What comes as an incredibly timely aside to Tectonic’s Scientist Launches Dubstep Into Outer Space project, also ties in gloriously with our movements this coming week. For as well as working with Tectonic boss Pinch, re-versioning tracks from today’s elite producers like Shackleton, Loefah, Guido, Mala and more, it seems Scientist has been hard at work, re-wiring sounds live, creating his own dub versions of the productions he displays.
He’s doing it across the UK throughout November, starting this Thursday at fabric in London, he’ll be touring the country appearing in Glasgow and Brighton. Travelling with Pinch, Mala, Loefah and The Upsetters, who formed the nucleus of The Wailers - famed for their work with Bob Marley, he’ll be remixing the band live, stamping his own technologically savvy swagger across the music they create.
A pearly co-incidence then that Jon from the LoDubs label got in touch, touting a recording of a show he did in his native Portland at his Version club night with Scientist. What follows, in addition to the recording itself, is his explanation of the project:
“We’ve left the recording quite raw on purpose to both preserve the live nature of the recording and to make it just a taste. Many of these tunes will be released as part of our upcoming 12" collaborations with Scientist.”
“As for the story on out involvement with Hopeton [Brown aka Scientist], I received a Myspace message from him out of the blue, in which he expressed his appreciation of the LoDubs sound, in particular the work of 6blocc, and how he would like to collaborate with us in order to bring out our sounds ‘hidden third dimension.’ Of course, we jumped on that, and decided that the best way to go would be for us to do a live show to get it all moving. What followed three weeks later is this recording.”
“The trickiest part, in the interim, was figuring out just HOW to make it happen. Hopeton had a pretty specific set of needs for the equipment, and in addition it became clear that in order for him to be able to manipulate the material correctly, we would need to create multi track feeds of many of the tracks from the back catalogue in order to feed them live to him. We enlisted the assistance of Alter Echo, who is a remarkable dub musician in his own right, and has collaborated in a similar capacity with Mad Professor, DJ Spooky, Dr Israel, and many others. The final link in the chain was Jagga, who is the house vocalist for our two monthlies, VARIOUS and VERSION. The live dubbing of the Scientist over these elements are really the thing that ties it all together.”
To his credit, it’s getting harder and harder to talk about David Kennedy’s music without sounding hyperbolic. Already this year he’s put out a steady stream of groundbreaking releases, each of which has effectively redesigned what was already a very malleable template into an entirely new form. Perhaps even more impressive – if just as unsurprising, given his record over the last couple of years – is the sheer level of quality control he manages to exercise over his music, as though it’s literally impossible for the guy to make a bad tune. In the last three months alone, his first Pearson Sound release in a while toyed with the same Autonomic ideas he first explored on his remix of Scuba’s ‘Tense’, to dramatic effect. The output of his usual Ramadanman alias, on the other hand, has shot literally through the roof: the drum machine blasts and delicate vocal chemistry of ‘Glut’, where juke’s battle-scarred 808s were put to the service of something far more intangible, jittery junglist stylings on his self-titled Hessle Audio EP, a Todd Edwards lovin’ collaboration with Midland, and a seemingly endless array of quality remixes.
So trying to trace a steady path through Kennedy’s maze is proving a little nightmarish, but on the evidence of his latest plate for Swamp81 it’s probably safest to say his optimum working state is one of perpetual change. The shifts are usually incremental – ‘Work Them’ is a not-so-distant relation of ‘Glut’, with a rapidly descending upper register drum hit that strafes the dancefloor, and ‘Fall Short’ possesses the same nervy, restless energy as the best tracks from his self-titled effort – but they are suggestive of a mind that operates in constant motion. ‘Work Them’ is the obvious big hitter on here. Appropriately for the following release on Swamp81, it’s the bigger, badder and smarter brother of Addison Groove’s ubiquitous ‘Footcrab’ (I always preferred ‘Dumbshit’ anyway), crafted with a careful sleight of hand that allows its monotonous groove to be both maddening and compulsive at once. Halfway across its length, Kennedy opens up the mix to a stunningly elegiac wash of harmony, thoroughly putting paid to the false notion that anthemic in any way equals unsubtle.
