Picks Of The Week (20.08.22

1. gladde paling - dansmuziek LP [big paling sound]

Recommended if you like: gloeiend heet

How do I even start with this one?

Maybe you'll remember me gushing about Mr. paling in my review of supermarkt baslijn back in December 2021. At that point I was obviously already a huge fan of his particular brand of chaotic Jump Up full of Dutch memes I don't always understand, but I still would have never believed just how much things would take off the following months. Around February-March, word of the gladde majesteit's stream of pure gold must have gotten around to the one and only huilende rappers, probably better known as Noisia, because when it came time for the trio to play their very last Rampage show at the legendary Sportpaleis in March, they did something I will never forget: They played innerlijke kracht, with Thys shouting sounds of the gladde paling. To 15000 ravers. One of them being me. You should have seen my damn face! Suddenly, those people, who, for whatever reason, dismissed all of this as just a stupid meme in January, gave him a proper chance and realised just how wrong they were. I mean, they were not completely wrong, it is a stupid meme. Very much so. It's so much fun though!

At this point our lovely smooth eel was already playing shows all over the country, but bookings for bigger and bigger shows came rolling in. Shortly after playing to a huge crowd at Nox On The Beach, he fulfilled a dream of his by being booked to play at Rampage Open Air. Even at Liquicity, on the absolutely bursting (I know because I tried to get in and was turned away) Nebula stage, and High Tea Music's very own Festeaval recently, you could witness the paling in all his gladdeness. Of course, with all of this craziness, his release velocity of one banger per week had to take a slight dip. It would make sense at least. You wanna know the real reason though? He was gearing up for his first full-length album, dansmuziek!

En nu de review.

Since he's one of the more productive artists out there, his album is of course also bigger than most others, with 18 whole tracks! In total that makes up for around 27 minutes of gloeiend heet, with the longest track being 1:46. Excruciatingly long, I know. The thing is, you don't even realise the shortness of the tracks. Thanks to the sheer madness of it all, with new Dutch vocal samples, chicken sound effects and random buildups being thrown around literally all the time, plus an endless stream of BPM and style switchups, you never know when a track starts and ends. Not just that, Mr. paling is also very much living up to his name on this LP, by smoothly welding together all 18 tracks into one extremely glad experience.

It's a non-stop barrage of batshit crazy Dutchness, on top of eardrums-demolishing snares, airhorns and a bunch of distortion. Well, except for the intermezzo, that one is quite relaxing actually. Other than that, nothing is sacred. That one mexican hat dance? Paling got you covered on mexicaanse dans. That damn default morning alarm on Samsung phones? Yup, after an absolutely disgusting intro, ochtenbloem drops right into it, before switching gears to liquid. Actual liquid! Classical music? de grote finale delivers.

I don't even know how else to describe what happens on here. It's just so wonderful. If you want to lose your mind from all the switchups, expand your Dutch vocabulary or just simply laugh your ass off, this one is for you.

To quote this album: Everybody fucking paling!

2. REAPER - DISRUPTOR LP REMIXES LP [Bassrush Records]

Recommended if you like: RIOT, REAPER, Rebel Scum

I know, I know, I'm late to the hype train. In my defense, I've been hyping up REAPER with my friends since the very beginning! I just never got around to also doing that on here for some reason. Weak excuses aside: it's not like he needed the spotlight, man has been crushing it since his very first release. Four years after the masked menace and his masterful management team launched this carefully crafted underground music project with a ton of noisy bootlegs of basically everything from Old Town Road to Shelter, REAPER has become one of the main forces that are bringing DnB to the American masses at the moment, alongside the likes of Justin Hawkes and Kumarion. Right from the get-go, his hybrid, Drumstep-esque approach to DnB turned a lot of heads, including those of the Monstercat label bosses in 2019, who immediately signed him. Shortly after his very first set as REAPER at Brownies and Lemonade in Los Angeles in early 2020, he also became part of Insomniac's Bassrush Records family with Hysteria.

While the pandemic slowed down his live DJing ambitions a little, REAPER used the extra time to double down on his noisy high-energy productions, causing a big enough splash for him to have now released on Deadbeats, Hard Recs, Welcome Records, Ophelia and Jadu Dala. He continued pushing the sound further and further, the most noteworthy project being his involvement with the Critical Mass DnB compilation on Space Yacht, where he brought together 16 different American artists, plus himself, to show everyone what the continent has to offer the scene. What an effort. Surely this will never be topped, right? Well, how about bringing together 35 (!) artists to do remixes for his 2022 debut album, DISRUPTOR? I would say that wins out. Slightly. Just barely. Even though they would certainly all deserve the attention, obviously I won't talk about 35 remixes here. I'm not that crazy. I'll pick out three interesting ones to dissect in more detail though!

