As bleak as the world can look sometimes, music has an unabashed and effective power to change and alter a state or thought process. A lot of our inner pains and outer squabbles seem inconsequential given the recent turmoil of international events, which is why I reached for Beatbully’s Kosmik Regn between my extended binges on BBC News 24 today. It’s like regular SR co-founder Jimi The Xploder says, ‘skweee just has that power to make you smile,’ and for whatever selfish reason I find myself clambering for it now.
Hailing from Norway, Beatbully co-founded the Dødpop label, an outlet who’ve proved themselves more than dedicated to the strains of computer funk and synthetic beat music you can find across their two Dødpop presents compilations and the preceding run of 7”s – which have been collated on CD on the aptly titled As and Bs. Reportedly influenced by electronic pioneers Kraftwerk as much as by the boogie of Egyptian Lover, Beatbully’s music is smarter than its primitive equipment suggests. Restrained in places, saving its punch for the underlying melodies (see ‘Move Your Feet’) rather than the force of the boom and the bap, it locks on to a groove, exploring the furthest possibilities in the truest sense of skweee – making the most out of limited means.
Tracks like ‘Bølleboogie,’ ‘RnBully’ (which was given away on XLR8R back when Dødpop Vol 2 hit the shelves) and ‘Ajer vel’ contort the lower frequencies, croaking and seething at the bass whilst blossoming into high pitched hooks and lead lines that embed themselves deep into your eardrums. With the laid back nature of ‘Expecting Company’ (which features one half of last week’s SR mixers, Slow Hand Motem on vocal duty) however, Beatbully proves that he also excels at the pensive, sunshine side of the synthesizer, offering more than just fluorescent clad 8 bit drum structures. Layering his tracks with relatively simple melodies (see album closer ‘Buddah nr. 2’) he creates an electronic haze worthy of lengthier lament.
Maturing a little in his harmony over the years (check ‘Robot I Tromma’ on As & Bs to hear him in tearout, smash and skweee mode) Beatbully’s created a happy distraction from reality, a clever debut album containing 9 tracks that explore his own sound set in depth and offer a neat progression.
Further exploring the power of 2 in this, our ‘second birthday period’ here on the world wide web, this week’s SR mix is by a super talented duo. Light Club is a collaborative project between two beat makers who reside miles apart from each other. One, Coco Bryce, we’ve featured heavily before and the other? Well Slow Hand Motem is someone whos work has slowly but surely beguiled us. Working together on a collaborative 7” released on Coco’s Myor label, a homespun imprint that’s already put out two stunning 12”s in the Tropical Heat series, Coco lives in Holland and Motem rests his head in Canada but from talking with them both its obvious that the gulf in their social geography doesn’t halt their processes one bit.
Taking cues from each other’s music, with Coco’s lineage mainly in hip hop instrumentals and Motem’s pedigree as a singer and fractured drum mechanic always prevalent, their debut EP as Light Club mixed the weirdo synthesizers they’ve both harnessed individually with a certain type of pressing melodrama. The limited edition Night Bulbs EP - freshly released in an expanded digital format with remixes from people like V.C. and Boss Kite – is built around the musical clusterfuck ‘Scirocco Night Drive’ (which you can hear below) but also holds gems like ‘Ghost,’ a woozy nightmare that flips into a 4x4 strut and the criminally short ‘Nick Nolte’ which swaggers maliciously.
Having just released his debut album, ‘Boesoek,’ on the Fremdtunes label Coco remains calm conducting himself in the same way all our exchanges to date have gone: speedily and incredibly direct, leaving me playing a methodical game of catch up.
“It definitely was a task to sort out the tunes that fitted together as best as possible from the pile of tracks I'd made over the last years,” he concedes when pressed on the spine like thread that hooks the 10 tracks together. “There's some pretty old ones on there and on the other hand I did quite a few new ones that didn't make it onto the album, simply because we (DJ Mace, one of the Fremdtunes head honchos, and myself) didn't see them fit in so well with the rest. This was kind of the first time that I really spent a decent amount of time on that, you know, to make sure it wasn't just a collection of tunes, but a real album instead.”
And even though it sounds cliché - to produce an album rather than a collection of beats - you can hear that he’s unified his productions. He can range from fist poundingly intense boom bappers, to meandering synthesizer heavy skweee explorations, and for this outing his beats are concise, with only one passing the three and half minute mark. They’re pretty much all an exploration of a certain idea, a certain groove or a kind of sound sentiment that he’s shooting for, for example ‘Embarcadero’ is constructed simply around laid back chords, leaving a long woozy linger whilst ‘Wobble Trouble’ winds up and smacks hard powered by an insistent jagged chord progression.
“Skweee is more of a departure from the boom bap stylings for me,” he offers when we discuss the variety on offer. “I've been doing hip hop instrumentals for quite some time now, and I hadn't even heard of skweee until about 2 years ago. But, apart from the drums, I think ‘Boesoek’ is pretty skweee'ed-out. At least that's what I meant it to sound like, what with those high-pitched synths and all.”
Defined by a few stand out labels and compilations, imprints such as Harmonia and Flogsta Danshall and compilations like International Skweee and Skweee Tooth, the skweee sound – so called because the pioneers were squeezing out every sound possible from their primitive equipment – the sound is developing at a glorious rate with producers a great distance apart sonically managing to stand side by side.
“When the skweee guys first started to embrace me or whatever, I was almost like ‘do you really think I’m skweee?’” Motem reveals to me over a late night Skype connection. “I do funk music so I’m like ‘am I really skweee?’ but all the guys were like ‘you don’t need to worry about that. That’s stupid.’ Especially Randy Barracuda, he was like ‘you know when its skweee, because you feel that its skweee.' Its more like, just a feeling, its not like it has to sound super Scandinavian or Arabic or whatever. That’s not the case.”
