Picks Of The Week (05.10.24

1. Zar - Anima LP [Space Cadet]

Recommended if you like: Redeyes, Submorphics, Lenzman

Usually my intro for this one would've been about how my soul could use some soothing after being battered with two neuro events in one weekend. However, it seems that the universe mistook my "Virus" entry in my calendar as a wish to become sick instead of a reminder for the massive event that took place in London last Saturday, so I'll have to pivot a bit. Luckily, I'm in just as much need of warm blankets in auditory form in this vegetative state, so let's try to make the best out of my misery and talk about one of this scene's most underrated lushness architect - or should I say, Zarchitect?

While a lot of Pierluigi Zardetto's family originates from and probably partly also resides in Italy, his own birth zartificate actually says London. Sure, all throughout his childhood the family went on annual roadtrips to Rome, but otherwise his day-to-day life growing up was mostly centered around the British metropolis. While his grandma, a piano teacher, teaching him a bit of the piano and his parents looping their favourite CDs on basically every roadtrip, with the likes of Daft Punk, Gorillaz and Simon & Garfunkel staying in rotation particularly long, definitely did shape a bit of his early musical development, it was arguably the abundance of concert options London had to offer teenage Zar that lead him to where he's at today. Acts like Massive Attack, Portishead, Blur, Primal Scream, and The Prodigy fostered a love for the rocky, (hybrid-) electronic strains of music, later followed by the likes of A Tribe Called Quest, Slum Village, Pete Rock, and J Dilla showing him the Hip-Hop light, until he eventually, finally fell into the drum and bass hole at age 16.

Well, not right away. Since he was mostly associating DnB with the big festival names like Sub Focus et al., the genre did not quite grab ahold of him yet at that point, but as soon as he stumbled upon Calibre and Lenzman, the flood gates were fully opened. Not only because a lot of their sound could accurately be described as "Hip-Hop, but at double speed", but also because the part-time drumkit dabbler was thoroughly enjoying the hypnotising drum rhythms that the MCs were smoothly sliding their bars across over. During his A-levels, he was already pursuing Music and Production, and with his love for all things music set to only grow further and further, he decided to combine the two and study Music Production. After 18 whole years of the big city™️, however, he knew he needed a different vibe going forward. Something far away, while still remaining in the UK. Which is exactly how he ended up in Warehouse City, perhaps better known as Manchester!

As a young lad trying to make a name for himself, the social butterfly Pierluigi was certainly making connections all over the place, but he hadn't quite gotten the name thing figured out yet. From what I can glean, his DJ career began as Pizzy P in 2017, before he rebranded to PDot (or "p.") in 2018, until he finally decided to go with Zar later that same year. Not just that, that very same year, he and his good friend, fellow student and DnB enthusiast Channell, also started their own collaborative venture, Rare Groove! While first and foremost a brand to host soulful club nights under, with the likes of Sl8r, Nectax and War headlining their immediately successful events, it also acted as an alias for the two friends to DJ and even produce together under. While they never fully created an actual alias with releases attached for it, their teamwork efforts did find a release on the Rare Groove Volume One EP via Co-Lab, which was also Zar's debut release!

Soon after and throughout most of the pandemic, Zar not only became a bit of a recurring name on the extended Fokuz family, with singles and EPs on Fokuz, Influenza and Celsius, but also further expanded his label rolodex with entries on Liquid V, The Chikara Project and Organized Grime. As the extrovert that he is, he loved bringing in other people into his projects, co-laborating with Emery, Physics, Motiv, Surreal and a bunch more, and bringing Dan Harris, Duskee, Visionobi, Phoebe Freya, 2b.Frank and Abnormal Sleepz, among others, on for fresh vocals.

While this was working out alright so far, Pdot wanted more, to be part of a community, to have a proper home label to work with. Good thing then that none other than legendary MC, Space Cadet label chief and fellow Manchester resident DRS took notice of his particularly wonderful, Soul, Jazz and especially Hip-Hop inspired productions from quite early on and eventually even got him aboard the spacecraft in 2023! Alongside these, which included a feature spot on DRS' latest album, and further outings on Liquid V and Flexout, the Zar project also made its way onto Redeyes' all-too-fresh imprint Five Alley thanks to a connection initially formed during an interview project in his second year of uni. Man's everywhere!

With university all finished up, the pandemic dealt with, and a move to a more inviting apartment firmly behind him, Pierluigi pushed for a bigger project on Space Cadet. However, every time he got into a jam session with his many Manny vocalist friends, the tracklist grew a little bit more, and soon the planned EP turned into the 10-track stroll through Heaton Park that is Anima. An album-length ode to the city that brought him so much joy, connected him with so many like-minded people and that he now calls home.

Usually I'd go through them all, or pick out a couple favourites to dissect, but it's such a nice and coherent piece of loveliness that I don't think I'm gonna do that this time. Even just from an instrumental perspective, everything gels together super nicely, thanks to Zar delivering all sorts of sublimely soulful arrangements of pianos, trumpets and rolling drums, but the outstanding vocal work from the likes of EVABEE, 2b.Frank, aya dia, Whitt, Dan Harris, Milansanger, Nathan Stoker and of course DRS himself elevates it to a whole 'nother plane of lushness. Not only is the music itself excellent, every single fun fact about the album's production I read about on his excellent UKF interview just makes me appreciate it so much more than I already did.

