Picks Of The Week (08.06.24

1. Bensley, Justin Hawkes, Kumarion - Carry The Fire EP [BEACON]

Recommended if you like: The United States Of America

I am probably the last to tell you that North America seems to be having a bit of a Drum & Bass resurgence going on. Sure, we've all heard the #DnB2020 and subsequent yearly cries of attack coming from overseas, but underneath all the admittedly nice but ultimately a little hollow-feeling public declarations of love all over the social media spheres, things did actually happen in the past few years. Not just because DnB has recently been blowing up all over the world anyway, with more and more (actually insanely) big names embracing the faster tempos, new DnB/Jungle/Pop hybrid acts like Nia Archives or Pinkpantheress popping up all over the place, and fresh faces like Venjent and Kenya Grace or brands like DnB Allstars leveraging the powers of the internet™️, across the pond we've also seen concentrated efforts to both bring in more people from all over the genre spectrums through the Trap- and Halftime-infused sounds of REAPER et al. and push for more representation of both local and international DnB talents on both the local and big stages. Yes, that also includes the regular Worship tours, even if you don't wanna hear it.

But I'm obviously not here to talk about them, I'm here to talk about another key figure in the genre's rise to the top across the pond: Anthony Tedder. While the name alone probably doesn't ring a bell for the average DnB enjoyer, looking at Anthony aka artistmgmtguy's online profile might explain what I'm getting at. Since way back in 2014, Anthony has been nurturing and, well, managing bass music artists via his Radish Management collective, with the most well-known one from the very early days probably being Prismo. No particular reason I'm bringing this one up. A couple years into the game, him and his team made the decision to use their accumulated network to "make DnB happen in America", starting with championing the brand new REAPER project and eventually growing until the likes of Rebel Scum, and, as you can tell from the title, Bensley, Justin Hawkes and Kumarion had all gathered under the Radish umbrella, alongside other big bass music names like RIOT or Slippy. Anthony didn't stop at merely representing the artists though, he also had a hand in the recent creation of Austin-based event series INTER/SECT, which is consistently bringing in the likes of Kanine, Bou, IMANU and many more to cities all across Texas, and will soon expand into other breaks-related bass music like UK Garage.

But did he stop there? Of course not! A couple weeks ago, the newest massive project to further the cause was unveiled: BEACON! In partnership with AEI Music, the group behind massive ventures in the scene like UKF, Drum&Bass Arena and Let It Roll, BEACON aims to become a leading brand in the North American Drum & Bass landscape, by shining a spotlight on all the amazing home-grown artists, both established and up-and-coming, while paying respect to the far-reaching history of the genre over there. For the people, and all that. Funnily enough, they specifically specified that they don't want to be seen as "the savior" or "the answer" - I assume they avoided going for "beacon of hope" for the same reasons. Alright, so they've got big ambitions, but what exactly does BEACON entail at this point in time? Well, since this release, a label, for one! What kind of artists, you ask? Ah, just Bensley, Justin Hawkes and Kumarion all coming together for a 3-way 4-track 5-star EP to go along with their behemoth tour across the whole continent, not much!

In all seriousness though, before we get too deep into the Carry the Fire experience, let's give all the participants a little intro, shall we? Well, you already know Peter Bensley Bennett, don't you? Canadian Captain America clone responsible for crafting some of my favourite ever unique soundscapes in DnB, come on, we talked about him a bunch on here! Since then, Peter has continued to Benslay on the likes of UKF, Monstercat and mau5trap, remixed Noisia (!) and Eliminate, and debuted on Deadbeats with his dynamic partner DNMO - you know, amazing stuff. What about Justin "Hawkes" Hellier? We talked even more recently about this one! Formerly known as Flite, regular on all of UKF's labels, big spokesperson for all things US DnB, that guy with the Country DnB song! Okay, now that we've hopefully rung enough of a bell for you, what happened since the album? Fire originals across the whole spectrum on UKF, legendary remixes for Camo & Krooked's Aurora and Metrik's Freefall, and he got engaged! And here I thought Drum and Bass was his true love.

That leaves us with a name we haven't had the pleasure of talking about yet: Kumarion! Born in Seattle and with his basis of operation now residing in Denver if his SoundCloud bio is still accurate, Omar Kadmiri, aka Kumarion, has soaked up all sorts of different musical vibes in his early years, going from Punk to Ska to Reggae to Dub to, you guessed it, Drum and Bass. While the Kumarion project has only broken through in recent(ish) times (these last few years are a blur), Omar has already a good twelve years of production experience under his belt and even the name Kumarion itself was already born back in 2015! Continuously inspired by Noisia's Outer Edges, the artwork of which he has literally framed on his wall to "look at and be inspired", and his own North African / Middle Eastern heritage (that he is paying (h)Omarge to), he finally debuted in 2019 with Halftime-DnB-Hybrid 1984 on Reid Speed's Play Me Too to much acclaim.

Speaking of acclaim, shortly after, he broke every ceiling possible with his phone-call-Halftime followup Want It on Jadu Dala, immediately putting him on the map across literally the entire scene and leading into a huge remix EP with the likes of Spor and gyrofield. From there on out, Omar's unique fusions of Halftime, Trap and DnB lead to releases on a lot of the usual bigger suspects like Pilot / UKF, Monstercat, Bassrush, Crucast, but also saw him reign down pure fire on Deadbeats, Ophelia, mau5trap, and RL Grimes’ Sable Valley, remixing Boombox Cartel, Kill The Noise and NGHTMRE, and collaborating with Dirt Monkey, Smoakland and, of course, fellow Uprising tour mate and DnB coach REAPER. In other words, he has been (Kumari)on fire!

Speaking of fire, let's finally talk about the carrying of it! We begin this deluxe treat to the senses with Supernova luring us into its world with a beautiful atmosphere comprised of heavily reverberating, delightful vocals and synth jitters, before pulling the rug out from underneath us, and slamming us with some delicious, truly weighty bass movement on the drop. The trio infernale carry on carrying the euphoric flames on title track Carry The Fire, thanks to a most marvellously arranged combination of Justin's very own gorgeous vocals, a stunning fluttery synth lead, smoothly rolling drums and wonderfully warm bass. Gotta love that little rave siren switchup at the end of the drop!

Speaking of switchups, our third stop on this adventure, I'm Losing My Mind, incredibly efficiently builds up our hype levels up to 11 thanks to the wombo combo of pounding 4x4 kicks and fast approaching think breaks, but once those very same big brain breaks are fully unleashed, you begin to realise something else is approaching and then bam - we are hit with one stuttery, brassy, disgusting..y bass attack after the other! Filth, one might say. As if on cue, the filth makes a last but all the larger appearance on EP closer Sell My Soul. A menacing pitched-down sped-up vocal so fast you can't quite make out what it says but still so catchy it effortlessly etches itself into your brain, a whirlwind of extremely fast drums so multi-layered you begin to think if you really heard a scratch sound in there or if maybe three of the other layers just made it sound like that, absolutely naughty distortion attacks so distinctly styled that you can basically hear all three producer's involvement at different points - and an outro that smoothly loops us back over to the intro's vocals again!

Four excellently crafted fusions of each of the three's unique sonic personalities, all thematically entangled and wrapped into one hell of an EP. A true statement of intent.