The tracks that I do now are growing,” he continues, “like I listen to the new Poisonous Gases Skweee Cruise and stuff and the music is growing, like it is super young music still. Its definitely based in older things, standing on the shoulders of its predecessors but it’s a fresh music.”
In his track ‘Supernatural’ Motem croons in his very singular and iconic way, “the funk that I present you today // is serious but in a playful way // mis-use of words, is a big nae nae // and nature, keeps my being in check.” And its this sentiment that rings true when you talk to him. Repeatedly he tells me “I’m just doing me, I'm playful. Like a cat,” and from spending an hour in his company, whether that be just looking at a caricature like face in a laptop screen or otherwise, he is really like the character he portrays in his lo-fi youtube videos. He’s passionate and enthusiastic, fumbling over himself to tell me as much as he can in as much detail as possible. He’s funny, like laugh-out-loud-repeatedly, kind of funny and by using his body and face as much as he uses lyrics, he successfully manages to channel that charisma into his visual representations of his songs.
And they are songs. He does beats too like the tuba sampling ‘Go Rilla’ I played a couple of weeks back on our Hivemind.fm show, but he’s at his wonderful best when fumbling over lyrics atop his music.
And that’s why Light Club is a project that intrigues so much; Coco has the beat polish, and Motem the lo-fi weirdness. It’s a combination that works so well in principle and in practise.
“We were both on Harmonia’s International Skweee Vol 2, right? He had that track ‘Ghetto Freaks’ and I had ‘Smells Like Randy Barracuda’” Motem recalls when pressed upon the inception of the partnership. “It was in the dying days of myspace and he was like ‘I really like your track and it’s a great title’ and I was think ‘oh… thanks man’ and he was always really good about getting back to me on the emails. There was this time when I wasn’t really going out, I was just holed up making tracks and he’d always be shooting me back these emails super fast and I was like who is this guy!? He’s really on it.”
He started sending me tracks right away trying to get me to sing on them and then I sent him some tracks. It was very natural, it doesn’t matter that its an impersonal medium like email, it just felt super natural and then he was just like we should do an EP where you do some tracks and I do some tracks – so that was Slow Hand Coco, like the first run – and then he was like lets do a seven inch [Night Bulbs EP]. So I sent him the ‘Ghost’ track and he was like this is very, very different, ‘we’re expanding the whole thing of skweee’ so that’s what, I mean I don’t think we ever set out to do anything, but that’s what happened really. Its like beyond skweee or something.”
The ‘Night Bulbs EP’ is available now from the Myor bandcamp. ‘Boesoek’ is out now on Fremdtunes and you can grab a whole heap of Motem material, including his latest work, ‘Tales from the Cryptid,’ over at the Gebbz Steelo boutique
Rudi Zygadlo’s Great Western Laymen album, released last year on Planet Mu, was something of a triumph that saw him mix weighty low end with his own brand of whimsy, borderline operatic song writing. Tracks like ‘Resealable Friendship’ start in full choral effect before Zygaldo unleashes the best synthesized parts of the 1980s all over his simplistic drum patterns. His bubbly instrumentals came across completely different, fully harnessing the luminescence of skweee with a distinctly layered approach to production.
Since his album release Rudi’s been on something of a mission, performing his gloriously peculiar brand of music in front of people. Come January 17th he’s giving out two tracks that in his own words are “essentially reworks of ‘Filthy Logic’ and ‘Manuscripts Don’t Burn.’ I can’t really justify physically releasing them so here they are free of (obligatory) charge,” so we quickly caught up with him to learn us and you a little bit more about his forthcoming music.
SR: What have you been up to since the album release? How are you finding performing your music to people?
Rudi Zygadlo: Touring, somewhat sporadically, which has been bizarre. And I suppose it’s been a maiden voyage, having never really played live or otherwise before the release of the album. It's really a gratifying experience, having people appreciate your stuff live and recognizing the sounds you made whimsically in your bedroom.
What’s the deal with the new material? Is it a departure for you?
The next release is certainly a development. Hopefully a maturation of the sounds you have heard on Laymen but in some cases, a simplification. I found producing the first album a fairly painless and fluid process. Most of the tracks took a day or two pen and the most burdensome part was writing lyrics. That has since changed. I guess on Laymen… I put all my ideas out there hurriedly and excitedly. Now the task involves trying break new ground and not repeat myself.
Alas these, two tracks are covers of myself, haha.
Rudi Zygadlo – Kiss the Braille Mirror
Why give this out for free?
Yeah so ‘Don't Distrub the Beast’s' are reworks of Laymen tracks, ‘Filthy Logic’ and ‘Manuscripts Don't Burn.’ I wanted to give those of you who supported me and enjoy my music something to hear while I finish and get round to releasing new material.
What else is coming up for you in 2011?
I am planning a release this year on Mu - the material is pretty much finished - a bunch of new songs and some instrumentals.
The Poisonous Gases camp from America just upped a new compilation to their bandcamp page. Entitled Skweee Cruise the 18 track collection listens like a veritable whose who of synthetic electronic funk, with outstanding contributions from Myor label boss Coco Bryce, our good buddy Boss Kite, the incredible Slow Hand Motem, the innovator himself Daniel Savio and... um... yours truly - with a tongue-in-beat I made some time ago for Slugabed called, 'Greg Says...'
Available digitally for under $10 US dollars the album is also seeing a physical release across 2 x 12"s which you can pre-order now for $19. The LP version promises to be shipped on or around the 21st January.
