Beats News

Introducing Cutcross, created to champion the melting pot of bass-centric sounds teetering around 140 bpm. Heading up the concept is Sicaria Sound, a DJ duo who since their inception set out to explore and expand on the possibilities of these sounds whilst spotlighting underground artists. Cutcross is therefore their next step in supporting the forward-thinking music that they've drawn for when curating sets.

Partners in crime Ebb & Texture by way of New Zealand are at the helm of CXT004. Featuring a solo track each plus two collaborative efforts, all four tracks pack a punch via plenty of low-end and lively breaks.

WRDubs return afresh in 2022 with a transatlantic twofer:

The follow-up compilation from the 10-year celebration back in 2017 continues along with the same energy that Smokin' Sessions are so well known for, offering floaty and uplifting productions with detailed beat work, along with that all-important heavy serving of lower frequencies.


We hear some absolute classics from names such as Djrum, Geode, Versa & Rowl, Escapism Refuge, Occult, Mercy, and some newcomers to the label in the form of Marenn Sukie & Synpal. There are 5 exclusive, unreleased tracks in total. 2 stunners from Synkro, 1 from Biome, and another 2 from Synpal. Some seriously impressive productions throughout.

LTE presents its debut release titled Long Term Evolution, a 6-track compilation bringing together pieces from six artists from around the world. Music we fell in love with, sounds we find appealing, paths to explore. Between now and then.

LTE is a newly-born music label from Prague. Its goal is to build a platform for local and foreign musicians, producers and sound artists. Label's focus lies on contemporary electronic music and a wide spectrum of genres. Learning, trying and experimenting. Putting love, time and effort.

Bad times, good timing.

Banoffee Pies Records 19th release in the Original Series lands with a very special solo EP entitled "Static" from Melbourne based Producer/DJ, Pugilist. Alex has been making incredible selections of bass infused, UK and Dub tinged music for many years. A fitting welcome on BPR as the label hits it's 8 year anniversary since its inception in 2014. The platform continues to evolve with an ever growing number of releases representing different sounds across its sublabels and many blossoming side projects alongside.

To honour the frequent mood changes and feelings of relative isolation experienced in the last 2 years, the A side aims to reconnect those lost moments with "Déjà Vu" & "Future Retro" - both tracks channeling a UK centric sound for the dancefloor and a further proof of the depth and quality found across Pugilist's back catalogue. The B side flaunts a completely parallelled sound palette with "Static", a down tempo dubby track partnered by the beautifully stylish "Sky Blue". A combination of anthems and cloud hopping ballads for the record collectors. Much love, BPR. X

Mastered: Optimum

Distributed by: KUDOS Records

Pressed: MPO

Colorado-based RUMTUM (aka John Hastings), an acclaimed visual artist and up-and-coming producer returns to Bastard Jazz with his first full-length offering: "Isles In Indigo." Arriving after a slew of successful singles (many of which can be found on the album) and EPs, "Isles In Indigo" both stays true to his established sound, and expands on the artistic vision; a luscious combination of aquatic ambient, lo-fi hip-hop, and mellow, melodic electronic, the record traverses the depths of the ocean to the outer reaches of the cosmos.

New offerings on the album include "Lost My Heart In Space" - an ethereal, downtempo cut - "Half Set Valley," which explores instrumental lo-fi replete with distant, chopped and edited spoken word samples, "Coastal Ruins" with nods to breakbeat, "Mystic Symbols," a trippy minimal track, and the album closer, "Commit Way," which journeys from washed-out ambient to spacey hip-hop. Of course the LP also includes many RUMTUM mainstay singles, including "Shade Fader," "Tropic Air," and "Borealis."

Electronic producer and instrumental enthusiast RUMTUM has a unique approach to crafting his melodic melodies. May it be his love for native spirits, mystic symbols or even sea life, sampling the natural world plays the biggest part in the dynamics of his writing. Ambient loops and saturated synth lines set the tone while the bass and drums do most of the story telling.

