Picks Of The Week (23.11.24

1. Various Artists - Empathy Audio Presents: Surveillance 2 💎 [Empathy Audio]

Recommended if you like: Underground Deep & Darkness

I know it's only been like a month or so since we last talked about Tyrolian drum and bass collective, imprint and event makers Empathy Audio, but you also know damn well I really like to dissect sick compilations, and with their second entry into their massive Surveillance series, they have done their best postman impression, and delivered just that - a whole compilation full of Hidden Gems™️! As always, I'll pick out three of my favourites, followed by a quick summary - let's go!

Pick 1: Decaz, Yuta - Revenance

What better place to start than with the man, the myth, the legend who started it all, George Decaz Haselwanter himself. While 24-year-old George has already been listening to DnB for roughly half of his life, the Mieming-based hustle wanter's first passion was actually mountain biking. As HazyMountainbike, part of the MTBHazards gäng if I'm reading these descriptions correctly, he not only showed off his skills zooming down the gorgeous Austrian mountains, he also participated and was involved in various Braap Off's. What a name. While he still is very much active in that scene to this day (just last year he actually broke his back mountainbiking, whoopsie), it was his first-ever rave at Hospitality Winterthur in 2016 that shifted another passion of his, music, into higher gear. After a few more years of raving, he tried his hands at this DJing thing at home and in 2019, he dropped his very first promomix under his long-time gamer tag, nickname and now official DJ name, Decaz.

Inspired by the likes of Seba, Alix Perez, and dBridge, he would start crafting his own tunes soon after, but long before those would be unleashed, the Decazanova would further his connections both online, for instance through his lovely guest mix for In The Lab, and offline. In 2021, he and his closest buddies, TOZEY, Vortex, Fiva and Puzzle, formed the not-actually-a-label DJ collective Resonate Records, and brought fire from mountains, mansions and roofs, in the dark and in the woods to the quaranteed masses at home with their Resonate Displayed series. Once the world opened up again, Resonate smashed out their own events and takeovers at Fieberbrunn, Palace_Club and Aztec Club, but the collective's suffix got George thinking. "Why aren't we doing a label?" And thus, he and his good friend Apollo founded Empathy Audio in 2022!

The gigs kept on coming for youn' Georgey here, from his Switzerland debut to some slower tempo action at Dubstep Attack, and I have of course intensively covered a lot of the Empathy story already so I'll keep this short, but this year brought us one more project of his we simply need to spotlight real quick: Soul:Form! Through its bi-weekly mix series format, Soul:Form has quickly become a haven for both up-and-coming and established artists, with names like Edlan, Dustkey, Natus and Telomic already getting involved, to showcase their loveliest vibes and sweetest lushnesses alongside George's very own stunning photography - wonderful stuff!

Now, he is finally ready to set his very first tune, Revenance with fellow Tyrolian Jonas Yuta Gabl, free. Fun fact, outside of a couple SoundCloud uploads and his Dubstep remix of Josspoop's Done With You, this is the (Yu)talented bass music enthusiast's first release as well! Sure, he already became part of the Empathy fam with his set at Q-West, and was actually the one to invite George down for the aforementioned Dubstep Attack madness, but now he's proper on the roster. On Revenance, they now bring out the best in each other, with hypnotising drumwork, ear-massaging basslines and straight-up mean atmospheric work, ready to destroy Dancefloors wherever you are. A banger, in other words!

Pick 2: ST|mk - The Truth

With one of the godfathers of Empathy Audio himself established, let's take a look at someone who's been in the Austrian music game for longer than Decaz even knows what Drum and Bass is: Stefanos Mikopoulos! Way back in 2012, the happy young man started sharing his explorations through Hip Hop, Trap, Electro and Dubstep with the Tyrolian nightlife as DJ Bleach, amended to DJ Bleatch shortly after. As part of the GUARDIANS collective and resident DJ at the Arena Club in Mayrhofen Zillertal, Stefanos was already tearing up Dancefloors all over the area and by the mid 2010s, he was sticking his Stefanose into the wide world of production as well. By this point, Drum and Bass had already started taking over his tastes, to the point that he split his musical project into two in 2016: Bleatch would continue riding down the DnB path, but his House and Garage House output would now come out under Steve Miko.

With self-released tunes like Neurotic or Open Your Eyes, project DnBleatch was in full swing, but in 2018, Steve decided to clean the slate one last time, and rebranded to ST|mk. Or ST|MK. Or ST/MK. There's a couple variations, but I'll stick with this version for now. Not only has he now also become part of TabulaRasa, one of Tyrol's longest-reigning DnB collectives and itself part of the IN.MOTION super-group alongside Resonate and Empathy, across various selfreleased trips through the drums and the basses, Stefanos has also explored everything from Halftime to Liquid, and with his contribution to the first Surveillance LP, Horizon, he's also become part of the Empathy family!

For this year's edition, Steve is bringing The Truth and nothing but The Truth, in the form of sluggish bass waves making their way through cavernous reverberations, with wonderfully vibey vocals and suave synth staccatones rounding the amazing atmosphere off perfectly. In the second half, he's even taking us down into the mysterious worlds of Halftime! I'm a (Ste)fan.

