Picks Of The Week (18.03.23

1. Annix, skantia - Evergreen [Sleepless Music]

Recommended if you like: Synergy, The Outsiders, Vowel

What do you get when you cross the pioneers of the Jump Up crossover-fusion-revolution with one of the hottest new talents born out of said movement in recent years? A real Evergreen of a tune!

Let's start with the former: I was of course talking about Annix! Straight outta Cheltenham, smack in the middle between Bristol and Brum, Scott Farrell and Michael Leeder have been mashing up the dance together since before I was even old enough to be allowed to listen to DnB. Ever since the Metallica fans became mates at the age of 11 (!), they have done all sorts of things together, and only a couple years later, around 2010, it was already time for their music career to begin. With Scott introducing himself as Konichi, occasionally also sporting the Meddler mantle, and Michael channelling his inner math nerd as Decimal Bass, they were turning all sorts of underground Jump Up labels, like BOD Recordings, upside down. In basically no time at all, their twisted sonics found their way to DJ Hype, who started building a relationship with the dynamic duo and by the time 2012 rolled around, the two found themselves signed to Hype's Playaz family of labels, debuting on The Flavours Vol. 4 EP. While Scott and Michael have always been collaborating with their solo names, they decided to create a new moniker for this occasion: Annix!

Ever since their inception, they have slowly but extremely surely annexed the scene with both their Jump Up / Neuro hybrid style and their more relaxed Liquid bits and bops. Not only did they perform a perfect three album arc, with Inception in 2013, Forever in 2016 and Tunnel Vision in 2020, they also worked together with some of the jumpier acts in Neuro like Neonlight and Teddy Killerz, remixed all sorts of Neurofunk legends like The Upbeats, Mefjus, State Of Mind and Noisia, worked together with Knife Party, and released on basically all the big labels like Blackout, VISION, CRUCAST, DnB Allstars, UKF, Elevate, Monstercat, but also Overview and, of course, Sleepless Music (I'll get to that). While they never stopped working with these big boi labels, they were also very eager to put their own stamp on the scene at large, to help the talents of tomorrow and provide a platform for all the other weird bleeps and bloops producers of the scene. So they got together with Simula and founded Neksus Sound in 2020! Of course it is also very much a home for their own wicked machinations, but since then, incredibly sick newcomers like Trinist, Vici or Result and veteran brain scramblers like Redpill, Fade Black or Phace have also all joined the family.

Alright, so we solved the first riddle, but who is that second person I hinted at? I mean, you can just read the title of the post so no need to beat around the bush too much: it's skantia! Residing all the way up north in Newcastle, Charlie Roberts is not necessarily physically close to any parts of this typically Bristolian sound revolution, but trust me, he's absolutely part of it. After first getting into DnB in 2014 and starting to put out tunes in 2017 on Nemesis Recordings, his early beginnings already took him to places like Serial Killaz and Lifestyle Music, with a whole lot of Klinical and Nectax collaborations. Even though this was already hinting at quite the talent, what happened next was still surprisingly huge for him: After listening to one of his tunes on Lifestyle, Jim, RAM's label manager, reached out to him online and asked him for tunes, to which Charlie of course happily obliged. In a whirlwind of motivation and a deep pit of sleep deprivation, he sent over one tune after the other, parts of which then became his EP on ProgRAM in 2019. But some of these tunes were so phat, so perfect to mix with and just so fun that when Jim sent some of them over to label founder Andy C, he not only wanted to immediately sign them to the main label, he also instantly added them to his set playlists and started playing them out all over the world.

The tunes you'll probably have heard the most during that time were Cluster and his remix of Bassline Secret, but if you dug deeper, Charlie was also putting out all sorts of other, less in-your-face-foghorn type vibes like Pheromone or Allure. This skantialously good and refreshingly diverse production also put him on the map for our other two protagonists today, Annix, resulting in their first collab of many, Vertigo. While there was already a lot of talk about a whole album in 2020, skantia instead took the time to diversify a little, with newschool techy vibes like Jubilant, his hard-hitting remixes for IMANU, Gydra, DC Breaks, Droptek, Hoax and Ordure, and collaborations with Turno, Bladerunner and AC13, expanding his label repertoire from mostly RAM to also include VISION, Eatbrain, Onyx, Overview, Neosignal and UKF, before eventually actually putting out this debut album of his in 2022!

One name I didn't mention in this label name-drop bombshell was Sleepless Music. As you might remember from my album review last year, Sleepless is Mark Wilkinson's very own platform for curating some of the scene's finest talents from all corners of the scene like Krakota, Audioscribe, Synergy and, well, Annix and skantia. After a couple solo label debuts from both parties, it's now time to reunite the trio for another single: Evergreen!

And what a fitting tune title it is! If you're not super familiar with these two names, or, well, know what their previous collabs sounded like, you might expect some huge, filthy banger, but for this one the trio infernale channelled their inner vibe masters and delivered one hell of a journey through all sorts of unique soundscapes. After being introduced into this multi-layered world of theirs by glitchy high-pitched insectoid stingers, endlessly ascending synths and a vibey vocal sample, we are smoothly lead to our first main stop, identified by this catchy, large, synthy melody, the gentlest of snares and an aggressively distorted, but contained bass. Halfway through this drop, we are already switching things up with a quite low-pitched machine gun fire of wonky synths, brought into the composition with an intensely effective delayed drop. Don't you dare think we're done yet though! Following a short break from the madness, where our glitchy floaty friends take the reins again, we're hit by these massive growling bass earthquakes and before we know it, the ever-increasing speed of the kickdrum coming right at us brings us to the final piece of the puzzle: Now sharper than ever, the ratatat from earlier is back! Each hit more precisely piercing than before, these stabs tie a really neat bow to the dramatic journey we've been lead on, before their speed is cut in half and we fade out into atmospheric goodness once again.

