Picks Of The Week (26.02.22

1. Various Artists - Together With Ukraine LP [Together With Ukraine]

Recommended if you like: DnB, helping Ukraine

It's hard to review something that takes 10 hours to listen to all the way through, but for a beautiful cause like this, and with this much great music attached, I just have to give it a shot.

Over the last week or so, the DnB community came together for something beautiful. Following the Russian attack on his home country, Ukrainian promoter Vlad Yaremchuk, also known as B.Kind, was understably in a bit of a mental downward spiral. Even if you're not directly impacted or are already safely relocated, chances are you still have tons of friends, family and just people you know out there, being impacted by this war in unfathomably horrible ways. Just imagining my own friends in these kind of situations is already scary as hell, I can't imagine how hard it must be for the people actually going through this.

After a few days of "doomscrolling for 14 hours a day", Vlad managed to break out of the cycle and reached out to UK promoter Rhys Bainham, who has been living in Ukraine this past year. The two then channeled all their energy towards the creation of a charity compilation with 100% of the revenue going to the Ukrainian Red Cross Society, using their skills as promoters and their deep connections in the DnB scene to help out as much as they could. That moment was only like a week ago. In the span of just a few days, and with the help of their mates Jan (yes, our very own /u/jandogearmy ❤️), Piotr and Bohdan and multiple huge labels like Critical Music, Metalheadz, Shogun Audio and Hospital Records, they managed to put together the absolute largest artist lineup of anything ever.

This isn't even my usual promotional exaggeration speaking, this is a 136-track strong compilation. One-hundred-thirty-six. In this extraordinarily large pile of tunes, everyone from Ukrainian producers like Dub Head and Warm Roller to absolute legends of the scene like Noisia & Phace, Black Sun Empire & Nymfo, London Elektricity, Fred V, Grafix, Monrroe, Satl, Monty and Halogenix (I could go on for a few paragraphs but I'm going to stop now) has contributed something to this amazing cause. According to the creators, Halogenix was actually one of the earliest artists to sign on to the project, giving it the legitimacy and the push it needed to get everyone else on board too. Not just that, the team, especially Uno, also managed to reach out to countless of digital artists to contribute another 30 artworks for the cause.

And man, did all this ever pay off. In just one day, the project managed to secure 37k pounds for the Ukrainian Red Cross Society. It wouldn't surprise me if they already crossed the 50k mark when this goes live. So, how do I review this then? Well, obviously writing something about all the tracks is just going to result in an insurmountable wall of text and would take me way too long. How about I just quickly go through my absolute favourites of the album and you'll have to find out the rest for yourself? Deal? Deal.

My short highlight reel starts with none other than one of the last bastions of Neurofunk in the UK: Malux, also known as Skope! His contribution Extraction (no, not his collab with Billain, a new one) shows exactly why, even though he hasn't been the most active lately, he's still regarded by many, including me, to be one of the most exciting talents around: Magically clean productions, Neuro basses filled to the brim with shiver-inducing malice and just all-around madness to that gets both your face and your feet movin'. While we're talking about Neurofunk, let me also recommend what the The Upbeats brought to the table. On Foleys the Kiwis are pushing their cinematic productions to their absolute (dead?) limits. Not only is it as modern as some of the greats from their latest album Not Forever, if you listen long enough for the first switchup to hit, you'll know it's also as gritty as some of their grittier output over the years. With its numerous switchups into various different styles over just shy of 4 minutes, the duo is responsible for one of the most dynamic and most interesting tracks of the whole compilation. Yes, I listened to them all. It took forever.

