Picks Of The Week (02.04.22

1. Billain - Lands Unbreached LP [Renraku]

Recommended if you like: Spor, Noisia

We've had some truly excellent releases in the Neurofunk sector this week, with the return of the one and only Spor, legends like Magnetude and Pythius and all kinds of bangers by the likes of Task Horizon, ComputerArtist, Brazed and more. However, there is one release that stands out from all the others. Billain's sophomore album Lands Unbreached.

I honestly don't know how to properly introduce someone as prolific as Adis Kutkut, aka Billain, because surely there is some detail I will miss, but I'll try. As a child living through the horrors of the Bosnian War in the 1990s, Adis found solace in creatively expressing himself through drawing, which lead to him becoming a part of the local underground graffiti and Hip-Hop scene of his home town Sarajevo during his teenage years. From writing his own Hip-Hop lyrics he went on to produce it himself too, which lead him to Techno, which eventually lead him to Neurofunk, thanks to a little release called Wormhole. During this transformatory time he also joined the event organising DnB collective Kontra, which was responsible for bringing countless Neurofunk legends like Matrix, Optical, Optiv and Teebee to the city. After recovering from the complete loss of his production work thus far thanks to a total hardware failure, he started sharing the music he has been working on with the world. His debut on Breed 12 Inches in 2008 was followed by releases on Syndrome Audio, Citrus Recordings, before becoming a regular on Bad Taste Recordings. His cinematic approach to Neurofunk, paired with his immaculate attention to detail in his productions, lead him to later also release on the likes of Critical, Eatbrain, Blackout and Mindtech.

However, while his patented Cyberneuro DnB is the reason we're talking about him here, and the reason I know of him in the first place, we have only barely scratched the surface of the long list of creative endeavours Adis has been pursuing over the years. Let me try to quickly go through most of them. I apologize in advance for the unstructuredness. Inhales deeply.

In 2012 he established a separate alias for the even weirder sides of his productions called Aethek, also stylised as ΔΞTHΞK. Under this alias he also produced music for the atmospheric first-person horror adventure game Scorn in 2017 (to be finally released in October this year!). Wait, there's more. Way more. Not only did he work alongside composer Sloven Anzulović to create the music for the grand reopening of the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina that was destroyed during the war, his synth programming work can also be heard in big Hollywood blockbusters like Pacific Rim and the Gerard Butler and Gary Oldman action thriller Hunter Killer. Speaking of movies, Adis is also very involved in a few visual endeavours. Even if you're just looking at graphic design there's his amazing work with the ANTIREAL company, where he creates "posters, artwork covers, ID and logo works, videos and all kinds of vector works", and the experimental visual design journey that is Hyperbinary with Amar Mulabegovic and Jan Sima. His work isn't limited to the static design spheres though, he also directs extremely impressive music video shorts and trailers, sometimes even working together with Japanese company 1000 Toys, and sometimes does some audiovisual work for huge car companies like Audi via the BLOWUP company.

It doesn't even stop there though. Later this year we will be able to finally fully experience Fugitive, Billain's full-length feature film (!) set in the cosmos of his dystopian Cyberneuro future. Together with a whole team of animators, illustrators and 3D modelers (including Cheng WeiZhi, Machine Cult and Marko Gacnik) and co-produced by Sarajevan team Kontraplan, supported by Symphony, FLStudio, Kilohearts and the Foudation Of Cinematography Sarajevo, with pre-release lore being dropped via various websites (neosarayevo.com and sodyn.net for example), Billain is on his best way to bring his Cyberneuro vision to the big screen. Honestly one of the coolest things ever.

His love for long-form storytelling has been brewing for quite a while though. Ever since his Colossus EP in 2014, a story which he had been working on since around 2009, he has been continuously building up this incredible decades-spanning Sci-Fi Cyberpunk epos across multiple EPs, his Nomad Revenge debut album in 2019 and six more forthcoming albums. Well, five, now that Lands Unbreached is here. This isn't just an amazing amount of music, this sprawling story is also littered with insane amounts of detail that I don't think DnB, or electronic music really, will ever see surpassed. I mean, he even invented his own language for the characters in his story with an engine he developed himself to make things sound more believable. I can't think of anyone going this far for their music. It's insane. I love it.

While his ambitious plans have been met with a lot of support by some of the labels he has worked with in the past, he still had his fair share of creativity-draining label executives wanting to influence his music to be more comforming, which he... didn't like very much. To partially quote him, they "should be tied and sent to Pluto". Which is why he was very happy to have found the Minneapolis-based label Renraku. As an outlet for a lot of quite experimental stuff out there, they let him have full creative freedom in delivering his 7 albums. Which finally brings us back to the reason I've been compiling all this background info: the release of his second album Lands Unbreached! As always when I review full albums in this "short" format, I'll focus mostly on my favourites and give a short summary of the rest of the album. Let's go!

