Picks Of The Week (18.05.24

Turns out Austrian producers are on a real roll lately. I didn't even intend on continuing this incidental geographical spotlight from last week, but with releases like this coming from down there, my hands are simply tied.

1. [BORDERS], Puzzle - Grounded EP [FUTURE / HEXAGON]
Recommended if you like: The Caracal Project, DIVICIOUX, Rantik

Let's start with one Schnitzelman I've been featuring a lot lately, teaming up with a Dutchie boi that's been making waves all over the scene in recent times: that's right, Jonas Puzzle Feurle joined forces with none other than Jaimey [BORDERS] Borgers! I probably don't need to remind you of Jonas' prowess as of late, as I've not only talked about him in-depth quite often on here before, but also gave you all an update on the Jonastermind just a couple weeks back!

What about Jaimey then? Well, back when ProgRAM was still a thing (RIP), back in the innocent times when I didn't even know Jaimey used to do Future House as Jaimz and Hip-Hop as Young Jameson, we checked out his phenomenal EP Phenomena, but other than that, we haven't gotten much of a chance to talk about his stuff out on here! Which is an actual tragedy, because my god, has a lot of gold accumulated in that discography. It's only been a little under 2 years since then, but in that short time frame he has treated us to stunning releases on High Tea, Sinful Maze, Stellar Audio, Nerd Nation, Impact, In The Lab and MODUS (something that was still a pipe dream a mere two years before that), a massive bootleg for Anyma & Chris Avantgarde's Consciousness, which saw support from none other than Metrik, plus shows at the Sportpaleis for In The Lab's Rampage showcase, the infamous Liquicity Pool Stage, Neuroheadz festival, and Shrouded in Berlin (alongside some other weird people), plus his own Obscurity Radio show, plus a signing to MBArtists. Phew!

Now, these two melodic techy powerhouses come together to form a duo so dynamic and with a sound so futuristic, it only makes sense that it's being released via Don Dynamico's FUTURE label. Launched in 2020 as a sublabel of the massively popular Hexagon imprint, FUTURE has always been a place for the tunes that go "beyond the dancefloor", with some noteworthy DnB from the likes of Alora, Axel Boy and VovKING having sneaked into the everything-but-House mix now and then, but once Wessel Hop took over as label manager in 2023-ish, things got proper interesting for the techy futuristic dnb enjoyers. The Bumblebeat Management founder, who's responsible for managing the careers of the likes of gladde paling, DIVICIOUX, Blacksite and Ricky West nowadays, brought on so many on-point newcomers in such a short amount of time that, for me at least, FUTURE has become one of the best places to look for Hidden DnB Gems™️ in between Mr. Diablo's devilishly delightful storm of multi-genre vibes. So far we've got talents like Curious Mind, DIVICIOUX, Howlan and Foks delivering the futuristic goods, but today I of course want to focus on one particular highlight: The Grounded EP.

Defying the EP's titular concept, opener Shine Light wastes no time and takes off into the futuristic stratospheres with Puzzle's exceptional, heartfelt vocals, catchy as hell back-and-forths between syncopated synths as colourful as they are heavy and brassy vocalisations from Jonas, flurries of wonderfully flowing drums and a second drop that simply goes crazy hard. With this sonic formula for the EP now firmly established, title track Grounded continues to even higher melodic heights, thanks to a lethal (in a good way) cocktail comprised of the most deadly infectious (in a good way) of vocals from the Feurle man himself (a Jonassacre if you will), some (Jai)meaty guitar strumming and a delightfully rhythmic, deliciously fonky assortment of weighty yet beautiful synths. Finally, we end on the most stunning of finishers, The Tide. Together with Monist, of whom I only know that he is maybe Dutch, they not only crafted an orchestral intro that might bring you to tears from its sheer beauty and crafted yet another wonderfully earwormy vocal from man like Jonas, they also take us on a relaxing journey through all sorts of magnificent sounds, ebbing and flowing in and out of our earsight. Yes, that's a word.

This five-star four-dimensional three-course meal prepared by the double-trouble chefs showcases the sort of one-of-a-kind sound combinations you can only get when two zero-fucks-given production masterminds like this work together. A combination so good I wouldn't mind ten more EPs like this.

Other beautiful techy stuff from this week:

SLESS - Half Life
Drvmmer, Onyra - Coming Over VIP
Clikvork - Trinity EP
JJL, iFeature - What I Would Be

2. En:vy - Banned EP [Critical Music]

Recommended if you like: Objectiv, Koherent, Arkaik

After finally featuring vibe maestro Wingz on here last week, let's cross off another one of the most consistent artists in the deep-slash-deep-liquid spheres, funnily enough also coming from Austria: Jean Singer, better known as En:vy!

