Since debuting in 2012, Seattle artist Andre Delgado (a.k.a. Homemade Weapons) has been leading the charge in pushing drum & bass forward in exciting new ways. His tracks are volatile and fierce, and stripped back to the key elements that make dancefloors move: drums and bass. By perfecting the genre’s obvious ingredients, Delgado has infused his music with ferocious intent and a freewheeling attitude to rhythm. Via early releases on Citrus recordings and Samurai Music, Delgado’s moody rapid-fire style started to turn heads in the scene and the wider electronic landscape; and by the time his debut album, Negative Space, dropped, everyone was hooked. A string of EPs followed last year on Samurai, Dispatch Recordings, and his own Weaponry imprint, further cementing his name as one of drum & bass’ most exciting producers.
Delgado’s DJ sets, too, are powerful and exhilarating. His minimalistic approach to music allows for dynamic blends and interlocking rhythms; and this side of his craft is on display on our latest podcast, a lively 70-minute mix of essential drum & bass.
Your debut LP, Negative Space, made quite a splash last year—did you think it was going to be so well-received?
No—as a producer and DJ, there’s a fine line between making what you think people want to hear and being true to yourself and doing you. My goal was to make some music that I would enjoy playing out, and that I would be able tolerate listening to a few years later. That aside, I’m incredibly pleased with the response and grateful for all of the support I’ve received for the LP.
How long had you been working on the album?
I kept writing after the Clarion Call EP. Some of those ideas evolved to make the final cut, but many did not. Overall, the process took most of February through July of 2016.
Outside of the album, how was 2017 for you?
I took some time off after the LP but eventually got back into the swing of things and put together the Heiress EP. I also did some traveling, played a few shows, and tied up some older projects.
What have you been up to recently?
Not resting enough. Aside from my own productions, I have several collaborative efforts and new names I’m working closely with that you’ll start to see more of later this year.
You’ve been recognized as leading the charge in new strains of drum & bass—where do you see the genre heading?
That’s quite a statement! I had not heard that one, but thank you. The foundation has been there for decades now just like rock, rap, punk, etc. I think it will continue to redefine itself with new sub genres. There’s an audience for everything, and if there’s not yet, there will be.
When and where was the mix recorded?
Last Sunday in my home studio.
On what equipment did you record the mix?
For this recording, I primarily used Traktor and also Logic for some post editing.
Was there a particular idea you were looking to convey?
Not really. I aimed to put a recording together that I’ll enjoy listening to down the road if it shuffles on.
How did you select the records you wanted to include?
Carefully. I always put a lot of time into planning my studio recordings. I think the flow and transitions are just as important as the tunes themselves. This recording consists of unreleased material from Weaponry, Samurai, and a few others.
What else do you have coming up this year?
At the moment, I’m finishing some new music with The Untouchables, Last Life, and Torn. I’m wrapping up some other projects with fresh talents to the Weaponry roster that will be unveiled in the coming months. Pretty excited about that.
Thanks for the opportunity.
Tracklisting
01. Ghost Warrior “Untitled” (n/a) 02. Homemade Weapons & Last Life “First Clip” (n/a) 03. Rainforest & Joakuim “Entheogenic” (n/a) 04. The Untouchables “Terrigen Mist” (samurai) 05. Shiken Hanzo “Courage” (hojo) 06. Brusten & Dyl “Stuck On You” (context) 07. Homemade Weapons “Nabilone” (samurai) 08. ? “Hollower” (weaponry) 09. Homemade Weapons & Red Army “Primary” (weaponry) 10. The Untouchables “Silence Your Ego” (samurai) 11. ?? “Phenomera VIP” (n/a) 12. Homemade Weapons & Red Army “Unavailable” (weaponry) 13. Torana “?” (weaponry) 14. ??? “Shamanism” (n/a) 15. Homemade Weapons & Torn “Specter” (samurai) 16. ???? “Acrid” (weaponry) 17. Es.tereo “Untitled” (TBA) 18. Homemade Weapons “Heiress VIP” (n/a) 19. Amit “Form & Dictate” (31) 20. ????? “Omen” (n/a) 21. Alex SLK & Underspawn “The Duel” (n/a) 22. Homemade Weapons “Ironhide” (n/a) 23. Ilk “The Heather” (warm) 24. Homemade Weapons & The Untouchables “‘Riddle” (weaponry) 25. Parallel & Relapse “Underthink” (n/a) 26. ?????? “Species Without Light” (weaponry)
Like the majority of his work, Innervision takes cues from the broken-beat sound of London while paying homage to the Parisian house dance scene. From the deep, gorgeous title track (which also features the vocal stylings of Wayne Snow) to the swung grooves of “Dance to Yemanja” and the closing cut’s haunting melancholic edge, each of the tracks on Innervision delve into a different side of Neue Grafik’s sound and forms his most complete statement yet.
