So many tunes, so little time 35

Here we are then, the last day of 2012. And for once, what with it being Xmas and hence a quiet week for releases, I actually got through most of the stuff I wanted to tell you about last week… but here are a few other bits n' bobs that are worthy of your attention.

First up is Claes Rosen's Starlight. You may remember this spangly, Balearic-leaning and slightly poppy nu-disco gem from a Spring Tube V/A sampler back in the spring… if not no worries cos it's now getting a full single release complete with new mixes from Acryl boss Da Funk, Latvia's Blood Groove & Kikis and Chile's Aerotek. For deeper thrills, it's the BG&K and Da Funk rubs you want to be heading for.

Next, the Soul World EP comes from Georgia Cee and is the first release on a brand new Italian label called Soul Town Records. Georgia was 'discovered' by Timmy Regisford and has worked with Quentin Harris, which should give you a pretty good idea what to expect here… as the hype sheet says, "fans of Shelter and Body & Soul, rejoice"! Of the EP's four Latin-tinged cuts, Fallin' Down stands out for me.

On an even mellower tip, Ir.Replaceable comes from Losing Rays on Incepto Smooth, and is a beautiful slice of downtempo/ambient electronica topped off with a blissed-out female vocal… with B-side Touch venturing even further into all-out ambience.

At the other end of the spectrum, Lyle Quach is a producer you can always count on for some jacking deep/tech house grooves and Check This Out is no exception. Pascal Daze's remix goes a little harder/techier, Aldo Del Rey's a little deeper, so a range of floors should find it in themselves to move to this one, which comes on New York's Yellowjax Recordings.

Finally, a couple of nuggets on a D& B/dubstep tip. Coming on Section 8 Dub, Agari Tachi by Malicious is as deep, dark and minimal as it gets, and definitely worth checkin. B-side Peter Kurten collab Mitochondrion is a little too hard and industrial-sounding for these ears, but not to worry because there are more deep, minimal D&B delights to be found on the Tenderness EP by Mechanical Pressure, a two-tracker coming from the ever-checkable Plush Recordings.

And that, dear readers, is it for 2012. I'd do some big end-of-year spectactular but, y'know, places to go, people to see, etc. So it just remains for me to wish you a most exuberant NYE and I'll see you on the other side… and DO check back tomorrow cos I've got some very exciting news for ya.

Happy new year!

Megalodon & Conscious Pilot – Like This

I don't review as much dubstep on here as I'd like to… mainly because I don't get sent that much, particularly since I seem to have fallen off the Rinse FM mailing list. And a lot of the dubstep I do get sent is a bit too gnarly/tear-out/kiddy for TIWWD's obviously extremely mature* and sophisticated musical palette.

This, though… this is good. Dubstep aficionados will recognise Conscious Pilot as having been one of the scene's earliest Stateside supporters, and here he teams up with San Francisco's Megalodon and rapper/toaster Doctor for a track that brings all the heavyweight bass pressure and dancefloor energy you could ask for, yet without being stoopid and in-your-face. And without any shitty trance synth riffs, either.

I think the fact it's got Doctor's ragga-style chat sitting on top, instead of some spotty east London herbert chundering on about garms and skets helps as well! But yeah, this is cool… bass faces at the ready!

Out: This week

About: This comes on Section 8 Dub, who can be found here

*I AM very mature, you know. So n'yer.

Olie Bass Weight - Triton/The Void

Ha! Just when you were all nice and relaxed from the Proj3kt Dharma single, here comes some heavy, heavy dubstep to filth out your ears.

But not in a bad way. See, while the bottom end on the two tracks here is certainly dark and doomy enough to warrant Olie adopting the name he has, this is no horrible wurgh! wurgh! wurgh! kiddy chav-step gnarl-fest. The two tracks here are deep and dubby enough that even my girlfriend likes it (who is not, it's fair to say, much of a dubstep lass)… yet they've got enough low-end grunt to satisfy the most mangled of bass-face ravers at the same time.

Triton is the deeper of the two, The Void the more twisted and scary, and I think I'd plump for the former if pushed. But both are eminently checkable for sure. Excellent work.

Out: This week

About: This is the latest from Denver-based Section 8. If you'd like to know more, here's an interview with Michael Ramirez, who runs the label.

Various – Haunted House Sampler

Ho ho ho, merry Xmas everybody! And here's wishing you the very happiest of festive greetings for this joyous season of… no hang on, it's not Xmas at all, is it? No it's Hallowe'en, season of scary monsters, supercreeps, ghosts and ghouls and things that go bump in the night. If only someone would put together a handy compilation of dark n' scary dubstep and D&B to suit the occasion… oh look, they have!

The good news, though, is that as compilations of dark n' scary dubstep and D&B with tracks called stuff like Werewolf and Tales From The Darkside go, this isn't actually the horribly gnarly kiddie-chav-horror-fest you might expect. There are one or two comedically gnarly numbers from the 'subtle as a slasher movie' school of thought, certainly. But generally speaking the darkness on the 20 tracks featured here comes as often from dark atmospherics and moody cinematic tension as it does from ridiculous saw-tooth basslines or someone shouting “I'm going to eat your brain.”

I'm guessing most TIWWD readers aren't that into horrorcore, gorestep etc and neither am I, yet there's plenty here I do like. Insatek's excellent deep, technoid dubstep outing Haunter, for one; or the vaguely Doc Scott-ish D&B workout Patterns Of Thought (also from Insatek), or Hue Jah Fink's Every Time, which is essentially yer classic Urban Takeover-style late 90s jump-up.

So… approach with open ears, peeps!

Out: This week

About: This trip to the darkside is brought to you by Section 8 Dub, those Denver-based stalwarts of all things D&B and dubstep-related. Section 8 actually tend towards the darker side of things a lot of the time anyway, which makes the pleasing restraint shown here doubly surprising.

iBenji - The Power EP

This three-tracker from iBenji treads a fine line between the darker side of dubstep and a more accessible/commercial sound; as such I’m not feeling it anywhere near as much as the Desto or J.Kenzo releases, but it’s still within the realms of acceptabliity.

Seems works delicate piano loops and the occasional disembodied vocal snip over midtempo rolling beats and lashings of heavy bass in a decently satisfying manner, while Fuck Yeah is more yer standard gnarl-a-thon and doesn’t really do a huge amount for me, TBH.

But the real reason this is here is the title cut, which is by far the most obvious and commercial track of the three, since it precedes the inevitable big bass drop with that Jocelyn sample from Snap!’s The Power… yet it actually works surprisingly well.

Like I said, apart from Seems it’s all a bit cheesy chavstep really… but it’ll work on a dancefloor. And as it’s sort of dubstep/D&B ‘week’ here at TIWWD, I thought it was only fair to paint as broad a picture as poss.

Out: Last week (11 Apr)

About: This is on Section 8 Dub records, but the only reference I can seem to find online is their section at the Digital Tunes download store.