Looking for deep intelligent drum and bass with an old school flavour?

Soul Science – Low Key / Power Supply – is out today through Ambra Recordings – get it on beatport! I couldn’t work out how to embed the tunes from beatport

Soulscience – Power Supply/Lowkey (AMBRA003) Release Date 28/07/2011 by Ambra Recordings

Soulscience – Lowkey (AMBRA003) by Ambra Recordings

On a sunday night you wouldn’t think much is happening.

She’s telling me she’s got this other guy going, well I didn’t think I’d care. Across town the gig is about to begin. Skinny slit windows peer out across the city, I sip my beer waiting for another night to begin.

I try to serve as a good example to not ever get involved with making drum and bass. You can ruin your life. There’s perfectly charming things you can do with your life other than make drum and bass music and play it some club. You could say it’s dangerous, but that’s because everything’s dangerous. Life’s dangerous. So try to keep it discreet. As I used to say on the road “Play discreetly, my lord.”

Don’t worry, it’s a private joke.

People make their paths through the night toward their destiny. It’s a big town, it’s a big city, you never quite know what’s going on, behind the walls and through the doors and I suppose it’s for the best. God knows what she’s doing tonight, what she’s doing right now. The crowd is drifting in from the streets slowly. It was just a sunday night but who needs an excuse?

People have got to do what they have to and unfortunately for me, that means making drum and bass and everything that comes along with it.

In Low Key, the instruments don’t really compete, they all take turns and it turns into a structured journey. A lot of the songs are going there into deep narratives.

“Low Key” I identify as a calibre tribute, I wasn’t trying to sound like calibre, otherwise the guitar wouldn’t be so prominent, but I brought a lot of musty, deep vibes over from the era where he was really starting to kick off, more organic grooving breaks, and I really recognised his bold use of sounds, often cold kind of alien techno sounds stabbing over the warm strings and bass vibes. I don’t really use sound boldly that way except for in “Kings” and “Polyps”, but this is a track that has a conscious Calibre influence, any way.

Haha I’m trolling my own music career. Yeah sorry, don’t worry I’ll tell you later.

Anyway power supply. Definitely suspected of a sad lonesome cowboy involved there but it’s also pretty hazy. There are political overtones to the power supply but they’re not just overt. Mainly it’s about the kinds of things you can’t do without power, without energy, without fuel, so it’s about burning out, cold, empty, wrecked and decaying shells that disintegrate and fade.

That’s where Power supply kind of gets lost in a hazy, dreamy space – where the power can’t flow to make things function properly so you get this lurid wheezing fuzz where you’re drifting into abstraction.

As I said it’s not about a struggle over power, because without the power supply you can’t access data or perform functions.

AMBRA RECORDINGS 003

Continuing the global search for soul-hugging drumnbass, Ambra takes you on a trip to New Zealand, presenting the mystic tribal flavours of rising production duo Soulscience. There’s no mistaking the influence of the pacific ocean in the background of these blissful rollers, so open your mind and shut your eyes…

Pick up the
Operation Restore album from Wellington’s Empathy Recordings – all proceeds go to Christchurch Earthquake release, 18 tunes – dubstep, drum and bass and more for around about $17 I think. More casual thoughts on this below

OMG I got so drunk last night.

I think I was sick of hearing that phrase by the time I was 17.

But I was playing at the UPfm party for beat dungeon, because I was playing so early and I didn’t really know how it would play, I figured I would just go home early and kick back, probably record a short mix of local NZ drum and bass, as because it was a beat dungeon thing I’m really getting stuck in to holding our 100% NZ quota and really becoming the 100% NZ beats show in Upfm.

But first it was free champagne which was quite delicious, and then I got stuck in to the Beck’s that were put out for the DJ’s. I was already getting squiffy and going on about how it is the opening DJ’s duty to drink the rider. Ill behaviour ensued.

I honestly didn’t really think about what I was doing until I was plastered, and by that time I was already causing havoc, having a ball and because I was so drunk just flouncing about the place talking to lots of girls, lot’s of DJ’s, bigging up all the crew and one of the DJ’s dropped some James Blake and I must say I thought it was pretty good.

I got so drunk it took me ages to sober up. At one point I was quite animatedly venting my frustration that I spend a maximum of about a working day a week doing tunes, and it’s not enough. 2 hours a day at least I need. Up until now I never had that time, but now I have to nail it. Frickin triangle, not opening and stuff!

