Picks Of The Week (08.07.23

1. Xyde - Blink State / Supercharged 💎 [Phase Records]

Recommended if you like: Enei, Notequal, Meph

You might not know about this particular Hidden Gem™️ yet, but as of this week, Italian producer Xyde has joined the very exclusive and probably rather short list of artists making the jump from first release to UKF upload in just a year's time. To phrase it like one of their articles: we have to talk about Xyde.

While Vasco Nose Savino is quite new when it comes to the DnB game, he has already reached quite some heights in the music business, as guitarist for the metal band Backjumper. Across 17 years (!) of service, he has toured all over Europe, released a whole bunch of albums, basically did the whole she-bang. After that much time in the same band, however, he understandably wanted to expand his artistic horizon a little. In 2019, it was finally time for him to quit the band, to make room for his adventures exploring the world of electronic music. A couple years later, in 2022, it was time to show off this new side of his artistic energy. Or should I say, this new Xyde? After his debut on BNCExpress, he started unleashing his phenomenal dubs left and right, releasing on the likes of Holographic, Jungle Pride, Incurzion, Four Corners and Yamatai in the process, often together with long-time collaborator and fellow Backjumper band member paCMan. Their work together might even be called phantom-enal. You know, Pacman, ghosts, all that. Anyway. And then, bam, this week his face suddenly appeared on UKF! It might sound like I'm oversimplifying things a little, but this all really did just happen very quickly!

So through which imprint did this jump on the career ladder come to fruition? London-based Phase Records! Founded by Gabrielle Gifta Zanot-Beard, an unbelievably fancy name I might add, after losing her job during the pandemic, the label actually started out as an promotional platform aiming to elevate the talents of tomorrow to new heights, which is why she originally went with the name Elevation. Shortly after, however, she stumbled upon that already existing pesky Dancefloor label "Elevate" by this no-name guy, Erosion, or something nerdy like that, so she pivoted over to the Phase brand instead. Now free of any potential name disputes, it was time to supercharge the platform, with guest mixes by friends of the format Apollo, PRFCT Mandem and Missledz, and free downloads by Kalane, Premonition and R3IDY. In late 2022 it was then finally time to transition over to phase two of their auditory universe, with their very first paid release, the Perspective compilation. From there on, all sorts of artists, like the Kiwi bois Inertia, Dapreme, Dunk, Kaizah and, of course, label boss Gifta became part of the extended Phase family, all leading up to this seventh release of theirs, Blink State / Supercharged by Xyde. So let's talk about those for a bit!

First we've got Blink State, the A-Xyde if you will, featuring none other than label founder and director Gifta herself! After establishing a properly evil atmosphere, the duo begins hyping us up to a different plane of existence, with aggressive breaks drawing closer and closer, multiple sounds endlessly travelling upwards on the music scale, and the voice sample from the intro spliced up into little pieces. Don't worry, all that hype is absolutely warranted, as they then launch into an outright attack on the listener. At first, a lot of different distorted brain-scritching noises come together to fight for the control of the drop, but soon after, a wall of pure distortion bulldozes everything in its way, creating a really satisfying call-and-response. Bassfaces galore.

Now with no one by his Xyde, Vasco finishes the release off with the appropriately-titled Supercharged! Right way, we get another wonderfully ominous atmosphere, full of glitched-out bits and bops, setting the mood perfectly, before the titular vocal sample announces our transition over to the fast-paced drop. Techy, rolly drums and a supremely deep bassline provide the foundation for all the elements from the intro to reappear in an even gloomier ambience. My favourite bit has to be the last third of the drop though, when we jump into a great back-and-forth between a one-two bass stab and the bassline and atmosphere collectively growling at us. Or maybe when it switches into a bit of 4x4 in the second half. It's hard to choose just one part, alright!

It's impossible to not be phased by how great these two new tunes are. Don't leave this e-xyde-ing new talent out of your Xyde!

2. Thread - Deep Cold EP [Integral Records]

Recommended if you like: En:vy, Hyroglifics, Trail

No release review thread would be complete without mentioning Thread and his gorgeous new EP. But who really is Thread even?

Dan "Thread" Hancox is a Bristolian producer of all things darkly beautiful and beautifully dark, is the short answer. Of course, that's not even close to the full picture though. Dan actually started out as a bassist of Hanover! And no, I don't mean the German city, I mean the electronic pop band touring all over the UK, until Dan eventually decided to call it quits in 2018, just as his first few DnB productions started hitting the shelves. Said debut release came on the very first ever release of the amazing Riddim Records, where he quickly became a regular and the reason why I fell in love with the label. Turns out that Dan wasn't just a regular contributor to its greatness, he was actually also the one orchestrating it all, as the label manager! So Dan, if you're reading this, please bring back Riddim, it is sorely missed. Riddim was of course never the only platform for him though, after a couple more years of wonderful releases his label catalogue expanded to include the likes of Parallel Depth, Skankandbass, Onyx, Impact, Deep Cold, DLT9 and Four Corners, even earning himself an "One's To Watch" label from UKF, until he eventually became an integral part of the Integral Records family in 2022.

Just a quick side note - I realised I should talk way more about Integral. Unlike other AIs out there right now, these ones are actually amazing at doing their job, you know? Just going back through their catalogue I see immense releases by Tatora, KALOA, Edlan, one of the best EPs last year from man like TZ, simply too many good things that I somehow rarely bring up here. Well, let me try to correct this by talking about Thread and his brand new Deep Cold EP!

We kick this 4-tracker off with the deservedly hyped-up, absolutely stunning title track, Deep Cold. Not only is the opening doing a simply incredible job in creating a cinematic soundscape that you can easily get lost in, with synths that I cannot get enough of and a spectacularly soulful vocal, after almost 2 minutes of pure beauty it also actually leads into an equally superb drop full of warm basses and even more atmospheric sounds completing the picture. If anything deserves your full attention for the entire 6 minute runtime, it's this gentle yet firm joyride of deeply soulful extravagance. On the other end of the rich deep and dark spectrum, we've got our next stop on our journey here, OOPS, featuring Freddy B on the perfectly mood-enhancing vocals. Man, is this one heavy. Unlike its predecessor, we're now embracing heavily steppy drums and all sorts of heavily distorted, rough sounds, tightly arranged to create a rather infectious rhythm. What an absolute banger.

For our third stop, Reverence, we're swinging back hard to the thoroughly vibey parts of Thread's sounds, with none other than deep vibe master himself, Brainwork, on the feature. Both on their own are already capable of supremely lush sounds, but together they are truly unstoppable. As much heavy reverberation applied to as many elements as possible, from the glorious synths to the straight-up lovely vocal, with a bassline that keeps you warm on even the deepest, coldest days. While I don't have many of those at the moment, I still absolutely love this one. Lastly, we're stepping things up another couple of notches on the energy scale, with Step Up. Right away, the rough atmosphere transports the listener to a warehouse or even factory-like setting, and before you know it, the roughness slaps you right across the face. How? With the most heavily distorted bleeps and bloops I've ever heard, bouncing on top of an equally messed-up bassline. In a good way! I especially love that little switchup halfway thorugh, when the instrumental steps up its game even further, launching a call-and-response between a flurry of stabby stabs and a rather mean bass wave. Huge!

Oops, he did it again. Threading the needle between lush and large with a level of precision you won't hear very often. Incredible EP.

Other deep and dark stuff from this week:

Sustance, Flowdan - Ten Ton
Klinical, En:vy - Fractured
Survey - Push EP
Audeon - Black Moth 💎
Teknical, Tony Shape - Keeping It Simple / Organised Chaos
Yatuza, Asura - Get Fizzled