Picks Of The Week (28.10.23

1. Telm & Wilson - BLEM 💎 [Yamatai Records]

Recommended if you like: The Sauce, Waeys, DLR

Camo & Krooked. Simon & Garfunkel. Bonny & Clyde. Siegfried & Roy. Pokémon Red & Blue. Peanutbutter & Jelly.

Nah mate, Telm & Wilson.

You know 'em, you love' em. For now more than three and a half years their name has been synonymous with bringing you the freshest tunes our lovely little genre has to offer, week in and week out. Now, they themselves have contributed three fresh tunes of their own. That's right, amidst all the work you have come to know from them, the crazy Finn's have worked on their productions all this time! While you were already able to hear a lot of these wonky wobblers in their bi-weekly livestreams or in clips from their live shows, it took until this past week for the first batch of bangers to actually come out, in the form of their debut EP BLEM, on the one and only Yamatai Records! And I mean, how could I not give them a spotlight for that? After giving me the idea of the Hidden Gem label in the first place back when we first started doing this weekly post, let's take this whole thing full circle and take a look at this week's Hidden Gem Of The Week™️, Telm & Wilson. Or should I say, Hidden Telm Of The Weekson? Probably not. But I (Telm &) will, son!

I know I confidently said "you know 'em", but there's way more backstory to (dis)cover for the both of them. Let's start with the basics. As many of you might know, the duo consists of Finnish DnB enthusiasts and long, long-time friends Arttu "Telm" Tick and Ossi "Wilson OCD" Wilson. However, the real DnB OG of the pair has got to be Arttu, with his deep love for the genre having already been established back in 2004 (!), ever since stumbling upon Pendulum. Arguably, or arttuably, Ossi wouldn't be invested into this whole drums and basses thing at all without him, as he was still thoroughly into all things Trance in the first couple years of secondary school. Ossi's road from Järvenpää's biggest Above & Beyond fan to becoming part of the duo that is themselves going above & beyond for the DnB scene on- and offline only began to open up when the two of them started hanging out more a couple years later.

Both now sinking deeper and deeper into the genre, they both, still individually, started creating and uploading their very first mixes around 2014, with Arttu's catalogue including best of year review type mixes, artist spotlights and a dj competition and Ossi confidently countering with amazing titles like "DnB first, Boobs later". While I would certainly love to hear what other masterpiece names the latter would have come up with, he mostly kept to himself for the next couple years, while the former kept the mixes coming. On a fateful day in 2017, the two of them decided to enter Helsinki Jungle Mafia's mix competition together, just as a bit of fun really. As the story often goes with these things, they actually went on to win the whole thing and so the initially improvised name stuck and the Telm & Wilson project was officially born! Now that they were finally teamed up, they were everywhere: not only did they launch their monthly release recap mix series, they also did guest mixes on Bass Radio and Ylexa and even secured a residency with the Helsinki Jungle Mafia for a couple years!

But that was only just the very tip of the iceberg. Of course, they have continued making a name for themselves with their versatile mixing style, either in clubs supporting the likes of Sound In Noise, Logistics, Askel & Elere, on guest mixes for DJ Orion's radio show and Dresden-based DnBrand Urge To Move, on their SoundCloud with their monthly release recap mixes (which were sadly discontinued in 2020) and on Twitch with their bi-weekly streams with some of the best visuals around, but there is still so much more. Not only are they deeply involved in the Finnish DnB scene as a whole, from scene meet-ups to even playing an integral part in the organisation of a massive street festival with 40k visitors in Helsinki, they are arguably an even bigger force for good in the online spheres.

As you might know, they have been organising and posting a weekly thread compiling all the new DnB releases for almost 4 years now, but they've also done some great other work as one of the main moderators of /r/dnb, from keeping the spam bots and hateful comments at bay to organising all sorts of AMAs. Not to mention Ossi's involvement in Millstreet's Last Week Liquid YouTube/Podcast endeavours, from release-focused content like the regular recap show The Rundown to more fun stuff like capturing their first reactions to legendary albums like Ed Rush & Optical's Wormhole. Hey, that's another good duo I could have mentioned in the intro!

After listening to what must by now amount to millions of tunes and mixing countless of them together for almost a decade, they simply know what makes a tune work. So when I received the news that they started to work on their own riddims, I knew we would be in for a treat. Best Newcomer Label nominated imprint Yamatai Records, who you might remember from my Ewan Bristow review, seems to agree with that assessment, as they promptly signed three of their tunes, resulting in the EP we're now seeing in front of us: BLEM. And no, that's not me using a weird variant of bosh that I scream out because I'm excited for them, that's the EP title! I see how you could think that though, as I truly am quite hyped about them ticking off this particular milestone. Get it? Ticking? Because Arttu's surname is Tick? Yeah you get it.

Anyway. Time to finally talk about the bleeps and bloops that Blem & Wompson have cooked up for us! The duo ticks things off (I swear I'll stop after this one) with probably the most accurately titled track ever, the title track BLEM. After a succinct intro, the titular star of the show, the consistently cheeky BLEM, enters the underground arena to fight for our attention against the relentless, ever-evolving wobbly wobs, while some truly tight drums push the crowd's hype levels to new heights. Not only do they manage to effortless combine all these fun little things to a crazily catchy riddim in the most minimalistic Bristolian of senses, thanks to the never-ending progression across this "one long drop" structure and some proper brain-scratchy warehouse type sound design this silly little tune ends up being a prime example of how minimalism can be done right.

Continuing this trend of the, for my tastes at least, relatively rare well-done minimalist banger, we continue on with Hounds. This time the duo is putting a bigger emphasis on the fonk of it all, with extra heavily swaying drums, targeted bass hits that only occasionally strike and a fun call-and-response between sharp yet playful synth stabs and a set bellowing wubs reminding me of deeply pitched-down dog barks. Hence the title, is my theory at least. It's one of those tunes that have so many different looping things going on at the same time that you might get overwhelmed (overtelmed) if they weren't all arranged as precisely as they are, resulting in a super satisfying composition.

Lastly, they are closing up their little shop of blompy bloopers with Flex. Still as forward-pushing and head-nod-inducing as its predecessors thanks to some proper hard-hitting drums, it certainly goes into a more jump-up-y direction, with all sorts of fun little dududu rhythms moving up and down the scale, while retaining that deep flair. The slightly higher-pitched response part of the equation genuinely feels like it's laughing at me with its sick, evil, deeply unnerving yet also kind of fun laugh, as if to say "hah, we're making you enjoy jump up, you sucker!". Like a proper, super campy villain from the most evil corners of Bristol.

Atmospherically unsettling, rhythmically pleasing, cheekily bouncing, with a production so tight you'd never in a million years suspect this is their first-ever release. They really went on a proper BLEMpage here.

Other deep and dark things from this week:

Bou - Swerve It EP
Brainwork, mnml - Distractions LP
Alibi - Rave Digger VIP
Silloh - Turn Off / Lose Control