Picks Of The Week (18.12.21

1. The Clamps - Wisdom & Belief [Kosenprod]

Recommended if you like: Burr Oak, Opsen, Teddy Killerz

Joyeux Noël, bitches!

What better way to celebrate the holidays than with some banging Neurofunk? Luckily, french madman The Clamps thought the same and gave us the best Christmas present one could ask for: his brand new Wisdom & Belief EP! There's not many artists who managed to put out this much music with this high a level of quality as Mr Julien Carbou this year. Not only did he put out the banging Seduction Scale EP earlier this year and flexed his production skills on two hardcore releases, he also put out the insane Dark Age EP (which you might remember from one of my earlier reviews), the ridiculous Zero Alpha EP and one of my personal favourites of the year, Shinigami / Strafe, with his production partner-in-crime Opsen under their Burr Oak alias. Not just that, he also put out two tunes with his Forum collective! To round off a truly amazing year celebrating the 10th anniversary for The Clamps, Julien is now coming back to Kosen, his home and family label, with one last big bang.

However, while his music, at least under this alias, is very often very loud and noisy and Neurofunk-y, it more often than not also carries a personal, emotional meaning with it. For example: The EP opener Under The Saw is a wild ride through various different heavy styles, going from a steppy, almost atmospheric section with Julien's very own vocals to one that's just in-your-face high-energy pure Neurofunk goodness, to even a relentless four to the floor buildup with an unnerving vocal and atmosphere. However, it's not just incredible production, there's real emotions behind all this madness that you might miss if you're just casually listening to it. As Julien himself confirmed, Under The Saw is about the anxiety he has been facing for a big chunk of his life. The more you listen, the more it makes sense. Everything from the relentlessly pounding knocks in the background, to the quickly moving, almost insect-like crawling back and forth in your ears, to the aforementioned 4x4 feeling like an intensely pouding heart, it all screams anxiety. An insanely banging and well-produced anxiety that is.

Next up we've got Caspura, probably my favourite of the EP. The almost tribal vocals throughout the track are already so enchanting on their own that I would love this track no matter what came after that, but the drop is just so absolutely bonkers that it shoots up to my favourites of the year list. Seriously, I was already thoroughly enjoying that first broken beat section with all these ridiculous sounds, but when that second part first hit to complete the call and response, I was floored. That perfect ring modulator or whatever the hell Julien even created there is one of my favourite sounds in all of 2021. It's just so perfectly ominous and room-filling. Combined with these hype as hell The Clamps drums it makes for quite the experience. Caspura isn't just an insane banger and a half, it is also Julien's love letter to the island of Corsica, a place he holds dear. You remember these vocals I was entranced by? That is actually the song "A Tribbiera", a Corsican polyphonic worker song to be played while farmers are threshing wheat.

Now onto a track whose title very much fits The Clamps' aesthetic: Terror Machine. Squeaky screeches, continuously rolling processed-to-bits bleeps and bloops, things that sound like some kind of harsh alien language that our brains can't process properly, just pure ridiculousness. It's hard to even properly describe these things, I fully believe you need to experience this track for yourself to understand. Fun fact: the screechy squeaks are the result of a chair Julien is using in his studio. Yep, the madman fully sampled his chair being dragged across the floor for a Neuro track, and it actually sounds sick as hell. As if you'd need more evidence that The Clamps is an insanely good producer.

Last but not least we've got the title track, Wisdom & Beliefs. Just like on the Dark Age EP, Julien is ending this EP with something more unique that captures that "end" feeling more than a straight-forward Neuro banger might. With Julien himself on the scat-like vocals, we're tunneling down the rabbit hole of strange rhythms, ominous synths and growling basses. The longer we keep on going, the more things are coming together. While the slow rhythm is becoming faster and more irratic, the growls are getting louder and louder. Then, the distorted basses that have become something of a Clamps signature are running over everything else, with Julien alternating between the rhythmically focused nonsense vocals and a more natural sounding singing, in which you can make out some english words. Or maybe I'm just imagining that. It is called Wisdom & Beliefs after all and me interpreting meaning into the few words I think I understood might be part of the concept. To quote the man himself, "The world is a truth strewn with strangeness".

