Victoria Kim Mix For The Astral Plane

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March 11, 2015
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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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Heterotopia Remixes Vol. 2 Out Tomorrow!

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March 9, 2015
Heterotopia, Remixes
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With less than 24 hours until release, we’ve got a roundup of a few more tracks from Heterotopia Remixes Vol. 2. The first is Air Max ’97’s bootleg version of Jacque Gaspard Biberkopf’s “Public Love”, premiered by the good folks at Liminal Sounds this morning. Because of a hard drive crash, the Melbourne-based producer was forced to go off of the MP3 version of Biberkopf’s original, but that just made his kinetic flip even more inventive. Second is Gobstopper signee Iglew’s take on Celestial Trax’s “Illuminate”, the most grime-leaning attempt from Vol. 2 and a peak time banger if I’ve ever heard one. Vol. 2 can be found here tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. Enjoy.

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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FACT Premieres Victoria Kim’s Kowloon Edit Of Rushmore’s “Moment X”

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March 4, 2015
Heterotopia, New Music, Remixes
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One week from today, we’ve got Heterotopia Remixes Vol. 2 on the docket, our third official release and the second volume in our Heterotopia remix series.

The second volume of Heterotopia Remixes has finally arrived, featuring a global collection of artists remixing songs from our debut compilation. With Air Max ’97, Mike G, Riley Lake, Rushmore and Victoria Kim involved, Vol. 2 is a thrilling run through stripped down club forms, a percussive melange that looks to Baltimore as much as it does Bristol. Angular club music has found its way into unexpected places as of late and this collection of producers are leading the way in the admirable charge to discomfit the dance music realm. This volume also features incredible art work by prodigal East Coast artist Terrell Davis (featured in Dazed, New York Times etc.), continuing the trend of reinterpreting the original release’s cover in new and exciting ways.

Out next Tuesday (March 10) via our Bandcamp, Heterotopia Remixes Vol. 2 features a selection of artists from the original compilation, as well as recent Gobstopper signee Iglew, who turned in an engrossing Astral Plane mix a few weeks ago. Check out the track list below and be sure to check back in this space over the next week for more sneak peaks of the tape.

Track list:

1.) Jacques Gaspard Biberkopf – Public Love (Air Max ’97 Bootleg)

2.) Kid Antoine – Nightvision (Mike G Remix)

3.) Rushmore – Moment X (Victoria Kim’s Kowloon Edit)

4.) Celestial Trax – Illuminate (Iglew Remix)

5.) Victoria Kim – Apgu Freeway (Rushmore Remix)

6.) Arkitect – Foucault’s Dream (Riley Lake Remix)

Giveaway: Machinedrum, Objekt @ The Roxy (3/1)

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February 25, 2015
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10915136_10155067474430099_8771781520844405775_nIt was only a few months ago that we last caught Machinedrum in Los Angeles, but the Berlin-residing producer is back on tour and has brought prodigious techno madman Object, who just released his debut album Flatland via PAN, along for the ride. Taking place at The Roxy this upcoming Sunday (March 1), the FYF/Goldenvoice presented show will (hopefully) offer a more experimental bent to each respective producer’s repertoire, considering that it is both taking place in a traditional rock venue and is a fairly early Sunday show. Regardless, both artists are well proven performers and will compliment each other’s styles beautifully. And while Ninja Tune’s Machinedrum has come through LA fairly recently, Objekt, who has also released seminal tunes on Hessle Audio, Leisure System and his own eponymous imprint, doesn’t come through our fair city often. Enter your favorite song Objekt’s Flatland in the form below for a chance at a pair of tickets to Sunday’s show. We hope to see you there.

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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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Astral Plane Radio 010

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February 20, 2015
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We were in an excitable mood while recording this week’s Astral Plane Radio and decided to whip into some high speed techno // ghetto house // Bmore pretty quickly. Shouts to Riley Lake, Hulo, Ase Manual, Chants and Plata for providing key cuts and to the gods Drexciya as always. It’s our insular opinion that this series has gotten better and better over time and we hope you’ve enjoyed the process as much as we have. Astral Plane Radio archives can be found here.

Premiere: B-Ju & Ticklish – “Dualities”

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February 20, 2015
New Music
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B-Ju & Ticklish (without Mask)As footwork has proliferated across the globe in the past decade, its borders have shifted and mutated, merging with jungle, acid and other dance forms. Unlike other localized sub-cultures that are rapidly engulfed in the global market, footwork’s mutations have been driven first and foremost by the Chicago’s Teklife collective and not American and/or European producers with no tangible connection to the Windy City’s musical lineage or dance culture. So after an initial explosion and some unfortunate attempts by outsiders to replicate the sound, it appears that the replication process has slowed and global producers have begun to work upon and expand on the ideas set forth by DJ Rashad, Spinn, Earl and more. Residing in Hamburg and Berlin respectively, B-Ju and Ticklish are prime examples of that cycle, artists well outside of the Chicago orbit who have, nonetheless, become adept at soothing the uneasiness of the footwork sound into their own production aesthetics. On Tuesday, February 24, B-Ju and Ticklish will release a joint effort, the Dualities EP on Druid Cloak’s Apothecary Compositions, melding their prowess in footwork, jungle and other hybrid forms across two collaborations and several remixes. Today, we’ve got the title track from the EP, highlighting the duo’s ability to flip dusty breaks into a soulful melange that dazzles as much as it soothes. Pre-order Dualities on cassette here and get a download of the full EP immediately.

 

Premiere: Akito – “Sordid Forfeit”

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February 19, 2015
New Music
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Over the past several months, we’ve brought you a good deal of coverage on Trax Couture‘s globe trotting World Series, a string of EPs that has seen the London label enlist Dreams, Sylvere and Imaabs into the fold. World Series Vol. 5 sees TC bringing the series back around to London with Akito providing four indomitable club tracks to the table. Headed up by two excellent mixes of “Dalston Dips”, Akito’s latest is another percussive monster with loads of Jersey club, techno, grime and dancehall folded into tidy 130 packages. “Sordid Forfeit” grabbed our attention right off the bat, a confluence of grime’s square wave obsession and the monolithic kick pattern favored in Jersey. It’s a track that could be abetted with a Riko Dan, Flowdan or Stormzy vocal, but also exists on its own in a space cleared out by Mumdance, Logos and Slack. World Series Vol. 5 is out on Wednesday, February 25 and can be pre-ordered here.

Giveaway: DJ Sliink, Joaquin Bartra & More @ The Lash Pop Up (2/20)

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February 18, 2015
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As one of the first Jersey-bred artists to garner national (now international) acclaim, it would be easy to assume that DJ Sliink has reached a palatable mid-career arc, but the Newark-based producer is still only 23 and still has plenty left in the tank. This Friday (2/20), Sliink will be taking over Club IHC at The Lash Pop-Up, bringing his populist style of club music to Los Angeles. And while Sliink’s big room inclinations might not be our flavor, his success has brought Jersey club to listeners the world over and he can still bang out lascivious remixes with ease. Joining him on the bill is Joaquin Bartra, one of the best hip hop DJs ANYWHERE and one of the folks behind Body High, outlet for Sliink’s debut Vibrate EP back in 2012. As always, we have a little giveaway for Friday’s happenings, but this time around we have two pairs of tickets to give away. That’s right, four tickets in total. Enter your favorite Brick Bandits classic and Tweet/share this contest for a chance at the tickets. The odds are twice as good this time around and you won’t want to miss this performance from a Newark don.

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