Picks Of The Week (27.02.21

0. Dimension - Organ LP [Dimension]

Recommended if you like: Gesaffelstein, Sub Focus, Culture Shock

Don't worry, I won't say anything more about it, I just wanted to link my full-length review of it again here in case you missed it.

This also gives me an opportunity to recommend some other dancefloor things from this week! Here we go:

Diplo, Sonny Fodera - Turn Back Time (Wilkinson Remix)
Reach - The Law (Zardonic Remix) (technically last week but missed it)
Tenside - Cannibals (Zardonic remix) (yes, another one)
Madface, Symplex, V O E - Call On You
Facading - You And Me (also last week)
Reaubau, NCT - Arthur
Indivision - Everything Will Be Ok

1. Redpill - Obliterate EP [Blackout Music]

Recommended if you like: Bl4ck Owlz, Maztek, Synergy

Bienvenue dans les Picks Of The Week! Man, if only I took french in school back in the day, could really flex those muscles now. Oh well, Google Translate worked too for now. I'm sure I'll have a chance to use my Latin one day.

We start this week's picks off with one of my favourites of the currently ongoing DnB renaissance in France: Breakthrough neurofunk connoisseur Redpill, also known as Rémi Jorquera. Like a lot of his fellow countrymen, he is based in the french DnB metropolis Toulouse, which brought forth producers from all over the genre spectrum like Redeyes, Trail, Visages and Burr Oak. Rémi has always been a fan of metal and as such has started his musical career as a bass player for a band called Roze. Fun fact: They still exist today! Without Rémi though. After his first contact with the genre of the drums and the basses, via Pendulum's Slam and Hold Your Colour, his life was changed. After all, it had all the energy and speed of his first loves metal and rock, but was completely electronic!

After around four years of practicing production without releasing anything to the public, he released his first DnB track as part of Bl4ck Owlz in 2015, a project with fellow producer Vik. After a few releases on Evol Intent Recordings, Audioporn and Eatbrain, he started to realise that this working arrangement didn't quite work for him. He craved the freedom that comes with producing alone and felt that balancing Bl4ck Owlz and a separate solo project wouldn't work, so he decided that Red is the new Black and decided to go solo as Redpill. No affiliation with a certain ideological group. Not even directly related to the Matrix! The inspiration for the name came from Maître Gims's album Mon cœur avait raison, which was divided into a soft (or "blue pill") and hard (or "red pill") side.

While it certainly was a big challenge to completely start over, I would say it has paid off massively. Since the switch, he has managed to release on Kosenprod, Invisible, Eatbrain, Cause4Concern, ProgRAM, TITAN and many many more! Certainly not a faux pas by any measures. The newest EP, Obliterate, sees him once again returning to dutch Neurofunk behemoth Blackout.

And man, is Obliterate ever the fitting title. Redpill wastes no time and starts the EP off with the title track, which immediately dropkicked me into the next decade. The menacing demon-like vocals of Kryptomedic and eerie atmosphere of the intro makes you feel like you're in a horror movie, which perfectly sets the scene for what's about to hit you. This drop. It is the moment the slasher has been set loose in the crowd, the moment the monster bursts through the walls and wreaks havoc, a moment of pure terror. Redpill really takes no prisoners with this opener. After this initial explosion, his more techy neuro style takes over for the rest of the track. Fast, with loads of variations and ideas, pure Redpill.

As if the intro didn't break us down enough, we've got Brokn as the follow-up. My god, is this an apt naming choice. On the one hand, the track sounds like a broken machine going bonkers. On the other, my mind is fully broken while listening to this. It's madness. It's like we're witnessing the uprising of the machines. Unlike most movies about this kind of stuff, these machines are not super smart AIs or humanoid robots, these machines feel more like malfunctioning household items and lawn mowers coming to lay waste wherever they go. It's fast, it's (literally) techy, there's beep and boops and glitches going everywhere, it's a beautiful mess of a track. Brokn will leave you in a trance. Completely rewired my brain. Like the ending vocal sample says: Oh my gawd.

Alright, we need a break. Luckily Redpill thought so too and brought in some soothing vocals on I Am With You. Make no mistake though, while this third track is definitely the most melodic of the EP, it still slaps. It's just that everything is soothing compared to Brokn. The beautiful vocals lead into a bouncy tech-slapper of a drop, whose back and forth between the vocal and the various different techy yet melodic drop sections take you on quite a journey. This is some gourmet stuff. Really love this one!

Last but definitely not least we've got Yellow Laugh. While this could easily be another instance of Redpill just being a fan of having a colour in his musical projects, this one is actually a literal translation from the french Rire jaune, which means forced laughter. With all the horror motifs throughout this EP, this makes me think this laughter wasn't forced because a joke was too unfunny. Makes me think of a Joker (2019) situation, where the person literally can't control their laughter. Redpill has taken this laughter and transformed it into a the drop's main melody. It's every part as twisted as that sounds. Which means it fits perfectly on this EP!

I think most neurofunk fans would be d'accord with me when I say this is one truly disgustingly filthy EP. Really really interesting production with lots of horror themes, which means it's perfect for me!

