Picks Of The Week (24.06.23

1. Sota - Machete [UKF]

Recommended if you like: Primate, Pendulum, Turno

With the Open Air variant of legendary Belgian Dubstep and DnB festival Rampage this weekend, and my recently developing love for the new, more melodic wave of Jump Up, it only makes sense to finally talk about the man of the hour, whose tunes have such a cross-subgenre appeal that they have infiltrated almost everyone's sets at this point: Sota!

You might be deeply disappointed to learn that Thomas "Sota" Southern is hailing all the way up North from Manchester, but don't worry, he is actually originally from the Southern market town Horsham, truly earning his name. In said town, Thomas has been looking for energetic musical outlets since way back in the day. First by playing drums in a metal band, then discovering and falling in love with Neurofunk, then eventually being convinced by the manic energy he experienced at his first couple raves that Jump Up is the way to go. After getting a head start by getting his General Certification of Secondary Education (GSCE) in "Music Technology" as a teenager, he started producing for his own fun at around 15, with him finally giving DnB production a whirl a couple years later, in 2017. Later, you could also find his name on the roster for the Music Production course at (I assume) the university in Manchester, but that wouldn't last very long. Why, you ask? Well, this music career thing really started popping off!

Let's jump back to 2018 to understand how we got there: Sota's first actual releases are hitting the shelves. A remix for Tomoyoshi here, his first double single Bad Taste / The Truth on Nuke Records there, plus his free download Unholy reaching #21 on the free download charts - things were going not bad at all! Even less bad and probably already crossing over to "quite alright" territory, 2019 saw the man they call Sota leveling his whole deal up. Thanks to some valuable feedback from at the time fellow up-and-comers like Hedex, his now even more precise and hard-hitting than ever productions started making the rounds, on labels like Pick 'n' Mix, and, thanks to Vital convincing him to finally hit send on that demo email, eventually also all the way over to Logan D's legendary Low Down Deep and its sublabel Subway Soundz, already resulting in two top 10 entries on Juno Download's charts. While using the extra time during the pan-to-the-demic to sharpen up his style even further, he continued deepening his relationship with Logan's set of labels in 2020, before branching out to all sorts of other endeavours in the following years.

Collaborations with Problem Central (and thus Logan himself!) and Turno, the creation of his very own label Sota Music, showing off his deeper side on Onyx, landing his, at the time, biggest hit with Harter Street on Friction's Elevate, being supported by and featuring on The Prototypes' Interaction compilation, it was all blowing up rather fast. Especially his Sota Music output resonated a lot with people, especially me, from the triple threat that is Let It Go with fellow Jump Up fanatics Master Error and Amplify to the ludicrous yet wonderful Realise with Primate. With another hugely supported banger on Crucast and the VIP of Harter Street under his belt, 2023 is already off to an incredible start. It's Sota's world, we're all just living in it.

And now, Sota once again effortlessly cuts through the thicket that is the massive jungle of releases, with his trusty new Machete, his debut on none other than bass behemoth UKF! From the intro it might seem like we're stranded in the wilderness, with all sorts of bugs and creatures flying about, where many nasty things could await us. However, you can already hear Sota and his Pendulum-inspired jungle theme approaching from afar - until suddenly, he heroically jumps out from the bushes and the silence got blown apart with one massive bass sting. Of course, we have to switch out of that initial, insanely catchy delayed drop bit, but don't worry, what follows is an equally as exciting mixture of only the best screechie screeches and horny horns that you'd come to expect from man like Sota. We even get a fun lil' 4x4 bit in the second half, featuring an extra juicy spin on that main melody!

In other words: An absolute banger. So tasty, so tailored to my taste, from a producer so talented, I just can't help but love it. That was my attempt at "Sota" puns, by the way.

2. Primate, Pirapus - POWER [DnB Allstars Records]

Recommended if you like: Sota, Mefjus, Bare Up

What do you get when you cross Belgian Jump Up's and New Zealandian Stadium DnB's hottest, most recent exports? A rather huge banger, apparently!

Alright, you got me. It's a Jump Up kind of weekend, alright? You guys probably remember who Kiwi duo Pirapus is, and if you don't I urge you to take a look at the writeup from last time we talked about them on here, so let's give the remaining boi in this supergroup of P-roducers, Primate, a proper spotlight!

Straight outta the hotspot for all things jumpy, Belgium, 23-year-old prodigy Marcel Matheussen has been tearing up the scene inside-out for quite some time now, but I was still surprised to hear that his production journey goes back to when he was only 11. Apparently a random trip in the car with his mom, just idly listening to the radio, triggered the thought of "i wonder how this is done" in him, leading to him scouring the internet for all sorts of production tutorials and software to build his first tunes with. Initially trying his hands at EDM/Martin Garrix type stuff, he was quickly converted to the drums and the basses, after experiencing his very first DnB rave, put on by none other than Macky Gee himself. As Absolute Primate, because he was using some truly ancient hardware at the time and felt like a proper Neanderthal, he started putting out his first batch of tunes around 2015 (i.e. when he was 16), most of which were straight Jump Up bangers. Shocker, I know.

A series of free downloads later, of which Voice actually popped off quite a lot considering how early in his career this is, he decided to try out a couple other genres for a while, with his Prime "all-round" side project in 2016. Soon after, the focus flipped back to his DnB alias, leaving the Absolute behind in the process and operating as just Primate from then on. Like our ancestors, he became better and better at using his tools, leading to a ton of dubs being teased on his online platforms and releases on Rw Digital, Cell Recordings and Exert Records. In 2019, he once again felt the urge to move to some other, more experimental vibes, which is why he created another side project for exactly that: MÄHR! Back on his Pri-main account, however, he still continued putting out banger after banger, sometimes on Exert, sometimes together with his fellow Belgian Jump Up (pri-)mate Captain Bass, but the real wave came just last year, in 2022.

Not only did he start self-releasing via his Primate Distribution imprint, leading up to his Hollow EP, he also broadened his label catalogue with rather rambunctious releases on Rampage's Radar, Gentlemens Club fresh ClubFriendlyUK, Sota's Sota Music (you haven't forgotten yet, have you?) and even Macky Gee's Down2Earth, in a proper full circle moment! So far, this momentum has continued well into this year, with more collab action with the aforementioned bass captain, more melodic adventures on All Of Your Love and a remix for none other than Dominator & Logan D and their legendary tune Cowboy.

So we've got a Belgian Jump Up talent with quite the hot streak going, working together with one of the best Dancefloor newcomers the scene has to offer? This just has to be good.

Luckily, it is! Fittingly titled POWER, we enter the world these three have created for us with in proper festival fashion - trumpets, powerful basses and an iconic vocal sample, with some audio crackle for authenticity. From the drumless void we start in, we move over to Halftime marching rhythms to hype-inducing DnB tempos in no time, and before you know it, Primatepus are unleashing their full power. One after another, their uniquely piercing bass stabs relentlessly attack you with all their might, powering up and down over and over again, with supremely high levels of production that you have come to expect from all parties involved. Some real ear candy stuff going on here. To spice things up even further, and to complete the parallels for today, we are once again getting bombarded by a proper stompy 4x4 switchup in the second half, before the syncopation sets back in again. Just so damn sick.

Not only pirapushing the limits of production once again, but also creating a prima(t)elstrom of powerful energy in the process.