‘Fall Short’, though, is the superior cut on an already superior twelve. Like ‘A Couple More Years,’ the almost unbearable melancholy Burial is able to inject into his tracks fully permeates its skeletal percussive structure. It’s as though Kennedy’s built another ‘Work Them’, then proceeded to subtract every extraneous element and leave nothing but the barest essentials. The result, as with so much of his recent music – and that of the rest of the Hessle Audio stable – defies many of the notions of what ‘dubstep’ is, or ought to be. If you can even call it that anymore; in future, I have my suspicions that this sort of stripped-back, polyrhythmic bass sound may well be referred to simply as ‘Hessle music.’ As mentioned earlier, I’m cautious of sounding excessively hyperbolic by praising Ramadanman this highly at what is still a comparatively early stage in his career, but in five or ten years’ time, if people aren’t looking back to this twelve as a crucial step in the genre’s ongoing evolution, I’ll eat my own copy.
This Saturday sees the launch of the Lightworks imprint and club night at Cable nightclub, in Bermondsey, London. With a variant line up that revels in its eclecticism the collective minds behind it insist on providing good music and with DJ sets from Four Tet, Swamp81 boss man Loefah - whos pretty much responsible for the boom in 808 laced bass music thanks to housing releases from Addison Groove and Ramadanman - Cooly G, Space Dimension Controller with SBRKT and Sampha performing their live show too, you cannae really argue...
Room Two is hosted by PTN vs. Get Me so you can expect bastard funky from label staples Doc Daneeka, the criminally brilliant Hypno, Deep Teknologi and boss man Tom Kerridge, also known as the White Sugh Knight.
J Dilla produced 'Lightworks' and instrumental which also got spat over on the recent DOOM album, 'Born Like This,' but which producer did Dilla sample to make it?
A) John Baker B) Raymond Scott 3) Delia Derbyshire
Winners will be announced on Friday. Please make sure you can attend the event if you enter.
Summer 2010 is proving to be a fertile hotbed of awesomeness and its been made easy to enthuse about things now that the sun is blessing everything with its UV loaded rays. Tunes are coming thicker and quicker and there's a multitude of great producers from across the spectrum of the bass music void whose work is steadily piquing our interest. At the forefront of this last few weeks has been two tunes from Leeds based producer Jamie Grind, included on his debut release which takes the form of a split 12" with Irish funky producer Gon for Spatial's Infrasonics label.
'If You Want' is a perfect example of using drum shuffles, that repetitive Scuba style synth stab and choppy vocals, but its in the woefully aborted synth progressions of it that it really blossoms, veering from colourful warbling to a distorted splash; and in a similar way the flip side, 'Balloon,' uses a careering lead line behind those lush Martyn pianos. On the strength of these tunes its obvious that Grind's is a step that positively uplifts; a feel good bump that suits this sudden heat wave gloriously.
The inclusion of the afore mentioned tunes on Spatial's FACT mix, coupled with a mix he did for ItsAlllAbout.com and the track he just dropped for free over at XLR8R last week, 'Keep Wondering,' spiked immediate interest, resulting in a bout of AIM cold calling and an eventual satisfying pang of relief when he agreed to drop us an exclusive mix; number 48 in our ongoing series.
Sonic Router: Can you provide those who may not know you with a bit of background info?
Jamie Grind: I’m Jamie Grind, I’ve just released my first record on the Infrasonics Label, hopefully the first of many! When I’m not eating king prawn curries you will usually find me in a poorly lit room in the centre of Leeds making beats and wondering what happened to my youth!
Outside of music who are you? What do you do on the daily?
I’m a web designer - I’ve been working at a company here in Leeds for the past 3 years or so. My job takes up most of my time so I try and fit in music whenever possible.