Pick 1: REAPER, Bella Renee - IMY (Segan Remix)

First off, a new name: Segan! Samuel Alexander Segan, or Segan for music purposes, is a Los Angeles based producer that has started out this particular project around two to three years ago, with the earliest Segan production hitting the virtual shelves being a DnB flip of Griztronics. The similarities to REAPER's early days don't end there though, the following years also saw Segan put a DnB stamp on all of the things, from Skrillex to Justin Timberlake. On the official side of things, the Segan project debuted with a remix for Tisoki on none other than Dim Mak Records, but he's also become a resident in Worstville. And, of course, he was also part of the aforementioned Critical Mass LP. 2022 saw Segan kicking off a whole new chapter in his journey, complete with the typical social media cleanse, with his self-released single In Your Arms. For this project, REAPER gave him the task of remixing one of his biggest tracks to date, IMY!

How do you remix a track as massive as IMY? Let Segan show you! Instead of the huge wall of signature REAPER distorted basses™️ giving us our melody, Sam positions the wonderfully catchy vocals of Bella Renee onto a more melodic, Liquicity-esque Dancefloor instrumental, inspired by the main melody of the original, but rearranged to give it that Segan sound. Every now and then though, the heaviness still cuts through the beautiful soundscapes, in the form of satisfyingly crunchy deep synths. In the second half Segan gives everything even more twists and turns, with lots of great variations on the interjecting heaviness and additional bleeps and bloops giving the whole thing an even more dynamic feel.

Pick 2: REAPER - MASHUP (PERSONA NON GRATA Remix)

Next up on the long list of new heavy EDM artists with all-caps names: PERSONA NON GRATA! Unlike what the numerus of the name implies, this is not a solo project, but the amalgamation of two US-based artists: Untrust Us and Revel X. There's no time to delve into the deeper history here, so the short versions: Untrust Us is Justin Zachary Lillard, based in San Diego, who, according to a recent "show the world your first tune" challenge, started out making music somewhere in 2016, released his first tunes in 2018 and has been involved with all kinds of local event organisations and labels like No Expectations and Nullsect. His preferred genre? I've given his discography a quick listen and I honestly don't quite know. Interesting stuff though! Revel X, or Revel303, or Revel, is the brain child of LA-based Carlos Lizarraga, who started out on his musical journey in late 2017, mostly focussing on all the different kinds of Techno out there. Fun fact about him: He's very much involved with the gaming scene. Not only is he currently creating his very own videogame SPRAWL, a "hardcore cyberpunk retro first person shooter", he's also scheduled to talk at this year's PAX conference!

Combine the two together and you've some pretty hard-hitting DnB! For their debut they took on the absolute anthem MASHUP, but instead of taking the sound in a different direction, they just took it and injected it with 20cc of pure energy. If you know the original you might think it's not possible to take the energy levels any higher than they already were, but the crazy bastards honestly did it! Everything is neuro'd to such a ridiculous amount that every single hit of the super-charged basses, every single slap of the now even punchier drums, every single switchup in the absolutely insane second drop will make you want to throw something. A shoe, a chair, anything. You will see what I mean when you listen to it.

Pick 3: REAPER - XL8R (Audioscribe Remix)

One last one: Audioscribe! Considering the amount of success he's had over the last few years, he barely needs an introduction anymore, but as you know by now I will of course give him one anyway: Salt Lake City based producer Dylan Hardy, aka Audioscribe (who would have guessed), has been producing drum and bass, among a few other electronic music subgenres, since at least 2013. What started out as him uploading a few tracks to his SoundCloud, quickly lead to him releasing his official debut on NoCopyrightSounds in 2014. After another few singles and self-releases here and there, things seemed to slow down a little from 2015 on, until he suddenly appeared on Dutch powerhouse label Liquicity in 2018, on a collaboration with Justin Hawkes and Boxplot. The real comeback happened in 2020 though, when he not only returned to NCS with Shimmer, but also became a regular on UKF's Pilot label. They were not the only ones who saw his potential though, in 2021 he also joined Wilkinson's brand new label Sleepless Music! And, well, he was also part of the Critical Mass compilation. Oh, another gaming fun fact: He's responsible for the music in Project Entertainment System!

Remember how the duo right before this one took the energy levels to ridiculous heights? Audioscribe did the opposite! Dylan worked his dreamy Liquid magic and somehow transformed Halftime heater XL8R into something to relax in the heat-wave-powered sun to. I honestly did not think any part of the original could ever work as a Liquid tune, but with all these wonderful melodies created by breath-taking pianos and synths, even the cheeky vocal manages to sound melancholic and dreamy. Outstanding is the right word, I believe.

Summary

It's quite impossible to summarise this remix album properly, which I guess is kind of a theme of this week. It is quite literally the biggest remix album this scene has ever seen. Every single track from the original album has been remixed 3-4 times, meaning it took me more than 2 hours to listen to the whole thing! But honestly? It was worth every second I spent on it. I mean, the album contains remixes by Boxplot, Rebel Scum, Slippy, V O E, Mazare, Ekko & Sidetrack and like 20 other big names, all of which absolutely killed it. What more do I even need to say?