But it was a great party and a great set up in the Studio on K rd with 5 zones so big up to the UPfm fam. Me and Disha @ Beat Dungeon have been looking for ways to up the ante in a time efficient way because I can’t really make much more time for other projects outside making beats and youtube videos. But 1st we wanted to establish a point of difference and in order to be the NZ music show on upfm and that to be the flag we wave. It doesn’t really suit me because I want to play my favourite party liquid funk and drum and bass but to be doing something unique, somebody has to push the local sound. Plenty of young guys playing drum and bass and I’ll keep playing my favourite bangers in the club.

SO my job is basically to build of stockpiles of local product and good supply lines – I think first, the music has to be good and that’s an achievable goal, it just means following up all over the show to get the tunes.

This is my new favourite, this miniature horse.

This horse is a lot better than a lot of things I can think of.

But I had to post about this compilation too, from Empathy before it got too far off the release so we can actually get to talk about something other than me for once, and what horses I like and getting horsed at gigs, and actually talk about something going on with some beats.

I picked up this Operation Rescue . . . whoops Operation Restore compilation from empathy recordings you can pick it up from Juno Download here:

Operation Restore

I really like Ollie Bassweight’s tune “Float” and also Black Planet’s “Relief” those are the two tunes I’ve kept coming back to, both on deeper nu skool dub tip.

There was talk of us putting a song from Soul Science on there and we didn’t really think about it and we ended up putting up “Gonna Getcha” because I didn’t want to put up anything new that wasn’t finished, “Gonna Getcha” is a good tune but it’s old and needs a rehaul, good vibe, details, but it’s too messy, so it wasn’t really suitable.

To me, I appreciated the importance of having tunes in the vault, a couple of tunes that are finished and can be deployed at any time . . . on request. A couple of torpedo’s locked in the frickin tubes. But old mother hubbard was shit out of luck when she knocked on Soul Science’s door.

No point putting out anything when you know you can do better.

Oh and this Eavesdrop release from Empathy is also excellent if you’re looking good musical drum and bass. I was especially into it because his mix was really nice, his musical ideas were challenging, but much like our stuff . . . it still wasn’t quite massive, his stuff is excellent but he’s not nipping at the heels of shapeshifter and state of mind yet . . . but this is just the first EP! 10, 20 tunes down the line this guy could be dangerous.

Wow sounding really nice here, I especially like the Lifetime remix by Logistics and The Camo and Krooked thing as well – really nice deep elements coming in.

Quite inspiring really as I haven’t found a lot of liquid decent drum and bass coming out in the last little while and some of these tunes have some really nice deep subtleties, but I think I said that didn’t I.

Sometimes lots of crappy tunes coming out inspires you to do better, sometimes good tunes coming out inspire you to try and match these efforts.

It’s interesting how Upbeats have added a VIP mix that sounds even solider than their last remix of “Twin Galaxies” – it makes you realise how much tunes can be improved when they’re rested and revisited, even by those who are masters of the full process.

Painted Smile is an absolutely gorgeous deep Piano tune but this new one that’s just gone up “Cold Kiss” is also very very good and worth a spin.

http://soundcloud.com/metalheadz/commix-painted-smile-metalheadz

http://soundcloud.com/metalheadz/commix-cold-kiss-ft-logistics-dub

also for a jazzier sample driven early alix perez type thing check out the remix of Avalanches “Tonight” very very sweet all free downloads right now!

http://soundcloud.com/commix/avalanches-tonight-commix-remix

Oh man, had a heavy night at Spectrasoul. I was a lit dude, I was gone.

I enjoyed it but you kind of expect that. I was a bit analytical and kept on sort of getting into my head about what I was hearing.

It was a search for knowledge, except maybe not so wanky.

I could definitely see what it was about for me and that was elements of soul that were super minimized and bite sized into a subtle little package.

It was a fun night and I was well on my pony, I thought the spectrasoul DJ veered between brilliance and some mixing that was pretty mediocre but he definitely held it together through a good few 4-5 song patches even with the more boring techier tunes, and there was some memorabledeeper dubs.

There was one big tune that sounded really bad and really stood out as not being on the spectrasoul tip because the snare was just muck.

There was more tech and less minimal than I expected but there was definitely 1 or 2 minimal tracks that excited the crowd. For me I felt the progressive and minimal soul inflectionsin the D’n B stuff, that side of spectrasoul.

I kept on asking him to play “shades of blue”. He kept saying it was “Old”. Hmmph. Haha. In the end he actually jumped back on after we made a racket and I just sort of thought . . .