How did you first get into making music? What was it that infected you to do so?
Since my mid-teens I’ve been involved with music in some form, I’ve been a vocalist in various bands, I’ve been a hip hop MC and I’ve experimented a bit with other forms of electronic music but it’s only in the past year or so I think I’ve finally found my feet. I was always more into the vocal side of music and production just kinda passed me by, it wasn’t until a couple of years ago I actually decided to give it a shot and it turns out I actually quite enjoy sitting in isolation for hours on end listening to looped drum hits!
What’s your production set up like? What’s your favourite bit of kit in the studio?
I run Logic 8 on an Imac; my set up is fairly basic though, I could use an upgrade to be honest. I’ve currently only got some very average Wharfdale speakers, a MIDI keyboard and a Yamaha MW12 Mixing desk.. but it works OK for now. Next venture for me will be to get some decent monitors and an analogue synth of some form…
Where do you take inspiration from when making music?
Because I have a full time job most of my ideas come to me during the day when my mind is at its most active, so I might have a sudden idea for a tune and then have to wait 8 hours til I get home to finally put it into practice, by that time I’m pretty tired and can’t be arsed. I find I’m at my most creative first thing in the morning, so weekends give me chance clock in at my second job… making bangers blaaad!
How would you describe your sound?
I wouldn’t say future garage – I think that term sounds pretty corny to be honest… Genres seem to mean less and less to me these days, when I make a tune I’m not trying to achieve a certain sound I’m just combining elements of different styles of music I enjoy, which usually sounds pretty garage-esque to be fair, at least percussively anyway.
And how did you get into this current flux of dubstep?
I remember hearing stuff by Pinch and Loefah and thinking it was the heaviest shit I’d ever heard! At the time, the hip hop nights I used to go to gradually turned into dubstep nights as it got more popular. Later on, people like 2562, Geiom, Ramadanman, Kode9 & Martyn seemed to be making interesting music which was loosely dubstep with elements of garage, hip hop and house and probably had a lot to do with me wanting to start producing the type of music I do.
Leeds seems to be on it right now, with Midland, Stray and people like Blawan all making the dope shit. What’s the scene like up there?
I’m not sure there’s much of a scene to be honest, now Ruffage has closed its doors the only decent monthly club night in Leeds is Tropical; which is sick, but most other ‘dubstep’ nights are just mid-range wobble wankery so don’t really interest me – There’s a bunch of people up here making sick music though, good to see them getting the recognition they deserve. On top of the people you mentioned there’s also Skips, Hackman, Gatto Viola and Jera doing their thing up here aswell.
Jamie Grind - Balloon
Your first release on Infrasonics is out now. What’s the deal, what can we expect from the release?
It’s a split with Gon from Ireland, I’m half Irish so we’ve got that shit in our blood already! I’m glad to be on the Infrasonics squad, they’re all absolute badmen producers, Spatial, xxxy, Hot City, Ike Release… I’m glad my first release is with this lot. On my side of the 12”, ‘If You Want’ is one for the clubs and ‘Balloon’ is on a bit of a more upbeat wonky-synth tip.
What other projects have you got in the pipeline? What’s happening with you in the rest of 2010? Gigs, releases, personal growth etc?
Next thing I’ve got coming out is a 4 track EP on Fortified Audio, expect to see that emerging in the following months. I’m looking to start playing gigs when I can, so hopefully I’ll get on that soon.
