Seppa Traverses Stereo Space in Split

When Slug Wife enters the conversation, it's usually in reference to their razor-edged sound design and audible fierceness; the experimental label is home to a number of top flight producers and engineers working synergistically to craft bass music designed for pure bludgeoning. Amidst the seemingly endless output of monstrous tracks and high octane EPs, there's remarkable compositional work being done under the surface. Seppa, one of the labels co-founders, and the Executive-in-Chief of Gastropodia Prime, has a particular strength for branching off of the archetypical tropes involved with brutish bass music. His latest release, Split, tops off the rest of his catalog with the most shapeshifting, amorphous album out of Slug Wife yet.

Seppa is far from a stranger to malleable composition or narrative releases. From Homunculus to Stress, his stapled solo material builds on constantly evolving phrasing, arrangement, note relationships, and distorted textures. Pairing well with his original music, Bright Spots, a collaborative LP with Chalky, puts his instrumental and music theory skills on full display, accentuating the allure of an already highly sought-after producer. Split feels like a matured combination of his original musings and collaborative longform compositions, showcasing an evolution in songwriting that can be harder to find once an artist settles into their role and fame.

From the jump, Split brings emotional turbulence to the forefront, with "Elk" setting the tone for a subtle masquerade of low end frequencies and tonal suggestions. There's a tension that feels all at once dark, eary, and especially curious. Immediately jettisoning into "OLVO", shuffled hi-hats and reverberant pulses of melody echo across the song's stereo space, with warped, undulating bass lines shredding in and out of the mix. It's the kind of one-two punch that pierces listeners with excitement from the very start of the journey, guiding the attention into each new track.

Bringing the album to a vicious full circle, the title track "Split" is a boisterous monster of complexity and pure rhythm. Mottled breaks flex in and out of focus, bouncing off of raucous bass stabs. The arrangement is hairbrained madness meeting total sonic domination, pushing resampled synthesis to it's absolute musical maximum. The force of the track is a combination of it's exhilarating delivery and synaptic impact, and it's the pairing of these precise attributes that makes both the song and the album an undeniable step up in Seppa's ongoing musical journey.

Contemporary bass music production has evolved to encompass a massive swath of music real estate, and the number of interpretations and genre diasporas seems to multiply weekly. The constant, guiding focus of this musical evolution tends to be composition, and Seppa is firmly planted in the upper echelons of forward thinking songwriting and eclectic production. Each release has diversified his personal palette, and the unveiling of Split reinforces the Seppa project as an audio experiment with few parallels and fewer boundaries.

FOLLOW Seppa: SoundCloud / Bandcamp / Spotify / Facebook

Hudson Lee and Matt McWaters Release Sophomore Loftii Album

Upscale Recordings’ very own Hudson Lee has built a fortuitous reputation as a musical collaborator, covering a wide berth of divergent styles and potential partners. From fellow label-head Frequent to Vorso, Fallen Noise, and a host other producers and musicians alike, he’s built his catalog around a collection of like-minded individuals, and the products of these collaborations sprawls across the vast terrain of electronic music. His most recent partner in action, Matt McWaters, is a producer and multi-instrumentalist based out of Toronto, Canada. He’s amassed an impressive list of collaborators in his own right, featuring the venerable Ta-ku, Masego, Please Wait, and more. The combination of Lee and McWaters’ intertwined musicality comes in the form of the vivacious project Loftii, and their sophomore release, The End Is Pretty, reveals a whole auditory landscape designed for easy listeners and beat-heads alike.

The End Is Pretty channels a remarkably smooth assortment of textures and modes into a twelve-track journey across moods and attitudes alike. The salient nature of the album is it’s primary strength; there are no harsh edges or massive transients crowding the stereo space, leaving an abundance of room for washy chords and blanketed harmonies. The distinctive lo-fi veneer is paired with particularly bright percussion, emphasizing the dynamic arrangement of each track. It’s difficult to discern where Lee ends and McWaters begins, as every present element fits into the wider musical puzzle with the precision and finesse touted by both artists. It’s an altogether powerful collection that showcases two minds in impressive unity.

“Any window in the world” frames the beginning of the album in a blissed-out, melodious collage of organic pads and sampled arpeggios resting on a bedrock of subtle bass and a pocketed break. It’s the kind of no frills, full service composition that tugs at the heart before it grabs at the mind; like a pebble plopping into calm water, the initial impact is just a catalyst for the wider vibratory experience around it. Sliding over to the albums finale, “The End is Pretty” is the sort of subtle goodbye that leaves behind sonic trails in the headspace. Perhaps the grooviest track on the album, it is also the most endearing of Loftii’s combined musical dynamic. With grace and liquidity, the accented chords strum along from start to finish, turning around at the pluck of every trill and triplet. At just the right moment of tension, that graceful entrance flourishes into a stereophonic chorus of supple textures and whimsical slices of soprano synthesis, bringing the album to a succinct, poignant close.

The growing number of collaborative projects amongst the world’s burgeoning and foremost electronic music producers is music to our ears, and it’s incredibly gratifying to hear the diversity in style and interpretation that comes along with these collaborations. Hudson Lee and Matt McWaters put the potential of these projects on full display, and The End Is Pretty showcases a time-honed precision in the mingling of vibe and composition. Whether you’re searching for impact, soul, or a smooth auditory experience, Loftii’s newest album is undeniably fertile ground.

