Untold - Caslon / Breathe (Hemock, 25th June)

Untold - Caslon / Breathe  (Hemock, 25th June)

Hemlock continues to impress with an unsurprisingly solid 12" from head honcho Untold, which channels a very satisfying amount of Berghain darkness, shot through with subtle melodies and counter-rhythms. Whilst Untold's biggest strength is his fluid percussion and complex approach to rhythm, I've always been particularly keen on his lower end landscapes; the strange way that he manages to combine both misanthropic gloominess and a surprising amount of delicacy in his subs and basslines. Check out his work on Round Black Ghosts for proof. Caslon takes an entirely different root - with an arpeggiated acid synth bludgeoning the listener, it's way more aggressive than previous works. Complementing this more hard-nosed aesthetic is some beautifully over-driven percussion, with the white noise on all the hats and cymbals turned up to a wickedly distorted level that recalls Karl O Connor's work with Peter Sutton. On the flip, Breathe adopts a more late-night
house feel, mixing classic garage-house with sparkling keys that recall Claro Intelecto's early analogue fanboyisms. The problem is that Untold never really gets beyong fanboyisms, despite the mentally innovative nature of Stereo Freeze (RandS ), and with the current wave of Berghain-fixated UK producers, this doesn't stand out as much as Can't Stop This Feeling or Anaconda. It's not that either of the tracks on this 12" are bad (Caslon's definitely getting rinsed), but that considering the cross-genre masterpieces Guy Andrew's been dropping on Hemlock, this feels limited in its scope, and slightly masturbatory.

In 2012, dubstep is at best an ill-defined concept, and at worst, an excuse for terrible rave music; it's very satisfying to see once "dubstep" labels like Hemlock, Hessle and Hot Flush shaking off the last vestages of that shroud and turning out great dance music, period. Untold's definitely a big part of that change, but as good as these tunes are, they lack that ineffable je ne sais quo, or "what the fuck is this?" factor to make them truly great.

Pangaea - Inna Daze / Won't Hurt

Pangaea - Inna Daze / Won't Hurt (28.02.11)
Hessle's 17th release sees co-boss Pangaea dropping a couple of deep house variations, dropping down from his standard garagey 140 to a more restrained 130bpm tempo. With distant wails, slow-attacking synths and skittery percussion, Inna Daze echos the same sparse atmospherics of Burial or 2562, revelling in the spaciousness of the production, before a fractured R'n'B vocal and a warm bass melody emerge from the emptiness. It's not exactly big room material, and lacking a solid foundation, it achieves the kind of slow-groove, dubbed out feel that we love. Though the construction's obviously heavily indebted to UK urban music styles, the production values are undeniably tinged with the warped and skewed sonic ideology of Moodymann and Theo Parrish, as well as modern head music like shoegaze and ambient, placing all the best bits of the production in weirdly inaccessible places. Won't Hurt, whilst a little faster, and charged with a sickeningly gigantic bassline, is possibly even more leftfield. The vintage string melody, plucked straight from a matinee classic, gets reversed, skewed and offset until it lapses into complete abstraction and withers into the distance, allowing the beasting garage riddims to return in full effect. Pangaea's Sunset Yellow was probably as important a record as Hyph Mngo (dropping within weeks of each other), but ended up massively overshadowed by Orbison's oooh-wa-ooh-ooh monster - this one aught to stand on it's own as a contemporary bass classic.
Inna Daze by pangaea

Elgato - Tonight / Blue (Hessle)

Elgato - Tonight / Blue (Hessle)
More of the quality bass music from Hessle...
Elgato made his name with his eclectic DJ sets that flitted smoothly between house, garage and dubstep way before the rest of the world caught on. His debut 12" completely captures this forward-thinking attitude, touching on funky, garage and house, with a solid bass undercarriage, ear candy melodies and syrupy vocals. The bassline of both tracks immediately stands out - this is hefty subby material that morphs and slides, melodies slowly spiking up in the mix and the rattling snaredrums tap-dancing in the far off top-end. Managing a distinct range across both sides of the 12", Tonight leans to the UKG end of the spectrum, with taught, syncopated snares, whilst Blue drops down to a slow-grind 124bpm for the techno heads to enjoy. These are decidedly minimal rhythms, which challenge DJs to move away from the intro/outro style of mixing that's beginning to damage DJ culture - you can't just stick these on and fade out over the 16s. Blue breaks down into almost complete silence; slowly creeping back into life with a glowing synth line and repetitive vocals that take over a minute and a half to crack open and return to the shuffling rhythm. Gorgeous DJ tools that will be making many an end of year playlist....

New Radio - Brassica Live

Brassica kindly handed over his live set from I Feel Space for us to put on the radio. Totally Italo-ed to the tits synthy madness - includes long lush solos! Radiomagnetic page.
Stream that badboy here
Download that motherbizzle here

Team Little Rock rope in occaisonal collaborator and electro-pop genius Brassica to provide a live set for the show. Applause.

Brassica is one of the hottest names in the neu-disco scene, having put out records on Dissident, and now releasing on Ali Renault’s Human Shield label as one half of Gold Blood. His electro-inflected art-pop’s gained massive praise across blog and print media, and he’s set to go massive this year. He recently recorded a solo live set at the excellent This Is Space night in Bristol, and has contributed it to Little Rock Records. The full set will soon be available via shallowrave.com too.

www.littlerockrecords.com
www.shallowrave.com
www.myspace.com/brassica
www.myspace.com/goldbloodband

Tracklist

1. Brassica - Live @ I Feel Space – Unreleased
2. Orphan101 – Tribtek pt.2 – Saigon Records
3. Joe – Claptrap – Hessle
4. Al Tourettes & Appleblim – Lipsmacker (Deadboy Remix) – Aus Music

Joe - Claptrap / Level Crossing (Hessle)

Joe - Claptrap / Level Crossing
Gah, do I only review Hessle Audio and dubstep releases? I feel I have to write a little about this though, it's one of the more interesting records I've come across in a while - two tracks of raw, loop-based techno / funky designed to embellish any track. The A-side's composed mostly of handclaps and kickdrums, with piano splashs breaking through the rhythm from time to time, and occaisonal furious beat repeat sending it all a nuts. It's almost too empty to carry a crowd, but crafty use will prove it an absolute killer. The B-Side rattles along in similar fashion, but throws in a deeper pallette of foundsounds, piano trills, and a more solid bassline before building into a cowbell-heavy funk monster. I'm tempted to say I like the B-side more, for it's hooky feel, but the more I've played with Claptrap in Ableton, the more I've come to realise that the simplicity makes for incredible versatility - even looping the first bar and firing it in from time to time gives any 4/4 tune a twisted, off-beat edge, and lifts any dubstep tune out of it's dark meanderings... Definitely one for extended mixes though.
Well worth having, but everyone's going to be playing it pretty soon.

Oh, and it's possibly, but possibly not the production-shy Ben UFO and we're all apparently very hyped about that, so here's some fun mixes from one third of Hessle Audio's tripod of awshum.
Ben UFO (Hessle Audio) @ Fabric 15.05.09 - Zonic radio show by Z O N I C radioshow