Lo-Fi Sundays 036 - Es-K

Beats from Es-K bump on a higher plane. This beatmaker, Robert Ronci from Burlington, Vermont by way of Kansas City, Missouri, is truly a sampling extraordinaire and a master hip-hop composer. He works frequently with rap vocalists and he's represented on some of the world's best beat labels. After years of writing instrumentals for rappers and producing compilation series, he just released his debut LP - a stunning, mystical work called Koan that transcends beats music entirely while remaining rooted within it. 

Es-K is on the official roster at NINETOFIVE and Cold Busted, two labels that provide beatmakers all over the world with a sturdy platform from which to offer their music. He also releases with Bucktown USA based in Brooklyn and Millennium Jazz Music based in London. In other words, Es-K is a real continental fellow. Bucktown is where one can find his latest vocal pairing, an album titled Rebirth of the Slickest with VVS Verbal. 

As a masterful sampler, Es-K knows how to dig, cut and amplify samples to create the classic sound of the past. Check out "Release (Let it Go)" for a neck-breaking example. At the same time, his beats forecast the sound of the future. His compositions stretch into new territory away from boom-bap and into lo-fi and quasi-electronic realms. One can catch the faint edge of synthesizers in his music. Check out "Gotaway" from his Beats, Etc. series on Bandcamp for an example. There you'll also find 24 installations of the Spontaneous Groove series on Cold Busted. Each installation includes approximately 10 beats. Do the math and you realize Es-K has an archive absolutely overflowing with knocks. This music is not available on Soundcloud. In many ways, it exceeds in sophistication and quality what is available from Es-K on Soundcloud save for Koan. If you enjoy this week's curated playlist, the rest of the iceberg can be found on Es-K's Bandcamp, linked below. 

Notwithstanding this catalog covering hundreds of songs over four or five years, this debut LP Koan is the real head-turner. Koan creates a supreme mood and curates an atmosphere of urban shamanism. A koan is a riddle or paradox that when meditated upon can spark enlightenment. Indeed this LP is an aural representation of this process. A cross-section of cuts from the album are included in this week's playlist, but we encourage folks to listen to the release in its entirety. Unlike some beats work, it's not transient. It has staying power. It's true composition. Fans of Emancipator, older Gramatik, and Uyama Hiroto will find some familiar territory here, but truly Es-K is carving out sonic space all his own with Koan. 

Es-K elevates the art form of beatmaking. While we're eager to hear what he'll offer next on the heels of this debut LP, we admittedly have some catching up to do on his back catalog. 

FOLLOW Es-K:   Soundcloud   /   Bandcamp   /   Facebook   /   Twitter

Maxfield - Under the Pink Umbrella

Sometimes it feels like alternative electronic music has reached a critical mass; as if all the experiments have been run through, the wildest sounds have all been played out, and the arrangements have been mashed up so thoroughly that we're through the ringer and a straight-up four-four beat has become innovative.

Within this landscape, the Boston-based producer Maxfield feels right at home. A string of EPs and singles tied together across Gravitas, Wormhole, and The Rust Music in the past year has perked ears in the right places, but with so much excellent music dropping daily, it wasn't cutting through the noise. Now, as his performance schedule has begun to ramp up this festival season, Maxfield comes with Under the Pink Umbrella on Street Ritual. It's his strongest work to date, breaching the surface with dynamic tunes that bear his own unique fingerprint as a producer. Ironically, though, Under the Pink Umbrella is less the product of a concerted effort towards an envisioned goal, but rather the result of a wandering creativity that Jake Maxfield has been wise enough to indulge.  

Across his catalog, Maxfield blurs the already hazy distinctions between sub-genres of electronic music. Under the Pink Umbrella expands on this thread. “As electronic music gets a little more popular the fan base is getting a little more educated about, like, what makes a genre a genre," Jake told me at the Psychedelic Sleepover in June. "People hear certain sounds ...for so many years now that they know those sounds and they know what defines a genre. I like to take bits of that and then smash them together, so that people are like, 'woah, what is this.'” Take "Tiny Hand Low Five" as an example. There's no discernible genre at play here, or even a familiar pattern or movement. It's refreshing. The lead melody is carried by a heavy bass synthesizer that strives forward like a giant roaming the countryside. The breakdown is full of darting and ducking effects, the kind of vowel-sounding synthesis epitomized by the Formant synthesizer. "Some people think of electronic music and they think of clubs and stuff," says Jake, "but this was kind of a shift towards a more 'go out in the woods and get abducted by aliens' kind of vibe." Touche. 

(Credit: Kyle Harrington)

For all the value in experimentation, some people including your correspondent are just partial towards a straight-forward bumping beat. Give me a kick, snare and a little swing and I'm aces. That's what Maxfield delivers on "Kids These Days", our standout cut on Under the Pink Umbrella. The organic percussion is well executed and the sound design is so crisp. Split seconds of synthesis sound like laser beams poking in between sandy, open hi-hats. A whopping snare guides the arrangement and a sprinkling of cowbell adds texture to the mix.  The inspiration behind the tune is relatable. "There’s these really young kids making all this mind altering music," Jake says. "You’ll hear the wildest song and your friend's like, 'you know that kids like 14?' It’s just about envy, and the motivation that comes form envy. That day I had heard something that was just so good that came from someone a couple years younger than me. I had this knot in my stomach until I got something out,  and the 'Kids These Days' idea is what started from that."

The EP winds down with a special cut, almost a ballad or ballet called "Outsource to Outerspace". It takes courage to put a slow, seven-minute song on your EP in this climate where producers are all jockeying for the limited attention spans of listeners. This song has deep meaning for Jake, though. It offers an enchanting and reposeful end to a roller coaster of an EP. Despite the calm setting, Maxfield opens up the hatch on his sound design with more force and fullness here than anywhere else on the EP.  The main movement is replicated across several instruments, and an electric guitar played by Jake himself wails into outerspace like someone begging a question, lost in their own thoughts. 

Jake's introduction to electronic music was atypical, and that may in part account for his tending toward unique, left-field composition. He attended Berklee College of Music seeking to become "the world's shreddiest, nastiest guitar player", but soon found that he had too much ground to cover on his peers for this dream to become a reality. On a whim he took an introductory Music Technology course and the rest, as they say, is history. "When you’re doing music education for a long time, you learn a bunch about rhythm, you learn a bunch about harmony, you play instruments, and you do all these things. But nobody was ever like 'what if you could change the sound of that instrument?'" With his roots in the world of tonal instrumentation and his branches reaching out into the exciting realms of sound synthesis and automated percussion, Maxfield is uniquely positioned to push boundaries in electronic music. While impressive, Under the Pink Umbrella feels like just a starting point. 

FOLLOW Maxfield:   Soundcloud   /   Bandcamp   /   Facebook   /   Spotify   /   Instagram

Lo-Fi Sundays 035 - [s.beats]

Coming out of Ploiesti, Romania, [s.beats] has stolen the spotlight for this installation of Lo-Fi Sundays. Coming up on a little less than two years releasing music, he has already managed shoot over 170 tracks out of the canon. Pushing out a massive catalog of music in that time frame is no simple task, especially given the depth of composition within each of his tunes. 

[s.beats] distinguishes himself in the world of lo-fi hip-hop through the fidelity of his chosen cuts. Eschewing the usual motif of overly-dusted percussion and gratuitous bit-crushing, he instead opts for drums that cut straight out of the speaker cones, followed by melancholy instrumental dialogue and rhythmic gymnastics. His philosophy on arrangement closely follows his choice of cadence, with consecutive musical phrases often expanding on the harmonics of his chosen scales. The calculated combination of Lo-fi tones with organic percussive timbres feeds a veritable life in his music, and [s.beats] never fails to capitalize on this aural dynamic.

If lo-fi hip-hop producers are now a dime a dozen, [s.beats] is no less than a silver dollar. His command of instrumental combinations and soulful arrangements put him amongst the those at the top of this particular musical chain. Go ahead and indulge the music of [s.beats] to you hearts’ content, as there is absolutely no shortage of tunes on his end. If the pattern holds true, we could be expecting a few dozen tracks over the course of the next several months.

FOLLOW [s.beats]:   Soundcloud   /   Facebook

Inner Ocean Records - BLESS Vol. 2

(Artwork: Zom Kashwak)

Discovering new producers in the realm of instrumental hip-hop and jazz can be challenging. Songs often go as quickly as they come. Artist names are nondescript and sometimes impossible to find through search engines. The process of music discovery itself can seem elusive in this sub-genre. Sitting down with a new beat tape from a reputable collective can be a fruitful way to overcome this challenge.

The collectives - independent labels from across the world which vary in their sophistication and infrastructure - track and compile the best in beats for their compilations. By doing so they make music more accessible to fans. They offer a harmless shortcut through the process of music discovery, and become a tool that enables the listener to dig deeper.

Few imprints make this process as easy and enriching as Inner Ocean Records, the progressive independent label based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada that today presents the second iteration of their seminal BLESS compilation series. BLESS Vol. 2 is a triumph of curation, offering almost four hours of music from 99 producers. The producers range in notoriety from globally ranking beat legends like Vancouver's bsd.u to individuals like Mojarra - Da Smokefish from Colombia who has 24 Soundcloud followers. 

Bless Vol. 2  gives a nod to the international nature of the beats community. Artists on the compilation represent 25 countries. The cover art was designed across the world from Calgary by Zom Kashwak of the Philippines. With almost 100 contributing producers of varying backgrounds, styles, and sounds, the sonic aesthetic across the compilation is startlingly consistent. That's not to say it's flat or unvaried, rather that certain common threads run throughout it.

The music is not hard or particularly rough-hewn, although STLNDRMS from Atlanta, Georgia has a nice cut on there. Its not exceedingly jazzy despite contributions from artists like ØDYSSEE of Paris, France. The BLESS series curates more specifically towards the spacey, airy, experimental side of beats music. Take for example the string of tracks on Side A from "forgettable" by baechulgi to "[dragon.wave]" by Borealism. These are ethereal, meditative soundscapes as much ambient music as hip-hop. This run includes our favorite track on the compilation, "Somber" by G Mills. With a project so large and diverse, future listening is bound to reveal hidden gems and new favorites, of course. For now the perfected alignment in  "Somber" has us hooked. But find your way to the back of Bless Vol. 2 and you're bouncing disembodied in a raw, stoned, trip hop sound approached from another angle entirely. 

The BLESS series is compiled through submission, then selection. Artists submit three tracks to Inner Ocean, and the label picks one to include. Inner Ocean's Creative Director Mike MacDonald heads up the intake process. Though he's been full-time with Inner Ocean for under a year, Mike and Inner Ocean's founder Cory Giordano have known each other in Calgary for almost a decade. Processing the submissions can be consuming, surely, but Mike appreciates the end result. “When I was young and making beats, if I had the opportunity to get on a compilation from a label that I knew, I would have shit my pants," Mike told me over evening coffees off Union Square in New York City. He's wearing a beanie, a flannel shirt with asymmetrical paneling, and a constant, compelling grin. "It would have pushed me to go further, you know? You need some resistance in everything you do, but you need a cookie every once in a while too. You need a rewards system and a resistance system.” 

The spaced-out lo-fi vibe is less dominant on Vol. 2 than it was on Bless Vol. 1. The first installment in the BLESS series was co-curated by Saikei Collective out of the Philippines and O-nei-ric Tapes out of Syndey, Australia. Both of these imprints are out there in terms of their sound, particularly the latter. They were not directly involved in the curation of Vol. 2. The quasi-psychedelic tone they set carries over, but there's more jazz, more lounge. 

O-nei-ric has since stopped pressing physical tapes citing a lack of sales, and Saikei has dramatically scaled back its releases. In late 2017, Saikei offered a compilation with a title typifing the tongue-in-cheek self-deprecation one sometimes sees in the online lo-fi community, "SAIKEI COLLECTIVE IS DED LMAO". It's no small challenge to remain commercially viable as an independent label while trafficking in content like instrumental hip-hop that has traditionally lacked broad commercial appeal. That Inner Ocean Records remains not only viable but vibrant is a testament to their quality curation and their organizational strength. The label doesn't retain any of the proceeds from the Bless series, though. According to their website;

100% of the proceeds from the sale of BLESS Vol.2 will be donated to a variety of Micro Loan programs for Women, Sustainable Water and Agriculture projects, Refugees, Education, Health Care and the Arts. The funds from the Micro Loans are paid back over time and it’s our promise to the supporters of this album that we will perpetually reinvest those funds back into future Micro Loans. This way the funds can continue to support people who need it for many years ahead.

