Arkist – Never Forgotten

Label: Halocyan

Although Bristolian producer Arkist built quite a name for himself with the fizzing warmth of his 140bpm rollers, it’s been a couple of years since he’s released any standout material. The producer's best tracks have always tied authentic dance chops to likeable pop sensibilities, and now he’s taken to LA-based imprint Halocyan for his best release in years, bringing along a who’s-who of Bristol’s scene for the ride.

All of these tunes play with the skipping formula of garage, making each original cut a taut and propulsive affair. But Arkist has never been one to get too sombre, and on A-side Addict, a collaboration with Appleblim, a series of upbeat descending house chords cut a stark line through the syncopated percussion and boogie basslines. It’s a warm and effective opener, but the best this EP has to offer is nestled on the B-side. 

23 Summers

Arkist first comes up gold with 23 Summers, which could be seen as a follow-up to the producer’s classic Fill Your Coffee. It’s a big, generous helping of colourful synthwork, intoxicating vocal chops and huge bass bounces, guaranteed to bring out smiles in the crowd. These key elements are set in an intricate - but never dense - collage which pays out as much as it builds anticipation, thanks to the bubbling melody and the lush detail of the arrangement. For his final original piece, Iron Oxide, Arkist goes deeper, calling out to both breakbeat and his dubstep roots with a darkened stepper where only the echoes of that bright synthwork remains among the menacing bass throbs.

Remix duties are offered to another pair of Bristolians, the first being rising star Komon, who gives a housey rework of Addict. It’s an efficient track that adds a big 4/4 stomp and straightens out the synth work in the process, but it feels like it lacks the original’s flighty charm in the process. Dependable analog-fiend October offers a more impressive remix of 23 Summers, the original’s dayglo appeal swapped for a jackin’ mashup of acid stabs, ghostly vocal loops and an industrial-sized kick. It’s a healthy-sized package from Arkist with a few real standouts, hinting that the producer’s best work may still be ahead of him.

7/10

Kowton v Dusk – Kowton v Dusk EP

Label: Keysound

 

Fraction

Looking At You

For the latest in a long running series of worthy collaborations between the UK dance hubs of London and Bristol, here Kowton marks his Keysound debut alongside joint label-head Dusk, who steps away from production partner and Rinse co-DJ Blackdown here for his first solo release. Each offers an on-point dissection of the UK’s current dance climate, with notable references to Dubstep, Garage and UK Funky across the course of the release.

Dusk’s cut Fraction shows him gunning full-throttle for menacing 2step vibes, with lightning-fast toms and an unstable bass wobble contrasting perfectly with eerie synth atmospherics. The tune sets up a great sound early on and holds it without any radical variation, but a tension-building synth pattern in the breakdown and the iridescent melody that follows it is more than enough to make this tune a success that could sit perfectly next to the productions of label-mate Sully or Breach. On the remix, Kowton ramps up the tension with a long atmospheric intro and creepy samples of children’s laughter, reinterpreting the tune as slow, skittish House to great effect.

Whichever way you look at it, the real standout here is Kowton’s contribution, Looking At You. Touching on UK Funky vibes and a fantastic Garage-style vocal line cut up and spread across the track. The beats are comprised of tight, skipping clicks and a harsh metallic clank, but what really draws you in here is the soft synths that compose the core of the track, shifting notes with precision and adding the finishing touch to the understated groove. Keysound had a great 2011 with fantastic releases by LV, Sully and Damu to name a few, and if this is a mission statement for 2012 then I’m very excited about what the future holds.

7/10

Martyn – Ghost People

Whole album stream

I’ve always had a soft spot for Dutch producer Martyn. From his DnB beginnings to his phenomenal dubstep-inflected debut album Great Lengths, his releases have always been everything I look for in a dance producer: subtle, daring, and beautifully crafted. This second album is seeing release on FlyLo’s Brainfeeder label, and it’s no surprise: Martyn and the LA beat experimentalist go back a long way, supporting each other live and remixing each other’s tracks. Although the material spread across this varied and exciting LP can’t exactly be called ‘experimental’ in line with a lot of the beatsmith crowd, it is a hypnotic and open-ended dance experience in exactly the same way as Brainfeeder classic Los Angeles. Even though I set the bar high in anticipating this LP, Martyn has proven himself once more head and shoulders ahead of the majority of the dance crowd, and Ghost People is packed with really skilful compositions that are never too showy but always bursting with great ideas. Almost every track is great and provides a new take on an existing genre, and each is a joy to listen to.

