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Archived Mixes:
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 FabricLive 60-Ben UFO
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FabricLive 60-Ben UFO - Ben UFO
Published on 18th January 2013 |
Tracklist
1. Pev and Kowton - Junked (Unreleased)
2. Fennesz - Fa [Mark Fell remix] (Editions Mego)
3. Funkineven - Beat Crash (Apron)
4. Kassem Mosse - Staat Aus Glas (Forthcoming Sounds of the Universe)
5. Daphni - Pairs (Jialong)
6. NY House'n Authority - Ravenswood House (Nu Groove)
7. Carls Davis - Sketch 6 (Planet E)
8. Pearls - Pearls (Unreleased)
9. STL - Your Turn (Smallville)
10. 2400 Operator feat. Rev-S - Nws Pt-1 (Underground Quality)
11. Eddie Flashin' Fowlkes - Deep Pit [Kenny Larkin mix] (Dance Pool) |
In a world where illegal downloads, cracked software and sync buttons are helping to create swarms of young DJs with bottomless libraries of digital music they’re vaguely familiar with, you might question the role and relevance of the specialist DJ in today’s musical landscape. Not everyone possesses the talent, care and breadth of taste required to project their personality through other people’s records, or to create narratives which transcend dancefloors; Ben UFO is someone who does. Over the years Ben has increased in confidence and proficiency, and in devoting himself to highlighting the shared characteristics between and beyond 2-step garage, dubstep, classic house and techno, he has learned to expertly navigate and bridge tempos and genres in as natural a fashion as possible, allowing tracks from disparate areas to co-exist and function comfortably alongside one another to form a unique and well-defined aesthetic.
Moving to Leeds to study in 2004, Ben applied for a show on student radio but was declined a slot - a setback which he identifies as setting him on his path towards establishing Hessle Audio as a record label and DJing in club environments. As a result he pitched for a show on SubFM alongside David Kennedy (Pearson Sound) and Kevin McAuley (Pangaea), naming the show after the club night he and Kevin had started with several of their friends (Ruffage) in order to promote dubstep in Leeds, at a time when the genre had very little representation outside of London and Bristol. The radio show ran for three years, at which point they were offered a regular slot on RinseFM, where they continue to broadcast twice a month.
In 2007, after finishing university, the three friends started Hessle Audio. The label was formed with the idea of providing a platform for the release of Pangaea and Pearson Sound’s own records, but its scope quickly expanded, resulting in the release of genre-defying records by Objekt, Untold, Cosmin TRG, James Blake, Blawan and more. In May 2009 they started their residency at Fabric, which has been ongoing ever since. The club night reflects what they do as a record label and as DJs, showcasing expansive, varied lineups and drawing connections between artists as diverse as Kassem Mosse, Kode 9, Livity Sound and Randall.
“A release like this seems like a good opportunity to contextualise music for people at a time where information is spread pretty chaotically, and this mix is hopefully a good representation of how the music we release relates to the music we play in clubs.” Ben UFO
The primary purpose of this FABRICLIVE release is to represent exactly what Ben does as a DJ, and to give him the opportunity to showcase the different aspects of the music that he stands for. Accordingly, it is not a straightforward mix of house, bass music or techno; neither is it filled with exclusives or unreleased material. It is an indicator of where we are at and where we have come from, and a statement of intent. It is a considered and highly textured mix consisting of 28 tracks and traversing multiple styles.
Emerging from the moody introversion of Mix Mup’s “Before (Dub),” the mix starts in earnest with an aggressively distorted cut from Delroy Edwards, which bleeds into the off-kilter rhythms and sub-bass intensity of an exclusive from Pev & Kowton. From there we’re thrown into the bizarre future-tribal world of DJ Sotofett remixing Tim ‘Love’ Lee’s “The Tortoise” and onwards through tracks and decades, as Chicago Skyway’s “It’s OK” combines with K-Hand, Fluxion, Jam City, Pearson Sound and Mr. Fingers. There are truly inspired transitions here: the acid tones of “Zug Island” by Kyle Hall & Kero drip languidly over Shackleton vs Kasai Allstars’ “Mukuba Special”; the shattered percussion of A Made Up Sound’s “Malfunction” is pulled into line by the loop-driven techno of Grain’s “Untitled”; the dissonant bassline drone of Pangaea’s “Release” swallows up and consumes whole the kick-drum barrage which defines Blawan’s “And Both His Sons.”
With Hessle Audio releases represented heavily alongside labels such as L.I.E.S., Hinge Finger, Night Slugs, Hemlock and Eglo, there are clear indications of a tightly-knit community working collectively to push things forward. Ben is central to this movement, and with this mix he manages to communicate not just who he is and what he does, but ultimately where we are at. |
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Fabric 63-Levon Vincent
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Fabric 63-Levon Vincent - Levon Vincent
Published on 17th April 2012 |
Tracklist
L.B Dub Corp - It's What You Feel
Claro Intelecto - Back In The Day
NDATL - 006
NDATL - 003
Ron Trent - Intoxicate
Mitsuaki Komamura - Vintage Moon
Hieroglyphic Being - Linux
Paul Du Lac - Harbor City Sorrow
L.B Dub Corp - Take It Down
Jared Wilson - This love
K-Alexi - Acid
Agaric - Kontra Musik, Marcel Dettman Remix
Mr. White - The Sun Can't Compare |
When it comes to house music there’s been something of a renaissance in New York City these past few years, and one of its main advocates is Levon Vincent. Born in Houston, Texas and raised on the East Coast; he now calls Berlin his home. As a club-goer, he cut his teeth during the pre-Giuliani New York heyday, where a vibrant scene was helping to push the elegant sound that would become known as NY house forward - and Levon witnessed it all first-hand. Working his way up through landmarks like Sugar Reef (of Sugar Babies fame) or Pat Field’s Boutique, and record stores such as Kim's, Tower, and Music Exchange, Levon joined a long, proud lineage of fringe arts based around New York's downtown. Ten years later, in 2001, he began to work at the legendary Halcyon record shop in Brooklyn. Halcyon, which doubled as a café, was more than just a record store - it was a place where music aficionados could sit and exchange ideas while listening to the music they love. With a meaty sound-system and their friendly and open policy, the shop soon became a hub for NY's most passionate dance enthusiasts. It was here that Levon met his future Deconstruct label partner Anthony Parasole, as well as DJ Jus-Ed; who subsequently went on to start the Underground Quality label - the label that has done so much to introduce their homegrown sounds to a global audience. Even artists from further a-field like Nina Kraviz or Anton Zap have UQ to thank for first promoting them. By 2008, Levon began his own label, Novel Sound. He started with a bang: a certified hit in the form of the label’s first release, ‘These Games’ EP. It’s a 4-track EP and the release featured a song by Jus-Ed as well. Levon repaid the swap on Ed’s own label, with one of 2009’s biggest tracks, ‘Games Dub’. With his industrial clanging beats, Levon’s dubbed-out sound quickly found him supporters from scene veterans like Craig Richards and Berghain’s Marcel Dettmann. Soon after, Levon was invited to play at fabric, Rex, Berghain, and of course the infamous Underground Quality party series at the now defunct Tape Club. As a producer, his immense focus and concentration come to a head in tracks that have attained anthemic status - the Ostgut Ton release ‘Late Night Jam’, with its driving chord-stabs, sits as comfortably in a percussive UK bass set as it does in any pumping techno set – as demonstrated by Pearson Sound on last year’s massive FABRICLIVE 56.
"In the 80s, I had some VCRs, a record player and a dual cassette deck. I had a group of friends at that time and we were really interested in DJing and making beats, we would combine various songs and recordings to make new songs and then combine those to make new mixes; stuff like, recording a spoken word track playing over Mr. Fingers or add movie dialogue to another record. We loved the dirty version of I'll House You, ‘I'll Hump You’. I remember us all agreeing on that record. Soul II Soul had a big impact, too. I regularly slip-up and refer to podcasts as "mix tapes", maybe because it's nostalgic or something. It still sounds right to me. Mix tapes are one of the very coolest things to come from Generation-X. After hearing or maybe reading about how Nitzer Ebb were doing their music I remember asking my mom to bring me to the Sam Ash store on 48th to get a sampler, not knowing the price of the things! Upwards of $10k! A few years later I did eventually get a used Ensoniq EPS-1, which was a more affordable semi-pro sampler. I think it was a popular piece of equipment, it was certainly a step up from my Casio SK-1... Many producers probably remember using the EPS-1 fondly." - Levon Vincent
What better way to showcase Levon’s work and the group of like-minded producers around him than to present their forthcoming productions for the year? Here Levon selects a number of his compatriots’ unreleased material, as well as seven of his own cuts. All the signature elements are there: rich analogue synth-work, intricately programmed drums, and muscular, dubby basslines. Above all, these aren’t just electronic "tracks" with a set number of sequenced loops - they are each songs in their own right, with rich tonal variety and this mix provides an overall narrative which contains various themes and surprises. Levon explains he didn’t want to “showboat” as a DJ on this mix, and foregoing the use of flashy DJ tricks (like the ones he demonstrated at his recent Boiler Room) this time he set out for something classy and un-assuming. He focused on mixing each record without touching the platter at any time during playback- using only the pitch control for adjusting the synced blends "like Mancuso and some of the older disco guys do" (of NY’s The Loft). This results in a very smooth listening experience - without the jarring and erratic pitch variations that sometimes occur when a DJ grabs the platter to rescue a mix. And it shows - with each track slotting into the next, the joins quite invisible - at points when what may be perceived as a song's 'B' section, quickly turns out to be the following record. The intro is supplied by scene stalwart Joey Anderson, who has found success in his own right as a master house dancer (also DJ QU’s dance mentor) – a skill that often goes unrecognized in Europe, but is in fact an integral part of music and club culture in New York. With ‘Earth Calls’, Joey drops dissonant, echoing keys and shreaking synth sounds rain down, accompanied by a skittering cymbal that breaks like deep breath on a cold night. A textured low-end rumble is all that announces the segue into Jus-Ed’s ‘Blaze’, where tight snares cozy up to marimba-like keys and lead onto a refreshing appropriation of classic Afro-Cuban percussion: JM De Frias is the newcomer of the bunch whose rhythms show a deep understanding of the original minimal techno dialogue of pioneers like Robert Hood or Juan Atkins. Next, the first of Levon’s own new material ‘Stereo Systems', a shimmering Milky Way of synth-droplets twinkle above a seriously weighty kick drum, with the chords on ‘Polar Bear’ creeping slowly in, creating the first moment of pure euphoria. DJ QU's ‘Times Like This’ which brings the first and only semblance of a human vocal on the entire mix. An epileptic drum roll and the faintest hint of words misspoken flutter atop a relentless snare pattern that drives the track ever onward. ‘Fear’ again demonstrates how emotive drums can be, it slowly develops teasing for half the song, but nobody is prepared for the funkiest of funky basslines that finally drops. The now classic Novel Sound single ‘Double Jointed Sex Freak II’ peaks with a cacophonous break, clacking of metal pipes and a chorus of clockwork birds periodically chime in to give you a blissful sense of chaos. Anthony Parasole, whose loft parties played home to many of these artists in the early days, provides ‘Tyson’. Throbbing with the adjunct teeth of a revving motorbike engine, it signals a quick turn to the more aggressive sound that the crew are also known for. ‘The End’ provides a moment for reflection; minutes are consumed by the drunken, woozy melody, until quite suddenly, the warmest of pads embrace the listener, accompanied by a background of diamond-tipped dub-clouds. Fred P AKA Black Jazz Consortium’s particular brand of warm and soulful house get's the spotlight next, with his ‘Blacklight:' A throbbing darkroom beat builds and dissipates under faint pads and a tough bassline which serves as a strong foundation for the song. The mix ends up with one more cocktail of Levon's signature sound design with two tracks that are again highly colourful and combine multiple timbres for a very full listening experience. Levon and his cohorts apply a deep house brush to a techno palette, creating something new and elusive. However cosmic it gets, as in the heavenly ‘Rainstorm II’, or dubbed out, or even industrial, it's always underpinned by one thing and one thing alone: the well-worn thud of an almighty kick. |
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Fabric Live presents Pinch
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Fabric Live presents Pinch - Pinch
Published on 12th January 2012 |
Tracklist
N/A |
Looking back on the myriad of ways that the genre now known quite loosely as ‘bass music’ has mutated, one of the key figures in its evolution would have to be Bristol’s Rob Ellis, better known simply as Pinch. His fascination with what the outer limits of the dub sound can achieve, has made him a distinct figure within the fluid group of like-minded dubstep musicians that defined the so-called Bristol sound. In 2003, a Kode9 set at London’s seminal FWD>> became the stepping-stone into dubstep that inspired him to start the first pure dubstep night outside of FWD>>, Subloaded, in his hometown. With the city’s love of dub and long musical lineage, plus Pinch’s dedication to the importance of the actual sound, it quickly formed a dedicated community and became a yardstick by which other nascent events were measured. This had all been driven by a key moment in his own musical evolution which as he explains, “I lost interest in D&B and started buying minimal Basic Channel style techno, garage, grime and electronica instead - trying to mix them up together,” pre-empting the dominant sound of 4/4 dub-techno embraced by today’s crop of young producers, like Hessle Audio, who regularly cite the Bristol sound as a big influence. This embrace of a starker, dubbier sound became the seed from where his Tectonic label grew, and by championing artists like 2562, led to his eventual release of work with dub legend and King Tubby apprentice, Scientist. His FABRICLIVE offering comes hot on the heels of mixes from Pearson Sound and an artist with whom he’s just recently released a collaborative album on Honest Jon’s, Shackleton. These are all producers who work in a similar vein, that is, impeccable attention to sound detail, continual experimentation with rhythm whilst always maintaining a definitive ‘sound’ which can be traced throughout all their productions.
