Picks Of The Week (26.10.24

1. Various Artists - This Is Stellar Vol.1 💎 [Stellar Audio]

Recommended if you like: Hidden Gems™️

If you are into the newschool, techy, post-neuro, newrofunk, wizardry that's been cooking in the labs (heh) of many up-and-coming young'un's, or just have a good enough memory to remember our many talks about the subject, you will know Bristolian label Stellar Audio by now. If not, I've got the perfect excuse to gush about them once more: They just released their biggest project to date, a supermassive collection of only the most promising fresh names all across the techy spheres, This Is Stellar!

Since the last time we talked about Iwan "Paarsec" Lewis' incredibly passionately run platform, Stellar continued its run of amazing singles with Dapreme's You'ge deb-you, teamed up with fellow sickness curators Yamatai and Transparent for a superb shéllage à trois at Motion's Lockyard, supported Eskei38 on his UK eskeidition, sat down for an extended interview with the one and only Rendah Mag, and welcomed James Hinton into the team.

Before we get into this newest work of art released by one of my absolute favourite labels, I simply need to talk about the artwork mister RCOMTYPE® crafted for this particular collection. Scrolling down their wonderful discography, from the masterful early compilations to generative planets of the SOL series to the stunning single one-offs of the modern era, one can easily tell that Iwan has always highly valued the visual aspects of his label work - it's even stated in their mission statement! So it makes a whole lot of sense they would go all out for their literal biggest release yet, but who could have predicted it would go this hard? I'd say go look for yourself to see what I mean, but basically, RCOMTYPE created his very own version of the Voyager Golden Record, the gold disc sent out on the Voyager probe, keeping in line with the imprint's often space-related themes. Not only is the idea already (literal) gold, the absolutely gorgeous execution and the tons of fun little details sprinkled all over it make the concept go from sick to interstellar, much like the vessel carrying its inspiration. Illustrations of the core aspects of our little scene, messages for its listeners, and, my favourite, a tracklisting that shows each track's BPMs through the degree of a corresponding arc. I love it so much!

Through the hardship of this long intro, we now move on over to the stars assembled by the Bristolian version of Carl Sagan, starting with 3 detailed picks and ending with a summary of the rest. Let's go!

Pick 1: Aduken - Lose Myself
Recommended if you like: IMANU, ABIS, Puzzle

First, we blast off with a ball of energy that should've been featured ages ago already: Aduken! Born in Jersey, sometimes based in London, but nowadays studying at the dBs Institute in Bristol, Giles Valeur-Adu has been making quite a stir in the music scene all around him since around 2021. Not just because he's got, like, some of the worst, very strongly held opinions ever, but also because of his actually lovely nature, immense passion for all sorts of music related endeavours and, of course, his skills both behind the decks and in the studio. Not only is he an integral part of Stellar's arch nemesis, In The Lab Recordings, he's also the mastermind behind Grand Theft Audio's A&R process and part of the extended Rampage family, a network that opened up doors to play at events like Crucast Bristol, Ministry Of Sound's Deadbeats crossover and Rampage Open Air, supporting the likes of Pendulum, Shy FX, Wilkinson and Hedex along the way.

What he really was and kind of still is obsessed with, however, is his futuristically techy production! After a slew of mindfully corrupted collaborations with Bristol's very own best DJ on In The Lab and YANA, Giles ventured off a bit further, going the solo route for Veil Of Darkness, linking up with Sola and Shayper, and even exploring the world of Dubstep he loves so much. That's right, he's one of those that's actually more excited for the Dubstep part of the Rampage lineups! At the tailend of a year full of massive tunes on Redacted, Riot and GTA, hot off the heals of remixing Bully and Replete and a truly massive REEBZ feature, and at this point a core member of the Stellar roster as well, he's now ready to drop his biggest tune yet - Lose Myself.

Moody pianos, hypnotising loops of synths and fast approaching drums lead us into a mad whirlwind of melancholic vocal chops that will stick in your head, interrupted only by the intro synths' response, while the metallic drums keep switching things up between steppy and rolling. Sound design on point, vibes immaculate, (Adu)can it even get any better?

Pick 2: Aksel - Archetype
Recommended if you like: Rantik, Jon Tho, yanekcore

Next, let's talk about the name I keep mispronouncing in my head: Aksel! No Erele, either. Hiding behind this moniker is Cambridge-from but Bristol-based DJ/producer/general enthusiast James Hinton! During his Audio & Music Technology studies, he has been expressing his love for all things deep, dark, and in more recent times, futuristic and techy through various of his very own releases, which date back all the way to 2019. From a batch of SoundCloud-only free download type minimal vibes, James marched on to self-release tunes like Awaken, Take5 and Beetlegeuse, eventually earning him spots on imprints like OTC, Nerium and, once again, Redacted! As is almost customary with techy-minded newcomers, Aksel has of course also tried out some 140 Dubstep, with his partner CAERIES on vocal duty, along the way, but he always swerved right back into DnB, progressively becoming less and less minimal, and more and more melodic and techy. Especially this year's selection on Duckland and Genesis Sounds deserves a whole lot more ears than they currently get!