Russian producer Pixelord is someone who has long been in our periphery. Floating around that Slugabed/Coco Bryce populated void between, skweee, straight up hip hop and its uptempo dubstep cousin, he’s to date released an EP on the Error Broadcast digital imprint entitled Lucid Freaks alongside a follow up remix package which featured fellow Russian up and comers DZA and Demokracy, amongst others, attacking his source material. Backing it up with the Love Is EP for the Car Crash Set label – a Seattle based label whose grasp on our inbox seemingly grows stronger by the day with top of the line releases from people like King Thing, Distal, MusSck, C.R.S.T. and Mistamen – he’s on the verge a couple more releases.
“I plan to do new EPs in 2011," he told us when we caught up with him. "One EP on 12" vinyl, including an Om Unit remix and there’s another EP with Car Crash Set to come in 2011 too with remixes from SRC, Monky, Doshy, VVV, Pariah, Submerse and more. These are the plans and I’m working really hard to make it all real.”
Structurally his beats manage to really perfect that vital snap, with the snares sitting perfectly on top his winding bass work and primitive pixel edged melodies. It’s a real call and response thing with his music; as soon as it rolls out, it moves you. With determination and the necessary beat talent to back it up – see ‘Cartoon Friend’ or ‘Bossworm’ on the Lucid Freaks EP, he seems more than aware of his niche.
“Pixelord is a solo project by me, Alexy Devyanin. I’m doing music and art, exploring modern electronic music, synths, beats and bass. The Russian new electronic so called ‘beat scene’ is a kind of mutation of past electronic music and new trends, so right now the scene is really small.”
With players like the Sonic Router featured Demokracy, Pixelord himself and the Black Acre destined DZA all firing, it sounds and feels like the core native players have got the necessary legs to develop into something truly special. Having followed his whereabouts via twitter, he got in touch recently to tout his wares and offer Sonic Router readers an exclusive taste of his music.
“I have an amount of unreleased tracks that I like to give away from time to time, when I feel it’s the right time for it. So this track, ‘Magic Firn’ is not really fresh, but it’s a good part of my past work from this year.”
Finish producer Desto’s music came as something of a revelation to us. Succintly pushed through Dusk & Blackdown’s radio show, his own fusion of sonics at the dubstep tempo stood out, with his debut release for Ramp Recordings, ‘Disappearing Reappearing Ink,’ pushing that same kind of amped up glitch and offbeat percussion patterning that fellow Ramp artists like Zomby and Shortstuff also did. But it was the central motif of that single's B-side, ‘Broken Memory,' with that juttering synth that dances atop the sub low reverberations, that pushed Desto as far into the elctronic hip hop arena as much as dubstep – something that a lot of artists have positively strived to do since.
With a Noppa release, preceeding his Ramp single, at the turn of this year showcasing a sound that was more conventionally dubstep, Desto was hinting at the diversity of his productions; playing more for the atmospheric side of the club with tracks like ‘Dark Matter’ aiming squarely at the big rigs and beats like ‘Cold VIP’ commanding audience participation with its thick garage influenced skip. Having proved himself adept at both styles and cementing his intentions with a mix for Blackdown’s blog back in September of 2009, he got in touch to inform us of a few projects - including upcoming releases on Ramp again and the blossoming Channel Zero imprint – so we took the opportunity to snag a moment in his company, irking out our 58th Sonic Router mix and learning a little something about his processes as we went.
SR: Can you provide those who may not know you with a bit of background info?
Desto: I’m a producer and DJ from Helsinki, Finland. Been making music for ages but started releasing stuff when dubstep came along. This year I’ve released 12”s on Ramp Recordings and Noppa. I co-run two dubstep and related bass music club nights, Slam It and Theory out here with Dead-O of Clouds and Tes La Rok and host a bi-weekly radio show on Basso Radio (FM) with Tes.
Outside of music who are you guys? What do you do on the daily?
Music takes up the majority of my time really. I do freelance work in other fields in order to sustain my independence as an artist, I feel very strongly about keeping financial issues from influencing free creativity in the studio and in music in general.
How did you first get into making music? What was it that infected you to do so?
I got hold of Scream Tracker 3 in ’93. I was just a kid and had nobody to teach me how to use it but in late ’93 I managed to make a track on it. The software was nothing like the DAWs you have nowadays, it was 8-bit sample based, 16 channels, no mouse control, no effects. But it was what a kid could get for free in those days to make music on a PC. And working with those limitations was so much fun discovering techniques to work around them. As for what drove me towards making electronic music is difficult to say really but it always came very naturally. I was classically trained as a pianist for 10 years but I was always drawn to electronic music since I was a child listening to Kraftwerk casettes. I always wanted a synth as a kid but never got one so Freudians might have a thing or two to say about that.
What’s your production set up like? What’s your favourite bit of kit in the studio?
I use Cubase SX3, Tannoy Reveals and a 10” Reveal sub which I seldom use though, I do most of my monitoring on my Beyerdynamic DT-880 headphones. And my neighbours love me for it. I’m not too fond of VSTi’s, I make most of my sounds on my synths and Commodore 64 plus some effect boxes as well as mics. I like recording audio and treating sound as samples. It’s a lot of fun. VSTi sounds can be a big turnoff although used right they can obviously be useful too but the majority of stuff out there is done with them so I don’t feel I need to contribute into making more of that sound. These are just personal preferences, in the end it’s not about what you make music with but what you get out of your setup.
How would you describe your sound? I mean it’s as much fluorescent like skweee as it is rooted in big drum kind of Joker/Starkey style productions...
