[Artist] Addison Groove

Addison Groove is one of a handful of dubstep pioneers who have begun to depart from their original scenes in order to seek greener pastures, paving the way for new subgenres, which - apart from the usual 135-140 BPM range - often bare hardly any resemblance to their predecessors.

Addison (real name Antony Williams) previously gained hype under the monikor Headhunter. Truly one of the embodiments of early dubstep - Headhunter's tunes focused almost solely on clinically dark, extended sub-bass, and tight percussion, earning releases on Tempa and Planet Mu. His later tracks under the name already suggested a  restlessness - slowly drifting away from the static dubstep sound.

His first emergence under his new alias was a release curiously named Footcrab; it's juke inspired, 808 fuelled rythme took to the scene like wildfire, and it gained a comfortable place as the first non-dubstep track on Loefah's fresh Swamp81 label.  Since then, he's been joined by the likes of Boddika (Instra:mental), Ramadanman (Pearson sound) and Pinch in twisting the scene on it's very foundations. Their next announced release will be the - still uncredited - Sicko Cell - another notoriously experimental tune.

Whilst some of the remnants of dubstep (mainly the blaring subbass) remain, the focus has recently been rising up the frequency spectrum, and left in uncontested territory, with massive inspiration from Chicago juke, as well as funky, electro, techno, acid house, and countless other genres.

If you check out some of his mixes (FACT mix), you'll also find that he's a talented scratch artist too. His latest release - Work It / Sexual - gives the idea that he's just getting started. The future for Mr. Groove seems absolutely immense.

Cop the latest release:
Phonica
Boomkat

And check the Swamp site:
SWAMP 81

[Compilation] Dubstep Allstars - Vol. 8 - Distance

Well, it's long been confirmed that Distance is the next in line for the Dubstep Allstars crown, pitching up for Volume 8 in what's been an absolutely pivotal compilation series for the genre.

The release date has been pinned at some point in the next couple months, and his recent post looks very promising:

Edit - 13th April: 

And while you wait, make sure to revisit his older stuff, album My Demons will always and forever remain an absolute classic:

And check out the big back catalogue of the Allstars for some serious education:

Vol. 1 - Hatcha
Vol. 2 - Youngsta
Vol. 3 - Kode9
Vol. 4 - Hatcha and Yougsta
Vol. 5 - N-Type
Vol. 6 - Appleblim
Vol. 7 - Chef & Ramadanman
Vol. 8 - Distance

Guide to the UK Underground

An artist called 'Hecta' has designed this spiffy looking guide to the UK underground, modelled after the London tube map. Dubious categorising and missing out some crucial people, but amusing nevertheless.

[EP's] Fat City Records - Producer #3 Series

Fat City Records originally took root as a humble record shop in Manchester, and has since flourished into - among other things - a diverse record label,  hosting a wide array of compilations and series, including the acclaimed 'Mystic Brew'. They have swiftly been re-calibrating their sights from their hip-hop and jazz roots to the booming bass music scene, with their Producer #3 series providing a true testament, so far seeing the likes of Gully, Mosca, Burgaboy, Mr.Scruff and Hizatron.

The latter of these is responsible for the lovely-to-say, Mr.Gloopenstein, with a Mr.Scruff remix on the flip.  Scruff's strayed from his classic hip-hop tempo to release something a bit more dancefloor friendly, yet with all the squeaky comedy that he's made his name in. The result is incredible.

Producer #3 Series 2
A - Hizatron - Von Glooperstein
B - Hizatron - Von Glooperstein (Mr. Scruff Remix)

Not to be forgotten is the first part of the series - Mosca's - Tilt Shift with a Burgaboy bassline remix, and Sully - Black Projects on the flip.

Producer #3 Series 1
A - Mosca - Tilt Shift
AA - Mosca - Tilt Shift (Burgaboy remix)
B - Sully - Black Projects

Both in the series are seriously pushing the limits of the compromise of eccentricity versus danceability. Cop 'em at the Fat City online shop.

Producer #3 Series 1
Producer #3 Series 2

[Album] Wagon Christ - Toomorrow

Good news everyone! Wagon Christ aka Luke Vibert aka Plug aka Kerrier District has just brought out a new album on Ninja Tune named Toomorrow.

If you haven't heard of at least one of his aliases, he's an artist renown for a volume of music akin to his volume of pseudonyms, as well as his promiscuity to record labels, having released on Ninja Tune, Rephlex, Planet Mu, Warp and others.  This is his 20th full-length album, and the 3rd released on Ninja Tune, all whilst juggling a wife and kids and being the nicest bloke ever. How the fuck does he do it? Here's a promo video put together by the guys at Ninja:

Gaaaaasp.

