Showing posts with label Mark Pritchard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mark Pritchard. Show all posts

Tuesday, 4 May 2010

12"

More picks from my bulbous record bag… this sporadic feature seems to have slowed down a bit since I got a new pair of 1210s and I’ve started using ustream for even more sporadic shows. But here is another selection of music I didn’t get around to writing about elsewhere but just couldn’t help mentioning…

Non Person - Presenser / Mi Empress [Channel Zero]
After turning in one of my favourite recent mixes for Sonic Router the Finnish producer drops two twisted hip-hop infused dubstep gems for Clouds Channel Zero label. Mesmerising and dense but with an experimental playfulness these tracks shift and bubble in strange ways, seriously addictive.

Mark Pritchard – Elephant Dub/Heavy As Stone [Deep Medi]
Elephant Dub does exactly as it says on the tin, sounds like an elephant creating it’s own dubplate. Its such a heavy, plodding beast it makes you wonder if the complaints about half-step seem like a distant memory, until you hear a boring half-stepper… The flip channels FlyLo’s ‘Tea Leaf Dancers’ and an epic sense of soul into a deep heads down number.

Shortstuff/Taylor – Regression/Squeege [Wigflex]
Sublime 12” from Wigflex upping the game once more with Shorstuff bringing a flexible slinky ‘what you call it?’ number that echoes uk funky, broken house, grime, Detroit techno and dubstep all in one cohesive dance floor bomb. Taylor rolls out a slice of seriously blissfully melodic techno that feels like early AFX but built for the dance floor, playful, hypnotic with a pinch of melancholy.

SCB – 20_4/3_5 [SCB]
Scuba takes a brake from making techno infused dubstep and makes dubstep infused techno instead, and its way more different to how that statement sounds. He drops one of my favourite albums of the year so far and still has the pace to drop a couple of slow burning deep nuggets of techno bliss.

Desto – Disappearing Reappearing Ink/Broken Memory [Ramp]
Finally you can get hold of these tracks: bleepy computer game soundtrack eski-beat grime meets broken dubstep, again in Finland. Equal parts uplifting and playful as well as intense and heavy. Arpeggios squiggle and bass tones shake your chest plate. Both tracks nail it, more Desto please!

Rossi B & Luca – E10 Riddim/Police Are Come Run ft. Killa P [Planet Mu]
Massive riddim that fuses a funky carnival vibe with a hard hitting grime intensity to great effect, just like Lil Silva takes grimy bass into funky Rossi B & Luca switch it the other way around and absolutely nail it. Killa P turns in a hard as hell vocal version too completing a tough 12” that will be in my bag for some time.

Africa Hitech – Blen/Rmx/The Sound Of Tomorow [Warp]
Mark Pritchard joins forces with Steve Spacek for a brand new project that is looking very promising. Blen is a fuzzy digital dance floor beast that fuses an African house style party vibe with a Harmonic 313-like electronica, while the remix plays up the funky vibe more and turns down the digital aspects, both kill it. The flip flows on a meditative tip with an epic dreamy song.

LV & Untold – Beacon/(Mount Kimbie Remix) [Hemlock]
Big collaboration that I first heard in the mix Untold did for us at Sonic Router way back… A deep and warm dub style workout that clicks and winds with an organic eyes down dance floor experience. Mount Kimbie up the good time vibes and add a smidgen of glitch addled garage along with their addictive melodic sensibilities.

Wednesday, 4 March 2009

Harmonic 313 – When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence (Warp)

Original writen for Sonic Router, the excelent dubstep / bass blog.

Harmonic 313 is one of the many pseudonyms of prolific electronic producer Mark Pritchard. When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence is a strange beast it’s a little bit to rigid and robotic to be a purely off-kilter hip-hop album in the vain of Flying Lotus’ organic grooves and it’s to slow to be dubstep, it’s kind of just Harmonic 313 I guess.

There is an air of the retro styling of old skool electro and Detroit techno in these hip-hop beats, Pritchard has taken these influences fed it through an Amstrad sideways and pumped it full of bass on the way out.

The gritty opener ‘Dirtbox’ sets the tone with bags of attitude and beastly sine waves. Things flow along nicely until the sublime wonky dancehall dub’s of ‘Koln’ and ‘Galag-a’ really takes hold with some really early Warp sounding synth melodies. I keep finding the bass of ‘Call to Arms’ going round and round my head at times as well. The acidic bleep tones of ‘Flaash’ make me want to dig out Al Niahfish (The Soul) by Hasim because of its old skool electro style.

At times it’s a little too rigid for my liking and the computer voices spelling Harmonic 313 grate a little after a while. Then the tracks with raps already sound like something is a little bit missing or a tad dated. But When Pritchard is on form he really is on top of his game.

If you’re a fan of big bass, hip-hop beats and electronica you can’t go far wrong than check out Harmonic 313.

http://www.harmonic313.com/

http://www.myspace.com/officialmarkpritchard

http://harmonic313.wordpress.com/
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