Wednesday 30 January 2013

Free Download: Sparxy & Fused Forces - Leviathan Remixes EP


After a somewhat overwhelming response to December's remix competition was the task of picking out a winner to be released on Bacon Dubs and a selection of runners-up to have their efforts collected on a free EP. With the original intention being to put just three entries on the free release, our final shortlist of five was proving difficult to whittle down any further and so the decision was jointly made to include four entries.

First though, is first place: Yungwanz took the 140 template and bent it to a techy drum & bass stepper, playing intricate percussion off against the original's Reese bassline to a startling effect. His remix is available to preview below, and will be included on Sparxy's next release on Bacon Dubs.

Sparxy & Fused Forces  - Leviathan (Yungwanz Remix)


There's similar variation to be found among the runners-up too, each of whom set to take the remix stems and shape them to a new mould and mood. Feonix took the minimal approach, stripping the entire project back to its core elements of bass, space and swinging drums; Syxx, meanwhile, stepped to the other extreme and amped the entire track up with the Reese sound dominating, puckered only by latent synth plucks and a heavy snare; ARtroniks went for atmosphere and came back with plenty of it, along with meditative head-nod drums and those Reeses twisted in on themselves; of all of the entries, just1 arguably took the biggest turn left from the original tune and made of it something almost entirely new: a warm sub with dubby drums and piano and choral samples lilting throughout.


Download: Sparxy & Fused Forces - Leviathan Remixes EP




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Tuesday 29 January 2013

Free Download: Etch - Horizons EP


Anyone who's been following the blog over the last year or so will know how much time we have for Etch and his penchant for fusing together an impeccable set of influences - from hardcore to jungle to garage to grime to dubstep, and plenty more inbetween - to deliver fresh drive to the sometime-saturated environs of electronic music. The result is a sound, or an approach to sound, which lays-off the genre distinctions by which his influences are grouped and may be, particularly in the face of today's gluttonous approach to media-consumption, resultantly stifled.

These three tracks, which have all been receiving regular plays on the Hedmuk Rood FM show, are as good an introduction to Etch's oeuvre: 'Take Me' is tight drums, clean synths and a lovingly-nostalgic vocal sample all rubbing each other up in just the right way; 'Horizons' pits a tumbling 808-line against reversed drum samples and rolls smoothly through; and 'Aquamarine' sees the young breaks-master, for want of a better term, showing-off just how its possible to make an irregular rhythm move.




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Saturday 26 January 2013

Radio: Hedmuk X Rood FM - 23/01/13


Hedmuk X Rood FM - 23/01/13


Stream: Hedmuk X Rood FM - 23/01/13

Download: Hedmuk X Rood FM - 23/01/13


Tracklisting:

Distance & Cyrus - Rude
BunZer0 - Overdrive Dub
Gantz - Enso
Caski - Patient
Core - How It Is
Asylum - Blindfold
Heny G - Candy
BunZer0 & Kamine - Reciprocity
Taiko - Unrest
Wayfarer - Shaman
Threnody - Synchronic
Breen - Hooded Up
Boofy - 50hz
Preditah - Evil Twin
Boofy - Nank
Dark0 - Violate
Bookz - Get Paper
Darq E Freaker - Mortuary
DJ Pantha - A Dat Me Seh (feat. MNT)
Dot Rotten - Bazooka
Dot Rotten - Bazooka (2008 Remix)
Devlin - Dumplin'
Karma - Meanings
Cluekid - Dolphin
Truth - Time (feat. Yayne) (Kaiju Remix)

Sparxy & Fused Forces - Leviathan (Yungwanz Remix) [Competition Winner]
Sparxy & Fused Forces - Leviathan (Feonix Remix)

Baitface - Trackers
Wayfarer - Hesitation
LX One - On My Own
Commodo & Lurka - Glue Sniff Riddim
Distance & Cyrus - Titan
Taiko - Risky
Facta - Watertank
Youngsta - Poseidon
Sepia - Observer
Coleco - Lovin' Me
Underclass - Rawkus
Beneath - Name Droppin'
Killjoy - Memories
Caski - Buss It
Sepia - Bullets
Etch - Take Me
Majora - Shook
Sleepy Time Ghost - Rule Your Destiny (feat. Ras Demo)
The Mouse Outfit - Who Gwan Test (feat. Sparkz & Dubbul O)






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Friday 25 January 2013

Free Download: Caski - Patient / Kill


Perhaps not the two best titles to be lumped together, 'Patient' and 'Kill' are both offered up for free here by Caski nonetheless: two heavy movers, but each coming with a different swing. As is so often the case for Caski, 'Patient' is all about the groove as it lilts back and forth from its central kick and solid sub-line; 'Kill', meanwhile, takes its pounding lead from driving percussion and twisted a Reese bassline.