That's not even close to everything he's got going on though! Under the Aksel Productions brand, he's also been composing tunes, and doing audio post production, audio editing and mixing work for Generation Palestine, a documentary about Palestinian's lives in Bristol, providing a good chunk of the soundtrack to a fellow student's final year project and reimagining movie and video game sound design moments he found particularly inspiring. Since finishing his studies, he's also become the venue manager at the LOCO Club in Bristol, and, most recently, joined the scrappy bois at Stellar Audio as a resident/co-label-manager/I couldn't find a title but he's part of the team now!

Now, James brings us some of his finest work yet, with the journey that is anything but Archetypical (close enough). Wasting not a whole lot of time, we are welcomed into the Bristolian's sound design world with an infectiously catchy rhythm of cheery plucks getting their jig on, while all sorts of distorted ear candies are slowly but surely joining in on the fun. As we take a bit of a breath in the breakdown, nastily vibrating basses make their presence known, taking over the tune's second half with their quick-firey fluttery madness, before we jump back and forth between Half- and 4x4-time, and end it all with a more rhythmically straight-forward, yet still earthshaking, rollout. Absolute Aksellance.

Pick 3: 42CLO - Now Go
Recommended if you like: Annix, Blueboss, Tom Dune

Lastly, something a bit different. Well, not that different maybe. Of course, Jordan Hall, the man behind the heavyweight project 42CLO, is also residing in Britain, although I don't know anything more specific there. In fact, except for him "feeling gooey" 69 weeks ago, I have found basically nothing else through my usual deep dive through his socials! I do know that this mystery man has been actively releasing some straight fire for quite a while already though. Since 2021, loud and break-heavy but always with a great emotional touch to it has basically been his sound, as evidenced on tunes like CONNECTION, DREAM CHARACTERS, or MYLOVE, but Jordan has always branched out into all sorts of other directions as well, like the Hip-Hop breakbeat-y tune WITHOUT U, the vast soundspace wizardry on SC1-A, the Trap-y bass bomb burn with you, or the heavy-hitting, wonderful weirdness of recent times. Not to mention his various remix projects for the likes of Xeo, KAVARI, Dexndre, and, well, Baddadan.

Which brings us to Now Go, his Stellar debut release! If you thought some of his previous work was already quite massive, you might not be prepared for this one. The bone-chilling back-and-forth between pure grot scaling up and down and building-shattering quick-fire distortion action evolves through so many fun rhythmic variations of the grot it reorganises your brain cells more than just once, until you are left with a scrambled mess, unable to do more than put on your stankiest bassface.

A truly Jordangerous tune.

Conclusion

But that's just a fraction of the talent and the production this compilation has in store for us! We've got Tilburg-based banger-JFRYer Fryware with his uniquely rhythmic stabby exploration Onigiri, Andrew Gatehouse and Syd Walker unveiling their collaborative project Compound with the unbelievably weighty Unbeliever, Utrechtian Stellar regular TER3NCE with the moody, ever-evolving Lead Follower, Blackpool resident Samath showing that he is way better at production than at tennis with the beautiful roller All of The Everythings, Ryan Revolve Harris taking the tempo down to the 140s with the VISION Radio spotlighted Sonorous, grime enthusiast Joel Ø-P keeping the Dubstep flavour alive with iLL, Thailand-based talent JAYSN taking us deep into the 4x4 catacombs with Void, Toulousian finale aficionado LoveTheEND cranking up the vibes with the heavily vibey Midnight, German dream team Quiver and Kenzura unleashing their most athmospheric vocal chops onto the minimalistic yet heavy Elysium, Dutch FUTURE resident Timo Noize weaving together countless unreal melodies on Resonate, Austrian newcomer Fokuz providing incredibly catchy synth vibes on Momento, and yet another Austrian Landsmann Onetral (who we just talked about!) taking us to another dimension of sound with the finale Love.

They did not lie on the cover, this really is stellar - from the gorgeous artwork to the endless amount of musical talent concentrated on this one album.

Other techy things from this week:

Power Shift - Portrait 💎
Blacksite - Open Your Eyes / Solarpunk
Culprate - Normal EP
Various Artists - WAVE VA III
not techy, but that Natus LP on Fokuz deserves a massive shout-out!