Picks Of The Week (11.05.24

Hello, dear reader! This thread marks four whole years (!) of us doing these threads week in and week out, and we, the whole new releases team, just want to say thank you for sticking with us for this long. I'll put some fun review statistics in the comments below, but for now, let's take a look at two excellent schnitzeltastic Austrian DnB releases from this week!

1. Wingz - Ghost LP [Overview Music]

Recommended if you like: Rizzle, En:vy, Invadhertz

For my tastes, the minimal/deep and dark scene in drum and bass is sometimes a little too crowded. Every single week, we've got upwards of 50 releases just in that corner, and while I try my best to highlight the really good ones, I've still got a bunch of other subgenres I deeply (heh) care about as well, leading to a lot of dark stuff slipping through the cracks. Not all of it good, mind you. Some of it though! For instance, one excellent artist that we haven't talked about here at all yet, that has been consistently delivering pure gold on the vibey, rolling, minimal sound front for years now, is very much overdue a proper spotlight on here. Of course, I'm talking about the Luigi of the dnb scene (a quote of his I sadly cannot find the link for anymore), Wingz! More like the Luigenius of DnB. Anyway.

While his journey to widespread acclaim in the scene arguably only started to properly kickstart in 2019, Viennamese music enthusiast and professional Twitterer Markus Kocar has earned his musical wingz way earlier than you might think. Back in 2008 (!), Markus had already begun delving deeper into all things DJing, and depending on how far back you go, you minimal enjoyers might be surprised what you hear him spin. You see, after seeing Pendulum at his very first DnB party, he became a massive Dancefloor enjoyer, from where he jumped over to Jump Up and eventually Neurofunk, which provided a smooth transition point to the more minimal vibes he is now known for. Over the years, Markus got more and more active around the scene, sharing his mixes around a lot, regularly hanging out on DnB forums and just generally interacting more with the scene in Vienna. One fateful day in 2013, he was chatting to this Austrian guy, who had been gaining some popularity recently, I think his name was Meth Juice or something, no one you would know nowadays, and he basically told him, if you don't start producing you won't stand out amongst the sea of DnB DJs. So... he did just that!

It didn't take long for him to put the knowledge he had gained from his time on the legendary Neurohop Forum, on which he made tons of connections with the likes of Grey Code, Vorso, Rueben and many more, to good use, turning what began with certified club bangers like "Untitled Roller WIP" into much more serious output, the first of which was debuted on the then-newly-founded IN:DEEP Music in 2014. As the Forum transitioned over to Facebook and turned into what you might now know as the Music Squad, Markus continued to improve his game, by not only showing Dancefloors all over the area what a good set sounds like, but even touring with man like Phace and spreading his production wingz far and wide across the likes of T3K, Context, Addictive Behaviour, Flexout (which earned him his first Noisia Radio play), Demand Records (which earned him support on Skankandbass), and eventually, Lifestyle. Why am I highlighting Lifestyle in this list? Because that's where he made the career-altering connection with none other than Peter Piper Maxted, who was part of Lifestyle at the time and would go on to found his very own label, Overview Music, soon after this.

Not only did Peter fly Markus over for his first UK gig in the one and only Volks club in Brighton in 2018, since then he also signed him on for (as of right now) 5 whole EPs and so many hot singles the ads on even the filthiest of websites will pale in comparisons. Wingz wasn't just a household name on the Overview roster though, during that time he also debuted on (warning, long list) Korsakov, Mainframe, Fraktal, Cyberfunk, Deep Within, V Recordings, Delta9, 4NC¥ //DarkMode, Sofa Sound, VISION, Blackout and DIVIDID, remixing Noisia, Agressor Bunx, Droptek, Grey Code and Data 3 and collaborating with Rueben (who remixed him in 2017 as Ordure!), Submarine, Waeys and En:vy along the way. Phew. Not to mention his Future Garage alias In Agony, with which he showed the world his take on the Burial sound, and his sets all over the world, hitting even South Africa in recent times! I feel like I used my spreading his wingz pun too early.

However, there was one thing he hadn't done all through this yet: an album. As you can maybe tell from the way I not so subtly phrased that there, that changed this week, with the long-awaited arrival of the Ghost long player on his home imprint, Overview. So let's check it out!

We ease into the landscape of the melodically pleasing, deeply minimal vibes Wingz has become known for with the opening track Ghost, showcasing a ton of introductory atmospheric beauty, before smoothly sailing down a stream of minimal rolling vibes, the melodies around it constantly evolving over the stretch of one very long drop. Lonely Place continues the general vibe of minimalistic ear candy nicely with a proper low blanket of (sub)bass keeping us safely tucked in, while a mean kick shakes us to our core and a lot of heavy reverberations fill out the scenery. However, from the distance, we can hear someone approaching: Rider Shafique! On Keep Control, we trade lovely vibes with large swaths of goosebump-causing sounds intertwined with Rider's signature menacing vocals, both exhaling pure destruction at every stop. These heavier tones linger on a little bit longer, as Street Echoes takes us down the path of upfront, powerful drum action, basslines going back and forth between delightfully threatening and growing into menacing mountains of madness, and a vocal that demands that you dance already.

