaries
Youngsta ft. Killa P & Long Range - Progress / Instrumental
The prolific Dubstep pioneer Youngsta returns to self-run imprint Sentry Records, this time delivering the wax treatment with a murderous collaboration featuring the dons Killa P and Long Range. Title track ’Progress’ starts off innocently, before slowly dragging you into a field of melody that quickly turns into a warzone: Infectious stabs resemble heavy arms, which do serious damage thanks to the genius square- and sawtooth bass lines as its core. This engineering is backed up by dons Killa P and Long Range, who both pack that extra punch, to conclude their joint effort with Youngsta remains part of one deadly formula. The power of the track ultimately lies within the short bursts of thunderous percussion, ruff vocals from the very underground - and the ton of pressure avid listeners of the tidy Dubstep culture love unmistakably. Tested thoroughly on systems across the globe, both the vocal version as the instrumental have the power to stir a serious crowd. With this thirteenth release of the label, catalogued as 'SEN013', to be set in stone, it is as bulletproof as all preceding releases of this very imprint.
Following his 2019 debut on the label with Amphibious / Lucid Dreams, Bristol-based producer Drone returns to System Music for another exploration into the darker corners of sonic frequencies and low end pressure.
Entitled Flooded EP, this is Drone’s biggest project to date and features 4 original, epic tracks accompanied by an incredible remix from SP:MC. The EP kicks off with 20k, an introduction laden with off-kilter, haunting eeriness and pulsating bass and percussion. Next up is Entropy, a truly ethereal track. Spatially beautiful yet isolating and cold. The title track, Flooded, is a monster of a track which intimidates and excites with eyes down and gun fingers raised. Rounding off the body of work is Fear which hits hard with crisp drum patterns and a throbbing bassline, almost evoking a sense of nostalgia, tying it in seamlessly with a typically electrifying remix from SP:MC
Following up from 2019’s Livity Sound release ‘Goulbap/Momoweb/Disposition’, which seemed to catapult Bakongo into a different scenery and introduce Wayne to old friends and long time support of his older tribal material along the way as well as surprising those who had no idea both monikers were the same person.
Slotting into a scene of Tribal sonics and a Techno atmosphere it almost seems as a new genre if we pigeon holed ourselves into specific categories as if it was 2010 again, but digging into Roska/ Bakongo’s early material, tracks like Roska’s remix of Four Tet’s Love Cry and Untold - Just For You, you can hear early examples of sounds that were explored and tested as early as 2009. Mixing the two sounds of Roska’s heavily stripped back style and Bakongo’s tribal and percussive madness enhances and uplifts what a generation have been complimenting the last 10 years.
Moving forward to this release ‘Bopster / Anytime’ you see exactly where Bakongo is going and the direction where his sound is suited.
Coastal Haze welcome the new decade with one of the most exciting artists to come out of the UK of recent in Adam Pits. Known for his intricate productions, this will be Pits' first release on the label having already gained support from the likes of Ciel, Batu and Call Super. "International Wafter" offers up four club weapons, two peak time whompers and two ethereal burners.
Om Unit brings his ‘Mahakala’ triology to a triumphant close with 2 more cuts of upfront breakbeat science.
First up, a VIP of ‘Tomahawk’ (from Mahakala02) taking the already innovative approach of sound design and layering of the original into a pure sound system roller, sounding not unlike a 1995 jump up classic, but with a much more darker, almost technoid edge that will have even a hardened soundboy gritting his teeth.
Following is ‘Blue’, a long-form jazzier piece with melancholic echoes of the past that would have sat well on labels like Nexus/Good Looking in the 90’s, complete with live-sounding and consistently shifting break chops that are striking but inflected with subtlety throughout that are both restless but engaging. Both cuts are sure to do damage on the dance floor and bring this series to close with a bang!
