Picks Of The Week (20.05.23

1. Frannabik - The Savage Kingdom LP 💎 [Expedite Records]

Recommended if you like: HighThere, Absu_NTQL, Cyntax

Let's continue the Hidden Gem™️ weeks with another name I have been meaning to talk about for quite some time now: Frannabik!

Straight outta the Almerían province in Spain, Francisco Garcia Herrada has been building up his musical muscles (his Frannabiceps) from an early age. First by attending various underground Hip-Hop events, before making a smooth transition over to DnB, with him first entering the gladiatorial DJ arenas himself in 2014, as part of the Brain Holes group. Word of his dancefloor-destroying (Frann-)abilities got out quickly and by 2015, he also became a core part of the Private Room event series and gathered all sorts of accolades from the International Breaks Awards. Soon enough, you could also (Gar-)see him wreak havoc all over the continent, from Granada to Bristol, from Seville to Bratislava, from Prague to Valencia. It wasn't just enough to cause panic at the Frandiscos all over Europe though, he wanted to create some banging beats himself!

In 2019, the first of many fruits of his labour saw the light of day: Liqua! The following year saw him not just expanding on this freshly cusping flowery arrangement of gratis downloads, he also entered a couple of remix competitions, eventually even winning the one hosted by fellow Spaniards Save The Rave. It was at that point that he had firmly planted himself onto my and, considering the timing of it all, maybe even Expedite Records's radar. I'm of course referring to Francisco joining the Expeditian family of sick Neurofunk producers with his smasher Corruptions at the tail end of 2020! From there on, he would keep oscillating between the expertly done Neuro and the dastardly Deep stuff, with releases on Close2Death, South Yard and Zer0'2 Soul Collective, but Expedite would remain his favourite place to release on. Which is also why his debut album, The Savage Kingdom, is dropping on there!

But wait, we gotta catch up on the latest Expedite developments first. Surely you will remember the Bristol-based label from me raving on about label bossman XAETIS' banging double single or me falling in love with Niallo's bleeps and bloops, but it has been a good two years or so since then, so, what have we got? Their first label takeover, their first remix competition (for Frannabik's Down!), the rather huge PARAGONS compilation, the equally large REVISIONS remix project and releases by KRYOS, SYNE, XAETIS and TREMR. Okay, Tremr is usually not in all caps, but it just looked better in the sequence of events, alright?

With that out of the way, let's finally take a look at what our franntastically fresh friend has cooked up on this 10-tracker, the first solo artist album on the label! We make our way into this realm of the Neuro with the title track, The Savage Kingdom, with great atmospheric work and all sorts of ferocious animals creating a rather cinematic auditory jungle thicket, before the savage bass cuts through it to lay waste to them all. Our boy Keeps Em coming on the followup, with fast-paced nightmarish melodies infiltrating our brains while their accomplices, the distorted basses and the bonky snare, keep us on our toes, and even if you don't Believe me, you'll still be quickly met with Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson introducing the next fonky-flowing back-and-forth between the chonkiest of basslines and a flurriest of stabby stabs. Watch out for the second drop on that one!

It seems like we have strayed too far from the beaten path, as we have completely Lost The Way we intended to follow, and after a while of keeping up the pace thanks to the distant tribal, rolling drums and fighting off the ever-present and quite aggressive biting bass snakes, we simply Must Stop. Why? Because of the humongous, hostile, big bad evil bass completely steamrolling everything in its way! One by one, the trees just snap over, and before we meet the same fate, we run away as fast as possible, into the next best opening we find. In our rush, however, we didn't realise we were running straight into an Ambush! Machine gun fire everywhere, several of them coming very close to ending our mission here, fired off from the infamous A Coruña based Neuro veteran Loop Stepwalker, only giving our group the tiniest of breaks in between each salve. While mostly focused on the speed of it all, this one still retains a solid sense of rhythm and flow, even going into a little 4x4 excursion in the second half! One could say we stole one of their 4x4 trucks to get away. Yes, I like that.

With the added horse power of our escape vehicle, we finally make our way to our next destination, the Dealer. What does he deal in? Hefty basslines and hard-hitting snares, of course! While we have been supplied with a more than healthy dose of both so far, Frannabik luckily doesn't make the Dumb Assumption that we have had enough and takes us on another newschool-inspired, distortion-overflowing joyride, on which MC Kenna (who he met at a Zer02Soul Collective event!) provides an additional infusion of sick lyrical fuel to stoke the flames, resulting in a proper bonfire of a tune.

Before we get to the grand finale, we take one more breather, in the relative sense, on Only U, which ironically enough doesn't only feature Fran himself, but also his fellow Spaniard, Helium! With some more four to the floor action, some distorted bits and bops and the drums whipping us into shape, we ride through the beautiful guitar-laden scenery, until we finally arrive at our destination: The Prophet. Not just any old one though, the Prophet, one could even say the VIP of prophets! With Caliban's precise-as-ever lyricism, but nitroboosted, relentlessly rolling drums and all-around heavier instrumentation, we end our trip through the Neuro jungle on a high note. But what will come of the prophecies? Will we get out of the kingdom in one piece? What a cliffhanger!

Distortion en masse, chonky basslines out the wazoo, phat drums, a frannkly frannabig album.