Picks Of The Week (23.07.22

1. Sophie Straat, Goldband - Tweede Kamer (The Outsiders Remix) [Sophie Straat]

Recommended if you like: Refracta, Annix, Bou

TWEEDE TWEEDE KAMER!

My hot take of the week: there are few artists that can match The Outsiders' creativity and ability to create unique music. The dapper Dutch duo, consisting of Jozef van der Veen and Roeland van Rijnberk (plus a whole bunch of middle names that I left out for brevity), had originally met in school, way back in 2013, where they regularly shared track ideas with each other. At this point, there's sadly not a lot to be found from this early era, except for maybe this old description of Jozef's YouTube channel, in which he describes himself as a 13 years old electronic music producer. Of course, the uploads are gone already. Aaanyway. Just four years later, none other than Noisia signed one of their tracks, the Half-time slurper Radar Signal, to their Division label. Not only is that already quite the insane start for a career, I think it's important to mention that they were only 15 and 16 years old at the time! Yup. While they were going through the tweede tweede fase of their school education, they added the likes of Vandal, Eatbrain's sublabel Fraktal Sound, Liquicity's sister label Galacy and Noisia's other label Invisible to their ever-growing list of labels they have released on. Half-time, Drum & Bass, Deep, Liquid, anything they did was already of extremely high quality.

The era that followed, however, was when I really started to fall in love with their style. Multiple straight-up incredible releases on Galacy, with the All Night Long EP being my personal favourite to this day, great remixes for Droptek and Coppa on Korsakov, stunning collaborations with Pyvot, NCT and, most importantly, Boxplot. Seriously, In The Cold was a certified instant classic. Not only are both of them also furthering their academic careers during all of this, with Jozef pursuing an Associate's Degree in Electronic Music Production and Roeland studying Music & Technology, they also started their own solo projects! Okay, that's not quite right, I apologize. Jozef already started his Future Garage / Ambient / Burial - Untrue remix alias Ecepta way back in 2016, but he did reboot the project in 2019, to explore all kinds of other related relaxing genres of electronic music. Jozef wasn't the only one who slowed things down with his solo alias though, since 2021 Roeland is also exploring the tempos below the usual 170's with his experimental Bass Music project Sorza, with Jozef helping out on the branding and artistic direction side of things.

2022 marked yet another exciting milestone in their career together: the start of their boyband era™️! While the most obvious difference was that Roeland now has blond instead of dark/black hair, the keen listener's ear will also notice that the two started incorporating elements of the maximally distorted autotune-fueled microgenre that is Hyperpop into their sound, a genre they fell in love with during lockdown.

For the song we're talking about today, however, we need to go back to 2021 again. Back to the 2021 VISION Kingsnight livestream. In a sea of great sets by legends like Noisia, Icicle, Posij and Former, Jozef and Roeland managed to stand out with a mix chock-full of The Outsiders ID's, silky smooth transitions and an energy that just put a smile on my face, making this one of my absolute favourite sets ever. Among this sea of ID's, there was one specific track that triggered more "RELEASE THIS NOW" comments than anything else: A bootleg of Sophie Straat and Goldband's anthem Tweede Kamer, a Dutch Ska song about how there should be more women in government. I mean, do I even need to explain anything more? Of course people loved it. Even though it didn't seem possible to get a proper release out of it at first, they tried getting in contact with Sophie Straat one more time this year and, much to my and all the other livestream watcher's pleasure, it worked this time!

I know I already said I don't need to explain more about my hype for this track with my rhetorical question earlier, but I'm still gonna do it. Hah! Much like the original, it's just so so much fun, with the finger-snapping rhythm, zany guitar melodies in the background and these old-timey vocal performances by both Sophie Straat and Goldband. This fun energy is of course contrasted with the more serious criticisms regarding gender imbalance and general misogyny in Dutch politics, more specifically in the Tweede Kamer, brought up in the lyrics. Just in case you were too lazy to google the translation here. Not only does the speed-up to DnB tempo of the remix amplify this fun energy part of the equation, we're also treated to a masterfully minimal yet bombastically banging drop here. Further into the track The Outsiders even switch the rhythm into a properly pounding 4x4 beat, with Sophie's wonderful vocals bouncing on top of it.

I love this remix so so much. I'm honestly so glad to live in a world, in which it got a proper release. What a great time to be alive.

2. Anwius - Trust EP 💎 [Suspended Sounds]

Recommended if you like: Alpha Rhythm, HEFT, Majestim

Let's end it on something more relaxing. Let's talk about Anwius.

While the statement kind of applies to the entirety of DnB in a way, I would say the world of liquid is especially full of gems waiting to be discovered. Szymon Awsiukiewicz, better known as Anwius, is one of these Hidden Gems™️ in my eyes. From his home of Rumia in Poland, he has been putting out wonderful piano-focused Liquid DnB and Ambient music since around 2018. So far everything he has done was self-released, but for this two-tracker, the Trust EP, he was approached by the newly-formed Liquid DnB label Suspended Sounds. While this specific label is very new, it's actually managed by the team at Immersed Recordings, a more established, US-based label for deep, progressive and melodic house. After working with GLXY for a DnB remix on the label in 2021, founder Alexander Punj felt it was time to explore DnB territory more in-depth, thus leading to the creation of Suspended Sounds! Their mission statement: bringing emotional yet danceable drum & bass to the masses in the US. After last month's debut from Finnish duo Askel & Elere, a remix of Gil Zambrano & Into The Ether - Never Look Back (feat. Gambitt), and the great followup two-tracker by Canadian Liquid maestro Beatmool, they are now continuing their streak of beautiful music with these two new ones by Anwius. So what did he bring to the table this time, then?

Arguably one of his best work to date! Anwius always had a hand for great piano work, but he outdid himself on these ones. Right from the start, the title track Trust goes into this elaborate piano melody, which means I was basically already fully convinced of the track after like 20 seconds or so. Little did I know that it would get even more lovely just a short bit after that. Not only does the piano melody reach higher heights and strike even more melancholic chords, Anwius also brings in these great, steadily flowing drums and warm basses to complete the picture. Similar story for the releases' flipside Suffer. This time the melodies go into this strongly melancholic vibe right from the get go, a vibe that's enhanced even further by a heavier reverberation on basically everything. Over the course of the drops, the piano goes through all kinds of variations and more and more elements come in to join the party, pulling at your heartstrings more and more, until we fade out into nothingness.

Two marvellous tunes, with a heavy focus on some truly beautiful piano melodies. My favourite kind of liquid.

Other liquid from this week:

Various Artists - Soulvent Meets Hospital LP
Ripple - Balada
Emba - Emba LP
Mindstate, Verbz - Get A Move On
flowanastasia, Tyr Kohout - Sending Signals (Shaki Remix) 💎
Joja - Only You EP
SCARFIE - Forever - EP