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Crackboy Mix For The Astral Plane

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April 15, 2015
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In a strict sense, we don’t cover large swaths of the house and techno worlds, partially because our team is too small to cover the entire dance music realm and in part because our taste lies in non-linear club forms and less in the classic four-on-the-floor stomp. To say that house and techno, in their various manifestations, don’t enter the equation would silly though, both in terms of historicity and contemporary influence in ballroom, Bmore, footwork, etc. And recently, we’ve been enamored by a number of disparate elements, particularly in the house music world, ranging from the lof-fi boogie funk and spacey atmospherics of the Mood Hut clique to Public Possession’s polyglot proclivities and dedication to new wave in its various modern incarnations. There are dozens of other labels and artists that merit inclusion, but alas we only have time for brief mentions here in the intro.

Since 2011, French producer Krikor Kouchian has been churning out rough-and-tumble house and acid tunes as Crackboy, a deviation from his long-running project as Krikor, a project first established in wax in 1998. The Crackboy aesthetic is all drum machine texture and direct, club-focused structure, taking influence from Dance Mania’s early years and the classic French filter disco sound alike. Across solo releases and work as POV with Joakim, Krikor has developed something of a following with Crackboy, drawing fans who have disinvested from the form’s glossier side and prefer 303, 909 and RZ-1 workouts. To date, Crackboy’s best work has come on the aforementioned Joakim’s Tigersushi and Cosmo Vitelli‘s excellent I’m A Cliche, the Crackwood EP coming on the latter in 2013 and featuring still poignant jams like “Apes” and “Kiddo”.

And while Crackboy’s reach hasn’t exploded like some of his collaborators and continental contemporaries, his work in the French capitol is indisputable, from collaborations with Joakim and Jean Nipon to remixes for Para One, Blackstrobe and many more. His Astral Plane mix was recorded at Rex Club in Paris and acts as both an example of what a Crackboy club set looks like and a dissolution of his releases and influences into a consumable hour and fifteen minutes. Sparse acid arrangements are the dominant theme in much of Crackboy’s output and they find quite a bit of traction in the mix, only giving way halfway through to an arrangement of vocal performances and strict drum tracks that drive through the hour marker. The Crackboy project has only been running for a few years now, but he’s already latched onto an indelible club sound that fits right in with the rest of our series.

Kastle Mix For The Astral Plane

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April 9, 2015
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Originally part of a small crop of American artists inspired by dubstep, garage, jungle and other ‘nuum sounds, Kastle has transitioned through multiple aesthetic iterations since he burst into the popular consciousness 6+ years ago, surviving the brostop bubble and bust and fostering a thriving touring career in the years since. Across releases for Silverback, Seclusiasis and his own Symbols label, the Los Angeles-resident has filtered hip hop and R&B through the aforementioned UK sounds, developing a sound rife with pop consciousness and a keen sense of melody, all while retaining a strong devotion to under-the-radar sounds. And while his past releases may be deemed too populist by some, it’s clear that he’s a student of dance music culture, an unfortunate rarity among larger acts in the United States.

With releases from Astral Plane favorites Druid Cloak and Kid Smpl, plus a recent turn towards more abstract, experimental sounds, Symbols is once again ascendent and the label’s next release will come from Kastle himself. Most of Kastle’s Hyperreality EP, out April 21, was actually recorded years ago, a collection garage and jungle inspired tracks dusted off an old hard drive and revitalized with a contemporary production aesthetic. The fact that isn’t outright new material doesn’t stop it from being one of Kastle’s most immediate releases to date and after months touring under the Hyperreality banner, it’s clear that the transplant Angeleno is ready to settle in for a Summer of studio work and a newfound dedication to the Symbols hustle.

The Astral Plane team wasn’t able to attend SXSW this year unfortunately, but by all accounts, the Symbols showcase at Barcelona, featuring Spurz, Kid Smpl, Kastle and more, was an unabated success, highlighting a vital injection of energy into the operation. If you attended, you heard myriad club forms, from Jersey and Bmore to disintegrating dubstep. We’ve been lucky enough to grab a mix from Kastle, in anticipation of Hyperreality, and it presciently puts forth where the label has been, but more importantly where it’s going. UK newcomers like Grovestreet, JGYB, Utah? and Tarquin all prominently feature, as do a who’s who of club music mavens, from Her Records‘ Kid Antoine to KUNQ representatives Joey Labeija & False Witness. Throughout, Kastle’s sounsystem sensibility is readily apparent, as is a fine tuned mixing sensibility developed over years playing clubs across American and abroad. Delve into the mix, but don’t be surprised by Kastle’s “new direction” because he’s been at this game for years.