Download: Caski - Patient [WAV]
Download: Caski - Patient [320kbps mp3]


Download: Caski - Kill [WAV]
Download: Caski - Kill [320kbps mp3]



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Thursday 17 January 2013

Review: Gantz - Enso / Siyam [IMRV003]


Longtime, or even more recent, Hedmuk followers will no doubt be aware of our support for one of the continent's finest musical exports, Gantz. Those same followers will also be aware of our long-running support of Kiwi-born label Innamind Recordings, and so to see Gantz taking the reins for the imprint's third vinyl release serves as something of an ideal marriage of the two forces.

Following heavyweight efforts from Perverse and Catacombs, IMRV003 sees Gantz' characteristic experimental streak being drawn through the series' 140 template. 'Enso' is hypnotic, with a pulsing low-end and bongos rolling intermittently between cut up, decaying vocals. On the flipside 'Siyam' nods, with its intro's nostalgic synths and Bez-like shakers, to a bygone rave aesthetic before dropping into a sub workout and dragging the track straight into 21st century uncertainty with complex percs and eery atmospherics. This release undoubtedly marks a newfound confidence to Gantz' sound, and can only indicate more exciting things for the coming year.


Gantz - Enso / Siyam [IMRV003] is set for release on the 4th of February.







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Wednesday 9 January 2013

Featuring: Kaiju


Since being featured by our friends over at PYC Sessions, Kaiju have been on a roll; buoyed along by a rapt fanbase as well as the big-hitting likes of Kryptic Minds and Youngsta, the first thing that most won't notice is the almost imperceptibly high benchmark they set for themselves. With a simple formula of 'less is more' - excepting, of course, when it comes to the sub-bass - the duo's productions serve to further the myth that simple music is simple music; with so few components to each tune, each one that is present has to absolutely earn its place. And earn their place, in a Kaiju beat at least, they do: the result is chasms of space for that characteristic, tape-warm sub-bass to groove in and through. With a very exciting 2013 ahead of them, January seemed the ideal time to link up with the pair, and have them contribute a stunner of a mix to our exclusive series...

Hedmuk: To introduce yourselves to those who might not know, what are your names, where do you both come from and how would you describe your sound?

Paul: He's Jamie...

Jamie: ...and he's Paul: together we're Kaiju. I'm from Sticksville somewhere near Bath/Bristol and Paul's in Cardiff. We make bassy stuff around 140bpm that tends to be on the deeper, dirtier end of the scale. Sometimes it's got garage-y undertones, sometimes theres reggae vibes, but all the time there's lots and lots of bass.

P: None of this Skrillex shit.

J: Right.

H: When did you both start producing? Had you been working on solo projects before Kaiju, and do you still have other projects on the go at the moment?

J: I'd been making D&B for about 5 years or so, had been through the ups and downs of the industry and started running a label. Paul, after much thought, decided that he wanted to send beats to us and it kinda blossomed from there really. I'm still involved in the running of the label but at the moment i'm really enjoying the 140 area so for now I'm concentrating on that musically.

P: I've been producing about 3 years or so now, still as involved with the D&B scene as much as possible, but also finding myself drawn to the 140 space more and more at the moment.

H: You were picked up relatively quickly by Kryptic Minds to release on their Osiris imprint: how did this come about, and was it more than a coincidence that you signed to a label run by producers with a similar musical background to yourselves in drum & bass? 

J: When I was working as designer for Chemical Records, Si and Leon came in to talk about the look of their album and I gave them a CD of our tunes I'd been checking on the car stereo during the tedious drive in [to work]. I didn't really expect to hear back, but they were really into 'Close Break' and 'Belcanto' and we then started to talk about being exclusive.



H: How did it feel to get such an opportunity? Were you consciously choosing these specific labels and artists to send your music to?

P: Amazing, to be honest. With J working at Chemical and us both having a bit of experience in the art of dub-sending we definitely had an idea of who to send to, and still to this day only really give new new tunes to Yunx.


