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mid-week-mix-round-up

Inspirational mixes from the past week that deserve to reverberate beyond our “office”.

In the latest edition of Slackk’s formative monthly mix series, the Sulk Records head has dug deep into his bag of tricks to pull out the best in nail gun snares, forthcoming Inkke, JT The Goon and Murlo, and the widest array of squarewaves you’ll find this side of his very own Boxed club night. Commencing on a melodic note with tracks from Boofy, Shadow Face and Lolingo, Slackk expertly crafts a narrative that trends from melancholic to triumphant over mix’s run time. Peaking with a Blackjack-esque selection of 8 bar bootlegs from Tarquin and Milktray, Slackk manages (once again) to encapsulate what makes contemporary instrumental grime such a fascinating subject.

For the inaugural edition of Boiler Room‘s SKYY Stream in Los Angeles, visiting club provocateur Rabit took to the picturesque stage to deliver an hour of emotional grime, Jersey and Diana Ross. After laying down an exclusive-laden FACT mix several weeks ago, Rabit takes a slightly more playful approach for BR, touching on the R&B sensibility that occasionally shows up in his otherworldly grime productions. We hear the aforementioned Ross and Rihanna mixed in with Mumdance and MA Nguzu and a bevy of Southern rap and Jersey club that keeps the mood light. With a debut album forthcoming on Tri Angle as well as new material on the way through Glacial Sound and Mumdance and Logos’ Different Circles entity, it’s a pleasure to watch the Houston native have some fun keeping light as his star grows.

Over the years, this blog has trended slightly away from the realm of house and techno, preferring the sounds of footwork, ballroom, grime, jungle and Jersey club to the more linear forms that have dominated dance music for the better part of three decades. There are a number producers who still wow with their four-on-the-floor fare though and Dro Carey‘s Tuff Sherm alias continues to impress. Always murky, the Tuff Sherm sound sees brilliant melodies drawn out of percussive, dusty nether regions, balancing beatific synth work with a stranglehold over 909 and 808 drum programming. The Australian producer recently hit up Nina Las Vegas’ populist Triple J show to lay down dub after dub, an exciting sign of what’s to come from this ever-blossoming producer.

Writer/DJ/graphic designer/fashionista Meaghan Garvey aka Moneyworth has proven to be one of the foremost purveyors (and critics) of Chicago music over the past few years, espousing the merits of drill, footwork, and most recently, opening up the Pitchfork crowd to the spastic sounds of bop. “the glo” is her most recent mix, the first in eight months, and focuses on the fluid intersection between rap, R&B and grime, populated by Visionist, Young Thug, Kingdom and Casino. The latter third sees a tempo shift and a distinctly Chicago reboot, pumping up DJ Slugo, DJ Rashad and ZMoney before entering a rousing rendition of cutting room floor Yeezus track “Bound 1”. The transatlantic freeway is thriving these days and Garvey shows just how effortless the transition from grime to R&B to ghetto house really is. The glo is very real.

Resident of Berlin club night Janus (alongside Lotic and Kablam, M.E.S.H. has worked tirelessly to deconstruct the way club music is produced, consumed and portrayed. In both his DJ work, which is consistently exceptional, and his productions for PAN, M.E.S.H. has created an immediate aesthetic that is at once a melange of his influences, Jersey, ballroom, grime and R&B, and a streamlined, ululating farce of those same influences. M.E.S.H.’s FACT mix is angry and denuded, but not bereft of fun, which can be found in Spooky’s “Number One Spot” bootleg and the wooden kuduro of DJ Nigga Fox and DJ Firmeza. The Janus fellows are reassembling contemporary club music and this mix is another step in their ascendancy.

dro carey

“Burglar Loops” represents Dro Carey’s (as Tuff Sherm) return to Will Bankhead’s Trilogy Tapes imprint and we could not be more overjoyed that the relationship has been rekindle. Although no release date has been announced yet, a new Tuff Sherm EP is on the way and if “Burglar Loops” is any indication, it will see the man born Eugene Hector melding the grime and hip hop influences present in his work as Dro Carey with the house and techno of Tuff Sherm. Stream below and look out for the Burglar Loops EP in the not too far future.

dro carey

As you’ve probably noticed, we’re big fans of Mr. Eugene Hector in these parts and especially of his work as Tuff Sherm. Probably better known as Dro Carey, Hector laces techno and house tunes as Sherm and we were actually lucky enough to get him to contribute a guest addition to our ongoing mix series. Last month, Hector performed at a special Australia addition of Boiler Room and played out 50 minutes of juicy dance tunes. Like most of Hector’s mixes, the song selection is eclectic to say the least and has left me scrambling for a track listing since the mix’s its air date. Despite the mix being labeled as a Tuff Sherm offering, Hector also includes a few grime, dubstep and other amorphous, low end focused tracks. Stream below.

