Picks Of The Week (29.10.22

1. Carrier - Solonight / Locust [ProgRAM]

Recommended if you like: Document One, Vibe Chemistry, Ripple

Your eyes don't deceive you: It's the return of one of the most promising Dancefloor newcomers out there at the moment, Carrier!

You might remember him and his life story from my wall of text about his debut EP on LUX in June. If you don't, well, you will have to remain unenlightened, unless you follow that link that is. You better come right back here afterwards though! Anyway. While not a whole lot has happened release-wise since the last time I talked about man like Luca Heuvel on here, there have been a couple of fun other things I'm gonna list off now. At Liquicity Festival he didn't just run around working and randomly meeting fans at the artist meet & greet, he also played a cross-genre inspirations set at the festival's secret Nebula stage! Not just that, he also released a banging bootleg of Tails x Inverness' bleepy-bloopy anthem Skeleton, with another remix, this time for the "Best Newcomer Label"-nominated In The Lab gang, joining the list soon-ish. One more thing: He celebrated his 24th birthday a couple weeks back! Whoop!

Wait, that's not what we're for though, is it? Right, we're here to celebrate his second-ever solo release, Solonight / Locust, on none other than RAM sister label and winner of the coveted "Label I mention the most on here" award, ProgRAM! So, let's give it a listen, shall we?

We start getting carried away by Mr. Heuvel with the banger that is Solonight. Right away, we are greeted by a rather chaotic assortment of breaks, microwave-ready chip-tuned basses and a few snippets of the guitar and vocal that await us in this track. This isn't just any old guitar/vocal combo though, no no, both the infectious, what I assume to be Spanish, vocal sample and the energetic, what I also assume to be Spanish, guitar work together so perfectly that you will probably start speaking what I assume to be Spanish if you listen to it long enough. The vocal lalalaleads us right into the drop, where the supercharged guitar jolts us back into skanking mode with its ferocious flow, further complemented by the ever-evolving disgustingly clean basses and powerful Dancefloor drums. It's the epitome of Carrier goodness. Locust flips this whole vibe on its head, with the cheery, vaguely Latin vibes being replaced with some pitched-down dirtyness. After being treated to one hell of a thick atmosphere in the buildup, we are plunged as far into the darkness as heuvel-ly possible, once again featuring some seriously satisfying basses performing fiercely flavourful flows. Halfway through this excursion into the darkness, Luca switches the usual drums out for some more fast-paced ones, giving us one last shot of pure energy before fading out. Special shout-out goes out to that cheeky little bit of delay in the second drop, that honestly gets me every single time.

With two more slices of pure techy Dancefloor gold, Carrier once again effortlessly swings from the chandelier, breaking through the barrier of conventional Dancefloor, making my life a little bit happier in the process. When it comes to Carrier, I always say: the more, the merrier.

Other Dancefloor things from this week:

Rob Gasser, Harley Bird - Spent
Eliminate, XAELO - Nothing Left (Bensley Remix)
Used - Forget
Tsuki, Subshock & Evangelos - Beside Me

2. A Little Sound - A Little Sound EP [Born On Road]

Recommended if you like: flowanastasia, Charli Brix, Charlotte Haining

In a week bursting with vocalist talents presenting their solo projects, there is one that, despite only being around 1.58 meters tall, stands out from it all: A Little Sound.

Born in Taunton, but nowadays residing in the DnB capitol Bristol, Abigail Kate aka A Little Sound might be a newcomer in the scene, but she has been chipping away at this dream of hers since as early as year 7. No, I don't know how long ago that is, the UK school system is confusing and I refuse to learn about it. In said confusingly structured system she participated in all kinds of musical activities, her first notable one being a variety show in 2012, where she performed one of her very first written songs, buzzlightyear. Motivated by the positive reactions she had gotten from that, she continued putting herself out there, in the form of acoustic vocal covers on her YouTube channel. Over the years her preferences for songs to cover drifted from more commercial type tracks, for example from fellow YouTuber Justin Bieber, to purely electronic music, with the huge success of her Lost Frequencies cover accelerating this development massively. From Daugher's anthem Youth to originals from the duo whose bootleg of it is responsible for me knowing Daughter in the first place (yes I'm referring to Hybrid Minds), from Birdy originals to Sigma tunes featuring her, from Jason Derulo to Jason Status, Abigail covered a lot of ground across those 70 videos.

