Veteran Heavyweight Frequent Unravels Frequencies in Grass Rat [SINGLE]

Pushing modern sound design and drum and bass sensibilities to their logical extremes, the production heavyweight Frequent unravels the frequency spectrum in his single “Grass Rat”. Being both a longtime veteran of bass music evolution and the co-owner of Upscale Recordings, it should come as no surprise that the track is as brawny as it is erratic.

Living up to its name, “Grass Rat” features a bucked, broken quality to it’s synthesis. Granular textures and obtuse engineering place the most mottled and resampled tones at the front of the song, showcasing the legendary sound design chops that first put Frequent on the map. The track opens with a full time beat down, hurling the composition into a violent half-time streek. The rhythm is accented not just by massive downbeats and staccato percussion, but also by the cuts and warps within the bassline itself. It’s that lively mingling of instrumentation that makes “Grass Rat” a veritable journey through the darkest reaches of bass music.

Given his tenure as both a genre-bending producer and curator of similar productions, Frequent has an immutable understanding of bass music composition. Even in the midst of a heavily saturated market and sound, his tracks have a way of shining just that much brighter, lending credence to his credentials as a master of his craft. While we can’t be sure what 2020 will bring, we’re excited at the possibility of “Grass Rat” being just a taste of what’s to come.

FOLLOW Frequent: Soundcloud / Bandcamp / Spotify / Facebook

Frequent & Hudson Lee Traverse Stereo Space on “Forest Fires”

Production heavyweights Frequent and Hudson Lee have a potent history of collaboration; they’ve co-owned and operated Upscale Recordings since 2016, and they’ve combined their musical output in the last few years to produce “Windows” and a remix to Telepopmusik’s “Breath”. Individually, Frequent and Hudson Lee present two different breeds of potent electronic music. Frequent tends to focus on razor-sharp sound design and low-end ferocity, while Hudson Lee places his focus on the instrumental and harmonic interplay within his music. When it comes to straight forward production and engineering, however, they’re both at the tip of space-age fidelity. In another fantastic display of that fidelity, they’re emerging from the studio with the fresh, cinematic collaboration “Forest Fires”.

Differences aside, one of the unifying factors about Frequent and Hudson Lee is their uncompromising control of rhythm. They’ve both been known to touch on grooves ranging across the rhythmic spectrum, and therein lies the most attractive aspect of “Forest Fires”. Eschewing a dance floor-ready approach, the track is a slow, powerful dive into an emotive composition. It’s fully laden with audio artifacts and glitchy, asymmetrical cuts, intentionally rupturing the fabric of the composition. The arrangement ebbs in and out of a high tide of texture and tension, placing the focus on the innards of every measure. It’s the distinct opposite of transient, with downbeats few and far between until the tail end of the track. The movement that is usually achieved by percussion is instead achieved through the evolution of tone and timbre. Ripping synthesis mingles with atmospheric pads and subtle chord phrasing to create a fully stereophonic experience. 

Frequent and Hudson Lee have built their individual brands and collaborative platform into a powerhouse of intense, texturally crisp music. Occasionally, they combine their musical and production know-how to craft some particularly alluring musical experiences. “Forest Fires” is a formidable next step in their ongoing voyage through sound, forging a unique combination of living, breathing composition and top-tier production and engineering.

FOLLOW Frequent: Soundcloud / Bandcamp / Spotify 

FOLLOW Hudson Lee: Soundcloud / Bandcamp / Spotify