Before we get to the 'eavy and dark five-tracker Jean has been bringing us this week, let's jump back to the beginning of this particular journey. While his childhood mostly consisted of playing ice hockey at a professional level, even reaching the point of playing for Austria's national team, there was one thing that captivated him even more: music! Thanks to his brother Jaques, also known as Blind Judge and part of both the Mind The Gap and Contrast gangs, introducing him to the wild world of drum and bass at the early age of 12, and his environment instilling a general love for all things electronic into him, Jean had become truly obsessed with it all. Not only did he start DJing at only 13 years of age, at some point his obsession grew so strong that each day after ice hockey practice, he was also straight-up rushing back to his room to work on his own tunes, until the early hours of the morning. While it was initially Trap that captured his imagination, drum and bass took over as soon as he experienced his first gig at the legendary Grelle Forelle, with Skeptical's Blue Eyes and Imperial being his biggest inspirations, leading to the birth of Envy in 2016.

With his mates Stanko Disturbo, Markus Wingz, Fabi and Toni helping him along all sorts of ways on his musical path, it was soon time to trade one kind of ice with another - because he stopped playing ice hockey and his productions are cold. Most of his early stuff was simply released on his own SoundCloud or on platforms like DnB Rollerz, with his big dreams at the time being a spot on Noisia Radio and making waves in the UK. To make at least one of these dreams happen, Jean said goodbye to the beautiful alps and instead moved to the Mecca of Drum and Bass, Bristol, in 2019, to enroll in music production studies at the one and only BIMM university. Sure, the pan-to-the-demic kinda torpedoed the usual musical career track for an up-and-comer like this, but on the plus side, he had so much extra time on his hands that he could hone his skills to frankly ridiculously high levels.

Turns out that the Dutch trio whose radio show he was so keen to land on agreed - his very first tune as the newly rebranded En:vy, on Deep Within's very first compilation, was instantly featured on Noisia Radio. Not too long after, his Unspoken free download got basically the whole scene supporting him from the get-go, and the follow-ups on Trust Audio (which also landed on Noisia Radio), the collaboration with his mentor Wingz, and most especially his absolutely incredible debut EP on Flexout further cemented En:vy as one of the best newcomers around. After such a banger debut year, it's not much of a surprise that the likes of Overview, Flexout and especially Critical kept getting him on board for more chunes, with the latter quickly becoming Jean's home for the longer-form releases after being introduced to the platform via the infamous Binary EP series. Not only was he banging out incredible music left and right on his own, he also jumped on the collab train with half of the deep and dark scene, including names like Kasra, Particle, Visages, Cesco, Offline, Klinical, Azotix, Alibi and Submarine, delivered guest mixes for Kool FM and 1985 Music, and produced the incredible collaborative effort between DRS and Javeon on Shogun.

After just a couple of years, he has basically become of the finest producers of the deep and dark scene around, and this week he proves that this status is well and truly earned, with the advent of his fifth and probably filthiest EP, Banned. Just take a listen to title track and EP opener Banned, and you'll see what I mean - a mean bassline (there's a Jean-mean joke in there somewhere), a rather unique, almost 4x4 type minimalistic rhythm, vibrations that will shake you to your very core, and some straight-up fuck-off sounds in the second half. Before we descend too hard into the filth, however, we've got one stop at vibe central to make, on INLOVE with Frenchman Monty. As expected from such a wonderful sounding combo, we've got only the lushest of synth chords, the vibiest of vocal processing, the tightest of drum loops and the most ambrosial (thanks, Google) of synth solos towards the end. One could say I am very much enamored with this one.

Enough loveliness though, it's time for some droid shenanigans! What? Just listen to R2D2 and you'll hopefully understand my seeming non sequiturs. Not only have we got bleepy bloops from our favourite Star Wars character here, Jean also pulled out some seriously soul-rattling basslines that do their cheeky thang on a bunch of steppy drums, before switching it up into a truly cold switchup halfway through. And I'm not just saying that because of the ice hockey thing. We keep steppin' with stop numero quattro, Watch Me. With man like T-Man on the mic, we've already got plenty of sickness to go around, but of course En:vy also spared no expense on the instrumental front, delivering some ch-ch-cheekey bassline stabs ontop of a head-nod-enforcing riddim. Lastly, we close things off with the journey through filth that is After Clock. Sure, it might start off simple enough, with a clock-type drum beat and solid catchy bassline, but then its vibrations start reaching deeper and deeper, glitching out into full-on growls, while the drums become packed with more and more details, until we are fully rolling out into the breakdown. Not to mention that proper wonky second drop!

While I cannot wait for En:vy's return to the lush side, I can't help but love the cheeky, freaky, filthy bangers he has been cooking up on here as well. Excellent.

Other deep and dark stuff from this week:

Amoss, Monty, Trail - In The Cut, And We Go
Lockjaw - Your Love/Shimmer
Vici, Speaker Louis - Henchman
Coben - Yew 💎
Objectiv - Seasoned / The Goons
Alibi - Dismissed