This piece of herky-jerky beat music arrives courtesy of Canadian tunesmith Monolithium and the brand-new Swift, Thanks music blog, which is curated by Error Broadcast boss Sven Swift. Early next month, Swift will drop a free compilation of unreleased tunes, including productions from Groundislava, Pixelord, and other newcomers, with this spacey soul jam claiming the second spot on the tracklist. Look for Monolithium taking these sounds to the West Coast with performances throughout November.
Bass-music heavyweight Scuba (a.k.a. Paul Rose) is at the helm of the next release in the long-running DJ-Kicks mix series, which, as one might expect, will feature a number of exclusive original, unreleased, and hard-to-find tracks. These include songs from Scuba’s own Hotflush label, and this one from 808 enthusiast Addison Groove (pictured above). Scuba has pointed to “An We Drop,” which is streaming below, as a focal point of the mix, explaining, “It’s a fusion of two things, that urban, UK kind of sound, and something more techno. It sums up what the mix and my music is about.” !K7 will release Scuba: DJ-Kicks on October 24.
XLR8R recently set up an extended conversation between Martyn and Modeselektor, as both acts released new full-length albums within the past few weeks. As it turned out, the boys had so much to say that it quickly seemed impossible to significantly cut down the transcript, so we elected to run the discussion more or less in full throughout the week. After catching up on the previous chapters (part one | part two | part three), delve into the fourth segment, which finds Martyn talking production methods with Modeselektor’s Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian “Charlie” Szary.
XLR8R: How have your production processes changed over the years? What’s new about these latest albums as opposed to past ones?
Gernot Bronsert: Martyn, I think you finished two months before us. In spring, you told me that you were working on your album, and then just a few weeks later in the summer, you said, “Yeah, it’s done.” I started before you working on our album with Charlie. Actually, we started a year ago, but we couldn’t work. I had a creative block and I didn’t have fun and Charlie had a similar situation. But 10 weeks before the deadline, the music came, and we started working on the music. But we used the time where we were not making music. Over the last three or four years when we were on tour, we bought so much equipment. So, I bought a drum machine in San Francisco, or a synthesizer in England, and whatever, we had so much gear, like analog stuff, that we never used because we were always away. So, we took the time before we started working on the album to set up a studio, and we wired all these old machines. I think we have all the Roland drum machines.
Sebastian “Charlie” Szary: I think the 727 and the 525 are missing.
GB: We have two 808s. Addison Groove is jealous. We started using analog equipment for the new record. More than half of it, maybe 70 or 80 percent of all the sounds we used for the record, are analog recordings, and we never did that before. You need to change your whole mixing setup when you use outboard equipment and effects and instruments. That was our main difference. We recorded a lot of hooklines and melodies and drums in sessions. We just made sessions and recorded it. We didn’t spend too much time thinking about numbers, for example. When we did the records before, we spent so much time calculating and EQing. We did for this record too, but in a different way. We took half the music out of the computer and used a lot of analog equipment. That was a really nice experience. It kept us fresh, for some reason.
Martyn: My story is very simple. I moved from Holland to the US a few years ago, so I used to have quite a lot of analog equipment. It wasn’t very special, but it was a lot. It was all sort of cheap Roland synths and a big Mackie desk. I sold everything when I moved to America, because most of the stuff was more expensive to ship over than to sell. So when I came to the US, I only had a Mac, and that was it. So I started using software only, just Logic, to make my music. Now it’s three years in, and I guess I buy some stuff here and there, but it’s not a lot. It’s mostly just MIDI controllers and Monotrons. I have a few outboard things, like the Eventide and a reverb and a delay and that’s basically all I need. I’m very sample based. I use lots of samples from everywhere. All that Roland stuff that you have, I have all the samples. I just use the samples usually, so it’s all very simple. On the new album, I have used a lot more synths than on the old one. The old one was basically 100% samples and very, very few soft synths. The new one is sort of 50-50, because I used two microKorgs and some outboard effects and things like that. The Monotron is on every single song on my album.
GB: Really?
M: All the lazers, it’s all Monotron.
GB: I need to say, your record sounds very analog. I like the sound. It’s very edgy. When I was first listening to it, I thought it was too much on the edge, but I think that’s the mastering, right? But it’s really cool. The whole record has its own sound, and that’s what I really like and appreciate. It doesn’t matter what kind of music style you have on a record, but when it sounds like it was made by one guy, then it’s good. You have your own sound.
M: I think a very important thing was also that I do like distortions, so a lot of my music is kind of distorted anyways, or has some kind of fucked-up sound. I think the mastering, which was done by Daddy Kev, who does all the Brainfeeder stuff like Flying Lotus’ music, his style is hard.
GB: I think you changed your sound with this record, because the music you made before was sounding different. That’s my opinion. I mean frequency-wise, not style-wise. The aesthetic of the sound, it sounds more rough, in a good way.
M: I use a lot of overdrive and stuff like that on a lot of the elements of the music. I use drives and distortions and that sort of stuff. All that, it’s all software. It’s not hardware.