FOLLOW Loftii: Bandcamp / SoundCloud

FOLLOW Hudson Lee: Bandcamp / Spotify / SoundCloud

FOLLOW Matt McWaters: Spotify / Soundcloud

K.L.O Sets A New Standard With 'Bout Time LP

It’s been four years since the release of Acid Scratch, K.L.O’s debut warchest of devious tracks. In the time since then, Kursa, Lone Drum, and Osmetic have all furthered their individual projects, and that legwork is the backbone of this deadly triumvirate. Rounding back together to unleash their sophomore album, K.L.O’s ‘Bout Time is a brutal lesson in hammerhead ferocity, and takes their catalog in it’s darkest direction yet.

Acid Scratch is an album marked primarily by it’s finesse; the intensity of the album is a direct product of each track’s intricate, exponential layering, as opposed to just sheer decibels. ‘Bout Time showcases a poignant evolution of those musical relationships, interloping dexterity and break-neck inertia throughout each of the album’s ten songs. The peaks and valleys of intensity manifest in a blend of pinpoint textures and meaty mudpies of synthesis, with interlocking vinyl cuts slicing through each arrangement like a surgical lancet. 

On the heavier end of the album’s spectrum, tracks like “Montana Dream Cake” and “Avante Parred” put sub frequencies and grating textures at the forefront, primed to lay waste to unsuspecting speaker cones. Bouncing bass weight off of downbeats and twisted breaks, these songs pay homage to the cutting-edge sound design that has helped push K.L.O to the front of the pack. On the opposing end of the album’s dynamic song choice, “Lamp Sandwich” and “‘Bout Time” take hip-hop into strange and deranged territories, balancing choice scratching and brickwalled, broken rhythms. There’s a groove and an attitude to these tunes that sets them apart from the rest, mutating hip-hop’s golden-era veneer into a fusion of liquid tones and virile swagger.

In an age where the idea of collaboration is steadily edging out the idea of competition in the realm of electronic music, there’s no shortage of combination acts and producer collectives. For the vast majority of them, K.L.O is an undeniable benchmark for impact, intensity, and pure style. Four years on, and they’re releases have become steadfast staples of bass music selectors across the circuit, placing K.L.O’s material and influence at the heart and center of like minded musicians and producers. With nowhere to climb but upward, they’ve added yet another rung to the ladder with the release of ‘Bout Time.

FOLLOW K.L.O: SoundCloud / Spotify / Facebook

Elucidate - Tune Balloon

Channeling vivacious vibes and pure production wizardry over the last three years and counting, Wisconsin-native Garth Winter has been gradually honing in his craft as a multi-faceted songwriter and producer through his Elucidate project. With releases featured across labels such as Digital Womp, Glitch Hop Community, and Wormhole Music Group, he’s far from a stranger to contemporary bass music, and his newest material, the Tune Balloon EP, is exactly what it’s title suggests; absolute tomfoolery with plenty of force and a professional polish. 

In a niche of fairly dark, sometimes emotionally rigid electronic music, it’s refreshing to hear how loose the tracks on Tune Balloon really are. The production and engineering quality are pointedly top notch, but the attitude is remarkably jovial, even curious at times. It’s hard to envision anything other than the throes of a fantastical circus while tuning in to the EP’s contents, and that’s perhaps the core strength of the two tracks; the finessed sound design and arrangement are really just vessels for the imagery.

“Tune Balloon” and “Blowin Smoke” both share voluptuous textures and prominent downbeats, but are distinct in their place within the EP’s carnie-inspired mental mosaic. “Tune Balloon” has the feel of data losing its place in the stream, only to find its way back after being slingshotted by spring-powered bass patches. The turn of every phrase maintains the track’s character, with each pulse of the low end feeling as muscle-bound as it is dynamic. Pairing together like cannabis and a Kevin Smith film, “Tune Balloon” is complimented by the unhinged composition of “Blowin Smoke”. One can’t help but follow along the intrepid journey of synthesis and percussion, and the sense of a deepening rabbit hole has rarely felt more lucid. Farther and farther down the hole, each sonic layer folds into the stereo space like knee-high boot laces, neatly tying together through their respective lanes. The whole musical dynamic begs the question of whether or not Elucidate has spent significant time under the spell of Barnum and Bailey’s Best Show on Earth. 

Electronic music is, at its best point, the same neural journey as all music before it, through digital articulation. The fast-paced, brain-scintillating nature of the evolution of sound design can be enough to mollify audiophiles searching for a quick, constant fix, but impressionable music almost always shares the central cornerstone that is potent composition. Elucidate spares no effort in following suite, tailoring the edges and innards of his songs until there’s an amenable balance of timbre and phrasing. If you’re looking for full service musical experience, Tune Balloon is sure to satiate any magnitude of craving.