I go about doing my music by for example taking a proto-dubstep approach to rhythm and fuse it with my influences and techniques to come up with something that could be an alternative future for what went on in ’02 or ’04. Or take a now-cliché element like wobble bass and come up with something that has a similar effect but in a completely different way. I’m very interested in the psychology of rhythm perception and the element that changes how we hear a rhythm for one way to the other. Not talking about drum patterns alone but entire tracks. The switches that we have built into us that make us experience rhythm in a certain way and how that switch happens by the change of a single element such as the length of a bass note in a track.
I haven’t listened to much skweee although some of the guys are my friends. I guess with skweee as well as Joker and Starkey things, the similarity in sound is down to similar influences, hiphop, soul and all the afro-American musics, computer games and so on. And the bpm is similar.
Would you say the above are an inspiration when making music? What else is an inspiration for you?
They all make great music and when I first heard Joker coming out with the purple sound it was instantly appealing to me. It definitely made me feel there should be more stuff like that out there. I draw from all my musical influences from Kraftwerk to Vangelis to early hardcore to 90s hiphop beats like RZAs work on Tical to DJ Premier and Jay Dilla to jungle to 90s Warp Records to Commodore 64 game music.
Hearing dubstep rhythms in ’06 was a big influence, Digital Mystikz, Loefah, Benga and Skream tunes in Youngsta’s sets got me back into electronic music and production after having been a bit tired of it for a number of years. Also witnessing the family vibes at DMZ and FWD>> and the genuine interest in music was inspiring. I have to mention the electronic hiphop movement too, the likes of the LuckyMe family as well as Dizz1, DéBruit, Rustie and others have made inspiring music. With the risk of sounding clichéd my part of town, Vallila and its residents inspire me. There’s an energy about the place. Last year I had to stay elsewhere for two months and getting back made me realize how much this environment is a part of my music too.
Where do you see your sound developing?
This is a difficult question as it presumes that an artist has a clear view of what he or she is about to create next. I just want to keep on exploring music through my production and continue to be able to not predict what the next tune will sound like. I find I get writers block if I know exactly what I’d have to do.
I think the first time a lot of people got up on you was with the mix you did for Blackdown around the time of your RAMP release... How did those come about? Did you yourself see the spike in interest when it went live?
I sent ‘Disappearing Reappearing Ink’ to Tom@Ramp and it just went from there really… We’d hooked up with Blackdown earlier, he had spotted me on myspace and asked for beats for his and Dusk’s Rinse show. So month after month they kept playing the beats and eventually asked for a mix & interview which I was happy to do as Blackdown’s writings had inspired me and given context to dubstep before I had the chance to visit DMZ and FWD>>. The mix definitely reached a lot of people, so much thanks to Blackdown for letting me do it.
What’s the scene like in Helsinki? I mean we’ve spoken to Non Person before to talk about it and he name checked you as a player in it; but would be great to get your angle...
The Helsinki dubstep scene is vibrant and audiences and producers here are very open to different sounds and flavours without the need to do ‘mandatory’ wobbles, strict halfstep rhythms and overdone compression on tracks - although all of this has a place and a time too. With our own nights we like to keep the sound diverse. Production-wise Finland has risen to new levels this year with new up-n-comers like Teeth, Jkrl, Kfka, Mikael, Koala, Vesicle and others pushing new sounds while the regulars like Clouds and Tes La Rok have been steadily delivering great sounds. I feel lucky to be a part of our Helsinki scene.
Are there any producers you rate that the world should know about? Any peeps not getting the props you think they deserve?
There’s a lot of undiscovered talent about like always, but I think it’s also up to them to get their music out there if that’s what they want. I don’t see anything wrong in doing music without any intention to take it further than your hard drive having done so for 15 years myself. But nobody is going to do nothing for you, come to your doorstep to request for your music unless you’re very very lucky, so you shouldn’t be scared of putting in a little work yourself to earn your stripes.
Desto - Can't Take It/Aquanaut [forthcoming Channel Zero]
In your pitch to us you say your working on projects with “Jimi Tenor as well as solo, got releases coming out on Noppa (Ice Cold) and Ramp (Glass Clouds/Stay Strong) and Channel Zero (Can't Take It/Aquanaut).” In your own words can you tell us what other projects have you got in the pipeline?
Well, that sums a lot of it up nicely. I have a feeling Desto will go live next year, I haven’t done electronic live performances since the few ones I had with an electronic project I was doing around ’98 but it intrigues me now. I’d have to scrape up the money for a few more pieces of equipment and I’d be all set. What I’d like to do is leave the computer at home and go all out hardware just because it’s fun, unpredictable and an electronic live without a laptop would be something that I’d definitely go out to see myself.
Tell us a little bit about the mix you’ve put together for us…
When I play out I play about 50/50 of my own exclusive stuff and music that I’m feeling from other producers. I like to drop in a few old bits and try and connect them into new stuff in a fresh way. There should be a number of my tunes on there that people haven’t heard yet and the recently released bits from the likes of Ramadanman, Hypno, Bok Bok and Mensah were just too good not to be put into the mix.
We’ve harped on before about the Donky Pitch crew from Brighton, their party friends and general life outlook - we even dedicated one of our installments of theQuietus column to their homie Boss Kite. And recntly we got wind of their first label offering, a split release between two of their parties residents: Slugabed and Ghost Mutt. With Sluga contributing his emphatic ‘Donky Stomp’ (which gets a remix from Spanish beat merchant Mweslee too), Mr Mutt is owning a whole side of wax with the tracks, ‘Platinum Skull’ and ‘Thoroughbred.’ Given the swagger, raw bass and creepily erratic approaches he deploys across the former (and the slinky vibes he wheels out on the latter) we knew he was someone we wanted to task to handle one of our mixes from the first listen.