Inner Ocean releases a ton of LPs and EPs, but Cory favors the inclusivity that compilations afford. "Compilations are perfect, because everyone can be featured," he said in the coffee shop, stirring over a tea. "I'm feeling good about this tea thing," he said to Mike, joking but only slightly. (See track 73 on the compilation, "Coffee Cult" by Ridhorules). Cory wore a black Inner Ocean crew neck with the label's signature swirl logo dominating his torso. He's soft-spoken and more overtly philosophical than Mike. Their demeanors are synchronized only in their mutual affinity for the beanie. "I never want to be that label that says 'we only do this or we only work with these people'. I want anybody who’s doing something cool to be able to say ‘hey I’m going to get in on that’."

Inner Ocean releases always come within at least one physical format. Bless Vol. 2 is available on cassette tape, the lo-fi trademark, but the label has also decided to press a selection of tracks onto a limited double LP crowdfunded through Q-rates. We're eager to find out which tracks are selected. In the interim, we offer our favorites cuts from each tape side of the compilation.

Inner Ocean strives to release music that will still resonate three to five to ten years into the future. By compiling stellar work with a concentrated aesthetic from both the world's best beat makers and unknown bedroom producers, they've hit their mark yet again with Bless Vol. 2. To ensure your own experience with this compilation lasts, pick up a hard copy over on their website. Bless up. 

FOLLOW Inner Ocean Records:   

Official   /   Soundcloud   /   Spotify   /   Instagram   /   Facebook 

C1 - organic_kid - Crises      
C2 - Harris Cole - Glas    
C3 - Stan Forebee - The Calm      
C4 - drkmnd - Loop For Thought      
C5 - Blankanvas - GLOOM      
C6 - biosphere - A Lonely Journey     
C7 - Poik Lounge - Albert Hoffman's Diary    
C8 - Senoy x Joce - Dust House     
C9 - Jake and Bake Beats - Medulla Oblongata       
C10 - elginnnn - Stay Over If U Want     
C11 - Odeeno - Dullforest      
C12 - Smika - Orange      
C13 - ZOD1AC - Khosmos     
C14 - Howiewonder - Black Maybe      
C15 - Mojarra DaSmokefish - Culture     
C16 - IAMSENPAI - Day or Night       
C17 - Don_Solo - Serenade     
C18 - Furozh - Dem Lights      
C19 - Vagabond Maurice & Brad Kemp - String From the Sky       
C20 - Jung Fellaz - Cosmopolitics         
C21 - Drips Zacheer - Earthlike      
C22 - Behind Clouds - We Wander Into The Sky Hoping Never To Be Found        
C23 - bloom - Up In The Clouds     
C24 - linanthem - Gratitude      
C25 - Ridhorules - Coffee Cult        

D1 - Jack Dean - Porch     
D2 - GoldenChild - Fallin In’     
D3 - Phoenix Manson - Portsea     
D4 - jus. - On It         
D5 - One t.w.o - Mpcissle      
D6 - Skullkid - Rift       
D7 - Slumgod - p o w e r g l i d e         
D8 - Dayzero - Central Airport        
D9 - Yume - b r o o k l y n s u m m e r       
D10 - Urban Shaman - Kings     
D11 - pjzero - The Rainy    
D12 - Mora - falling.      
D13 - Wise One - Aye     
D14 - Limbo - Bumpy Ride    
D15 - Joe Nora - Hope I'm Never Like That      
D16 - Sohee x Adalei's - Stiffyready      
D17 - Aair - Night      
D18 - Grumpysnorlax - Float     
D19 - Cocoamilo - Limonada      
D20 - BIDO - exp.      
D21 - ChasBeats - Smoke Under The Stars      
D22 - Bretsil and Mirrorish - Dreaming  
D23 - Type Raw - Kankickz     
D24 - JFilt - Sunny Georgia      
D25 - Druid - Cold Water     
D26 - Soul Choppa- Sunsets       

TRACKLIST:

A1 - TiMT - Bury the Past (feat.Haruki Ishida)      
A2 - Nymano - Summer Bump     
A3 - Bunko Stew - Surmount      
A4 - Kazumi Kaneda - Laser        
A5 - Funkonami - Rolling Through      
A6 - Telemakus - Relax       
A7 - STLNDRMS - Coolin       
A8 - bsd.u - 4 [bump]       
A9 - Oatmello - Piazza      
A10 - fantompower - The Universe Inside You      
A11 - baechulgi - Forgettable       
A12 - G Mills - Somber        
A13 - Idealism - Walk        
A14 - Arbour (x _houseplants) - Fresh Air       
A15 - Borealism - [dragon.wave]         
A16 - Defla - Warcry
A17 - EMERLD - Special K       
A18 - Dominic Pierce - Dark Coconut      
A19 - Goosetaf - Waterfalls        
A20 - BROCKBEATS - Scenery         
A21 - Mecca:83 -Preach! (feat brothermartino)     
A22 - ØDYSSEE - Amaranth       
A23 - RoY. - SynTaX (Prod.Alzeus)      
A24 - Kawfee - Almost Home   

B1 - Rhakim Ali - The Lounge           
B2 - shogonodo - Some Clouds In My Head     
B3 - Knowmadic - Flow   
B4 - Radicule. - Rose og++     
B5 - BryZone_ybp - Forgive Me    
B6 - Arvo To Me - hshshs     
B7 - tkdwn. - (you can) get thru    
B8 - Seneca B - Moons       
B9 - plcmnt - Circular          
B10 - Smeyeul. - Bless Up    
B11 - mingi pak - Clouds.    
B12 - PRGMAT - Ignoresation      
B13 - Kreaem - L'apre midi       
B14 - lucky.s - Cathartic    
B15 - RudeManners - In Da Hood     
B16 - Sadiva - Learning       
B17 - SHHP - Cosmic Love     
B18 - Dominic J. Marshall - Sardonyx          
B19 - Funk.Shu - GROOVE SUHMOE         
B20 - Ciasco - Spring Water
B21 - MentPlus - D Freak Flip    
B22 - NELAC - Trippin’         
B23 - mellowmnd - Futura Session    
B24 - Rikinish - Lemonade         

Shambhala Music Festival - Chord Marauders Showcase

For the Chord Marauders, 2017 was an important year. The London-based, jazz-infused label is a collective between artists Geode, Congi, B9 & Jafu and a beacon of originality in the dubstep universe. The year saw label head Geode's first full-length release Beluga, as well as Jafu's first LP Second Impressions, making him the last of the four founders to release on the label. All of this solidified their label as a major force on the heels of Groove Booty Four, their most successful compilation release to date, which featured a release with Ago of Innamind/Blacklist, a groovy lounge track from circula (sic), and coverage in Vice's THUMP. The compilation was also their first vinyl release, a trend they have kept up with that's put them on the radar of the crate-diggers and audiophiles which frequent any genre that traces its roots back to Jamaican sound system culture.

2017 was also the first year Congi played in North America outside of Denver, the most hipster place to live in North America if you like bass music. He was booked for Shambhala Music Festival at the Salmo River Ranch in British Columbia, Canada where B9, Geode, and Jafu (a native Canadian himself) played in 2015. Since then, the label has only achieved greater success. As a result, Congi, Geode, and Jafu will hit Shambhala Music Festival on August 10-13 for what appears to be one of the only label showcases in this legendary festival’s history. They’ll play at "The Grove", an intimate stage much favored by dubstep-heads. Vigilant fans of Shambhala's dubstep culture have had the privilege of watching the slow build of Chord Marauders unfold before their very eyes. This year, their showcase will likely be one of the most enchanting and brilliantly original blocks of music all weekend. As each of the label’s members continues to ascend in their career paths, this unique moment will likely become the most monumental achievement yet for the jazzy and melodic sound they champion.

In 2012, when Chord Marauders began to form, the word “dubstep” had gone through major upheaval. What was once a small but solid underground sound that had slowly grown from UK garage, 2-step, and other hardcore fuzzy bass noises in London (particularly the Croydon area), transformed into an aggressive genre of EDM, and become an international sensation in the meantime. Scarcely more than a decade after the creation of Forward>> - a club night that was the incubator for the fledgling new noise - the whole concept of “dubstep” had undergone a shift from the hush-hush darkness and grit of deep bass culture in London to the bass growls and high screeches of what dubstep purists call “brostep”. This new evolution paid more lip service to the neurofunk (an offshoot of techstep, itself a drum n bass concept) era of London bass music, encouraging less atmosphere and more big snares, often with a jumbled arrangement of speedy drums.

The vibe had died and been replaced with more of the soulless junk that had inspired movements towards the dubstep sound in the first place. In this brave new world of dubstep's mainstream acceptance and coopting by EDM culture, the phrase “melodic dubstep” can all too easily signal songs you'd find reposted by Suicide Sheep on Youtube: popular feelings in easily consumable verses, glossy drops for the smiling dancers, and dramatic frequency shifts to drive home the “heavy metal” (read: pop-emo) influence. It means wide-eyed proclamations of “feels”, it means a community more into progressive trance than dub reggae, and it means Chord Marauders faced (and faces) an uphill battle to market their sound. This was the state of affairs when the Marauders began to connect to each other, trading project files and contemplating a go at their own music label to breathe new life into the stagnant dubstep community.

Each of the four projects under the label's banner (Geode, Congi, Jafu, and B9) has a distinctively melodic bent, usually using the synth keys to drive the mood, but there is rarely a time where the mood is uplifting, making it unsuitable for highly commercialized “raves”. Trapped in the “melodic dubstep” box, they would each have a low likelihood of both succeeding as artists and retaining their unique voices without one another's support. With their unity, each have been able to release a full-length LP without losing sight of the goal of pushing the now-antiquated dubstep sound back into a new and challenging territory. They lead this effort alongside the slick badmen of Deep Medi and the cerebral technicians of Innamind/Blacklist. Indeed, their leadership has netted them a release by FLO, an up-and-coming artist from Slovenia, so it is safe to say they are actively changing and challenging bass culture with their association.

Having built such rapport with Shambhala as to be able to promote their label through the festival, Chord Marauders is slated to totally redefine “melodic dubstep” and bring listeners back to the roots of the sound. We've seen Shambhala lift the appeal of acts that refuse to neatly fit a populist mold, with Stylust and Stickybuds as great examples. The Chord Marauders showcase suggests that Shambhala’s attentiveness to dubstep purity will be like steel in the face of the festival’s ever-rising popularity. In other news, Skream still plays house.

FOLLOW Chord Marauders:  Official   /   Soundcloud   /   Bandcamp

FOLLOW Shambhala Music Festival:  Official   /   Tickets   /   Newsletter

Sound of Solasta - Saltus

Come mid-August Solasta Festival is slated to return to its pristine stomping grounds of Spirit Crossing in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. Solasta has positioned itself amongst the ecosystem of transformative art festivals as a premier domain for conscientiousness and communal values. Its musical lineup is filled to the brim with major contributors to electronic music's past and present including Solar Fields, Grouch, Jade Cicada, Detox Unit, Bluetech and so many more. Above all else, it's being presented by a plethora of industry players who explore their own artistic expression within music, as well as curate and operate various audio-focused companies of their own. Ranging from labels and production companies to publications and professional audio crews, the talent undergirding Solasta in 2018 is no less than exemplary. Through the Sound of Solasta series we'll explore the inner machinations of these multifaceted individuals and their outlets. For the first installation we're casting a spotlight on the weighty northeastern producer Saltus. 

Beyond his amorphous musical project, Will Saltus is the co-founder of Rezinate, a Boston-based label and production company. Rezinate has been providing New England with top flight electronic artists for the last four years steady with no slowdown in sight. They've been brought onboard the Solasta team to assist in the operation at hand. On top of being graciously provided his smashing set from Solasta 2017, The Rust had the opportunity to prod a bit at the brainwaves of Saltus, and he most certainly responded in kind.

The Rust: Tell us about Rezinate. What’s Rezinate’s position within the Solasta infrastructure?

Will: Rezinate is a bass music focused brand & community, cultivating deep, full, reverberating sound for a discerning audience. Based in Boston, MA, we host a range of international acts in town on the Hennessey Sound System, and curate music and original content from guests & residents.

We had been doing MASS EDMC (est. 2007) for a while and growing that brand. Always digging for new, unfamiliar and forward-thinking sounds however, we felt the need for a project that more closely represented our musical interests and the direction bass music was going in. Adam and I then came up with the idea for the Rezinate brand & concept at Envision Festival in 2014. That is Rezinate: music which resonates with us - innate, second nature, deep, and psychedelic. 

As to our connection to the festival - Hasan of Solasta is actually my good friend from high school and college. Ironically enough, in High School we were both ‘the guys who were really into music'. I remember when he told me about Bassnectar back then and I was like “who?” I think thats when 'Mesmerizing the Ultra' was out and that sent me for a crazy trip.

We’ve been close ever since & remained in touch as we progressed through our respective music journeys - and as our roads began to cross more frequently after college, whether it be through booking artists Hasan represents, Bassnectar related activities, or in the jungles of Costa Rica, we increasingly spoke of collaboration.

