Without much detail accompanying the email he just sent over, frequentXLR8Rtrack contributor Lokiboi adds another excellent house production to his name. “Winter Groove” finds the UK-based producer delving into less dancefloor savvy tunes, utilizing a slow and hushed groove—one which nonetheless finds its roots in house.
The latest single to arrive from unstoppable UK duo Disclosure, the AlunaGeorge-featuring “White Noise,” has just been issued a video treatment. Perhaps a bit grittier than would be expected for the exceedingly polished dance-pop tune, the clip follows a security guard (or so it seems) living in and exploring the ruins of Detroit—oh, and he also really likes to dance. You can watch the excellent-looking, well-produced video for Disclosure’s new tune below, and while you’re at it, you might as well give Hudson Mohawke’s recent remix a listen, here.
Today, we’re premiering a video for Friends of Friends affiliate Pcoat, a piece for the artist’s contribution to the label’s Show Me the Future compilation. Graphic artist Anna Purnakumar—who was behind the visual projections for Brainfeeder’s tour last year—created the more or less black-and-white video for “Division” with geometric patterns, flashing light, and synthetic textures. It all pairs nicely with Pcoat’s abstract, semi-experimental production quality.
Man of many monikers and head of the burgeoning Ellum Audio label, Maceo Plex (a.k.a. Eric Estornel) has been tapped as the next contributor to !K7‘s ongoing DJ-Kicks mix series. Estornel’s contribution will follow Hercules & Love Affair’s edition of DJ-Kicks on April 29, and is set to arrive complete with one never-before-released Maceo Plex track, called “Galactic Cinema,” and 10 new re-edits from the mixmaster housed within the 18-song tracklist. Speaking on the creation of his new mix album, the artist says, “It took me at least three months. I went through my own stuff and previous DJ-Kicks mixes. You know, research. I think it is the most important mix series, so I wanted to make sure it was music that I really loved and I want to hear in five or 10 years time.” That music includes loads of classic tracks from the likes of DJ Stingray313 and Move D, many of which have been tweaked to the DJ’s liking. You can check out the tracklist and artwork for Maceo Plex’s DJ-Kicks before its release, below.
01.Monsters From ID / Spatial Lobe
02.Voice Stealer / Evaluation
03.Stingray313 / Defect
04.Mathias Schaffhäuser / Nice To Meet You (Maceo Plex Edit)
05.TV Baby / New York Is Alright (Blak Spun Mix)
06.Maceo Plex & Mark O’Sullivan / When It All Comes To This
07.Lab Insect aka Nomenklatür / Oh Happy Day (Maceo Plex Edit)
08.Kimbu Kimra / Raise The Dead (Love From San Francisco Dub)
09.Mattski / Escapism (Maceo Plex Conversation Remix)
10.Eric Volta / Rez-Shifter (Maceo Plex Remix)
11.Visnadi / Racing Tracks (Indianapolis Drive Mix / Maceo Plex Edit)
12.Maceo Plex / Galactic Cinema (DJ-Kicks)
13.Move D / Sandmann (Maetrik Edit)
14.Zeta Reticula & Freaks / Creeps (Maetrik Fusion Edit)
15.Jaydee / Payback (Maceo Plex Remix)
16.S.A.M. / Nangijala (Maceo Plex Reggae Edit)
17.Turner / Multiorgel (Schneider TM Mix)
18.Maceo Plex / Mind On Fire
After putting in years as a prolific drum & bass producer, Moscow’s Nphonix takes on a slower range of tempos for Tactix, an EP full of strong-armed house and techno hybrids which comes as the next unpredictable turn in the growing discography of Amsterdam’s Audio Culture imprint.
It’s not hard to hear Nphonix’s D&B roots on the tunes offered here—these are powerful dancefloor weapons which fit an almost overwhelming amount of sinister textures and tough rhythms into their runs. In this way, the EP seems as if it should be overcrowded, but somehow, the songs do not appear needlessly full. Nphonix’s work is far from lean or efficient, but every part serves its purpose, even if it only appears for a few bars. There is also a familiar D&B singe that can heard throughout Tactix, as many of the elements come with just a touch of distortion; the slowed and chopped drum breaks, the thick synth pads, and the low-end gurgles all sound as if they were pushed slightly into the red, resulting in a layer of fuzz that coats the entire EP.
Despite the 130-bpm range being a bit foreign to the Russian producer’s established discography, Nphonix sounds at home on the EP’s three tracks (five for those who grab the digital version). The title tune wraps overdriven bits of space-age FX around a bottom-heavy shuffle, its rhythm occasionally derailing but never falling fully off course, while “Naimina (Dub Version)” dives the deepest of all with its dubbed-out chords and propulsive, subterranean kick-and-hat pattern. But the standout tune is “Don’t I Feel,” the housiest of the three efforts and a track which takes its name from a prominently featured pitched vocal sample. Between the constant swirl of crackling chords, the eventual appearance of a sequenced synth melody, and the enticing shuffle which morphs throughout, “Don’t I Feel” is bound to serve DJs well, especially when sitting alongside tracks with a similar intensity and sonic weight, such as Joy O and Boddika’s collaborative works or the more recent outings of Cosmin TRG. The entire EP makes its point, but “Don’t I Feel” in particular will have many hoping that Nphonix’s attraction to the techno and house bpm range results in another EP or two before the year is through.