It will become clear immediately that in contrast to his “very personal” debut, this is a much more club-centric approach, yet it all works fantastically; there is something utterly unique about every track here. The LP kicks off with Hyperdub’s resident poet Spaceape trading in the usual dark futurism over Martyn’s arpeggiating synths and scifi sounds, but it’s a rare slow moment on an album of dance tracks that seems to be designed to cater for every taste possible without losing any sense of coherence. The opener switches into serrated lead single Viper, in which dark textures weave themselves around the propulsive central loop. It’s a strong mission statement, and as the album continues the listener can only become more and more impressed. We’re fed straight into third cut and definite highlight Masks, in which a bouncing 4/4 beat is courted by abrasive textures of gorgeous subtlety, almost challenging the listener to disentangle the layers woven together so fluidly. Quite apart from this, the track is a massive dance tune in its own right, building up the snares and claps to an infectious treated synth line and a fantastically detailed soundfield that mutates and changes to always keep you delighted and on your toes. There's so much to uncover here, for example listen out for the stretched effect that threatens to overpower the track with electronic fuzz before disappearing to let the smooth beats regain ground.

One of the clear successes of this LP is that it should appeal just as much to home listeners as it does to DJs and the club crowd. For the dancers there’s the tracks discussed earlier but also the Lone-style sunny synths of excellent title track Ghost People, the heavy and paranoid mutations of Horror Vacui, the gritty 2step of Popgun and the shimmering arpeggios of Bauplan; all of which would sound excellent on the dancefloor. But at the same time those who listen on their headphones in the dark will love the submerged echoes of Ghost People that rear their head in ambient interlude I Saw You At Tule Lake, the ghostly samples that swirl through the misty synths of Twice As, and the shifting melodic wash that underpins Distortions, never once letting the track settle. Every noise here is treated to sound like a part of Martyn’s whole; and the constantly shifting synths and beats throughout the LP show a pragmatic sensibility of what’s going to get people moving combined with a loving knack for detail, a fusion which produces results that are simply stunning.

Martyn reaches out towards so many styles here; house, techno, garage, bass; and not only does he nail each one but he creates a sound which feels like it’s coming from a future where every tune is a polished and lovingly crafted piece of audio perfection. That’s how we wind up at closer We Are You In The Future, an absolutely epic closer in which rising ravey synth melodies vie for importance with constantly shifting beats, acid basslines and breathtaking breakdowns. In its 9 minute runtime it also runs through all the styles, tones and sounds found throughout the album, forming a perfect closer by briefly recapping the sounds he’s introduced us to whilst containing them all in one mammoth track. This one tune encompasses everything that Martyn is about: taking a staggeringly wide breadth of influences and using them to create a sound that overflows with ideas but is decidedly subtle and detailed, while always entirely embodying that ‘Martyn sound’.

There’s so much more to be said about these tracks, from discussing the intricacies of his beat programming to the squeak and groan sampled from a James Brown track (find it for yourself). This LP is a fantastic collection of dancefloor stunners with an incredibly strong sense of tone and refinement, and it’s a joy to lose yourself ever further in his sound. He has said that he wishes to “be known as someone who always surprises”, and with Ghost People he’s certainly surprised me, producing a superior follow-up to an excellent debut that is always on-point, and the result is that with this LP Martyn issues a bold and exciting statement from one of the most important voices in today’s dance scene.

8.5/10

Djrum – Mountains EP

Undercoat

Mountains Pt.1

Turiya

I have to admit that I hadn’t heard about Djrum before seeing this new release, but he’s certainly on my radar now. His potently atmospheric 2step creations vaguely recall Synkro and Indigo in their cinematic aspirations, but this is clearly a producer with his own sound and ideas, and here they are showcased beautifully.

Opener Undercoat unravels slowly and dramatically, taking its time to unfold the layers before a dark, lurching beat is laid down under a repeated, half-heard vocal line that powerfully adds to the atmosphere. The track settles into a dusty groove, a dubby vista punctuated by lost voices and slick beats. In fact, all four of these tracks take the form of dreamy and cinematic 2step landscapes. The dreamy quality is reinforced by perfectly implemented ghostly vocals, desolate echoes and twisted samples; notably 30-second snatch of an old reggae track at the end of the opener followed by breathing noises; conjuring the feeling of awakening from a dream. The cinematic quality can be put down to his synth-eschewing sample approach, creating an aged feel but also the presence of symphonic sounds more at home in neo-classical than dance. What’s most remarkable is that this all forms a coherent sound, with all four tracks mining their own territory with style and heavy-hitting emotive impact.

