Dubstep 209 Items

`Astro-Darien' is a 26-minute sonic fiction about the break-up of Britain, narrated by synthetic Scottish voices and framed as an eponymous video game. It is the second release on Hyperdub sub-label Flatlines; a dark green 10" in triple gatefold sleeve, with artwork by Kode9's long-time collaborators Lawrence Lek and Optigram, presented as a limited edition of 500 copies. From a Caledonian heart of darkness to a supernova Scotia? The documentary fiction spirals between the role of the catastrophic Darien Scheme in the late 17th century in the founding of the UK, when Scotland failed to colonise part of present-day Panama, and the contemporary disintegration of the Union. In a somewhat wild extrapolation of the race to become the Scotland's first vertical satellite launch station currently playing out between Sutherland Space Port and the Shetland Space Centre, independence is speculatively framed as an exercise of escapology, a jailbreak and exodus to an orbital space habitat, with all the risks and dangers that entails. The loose plot follows a game designer from the fictional `Trancestar North' company who, in attempting to lift the dark spell cast by Darien, models a counter-future by ingesting cosmism, the history of racial capitalism and the demise of Empire into T-Divine, the geopolitics simulator of the game engine. She follows the Brexit algorithm as it runs to its logical conclusion. Initially conceived as an audio essay for diffusion on François Bayle's 50-speaker Acousmonium for Ina-grm in Paris in March 2020, but subsequently postponed by the pandemic, `Astro-Darien' first surfaced as a three-screen A/V installation on the dance floor of Corsica Studios in June 2021, finally reaching the Acousmonium the following October. In July 2022, an instrumental rhythmic version entitled `Escapology' was released on Hyperdub. A live A/V set relating to the `Astro-Darien' game universe will debut at Unsound Festival in October 2022.

Universal Vibrations is my most personal project to date. I came back from a month long trip to Brazil feeling very inspired during the start of lockdown and decided to experiment with some slower BPMs for the first time after producing dubstep for the last 15 years. This album is the result.

One tune came flying out after the other during a crazily productive 2 month period. I was so happy with the beats I thought I'd get some of my favourite MCs on board so spent the next 8 months organizing and mixing down the vocal features.

It all happened very naturally and very quickly, it was just waiting to pop out! To say I'm proud of this album is an understatement. 2 years in the making, I can't wait for you all to hear it!

Love Chad <3

Dancing as an act of rebellion is the first Abraxas LP in collaboration with the Valencian label Soil Records. A compilation of the first project recordings released between 2020 and 2021 plus some new tracks and, in addition to this, a second vinyl by other darkwave electronic artists remixing the first one: Geistform, We Are Not Brothers, Ober Dada, Melting Dogmas, SMforma, Hbk1, José Rodríguez, SOJ and PanDemian. Abraxas is a halfway project between dark dance electronic music, philosophical reflection, socio-political activism and musical entrepreneurship. Its main goal is to shake bodies and minds by spreading messages of individual and social self-criticism from the point of view of duality, extremes and contradiction, inherent to the human being and capitalist society

Somewhere between House, Detroit Techno & Bass, Martyn comes through strong with a little help from Four Tet & Inga Copeland!

New tape from Levon Vincent

Dom Maker and Kai Campos have always known how to masterfully synthesise their talents into one singular yet ever changing vision. Since beginning in 2009, their work has morphed from their distinctly British sound of dubstep and techno to the boundaryless and densely packed collaborations of Love What Survives. Five years after that scintillating record, the two take their talents as Mount Kimbie to new extremes by splitting them in half entirely.

Having walked separate paths musically and physically in the world over the years since Love What Survives, Dom and Kai took a literal approach to their latest record, separating it into two distinct, independently produced albums - but linked through shared senses of sonic haziness and melody. Die Cuts shows Dom Maker at a collaborative peak, interspersing vocal cuts, samples, and urban sounds in swiftly stitched vignettes with a slowed down, lo-fi flair. Meanwhile, the chugging beats of City Planning mimic train tracks, as Kai Campos’ album contains rhythmic paintings of urbanity with detailed sonic architecture. These two sides of Mount Kimbie are as different as day and night, yet they inform each other greatly, speaking a simultaneous message from separate locations.

