Wednesday 31 March 2010

Gonjasufi - A Sufi And A Killer

Over 20 years and still going, the creative juices still seem to be flowing for Warp, and their unrelenting passion for innovative acts shows no sign of abating. Their recent penchant for establishing non-electronic based artists has given their already impressive roster some breathing room; the considerably more conventional Maximo Park and Grizzly Bear created a much needed, albeit unexpected balance.
 
Incorporating the best of both worlds, self-styled ‘desert yogi’ Gonjasufi first lent his crooning, meditative tones to Flying Lotus’ ‘Testament’, one of the many highlights of his sophomore effort ‘Los Angeles’. But this soothing side of Sumach Ecks proves to be just one string in his bow, for the majority of ‘A Sufi And A Killer’ is a distinctly harsh affair. ‘Kobwebz’ kicks off proceedings with a fuzzy, psych-rock number underpinned by Gonjasufi’s grainy, distorted vocals. The raucous discordance of ‘SuzieQ’ and the yearning ‘She Gone’ follow this abrasive formula, but make no mistake – this purely intended, and Ecks revels in subjecting his listeners to this uncompromising approach. In a recent interview he stated that he wanted “to almost hurt the ear: to shock people with something raw, something hard, something that’s capable of cutting into the eardrum and scratching off the resin of that microchip filth”.

His coarse timbre makes way for an earthly rasp at times, and with this Ecks demonstrates his ability to seamlessly fit his voice into any environment. ‘Sheep’ adorns his cracked, tranquil delivery with a lilting blues guitar and middle-eastern vocals, and provides ‘A Sufi And A Killer’ with one of its many highlights.

Flying Lotus returns the favour with the sitar-featuring head-nodder ‘Ancestors’, whilst Mainframe provides some dreamy, electrified workings in the shape of ‘Candylane’ and’Holidays’. However, the strong, almost telepathic relationship between Gonjasufi and The Gaslamp Killer’s production proves to be the albums crowning glory, with GLK displaying an immense talent for crafting his obscure psyche samples into twisted beat collages.

At 19 tracks long, ‘A Sufi And A Killer’ can prove to be a stifling and somewhat incoherent record, with the rash segues between songs creating a rather disorientating effect. That said, Gonjasufi’s brilliantly idiosyncratic lyrics and gauzy timbre more than make up for this, and gifts listeners with a utterly beguiling and unique album.


http://musosguide.com/gonjasufi-a-sufi-and-a-killer/9968


Tuesday 30 March 2010

Actress - Paint, Straw & Bubbles


Not reducible to one genre, Actress' multi-faceted style leaves him devoid of stringent categorisation, and it certainly would take a brave man to do so. Armed with a fresh outlook and showing subtle progress since 2008's 'Hazyville', Darren Cunningham drops a carrot in front of our noses ahead of his much anticipated new LP.

'Paint, Straw & Bubbles' advances from the 4/4, Detroit sensibility of his previous work and delivers a tense, angular technoid work-out with filtered percussion, popping drums and kaleidoscopic melodies. Devoid of any structural orthodoxy, the track fails to adhere to the model of techno, or even house, and consequently marks itself out as an alien within the sometimes suffocating world of dance music.
   
Following on from their tantalising collaborations released into the net earlier this year, Zomby remixes 'PS&B' into an entirely different beast. He continues with the vivid technicolour blueprint of late, adding a thrusting UK Funky rhythm and bassline, scattered with incisive gasps and chants.
   
On the flip, 'Maze' sketches out a cold wave/ early techno throwback, marking out Cunningham's extraordinarily diverse yet easily distinguishable sound.


www.myspace.com/actresskhz   

Friday 19 March 2010

Brainfeeder @ Fabric






Burrowed in the outer reaches of Los Angeles, the Brainfeeder crew aren’t the most nomadic of music collectives. It’s even rarer for the whole lot to link up for one night, but luckily for London, Flying Lotus and his corps descended on Fabric for a special one-off event courtesy of Red Bull Music Academy,


Despite its midweek timeslot, the event was a total sell out, and the early birds were fortunate to catch Tokimonsta and Nosaj Thing. The first lady of Brainfeeder gave a blistering opening set that belied her diminutive stature, while Nosaj Thing delivered a well-received set that borrowed heavily from his LP ‘Drift’.



Dimlite switched things up and tested the crowd with his contorted, off-kilter beats. A consistent rhythm eluded him; the crowd felt it too and as a result only a stable ending kept the night running on smooth ground. Compere Gaslamp Killer had no problems in whipping the audience into a frenzy, frantically spinning a wild collage of music that spread across the entire spectrum of dance music, but always maintaining a unrestrained edge.



Daedelus has always stood out as idiosyncratic within the confines of Brainfeeder’s sound; he eschews blunted hip-hop in favour of uptempo house and electronica fusions, and his captivating performance with his Monome provides an exciting continuum from his records.



