PRE-ORDER: Subeena – Wrong For Me/Space Of Flow/End Of Reason [Opit]

With a retrospective album, ’23,’ out last week, the latest platter from Opit boss lady Subeena lands on her fledging label. Harbouring three tracks it shows a different side to the producer who worked with Jamie Woon on ‘Solidify,’ with a trio that jumps from spaced out ballads to brooding tech-house and jackin’ acid. The looped strung melodies on ‘Wrong For Me’ are luscious and warm, sounding a little like Addison Groove’s latest sample excursion on the A side of his forthcoming 3024 12”, giving Subeena’s mid range heavy vocals the pillow to fall back on as the scattergun snares pit er pat into being. It’s an odd pairing - the two melody lines fight for life atop the fizzing bitcrushed hi hats – but once the final revolution of drums comes into effect you can see where the track was all the time building to.

‘Space of Flow’ draws on a blend of UK flavours, pairing that UK funky flutter with a hard tech-house kick drum and surging saw waves. The snares add some rudeness but overall it’s kind of restrained given the brashness of the components. Full of brooding and slow melodic tension it has an uneasy air, but benefits wholly from the harmonic progression and drum detail. ‘End of Reason’ bumps like a bastard hybrid of funky and Chicago house, playing of that muted bass tone that Egyptrixx harnessed so well on his debut full length ‘Bible Eyes.’ Squiggling with acid (a vibe that, along with Blawan, Subeena looks to be bringing back this year) it’s not a million miles away from something you might hear from Altered Natives - it’s got that same knowing swagger to it.

It’s hard to place Subeena with the styles presented on this 12”, and that’s something that after a few listens you can tell she’s aiming for. With a more militant discography sitting in the wings it’s fascinating to hear her using her voice as a new element and with a multitude of styles at her fingertips it’ll be interesting to hear where she goes next.

Words: James Balf & Oli Marlow // Out: 29th March 2011

STREAM: Martyn - Solar Festival Mix

Sometimes things form and merge iconically. The fusion of Dutch producer Martyn's music and the artwork of label artist Erosie seemed to be only the start for the 3024 label, with the two individual's vision working in perfect tandem, but now the whole production has gone one step further, with a fully functional website co-incided to drop at the same time as the tenth release on the label. Martyn's storming 'Shook Up' b/w 'Left Hander' marks the first thing you'll have heard from the producer in a while and it sees him come running out of the blocks with some huge, tuff ended house. An emphatic return if ever there was one; total undeniable proof of his mania enducing dancefloor prowess.

You can hear audio of both the tracks in one of our recent Hivemind fm shows here.

Go check: http://3024world.com, there you will find full and absorbing information on the outlook and aim of the label and amongst other things an exclusive recording of Martyn's set at this years Solar Festival in Holland, that we've linked to directly below.

STREAM: Martyn - Solar Festival Mix

Martyn - 'Shook Up' b/w 'Left Hander' is out 29th November, and its amazing.

Link:
http://3024world.com

PRE-ORDER: Ikonika - Idiot/Altered Natives Remix [Hyperdub]

Ikonika’s 'Contact, Love, Want, Have' album is a strikingly impressive vindication of the keen melodic sense displayed on her earlier releases. Even so, what’s so impressive about the album’s first single, 'Idiot,' is how seamlessly it reconciles the more lopsided aspects of a track like ‘Please’ with the kind of razor-sharp dancefloor material her DJ sets have brimmed with in the last year or so. Riding off an instantly recognisable and insanely catchy (seriously, I’ve spent the last two weeks wondering around shrieking it at people) bleep melody, it manages to pitch itself somewhere in the strange bass hinterlands where the most stripped-back and grimey London house meets the Megadrive-funk of Joker and Gemmy.

But even to reduce it to such a simplistic ‘Artist X meets Artist Y in the badly-lit back room of a dodgy basement club’ definition feels tantamount to sterilisation. Despite the ease at which it fits into its surroundings ‘Idiot’'s core melody is anything but straightforward, displaying a raw and distinctly human arrhythmia quite at odds with the delicately sequenced nature of so much dance music. Combined with a real sense of narrative movement – each successive cycle of the track sees a new layer of complementary counter-harmony added, building to a climax of slowly piroutetting bleeps more akin to Reich than Roska – the effect is dizzying and compulsively replayable. Watch the rewinds hit this beast hard.

The Altered Natives mix on the flip seems conscious of what it’s got to live up to, and it’s to his credit that he doesn’t attempt to mess with the original’s precarious chemistry. What we get instead is a precision rewiring of ‘Idiot'’s bottom end, streamlining Ikonika’s swagger-step mechanics for a driving house workout. Staying hypnotically swung throughout, incremental tonal shifts across its length reveal striking depths – it’s pretty strong testament to Altered Natives’ production skills that he’s put together a funky track that really needs to stay in the mix for its entire length to reveal its full power on a dancefloor. Along with Kyle Hall’s effortless fusion of Detroit and London styles on ‘Kaychunk,’ it points towards a bold fusion of styles that Hyperdub, as ever, continues to usher into wider consciousness.

Words: Rory Gibb
Out: 12th April



Link:
www.myspace.com/ikonika