FOLLOW Elucidate: SoundCloud / Facebook

A Hundred Drums Unveils Debut Album Via Gravitas Recordings

Gabrielle Watson has been refining her craft as A Hundred Drums for nearly seven years to this day. Her debut album, a self-titled record released through Gravitas Recordings, offers a full clip of weighty tracks that will test the capabilities of any proper sound system. Each of the seven tunes (including two remixes) offer a tasteful vantage point of Gabrielle’s signature craft and provide heavy ammunition to all International Dubmen looking to fatten their space crates.

The first track functions as a bit of a palette softener. Smooth, rhythmic drums accompany chest-thumping bass melodies en route to a groove that shakes the earth—as represented by its title, “Shakti Sound”. The word ‘Shakti’ means ‘power’ in Sanskrit, and in Hindu tradition represents a divine-feminine, universally connecting force that cannot be seen, but can be felt. The tune features samples of a recording from group chanting exercises at the Shakti Sound Retreat, a women’s music production retreat that focuses on empowering women in the music industry through an intimate, spiritually-charged learning environment. The tune also gives a peek into Gabrielle’s diverse musical background, featuring dreamy flute samples performed and recorded by her own hand. It’s a choice track to lead with, and serves as a sturdy gateway to the more experimental compositions across the rest of the album..

Leon Switch’s remix of “Lord of Tings” deserves particular attention; the original is featured on AHD’s debut EP, “Audio Runes”, via Heavy Traffic Recordings in 2018. The tune’s new twist offers an equally dense peek at the darker side of A Hundred Drums’ vision, reverberating with a dark, minimal rhythm. The pocketed percussion and low end undulations create an ideal platform for Jayne Gray’s vocal work, forging a heavy-handed duet of voice and bass.

A Hundred Drums sails toward the year ahead on the ongoing momentum of a staunchly successful 2019. She was formally welcomed into the fold of the venerable Sub.mission label, and found herself rocking the stage at Infrasound, Sonic Bloom, Coachella, and The Black Box, to name just a few. The future is bright for Gabrielle and her A Hundred Drums project, and 2020 is sure to see a continuity in her musical evolution.. 

FOLLOW A Hundred Drums: SoundCloud / Bandcamp / Spotify

DUGLO Caps Off Synesthetic Trilogy with "Pop"

Brooklyn’s own DUGLO has a penchant for warm tones and hypnotic rhythms, and his latest trilogy of tracks showcases the creative momentum behind his musicality. The unveiling of “Pop” caps off the patient release cycle of three companion tracks, each meandering in their own jazzed up direction.

DUGLO’s music has consistently been a flourish of ethereal pads and warped soundscapes, but “Pop” and it’s sibling songs provide a particularly percussive look into his musical thought process. Laid back, extremely pocketed snares snap within watery reverb, filling the high end just to the brim. The chord progressions float and evolve within a sphere of movement, panning around the core elements of the track like a satellite in an oblong orbit. Airy vocals dot the far end of the song, bringing out the lightest phrases and ending on a succinct harmony. It’s the kind of music that elevates moods and stabilizes rooms, putting the listener in touch with the rhythm at hand.

Accompanying the release of the track is a psychedelic music video that completes a full circle of audio-visual immersion. Crafted by a visual producer under the name Rictor Lome, the video translates sound into hues and spacial distortion, turning “Pop” into a multi-media experience.

“Balloons” and “Fall” appeal in similar ways, playing off of choice lo-fi instrumental motifs, infused with a healthy dose of rhythmic fluidity. “Balloons” pushes the pace, while “Fall” takes its time walking through the composition. Together, they’re the perfect musical preamble to the grace and attitude of “Pop”, demonstrating the unravelling scope of DUGLO’s vision.

With just a year of releases under his belt, DUGLO is still in the process of carving out a space for his sound. It is as unconventional as it is enticing, and just the first few minutes grazing through his discography pave the way for a deep appreciation for his sonic experiments. Whatever the future holds for DUGLO, it will surely be filled with a flurry of textures and atmospheres.

FOLLOW DUGLO: Soundcloud / Bandcamp

Desert Dwellers Unveil New Remix Trilogy with Breath Reimagined Vol. 1

Amani Friend & Treavor Moontribe continue their march down a golden avenue of world dance culture built throughout the last thirty years, unveiling fourteen new remixes by their contemporaries in psybient music. The record, entitled Breath Reimagined Vol. 1, hosted by the Desert Trax record label, gives us at least one new spin on each of the ten tunes from the latest Desert Dwellers brainchild, ‘Breath.’ 

Breath Reimagined Vol. 1 builds on the foundation of the original album, with each artist stripping the music down to its core elements and splaying outward. The result is a compilation record that’s bound to pique the interest of any fan of psychedelic bass music. Such an impact is achieved via a multitude of stylistic offshoots, each expressed through colorful arrays of instrumental and vocal work from around the world, expounding Desert Dwellers’ passion for unification through dance. 

The remixes done by MantisMash and DRRTYWULVZ capture the essence of the original album through a smooth broken beat veneer. DRRTYWULVZ cultivates a refreshing take by building upon the eeriness of the original atmosphere in “Realms of Splendor”, as the familiar sounds of wind, thunder, rain drops, and chimes fill the headspace. MantisMash puts a beefy spin on the percussion in his remix of “One That Shows the Way”, carrying the composition through precise phrasing and clever engineering. Both remixes peak through the use of absolutely maddening lead synths that express wobble factors so astronomical, they could even turn Hare Krishna into a certified bad boy.