The mix itself combines all of Pinch’s loves, a blend of both melodic mood-pieces, driving dub-techno and the odd mid-range bass wobble masterfully planted to maximum effect. This is all peppered through in post-production with little vocal samples, mostly supplied by Bristol MC Jakes, that fully form the mix, like the grain in wood, supplying body, making it more than just a sum of its constituent parts. Pinch kicks things off somewhere through a Distal production, a screwed hip-hop vocal making it sound like a paranoiac’s reimagining of ghetto-tech. This quickly sets the tone - managing to juggle the ominous with the upfront, like the Lynchian strings of ‘In Dreams’ which phase seamlessly into the manic energy of Boddika and Joy O’s recent smash ‘Swims’. The mix really clips along, testament to Pinch’s skill behind the decks, most tracks only playing out for a couple of minutes at most. There’s a nod to the pure dub-techno of Basic Channel, with a cut from Shed’s side-project EQD, mastered at that other altar to all things bass, Berlin’s Hard Wax. This drives into another major influence, with Pinch’s own remix adding some rolling sine-waves to the guttural vocals of Prince Green on Henry & Louis& neo-dub. A sledgehammer wobble both heralds, and ends, the central section of the mix, with Pinch’s collaborative effort with Photek, and Chestplate boss Distance’s weighty ‘Blue Meanie’. This central nub almost functions as a showcase, Pinch demonstrating some of contemporary dubstep’s many flavours: the industrial sounds of Emika, Roska’s clattering drums, Addison Groove’s use of repeating vocals as a rhythmic weapon and the shimmering techy keys of Goth Trad. The final two tracks are supplied by a couple of the most promising young producers to emerge in the past few years, Londoner OM Unit and Tectonic’s own Illum Sphere. ‘Pressure’ certainly doesn’t let up, presenting us with a relentless squiggling synth-line awash in a storm of feedback then changing tack considerably into a steady pulsing beat. Pinch often talks of psychedelic dub, and here Illum Sphere demonstrates it wonderfully, toeing the line between instrumental breakbeats and even deep house, with its ethnic drums, distorted strings and a pitched down warble. This isn’t the true end as the mix is bookended with the rest of Distal’s track in order to achieve a perfect circularity as Pinch explains.
“I am a supporter of the sound of vinyl and the cultural associations I make with this format so it was important to me - even if I do ultimately end up abandoning my beloved format one day - to stick by my guns and record the mix like this. I also made the whole mix start and finish in the same spot - meaning that the entire DJ mix can work as a loop if you put it on repeat. I really like the idea of certain kinds of music existing in its own infinite context and setting up the mix to loop like that was playing entirely into that idea.” - Pinch 2011 |
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Fabric 59-Four Tet
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Fabric 59-Four Tet - Four Tet
Published on 31st August 2011 |
Tracklist
1. Four Tet - Locked
2. Floating Points - Untitled
3. Crazy Bald Heads - First Born
4. Sevi G - Beautiful Music (El-B remix)
5. Bad Bwoy Beats - Don't Go There
6. NnG - I Keep
7. Roger O'Donnell - The Truth in You (Four Tet remix)
8. Juk Juk - Winter Turn Spring
9. Michel Redolfi - Immersiens Partial
10. Daphni - Ye Ye
11. First Choice - Baby Aw Shucks (Ron Hardy edit)
12. Four Tet - Pyramid
13. Champion - Motherboard
14. Persian + D Ross - Music
15. Kyle Hall - Xero
16. KMA - Cape Fear
17. Ramsey + Fen - Style (Bug dub)
18. James Holden - A Break in the Clouds (Beat tool)
19. Earl Sixteen - Trials and Crosses |
Four Tet (aka Kieran Hebden) adds something special to the FABRICLIVE series, with this the 59th compilation. The mix has a distinct narrative to it and unearths music that hasn’t previously had a great deal of exposure. This project for Kieran has become more than just the mix itself; it’s been an adventure into the past as he sought out not only classics, but searched for rarer tracks he may have missed at the time when he was immersed in the original 90s 2 step garage scene. The music is important, but the experience of finding so many forgotten records and producers became an intrinsic part of the story - meeting specialist record dealers, months of email exchanges with old friends and acquaintances, twittering, nights on discogs, dead ends and confusing leads. In the mix, forgotten gems reside next to current tracks that are dear to him and a number of his own tracks made specially for the CD - something he’s been doing for his DJ sets for many years. He’s also explored the idea of the club itself, sending his audio engineer friend Sasha Lewis to make field recordings from Fabric, which feature as a highlight and pause, breaking the mix into different parts - as if you’re moving within the clubs space to hear different DJs. In fact, the mix is somewhat topsy turvey, starting out fast and then slowing down.
The music ranges from experimental electronics, like Michel Redolfi’s ‘Immersion Partielle’ on INA-GRM that Kieran feels “isn’t the type of techno you get on a mix CD” to the wonderfully titled Crazy Bald Heads’ ‘First Born’ a great lost 2 step/ garage record. “It still sounds so fresh that if it came out next week everyone would flip out. I bought it from Sounds of the Universe in the 90s, it was sold into the shop direct from the producers. A label in London was trying to sign them at the time and got me to do a remix for a possible single. Everything fell apart though and the team of producers never did the deal and didn’t put out more records together as far as I know… so the remix never got released. Gilles Peterson had an acetate of it that he played on his radio show at the time”, and this unreleased Four Tet remix features later in the mix. Tracks like Persian’s ‘Feel the Vibe’ are preciously rare, a brilliant track that only came out on white label. “I don’t have a copy of this record and can’t find one anywhere. Persian wasn’t even able to sort me out with a vinyl rip or WAV of the track! In the end I found a guy on discogs called DaWreck who has a copy and he very generously ripped the vinyl for me so it could be used on the comp.” Classic grime came with its own set of problems, with Kieran buying up every copy he could find of Music Mob ‘Pulse X’ to find one clean enough to use for the compilation.
Favourite producers of the moment like Floating Points, Burial and Ricardo Villalobos sit next to UK funky classics like Apple’s ‘Mr Bean’, bought from a record dealer called Julien who specialises in UK garage, grime, funky, jungle… “He got me a nice mint copy of this. Apple then turned out to be really difficult to find to clear the track. We had loads of DJs and producers trying to find me contact details, the 4th email address finally worked, so thanks to Brackles and Funk Butcher for sorting it.” ‘Webers’ is an old Dan Snaith (Caribou) production, originally released under his Manitoba guise, “I remember us both being into tracks like Sticky – Triplets and So Solid Crew – Dilemma at the time and this track he did then that had a similar sound.” Making space between the music is Four Tet ‘Fabric’ “a collage of field recordings of sounds from in and around the club”. Going back to the 70s, ‘The Continuing Story Of Counterpoint, Part Nine’ is by early moog user David Borden, a man ahead of his time. C++ ‘Angie's Fucked’ was a recommendation from “Trevor Jackson (one of my favourite DJs) at a club called Love in NYC a few years ago. Trevor released all my early records on his label, he was the first DJ I went to see play in a club and a big influence on me as a DJ.” Others like Active Minds ‘Hobson’s Choice (Tune For Da Man Dem)’ he heard on youtube and then tracked down the producer Jess Jackson, who’s now living in the USA as a successful hip-hop producer, but “I think the sound of this track is like a blueprint for so much music that's around now... the way the bass and vocals are used.” The final tune is Four Tet’s own beautiful ‘Locked’, typical of his deep melodic sound and the perfect way to send us out into the bright morning light of EC1, or where ever you may find yourself listening.
Interestingly, the entire mix is constructed on computer, more in the way you would create a film score than a DJ mix. Yet every track is vinyl, with Kieran cutting acetates of all his own music for the mix, to ensure that the sound quality and vibe is consistent. It’s then mastered with no cleaning or leveling, to retain the hiss, pop and crackle of the wax. It’s these slightly obsessive details that highlight why we have this Four Tet mix. For Kieran, to do anything in these days of overload - especially of DJ mixes, there must be a purpose, something unique to offer, and it’s these details that are so crucial to him. We hope that you delve deep into the music and take as much pleasure from this trip as we do.
"This mix is not about my DJing. It's about London and Fabric and nights out and my take on all that. The memories and the influences. I used old and new music, I used recordings of Fabric, and I made new tracks of my own for it. I hope people play it fucking loud and lose their minds in it and remember or imagine what it's all about." Four Tet |
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Fabriclive 57-Jackmaster
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Fabriclive 57-Jackmaster - Jackmaster
Published on 19th May 2011 |
Tracklist
Freeez - IOU
Janet Jackson - Pleasure Principle (Shep Pettibone Mix)
Adonis & Charles B - Lack Of Love
Steffi - Yours
Blawan - Getting Me Down
UR - Hardlife
Jon Convex - Falling
Canblaster - Jetpack
Pearson Sound - Stifle
Claude Vonstroke - Monster Island (Christian Martin Remix)
Boddika & Joy O - Swims
James T. Cotton - Mind Your Manners
Jook 10 - Megatron
Addison Groove - Spaghetto
Martyn - Hear Me (Zomby Remix)
Hudson Mohawke - Kiss Kasket
Orgasmic - How Low Claptrap
Africa Hitech - Glangslap
Ashanti - Happy (DND Vocal Mix)
Awesome 3 - Don't Go
Jay Z - Big Pimpin'
Skream - Midnight Request Line
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In a day and age when all DJs seem to also be producers, actors, singers, or pretty much anything that doesn’t actually
involve putting a needle to a record, it’s nice to know that guys like Jackmaster still exist. A genuine home-grown hero,
Jack Revill’s rise to fame is about as storybook perfect as is possible. A chance hearing of Model 500’s ‘The Chase’
whilst mopping floors in Glasgow’s legendary Rub-A-Dub record shop opened his eyes to the possibilities of electronic
music outside of the chart house he was listening to. Recruiting like-minded friends, he got involved in the city’s vibrant
club scene eventually starting the long running Numbers night. Taking their cue from the irreverent selections of the
legendary Club 69, the crew went on to form the Wireblock, Dress 2 Sweat and Stuff Records’ imprints, releasing
tracks from the likes of Hudson Mohawke and Rustie. As their popularity started snowballing, they made the decision
last year to combine forces across the Glasgow scene and form the Numbers collective which has steadily been
shaping its post-dubstep sound with a number of landmark releases as well as amassing column inches. Jackmaster has
led the charge, spreading their unashamedly full-on party sound to dance floors all over the world and snatching DJ
Magazine’s Breakthrough DJ of 2010 award in the process. FABRICLIVE now proudly presents its 57th release with a
peek into the Glaswegian mischief-maker’s eclectic record bags.
“The first time I played Fabric was in room 3 with Rustie, Hudson Mohawke, and Dom from
LuckyMe. It was like a mini Glasgow invasion of Farringdon. Shortly afterwards Tom promoted
me to Room 1 and pretty much since then we've been doing regular Numbers nights too. I
reckon my favourite Fabric night yet was when we brought Todd Edwards over in January
2010. That was such a fucking big night. The place was as packed as I've seen it and people
were just going crazy all night long right up till 6am. I ended up travelling for something like 10
hours to get there because of severe snow but it was so worth it. Eventually we made it to
Fabric with minutes to spare and as soon as we walked in the door you could feel it was gonna
be a special one. I played the last slot while Todd Edwards gave out glow sticks in the shape of
crucifixes and signed autographs with bible scripture quotations.”