As expected, he brings us the same indescribable sounds - kind of like Mr Scruff on laughing gas ( which really is saying something), with classic tracknames like Lazer dick, and Respectrum.

He's also released a new EP under his Kerrier District - disco houseyish - pseudonim. This one de-emphasises the lasers, and is just called Dick. Gotta love it.

Buy em!:

Toomorrow - via Ninja Tune
Kerrier District 3 EP - via Phonica

Butterzip - Part 3

Spring's a-coming, and Butterz is still showing no signs of melting *stroke beard*. The grime blog turned grime label was originated by the Rinse.FM DJ's Elijah and Skilliam, plus Mu producer Swindle (to make the Butterz trinity), and a whole bunch of other grime perps including S-X (Woo Riddim), TRC, Royal-T, D.O.K, and one of the big daddies of grime - Terror Danjah (Hyperdub, Mu, more). They've been releasing tracks on wax, zips and mp3s for a while now, and are showing no signs of slowing down. Here's their latest zip, giving away over 12 top-notch tracks for the price of nothing.

Butterz Zip Vol. 3

If you like it, which you will, make sure to snap up some of their records. Links are on the link.

Here's a video of Royal-T tearing it up in Czech land.

Brainbot goes on Holiday

So brainbot just scuttled out of the lab the other day. Turns out he's got an inclination for mountains. He'll be back.

Photo credit: ernielio 

Wiley & MJ Cole - Wait for the Drop

Grime. and Garage. and 2step. All mixed together in one track? U MAD?

Raging grime MC Wiley & Garage/2step hero MJ Cole have  paired up and named it 'Wait for the Drop'.
Good advice. Wait for it.

"My flow... top notch
My lyrics... top notch"

Damn straight. This thing's bound to people dancing, with a Night Slugs fuelled remix set (L-Vis 1990) on the flip.

Plus a wide range of remixes in the works, including the Mickey Pearce bootleg posted earlier. I've also got a little feeling that the Butterz crew are going to put some input into this one.

Cop it:
CHEMICAL RECORDS [vinyl]
BOOMKAT [digital]

Mickey Pearce - Mickey's Car Boots - Free EP

Mickey Pearce - of Blunted Robot stock (Bok Bok, Brackles, Shortstuff, Martin Kemp) - is giving away a free EP with the launch of the new label website. To put it in their words:

"Mickey has been on the rob, abusing the work of people more talented than himself and passing it off as his own"

Zipped up are some nicely chopped bootlegs of JME - CD is Dead, as well as Redlight & Ms Dynamite's - What U Talkin' About?, adding that trippy bongo-fuelled riddimosity that Blunted Robots is quickly becoming big for. The video also hints at a slice of the Wiley & MJ Cole piece - Wait for the Drop - which has recently blown up since it's release in Oct 2010, due, in part to a little feature on the Ramadanman/Pearson Sound Fabriclive, as well as frequent drops by the Butterz crew. It might also have something to do that it's a bloody good record.


Apparantly we're being held hostage to 1000 pageviews for that last bit. Your page views or your life.


Get the thing, and check out the new site here:


BLUNTED ROBOTS


BLRD001 - Mickey's Car Boot by bluntedrobots

Pinch - Swish - Release Rumours

So Pinch has finally revealed, after months of torturing the shit out of us, that Swish is going to be released soon, on no other than Deep Medi.

He says on his Twitter (No damn way am I going to use the word 'tweet'):

Swish is coming on Deep Medi - not sure exactly when but i have a test press so hopefully not too long!

Rumour says that Kode9 is going to do a remix on the flipside, and that it's going to be the 9th of May, but we'll wait and see. This'll fit like a bug in the already powerful Medi catalogue, and will easily be one of the releases of the year; it's about time that Pinch jumped on the Medi wagon.

More rumour's saying that Quest's trying to bring Medi's catalogue of mastered tunes up to a staggering 55 by the end of May. Let's hope!

Here's a clip from Youngsta's Rinse.FM show. It's gonna have to suffice for now:

Ill Blu - Meltdown EP

Just to continue on the roll of providing a couple of the new funky tracks here and there, check out Ill Blu's Meltdown EP. If you've been to a funky night in the past couple of weeks, you'll probably recognise the main track - Meltdown - the first time the mix drops and the melody hits in the main track. "What's this track? I've never heard it before.... Oh damn, that's the one." - is the usual response. They hit the funky formula fairly standardly - sharp latin(ish) percussion, electroey synths, and quick drops, but when everything stops and the bassline shoots up a couple octaves into that squeaky, almost grumpy, machine zap - it hits the electronic apex. It almost sounds like being told off by an old grumpy robot; he's wagging his finger at you for stepping on his robot lawn or some shit.