We are proud to lend our support to Solasta Festival through our marketing & the Rezinate community. We love what Hasan has put together with Solasta - it’s mission, musical curation and all - and it feels like a collective network of our friends, creatives, and peers. Our values are closely aligned and we’re thrilled to be a part of the festival’s growth.

The Rust: What were your impressions of Solasta last year? What are you looking forward to this year?

Will: Aw man, it was the last festival of the summer for me and it was so beautiful and the perfect way to cap off the season. About a half hour out on the drive I knew it was going to be special. Wait until you see these grounds: a pristine stretch of land surrounded by woods and a river that runs through it - which I believe is actually the cleanest in the United States! The Funktion-one system was incredible of course. That paired with a small fest of friends & family and a curation of amazing international talent made for one of my favorite festivals from last year, for real. Can’t wait to see how they step things up this year. I actually really look forward to hanging out with the owner of the grounds again. He’s a really cool guy. I spent some time exploring his crazy array of instruments and learning from his history rooted in Nashville guitar culture. Aside from that, there are too many artists on the bill to mention that I’m excited to see!

The Rust: Talk to us about your gradual evolution with tempo. Where did you start, and what pathways did you eventually follow?

(Credit: Nachturnal Images)

Will: The Saltus project began with exploring 85 & 140 tempos, and still today those are the two main tempos I focus on & play in my sets. Recently, most of the music I’ve been writing is 85. I don’t know, I am so fond of the tempo and I find there to be so much room for me to grow in it. 
I will say though, when I began playing gigs in the past two years or so, I became more drawn to write music that moves people & dance floors. Before, I was just writing to write and for any listener who may want to tune in on the other side. So now it depends on my mood, sometimes I want to write a banger, and sometimes I just want to express myself or an abstract idea. 

The Rust: What’s the ideal environment to experience a Saltus set?

Will: Where people feel the most comfortable and lucid to experience music, so probably the outdoors. Somewhere you can kick off your shoes and really let loose and immerse your spirit into the music. Don’t get it twisted though, I also love rocking renegades, house parties, and basements where it's dark and people loose sense of time & everyday bullshit. 

The Rust: The Saltus project seems to be rife with experimentation and you don’t seem to have boxed yourself in to any one style. Can you speak on some of your influences with your own musical endeavors, and your personal vision for Saltus?  

Will: Well, to tell this story I’ll have to rewind it to the beginning, when my Dad put me onto the classical guitar in the third grade. He’s been a guitar player most his life, with a focus on blues, bluegrass, & folky kind of stuff. I might have been drawn to the guitar anyways but he had a major influence on me and that was my introduction to music. He would always play my sister and I Jazz to fall asleep.. and lot’s of Bob Dylan. So yea, I was nine at the time and once a week I’d go to the classical music school and take lessons (I did this until I was 18). I began writing some original stuff onto sheet music and learning basic music theory. In Middle School I bought an electric guitar and learned some tablature and the classics. Shortly after I started jamming regularly with my friends. Fortunately one of them, who is in a talented family of drummers & musicians, had a jam room that we could practice in whenever. We started a band that was inspired from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I was really really into them. Our band evolved into another group in High School and that’s when we started writing a bunch, playing gigs, and learning how to record and mic ourselves. We were jamming every day, and looking back I realize how profound an impact this had on me and the way I approach my music. Searching for that peak riff or chord progression and that synchronistic moment when the music takes you deeper and your eyes start to roll to the back of your head.. and then you hit the record button and try to capture it as best you can.

Ironically I got kicked out of the band for not being good enough and I dropped music completely for the rest of that year. The next Summer I went to Italy, my first international trip without my parents to visit my cousins in Rome. I was 16 and we got drunk on Sangria one afternoon. I had somewhat of an epiphany watching an Iron Maiden Live DVD at the apartment afterwards. I had heard them in Guitar Hero 2 and it totally blew my fucking mind (I’m a big gamer, which I’ll touch on later). I picked up my cousin's guitar which was missing a string, fixed it up, and that night learned their song "The Trooper”, which was by far the most complex electric guitar piece I had learned at the time. Iron Maiden can be considered “Neo-classical”; they play mostly in minor and are rooted in classical influence. I think their music appealed to my musical background and eagerness to rock out. This moment really kicked my passion for the guitar and music back into gear and soon lead to exploring more old school metal and then metalcore, most noteably As I Lay Dying. This was when I realized I loved dark & heavy, yet beautiful & emotional music. Contrasting energies. During this same time Electronic Music was growing on me. My friends and I wanted to throw a ‘rave' for a birthday party, and we downloaded a “Top 50 Techno / Trance Anthems” compilation from iTunes. I’m pretty sure we just typed 'Techno’ into iTunes. That record changed my life for good too. I remember the first time smoking weed to it in the car (we had just gotten our drivers permits) and it was a big kapow. I distinctly remember beatboxing & humming where the beat was going and my friend said, “How did you know it was gonna go there?” That definitely made me reflect, “Huh? Do I have a knack for this?"

When I got to UMass Amherst it escalated of course. I found Pretty Lights, Rusko, Deadmau5 and rode that Skrillex, Zedd, Porter Robinson Electro & Circus One Records phase like a lot of other people. I actually had Pro Tools & Ableton in High School, but didn’t dive into it all that much. But when Skrillex started releasing music, I was in my Sophomore year at the time, it really inspired me and I began spending time in Ableton and writing Electro & Dubstep. I spent many late nights writing in College and watching Youtube tutorials during lecture halls. Soon after I was introduced to MASS EDMC and met Adam & Bobby. MASS EDMC and its story/role in my life is its own entire conversation - Adam and I still dedicate a lot of our waking hours to the company. But yeah, I remember feeling how exciting it was to be able to share music and talk about it for hours with people who were even more passionate about it than me. Bobby heard that I was learning Ableton and wanted to trade production lessons for DJing. I learned a lot from his philosophies and general energy as a human being. He taught me all the basic 101 about DJing and pushed me to begin playing at house parties. I will never forget when he suddenly left the decks mid-party after a MASS EDMC event to go chase a girl. He said, “you’re ready” and put the headphones on me and took off and left me to keep the party going. He really believed in me and my music and that meant a lot to me. The next year (my Junior year) my beats reached a point where they were at least somewhat enjoyable and had a few minutes of an arrangement. I was essentially jamming on my guitar, and then transposing the melodies and progressions I liked to Ableton. I started playing some open mic nights on campus and sharing my music. I had an idea to keep my guitar on my back while I was DJing and then I’d mix in some of my tunes and shred a bit, and then back to the decks. This was definitely the first foundation & ‘vision' of the Saltus project; classical & metal influence, live instrumentation, and dark and emotive soundscapes.

(Credit: James Coletta)

Mr. Carmack, Emancipator, and similar producers were a huge influence for me in this era - showing me further how beautiful and expressive music can be. I always imaged Mr. Carmack to be writing music on the beach in Hawaii, pouring his heart & feelings into his music. His work was so beautiful... I listened to it on repeat. Writing has always been a form of self-therapy for me, channeling my emotions into the music, so I really resonated with what they were doing. When I moved to Boston after graduating college, I finally had a creative space that I could call home. I increased my focus on collecting gear and putting intention into my room. I was still writing music based mostly on my guitar, but I knew I had to learn real sound design & engineering in order to take it to the level I wanted to reach. I started to put my head more into audio effects, processing, mixing, collaborating & learning from others, etc. and my guitar took the sideline for a bit. 

I think the next influential turning point for me was discovering Synkro and seeing him perform at Shambhala in 2015. I had never heard anything quite like it - dark, dubby, industrial, inexplicable sound design & quality, ridiculous percussion & break beats, and above all how deep & intelligent his music was. I gained a profound respect for him, Indigo, Samurai records, Cosmic Bridge, and half time drum & bass as a whole. These cats weren’t afraid to push the limit on abstract & emotive boundaries and it was crazy inspiring. They are still some of my favorite producers, and this realm of sound is one of my primary focuses in my productions & performances. After Shambhala I became more passionate about producing; I was writing more frequently and started to find a balance of working it into my daily schedule. I was determined to express a deeper-self through my music. This translated into my first body of work, “inhalexale," which I am still very fond of. It was the first time I was recording my own samples and blending them with pads & ambient soundscapes. I had purchased a Tascam DR-40 and was recording samples on my travels. I grew a sentimental connection to these recordings and my ear for catching sounds was improving. This definitely inspired my music further, it was exciting to be forming an original palette & direction. Generally today, every song I write incorporates field recordings. I always have my Tascam or phone with me and recently I’ve been honing which recording devices to use when, to capture a specific result. To be honest for a long time I considered producing to just be a private hobby. I feared sharing it with anyone or anywhere (outside of quiet releases on Soundcloud) and didn’t really care to unless you were a close friend or came to my room one night after a party and caught me jamming. Fortunately I have amazing friends, and they pushed me to begin releasing my music and share it with people. After snowboarding one day I was showing my friend my music, and he said, “My mom once told me, live life with no regrets. If you don’t go for it and at least try, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.” That hit me hard. 

The last piece I’ll share of my ‘vision’ for the Saltus project is that I’m a big dreamer. I’ve been reading fantasy books & playing video games since I was really young and developed a bit of a habit for lucid dreaming in college. I find that there’s an intense cross-over between our imaginations, dreaming, and creative endeavors like writing music or any sort of art form. When I write, I try to take the flow as deep as possible to reach a place where I’m no longer present, totally lost in the music and focused on exploring the visuals in my head and the feelings the soundscapes give me. It's kind of like daydreaming I guess. In the past year or so I’ve been trying to hone this skill more explicitly. For example, my song “Arrival” was inspired from watching the movie Arrival; I looped certain scenes from the movie while I wrote the track to preserve my imagination & inspiration from the film as long as I could. To summarize... deep & emotive bass music with a focus on field recordings, experimental resampling, organic sound design, live instrumentation, and classical music influence.

--

Understanding the people behind Solasta is in and of itself part of the ethos of Solasta. Behind the speakers, the decks, the sound pits, the lineup and the  logos are individuals answering their own personal calls to action. They're finding ways to give back to a community that empowers everyone involved. Saltus was more than generous to provide such articulate insight into the noosphere of his art and business, but it's just the tip of the spear. Be sure to catch Saltus perform at Spirit Crossing this August 17-18 if you make the expedition to Solasta, as he's sure to deliver a most unique interpretation of bass-weight. 

FOLLOW Saltus:  Soundcloud  /  Bandcamp  /  Spotify

FOLLOW Solasta:  Website  /  Facebook  /  Tickets

Lo-Fi Sundays 034 - too ugly

The beatmaker too ugly aka toouglyboi is coming straight out of New York City, and you can hear it in his beats. He cuts clean samples and acapells from New York greats like Big L, Mobb Deep, and Method Manand splices them with spindly piano loops and dangling lo-fi drums. He executes this classic lo-fi formula perfectly, re-contextualizing hard-body rhymes into whimsical, relaxed, or melancholic loops and beats.

Too ugly just released his second beat tape titled All That Spinach. It's a great 20-minute spin. There's nothing on this tape or in ugly's entire catalog, really, that is unpleasant. Everything is smooth, particularly the back quarter of the tape. Smooth texture can be common to much lo-fi, of course, but ugly continues to elevate it as an art form. Tunes like "Kinfoe"and "How You Think" get the head bopping with their acapellas. This second track is one of two collaborations between too ugly and the beat farmer Dweeb. But too ugly's real gems are the pure instrumentals, utilizing maybe only four to eight bars of piano, like "Care Free" or "Mellow Taste". Too ugly releases music with the Texas-based label Always Proper and Dumb Nice, a burgeoning beat click that we've got our ears on. The crew's latest compilation The Nice Life features two tracks from him, including one collaboration with Lo-Fi Sundays favorite Fushou. 

It's only right that the home of hip-hop be represented in the beats community by a true talent like too ugly. Perhaps I've passed this man on the city streets once and didn't even know it. 

FOLLOW too ugly:   Soundcloud   /   Spotify   /   Twitter   /   Facebook

Fractalfest - Terraphorm [Profile]

Tovia Ben Shapiro aka Terraphorm performs alongside A Hundred Drums at Citadel, Shapiro's new event in Boston that hosts international talent to promote roots dubstep and bass music (Credit: Adrian Feliciano)

Perched atop an old rock wall overlooking the field at Page Farm in Croydon, New Hampshire, I sat with a new acquaintance, Tovia Ben Shapiro aka Terraphorm at the Psychedelic Sleepover. Tovia’s thickly dreadlocked, spindly personage could be seen strolling the about Page Farm all weekend, hanging with the sound guys and chatting with other party goers. Terraphorm spun an early afternoon dubstep set on Saturday at the Sleepover, but on Friday on the rocks in the shade it was another festival that dominated our conversation; Fractalfest 2018 <Art/ificial> coming up on July 12-15 in Stephentown, New York.

