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
Going a long way to justify the hype, Night Slugs had dancefloor anthems coming out of their ears last year. From an outsider’s perspective it was more than pretty impressive to consider that all these tunes - Girl Unit’s ‘IRL’ and ‘Whut,’ Mosca’s sprawling epic ‘Nike’ and ‘Square One,’ Jam City’s ‘Ecstacy Refix’ and Velour’s ‘Booty Slammer’ – stemmed from the same label. Refining that output they’re kicking off a new year with their first artist album - which follows fresh in the wake of their endlessly impressive Allstars Volume 1 compilation released late last year – produced by the most stylistically consistent artist to grace the label to date, Egyptrixx.
The Toronto native picks up where his The Only Way Up EP left off; his sound spreading itself thicker across the full length sized canvas. Having dabbled a lot with noise in various forms - playing in bands as well as being a classically trained pianist – all his experience seems to feed into his current manoeuvres within dance music. You can hear that noisy dissonance in the oozing syths but it’s paired with bright, slow burning melodies and it all manages to come together into one flowing cohesive structure. It’s a subtle, more melancholy vision that he presents across this album, opting for his own manner of depth rather than the outbursts of joy personified by other, more anthemic Night Slugs releases.
Finding a sonic cousin in Ikonika’s debut album, Contact Want Love Have, released on Hyperdub last year – they both share a hyper colour sense of fun and melody - Bible Eyes is a woozy exploration of sound. There are plenty of highlights: ‘Start From The Begining’, ‘Liberation Front’ and ‘Fuji Club’ all show off different facets of Egyptrixx’s sound; the opener is all seasick piano and spaced out percussion and brooding synth-scapes that wouldn’t feel to out of place alongside Oneohtrix Point Never or Knox-Om-Pax. One of the more dance floor leaning tracks ‘Liberation Front’ twists itself into more extreme shapes, while ‘Club Fuji’ is a hard hitting, sub-loaded but spaced out grime-like effort.
There’s a big lean toward the bastardized house direction on this album; the listener is often fed relentless 4x4 kicks broken up with rhythmic ticks and spaced out excursions into slow-mo colourful dubstep. And for the most part Bible Eyes gives off the air of a house album, or a more twisted take on one at least, but at times there’s almost a trance-like quality at work here too, like he decided to chop and screw stadium filling synths from Tiesto, transplanting them into underground 2011.
Competently displaying that both Night Slugs and Egyptrixx can step into the album format with ease – something that I wasn’t sure would be such a smooth transition – Bible Eyes is a fine album that wont bang you over the head with wall to wall bangers. It’ll ease you into a heat wave soaked colourful dimension that’s surprisingly comfortable. Deep and hypnotic without ever retreating up its own bass funnel, there’s still plenty of Night Slug’s trademark bite, it’s just presented across a very stringent sound palette by one of their most talented artists.
For all our love of bastard house and the overloaded synth explosions of the current instrumental hip hop and skweee that we harp on about endlessly, it ain’t half clean sounding. OK admittedly, someone like Egyptrixx - whose just announced his debut album Bible Eyes will be released on Night Slugs in early March - uses a little more of that sheet noise aesthetic, trusting a lot of his stylistics to the overbearing presence inherent in his sound, but sometimes our ears just hanker for that completely immersive, brooding, drum kit falling down the stairs type of beat music. Plus, as Slugabed so eloquently pointed out recently, there’s not been so much of the slow, slow stuff round these parts recently.
Enter then Chairman Kato, a London dweller whose productions simultaneously imbibe the foreboding spirit of early El-P (think The Cold Vein more than Fantastic Damage) and Shackleton’s passion for drawn out drones as melodies. Texturally, it’s often hard to beat the crunch and depth in sound that you get from using analogue equipment, and Kato’s forthcoming EP for Pictures Music , the Wildfire EP, displays precisely what we mean by that sweeping statement. 5 tracks strong it revels in its own darkness, perfectly creating a darkened and lonely person’s dream state. ‘Gemini Eyes’ might well be the more floaty of the productions on offer on the EP, due out this Valentine’s Day, but with its sandpapered edges, scuffed synthesizers and far off kick drum it’s more of a turmoil inducer, coming on more cerebral than the obvious smash and blap of ‘Thuddd’ or the fierce head nod of ‘No Coincidence.’
As Pictures themselves put it in some early correspondence: “it's pretty fresh compared to all the other stuff that seems to be cycling around and there’s not a 2step beat in sight.” From one listen their point is overtly evident; Kato’s music is at once hypnotically subtle and tempered like gravel, probably the over-riding reason we wanted to see what he’d throw down for his contribution to our mix series…
SR: Can you provide those who may not know you with a bit of background info?
Chairman Kato: I am Chairman Kato, a producer based in Hackney, East London, mate. I stay up all night making music and drinking Gaviscon. I am sponsored by Nong Shim Shrimp Crackers and Pictures Music.
Outside of music who are you? What do you do on the daily?
My nocturnal habits tend to get in the way of doing anything meaningful during the day time. I have paid the bills by allowing my body to be used for experimental research into the effects of anti-oxidants in oriental teas. This is conducted in the low lit basement of a teashop in East London on Mondays and Fridays.
