January
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News / drum and bass
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1 min read
Basstripper - Questions
Read more . . . →Why does jump-up drum and bass get treated as the genre’s junk food when a tune like Questions is this much fun? Basstripper works the bouncy, dancefloor end of DnB, and Questions is him doing it with a grin you can hear. The bass is springy and almost cartoonish in the way the best jump-up is, a sound built for people to pull faces at rather than nod along politely. It wastes no time getting where it is going, and getting there fast is most of the appeal. There is a vocal snippet chopped into the breakdown that sets up...
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1 min read
Dawn Wall - Moscow Drive
Read more . . . →Threw this on while cooking and nearly let dinner burn, standing dead still in the middle of the kitchen. Moscow Drive is the melodic, rolling end of drum and bass, the stuff that moves fast and somehow still feels wide open rather than frantic. Dawn Wall have a real knack for this, writing DnB that keeps the genre’s forward energy while leaving actual room to breathe, pads and a proper chord progression sitting under drums that never stop rolling. It has that specific quality of good driving music even though the title already hands you the game, the sensation of...
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1 min read
Blooom & Duskee - LOCKDOWN
Read more . . . →If you have followed UK drum and bass for any length of time you already know Duskee’s voice, that unmistakable bark that has been cutting through tracks for years, and LOCKDOWN is a reminder of why producers keep calling him back. Blooom handles the production and keeps it tight and modern, drums snapping hard underneath a bassline that stays mean without ever tipping into cartoon jump-up. Duskee is the reason the whole thing lands though. His delivery carries the urgency the title promises, half warning and half invitation, dragging the track up a level it would not reach on the...
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1 min read
Lateral - On Fire
Read more . . . →The breakdown at 1:48 is the best thing here: everything drops to a single reverbed vocal and a sub that hums like a fridge in an empty flat, and for about eight bars On Fire is genuinely tense. Then the drop lands and it is fine. That is the honest verdict. Lateral can obviously build a moment, but this one spends its good idea early and coasts the back half on a bassline I have heard a hundred times on Viper this year. It is competent dancefloor DnB that will do real damage in a set and then evaporate by...
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1 min read
Benny L - Revenge
Read more . . . →Benny L does not make subtle records and Revenge is not where he suddenly started trying. This is roller DnB with the gain shoved deep into the red, the kind of tune built to detonate a sweaty room at 2am instead of soundtracking anyone’s commute. He has been one of the most dependable names in heavy drum and bass for years now, the producer you book when you need a floor to lose its mind on cue, and this is him doing precisely that with zero apology attached. The bassline is ignorant in the best British sense of that word,...
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1 min read
Arcando & IRAH - Killer Instinct
Read more . . . →Did not have Arcando making a drum and bass track this ferocious anywhere on my list for the week, and yet here we are. Killer Instinct teams him with IRAH on the vocal, and the pairing works because neither of them bothers playing it safe. Arcando came up in the melodic, future-bass-leaning corner of the internet, the sort of producer whose early stuff soundtracked a thousand upload intros, so hearing him push into fast, aggressive DnB is a real turn. IRAH’s topline gives it a human center, an actual hook to hold before the drums take over and start sprinting....
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1 min read
Levity - Slipping Away (feat. K Flay)
Read more . . . →How did Levity get K Flay onto a drum and bass record, and why does it work this well? Slipping Away is the kind of collaboration that reads like a label fever dream on paper, a UK bass producer and an American alt-rock singer with a voice like a lit cigarette, and the match turns out better than it has any business being. K Flay does not soften herself for the dancefloor. She brings the same flat, bruised delivery she uses on her own records and lets the production build the drama around her, which is exactly the correct instinct....
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1 min read
Arcando & IRAH - Killer Instinct
Read more . . . →Got in from a soaked bus ride, put this on to dry off, and it did the opposite of calming me down. Arcando is one of those Dutch producers who treats drum and bass like it should still feel dangerous, and Killer Instinct earns the title without resorting to the usual jump-up clown horns. IRAH’s vocal rides high and a little desperate over the top, the kind of topline that would sit fine on a pop record until the low end arrives and reminds you what room you walked into. The bassline has a rubbery Rotterdam weight to it, rolling...
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1 min read
goddard. - Lillies (ft. Jazmine Johnson)
goddard. teams up with Jazmine Johnson on Lillies, liquid DnB that goes down like warm honey. Dangerously easy to replay all afternoon.Read more . . . →Get the tee →Support the blogWhat if your laundry was also a personality? -
1 min read
Cartoon & Artino - Ultraviolet
Cartoon and Artino's Ultraviolet is melodic DnB that glows. Bright, fast, and a little emotional. We were not prepared. Play it loud.Read more . . . →Get the tee →Support the blogShips in 3–5 days. The outrage ships immediately.