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NKC Mix For The Astral Plane

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April 1, 2015
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Scrolling back to 2012, the name NKC might have meant something to fans of the out-of-favor UK funky sound, a young, London-based producer, teaming up on records with Mak & Pasteman, releasing singles on a nascent label called Awkward Movements (now an NTS show) and being remixed by the legend Zed Bias (as Maddslinky). There’s not a ton of NKC material out there from that period, but there’s enough to piece together a narrative, and then… pretty much nothing. With the exception of a few one offs posted to Soundcloud and a light social media presence, the promising producer seemed to drop off the map almost entirely.

Reborn in the public eye late last year, NKC is now part of London’s undeniable Her Records crew and, based on the fact that his Twitter activity revolves almost entirely around the purported UK funky revival, appears to be just as invested in the twisted hybrid form as he was while releasing songs like “Marie” and “Errthing”. “For Yourself”, from last year’s Her Records Vol 3, was (to our knowledge at least) NKC’s first official release since 2012 and the song’s strutting energy and soot-caked percussion grabbed more than a few looks among the compilation’s twinkling melodic functions. October 2014’s self-released role model single established him further as a talent among new fans, made up of two drum workouts reminiscent of Neana’s Poindexter-cum-Wiley aesthetic.

And scrolling through the track list of his Astral Plane mix, a necessary follow up to last week’s Radar Radio session with Miss Modular, it’s immediately clear that NKC has found a number of contemporary artists working within a similar funky downstream. From Imaabs, Tomas Urquieta and Nunu’s hybrid takes on four-on-the-floor workouts to MikeQ and Divoli S’vere’s searing approach to dancehall, it’s clear that the rhythmically-focused, Afro-Caribbean way of UK funky is alive and well in NKC’s work and while explicit takes on the sound are still few and far between among young producers (who seem more likely to try their hand at grime at the moment), it’s clear that the sped up dembow, kuduro-derived polyrhythms and repetitious vocal snatches are still alive and well for many. Check the track list after the fold and grab yourself some mid-2000s classics, as well as their contemporary counterparts.

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Samrai Mix For The Astral Plane

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March 26, 2015
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SAMRAI (ALLEY) - KATIE COOPER

Over the past few years, 90 – 100 BPM, DJ Mustard-style rap music has rivaled Atlanta’s supremacy over the part rap-scape and with it, Caribbean riddims at similar speeds have also slowly begun to creep back into the popular sonic lexicon. From Bobby Shmurda’s dancehall-tinged “Hot Nigga” to the success of New York label Mixpak and their key artist Popcaan, it appears that American audiences have slowly begun to accept everything from contemporary dancehall and soca, as well as native Miami bass and New Orleans bounce sounds. Of course, those sounds have always found a home in UK carnival culture and beyond, but the confluence of American rap and Caribbean sounds has begun to spread across all oceans.

Manchester crew Swing Ting, made up of Samrai, Platt, Joey B, Murlo and MC Fox, has been championing those sounds at their club night of the same name since 2008, pushing West Coast rap alongside grime and the solicitous sounds of Jamaica, Trinidad and beyond. And with everyone from Jam City to Drake embracing mid-tempo riddims, the Swing Ting crew looks to be playing the current role of both influencer and educator. Samrai, who has been a key contributor to Keysound’s compilation efforts for years, has proven to be one of the UK’s most invigorating producers, harnessing Swing Ting’s adventurous spirit in his ebullient production work. And alongside producers like Famous Eno (who contributed a remix to the first official Swing Ting release), Jubilee and crew mate Murlo, Samrai is one of only a handful that seems to truly appreciate and engage with bashment.

While we’ve never been lucky enough to make it across the ocean and up to Manchester for Swing Ting, Samrai’s Astral Plane mix is about as sure of a party starter as you’ll find in the series. From E-40’s absurd “Choices (Yup)” to a who’s who and what’s what of recent dancehall numbers, the mix is a rapid fire assemblage of cross-generational and cross-oceanographic heat. Also, be sure to catch SWINGTING002, a collaborative effort between Samrai and Platt featuring London MC Trigganom.