Here's the sampler:

Ill Blu - Meltdown EP (3 Track Sampler) by Numbers

Cop that shit:
PHONICA
CHEMICAL RECORDS

Harddrive - Deep Inside (Pearson Sound Remix)

And the winner for the song that get's the strangest looks whilst being sung in the tube:

This tune's garnered quite a bit of interest in the past couple months, with big names like Loefah and Addison Groove nonchalantly slipping it into their funky acid fuelled sets and making people dance like idiots. It's also made a whole bout of people look incredibly inappropriate for repeating the words: "deep inside of me" in a high pitched voice, over and over again, in public.

After a nice little bout of anonymity due to the classic sample clearance issue, it was brought to the light that the man responsible was none other than Pearson Sound (AKA Ramadanman). He remixes the classic house tune with his staple deep punchy bass, leaving in, tweaking and adding all kinds of 808s and percussion that give the tune so much character. It was heard at DMZ, it was heard at Bloc, and now it's been released by the guys down at Night Slugs on a white(ish) label. Check it out and bag it.

Posting about another mysterious sample related anonymous record after the drop - Sicko Cell

Buy it:

Phonica
Chemical Records

Burial / Four-Tet / Thom Yorke Collab - Limited Split

3 relatively mysterious figures in the music community - Burial, Four Tet and Thom Yorke - who, if you havn't noticed, is the front-man of Radiohead - have banded together to make a record. To quote FACTmag on the actual details:

No details are given except for the fact it’s black label, housed in a plain black bag, and is being released by Four Tet’s Text label. The A-side is by Burial, and called ‘Ego’, the B-side is a Four Tet and Thom Yorke collaboration titled ‘Mirror’.

Nice. No details. They've limited the print to an extent where they sold out in a matter of minutes from almost all online retail stores including Phonica, Rough Trade, and the rest. Personally, I feel it's a bit of a - well, the thesaurus doesn't have an entry for 'dick move' - so I'll just go with that - to limit what's bound to be such a popular record, but whatever keeps your beard growing.

Here's some audio:

Mix Round Up, Ep. 3 - Elijah & Skilliam

Next up - Rinse.FM DJ's - Elijah and Skilliam. Unless you've been hiding under a bassbin for the past couple weeks, these gents have been earning quite a bit of rep taking up the rather daunting task of resurrecting grime, focusing particularly on the instrumental variety. Alongside veteran producers like Terror Danjah and plenty of new-comers such as Royal-T, expect big things from their blog-turned-label - Butterz.

These guys have been turning out mixes like chiclets, so I'll leave you with their 010110 that gained so much hype on mixcloud, and their 010111 released - as you can probably guess - a year later, for a nice little comparison.

More about Butterz after the drop!

Elijah & Skilliam - 01012011 Mix by Elijah & Skilliam on Mixcloud

Elijah & Skilliam - '01012010' Mix by Elijah & Skilliam on Mixcloud

Mix Round Up, Ep. 2 - Plastician & P-Money

The second mix, presented by FooMag is Plastician and P-Money - History of Dubstep. Plastician (BBC Radio 1 and Rinse.FM) - often regarded as one of the most skilled mixers of UK music scene - teams up with prime grime MC P Money to bring us an anthology detailing one the multi-faceted evolutions of dubstep from it's roots. The mix begins with some influential Drum and Bass singles such as Zinc's 128 Trek, right through to the more dub influenced classics - Anti-War Dub, the early high risers - Skream's Midnight Request Line, Rusko's Jahova and straight through to the more aggressive dubstep offshoots - Doctor P's and Flux Pavilion. All throughout Butterz crewman P Money spits his staple grimey style.

Overall, History of ... mixes are constantly subject to controversy. Whilst the mix does miss out much of the more underground plates that served as the bedrock of the genre, it's an amazingly accurate depiction of dubstep's rise from an underground scene, into a worldwide phenomena, and a highly entertaining hour and a half.

Not one to be missed.

DOWNLOAD - Mediafire

TRACKLIST on FooMag

Mix Round Up, Ep. 1 - Ramadanman

In honour of our first post, here's a big bunch of listening material from over the past couple of months, to keep you busy for a little while.

The first is Ramadanman's Bestimix, in accordance with his eagerly awaited FabricLive album, released this week. As the title suggests, it was recorded in preparation for Bestival, presenting "a blistering, exclusive session of upfront bass-heavy pressure from one of dubstep’s leading stars and brightest lights." If you've been in the loop lately, you know what to expect - oxymoronically deep highs, even deeper lows and a discerning inability to settle on any particularly genre, falling somewhere between dubstep, electro, juke and almost any other recent UK offshoots you can think of.

Bestimix 23: Ramadanman by Bestimix on Mixcloud