The mix itself brings a taste of the relentless nature of the Numbers dancefloor, where the parties are fast, frantic and
intense. With a tracklist running to almost 30 tracks in just 70 minutes, they come short and sharp, running the whole
gamut of what’s considered ‘party music’, from Detroit techno classics to the orphaned children of garage, dubstep and
grime, the only thing that stays consistent is the upbeat tempo. Kicking things off with a slice of classic disco from The
Fantastic Aleems, we head straight into classic ‘hands in the air’ territory with the Inner City anthem ‘Big Fun’. For
someone who constantly talks up his love for 90s dance classics, or the music that most resonates from his childhood,
it’s no surprise to hear Kim English’s soaring vocals on the proto-garage ‘Nite Life’ emerge out of the robot funk of
Model 500. There’s a nod to Jamaica and in turn their grime compatriots down south, with an MC name checking the
whole crew on the unreleased calypso bounce of Geiom’s ‘2 4 6’ which swiftly rolls along taking in melodic breakbeat,
the staccato stabs of acid yearning in ‘The Sun Can’t Compare’ and Addison Groove’s juke-influenced groove. The
middle section is the peak time, full strobe moment presented as a kind of rave sandwich, with the comedy Miami Bass
of Splack Pack as the x-rated bread while Mad Mike brings an unusually sensitive side with a cut of euophoric piano
house and a Wookie remix leading into the Todd Terry jacker ‘Can You Feel It?’. It’s the sound of 90s rave as channeled
through the mind of someone who grew up in the online world with access to all the disparate strands of hardcore
influenced music, from the neo-NRG of Fix to frenetic ghetto tech, weaving all the influences into each other with a
single-minded purpose, for people to be able to dance without feeling guilty about enjoying moments of unexpected
nostalgia. The mix ends with a trio of cuts with AFX’s unsettling acid squelch melded into the jerky vocal patterns from
Skepta’s ‘Doin’ It Again’ and finishing up on a high note with that most unexpected of danceable singles, the track which
exposed Radiohead’s unashamed electronic genius, the alienation anthem of ‘Idioteque’.
“The reason that I'm not really producing music is because I just think that at the moment, I'd
be doing it for the wrong reasons. You shouldn't make music with the objective of furthering
your career as a DJ, or to become famous. Too many people are doing that these days I think.
I'll make music when I feel that I need to do it as a means of expressing myself. I don't think
you could ever call me a heads DJ. It's always been about the party for me and I think that's
really come through in the mix.”
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Fabriclive 56-Pearson Sound
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Fabriclive 56-Pearson Sound - Ramadanman/Pearson Sound
Published on 23rd March 2011 |
Tracklist
1 james blake- four miles
2 joy o -source delight
3 Ramadanman &
appleblim-void23 (carl craig
re-edit)
4 pearson sound- project
5 Kode9 & spaceape- love is the drug
6 untold -bones (joe remix)
7 mj cole & wiley- from the drop
8 pearson sound- stifle
9 randomer- brunk
10 jam city- magic drops
11 shackleton- deadman
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Tying together dubstep, house, ambient and more with several unreleased productions under his Pearson Sound and Ramadanman guises, David Kennedy demonstrates on FABRICLIVE 56 why he has rapidly ascended to the pinnacle of the bass music movement. Avoiding common pitfalls of covering a range of tempos and styles, it's the simplicity with which he gives nods towards all his influences that gives the mix such a pulsating intensity.
"It's all very much live mixing, no time stretching or auto beat matching. It's a bit of a retrospective of some of my favourite music from 2010, and is representative of a set I would play in a club. Even though I don't play much stuff at 140bpm these days, I always like to end up at that tempo as that is the music that got me to where I am, and tracks like Sub Zero by D1 are very powerful for me because they remind me of spending time at FWD in 2006, which was so formative." - David Kennedy |
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Fabric 55-Shackleton
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Fabric 55-Shackleton - Shackleton
Published on 14th December 2010 |
Tracklist
Shackleton Radio Mix Tracklisting
1) Shackleton and Vengeance Tenfold - Stripped III (version)
2) Shackleton - Man On A String Part 1 and 2
3) Shackleton - Angel On A String
4) Shackleton - Fireworks
5) Shackleton - Deadman
6) Shackleton - Bottles
7) Shackleton - Hypno Angel
8) Shackleton - Something Has Got To Give
9) Shackleton - Massacre
10) Shackleton - Torn Skin III (version) |
The 55th instalment of fabric’s matchless CD series comes from the unique British bass producer
Shackleton. The self-effacing Lancashire-born Sam Shackleton first came to prominence during the early rise
of the dubstep scene, running the label Skull Disco alongside Appleblim. Skull Disco is considered to have
been quite influential, in that it combined more abstract or avant musical forms with music that could wor
on advanced dancefloors. It was home to Shackleton’s cuts such as ‘Stalker’, ‘Death Is Not Final’ and ‘Blood
On My Hands’, reworked by Ricardo Villalobos into an 18 minute four to the floor version. Most recently he
released 3 EPs on Perlon, a Berlin label renowned for its low key approach to high creativity. From dubstep
to techno, Shackleton's maverick take on big basslines and complex beats doesn't fit into any easy categories
and that's how it's going to stay. Shackleton’s records and live sets are thrilling and unique in their absorbing
complexity and pure dancefloor enchantment.
“I got into making music on a computer by default.! My previous partner in music
went to the other side of the world and converted to Islam, and I didn't want to be a
one-man karaoke outfit so I bought a computer.! This turned out to be a good thing
for me as it made it easier to make the music that I wanted to make. Mine and my
friend's lives had a diverse soundtrack, but I remember that Stooges, Can, Throbbing
Gristle, Kraftwerk and Faust were all favourites.! To be honest, I haven't really moved
on from that stuff. I started playing guitar in a punk band at 14.! We were not very
good and got booed off stage and things thrown at us.! Plus ça change, really!”
fabric 55 is a timely record of Shackleton's electric live performances, recorded in the studio but directly
inspired by the fabric floor. The mix features partly new and unreleased original material - as well as tracks
that have previously appeared on Perlon, Skull Disco and Hotflush, but in very different forms than the
listener will have heard before. Rising out of the murky opening atmospheres are Shackleton’s favoured
tribal drums and percussion that rapidly kick things into action. Refined sub-bass underpins much of the
music here, alongside ceaseless drums, ominous vocal samples and layers of precise hisses, bleeps and
mournful melody. Key to Shackleton’s sound is a lightness of touch and delicacy in the arrangement that
could be at odds with the force of his sound but instead illuminates the different parts and awakens the
senses. At times seriously freaky and twisted, with frantic percussion and jarring keys, there’s an allencompassing
deepness to the whole as Shackleton weaves a path that completely absorbs up to the final
sigh of the closing bars. It’s a mix that instantly captures the listener and barely lets up before finally
releasing you after 80 minutes of some of the most deep, intense and beautiful electronic music you are
likely to hear this year.
“ I never thought that fabric would be interested in my music to be honest and so it
was a pleasant surprise when they asked me to play in room 1, back before most
other London venues would touch me, or indeed had probably heard of me.! It was an
even more pleasant surprise for me that some people enjoyed it.! I’ve since been
asked back quite regularly and every time it seems to go better.! I think this is
because of the sound system.! It is amongst the best I have played on....!With the mix
I’ve made, I have tried to make a set that would best represent the set I played on
that night [at fabric], but minus the mistakes.! Some of the tracks are re-jigged
versions of older material, some of them are new.! Some of them will never see a
release in any form aside from this.! Some of them are not even tracks just
coincidental parts merging with each other between tracks.! Those are the best bits
actually.! I don't expect everyone to like it.! I know it is not to everyone's taste.!
That's why I appreciate Judy sticking her neck out for this and I hope some people
like it.”
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Fabric 54-Damian Lazarus
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Fabric 54-Damian Lazarus - Damian Lazarus
Published on 18th November 2010 |
Tracklist
Sanchez Last Stand - Done With You - Mob Beats – 00:00
Sascha Funke vs Nina Kravis - Moses - BPitch - 10:52
Russ Yallop - Harlem - Demo - 16:01
Glimpse - Things To Do In Denver (Guti rmx) - Crosstown
Rebels - 21:50
Glimpse & Martin Dawson - No One Belongs Here More Than
You - Crosstown Rebels - 27:54
Maceo Plex - The Feelin - Crosstown Rebels - 34:12
Ken Nordine - Lavender - Philips - 40:39
Terry Riley - A Rainbow in Curved Air - Sony - 42:03 |
Damian Lazarus - the LA based but London born musical chameleon - proudly presents the 54th offering in the fabric
compilation series. Having graced the international dance music circuit since his time pushing artists on City Rockers,
Damian’s fruitful career has seen him hone his talent to become one of the most in demand players in contemporary
electronic music. Be it through his exciting Crosstown Rebels imprint that is home to intriguing talents such as Jamie
Jones, Deniz Kurtel, Seth Troxler and Glimpse, his solo production work that includes the album ‘Smoke The Monster
Out’ for Get Physical where he “delivered, arguably, the defining album of the modern clubbing experience” [The
Guardian] or his ability to cause havoc on any dancefloor, Damian’s capacity to find, push, promote, and play the perfect
beat has proven to be a key asset to music throughout the past decade.
“As a kid, I was obsessed with music - taping radio shows, going to see bands and stuff like
that. When I was 12, my cousin introduced me to his record collection and I got heavily into
soul, funk, hip-hop and electro. By the age of 13 I was getting Saturday jobs to supplement my
love of buying records. I worked in Groove Records for one day when I was 13 and spent all my
wages on records. At the age of 14 I bought a pair of Technics and the Numark 1775A mixer
(with the 4 second sampler button) and convinced my parents that one day I'd be a great
DJ.”
After holding his first residency at the age of 16 at local Essex club The Villa, Damian became an acid house convert,
hanging out with DJs that were playing on the then illegally broadcast Kiss FM, gradually earning himself more gigs at
underground parties and local clubs. Placing a brief hiatus on his DJ career following the birth of his daughter, Damian
spent a number of years working as a music journalist, eventually becoming Assistant Editor for Dazed & Confused
aged 21. It was shortly after that his career in music resumed. Having A&R’d for London Records, in 2001 he created
City Rockers with Phil Howells, and went on to release some of the biggest tunes of the electroclash era, from artists
like Felix Da Housecat, FC Kahuna and Tiga & Zyntherius’ with their massive hit ‘Sunglasses at Night’. His Futurism and
Futurism 2 compilations remain defining documents of that era. Certainly not a stranger to compilations, Damian honed
his craft as a DJ over numerous compilation releases during the past decade. Since 2007 Damian has also curated his
Lazpod series - a podcast that not only showcases the cutting edge house and techno for which he is most famous, but
also demonstrates his love for cosmic disco, rock, soundtracks, and various other forms of experimental music. But
he’s especially chosen not to release any mixes or allow any sets to be recorded for the past year in preparation for
his special fabric mix.
With fabric 54, Damian demonstrates his immense talent as a club DJ, with his offering to the series acting as a
snapshot of what an archetypal Damian Lazarus set at fabric can be. “My recent mixes and the Lazpod
podcasts have been pretty weird and varied and I realized that I haven't made a solid 'club'
sounding mix for some time, obviously this was reserved for fabric and I am super happy with
the results. After some months of pre-planning and structuring, I actually mixed this album on
Sunday May 9th 2010, very early considering the October release. Sitting alongside my long
time studio engineer, Matthew 'the goat' Styles, I think I made something fresh, exciting and
very relevant to the DJ that I am today.”
It’s this freshness that makes Damian Lazarus such a significant figure within contemporary dance music in 2010. With
releases from the Wolf + Lamb associated e-funk duo Soul Clap, UK funky figurehead Roska and always stand-out Four
Tet, the mix remains a snapshot of cutting edge house and techno, yet constantly references elements of the various
genres of music from which they currently take influence. Damian opens with leading light of the Detroit nu school
Ryan Crosson, via post-dubsteps Appleblim & Ramadanman, and a timeless slice of Swayzak. He skims the cream of
current releases from The Mole, new Crosstown Rebel signings Art Department and wunderkind of the moment
Nicolas Jaar with Soul Keita. While the home stretch sees Lee Jones and Agaric rubbing shoulders with Germany’s
most sublime entrant for Eurovision, Su Kramer, before closing with two dreamlike numbers from Bill Holt. Fusing
synthetic deepness with relentless rhythmical force and twinkling humour, the mix brings all the unique charm of
Damian’s club sets into your living room.
