September Roundup 2012

Fact: September has been easily the biggest, best month of dance releases we’ve had all year.

Fact: White Noise has collected the vast majority of them together in a Youtube playlist, for your listening pleasure.

Enjoy.

Tracklist:

Trimbal – Confidence Boost (Harmonimix)

Maddslinky – Compuphonic

Tom Demac – Critical Distance Pt. 2

Dusk + Blackdown – Dasaflex

Bicep – Vision of Love

Krystal Klear – More Attention feat Jenna G

Last Magpie – (Who Knows) Where Love Goes

Bondax – Baby I Got That

T. Williams – Think Of You

Andrew Ashong –Flowers

A Thousand Years – Flying High

Illum Sphere – h808er

Fis – DMT Usher

Recondite – DRGN

Downliners Sekt – Trim / Tab (part one)

The xx – Chained

And a lot of these tracks are included in our resident DJ Moth’s September mix, check it here:

Dusk + Blackdown – Dasaflex

Label: Keysound

It’s surprising, given how long Dusk (Dan Frampton) and Blackdown (excellent UK dance chronicler Martin Clark) have been involved in the UK dance scene that their joint output has come thus far to just over a single LP. Admittedly the pair have had a lot on their plates; Blackdown writes eloquently on the contemporary dance scene while the pair also run the excellent Keysound label, home to superb recent LPs courtesy of LHF, Sully and Damu. Their debut, Margins Music, proved a conceptual and innovative dissection of the dance scene circa 2008, and with Dasaflex the pair appear to cast a similar net. Here they once more offer an impressively varied assessment of current trends, but unlike on their debut the duo seem to hesitate to push its boundaries.

High Road

Dasaflex starts strong and mostly continues that way but offers few surprises. After the spacious and atmospheric opener Lonely Moon (Android Heartbreak), the pair begin to hop between clearly delineated genres fluently and proficiently but all too often fail to offer anything that feels that new. As a result, the tunes that sound a little different are, unsurprisingly, the best. The singular standout High Road, most likely a Burial collaboration (have you heard those beats) showcases canned 2step beats that flex under deep atmospherics and an inspired 4-note melodic progression that stylishly dominates the latter half of the track. Elsewhere the pair are most on form at their most experimental; the wonderfully weird R In Zero G is a Blackdown solo piece that combines rapid percussive twitches with mind-fraying melodic interruptions, while Dusk’s closer Fraction, which calls to mind Keysound labelmate Double Helix of LHF, is all noir synths and breakneck garage rhythms that get the pulse racing.

Dasaflex

That’s not to say that all the less experimental tracks on here are bad, either. Specifically title track Dasaflex is a powerful slab of UK Funky, replete with bouncing beats and a wandering bassline which is complimented perfectly by a melodic series of vocal snippets. Yet many of the other tunes can feel overlong and fail to hold attention throughout their runtime, with tunes like ballsy rave-referencing number Wicked Vibez and the bland Next Generation proving loud but instantly forgettable.

The London sound is very much here and Dasaflex is still a worthwhile album in that respect, but all too often it feels as if the pair are paying tribute to the dance canon rather than pushing it forward. Ultimately it appears that the duo are looking more into the present than the future and the LP suffers as a result; it lacks the conceptual cohesion of their debut and doesn’t quite offer enough memorable tracks to make it worth repeated listens.

 6.5/10

Guest Mix: Dark and Dirty

Moth comes round with another guest mix for White Noise. Tracklist on this one is killer, featuring a lot of our favourite bass, techno and house bangers.

Tracklist

Akkord – The Drums

Tom Demac – Critical Distance Pt. 2

Midland & Pariah – Untitled 2

A Made Up Sound – Take The Plunge (Beat Mix)

Trikk – Jointly

Blawan – Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage?

Benjamin Damage – Swarm

Head High – Rave (Dirt Mix)

Boddika & Joy O – Dun Dun

Breach – Fatherless VIP

Darling Farah – Bruised

Pangaea – Hex

Sully – The Loot

Bok Bok – Silo Pass

Ghost – The Club

Genius – Waiting

Visionist – Come In

Dusk + Blackdown + – High Road 

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