George Fitzgerald - Fernweh Ramadanman - Glut Hot City - Another Girl Dubbel Dutch - Throwback Sony - Sugar Rush Terror Danjah - Code Morse Guido - Mad Sax Ike Release - I'm Gone Todd Edwards - Who You Are (Salvador Edit Remix) Sweet Female Attitude - Flowers (Sunship Edit) Jamie Grind - Bad Attitude (And You Know It) Shortstuff - Tripped Up Jamie Grind - Footwork VVV - Back To Life DJ Rashad - In Da Club Before Eleven O' Clock Nastee Boi Feat. E Man - Mussy Mad (Witty Boy Remix) Blawan - Fram Spatial - 100402 Jamie Grind & Hackman - Saw The Light Mista Men - Automatic Groove Jammer - Champz And Weed (Ft. Diesal, C. Gritz & Blacks) TRG - Broken Heart (Martyn's DCM Remix)
Infra12003 featuring Jamie’s ‘I Want You’ & ‘Balloon’ is in all decent retailers now. Its backed with two tracks, ‘Chaka Mad’ and ‘Riddance’ from Gon.
You know you've heard/read us singing David Kennedy's praises since day dot of this tedious publication. His 'Wad' 12" under his Pearson Sound alias remains one of the most insightful things thats happened to Sonic Router HQ's Tannoys and his forthcoming smasher, 'Work Them' 12" as his more commonplace Ramadanman moniker is set to drop on Loefah's Swamp 81 label in two weeks time.
Well... dude is playing Bestival this year, so he's done a mix. Trust us, every one that he's ever done has been worth the space in your Temp Files folder and plus it means we got to post this picture where he looks about 12...
Pinch is really brining the darkness with his label’s most recent releases and this 12” seems to be no exception, with the production duo Kryptic Minds making their Tectonic debut. After the very well received 12” and their album, ‘One Of Us,’ for Loefah’s Swamp 81 label the former drum & bass producers are really making a name for themselves with their apocalyptic half step material.
The A-Side comes in the form of ‘768’ a new and original track and just like their other dubstep material it has that dark and spacious half stepping bass mediation vibe going on. These guys really know how to make the low end subs sing and it really shows here; you get the full bass spectrum from subterranean rumbles to a little added mid range growl, you know, using it occasionally to keep things that little bit evil and the string sections really give the track a forbidden, almost emotional pull.
On the flip Kryptic Minds show us their take on Pinch & Moving Ninja’s deeply disturbing ‘False Flag,' which first featured on the fantastic ‘Tectonic Plates Vol.2’ compilation earlier this year. This remix takes that foreboding pent up atmosphere and makes it even more cinematic as the low end bubbles and drives the track down into the underworld. The percussive elements on show are something else too, as they prove their 10 year production pedigree showing that they really know how to get a sound down; the drums are warm, phat and woody. It’s a killer re-interpretation of an already killer track.
Kryptic Minds' debut dubstep album 'One Of Us' is out today on Loefah's Swamp81 imprint. You can read the Sonic Router penned feature with the duo for the recently relaunched Kmag (Knowledge Magazine) website here:
Blackdown's back after what seems like a short hiatus and after interviewing them for his Pitchfork column, Kryptic Minds done did him a mix showcasing a shed load of dubs.
Scuba’s Hotflush imprint has unveiled a new remix series and first in line on this quality platter is a percussive and bumping rendition of Toasty’s ‘The Knowledge’ by Untold. Featuring some serious punishing bass weight, layers upon layers of bongo action and a Dr Dre esque ‘California Love’ style talk box sample, Mr. Dunning adds some soul by using the pitched shifted garage style vocal a little sparingly letting his knack for adding freaked out glitches and noises to the mix shine through.
On the flip comes Loefah, with his signature stripped back almost hip-hop sounding half-step beats and a chest punching low end he takes Search and Destroy’s ‘Candyfloss’ into head-down, dark-side skank territory. Functioning better as a DJ tool rather than a sit at home and vibe to track, his interpretation doesn’t progress much or do anything other than throw a ton off bass at you but it’s going to work impeccably well when placed carefully in a set.
This is a very, very solid, release from Hotflush, which they really do seem to be in the habit of dropping throughout this first quarter of 2009. Two of the scene’s biggest button pushers are going toe to toe on either side of this 12” and even though Untold’s gorgeously thick bass and driving sheets of percussion wins, both sides are essential.
