Another episode in the sporadic series that goes by the name of: ‘Eight random platters from my record bag that I’m kind of addicted to right now’.
Baobinga – Ride It/Ride It (Untold remix) [Build] Tough rhythmic house from Baobinga, the original bangs hard with a heavy broken, tribal feel that’s so chunky it’ll make the dance floor bumpy. Untold turns it into an evil bass pulse driven number that ups the pressure nicely.
D1 – Just Business/Pitcher [Dub Police] Jungle infused dubstep from D1. Just Business comes out of the dark via a sample from The Wire, clattering drums and bass big enough to shake down Hamsterdam. Pitcher goes all bleepy with funky-esq drum patterns that are pretty infectious.
Starkey – Rain City/Beatingz [Rwina Records] Street Bass Don, comes back with two slices of pure dance floor fire that combine his gutter music hyper-funk, party starting ideas with a gnarly bright and trancy set of riffs that are so melodic that they get lodged in your brain.
Harmonimix – A Milli/Bills Bills Bills [White] Cheeky white label from the mysterious Harmonimix, if you know your bass heads you’ll easily pick up the clues on who’s behind this. Both tracks take the well-known numbers into twisted soul-funk/dubstep hybrid, with buckets of funk. The finale to ‘A Milli’ harmonizes Lil Wayne’s raps in a way you just don’t see coming.
Pangaea – Pangaea EP [Hessle Audio] 12” Double pack from a producer that always brings a subtle timeless vibe to his tracks that just oozes quality. Here we see him branch out his style a bit compared to recent material. ‘Why?’ uses quick jungle meets funky drums, a bumping bassline and emotion packed vocal sample to great effect. ‘Neurons’ takes on dubstep at its own game, a half-stepping deep as hell Headhunter meets Youngsta number. ‘Sunset Yellow’ takes subtle atmosphere; a deadly chord sequence and bumping electronic drums accented with tribal rolls and makes a really slow burner that gets under your skin. The rest slays as well…
A Made Up Sound – Sun Touch/Drain/Untitled (Original Shortcut) [A Made Up Sound] 2562 whips out his alter ego for some slower paced techno infused gems. ‘Sun Touch’ meets techno and garage halfway down a hall in a dark basement; the warm house stabs and gentle horror pads build the track with minimal ease. ‘Drain’ takes the pads further into warm, detuned bliss, fleshing out the dark sparse beats. The ‘Untitled’ track is an original from the Shortcuts album, which showed him working out sketches, this one turned into the fantastic ‘Love In Outer Space’.
Martyn – Hear Me (Zomby remix)/Seventy Four (Redshape remix) [3024] Quality remixes of tracks from Martyn’s album last year: Zomby takes us into bumping house territory, with big dub basslines and psychedelic synth licks, it’s seriously addictive stuff. Redshape goes all dub-techno, low slung and cold, echoing Detroit as much as Berlin.
Sully – J Treole – The Loot (Sully remix)/In Some Pattern [Keysound] Insanely addictive 12” from Sully, the garage swing king. His remix of ‘The Loot’ goes deep and jazzy with plenty of bump and bass, which really offsets the smooth jazz vibes perfectly. ‘In Some Pattern’ is a super slinky, low swung beast with twisted anthemic synth hooks that build and drop into bass fuelled oblivion.
Its been a very big year for Untold with 12”s appearing on the regular that have torn up dance floors and confused the hell out of them too, sometimes both at once. His own label Hemlock has also been leading the way with fine examples of the UK’s freshest underground dance music with the likes of Fantastic Mr Fox & Rich Reason plus the brilliant James Blake all featuring. Now I’m not sure why I haven’t written about these 12”/10” until now they’ve been on my radar for ages not to mention being absolute percy’s, so instead of letting them slip…
The ‘Gonna Work Out Fine EP’ is a two-disc beast that explores an inspired concept and pallet of sounds to grate effect. Untold takes Chicargo house pianos, strings, kicks… the whole sherbang and twists it all up with the gnarly raw energy of grime and of course Untold’s own fresh take on dubstep. It’s an experiment that’s really paid off bringing a hell of a lot of fun and energy to dance floors all over the place as everyone from Gilles Peterson to Modeselektor and countless dubstep heads all reaching for it.
