January
Chrome Daydream
Chrome stars, jelly hearts and holographic colour. A nod to the glossy, optimistic graphics of the early web.
News / drum and bass
-
1 min read
Freaks & Geeks - Free Your Mind
Read more . . . →How did a duo best known for a decade of grimy trap end up making one of the more weightless drum and bass tracks I have heard all month? Free Your Mind is Freaks & Geeks stepping sideways out of the lane that built their name and into something that runs at full dnb tempo yet feels strangely serene. The drums rattle along at the genre’s usual breakneck pace while everything stacked above them stays oddly calm, a looped vocal about freeing your mind, pads that just hang in the air, a bassline that rolls along rather than snarling. That...
Subscribe →Weekly digestOne email per week with the tracks worth your time. No spam, no Coldplay. -
1 min read
Submorphics - Archive Dust
Read more . . . →You already know whether liquid drum and bass is your thing, so let me just tell you this is a very good one. Archive Dust is Submorphics working the warm, musical end of the genre, the stuff that sounds like someone sampled a jazz record off dusty vinyl and then handed it to a breakbeat. The drums roll instead of batter, brushed and rounded off at the edges, and there’s a Rhodes-ish chord progression underneath that could carry the track on its own with the drums muted. What keeps it from sliding into coffee-shop wallpaper is the bassline, which hides...
Subscribe →Weekly digestSundays. One email. Zero ballads from white guys in beanies. -
1 min read
Kanine & HEIGHTS - Reflections
One sustained note from HEIGHTS tells you how big Kanine's Reflections wants to be before a single drum lands. Drum and bass that aims for the rafters.Read more . . . →Subscribe →Weekly digestWhat you missed this week, minus the corporate emo. -
1 min read
Netsky & Hannah Boleyn - Feel Again
Netsky in full radio-liquid mode with Hannah Boleyn on Feel Again. Uplifting chords, big clean top end. I go back and forth on these depending on the hour.Read more . . . →Get the tee →Support the blogSome shirts are statements. This one is a verdict. -
1 min read
Nu:Logic - Ukiyo (ft. Thavy Ear)
Read more . . . →Nobody in liquid drum and bass makes weightlessness sound this effortless. Nu:Logic have been doing it for years, and Ukiyo is another gorgeous entry in the file. The brothers behind the project build drum and bass that sounds hand-played, every hi-hat sitting a hair off the grid, warm Rhodes-style chords and a bassline that rolls so smoothly you forget how fast the drums under it are actually moving. Thavy Ear’s vocal sits in the mix like one more instrument, airy and unhurried, the words themselves less the point than the texture of the voice. The title is the Japanese idea...
Get the tee →Support the blogMade for people who left the room during Yellow. -
1 min read
Burr Oak, Pythius & REEBZ - Black Tears
Read more . . . →This genuinely startled me the first time the bass hit, which does not happen much anymore. Black Tears is three producers who mostly live at the heavier, darker end of drum and bass pooling their worst instincts into one track, and the result is enormous. Pythius has spent years building some of the most physically unpleasant basslines in the genre, the kind that sound less like notes than like structural damage, and here he’s got two accomplices egging him on. The intro fakes you out with something almost pretty, a hollow vocal and a slow pad, before the floor gives...
Get the tee →Support the blogIf you wear this and someone hugs you, that's a real friend. -
1 min read
Boxplot - Constant Spring
Boxplot's Constant Spring bounces more than it weighs, and it makes the case for liquid DnB without any big-name co-sign. Why is this guy a secret?Read more . . . →Get the tee →Support the blogLooks like Helvetica. Sounds like a closing argument. -
1 min read
TESSERACTS - AIRBORNE
TESSERACTS made AIRBORNE earn its name: taxiing intro, then the drop yanks the nose up. Two days wrecking my playlist. Widescreen DnB gets slept on.Read more . . . →Get the tee →Support the blogThree words. One opinion. Cotton. -
1 min read
QZB - Diamonds (ft. Sydney Bryce)
QZB stopped me mid-cleaning, sponge in hand. Sydney Bryce's grainy vocal sits on heavy breaks and sells the ache without any festival cheese.Read more . . . →Get the tee →Support the blogWhat if your laundry was also a personality? -
1 min read
Mefjus & Annix - Genesis
Mefjus and Annix deliver a snare like a slammed metal door, then the bass undoes all the politeness. Neurofunk aimed straight at your sternum.Read more . . . →Get the tee →Support the blogShips in 3–5 days. The outrage ships immediately.