Tovia has been playing deep tunes under the Terraphorm moniker for years, and more recently he began throwing parties in Boston called C:\tadel. This series is dedicated to showcasing a wide spectrum of sound system music, and hosted N-Type, Biome and A Hundred Drums during its most recent iteration in May. Not unlike Fractalfest, C:\tadel offers a space for rare and often international talent to perform. Tovia seeks out weighty sound from all over the world for his DJ sets, and through C:\tadel he can showcase these sounds and their authors in a welcoming live setting. 

In tandem with these hustles, Tovia is embedded within Fractaltribe, the crew behind Fractalfest and a whole lot more. Based in Worcester, Massachusetts, Fractaltribe eludes description in some ways. Tovia explains it be a community of DJs, producers, event promoters, visual artists and other various creatives and characters.

The group has been hosting highly curated and cultured parties in the Northeast US for years. Their 10 year anniversary party took place in Brooklyn in April, where Terraphorm offered a special DJ set. July will see the sixth iteration of Fractalfest, which began as a day party in Worcester but is now a full blown four-day festival in the woods of upstate New York. “What I would tell a lot of people is you’ll see certain things that you love about other festivals at Fractalfest,” Tovia says, “and you’ll also see things and experience things that are a little bit different.”

Fractalfest encourages participants to engage themselves intellectually through the party’s theme. 

The theme for our party informs the deco and the ideas behind it as well as the bookings. The theme this year is Fractalfest <Art/ificial>. Essentially we’re exploring what technology means for humanity and art. You were seeing academics as early as the 1950s trying to figure out what artificial intelligence is and what it means. At what point is something intelligent? At what point does this intelligence mimic humanity perfectly, and after that, what are the things that distinguish us from it. Is it creativity, our emotions? These are some of the questions that have guided our theme for Fractalfest <Art/ificial>.

Tovia's lithe and linear face is wrapped in big black Oakley sunglasses as we continue our discussion. He speaks with the humble confidence of someone who's seen much in his time. 

“These ideas are being explored very often today with the rapid developments in artificial intelligence in ways we didn’t imagine 10 to 20 years ago. You know, we had The Terminator, but today a lot of artificial intelligence is algorithms and things that feed into the information IV through social media and other things.” Social media is obviously an invaluable tool for promoting parties. While Fractraltribe utilizes this medium well, the group is unique in today’s environment because its reach manifests mostly through personal associations and word of mouth. “We’re also exploring the deeper question of what it means to not be artificial. We invite people to come out to Fractalfest and explore this in the party environment.”

Fractalfest is a leave-no-trace event. Attendees are expected to properly dispose of any trash they create during the festival. To this end, the event organizers provide every attendee with a garbage bag when they enter the grounds.

Fractaltribe is known to emphasize psytrance in their musical curation. Their lineup features Grouch and other members of the cream of the psytrance crop. This focus by no means excludes other forms of electronic music, though. The lineup also features the North American debut of the Grouch in Dub Live Band, for example. Tasteful bass producers and DJs including Dela Moontribe, Dreamwalker, Saltus, Shanti, Somatoast and Spacegeisha will be spinning in the Fractal Forest, not to mention Terraphorm himself, who treads through the deep and mystic realms of 140 bpm. Fractalfest offers a taste of almost everything in electronic music. For those rooted in bass, it can be an opportunity to experience something new. “Sometimes we, including myself, can get stuck in a pattern of liking what we like and not really going to explore and check out new music,” Tovia remarks with great insight. “There’s so much amazing music going on just within the world of electronic music. It’s almost a disservice to centralize so much and not check out the new stuff.”

Fractalfest separates its bookings into two camps; live sets and DJ sets. Terraphorm will spin two DJ sets at the festival. Although he's produced a tremendous amount of music throughout his eight or nine years of performance, Terraphorm prefers to remain on the selector’s side of the fence. “What I found is that you can end up offering a better product as essentially a human jukebox curator on stage.” By selecting and remixing other people’s sounds, Tovia can focus on creating a special, consistent vibe, “an experience that is more than the sum of its parts,” as he puts it. “One thing I enjoy about DJing especially in front of a crowd is the spontaneity and the interaction with the crowd.” There’s advantages to some pre-planning, he says, but spontaneity and moving with the moment is really where it’s at. “Sometimes you want that ability to read and interact and change with the crowd. I enjoy that spontaneity, and I think it’s resulted in a lot of my favorite moments as a DJ.”

“I’m involved in many ways and it’s stimulating," says Tovia Ben Shapiro aka Terraphorm. "It keeps you from doing the same thing too much and helps you have a more holistic role in these parties.”

Administratively, Fractaltribe is a fluid organization. Like most members of the group, Tovia wears many hats. In addition to being a resident DJ and promoter, Tovia performs administrative work and helps to build the group's art projects and stages. “I also spent a number of years doing landscaping,” he adds, “so we do really cool landscaping to create a special vibe in the Fractal Forest." What is the result of all this multifaceted work? A festival experience which, for its size, is apparently unrivaled in terms of attention to detail, visual presentation, and the ability to create a holistic atmosphere. “Our music is carefully chosen and curated, but there’s also a more physical, visual vibe from our custom projection-mapped stages, which we build more of every year, to our art galleries. We’ve had both a fine art gallery and, to use a loaded term, a visionary art gallery.” Take a peek at the photo gallery on Fractaltribe’s website (linked below) to glimpse the immersive atmosphere of the Fractal Forest.

Beyond the music and theme-driven installations, though, even deeper threads run through Fractalfest that Tovia is quick to highlight. “We want to create a place where music can be enjoyed in a fun, safe, healthy and community-oriented manner. That intention is reflected behind a lot of our art and the setup that happens out there.” Indeed, Fractalfest promotes health, safety and self-awareness more aggressively than any other festival in the region. When in this context the festival was unfortunately interrupted by New York State Police last year, the raid appeared quite out of place. Members of Fractaltribe defended the event and the culture unabashedly at a news conference organized afterwards by law enforcement. "We don't sell alcohol. We don't condone people being intoxicated. We actively promote sobriety, health and wellness,"  declared Fractalfest co-organizer Kyle Rober.

A post shared by Fractaltribe (@fractaltribe) on Jul 1, 2018 at 11:05am PDT

For his part, Kyle explained aspects of Fractalfest to me at Disc Jam Music Festival in early June. Fractalfest shares the same property as Disc Jam, although the Tribe utilizes the land differently, establishing most of their stages and installations within the woods. “Those two people,” Kyle said, gesturing at a young couple with whom he was just speaking, “would not only have an amazing time at Fractalfest, they would excel as human beings.”

The organizers strive to make the festival as accessible as possible. “All these things take money to happen," Tovia says. “For Fractalfest, we’ve always worked to keep our production value high and our tickets affordable and accessible. It’s really important that all this music and art doesn’t get closed off from people and become this luxury that’s only enjoyed by a few.”

Fractalfest is far from the largest or most well-known festival in the region, but it may be the most thoughtfully curated one. “These festivals are celebrations of art and celebrations of people. I think if you go back to the earliest festivals, before there were music festivals like this,” Tovia says, sweeping his arm in front of us to capture the flurry of activity in the field at Page Farm, “I think what they all share is a celebration of the human need for social contact.”

By mining the intersection of art, humanity and technology, Fractalfest <Art/ificial> will indulge and at the same time examine this undeniable need for social contact. Terraphorm will use his shamanic dubstep selections not once but twice throughout the weekend to speak to this idea. If you’d like to experience something a little different this festival season, join him in the Fractal Forest. Visit Fractaltribe's website (below) for day schedules, maps, and more. 

FOLLOW Terraphorm:   Fractaltribe Spotlight   /   Soundcloud   /   Facebook

FOLLOW Fractalfest <Art/ificial>:   Official   /   Facebook   /   Tickets

FOLLOW Fractaltribe:   Official   /   Facebook   /   Instagram

Lo-Fi Sundays 033 - Ekaj Ledeir

The summer has finally come in full force, with an overbearing sun melting us poor denizens on every street and avenue. In the ongoing battle to keep temperatures at a steady coolness, one outstanding beatsmith has the icy cuts necessary to bring you back down to a constant chill. The self-described “jazz head” Ekaj Ledeir is a card carrying member of the vibrant lo-fi community in the US.

When it comes to cuts, Ekaj may not have the sharpest knife but he has a keen ear for the delicate arrangement of his music. Chosen samples are washed, rinsed, and spread throughout the mix to keep tracks melodious, but oxygenated. The same theory of “too much is too much” can be applied to his manipulation of sampled audio; use the cut in the same fidelity it was recorded in, and you risk crafting an aural palette that is too obviously constructed from dissimilar parts. Consequently, using too much audio-processing can inevitably create aliasing and may water down good audio into chip-tune artifacts. Being mindful of this paradigm, Ekaj bit-crushes with more grace than a priest anointing holy water, with the same automation prowess as some of the production-intensive artists that propagate the modern landscape of electronic music.

If sample overkill is the death of good lo-fi hip-hop, then Ledeir's approach is the solution. With his released discography stretching back no longer than a year, he has managed to unleash a plethora of tunes on some major streaming platforms. The gradual development of his artistry is evident as one listens through each track, each beat tape. As always, keep your ear-mouths open for the stew brewing by this mans’ hands. In no time you’ll be fed until your near bursting.

FOLLOW Ekaj Ledeir:    Soundcloud   /   Bandcamp   /   Spotify

Innamind Recordings [Profile & Mix]

Innamind Recordings is a label created and owned by Jeremy Pattinson aka Kursk that focuses with precision on the dark, minimal and often mental side of 140 bpm music. What some may call one of the most progressive imprints in dubstep today, it’s founder calls “just a label of friends who like releasing some pretty sub heavy bass music.” Don't let this modest stance or the label’s super minimal aesthetic fool you; Innamind is making serious movements on the deep, dark end of the dubstep spectrum. 

This summer the crew is shredding tiny clubs and big festivals on its fourth North American tour, bringing their foundational yet avant-garde dubstep to some of the largest, most diverse audiences yet to hear it. They’re hitting some of the continent’s mainstay venues for bass music, including the Black Box in Denver, Infrasound in Wisconsin, and Bass Coast in British Columbia, Canada. Tomorrow, they're kicking it off at the BoomRoom in Philadelphia. 

To celebrate the start of his fourth trip around the continent, Kursk whipped up a premium guest mix for our Rusted Rhythms series. It exemplifies his ability to flawlessly mix amazing, obscure dubs, and highlights the sound that Innamind pushes; a 140 bpm blend rooted in all the best aspects of traditional dubstep, but not afraid to make huge departures from the familiar.

Kursk is heading up a formidable tour roster that includes big selectors Karma, Headland, and Ago, with the latter two making their U.S debuts. “This time around we are looking forward to getting the music out there and to playing at some of the festivals,” says Jeremy. “I am especially looking forward to two festivals that we have been booked to do label showcases at." It's a positive thing to be able to spread the artists and their music to a wider audience. I think you get more of that with festivals as opposed to clubs.”

Jeremy grew up in Christchurch, New Zealand where he would found Innamind in 2013. As a youth he was initiated on the Subtle Sound System, apparently the biggest custom-built sound system in New Zealand and the featured system at many parties in Christchurch. With small cities spread over a spotted and rugged landscape far removed from Europe or the States, the Kiwis have to work a bit harder to germinate a thriving bass music culture in New Zealand. Still, system music definitely has a home in Christchurch. In 2011 an enormous earthquake incapacitated much of the city’s nightlife, but Subtle Sound System and others are back at it throwing down. Not long after founding Innamind Jeremy moved himself and his label to Los Angeles, CA and become enmeshed in that city’s underground bass community. More recently, he's set up shop in Philadelphia. 

Also making a home in Christchurch is Gene Warriner aka Headland, one of Innamind’s lead producers. He and Jeremy never met until a couple years ago, funnily enough, though they’re good mates now. This tour marks not only Headland’s first performances in the US, but his first steps within the country. He’s already performed in the UK, various spots in Europe and “across the ditch” in Australia. “I don't carry records so that's one less thing to deal with, when dealing with the TSA. I really can't wait to meet my fellow producers/friends that i've only talked to on the net for the last three years or so.”

Headland (Credit: P.K. Photography)

Kursk is a real selector, a true student of the sound system culture. ”Kursk’s access to upfront dubs from leading scene artists is unmatched, and is sure to surprise even the most hardened spotters,” remarks Resident Advisor. He’s a throwback to early days when a soundman might scratch or switch off the labels on his dubs to keep his biggest tunes shrouded in secrecy. (We confirmed that Jeremy does not, in fact, do this). Tracklists, or rather their absence, appear to be a source of humor for some of the Innamind crew. 