This provided a fitting precursor to head honcho Flying Lotus’s set. Rooted in the dreamy, psychedelic records of his own, and complemented by various re-workings of existing songs, Steven Ellison’s face was a picture of verve and delight as he sprang between his laptop and drum programmer. The heaving dancefloor paid true testament to FlyLo’s fast-expanding popularity, and it is him who has the power to transcend the niche that him and his peers have carved.



Stones Throw associate J. Rocc made sure the punters didn’t stray too far with a head snapping set of hip-hop and various electronic offerings. Swiss producer Dorian Concept followed with an energetic display on his Micro Korg, his fiery synth work keeping drooping eyes at bay.




Kode9 and Martyn rounded off a memorable evening with a solid set of funky, 2-step and fresh Hyperdub plates.

It’s evident from this night that the Brainfeeder collective has the longevity and nous to survive in today’s swiftly moving climate, with a roster of artists diverse in their own way that will hopefully keep pushing each other to create ever more innovative beats. 



www.brainfeedersite.com
www.redbullmusicacademy.com

Thursday 18 March 2010

Ikonika


Riding on a crest of adulation and praise at the moment, Ikonika is fast proving herself to be a producer that is quickly realising her potential. A stack of successful 12"s and an ever-increasing DJ schedule has steadily built her profile, and I caught up her for an interview ahead of the release of "Contact, Love , Want, Have", which is hitting the shops 5 April.




Your roots aren’t electronically based, as you used to be in a hardcore band?

Yeah I used to play drums, I was in some bands at school, so I don’t really know too much about techno or house or early Warp stuff!

So you didn’t grow up with jungle then?

No, garage maybe, because my sisters used to listen to garage and R&B and hip-hop. Thats about it, so when people talk about me and the continuum, saying I’m not continuing, yeah it’s true (laughs).

How did you get into post-hardcore then, when your sisters were into garage and hip-hop?

I think because I started playing the drums, and obviously there’s not much live drums in hip hop, it’s very sample based so I was just kind of finding stuff I could play to and practice to and just make myself a better drummer. I was hanging out with guitarists in music rooms at school, listening to Nirvana, Hole, and kind of moving on to post-hardcore stuff like Glassjaw and Poison The Well.  Before was like nu metal, so I was a little grunger at school, but in my school everyone was friends. There wasn’t set groups and everyone would just hang out with each other. So it would be like the grungers hanging out with the R&B, urban kids etc.

So how did that move into dubstep then?

I started getting quite bored of hardcore, just cause everyone was trying to do the same thing, screaming lots, it became too technical. Like 'yeah lets see how many double bass pedals hits I can do, how long I can go on for', that was just me so I got kinda bored of it. Then I just kind of started to fall in love with hip-hop again, like J Dilla stuff, Madlib, Stones Throw stuff,  just getting back into it really, and then I just started making hip hop instrumentals. I thought I might be the next J Dilla.  But then I got bored with it again, and I guess around 2004/2005 [my friend] Malcolm introduced me to a Skream mix, so yeah I kinda fell in love with it, and I remember saying to him I can do this, let me try make something at 140 bpm, and yeah it sort of went from there.

So did you go to many raves when you were getting into it?

Yeah defintely, the first dubstep gig we went to was a Skull Disco night, with Shackleton, Appleblim, Kode9, Chef b2b Skream, and hearing Skream play 'Check It' on that system, that was just… I’d never heard a soundsystem before so I thought it was amazing.

Where was that at?

That was at the Red Star in Camberwell. Before that time I’d only ever been to R&B clubs and hip-hop clubs and it’d be like really plush and kind of fake glamour and really pretentious, so when I went to this night I was a bit confused!. Everyone was in their tracksuit bottoms and stuff, dressed how they wanted to, just being themselves and relaxed. They just wanted to hear some bass basically, that just really attracted me to it, and I just wanted to become a DJ and producer. I remember FWD in particular, we used to go FWD quite a lot, just being in Plastic People, just being in that club, the bass, you would just suck in this bass. It would be really hard to breathe and I’ve never experienced anything like it. Like Loefah playing 'Mud', stuff like that…..

I can imagine, with the early DMZ stuff…..

Yeah, just being totally crazy, meditating, nobody really moving, just closing their eyes and skanking. Of course we could smoke at that time, you know, obviously I miss smoking, I miss 2005! (laughs).

Did you go to the 5th birthday on Friday?

Yeah, we were there for a little bit, it was absolutely rammed. DMZ is usually rammed, but this just was crazy crazy, very ravey. Got to see Joy Orbison b2b Oneman which was really good, but yeah it was good just seeing everyone there who I haven’t seen for like ages. DMZ is always like, if you don’t go for the music you can just chat to people the whole night, and miss the DJs and just be the corridor talking.