The three-part title track demonstrates Djrum’s ability to bring sounds and techniques from a wide variety of genres and incorporate them seamlessly into his own dark, filmic sound. Mountains Pt.1 is a pacey and brooding techno number, a steady 4/4 beat is briefly silenced by deeply evocative strings and desolate vocals. Pts 2 & 3 are even better, picking up just where the swooping strings of the first left off. Here the sound is fuller, less sparse, picking up pace over a mutating and sometimes-submerged beat. Weighed down by its own pace, the second half of the track is a painful and emotive ambient epilogue, with only a hint of a beat that is eventually choked out by seesawing string samples and resonant vocal echoes. After the building tension and isolation of these three tracks, final cut and potential dancefloor number Turiya is a beautiful release, where Djrum tailors his subtle and evocative sounds into a gorgeous bassy number.

The whole EP has a beautifully aged quality, and although the ghostly sounds recall Burial, there is a much tighter focus on atmosphere across these tracks. The EP straddles home-listening atmospherics with a dance-centric host of influences (hip hop, techno, bass music, and of course dubstep) to fantastic effect, creating a sound that isn’t groundbreaking but is wonderfully distinctive and exhilarating. I can’t wait to see what he comes out with next, because more in either the ambient-focused direction of the title tracks or the dancier opening and closing numbers would be very exciting indeed.

8/10

Sully – Carrier

2 Hearts

Encona

Trust

A dance LP is a curious thing to create, and you tend to have to make one of two decisions in order to come up with something good. Either make it clear that what you’re releasing is a collection of dance tunes, along the lines of Altered Natives and his Tenement Yard collections, or turn those dance tracks into something more artful, with careful sequencing and an emotional arc, like Zomby or Machinedrum’s releases from this year. Sully’s debut LP suffers for not picking sides; there are some brilliant tracks here but it is not really presented as a collection, and although there is a loose sense of progression from beginning to end, it doesn’t quite describe the vague narrative arc an album tends to paint.  

The sense of progression comes from the simple fact that the LP is essentially cut halfway down the middle. The first few tracks hark back to Sully’s most recent (excellent) single, The Loot, mining dark 2-step territories and verging on early dubstep sounds. Opener It’s Your Love sets the tone as a brooding end of the night piece, demonstrating Sully’s tight production skills and keen ear for including sparse atmospheric details. The thing that really saves this release is that a lot of the tracks are great stand-alone tunes, and second track 2 Hearts is one of the best. Throughout each cut he combines a sparse selection of sounds perfectly, and here a great drum track gives way to a paranoid, rising synth line and an echoing vocal scream that cuts right through you. He continues the variations on a 2-step theme with In Some Pattern, which came out a while ago as the B-side to his last single, in which colourful laser synths pierce the darkness to create a choppy, digital propulsion that works well but feels a little weak compared to the last couple of tracks. Encona is the last one in this mould, in which Sully evokes an old-school garage feel by going crazy on the effects.

After this the second half of the album begins proper, in which Sully brings in heavy footwork influences, smoothing them out and imbuing them with his dark, distinctive sound. Each of these pieces brings interesting and varied aspects to the mould, but inevitably some are more successful than others. Let You is a spare track with a fantastic vocal sample and booming bass, bringing together all the elements fluently and with admirably precise micro-edits throughout. Scram is another great track, with a creeping chord sequence and dark field of percussion. Trust is where Sully really hits the mark in his fusion of footwork and 2-step styles, with a rich and varied field of microscopic percussive and vocal edits that goes down so smooth, with a real tinge of melancholy to the sound. Other tracks don’t quite hit the mark so squarely; I Know is okay but brings nothing new to the table, while piano-based footwork ballad Bonafide is a really interesting idea that never quite emotes enough to pull on the heartstrings.

Sully is one of the UK’s most distinctive and skilful producers around at the moment, and so many of these tracks are great that it seems a shame so little attention was played to ensuring the LP can be listened through like an album, because most of the tracks seem to sound stronger and more varied when played in isolation from the others. If you’re looking for a full-length electronic album to lose yourself in, this might not be your first choice. But if you want to get your finger on the pulse of the UK dance scene or are looking for a few great tracks for a digital mix, you’ll find more than enough in Carrier.

7.5/10