For his part, Headland is a newer hand behind the decks. “I’ve been listening to dubstep for about eight years or so and have played the drums since I was very young, but never thought about making dubstep. After I went to Outlook Festival in 2014, I said to myself that I would start making music when I got home. So on January 1, 2015 I opened FL Studio and got stuck in.” Three years later and he’s touring the US storming underground clubs and hitting some of our finest festivals. Not bad. His come up did not materialize out of nowhere, of course. He cranked on his production after long days working construction in Christchurch. “The creative process for that was getting home from work in my building gear, grabbing a beer and sitting down for four hours straight and basically getting the whole thing done in that time. It just happened…"

The motivation behind Innamind is relatively simple. Jeremy was listening to righteous producers in the annals of the web who he felt must have been “sitting on mountains of dubs” that were going unreleased. So he began Innamind as a forum to release these deep cuts, and one day perhaps give the producers an opportunity to spin tunes on big systems. His vision continues to manifest itself, as all summer his artists will play on some of the baddest systems in North America. 

In 2015, Jeremy conceived Blacklist, a sister label for Innamind which would act as a space for Innamind artists to release their more experimental tracks. Even within a sound that’s rooted in darkness, space and lurching sub frequencies, this dedicated forum for left-field experimentation has helped foster some crazy good records. “It's going really well,” Jeremy says of the sister label. “We just had our eighth release on that series from V.I.V.E.K and we have a number of other things in the pipeline for this year. With Blacklist we never really force anything, we just go with the flow and put something out when it feels right. It's just an outlet for me and Gantz to release music we are feeling together.” Gantz, arguably the most popular producer on Innamind, released the first music on Blacklist.

Innamind is well known for its faithfulness to vinyl, that timeless glossy black medium which is so aesthetically bound up with dubstep. Kursk spins vinyl himself, and he makes sure his label presses every single release. A growing, loyal following gobbles up every last one. “We have mostly used a German pressing plant named Optimal but have used MPO as well. From there the records are shipped to the south of England to our distributor Unearthed Sound's warehouse. From there they get sent around the world to different online shops and stores.” According to Jeremy the cost of pressing records has skyrocketed recently, perhaps due to increased demand. He makes sure to scope suppliers for the fairest rates. 

Ultimately Innamind is one of a small group of standout boutique labels that are pushing 140 forward with their creativity. “As far as labels, I am always following V.I.V.E.K's label, System,” Jeremy says. “I think they execute everything perfectly,  its a real solid label and I am feeling most of the music they are releasing. I think Chord Marauders have done some cool stuff as well.” Indeed, one can perceive in Chord Marauders some of the same flexibility and freedom within 140 bpm that Innamind advances. 

Not that Jeremy has made the connection. Like the crowd when he’s throwing a set, it seems he likes to keep his head down. “To be honest I tend to mainly focus on what we are doing for the most part. I don’t really listen to much dubstep outside of what we are doing, and a very small group of other producers and DJs.” Perhaps this lack of interest in the wider spectrum is what allows Kursk to keep Innamind's output so fresh. 

Dubstep continues to regain popularity in the States, only this time around folks seem to be less easily fooled by the carbon copies and more inclined to go out of their way for the genuine sound. On it’s fourth go-round in North America, Innamind is definitely going to gain some traction in this environment. Don’t sleep when they come to a festival or a dark dance floor near you. 

FOLLOW Innamind Recordings:   Soundcloud   /   Blacklist   /   Facebook   

FOLLOW Headland:   Soundcloud   /   Facebook

The Rust One-Year Party - Rumpistol [Interview & Mix]

Pure beauty and deep, fearsome mystery collide in the music of Rumpistol. For 15 years the Danish musician Jens Christiansen has been composing experimental electronic music and earning the utmost esteem from the global electronic literati. Jens was an early innovator, working with organic downtempo aesthetics that are popular today but well ahead of their time. His work helped establish archetypes for what is today referred to as IDM.

Hailing from Denmark, Jens performs frequently in Europe but rarely in the United States. His recent stateside performances have taken place within the Tipper & Friends infrastructure, introducing Rumpistol to new audiences and invigorating those audiences who were already hip to him. The Rust Music is honored, then, to host Rumpistol for our One Year Anniversary Party on July 6th in New York City. Ahead of this performance, we had the good fortune to correspond with Jens about his inspirations, compositions, performances and homeland.  

Jens has also provided an exclusive 50-minute Rumpistol mix to help everyone choon into his vibrations ahead of July 6th. Within it one can hear how Rumpistol epitomizes that rare and prized balance between intellectual and physical appeal. His music can be equal parts lush and abrasive, stoic and manic. His sound is appropriate for both a dance floor and a sitting den.

The Rust: What influenced you to choose music as your full time career?

Jens: I guess I always knew I wanted to work with music somehow. From early on I wasn’t interested in anything else, but I was uncertain about choosing it as a career. When I reached my early twenties I decided like most people do at that age to “grow up” and keep the music as a hobby. So I went to university and studied comparative religion for two years, which was pretty interesting. The problem was that I was really bad at doing my homework because I was too busy making tracks. I was still at university when the first album came out and suddenly I experienced all this interest and positive feedback from around the world. This eventually led me to leave university and follow my lifelong dream.

The Rust: How do non-western traditions and sounds influence the Rumpistol project?

Jens: I think the most avant-garde or ”unheard” sounds today comes from non-western traditions. In the west we're still obsessed with re-experiencing our own past and I'm definitely also a victim of that, but still it's always possible to step out and go somewhere else. So I try to look for inspiration outside of western pop culture, and always enjoy listening to a new Soundways or Finders Keepers compilation or play around with Ethiopian jazz scales etc. The bridge in “Forest Drops” actually has some Ethiopian jazz scales in it, and features the West African instrument Kora played by the great Dawda Jobarteh. Check out my Kalaha Crates playlist on Spotify if you’re curious on more global sounds.

The Rust: Please tell us about your other musical project.

Jens: I play synths and produce for Kalaha which is keeping me quite busy these days. We are two electronic musicians and two jazz musicians and we tour quite a lot in Europe and Asia. I really love playing with these guys because of the collective feeling we have. We bounce ideas off each other, an element I often miss as a solo artist. I started my musical endeavors in various bands as a kid and it’s definitely something I’ve been missing. I also have other projects. I produce for different artists who likes my sound and I do a lot of commissioned work as well. Last year I did a score for a modern dance piece, a short film, a documentary, a podcast and a score for a video game called Trailmakers. 

The Rust: Is there a specific meaning or idea behind the latest EP? What inspired the concept of ‘drop’?

I live in a country surrounded by water. Denmark consists of more than 100 Islands and we have 180 days of rain each year in average. I also started swimming during the process which inspired me a lot; the mental break it gives you and the feeling of immersion you get. Of course drops can be so many other things: teardrops, bass drops, liquid medication, and of course to unload something -  to release something.

The Rust: What is it like to be a musician in Denmark? Can you tell us about music culture in your country?

Even though we’re experiencing a lot of cutbacks these days, Denmark is still extremely kind to it’s artists compared to other countries. What many people don’t know is that we actually have a pretty decent minimum wage for musicians which I think is a non-existent concept in most countries. We also have organizations for composers where we can get free legal help and apply for grants. Plus all of the educational system is free. All this has helped creating a super fertile musical environment with high levels of talent for such a small country. Many people think that because of the small size of the country, we all know each other, which is partly true. However it’s not always too easy really getting to know a Dane! We’re generally a very disciplined but also a bit shy and slightly anxious bunch, obsessed with little details which I think explains why we also love to party. We simply have to let go of all this control sometimes.

The Rust: Can you describe the process behind putting together Drops Remixes? How did you involve other producers?

(Credit: Tobias Wilner)

The remixers are all people I met during the last couple of years of touring. An aspect I really appreciate about traveling with music is how new creative collaborations emerge out of just hanging out with people you meet. Often you learn that you share the same taste in music or whatever and you realize that you can create amazing new things together. The remix can be a good way of trying out a collaboration.

The Rust: Are there any other artists or musicians you have been feeling motivated by recently?

When I’m not working on music myself I try to give my ears a break. At the same time I have to admit that I'm seriously addicted to music and often get obsessed with certain artists and genres so it’s really hard for me to turn it off sometimes. Still I believe that it makes you become more balanced and creative if you allow yourself some silence at least a few hours each day. I do enjoy listening to audiobooks and podcasts like Soundtracking and I often have these phases where I dive into a certain artist or genre. Neo classical stuff like Jóhann Jóhannsson (RIP) and early IDM like Future Sound of London & April Records for instance. When we’re on tour with Kalaha we listen to a lot of music from around the world: African music, Middle Eastern music, electronic music and jazz, which keeps us going for those long road trips. Sometimes we also plug in the laptop to the sound system of the car and work on tracks while we drive. So much fun! Last I love the fact that we're finally seeing more women break through within the experimental electronic scene: Holly Herndon, Laurel Halo, Smerz and my fellow Dane SØS Gunver Ryberg just to name a few. We definitely need more female role models within this scene!

What fuels your creativity?

It can be many things but generally, I think boredom and silence is the best starting point for me. Being swamped in work or overwhelmed by too much stimuli doesn't work for me. It's already hard to find the energy and time having two kids and playing shows every other weekend.

--

We thank Jens for squeezing us into his schedule and sharing his words and music. Two kids, two musical acts, and one record label, Rump Recordings, surely make for a busy man.  Rumpistol has become one of those rare musicians that creates while his contemporaries and the generation proceeding him takes cues. But he is himself taking cues from the most disparate of places. He’s like a prism catching the light and reflecting it outward in varying colors. Jens follows his ears and his heart, not what’s popular. By doing so, he’s less a part of mainstream conversations. But he’s arguably leading a dialogue of greater weight and purpose on his own.

At the outset, he was placing arrhythmic or obscure sounds within minimal, melodious arrangements. His innovations created space for future artists, including some of the supporting acts at the One Year Anniversary Party, to step outside traditional frameworks of electronica. We hope that electronic enthusiasts from far and wide can come enjoy his rare New York City performance at on July 6th. If the light is just right and one watches from a fortunate angle, one may catch a simultaneous glimpse of the past and future. Grab tickets HERE, and enjoy the this exclusive Rumpistol mix for years to come.

FOLLOW Rumpistol:   Spotify   /   Soundcloud   /   Rump Recordings   /   Facebook

Co-Written by Jenny Suh & Mark McNulty

Lo-Fi Sundays 032 - Fushou.

Fushou. makes timeless beats. There's definitely trends in the lo-fi game, and there's nothing wrong with indulging them because they usually involve provocative sounds and versatile techniques. But fushou's beats rarely latch onto these trends. If you trace his catalog back to its beginning over two years ago, the beats then are consistent with the beats now. They've all got that organic and grainy texture and they really fill up the frequency spectrum. They're not exceptionally jazzy, or extremely lo-fi on that spacey, quasi-psychedelic tip. They're just pure hip-hop. 

The producer, whose real name is Tristan, hails from Arlington Texas and works with some righteous collectives, including Dumb Nice, a crew you definitely out to stay chooned to. Truly he's one the most skilled beatmakers out there right now. He's got all the right elements; strong composition, vocal and instrumental sampling of the highest caliber, cultivated taste in terms of sample choice, and a prolific and consistent workflow.

Many of his beats include extended vocal samples from classic rap tunes. He also works with contemporary rappers, as on "free.the.hold". He'a always collaborating, working with over a dozen other producers to date including Oxela, and too ugly. Certain popular acapellas are flipped by fushou. with supreme taste, like the verse from Nas' "Shoutouts". Sometimes producers will use an isolated loop from a tune to build a track. Fushou. will have an isolated loop, two or four bars or whatever, but as the tune develops those four bars turn into eight or sixteen and a narrative begins to develop instead of just one isolated bop. Peep this on the first half of his Mathematics EP, which includes some of the dopest instrumentals we've heard in a while.

At the end of the day fushou. beats have that "it factor", that special vibe. The samples just ensnare your mind and the drums turn cartwheels. He drops tunes consistently  so follow his channels and your bound to encounter consistent fire. Further, 12 full EPs an LPs are available on his Bandcamp to keep you bopping for days. 

FOLLOW fushou.   Soundcloud   /   Bandcamp   /   Spotify   /   Facebook   /   Youtube

Psychedelic Sleepover Raises the Bar for Family-Style Festivals

Concord, New Hampshire is pretty hard up, I thought to myself as our car cruised along sloped back streets lined with squat homes flaking their paint. We were scoping out signs for Page Farm, the grounds for the Psychedelic Sleepover on June 1-2 and a site rumored to be paradisiacal for family-size music festivals. “That’s got to be an insane asylum,” my colleague said as our vehicle became shadowed by a hulking brick structure perched on a riverbank. Hot sun caught the red brick of this empty building which stood in high contrast to its surroundings; a rushing river and the lush green of full Spring in New England. It was just an empty factory, no insanity here. We’d have to find Page Farm first to tap that vein. Weather reports had attendees nervous leading up to this anticipated gathering, but as we finally rumbled onto an access road for the Farm, strong sunshine was penetrating through the forest canopy.