After so much energy, we have earned ourselves a bit of a break, and luckily, Wingz delivers a proper auditory vacation with Parting. Audio crackles, a tightly looping dramatic melody in the background, a moody vocal, plopped onto a smoothly rolling, hi-hat-filled drum set, with the occasional vocal, synth bloop and even some tiny distortion peeking through - just lovely! Speaking of, Guardian Angel takes this loveliness and amplifies it to straight-up soul-soothing, thanks to West Midlandian Luke Truth bringing in one of his most soulful performances yet, while we continuously roll through all sorts of subtle subdued little treats for the ears floating around on here. Gambit very much breaks us out of our trance, with only the wubbiest of wubs, the snappiest of snaps and some gnarly distorted basses. Minimal club bangerism at its finest! On the followup Submission we go deeper and deeper into it, with a supremely deeply vibrating, Dancefloor-incinerating bassline, spiced up with a drum-laden cocktail of think breaks, rave sirens, what sounds like turn indicators and even more I can't quite identify, evolving in a really satisfying way.

We stay down in the aggressive mud a little bit longer, with Within Me. Not only do we get great finely-tuned and groovy aggression coming from the drum action, we've also got some thick bass whomps and the strangely catchy, titular vocal sample - a banger, in other words! On Tonight, the vibe pendulum swings back to the lovely side of things, this time brought to us via a composition of soulfully synthed-up chords, blooped-up synth bleeps, distorted stabs, and an intoxicating tincture of various nicely processed vocals. The vibe pendulum strikes again, and we are back with one last wub-infused minimal club banger, Someone, that in my eyes especially excels in the relentlessly tick-tick-ticking drums that hammer into us while we witness the back-and-forth between the bwoam and the wubs. I'm very good with words, you see. For our closer Forgive & Forget, Wingz swings (say that three times) back into soulful territory once more, ending this journey through melodic minimalism with the one and only Collette Warren putting on a hell of a performance, a heartwarming blanket of bass underneath it all, and just general drifting-away energy.

It's rare that I'm actually this engaged with minimal DnB on a full album runtime, but by reaching across the whole spectrum of deepness, making sure that every single tune sports a deeply satisfying progression and never straying too far from his mission of injecting musicality into even the most minimalistic of club bangers, minimalstermind Wingz has managed to capture my attention wholeheartedly.

Other deep, dark or vibey stuff from this week:

En:vy, Monty - INLOVE
Hiraeth, Alexvnder - The Truth (Leniz Remix)
Shortball, Las Iguanas - Sun Slows Down
FERVL - Vvild 💎
YAANO, Skylark - Falling
Molecular - Heritage & Sound LP
KRÆK - XOU002 💎
Kuttin Edge - Flicker & Flash

2. Manta - Home [Sinful Maze]

Recommended if you like: Irontype, Esym, The Clamps

After such a detailed deep dive, let's do a fun little quickie to finish things off. Luckily, we've got the perfect candidate: The one and only Manta, who you might remember from way back when we talked about his Diascope EP, has debuted on one of my favourite labels around, the wonderful Czechian imprint Sinful Maze, who you should remember from all the times I talk about it on here. Those are all separate links!

But first, a quick check-in: What has Daniel "Manta" Hollinetz from Salzburg been up to since we last talked about him here? Well, of course he has been busy playing shows all over the place, but he's also been putting out some rather (Man)tasty releases on the likes of High Tea, Blu Saphir, Korsakov and, as of 2023, even Neurofunk behemoth Eatbrain! While all of these are sick in their own right, I have to specifically shout-out his and his good mate Frank Lemon's VIP-ified version of my all-time favourite of theirs, Adventure, on Hanzom - what a tune.

Alright, so what does his Sinful Amazeing debut, Home, sound like then? Built around a sample of the Bards of Skyrim's The Age of Aggression, one of the coolest samples I've come across in recent times by the way, Home takes us through one of Manta's signature cinematic adventures full of all sorts of ear candy production elements. Right from the beginning, during the relatively short intro, we are treated to such a sick sounding guitar part that you can't help but become curious what is about to follow. As the bard hits the titular With our blood and our steel we will take back our home lyric, the age of aggression really does begin, with almost out-of-control-spiraling, soundsystem-decimating distortion explosions sparring with relentless, futuristic, colourful and straight-up mind-piercing machine gun fire. I can't even point to a specific favourite part or anything, literally everything in this just sounds so damn good. A proper adrenaline rush of a tune.

Simply Mantastic.

Other heavy stuff from this week:

DNMO, Wolfy Lights - Bombalaya (Blooom remix) (<333)
TANTRON - Enchanted
Various Artists - MODULES two
Karpa - Keep Away
Sinister Souls - Chronicles, Volume 1
Various Artists - Headz Up vol. 2
Foks - Miss You