Picks Of The Week (18.06.22

1. Blanke - ÆON:ONE [Deadbeats]

Recommended if you like: Dimension, Culture Shock, Metrik

Even outside the "inner circle" of full-time enthusiasts, Drum and Bass has had quite a few great years recently. Sure, the yearly recurring proclamations of this year being "DnB's year", with DnB 2020 turning into DnB 2021 and then 2022, always seemed a little silly. I mean, if you're really into it that much, why restrict it to just one year? However, DnB being on the rise is still something I will fully agree on. Not only do TikTok-fueled sensations like PinkPantheress and other names a boomer like me wouldn't know about bring a ton of new fans to the genre from outside the usual circles, there's also been a notable increase in all kinds of electronic music artists showing their love for DnB, from deadmau5 supporting Spor and Bensley on his label to Porter Robinson playing Buunshin at EDC 2022. Some have even started their very own DnB project, to various degrees of success. This week saw the incredibly versatile Aussie-turned-American producer Blanke take on this particular challenge, resulting in arguably one of the best Dancefloor EPs of this year. Before we get into that though, let's talk about the person behind the music first. For those who are drawing a blank, you know.

John Paul "JP" Orchison, certified hater of all forms of winky-faced emojis, started his journey out in good ol' Straya's capital, Canberra. As is often the case on here, he was already quite musical in his childhood years, in this case playing guitar since he was 10 years old, but since he never really found a band to play in, his musical career didn't take off just yet. During his school life he was also very much into all things athletics, starting with long jump and ending with velodrome cycling, in which he was on his best way to Olympia levels of success. Until he turned 17 and discovered DJing, that is. You see, DJs don't need a whole crew, they can just rock solo!

Through a previous waiter job at a local café he got in contact with someone, who then got him into working at Canberra's Academy Club as a busboy, which later lead him to a managerial role. The same week he got the promotion, however, he started getting booked as a DJ too, culminating in him having to jump from behind the counter to behind the decks in the very same night even. To further fulfill his creative urges and to complete his transition from mixing cocktails to mixing tunes, JP of course also wanted to create his own music too. Inspired by the likes of deadmau5 and Pendulum, JP set out do crazy 8-minute long journey type tracks and drum and bass bangers, but soon realised it's a bit harder and way more technical than he assumed it would be. Whoopsie.

Instead, he got into the Big Room/Melbourne Bounce craze that took the world by storm (or should I say by tsunami?) at the time. Under the Leuky moniker he started putting out tunes left right and centre around 2013, with Friction reaching the top spot on the Raw FM charts and him apparently remixing artists like ZHU and ... Iggy Azalea? Huh, not a name I expected to pop up. While this certainly got him to a certain level of success, he wasn't quite happy with the sound anymore and wanted to branch out. Once he got his new sound down, he started flinging dubs towards the Ministry Of Sound inbox and soon enough, they wanted him on the label! Since a big change in sound like that would be a bit confusing for his existing fans, he decided to create a new alias: Blanke.

2016 saw his first release on Artist Intelligence Agency, after which his career took a sharp turn upwards, with releases on Kannibalen Records, Dim Mak Records, Monstercat, mau5trap and, of course, Zeds Dead's Deadbeats label. He didn't just have the labels on his side though, his rise was so meteoric that the fans were all over him too, with our friends of /r/EDM even calling him the Break Out Artist of 2019, among many other titles for his standout Midtempo Bass work that year. One of the main reasons he remains one of the more interesting EDM artists these days is the sheer variety in his releases, in both subgenre and general vibe. Sure, a lot of his earlier stuff was quite angry and distorted, even throughout multiple genres, but from around 2019 on his sound noticeably started becoming more melodic and just all-around different.

Among all the genre experimentations of that time, he decided to go back to his first love, DnB, again and thus, his Deadbeats single Alchemy was born. Throughout the following weeks, Alchemy became Triple J's most played track of the time, launching Blanke to even higher heights than ever before. While his main, now more diverse than ever before, musical output is coming out on Ophelia nowadays, Deadbeats seems to have become the place for his DnB from then on. Except for the occasional remix, like his take on ShockOne's Follow Me, it had become a little quiet around his DnB ventures on the surface, but his love for the genre kept bubbling along all this time, as any fan will be able to tell you. In early 2021 he introduced the world to ÆON:MODE, a DnB version of his already quite energetic DJing sets. As you can guess from the title, that's not where the ÆON mythos ends though. In September of 2021 the journey towards ÆON:ONE, his first-ever full-on DnB EP, was officially kicked off with the lead single Breathe. Now that the whole first three-tracker is finally out, let's (finally) talk a bit about it!

This journey through Blanke's world of DnB begins with Need & Pleasure. Right from the start, this EP opener's opening manages to create quite the menacing industrial atmosphere, achieved through a combination of synths straight out of a horror movie filmed in an abandoned warehouse, a relentlessly unnerving rhythm that's coming closer and closer and, to top it all off, a mysterious french woman talking about the titular needs and pleasures. Dimension would be proud. The drop gives us a whole lot of great production too though, with its exquisite call and response between this beam of a huge synth flying around in the 3D auditory space until it becomes all fluttery and a combination of tiny donks and big wubs. Look at me, getting all technical again. Blanke isn't done with this track yet though, which is why the second drop goes full blast on the menacing melody of the buildup, resulting in one hell of a goosebump-worthy moment. Absolute belter of a tune.

From industrialism to space...ism: The second stop on our voyæonage, Polaris! The serene intro melody, assembled from various high-pitched vocal samples, already tells us this is going to be a bit more uplifting than its predecessor, but once these huge trance-y synth melodies triumphantly come in, it becomes clear we have entered a space shuttle that's headed straight to the galaxy, further solidified by the vocal sample right before the drop. Man, that drop. Sure, the melody was already ridiculously catchy and smile-inducing during the buildup, but in combination with these massive, room-filling background chords and these perfectly danceable snares it's making me want to close my eyes and dance as hard as I can, no matter where I might be at that moment. One of my absolute favourites this year, I honestly can't get enough of that melody.

Last but certainly not least we've got Breathe, the project kick-off single! Bit of a throwback almost. Some might remember it as a great double for Generator, but it's so much more than that. Not only is it the first time Blanke used his very own, honestly quite great vocals in one of his tracks (and no, I'm not talking about the stare into my eyes part), the instrumental is also absolutely slapping. That main synth has such a satisfying sound to it that feels like its massaging parts of my ears I didn't even know were massageable, its melody sticks so firmly and permanently in my head it could replace superglue if we could harness its cohesive power into liquid form, it's just one hell of a banger is what I'm trying to say.

An extremely well-produced, melodically stunning EP. The hype for part two is real.

Other dancefloor things from this week:

Sub Focus - Off The Ground
Vantour, Disorder Type - Knives & Bandanas
More Plastic, VinDon - Patience
Delta Heavy - Hydra
Alora - Light Of Dawn