The main stage was modest in size but boasted a perfectly tuned system from Hennessey Sound Design (Credit: Nachturnal Images)

The niche psychedelic music festival is a visionary concept. Bring the most righteous bass music and a killer sound system onto some isolated land for a weekend of indulgence. And boy did the Taproot Productions team have a barnburner on deck. In addition to a who’s who of Northeastern underground bass slingers, plus rare names like AtYyA, Shwex, and Alejo, they booked Koan Sound to play on Friday night with Opiuo to follow on Saturday. Not to mention the ultimate wildcard booking, Diplo, who would go on to temporarily frustrate festival logistics by pulling an inordinate amount of resources and staff into his bougie orbit.

Anyway, it’s a great idea to go balls out and host a festival like this, but executing that idea is where things can get hairy. Based in Portland, Maine, festival organizers Taproot Productions are nearly the only game for psychedelic bass music in northern New England. I’d hardly encountered the crew before and wondered just what kind of game they were running. With a name like Psychedelic Sleepover, I wasn't holding my breath for tight organization, polished presentation and universal safety. But that’s just what Taproot offered all weekend.

I lodged zero complaints in my mental notebook. There’s always one aspect of a gathering that’s less than ideal, or doesn’t come off right. Here, there was nothing. Perhaps my experience was biased by my credentials as a media professional, but it seemed like everyone was riding the same wave of excitement, comfort, and safety. The staff was responsive. The volunteer team was substantial and they put in good work. All the music went off on time. The sound was flawless; one Hennessey Sound system for each of the three stages engineered all the weekend by their creator Sean Hennessey and his crew. Visual art was prominent and thoughtfully curated. The public water supply, while somewhat difficult to locate at first, was consistently cold and available. The production value was high, startlingly so given the modest setup during the Sleepover’s first iteration last summer, which featured just one stage. The festival sold out around 10:00 pm on Friday night, hitting Page Farm’s 2,000 person capacity.

The field was the nexus of the festival and provided ample space for activities (Credit: Nachturnal Images)

There was actually one snafu. Whispers rippled through the campgrounds during mid-afternoon on Friday as the Farm started to fill up; Diplo’s cold-cuts had spoiled. We’re not sure how this situation was resolved, but it cast a temporary pall over Page Farm. Diplo was in fact participating in the Psychedelic Sleepover because he’d performed in 49 of 50 states except New Hampshire, and he wanted to hit them all. The crowd was getting down at his Friday evening set that began to light rain, the only precipitation all weekend. He didn’t go deep with it or break out unique cuts to match the unique setting, as some speculated he might.

The Sleepover population was so safe and civilized. This was made easier by universally shaded camping that actually afforded the ever elusive good night’s sleep, if that was your thing. No one was imposing, no one was putting on airs. Everyone was smiling and getting down. “Right now there’s such a cool thing going on here,” Jake Maxfield told me. Jake, whose awesome surname doubles as his artist name, was one of eight producers represented by Taproot who played the Sleepover. With a cache of large unreleased glitch tunes, Maxfield put down one of the more impressive sets of the weekend on The Field stage, which was actually two stages with music rotating between them. After splitting atoms for an hour, Jake closed with “Helplessly Hoping” by Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Cooling in the shade at the southern edge of the field while Scatz pumped sedate Saturday afternoon beats, we chopped it up about the festival. “The people are really cool. I’m not very social so it’s cool to be able to have an excuse to get out and meet a bunch of people all at once. You're in a space where you feel like you have something to talk to them about. As opposed to other times when, you know, you’re at your friend’s Superbowl party and you feel like a band geek or something.”

The field was the nexus of the festivities. This large, broadly sloping section of pure green grass, about one and a half football fields long, offered infinite room for flow and socialization in the open air, which was pleasant but not hot during the day and crisp but not cold at night. On one flank of the field at the foot of the tree line was a pastoral and purely New England rock wall. One could picture visionary seventeenth century women climbing this wall and disappearing into the woods to get down on some spiritual activity to avoid being labeled as witches. The smaller of the two stages, a rustic roofed structure with one LED screen behind the performance space, was bordered on one side by the rock.

On the opposite side of the field was the larger stage adjacent to a Chris Dyer mural which the happy fellow himself sprayed with color all weekend. Here was a similar roofed structure but boasting a set of LED panels and an array of lasers which at night would fly over the busy crowd to criss cross on the tree line that, backlit with blues, greens, yellows and purples, stretched so high above. Attendees set up mobile picnic spaces in the field and ferried them back and forth between the stages as the music rotated. It was pure psychedelic Americana. “They have all the right elements,” Jake said of the Sleepover. “This space in particular, too. Page Farm is one of the best festival spaces I think I've been to for this size event.”

The geodome by Illumine Productions was the spot for late night shenanigans (Credit: Scott James Artistry)

Sitting center field was a geodome. Innocuous and hammock-strung by day it became the spot for entertainment come late night. Once darkness fell, the dome’s interior lit up with master class psychedelic projection mapping. This sorcery came courtesy of Illumine Productions, a project by Derrick Planz and Brandon Decker out of Baltimore. With stages shutting down at 3:00 am, these fellows provided a heroic service by creating gathering space for a peppy graveyard crowd. Their space became truly sanctified on Saturday night when MALAKAI began an impromptu hours-long ambient set on a quiet speaker setup under the dome. The scheduled music finished and all was quiet on the Farm, but here Sleepover attendees, quite awake, began to gather, splay out, and drink in the last drops of this festival’s potent vibes.

Psychedelic Sleepover provided a perfect platform for some of the Northeast’s rising talent to showcase its tunes. The musical peak of the weekend, however, came unequivocally from the headliners Koan Sound. The duo from Bristol, England has been working on a new album for two years. For the first time ever, they performed a string of tunes from this most anticipated release. They absolutely ran the gamut with brand new drum n' bass, jazzy synth jams and back-breaking glitch hop, all with their signature sound design, only improved. It was too good, shattering already elevated expectations. “Koan Sound is one of my biggest inspirations,” Jake said, no doubt echoing the sentiments of many producers. “It’s always special when you get to see them perform. There’s inevitably a lot of hype and pressure behind it, but they definitely blew everyone away.” 

The lasers were flying, ClearVoid visuals was casting spells on the LEDs, the Hennys were thumping and Jim Bastow’s fingers were dancing on the keys while he and his partner Will Weeks flawlessly mixed the new material with Koan Sound bangers including “Fuego”, “Mr. Brown”, “Sly Fox” and “Sentient”. Magic hung like a membrane in the air while the crowd whooped and hollered, nearly incredulous at the quality of the music they were hearing. It was one of those rare sets that will live on, glorified in memories of folks who know they got it.

Safety was widespread throughout the weekend (Credit: Nachturnal Images)

Down grounds from the field, through the shakedown and across a wide expanse of parked cars, broaching another tree line one entered the woods sheltering the bulk of the Farm’s campers. Smack in the center of this scene was the Woods Stage integrated into the landscape beneath taut neon string that ran from tree to tree and looked like secret agent security lasers at night.

On Saturday night the vibes at the Woods Stage were supreme. Hammocks were slung and chairs grounded around the perimeter of the dance floor. Shwex came all the way from Olympia, Washington and offered an astounding and cinematic avant grade sound experience. He built pressure to the perfect point but held from releasing it. Just when a groove became solidified he would pull the rug out from beneath it, sending the mind spiraling. He was followed by AtYyA, a master of spiritual bass and downtempo who was followed by hometown hero DeeZ who earned the Sleepover’s closing slot. “Snooze [aka Taproot Productions’ founder Danny Bruning] is good at making sure all the headliners get what they deserve, then giving that underdog spot to someone who really deserves it,” Jake said.

And close DeeZ did, in rare style. According to Snooze, "DeeZ’s set was scheduled 2:00-3:00 am and they wanted me to cut it at 2:00 am. Brian Page actually came down at 2:20 am and said 'Snooze, you shut this down right now', to which I responded 'No wayyyy man!' pointing to all the happy, dancing party people. He relented and went to bed without a fight." The show went on, but the sound was cranked way down. So there’s DeeZ with his bag of bangers throwing them down one by one on a system running at half volume. He even played his remix of “Bass Head”, a fan favorite. The crowd, packed tight among the trees and laced with energy, took to speaking in hushed tones to allow the tunes to ring out. In this moment it was clear that those who came to the Sleepover treat music with the utmost reverence and respect.

Psychedelic Sleepover raised the expectation in the Northeast US for what a family-style bass music festival can be. Praise for its curation and operations was widespread. The hype surrounding the festival was substantial, but Taproot delivered and then some. “Our culture is almost inherently commercial,” says Tovia Shapiro aka Terraphorm, a wise man and prolific DJ out of Worcester. He offered a deep-dive, highly cultivated dubstep set on Saturday afternoon.

More than one person was hawking pashminas in the camps at the Sleepover (Credit: Nachturnal Images)

“There’s aspects of all that marketing and promotion that are important to the process of having a good party. You obviously want a critical mass of people to share and experience this art together. But just that leaves something to be desired.” Tovia puts together events with FractalTribe and spoke about approaches to curating atmospheres and cultures within festivals, in addition to just music. “I think we’re starting to see a lot of great festivals in the Northeast which embody that and push the boundaries in their own way. Psychedelic Sleepover is definitely part of that way of thinking about throwing events.”

After cleaning the Farm and setting down beneath a tree for a two day snooze, Danny and Taproot set to work on next year’s Sleepover - and much more. This is an event that they and the community at large can be proud of. We look forward to witnessing its evolution.

FOLLOW Psychedelic Sleepover:   Facebook   /   Instagram

FOLLOW Taproot Productions:   Official   /   Facebook  

Lo-Fi Sundays 031 - KiLaMDaPro

Another Sunday, another snooze of the alarm, another high-noon awakening best accompanied by some juicy lo-fi goodness. This week, we’re honing in the spotlight on KiLaMDaPro, a Maryland-based sample collage artist with a highly digestible output of hot beats. While many lo-fi producers tend to find themselves pigeonholed by the genre’s usual trappings, KiLaM manages to find a gentle balance between allowing samples to breathe organically, and finding those precision, two-second cuts that weave an arrangement into a true composition.

His music has an identifiable characteristic of maintaining the same rhythmic focus as much of the r&b and blues music that is sampled in the first place. Of course, the traditional hip-hop underpinnings are often there as well, but it's that last-minute shuffle of the hi-hats coupled with that momentary piano flutter that really tie the knot for this man's productions. Bringing a composition to life requires more than fancy MPC parlor tricks, and KiLaM brings the right musical stylings to the table in order to properly serve a dish at peak temperature.

It is highly encouraged to enjoy KiLaM at one’s leisure, as his discography is quite vast for some two years worth of productions. With what appears to be a quick rate of succession between tracks, keep an eye peeled for frequent releases.

FOLLOW KiLaMDaPro:  Soundcloud   /   Bandcamp  

VALE Singles: Walrus Tales & Anti_Negative & Kliine

Diving into the Mariana Trench of electronic music does not require any certifications, expert training, student loans, or even a manual. What it does require, however, is an appetite voracious enough to track the sheer volume of releases on a daily basis. Enter VALE, an upstart label that specializes in all things dark, doom, and gloom within contemporary bass music. This week they present a triple threat production between Walrus Tales, Anti_Negative, and Kliine, and it most certainly slaps.

The track creeps in from the get go with synthesis crawling around the frequency spectrum, and quickly drops into a full crunch of neuro-hop. The percussion is particularly alluring all over the track with an extremely organic timbre, a la good sample choice, as well as crisp compression to bust each tone through the speakers. The track dips in and out of intensity, mulling over gentle piano melodies whilst allowing the darker elements to assemble in the background. Come the last minute of the track the ears are treated to a maelstrom of high velocity cuts and stabs, only for the tune's elements to fall back over itself and end on a righteous key line. 

If what you seek is hi-fi low-end production coupled with a grim attitude, then look no further. VALE has a consistent release cycle to make sure everyone gets their just deserts on time, every time. Keep both ears focused on this small collective of sonic muckrakers, or risk falling behind on the latest in all things cutting-edge and experimental.

FOLLOW Vale:  Facebook   /   Soundcloud

Elements Lakewood Music & Arts Festival - DeeZ [Interview]

Despite dreary early afternoon rain Andy Widdecomb aka DeeZ did at Elements Lakewood Music & Arts Festival what he always does - throw down. For the second straight year Andy helped lead a thorough cast of bass musicians into Lakewood, Pennsylvania or BangOn! NYC's raucous camping festival. Elements Lakewood was the first in a string of festival performances for DeeZ. It caught him fresh off his second annual tour with Mickman, which saw the the pair of producers lug a Funktion One sound rig from city to city, into and out of basements and venues, to play their unique roughneck bass music. 