Astral Plane DJ Team – KCHUNG – March 23, 2015

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March 24, 2015
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Yesterday afternoon, the Astral Plane DJ Team headed to KCHUNG’s Chinatown studio to record the first of a now monthly show. After a few technical issues and a lot of fuzz, the show got going in earnest and we were able to run through a ton of material, including new Jam City, a few Jacques Gaspard Biberkopf dubs and plenty of tracks from our Heterotopia comps. Moving forward, the show will likely feature a more experimental, less dancefloor-oriented direction, offering up a space for our more abstract tendencies. Considering that “For Club Use Only” is pretty much a condensed outlet for our club music tastes, KCHUNG will take a seat at the opposite end of the spectrum. We’ll still likely pepper in some Astral Plane Radios on our own here and there when we’re bored. A month in between shows in a long while after all. Enjoy.

BWWWOYS Mix For The Astral Plane

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March 18, 2015
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There are plenty of places to start when attempting to decipher web savy duo BWWWOYS, the ostensibly Russian act peddling in PC art and strong arm grime. There’s the Flickr account, a collage of Tumblr art, concert imagery and hair metal cum-Nike motifs. There’s the VK account, the Russian equivalent account where the Future Brown album was leaked months before its release and countless less-than-upstanding wormholes exist. They’re also on Twitter and have their own website, but the confines of Soundcloud are probably where the BWWWOYS aesthetic is best realized and best kept. The constrained image template, never-ending flow of recommended tracks and desperate social apparatus all seem essential to BWWWOYS and their loud, busy take on southern rap, grime and R&B only begins to illuminate where the project begins and, assumedly at least, ends. With only one official release to their name, last year’s #LONGLIVEINTERNET EP, BWWWOYS also don’t have a lot of set-in-stone material to go off of, but via haunting reworks of Thomas White and Vjuan Allure and collaborations with Pixelord and Endgame, their talent has begun to proceed them.

And if the project initially seems like groundless internet posturing, one only has to delve into their Astral Plane mix, a grunting, high strung amalgamating of grime in its most contemporary form, coming off like a submerged version of the aesthetic NAAFI pioneers Lao and OMAAR have achieved. And with a whose who of grime and up-and-comers splayed across its 54 minutes, BWWWOYS entree proves them at worst well researched. On request, no track list for this mix so be sure to pay close attention.

Astral Plane Radio 011

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March 16, 2015
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astral plane radio 011

Starting next Monday (3/23), Astral Plane Radio will be evolving beyond the friendly confines of this space and taking over a monthly spot at Los Angeles AM station KCHUNG. Broadcasting on 1630 AM, KCHUNG is a bastion of DIY spirit and it’s a pleasure to take over a regular spot with the station. So Angelenos, tune in at 4 PM this upcoming Monday for an hour of dubs, future and former Astral Plane releases and maybe a guest mix or two from friends and family. As a result, Astral Plane Radio 011 will be our last self-produced volume and while KCHUNG allows for 100% autonomy in their programming, it is a little sad to give up our own series. Track list for Astral Plane Radio 011 is above and we hope to be with you next week on KCHUNG.

Victoria Kim Mix For The Astral Plane

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March 11, 2015
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VK_Justin & Victoria 1

Having hosted several balls with MikeQ, including one this past weekend, and worked extensively with Divoli S’vere, it’s fair to assume that Sydney-based duo Victoria Kim are one of the most far flung nodes in the ever-diffracting world of ballroom. That being said, Vic Kim aren’t just another non-East Coast act throwing “ha crashes” on their productions. Instead, Justin and Victoria are functioning in a similar way to Fade 2 Mind’s increasingly disparate collection of artists, conjoining the New York sound with grime, R&B, southern rap and K-pop in a sort of global drum track continuum. And along with fellow Australians Air Max ’97, Strict Face and Dro Carey, Victoria Kim have formulated their identity in direct opportunity to the country’s obsession with house and techno, rejecting local club culture pro forma and looking to London, New York and the Internet for prime inspiration.

With their “Kowloon Edit” of Rushmore’s “Moment X” on this week’s release of Heterotopia Remixes Vol. 2, it was fitting to bring in Victoria Kim for an Astral Plane mix and their brisk, edit-filled take is an absolute joy. Throughout the mix, Vic Kim make an effort to draw together their favored aesthetics, not just by mashing and blending them together, but by by drawing tangible, stylistic lines between Kevin Jz Prodigy, K9, Rich Gang and K-pop acts like BIGBANG and WINNER. It’s a world where the vocal eccentricities of Young Thug feel at home next to BIGBANG’s G-Dragon and the gruffness of grime MC K9 seems to feed off of Kevin Jz Prodigy’s manic spitting. It’s a thrilling run through these connections, but one only has to look to Victoria Kim’s own productions to find more, from the recent Divoli S’vere-featured Kiko Kicks EP (out now on Car Crash Set) to the pack of K-pop edits that have been popping up in mixes since early 2014. And while last year’s edits are still getting play from a global array of DJs, Justin and Victoria are on to the next thing, ripping through peace edits, cross-generational club tracks and whatever is bubbling up on Soundcloud with ruthless efficiency.