For instance, aside from the slower-paced saxophone-driven Spiders, which sat on the hard drive for a couple of years until the right project for it rolled around, the whole thing was actually physically recorded in Zar's studio! Or: Before Jazz musician Milansanger was brought on for Soul (Some Other Way), he had barely even heard of drum and bass! Or perhaps: Remember when I told you that his grandma taught him a bit of piano? Well, he made use of that by laying down some incredibly lovely chords himself, on the sole instrumental of the album, Primavera! Okay one more: The level of collaboration between producer and vocalist runs so deep on this record that on Bring It Back Home Pierluigi actually sang some backing vocals himself!

I honestly think you should just listen through this one in one sitting if possible. Fetch yourself a nice drink, get comfortable and let this wonderful piece of music take you on a journey through the kind of Zartistry only Manchester could offer. Manny vibes are to be had on here.

Other liquid from this week:

BCee - These Are The Days LP
Dom Dolla, Tove Lo - CAVE
Dr. Apollo, Pesa One - Culito
Emerald Lotus - Love Letter
Leniz - Where Stars Don't Matter
Metal Work - Balance EP
Sub:liminal - Within The Clouds EP

2. Andromedik, Sarah de Warren - Stone [Demax Music]

Recommended if you like: Lexurus, Delta Heavy, MUZZ

To keep things fresh for you guys and to give myself something to actually research every time, I try my best to cover as many different names as possible on here, avoiding artists I've already had the pleasure of writing in-depth about if I can. Well, I simply can't with this one. Sure, around one and a half years ago, we definitely did talk about mister Axel "Andromedik" Demarbaix on here, for his collaboration with men-of-the-festival-summer, Kiwi superduo Pirapus, but this newest one of his is just out of this world.

Okay, but first, let's recap what we missed since the last time we spoke about Belgian's most brightest star on the drum and bass (net-)sky. First off, we've had a whole bunch of remixes for all sorts of massive names like Lost Frequencies, Alesso & John Newman, and Robin Schulz. Then, there was of course the outstanding Rise EP on his home label Liquicity, with a run of singles leading up to it that, dare I say, were some of his absolute best work yet. With You, with Poppy Baskcomb, Adrenaline, with Lexurus and Nu-La, and Comedown, with Grafix, Poppy and Lauren L'aimant, were just back-to-back-to-back perfect. Not to forget the one-off sicknesses like the A.M.C-supported (out of all people) 4x4 smasher To The Dark and the euphoria machine Bleed The Same for UKF15, his bootleggery of Marlon Hoffstadt's I Got You and that one Shiver tune that's still not out yet (we're waiting, Axel!).

Oh, and on the event front? Well, not only did the 26-year-old play on Tomorrowland's mainstage not once but twice, came back to play the Library stage this time around and actually crossed Tomorrowland Brazil off his bucket list just yesterday, he also hosted a whole Andromedik Invites lineup on this year's Atmosphere stage! Speaking of, he started curating his very own Andromedik Invites events in Antwerp (the first of which sold out after just one day (!)) with absolute dream lineups that I'm a little mad I hadn't gotten the chance to experience yet. One day! Throw in mainstage showdowns at Let It Roll (his sunset set made me a bit teary-eyed, not gonna lie), Boomtown, Liquicity and Sunrise Festival, plus appearances at Lost Lands, Rampage Open Air, Hospitality In The Woods and like twenty more, his very first tour across Australia, and the debut of his very own audiovisual show and only then do we begin to cover the whole story of what's going on with this Belgian superstar lately.

In short: An Andrometric shit-ton happened! And I couldn't be happier for the guy.

But back to the matter at hand, his newest, self-released (with some help from UKF parent AEI) single, Stone! It's not even close to a surprise that Axel has once again proven how good he is at picking out excellent vocals, but even for his incredibly high standards, this performance by seasoned music industry veteran Sarah de Warren, whose wonderful voice you might have heard on tunes of Odd Mob, Kill The Noise, Tritonal, Valentino Khan, Excision, or so many others, is simply breathtaking. What starts with a heavily reverberating, rather minimalistic atmospheric backdrop to ease us into it all, is soon expanded upon with some heart- and even stone-warming pads, simple yet beautiful synth bloops and snappy drums for the pre-chorus, until it all blossoms into these gorgeous, goosebump-inducing synths rippling up into the night sky, which directly leads us into the explosion of pure colour and danceable nastiness that is the drop. Absolutely astonishing. Not to mention that masterful second half!

Even after having already blessed the world with countless of anthems over the years, outrageously good singles like Stone make me feel like Andromedik is still only just getting started. I cannot wait to see what else the universe has in store for him in the future!

Other dancefloor from this week:

MUZZ, Cammie Robinson - Nothing Else Matters
Midnight Kids, CVBZ - Your Way (Mazare Remix)
Rob Gasser - 4EVER&EVER
Dillon Francis, Lily Elise - Hurricane (Rusko Remix)
PONZ - Fantasies (Sly Chaos Remix)