Man any DJ over 25 would be heading back to the hotel at that point . . .

Dudes at the show didn’t know who was putting on the gig, I talked to the spectrasoul DJ afterwards because well as I mentioned I was feeling groovy. I think I told him several times that commix had a big clusterfuck waiting for them afterwards, why not him?

Too underground? Who were these promoters? *shrug*

I think I was trying to be positive. Haha yeah.

All I knew was D-Jade from Queenstown. As I said I didn’t get as much information as I should of but I was feeling pretty good. Probably way too friendly too a great many people, I think I was a bit obnoxious here and there but I was having fun, so hey.

Oh man so I had the cleaners around here today it was a bit of a shock, as I said on twitter, upward mobility is fraught with difficulty. Y’know it’s a drag, and y’know I don’t want it to be a big deal, i just want someone else to clean my house.

I’m sure the weirdness of it will wear off.

Business is still going well, I just wrote a silly blog post about sexting leaks because, y’know, whatever. It was directionless, but it was creative at least.

Wish I could flow a bit more. That post seemed funny and crazy, while everything here seems so depressing because it’s all real life, meaningful crap. Sheesh.

Still working on a Soul Science mixtape for summer, it’s coming along.

some of the less complex tunes are starting to shine with production, while I’m still trying not to get too distracted by minimal vibes. New directions sure; Fads, not so much.

So yeah. Downloaded ASC and Instra:mental mixes to check, maybe I’ll post reviews if I get a chance, prove I can blog about something else here than my melancholy struggles blub blub.

Definitely time to get moving again on the drum’n bass business!

Been focused on building my business kurb promotions for a while now because let’s face it, the world is a better place when you’ve got money in the bank and you’re free to explore your passions and romantech notions at your leisure.

Maybe I’m getting older but I just don’t see the point in being a broke ass guy, it’s all good to have passion, but it’s also important to have wisdom in the game so you’re in it for the long run if you’re in it for real at all!

So what you need to know for now is that gigs coming up include Snapshot, our legendary free drum’n bass sunday, this labour weekend going doen at fu bar on Wolfe St, Auckland on Sunday 26th of October!

There you got Funkshun, Mash Up Mafia, Myself and Control plus Zpac, Jacey, Paul G and more guests, and like I said. Free!

On the following Thursday courtesy of the Mash Up Mafia, you got Danny Byrd – legend and devastatingly funky hard liquid assasin – teamed up with newcomers the Brookes Brothers which is set to be a mad night of futuristic funk and hard edged nu soul again, for free at the Carpark, Oct 30. I’m not on the bill but I won’t be missing a big night like this.
My new mixtape, “Gentleman Caller” is actually in the can, but I got no photo and presntation for it, and I’m also trying to pin down the best place to host it.

Meantimes you can still check out http://beatdungeonradio.blogspot.com for weekly shows from myself and NSU featuring heaps of new zealand beats and electronica, classic dance anthems, freaky business, looseness and tight ass liquid in the mix from myself.
So I’ve actually been killing it in the studio rocking out new Soul Science colabs with Control, that are pretty much exclusively under wraps as we level up to a bigger new sound.

We’re also working with guys at Touch Tone Drum and Bass who are going to be repping some of these new tunes, head a long to their site to check out some of the stuff they’ve got on release, look for Halflite on one of the more dubwise cuts for my pick.

But yeah – It’s just a little bit frustrating not being able to show off your new tunes, and pimp them out everywhere, but that’s part of getting more proffesional on it and issuing new goodies in a sensible way that decent tunage deserves.

Back soon!

Big tips on the tunes are definitely Donnie Dubson’s “Anti depressing . . .” EP and look for MC Tali back on the DJ SS Remix of “Blue Magic”, aswell as Submorphics + Lensman teaming up on “Way Back When”.

Trying to get into the habit of reviewing my weekly beatport purchases. Obviously didn’t buy all this this week just a general idea of artists I been picking up on this year.

- Earth officially moving -

Following “Her Song” Random Movement looks like he settling in at the top table.

Quiet drums not much fun to mix but!

Spectrasoul have a distinct sound, bass driven and dubby down under, but with rich soulful flourishes and accents. They have a new one “Alibi/Dark Hour”

Stunna has had a hand in “Together” “Degreez of Fortune” and “A life like this” which all had different but solid vibes on it. This guy could come up.

Zero T. Nuff said.

Thrashing Metrik still – liquid is back at 2am!!!