Category: drum ‘n’ bass

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Artist Alewya Releases a Club Friendly Banger

Dubbed “this decade’s triple threat” by Love Magazine, Alewya is a rapidly rising London-based singer/songwriter, producer and visual artist. Born in Saudi Arabia to an Egyptian-Sudanese father and an Ethiopian mother, Alewya has spent her life surrounded and nurtured by diaspora immigrant communities: she grew up in West London and after spending several years in New York. she returned to London. Upon returning home, the rising British artist developed and honed her ear for music through the sounds of the Ethiopian and Arabic music of her parents and the ambient alternative rock albums pop her brother.

lation of the Saudi-born, Ethiopian-Sudanese, British-based artist’s name from Arabic to English into “most high” or “the highest,” and interestingly enough, her work generally is thematically concerned with transcendence. She sees her music as an accessible space for her and her listeners to connect on a deeply spiritual level — with her work challenge the listener to remember the last time that they felt truly connected to themselves and their emotions. “I want to move people to themselves. I want them to feel the same way that I felt when I had a taste of a higher power and felt there was a presence over me,” Alewya says. “I want people to feel that.” 

nking Timbaland-like mesh of trap, reggae and electro pop. Since, the release of “Sweating,” the rising British artist has been busy releasing a handful of equally self-assured singles, including her latest single “Spirit_X.” Featuring around skittering, tweeter and woofer rattling beats, arpeggiated synths paired with Alewya’s punchy delivery in which she alternates between fiery bars and sultry crooning. The new single sonically is indebted to the relentless energy of classic drum ‘n’ bass music, and manages to evoke the sensation of getting lost in thumping beats and strobe light.

“I know that the rave can be utilized as ritual and ceremony to transform, uplift and energize a person,” Alewya explains. “I love giving visceral experiences. I love drum and bass for that specific reason. ‘Spirit_X’ encompasses all of the above in my way.”

Directed by the artist and Simon Lane, the recently released video for “Spirit_X” follows Alewya as she wanders a subterranean maze of abandoned tunnels before encountering an underground and extremely communal rave from a dystopian future that seems very familiar — and defiantly pro-Black. Visually, the video references The Prodigy’s “Firestarter.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Homemade Weapons’ Drum ‘n’ Bass Remix of Clipping.’s “Wriggle”

Throughout the course of this site’s 10-plus year history, I’ve managed to spill copious amounts of virtual ink covering the acclaimed Los Angeles-based hip-hop trio and JOVM mainstay act Clipping. The trio — production duo Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson and frontperson Daveed Diggs — have been busy over the past couple of years: they released two critically applauded albums as part of planned diptych — 2019’s There Existed An Addiction to Blood and 2020’s Visions of Bodies Getting Burned — that found the act developing an abrasive and downright messy take on horrorcore, centered around an industrial aesthetic while lovingly twisting familiar genre and sub-genre tropes to fit their politics and thematic concerns: fear, the absurd, the uncanny and the seemingly unending struggle for an antiracist, anti-patriarchal, anti-colonialist world.

But I need to rewind a bit: 2016’s digital-only release Wriggle EP featured six tracks that weren’t finished in time to make it on the JOVM mainstay’s 2014 Sub Pop Records debut CLPPNG. Since its release, the EP has become a fan favorite with tracks like “Wriggle” and “Shooter” becoming staples of their live set. Interestingly, the members of Clipping will release the Wriggle EP as a newly remastered and expanded nine-track set on vinyl for the first time ever on July 9, 2021 — with a 10 track digital version officially dropping today.

The expanded version of Wriggle features the original versions of “Shooter,” “Hot Fuck No Love” feat. Cakes Da Killa and Maxi Wild, and “Our Time” feat. Nailah Middleton, along with “Back Up 2021” featuring SB The Moor and a new verse of industrial rap experimentalist Debby Friday. Additionally, the expanded version features previously remixes by drum ‘n’ bass/breakbeat act Homemade Weapons, Classicworks label co-founder Cardpusher, Dave Quam (formerly known as Massacooramaan) and a vinyl-only version of “Hot Fuck No Love” by footwork producer Jana Rush.