Not only does this one have an insane amount of great vibe switchups, each of them sicker than the other, it still somehow feels like a cohesive journey of a tune, proving once again that these three are the future!

Other techy stuff from this week:

NOVALU - Second Guessing / Unlove Me
MISSIN - Assumption (Phace VIP)
Matec - Chapter Seven 💎
VRUM, Sablin - Transience 💎
VovKING - Algorhytms

2. Absu - Chop It / To The Floor [Impact Music]

Recommended if you like: Gydra, Qo, Notequal

There really isn't a shortage of artists from Eastern Europe killing it when it comes to Neurofunk. There is one trio that has been turning heads extra hard these past few years though: Notequal. I've of course talked about them a whole lot already, but I've never quite delved super deep into each of its members' histories. Allow me to redeem myself a little, by talking about Notequal member Absu!

Originally from Košice, Slovakia, but nowadays based in Czech capital Prague, Šimon Sýkora, also known as Absu or more bluntly as Absu_NTQL, has been a music producer for quite some time now. While the earliest online remnants of his production work trace back to around 2015, with some tunes being straight DnB and some going the Jazzy Hip-Hop route, these early tunes were already so banging that I wouldn't be surprised if he had been going at it for a while at that point already. As early as 2016, he was already hanging out with Proxer and Longman under the Notequal banner, putting all ravers in the area in serious danger of whiplash, from moving their head back and forth too heavily of course. During this time his SoundCloud still saw uploads of solo tunes here and there, but his main focus became this exciting new venture and man, did it ever pay off. Since Notequal's first release in 2019, their aggressively techy, heavily distorted Newschool style lead to releases on labels like SINFUL Maze, Watchout Music, Hyperactivity Music, Delta9, Play Me Too, Hanzom Music and In The Lab, plus sets at Let It Roll, Darkshire and, most importantly, Berlin's Gretchen, eventually even earning themselves a nomination at the CZ/SK DnB Awards! While this is obviously going incredibly well, Absu decided to put out some of his solo stuff again in 2021, with appearances on Hanzom, Expedite and Sinful Maze. Now, he debuts on one of the most underground yet also kind of huge labels out there, Impact Music!

Ran by Mc Fly Dj and based in Lyon, Impact Music has made quite the, uhm, impression since its first release in 2016. You thought I was gonna say "made an impact" there, didn't you? Way ahead of ya! That's something me and Impact Music have in common actually. Even if you don't recognize the name, which you should but that's beside the point, you most probably will recognize some of the tunes released on it and you sure as hell will know the artists involved in this French label's journey. Don't believe me? Names like Tobax, Monty, The Clamps, Trail, Mean Teeth, Visages and The Caracal Project have celebrated some of their first and finest releases on this wonderful imprint. See what I mean? Not just that though, Impact has also become the home for some real hidden gems like Recam or Immersion and up-and-coming but definitely more well-known talents like Vici, SLWDWN, Rift and [BORDERS], further cementing the label as a platform for some of each generation's finest producers. I probably don't even have to tell you this, as you already saw the list of names above, but throughout all of it, Impact has also never shied away from exploring different subgenres. No matter whether it's Neuro, Deep Liquid, Dancefloor or newschool techy stuff, as long as it's good, it will have a home on this incredibly sick label.

Which brings us back to the release at hand: Absu's new double single! On our first stop on this train into oblivion, Chop It, we're treated to all sorts of great atmospheric work and teases of what's to come, before Absu flicks the switch and the descent into madness starts. After sliding down an ever-descending bassline, we become witnesses to a symphony of basslines working together in harmony to create a thoroughly satisfying call-and-response. Our main driving force here is an extremely heavy forward-chugging 8th note bassline, which fights a strong fight against all sorts of invading forces, from another, extra-deep bass to these little horns cutting into it at all times. Over the course of the drop, things evolve to include more and more of the chuggy bass and more and more hectic drums until eventually the tune just chomps away at us. Before it consumes us completely, however, we do a little delayed drop and revert back to the original formula, ending things on a banging note. In the second half, our chuggy bass and our fast-paced break-y drums are transformed into a 4x4 beat, pounding and pounding away, until we get back to the safe havens of syncopation one last time.

Next we're being summoned To The Floor, not just by Absu alone, but this time also by fellow Darkshire artist and infamously sick DJ/producer Ondřej "Zigi SC" Zegzulka! Just like his DJ sets, this tune not only goes hard, but also very fast. Our main rhythm is this catchy back and forth between fast-paced action mayhem and a stompy switchup with a large distorted bass behind it all, but, as with Chop It, this arrangement is subject to change, all the way through. First the drums become more and more hectic as time goes on, then, as you might expect from the title, we've got a juicy four to the floor beat going on, before ending it all on an absolutely relentless onslaught of drums, pew's and distortion. So many little details, all working together to create complete chaos inside the listener's head. I love it. In the second half, we switch up the order a little bit, starting with a trip to 4x4 poundland, this time with extra pound-y stompage, before a solid wave of distorted bass brings us back to the usual DnB madness.

Absu-rdly good Neuro tunage!

Other Neurofunk stuff from this week:

Scurrow - Excuse You 💎
Mazare, RIENK - Kingslayer
Ruzer - The Best Of Me
oneBYone, Aznok - Night Out / Muzzy
Acaled, Naked - Sharp Turn EP
Sound Priest - Asbestos, Automatic