Picks Of The Week (20.01.24

I've always been a big fan of what's coming out of the NoCopyrightSounds camp, not just for the sheer quality of the free music, but also for their eye for new talent. I can't speak for other genres of course, but just in DnB they've been responsible for pushing early tunes by Andromedik, V O E, More Plastic, Wiguez and Cream Blade, and that's just the ones that have been getting a lot of buzz in recent times! So, to celebrate that and their recent, very much appreciated focus on DnB a bit, let's take a look at two wonderful examples from this week, starting with a proper veteran of the royalty-free spheres of drum and bass.

1. Itro - Never Let You Down [NCS]

Recommended if you like: Andromedik, T & Sugah, Fitch

That's right, it's finally time to talk about Itro! One of the surprisingly many, in my eyes, (It)royally underrated artists that I have loved for ages already, but apparently never managed to talk about on here. Well, that changes today!

Born in Wijk Bij Duurstede, but nowadays based in the slightly easier to pronounce Amsterdam, it didn't take Dutchie Kelvin Rowaan very long to fall in love with all things music. During his early childhood, it was the electric guitar that brought him joy, but as soon as his brother showed him the sick beatz he created in Fruity Loops, little Kelvin jumped over to the electronic side. Through the power of YouTube tutorials, Kelvin got better and better, until the 16-year-old finally unleashed the first of many tunes as Itro in 2013. Right from the first release, the uplifting, pure happiness Nitro was fully engaged, and one hands-in-the-air EDM bop after the other fell out of him, some self-released, some distributed via Outertone. Especially his many early collaborations with Tobu seem to have hit the Zeitgeist just right, with Sunburst racking up 32 million (!!!) streams and Cloud 9 having cracked the 40 million mark (?!?!) by now.

Of course, one of the reasons for this gargantuan amount of streams was NoCopyrightSounds! As one of the very first artists to sign to the freshly founded label of the blossoming promotional channel, Itro got such a massive boost in visibility that me calling him underrated is kind of ridiculous, but since our scene for some reason doesn't care about NCS releases all too often, it arguably still applies! Anyway. What followed was one EDM House hit after the other, which, according to these weird compilations on Spotify, ranged from "Morning House" and "Study House" all the way up to "Turn It Up House", but also some glittery Future Bass and starting with Starbound even some proper DnB! Along with this delightful treasure (I)trove of releases, however, came another producer by the ominous name of totally not itro that started taking the SoundCloud scene by storm, combining the melodicality of Itro with stuff like Trap or "trying to be porter robinson" and "fucking wasps" type beats.

Unsolvable mysteries aside though, the next couple years saw Kelvin more and more break into our usual spheres here, thanks to his mates Polygon sending their remix of his tune Light and Blue to Justin Hawkes' feedback streams in 2016, who then promptly sent it to Liquicity, putting both Polygon and Itro on the map of the Dutch DnBehemoth. Around one and a half years later, Itro finally made his label debut there, on Galaxy Of Dreams 3, quickly followed by his collaborative Harmony EP with his good friends Andromedik and the aforementioned multifaceted boys. Fun fact: Since 2020 he's also part of the LiftOff agency alongside Carrier, Enthropix and said now-single-faced geometric shape!

While most of the DnB Itroutput from 2018 on found a safe home on Liquicity, the rest of his diverse genre explorations were mostly being released on his own, just as they had been since 2016 or so, with the exception of his two Ninety9Lives singles. Sure, he's always been a name closely associated with the N-to-the-C-to-the-S brand, but it actually took 8 whole years, in other words until 2023 (!), for Itro to make his triumphant return to the label that started it all for him, with the bouncy All For You! Luckily, the gap between releases wasn't quite as significant this time around, and just a couple months later we are so back, with Never Let You Down.