‘Bringing something different’ is an incredibly overworked cliché even in our world, where we consciously try and avoid that type of rent-o-chump fodder, but it definitely works to grab attention, and it’s something the DP guys are doing brilliantly. So, to commemorate the inaugural release on the DP imprint we holed up at our keyboard and bashed out some correspondence with Ghost Mutt and he kindly serviced us our 57th mix in return.
SR: Can you provide those who may not know you with a bit of background info?
Ghost Mutt: I'm Ghost Mutt, I'm 21 and live in Brighton but originally come from the west country. I like making music and things.
Outside of music who are you? What do you do on the daily?
At the moment I work on and off for a Brighton based removals company. It's good honest man work and gets me out the house and away from the computer screen... Work's a bit slow lately though.
How did you first get into making music? What was it that infected you to do so?
Well I was in the standard cover bands as a teenager, playing Slayer tunes and the like. I used to play guitar a fair bit but over time I completely lost interest. I think in terms of electronic music it started for me when a friend lent me his four track cassette recorder; I'd spend ages recording and layering up all these different sounds then record them into my PC and mess about with them in Audacity. It'd be real basic stuff like reversing things and changing the speed and pitch but it really kind of amazed me that I could do all that inside my home computer that was otherwise soley for the purposes of computer games and porn. This was all with very little technical or musical knowledge of electronic music but that all came to me over time by going to college, even though I pretty much failed academically.
What’s your production set up like? What’s your favourite bit of kit in the studio?
Nothing exciting really... standard bedroom producer fare: just a macbook with Logic 8, audio interface and an MPD24 midi controller. No monitors so I tend to do everything on headphones then reference it on as many speakers as possible. My favourite bit of kit is probably my Korg soft synths... They're all software versions of classic korg analogue synths, likely as close as I'll get to owning one anywhere in the near future...
Where do you take inspiration from when making music?
Things I listen to... and that's about it. Not 'the world around me' or any of that silliness. The world around me is probably the polar opposite of my influences. R&B is creeping in more and more for me, and not just chopping up a diva and using 808 sounds (although both are still all important). The whole genre from around '88 to the mid '90s has the feel to it that I'm striving for at the moment.
And music that girls like too. Don't be surprised if I'm putting out a completely sincere, purely new jack swing album by this time next year.
DKY001 – Minimix
What’s the scene like in Brighton?
Small but healthy. I'm pretty lucky that Dave and Pete Donky decided to get me involved in what's turned out to be a really successful party. The magic of social networking I guess…
Are there any producers you rate the world should know about?
I got How to Dress Wells album recently and I'm really enjoying his lo-fi sound. The new dodpop skweee compilation is mental too.
What other projects have you got in the pipeline?
I've been doing a bit of stuff with Boss Kite that will hopefully see the light of day at some point... DKY001 is out end of this month, a few days after I'm playing their next party with Slugabed, Mweslee, Alex Nut and BFlecha. but I'll leave it to them to do the plugging.
Tell us a little bit about the mix you’ve put together for us…
The Girl Unit remix of C.R.S.T. had to go in because it's insane, plus it's my placeholder until ‘Wut’ comes out. Actually once ‘Wut’ is out I'm considering just doing entire hour long sets with nothing but that tune in. Keith Sweat, standard. I'm going to try and fit a different Keith Sweat tune into every mix from now on actually... I don't know I could literally go on about every track that isn't mine in the mix, they're all awesome. If they weren’t they wouldn't be in there!
Keith Sweat - Tell Me It's Me You Want Rihanna - Rude Boy (Hovatron Remix) Lazer Sword - Where You Been 7.5 Eprom - Rubber Sheets Ol' Dirty Bastard - Shimmy Shimmy Ya Fulgeance - Vengeance Nino - Get On the Floor Slugabed - Take Off (Kuedo Remix) KRSUR - Crystal Ginuwine - Pony Joe - Claptrap Noaipre - Pretty Psycho Ghost Mutt - Thoroughbred Dam Mantle - Theatre Ghost Mutt - Grace Jones Doc Daneeka - Copz Juan - Techno Music Shortstuff - Galaxy Velour - Booty Slammer CRST - The Bells (Girl Unit Remix) Slugabed - Donky Stomp (Mweslee Remix)
Catch Ghost Mutt @ the DKY001 Release Party in Brighton on Saturday at JAM in Brighton. Find DKY001 in shops from 1st November.
Over the last couple of years, since the dazzling blast of Ikonika’s ‘Please’ first electrified listeners, the impact of the sort of hyperchromatic fare she’s renowned for putting together has dulled slightly. Its less due to any failings on her part – or on the part of many producers writing tracks within similar regions – than a sense of over familiarity, the deliciously new and alien feel of those early tracks gradually settling down to something approaching a formula. Having said that, out of the many synth driven mutations currently bursting out of dubstep’s cracked exoskeleton Ikonika’s sound retains an intangible brilliance that’s tough to isolate in many of her contemporaries. The muggy, lo-fi feel of her excellent Contact Love Want Have album was a welcome shot of gritty adrenaline, and this follow-up EP on Planet Mu retains many of its traits to much the same effect.