Moving on, how did you get in contact with Kode9?

Through dubstep forum (laughs). I just pm’d him, actually no, the first time I e-mailed him and sent him 5 tracks, kind of weird wobble tracks, with really weird melodies, including a version of Phonelines, the first version of it, and he was like "I really like Phonelines but I feel your stuff is a bit too cluttered and there’s too many bad things going on, strip it down a bit". So I ignored him for a few months and then sent him 'Please' and he loved it and cut it. Then we were talking for ages on the internet and we still hadn’t met each other, we met at DMZ in fact so yeah, (laughs). Just asked me if I wanted…. Actually no I asked him if he wanted to release 'Please'.

How do you fell being a part of the Hyperdub roster, you’ve got so many artists like Zomby, Joker, who are pretty big in dubstep now?

When I got signed it was just Kode9, Burial, (turns to friend) did 'Skeng' come out then? No, there was a Quarta330 single that came out and the LV 'Globetrotting' 12”. So you know, being a big fan of Burial, being a big fan of Kode9, it just seemed a bit unreal in a way, cause it you know, (pauses) when I was making these tracks I was thinking "yeah I’m gonna get signed by the end of this year but I don’t know who with". I just thought it would be a 12” on some random up and coming label or something like that. It turned out Steve (Kode9) was into it, which was a little bit scary, we had to keep it a secret for a while, and then he posted up on the forum “I’m releasing 'Please'” and everyone was kinda shocked just because at that time everyone was getting kind of bored of wobble, like you could feel dubstep it was branching out. Like there’s Hyperdub stuff, or like there’s techno stuff or wobble stuff, so I didn’t really initially see myself on Hyperdub. But after I started thinking about it I was like "yeah ok, this could work, we have the same kind of values", and I think that’s really important.

Forward thinking music?

Yeah, I guess, just, confused music (laughs).

Anyway, what hardware did you start off with when your begun making beats?

I had nothing, I just had this shitty Toshiba laptop, plugged it into my Numark mixer and out of my Yamaha monitors. The monitors were the first things I ever bought, as soon as I had a little bit of money I bought these monitors. I made 'Please' on it, I made 'Millie' on it, made a little bit of the album on Fruity Loops, and then the beginning of this year I just changed everything - I bought an iMac. I just thought I needed to change, I needed to have a polished sound and I needed to spend some money. Now I’m using Logic, a little Phatty Moog and an Alesis Micron and that’s it, I don’t want anything else for the time being.

It surprises me that you didn’t use synthesizers for 'Please' or 'Millie'.

Basically I just used a simple bleep sample that just went (makes bleeping sound) and that’s it (laughs). I just tuned it, and mucked around with it. I still use that one sample for everything so I just put it in my keyboard, play around and muck around with filters and stuff.

What about DJing, do you enjoy it?

I love Djing. I think I like it a bit more than producing, just because I’m doing more of it and it’s at that point where it’s really exciting. I love playing around with the crowd, like testing them to see what they’re like, that kind of stuff. It’s definitely an experiment to me that I’m just fascinated by.

Where are your favourite places to play out then?

I don’t know. I could play anywhere. I could play in this pub right now and enjoy it.

Do you still collect vinyl at all?

Yeah, a little bit. I tend to buy old garage these days.

Not so much new releases then? But do you get all that sent to you?

Yeah (laughs). Most of it gets sent, like the new stuff, but I just want timeless pieces, I’m looking for pieces instead of tunes. I’ll just go out and buy Madonna vinyls or something like that.

You follow the general 140bpm blueprint of dubstep, but do you feel a part of it or around the fringes?

I’ve had that question asked to me a lot - I’ll give the same answer: sometimes. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, like sometimes I’ll make a track at 140bpm, but these days I’m making tracks at like 128, 135 just mucking around with it I guess. To me when I first heard dubstep, you had all these different producers doing these different things, like you had Coki doing one thing, Skream doing something, Kode9 doing something, Burial doing something, but all of these were dubstep. There was nothing wrong with calling it dubstep, but what I don’t understand these days is that I’m doing something that is still on the right bpm but  not considered dubstep because I don’t have one wobble sound. It frustrates me a little bit because when dubstep was emerging that wasn’t the case, and was never the case for me. So, yeah, what is dubstep I guess? People are getting it confused with wonky, funky, funkstep, future garage - it's all getting a bit confused right now.

It’s all kinda getting placed to one pot, when maybe it shouldn’t be.

Yeah. It’s hard to predict things as well, like you don’t want to say something wrong, but if people are happy to say I’m a key figure in post-dubstep then I guess I’m fine being a key figure in something.

What do you want people to gain from your music?

