Cardiff based record store Catapult Records have truly put together a stunning lineup for their Sounds of the Baskerville event in June. The lineup features DJ Marky, Break, Rockwell and Audio headlining a packed event featuring sets from Klute, Dom & Roland, Ulterior Motive, Xtrah and many, many more. Truly a D&B heads paradise! Early Bird tickets are already sold out but you can still grab £75 tickets here. Don’t sleep!
Sun & Bass continue their tradition from last year and release another stellar compilation featuring cuts from the festival’s regular DJs, with a host of big names on board. The first half of the compilation leans heavily in the deep liquid direction, with a collection of rollers and steppers from Triad, Fracture & Mark System, Seba, Alite & Arp XP and more. Tokyo Prose steal the show for me with the sublime, twinkling piano and crisp breaks of Goodbye Hands…truly a tune you could lose yourself in.
The second half of the selection sees the heat turned up with harder beats from Klute, Chris SU and Nymfo, Dom & Roland and more. Ulterior Motive turn in a strong, squelchy stepper with Fragola Invisible and Audio Habitat collaborates with Mad Vibes for a good old fashioned dirty roller. The LP closes up with a few more soulful numbers from dBridge, Code 3 and Zero T for good measure.
Check out all the beats below and watch out for the release dropping on digital from December 16th. Don’t forget you can also pick up the sublime Calibre/Paradox remix 12″ from Surus now!
After something of a period of hibernation in the wake of Calyx & Teebee’s latest album for Ram Records, Teebee’s Subtitles imprint returns in style with a massive compilation album representing all the styles of D&B. While not all the tracks are outstanding (Ulterior Motive’s Gang Rule is a bit of a let down compared to most of their material), there are more than enough top class beats here to be worthy of your attention.
Among the best tracks are the warped, hefty tech of Calyx & Teebee’s Human Reptile remix, the atmospheric drumfunk of Fanu’s Rendlesham and the epic, majestic beauty of Seba’s Under The Sun (which is without a doubt the best liquid tune you’ll hear this year). There’s also plenty on show for the deep heads, with tracks from ASC, Blocks & Escher and Mark System all tripping the leftfield path.
Check out the beats below and grab yourself a copy on vinyl, CD or digital from Surus now.
After too many years of staring at the lineups and wishing I was there, 2013 was finally the year for a pilgrimage to Sun & Bass. Held in San Teodoro on the beautiful island of Sardinia, the festival offers eight nights of the best D&B DJs in the world. If you don’t believe it, have a gander at the lineup. Given the length of the event, this review will be split up into separate posts. Read on for part one…
With less than a month to go until Sun & Bass hits the beautiful island of Sardinia the organisers have delivered another quality mix in their podcast series from Dutch DJ/producer Nymfo. Packed full of tasty beats from the likes of Ulterior Motive, Klute, Maduk & Rido, the mix traverses the many styles of D&B with the deftness that only a decade of DJing brings. Check it out and grab yourself a free download below.
Stealth presents the latest episode of the Subtitles Music podcast, dropping a tidy selection of beats from the likes of Hybris, Ulterior Motive, Enei, Octane & DLR, Icicle and Ivy Lab. Deep, dark and rolling, just how we like it!
DNB Dojo head honcho Hex brings us a 40 minute mix all vinyl mix for the Sun & Bass DJ Competition spanning deep, drumfunk, liquid, techstep and neurofunk D&B. The tracklist speaks for itself with old classics sitting alongside new material – check it out now via Mixcloud.
Tracklist:
Mode – Stats [Ingredients]
Fracture & Neptune – Get Lost [Astrophonica]
Paradox – Crate Logic [Paradox Music]
Subtension – Changes [Samurai Music]
Digital & Spirit – Backlach (Digital & Spirit Rework) [Phanton Audio]
Photek – Ni Ten Ichi Ryu (Teebee Remix) [Photek Productions]
DJ Trax – Syncopation [Outsider]
Vicious Circle & Nocturnal – Skylark [Quarantine]
T.E.E.D. – Household Goods (Enei Remix) [TEED]
dBridge & Vegas – True Romance [Metalheadz]
Martyn – Virgo [Play:musik]
Lenzman – Empty Promise [Metalheadz]
Calibre – Sick Of It All [Signature]
Amit – Killer Driller [Metalheadz]
Ulterior Motive & Judda – Timekeeper (Calyx & Teebee Remix) [Subtitles]
Phace & Noisia – MPD [Neosignal]
Mefjus – Signalz [Critical]
Apex – Inner Space [Subtitles]
The mighty Ulterior Motive have put together a rather tasty ‘All Headz’ mix ahead of next month’s Star Warz event in Belgium. Consisting of (you guessed it) nothing but Metalheadz tracks, the mix features a tasty range of tracks from the likes of dBridge, Break, Spectrasoul, Lenzman, Goldie, Ed Rush, FD and S.P.Y, spanning the range of Metalheadz material.
