82ND SELECTION – A new one every Monday
Want to stay up to date with the most recent music, for instance for your DJing?
Here’s what you should currently not miss 🫶
IN THE BAG
OUR FAVOURITE RELEASES OF THE MOMENT
AXOON
[SELF-RELEASED]
AMBIENT TECHNO
VARIOUS ARTISTS
[NODE RECORDINGS]
MOODY TECHNO
CLAUDIO PRC
[DELSIN RECORDS]
DEEP TECHNO
POLYGONIA
[MIDGAR RECORDS]
DREAMY TECHNO
VARIOUS ARTISTS
[DUSK NOTES]
DRUM’N’BASS
RENSLINK
[LOFS]
UK BASS
CASTLE IN THE SKY
PERFECTLY-DESIGNED ATMOSPHERES
DRONEGHOST
[CIRCULAR LIMITED]
ATMOSPHERIC TECHNO
ALEXSKYSPIRIT
[SPACE TEXTURES]
ATMOSPHERIC TECHNO
JOHN PLAZA
[LOTUS PARABLE]
ATMOSPHERIC TECHNO
GOLDEN RELEASE
A SPECIAL MENTION
A warm video clip from the duo, featuring Oath, an elegant dancer who reminds us Kynsie from Wave Arising.
Super interesting words by IHA from a past interview, about the sound she’s into, showing also how sunny and passionate she is:
“(…) I like the sound my water bottle makes when I hit it against metal, half filled with liquid and with the lid off (try it!). I like the deep, big, subby drone I hear when I pass by some buildings sometimes (…). When I’m digging these days I gravitate towards tracks that sound like they were recorded on tape. Greenleaf – Hidden Highways released on Pinecone Moonshine has some really nice textured jungle/drumfunk; as well as Maara – The Ancient Truth on Step Ball Chain. Highly recommend that if you like trip-hop and lush DNB. My usual go to’s as most people will probably hear in my stuff are trippy, well-modulated breaks which make for really fun blends when I’m mixing. I also like the organic and more futuristic sounds, which you can hear a lot of in Qeone’s releases.”
SIADIC [NAGA]
The moment you hit play, “Metro” instantly triggers a smile…
This has first to do with the sound itself, lighting up the room with its shining chords and dreamy ambiences. The composition, crystal clear and unadorned, goes straight to the essentials: well-dosed rhythms, obviously executed by a gifted drummer, dope basslines and poetic dialogues between the melodic layers. A juvenile simplicity emerges from the album, and it’s very refreshing…
The smile also surfaces when knowing who is behind it: the youth that we cherish witnessing, positive, proactive, full of imagination and dedication.
On the left side, the authors of “Metro”, Siadic, a duo of Canadian brothers, playing countless instruments in trippy live acts, with a great bag of electronica tracks after more than a decade of production.
On the right side, IHA, who launched her label Naga with the album. She’s an inspiring artist also from Canada, impressive from her first recorded mix in 2021 and through her young productions. She perfectly manages the bass frequencies, and while mixing UK Bass with jazzy sounds and Dozzy, Polygonia or Konduku-alike vibes, she humbly modernises hypnotic techno…
You’d be a fool not to follow them…
FROM THE VAULT
RESURRECTING A DOPE RELEASE FROM THE PAST
NOTE: First, out of gratitude, we surprise the artists who have accepted to be our guest writers from the 44th to the 63rd selection, by sharing what we humbly consider to be their top work.
8 tips for the producers by Gio, from a 2006 post:
- Get the unnecessary peaks under control with compression (snares, synth stabs, nasty hihats), they’ll sound like broken if you leave them for the final maximizer and will take dBs you can devolve to the lovely kick.
- Take care of loud hihats, when you maximize they’re going to stick out and bite your ears, those nasty bstrds!
- Don’t use maximizers to give loudness, but just to control 1-2dB of peaks, if there are any that compressors didn’t manage to control. If you need the maximizer for loudness, go back to the start and do it better!
- Maybe in the Side there’s something interesting to be enhanced, something that can make company to that lonely kick…
- Layer layer layer, did I say layer?, parallel channels of comp and eq, some for details some for perceived loudness. If you have a 1178 at hand, try it on ALL, then be aggressive with attack and release, and mix to taste:
- As a rule of thumb, don’t push the threshold of your limiter beyond the point where it starts clipping the kickdrum transients, or do it with extreme care when adjusting the attack and release times of the limiter, it’s much better and natural sounding to achieve loudness by using parallel layers and get there in small steps, instead of trying to squash with the limiter.
- Also, different meters will report different values, the Dynamic Range meter plugin from the DR foundation shows a value that is around 2dB less than the one given by Voxengo Elephant: different algorithms and interpolation times will give you different readings.
- Finally, it depends on the track, some are mixed and arranged to be loud, other tracks may use depth as a narrative and expressive device, so by reducing the DR you’re actually destroying useful information that should be kept intact. As always, there is no fixed rule, each song has its own needs and affordances…
DADUB [AQUIETBUMP]
Part of the mythic duo from 2009 to 2017, Giovanni Conti has been the special guest of our 62nd selection.
He is not human, no…
Profound ambient lover and one of the most well-respected sound engineers of the scene via his project Artefacts Mastering, he can see the sound in three dimensions and we suspect his brain to host a sonometer…
Affiliated with artists such as Joachim Spieth, ASC, Blazej Malinowski, Toki Fuko, Reggy Van Oers, Rrose, Donato Dozzy, Kangding Ray, Claudio PRC, he already worked on more than 500 releases. We still have in mind the insanely crystal clear rendering of “Ousia” by Spieth or “Crystal Castle” by Markus Guentner.
Gio is “The Sound”…
As a producer, he’s a son of the chill-out culture: he developed his finesse in “Backward Forward”, showcasing his expertise in creating music that calls to unwind and relax…
We don’t know you, but while playing the tracks, we’re ready to book a flight to chill in sunny Jamaica…
* Page’s cover picture: Oye Kreuzkoelln in Berlin, a record shop from a member of our community.
