Picks Of The Week (24.03.24

The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the clocks made that confusing jumpy thingy again - Spring has sprung! What better way to celebrate the blossoming beauties of nature than basking in the wonderful sun-ics coming out of the up-and-comers of the scene?

1. Dylan Purser - City In Lights EP [Galacy]

Recommended if you like: Hiraeth, Keeno, Telomic

Of course, we cannot go full-send right away on our journey through all things new(-ish), so let's instead start with something rather vibey - Dylan Purser's debut EP!

In case you don't know him yet, Dil-hun Puh-suh, as his university knows him, is one of the finest gems the liquid scene has brought forth in recent times. Originally from way up north in Darwen, he then made the mind-boggling choice to move to Birmingham, of all places, to take a crack at studying Music Technology. That didn't come out of nowhere though, Dylan was already a pursuer of the arts when he made that move, with his first self-releases and SoundCloud uploads having started rolling in 2018. Across bootlegs of The 1975 and the seminal European anthem Better Off Alone, plus various polaroided originals, he explored his musical identity, with Dylan trying out anything from Chillout and Hiphop to "Dance" and, of course, DnB. While he did also try his hands at Dubstep, with his bootleg of Flite's Joy, and even some heavier DnB on Debunked in 2021, the more relaxing vibes did win the battle of the subgenres in the end, with his first big break (dy)landing via UKF's Pilot that same year.

However, while he would fit right in at Pilot, he soon started steering his career towards outer space, towards the Galaxy Of Dreams™️. Sure, he has he been an active member of the Liquicity community for a while now, but 2023 was when things really kicked off. Not only did he release on both its sister label Ridmic and even on the main label's Winter compilation, he also played a most wonderful set at the community stream event, the summer festival's Nebula stage and Family Day. His collaboration with songwriters isn't just limited to DnB though, on his work with Nina McKendrick, with whom he created the Music production house AMIS MUSIC, and Sarah Michie he also ventures out into the Pop and Rock spheres every now and then.

On City In Lights, Dylan's delightful debut EP on Liquicity's lush Liquid-focused offshoot Galacy, we're all about the night time drive vibes though! With its ebbing and flowing piano chords, floating synths and wonderful vocal sample, Day Relief is already giving us plenty of loveliness to enjoy the evening with, but Bliss really raises the bar to a whole 'nother level. With the absolutely marvellous, sadly all too rarely actually on tracks appearing, Leeds-based singer-songwriter Lauren Walton once again showing the world just how gorgeous her vocals can be, we're already off to a great start, but Dylan also knows exactly how to fill the rest of the arrangement, with beautiful waves of synths washing over you, subtle piano chords slowly but surely extending into this plucky guitar-y vibe, and a talent for taking his sweet time to weave them all in and out as necessary. Even at almost 6 minutes runtime, you kind of just want more.

Luckily, we still got a couple more tunes to go! After the euphoria of its predecessor, Twilight takes down the energy levels a little bit, with only gently rolling drums, the most pleasant of pianos and a warm bed of bass greeting us at first. However, soon enough, some magical synth plucks join in on the fun, becoming more and more jittery as time goes on, resulting in not just a rather satisfying progression, but also in my brain being scritched just right. On Let Me Go we go down another notch on the energy ladder, cruising through the empty citey with some breaky, lo-fi midnight vibes. For those insomniacs out there, we still got one more to go through: Sleepless Nights, with Blackburnian singer-songwriter Ella Hammill. While fast-paced drums attempt to keep us up all night, the enchanting arrangement of delightful melodies paired with Ella's dreamy vocal performance will slowly make you drift away into the galaxy of dreams for some much-needed rest.

My Dylantidote of choice for seasonal depression. Simply wonderful.

Other liquid from this week:

Telomic, KINSELLA - Selfish
Styke, switch/case, Steo - Let You Know
Operate, Rizzle, Catching Cairo, Verbz - Active
Sonnet - Hung Up 💎
Metal Work, Just Mack - Purity EP
Tyler Dayley, Children Of Zeus - Small Circles (Calibre Remix)

2. Various Artists - Adaptations, Gen. III [Blackout Music]

Recommended if you like: Finding new Neuro-adjacent artists!

As evidenced by the sprawling Evolutions compilation series, Dutch neurofunk forge Blackout has always been on the lookout for new talents in the scene. Even when said series came to an end with its 10th edition in 2021, the Adaptations series picked the mantle back up just a year later, regularly presenting all sorts of exciting names from all over the world, one compilation EP at a time. Now, let's see what this third generation of Blackout recruits has to offer!

First, we head on over to the North East of France, where Mona L'Huillier, aka Eluun, has not just been tirelessly working to push bass music in her home town of Nancy in the past few years, but has also been busy crafting her very own creations for more than a decade now. As Sian Area, she's been traversing the whole electronic music spectrum, from colourful Midtempo or Dubstep, to, of course, even DnB, since 2011! Eventually, however, she grew tired of the alias and the associated baggage, and rebranded herself as Eluun in 2017, with a slew of multi-genre releases on Kinphonic to boot. From 2018 on, the project was on a bit of a hiatus, during which Mona focussed on getting her bass music event brand N87 off the ground, but since last year, she's back in action again! After a couple super sick bootlegs, she now tops it all off with the absolutely journey of a tune that is Unseen. What starts out as just a single tight drum loop and a lethargic analogue synth, grows with additional drum action, bright synth walls, a unique bird song like vocal, until it explodes into a mad whirlwind of newschool beauty - truly something to behold.

