Picks Of The Week (16.09.23

1. TRCD, Kaizen Flow - Shatter Machine / Control Freak [Neuroheadz]

Recommended if you like: Esym, Metanoia, Vecster

To say this week has been a great week for every Neuro fan feels like the biggest understatement ever. Mob Tactics, Fourward, Pythius, once with Black Sun Empire, once with Zardonic, that entire Stonx Music compilation, the Magnetude Remix of Konflict - Messiah! I mean, just, wow. While any of these would have made for a great pick this week, I decided to go off the more obvious paths a bit, instead revisiting our friends, the Kaizen Flowers and the flagship, the crown jewel, the bellwether of the whole UK underground Neurofunk movement, the Neuroheadz gang. Among the likes of VTO, Stonx Music, BrainRave and Dirtbox, of course.

However, not only have the Kaizen Brothers from different mothers already been featured on here, their backstory fully explored, as you can see in my review of TLM / Object, we've also covered most of the Neuroheadz story, in my review of their compilation LP a couple months ago, except for the admittedly delightful Neuroheadz Live band and mobile trash bin stage, the Notorious B.I.N. So what is there still to say? Well, there is one more artist involved in this magnificent release that I somehow never did a deep dive on here: TRCD! So let's change that!

While the name TRCD itself is still very new, with this latest rebranding only having arrived this year, the musical journey of the man behind the madness, Dan Taylor, can be traced back way further than that. Get it, traced? Bad pun aside, let's travel back to the very beginning of Dan's involvement in all things music, let's travel to the 90s! Back then, Dan used to work at a record shop with none other than the late and great Ed Holmes, better known as Optiv, by his side as a colleague. Of course, the Cause 4 Concernian did his very best to convince Dan to join the Drum & Bass side of life, who eventually couldn't resist the temptation anymore and made the jump over. As an avid listener, that is. You see, back then production was still incredibly hard to learn without enrolling in university for it, the endless YouTube tutorials and masterclasses of today still far out of reach, and producing DnB is hard. However, that doesn't mean Dan didn't produce at all, on the contrary! Across the numerous early aliases he had cultivated, from D.Trac3d to SquareOne to STL, Mr. Taylor basically tried out anything: Freeform Hardcore, Acid Techno, Progressive House, Electro, Dubstep, Moombahton, Tech House, Trap - name a genre, any genre, he probably tried it out. He's even got a tune on Spinnin' Records!

As time went on, Dan got better and better, but the elusive breakbeat-based music still haunted his dreams. Until the early 2010s rolled around and his accumulated production experience, the beauty of the blossoming internet and probably other things I assume, finally enabled him to pursue his wildest, drum and bassiest ambitions, with his first Drumstep and DnB tunes rolling in circa 2012. Just a couple years later, in 2014, he realised that this DnB thing is where it's all headed for him and so he finalized the transition from Trac3d to the alias I have discovered him under back in 2019 or so: Traced! Over the next couple of years, Dan went on to share his various wildly aggressive, creatively apocalyptical and bassface-causing Neurofunk creations with basically all the Neurofunk labels out there, including but not limited to: Cymbalism Recordings, Close2Death, Kill Tomorrow, Mayan Audio, Empire Recordings, Red Light Records, Dirtbox, Cause4Concern and Trendkill. Man's been busy! In between all this, he and fellow UK Neurofunk ambassador Lee Ambler even found the time to found their own label, VTO Records!

So, what happens when you combine this sheer endless well of experience and Neurofunk knowledge with the youthful energy of one of the most exciting newcomers in the genre? Let's find out, on their newest collaborative double single Shatter Machine / Control Freak!

While Shatter Machine might make you think you've got one of the usual 8th-note-Gydra-type bangers on your hands, you would be sorely mistaken. Right away, we're introduced to a melancholic, relentlessly looping synth melody quickly moving from atmospheric to hype-inducing. Even though the hype train is already very rapidly approaching, the talented trio keeps upping the ante, with the melody gaining speed and rising in intensity for a whopping 2 whole minutes. Once we've basically reached peak hype and the maximum amount of speed possible while keeping the melody audible, a second, equally Trance-y but even more memorable melody sneakily joins in on the fun, quickly toppling the reigning, at this point quite manic predecessor from below. Once this new player fully takes the reins, all the pent-up energy is unleashed, with the melody's second in command, a rapidly ratata-ing, nauseatingly naughty bassline, causing some mayor mayhem across the board. While a runtime of 7:22 might sound daunting, trust me, it's worth it.

On the flipside we've got Nick, Shane and Dan channelling their inner perfectionist, on Control Freak. What this one might lack in durational ambition, with "only" 5 minutes of carnage, they are absolutely making up for with catchy, apocalyptical melodies and the various horror-esque sounds battling it out for control, sat on top of nicely-flowing, hard-hitting yet quickly-firing drums going back and forth with a truly rude bass growl.

Turns out you get some of the most fun and interesting Neurofunk of the year out of these three! One might even say, they really (tr)aced it.