In support of the release, Rhythm Section has offered up a full stream of “Dance to Yemanja,” available via the player below.
Benjamin Kilchhofer’s version of ambient music avoids convention. Instead, he invites the listener into a separate dimension where time is slowed and sounds are altered. For his third album, The Book Room, on esteemed electronic label Marionette—home to Max Loderbauer and Burnt Friedman among others—the Basel, Switzerland-based artist has fashioned a strangely organic album that bears few comparisons.
According to label owner Ali Safi, it’s an “extremely personal and intensely emotional project,” which is borne out by its heart stirring melodies and exquisite detail. The Book Room builds upon the tribal drums and psychotropic sensations of 2016’s Dersu album—and his previous work under the name Timoka—adding new components to the mix. “Anzu” sets the scene, with its sampled tropical bird song, and fuzzily distorted keyboard riff. “Varen” is a circular techno pattern that orbits around counter melodies, with only gentle chattering rhythms beneath; when a subtle pad is added to the mix, it opens a brief window on a panoramic scene, only to enclose us again in Kilchhofer’s hypnotic realm a minute later.
Kilchhofer’s skill is in invoking a kind of electronic pastoralism, vividly human and alive, but prone to moments of moodiness and occluded atmospheres. The dark synth bass and live percussion of “Leng” suggest a shamanic ceremony in which visions are one minute serene, the next nightmarish. “Chogal” is utterly different: cloaked in tape hiss, it’s a loop of distorted viridian synth and found sound that could only be the product of an artist who immerses themselves in the rhythms of the wild. “Durhi” is another echoic loop that gets under your skin, reminiscent perhaps of the most disquieting ambient work of Scottish mavericks such as Boards of Canada or Lord of the Isles—other artists who have translated their experiences in nature into sound. “Skimo” is a warm ascension of chords, marimbas, and gentle live drums, and “Nihic” is especially lovely, its detuned synths sounding as if they’ve been unearthed from some ancient cassette tape buried beneath the earth for centuries. “Topot” again foregrounds the live tribal percussion, before discordant touches of electronics take the track in a spookier direction. By contrast, “Uhta” is a lovely, emotive spiral of tones that brings to mind the work of early ’90s ambient classics by Global Communication/Reload, with a vivid electroacoustic aspect.
With the availability of soft synths and cheap technology now, there’s a tendency in electronic music for artists to sound alike. Only by fashioning unique signature elements can producers can stand out. Kilchhofer has done just this on The Book Room—with tracks such as “Thorron,” little more than a synth melody, benefitting from his contorted, overdriven production. He sounds like he’s in the room playing on a keyboard, rather than moving blocks about on a computer screen.
At 20 tracks, the record does feel somewhat long and would shine even brighter if it were cut a little. Still, fans of beatless electronic music will be mesmerised by The Book Room. Though it may have taken its author years to put together, the effort has been worth it.
Norwegian-born, Berlin-based duo Soft as Snow will release their debut album Deep Wave on April 6, via Houndstooth. It was created by Soft as Snow members Oda Egjar Starheim and Øystein Monsen, with additional mixing and production by WIFE of Tri Angle Records.
Deep Wave is the duo’s debut full-length for Houndstooth and sees a much rawer, free-form and realised expression of the duo’s creative collaboration. It follows two EPs for the same label—and as with those, the duo still avoid laptops, preferring analogue machinery, samplers, live drums and processed guitars—but this album marks a creative development, with their “sound now deeper, more detailed, and less simplistic than before,” the label explains.
“We’ve been experimenting with arrangements and production. The sound is rawer, more experimental and noisy,” the duo explain. “What maybe differs most from the other releases is that we decided to keep a lot of recordings from the initial jams. Several of the tracks are more or less kept in the original form.”
Soft as Snow’s sound can in part be attributed to Oda’s background in performance art, (which brings a raw intuitive approach to vocals) and to Øystein’s drumming for various noise rock bands in Oslo’s underground scene, which explains their abrasive, rhythmic energy.