Happy birthday Nick Hook! That’s right, our very own advice columnist is another year wiser today, but that didn’t stop Doctor Nick from delivering his weekly dose of knowledge to the XLR8R faithful. Want to give him a present? Send in your questions to doctornick@xlr8r.com. The man knows about music, travel, DJing, production, romance, and the ways of the world. He’s here to help, so let him work his magic.
Hi. By the time you read this, I’ll be in a private jet, going somewhere luxurious to celebrate my birthday. Nah, in all reality I’ll probably be laying in bed, hungover from the ASAP Rocky show. It’s cold in New York but there are good vibes. I was gonna do a “Harlem Shake” video for this week’s column, but I figured everyone would be cool without that… Anyways, back to life, back to reality.
Send questions to doctornick@xlr8r.com. We’re running out. Really. Have your mom write one or something.
Hi Doctor Nick,
I’m 23-year-old producer from Hong Kong. My parents place couldn’t fit me anymore, so I got myself a place in an industrial building for my studio and home as well. In the last four months, I’ve had to deal with the new metalcore band next door and their volume issues. I reached out to them multiple times to seek a resolution, but they couldn’t do it. Their drums are loud, so the amplifiers need to go wild, too. It annoys me a lot, whether I’m producing or just chilling out. I can’t afford to move right now either. So Doc, do I need to reach Zen level to maintain what I am doing?
Scott
Wut up man? Good move on getting a spot. (Side note to all: from my own personal experience, working on music changed exponentially after I left the bedroom. I’m not dissing the bedroom. I still have a controller in my room and if inspiration strikes, I make little MIDI notes or make sounds, but I found that I was never stopping work. 24 hours a day, I was “working,” but really, I was wandering around my crib, looking on Facebook, chatting, and never really fully putting my energy into anything. Ultimately, I never stepped away from anything. Now that I have a separate studio, that mental break of coming and going has been great. I highly suggest trying it. You can have a human life and a musical life—they are both important. Friendship and relationships are also winning recipients from this.)
End tangent…
I’ve been through this shit. There’s nothing worse than a bad band. Fuck. It makes me wanna quit music like yesterday. But what can I say? I’ve made my share of terrible shit then, and I still do now. I always worry that if they raid my computer when I die, people are gonna be like, “Wow, this guy is terrible.” Probably so, but fuck it. Maybe if we die they’ll think of us as some kind of geniuses with thousands of unfinished tracks in our computers. Who knows?
Options:
1) Slaughter an animal in front of their door.
2) Talk to them about scheduling.
3) Beat the fuck out of them.
4) Find some moving blankets, foam, egg crates, as much as possible to soundproof your room—and theirs. Getting real stuff might be better, but it’s way more expensive.
5) Throw them some money. Greasing palms ALWAYS works. Fifty bucks might go a long way.
Other advice: Find a raw space. DON’T tell the landlord you make music. Tell him you do multimedia. Everyone knows that anyone who makes music is basically broke and irresponsible, so tell him you do post, film, something that doesn’t make him think 60 Hz are gonna be blasting through the walls all the time. At the end of the day, none of these people are generally around, so you are all good.
Good luck G.
Okay, word. Dig it. Send questions. Much respek to all. Thank you for reading, as always.
Hi, Doctor Nick! appears every Thursday on XLR8R. Do you have a question for Doctor Nick? Please submit your inquires to doctornick@xlr8r.com. Nick Hook can help you.
Helmed by Parisian bass adventurer Douster, the fledgling Bebup label is set to drop its third EP next month in the form of a debut outing from Lyon’s Naulot. To introduce the fresh face to the XLR8R faithful, Bebup has offered up this remix from PEEV, another of Lyon’s budding tunesmiths, who works the forthcoming EP cut “Birds” into an almost eight-minute workout of tough rhythms and industrial FX. Somehow managing to bury itself deeper and deeper underneath a seemingly limitless array of percussion, PEEV’s rework is the kind of forceful dancefloor fare that should prove a nice accompaniment to Naulot’s brand of “heavy, cinematic dub-techno” when his Leave EP drops in March.
Italian producer Alessandro Pasini (a.k.a. Deep88) carries a deep affection for the smooth chords, spacey tones, and drum-machine hits of classic house. Consisting of a collection of songs previously released on 12″s for his own Deep88 label, along with a number of brand-new tracks, Pasini’s sophomore LP finds the producer gleefully indulging in this affection, offering up a delightful array of soulful, hardware-born house and glimpses of sunny disco throughout Removing Dust.