Check out the mix below, and if you’re in Belgium on March 2nd be sure to head down to Kunstencentrum Vooruit to catch sets from Goldie, Dillinja, Ulterior Motive, Jubei and Amit at the Star Warz Metalheadz takeover!
Symmetry Recordings, the label owned by drum & bass legend Break, have been gearing up for a while now to release The Other Side, the label’s third album and the first to feature tracks from artists other than Break. Ahead of the release we caught up with Break for a quick Q&A about the album.
DNB Dojo: Since this is a collaboration album, who would you do a collab with if you could pick any musician alive or dead, and why?
Break: Its very hard, the list could be very long…would love to work with Marlena Shaw or Sade, they’re two of my favourite singers.
Ooh or Seal if it was a guy!
DD: Was there a deliberate decision to shift the output of Symmetry away from your own productions and onto releasing more tunes from other producers, or did it just evolve that way organically?
Break: A bit of both…I have been releasing tracks from other artists for a little while, but so many great tracks were getting sent, it seemed right to do an album. Could probably do another one soon, there’s so many good producers Im feeling at the mo.
DD: What’s your favourite track out of everything you’ve ever written? For me it’s probably between Is This What You Want and Too Much, though I also have a lot of time for Our World (from the Breakout EP you did for Eastside back in 2003)
Break: Bit like the first question pretty hard to say. Pleased you remember Our World, that was one of my favourites at the time, sounds a bit gnarly now, but the vibe is rolling. I really like Let it Happen, Last Chance Remix, Love So True, and Evil Twin. Lightspeed also gives me goosebumps everytime…there’s not many DnB tunes that do that for me…Think I’m more into the musical ones with heavy bass, my favourite combo.
DD: What’s next for the label after this album? Any exciting future plans you’d care to tell us about?
Break: We will be releasing some exciting remixes from the album, and there are several tracks that I’m trying to get my hands on, so a few more singles to come soon as well.
Ive been working on a non Dnb album with the singer Kyo, the band is called “Degrees of Freedom”, watch out for the first single coming soon. I’ts basically everything we’re into that isn’t DnB.
DD: The album features a nice variety of styles from more liquidy stuff to the really hard hitters like Kicked To Death. Which styles of drum & bass do you find it more fun to write, and to DJ?
Break: It kinda is 6 of one half a dozen of the other…Kicked To Death totally smashes it in every rave I’ve played, but it was designed to do that, after working on that in the studio for a while, can give you a bit of a headache… it’s so loud and lairy…whereas working on Who We Are, which is one of the more liquidy tracks on the album, I find more enjoyable and satisfying… basically I’m more into piano than synths!
DD: Any tips for budding drum & bass producers? What can make a track great rather than just good?
Break: I think there is an element of hit and miss. Not every tune can be amazing….you can’t expect to be able to do that…..whenever I try and make my best ever tune it’ss totally rubbish and contrived! When you nail a vibe that you’re really into, that usually will come through in the music. Often less is more….I find that all you need is 4 or 5 tracks in your arrangement to have a killer….any more is usually just filler.
Check out previews of the album below and grab yourself a copy from your favourite shop on digital and vinyl, out now!
So much quality Drum & Bass has been hitting the speakers lately that we felt a little round up of highlights was in order!
First up, Techstep godfather and Metro Recordings head-honcho Matrix has teamed up with up and comer InsideInfo to produce Quattro and they’ve come up with something quite special. A sparkly, twinkling melody builds the song up during the intro leading up to a firm drop and some brilliant moving bass synths, with the flashes of high end keeping things sounding bright. Ice Beam on the flip on the other hand is a solid dancefloor roller with a healthy growl to it. Watch out for the release on Mar 12th.
Shogun sister label SGN:LTD have got a brand new 12″ from Technicolour & Komatic who have delivered a rough amen roller in the form of We Were Always One, also out Mar 12th.
The official video for Sabre, Stray & Halogenics feat. Frank Carter III – Oblique has dropped this week. The song has been receiving props left, right and centre and is probably the best piece of deep liquid dnb that’s been released in the last 5 years. We don’t throw around words like “essential” lightly but this tune is just that. Look out for the release on Critical coming Feb 27th, backed with a tasty garage remix from Synkro.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fffHfyie9tw]
Just today Commercial Suicide have put up the previews for SUICIDE062. Ulterior Motive have a grimey stepper on the A side but the real highlight here is the Klute VIP of Nymfo‘s Resolve. Bad tune!
Last but certainly not least, Glasgow D&B stalwarts Symbiosis have just released Episode 4 of their show on Radio Magnetic, featuring 2 hours of top quality beats including a guest mix from Edinburgh DJ and Special Records chief, Special Ed. Check it out over here.