The DCKHDBTCH EP, then, is Ikonika doing what Ikonika does best. Hardly a complaint when what she does is so compulsive, though the tunes here largely fit with the languid flow of the first half of her album than the jet-propelled pace of the final few tracks. The title track will be instantly recognisable to anyone who’s been to see her play in the last year or so, though taken apart from the sheer pace and frenetic energy of her DJ sets it’s a considered move though purple-tinted territory. ‘Ingredients’ is cut from the same cloth, riding off a peculiar broken beat that never really goes anywhere, instead choosing to hang somewhere in space between head and floor. That’s perhaps the one criticism it’s possible to level at the EP – it’s a little tough to figure out where it’s supposed to take you – though as usual her ability to infuse even the most wispy tracks with a real sense of melancholy remains fully intact. Final track ‘Shouldn’t Be Here’ is its real gem then, all muted synth pads and distant vocals over a slow-mo house pulse. It points in an entirely new direction for her music, as it drifts into view and remains for what feels like an all too brief moment before disappearing again.
To provide the world with another reason to be and to draw a little attention to the release of his 3D 7" single on Galleta Records, Niño, has kindly offered up a free download of his 'X' track. With the normal edition harbouring three original works: 'X,' 'Y,' 'Z' which display Niño's quick bursts of funk heavy slump stylings in beautiful fashion the special edition EP contains two remixes from Coco Bryce and Mwelsee, whose work has been absolutely flooding our office time with joy.
Coming from the same vein as Coco's recent Tropical Heat compilation we rated so highly a month or so back, Niño's latest release for Galleta, marks him out as someone who's got the groove dripping out of his both his stuttering drum machines and his synthesizers.
In honour of their 1st birthday celebrations on 20th May, Brighton based club night Donky Pitch, have bestowed on us the honour of hosting the second piece of exclusive content - the first being a Fulgeance mix featured exclusively on Rhythm Incursions - in promotion of their first anniversary. The DP guys have tried their utmost to bring the sound of skweee to the South of England, placing it in a 'beats' context, booking skweee pioneers and UK beatheads alike whilst fully supporting UK artists like SR chums Rekordah and Slugabed.
Having run for a full 12 months now, we've been very vocal in our support of the DP family, co-hosting TOKiMONSTA's Sonic Donky mix when she came over to grace Brighton's pebbles last year and surprising DP resident and UK skweee producer, Boss Kite, with our use of his interview answers to form one of the most enjoyable editions of our Quietus column to date. And the reason for our continued support?
Skweee.
Having stumbled across the sound of Scandinavian synthetic computer funk through people like Randy Barracuda or Rigas Den Andre and on compilations like the Ramp/Flogsta Danshall released Skweee Tooth or Harmönia's International Skweee Volume One it became somewhat of an borderline obsession, infecting both home productions and writing schedules. It's all about tunes like this...
Anyway - point is, they're a year old, and - being that we know a little of what it means to put all your energies into something for an extended period of time - we'd like to take this opportunity to officially say: happy birthday! Its just a testament to their attitude and friendly demeanour that they've allowed us to say it with an exclusive retrospective mix of skweee pioneer Randy Barracuda, put together by Kidlogic, so we sought them out to say their piece...
Sonic Router: What's been Donky Pitch's highlights this past year?
Donky Pitch: There are a few…definitely the ‘We Call It Skweee’ screening. We packed the venue on a Tuesday night. It was great to see 70+ people reach that on a cold winter night. Debruit’s set in February was awesome, we’ve never been in a club so jam packed with such a great atmosphere. He slayed it. And being asked to play the Skwee-a-thon in Helsinki on May 16th is pretty dam cool. We’re the only UK crew on a line up that features artists from Finland, Norway, France, USA, Spain amongst others...
Randy is the Tits. What does it mean to you guys to have him come over? What's so special about him?
We’ve been representing the skweee sound all year, but Randy is different to anyone we’ve booked before. He’s one of the originators, a true pioneer. From his early tracks to his newest single he has always been on point. We’re wet with excitement at the thought of his live show; Ross ‘Boss Kite’ almost puked when we told him.
Whats in store for the bday?
This is our biggest and funnest line up to date. We’ve been after both Barracuda and Fulgeance since day one and were seriously happy when we confirmed them both. It also brings together all the local producers and DJs that have ‘pitched’ in over the year to make all our parties so damn fun. We’ve printed up some T-Shirts and other Donky goodies to giveaway. Expect some drunken fools throwing badges into the crowd at 2am.
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Donky Pitch turns One at The Volks in Brighton on Thurs 20th May 2010 with Fulgeance, Randy Barracuda, Slugabed, Rekordah, Ghost Mutt and Boss Kite.
1. Ketamine Strut 2. Black Vaseline (Featuring Mesak) 3. Love Axe/Heavy Metal (Featuring Michael Black Electro) 4. Duck Butter 5. Adult Games (Featuring Mesak & Michael Black Electro) 6. The High 7. Skweee Like A Pig 8. Rick James Is Dead 9. Overnight Romancin' 10. Group Sexxx (Imatran Voima) 11. Streisand Effect
First appearing on a split 12” with Sonic Router bumboy Slugabed, Coco Bryce has slowly taken up residency on the HQ’s mainframe computer. Managing to fuse a clean emphatic skweee sound with rougher more boom bap drum work he gets the best out of his bumps on tracks like ‘Boesoek’ (available to stream on his myspace) and ‘Ghetto Freaks’ which appeared on Harmonia’s International Skweee Vol 2 compilation late last year.
After a run of sweet ass mixtapes, including an outing for Musique Large's La Mixette series, the Dutch producer now rolls with the Lowriders Collective - a positively music besotted bunch of party promoters, mixtape makers and bloggers - and has a frankly frightening amount of forthcoming releases so, ahead of his appearance at the Donky Pitch night later this month we stole him away from his outdoor life and sucked him deep into his computer’s circuitry to answer a few burning questions.
Sonic Router: Can you provide those who may not know you with a bit of background info?