“I went to the opening of Fabric in October 1999 and felt at home there from that day on.
London needed this club so badly at the time and it couldn't have been more perfect. In the
following years I'd be on the dance floor, checking out music and DJs, wishing one day I'd be
asked to play there. Which of course did happen back in 2005 and I have been playing there
once or twice a year ever since. Being asked to mix this album is, at the risk of sounding
cheesy, like a dream come true, even after all this time.”
Damian Lazarus
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 Fabric 52
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Fabric 52 - Optimo (Espacio)
Published on 19th May 2010 |
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Tracklist
1. KXP - 18 Hours Of Love (An Optimo (Espacio) mix)
2. Inner City - Pennies From Heaven (Reese mix)
3. Fernando - Kick in the Eye (Redux)
4. Jodeci - Freakin' You (MK mix)
5. Malcolm Mclaren - Buffalo Gals
6. Rufus - Unknown
7. Gregory Issacs - Mr. Nowhere
8. Blood Sisters - Ring my Bell
9. Dinosaur - Kiss me Again
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Optimo (Espacio)
a.k.a. Keith McIvor (JD Twitch) and JG Wilkes
BORN
JD Twitch: “I was born in 1968 in Edinburgh, Scotland. As a kid it was great, it was a very beautiful city, it was very relaxed. But it’s so quiet, not a lot goes on musically. It’s a great city to live in, and a great place to grow up, but it’s just not a lot happens. My teenage years were fun but then I was ready to move on so I made the “giant” leap to Glasgow, which is not that far away, but the cities are completely different from each other. It was like a whole new world had opened up to me. That was when I was 18. There was just a lot more creative energy there and a lot more things going on. In Glasgow everyone tends to be very supportive of what everyone else is doing, and everyone more or less knows everyone else, it’s a small city.”
JG Wilkes: “I was born in Belfast in Northern Ireland in June 1967.”
FAMILY
JD Twitch: “Until the age of about 10, I thought the only music that existed in the world was middle of the road, and on Radio Two. I just assumed because my parents had a very conservative music taste that I wasn’t particularly into music, because I thought that was the only music that existed. But when I was about 11, I got a radio cassette player and that’s when my mind got blown. I thought, ‘Wow, there’s other music, this is what music’s really like!’ That’s when I started to really get into music: when I had my own way to access it.
“My parents were surprisingly open to me doing something that made me happy. They were quite conservative, they were concerned as to whether I could make a living from it, but they were happy for me to go with it. And when I became reasonably successful they were very proud. They did think that I’d grow out of it - maybe I will do one day…”
JG Wilkes: “I was working in the shipyard in Belfast as an apprentice after I left school and I hated it. My sister was at art school in Glasgow, and when I got to the end of my third year, I went to visit her in Glasgow. I realised that the life I was interested in, would be more possible if I left Belfast and went to live in Glasgow. I went to art school myself; I was in my twenties living there. I did fine art at Glasgow School of Art, then I did a Post-Grad Masters in Fine Art as well. At the same time as going to parties and DJing a couple of times a week I was working as an artist too. It wasn’t until later on that I decided that I wanted to pursue music full time and stop doing exhibitions, and that’s when it became my career I suppose.”
MUSICAL ROOTS
JD Twitch: “The first thing that I really fell in love with was pop music in the very late 70s. Pop music at that time was really great. I think the first thing I really fell in love with was Blondie; I became obsessed. The first gig I ever went to was Blondie. It was just that era, even for music that was in the top 10, it was a really good time. From then I just went on to explore all sorts of different musical avenues. Music became my main hobby; I wasn’t particularly interested in sport. I came from a little village outside of the city and there wasn’t really much to do there, so music became everything for me. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to get involved in making or playing music, but I knew that I wanted to do something related to that. What I thought I’d end up doing was some sort of business thing in the industry. I played guitar really, really badly, I think I learned one chord.”
JG Wilkes: “When you grow up as I did, during the troubles in Belfast, you really don’t venture to any other part of the city apart from the part that is safe for you. I grew up in East Belfast and didn’t really leave East Belfast until I became a teenager and got interested in punk music and started to dress a bit differently from other kids in my community. I got interested in things other than sectarianism and the troubles. I wanted to find out about new music and discover sub culture really I suppose. I used to take the bus home from school with some lads who were a bit older than me and they were right into what was really a burgeoning punk scene in N. Ireland at the time - I owe a lot of my early musical education to them. I was very fortunate from that point of view.”
FIRST PROJECTS
JD Twitch: “My first project in music was starting to DJ, which came up by accident. People that knew me always knew that I had more records than anybody else, so I was always getting invited along to play at people’s parties. I knew lots of bands, and they’d ask me to play before or after they played. It was completely organic. That was when I was seventeen or eighteen and eventually myself and a friend became the warm up djs at this cub in Edinburgh.
“When I got to Glasgow there was more of a scene, a lot more people that were interested in music and I had access to a lot more different kinds of music. Around about the same time, house music first came along - and that was something I absolutely fell for. I was doing a club with some other friends, we were playing reggae, alternative rock, synth pop and obscure european electrobeat records (as we called them), but we thought house music was a lot more exciting so we changed the club from one week to the next - to a house club. The whole audience that used to come stopped coming. We were a little bit too early for people to understand what house music was about, so I decided to concentrate on my studies instead of DJing. But then some friends of mine persuaded me to start playing this night in Edinburgh - this was about 1989, 1990, and we were just in the right place at the right time. It was just when the whole rave thing had just exploded and we were the first club that was doing anything like that. From day one our club Pure was phenomenally successful, and I had a decision to make: should I carry on doing my degree, or am I going to give this a shot? So I decided to give it a shot.”
JG Wilkes: “I had some friends in Belfast who were DJing, among them David Holmes actually. When we were teenagers we used to go to some great clubs in Belfast. Clubs like The Delta and The Plaza. The DJs at these clubs were starting to play house music (‘85 and’ 86) and that’s kind of where the trail of the DJing began - when it first captured my imagination. It was never something I thought I was going to do though. Actually, I started DJing by accident. I had always collected records from quite a young age, from the age of eleven or twelve. When I was 20, a guy I knew who worked in a reggae club in Glasgow got sick and asked me if I’d help him out, play some records while he was away. I kind of fell into it like that. I started doing these parties in Glasgow, helping this guy out, and I thought it would be a good idea to organise some parties myself. It got a bit more serious and just became what I wanted to do, I never really meant it to. That’s what happened and it’s been over twenty years now.”
OPTIMO
JD Twitch: “I’d been doing Pure for a few years and I was a little bit bored. It was the late 90s and the whole club scene had got a little bit boring for me, all my friends were bored, we’d all stopped going out. This opportunity came up to do the Sunday night at a club in Glasgow. The owners of The Sub Club had said they were happy for me to do whatever I wanted – so i took the opportunity to literally delve into my record collection and play all the music I’d never really played in a DJ set that I thought might just work on a dancefloor. So I started this night and I asked Johnnie to play with me; I didn’t know him very well but I knew that he had a similar interest in different types of music. And I knew he had an anarchic spirit, which is kind of what I wanted the night to be. Plus he had a lot of friends, and I thought if he’s doing it maybe a lot of his friends would come along too. It was really a private party for all our friends for the first year or so. The first year, almost 80 people per week would come and we’d know almost all of them, and that was fine. We had no plan, no ambition for the night, it was just a kind of outlet for us to do something fun for us.
After doing it for about a year, I think word must have got out and it suddenly became very popular, literally from one week to the next, 75 people one week and the next week it was packed. It just kind of stayed like that; it was almost just like people suddenly got it. It’s the people that made it and we were very fortunate that we got a really great crowd of people that came along, because the music was really quite different to what people were used to and quite all over the place. And because it was on a Sunday you had to make an effort to go, so the people that came really wanted to be there.”
JG Wilkes: “I remember meeting Keith a long time ago. I used to play at a techno night in Glasgow in the mid-90s on a Saturday but I used to get Friday nights off all the time. I wasn’t travelling as a DJ at the time, I was just kind of DJing around Glasgow, and Keith did a club in Edinburgh called Pure. Pure was the first club Britain to bring people like Richie Hawtin and Carl Craig and artists like that. We used to go through on the bus from Glasgow. That’s when I first met Keith, on the bus going to Pure. It’s quite hard to remember a lot of the stuff that happened back then, for obvious reasons. I think in 1996, we did some parties together in Glasgow which were big parties with various rooms and lots of diff |
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 Fabric Live 52
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Fabric Live 52 - Zero T
Published on 19th May 2010 |
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Tracklist
1.Alix Perez + Zero T - Enemy Of Reason (Unreleased)
2.Zero T + Mosus - Videodrome (Unreleased)
3.Noisia ft. Joe Seven - Hand Gestures (Vision)
4.Zero T ft. Steo - Close To See (Unreleased)
5.Zero T + Beta 2 - North Beach (Unreleased)
6.Icicle - Garde (Unreleased)
7.Grace Jones - Love You To Life [Mala Remix] (Wall Of Sound)
8.Ramadanman - I Beg You (Hessle Audio)
9.Pariah - Orpheus (R&S)
10.Joy Orbison - So Disrobe (Aus Music)
11.Untold - I Cant Stop This Feeling (Hessle Audio)
12.Bonobo - Eyesdown [Warrior One Remix] (Ninja Tune)
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“I don’t like to be pigeon-holed. People are constantly coming up with new names for jungle. It’s all jungle, to me. If it’s at 170 BPM it’s jungle, its drum n’ bass, that’s it.” – Zero T
In the world of drum & bass, a scene all too often segregated by superficially constructed genre confines, Zero T stands as a figurehead for a new breed of producers tearing down these boundaries and building from the ground up, creating a more open musical plane. By setting his own parameters, Zero T not only explores the full spectrum of sounds within D&B, but expands beyond it with his forward-thinking, intricately textured and overtly musical sound. It comes as little wonder that Zero T’s absorbed such a plethora of wide-spanning influences that diffuse through his own music, amalgamating to create something unique and, in a word, peerless. Music is something that has surrounded the talented artist from his earliest days: from growing up alongside his father’s ever-expanding blue note jazz collection, to being tutored by his older brother’s multi-instrumental musicianship, to his exposure to jungle through older friends, to an entirely fortuitous meeting with fellow Irish D&B artist Calibre.
Zero T’s rise to prominence was extraordinarily rapid, which is perhaps representative of the kind of artist, and character, he happens to be. After joining the Bassbin collective in Dublin, Zero T was quickly snapped up by the legendary 4 Hero for their Reinforced imprint.
“Bassbin was Rohan and Naphta’s club night that turned into a bunch of residents…and we ended up getting our own club. We did it every week for a few years. When we started to make our own tunes, Rohan started a label - the first ever release was Naphta and I on Bassbin #1. As that was coming out, Beta 2 and I had just started to make tunes together. We had a handful of tunes going but we were very unsure of ourselves. One night, we went to go and see Digital and Stretch at a Reinforced Night. Beta 2’s girlfriend jumped on stage and said we were making some D&B tunes - and they actually asked us to bring them a CD! We got a phone call from Marc Mac a week later saying they wanted an EP. So our first release, other than on Bassbin, was a Reinforced EP - that was in 1999. It’s still mind-blowing to me; it was like winning the world cup.” – Zero T
From there, Zero T was quickly picked up for releases on esteemed labels like Integral, V and CIA, culminating with the release of his critically lauded ‘Cheap Shots’ LP for Total Science’s imprint. Taking in a variety of different sounds and moods, ‘Cheap Shots’ was an ambitious LP, maintaining both immediate and lasting effect. Deftly playing with shades of light and dark, eschewing constrictive sound palettes and rhythmic rigidity, Zero T has not restricted himself to any one easily defined sound, letting each release occupy its own musical territory. That his music can sit as comfortably on Subtitles as Soul:r speaks volumes about his versatility.
Refusing to let up even for a second, Zero T recently set up his own Footprints label as an outlet for his own productions as well as those of his close cohorts. The debut release, split between Zero T & Bailey’s hard stepping, ominous ‘Wasp Factory’ and Calibre & ST Files’ rolling ‘Devil Inside’ was unanimously devoured, announcing the arrival of the label in style.