The opening track ‘dvd’ on Die Cuts features a mystical siren song fading in, before slowthai and Danny Brown’s expressive vocals cut through on ‘in your eyes’, trading bittersweet and apoplectic verses. An eerie alarm echoes on ‘heat on, lips on', subsiding with punchy beat and skittering keys, and a scathing, mercurial spoken word spiralling to jazzy loops depicting intimate struggles. City Planning in similar fashion shifts from tense, burrowing bass rumbles to fluttering synth droplets forming rivers of sound. The molten underground beat of ‘Transit Map (Flattened)’ lurches and groans, with piano notes sprawling like the many-coloured intersecting lines of a subway map.

Even when split in two, Mount Kimbie provide yet another total upheaval of their sound, combining their individual strengths for a roaringly creative album on MK 3.5.

Dom Maker and Kai Campos have always known how to masterfully synthesise their talents into one singular yet ever changing vision. Since beginning in 2009, their work has morphed from their distinctly British sound of dubstep and techno to the boundaryless and densely packed collaborations of Love What Survives. Five years after that scintillating record, the two take their talents as Mount Kimbie to new extremes by splitting them in half entirely.

Having walked separate paths musically and physically in the world over the years since Love What Survives, Dom and Kai took a literal approach to their latest record, separating it into two distinct, independently produced albums - but linked through shared senses of sonic haziness and melody. Die Cuts shows Dom Maker at a collaborative peak, interspersing vocal cuts, samples, and urban sounds in swiftly stitched vignettes with a slowed down, lo-fi flair. Meanwhile, the chugging beats of City Planning mimic train tracks, as Kai Campos’ album contains rhythmic paintings of urbanity with detailed sonic architecture. These two sides of Mount Kimbie are as different as day and night, yet they inform each other greatly, speaking a simultaneous message from separate locations.

The opening track ‘dvd’ on Die Cuts features a mystical siren song fading in, before slowthai and Danny Brown’s expressive vocals cut through on ‘in your eyes’, trading bittersweet and apoplectic verses. An eerie alarm echoes on ‘heat on, lips on', subsiding with punchy beat and skittering keys, and a scathing, mercurial spoken word spiralling to jazzy loops depicting intimate struggles. City Planning in similar fashion shifts from tense, burrowing bass rumbles to fluttering synth droplets forming rivers of sound. The molten underground beat of ‘Transit Map (Flattened)’ lurches and groans, with piano notes sprawling like the many-coloured intersecting lines of a subway map.

Even when split in two, Mount Kimbie provide yet another total upheaval of their sound, combining their individual strengths for a roaringly creative album on MK 3.5.

Hotflush Recordings celebrates 20 years in the game this year, with a triple pack vinyl compilation featuring some of the key musical events in the label’s catalogue.

Born in 2003, Hotflush stands as one of electronic music’s most influential labels. A multi-dimensional imprint that helped define the development of bass music throughout the mid-2000s, in the last decade it would evolve towards the liminal spaces between house, techno, and beyond - a journey which has given the dancefloor some of its true underground classics.

This celebratory release covers every era and stylistic area of the Hotflush output. 2005’s proto-dubstep face melter ‘The Knowledge’ by Toasty kicks off Side A, with the key sides of bass music development all covered with tracks from James Blake, Loefah, Sepalcure, and Scuba.

UK techno legend Surgeon appears with his seminal remix of Scuba’s ‘Ruptured’ (2008), while the early Paul Woolford classic ‘mdma’ reminds us of how ended up working with Diplo.

George FitzGerald and Recondite reprise some of their key formative material, while newer names Lawrence Hart, OR:LA and breakout Seoul artist Closet Yi also make appearances.

Canadian mastermind Jacques Greene rounds off the release with his slamming remix of Kiimi’s Breaking My Mind.

This is a compilation 20 years in the making, containing some of the key tracks from the electronic underground - curated and compiled by label boss Scuba.

Bassnectar is back with a new 17 track album, packed to the max with a diverse array of freestyle electronic music. The long wait for new music is (finally) over. Limited edition gatefold sleeve pressing on 180 gram multi-colored vinyl (blue, orange, yellow).