The final installment of B2B: Martyn and Modeselektor will be posted tomorrow morning.
You know those times when you’re listening to the radio and a hot hip-hop track comes on, only the MC is terrible? You think to yourself, “This beat is so dope, if only I had the instrumental.” After listening to this rework of “Neva Get Caught,” originally crafted by Southern duo Clicks & Whistles, we’re guessing that DC producers Starks & Nacey have definitely encountered this problem. The duo’s take on “Neva Get Caught” is a significant departure from the warbling synths and juke-inspired percussion of the original version, instead sounding like the kind of beat someone like Rick Ross or T.I. would rap over. It’s a potent offering, one that features thick blasts of low end, rolling drum-machine percussion, a catchy synth melody, and only snippets of actual lyrics. The “Neva Get Caught” b/w “Raw Passion” single (pictured above), which also features remixes from Tittsworth, Deathface, DJ Ayres, Subvader, and Unsub, is out now.
Carl Madison Burgin, who produces under the name Sahy Uhns and runs the LA-based Proximal label, surfaced a bit late in the beat-centric “lazer bass” scene, which is to say we only became familiar with his work and that of his rostermates a couple of years ago. That shouldn’t come off as derogatory as it may sound; it’s just that genres can live and die within that relatively small amount of time. That said, on his debut LP, An Intolerant Disdain of Underlings, Burgin successfully updates the tried-and-true (but tired, too) “space blap” sound with a bit of extra crunch, aggression, and even some sonic subtleties—making for a more interesting listen than expected.
The best thing going for Sahy Uhns on Intolerant is his shift of gaze from hip-hop’s various permutations to the eclectic sounds of Warp-style IDM. Tracks like “Anticipation of the Night” and “Earning Bridges” evoke the frantic, dystopian sounds of Clark, while “13.73 ± 0.12 Billion” brings to mind early Plaid, and “Fever. Chills and Sweats.” comes off as a loose homage to Prefuse 73. But underneath it all, Burgin is still a slave to the boom-and-slap. It’s not a bad thing per se, but it’s certainly nothing new. What Intolerant does best is introduce the world to a bright and talented producer with a serious knack for soundcraft. Let’s hope that next time he’ll bring the fresh ideas to match.
It seems like half the electronic-music world is in the Netherlands this week for the annual Amsterdam Dance Event, including the crew from Boiler Room. The London-based online DJ hub has featured some pretty impressive guests as of late—even Thom Yorke recently rolled though to do a mix—but today’s event just might have the biggest “wow” factor of them all, as techno legend Richie Hawtin is heading up a special takeover with some compatriots from his own Minus label. Hawtin will be joined by the likes of Dubfire, Seth Troxler, and Ambivalent for the four-hour broadcast, which begins today at 1500 GMT. (Here in the US, that’s 6:00 a.m. on the West Coast, 9:00 a.m. on the East Coast.)
Back in August, we posted the video for “Superfluid,” a precursor to the latest release from UK skweee hub Donky Pitch. That EP, the six-track The Trick, is now available, and Donky Pitch has let slip another tune to help spread the word. “123” is an interesting number, as Helsinki-based producer V.C. crafts a smoothed-out, ’80s funk-influenced song with low-key percussion. The track lives and dies with its wonky synths, which cooly crest and fall over the course of more than four serene and vaguely psychedelic minutes.
The annual two-day musical blowout known as Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival is ready to launch its fourth year this November 11 and 12 with a promising lineup taking over more than five venues in Williamsburg. Among the artists announced are Four Tet, Matthew Dear, Nguzunguzu, Dubbel Dutch, Kingdom, Hudson Mohawke, Braille, Jackmaster, Schlachthofbronx, and Daedelus, with many others to come. You can check out the full lineup here, and grab tickets for both the festival and the Dark Disco pre-party, happening on November 5 with L-Vis 1990 and others, here.
While we continue to wait patiently for the debut full-length to drop from Brooklyn genre-jugglers Sepalcure, we’re treated to a non-album cut, which is taken from the b-side of Travis Stewart’s and Praveen Sharma’s forthcoming “Pencil Pimp” single. Before that 12″ drops on November 7 via Hotflush, indulge in more of the lush, 2-step-leaning vibes that the duo so deftly craft, courtesy of “I’m Alright,” and, if you’re in the area, don’t miss the debut of Sepalcure’s live A/V show on November 10 at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC.
Veteran house-music producer Ron Trent did some shopping recently at the gargantuan Amoeba Music in Hollywood, prompting the staff there to ask him about his browsing as part of the store’s ongoing What’s in My Bag? series. Trent gets eclectic during his vinyl-only shopping spree, digging up records by Stevie Wonder, The Clark Sisters, and Floating Points, among others. He also gives viewers a little history of house music, talking about tracks that captivated dance floors at legendary nightclubs The Warehouse in Chicago and the Paradise Garage in New York.