“I’d been toying with starting a label for a long time. I make lots of music, I collaborate with many people, and I’ve got 10 years of experience on my back. It felt like 10 years was long enough to just be an employee - I wanted to become the employer and be my own boss! (laughs) I was super lucky to get Calibre and Bailey to work on the first release and could never have hoped for it to be such a strong release. The second release comes from Moses and I, and I’ve got my original compatriot Beta 2, who has been studying and out of music for a few years, so this is kind of his return.” – Zero T
With many more strings to his bow, Zero T is also working several other projects which serve as an outlet for just some of his myriad interests outside of drum & bass. Fuelled by an insatiable creative appetite, there’s no chance that Zero T will let himself stagnate; he tirelessly strives for evolution and expansion.
“My main plan for this year is to branch out into other music worlds. I’m currently working on a hip-hop, soul project that will be aimed at commercial release. The band is called The Jones’s. It is a labour of love that I’m trying to launch in September. The sound involves a lot of samples and the use of some live players; everything from early 80s sleaze funk to 90s hip hop. It’s the music that makes me tick on a personal level; the music I listened to before drum n’ bass. The fact that I do play a lot of different styles is starting to filter out to the general populous.” – Zero T
‘FABRICLIVE 52: Zero T’ seamlessly connects the dots between the different facets of his sound with aplomb, deftly moving through tempos and styles to create a beautifully crafted mix. Fusing a wide spectrum of styles with ease, Zero T simultaneously showcases the expansive and diverse possibilities at one’s fingertips, while highlighting the common threads between them. At once free flowing and precise, the mix takes you on a journey through an intoxicating world of sound, veering from the ominous to the uplifting, the paranoid to the soulful. Expanding its appeal beyond the limitations of drum & bass, it effortlessly takes in dubstep, garage, house and hip hop along the way. Further ensuring its durability, it hosts a healthy smattering of exclusives throughout: Lemon D, Dillinja, Break, Calibre, and extremely special versions of tunes from Icicle and Paradox - never to be heard anywhere else.
“It seems that here in the UK, strict genres and the rigidity of DJing are both melting away. Now it’s normal for me to switch tempos in a D&B set, and it’s just as normal for Skream and Benga to play a D&B tune - which is healthy. Hopefully it’s going to turn back into just UK bass music, with tempos being flexible. It really opens you up as a DJ when you can play a good tune at the right time, instead of being obsessed with double drops and stupid timings. That’s what I was trying to do with the mix: to show my sets at a peak time show, but also get really eclectic in the mix later on - with dubstep and old garage classics (such as Wookie’s ‘Little Man’), then some dub and straight up techno, finishing on some jacking Chicago-style house. At the very end there’s this new crew local to my adopted home (N8), it’s basically a hip hop tune that switches into something a bit like Roni Size’s ‘Music Box,’ with twinkly Rhodes and cosmic surfer samples.
I wanted to give an honest representation of what a Zero T set is like, to play tunes that I genuinely love. I also wanted for it to be a CD for people that aren’t into drum & bass. It goes from dark, to more musical, to vocal, to properly minimal and deep stuff. I’ve managed to get all the artists I wanted, who are either heroes of mine or the current people to watch. Some of the tracks will only appear on the CD, they’ll never appear anywhere else - lots of exclusives.” – Zero T. |
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 Fabric 50
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Fabric 50 - Martyn
Published on 9th March 2010 |
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Tracklist
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Martijn Deijkers' particular strand of bass defies genres or adjectives - to his fans and admirers, it's known simply as ‘Martyn Music.' With a sound that became a cornerstone for dubstep in 2009, and a debut album (‘Great Lengths') that became one of the most stylistically fierce long players the scene has produced to date, Martyn pushes a rebellious, out-of-the-box mentality into his every artistic venture. Commanding dancefloors with a strong sense of timing and attitude, his music revels in its relative simplicity – synth lines lounging atop swung drum patterns, all in turn massaged by warm low frequencies - a trait he's reinforced with fabric 50, his first mix CD to date.
Born the son of a footballer in a music mad family in Eindhoven, Holland, it was his immediate family who sparked his love for vinyl. “I have been buying music for as long as I can remember really, as soon as I got a weekly allowance I spent it on 7” singles and albums. When I was studying I went clubbing a lot, there were a couple of clubs that I used to frequent, and I just got drawn to the music. When it came to house and techno I loved it, I enjoyed clubbing and listening to it but I just never really felt I was a part of that scene because I was too young. All the DJs that I saw playing were older, so I could appreciate the music as a follower but it wasn't my generation. When I encountered drum & bass around 94/95, it made a huge impression on me, and I just felt at home in that style; I was like, ‘This is my generation, so maybe I can play some sort of part in this.'” – Martyn
After starting a club night along with a few others called Red Zone, named after the third track created by the merging of two records, Martyn began to explore his interest deeper through production. ? “We did the Red Zone nights for about 11 years, and I started DJing outside of the nights - at other venues and also in other countries. Around 2002-3, I was playing a lot and I found there was a void in the music. That's why I started making my own music; just because I wanted to try and make something that I could play to bridge the gap. DJ Flight and Marcus Intalex, who used to play at our night, they started playing my music. After a while Marcus signed something to Soul:R, and Flight signed a 12 for Play:Musik, and that's how I got my break, in 05, that's where the recording career started.” – Martyn
With fabric 50, Martyn intertwines the essential elements of what makes his own style so pristine and easily recognisable, fusing dancefloor ready percussion with that element of raw soul - whether it's vocal led or simply inferred with emotive chords – and synthesizers that harbour those distinct frequencies that positively shimmer. Anyone who has witnessed Martyn meticulously construct one of his DJ sets over the tail end of 2009 can testify to the pitch perfect, unfathomably smooth beat and vibe matching. Whilst the mix is loaded with welcome surprises like Hudson Mohawke's ‘Joy Fantastic' and Levon Vincent's ‘Air Raid' - tracks that might not work on every dancefloor - it's an honest and healthy glimpse into the Dutchman's current DJ perspective.
“I did the whole mix CD live just because I thought that was more honest than doing an Ableton DJ mix. It is how I would play live - not everything on the CD is perfect, but it's not meant to be. That goes for my DJ sets and for my music as well; there's always little bits and pieces that could have been much better or more streamlined or whatever, but that's the beauty of music to me. I wanted it to be raw and honest. As for the selection, I just wanted to try and make it as varied as possible and get people from all different corners of the globe together on one CD. The idea of it was to bring together all these sounds and vibes, something I would never be able to do on a studio album, just because I'm not able to make all that sort of music. It's amazing music though, I love it, so I want to play it to people.” – Martyn
And the music Martyn selected for the mix reflects that personal change perfectly, leaning a little more towards music that takes house and techno as the nucleus from which to blossom. From the unique visions of producers like Actress (whose ‘Slow Jam' veers poignantly away from the synth swells of Redshape's mix of Martyn's ‘Seventy Four' with its spluttered sporadic melodies), Ben Klock and Zomby; to the polished percussion of Roska, Madd Slinky and Altered Natives, Martyn segues the tracks with a natural flair, blending rhythms emphatically, letting tried and tested productions like his own ‘Vancouver' fuse wonderfully with brand new pieces like fellow Dutch producer 2562's ‘Flashback.'??
“Fabric on Saturdays is mostly about four-to-the-floor; my music may not always be so straight up but at the root of it all there's my house/techno background. I just think it's interesting to show people how diverse music can be, if you make an effort and play a variety of things, some house alongside dubstep or instrumental hip hop. I will just have to make it work in this ‘Saturday vibe'. For me fabric 50 is sort of a temporary moment in time rather than the definitive Martyn mix, because I have been gigging so much over the past year, my sound has gradually moved a little bit more to straight up house and techno related music.” - Martyn |
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 Fabric Live 50 - Autonomic
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Fabric Live 50 - Autonomic - dBridge & Instra:mental
Published on 9th March 2010 |
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Tracklist
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Despite the genre's future-forward and experimental beginnings in the early 90s, drum & bass' rigid uniformity over the last decade has made it a stifling environment for many producers. For dBridge, with his background as a former member of the drum & bass heavyweight champions Bad Company, the pressure of dancefloor expectations and DJs' desire for club smashers has been experienced and rejected once in his career already. Since going solo he has been busy developing a more cultured sound that has carved him a niche in a music scene from which he was feeling increasingly removed from. Instra:mental meanwhile, having had a successful stint in drum & bass some years earlier, returned to D&B production in the mid 00s with a uniquely fresh approach. Inspired by 80s synth music, the Detroit sound and the Warp back catalogue, and with a studio fully loaded with vintage hardware equipment, they set about writing drum & bass unlike anyone else; a method that struck a chord with a like-minded soul in dBridge.
“There was no space in drum & bass, it was just running twenty breaks on top of each other, so we thought about what we could do, because what we were making was quite minimalistic in some ways; we decided to not fill the gaps. The way we work is great, because if you have got someone else working with you, you can all grab a synthesizer and just make some noise and have a little jam session.” - Instra:mental.
“Hanging out with Instra:mental begun to influence me, they were thinking outside of the box, not just a little… a lot. I was still sampling whereas they weren't, one session I made a sound on the JP-8000 and started to get it, be re-inspired for my job… for music.” - dBridge.
After a year in which Instra:mental collaborated with dBridge on the epic ‘Blush Response,' they decided to form a creative alliance as Autonomic. As a result a club night, a podcast, an umbrella for their labels, and, most crucially, a style was born. The Autonomic sound is music first, drum & bass second. The people behind it are not setting out to make a drum & bass track; they are setting out simply to make music, producing compositions that are emotionally charged, personally edifying and organic. This is a million miles from the music-by-numbers churned out by so many of today's producers; this is lovingly crafted with integrity, with vision and without the limitations of genre or style that so many artists impose on themselves. And with the likes of Jimmy Edgar, Kyle Hall and Zomby lined up to release on Instra:mental's NonPlus+ label in 2010, it's fair to say that the trio are far from losing pace – they're only just getting started.??
“Eventually we want to go to any gig and have complete musical freedom. This is exactly what we are doing, any music, any style, and any tempo as long as we like the music.” - Instra:mental.
After a year of server-crashing Autonomic podcasts - that have shown an overwhelming thirst around the world for drum & bass that does not conform to any institutionalised boundaries - dBridge & Instra:mental have mixed FABRICLIVE 50. With a tracklist that boasts some of dubstep's leading lights working at drum & bass tempo, FABRICLIVE 50 (note: the 100th addition to our compilation series) is a dreamlike collection of beat explorations and electronic soundscapes all lovingly woven into 90 minutes; a treasure of a disc that reveals more edifying details with each listen. Beautifully imaginative and colourful, enter the world of Autonomic, as they return drum & bass to the bleeding edge of electronic music.
“We wanted the fabric CD to be like the best podcast we've ever done. That was our aim. When we were asked to do it, we approached all the people making music we love, and asked them to write us something special for the CD. Distance, Scuba, Genotype, myself and Instra:mental all did it. It's a great collection of music, harmonically it all works together; and as much as we have different styles, you'd be surprised what tunes stick together just from being in key. We wanted to showcase what it is that we're doing, and what the sound is capable of.” – dBridge
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 Fabric 49
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Fabric 49 - Magda
Published on 19th November 2009 |
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Tracklist
1. Ronnie Tyler - Nicer Things - Unreleased
2. The Seekers - Freckles - Unreleased
3. Andy Martin - Gecko - Unreleased
4. ADCL - Hear The Wall - Railyard
5. Madato - 3031 - Unreleased
6. Butane - Adaptation - Crosstownrebels
7. Heartthrob - Loop 101 - minus
8. Gaiser - mfnstmp - minus
9. Leo Choi - Paradox - Unreleased
10. Christian Burkhardt - Eye Shadow - Unreleased
11. Bruno Pronsato - We Were - Philpot
12. Robotman - Do Da Doo - Definitive |
Being a key member of the worshipped Minus family, Magda is used to being propelled into the fast moving, cutting whirr of the hype machine, but she doesn't really pay it any mind. “I'm not really into this hype thing; I think it's kind of silly. What really matters is to develop your own ideas and not make any compromises against yourself. Even if there's big hype - or if it isn't cool anymore - as long as I'm happy and stay interested and things inspire me, then it doesn't matter.” All overblown hype and needless gender stereotyping aside, she remains one of the most respected artists around the electronic spectrum, and she shrugs it all off with unpretentious charm.