Speaking of interesting productions, next up on my not even that short shortlist is Secula with his journey through the slower tempos Aureus. After a hauntingly beautiful melody played on a distinctly oriental-sounding guitar-like instrument leisurely introduces us into the heavy atmosphere of the track, the young Austrian talent then brings out the big guns. On top of a set of minimal yet face-slapping drums, Secula expertly arranges a flurry of newschool stabs that aren't just the cleanest thing ever, the combination of the two elements also gives the track a real fun rhythm. In quite the dramatic way, the bass slowly but surely takes over the track until both completely disappear and only the unique drums remain. Speaking of new-ish talents from Germany-adjacent countries, dutchman like Rueben, also known as one half of Ordure, is also part of the compilation with his lush roller Longing. With its perfectly chosen soulful vocal sample, its unique bass stabs and an atmosphere to die for, it just oozes emotion. As is the case with any Rueben release really. Lovely doesn't even begin to describe it.

Speaking of lovely, the aforementioned Mr. Halogenix also provided one of my absolute favourites of the LP. The London-based producer, that I'm just going to assume you all already know about, pushes the vibes to its highest heights on Odesa, named after one of the main Ukrainian cities currently under attack. This track is yet another entry in the already quite long list of reasons why Halogenix is one of the best around currently. It's chock-full of deeply emotional melodies, wall-rattling basses and songwriting that makes you forget time, as if you were dreaming. Speaking of dreaming, next up we've got a track straight outta the City Of Dreams, Los Angeles! More specifically, Dr. Apollo and dela Moon take us on the joyride that is Don't Sleep. It's got a wild heavy-hitting rhythm that will keep you on your toes throughout, it's got that unique production that the doctor is known for, it's even got some acidy synths thrown in for good measure. My personal diagnosis: quite a banger.

Speaking of doctors, let's give two of the many great Hospital Records Artists a shout-out. First, Mr. bubbler extraordinare himself Whiney lifts our spirits a bit with the feel-good liquid roller No Time To Cry. With the soulful vocals of Sheila & Amoura and a bass guitar providing sheer endless amount of funk, the british producer shoots the listener right into good-mood territory. Worked for me at least. Speaking of great guitar work, let's give one last spotlight to one of the most interesting producers on the roster: Urbandawn! On The Test the brazilian mastermind takes us on a 6-minute journey through continuously headnod-inducing rolling drums, funky guitars and stunningly unique synths. A combination I simply can't get enough of. His next release cannot come soon enough.

There's literally something for everyone on here. Even if none of the 8 favourite tracks I mentioned above sound interesting to you, there's still 128 more, literally all of them of super high quality. Seriously, it's insane how great a lot of these tracks actually are.

Go, get out and buy this album. Donate as much as you are comfortable with and enjoy more than 130 amazing DnB and Bass music tunes. It's worth it, both in a humanitarian and a musical sense.

I don't normally do this, but to make it easier for you, here's the direct link: https://togetherwithukraine.bandcamp.com/album/together-with-ukraine

2. Kanine - Set It Off / The Weapon [UNLEASHED]

Recommended if you like: Simula, K Motionz, Neonlight

While it's kind of impossible to compete with the sheer amount of artists and great music that was thrown into the scene by the Ukraine LP, a lot of producers still tried. Kanine was one of those that succeeded, in my opinion.

Somehow he has not once ended up on these reviews here, so allow me to explain how we got here. Fergus Bossert, better known as Kanine, is a London-based producer of DnB in all of its forms. Sometimes also Bassline. Before he embarked (em-bark-ed hehe) on his production journey, he was already adept at playing guitar and drums and even had some keyboard basics down. As a british kid he was exposed to and dabbled in a lot of electronic music genres, but once he took his fake ID to the legendary Fabric night club for a Playaz Night, his whole world was changed and he fell in love with DnB. Inspired by said underground jump up legends, in 2016 Fergus started putting out some heavy jumpy stuff as Kanine, a name he didn't (necessarily) choose because he loves dog so much, but mostly so MCs could easily rhyme with it and so it would look good on a logo.