"Isles In Indigo" is a stunning freshman release from a budding artist on the rise. Stay tuned for the physical LP arriving March 2022, complete with an original art insert.

Here we are again with a second great release. A various artists track compilation to break the dancefloor. Top quality music carried out by the hands of: Sekret Chadow, Khoiser, Under Break & Luis Pitti. Mastering & lacquer By Simon Davey- The Exchange Vinyl. Made in Holland.

The debut release from Time Is Now - originally released as a Bandcamp exclusive. Four cuts of UKG goodness.

Four heavy weight steppers sourced from the streets of Leeds, for them dark basements and early morning afters, brought to you from two new bad bwoys on the scene D. Jason & Baby J.

Marc’s debut on Amatori reclaiming the heritage of people with millennial knowledge who have been forgotten.

The people of the forests will continue to resist. They can't go on being ignored, spending their lives pushed out of the way. The "whites" believe they know better, ignoring a millennial heritage of knowledge and diversity.

"We’ve reached book IV in Rupert Clervaux’s series of “Zibaldone” audio diaries, at which point we find him telling a different kind of story.

“The first three all had very specific themes, while this one feels a little bit looser and doesn’t have just one thematic thrust,” he tells me, which maybe explains why listening feels a bit like annotating. I’m underlining, emphasizing, drawing arrows from here to there, highlighting symbols and noting motifs, realising, questioning, eureka-ing. An impressionistic meaning’s been encoded in and we’re lucky to be given the space to play that most poetic and boundless of all mental games: narrativization.

There are no wrong answers, but Rupert offers some clues either way. If there’s any cipher here it’s “something like a meditation on the concept of ‘depth’––in all its connotative forms.” Think below the surface, (the) underground, yawning oceans, being ‘down in the dirt’, soil, roots, rootlessness, pulling at the dregs, collapse, profundity, stable and unstable horizons, distance, perspective, intuition, not to mention relative opposites: to be shallow, to be above, to be beyond.

It’s got me thinking of Bresson’s “Bring things together that have as yet never been brought together and did not seem predisposed to be so.” His: “Dig deep where you are. Don't slip off elsewhere.” Rupert has realized these—two favourite goals of mine!—here.

This is music that catches you at your own periphery, gives pause, has you offering a little “huh” to, asking “I wonder why” to. Again, it’s got me musing on another mindworm, this time from New York publisher and multi-sensory reading room Dispersed Holdings: “Feeling-making-knowing feedback loop; cartography of feeling; water as text, read to know the land beneath and around it, and body as reader.”

Is it ok to offer up these other contexts out of context? I think so, because Zibaldone IV articulates a similarly swirly tone. Like, we’ve got Rebecca Solnit talking through Kropotkin’s “Mutual Aid” and later calling out to Michael Ruppert a ways away, and “Easy Rider” is playing in the wings. We’ve got Susan Sontag magically contextualizing Mariah Carey with poet Thylias Moss triangulating in order to sketch out (Rupert again) “something a little more interesting than wilful eclecticism or that laboured and patronising kind of pop-savvy.”

Are we following? Whether yes or no Vanessa Bedoret follows on with a performance of a performance of Moss’s 'Water Road’: to be once or twice removed, via strange transitions, purposeful confusions, and, suddenly, seagulls. We’re on a boat with Ingeborg Bachmann—and how I wish I could actually be! But maybe thanks to this music I can as literature, films, friends, lethargy, coincidences, little mental links, eternal wormholes, lingering notions come together to imagine something better."

Text by Natalia Panzer

DJ Python’s Worldwide Unlimited net Lisbon legend Blastah for a bag of sensuous, playfully animated dembow, drill and kuduro mutations that sit ever so sweetly beside the label’s gems from Sangre Nueva and Henzo.

Blastah blesses his debut firmware with a dreamily memorable set of six concise, lowkey burners that hover around reggaeton’s 100-110BPM brackets. Over the years he’s developed an online penpal relationship with Brian Piñero aka DJ Python, naturally leading to this shared conception of romantic club music with a mutable bent that lends itself just as easily to end-of-night slow jam sections as low lit bedrooms.