How did you first get into making music? What was it that infected you to do so?
Good question. I’m trying to trace it so I can undo the damage and get my life back together, maybe get a job and an Alfa Romeo or something. When I was a teenager I just had the feeling that listening to music wasn’t enough, that I needed to participate. Picked up a couple of instruments, did the usual thing of having a shit band, then started going out in Birmingham, got into DJing and later production.
What’s your production set up like?
It varies really, depending on what mood I’m in....got a lot of vinyl, some synths, some cutlery, a fridge nearby (essential). I ram most things through a vintage tape machine and make the meters go all nice and red. I often have a film on with the sound down too for extra mind-fuckery.
How would you describe your sound?
Raoul Moate’s ipod.
You share an affinity to people like Lukid, Cloaks and those who build beats out of rougher stuff. What kind of music do you listen to in your own time?
I definitely do respect people like that because they have an appreciation of depth and texture, which is something I try to spend a lot of time on. I listen to a loooot of different stuff....let me pull out my ipod and see what I’m on at the moment... Ducktails, Tame Impala, Robag Wruhme, Dakota Suite, Tommy Tempa, Tom Trago, Forest Swords, Broadcast….
What is an inspiration for you?
Being in London; mainly. Being here exposes me to so many ridiculously good things and interesting people. I get a lot of creative energy from this place. I feel lucky to be here.
Are there any producers you rate that the world should know about? Any peeps not getting the props you think they deserve?
My good friend Tommy Tempa is someone you’re going to be hearing about. Nochexxx is criminally underrated and hopefully that’s going to change this year. The first release on Five Easy Pieces is going to be an EP by a duo called Chesca Royalty that has some riddim and bounce.
You’ve got an EP forthcoming on Pictures Music. Can you tell us a bit about that and shed some light on what else people can expect from you in 2011?
The Wildfire EP is my first EP as Chairman Kato, I’m very excited to be working with the Pictures boys. It’s got a bump to it but it’s not particularly dancefloor orientated... lots of noise, lots of tape saturation, with little bits of light in there to stop you killing yourself.
There’s going to be plenty more from me in 2011. Currently putting another EP together and then I’m going to decide what the hell I’m going to do with massive pile of stuff I’ve got sitting here. Basically I’m gonna be putting out more EPs in various places and possibly an album. Also I’m working on an audiovisual installation. Oh yeah, and a live show.
Tell us a little bit about the mix you’ve put together for us…
I really enjoyed doing this mix. I knew that it would be easy to get waylaid for days short listing tracks so I just pulled out stuff that was to hand and took it from there. I think it’s important to vary tempos and styles in a mix to keep it interesting so as well as new stuff by people like Hype Williams and John Roberts I couldn’t resist throwing in some Joy Division and one of my favourite 7s, by the Fabulous Three. There’s a track by Broadcast there in tribute to Trish Keenan [who passed away recently], which I’m still in shock about.
Any words of wisdom, for our readers?
Don’t wear your jacket inside and chew your food properly.
It seems pretty hard to deny that 2010 is looking set to be the year of the Night Slug. On top of Mosca’s stunning Square One EP and a pair of dancefloor-heavy white labels on their own label, Bok Bok & Bubbz’s mighty ‘Citizens Dub’ has made a recent appearance on Blunted Robots and since has become something of a crossover anthem. Such an unstoppable run of releases has ensured that Bok Bok and L-Vis 1990 have made a swift shift from largely unknown to figureheads for a new group of bassheads. Once again, it’s largely been down to the power of the internet, and the fact that the sort of tracks both produce are appealing to DJs far beyond the confines of London.
There certainly seems to be a wider movement towards funky-inspired soca beats across the board, at times even tacked onto the kind of buzzsaw elastic noize that made the whole fidget house thing so exhausting. The second track on Night Slugs’ second ‘proper’ release, The Only Way Up EP from Toronto’s Egyptrixx, is a frustrating example. Entitled ‘Everybody’s Bleeding’, it shifts gear from a carefully restrained opening segment to an entirely unsubtle, heavily filtered drop, and in doing so moves the label’s goalposts further than ever before from simple UK-centric sounds. It’s a shame that in this case the track feels as though it strips away the careful nuances of the best funky in favour of cheap thrills.
The rest of the EP fares far better. Kingdom’s remix of ‘Everybody’s Bleeding’ reintroduces the feminine pressure the original sorely lacks, imagining it as a militaristic sub-led stomp akin to some of Cooly G’s recent Dub Organizer music. The title track is a deliciously downbeat space-synth epic, and Ikonika’s remix keeps its melodic core entirely intact but rebuilds it as a slowly unfurling post-garage shuffle. Most interesting of all is Cubic Zirconia’s remix. Instead of merely rehashing ‘The Only Way Up’ into yet another dancefloor shape, the Brooklyn band use it as the foundation for an entirely different vocal-led song, Tiombe going all ‘Kool Thing’-era Kim Gordon over a tightly-wound punk-funk backdrop. There’s a palpable feeling that this branching out will prove to be merely the tip of the Night Slugs iceberg – even if the results aren’t always fantastic, it seems unlikely they’ll be any less than intriguing.
