E-Motion get in touch with their deeper side once again with their latest single from Tremah. Blend lays down a smooth, melancholy vibe with punchy, rolling drums, deep sub vibrations and soft, sad synths coming together nicely.
Over on the flip Creep follows a similar pattern, with insistent beats, well placed vocal samples and a little more emphasis on the bassline. Check out the clips below and watch out for this one dropping from June 9th.
Dispatch Recordings get busy with a big 12″ featuring a pair of techy dancefloor rollers from some of the biggest names in the game. Bailey makes a rare production appearance to remix Zero T & Script’s Guessing Games, taking the atmosphere and heft of the original and turning in a tougher relick. Those drums! Punchy business.
Next up production wonder-duo SCAR return to Dispatch with Spectre, aiming for the chest with a rolling break and savage bass hits. This one’s sure to provoke a few gun fingers on the dancefloor!
Those of you who’ve kept your eyes on the Dispatch Store may already have snagged a (now sold out) advance vinyl copy. For the rest of you, check out the clips below and watch out for the full release dropping from June 23rd.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX8sA240PoY]
2014 seems to be the year of A-Cray as the budding producer storms a variety of labels with innovative, heavy hitting beats. His latest work graces Authentic Music’s 10th release as the opening track and busts some seriously unusual rhythms, with relentless kicks and unusual percussion taking centre stage in a composition that has little need of melody.
Elsewhere on the EP Epidemic gets on the remix, turning in a dark, rolling rework of Dreadmaul & MC Kryptomedic’s Mill City. Fans of the 140 sound will also find a two slabs of dark, cinematic dubstep from Hemoglobin and Architech. Can’t say fairer than that eh? Check out the clips below and grab this one from your favourite digital outlet now.
It’s a rare treat to get a full album for free and doubly so when that album is a massive 46 track career retrospective! US producer Vector Burn gifts his final collection of never before released tracks to the world for free, having exited the D&B scene in favour of other musical pastures some years ago. Featuring tracks that were destined for the likes of Rumble, Defcom and Renegade Hardware, the collection stands as a testament to the golden age of Techstep production, with tracks from 1999 through to 2007 painstakingly retrieved from hard drives and arranged in chronological order.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8MrWK4T5Xw]
There are so many tracks to choose from here it’s difficult to pick a mere handful to embed in the post – do yourself a favour and head over to the Internet Recordings page to read the history and grab the full set. While you’re there you could do worse than to check out the album sampler and have a gander at their back catalogue, featuring early releases from Mefjus, Zardonic and Acid_Lab.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4Thr6vSYFw]
Alex Seva brings his brand of dark, snarling drum & bass to Deep Field Audio for their 6th single. Era opens up with half-time drums and ominous, brooding growls before dropping into precise, rolling percussion and a gargling, industrial reese line. Twisted keeps the tone pretty grimey but palces the emphasis on heavy kicks and snares with the bass taking a back seat.
Check out the clips below and grab this one from your favourite digital outlet now!
Mav drops his debut album for Scientific Records, featuring a selection of melody driven D&B tunes and some big remixes to boot. Asides from terrific compositions with tons of character, the album also features a couple of DJ friendly genre-hopping tracks, with Makati Oasis dropping down to a cheeky house-tempo bridge and Trigger the Rabbit flirting with bouncy breaks for an interlude from it’s D&B verses.
Elsewhere there’s a fantastic future-funk amen workout on Break Is The Legend and soaring arpeggios aplenty on The Dolphin and the Bassline. Remix-wise, highlights include Chris.SU’s rolling dancefloor remix of Me Against The Machine, Seba’s deep atmospheric relick of Between Heaven and the Deep Blue Sea and Bungle’s super chilled remix of Skylines. Check out the tracks below and grab this one on vinyl or digital now!
Slighshot was undoubtedly one of the highlights of Gridlok & Prolix’s 2013 Project Trendkill LP so the news that it’s getting a cheeky remix will surely be welcomed by connoisseurs of rowdy time D&B bangers everywhere. The new mix doesn’t disappoint either, taking the memorable riff work of the original and amping it up with a new set of filtering and some energetic drum edits. Check it out below and grab it from your favourite digital outlet now.
Blu Mar Ten Music continue their catalogue of top notch leftfield electronica with a new single from Russian producer/singer Tiiu. Fans of Synkro’s brand of “is it Dubstep, is it D&B or is it a film soundtrack” type beats will definitely appreciate the work on show here, but that’s not to say it’s a copycat job. Oozing atmosphere with its reverb drenched pads and natural sounding percussion, All Good Things is so slow as to be practically ambient, and fantastic for it. The ghostly vocal echoes are a particularly deft touch in amongst the tapestry of sounds.
Tiiu teams up with fellow Russian producer Faib to craft a slightly more beat driven Dubstep composition on the flip; the same warm atmospheres are employed here but with a little more insistence to the drums than on the positively soporific pace of the A side. Simple but effective bassline reverberations reminiscent of Distance’s growling, sludgey style provide a nice counterpoint to the more musical elements of the tune.
Check out the clips below and grab this one on digital from Blu Mar Ten’s online store now.
Vandal Records continue their seemingly endless onslaught of releases with a new single from Detail. Detached opens the salvo with epic synths and marching drums on the intro giving way to rapid fire bass stabs and sawtooth moans set to a staccato drum line with tons of energy and character.
Shiver takes things a bit more minimal but continues the punchy vibe with both beats and bass hitting like quick punches to the gut, in and out before you know where you are. The rhythm of the track strikes a nice balance between angularity and roll, never feeling abrupt but never soothing either. Check out the clips below and grab this one from your favourite digital outlet now.
Superior Selectionz latest release for Lockdown Recordings sounds like a love letter to the sounds of Techstep a decade ago; the influence of early Ed Rush & Optical and Photek records can be heard in the darkness and groove of the compositions on show here, but updated with the modern production tricks of 2014 to great effect.
The titular Cold Heart is all about the punchy, memorable bass hook and crisp breakbeats, while Eyes Open oozes atmosphere from the pads and backs it up with a simple but effective set of bassline modulations. Backlash takes things back to the old school with a classic rave-stab riff and Mercury rounds off the EP with a deep, subby roller. All four tracks show an emphasis on groove over hyperactive detailing, setting them against the mould of some modern techstep D&B.
Check out the clips below and look out for the tracks dropping from May 26th.