The vibe is perfectly sensuous and set in woozy soft focus, from the Elysia Crampton-esque, dusky fusion of R&B pads and soundsystem stabs on ‘Raining’ to the neck-caressing nod to Timbaland and Timberlake in its ‘Closer’. A heartical deep house dembow sound is echoed on ‘Cendres’, and a prime fusion of US drill softened with subtropical appeal shapes ‘Unknown’ and the slinky, subbass-gilded minimalism of ‘Call’, while ‘Fish Friends’ most clearly betrays his taste for late night Lisbon tarraxho.

Up-to-the-moment, inch-tight, timeless pearls for the dancehall lovers.

For Record Store Day 2022 Morcheeba have recruited Orbital, Gui Boratto, Kutiman and Voyou to remix four tracks from their latest album 'Blackest Blue' which was released in May 2021.

This is the second of a series of 12" remixes being released especially for RSD, the first 'Blazed Away - The Remixes' sold out in 2019. This year 'Blackest Blue - The Remixes' includes British giants of electronic music Orbital switching up the signature Morcheeba 'chill' vibe of 'Namaste' to an electronic drum and bass dancefloor stomper whilst producer Gui Boratto's remix of 'Sounds Of Blue' is a progressive Electronica/Chill House masterclass!

Morcheeba’s global reach is impressive, taking them to every corner of the world . Their signature chilled electronic/organic sound has been border-hopping ever since the London-based band emerged as a household name with a discography spanning three decades.

With at least 12 gold and platinum discs & over 350M all time streams, Morcheeba continue to create their own unique sound, a laid-back mix of fusion, funk, and blues with the sweet, fluid vocals of Skye Edwards.

YOUTH serve the club with heavyweight chops by Kampala’s Authentically Plastic and Paris’ Emma DJ & Toma Kami to set the label’s 2022 schedule on the bad foot.

Scanning the contemporary dancehall for wayward mutations, ‘Y16TH’ hails the “free form femme f uckery” of Authentically Plastic for their first shot beyond Nyege Nyege Tapes’ celebrated comp ‘L’Esprit De Nyege 2020’, while producer-of-the-moment Emma DJ displays their mutability beside fellow Paris native Toma Kami. It’s a surefire switch from YOUTH's run of long players in 2021, giving the contemporary club what it needs with two template-crumpling takes that rove around the edges of dancehall science.

Authentically Plastic pit the queered club sound of Kampala on ‘Strakka’, hammering out a martial sort of Congo tekno woodblock tattoo in the bone rattling percolations and sweltering industrial clangour of ‘Strakka’ - a strong tip for fans of Crystalmess and Slikback. On the flipside Emma DJ follows their mixtape for UIQ and a VTSS hook-up on a more squashed collaboration with Livity Sound’s Toma Kami, nimbly stepping in the cracks between grime and new Central African styles with sharp-cut but warped cyberdub tekkerz.

The deadliest YOUTH in a hot minute.

First Eclectic Reactions vinyl release with thirty minutes of Techno, EBM, Trance, Electro, Ambient and Industrial by representative artists of the current Basque electronic scene like Kastil, Judy, WLDV, Connor Noctambuss, Ne/Re/A, Radithor.

12" Vinyl with reverse board sleeve

DJ, producer and artist Call Super announces their latest release, the double EP titled ‘Cherry Drops’. This is the third and fourth release to come on can you feel the sun, the label they co-founded with London-based DJ and producer Parris.

The adventurous EP by Call Super, real name Joseph Richmond Seaton, is a collection of tracks written around the time they were working on a larger project called ‘Tell Me I Didn’t Choose This’, which reflects on a period in their life of upheaval, trauma and self-discovery. However, the music on Cherry Drops became a release from that project - a distraction from painful reflections and recollections. Reconnecting with music made solely for the dancefloor became their much needed escape, as it was in those spaces they originally found release and freedom during pivotal periods in their life.