Fleeing from the communist rule of Poland and relocating to Texas at the age of 9, her family ended up making a move right into the heart of Detroit. Her accidental entry into Detroit's rave and underground party scene as a teenager (coincidentally being handed a flyer for a party “around the corner from my house ”) was the kick-start she needed for a lifelong love affair. Soon all became a blur of cities (hopping the coast to New York), record stores, “small loft parties and gay house nights”; her life revolved entirely around the records on her cherished turntables. Around 1998 she moved back to the Motor City and, through mutual friends, scored a seat in the Minus label office, closely befriending boss Richie Hawtin and moving in with a then-on-the-rise Marc Houle (hence their collaborative Run Stop Restore work with Troy Pierce that came later). A move back to NYC in the early ‘00's birthed her Gel & Weave night, embracing artists as far and wide as Daniel Bell, Theo Parrish, Zip, Jeff Samuel, and John Tejada.
“I did a small night called "Gel and Weave" and booked artists who inspired me like Zip, Dan Bell, and Theo Parrish among others. In return Zip invited me to Berlin to play for a Perlon/Playhouse party, which for me was a huge honour. My first show in Germany was at the old Panoramabar and it blew me away. The whole attitude towards electronic music was different. There were no rules it seemed. Just lots of time and people going crazy until all hours. The atmosphere of the city in general was very relaxed and a nice contrast to the hectic New York lifestyle. I knew I had to go there, so 6 months later I moved.” – Magda
These days, though living in Berlin, Magda isn't home very often. Her tour schedule is incessantly full, with dancefloors around the world being treated to her unique sound: “I've always played a mixture of different things. From Detroit techno to Chicago house/jack to German minimal. As long as something is interesting and has a groove I like, then I try to include it in my sets. I have a soft spot for obscure electro/disco as well and I do tons of edits.” Stylistically, Magda grooves through opposition – creating sets that are emotion-led yet clinical (having profound expertise with digital technology: Final Scratch, FX's, samplers, and so forth); trippy and disorientating, yet lucid and coherent; pairing up sparing beats with bass-swathed extremes. Beyond DJing, producing, and a myriad of releases – including her cult-worshipped mixed CDs ‘Fact And Friction' and the impeccably jam-packed (with over 70 tracks mixed in) masterpiece ‘She's A Dancing Machine' – she also heads up the fascinating label Items & Things with her good friends Troy Pierce and Marc Houle. The label's focus is always pinpointed on the off-kilter and the uncommon, sometimes even the borderline strange.
And that same ethos is audible in her latest tour de force, fabric 49, a thumping trip into the otherworldly that breeds a rare feel of mystique and discovery, without ever compromising the groove. Crafted with meticulous detail and loving precision, it carries the weight of any Magda DJ set: intricate 4/4 licks that are bass-laden to devastating effect. Dramatic sounds and eccentric basslines carry the fast-moving, multilayered mix through the rising swells of Circlesquare, the haunting vocals of Luciano, the chilling chords and offbeat pop elements of her kindred spirits at Minus (Gaiser, Marc Houle and Heartthrob), and the funk-filled soundscapes of Magda's own productions. A watertight compilation that brims with lively character, and skitters with Magda's personal touches and effects, fabric 49 is a reminder of how rarely DJs truly break the mould. A mix CD with as much artistry, perfection and vision as an original album.
"The mix is inspired by Italian horror film soundtracks from the 70's. I included the band Goblin, who made some very interesting dark disco, with trippy and drawn out psychedelic elements. I wanted to create something dark and groovy with a soundtrack feel to it, where sounds emerge and disappear, creating a spooky atmosphere. I chose tracks which were somewhat experimental along with dance tracks I like. I was very happy to be able to use "Heavy Whispers" by Yello because they are one of the most interesting bands for me. They had the ability to combine very different sounds and make some of my favorite new wave/electro/disco tracks ever. I also used a lot of unreleased tracks from producers whom I've met online and received demos from. It's nice to be able to support younger artists and their sound when I can." - Magda magda |
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 Fabric 48
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Fabric 48 - Radioslave
Published on 6th September 2009 |
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Tracklist
n/a |
Anyone can construct a track, and lay out its elements in all the right places – have the bassline kick just here, or the percussion build right there - but only a select few can actually design one. It comes as no surprise that Matt Edwards is a graphic designer and artist by trade, as a visual thread runs colourfully through his sonics, rhythms and arrangements. Shaped by the groove, and ever leaning on an uplifting hypnotic lilt, every production that falls under the spell of Edwards becomes certified dancefloor gold. But success has never taken away from his prolificacy, nor his endless sense of reinvention - over the last eight years, Matt Edwards has been morphing and expanding under a variety of names: Quiet Village, Sea Devils, Matthew E, Rekid and of course his most famed name, Radio Slave.
“I love doing the Radio Slave stuff, it’s a real passion for me: the night clubbing culture and the perfecting of making music for clubs. But it’s good as a producer to be able to switch between different aliases, because you can’t write the same tracks all the time, it’d drive you mad. You learn a lot of things from working at different tempos, it’s a good learning process, and one thing can influence the other.” – Radio Slave
Growing up in an artistically led family in South London, Matt Edwards’ taste buds initially whetted when exploring the vast record collection of his father (who happened to design record sleeves as a profession), which makes sense of his schizophrenic, and voracious, musical appetite. In fact, all of his aliases seem to be tied by this same motif of imagination and experimentation. In his 20s, gaining a background education in playing downtempo tracks and Balearic beats, Edwards’ first forays into DJing were at the future-forward ‘Open All Hours’ night at Ministry of Sound in 1992. Perhaps his downtempo upbringing provides the explanation behind his Quiet Village project with partner, and fellow vinyl-obsessive, Joel Martin. And the poppy feel of Quiet Village, meanwhile, lends to the pop dance grooves he creates as Sea Devils, his work with celebrated musician Caged Baby. As Matthew E, he creates jackin’ house beats that groove and pulse under the most unexpected colour spectrum, which is the flipside to the soul-led and more articulate pull of Rekid, whose gold run of 12”s set the underground radar alight. His ‘Made In Menorca’ album (on Soul Jazz Records) as Rekid was a righteous success by critics and fans alike, breeding house beats that truly set a new precedent.
As Radio Slave, a name which originally started out as a temporary venture (tongue firmly in cheek) as he attacked remixes of more mainstream-focused and radio-friendly tracks, he started off best known for his techy remixes of some of the biggest names in pop (including Kylie Minogue, Gwen Stefani and Sir Elton John, to name but a few). Remix after remix, 12” after 12”, and Radio Slave’s teched-out sound has since managed to find its way into an incomparable globe-spanning career, creating productions and compilations that are both exploratory and accessible. His 'No Sleep' EP series - launched in 2006, and now on its 6th edition - has become one of the most sought-after and eagerly anticipated set of 12"s in the 4/4 world.
But there’s yet one more crucial, and perfectly tuned, string to Edwards' ever-expanding bow - Rekids, his hugely respected imprint shared with businessman James Masters. Kicking off in 2006 with Radio Slave’s anthemic ‘My Bleep EP’, the label has since gone from strength to strength, incorporating artists as far reaching as Luke Solomon, Toby Tobias, Spencer Parker and Mr G, among others. Rekids continually sets the blueprint for big-room grooves and hypnotic house and techno beats.
“We’ve got a number of album projects coming up from some new artists; an artist from Canada, from Montreal called James Teej, who we’ve been working with. The Jjak Hogan album is finished; we’ve been mixing and mastering that. We’ve been trying to broaden the label; with different projects, especially with the album projects. We’ve also got a girl from Russia called Nina Kraviz who’s a singer/songwriter and multi instrumentalist, she sounds like a Russian Moodymann; it’s very Detroit inspired. She’s getting a lot of props from American producers, she's just been working with Jus-Ed. We’ve got a few compilation projects that James and I have been working on, we’re doing a “best of” Radio Slave remixes compilation which, because of the fabric compilation, will be coming out in November. We’ll also be doing a Quiet Village compilation of “best of” remixes.” – Radio Slave
On fabric 48, like any Radio Slave production, the devil is in the details. Unlike a typical DJ mix that crams as much as possible into a relentlessly full tracklist, Radio Slave strips back and grooves with only 13 productions, each as incandescent and hypnotic as the next. This is no quick-fix mix, fabric 48 slow-burns each beat and sizzles with a crisp sense of timelessness. All tracks are elegantly drawn out and pulled in directions unknown, creating drama through the smallest effects and bringing back the feel of classic DJ experimentation from the heyday of Larry Levan. Designing soundscapes that breed rich, deep tones and colourful percussive builds, the mix tours tempos and glows with Cadenza’s Michel Cleis, the tech-laced grace of 2000 & One, plus exclusives and re-edits from Radio Slave’s own unstoppable Rekids imprint.
“It’s a mix of new and old tracks, something that people outside of the dance music snoberity would enjoy! I just wanted this mix to be a true reflection of my DJ sets, so I tried to capture the vibe of what I've been playing over the last year, and expose listeners to the kind of sets that I play at fabric. The club has the best sound system in the UK and this gives me the opportunity to really stretch out tracks and experiment with different sounds and atmospheres. Tracks like ‘La Mezcla’ have been in my record box for well over 6 months but it's still a track that's a great pleasure to play, plus there's two new tracks from me, an amazing track from Boola and Nergu and an unreleased song by Rekids latest signing Nina Kraviz. All in all, a modern mix of electronic sounds from around the globe!” – Radio Slave |
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 Fabric Live 47
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Fabric Live 47 - Toddla T
Published on 6th September 2009 |
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Tracklist
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Radio promo for the latest Fabric live CD, mixed by Toddla T |
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 Fabric Live 46
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Fabric Live 46 - LTJ Bukem
Published on 17th June 2009 |
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Tracklist
n/a |
In the midst of the explosion of the acid house and rave scenes in the late 80s there were no strict genres – back then pigeon-holing was a nonexistent entity - and amongst the raft of visionaries introducing breakbeats into a rave scene still dominated by 4/4 kick drums was a young Danny Williamson, aka LTJ Bukem. With beginnings as a DJ on London’s soundsystem scene, followed by the acid house days alongside the likes of Kid Batchelor and Mr C, it was a fascination with the sampler that sprung his career into pace.
“One day, I found myself in a studio with Paul Waller. That was when I saw a sampler for the first time, and over a series of months I worked out how a sampler works and how to sequence: I had found my calling. I could be a DJ, I could do my soundsystem, but I could also buy a sampler and carry on making music where I had left off with the piano. So I got my first sampler, and the first track I made was ‘Logical Progression’ in 1990. It was a whole transitional period musically, but ‘Logical Progression’ was something that – at a time when drum & bass wasn’t really there – had a big breakbeat in it, so it was kind of the start of drum & bass.” – LTJ Bukem
Whilst the likes of the Ragga Twins were fusing breakbeats with ragga samples and creating proto-jungle, Bukem’s masterpiece, firmly rooted in his jazz piano background, was melodically and musically of another planet. His early productions that followed – including ‘Demon’s Theme’, ‘Atlantis’ and ‘Music’ - which built the foundations of the nascent Good Looking empire – carved out a defined niche in the developing scene. It wasn’t long before other young beat makers rushed to get their music into Bukem’s hands, from PFM to one Rupert Parkes aka Photek (“no one had heard of Photek until I was playing out all these sets of his productions”). As the 90s moved on and drum & bass began to develop as a distinct genre, Bukem and long time friend and supporter Fabio set up Speed at the Mars Bar in London’s West End, a night that became integral to D&B’s development.
“We first started Speed on a Tuesday night and about twenty people turned up - a few producers came to hear their tracks and that was kind of all it was. I remember to a certain extent Fabs wanted to give up, and I was like, ‘It’s a perfect place for us to play our music, just give it a few more months.’ He agreed, and then I remember about three weeks later, I walked up to the Mars Bar and there was an almighty queue round the block. And from that moment on, for the next few years every week was packed, and I still don’t know to this day why or what happened to turn it around. The night had a massive effect on me and Fabio personally, because it was around that time that I started getting loads of enquiries from abroad, and it was becoming an international thing – people were flying over to come to Speed.” – LTJ Bukem
In 1996, Bukem released ‘Logical Progression’ - a compilation whose impact on the scene is considered by many to be the equal of Goldie’s ‘Timeless’ and Roni Size & Reprazent’s seminal ‘Newforms’ - bringing together some of the finest moments of the Good Looking catalogue. This has become a hallmark of Bukem’s career: the constant development the Good Looking empire, a collection of labels that transcended the drum & bass scene for the best part of a decade, sometimes at the expense of his own artistry. For running the Good Looking stable and developing their ever-talented roster was time consuming, and it substantially reduced his beloved studio time: “I had no time to sit and write music…I am at heart a music maker, and I’ve had to sacrifice my art to do some other things, things that benefitted other artists or the label.”