Coco Bryce: I’m still a messenger boy 3 days a week, though I’ve also been a skater for a long, long time.. not too fanatically nowadays, but i never really quit and can still rock a pretty decent switch heel… I've been spending a big chunck of my spare time on the interwebb lately, running a half-assed blog: 20shotsequence.blogspot.com and chatting on Facebook with Halp & V.C.
How did you first get into making music? What was it that infected you to do produce?
My uncle (who's a REAL musician, unlike myself..) gave me a Roland TR 505, and I'd already been DJing for a couple years before that, so trying to do some tunes seemed a pretty logical step. I bought a couple of cheap synths and more drum machines, stuck whatever sounds I wanted to be distorted in the mic entrance on my Numark DJ mixer and made a bunch of horrible sounding tekno records like that. I didn't have a sequencer (Cubase or anything) to edit the overall tunes, so most of it was live recordings. also got myself a bootleg copy of Rebirth (Reason's predecessor which consisted of nothing more than a 303 & 808 software version clone) somewhere along the way and Fruity Loops of course.
Where do you take inspiration from when making music?
… Mostly other music; could be something I hear on the radio/internet or being at a party and hearing some fresh sounds. Sometimes it's hearing something in a movie I think might sound good as a sample in a tune; or getting some fresh sample packs will usually get the creative juices flowing a bit as well.. If I find myself at a dead end I'll sometimes put a CD into my computer and start cutting up random bits n bobs and see what comes out.
How would you describe your sound?
It’s pretty much all over the place I guess… lately a lot of hip hop & 8 bit bleep influenced stuff… somewhere between bad Slugabed rip-offs and even worse Dabrye copies… some Skweee tunes which are a bit cleaner sounding… and a bit of mid 90's style rave breakbeat; Iused to be a big "Knite Force" fan boy and I guess it never left…
Release wise, what can people go out an buy from you?
Ok in the shops now there’s Myor 02 (a split 12” with the Slugalicious one), Myor 03 (a split 7” with Artek/S.Y.Z.), the ‘Ghetto Freaks’ track on Harmönia 10 (International Skweee Vol 2 compilation LP) and remixes for Pixelord released digital-only on Error Broadcast.
And forthcoming:
-Myor 04 compilation EP (full compilation features tracks from Rekordah, Slugabed, Mesak +) -Lowriders 002 EP (with remixes by 1000names & Pixelord) -Fremdtunes, collab tune with Dj Mace -Mässy compilation cd (1 or 2 tunes) -Dodpop compilation cd (1 tune) -Astro:Dynamics compilation cd (new label by Rekordah, with tunes by Mike Slott, Sluga, Clause Four, Rekordah, Tapes and a lot more) -Lowriders digi comp. -A remix for Niño which will be released on a limited 7" by Galleta records (with a Mweslee remix on there as well) -Lo Fi Funk compilation double LP (1 tune) -A remix for Pixelord (breakbeat rave) released digitally on Car Crash Set -A collabo tune with AK Kids for their "featuring" album.
What else is coming up for you? You got any gigs in the pipeline?
Yeah, April 10th at Motel Mozaique with the Lowriders crew in Rotterdam (+ Hud Mo, GLK, Dam Funk), then April 15th at Donky Pitch vs Lowriders, Brighton and May 8th at Europe Mania festival in Pecs, Hungary.
Plus, I'm now ‘officially’ a member of the Lowriders crew, so all their parties + a residency at a local club here in Breda called De Boulevard, on every first thursday of the month.
Got any wisdom for our readers?
I'll get back at you on that when I've thought of something witty to say…
1. Space Dimension Controller – The Love Quadrant 2. Phoenix – Listzomania (Classixx Mix) 3. Beem – Automan 4. Rigas Den Andre ft Dan Draper – Drugs Don’t Work 5. Onra & Quetzal – Give Something 6. Ill Suono – Moment of Sympathy (Nobody Remix) 7. 1000Names – Cup Of Joy 8. Black Milk – Outro (Coco Bryce Edit) 9. Caribou – Melody Day (Four Tet Remix) 10. Caribou – Melody Day
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Catch Coco Bryce at Donky Pitch vs Lowriders in Brighton next Thursday alongside a plethora of great people:
Ikonika becomes the second of the promised Hyperdub artists to deliver a full length album, post Kode 9's announcement of forthcoming HD material on Benji B's show last year; and thankfully Contact, Love Want, Have really delivers what is a "superbly strong and relentlessly inventive debut album."
After listening to a lot of the margins music commonly referred to as 'skweee,' of late I'd been mulling over the best writing options afforded to me in my quest to document a style of music I was becoming more and more besotted with. Not knowing much of the gentry or history behind the movement itself - hailing from Scandinavia, the primitive sound has really blossomed over the last few years - but sharing a common love of the sound I approached Brighton based producer Boss Kite, hoping to harness his passion for the genre and his productions as the source of a further investigation.
Catch him in the chat and the mix over at The Quietus.
After a quick nudge in the right direction by the minds behind Brighton's skweee heavy night, Donky Pitch, we've come across a gem in Boss Kite and his free 4 tracker 'Clef Basset.' Drawing from the same circuit boards as his Scandinavian synthesizer bretheren he's got an impeccable talent for swampy bass frequencies and glittery flutters of uber melodics.
Primitive, using simple computer sounds and what some might call outdated equipment, the genre of 'skweee' seems like it could be an insider joke when your trying your best to describe it to someone... like some kind of "fisher price dubstep..."
Its not. There's a lot to love, as displayed here by Stickem, providing a "75 minute mix showcasing the synthetic funk from Scandinavia" for the Skweeelicious blog.