With decades of experience and influence under their belts, it’s no small thing to be apart of the ongoing Desert Dwellers vision. The trust that Friend and Moontribe put into their selected collaborators paid off in full, with each track on the remix album diving deeper than the last. Breath Reimagined Vol. 1 begins a trilogy of remix albums curated by Desert Dwellers, and if the next two are anything like their predecessor, we’re certainly in for more scintillating, playa-inspired experiments.

FOLLOW Desert Dwellers: Soundcloud / Bandcamp / Spotify / Facebook

Dancemyth and Labden Join Forces to Forge “DataMosh”

Michigan natives DanceMyth and Labden have two distinct styles and methodologies to their productions, but they've met squarely in the middle for an explosive collaboration. Brandishing Labden's low-end swagger and DanceMyth's tempered grit, these stalwart musicians from the Wolverine State weave their sounds into the aggressive, punked-out track “DataMosh”.

Straight forward rhythms are the cornerstone of “DataMosh”, driving the phrasing throughout the duration of the song. Hollowed-out downbeats accentuate the pumping, pulsing synthesis, channeling the kind of raw aggression found in contemporary metal and rock music. Aptly so, the bass synthesis takes on the texture and utility of a rhythm guitar, chugging away at each verse and refrain. Staggered stabs of melodies fold over sharp pads in succinct motions, constantly building on the industrial atmosphere and flair. Polishing it off with a wide stereo image and healthy amounts of sub-weight, the track is a standout example of the kind of power that comes from pushing raw textures through their paces.

Individually, DanceMyth and Labden are formidable, multifaceted producers who are carving out their own unique slices of bass music. Brought together into one laboratory, and the results speak for themselves. Given the potent results of this first experiment, we're hoping that “DataMosh” is the first of many more tengos between these two musicians.

FOLLOW Dancemyth: SoundCloud / Facebook / Bandcamp

FOLLOW Labden: SoundCloud / Facebook / Instagram

VCTRE Expands His Horizons in Palindrome LP

The last three years have seen VCTRE stake an audacious claim within the underground bass community. The vicious, punk veneer across his music has made him a fast rising star amongst his contemporaries, earning him prime slots across numerous festivals, showcases and concerts, as well as a rapidly growing, flamboyant fan base. He’s brought his production and engineering chops to new heights across the last year especially, culminating in the full-spectrum album Palindrome.

The earthy grit featured in VCTRE productions takes on new dimensions in Palindrome as he pushes his sound design chops towards wider horizons. The amalgam of styles and moods on the album is a testament to his evolving compositional perspective, with some of the most standout tracks in the collection also being the least imposing. While plenty of guttural distortion and massive stereo compression find a home in the latter half of the release, the first half features an abundance of downbeat, chilled-out tunes, fully equipped with VCTRE’s trademarked, speaker-blasting textures. It’s a noteworthy combination, given that so much of his catalog thus far has focused on the brawny end of bass music. 

Of particular note are the tracks “Human Eel” and “Morning Sky”; side by side, they best capture and display the depth of character featured across Palindrome. With its ungulant, viscous stabs and syncopated arrangement structure, every burst of low end in “Human Eel” responds to a bend in the frequency spectrum. What carries itself primarily as a gun slinging, half-time saunter quietly and impressively transforms into a skewed full time breakdown to close out the track. It’s the kind of composition that flexes the full potency of VCTRE’s patented aural aggression while simultaneously pushing his envelope beyond its traditional edge.

“Morning Sky” takes the attitude of Palindrome in an entirely unique direction, wielding a classic 4x4 beat accentuated by swelling pads and brooding atmospheres. It’s industrial and lucid, and the minimalist production allows for each aspect of the track to shine clearly through the mix. Sky Swift makes an appearance with her flangered, saturated vocals, adding a fresh breath of life into the veins of the song. Soft edges and acute harmonies put her at the center of the arrangement, giving the direct, austere dance floor tune a warm glow and an infectious bite.

2019 saw VCTRE rise with meteoric velocity, and the fanfair is well earned. He’s separated himself from the pack through intuitive, potent production skills and a knack for redeveloping his sound at every turn. He’s staked his claim onstage across the United States, blasting through the festival and touring circuits with few signs of an impending slowdown. As we enter 2020, the landscape of bass music is bound to change as it always has. Of the few constants we can guarantee, VCTRE’s continued dominance of his niche is certainly one of them.

FOLLOW VCTRE: Soundcloud / Bandcamp / Spotify / Facebook

DRRTYWULVZ Channels Infectious Groove in Momentous LP

Brandishing psybient compositions, infectious synthesis, and streetwise rhythms, DRRTYWULVZ flexes genre boundaries and mental imagery in his latest album, Momentous. With a dedicated career stretching back seven years and running, Levi Witt has been gradually developing the DRRTYWULVZ project into a veritable force on and off the stage. The Austin, Texas-based producer has undergone a constant metamorphosis throughout his discography, with the last year seeing a solidification and maturation in his sonic palette and compositional chops.