Tracklisting
01. Black Egg 02. Snake 03. Drip 04. Deep Wave 05. X 06. Tropical Speed 07. Be My Babe 08. Pink Rushes 09. Dry 10. XX 11. Sleep / Slip 12. Låssbyn 13. Mass
Deep Wave LP will land on April 6 via Houndstooth, with “Pink Rushes” and “Snake” streaming in full below.
Space Afrika is the live hardware project of Josh Inyang and Josh Reid, two friends from high school. With their slow-stepping, spacious urban dub-scapes, Space Afrika harness ambient, Detroit techno and shades of early ’90s Sheffield with a fresh and open approach to composition—like dub techno stripped-down, sealed in a time capsule and sent back from the near future.
Friends for almost two decades, the two Joshuas formed Space Afrika after years of listening to music together, sequestered by harsh Northern winters and heavily inspired by the industrial architecture of North West England. With previous releases on Where to Now? and having represented NTS at 2017’s Mutek festival, they’re now set to release their debut album on local Manchester label Sferic, landing later this year.
In advance of the release, you can download “bly,” a gloomy, slow-burning dub techno cut, via the WeTransfer button below.
To celebrate the 20th release of his New Flesh Records imprint, Umwelt will return with a new LP, titled Abandon In Place.
We’re told that the album, Umwelt’s fifth, is “built like the soundtrack of a dystopian movie” and features “cinematic masterpieces half-way between electro and ambient registers.” It’s further described as a “gloomy journey through apocalyptic tones, slow yet deep basslines, industrial touches, cold and uncompromising emotions.”
The veteran French DJ-producer counts about 40 releases to date, raising him among the most prolific French electronic producers. He’s previously released on labels such as Modal Analysis, Shipwreck, Falling Ethics etc., and has collaborated with artists such as I Hate Models and Helena Hauff, among others.
Tracklisting
A1 / 1. Void Of Nothingness A2 / 2. Abandon In Place A3 / 3. Celestial Matter A4 / 4. Rogue Black Holes B1 / 5. The Last Nightfall B2 / 6. Journey To The End Of Time B3 / 7. Tres-2B Flowers B4 / 8. Galactic Wreck
Abandon In Place LP will land on March 28 via New Flesh Records, with “Journey To The End Of Time” streaming in full below.
Tresor Records will release a new collaborative album by Detroit’s Terrence Dixon and Berlin’s Thomas Fehlmann, titled We Take It From Here.
The duo came together in Detroit to produce this expressive album, and an avant-premiere live performance was presented at Tresor’s annual Detroit showcase in May 2017. It’s composed of six titles and explores a wide range of rhythms and emotions.
The label describes it as a “celebration of resilience, patience, creativity, and devotion.”
Tracklisting
01. Dreaming Of Packard 02. The Corner 03. Patterns And Senses 04. Strings In Space 05. Experiment 3 06. Landline
We Take It From Here LP will land on April 20, with “Experiment 3” streaming in full below.
Slovakian composer Lukas Bulko will release a beautiful debut album as Alapastel, titled Hidden For The Eyes.
This eight-track album of neo-classical grandeur, electro-acoustic production, and subtle folk undertones was eight years in the making and signals the arrival an original new talent. The album marks the first in a new Slowcraft Presents series created and curated by James Murray, focusing on “exceptional music offered in carefully crafted limited editions for people who treasure beautiful audio artefacts.”
For the physical edition, each heavyweight custom double sleeve is individually rubber-stamped and numbered by hand in a limited first edition of 150 copies. Every package includes a concealed handwritten download code, glass-mastered CD, and insert with original artwork by Silvia Bobekova and an individually numbered, handwritten dedication from the artist himself.
Tracklisting
01. Encounter 02. Seashell 03. Bride Of The Mountains 04. Frozen Lakes, Fog and Snow 05. Solar System For Nina 06. Tousled 07. Demon 08. Peaceful Soul In Calm Ocean
Hidden For The Eyes LP will land on March 9 via Slowcraft Records, with “Seashell” streaming in full below.
Last month, German imprint Empore Music dropped its second various artist release, Facetten II.