Now on limited CMYK splatter vinyl!! Debut single for another hugely tipped young London based producer on the legendary R&S record label, showcasing that the label is once again a serious force to be reckoned with. James Blake is making some of the most startlingly original music to have emerged from London in 2010. In between studying Popular Music at Goldsmiths and writing a debut album that will take a lot of people by surprise, he has released amazing singles on Hemlock & Hessle, pushing the boundaries of what is expected of ‘dubstep’ music. "CMYK" is a club anthem in the making and one of the most in demand tracks on the dubstep scene. The further three tracks take a more introspective approach, and aren’t strictly aimed at the dancefloor, but are equally heavy tracks that drip with funk and reveal themselves fully after repeated listens.

Pink Vinyl

Drifting on oceans of thunderous stillness, carried away by endless currents, whipped up by waves of darkness devouring you until you see the light. The first album from Platoo, a collaboration between Michelle Samba and Phil Mills, has an unrelenting cadence that grabs you and refuses to let go. A distinctive combination of calming soundscapes and highly-charged energy fitting any occasion, from dancing like lost souls in the empty halls of ancient barracks to ecstatically tripping on a distant desert planet.

To Phil and Michelle creating Platoo was about being given a sense of freedom and exploration, at once shaking off habits and rediscovering forgotten values. Phil's love of the mesh of ''real'' sounds and electronics, and quest to establish a balance where both would feed off each other saw him abandon convention and standard structures, deviate from the beaten path and let things come to life. Michelle's quest to create, to inspire and be inspired, to draw her conclusions from serendipitous events allowed her to break things open and be at ease with letting herself go to create the breathing space needed for this new sound.

What makes their symbiosis fruitful is a common yearning for the unknown, a search for what works without exactly fathoming why it works. The result is something that indeed meets those needs, a strange and beautiful musical exploration.

Born in 1993 , Leonardo Passanti aka HollySpleef is a skater, producer, sound designer and part-time gardener who hails from Bagnocavallo.

Thanks to his training carried out both in Italy and abroad - with extended stays in London, New York and Los Angeles - he had the opportunity to explore new soundscapes and collaborate with artists from the most diverse backgrounds.

This album is an eclectic and organic journey into a garden of grooves where seeds of improvisational jazz blur and blossom with ambient hip hop, house and dub sounds.

Wraz is back on Deep, Dark, & Dangerous! "Annunaki" shows the incredible progression in Wraz's production skills over the last 2.5 years.

Yosh is back on Dansu Discs with his ‘Skyline’ EP. Yosh is a household name in the scene and someone who continues to blow it out the park release after release. His Skyline EP provides all the vibes to get us into those dark and gloomy winter months. On the flip, we welcome Angel D’Lite with her delightful (no pun intended) remix of ‘Skyline’.

The second in the so far very popular series of vinyl-only white labels on YUKU that feature artists releasing under different aliases. This time, exploratory and impactful 160 with a slice of low-slung halftime from two artists - Ikawa & Kliptown.

Ibiza Records welcome's IQ Records to the famliy... Things don't get much more foundational than Marvellous Caine's original IQ imprint... A home to a whole gamut of gully slingers between 1994 -95.... Here is a 4 track EP 2 get dem jungle juices flowin...
credits

Ghostbusters (Suzanne Kraft & Anton Pieete) spent all night investigating strange goings-on at a farm cottage, only to find squirrels. (quality record this...sik one)

Balmat’s second release comes from Hoavi, aka Kirill Vasin, a Russian electronic musician whose work approaches what might be familiar reference points—deepest dub techno, atmospheric ambient, liquid drum’n’bass—with a singular and refreshing point of view.

We first became aware of Hoavi after coming across one of his tracks in a DJ mix by Leech, aka Peak Oil label founder Brian Foote; we began corresponding, which led to a massive zip file of unreleased tracks turning up in Balmat’s inbox. Music for Six Rooms has been culled down from that bounty, its disparate moods distilled into 10 profoundly immersive tracks that touch upon dream pop, dub techno, and new age, all swirled together into the headiest of ambient dreamscapes.