Earlier this year, DRRTYWULVZ unveiled a collection of tunes titled Nest of the Falcon; crunchy, immersive, and voluptuous, the EP served as an initial foray into the polished, emulsive experience that Momentous conveys. When taking the first steps into this new album, the most immediate aspect is the concise, tightly trimmed mix and blend of frequencies. It’s aggressive without abrasion, and approachable without sacrificing its unique compositional characteristics. In line with it’s polish, Momentous is an album especially characterized by its sheer sub weight. In lieu of edgy mid-range textures and biting high end, the bass lines across the album are almost strictly a low-frequency buffet of jostling turnarounds and walking, talking verses. 

Of the stand-out tracks on Momentous, “Bullet Proof” channels the most hypnotic groove featured on the album. Again, that streetwise rhythmic attitude takes full control of the composition. Downbeats drag and drop across a skewed ensemble of knocking bass cuts and panned percussion. It packs a punch without over-saturating the mix, and like the rest of the album, each sound and tone is given priority within its own frequency space, with all parts summing to a clean, deliberate dive into particulate textures. 

For Witt and the DRRTYWULVZ project, 2019 has been characterized by exuberant performances across the country and a refinement of his musical acumen. In the sea of contemporary electronic music producers, he is accentuated by his compositional finesse and extremely choice sound design. Looking over the trove of music he’s put out into the world in just the last year, we’re incredibly excited to hear what he has in store for 2020 and beyond. 

FOLLOW DRRTYWULVZ: Soundcloud / Bandcamp / Spotify / Facebook

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

Exept, OaT, & Volatile Cycle Team Up with MethLab Recordings

MethLab Recordings has built their music label brand on the premise of focusing on experimental electronic music. Never restricting space to just a specific genre, MethLab Recordings strives to break the mold, and in doing so has had the opportunity to share some powerfully unique sounds with the public. The release of “Broken Mechanics” & “Attitude” is a prime example of their progressive artist roster and ear for originality.

Drum and bass is back on the forefront of the bass scene, and with its reemergence there has been a plethora of experimental sound design to go along with it. Exept, a production duo from Rome, and residents to the MethLab label, paired up with some fresh faces for two collaborative tracks.

“Broken Mechanics” features OaT, who is new to MethLab, while in “Attitude” we hear what happens when four minds become one with an appearance from the UK duo, Volatile Cycle. Both tracks join forces with the heavy dnb influence of Exept, while incorporating techno and rhythmic halftime, making these songs stand out during casual listening. The combination of these international artist’s techniques raises the bar another notch with dance friendly, intricate, drum and bass music while introducing elements from other adored genres.

FOLLOW Methlab Recordings / Exept / OaT / Volatile Cycle

Hip-Hop Pianist Kazumi Kaneda Outdoes Himself with "Morpheme Tone" LP

When someone drops music that’s far and away his or her best work to date, it makes it much easier to write about. That’s why we thank Kazumi Kaneda for taking his jazz hip-hop to the next level on Morpheme Tone. It’s the fourth full-length release from the Tokyo-based pianist and producer and his third on Inner Ocean Records. Kazumi is one of a handful of artists from the beatmaker milieux who are pushing all the right buttons at the intersection of jazz and hip-hop. He outdoes himself on this brilliant new LP.

Kazumi’s come-up has been almost entirely sponsored by our friends from Calgary, Inner Ocean. They’ve tapped him for tracks on the compilations Homegrown, BLESS Vol. 2, and Futures 6 and released Beats Note and Hard Light in 2016 and 2017, respectively. On the first, the producer finds his groove by laying smooth jazz chords over hip-hop drums. On the second, he experiments and gets to know himself more, but loses a bit of slap value in the process. On Morpheme Tone, he perfectly marries experimentation with slapping groove. He’s writing and playing from a new space where his emotion and feeling seems to flow directly into the notes without obstruction.

Morpheme Tone is hot from the jump, beginning with the most amped and immersive song on the album, “Magnetite”. This one immediately turned up in the A Road Trip to Tokyo Spotify playlist and our Eastern Beats selections. It’s a soaking jazz number with a thwapping drum pocket and running hi-hats. Across 11 more tracks, Kazumi plays in several different styles while maintaining one irresistible swing. There’s disjointed lo-fi on “Red Ant”, thumping boom-bap on “3dimentionz” featuring FLOAT JAM vocalizing in Japanese, and jazz in odd time signatures on “Side Recess” and “Little Wide”. The stand-up bass solo on this last one really takes you down. 

There’s too much heat to single out a favorite tune. The question is rather what are you in the mood for? “Sandstone” pulls the heartstrings with greatest force. Measured in swing-per-second “Zugzwang” has the most groove. A smart mix-down enables the piano and bass to reinforce one other and give weight to the whole movement of the song. It’s kooky and wavy, free and psychedelic. A trumpet enters the mix like a swaggering, joke-cracking detective to investigate what’s going on. As the album winds to a close, “Optimistic Life” hits the highest emotional note. 

Optimistic life: That’s what I like to hear. That’s what we all need to be on. I’m on it. Kazumi’s on it. With this tune (or all on your own without it) you can be on it, too. Morpheme Tone makes you feel good, and it’s got real relistening value. If there’s someone in your life for whom beats are just background music, make sure they get hold of this album and hear all the emotion and feeling that Kazumi Kaneda can generate by speaking through his keys and drums.