After clearing his release schedule and releasing his artists to pursue label plans of their own, Bukem took a well-earned sabbatical from the Good Looking operation in 2004, and over the subsequent few years experienced a personal and musical rebirth.
“I met my original mother two years ago, I was adopted at a very early age. As you grow up, as a person, you need to know who you are, and I never did actually know who I was until a couple of years ago when I met my mother for the first time, and now I feel a totally different person because of it.” – LTJ Bukem
And as he was being given a new lease of life on a personal level, he was also being reinvigorated musically by a glut of new producers: “I just suddenly became engulfed in a world of new music. This is the music that I represent, and I’ve got to support it, so about three years ago I decided to go for it and get the label going again. Now every day I get up feeling inspired, the music that comes through my computer, the new artists, their way of thinking, their work ethic, everything.” – LTJ Bukem
And it’s these artists that Bukem is representing on FABRICLIVE 46. A bold mix of new and burgeoning talent, this is a seventy minute sneak peek at the future of drum & bass. It’s a simple formula – one genius, two decks and 18 great records. This is the mix which will re-establish LTJ Bukem as one of electronic music’s maverick selectors – not afraid to shun the big tunes and, instead, stick to his principles, support the fam and remind the record buying world that Good Looking is still the relentless musical force it always was.
“With the mix I really wanted to highlight what I’m doing as a DJ. I could’ve sat there with a computer and done what a lot of people do: a computer mix, which is great fun as you can do what you can’t do live. But for me personally, I wanted it to be exactly what I do on a Friday night, strictly dubplates and records. I also wanted to represent people on the mix that I am working with on Good Looking, who I have a strong belief will have some longevity in what they are doing, and are going to be prolific artists in their own right. For me, it doesn’t matter who the artist is, it’s just about good music. That’s been my ethos since day one.” – LTJ Bukem fabr |
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 Fabric 47
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Fabric 47 - Jay Haze
Published on 17th June 2009 |
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Tracklist
n/a |
Jay Haze - fabric 47
It’s difficult to know where to begin with an artist as complex and multifaceted as Jay Haze. On one hand, his upbringing - desolate beginnings in the processing plant-infested lands of northeast Pennsylvania, surrounded by drug addiction, death, group homes and jail - is a tainted window into the complicated soul within. But on the other hand, against all odds, nothing has overshadowed his talents, and the family of like-minded artists he has shaped is testament to his unshakable spirit and unerring ability.
Jay Haze stands out as a visionary in the world of techno and house, a true nonconformist within a blinkered scene. But his work supports his revered status as an exceedingly prolific producer, DJ, live performer, collaborator and label owner. His wide-ranging labels ring true to themselves and never sway, each holding on tight to their own characteristic sound and group of artists: the house-oriented TuningSpork; the harder hitting tech-based Contexterrior and the downtempto dubby tones of Future Dub.
“TuningSpork was always the more housey one. Getting people to laugh is a form of seduction, and that’s what TuningSpork is about: being positive, funny, not taking itself too seriously. Then Contexterrior was more serious, more avant garde, more pushing the limits of sounds. I started TuningSpork with Sean O’Neal, aka Someone Else, and Bjoern Hartman, and then I started Contexterrior on my own. Future Dub was a label that exists, but never really existed. We have had 6 releases in 9 years, it was just for my love of dub reggae; if it comes, I’ll release it. I have so many different musical loves.” – Jay Haze
Jay also brought on the explosion of 2003’s Textone, his inventive creation of an online music magazine and internet label, which was created years before digital stores like Beatport or the now-prevalent online magazines/blogs had caught on. Beyond his own labels, Jay Haze’s genre-expanding, experimental productions have graced the catalogues of Playhouse, Kitty-Yo, Cocoon, Get Physical, and his remixes have been on labels far and wide, from Shitkatapult to Playhouse to BPitch Control to Soma. In 2005, he released his debut LP on Kitty-Yo, ‘Love For a Strange World,’ an album that challenged the world of techno further by questioning genre lines and embracing all that’s unconventional and unpredictable. His more dancefloor (and humour) geared moniker Fuckpony launched his career with Get Physical, the ‘Children of Love’ album being one of the most celebrated underground albums of 2006.
It’s interesting that someone whose life story has so many dark chapters still dedicates much of his music to love - wearing his heart on his record sleeves, for instance, as well as his endless dedication to charity work. “I’ve been homeless two times not by my own doing - by life situations, crazy coincidences. In those times on the street, I have seen the lowest things you could possibly imagine - paedophiles, blood suckers, I know what this world is made of. It’s these things that motivate me to do charity work. I want to help people who have it even worse than I did. When I was younger, I got so stuck on thinking my life was so bad, lost in really dark moments - but as I get older, all I can think about is helping others. I think it comes with the happiness of still being alive.” – Jay Haze
And it’s this that leads us on to fabric 47, an incomparable mix that lends itself to the world, in more ways than one. In addition to donating a piece of himself to the music world, Jay Haze will also be donating all profits made from the mix to the rest of the world, specifically “The Democratic Republic of Congo. I work with different charities, and because fabric is a UK company, I wanted to honour that and do something in the UK, so I’m working with Merlin Health Services. What they do is really positive, and 95% of every dollar you give goes out into the field, and this is provable. Right now, they’re working in Congo, a country of 75 million people that’s been in civil war for 50 years. 1200 people die every day of simple things, preventable things, and it breaks my heart.” – Jay Haze
fabric 47 is the deep, wandering heartbeat of 4/4’s most bold, valiant and versatile character; a bright, cohesive mix that is inherently Jay Haze through and through. Deeply-rooted in his free and capricious spirit, the flawlessly assembled collection of tracks thump with soul and alluring eccentricities. Grooving with an airtight flow across wide-ranging beats and styles, fabric 47 is a charismatic portrait of Jay Haze’s musical clan: the mix not only showcases the peerless artists he works with on his family of labels, as well as the many monikers that comprise Jay Haze, it’s also a glimpse into the soul-fuelled, future sound that they’ve collectively mastered. Teased throughout with samples from his Fuckpony track ‘Lady Judy’ (a song dedicated to our own fabric promoter, Judy Griffith – and a nod to the Daniel Bell classic, ‘Baby Judy’), he takes things dubbier with Alex Celler’s enchanting ‘Trapped In Dub’, trippier with the groove-laden ‘Mellow Dee’ (created with former studio partner Ricardo Villalobos in ’08), and epic with the penultimate Fuckpony track, ‘Burning’, fabric 47 is Jay Haze incarnate; deep, daring and brave. Seventy minutes in the company of this disc leaves you feeling edified and your faith in music’s brilliance renewed.
“I realized this mix was a great opportunity for me to put my people on, and it represents exactly what I stand for in this scene and my contribution. In the beginning I thought, should I put my own labels’ music on here? Is that too daft? But after some serious thinking, I really couldn’t be happier with the way it came together. I was able to get some of the core artists I work with to give me some exclusives, some yet to be released and even some edits of tracks I loved from their pasts. And I was able to combine it with a cause I believe is worth fighting for, so in a sense all the music I used brought my artists closer to me, and made them part of my experience. It’s a very personal mix” – Jay Haze |
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 Claude Von Stroke Fabric mix
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Claude Von Stroke Fabric mix - Claude Von Stroke
Published on 27th April 2009 |
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Tracklist
1) Arb Almnub Almoh-Minlogue-Mothership
2) Pit Spector-MIRI-Minibar
3) Re:Direct-Coconut Bob (Delete & Francisco Allendes Mix)-Terminal M
4) Mauro Picotto-Living For The Times- (Meganight remix)-Alchemy
5) Aka Aka-Nightingirl-Still Vor Talent
6) Brett Johnson-Rubber Duck-Frankie
7) Heinrichs & Hirtenfellner-Quantum Jump-Highgrade
8) Feygin-Budva (Slum dOp Remix)-Diynamic
9) James Braun & Dan M-Lessons-Mothership
10) John Dalageis-Asio (Harada remix)-Dieb Audio
11) Omar Chibbaro-Vistebisti-Trazable
12) Damian Marley-Jamrock (Vonstroke Sonar bootleg)-no label |
Sometimes life moves in mysterious ways. Take, for instance, Barclay Crenshaw, aka super-producer and dirtybird/mothership boss Claude VonStroke. How could he, as a rap-obsessed 16 year old dreaming of an engineering job at Metroplex (Juan Atkins’ studio) in Detroit, expect that someday he’d end up headlining gigs alongside Atkins? The same could be said about his days as a frustrated creative working in post-production houses, when he began creating an electronic music documentary by interviewing internationally-renowned DJs. He never could’ve predicted that one day, rather ironically, he’d be in the opposite chair: the world-famous DJ being interviewed.
“Around 2001, I moved in with a high school buddy of mine to Oakland, and we started going to crazy raves. I was working on my third career then, editing commercials for a post-production TV house. They had all this great equipment at the edit house, so I had this idea. [Up to that point] I had created all this original music but nothing ever happened with it, because I didn’t really know what to do after the music was done. I never really learned when I was a kid because no one was there to mentor me. So I thought to myself, ‘When I was 16 and getting into music, what would’ve been the ultimate instructional video that I could’ve watched?’ I came up with the idea for this DVD, to interview the most famous DJs in the world: asking them how they became famous, how they make music technically, how they run their label, all of that. I ended up interviewing 50 people, from Paul Van Dyk to Derrick May to Orbital, everyone. After two years, I didn’t have enough money to license the music, and I needed to have a piece of music playing under each interview. So Justin Martin, Nigel Richards (from 611 Records), this trance guy from Sweden and I made all of the music for the whole DVD by imitating the sound and style of each interviewee. That’s how I learned to make house music.” – Claude VonStroke
Cleveland-born, Detroit-raised, San Francisco-based Barclay Crenshaw has been fuelled by happy accidents and a contagious, happy-go-lucky attitude in general. He’s living proof that everything happens for a reason, even if everything might seemingly happen at the wrong time. Ask him about his novelty rap tapes as a teenager, or his time in Hollywood that ended with his song being pulled from a blockbuster movie, or his short-lived drum & bass career that ended in a disheartening electrical disaster. There were many reasons for Barclay to think that his musical fate was doomed, but it took a “surprise” production (and the meeting of a likeminded spirit, Justin Martin) to convince him otherwise.
“Justin Martin and Sammy D made the first track released on dirtybird. So just as a surprise, I did a remix of it. The response was great so then I made another surprise track, which was basically my first original house track ever, ‘Deep Throat.’ I’d been dying for my entire life to not have a real job, and to do something interesting that I enjoyed. My wife’s a little more sensible, and I’m a little dreamier, so she said: ‘I’m going to give you one year and I’m going to pay for everything - and if in that year, you can make this certain amount of money doing music, then you can do it forever. And if you don’t make it, then you have to get a job for the rest of your life.’ This was extremely motivating and that first year, everything went totally crazy, and I doubled the money, which surprised me even more than my wife, I think. I put out ‘Deep Throat,’ and followed it with ‘The Whistler’ and ‘Who’s Afraid of Detroit’ on the same record. And then somehow, it all came together and took off…that record was bananas.” – Claude VonStroke
The three records ended up being the sound of 2006, the most recognisable and demanded tracks throughout scenes far and wide – ‘The Whistler’ even made its way onto worldwide TV screens via a T-Mobile advert. His debut album, ‘Beware of The Bird,’ pushed both Claude VonStroke and dirtybird to become house-household names, tuning the world’s ear to the vibrant new movement that was bouncing out of San Fran. These days, as he remains one of the most sought-after remixers across every genre imaginable (from Bmore club to drum & bass to hipster rock to mainstream pop), works busily through a globe-trotting DJ schedule, and manages two wonderfully quirky, impressively consistent record labels that forever raise the bar, Barclay Crenshaw undoubtedly holds his own in the electronic music hall of fame.
Taking the characteristic bump of dirtybird/mothership, including the fresh sounds of Italoboyz and Voodeux, and merging it with the likes of Troy Pierce’s stripped-back precision and the melancholic grace of Stimming, fabric 46 is the eccentric, animated, wide-ranging sound of Claude VonStroke embodied. Always maintaining a sense of humour throughout, and projecting his playful personality into each transition and groove, it vividly captures the feel of his often imitated - but never replicated - bubbly bass-driven style. Tricked out and chopped up to perfection, the 22+ tracks hold on to a tangible underlying motif throughout: for lack of a better word, fun. Arranged with such artistic dexterity, fabric 46 swells and pulses with womps, stomps, climbing basslines and slippery beats; sounds collected from across the electronica map, all housed stylistically on one immaculate disc. At times the mix will make you laugh out loud; other times you’ll find yourself disarmingly spellbound; other times still, you may even close your eyes in a delicate daydream – but most of all, the point is to make you move. So, as DJ Deeon says: “Shake what your momma gave ya.”
