Picks Of The Week (30.09.23

1. QZB - Future Forever LP [Critical Music]

Recommended if you like: GEST, Data 3, Klinical

It's about damn time we talk about QZB on here! Not Qualitative Zulassungsbedingungen. Or questionably zinky beans. Both great options for a dnb (drum and beans) releases thread, mind you, but today I actually want to talk about the debut long player by Critical's very own Swiss-German duo, comprised of Benjamin "Zenith B" Ramsauer and Thomas Qbig Koubik!

That's right, for those of you who haven't been following the scene super closely for too long, a club I'm also very much a part of to be fair, QZB might seem like a name that's been around for ages, but the actual name is still a relatively recent creation, with the rebrand only having happened in 2017. However, as you can imagine when you listen to their quality zestful broductions today, Benjamin's and Thomas' story goes back way further than that. Let's start with Benjamin. Straight outta Basel, the Swiss half of the duo has been working towards this zenith point of his career since at least 2010, when fresh Beni was first trying to find his sound, venturing through the lands of Deathstep, Dubstep and Fidget House (?!), with uplifting titles like Six Million Ways To Die. By the time 2011 rolled around, mister Ramsauer found his calling: Drum(sauer) and Bass. At one of his gigs during this pivotal time, he befriended a fellow artist on the lineup, Thomas Koubik! Hailing from the South-German city Lörrach, directly (qz)bordering on Switzerland, Thomas has also been trying to make it Qbig in Germany since 2010. Basically from the very (qz)beginning, Thomas produced some (tho-)massively moody liquid vibes, with Sleepless and his remix for Dirty South & Thomas Gold - Alive even being uploaded to the back then still quite new promo channel Liquicity to great success, and his debut double single landing on (QZ)Beatalistics in 2012. Don't worry, I'll stop adding QZ to all words starting with b now.

By that time, however, Thomas and Benjamin already occasionally started working together on music and when the former moved very close to the latter's place in Basel soon after, their musical partnership blossomed into something rather Qlarge. With quality releases on Syndrome Audio, Demand Records, Counterpoint, Beatalistics, Liquicity and especially Flexout, Qbig and Zenith B made two names for themselves as artists who can deliver both lush liquid tunes and deeper and darker slappers, while also spearheading the underground DnB rave movement in B town with their RANDOM event series. To make their maturing artistry easier to remember and look up, they decided to use the shortened version of their combined name they had already been using to label their remixes anyway: In 2017, QZB was finally quite zpectacularly born! Said zpectacle came in the form of their very first EP on the legendary Critical Music, the 9th edition of Critical's Systems series. From there on, the QZBois have been checking off one milestone after the other, swiftly earning themselves a nomination for Best Newcomer at the Drum & Bass Arena Awards that year.

Mostly oscillating between Flexout and Critical when it came to a home for their output, with a couple splashes on Shogun and VISION in between, the dynamic duo collaborated with the likes of Phentix, Enei, Circuits, Was A Be, IHR, Emperor, Amoss, Survey and GLXY, remixing Foreign Concept, Vorso, Klax, and most recently Icicle for his last-ever remix album. Like many of their contemporaries, Thomas and Benjamin decided to use the sudden influx of time provided by the pandemic to finally work on their debut album. While they certainly succeeded in creating something special, without the feedback loop of clubs and festivals to work off of and with the constant anxiety and fear of losing one's job during Covid probably not helping either, the end result was way more emotional and experimental than they had initially aimed for. So they simply didn't release it. Bits and pieces were repurposed or released in different contexts, some of which probably also ended up becoming part of their Perspectives EP series, but they basically started over again for the actual album. While I would love to hear the original version, I have to say what we got instead with Future Forever is absolutely crazy good, so I'm pretty sure it was a good move. Anyway, how about we talk about the LP a bit?

With incredible grace we majestically float into the vibrantly vibey, ominously otherworldly realm of the title track Future Forever, perfectly setting the scene with one of my honestly favourite tunes of the year. While this stunning opener of course sets expectations very high, the duo is able to keep the momentum up with Riot Gear Romance, a pure bop that's as laced with ritualistic rhymes as it is with addictive acid with a fun 4x4 switchup in the second half, and Overdrive, the continuation of the legendary collaborative saga with the one and only Charli Brix, who once again delivers in the most sublimely soulful way, while the bois take us on an equally lush deep liquid ride. The bellowing, bassy voice of regular Critical collaborator T Man lays the groundwork for the mariana trench exploration type stepper Shadowban, before the two go on two-man mission through an actual Trench that's almost treacherously (or should I say trencherously) cavernous, but luckily we make it up back up again for the absolutely wonderful, technically excellent yet musically phenomenal roller that is Dangerously High with a most marvellous performance by up-and-coming Luzern-based singer-songwriter Mara Sophia.

Such a sudden change in altitude is bound to induce some airsickness in some listeners, so Thojamin make the transition a little easier with the equally atmospherically strong, structurally unconventional and velvety smooth Nausea, followed by a little break from it all, in the form of a gloomy Breakbeat excursion to Kodaira, Tokyo. Similarly vibey, but back in full-speed DnB action, with an arrangement that slowly but very surely grows in size in an incredibly satisfying way, is the MC Hadley-led Mirage, leading back down into the addictively looping, ear massaging, rhythm in the second half switch-upping, deep and dark channeling Combat Drugs. On this final stretch of the album Ben and Tho first give us another taste of that sweet, sweet MC-led roller nectar on Point Precision, with the subbiest of basses, the distortiest of horns, the largest of sick flows from MC XL and a second half full of great rhythmic permutations, going from supersonic drums to slow, steppy ones, to even completely twisting their rhythm up. Secondly, we take another non-DnB trip to a different continent on Harlem, showcasing the duo's fantastic take on UK garage. Finally, we close things off with another straight-up incredible collaborative effort with the master of soulful singing-and-songwriting Charli Brix, on the tremendously techy, seriously senses-overwhelming and ruthlessly rolling finale Watch It Burn.

Future Forever really is the Quintessential, the Zenith, simply the Best QZB release, so far. Which is saying something! Not only does it effortlessly combine everything they are known for, from the gentle breezes of vocal-driven liquid rollers to the techy glitches of MC-heavy steppers, and then some, they have also imbued all of them with so much beautifully strange, cinematic soundscape wizardry, each on their surpassing even some of the wildest examples of what came before, that it's simply on a whole 'nother level. One of my favourite LPs of the year for sure!

Other deep and dark things from this week:

Skylark - ABOVE & BEYOND
skantia - 2Drill
P Money, Whiney - Streets, Love & Other Stuff LP (also a great LP!)
Mystic State - Between These Moments LP
HEFT - Changes / Millennium