Let's start with the opener, Breach! Effectively introducing the listener to this fifth total chapter of this truly epic series surely has got to be a daunting task, but Billain pulled it off masterfully. The atmosphere is chock-full of beautifully melancholic melodies performed by various string instruments and an arrangement of drums that gives us a little glimpse into what we are about to witness on this LP. Then, the first Neuro bass drops in. Silence. Enter: Tasha Baxter and her unmatched ability for stunning and haunting vocals, pushing the already high levels of cinematic quality this track is exuding even further. While the drums in the buildup were already up to some crazy shenanigans, as soon as Tasha utters the titular Breach, the breaks become a full-on tropical cyclone of pots and pans. Even though these are some of the glitchiest, heaviest breaks I've ever heard in a non-Breakcore track, Billain never loses his grip on the overall flow of the track. What's even more impressive is that he also manages to weave back in so many more elements from the buildup, like Tasha's vocals and some of the string melodies, back into the drop, creating one hell of a journey in the process. Breach really is a very early (or very late) yet still excellent christmas present for anyone who enjoys unique fast-paced drum programming and haunting cinematic atmospheres.

I know this is a DnB subreddit and all that, but I need to mention iNFINITE Blue too. Not only does it have one of the most aesthetically interesting and just absolute best music videos I've ever seen, it's also just so huge in its production. At first you're sucked into the track by its pretty melodic nature, but soon enough the massive basses begin to overwhelm your senses and you can't help but be mesmerized for the full 6+ minutes. Not to mention that insane breakdown, where Billain pushes the distortion to its absolute shiver-inducing limits, before the drop hits us again like a ton of bricks. Insane vibe all the way through. If you're into evil-sounding, very well-produced non-DnB, I can also recommend Sukapunch, Battery Boy, NEWGROOVEORDER with Kursa and Gigant. If you just want to vibe some more with non-DnB, give Memory Block and Second Dream a try. Back to DnB now though!

For this next one I've chosen Cosmic Gate, featuring none other than the one and only Kemal! Billain songs are always a bit longer than the kinds of tracks aimed at Spotify-curated playlists, but at just a little bit more than 7 minutes this one is still definitely one of the longer ones of his. There's a few even longer ones on this record, but we'll get to that later. As you'd expect from a production that Kemal is involved in, this one features a lot of the classic signature Kemal elements, most notably the quick-firing acid-y descending synth. Of course we're also again treated to a wonderfully dark cinematic atmosphere that knows exactly what to do to transport the listener into the world of the story, but it's the perfect blending of the two artist's styles that really fascinates and excites me here. Especially in the second half, when the rhythm turns into a 4x4 version of itself becoming faster and faster and, you guessed it, faster. Absolutely crazy progression on this one. For some more DnB with the occasional 4x4 section, you can also check out Y3K, Overlord (this sound design!), Mekanize You (that incredibly quick staccato rhythm!) and Reincarnation.

My last spotlight choice is Overcome, which acts as the LP closer. As such, it obviously has a lot of storytelling work to do, which explains why it's 9 and a half minutes long. As is often the case with Billain though, no time is being wasted here, this track earns the nine minutes runtime. After beautifully building itself up for a minute, the instrumental drops out and makes way for the chilling main synth melody. Of course this peace and quiet doesn't last long and soon enough the drop comes crashing down upon us. On top of some punchy rolling drums, we are witness to a great back and forth between the aforementioned melody and various different otherworldly elements, creating a futuristic soundscape you just want to get lost in. This progresses smoothly from one sublime variation to another, with a wonderful breakdown in between drops giving the listener a little space to breathe. After we've passed the 7 minute mark, we are left with an honestly awe-inspiring outro that first manages to evoke intense emotions and feelings of, for lack of a better word, epicness, before giving us the voice-acted conclusion of this chapter's story.

It's almost a cliche to say that, but it's true: No one does it quite like Billain. You really need to listen to it to fully understand what I mean. Obviously the production is out of this world, but what really sets this one apart and makes this a worthy contender for album of the year for me is the level of cinematicness and songwriting that is on display here. It's one of those records that gets better and better the more you listen to it, as you discover all the many little details and soak up the themes of the masterful storytelling. Incredible.

Other Neurofunk from this week:

Magnetude - Hidden Deep
Spor - Let Me Be
Violence - Opus I (REMIXED) LP
Brazed - Mutex / Contention 💎
Task Horizon - Sahara
ComputerArtist - Entity
Screamarts - The Paradox EP
Rido, Holotrope, Phonetick - Crocodile / Maybe
Zak Meow, Born I - Born To Rise (Zardonic Remix)