Other Neurofunk from this week:

Konflict - Messiah (Magnetude Remix) (!!!)
Mob Tactics - Dirtgrub / Double Bubble
Fourward - I Wanna Know
Pythius, Black Sun Empire - Doctrine
Celldweller, Styles Of Beyond - Shapeshifter (Zardonic & Pythius Remix)
Rebel Scum - Do Not Resist
Various Artists - Disciples Of Distortion Vol 2 💎

2. Ferice - Make Me Feel [Transparent Audio]

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

While we're at it, let's give another, comparatively new, yet still tirelessly working, consistently sick and remarkably underrated artist a spotlight, let's talk about Ferice!

Straight outta Mozart's old hood in Salzburg, Austria, David "Ferice" Juhász has been pumping out incredible beats for years already, but the actual musical origins actually go back to when he started playing the drums at just 8 years of age. While it was his older brother who guided him through the jungle of electronic music and even bought him his very first controller, David soon ventured off into his own adventure, eventually stumbling upon this oasis far off in the distance of my mixed metaphor, where drums reigned supreme. And basses, I guess. At 15, just a year after getting into the genre, David visited his first Beatshot and Mainframe raves and, of course, he was hooked. He played around with the genre every now and then, went to all sorts of raves and all that good stuff, but by the time 2018 rolled around, he decided to step his game up, to start "taking this shit seriously". He promptly went on to spin some beats at shows, even producing his very own stuff soon thereafter, quickly earning himself a spot as a member of the Salzburgian BreakfastDNB crew in 2019.

During this time, he became friends with Vöcklabruck-based DJ and producer Snowtek and before you could google if Vöcklabruck is an actual place or if I just made it up, they became a duo! As Snowtek & Ferice, the two delivered some truly soulful and also quite dark goodness on the likes of Blu Saphir and Celsius during the pandemic, but as things slowly opened back up, the two had already parted ways again. As you can imagine though, David obviously continued on solo after that! From 2021 on, the Ferice name started popping up on more and more labels, like C Recordings, Soul Deep, Instinct or Deep Within, with collaborations with the likes of Geostatic, SOLR and Heft. However, in between all of that, there was one platform that basically became a second home for him: Transparent Audio!

Another one in the long list of names I'm honestly surprised I hadn't covered yet, the Bristol-based haven for the deepest and darkest, but also lushest vibes Transparent Audio has been delighting me with their talent for finding new, interesting artists and their ear for pure quality tunes for years. Ever since being founded in 2020, basically. With an artist roster including the likes of Geostatic, Framer, Felov, Resslek and Anthropic, the from an offline perspective ever-enigmatic but from an online point of view apparently incredibly kind and sound lad Thomas Davies on label management duties, mastering from the guy in the deep and dark scene, Revan, and artworks by the wonderful Nathan Leader and Jamie Primitive Instinct Tucker, the package is just so perfectly complete that it doesn't surprise me one bit that Transparent has been nominated for Best Newcomer Label in both 2021 and 2022. Seriously, they deserve all the love!

Want an example? Well, how about Ferice's newest 4-tracker, the Make Me Feel EP! Straight away, the title track takes no prisoners in the gloomy feel-good department, with incredibly vibey pads, lovely restrained bass and a wonderfully processed soulful vocal that is just so good, on top of only the smoothest of rolling drums. Before you get too comfy though, Ferice takes your previously soothing blanket of bass and turns it into a menacing, straight-up threatening bassline, on Let Go. In fact, we start off so damn low your brain doesn't even perceive it as any sort of threat, with the monster only peaking up from that trench every now and then, but over time it becomes so aggressive and in-your-face that you end up being pushed into the very edge of your room's corner, with you cowering before its might. Okay that might be a bit dramatic, but the progression is seriously great!

Alright, enough darkness, let's take it back to GTA Vibe City with the third stop on this journey, Take Time. Once again, the chosen vocal is just so sublime, the back-and-forth between the dreamy synths and the splendid bassline is just so captivating, and the drum loop so tight and head-nod-causing, that I can't help but just melt away. Until the finale, Invasive, rolls around that is! After the astoundingly atmospheric introductionary minute resets the vibe for us, the pendulum is now ready to fully swing back to the dark and menacing once again, where a supremely subbassy, honestly just kind of mean bassline consumes everything in its way. At a rave, your brain would probably be mostly concerned with having to somehow react to the sheer amount of deeply unsettling vibrations happening to it, but it's the heavily reverberated melodies weaving in and out of the composition and the finely-tuned, fast-paced and factually-awesome drums that complete the picture of the all-around astonishing atmosphere on display here.

The ferice wheel of ferociously wheel-up-causing and fluttery fresh, wondrously warm tunes keeps turning! Another great EP, in other, less flowery words.

Other deep and dark stuff from this week:

Buunshin, Posij - i just 1 2
Dub Ten - Fallen EP 💎
Anile - Ceremonial EP
Apollo Navigation - Compromised / Deadshot 💎