Hugo Massien is back on E-Beamz this month with a four-tracker titled 'Almost Becoming Lucid'.
Dark, deep and rolling, the title-track harks back to classic Burial, with a lazy breakbeat and ghostly samples, yet there's an autonomic vibe too, with synth notes reminiscent of dBridge's late noughties work.
Elsewhere, Massien turns out more straight techno and house, but with that dusty, cosmic coating both he and the label have become famous for.
Skream has had to cancel his up-and-coming shows after he announced that he has broken his leg.
The news came via the producer's Twitter account, admitting that he tripped up some stairs and broke his leg.
The producer has cancelled forthcoming shows at both Digital Newcastle and XO Extrema Outdoor in Belgium.
Amazingly, he did consider playing the shows like a trooper — but has since backtracked explaining that he’s in just too much pain to play at the moment.
Initially releasing on LTJ Bukem’s drum & bass label Good Looking in the mid-90s, ILs — aka beatsmith Ilian Walker — went on to release albums for Distinctive and Botchit & Scarper (‘Bohemia’, ‘Soul Trader’ etc) and produce some of the most memorable noughties breakbeat cuts such as ‘Next Level’ and his overhaul of ‘Baba O’Riley’ by rock legends The Who.
Now he’s back on Distinctive with the new ’33 R.P.M’ album, and ILs has morphed into a band. How come?
“The tent was rammed halfway through my set - they wouldn’t let anybody in, so I must have done something right,” beams funk aficionado Boca 45, a few days after his set at Glastonbury. It’s unsurprising that he had such a full crowd: mixing across genre boundaries, his set was a hardcore cross-section of funk, soul, and hip-hop breaks; beats that are the foundation for so many dance music genres, as well as being essential sounds in their own right.
As such, you can expect to hear anything from ’60s psych to Latin, dub to ska, rock to pop, as well as funk and soul sounds in his energetic mixes. “I’m always listening to the beat,” he says.
“I’m certainly not trying to tick a box in terms of trying to be too careful [about] how I sound,” Hendy says. “I just want to be as honest as possible on all fronts - to present what I hear in my head, and use pretty much the same process that I always have.” Relying heavily on samplers, drum machines, and synths, while adding live instrumentation to the pot, collaboration has always been key to Hendy’s work. Each time he works with another artist, he approaches it differently. Sometimes he knows what horn riff or vocal idea he’s looking for.
Hendy is mindful of the fact that a good sense of humour is always “best to have.” That certainly plays out on the album. On one track, Serge performs the ‘Toilet Duck’ rap, and there‘s another track that shouts out West Country scarecrow hero, Worzel Gummidge. After a brief mention of the “politically appalling” state of the world right now, referencing Trump and Brexit, Hendy admits that politics are always on his mind, but he prefers not to be too preachy in the music he makes.
To celebrate the release of their brilliant 'Solar Black Rays EP' out now on Punks Music, Evil Nine have given us a fantastic two-hour mix to download exclusively through our Soundcloud.
The mix is packed to bursting with the kind of dark and brooding vibes that make their own EP so good. It's a great representation of just how much quality bass music is around at the moment, and indeed — how much of it is exclusively coming out of the UK! Take a listen below:
Beats producer Kouncilhouse, generally known for dancefloor bangers, has produced a chill-out album. ’10 Years Too Late’, his fourth long-player, is full of exquisite analogue downbeat material much of which has been sat on his hard-drive for the past decade or so.
“I’m probably about 10 years too late putting these tracks out — hence the album’s title — but I thought better out than in,” he tells DJ Mag.