Active since the early 2010s, when he founded his Shells Rattle label, Hoavi has released on a number of labels including floe, Snare Tapes, Fauxpas, and Minor Notes. In October, Peak Oil will finally release his album Invariant, recorded in 2019 and intended for release in 2020, then tied up in pressing-plant backlogs for over a year. Balmat’s Music for Six Rooms follows roughly a month later; we think that the two albums offer a wonderfully complementary view of Hoavi’s talents—one rhythmic, the other largely beatless, yet both of them sensuous in the extreme.

Music for Six Rooms appears in two slightly different editions. The vinyl edition appears on a single piece of vinyl upon which some tracks have been subtly edited in length, to ensure maximum audio fidelity; the digital version features extended edits and runs some 18 minutes longer, in total, for a maximally immersive experience. All vinyl purchases include a download of the full digital album.

J:Kenzo's 'Karthaus' EP on his own imprint Artikal Music.

Longtime Bass providers D-Operation Drop join Navy Cut for NC017.
This 3-track EP from the Italian producers is packed with Bass, sub energy, detailed mids & crisp highs.

London based producer Fiesta Soundsystem has been rapidly gathering attention over the past few years with a string of acclaimed records for Warehouse Rave. His latest outing ‘Rites Of Passage’ for Time Is Now sees the rising producer release his debut full long play, featuring ten cuts of broken beat bass music.

Intercepts is a brand new sub-label from London's Frequency Domain.

Frequency Domain has soundtracked late-night astral travelling since 2015, releasing drone, ambient and offbeat electronics from the likes of Forest Drive West, Plant43, Datassette, Matt Whitehead, Anthony Child, Jo Johnson and Ali Wade.

Intercepts indulges the parent label's more unruly and percussive leanings with a series of EPs drawn up from an anonymous pool of Frequency Domain artists and newcomers. Intercepts releases are served two at a time, with two separate strands - X and Y - each exploring their own sonic trajectory.

The first 'Y' series EP delivers three tracks of urgent machine funk; a spannered slab of 170bpm Braindance hogs the A side, while two peak-time sci-fi electro cuts play out on the flip.

Stroboscopic Artefacts is proud to present the debut album of Malaysian born Bangkok based artist Wanton Witch.

Born in an isolated community of Borneo Island in 1993 Wanton Witch is a DJ and producer with a hyper-sensitive connection and approach to sound through performance. Coming of age in the relative isolation of island life, it wasn’t until relocating to Bangkok that she was able to access the different communities of musical genres that she would later travel between. With an early taste for trap and hip hop, she began working in the deconstructed club and techno scene where she found her musical voice, beginning her DJ career in 2018. Wanton is also a cofounder and original member of Queer underground creative collective ‘Non Non Non’ that has become a Bangkok nightlife staple.

Being an “outsider” musician and producer with no formal training, it was the fortuitous crossing of paths online that has sparked the creative collaboration between Wanton and label owner and creative director Lucy. Last year Stroboscopic Artefacts celebrated ten years established between experimental and dance floor spectres and this is the first record the label is releasing after one year break, marking the launch of a new chapter for the imprint. It is with releases like the eponymous debut album from Wanton Witch and the support given to emerging artists like her that the imprint continues to forge pathways within the industry.

Featuring 11 tracks, these recordings are the first body of work from the Bangkok producer, and include many different snapshots of electronic music genres from IDM and experimental to hardcore and rave, using caustic electronics to deconstruct traditional track conventions. This collection of cuts read more as a complete soundscape, like listening to a live set. The phrenetic jump from genre to genre, the mixing of diverse sound textures and landscapes reflect Wanton Witch’s own experience navigating a hostile world as a Queer trans woman in Malaysia. The intense energy with which each track is cut together reminds the listener of the nostalgia of mixtapes and a time in life when identity is being constructed.