The expanded EP’s latest single is Homemade Weapons’ remix of “Wriggle.” The original was breakneck banger centered around a sample of Whitehouse’s influential power-electronica song “Wriggle Like a Fucking Eel,” skittering, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and Diggs’ dexterous, rapid-fire flow and forceful commands to wriggle like a snake or an eel. The Homemade Weapons remix is a minimalist drum ‘n’ bass take on the song, reducing the song to a chopped up and screwed vocal sample and densely layered staccato beats.

Directed by Cristina Bercovitz and Clipping’s Jonathan Snipes, the recently released video for “Wriggle (Homemade Weapons Remix)” features daytime and nighttime footage on Interstate 110, edited in a way so that the cars more in a glitchy fashion to the propulsive beats.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Hector Mendoza is an Dominican Republic-born, Miami, FL-based DJ, electronic music, producer and artist, best known in urban sound system and bass music circles as Happy Colors, and along with  El Dusty, Mendoza has been at the forefront of a swaggering and emerging bass music scene that draws from traditional and beloved sounds across Latino America, including merengue, cumbia, bachata, Caribbean moonbahtron and meshes those sounds with trap, drum ‘n’ bass, footwork and other electronic music genres. And as a result of hooking up with Diplo‘s Mad Decent crew, the Dominican Republic-born, Miami, FL-based DJ, electronic music producer and artist has seen a growing national and international reputation as he’s collaborated with the likes of renowned artists including the aforementioned El Dusty, as well as some of electronic music’s renowned artists and producers including Major Lazer, Jack U, DJ Blass, De La Ghetto, Lapiz Conciente and Los Rakas. Additionally, Mendoza has played EDC Mexico, SXSW, Life in Color and at the Sony Music Latin Grammy’s 2016 After Party.

Interestingly, this past year may arguably be Mendoza’s breakthrough year, as his collaboration with El Dusty, “Cumbia Anthem” is the first world bass music track to be nominated for a Latin Grammy — for “Best Urban/Fusion Performance.” Of course along with that, Mendoza has been pretty busy — he released his latest single “Mamaguevo” earlier this month and as you’ll hear, the Miami-based producer creates swaggering and anthemic productions consisting  of chopped up vocal samples, explosive, tweeter and woofer rattling 808s,  twitchy synths and electronics. And while being as equally club-banging as El Dusty’s work, Mendoza’s sound seems to push the Latin bass music sound towards a mainstream-leaning direction.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

G. Know is an up-and-coming San Diego, CA-based producer, who began producing when he had turned 17. Influenced by artists like Flume, Medasin and Rustie, G. Know delved into sampling vinyl and drumbreaks on an MPC; but over the last few years, the San Diego-based producer has received attention for a sound that he feels aligns with his love of emotional bass music, which has resulted in the release of his debut EP Left Brain and a series of follow-up singles, including a reworking of French house music act, Stardust’s classic “Music Sounds Better With You,” that he has titled “YOU.” as G. Know explains in press notes “‘You’ is my little interpretation of the classic tune ‘Music Sounds Better With You’ by Stardust. This tune gave me heavy feels from a young age and I always wanted to flip it into something a little more relevant. For nostalgia’s sake I kept the vocal the same while adding some fun wobbly synths and a thick sub to convey a deeper emotion than the original and wrapped it up with a funky jersey club style breakdown. ”

The result is a stomping club banger with stuttering drum programming, wobbling synths and tweeter and woofer rocking low-end that swoons with an urgent Romanticism.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Nicolaaas Oogjes, Andrew Noble,  Adrian Vecino, Mitch McGregor,
Daphne Camf, Kieran O’Shea,  Cayn Borthwick, Becky Sui Zhen, the Melbourne, Australia-based octet NO ZU have developed a reputation in Australia for a sound the consists of elements of no wave, funk, house, African and indigenous percussion — and as you’ll hear on “Spirit Beat,” the first single off Afterlife, the follow up to their acclaimed 2012 release, Life, the single manages to sound as though it were released in early 1980s as old school, hip-hop-leaning breakbeats, sinuous bass lines, sultry female vocals and pitched down male vocals chanting in call and response, shimmering synths and warm blasts of horns are paired together in a way that channels Tom Tom Club, early house music and synth funk in a way that feels dimly familiar yet alien — and yet oh so dance floor worthy.