It’s no secret that the sounds associated with house music’s original golden age have become increasingly referenced over the past few years; most notably, they’ve been repurposed to fit within more contemporary productions, which helps explain why they continually spill into the bass-music sphere. In some ways, Pasini’s Deep88 project appears of this ilk—the funkier veins of Midwest house and NYC disco are constant reference points—but the Italian producer makes less of an effort to fit these familiar elements into ultra-modern, club-minded packages. Instead, many of the tracks on Removing Dust are more closely related to their sources of inspiration. Raw drum machines, thick, analog-sounding synths, and filter-tweaked leads sit alongside the occasional vocal performance and even a few playful spoken-word vocal samples. As a result, Deep88’s productions are rendered lighthearted, lacking the seriousness and intensity of much of today’s club music, an aspect which actually works to Pasini’s advantage for much of the LP. Songs like “Italo82 (Disco Remix)” and “Sing It Back” (yes, a cover of the Moloko classic) glow with bright synths and swing with understated percussion, but—above all—are just disarmingly fun and charming. Even when the record dips into deeper territory, as it does on shuffler “The Vibe,” or on the dustier “100% Kamelhaar” and “Thor Ens Funk,” the mood remains celebratory—Deep88 isn’t attempting to hit the listener over the head with a “big tune”; instead, he’s inviting us to share in a (hopefully) mutual love for the essential qualities that make house music fun.
Still, when celebrating house’s classic form effectively—not to mention for an 80-minute span—a good deal of stylistic balance is required. Unfortunately, Deep88 periodically loses sight of this on Removing Dust. For instance, there’s troubling reggae/disco hybrid “Stories (The Sghembo Mix)” and the closing “Summer (Irregular Disco Workers Remix),” both of which go well beyond the line of being nostalgically informed and come across as retro overindulgence, something that certainly isn’t helped by a questionable vocal performance on the latter cut. Even a number of the less offensive selections skirt the line too closely, inviting the claim that they’re merely cheesy house rehashes.
When Pasini does find the right balance though, the results are as inviting as they are unique in the modern production landscape. Stripped-back roller “Grancartridge” supports this claim best, as its maker fits vocal chops of a scientific instructor demonstrating how panning works (likely from some old record which helped users calibrate their turntable and speaker systems in decades past) between warbly electric piano and fuzzy synths. On paper, a song like this shouldn’t be as much fun as Deep88 is able to make it, yet it’s hard to recall another producer in recent memory who’s been better suited to seek out these underexplored corners of the current house renaissance.
With its constantly evolving bassline and shifting movements of percussion and FX, it’s not surprising to find out that “Supervoid” comes from a producer who has also spent a good deal of time “professionally developing video games and virtual universes.” Budding West Coast artist (his SoundCloud claims both Los Angeles and Seattle) Dustmite is less than a week away from dropping the Surveyor EP, where the dark, restless techno of “Supervoid” will be joined by three other originals—one of which is a collaboration with NY’s Rajeev Maddela—and a pair of remixes from fellow burgeoning producers Perceptron and Audio Injection. If this taster piques your interest, you can stream the rest of Surveyor after the jump and be on the lookout for Dustmite’s forthcoming EP when it drops on February 26 through LA’s fledging Futra label.
Don’t be fooled by the art for The Watchers’ debut EP, as the lazy beach vacation depicted on the cover of Alarm People is anything but indicative of the sounds to be found within its grooves. The first record from the collaborative outfit of South African-turned-New Yorker Brendon Moeller and Dutch techno steward Speedy J is more along the lines of what one would expect—four tracks of marginally psychedelic and dubbed-out techno that combines the former artist’s atmospheric sound palette with the latter’s looped-up structures. The two strive to bridge the divide between the genre’s headier and club-oriented tendencies, or, as they put it in their press release, “possess a spaced-out psychedelic and experimental vibe but also maintain grooves that will adequately keep a dancefloor throbbing. [It’s] music to immerse oneself in.” But immersion isn’t exactly the quality that readily comes to mind while listening, and that dub-techno-esque sense of enterable depth and virtuality mostly feels unreachably around the corner.
“Resonators” is, predictably, a track built around the usage of resonators, with a throbbing sub-bass popping up to accentuate the drums’ stuttering attack. The ephemeral blasts hinted at in the title slide in slowly over the beat, locked into place by the wailing tension of feedback. It might read organic on paper, but in practice, it’s structurally rigid, which is odd when one considers that the whole project was built around a live jam session in Speedy J’s Rotterdam studio. “Mastodon” strives for something more experimental, with a totally broken hi-hat rhythm barely buoyed to the grid by a clicking kick and Rorschach test smears of sampling that rotate endlessly in the background. It’s loopy to an extreme degree, with micro adjustments in percussive timing providing the real point of interest across the track’s nearly hypnotic, but ultimately too long, six minutes. More trance-inducing—and by extension immersive—is “Restart Moodiness,” which pushes its tonal washes deep down into the current of a shimmering drone vortex. There it sputters, joined by ghostly radio tunings and high-frequency percussive noises that almost make the skin crawl. A little more natural, it’s less ordered in the way it gradually travels towards its crescendo of creepy shortwave oscillations. Still, there’s a human touch at play that makes the track feel like the one outing on the EP where the duo’s first goal is fully manifested. Yet the pair’s objective once again slips into the background on “Astronomised,” which juts out into a mostly beatless industrial sketch of scraping metallic textures and plastic raygun blasts.