DroCarey

When we first asked Eugene Hector if he would be willing to contribute to our Guest Mix series, we were fully aware that the possibilities for what we might receive from the Sydney-native. A straight-up hip hop mix full of Brick Squad Monopoly and Max B tracks wouldn’t have surprised us, but neither would a true school juke mix, or anything in between for that matter. Following the release of his first LP as Tuff Sherm though, it’s only right that Hector laid down a mixture of obscure British/German techno and tracks from his recent Shrapnel Maestro LP. For those who haven’t been following the many sobriquets Hector has adopted over the past few years, Tuff Sherm is his most dancefloor-oriented project, working mainly in the techno and house realms. Despite a fairly dark vibe overall, Hector juxtaposes dense atmospherics with more upbeat warm vibes repeatedly for an enveloping experience that grows on you every time you listen. Stream/Download below, hit the jump for the full tracklist and grab Shrapnel Maestro here.

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Despite being Eugene Hector’s most straightforward, dancefloor-oriented alias, Tuff Sherm is about as esoteric as they come, traversing between funky bassline house and Actress-esque sparse techno expansions. Shrapnel Maestro is Hector’s first full length as Tuff Sherm and marks a departure from earlier, more synth-heavy releases. There isn’t much of a coherent thread throughout the LP, but that’s all the better as the LP draws sounds from Berlin, Bristol, Chicago and another dimension inhabited by technobots that scientists haven’t discovered yet. Like much of Hector’s past work as both Dro Carey and Tuff Sherm, the LP is rough around the edges and guttural sounding, but as tracks like “Monarch Engineer” denote, also captivatingly danceable. Stream the LP below and grab it for a measly two dollars. Look for a Dro Carey/Tuff Sherm exclusive in our pages very soon.

I’ve been meaning to introduce y’all to Eugene Hector aka Dro Carey aka Tuff Sherm aka Fad TMB aka Pierre Magneto Menard for the past few weeks, but haven’t gotten around to it until today. Hector is a young Sydney-born producer and and artist I truly admire in both an audial and intellectual sense. Known by most as Dro Carey, Hector has been producing everything from screwed hip hop to dark minimal techno since he was 13 and stands alone in his sound and vision. I decided to bring Carey up today because he just released two full projects on his “Braincamp” that are essential listening for any and everybody who considers themselves a hip hop and/or electronic music fan.

As I mention above, Hector goes by many different pseudonyms. I’ll make it easy and lay them out concisely. Dro Carey is the persona closest to Hector’s own (but not his actual self), his most common pseudonym and the outlet for his generally hip hop oriented work. Tuff Sherm makes tunes aimed at the dancefloor, generally in the realm of techno. Fad TMB approximates juke/footwork sounds, albeit far from the Chicago sound you might anticipate. Last but not least, Pierre Magneto Menard is the “French avant-garde/tech persona”, Hector’s eldest and most visually-oriented persona. If you’re confused, just religiously follow Hector’s Tumblr and DC vampira video page for an inside look into his creative process and influences.

While most musicians who work under a pseudonym (or four) attempt to hide themselves and their intentions from the general public, Hector has engaged in multiple interviews, laying his heart on the table and speaking on everything from his creative process to struggles with depression and anxiety. He has laid out the main themes he works around in his music, loneliness and humor, and how inseparable his depression is from his creative process. Like few others in the electronic music realm, Hector has managed to put a human face and human intentions behind an often impersonal artform.

If you follow any advice I give this week, then make it this: download (yes spend $1) the tape below, then read the interview Hector did with Resident Advisor and spend a while devouring the Tumblr and video pages I link to above. I guarantee you will become enamored with Hector and it would be difficult to not like at least one of his personas. You’ll be seeing more Dro Carey here in the very near future so stay tuned.