Andy grew up in Maine and now resides in Boston. He’s known for hard beats in the dubstep and drum and bass wheelhouse and vicious side-swiping sound design. Beyond the crisp color and sheer edge of his music, what distinguishes DeeZ is his work ethic. He’s what you would call a producer’s producer, admired by his peers for doing all the little things right. His mix-downs are meticulous, his mastering skills continue to improve, and he pays acute attention to detail. “He’s got it going on, and people are going to get hip to it soon,” says Jake Maxfield, a fellow bass producer and Bostonian. “He needs a tipping point. But its going to happen. He’s writing great music and he's working harder on it than anyone I really know. And thats what it really takes.” 

DeeZ is indeed one of the hardest working dudes in bass business, and he brought brought the fruits of labors to Elements Lakewood for all to enjoy. Highlights from his set included cuts from his latest EP Strange Matter, fat remixes of Beardthug, Phers and Smigonaut, and an unreleased remix of Tsimba’s “Sendai”. He also brought a killer attitude and left with a great appreciation for the event. “I love the different vibes that are cultivated here,” he said in the cool shade of his campsite canopy as we rested before a much anticipated set from Stickybuds. “This morning going down to the Water Stage it’s drinks on the beach, people are boating around, house music, it’s early and everybody’s vibing. Then you go down a little further to the Air Stage in the woods and people have their hammocks set up. Such good vibes.”

Andy’s been at the production grindstone for years. Besides his talent with the decks and DAWs, he’s got a nascent desire to be involved in event production. “There’s talks in the future of collaborating [with Mickman, whom DeeZ grew up with] on some land, and getting a stage installed there with some Funktions and doing an intimate festival.” The Air Stage was his preferred setting at Elements Lakewood. “Just that little area alone is almost the size of an event that I would like to start off with. Something in the woods; dancefloor, treehouses, installations. That’s where I grew up, in Maine in the woods, so that’s my vibe.”

The producer's appreciation for Elements Lakewood wasn't limited to the stage designs and the diverse vibes. “All the house music at the Fire Stage is so cool. House was the first thing that I really got into. Before I know about bass music, dubstep, or anything like that it was just house music;  tech house, minimal house, pretty much anything.” Elements did well to merge different audiences from the house and bass music worlds; two communities that interact less and less these days. “That was uncommon in Maine. I think the scene’s a little smaller there so it’s not big enough for those sounds to separate."

Much to our surprise, Andy floated the idea of a house music side project in the future, or at least a couple house tunes under the DeeZ project. Indeed, four on the floor music with DeeZ sound design would be formidable. But how does he achieve the vicious broken beat grooves that he’s currently rocking with? For one, he’s been utilizing a technique lately that many premier sound designers are keen on, which is to separate sound design sessions from composition. “It’s a game changer,” Andy says. “It allows you to transcend the boundaries of your own imagination. You basically make these long audio samples of bass patterns and filter movements. Then you have this random stuff and you build out the structure of your tune and start placing the chunks of that big audio file. Almost like pieces to a puzzle. Scrolling through these audio files and arranging these little bits, you find things that you would have never thought of.”

We were close to wrapping up our long conversation under Andy’s EZ-Up in the shade of evening outside the West Village at Elements Lakewood when he almost jumped off the inflatable couch to communicate some news he almost forgot. Andy’s been collaborating with Smigonaut on a set of new tunes which the producers anticipate releasing under a new project name. Smigonaut is a bass wizard in his own right whose strength lies particularly in his melodious and learned approach to composition. A fusion of Smigonaut song writing and DeeZ sound design, or vice versa of course, as these gentleman are multi-talented, is a tremendously exciting prospect. What could their combined energies sound like? Time will certainly tell. 

Perhaps the simplest but most profound pleasure of Elements Lakewood for Andy was the simple fact of being there. The man works tirelessly and spends countless hours in the studio. Getting out to the music festival is as refreshing for him as for any attendee, he implied. “I always liked music festivals even before I was a producer. But now that I’m getting older and becoming more resistant to going out and partying, it’s good to be booked for something like this and sort of force myself to enjoy the weekend, relax, and see friends. We all need that.” Indeed we do. “We all want to work really hard and achieve our goals, but if you just grind yourself into the ground….” His voice tails off for a moment as a quad rumbles past on the dirt road behind him followed by the voices of happy people. “The breaks are important.” 

FOLLOW DeeZ:   Soundcloud   /   Bandcamp   /   Facebook   /   Instagram

FOLLOW Elements Music & Arts Festival:   Elements Lakewood   /   Elements NYC   /   Facebook   /   Instagram

Elements Lakewood Creates a Musical Melting Pot

In a world bursting with musical trappings, tastes, intrigues, and developments, where does one find the nexus of it all? Music is, as it always has been, a labyrinthian mosaic that pushes and pulls at our fluid emotional states, and for every person on the planet, there is some tone that rings just right in his or her ears. As a natural result there’s a multitude of social scenes and collectives that create their own bubbled zions of aural stylings, so as to connect with like-minded individuals and explore the depths of familiar genres. The modern music festival often attempts to cross-pollinate various music cultures, but Elements Lakewood Music & Arts Festival achieves this vision to its fullest capacity.

Elements Lakewood, hosted during Memorial Day weekend by NYC-based production company BangOn! NYC, is an experiment in combining the often at-odds camps of broken and steady beat electronic music. On the surface these collectives could not be further apart; from phenotypes to vernacular, waves of influence, venues, clothing, and demographics. The 4x4 dust-kickers and heavy bass head-nodders seem like spiritual opposites. This dichotomy is, however, only skin-deep. Push past the vain and perfunctory surface of either music scene and you’ll find that many of the same speaker creatures inhabit both worlds simultaneously out of their sheer love for all things boisterous within the wildest music of our generation.

Elements Lakewood is situated in a pastoral rural community in Northeastern Pennsylvania that is its namesake. The grounds themselves are a wondrous cornucopia of rolling hills, forest glades, throughways swampy and dusty surrounding a petit, picturesque lake. Across the expanse of property are the familiar trappings of any purebred American summer camp, all of which would be leveraged to create a well-organized and immersive festival experience. The facilities and materials were all available, the proper permits were filed, all the revelers were gathered. From the start of the weekend, BangOn! and a host of collaborative production companies presented a multifaceted aural adventure offering passage through every rabbit hole imaginable. Backed by eight stages of varying design, power, and vanity, the force of over 100 musical acts was unleashed on a torrent of jubilous weekend warriors. Each stage was tailored to curate a particular atmosphere and headspace, but was simultaneously inviting to anyone who wandered close enough.

Wax Future were part of a small handful of livetronica acts to rip the Earth Stage

The Reliquarium worked wonders on the Earth Stage for the second straight year

At the entrance to the festival, you’re presented with the most technologically equipped stage at the event. Conceived and designed by The Reliquarium and Rhizome, the Earth Stage presented a formidable array of well-tuned speakers, lasers, lights, projection mapping, and fidelitous LED screens. Surrounding it stood a series of art cars and asymmetric structures that created the natural boundaries of the dance space and added dimension to this particular party. The soft earth bore the wounds of a thousand boots, birkenstocks, and bare feet kicking and pounding at the grass and dirt below, a sure demarcation of the round-the-clock revelry at hand. The talent featured here varied stylistically, but was unified under the theme of broken-beat bass music and eclectic livetronica acts. Some of the movers and shakers tapped to perform on the Earth Stage included Detox Unit, Wax Future, Somatoast, Charles the First, DeeZ, Smigonaut, and the legendary Stickybuds, whose first Northeast US set in four years exceeded expectations. As the result of a last minute cancellation and some help from a few friends, 5AM assumed the stage and pulled off a surprise slam-dunk performance to close out Saturday night.

Bad Ginger offering her presentation Mushroom Madness: Into to Mycology in the WellNest

Rolling past the Earth Stage one arrived at center camp surrounded by a host of repurposed cabins and structures inhabited by festival staff and some of the various companies recruited to add their flair to Elements. Harm reduction organizations DanceSafe and Harmonia set up shop around center camp and maintained staff throughout the day and night to keep folks safe, educated, and at an advantage in this complex, indulgence-laden atmosphere. Here was also the WellNest, a multifaceted workshop space that supplemented the overarching theme of health, cognizance, and connectivity with yoga, flow workshops, meditations, and lectures on everything from consent to mushrooms. A stone’s throw across the road from the WellNest was an innocuous front porch with an equally innocuous name; the Porch Stage. A laid back alignment of singer-songwriters and groovy instrumental bands cycled through here during the day. By night the building came alive as the Wub Hub, welcoming a host of deep frequency freaks seeking prime cuts of contemporary low-end production. Saturday evening saw Good Looks Collective and Sermon join forces to present another installation of NYC’s beloved After Dub events, bringing along the talents of Honeycomb, Brightside, Ethan Glass, Saltus, Zoo Logic, and Doctor Jeep.

Descending from center camp towards the lake, the Water Stage hosted light fair during the day. Party-goers were splayed along the beach lounging in the sun, washing down crab cakes with obscenely overpriced Modelos, dancing and bouncing atop a docked pirate ship, and occasionally testing the water on one of many free kayaks, canoes, and rowboats. This stage featured no flashy fanfare, just a DJM mixer, a few CDjs, and a full serving of bread-and-butter house DJs to maintain the vibe during those peak daylight hours. Noteworthy musical curations were provided by Agents of Vibe, The 1989, NSR, Trotter, and Dropkat.

Fun in the sun is usually fun for everyone, but we all need reprieve from the heat. Lucky for the sandy-haired shufflers, the bounty and sprawl of the neighboring woods would provide more than just shade. One step into the forest at large revealed a bevy of art installations and visually-appealing structures. Here among the scattered branches and curious forest pathways one felt immersed in the core of Element’s creative ethos. The deepest layer of this topographical adventure housed the Air Stage. Constructed from a plethora of reconstituted wood and miscellaneous building materials, this organic structure overlooked a muddied glade that would host all manner of delinquents, dragon-chasers, ravers, techno heads, and casual party crawlers. A treehouse and a series of canopy walkways loomed over the stage creating a delightful spatial dynamic and morphing the traditional one-dimensional dancefloor into a true woodland hideaway. Swaying to the sounds of Lemurian, The Alchemist, Experiment.al, Maceo Plex and especially Lee Burridge in these woods was a nearly unparalleled pleasure.

Doubling back deeper into the woods a rising hill gives way to the Alchemy Stage. A small pavillion decorated with medieval flare, a few strong speakers, a fire pit, and a curious tent housing the mobile shop of Ambrosia Elixirs created a self-contained but welcoming atmosphere. This nestled space served as a resting ground during midday and a hip-shaker’s battleground by night. The earthy aroma of those organic elixirs filling the nostrils of passersby. As the sun passed its midway point in the sky above and the surrounding air began to cool the Alchemy Stage would spring to life. So began the longest running micro-party of the event, running nonstop until 10:00 AM the next morning on the first day alone. Psychedelic variants of house and its related genres pulsated from the sound system forcing every passerby to give themselves up to the aural journey at hand for at least a few minutes. Here the disparate audiences from the four other elemental stages were fused into a new micro-community; alchemy.  Some of the performers elevating the vibrations here included Soul Potion, Eli Light, Bushwick AV, and Devotion.

Emerging from the tree line past the edges of the Alchemy Stage, a grassy knoll overlooking the vast expanse of the festival bore the weight of the final stage and its vivacious, feet sweeping crowds. Created from an amalgamation of Incendia domes and light fixtures, surrounded on all sides by massive art cars and makeshift lounges, the Fire Stage lived up to its name figuratively and literally. This space hosted the most bawdy and brawny of the weekend's house music as oncoming waves of libidinous dancers took to the blasting pyrotechnics like moths to a flame. The rumble of high-powered subwoofers was felt far enough away to get a body moving with nothing more than rhythm alone, and once fully submerged in the growing mud marsh in front of the decks, there was absolutely no escape. Serving as the yin to the Earth Stage’s yang, the Fire Stage featured some of the most esteemed 4x4 producer/DJs currently running their slice of the scene, including Lee Reynolds, Chris Lake, Ardalan, and the venerable Claude Von Stroke.

It could be assumed that respective heads would gather primarily at the stages curating their particular flavor of electronic music, but that assumption would be not entirely correct. The extent to which true cross-pollination occurred within Elements Lakewood cannot be overstated. It was evident that every corner of the electronic music counterculture was well represented at all stages simultaneously. Elements Lakewood wasn’t just a hodgepodge of fandoms finding common ground with one another, but a destination sought by audiophiles and countercultural types aware that the worlds of steady and broken beat music and their corresponding cultures exist as one wide culture of which we’re all a part.