When it came to transfer to a university, she chose to pursue musical theatre in Chichester. However, unlike her peers in this strangely named city, she was really more into DnB than musical theatre at this point in her life, making it hard for her to really feel at home there. After about a year of misery, she decided to instead study in Bristol, enrolling in the legendary BIMM institute. In hindsight, this move proved to be a true turning point in her career. Shortly after this, none other than Kanine discovered her vocal covers on YouTube and reached out to her for a feature, resulting in the release of Face Away at the end of 2019. Yep, that was actually one of her very first released tracks, ever. Just a couple months later, another collaboration with Kanine, the absolute anthem that is Back In Time, hit the digital shelves and blew everything even wider open than before. From there on out the opportunities started flying in, from tunes on her home label Born On Road with Gray and DJ Gaw to the likes of Technimatic, who discovered her through her cover of Parallel, Annix, Levela and Friction working with her on labels like UKF, Spearhead, Onyx, Elevate and DnB Allstars.

Her releases weren't the only thing on a steep upward trajectory though. Her online presence, especially on TikTok, gave her a huge boost in visibility and reach, for one. What I was actually getting at, however, was how she managed to work her way up the ladder when it comes to live shows! After gathering experience at various events over the course of the first couple years of singing and songwriting, she was discovered by the aforementioned Born On Road gang in 2019, who invited her to perform on stage with them, which she gladly accepted. Driven by the desire to do whatever she wanted to during these kinds of performances instead of just singing a couple tunes and helped by the fact we all had a whole bunch of extra time on our hands in 2020, she learned how to DJ over the first few lockdowns. Once the world of raving opened up a little again, she was already good enough to be booked to play a bunch of sit-down raves in Bristol. Man, sit-down raves, remember those? Another few months later, after having to go back inside once more, the world opened up properly again and with it, the gigs came rolling in for her. From raves in Bristol's legendary Lakota to playing a massive stage at Rampage Open Air this year, the sky seems to be the limit at this point. Always fun to see how quickly this type of stuff can happen.

Today we'll be talking about a project of hers that has been in the works for basically forever: her debut EP! Way back in 2019, Born On Road asked if she was up for a bigger project on the label, but while she was definitely interested, there were too many other things to take care of first. After roughly two years of being on hold, it was finally supposed to come out in 2021, but the lethal combination of busyness that was her being in her last year of studies, her growing list of DJing responsibilities and plain old Covid pushed it back another year, to, well, today. So let's finally talk about this debut EP of hers, fittingly titled A Little Sound EP!

Unfittingly, however, the first entry into this world of hers isn't little at all, but rather large. On Better Off Alone, Abigail addresses messy breakups and the even messier feelings caused by them. During this first of many signature beautifully soulful vocal performances, she comes to the realisation that the current relationship is simply not working out for her and she's, you guessed it, better off alone. To underline this cathartic realisation, none other than Document One provide us with an equally cathartically banging instrumental, with clean basslines so thick you can taste them and a rhythm so powerful that you can't help but skank your break-up pain away. After working out our body in this sweaty rave sesh, it's time to work on our mental health on Memories, with one of the first DnB artists that believed in her, Born On Road's very own Gray. Thoughtfully tackling topics like self-doubt, stagnation and doom spiraling, Abigail really sings from the heart on this one. While you might know Gray from absolute rave weapons like Rubadub, he's going for a way more subdued tone on this one, with warm basses comforting us in our inner turmoil, melodies striking the balance between melancholy and uplifting optimism and A Little Echo reverberating throughout our brain.

We smoothly slide over to another topic at the core of our mental health: raves, or rather, the lack thereof we collectively experienced. Sure, for some a rave is just something to do on a Friday night, but for others, especially those in the events industry, they were a place to blow off steam and connect with friends and strangers over a shared love of music. On Breathe, A Little Sound shares her personal and passionate thoughts on the matter, with a delivery more sombre than ever before. To elevate this heartfelt ode to our favourite pastime even further, she recruited man of the hour and Best Newcomer nominee goddard., who, as always, delivered a nothing short of stunning instrumental, full of satisfying bass waves, smoothly rolling drums and even some emotional string work. Abigail finishes this saga off with a recount of one of the scariest yet best things she has ever done: taking the plunge and moving to Bristol. In hindsight, this move was obviously exactly the right thing to do, but in the moment, she simply didn't know where this would take her or what would await her on The Other Side. For this deeply personal storytelling journey, Bristolian Dr Meaker crafted a perfectly fitting framework, with powerful piano chords, scary yet warm basses and an unpredictably syncopated rhythm all coming together to represent all the hopes and fears Abigail went through.

A little grounded emotional storytelling, a little astoundingly wonderful singing, a little all-around great!