FOLLOW Kazumi Kaneda: Offical / Bandcamp / Soundcloud / Instagram / Facebook

Craftal Marries Flavor and Simplicity on “Smack Dab” EP

Today’s bass music landscape has a bit of an infatuation with all things dark, serious, and sometimes foreboding. It’s the kind of emotional tension that can breathe life into such a digital, precision-based genre. Shirking off the sometimes formal stiffness of his contemporaries, the Colorado-based producer Craftal eschews dark and mysterious in favor of pure flavor on the Smack Dab EP. 

Part of the allure of Craftal’s music is the almost flippant nature of his productions. Slapstick, left-field rhythms, textures, and samples have been a mainstay in his tunes for years, but the contents of Smack Dab mingle his music’s unique attitude with powerful songwriting and jovial modes. “Smack Dab” hits home with a funked-out meandering bass line, channeling straight groove and bereft of any flashy trappings. It’s refreshingly austere, showcasing a stark contrast between Craftal and many of his peers. Contemporaneous producers often get caught in the details between the details, and the end result can be a washy mess of textures and compression. For Craftal’s music, the details are the big picture, such as with “Apprehecension”. Instead of hiding the glitches and warped shards of audio behind a slew of layers, they’re on full display. The powerful undercurrent of the track carries straight through every texture and stab of synthesis, and that dynamic is the bedrock of Smack Dab. 

Craftal has developed a collection of pocketed tunes across the course of his career. He’s had releases hosted at Aquatic Collective and here at The Rust Music, showcasing glitchy, high fidelity production melded with fluid songwriting and arrangements. His cautious approach to the music he unveils has paid off yet again with an honest, virile array of compositions. If you’re in the market for fresh arrangements and tactile sound design, you’re sure to find what you’re looking for inside Smack Dab.

FOLLOW Craftal: Soundcloud / Bandcamp / Spotify / Facebook

Broken Note Unleashes Massive 15-track LP “Exit The Void”

The speaker creatures running the show at Slug Wife have a way of one-upping themselves on a fairly constant basis. Sound design is the name of their game, and their roster carries some of the progenitor producers and engineers involved with contemporary bass music. Alongside Seppa and Kursa, Broken Note is one of the original Slugs to carry the mantle, placing him directly in the center of low-end design’s Gastropoda enterprise. After spending the last year deep at work in his laboratory, he’s crafted what is undoubtedly his most ambitious release to date: Exit The Void.

Exit The Void is a 15-track album brimming with distorted textures and hair-splitting rhythmic switch-ups. Broken Note’s music is exactly as his name suggests; staccato, abrupt, and unabashedly glitchy. Over the course of a tenured career that spans more than a decade, he’s been at the forefront of modern bass design since his inception, driving the burgeoning sounds of neuro and half-time drum’n’bass since their infancy. What has always set him characteristically apart from his contemporaries is the extremely punk veneer and aesthetic to his music. Exit The Void expands the horizons of that attitude. His mixes are certifiably clean by all measures, but the music itself is a blanket of distortion and intentional phasing. Clipped, dented, and fractured bits of audio are his weapons of choice, and he wields them with remarkable dexterity. Whether it’s speaker-shredding low-end in “Pressure Chamber”, or the intentionally malfunctioning breaks in “Iron Sky” or “Parabolic Hex”, his music channels through the ears like a data stream fighting its way to sentience. It’s an ultimately successful fight, giving Exit The Void the illusion of biological growth.

Broken Note is often the quieter of his slug compatriots, but never for lack of ambition. His head-down work habits have paid off time and again in the form of mentally-scintillating music and performances, especially throughout the stateside Slug Wife takeover earlier this year. Pushing the boundaries of sound and pressure wherever and however he can, Broken Note has never failed to deliver on his evolving ferocity. This time around, he’s managed to completely break those boundaries altogether, bending the frequency spectrum into a fantastically spectral adventure. For all those seeking the dark, undulant bits within bass music, your next fix is waiting inside the folds of Exit The Void.

FOLLOW Broken Note: Soundcloud / Bandcamp / Spotify / Facebook

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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

NINETOFIVE Worldwide Beatmakers Releases Max I Million's "We Own the Night" LP

The veteran Swedish producer Max I Million returns with a diverse collection of hip-hop gems called We Own the Night, his second LP on the NINETOFIVE Worldwide Beatmakers imprint. Every song on this album is great, straight up, although we’ve come to expect nothing less from Max I Million, one of the best representatives of Sweden’s potent beatmaking culture. 

In a 2017 interview published by NINETOFIVE, Max said that Swedish hip-hop has divided into many different styles and approaches. We Own the Night is pretty reflective of that. “We have everything from Trap and club music to jazzy cratedigger Boom Bap.” This album and Max’s style overall mostly falls under that third camp, but there are also some old school club adaptations of hip-hop on this release, like the title track and “Next Level Shit”. Features from devastatingly smooth MCs Twizzmatic, Blu, TriState, and Planet Asia add climactic moments to this primarily instrumental album, like the single “Coupe Deville” on which TriState and Planet Asia lace a soulful beat with righteous, weighty word association.