H: DJ Thinking did mention, in our recent interview with himan in-house designer at Chemical that he'd worked with on the Black Box, Black Acre and Box Clever stuff, but we hadn't put two-and-two together to realise it was you. How did you get involved with doing the design stuff at Chemical? Do you think that your music as Kaiju is at all informed by that aesthetic side to your creativity? Perhaps even just on the simple level of learning graphic design programme interfaces as helping to learn production DAWs, or vice versa?

J: I've wanted to be a designer since I was about 6, I think; it all stemmed from going car racing with my parents and seeing the liveries and stuff. I started copying what I saw (mostly cigarette logo's (laughs)) and then progressed onto making new liveries and logos. I find my creative process with design crazily similar to that of when I make music, and in both areas I feel my style is always 'less is more': I've never believed in over-egging something. Although I attended College and Uni for design, all of my computer knowledge is self-taught so opening Windows and fiddling with things is second nature to me, and definitely helped me when it came to getting down and dirty with Logic in the beginning.


H: You seem to enjoy working with vocalists: is there somewhere from which this particular influence comes from? Or is it more a case of viewing the vocal as just another instrument or 'part' within the tune?

J: I'm a sucker for a vocal. Being brought up on 80's power ballads and soul singers probably has something to do with it, but personally I think a vocal can really help make a tune human, especially nowadays with all this cold computer music about.

P: Some tunes feel as if they need a vocal and some tunes just don't. I've always been heavily into dub, reggae etc. so appreciate how a vocal can bring a tune to life.





H: Tell us a little about how you went about putting together the mix you've done for us.

J&P: Basically it's about 60 minutes of us. Being relatively new to the scene this is the best way to show people what goes on in our brains, so there's a couple oldies in there but most of it's new and pretty exclusive really. We've got collabs with Truth, Killawatt, Perverse and Nanobyte and a couple remixes, all with lots of nice warm sub. And we're working more and more with MC Toast  at the moment, so thought it'd be rude to leave him out!

H: How did the link up with Toast come about?

J&P: We're pretty lucky in that we hit him up and got on like a house on fire. We've had some vocals off him for a couple tunes, and are available as a package to book for gigs so it was only right to have him on the mix. He's genuinely one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, so we feel quite honoured to work with him.

H: Finally, are there any forthcoming releases or anything else in the pipeline that you'd like to put the word out on?

J&P: We've recently spoken about our next two releases with Osiris, although we can't really say much. There might be a sneaky clip of a certain tune we've done with one of our heroes floating around, and that might be backed with something awesome but that would be telling….

Cheers Hedmuk, been an honour to be featured on your blog!



Download: Kaiju - Hedmuk Exclusive Mix (feat. Toast)



Tracklist:

Kaiju & Killawatt - Cave Of Wonders (Dub)
Kaiju & Perverse - Named After Heroes (Dub)
Kaiju - Snaggle Puss (Dub)
Kaiju - Close Break VIP (Dub)
Kaiju - Fall Guy (Dub)
Kaiju - Clang (Dub)
Kaiju - Seven (Dub)
Kaiju - Silverfish (Osiris Music)
Perverse - Cross Examination (feat. Beezy) (Kaiju Edit) (Dub)
Noisia - Dipolodocus (Kaiju Edit) (Dub)
Kaiju - Wrong Turn (Dub)
Kaiju - Atomic (Dub)
Kaiju - Think Twice (Dub)
Gantz - Catalyst (Kaiju Edit) (Dub)
Kaiju - Joke Shop (Dub)
Kaiju & Nanobyte - Faded (Dub)
Kaiju & Truth - Untitled (Dub)
Fat Freddy's Drop - Cay's Crays (Kaiju Edit) (Dub)
Kaiju - Roodbwoi (Dub)
Kaiju - Sniper Situation (Dub)
Kaiju - 3 + 2 (Dub)




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Friday 4 January 2013

Free Download: Core - How It Is


Following up from the huge Civil War EP on Aquatic Lab, and to bring in the new year with a menacing intent, Core has dropped a personal favourite of his as a free download: 'How It Is' is skunk smoke hanging from the ceiling with a perfectly-rounded rolling bassline skulking between stripped-out drums. Reminiscent of label-mate Cluekid's early sound, there's a tasteful nostalgia here but one that is being directed firmly forward.

To download the track, simply hit the link below to be taken to Core's Facebook Page.


Download: Core - How It Is



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