Yet another ridiculously well-produced EP with an emotionality and vulnerability that is rare in the Neurofunk scene. One of the best EPs this year for sure.

Other Neurofunk from this week:

THREYEDENS - Ice Peak EP
Bad District - Limbo EP
Creafect - Hydra EP 💎
The Sun Vanished - We Are 💎
Profuze - Selecta 💎
Notequal - Guestlist (more techy, but too good not to mention)
VELLE - Flare Blitz (see above) 💎

2. WAVES, Lauren Walton - Horizon [Pilot.]

Recommended if you like: Mazare, Fred V, Etherwood

Time for the exact opposite kind of DnB!

It goes without saying that the ever-excellent UKF sister label Pilot Records had one of its best years ever this year. Not a lot of labels can compete with the nearly constant stream of weekly high quality releases by the likes of Rohaan, The Caracal Project, Bensley, Leotrix, SØL and Fox Stevenson. A list which UK newcomer WAVES is now also a part of, after debuting on the label last Christmas. He isn't just sharing the label with Fox though, he is also a big part of what I will now call the Fox Stevenson bubble, for lack of a better word. Not only is he involved with a lot of what's happening on Mr Foxenson's Discord server and Twitch channel, he's also a regular participant of his monthly Twitch Pizza Parties. Since I'm somewhat of a fan myself, a lot of the regular names have become familiar to me over this last year or so: SØL, Konkai, Sampo, Blooom, Lasyen, Fryett and, of course, WAVES. Seriously, there's so much good music and DJing emerging from that pool of talent either directly involved with or inspired by Fox Stevenson, it's insane. However, while these experiences and connections probably were a big help to get him to where he is now (looking at you there, Sampo), that's not quite where it all started.

WAVES', or Dan Scott's, first time venturing out into the world of production goes back to (at least) 2019 actually. Under his Excentrik alias he released the track Falling on Galaxic Records, which would remain the only release under that name though. If you're familiar with his latest few bits of music, it's actually really fun to see his Indie style evolve from these earlier days. Shortly after that, he pivoted to the Scutierrez alias, which was quickly superseded by the current name, WAVES (in case you somehow forgot), in June 2020. After his amazing debut release on Pilot's Destinations Vol. 2 compilation EP, which I also featured here by the way and after being teased for more than a year, it is now finally time for the follow-up single: Horizon!

In pretty much all of the biographic content you can find online about WAVES, it is mentioned that Dan wants his music to be a bridge between electronic dance music and Indie. While his debut single, Daydream, went for a more relaxing, guitar-focused Indie vibe, Horizon goes a little bit of a different, more vocal-focused route. In fact, the track immediately starts off with Dan's honestly amazing own soulful vocals in the foreground and Lauren Walton providing some great contrasting harmonies of her own, while the uplifting synths are doing their thing in the background. However, as soon as we hit the titular Horizon line, the synths' true powers are unleashed in a combination of powerful vibrations and catchy melodies that just make me happy. For a bit of extra beautifulness, Dan even goes into a little bit of half-time for the second drop, before returning to the vocal goodness in full speed.

While I already love the instrumental, it is definitely the vocals that elevate Horizon to another level for me. I didn't even know he could sing before this! Saying "he can sing" feels like a massive understatement too, the guy immediately shot up into the favourite vocalists list with just this track. He just has this uplifting indie style to his voice, which is something we simply don't have enough of in DnB. Pairing that with Lauren Walton's harmonies makes this all even better, as it doesn't just make for a satisfying sound experiece, it also makes sense in a narrative sense. It's a song about a lost love, after all.

If his social media is to be trusted, this is only the beginning of a whole wave of new releases by Dan. Let's hope we don't have to wait too long for it this time around, I need more WAVES in my life. No pressure.

TL;DR: Incredible vocals, paired with catchy uplifting synths? Sign me the hell up.

Other uplifting/dancefloor things from this week:

Various Artists - YANA2021
Tantrum Desire - The Flow

I know, I know, it was a slow week.