Picks Of The Week (08.04.23

1. Khronos - The Space In Between EP [Kosenprod]

Recommended if you like: Malux, Joe Ford, Screamarts

Not even four months into the year, 2023 is shaping up to be the year of long-awaited returns. First Joe Ford, then Raiser, even more underground artists like Ekwols or Polyrom decided to step back into the spotlight after years of absence. Today, the great people at Karnage's sister label and legendary French Neurofunk label in its own right Kosenprod present us with another one we have been waiting for since 2015 (!!): Khronos! Even though I'm pretty sure I've heard quite a few tunes of his over the years, due to his long abstinence I simply never really looked much into him and his background. Today, we change that!

While it might seem like he came out of nowhere when his music first started making a splash on the scene in 2014, Stefan de Jong's musical output can actually be traced back all the way to 2011, when he first founded his multi-genre playground The Resistance. Throughout a frankly huge project finally released to the world in 2015, the Dutch man displayed insane capabilities for everything from Dubstep to DnB to Ambient to Trip Hop to Psychedelic stuff. However, by that time, Stefan's other project, Khronos, was already well on his way! So let us jump back, khronologically, if you will, to 2014 again. As the newest member of the Enter The Grid collective, formed by NeurofunkGrid and Kosen, he wasn't just torching all kinds of dancefloors around the continent, he was also putting out some real heaters on the grid's label and on his own. Just a year later, you could see his name appearing on the tracklists of Mindtech, Future Funk, Histeria, Ammunition, Close2Death, Titan, Bad Taste and even Blackout! Remember, that was also the year he put out his The Resistance manifesto and also the last time we heard of him releasing tunes. What a tumultuous time!

While it became quiet around him release-wise, he stayed busy working on music for quite some more time. With the Grid gang, he was playing everywhere from Groningen to Let It Roll, on his own he composed music for various things, most notably the soundtrack to Imagination Festival, and in 2016 he also became friends with Thijs "Philosopher" Bijlsma, with whom he had so much in common, that they promptly started a collaborative project together: ANiMA! It would take several more years for this fusion of talents to actually hit the shelves though, with their debut Hermetic Principles EP only having come out a couple months ago on NickBee's Axon Records. We're not here for that though, now, after being teased on all sorts of Burr Oak mixes, we finally also celebrate the return of Stefan's solo alias, with The Space In Between!

Our journey begins with the thing every good story needs and a concept as old as time itself: Conflict! Right away, the siren song from a soft, eerie choir lures us towards what would later become a battlefield, with plenty of distant but swiftly approaching subtle noises creating an understated yet real sense of dread. Just a little while later, our deepest fears were realised and this intro turned out to be the calm before the storm, as the auditory space becomes the site of a real slugfest between incredibly heavy syncopated stabbings and slower-moving, otherworldly responses. Sometimes the return fire needs a few seconds to gather their strength, sometimes the shooting even stops for a bit, but the elevated heart rate and harrowing trauma remain. Even though this particular Conflict is over, the battle rages on, on the larger-than-life Fox Given. Yet again, we are treated to a wonderfully moody intro, but even if you could feel something is coming, nothing could prepare you for just how huge it's gonna be. Seemingly out of nowhere, one monstrous roar after the other just steamrolls anything in its way. Walls are being shaken, eardrums are being tested, sound systems are being pushed to their very limits, it's just absolutely huge.

Are we gonna get even more bangers? Khronos' answer: YES! A little less dramatic and a little more melancholically beautiful than its predecessors, YES might have you fooled into thinking things will calm down in this third stop of our five track joyride. Not long after, however, Khronos injects it with 10cc of cool bass rhythms and before we know it, we are thrown into a battle between a low rumbling wall of sound and funky bass plugs, occasionally interjected by the titular vocal sample. In a way, the less in-your-face style and more specifically the sound of said wall of bass feels like he was channeling his inner ANiMA(L), just with a pinch more Neuro vibes.

We continue on with my personal favourite of the EP, Zodiac. With even lighter and breezier vibes, created by a delightful synth melody bouncing on soft drums, we ease into this particular track's world, but, of course, this peace is short-lived. First, the drums activate their maximum overdrive mode, going from a bouncy steppy rhythm to a swiftly-rolling stream of fast-paced goodness, and the bass goes from mostly punctuating the bounce to a distorted, ever-present force with it's own little guitar-enhanced melody. As if the level of drama hadn't increased far enough yet, we drop out into a little interim buildup and push the hype to places never seen before, even delaying the drop one more time, before eventually unleashing all of the built-up energy in one fell swoop. Not only is this whole progression insanely effective on its own already, the actual "final" drop is also just so heavy, with its hard-hitting, steppy drumwork and an overwhelmingly awesome bassline doing all kinds of auditory magic, and so relentless, in how it just keeps on going and going once it's unleashed, that this is easily Best Of 2023 material. I love this tune.

Lastly, we've got the pluralised title track, The Spaces In Between! After a light beat carries us to this finale's scenery, everything fades out, revealing a moody vocal, which is promptly joined by a quickly accelerating melody. Before we have any time to react to this development, Khronos has already channeled his inner fellow returning Neuro champion Joe Ford, throwing a ridiculously spicy bassline rhythm on top of some dastardly devilish drums right in our faces. In the second half the spice gets turned up another few million scoville, when the drums completely give way for the bass to roam freely for a whole 16 bars, before ultimately going full throttle again at the end.

A stunning return to form for the sorely-missed talent. Khro-no's? More like Khro-YESses!

Other Neurofunk/heavy stuff from this week:

Screamarts - Feral EP
Celldweller - Electric Eye (Prolix Remix)
Gydra - Neft EP
Sindicate - Artificial Memories
No Etiquette - All To You
DISIVNI - Sand Dispersion 💎