Next, we've got a dynamite duo straight out of the Neurofunk centre that is the Czech Republic: Karpa and Zigi SC! While Karpa has been straight-up popping off in recent times, with releases on Skamele, Hoofbeats, Cause4Concern and Sinful Maze in just the last few months, Brno-based Vojtěch "Karpa" Karpíšek has been in this game since way back in 2013. A free download here, some Trap and Hip-Hop there, but once 2023 rolled around, it was full steam ahead! Similarly, Prague-based Neuro ambassador Ondrej "Zigi SC" Zegzulka has been smashing Dancefloors all over the continent, with regular appearances at Beats For Love, Let It Roll and Darkshire, since at least 2018, and in 2020, the first official productions followed. Labels like Close2Death, Empire, Sinful Maze, Cause4Concern, collaborations with A-Cray, Prdk, Confusion - especially the last year or so was filled with one banger after another. Now, these two regularly collaborating forces of nature once again collide to bring us Blood Payments! Rhythmically infectious, ridiculously danceable, bursting with Czech energy, that's a banger alright!

We keep on going further East, towards Yuzhnoukrainsk, the Ukrainian home town of CrucifyMe! While the project from Evgeniy Spotar is still rather fresh - his first release only landed in 2021 - he's already made his mark on NickBee's label Axon, Paperfunk, Invasion, T3K, Grid and many more, with his assortment of sounds from techy to funky minimal, earning himself a bunch of VISION Radio plays along the way. For this special debut on Blackout, Evgeniy reached out to none other than German power duo-trio-one-man-show Instinkt! Helmed by Mannheim-based veteran of the scene, label chief of T3K and genuine force for good in the underground, Florian "Kaiza" Kaiser, this project has seen all sorts of changes since its creation in 2014. Whether as just Kaiza and Rune, or together with Kill Tomorrow's Tomtek, Instinkt has always brought the heat, with releases on more minimal/deep labels like Lifestyle and Delta9 to more straight-forward Neuro platforms like Cause4Concern and Bad Taste, until the project came to a bit of stop in 2019. Until now, that is! On Dirty Mind, Evgeniy and Florian, alongside a couple others that might or might not be part of the new Instinkt group, join forces to deliver an absolute smasher of a tune, full of gnarly basses, forward-pushing rhythms and generally bass-face-causing sounds!

On our fourth stop, we take a trip to the place whose DnB scene was the subject of countless of outraged Facebook posts and Tweets: the United States! Straight outta Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Tom Kinsey, aka Dropset, has gone from strength to strength, whether we're talking about his decades of DJing experience under the guidance of Depth One, his years of Neurofunk production mentored by the likes of Philth, Akov and Joe Ford, or his physical strength, thanks to his day job as a personal trainer and his blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Just like his Nage Waza, his productions are absolutely lethal, leading to releases on Abducted, Korsakov, Neuroheadz, Bad Taste, Eatbrain, and, like, so many more! In other words, it was only a matter of time, until Blackout joined the list, with Fracture. Not just the injury you might sustain from raving to this sort of music, but also a banging tune full of nasty, distorted basses, atmospheric sounds straight out of a horror movie and proper bonky snares.

Next, a rather PRFCT Man: it is Jev! Latvian at heart, but nowadays a proper UK lad(vian), and the surviving half of PRFCT Mandem - there's no story quite like Jevgenijs Semelis'. For those who don't know: Back in 2019, him and Aisling McDonough, also known as Aisling Zita, started their collaborative musical journey off with delightfully fun and incredibly energetic DJ sets on the Bloc2Bloc streams. However, there was way more to them: Not only were they running a YouTube Vlog channel documenting their progress as artists, they also ran a Patreon and put their heart, soul and humour into creating some sick, sick beats. After wow-ing the label manager at Korsakov with their submission to the Future Stars compilation, they signed on for a whole bunch of EPs, before trying their hand at doing things on their own for a bit. However, by the time 2022 rolled around, Aisling felt the project became a bit of an obligation instead of the fun creative outlet it once was, so they decided to call it quits. Lucky for us, Jev continued the madness on his own as it is Jev, blasting the scene with one insane self-release after the other, remixing Crissy Criss & Malux & Erb n Dub and Neonlight, and now apparently entering his Neuro arc, with Collapse! As always, chock-full of all sorts of manic switchups (you just wait for the Hardcore), ridiculous in-your-face sound design and just general insanity.

Lastly, we are finnishing things off with Finnish mad lad Viktor Hurskainen and his truly insane DnB project Teniak! One look at his socials might make you believe he's more of a travel influencer, but there's one thing he somehow loves even more than travelling: music! For around 20 years (!) now, Viktor has been pursuing one musical outlet after another, whether it's band projects, his music studies in London or composing for film and media, and since 2021, he's poured his energy into Teniak! Not always necessarily under the DnB umbrella, but always full-on crazy, his self-releases were already setting off banger alarms everywhere he went, eventually leading to double singles on ProgRAM and Ignescent in 2023, and, well, Blackout now! On Yetpak, Viktor effortlessly tosses us around the room, with a back-and-forth so viciously catchy, arranged in such a maniacally chaotic yet completely controlled manner, and filled with such menacing energy, that you can't help but love it.

A treasure trove of pure Neurofunk gold from all over the world. My dream, in other words.

Other Neurofunk from this week:

Tryst Temps - Pyramids EP
Khronos - Titan's Revenge
HighThere - Symphony Of Destruction