Spanish artist Pablo Dread joins the ranks of Beat Machine early next month with an EP packed full of raved up, jungle influenced beats, blending future sounds with retro heritage to great effect. To celebrate we asked him for a quick Top 5 of tunes he’s feeling right now; check it out…
Sully is a name that may not be familiar to many within the D&B scene but should ring bells for anyone who keeps an eye on the 140BPM arena; Sully made his name with dark garage and dubstep productions for the likes of Urban Graffiti and Keysound. More recently his output has begun to focus on jungle, which brought him to the attention of Fracture and his Astrophonica imprint.
So to the Flock EP, and it’s undeniably retro sound. The use of classic breaks and fairly stripped back compositions give the four tracks here an authentic jungle sound, but Sully manages to avoid the cheesier genre tropes which would turn this into a tedious copycatting of early 90s material. The deceptively simple arrangements allow the carefully chosen elements of each track to shine and Sully’s obvious love of the jungle sound to come through perfectly, all buoyed along by crisp, modern mixdowns.
From the darker pad sounds and slightly creepy vibe of Helios to the Squarepusher-esque IDM melodies of Hours, Miles and Still… this is a welcome love letter to a sound at once long gone and at the same time ever present in its lasting influence on so many scenes. Check out the clips below and grab yourself a pre-order via the Astrophonica bandcamp ahead of the Nov 27th release.
Moresounds returns to Fracture’s Astrophonica imprint with a new EP featuring more of his crossover footwork/jungle sound. Pillaging the classic breaks and ragga vocal samples from 90s jungle but reworking them to an entirely different set of rhythmic syncopations, the tracks here have at once an air of old school nostalgia and an up to the minute freshness.
Picks of the bunch for us here at the Dojo are the chopped up, dubbed out skank-up of Pure Niceness and the crusty breaks, jungle vox and classic pads of Fracture collab Dead & Bury. Check out the clips below and head to the Astrophonica store to grab this on vinyl or digital now!
Dawn Day Night (still unidentified but widely presumed to be Fracture working under an alias) drops his second EP for Astrophonica, bringing us four tracks of weird and wonderful electronica spanning tempos, styles and influences.
Re-Animation of Scottie kicks things off deep and dubby, keeping the tempo half-time and rolling out with mountains of sub and crisp percussion. Hold That Leg Up proceeds to change things up, immediately heading for pretty silly ghetto-tech territory. It’s definitely the most booty-shakin’ tune on the record, but it feels shallow compared to the rest of the material on show.
Mister Meanie makes exceptionally good use of old funk/soul sampling layered over hyper-syncopated footwork riddims, creating serious groove. Finally Higher Plains heads back to deep territory, with more dub-infused vibes; all echo, reverb and bass. Check out the beats below and grab your copy on vinyl or digital now!