Falty DL - Hip Love

Falty DL
"Hip Love"
Ramp Records Feb 2011

Originally Published on 7digital.com

What could be more tempting than a slice of future garage from one of New York's finest beat-makers? Well, how about a remix by one half of Mercury Prize winners, The xx, too?
‘Hip Love’ bears all the hallmarks of a classic Falty tune – heavily-sliced and shuffled two-step beats, brass jazz chord stabs and soulful vocal fragments, all coloured with dirty-sounding synths. It’s reminiscent of Mo' Wax or trip-hop yet the rhythms fuse the swing and tempo of UK garage with the breakbeat science of jungle. Jamie xx does a good job on the flip too, keeping the human feel of the original whilst swapping Falty’s erratic beats for a sparser, almost four-to-the-floor beat, and shifting the focus from the vocals to that satisfyingly bouncy bassline.

Tracklist:

1. Falty DL - Hip Love
   


2. Falty DL - Hip Love (Jamie XX remix)

Mount Kimbie - Crooks and Lovers

Mount Kimbie
"Crooks And Lovers"
Hotflush 19/07/2010

If you wanted to make an electronic album which encompassed the current global trends in bass music around the 140bpm mark, you would be hard pressed to come up with something better than Mount Kimbie's debut. Following on from 2 EPs and remixes for the likes of hot indie bands Foals and The Big Pink, Crooks and Lovers gives the south London duo their full length introduction.
Combining lost guitar chords and vocal fragments with dubstep, wonky and leftfield hip hop beats to form an dreamy organic whole. With much of the instrumentation drawing influence from the likes of Four Tet and Boards of Canada this is certainly not a dancefloor record.
Perhaps the most instantly likable track is the first single “Mayor” (youtube below) with its undecipherable vocal chorus and unconventionally plucked harpsichord riff. Other highlights include, the more future garage inspired “Blind Night Errand” and "Adriatic" which sounds like a tune creating after a sampling session at a band practice.
If you like this album, I recommend you check out other releases on the brilliant Hotflush imprint who also do a regular podcast.

You Can stream the whole album for one week only here.

Tracklist:

Tunnelvision
Would Know
Before I Move Off
Blind Night Errand
Adriatic
Carbonated
Ruby
Ode To Bear
Field
Mayor
Between Time

Spor - Knock You Down (remix)

Spor / Apex"Knock You Down (remix)"Lifted Music 3/5/2010

After a string of great releases from the likes of Spor, The Upbeats and Apex, Forward thinking Drum 'n' Bass Label Lifted Music broaden the field with their first Dubstep release, a remix 12" of Spor's "Knock you down" and Apex's "Nowhere to Run" by Eskmo and Datsik & Excision respectively.
Knock you down is a powerful Stomping take on the original accompanied by a heavy guitar style riff.
On the flip Canadian producers Eskmo and Datsik deliver a gnarly twisted bassline remix that would give 16Bit a run for their money.
We look forward to more Dubstep being release on lifted soon.

Skream! accused of using Dub midi file

Croydon dubstep innovator Skream! has been criticized by dubroom.org (a website offering free midi versions of Dub tunes) for using their version of "Rock The Nation" by Messian Dread. In a statement posted on dubroom.org, They accuse Skream! of using the file in his "Blue Eyez" track featured on his 2006 self titled debut.
This is of course a slightly unusual example of the issues in sampling in hip hop and electronic music as midi files are not actual audio files in themselves but a kind of "digital score" which your computer plays back with whatever synth is available (often a nasty cheap sounding piano).
If Skream! in fact used the midi file, he mapped it onto a synth which, assuming he programmed it himself, means that he still had some creative input into the sound if the sample.
However, such blatant use of a melody could still be regarded as lazy composition. It would be interesting to see what legal rights Messian Dread and dubroom.org have in this case. However, since both releases probably sold too few copies in the grand scheme of things for any legal action to happen.
You can check out the similarities for yourself at:
Skream! - Blue Eyez
Messian Dread - Rock The Nation midi file

Zomby - One Foot Ahead Of The Other

Zomby
"One Foot Ahead Of The Other"
Ramp 25/08/2009

Zomby is an artist that has generated considerable interest since his 2008 debut album “where were you in ‘92” and his self titled "Zomby EP" follow up on Hyperdub. He has established a characteristic aesthetic of retro 8-bit computer game sounds and disjointed melodies, whilst demonstrating an affiliation to both the old skool hardcore rave movement and the “wonky” dubstep scene.
After these 2 interesting releases, I was excited to see where zombie was going to take his sound to next. "One foot ahead of the other" confirms Zomby’s decision to stick to dubstep rhythms. It’s different from the Zomby EP, there is less focus on sound design as on previous tracks like “Aquafresh” and “Gloop” and although he continues to give tracks synesthesic titles like “Polka Dot” and “Bubble Bubble”, the sonic-visual connection seems a little forced compared to previous efforts. There is however more emphasis on tonal melody and maximizing the use of basic chip tune sounds to turn them into sonically interesting tracks.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t take many listens to discover that all the tracks on "One Foot Ahead Of The Other" are constructed in a pretty formulaic way. Each track consists of a basic 2-step or 4X4 rhythm made to sound more complex by layering constant triple time Nintendo arpeggios and melodies. Although this syncopated structure is interesting for the first couple of tunes, it's not enough to constitute the basis of a 9 track EP. Unlike the "Zomby EP" which showed us different sides to the artist, "One foot" seems a little 1-dimensional. There are some nice stand out tracks (“Polka dot”, “Godzilla” and the title track) all of which would introduce an interesting element to any dubstep set as something Link and Zelda might rave to in a digidub world. As a collective piece of work however, "One Foot Ahead Of The Other" lacks a sense of variety displayed in Zomby’s previous efforts.

Links: myspace

Tracklist:

A1:One Foot Ahead Of The Other

A2: Helter Skelter

B1: Pumpkinhead's Revenge

B2: Polka Dot

C1: Godzilla

C2: Expert Tuition

D1: Bubble Bubble

D2: Mescaline Cola

D3: Firefly Finale