Picks Of The Week (30.04.22

0. Boxplot - Here & Now LP [Liquicity Records]

Recommended if you like: Justin Hawkes, Feint, Amaryllis

Just in case you haven't seen it yet, I did another full-length review of Ian Sheldon aka Boxplot's debut LP over here: https://www.reddit.com/ujkkxe

1. Maozon - Vertical Flip LP [UMBRL]

Recommended if you like: C-Show, Yellock, Metrik

Konnichiwa everybody!

Approximately one and a half years after a friend and I stumbled upon the vast and wonderful world of Japanese DnB (outside of the usual suspects), I finally get the chance to talk about one of my favourite discoveries from that whole thing: Maozon! That whole scene is such a separate but extremely lovely bubble of DnB and I'm honestly super excited to give you a little glimpse into it.

While he has occasionally crossed over to the European side of the scene (for instance in 2021 when he debuted on ProgRAM on Mountain's double single, together with Azumai), I still believe I should give a proper introduction. Maozon, also known as Mao Sawatari, is a Japanese multi-genre producer from Yokohama, with a big love for all things Dancefloor DnB. Inspired by the likes of Sota Fujimori, KONAMI's music game Beatmania and various other "overseas" music sources, he knew he wanted to produce electronic music himself too from quite an early age. And that's exactly what he did! In 2010 he started producing and releasing under the Maozon name as part of the Diverse System collective, on whose compilations he had soon enough become a regular. Around 2012 he went on to win a remix contest hosted by ASY, a drum'n'bass project by DJ AKi, STY, and YUUKi MC, which lead to him becoming a part of the music company Digz. Shortly after, in 2013, his big debut album Hello & Again followed. His officially released output isn't even close to all of his musical content in that time though, according to his credits section on Wikipedia he is also regularly providing compositions for a ton of other artists and even for the game Beatmania IIDX! Not to mention all the Doujin Music work he's constantly doing.

Throughout all of this time, he was never married to one particular sound though. Trance? Yep. DnB? Of course. Trap? Sure why not. While he certainly seemed to have a preference for our beloved genre, you could never quite predict which genre a song would be. As a little experiment, or simply to separate his different sounds a little more, he even started anonymously releasing music under a new mysterious Trance alias Scarfaith in 2014, followed by Primal Beast in 2015, this time focusing on the harder stuff like Crossbreed and Hardcore. Another year later he let the anonymity mask fall, revealing that he was behind it all! Those are the kind of dramatic reveals I'm missing in our parts of the scene.

In that same year he also went on to found his own label for Japenese DnB, Subdued Records, on which he was able to give a spotlight to the likes of Theoretical, DJ Masa and Fetus. However, nowadays Maozon mostly releases via the UMBRL label, which seems to be mostly a self-release label for all the latest Maozon goodness. In 2020 Maozon and his friend C-Show released their collaborative album MUSIC, with all their different styles and genres combined into one comprehensive album. Around this time he also regularly took part in the Bass Chasers Japanese DnB compilation series, which was organised by, you guessed it, C-Show, and was exactly where my friend and I's journey into this bubble began!

I still have such fond memories of that day. My friend sent me the intro track of MUSIC that he seemingly randomly found on YouTube and since we both loved it, we went through the whole album, continued on through all of the Bass Chasers albums and checked out every piece of music by the artists involved here that we could find, with Maozon being our favourite of them all. We spent a whole evening just going through every online set and all the albums and just being impressed how awesome all of this stuff is, especially considering we never heard of any of it before, anywhere. Soon enough we found out that, like a lot of other DJs, the pandemic gave Maozon a little push to start streaming regular DnB sets via Twitch, which we promptly joined in on. Even all this time later, we're still regularly on there, not only because Maozon is a great DJ with a selection we both enjoy deeply, it's also all just so much wholesome fun. Every Monday, 13:00 CET. Come hang out, it's great!

Anyway, let's talk about the music now! Last week saw the (Spotify) release of his brand new album Vertical Flip, on which he showcases all the different yet consistently fun styles of production he is known for across 10 (mostly) DnB tunes! Let's go through them real quick, shall we?

We kick things off with the title track Vertical Flip, which isn't just a weird physical move to wrap your head around, it's also just a perfect representation of Maozon: Beautiful yet dramatic synth melodies, contrasted with bassface-causing Dubstep-y growls, combined with super punchy Dancefloor drums. In the second half we dive head-first into a little 4x4 excursion, the first sign of Maozon's multi-genre capabilities. On Discoteque we take a more relaxing route, with a whole lot of funk, all kinds of different pianos and the occasional deep wub guiding us on this ride.

Stream takes the Dancefloor energy up a few more levels again, with the introductory uplifting synth melodies quickly being transformed into a more hard-hitting mid 2010s Dancefloor kind of synth relentlessly pushing the listener to bust some sick dance moves. Speaking of hard-hitting, get your hard hats out, because the second drop is going to be absolutely bonkers. As in Hardcore switchup bonkers. You've been warned! High Voltage continues the trend of synth-heavy hard dancefloor, albeit slightly less hard than its predecessor of course, this time with a big focus on the back and forth between multiple little glitchy melodies. Don't worry though, there's plenty of more straight-forward melodic goodness to be had here too!

Next up we've got Flying High, on which Maozon busts out all the best rave-y sound design tricks, including but not limited to: Think Break choppage, high-pitched vocal samples, rave pianos and rewind sounds! During the fun drop we switch from more rolling breaks-style drums to banging Dancefloor drums, like a little time travel episode. On the guitar-driven Burn Out we slow down a little bit to Half-time tempo, however don't let that fool you into thinking it will be any less energetic. Yet another example of the aforementioned multi-genre capabilities!

Onto our next DnB track: Jasmine with BADMYTH! Just like on Flying High, we are treated to a more Breaks focused style of Dancefloor, however this time we stay in that lane all throughout. In this one, the two producers are engaging in a really fun back and forth between breaks and that short little vocal sample they keep chopping into it in between. On Strong Wind we go back to a more modern type of Dancefloor, with a simpler but punchier type of drums and an anthemic chip-tune melody that is just way too catchy, paired up with a switchup that will make you scrunch up your face.

Getting towards the end now: On Aetherize Maozon goes all out on the experimentation front, with a straight-up savage rhythm paired up with some great glitchy sounds that are completely rewiring my brain every single time I listen to it. Last but not least we've got the continuation of his Bass Chasers anthem Comet Rider, aptly titled Comet Chaser. Even though the melody builds on the same foundations, it doesn't take long for this sequel to branch off into its very own, amazing thing. Uplifting vocal chops, multiple 8-bit video-gamey melodies and some, once again, clean as hell drums all come together to form one great vibe that I can't get enough of. Probably my favourite track of the album.

Across all ten tracks it just becomes so perfectly clear what a great talent for memorable melodies Maozon has got. Every track kind of sticks to your brain, even though they're all mostly instrumental. Not to mention that everything is just very cleanly produced and a whole lot of fun too! Simply amaozong, as always.