Mrs. Qeada (SWE) Dreamatis Personea Melkeveien (NO) Fantôme Claws Costeau (FIN) Cold Smokin’ Tofu Boss Kite (UK) CMYK V.C. (FIN) 30:00 Ricky Lemon (DEN) Copenhagen Bellybelle (USA) Supercell Strut LaZERcrotch (USA) Neon Dude’s House Party Spartan Lover (FIN) Zbieg Wankers United (FRA) Superfönky Hybakusha (ESP) Lebannon79 Kid Logic (USA) Polyester Shirt Miramichi (CA) Leggo My Ego Limonious (SWE) Degenerate Beem (SWE) Automan Easy and The Center of the Universe (NO) Yazid Daniel Savio (SWE) People Die Love Don’t Rigas (SWE) feat. Markis Sage (SWE/FIN) Love Over Gold Stickem (USA) This Thing Is On – Beatbully (NO) remix Mesak (FIN) Sly Filmfestival (Sotchi Montage) Sprutbass (NO) Hot Water Dirty Pits Randy Barracuda (FIN/NL) Overnight Romancin’ Mackaper (SWE) Tale of Tale of Tales – Joxaren (SWE) remix Slow Hand Motëm (CA) feat. Pubs Panseno (USA) They Lied
Having first seen the name Coco Bryce on a split 12" with Slugabed, I'd done the requisite googling and myspace surfing to know that the Dutch producer was someone to keep a keen eye on after releases on Harmonia and Myor. Then the Lowriders fam emailed to say he was kicking off their mixtape series - further entries in the series are promised from people like Hovatron, Debruit, 1000 Names and Slugabed - and I got really intrigued.
Session 006 marks a new look to SRR thanks to the man like Spam Chop, who took time out from running Wigflex (eyes peeled for 003 - its dapper don, believe me) to create a new logo for us and on this edition you can hear a mix of skweee, beats, dubstep and all that other stuff I play and talk about on the podcasts usually.
1. Robot Koch – Death Star Droid (forthcoming on Robots Don’t Sleep) 2. Beat Bully – Buck Fergen (Dodpop) 3. devonwho – Whispers (free download from http://devonwho.bandcamp.com/album/3p) 4. Hudson Mohawke – 3.30 (Warp) 5. DOOM ft. Kurious – ? (forthcoming on Gold Dust Media) 6. Pariah – Detroit Falls (R&S Records) 7. Rigas Den Andre – New Plastic Bastard (Flogsta Danshall) 8. Darkstar - Aidy’s Girl Is A Computer (Hyperdub) 9. Ikonika vs. Eero Johannes – We Could Be Ikons (Planet Mu) 10. Gemmy – Johnny 5 (forthcoming on Planet Mu) 11. Desto – Broken Memory (forthcoming Ramp Recordings)* 12. 2562 – Like A Dream (Tectonic) 13. HXDB – Showdown At The Cinema (Mindset) 14. Blackdown – Concrete Streets [Zomby Remix] (forthcoming on Keysound) 15. Blackdown ft. Durrty Goodz – Concrete Streets (forthcoming on Keysound) 16. Fantastic Mr Fox – Sketches (forthcoming on Black Acre) 17. Headhunter & Invisible - Love Dup (forthcoming on Soul Motive) 18. Untold – Palamino (Hemlock) 19. Joy Orbison – J.Doe (forthcoming on DLDRMS)
* This particular mp3 clips. We are aware of the issue.
1: Hot City - If That's How I Feel 2: xxxy - Sing With Us 3: Doc Daneeka - Drums In The Deep 4: Hackman - Pistol. In Your Pocket 5: Julio Bashmore - The Moth 6: Untold - Bad Girls 7: Octa Push - Doctor Bayard 8: Shortstuff - Behave 9: Skinnz - Ukraine 10: Mosca - Gold Bricks, I See You 11: Martyn - Friedrichstrasse 12: Vista - Elixir 13: Caspa & Rusko - One Of The Same 14: Om Unit - Encoded 15: Starkey - Black Monolith 16: Shortstuff & Brackles - Melvin Blue (Digital Bonus Track)
The compilation will be released on January 18th 2010.
Both the furious release schedule and gradual sonic re-shuffling of Planet Mu continues with Ikonika - one of the seemingly never ending list of artists dubbed as 'rising stars' - being coaxed away from Kode9's Hyperdub camp to deliver her latest 12".
'Smuck' essentially picks up where the brace of Hyperdub releases left off: Ikonika's somewhat melancholy sweeping synths are overlaiden by bleepy smatterings and then coupled with big beefy marching band kick drums and off-kilter snares that maintain a the common underlay whilst the foreground does much the opposite; continuously switching between competing synth lines. One can end up feeling a little woozy; as if travel sick from the brace of outer worldy visions and the battle to lock onto the awkward groove, but Ikonika's progression comes across as masterful, even though sometimes the pulsating under synths jar with the minor key riffs; if anything there are almost too many ideas explored here. Consequently the overall feel to 'Smuck' is slightly awkward; it often sounds out of key, yet it manages to snatch those momentary pulses of inspiration, uplifting the listen and sounding positively intergalactic.
If 'Smuck' was the journey through space, Ikonika's remix of Eero Johannes' beautifully named'We Could Be Skweeeroes' is the planetary landing and initial greeting of a bouncing, quirky intergalactic race (with a penchant for aquatic wind instruments and an overly enthusiatic variation of the morris dance). What it has over the A side is that retention of a main theme as she builds upon the riffs gradually and subtly, squeezing more squeak out the melody, over the taught steppy drums. 'We Could Be Ikons' somehow retains a unique, borderline cutesy property that makes the track feel like a Joker penned soundtrack to an 8 bit, roll play romp through bubblegum fields and pixelated lands.
