Picks Of The Week (09.04.22

1. Various Artists - Oolong (High Tea Music Presents) 💎 [High Tea Music]

Recommended if you like: Artino, IMANU, Cyantific

Yes, another review of a High Tea release. I swear I'm not doing this on purpose!

But what I can do when they just always manage to find some of the best underrated or just completely unknown Dancefloor talents out there? That's literally the exact sweet spot to win my heart over! Even after nearly two years of doing these reviews, a weekly releases playlist and just keeping an open eye on all sorts of talents in general, I still learn about a ton of great new names from these compilations, it's honestly nuts. Whatever label owners T & Sugah, or whoever else is responsible for digging up all these producers, are doing to find all these producers, I hope they continue doing exactly that forever and ever. They always manage to hit the exact right amount of uplifting-ness that I love in my DnB, which is why they are my absolute favourite talent scouts of the scene. Or should I say, tealent scouts?

Since most of the artists featured on here are very, very much underrated, I will treat this as my Hidden Gem Of The Week™️. Alright, let's dive into this new blend of exciting talent, shall we?

Let's start with Falcon and his techy newschool banger Symbiotic Dysfunction! Not quite the usual sound for High Tea, but I will most definitely not complain about it, especially if it's done this well. But wait, who's Falcon again? I'm glad you asked! Falcon, aka DJ Mister Falcon, aka Jelle Valk, is a multi-genre producer from Hellevoetsluis (near Rotterdam) in the lands of the Nether. Due to him having too much free time (according to him!), he has been putting out tune after tune after tune on his SoundCloud since 2017. Genre-wise he has never shied away from trying out new things, from Vaporwave to House to Frenchcore, with the first DnB track appearing in September of 2021. Which brings us back to this one!

Symbiotic Dysfunction doesn't just have a very Sci-Fi ring to it, the combination of synths and pianos in the intro also kind of makes you feel like you're floating through the vast nothingness of space. The closer we get to the drop, the more sinister the atmosphere gets and the less distance there is between us and what awaits us on the drop. What is that evil thing lurking in the shadows, you ask? It's a flurry of excellent 16th notes newschool vocal chops riding a massive wave of room-filling bass that's crashing over us again and again! I'm especially a fan of the slight delay at the start of each wave, it makes each of them hit even harder. As if that wasn't already awesome enough, Falcon makes use of his multi-genre skills and switches over to half-time half-way through the drop. For the second half, the vocal chops take a step back and Falcon lets the other elements, most notably the bass waves, do the talking this time. Incredible stuff, not going to lie.

Want some more a little more "out there" (for High Tea at least) tracks? How about Bäris' breaks-y vibe Lost In Forest or Alter Ekho's liquid journey Somewhere In The Depths Of Your Thoughts?

Let's now talk about the aforementioned great Dancefloor on here though, starting with Cursed Sun and their way too catchy earworm Away From Me! For those who don't know, Cursed Sun are a French DnB duo, comprised of Recam and The Watchmaker. They both started producing a long time ago already, but it was only recently that they actually met and started working together. To be more specific, it was in September of 2020 when Impact Music's label boss Jean McFly introduced them to each other, since he knew that both of them love Dancefloor a lot. McFly's instinct seems to have been exactly right, and just a few months later they debuted their new Cursed Sun project on the 6th edition of the French Plates compilation series. After the heavy Gesaffelstein-esque Acid Rush and a great EP on Ukroniq Music last year, they're now back again with Away From Me.

I don't quite know how to describe it, but the whole track evokes this nostalgic feeling of 2014-ish Dancefloor in me. Maybe it's the piano playing its chords, maybe it's the perfectly chosen simple but very effective vocal sample, maybe it's the incredibly catchy main synth melody, maybe it's that little wub-wub behind each synth hit or maybe it's just all of these little great things put together. Either way, it's the kind of Dancefloor I will never get tired of and that I'm always happy to see returning. Just a very lovely track altogether!

Want some more straight-forward and lovely Dancefloor? Well, then I can recommend Into Beyond by guitar enthusiast turned DnB producer Hazed and Faces by multi-talent Houndeye, featuring his very own vocals once again! (<3)

Okay, one more artist spotlight: Let's talk about Pansa Now! While the artist name itself is still very new, the artist behind it, Christoph Pilch, has been putting in the work since at least 2012. Formerly known under the moniker Dubtal3nt, the Austrian producer has been creating a whole lot of tunes in a whole lot of different genres, most prominently Dubstep, with DnB joining in later. In 2019 he joined Disaszt's Mainframe Recordings family and with that huge career step came the name change to Pansa Now. Since then, however, things have gotten a little quiet around him production-wise (he was still active as a DJ of course). Until now, that is! I wouldn't be telling you all this stuff if there was nothing new to listen to, after all.

For this debut release under his new name he chose to go down the route of some of the most uplifting and smile-inducing Dancefloor I've heard in a while. With regular collaborator Stephen Voyce on the vocal duty giving a hell of a performance that's both beautifully soulful and wonderfully cheerful, Pansa Now already had quite a great foundation to work with and he definitely managed to pull off an equally delightful instrumental to go along with it. Beautiful pianos, a rhythm that just makes you want to open all your windows and dance, basking in the sun shining into your living room or wherever your biggest windows are. It just puts a smile on my face, you know?

For some more beauty, I can also recommend the energetic Skyentist remix of Demale - Don't You Ever Say or the relaxing liquid vibes of Aperio's Golden Undertones and Effected Life's Future.

