Tag Archives: World Series

As the 10th release in Rushmore‘s globetrotting World Series, Portland-based producer C Plus Plus‘ entry has a lot to be compared to, from the terraforming madness of Dreams‘ Vol. 4 to Akito‘s neck-snapping, snare-heavy Vol. 5. The company is thick in this series and it takes a strong four track effort to stand out in any way. And even though the series is chock full of functional, stripped down bangers, it’s still a pleasure to find the odd track that just embodies the spirit it intends to convey. “Bounce Trak” is a runway track with flair, from the playful glissandos, walk-bounce-walk-repeat flow and on to the bang the box percussion. Think breaks and luscious pad work fill out the work, but the splintering percussion and formal intention are the focus here and while traversing several other spheres including techno and electro, the rest of Vol. 10 achieves on a similar level. World Series Vol. 10 is out Monday, August 24 and can be previewed after the jump.

Premiere: Evil Streets – Times Up

By Gabe Meier

May 11, 2015

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Like most of our favorite record labels, Rushmore‘s Trax Couture has developed organically over the past few years, bringing international artists into the fold via its globally-focused World Series while also retaining a keen focus on London. April brought GROVESTREET into the fold and World Series Vol. 8 puts the focus on Evil Streets, one of London’s foremost proponents of Bmore and Jersey club. If you were lucky enough to catch GROVESTREET and Evil Streets on Just Jam 136 or at one of several House of Trax events, you’d catch classic East Coast club records, ballroom motifs and a distinct UK funky flavor, all put through an eccentric, rave culture filter. Evil Streets’ Vol. 8 comes in at four tracks and consistently features the choppy, syncopated rhythms that mark funky, as well as a good heaping of break beats and horn work that recall Baltimore’s finest. It’s an exciting debut for a nascent artist who also graces Radar Radio monthly and “Times Up” is the best of the lot, a retro-flavored, peak time burner that should be all over sets in no time. Vol. 8 is out on Wednesday May 27 and if you’re in New York that same day be sure to catch Rushmore and Evil Streets at the Purple Tape Pedigree pop up shop!

Premiere: GROVESTREET – Disqualified

By Gabe Meier

April 23, 2015

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It’s hard to believe that Rushmore‘s Trax Couture label is already at the seventh edition of its World Series, partially because each and every edition has been thoroughly on point and partially because it’s seems like only last week that the label head kicked off the series. The last three volumes have come from Air Max ’97, Akito and Dreams respectively so Vol. 7 had to come with a real punch and GROVESTREET is the perfect man to do it. Five drastically different tracks make up GROVESTREET’s World Series Vol. 7, from peak time percussive banger “Soliloquy” to “Blue Ribbon”, a bouncy, acid-tinged techno number that flips into a twinkly, beatless track midway through. And then there’s “Disqualified”, a track that announces its own grandeur within 30 seconds with a barrage of brass, sub bass and snares. Fittingly, “Disqualified” closes out Vol. 7and after the percussive madness of the previous four tracks, it could be viewed as a palette cleanser of sorts, but it could also be utilized in peak time, its swaggering cool ready to be deployed in a big room setting. GROVESTREET’s World Series Vol. 7 is out Wednesday, April 29 on Trax Couture.

Premiere: Air Max ’97 – Spoken

By Gabe Meier

March 19, 2015

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Since its inception in January (with Rushmore’s effort), London-based Trax Couture’s World Series has set the pace for club music releases. hosting an international array of talent, including Dreams, Imaabs, Akito and more. Earlier this month, the series was made even more official with a compilation-like 12″ featuring highlights from each respective effort. But that doesn’t mean that the series is ending and World Series Vol. 6 just happens to be coming from Melbourne’s finest, Air Max ’97. Alongside a ripping Divoli S’vere feature and two other structurally proficient club tracks, “Spoken” is exactly the sort of metallic heat we’ve come to expect from AM97, a non-linear piece of sound system music that manages both a jarring affect and a startlingly danceable groove. World Series Vol. 6 is out March 25.

Premiere: Akito – “Sordid Forfeit”

By Gabe Meier

February 19, 2015

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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.

Premiere: Dreams – “Reactor (Devil Mix)”

By Gabe Meier

January 12, 2015

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Already three releases into their globally leaning World Series in as many months, London imprint Trax Couture is taking the show to Los Angeles by-way-of Private Selection co-boss Dreams. The first three volumes in the series have come from Trax Couture principal Rushmore, Chile’s Imaabs and France’s Sylvere respectively, the result a trio of drum track-minded EPs that press on several key touchstones in the last two and a half decades of elemental dance music. Vol. 4 sees the series’ first American contributor in Dreams and the Angeleno’s acumen for trawling everything from classic jackin’ house to South African gqom and new age into his productions makes the EP as a whole a thrilling listen. Like most of the series, Dreams’ contribution doesn’t hit on one genre, but his sound palette is immediately recognizable, a series of raw, percussive notes that can be recognized from classic drum machines and samplers, as well as core elements of grime, ghetto house and Brit-style techno. That runs true until EP closer “Reactor (Devil Mix)”, an ode to Wiley’s mixes of the same name and step out of the World Series’ unremitting flow. Whereas “Esoteric” pummels with cyclical kicks and 808 cow bells, and “Dead Zone” falls into a half-step swing replete with pulse-like hits and crashing glass, “Reactor (Devil Mix)” is more in line with Mr. Mitch’s Parallel Memories or Strict Face’s Marble Isles. Its cerebral face hides a churning underbelly of melancholy and solitary loss, a necessary flip to the unremitting aggression of the rest of the EP. World Series Vol. 4 will be released on January 21 and clips of each respective track can be streamed after the jump.

Premiere: Imaabs – “Grafito”

By Gabe Meier

November 25, 2014

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Trax Couture has emerged as one of the finest curators of club material over the past year and its latest endeavor, the outward-focused World Series, has only solidified that status. Over the next 11 months (World Series Vol. 1 came from Trax Couture resident/label head Rushmore himself and was released earlier this month), 11 artists from all over the world will be featured in the World Series, their music released on a 3D printed, hand painted USB, as well as a limited edition, three part vinyl series. In a fitting progression, World Series Vol. 2 comes from another Astral Plane fave, tireless Chilean producer Imaabs (both have tracks on our own Heterotopia compilation!), and features a rash of brazen, analogue-sounding club material. The EP doesn’t re-write the handbook Imaabs has been refining since the release of the Baroque EP (out on Diamante) last November, but it does represent a rare diligence that manifests itself in his ability to match disparate elements, the bare kick drum triplets and the raunchy staccato hook are both part of important, organic traditions on both sides of the Atlantic, in a manner that is at once natural and progressive. On Vol. 2 highlight “Grafito”, Imaabs marries dark, warehouse-driven UK techno with Jersey club, with a verve not all that dissimilar to way in which Pearson Sound, Objekt, Peverelist and others mutated dubstep in the mid-2000s. Gaunt and percussive in nature, the track is as close to straightforward techno as the Santiago-based producer has come, but I wouldn’t expect the mans to crossover into the world of purists any time soon. World Series Vol. 2 is out November 28 (this Friday) exclusively at the Trax Couture store.