Just an understanding that the dancefloor doesn’t have to be one certain thing. When you’re dancing its ok for you to feel something. I just want the crowds to be a bit more intelligent on the dancefloor, be a bit more conscious. Not getting bored, just experiencing something new. If I’m flying somewhere, these promoters have flown me from the UK to their country, you know, I’m there to do something different, but album wise I want just as many people to listen to my music as possible. If that sounds too cliché then whatever, but I’m really happy with it. I made it for myself, and maybe Kode9 as well and that’s it, that’s the objective really.

Synths are a part of what characterizes your sound, which is popular in dubstep at the moment, particularly as a part of the whole “purple” thing with Joker, Gemmy and Guido. Do you think you have subcousciously made your less orthodox music as an alternative to that?

The thing about synths is that you can create any sound, not necessarily any sound you want, but you can just create any sound. I just like melodies and obviously synths are one way of expressing that. I don’t really know to be honest. I think with people like me, Joker, Guido and Gemmy, maybe Darkstar and Zomby, is we are all around the same age range, so we’ve obviously been brought up with the Megadrive and SNES, old Nintendo, so we’re familiar with those kind of sounds. But at the same we were probably listening to lots of R&B, a lot of American hip-hop, and also being from the UK listening to a lot of garage, pirate radio, so I think just all of that combined is the reason why a lot of synth based music is coming out.

Do you think video games have directly influenced your music?

I think subconsciously more than anything. LIke I said, just growing up being around my older sisters who would be raving and I’d be on my Megadrive. Obviously it will have something in you, pressing these buttons is kind of like making a beat at the same time, like you’re making a beat on the keyboard and computer. Just being brought up around computers is like seeing a change and I think seeing the internet grow has something to do with it.

What are your influences music wise, apart from post-hardcore?

Alot of R&B, stuff like Amerie, Total, Mary J Bilge, Brandy. Hip hop like J Dilla, Biggie, Nas and Madlib. With garage, I really like those silky, moody tunes that had really heartfelt vocals that still had thick drums and really deep sub bass. And Madonna as well.

What can we expect from the album?

It's just a continuation of what I’m doing, but its more of an introduction to people that don’t know me. It’s ikonika on a CD. It’s not a vinyl, it’s not a 12”, it’s not a single, it’s not 2 tracks, it’s 14 tracks, there’s a story behind it.

So you’re approaching it as a concept then?

A little bit, I wanted the songs to kind of fit next to each other and for each song to relate to one another. It’s madness but I think it’s joining the dots of everything that I’m into, being influenced by, and just how Ikonika is progressing and how I’m feeling right now. I think the title of the album kind of explains it a little bit better (laughs).

Your single The Idiot has rhythm similar to funky, is that gonna continue throughout the album?

Yeah a little bit. There is songs like 'Psoriasis' and 'Video Delays' that feel like funky, its just me being a bit more percussive, not being boring anymore. I’m just moving on, filling the gaps but having enough space at the same time. But funky has influenced me in the last year.

Who are you feeling on the funky scene at the moment?

Stuff like Lil Silva. Basically hard, edgy stuff, more grimey stuff like Apple as well, D Malice maybe.

Any collaborations on the album?
  
I was going to get Daryl Palumbo (of Glassjaw) but we couldn’t work out a deadline. He’s really busy with Glassjaw’s album and Head Automatica stuff. But hopefully in the future we can do something.

Any potential collaborations with anyone from Hyperdub, or dubstep in general?

Not planned, no, I think I’m quite hard to work with. Saying that me and FaltyDL did something not too long ago, that might come out but we’ll see (laughs).

Do you enjoy being by yourself in the studio then?

A little bit, for the time being until I can drain it and rinse it, I’m quite happy on my own for the time being.

What else can we expect from you next year?

I’ve got quite a big remix release schedule. Just had the Brown Acid remix come out, there’s gonna be a remix on Night Slugs, something I did for Egyptrixx. I did a Detachments remix, they’re from London, hopefully a These New Puritans one, might be an ep for Planet Mu, summertime maybe, still working on that, Jahcoozi remix, Cubic Zirconia one. I did a remix of 'Flex’d' by DJ Madd and an Illum Sphere remix. 


Tuesday 9 March 2010

Digital Mystikz - Return II Space


Big, big news for anyone with even a passing interest in Dubstep - news has emerged regarding the first EVER LP from demi-gods Digital Mystikz.

It's entitled "Return II Space" and will hit the shops in May, although no tracklisting has been released as of yet and it is unclear whether both Mala and Coki will feature. 

"Return II Space" marks the first release on DMZ since Coki's effort 'Triple Six/Road Rage' 12" in 2008, with Mala focusing his energies on Deep Medi and Loefah recently setting up his own imprint, Swamp 81.

Tuesday 2 March 2010

Guru


So underrated. Maybe his current plight will prick people's ears up.