As always, a true treasure trove of great tracks, from Liquid to Dancefloor to even some techy newschool stuff. Or should I say TrEAsure trove?

Other dancefloor things from this week:

Reflekt, delline bass - Need To Feel Loved (Matrix Remix)
Grafix, Metrik - Skyline
Solomon Frace, Oli Scott - Peace Of Mind
Manila Killa, fknsyd - Take Me Higher
Moonaddict, Hasky, Judokay, Runnix - PLAY! Music Selects: V1 EP 💎
NIINEX, Exploid - Memory Lane 💎

2. Refracta - Sakura EP [Onyx Recordings]

Recommended if you like: Bou, JOELY, Alcemist

Now for something completely different. Time for some bleeps and bloops!

Anyone who reads these posts regularly knows that I don't particularly often review Jump Up stuff. It's not like I hate it or anything, I'm just a little picky when it comes to that subgenre. One artist, however, who constantly smashes through my barrier of Jump Up doubt is Refracta, so when I saw he's got a new five-tracker on Onyx coming, I knew what I had to do. Write a review. Just in case that wasn't clear.

So who's this Refracta guy then? His name is Ollie Heath, he's from Edinburgh in Scotland and arguably one of the most successful newcomer artists of the last few years. While his swift rise to the top is still quite recent, he actually started producing back in 2016. While at first he mostly put out some Garage and Bassline bangers, DnB followed not long after. After a few years of producing music only on the side, due to having to juggle stressful shifts at a delivery job, he was finally able to fully dive into the world of production in early 2020, "thanks" to the pandemic making him furloughed. Soon after this, he got his first breakthrough moment with his fruitful 5 A Day EP on TJ Campbell's label Pick'n'Mix, after which he managed to score releases on the likes of Invicta Audio, DnB Allstars and it's sister label Allstars RAW, Low Down Deep's sister label Underground Soundz, Born On Road and BYTHEPRODUCER. I think this is actually one of the first times I'm even mentioning a lot of these labels on here. Whoops.

This week saw Ollie's debut on none other than Onyx Recordings! Formed in 2017 by Chris Wickens for his third year uni project during his Music Promotion studies, with Sam Muted Hue supporting him with all kinds of creative endeavours and Jake Hirst on the writing front, it didn't take too long for the Brighton-based label to jump from success to success. They originally got their foot in the door of the scene with a long-running series of banging free downloads and bootlegs from the likes of Temam, AC13, DJ Gaw and Disrupta and a whole lot of accompanying guest mixes. Then, 2020 happened. Not only did they start putting out paid releases by the likes of T95 & Duskee, Thread and Kontakt, some of which even reaching #1 on Juno Download and Beatport's Hype Charts, it was also the year of their Stay At Home Festival with Goat Shed. I know I've talked a little bit about it on my Muted Hue EP review last year, but it bears repeating. As one of the first streaming events, it was a real glimmer of hope during a time in which a lot of us didn't know when, if ever, we were able to go back to the life of raves, festivals and events. Not just that, they also managed to raise £20,000 for the NHS, more than £6000 for Age UK, plus over £1200 for the artists involved in the online event. It was also just plain old fun. All of that earned them a well-deserved nomination for Best Virtual Festival in DJ Mag's Best of British Awards last year.

The following year, the label started shifting into overdrive mode and released a ton of great new music by people like Hoax, Disrupta, Operate, Trex, Lavance, 107 and even their first full-length artist LP by DJ Gaw, culminating in Onyx winning the Best Newcomer Label award at the Drum & Bass Arena Awards last year. It looks like they won't slow down anytime soon either. Even though we're only in April, we are now talking about release number 7 of 2022, after a lot of great releases by AIRGLO, Sota, Theoretical, DJ Hybrid and their very first label compilation spanning 19 tracks.

Alright, so what does this EP have in store for us then?

Bleeps and bloops. Okay, that might sell it a little bit short. Bleeps and bloops with some very satisfying basses massaging your soul, not too in-your-face yet super danceable drums and a whole lot of modern very british-sounding, for lack of a better adjective, catchy as hell synth melodies. He has really carved out his own sound over the last few years and fully plays into it on here. To avoid having to find a ton of synonyms for some of these signature Refracta elements, I'll just quickly go through each of the five tracks instead of giving a fully detailed explanation. Tokyo opens the EP with an absolutely disgustingly catchy call-and-response between the aforementioned bleeps and a set of lower, larger and gloomier bloops. This is going great. Take Me For A Ride goes down a vibier route, with a relaxing vocal sample, a more subdued yet drawn-out bass and only the occasional bleep coming in once in a while.

Speaking of minor bleepage, Initiate focuses on the wubby part of the Refracta spectrum (Respactrum?) by doing a great little back-and-forth between waves of wubs coming at you and three little bleeps going left-and-right. Mist takes us further down and alternates between the bass roaring, the bleeps bababababa-ing right back at it and either parts of the vocal sample or some more bloops. Smile rounds off the EP with a whole lot of atmosphere, long-held distorted wubs, a big focus on the vocal sample and just a tiny little bit of background bleepage going on.

While I certainly don't quite know how to describe it, I still can't help but love it. I especially can't get enough of Tokyo, but they are all special in their own way.

Other jumpy or deep things from this week:

Silentium - Fallin EP 💎
Rizzle - Mirage EP
Forbidden Society - No Return LP
K HARDEN - Chrome (Audeon Remix) 💎
skantia - Dreams
Result - Pilot / The Gap
Phentix - Divergence EP
YUSSI - HALO JUMP