The title track takes a grimy percussive loop before dropping a smooth housy twinkles and chord sequences then dropping some huge pulse-x like bass on you and flipping out with skippy drums that make for some slinky grooves. Now onto one of my favourite tracks of the year, ‘Stop What You’re Doing’ really does make you freeze in your tracks. I’ve seen people go crazy for this as much as I have seen them utterly confused. He takes the beat-less eski style experimental grime template he did for the sublime ‘Anaconda’ and twists it even more, it’s taking Wiley’s ideas and running with them into the unknown, just like Zomby has done with ‘Mercury’s Rainbow’. The track twists and shifts into a massive grin inducing psychedelic club weapon that’s unlike anything else around right now. ‘Don’t Know, Don’t Care’ is the housy-est track of the lot so far using stabs and piano to full effect, in fact its like a Bob Sinclair summer time peak floor in Space anthem remixed by Wiley on the sly while he drinks Champaign with porn on in the background. It’s the stupidly infectious down turning bass motif that gets the hip wiggling, incredible track. The sexy little vocal samples splattered throughout really remind me of Lil Louis’ ‘French Kiss’… man I’d love to hear Untold fuck that one up…
The super slinky ‘Palamino’ is another highlight and sets disc two into motion. The pulsing organ licks and twinkling chimes offset the spectral pads that just keep rolling and building before all hell breaks loose and Untold’s knack for bumping percussion and energetic bass are unleashed, this time in an explosion of carnival vibes, that really show the UK funky crew how its done its really something. ‘No one Likes A Smart-Arse’ has a ravey edge to it not unlike the recent output of Hot City but with more bump, wiggle and flex. The closing track, ‘Never Went Away’ takes the supernova space station boogie that he used so well on the Hotflush 2 outing ‘Just For You’ but with the Gonna Work Out Fine sound pallet. So you get spaced out atmospheric pads like your entering a space station and the insane energy but all done in a super smooth house meets grime fashion, the bass is just so addictive and the high-end screech samples get you shaking it.
The remix 10” is an absolute killer too taking two very talented producers takes on Untold. First up is James Blake a guy we’ve only seen one 12” from until now, but what a record that was I for one can’t stop playing it. His sound is very unique taking in soulful almost gospel tinged R&B vocal samples, which he sings himself and twisted smeared synth lines that come out sounding like a freaky Joker experiment mixed with the group he does live vocals with Mount Kimbie. He turns in a inspiring remix of ‘Stop What You’re Doing’ where he ups the hype, adds some beats and lots of harmonies until you can’t take the building dance pressure anymore and it makes you want to move like your crazy. Pangaea works his garage muscles on his version of ‘I Can’t Stop This Feeling’, the original of which can be found on the flip to ‘Anaconda’ a track that is so full of energy and tension its insane. He takes that energy and harnesses it into his own unique 2-step sound; the result is the liveliest Pangaea track released yet. After his deeply emotional track ‘Memories’ this year it’s a really welcome release to have.
Next year Hemlock and Untold are set to continue the trend with releases from: Ramadanman, LV, Mount Kimbie and himself all dropping on the label, plus another brilliant track for the BRAiNMATH label soon and plenty of surprises I’m sure. Untold, his label and associates have made some of the freshest most fun and downright brilliant music this year. I for one cannot wait to see what they come up with next.
Here’s another run down of random 12”s from my record bag that I’ve not wrote about else where. For more bass music recommendations you should check out Sonic Router too. Now get your ears round this lot…
BUBBLEZ/Lady Saw and Cecille – Move Down Low/Loser (BUBBLEZ Refix) [Devotional Dubz] Funky Bashment refix action from Grievous Angel alter-ego BUBBLEZ. Raw energy harnessed for your dancing pleasure. Caned by Kode 9 with its grime meets house on a dark dance floor vibe, these are certified bangers.
Untold – Just For You/Just For You (Roska Remix) [Hotflush 2] Future Jungelist flavours from Untold, it’s an energy rush of broken beats, Eski bass and space age synths. Roska flips it into a funky banger with ravey vocal snippet: when the bass changes up things kick off. Perfect.