BangOn! set the stage for the 2018 festival season, and has since received a roaring response from all involved parties. With travelers coming in from seemingly the world over, BangOn! created a true melting pot and stirred it properly. Elements Lakewood has made an indelible mark on the community that propped it up in the first place, solidifying itself as a major contender for the affection and adoration of the Northeast US counterculture. With production companies and wellness services coming together across the board, this festival provided a fully engaged, responsive, and dynamic experience for all who made the trek.

FOLLOW Elements Music & Arts Festival:   Elements Lakewood   /   Elements NYC   /   Facebook   /   Instagram

Maru - Whack Lack Vol. 2

Like well-tuned clockwork Slug Wife continues to shoot out releases faster than we can tire of listening to them. This time around they're presenting a markedly different platter than their mainstay meals. The Whack Lack series could hardly be more opposed to the usual vicious and braggadocios neuro-hop shenanigans. Strip away the high-fidelity mastering, high-octane bass lines, and frankenstein sound design and what you are left with is pure, unadulterated beats and melodies. As they describe it, Whack Lack is "focusing on the right hook with the right beat and nothing more." Whack Lack Vol. 1 was curated by Slug Wife label head Seppa, and revealed a musically playful side of the producer not often explored. For Whack Lack Vol. 2, the gastropods tapped once more into the creative font of the dnb titan Reso who branded himself as Maru for the sake of differentiating the projects. 

Maru cracks right into the spirit of lo-fi hip hop with the ease of someone who's been slicing samples and cutting beats for a lifetime. The collection of tracks features all manner of soundscapes, moods, and atmospheres that are as droning as they are hypnotic. All the potential fanfare is left behind in favor of a pleasured palette of smooth synth hymns and dashes of liquid tonal modulation. 

"Easy Now" is the first true track on the album. It absolutely lives up to its namesake with a particular flair for the melancholy. The melody rides softly on a bedrock of more than a few choice drum hits. A small serving of horns break the steady trance of the track midway only to fade off, overpowered once more by that familiar, muffled lead line. "Single Malt" raises the medium to a modest head high, like the first hit of a well-crafted joint sending one straight to their happy place. There's a sense of weightlessness generated by the fluttering key samples. Note conversations fold over one another like melodies rolled into a torus, and therein lies the source of such a stratospheric aural space.

"After Eight" sputters and shuffles like a delinquent kicking up dust on their way to a late-night rendezvous. Moody chords keep the gaze low and locked on the road ahead, while casual instrument samples preclude any sense of monotony. Keep your ears wide open and you might even catch a few tasty fills that rock the rhythm harder than a New York City pothole rocks a taxi. Closing out the album is "Twilight", and there couldn't be a more appropriate fit. The first touch of those creamy tones bring forth the familiar experience of waving goodbye to a dear friend. It's the kind of atmosphere that leaves the tongue tasting more sweet than bitter, but with just enough longing that you might have to start the whole record over again.

Pushing unfamiliar content through channels established for particular soundscapes can be a questionable bet, but the gamble paid off in full for Slug Wife and Maru. The curation of these "battlewax" collections are a fresh interpretation of a deeply rooted musical underground, and fans of the typical Slug Wife offering are sure to find a delicious reprieve from the norm inside Whack Lack Vol. 2. Considering how tasteful this assortment of lithe beats is, one hopes Maru will stick around a bit and continue to cook up crisp servings of lo-fi goodness.

FOLLOW Maru:  Soundcloud   /   Facebook

Harmonia Builds a Strong, Safe Community at Elements Lakewood

The organizers and partners of Elements Lakewood Music & Arts Festival promote wholesome vibes and values and you could feel it in the air all Memorial Day weekend. At the verdant Lakewood Retreats in the Northeasternmost corner of Pennsylvania, there was so much to see and do, from the festival’s array of art installations to its innumerable stages. One aspect of the festival which was not so conspicuous was the strong infrastructure in place to keep attendees safe, supported and sanctified during their experience.

At the foundation of this infrastructure was Harmonia, an Asheville-based organization that provides sanctuary spaces, harm reduction, and so much more to the festival community. A harm reduction presence offers such peace of mind and added value for a music festival, albeit value that most attendees don’t see. It may be surprising, then, that only four dedicated harm reduction and sanctuary space organizations operate in the United States. Elements Lakewood was wise to invite one of them, Harmonia, back for the second year in a row.

Harmonia was founded in 2015 by a passionate perennial festival worker named Maegen Coral. The organization has grown in the hippy holler of Asheville, North Carolina, and has begun to broaden its impact up and down the eastern seaboard and as far west as Missouri. Harmonia can be many things; an attitude, an intention, how one carries oneself. Specifically, Harmonia is an on-site professional support team and task force that promotes health and safety at music festivals. Going beyond the role of the Good Samaritan, this team actively promotes self care as a preventative and harm-reducing technique.

Harmonia believes that widespread health and safety vastly improve the festival experience and allow attendees to truly open up and explore themselves and the world. By bringing back this group of volunteers for a second year, Elements demonstrated its commitment to this ethos as well. “It changes the energy, it changes the expectation,” Maegen says as we chat cross-legged in the grass next to a row of EZ-Ups outfitted so that each resembles a spiritually-aware living room. Ideas tumble from Maegen, the next one arriving before the last one is completely wrapped. With a radio strapped around her shoulder, her shock of bright dyed red hair belies the fact that she’s all business when it comes to safety and ops at festivals. While we spoke, she maintained a sporadic dialogue with other workers through the radio strapped to her shoulder. Now and then she executed some surely needed leg stretches.  

“What we’re doing here is 'iso', which is isolation - individual pods for people who have augmented situations and who are highly distressed.” Here Harmonia volunteers provide one-on-one support to guide festival attendees experiencing amplified states, and help de-escalate their experiences as necessary. “We have a lot in common with the philosophy of the Zendo Project,” Meagen says, referencing the organization at the forefront of harm reduction at music festivals. The Zendo volunteer training, offered annually at Burning Man and available for free online, became the first building block for Harmonia’s volunteer trainings.

Harmonia was positioned adjacent to the Well Nest at the center of the festival grounds. Their three isolation tents, each walled in on three sides by rich tapestries, may have been the most comfortable and serene spaces to be found on the grounds. Next to them was a table, a practical music festival oasis. Upon the table next to an amethyst geode, a small picture of Albert Hoffman and fliers for Solasta Festival was bug spray, sunscreen, hand sanitizer, condoms, aloe vera, and body lotion all available to the public. Elements Lakewood is early in the festival season. Many folks, especially city folks of which Elements was chock full, were stretching their festival legs outdoors for the first time. As such, the availability of these provisions was truly appreciated by all. (Your correspondent visited Harmonia’s space more than once for sunscreen after spending time down on the lake, though fortunately a return visit for aloe vera wasn’t necessary).

The sun bore down Saturday at Elements as Meagen and two of Harmonia’s volunteers, Laura Eshelman and Greg Pool, continued to share their experiences in the shadow of their sanctuary space. Elements Lakewood had an infectiously groovy vibe from start to finish. But while talking to these good Asheville folks, I couldn’t help but feel an even greater confidence, a nascent feeling of empowerment that my newfound company was bringing out of me. “They create an environment of great peace and relaxation, not just physically, but more importantly - metaphysically and spiritually. The importance of this should never be lost on an event promoter,” according to the Tipper & Friends crew. They call Harmonia their “go-to” for harm reduction. At the Tipper & Friends 4321 event in Astral Valley last summer, Harmonia established their public sanctuary space. At Elements, just the isolation tents were present due to budgeting constraints. Maegen gets a note in her voice and a smirk flashes briefly across her face when she mentions the public space.

It was a relatively slow weekend in and around the Harmonia space at Lakewood. Ironically, that can ultimately be positive for this group. It hopefully means people are already implementing the practices that Harmonia promotes. What are those practices? Most are more simple than you’d think. “You’d be a surprised at how much your mood and energy levels and emotions change when you have a lack of water compared to when you’re drinking water. It’s a physiological, emotional shift. So drink water and offer it to others who may need it,” Maegen suggests. “You need nourishment; a lot of deficits come from lack of nutrition or lack of water. Check in with your friends, check in with your neighbors. Pay attention.” 

Indeed, the crowd at Elements Lakewood was a self-aware and sophisticated bunch. Bad scenes were few and far between. Unhealthy behavior was a bit harder to find than usual. In addition to providing a sanctuary space and a cache of healthy resources and critical knowledge, Harmonia offered indirect benefits to the festival. The group serves as a backstop of sorts for festival security. After all, security staff ought to be handling issues of safety. They’re not trained in compassion work and harm reduction. The Harmonia crew, then, can handle “augmented situations” and allow security to allocate more of its own staff to the safety and ops work that is their purview. Elements Lakewood appeared slightly understaffed this year, so this added value was essential. According to Eshelman, also an Asheville resident, even when Harmonia's space isn't too busy it's value endures. "It's a symbol," she says.

During the offseason, Harmonia hosts shows - fundraisers - in their native Asheville and elsewhere in the Southeast US. It takes some resources, after all, to transport a box truck full of care items, festival decor and zen trappings across the Eastern US. Yet these events are more important than the windfall they provide. “One of the ways we seek to spread our message out in the community is to actually be an active part of the community. So the best way to really influence these festivals and this electronic culture in a positive way, encouraging people to be conscious and aware of what they’re putting into their bodies and how they’re caring for themselves, is to be an active part and create the container for that,” says Maegen. “So it’s not just us asking promoters ‘hey, will you support this mission?' We actually create and produce these parties where that’s at the forefront.” To that end, Harmonia is co-hosting its own festival called Solasta Festival in the hinterlands of Eastern Tennessee on August 17 & 18. 

The need for capital, though, persists. A few weeks ago Harmonia established a Patreon account to help sustain their enterprise through crowd-funding. Patreon seeks monthly contributions and targets monthly funding goals while also inviting patrons to immerse themselves more deeply into the Harmonia crew and culture. There are tiers of support, and some are pretty hilarious. A $5 monthly donation earns you the title of Harm Reductor. “By choosing to be a Harm Reductor, you are choosing to actively maintain and support a healthy festival culture for everyone. Along with those karma points, you get access to our Patron-only Live Feed as well as our undying love and appreciation.” At $25, you’re a Pillar of Support. With $500 you’re a Healing It Homie. “You are literally *The Homie*. With your contribution, Harmonia can be more free and available to give our all in the service of others.” Different contributions earn physical and sonic swag like stickers, t-shirts, exclusive artist mixes and guest passes to Harmonia events. (If you’re in the Southeast US, Harmonia events are no slouch. Check out their past bookings).

Harmonia’s ethos and the core of its volunteer training are empowerment through education and self-care. These principles, not limited to Harmonia’s sanctuary space, were on display everywhere at Elements Lakewood and made for a wildly wholesome party. Music festivals, particularly those in far-flung retreats like Elements Lakewood, can be physically and emotionally challenging experiences. So empower yourself, says Harmonia, by taking care of yourself and making sure your crew does the same. Self-knowledge is the real vibe, and the vibe was thick at Elements Lakewood. “So many of our interactions are intuitive,” Maegen says. “You go off of facial expressions and body language, so what are we paying attention to? How can we put it in our minds to prioritize our well-being and the well-being of others. Because when we’re all feeling good, we’re going to have a better time. When we’re all looking out for each other we're going to feel safe.”

SUPPORT & FOLLOW Harmonia:   Patreon   /   Official   /   Facebook   /   Instagram

FOLLOW Elements Music & Arts Festival:   Elements Lakewood   /   Elements NYC   /   Facebook   /   Instagram

Lo-Fi Sundays 030 - mai.

Nuša Javorič aka mai. chops samples over drums with exceptional taste and skill. Her beats fill up the stereo spread. Space is rarely a concern for this sampling wicken from Slovenia. Her cuts go for straight color. Her high-pitched vocal leads will snatch your soul for a second, rising above rich clips of choral and string arrangements. She has an impressive body of work on Soundcloud alone, and a small handful of singles on compilations including Inner Ocean Records' Women of the World Compilation.

Generally, she's exposing every second of a sample and setting them on top of big drums.  When the strings get to sliding in synch with a quick slamming beat, the groove is seductive and impossible to ignore. Still, mai. softens the tone at times and does utilize some reverberating negative space, as on "midnight" or the indecently low fidelity, stoned-out movement "Mist". The drums are cut from cloth so durable yet soft. Peep the snare in "maybe", a collaboration, rare for this producer, withＡＲ 援憶ぐ. These percussion samples strike that rare balance; they're so smooth yet rough and grainy. 

This hip-hop gets back to the core elements of the boom-bap sound while still pushing the distinct emotional presentation of contemporary lo-fi.

FOLLOW mai.:   Soundcloud   /   Facebook