Wanton Witch has created an album which feels like a reflection of the aggregation that already exists within musical internet sub-cultures and communities. A place where many diverse and contrasting sound palettes, textures, and structures can fit together to create a new different, Queer way of seeing the world.

Following up on Wanton’s LP, label head Lucy will also present an actual full length album named ‘Lucy Plays Wanton Witch’ featuring re-interpretations of the original material in a whole new body of work. This upcoming follow up release will not represent a mere remix edition, but a recreation from scratch and the rebirth of “one into another” so to say. Expect the quintessential Lucy treatment.

Slow Astro is a new mix series by Fracture which revisits the rich Astrophonica back catalogue and presents it in a new light. Starting with Volumes 1 & 2 featuring music from Sully, Client_03, Philip D Kick & DJ Earl.

Featuring: Deena Abdelwahed, Rabih Beaini, Fari Bradley, Dieb 13, DJ Sniff, Gavsborg (Equiknoxx), Electric Indigo, Donzilla Lion (Nyege Nyege), Marina Rosenfeld, Microhm, Muqata’a, Bob Ostertag, Rrose

Project presentation:

Sampler / Sampled is an album made of two interdependent parts rather than a double-album.

The first part of the project, Sampler, is a trumpet solo album that catalogues the unique sounds and extended techniques that Mazen Kerbaj developed for the instrument in the past 25 years; it consists of 318 pieces ranging from less than a second to forty seconds each, and presenting different sonic materials. This catalogue of sounds works on various levels: first and foremost, it is a trumpet solo that could be played in its original order, or in random mode to create different pieces of music. But it is also a collection of samples that could be used for various applications (ringtones, phone sound effects, cinema…) and, of course, to create new pieces of music based on sampling.

The second part of the project is the composition Sampled for a musician working with loops and/or samples. The composition has one instruction: create a piece of music using solely tracks from Sampler as your sound source (with the possibility to use all kind of effects or treatment). Each interpreter/musician becomes thus a co-composer who appropriates the piece and makes it their own. In this regard, the musicians that were commissioned to play Sampled were chosen from different geographical origins and musical genres to create highly different and personal pieces of music.

One important output of this project is putting in practice the overused idea of music as a universal language. This idea is very present in “free improvised music” where musicians from different origins can meet for the first time and make music together without the need to adapt to different musical traditions. But here, the collective part of creating music in real time is not involved. It is rather the contrary: it starts with one middle-eastern musician creating a new language/vocabulary for his western instrument, to be later used by other musicians from around the globe who will appropriate this vocabulary and use it with their own language/grammar.
The final output of this double faceted album that was recorded during the Covid lockdown proved to be a very efficient new way to collaborate from a distance in times of world isolation, and ultimately put in practice the universality of music by breaking the boundaries of genres that are the most difficult to break.

The third instalment on O’Flynn’s club label Hundred Flowers is a collaboration between Spooky - J (Nihiloxica) and Ekhe.

Two high speed and energetic bangers in their rawest form, these are club weapons that can be used to spice up any set.

A distillation of dance floor energy, the record is the result of a live improvised performance over New Year’s Eve 2019/20.

Spooky - J: "We both enjoy jamming together and not planning too much ahead of time, so naturally it makes sense to improvise at live shows. It also leaves space for the music to go off on a tangent depending on what the crowd or we are feeling.”

Ekhe: “Live improv becomes a real antidote for my concerns about preparing music. Instead, you’re creating something in the moment, directly corresponding with the energy around you, which in turn is influenced by your sound. Getting caught up in that is unlike anything else."

Spooky - J is currently on tour with Nihiloxica and the pair have a gig planned for this NYE in Amsterdam.

It’s time to get high and live life (safely).

Geo Rip is John Jones (Dope Body, Nerftoss) with Aaron Leitko and Mike Petillo (Protect-U). Broken samples and electronics improvised live to tape.

Their first time on vinyl, following an ‘insane’ cassette on TTT in 2019 and releases on their own Washington, D.C. based U-Udios label.

Limited!