Pangaea – Memories [White Label] Soul shaking tear jerking future garage with a moving vocal that gets even the most militant headz emotional. It’s maybe the most beautiful dubstep track since Archangel, smooth and melancholy with a driving 2-step beat and catchy bass.
Johnny Clark Vs. Mala/Coki – Sinners/Gobblin [Ringo] Mala goes deep as Coki goes bonkers. It’s been a long time coming, Sinners is a sublime dub drenched slice of pure mediation and loved up vibes it’s just amazing. Coki switches it completely and takes wobble to the EXTREAM, with a gnarly fucked up Gobblin bass and not much more.
Brackles/Brackles & Shortstuff – LHC/Sutorito Faita [Planet Mu] Heavy weight duo fix up some future sounds, making bleeped out hybrids of garage/dubstep/funky out of the remnants of the Large Hadron Collider expeiment just before it rips the Earth a new black hole and we’re found floating round the International Space Station, well that’s what it sounds like anyway but with added Street Fighter samples.
Ramadanman – Revenue / Revenue (Untold Remix) [2nd Drop] Ramadanman does it deep and techy as Untold ups the percussion, glitches it out and makes me want to mix it with Mala’s Left Leg Out. Original is deep and dubby with a subtle tribal groove that’s tight as fuck. Untold twists it into new shapes that only he knows the name of, I’d plump for it being something like a ‘gowreckthebass-ahedron’.
James Blake – Air & Lacktherof/Spring Horse [Hemlock] ‘Maybes’ ahem my favourite new artist since Mount Kimbie, who coincidently he works with providing vocals and suchlike (he’s a badman on the mic). This is some kind of twisted soul with a freaky post-dubstep vibe, it doesn’t sound like anything else and it’s beautiful for it.
DVA ft. Badness / Riko / Flowdan / Killa P – Bullet A Go Fly/Bullet A Go Fly (Dusk & Blackdown Remix) [Keysound] Hardcore, dark as hell grime that only Keysound have the balls to release it seems… It’s hard to come by and hard as hell, pure violence, rudeboy riddims and a snapshot of what you don’t want to see round the next corner. The remix gives it a dance floor skip.
http://infrasonics.net/ If you enjoy your 2-step in a ghostly kind of skeletal style not unlike the still pretty damn anonymous Burial then Spatial is going to be right up your street. Now, now don’t be going ape-shit over the Burial comparison this is just some more futuristic garage in a slightly atmospheric vibe for you to enjoy.
He dropped a 10” recently that Boomkat fell over it’s self to feature as it’s single of the week, which all at once makes me a bit weary and a bit proud. Weary because Boomkat have a habit of hyping a lot of things that just sound like basic channel and / or Burial when the mood takes them, but proud in that I had seen Spatial’s name before on dubstepforum and really dug his dubs well before I saw the wax was pressed.
Spatial kind of came out of know here with me, I just heard the dubs and though to myself now that would be nice to see on wax. Then low and behold here they come on Infrasound, which I’m pretty sure is his own venture. A nice bit of marketing maybe? Who cares you have to check out these tracks…
The 10” has the same sort of sound as the two free tracks he is giving away on his website. One is really minimal like a skeleton knocking out a 2-step beat, no I don’t mean like Skull Disco I mean like someone did a job on Horsepower and left them for glue. Then the other is like a mixture of said garage and pure soulful Detroit techno all mixed up, you know for kicks. People like Pangaea, Untold and Ramadanman do something similar at times, but Spacial has his own slant on it.
Your mind will not be blown by these tunes; they are far too subtle for that. They will just kind of fit into your listening habits with ease whether you are a DJ or a casual listener. I for one am looking forward to fitting them into a mix; they just sound like house and 2-step history combining in one 10” future garage platter.
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'Jimi - whose enthusiasam for this remarkable genre is humbling - he say's "Now that's a single!" And let's face it, I know who I should be more inclined to take my dubstep recommendations from' Wendy Roby of DiS
Another episode in the sporadic series that goes by the name of: ‘Eight random platters from my record bag that I’m kind of addicted to right now’.
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