Through a popular free remix of TC - Rap and a lot of releases on various Jump Up labels of both noteworthy and underground calibre, including Levela's label Multi Function, Subway Soundz, Bulletproof Records or Young Guns Recordings, he quickly started getting more and more traction, but the first huge milestone for him was Noisia playing his 2017 tune Detonate at events everywhere and even on one episode of Noisia Radio. Keep in mind, this was still basically all during his first few steps as a producer. The underdog was quite quickly becoming the top dog. On the side, he was starting to experiment with a lot of other sounds. For example, his 2017 bootleg of Axel Thesleff - Bad Karma is so chill you'd probably never have guessed it was his, at least at the time. While he kept the Kanine name for these genre experimentations, thanks to a facebook poll, he also has a separate alias, kliko, under which he combined the acapellas of classic Grime tunes with his own Grime-y, 140-y productions. Another side project of his was the weekly RAAAW event series, which he and a few mates of his built up from the ground up in his student town of Southampton in 2016.

After the first break-through of Detonate, things just started getting more and more crazy for Kanine. Tunes like Keyboard Warrior with Slipz or the legendary The Shadows were starting to get support by all kinds of legends of the scene, even reaching Andy C and A.M.C. The man with the dots was actually one of the first ones to regularly reach out to Kanine for new tracks to play out, even offering him a release a full EP on his label Titan Records in 2018, something that turned out to be a turning point in his career. Alex even got him to play at Let It Roll 2018 at his Titan Records stage takeover. After that, the floodgates were really open. Just a few months later, Want You, the track most people associated with Kanine for a long time (that wasn't the Hackney Parrot bootleg), saw the light of day on Crucast. In the same year Kanine also decided to take a huge step towards artistic freedom in both sound and deadlines by kicking off his very own label, UNLEASHED, with the free download vibe that is Figure It Out.

Just a few months later, Kanine and his close mates Simula and K Motionz unveiled their supergroup Distress Signal at none other than the Rampage festival in 2019, which is exactly where I first got in proper contact with Kanine. It was 5am on the second day, the absolute last set of the festival and the likes of Andy C already kind of blasted our legs off. However, these three blew our collective minds so much with their tune selection and sheer energy that none of that mattered. I've been in love ever since. From there on, the trajectory of Kanine's career was just a straight vertical line towards the top. Not only did he put out releases via Elevate Records, Playaz (going full circle in a way), Drum&Bass Arena, UKF, Shogun Audio and Hospital Records, alongside regular releases on UNLEASHED, he also collaborated with the likes of Example, Wilkinson, Skepsis and Annix and was on remix duty for Delta Heavy, Hybrid Minds and Friction. Across all of these, he has always stayed fresh, always tried out new sounds and subgenres. The only true constant: Kanine absolutely killing it. Saying he has become an integral part of the scene feels like an understatement.

Which finally brings us to his new double single: Set It Off / The Weapon. It's hard for me to describe just how huge these two are, but I'll give it a shot. The I set fire to the booth from the underground vocal sample kicks off the absolute beastly sound of Set It Off. After this wall of bass has grown to insane levels, the sample returns once more to lead us into the drop, where an even larger wave of bass awaits us. Not only is this already absolutely ridiculous, what pushes this over the edge towards best of the year territory for me is the incredibly addicting rhythm of it all. It's that combination of the snares punching through the wall of bass and the fast-paced Cymbals keeping the tempo high, you know? I can see myself going bonkers once this comes on at a rave, not once, not twice, but a hundred times, even a few years into the future. I love it so so much.

The flipside, The Weapon, is a tune that for sure earned its name. Over the last year it has destroyed dancefloors all over the world and it's not hard to see why. Its relentless machine gun fire of high-pitched 16th notes will turn heads at literally every event and, thanks to its broken beat rhythm, it's simulatenously also some of Kanine's rhythmically most unique work of the last few years. After this first burst hits, the 16th notes melody is transformed into a slower, ever-descending melody loop, which over the course of the rest of the track becomes longer and longer. What a track.

Kanine once again does what he does best: Put out impossibly huge dancefloor bangers.

Other bangers from this week:

Neonlight, flowanastasia - Desire
Jon Void, Rob Lee - Lost
Plago - Bastard / Rat Race 💎
Celldweller - Baptized In Fire (Kaixo Remix)
Decades, oneBYone - On Fire / Sorry
Bare Up - Can't Stop