Picks Of The Week (19.09.20

This week I sadly don't have enough time to do one of my usual deep dives. But since this week has been too incredible to just skip, I thought I'd still give out a few recommendations real quick.

1. Neurofunk

Recommended if you like: Drum and Bass that goes like Boom boom boom boom (I want you in my room)

One of my favorite subgenres. This week might not have had a lot of it, but the few releases we got blew everything out the water. Killbox - Nova, Ed Rush & Audio's third single of their upcoming album, is the first that comes to mind. Have to pull a bass face for that one literally every time I listen to it. If I wasn't wearing a mask right now, people would probably be asking themselves why I'm so damn angry at my phone. Next up we got Task Horizon with their Raised By Robots EP, released on Evolution Chamber, the label they founded with Magnetude and Receptor a year ago. Some of the strangest and most interesting Neurofunk around. Legacy just blows my head off. And that melody is going to be stuck in my head for quite a few days, I guarantee it.

2. Dancefloor

Recommended if you like: Drum and Bass that goes like BRRRRR but also has vocals sometimes

Let's keep the energy high, shall we?

Unlike neurofunk, we got a whole bunch of Dancefloor releases this week. First off we got the Aussie / Kiwi combination that is Lee Mvvthews and Ekko & Sidetrack with their absolute smasher Discipline. Lots and lots of brr. Next up we got one of the most prolific underrated producers of Russia, Mewone! He just keeps releasing stuff and I keep loving it. His newest offering Blame is a straight up dancefloor smasher and shows that he has a lot of different sounds to offer.

The next one takes us straight to Canada. RAM prodigy Bensley has released a new tune on Monstercat, the EDM label that got a whole subgenre to itself on Spotify ("Catstep", no I'm not joking). It's called Vex and it's awesome. It's not really typical dancefloor I guess, but I honestly don't know where else to put it. If I had an "amazingly produced" section, I would have put it there. Pure Bensley vibes the whole way through. Toronto Is Broken's label YANA Music, which I regularly rave about on here, also released a new track by What The French, featuring Goldfinger (no connection to a certain British spy, as far as I know). The track is called Last Man Standing, which fits, because if a DJ would drop this in a club, he'd be the last man/woman standing because everyone else would have to sit down for a second. Because it's that much of a Banger. Get it? Do you get my joke about the song name? Oh well, it sounded better in my head.

Jumping straight to the UK for the next one. Drum&Bass Arena veteran Kove joined forces with the legendary Charlotte Haining on Healing. It's a combination I didn't know I wanted. For some reason I always assumed Charlotte's vocals only working on sad/liquid songs, but this song proves just how wrong I was. Such a feel good vibe. Speaking of feel-good, Liquicity also released a new single off the forthcoming third edition of their Alchemy compilation album series. This time it's German newcomer Jon Void with With You. A very catchy dancefloor single. Not even sure what else there is to say about it, it's great. Since the quality of all the released singles so far has been consistently incredibly high, my hype for Alchemy 3 has become immeasurable at this point.

3. Liquid

Recommended if you like: Drum and Bass beats to relax/study to

Enough with all this noise, let's just chill a bit.

The first on my list is Disrupta with his Deep Thoughts EP. Wait, what? Did I somehow end up in the jump up section? No, even weirder. He just dropped a liquid EP on Liquid V out of nowhere. Maybe not completely out of nowhere, considering he has released at least one other liquid track that I know about, but still definitely surprising. Disregarding all that, it's a great EP. The leading single and title track with Duskee is just amazing, but it doesn't stop there. Window Still, Your Love (with Sl8r) and With You are all pure vibes. Gets a huge recommendation from me.

The second kind of unexpected liquid release of this week is Emperor's Still, his second release in the incredible UKF 2020 series. With an Emperor release I'd usually talk about how he brings some much needed funk back to the neurofunk genre, but not this time. This time his incredible production skills were used to craft an excellent and unique liquid track, which some fans even describe as their "absolute favorite of this week". I can definitely see where they are coming from, the versatile producer smashed it out of the park with this one.

The next one is coming from Russia, again. This time it's Nelver with his double single Cosmic Gate / Nothing Left on the Liquicity sister label Galacy. As expected from a master of the subgenre like him, both tracks are simply incredible. They just take you on a journey man. Yes, even when you're sober.

Speaking of incredible liquid, Newcomer PRSPKTV's new release Stargazing / Love Drops on Goldfat is also something they can be proud of. One of my favorite releases by an unknown unproducer of this week.

Last but not least we have the Remix LP of Goldie's latest album The Journey Man. With names like Lenzman, Artificial Intelligence, Calibre and Dom&Roland, the expectations for this one were quite high, to be honest. But my expectations were fully exceeded. A lot of great liquid, a lot of great "old-school" drum and bass (meaning stuff like Dom&Roland or Digital & Spirit), just a lot of great music. Especially the Calibre and Dom&Roland remixes have caught my attention. So good.

4. Deep/Dark/Techy

Recommended if you like: testing out the sub-bass capabilities of your sound system, thinking "what even is this sound" while listening to dnb

First of all, we have to get the big one out of the way. This last Friday a compilation album dropped. On Noisia's VISION label. With producers like IMANU, Teddy Killerz and Annix. And like 20 more?? Honestly, when that was announced I was wigglesmorfed. Yes, that's a made up word. That's how hyped I was. And still am. The whole LP is full of amazing productions. Even if you don't like a track you can usually still appreciate the unique ideas that went into it. It features an IMANU and Icicle collaboration 4x4 techno with 174 bpm track, do I need to say more? I maybe don't, but I will anyway. My personal highlights were Teddy Killerz, Nick Bee, Annix and The Caracal Project. That last one especially, such an incredibly weird tune. Huge recommendation!

Speaking of strange dnb, American newcomer Nesium has also released his debut on Lockjaw's Locked Concept label. Coffee Drip / Pillars are both tracks that are so good that they could have been on the VISION LP and I wouldn't have noticed a quality difference. Very interesting stuff.

5. Hidden Gems

Recommended if you like: knowing the most unknown producers out there

No time anymore so just straight to the list.

All Hidden Gems (both mentioned and not mentioned):

Nesium - Coffee Drip / Pillars
GEST - Foundation
PRSPKTV - Stargazing / Love Drops
Wake&Bake - Chromatism Remixes Part 2
Alpha Rhythm - Wardenfell EP
Witters - Calibrate Remixes
Midas Touch - Gold I
Elixr - Say It