Based in the Baltic city of Kiel, Empore Music is a label curated by Marc Wolf, one half of Avidus. Over the last few years, the imprint has acted as a platform for artists associated to Luna Club, releasing records from artists such as Christoph Vogel, Jeremy Liar, and Avidus, some of which have garnered support from the likes of Mano Le Tough, Michael Mayer, Villanova, and The Drifter. The new VA opens up the label’s network further, featuring a deep and atmospheric collection of tracks from Patlac, Philipp Harms, Christoph Vogel, Valiete, Engyn, Odd Only, and Avidus.
In support of the release, Christoph Vogel has offered up his track “Alpha Fog” as today’s XLR8R download. The track, a bass-heavy breaks cut, lands ahead of an upcoming album on Empore, which is set to arrive later in the year.
You can pick up Facetten IIhere, with “Alpha Fog” available via WeTransfer below.
Matt Abbott and Alex Powell are the engineering masterminds behind Label Worx‘s acclaimed mixing and mastering service. With over 15 years of production, mixing, and mastering experience between them, Abbott and Powell have added clarity, depth, and detail to countless records from labels such as Yoshitoshi and Do Not Sleep, while releases they’ve worked on have also landed on major labels such Universal, Warner, and Sony Music. Outside of their engineering duties, the Abbott and Powell also produce and DJ as Mindek, a new creative outlet that blends classic influences from the early trance and techno scenes with more modern club-ready house and techno.
With celebrated experience across the whole production spectrum, Abbott and Powell have offered to impart their knowledge on mixing and mastering, providing seven tips to help polish your tracks and get them ready for club play.
Don’t listen to it
One thing we see a lot in the mastering studio is artists sending in work that is “finished,” then over the following days, two or three more versions of the same track come through for mastering. We’ve been guilty of doing this ourselves; it’s easy to get excited when you’ve just finished your latest banger, but all good things come to those who wait. The key to nailing your mixdown and getting your track polished is to not listen to it for a while, then come back to it with fresh ears. The more headspace you have away from a track you’ve been pounding for weeks, the more clarity you will have listening back and making those final judgments before starting the mastering process.
Feel the vibe
Sometimes it can be tough to really get a good flow going on a track when it’s a little flaccid and not gelled together with a little compression and limiting. In your project template, you should already have some good metering plugins, compression, EQ, and limiting racked and ready to go. Pushing your mix into these from the start will give you the pump of a polished track and help keep the vibe while writing. Although this is probably the worst advice you can give for nailing a mixdown, it certainly keeps the creative vibe flowing. When it comes to nailing the mixdown, turn all of these plugins off on your master chain and treat the mixdown as a separate session.—we will talk more about this in the next section. We use Logic’s loudness meter to keep an eye on how far things are pushed and Voxengo’s free plugin SPAN to keep an eye on balance and MID/SIDE. The best thing about viewing your MID/SIDE is that you can see if you have anything phasing (spread too far), which ultimately cancels itself out when listened to in mono—this is also good to spot any stray stereo bass you have below 150 hz. If you have sub bass below here, it does nothing more than take room up in the mix, so keep your kick and any bass below 150 hz in Mono (this reference is debatable, but we feel it sounds great here).
Bounce It Out
It’s far too easy to get in the studio and spend a whole day messing around with samples and plugins, which is, of course, fine; however, when it comes to time for mixing, try bouncing out the stems of your production into a brand new session. Open a new arrange page/project file and import the freshly bounced stems. There are a few reasons why we recommend this:
Taking your stems and putting them in a new arrange project, or even a different DAW, will stop you thinking you already have too much going on (too much EQ, too many FX etc.). Instead, all you see is the stems with no plugins on them, allowing you to get stuck in with fresh dynamic and EQ plugins to get the mix just right. We have always mixed and mastered in Logic X—we used it for years and it feels like home turf. We produce and create all of our music in Ableton Live and when we’ve finished we bounce out the stems to mix it in Logic—we seem to get better results doing this, which may be down to separating the two processes and getting a fresh perspective. Give this one a go.