P.S.: If you liked this EP and want to support him, check out his Patreon!

Other neurofunk things that happened this week:

Fade Black - 12 Gauge
Malux - Swamp Thug EP
Turno, A.M.C - Voyage (I guess this is more jump up than neuro)
Prolix - Forward Thinking
Agressor Bunx - Bunker

2. Nuvertal - Arrival EP [Neuropunk Records]

Recommended if you like: Synergy, Screamarts, Zombie Cats

Nuvertal arrives on Neuropunk!

You know Nuvertal and Neuropunk by now. As always with Neuropunk releases, it's story time.

We've always had a feeling we were not quite as alone in this world as it might seem at first. We didn't expect our suspicions to be confirmed so soon though. No more hypothetical scenarios, no more What Ifs, this was it. The moment of Arrival had come. 7 billion people watched in awe as this gigantic ship, if you can even call it that, descended unto our humble blue marble. This was not the time for petty squabbles amongst ourselves, this was a historic moment for all of humanity. Would we be able to communicate with them? How do they look like? Were they even coming in peace?

For a moment, everything was so silent you could have heard a pin drop. Do we approach them? Should we wait for them to come out of their ship? Should we - before we could even finish that thought, a pulse of pure energy Bashes into the crowds surrounding the vessel, obliterating them all. Hordes of unspeakably strange creatures rushed out from the spacecraft and fell over the remaining smaller groups near the landing point.

For us, this was the absolute worst case scenario. Military organisations from all over the world banded together in an attempt to stop the invasion, but, alas, it was no use. We could hold the creatures off for a bit, but none of the guns, bombs or other weapons we had developed worked even the tiniest bit against their ships. No matter what we tried, we were simply Going Nowhere.

Even though the initial attack didn't wipe us out completely, we had an even bigger problem, as we soon realised. The numerous landing sites were covered in some kind of shimmery dome. Everyone and everything that spent time inside this area began to change from within. Plants took on human form, animals merged together, trees became crystalline. The very basis of our existence, our DNA, was being rewritten by this shimmer. Soon it became clear to us: The domes were expanding. We cannot simply sit this one out, Annihilation of life as we knew it is imminent.

What a journey! Nuvertal is known for going down the deeper path of the techy subgenres from time to time, but he went deeper than ever before on this one. My favourite is probably Going Nowhere, because it's so damn catchy, but Arrival is very close to being number one.

We've already covered the neurofunk releases so here's a list of all the deep and techy things that I would recommend:

VovKING - Tears (<3)
RefraQ, Vorso - Biomes (<3)
Lucy Love - Signals (Zookeepers Remix)
Bru-C, Bou - Streetside
MVRK - Clip That EP 💎 (I'm always a bit late to Delta 9, still awesome)
Blacklab - Lawless
Screamarts - Prodigy EP
Maykors - Robot Attack / Liturgy 💎
A:mx - Devil EP 💎

3. KALOA - Loa [KALOA Music] 💎 Recommended if you like: Dawn Wall, Mohican Sun, Satl

Is that a shiny diamond in the title that I'm seeing? Does that mean - Oh boy, it's Hidden Gem time!

This week's entry in the series comes from mysterious newcomer KALOA. They literally just popped up on SoundCloud on friday, so I really can't tell you much about them. While the tribal drawing artwork and, spoiler alert, the track itself are very reminiscent of the Ekho or Integral Records camp, there's nothing concrete to grab onto here. I'm just going to throw all of the info I have at you and you can formulate your own theories.

Early supporters of the project include Tatora, which doesn't help too much now does it, Satl and Perspective Shift, who have both dabbled in this kind of sound, and the czech promotional channel Fourseason. Also, KALOA's Instagram account has followed Integral Records. In other words: I have pretty much nothing.

But who needs a fancy name attached when the music is this good anyway?

At its core it's another entry in the Tribal Liquid super specific genre that Artificial Intelligence and friends have created with their label and side projects. It's not just soulful as hell thanks to the great use of the lead vocal and background voices, it also features a lot of different tribal elements and plays around with some big reverbs to create an almost ethereal atmosphere. Special shout-out to the little piano throughout the track. However, that's not all. About halfway through the first drop, the style switches from soulful to holy shit. Somehow they managed to execute both ends of the tribal liquid spectrum in one drop. On the second drop KALOA does the reverse, first they continue the naughty bass-face part some more, then they smoothly transition back to the more soothing part. A nice liquid/bassface sandwich.

Hugely recommended! Certainly fills the void the lack of Ekho releases lately have left.

Other liquid things from this week:

Pola & Bryson, Lauren Archer - Under (<33)
Low:r, SiLi - Chubby Bubbler / Just The Start (<3)
Used - The Art Of Missing You
Polaris, Natalie Wood - Obsidian
Seba - Breathe Deep EP
ALB - Voyage EP
Elixr - Transformation EP 💎
Edlan, Smote - Skyfalls
Sonic Rain, A Little Sound - Stuck in the Mindset