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Tee Vish Mix For The Astral Plane

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March 5, 2015
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Back in January, Manchester-based party/label Big People Music (BPM) released Tee Vish‘s Cordis EP, an effort that slowly began to percolate through the dance music world, reminding people of the power that a really effective garage track wields. Tee Vish, who hails from Norwich and lives in Brighton, has built up a resume that draws on classic swing of garage and distills the manic energy of bassline into a populist sound that can both fill out huge clubs and carry the rowdiest of house parties. Butterz, specifically Royal-T hits like “I Know You Want Me” and “Inside The Ride”, are obvious touchstones, but Tee Vish has approached the subject matter with a free wheeling sense of inclusiveness, whether that comes up in his mix work, which features both Atlanta rap and contemporary R&B or in his willingness to work with vocalists.

“Don’t Hold Me Back”, featuring Jenna G, is the center piece of Cordis and a good bet for crossover hit of the Winter, a track that hits all the right notes on a pop scale, but retains enough gruffness to satiate the heads. Which is pretty much the Tee Vish aesthetic in a nutshell, a keen understanding of underground sounds hidden under a more overt pop sensibility. And his Astral Plane mix represents that to the fullest, a run through Horsepower Productions, Commodo, Roska, Funkystepz and other dark songs, set off by Kelela and Jenna G. Quick mixing and high tempos are the name of the game here as Tee Vish connects traditional sound system culture sounds with the spatial ambiguities of modern grime, Radio 1 ready hooks with Sheffield-bred bassline. Check out Cordis in full here and peep the track list after the jump.

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Finn Mix For The Astral Plane

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February 25, 2015
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Last November, London’s Local Action crew headed up to Hull (in the Northeast of England) to throw a house party with the resulting frenzy gaining legendary status in the weeks and months after. Tom Lea, DJ Q, Slackk, Inkke and Finn aren’t the first people to step away from London’s vaunted club landscape to turn to more plebeian methods of partying, but from afar, the party was a breath of fresh air and a respite from the venue politics of the capitol. And once the videos and Tweets started to flow out, it was clear that the rawkus party was an unabated success. Amid the debauchery, DJ Q dropped a surprise bootleg of Finn’s Boxed smash “Keep Calling” and in the months since, the track has become the centerpiece of Finn Remixed, a Local Action release also featuring Samename, Strict Face and Fallow. Following the house party ethos and precedent set by DJ Q, none of the remixers were given stems for the Ginuwine-sampling “Keep Calling”, “Only Boy” or “My My”, forcing them to bootleg the track into oblivion.

It’s not just that Finn and his mates throw house parties and bootleg each other’s tracks, it’s that a palpable cohesion exists within the Local Action family. With one vinyl-only single on the label, Yorkshire-born Finn is already an integral member of the collective, bringing the party north to his mate’s place in Hull and adding an incisive, youthful energy to the label side of things. “Keep Calling” wasn’t only a Boxed hit, it was a song, along with DJ Milktray’s “Hotel”, that resulted in a bout of nostalgia for the days of Blackjack and Iron Soul, bridging the gap between grime’s younger, Internet-supported producers and the slightly older cohort. Finn’s deejay sets have also begun to garner acclaim for their omnivorous nature and high energy, an energy that carries over in his past recorded mixes for the likes of Mixpak and LOGOS. And his Astral Plane mix is no different, a raw-as-hell mixture of ghetto house vinyl rips and dubs from Samename, Strict Face and a choice cut from Finn himself, drawing lines between crossover hits from Katie Pearl and ruff Chicago cuts from DJ Clent, Jammin Gerald, DJ Deeon and more. The two aesthetics do share a common BPM after all and while most DJs fall flat when trying to blend the two, Finn’s selections tend to excel. If you’re UK-based Finn will be playing out at the Boxed x Chow Down night in Manchester on March 6 and the Boxed 2nd Birthday in London on March 20.

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