Max’s music is marked by stirring chord progressions on keys and synths blended with crafty samples that float over steady, slapping drums. Our favorite song on the album is the jazziest, “Son of the Sun 2”. After moving through so much boom-bap, the skipping drum pattern and dancing bassline here can catch one by surprise and put you in a state. Then the album takes a turn for the smooth and ends with three contemplative instrumentals, each one having open space, prominent basslines and ethereal synthesizers. Max I Million really works into the pocket here with “Midnight Snack”, adding foley texture and a fluttering synthesizer lead to a walking bassline. 

“It's insane how much talent there is in such a small country,” Max said of the hip-hop scene in Sweden. NINETOFIVE works with several Swedish beatmakers including Gonza, Boukas, Moose Dawa and Cam the Downrocka. They’ve issued several Max I Million releases over the last three years including collaborations, singles, LPs, an EP and a mix that specifically highlights Swedish talent. “In Sweden there is a friendly competition thing going on, which has elevated beatmakers to just get better and better.”

It’s hard to stop bumping We Own the Night, which has so much depth and dimension. If you can manage to pull yourself away from it, check out other parts of Max I Million’s catalog and the other Swedish producers on NINETOFIVE Worldwide Beatmakers. 

FOLLOW Max I Million: Soundcloud / Spotify / Instagram / Twitter

Maru Blends Rhythm & Melody on Small Sips LP

In June of 2018, Reso unveiled his dusty alter ego, Maru, switch-hitting between his usual low-end driven music and a foray into faded beats and lo-fi chord progressions. Combining forces with Slug Wife, the first official Maru release was Whack Lack Vol. 2. It was a gratuitous dive into the head-nod headspace, and a change of pace for long-time fans of Reso’s catalog. This time, he’s self-released a sophomore Maru LP of dewey bumps and aqueous frequencies, affectionately entitled Small Sips. 

With a total of nine full compositions and a single interlude, Small Sips features a wide array of flavors, blends, and topical variations of lo-fi hip-hop. It’s compositionally rich from start to finish, showcasing extensive arrangements and a spot-on cadence on each and every song. The engineering across the album is particularly alluring, and given Reso’s enduring tenure as a veteran producer, not at all surprising. It provides a degree of fidelity that is often an afterthought for a genre that is focused on all things raw and unpolished in music.

“Lay Off the Sauce” opens the album with a sensual cruise through mottled chords and reverberant breaks. There’s a distinctly dreamy quality to the chord phrasing throughout the song, with each note relationship bending between harmonic and dissonant. Detuned synthesizers populate the melody, endlessly drifting to and from that harmony and dissonance. Like a casual smoker’s cough, the song is puzzling and familiar all at once.

Channeling hazy jazz and a libidinous attitude, “Maple Sizzurp” is a stereophonic bump in every way. Washy chords fill the horizontal stereo space, soaking the listener in phased-out minor and harmonic phrases. The percussion echoes across that same space like a drum kit in the subway; hollow, spacious, and with just the right amount of fade. The distinct view of urban skylines and haphazard crosswalks takes a hold of the mind as the song goes from end to end, showcasing the storytelling and emotional depth that is Small Sips’ strongest asset. 

“Donbury Island” winds down Small Sips to a satisfying finish, lowering the tempo and lowering the energy output in tandem. The track is a gentle composition, with pulsing synthesis slowly easing in and out of the mix. There’s a droning, ambient quality to the sound design filling the melody. It’s all carefully wrapped in a blanket of analog dust, with white noise filling in every pore and edge left open in the arrangement of the tune. There’s no real point of tension, it’s just a quaint float through Maru’s aural universe.

Given Reso’s extensive history with filthy bass music, there is a heightened appreciation for the Maru project. It’s not a dumping ground for small bumps and half-baked productions that don’t fit a motif; It’s a full immersion into a different songwriting philosophy. Small Sips is a detail-oriented exploration of soothing tones and broken-beat serenades, all carefully mingled and balanced to a striking clarity. We’re unsure when the next Maru machinations will find their way into the public realm, but there’s more than enough material to keep us satiated in the meantime.

FOLLOW Maru: Soundcloud / Bandcamp / Facebook

Jade Cicada Channels Melody & Harmony on Little Creatures EP

Reaching back to the harmony-centric compositions that first put one of bass music’s most venerable arthropods on the map, Jade Cicada channels vivacious moods and melodies in Little Creatures. The release comes on the back of an extensive spate of summertime shows throughout the U.S. and abroad, and ahead of his widely anticipated headlining NYC performance in just over a month. Throughout the last three years, Jade Cicada has proven his skillset in music production and engineering many times over, cultivating a carefully curated blend of high fidelity music, and commanding frenzied crowds through total sonic domination. Taking a step back from his intense, low-end saturated music, Little Creatures is a vibrant and refreshing expansion on the compositional richness of Jade’s catalog.