As many of you should know by now, I'm a total sucker for a catchy vocal hook, and Itro has never been one to, well, let me down in that regard, but with Nashville-based Drew Tyler he has truly struck gold in my opinion. Never Let You Down's upbeat trichotomic guitar-piano-drum intro, which only becomes more Indie Pop over time with the classic clap your hands together moment, is perfectly complemented by Drew's silky soft, satisfyingly multi-layered, simply fantastic performance, putting a big smile on my face before we even get to the drop. I can see why they gave each other 5 stars on SoundBetter. Speaking of the drop though: In true Itro fashion, it's equal parts uplifting, anthemic and heartwarming, thanks to the one-two-punch of an impossibly infectious, super fun synth lead melody and wonderfully warm bass. Fun fact: The first version of this drop goes back all the way to 2020, with at least 3 other versions of this same drop existing on his hard drive. Amazing things take time and all that.

It's great to see that Itro has taken Rick Astley's advice to heart, continuing his streak of not disappointing me in the slightest. Simply lovely!

Other Dancefloor goodness from this week:

Various Artists - Deadbeats & Brownies LP
Mason, Princess Superstar - Perfect (Exceeder) (1991 Remix)
Murdock - X-Ray LP
T & Sugah - Imma Give
Samstone, Aktive - My Favourite Game (feat. The Cardigans)

2. KEELA - SUN 💎 [NCS]

Recommended if you like: Not Fair, Howlan, The Outsiders

Now, for someone who celebrated their debut release on NCS this week: KEELA!

Back in September of last year, when I talked about Not Fair's absolutely wild debut, I briefly mentioned the most excellent community that's been building around Tom Finster's and barking continues' weekly WeAreHumans streams. Every Wednesday evening, one of them will go live on Twitch and either give feedback to the community's ever-improving demo submissions, do a little sample flip challenge or just take a bath and drink some Bierle for a bit. It's great fun! As already alluded to, the submissions have been reaching simply ridiculous levels over the past few months, with basically no further feedback even being needed anymore, and fortunately, that means some of these mindbendingly sick compositions are finally, actually coming out! Trust me, it won't be the last time I'm referring to the WAH gang on here these next few months.

Anyway! Among this honestly simply astonishing assortment of talents, Nico Heinsen somehow still manages to stand tall as one of the most consistently insane producers, which is why he is this week's Hidden Gem Of The Week™️! After having gotten his start into this Bass music mess by producing Dubstep type tunes as Fakefriend around the turn of the decade, the now 22-to-24-year-old (I don't know his exact birthday alright) started wanting to branch out from his roots a little bit. His first few demo submissions to the WeAreHumans streams date back as far as 2021, when he would still oscillate between Fakefriend demos and his newest project Kooma, but soon enough, the former was abandoned in favour of the latter. Well, until he rebranded again to KEELA a few years later. However, while the DnB was already part of his social handles and thus definitely a main focus, he was still stretching out his feelers (keelers) across the entire bass music spectrum all this time, working through a total of 69 (nice) ideas until he finally arrived at one that worked for him.

That 70th idea? Well, that one became SUN! Thanks to encouraging words from Bishu and Not Fair, a bunch of helpful advice from both the WAH crew and IMANU, and some first release experiences with his bootlegs of IMANU's Drowning and Tisoki, San Holo, RUNN - Go with Not Fair, the German talent managed to push it so far over the finish line that it got picked up by, who could have guessed it, NoCopyrightSounds! I mean, who could fault them! After all, SUN isn't just vibey as all hell, its powerful back-and-forth between straight-up weird synth bombs going off in your face one at a time and smaller, just-as-weird (but in a different way) (i have such a way with words) synths firing off in the most rapid of fashions is truly an auditory experience to behold. Seriously, those things are somehow distorted in such a way you didn't even know was possible, while still remaining clean as hell and melodically resonant?! As if that wasn't enough flexing for one release, he goes all out for the outro, leaving you in a total state of shock at the sheer production talent at display here.

An incredible cocktail of slick yet boundary-pushing production, with a dash of vibey vocals, all mixed down to perfection - also known as the TeKEELA SUNrise!

Other wild production from this week:

Refracta - Slave To Sound
Maysev, Matens - Wasn't meant to be
Vulture, Chiyu - Snowlight 💎
Circumference - Alter EP
Rohaan - Boy in a Dream EP
Screamarts - Duality EP