Pick 3: con:volute - Alkaline

Lastly, a pick with a less con:voluted backstory. Mostly because I simply cannot find all that much about Vienna resident Tim van Dyck, outside of him being a video creator and incredible snowboarding clip editor that is. Musically, things started up around the turn of the decade, with his first deep & dark mix and even two of his own productions under the name Tripole hitting the online shelves in 2020, but from what I can tell, things got quiet after that. Until 2022, that is, when sound magician Tim returned under a brand new coat of paint, con:volute! After a couple of freebies and his 140 debut on Stilbruch Kollektiv, the Viennese art collective he's part of, he also made his way onto Lost Recordings and, of course, Empathy in 2023, where he continued to bring spicy deep and darkness with his excellent Y2K EP earlier this year. So excellent in fact, that the Dubstep title track got premiered on VISION Radio!

Which also holds true for this newest one, Alkaline! Well, not the Dubstep part, but the rest fits. In just a little over five minutes, Tim takes us on a journey from its 4x4 technoid beginnings to an odyssee through acid-y bleepy bloops, snappy drums, and ever-evolving, snoaring basslines that'll keep you on your toes all throughout. Not gonna Alkalie, this tune is rather Addycktive.

Summary

That's of course just a small selection of all the sickness this LP has in store for you. We've also got Frenchie Grégoire Failøver Koch cooking up some heat for your Daily Commute, Brusselian Craig Cynical Gene Winney sprouting up with the highly genergetic Spirare, returning champion Kevin Re:growth Höhensteiger exploring the genre's deepest underbelly with WNK, Vienna scene founding member Tommy Audio Device Höfstätter turning up the fonk with Voodoo Baby, stellar newcomer James Aksel Hinton conjuring up some wickedness on Strider, fellow Empathy founding father and dot-lover Nico A.P.O.L.L.O Hassler taking us on a deep drill mission on Get It Up, DnB's most prolific newcomer Gabriel Dub Ten Kirchebner unleashing rather suave basslines on Constricted, former mainstage EDM turned DnB enjoyer boy Leon Acris Bernhard plunging into the 140 depths with Hidden, Abyssal Music label A&Rssistant Jelle Grintax Panis getting on the Eurostar to deliver some Belgian Tunnelfunk, and the Hanspetyrolian Empathy Audio regular PHEET hypnotising us with the deeply unsettling Royals.

Get in on the underground floor of the future of deep and dark talents, and give this one a listen already!

Other deep and dark things from this week:

Various Artists - Fuse (Vol. 1)
Various Artists - Incurzion Remixed 2024:
Kyrist - Plexus EP
Petroll - Kraken
Kuttin Edge - Brancusi

2. It's Tricky - Tension / Dah Light 💎 [Stonx Music]

Recommended if you like: Notequal, O&P, Sindicate

From one of the most active underground communities in the deep and dark spheres, we jump on over to probably the sickest underground collective in Neuro: Stonx Music! Whether it's their sprawling Disciples Of Distortion compilations or the absolute slappers by Avile, Sindicate or the bearded master Stonx himself, Stonx Music is a marker of quality that's only gone up in value since its inception only a few years back. Even though I'm a huge fan, I was still surprised by the sheer insanity they brought to the table with this week's release, by absurdly underrated newcomer It's Tricky - so let's check him out real quick!

You might not expect this when listening to his music, but Trent Mcneil, the man behind the trickster name, actually grew up playing the clarinet and to this day regularly enjoys the Jazzier side of life, with Lounge music and tropical stuff still being in heavy rotation. Maybe to balance out all the heavy techy madness oh so present in his DnB diet. The crazy sound design and wild rhythms of the likes of The Caracal Project, IMANU and Phace all lead to himself trying his hands at this futuristic production thing, with his now unavailable first-ever It's Tricky tune MISTY on Drumago's Ellemination arriving around 2021, followed by his first Breaksy mix. Via his Bandcamp, Trent would continue the mindtwisting trickery on various EPs and one-offs, with the Escondido EP on Ellemination sandwiched in between it all, but from 2022 on, he would also become a regular and make all sorts of connections on remix competitions for Phace, Synergy and Notequal. Just this year, we've seen him drop tons of banging reworks for Exept, A.way, Buunshin and Teddy Killerz tunes!

Starting with last year though, his name would also start to appear on more and more label releases, from his 2023 collaboration with Hypotax to his five-tracker Oblivion on Dialect earlier this year, and smashing appearances on All172Things and Abducted LTD. Now, he finally formally joins the Stonx Music fam, with what I'd absolutely call his two biggest tunes as of yet. Tension takes a familiar vocal sample and wraps it up in mean distorted basses, turn signal vocal chops, and rhythmically satisfying and what I can only describe as slapping drums, effectively building up and releasing the titular feeling over and over again. On the flipside, Dah Light launches into an outrageous back and forth between machine gun fire ratatat's and out of control spiraling waves of reece basses overpowering your senses, powered by some incredibly hectic drums. Plus, some moody vocals and a second drop exploring this insane formula in a 4x4 setting before switching the syncopation switch back on - I love it!

Two apocalyptic, mind-twisting, involuntary-screwface-forcing gold Mcneedles in the releases haystack.

Other heavy and techy things from this week:

Osprey - Hold Me Close
Jade Sierra - anywhere but here EP
Misanthrop - Analog VIP
Meph, Gexan - Hope (O&P Remix)
Loudek - All Wrong / Welcome Back
Vizzen - Sky Roars