Ever since the likes of Caspa and Mary Anne Hobbs introduced these tracks to the world late last year, the word has spread very quickly that longtime dubstep producer Distance had a major 2-tracker in the works. Released just a week ago on Chestplate Recordings, I had the chance to hear both tracks in their entirety for myself and can vouch that they are definitely worthy of some promotion on my end.

The A-side of this release, “Beyond”, transcends the everyday 5-minute dubstep record. Going beyond the cookie-cutter template that many tracks built for the dancefloor adhere to (across all forms of dance music), Beyond is a showstopper that demands the listener’s attention. Just as it did when I first heard it on Caspa’s Essential Mix from last fall. I’d like to consider myself a bit of humorous dude, yet even I think this one is a tear-jerker. I’d go so far as to call it an electronic version of a country song where the singer loses the love of his life, followed by his house, then his truck, then his chewing tobacco. Well, maybe not that far. But at least here we get the convenience of not having to listen to all the whiney lyrics! But seriously, the densely layered pads fit the rhythm of the song perfectly and although a somber piece, it’s extremely well put together. Beyond is probably best suited for home listening under headphones after a terrible day, but trust me, the sub bass is nestled in there, and will work just fine in the club. If the DJ just so happens to be having a bad day too.

Moving over to the flipside, we see Distance dabbing in one of his prime musical influences: metal. The overall sound and theme behind “Menace” is nothing new for Distance as he has brought in plenty of distorted guitar licks into his previous work, but it nicely illustrates (and re-enforces) his versatility as a producer. A casual listener would not normally associate something along the lines of Metallica with dubstep, however Distance has no problem whatsoever bringing both components together - without it sounding overly forceful or something akin to a throwaway novelty anthem. This is an attribute not every producer is capable of doing, and for that, I give the man props.

Chestplate is on a roll, this is their eighth release and they have a handful more slated for release very soon, both on vinyl and digitally!

Get the vinyl for Beyone/Menace here.

Many thanks to Alex from Surefire for getting in touch.

My rating for this release: 8/10

This is pretty impressive, to say the least. Kseniya Simonova is a Ukranian-based visual artist who recently won her country’s adaptation of “America’s Got Talent” for her highly detailed illustrations of Germany’s occupation of her homeland in WWII through just the use of sand and a lightbox. The illustrations are not only powerful, but continually evolve throughout the video. Thanks to Luke Vaillancourt (worcesterscene.com) for drawing my attention to this! 

Classic London ‘ardcore brought to you by none other than Noise Factory! Better known as James Stephens, his outfit’s music was heavily rinsed at raves at the very beginning of the 1990s, beginning with “Box Bass” on Ibiza Records, a string of classics on 3rd Party Recordings such as “Future” and “Screwface”, and fading out on a high note in 1994 as the standard sounds of ragga jungle as we know it today started cementing itself firmly in place via the last of his output. The Alienation EP was one of Noise Factory’s lesser known releases, but is a proper release nonetheless. All four tracks are pure energy and have plenty of the sped-up vocals, scratches, primitive sampled stabs, and breakbeats we now attribute that era of music for today. As the songs are shorter, I decided to include both on side two here: “All Crew” and “Breakage #3”.

On The Boogiedownload :: Mix 005 (Electro-House-DNB) :: DJ Eight

A few weeks ago I started chatting with Sean aka DJ Eight over email. A recent Boston transplant, he originally hailed from the city that happened to be my hometown many years ago as well: Syracuse, New York. (In case you haven’t heard, their college basketball team is “kind of a big deal” at the moment). After passing off a couple mixes to me via soundcloud, the thing instantly found myself enjoying about them was the fact that he didn’t box himself into a single genre and was unafraid to play everything from laid back groovin’ house to frentic, fast paced drum and bass, in a single set.

He recently recorded a mix for the podcast series here, and even though I wanted it to be mix #8 in the series (sorry, couldn’t resist), I had to get it out quicker than that, so it’s going to be #5 instead. This mix opens with a series of melodic, highly synthesized electro tinged pieces, builds to peak-hour grooves with a generous helping of wobble bass, and traverses straight into drum and bass territory via the tempo change in LA Riot’s remix of Atlantic Connection’s “Rocksteady”.  Oh yeah, why not throw some Panacea/borderline hardcore in there while we’re at it? Gotta have those distorted 808 kicks!