Start from Scratch
So you’re working on a track and your drums sound horrible. Stick some compression and EQ on them and mess with it for an hour? Probably a massive waste of time. If something sounds bad, your sample or sound choice was probably the wrong one to begin with. If you can get your sounds and samples sitting properly without any EQ and compression, they are gonna sound top quality once you get to the compression and EQ stage. Our best advice for this is to use the best quality samples you can find for your main elements. Also, make sure they are in key. Believe it or not, if your percussion is all in key with the rest of your track, it will naturally be louder as there is far less harmonic distortion going on. Most DAW’s have a drum synth included now, so try and get the meat of your kick drum in key using one of these. Sonic Academy’s Kick 2 is great for this and you will see a hell of a difference, even if you’re using these for the low-end punch and layering with your favorite crusty sample. Tuning the rest of your percussion is quite easy if you use a plugin such as Ableton’s Impulse, Native Instruments Battery, or Logic’s Ultrabeat to program your drums as they allow you to tune each percussive element. If you’re using samples and loops, try using a pitch plugin or your DAW’s way of pitching audio up or down. Most DAW’s have a way of doing this quickly. To make sure they are in key, put a tuner plugin on the channel and check what note the samples are hitting on. This can be time-consuming but very effective for tightening up the overall sound of your mix.
Strength in numbers
Two sets of ears are without a doubt better than one. Never be ashamed of using another mix or mastering engineer. Pretty much all of the world’s biggest artists have help when it comes to mixing and mastering, so it’s definitely not cheating to ask. Getting another set of ears on your mix usually puts a whole new perspective on the final version. It’s quite easy to get lost in a tornado of kicks, claps, and bass and forget about other elements when mixing your own track. Mix engineers focus on bringing the best out of your track from a different perspective and often bring the whole thing to life.
Mid to Side
Mid/side processing has an elusive magic about it. It’s often looked at as a dark art in mixing and mastering but is actually really easy to do. Here’s a simplified version of how it works for anyone who hasn’t quite got their head around it yet.
Stereo information is not really about left and right, it is the difference between the left and right. Confusing right? Here is the easiest way to imagine it: you have a hotdog in front of you. The sausage is all the mono information that comes out of both speakers equally—vocals, kick, bass, most percussion etc. The bun is the sides. This is the information spread between left and right. The sausage should always be level with or above the top of the bread. If the bread is higher and the sausage is sinking into the bread, you have a really shit hotdog, or in audio terms, you have phasing. If the side information is louder or spread further than the mono, you get phase cancellation—this is where sounds are canceling each other out, especially when you mono them. So to get to the end of the hot dog analogy, keep solid elements mono, pan a few things to get that natural side information and selectively spread or place a few elements of your mix in the sides. This will translate into a far more 3D and full sounding mix. As we mentioned earlier and can’t stress enough, we find the best way to check for phasing is a free plugin called Voxengo SPAN. You can set this up in Mid-Side mode, which displays the Mid information and Side information overlayed. If the side information goes higher than the Mid, this is a visual representation of phasing and easily points out where you need to dip out in the sides, using a mid/side EQ.
Master of Mastering
Here are some of our go-to tips for home mastering: firstly, do any corrections before you start compressing and coloring a mix with EQ. Use a clinical EQ to get rid of anything spread too far in the sides and remove any boominess, harshness etc. We use UAD’s Brainworx V3 plugin to do this. This allows you to remove or add information using EQ in the Mid or Side of your track, correct phasing issues, and shape the overall track a little with some very clean filters and EQ. Logic’s EQ is also really good for a DAW EQ for removing unwanted information in a track. Next, level it off. We use a limiter to just catch any rogue peaks that could trigger a compressor later in the chain. Add a limiter and set the output volume to -3.db. Drive the limiter threshold until it just starts to tickle the peaks within your track, reducing no more than -1 to -2db. This will then catch the peaks but still leave room for everything else you’re going to do in the mastering chain. Of course, make sure your premaster is no louder than -3db, otherwise, you’re essentially just turning down a pre-master which is too loud.
From here the world is your oyster. Use a combination of clinical or colorful EQ and compression but remember never to overdo it. A good place to start is this: try to use some colorful or vintage compressors such as the UAD Shadow Hills or another opto compression modeled VST with a fast attack, reducing no more than -1 to -2db. If something needs more compression, use two different compressors that are only just tickling the mix. You will get a far better result than just driving the hell out of one compressor. After this you can use some special processing such as stereo spread to lift any areas you feel need more dimension, followed by a little more EQ to the lows and highs if needed. At this point we would use transparent plugins such as the UAD Oxford EQ, again the Logic EQ or Fabfilter Pro-Q would also be good for this. If you do this right and never let anything clip, you can easily get your mix loud and the final limiter in the chain will only be reducing around -2 or -3db. If you’re having to push your limiter further than this to get a good loudness, the rest of your compression and EQ is most likely wrong before this.
