7 below – Selector to the Gods

So there’s summer in the air (nearly?) with Monday due to hit 27 degrees, finally the UK looks like it’s going to exit it’s 3 month long end of the world weather. So here’s some tune recommendations! Common theme is that these are all fairly epic or ethereal..

Julio Bashmore – Au Seve

Oh dear god this tune is a banger. Actually banger is soo the wrong word, but it sounded right in that sentence. Effortless is better. The chord progression between the bass line and the melody is pretty much perfect and the energy levels are the bit that’s effortless.

Truth – Don’t Explain (Riskotheque and Marchmellow Remix)

The melody plucks and the bass/bassdrum on this track add a great bouncy feel to this without it feeling forced. The breathy ‘don’t explain’ counteracts the bassline energy to create a really well layered track.

Jon Convex – Fade (G Vump Remix)

Super mellow remix of Jon Convex’s track, shoegazing dubstep? Nah, just a good tune…

Bonobo – Kiara (Cosmin TRG remix)

Another top notch remix and just keeps building and building throughout the tune. Amazing what just 3 notes in a synth line can do (although David Guetta already knew that).

So I’ve decided to enter some sort of judgement contest.. at the end of which, if I were to be successful, some sort of prize will be bestowed. I like winning, so I’d be incredibly grateful if you could vote for me (I might even make you a cup of tea). I’ve put together a remix of Usher & Diplo’s track Climax. Definitely not my normal sort of thing and in fact my dubstep version isn’t like my normal productions either, with exception of some added piano parts, but I really enjoyed making it and actually really like the original. Also it features some of my best production work to date, so that should definitely be an incentive to listen and vote!

If the player doesn’t work above, then vote here

So, my damn internet is out. Despite coinciding with loads of lightning and torrential rain the ISP think it’s just likely to be me and aren’t sorting it out very fast.. So no Sub FM Sunday show this week (at least from me, they’ll be someone to cover). To compensate/commiserate/celebrate, here’s some more tune recommendations. The theme this time is tunes that have got me dancing round my studio whilst broadcasting.

Atki2 – Knock Knock

This tune is super fresh. Quite a minimal sound with very crisp production and lots of unusual instruments or percussion. Definitely a favourite at the moment, not the first time that Atki2 has made my list.

Stavrogin – Run Down

Perhaps a bit too Burial-esque, but if you can forgive that this is a really nice tune. Looks like there might still be a free DL for this too.

United States of Mind – Break the Mold

Been receiving dubs from USM for some time now and this is probably my favourite. Mainly because the production is really interesting for a hip-hop track and gives the rhymes a lot of drive.

Eric B & Rakim – Don’t Sweat the Technique

Like my last recommendations post I finish with not a new tune, but a favourite none the less. This shouldn’t need any introduction, but if you haven’t heard it before enjoy (and move out of that cave you’ve been living in).

So March sprung some pretty tasty sounds my way, which I then loaded onto my phone for a ski trip in Austria. Thought I’d spend a few minutes sharing them with you.

Helium Robots – Jarza

So this is some tasty stuff. Kind of reminds me of a much more chilled Vitalic. The muted key stabs and lazy sounding melody contrast nicely with the rapid staccato bass creating a really dreamy feel. Perfect for a sunny day in the Alps…

Here’s Helium Robots Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/heliumrobots

Plug – Scar City

Absolutely love this tune, this is my kind of drum and bass. Plug is one of Luke Vibert’s many aliases, the story here is that the album this track is the opener for is a load of mid-nineties productions that have been sitting on a DAT tape unreleased. This is like a time capsule back to the middle of DnB’s evolution, all the hallmarks are there, clean basslines, piano stabs, vocal samples etc but with a classic Luke Vibert twist. Sounds a bit like Wagon Christ c. ‘Sorry I made you lush’ era. Oh and it’s the perfect tune for hacking it down a red run…

Falty DL – Brazil

Simply beautiful 2 step tune. Not really any more words needed to describe this! This one is for singing on the chair lift..

Queens of the Stone Age

This obviously isn’t a new release, but keeping with the ski trip theme this tune was perfect for floating through powder.

So it’s been quite a long time since this site was updated. That’s mainly because the old site made it an absolute pain in the a**e to do so. It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have picked Flash as a technology to use, but it was just so tempting to do something a bit ‘out there’. I spent quite a lot of hours making the old site and was proud of what was achieved (and still am). If you haven’t seen it before, it was an animated wheel with 4 different instruments, each instrument could play of 1 of 4 different samples. These samples were parts of 4 different tracks I had made near the time. The idea was that as I made new tunes and did new things I would update it, I didn’t really consider that because of the technology I wouldn’t for several years!

[singlepic id=1 w=320 h=240 float=left] Problem no. 2 with the site was that Google pretty much completely ignores Flash, well this is mostly true. Back when I made the very first website at this address the web was still only quasi-social. Myspace was around sure, and there were blogs, but nothing was interconnected like it is now (check my Facebook stream on the right and the share buttons…). This was exciting because if Google found your site, so did other people. And they found it outside of their social circle (unlike today) and blogged about it (as opposed to status update about it).  The very first site had link backs to all kinds of blogs, forums and mix databases, including a couple of Japanese blogs. It was like accidental social as opposed to the introverted linked only to nearby people social that we have today. In any case, Flash didn’t help!

So I decided to kill my un-find-able, un-update-able site with something a bit easier to use, but to give my old site one last gasp I’ve left it up on the server for you to have a play with. Click here for remix fun. Also if you fancy having some loops from my old tracks you can find the source mp3′s here. If you want to do a full remix and want some .wav files instead, just get in touch.

So enter the new site (V3 if you’re counting). I’ve tried to make it look pretty, but I’m sure I’ve made a mistake or two. I’m going to start by posting a load of back-catalogue mixes and tunes with accompanying gibbering. I recommend you listen, because my s**t is good. Seen?