Right from the jump, there’s the casual, approachable quality to Little Creatures that made us fall in love with Jade’s debut work, Eolian Oms. The sound design staples and undeniable audio quality are in line with his other releases, but the overall atmosphere of this EP is in stark contrast with his prior collection, Fish Juice. Eschewing ripping bass lines and high-octane synthesis, Little Creatures is a stereophonic blend of careful chord progressions and meticulous arrangement.

“Little Creatures”, the title track, opens the door to this entrancing listening experience, inviting eager ears to relax amongst the gradual swell of chords and audio artifacts. It’s a potent take on the lo-fi, bit-crushed textures that Jade is so fond of, but with a high quality twist. The rhythm stays pocketed throughout the duration of the track, teetering towards a casual head nod, save for the fibrous synthesis leading the composition.

Ramping up the intensity, “Ghost Blood” is a moody journey into stereo space. A plethora of glitches and atmospheric reverb surround pulsing leads, with gradual saturation bursting through the available frequency space. It’s as much a percussive journey as it is a melodious one, with all manners of clicks, pops, and transient smacks enriching the foundation of the song. Every sound and movement drives the arrangement through its emotional paces, culminating in a saucy, glitched-out meltdown.

“Olivia’s Theme”, a collaborative piece with Schmoop, is a spacious take on melancholy scales and delicate tones. The saturated lead synths carefully plucks along for the duration of the song, drifting along as washy textures and percussive glitches fold in and out of phase. The stereo mixing here is precise, with every tone getting more than enough room to breath whilst still pushing significant decibels.

Wrapping up the EP, “Komorebi” is the peak of intensity for the entire release. Translated from Japanese as “Sunbeams”, komorebi is the interplay of light rays shining through forest canopies. The song is a weighty, hypnotic wave of frequencies and harmony. Chunky stabs of FM synthesis carry the melody, riding in parallel with massive kicks and snares. Arpeggios and shredded textures fill the spaces between the main chord progression, just as sunlight fills the vacant space between treetops and foliage, giving the track a remarkably full palette of sounds and tones.

At this point in his career Jade Cicada has amassed a righteous collection of original music. He’s gone directly for quality with every release, choosing to present only the best of his productions into the public realm. It’s paid off quite nicely, given that any track in the Cicada catalog is certain to give audiophiles a run for their money. Little Creatures is an especially fidelity-driven record, showcasing some of the best iterations of Jade’s musicality. Next month on October 26th, Jade Cicada will undoubtedly rinse through some of Little Creature’s brightest moments alongside Detox Unit, Mickman, and 5AM at the famed Playstation Theater. In the short time between now and then, we’re going to be eagerly digesting this new EP in anticipation of this bodacious evening.

FOLLOW Jade Cicada: Soundcloud / Spotify / Bandcamp / Facebook

Purchase Tickets to Jade Cicada at Playstation Theater

Man From Sol Unloads Glitch Potpourri in Fracture Cycles

Taking glitched-out electronic music into new stereo territory, the San Diego-based producer Man From Sol provides a total sensory experience on Fracture Cycles. The release is awash with innumerable textures and phase modulation, giving its compositions an erratic crawl like molten lava. It’s a bold take on happy accidents and salvageable artifacts from the production process, and that boldness pays off with a unique display of modern bass music rhythms and modes.

Fracture Cycles has it’s home on Abstrakt Reflections, an Argentina-based label and platform that eschews trend in favor of pure flavor. Stretching back to 2010, their catalog is an IDM treasure chest. In their own words, they are “a creative space for abstract rhythms.” Their artist roster features 55 innovative producers and engineers from across the globe, all with the same intention to skew rhythm and tone in any direction imaginable. Given the complexity and fidelity of Fracture Cycles, the record couldn’t possibly be in better hands.

Internally, Fracture Cycles is a fresh series of soundscapes for discerning sound heads to explore. Every phrase and refrain is filled with various aural nooks and crannies. Each listen through the record reveals new layers and new audio manipulations, demonstrating Man From Sol’s abilities not just on a production level, but on an engineering level as well. Tracks like “Fracture Vectors” and “Vacuum Processor” take conventional rhythms in combination with erratic synthesis, keeping one foot on the dance floor and the other in a glitchy headspace. Conversely, “Outside Context” ungulates along a warped time signature, with turn arounds and rests melting together amidst cascading percussion and morphed bass bits. There’s a structure to the track that’s cleverly hidden, driving the overall composition while laying low in the internal arrangement. By now, it should be apparent that every song on Fracture Cycles takes the listener on a wildly different journey through outrageously powerful sound design.

Adding to the scope and depth of the release, each of the five tracks is accompanied by a remix provided by a cast of exceptional glitch producers. Blockdata, oddlogic, CLAUDE, c0ma, and Lokom warp Man From Sol’s original machinations into an entirely new expanse of textural music, perfectly complimenting the EP’s main contents. Man From Sol is a relatively quiet player in the public eye, with the project’s last release dating back to 2017. Despite having just two major releases in that time, his skillset and sonic profile betray a deep understanding of audio production and engineering. We’re excited to continue watching the progression of Man From Sol, as he’s sure to continue advancing through the ranks of glitch music.

FOLLOW Man From Sol: Soundcloud / Bandcamp / Facebook

Follow Abstrakt Reflections: Soundcloud / Bandcamp / Official