Tracklist:

Lea Luna- Leaving For Mars (Cold Bank remix)
DJ Tranzit & Dooz- Nothing But A Dancer (Pance Party remix)
Tomcraft- Time For Livin’ (Electrixx remix)
Wolfgang Gartner- Undertaker
Access Denied- Publicity
The Crystal Method- Come Back Clean (Annie Nightingale & Far Too Loud mix)
MSTRKRFT- Heartbreaker (Wolfgang Gartner remix)
Atlantic Connection- Rocksteady (LA Riots Shake It All Night remix)
Trei- Offline
Current Value- Dark Rain
Audio- Warehouse
The Panacea- Cryptonomicon
Computer Club- Load Rocket (Gridlok remix)
Apex- Hench

Even though the .PSD’s sat on my hard drive for about 6 months, I finally moved forward with getting the updated designs for the Beantown Boogiedown printed! I needed to wait a bit until I finished handing out all 5000 of the original flyers from last year, but alas, they’re gone (finally). They are hitting streets this weekend. Collect them all (all one of them).

In case anyone’s wondering, I get them printed at copyworldinc.com and recommend them highly; fast turnaround and relatively reasonable prices. 

Another classic track engineered by duo Jedi Knights, or better known as Tom Middleton and Mark Pritchard. Or even Chameleon or Global Communication, if you want to get scientific about it. This duo have collaborated on many projects before, and one of their more prolific ones was 1996’s “New School Science” LP. This 11-track compilation married electro-funk styled breaks with tons of not-so-subtle references to films such as Star Wars and Monty Python (as evidenced in this video). Most of the tracks on the album were longer and unwound slower, rewarding the listener for staying along to make the journey across each 9-minute piece. However “Dance of the Naughty Nights” is a simple, no-nonsense electro breaks track focused on a clean cut riff. Trying to get my hands on some of their other earlier work circa 1995-97, it’s extremely diverse and is bustling with cool ideas that still sound fresh musically almost a decade and a half later.

It’s been a relatively quiet second half of 2009 for Dutch breakbeat/drum and bass trio Noisia, meaning only one thing: they’ve been busy generating a new sounds that every budding producer is going to want to nick come this time next year. Their first offering for the decade is a freebie off their Division label titled “Browntime”. This imprint has been an outlet for much of their non drum and bass work and has mainly consisted of breaks-oriented music with a small touch of electro mixed in for good measure thus far.

2010 does not look to be a quiet year at all for these guys. Coming fresh off the heels of a collab with Amon Tobin, they’re working hard on their live show at the moment. It’s no secret anymore that to become an A-list drum and bass artist these days, you need to have a live show in addition to shit hot original tunes. With Pendulum, Chase & Status, Sub Focus, and Ed Rush & Optical doing just this, Noisia have made themselves no exception, and expect to see a live tour somewhere very soon down the line. They also have kicked off their third label, “Invisible”, designed to focus on the more experimental side of drum and bass (think along the lines of the slept-on, yet interesting, “Strange Owl Project” they cut for Metalheadz a couple years ago).

In the meantime, they will be making the post St. Patty’s Day hangover trip out to Elements (Phoenix Landing, 512 Mass Ave, Cambridge) on March 18th, 2010, doing a DJ set!

Noisia: Browntime (MP3 download)

Free giveaway courtesy of Primeloops.com! If you head over to their site before March 14th, 2010, you have access to 500 megs of exclusive loops for you to use in either your own productions or DJ sets. As expected, these loops cover a wide cross section of everything they offer, across multiple dance music genres and tempos. You can definitely expect to cop some electro, dubstep, minimal, and other styles that are currently in vogue at the moment. 

In order to qualify for the download pack, you must be signed up for their newsletter! Just click on the “newsletter” tab on their homepage, provide them with your e-mail and you’re good to go. Having been on their mailing list for over a year now, I can safely assure you that they don’t send excessive spam/junk mail. Just informative mentions of new software updates/offers. 

Get the free pack here. 

Damn- there has been a ton of nice UK funky house goodness on the Internets as of recently! The next bit, which happens to be free (or if you’re nice, a donation to http://label.bassmusicblog.com), is an LP from UK producers I.D. and Baobinga. Baobinga has been in the game for a minute now; he had a steady release of breaks releases during the mid 2000s and gradually shifted over to the bassline and percussion-oriented music that does not relegate itself to a single sub-genre umbrella during the course of the last 2 years. If you dig this LP, definitely check out his “Ride It” single as well as the “State of Ghetto Jackin” ep on Trouble & Bass, both quality releases! I.D. has a noteworthy discography himself, with releases on the likes of Passenger Recordings and Tectonic.

Judging from the sampler, there’s a nice breakdown of house, UK funky, garage, dubstep, and even drum and bass in this pack of tracks!

Get the album here.