“Everything is really tailored; the tracks aren’t really the tracks, it is all cut up, chopped and twisted. It’s challenging to do a project that has to say everything in such a small time frame because I play a lot of genres. So I worked hard on getting all the different sounds that I really dig into one mix. It wasn’t made as a dancefloor mix, but if you listen to it and you don’t tap your feet, or move in some way, then it’s just a complete failure. I wanted to create a greasy, dirty vibe but also get melancholy and funky – a little hard here, a little soft there. I picked the best music I could find and put it together in a creative way that fully represents my sound and personality.” – Claude VonStroke
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 Fabric Live 44
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Fabric Live 44 - Commix
Published on 9th February 2009 |
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Commix duo George Levings and Guy Brewer were famously raised in the historic English town of Cambridge. Of the Cambridge trinity - Nu:Tone, Logistics and Commix - it was Commix that were the last to take a firm grip on the D&B scene, yet when they did finally cement themselves it was in some style; their album ‘Call To Mind' was the sound of 2007, and it's tough to recall a drum & bass record that is quite so successful at marrying the beautifully listenable and the gloriously experimental.
It's the experimentalism of the boys' approach to production, and of their attitude towards drum & bass - and music as a whole - that is their most fascinating trait. But how did they reach this point? Whilst George's route into music had been through performance, playing saxophone, flute and piano, he developed a taste for hip hop which led him in to electronic music. Guy had gone from a broad canvas of taste that ranged from The Smiths to Dr. Dre, to receiving an education in drum & bass from a best friend's older brother.
Initially their records were very much in the vein of the likes of the more soulful, house and disco-influenced sounds of Marcus Intalex, Calibre and their ilk, but despite taking what they describe as "a long time to find our sound", find it they did. Their development was rapid, and though many people would have expected them to naturally gravitate towards the Hospital camp, it was with Goldie's legendary Metalheadz imprint that Commix found their natural habitat, a symbiotic relationship that eventually resulted in the release of their remarkable debut album, and the first ever artist album to be released on Metalheadz, ‘Call To Mind.' The album was to some extent informed by their general dissatisfaction with the drum & bass scene as a whole.
"To be honest, a lot of the drum & bass scene depresses us at the moment; the whole state of the large majority of the scene is quite depressing. In fact, we'd like to say it's almost completely removed from what we do." - Commix.
But what came out of this malaise was an album that pushed stylistic boundaries to the limit, yet was still devastating on the dancefloor.
Their maverick spirit wasn't limited to what they demonstrated on ‘Call To Mind' though: they have a follow-up in the works, a remix album entitled ‘Re-Call To Mind.' Hankering after the days when the likes of Photek and Reprazent could tackle alternative genres or attract luminaries from alternative scenes to remix their work, Commix are looking to re-energise that spirit.
"We're hoping to regain the interest of people who gave up on drum & bass a few years ago; perhaps they'll listen to someone like D-Bridge and rediscover something new about it. It's a great thing... Burial's done a remix for us... Claude Von Stroke, Carl Craig, Mathew Jonson, Konrad Black, really good people. It's a new way of giving the music some nobility." - Commix
A bold statement, one they work by, and one that could just as easily be applied to the inspired mix they have put together for us here at fabric. Informed by the likes of Doc Scott and Fabio, a Commix DJ set has always been about smooth, rolling mixes, a continual flow - rather than the high-energy, high impact histrionics many D&B DJs have fallen into. However, it is the sounds and the techniques of the house and techno scenes that seem to have had the biggest impact on Guy and George, in the DJ booth as well as the studio.
"We're really influenced by tech housey stuff, and I suppose minimal stuff as well. On the minimal side of things Troy Pierce, Mathew Jonson; on the housier side of things- Steve Bug, obviously. Steve Bug can play for hours and he doesn't really do much, but it's just so down the same line of funky techno. And we really aspire to that in drum & bass - not really narrow-minded or just one-levelled, but with a bit of experimentation in it." - Commix.
This way of thinking is demonstrated perfectly on FABRICLIVE 44; the mix ebbs and flows effortlessly, swerving unnecessary frills or gimmicks entirely, it is measured and precise. Commix have put together a selection of tracks that takes any listener - whether ardent drum & bass heads or curious techno enthusiasts with an adventurous streak - on a journey through the studios of the deepest and most innovative producers in D&B. From the enchanting keys in the opening bars of their own ‘Life We Live' to the sublime closer - a downtempo Instra:mental piece ‘Photograph' - there is beauty here, not an adjective often used to describe a drum & bass mix album, yet the music's integrity and credibility could never be questioned. This album has basslines that will warm your stereo, intricate and lovingly crafted drum beats, apocalyptic stabs and heart-wrenching vocal snippets. It's a complete mix that anyone with even a passing interest in any style of electronic music could take pleasure from. Magical and mystical. This is the sound of Commix putting nobility back into drum & bass.
"Creating a mix is almost like a jigsaw puzzle - there were a couple of tracks we knew would go at the beginning of the mix, a couple we knew would go at the end, and slightly harder tracks that would fill in the gaps. It's quite exciting because we were able to include new, key tracks that we play in our sets, but for us it was also important to showcase some older material that has really influenced us. Listening to this mix, we hear what drum & bass was when it started out - we hope to enlighten people about where it came from." - Commix.
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 Stanton Sessions 3
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Stanton Sessions 3 - Stanton Warriors
Published on 9th February 2009 |
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The Stanton Warriors and fabric records are pleased to partner for the next installment of arguably the most revered breaks compilation series in action today - STANTON SESSIONS VOLUME 3.
Breaks genre pioneers, swathed with awards including Breakspoll Number
One DJs, DJ Magazine's Number One Breaks DJs, and DJ Magazine's 50 Best Remixers Of All Time.Their last edition, ‘Stanton Sessions 2' was immediately voted Album Of The Year on Annie Nightingale's BBC Radio 1 show which, added to the salutations following their FABRICLIVE 30 mix including Timeout Compilation Of The Year and Breakspoll Compilation Of The Year, meant the collective breakbeat breath was baited for Session number three.
"Coming off the back of an absolutely mental worldwide tour schedule we thought it was the right time to drop another Stanton Sessions comp. It's going to be the 3rd installment of the series and contain all the unique tracks, edits and remixes that define our sound today. We have been playing and running our Sessions nights successfully at fabric for 8 years now, so it seems only natural to continue this partnership with the release of Stanton Sessions Volume 3." - Stanton Warriors.
Stanton Warriors have remained unrivalled in their genre for more than a decade. They have achieved international success through their own productions, numerous high profile remixes / collaborations for such luminaries as Missy Elliot, Fat Boy Slim, Basement Jaxx, Mylo, Freeform Five, and Busta Rhymes to name a few. They have also built an extended fan base, playing to huge audiences all around the globe. This long awaited third installment in their seminal "Stanton Sessions" delivers an unsurpassed mix for the electro & breakbeat aficionado alike, including some exclusive SW remixes specially crafted for this session & unreleased tracks ( Yo Majesty – Club Action - SW RMX, SW - Blaze -Baobinga and ID RMX) .
"It's a hugantic 3rd release! love it.. the champions of bouncing beats and booty basslines deliver another benchmark album. and as always lead the rest of the pack into a new phase for the scene..the wise should follow! listen... watch my head nod, can you see the look on my face…big grin, eyes shut..I'm right inside that monster bass groove. - Tom Middleton
"Put simply,one of the most exciting mixes i've heard for years" - Tony Vegas (Scratch Perverts) |
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Fabric 44
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Fabric 44 - John Tejada & Arian Leviste
Published on 12th December 2008 |
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Fabric44 features John Tejada...
Here's a mix featuring John Tejada and Arian Leviste |
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Fabric 43
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Fabric 43 - Metro Area
Published on 12th December 2008 |
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Some musical partnerships seem to require a leap of faith or a suspension of our collective disbelief; others progress come along so naturally that the synergy almost seems fated, their work resolutely undeniable. Brooklyn-based Metro Area (Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani) is of the latter group without doubt: a beautifully harmonious relationship wherein the duo push and pull in all the right directions without compromise. Although both listened to pop RnB/electro of the mid 80s growing up in quiet pockets of the East coast (Darshan in Poughkeepsie, New York and Morgan in New Jersey), they independently found themselves drawn to synthesizers and the techy side of producing long before they discovered one another. Morgan Geist: “I feel like I was designed to do studio work or electronic music; it must be in my genes or something. When I was little I used to tape myself playing something on the piano and then I’d rewind, play it back and play over it. So before I even had a sequencer, I was doing live multi-tracking when I was quite small. And I remember my dad had ‘Future Shock’ by Herbie Hancock; I remember reading the back of that record and triying to figure out what a Memory Moog and Mini Moog were. Speaking of which, weirdly enough - it’s like fate set it up for me – when I was really young, I had a babysitter who was a musician and he used to bring over synthesizer catalogues. I used to look at these Roland catalogues and, even though I didn’t know what they were, just the synth names – like, Juno and Jupiter – it was the kind of shit that a little boy could get into. I got a keyboard as soon as I could, when I was about 15.” Darshan Jesrani: “My dad had a lot of Indian music, as he’s from Bombay. He used to play Lata Mangeshkar and all the hi-fi stuff was in the living room, so I gravitated toward it by looking through all of the records. He also had an open-reel tape deck and I used to play with that a lot. One of Kiss FM’s DJs, Shep Bettibone, did special remixes of R&B hits and very early rap, and those were amazing to me, because he would stretch out and edit the songs and emphasise all the electronic, trippy sounds and textures in them. These were really dance-y and oriented towards club play; they really caught my ear and imagination. That really propelled me in the synthesizer direction, along with a lot of synth-pop stuff like Devo and Thomas Dolby. There was a confluence of things that led me into synthesizer stuff, but I didn’t actually get a synthesizer till I was about 16.” but I didn’t actually get a synthesizer till I was about 16.” As Morgan and Darshan migrated towards equally remote areas of America for college (Darshan staying in the east coast and Morgan relocating to the Midwest) and gradually coaxed releases from the closed confines of their dorms (Morgan even started his label, Environ, in his dorm room), they simultaneously lived their formative years feeling somewhat misunderstood and somewhat misplaced musically. It’s a sentiment that’s rung true from when they met each other on email lists in the days before internet forums through their early days when the two first teamed up as an avant-garde, creatively unbound production/DJ team. Darshan Jesrani: “Because we went to school in such isolated areas, we were both on these music mailing lists. It was the text email equivalent of chat boards. From the conversations we were having on the mailing lists, I really liked where Morgan was coming from. A friend of mine had one of his first records and I was really into it. I don’t think we met until right after we graduated, around ’95 or ’96. We met in the city, at a record store on 14th Street, just to get some records and chat. We tried to make some things together around 1996, first experiments. I think Morgan and I have different, but complimentary, angles that we approach the music from. Taken broadly, we’re into the same thing, but we have slightly different styles, or we’ll play slightly different records - sometimes we overlap.” Morgan Geist: “When we first met, we had similar tastes but coming from a different perspective. Like with Ron Trent or Derrick Carter, I would have something coming from the more abstract tracky Chicago side, and he was more into the house side of it. It was sort of revelatory, because we’d have almost the same artists in our collections but we didn’t know each other’s records.” With disco-infused sounds seducing unsuspecting Londoners across a wide spectrum of independent scenes, step beyond the pigeon-holed scenesters and step up to Metro Area’s brand of obscure disco, which they have promoted with no regard for hype or popularity since their very first dancefloor explorations. Both gifted producers with a knack for textures and dynamics, Metro Area embraces sweetly tuned synths and warm grooves, effortlessly unifying the synthetic and the organic and, likewise, fusing early Detroit techno and Chicago house with 70s boogie and Harlem-birthed underground disco. While their vibrant releases (from the depth of ‘Atmospherique’ on Metro Area 1 in ‘97 to the shimmering brilliance of ‘Miura’ on 2001’s Metro Area 4 to the classy disco shine of ‘07’s Metro Area 7) are deemed nothing short of classic today, it took a little while for the rest of the world to catch up. Morgan Geist: “In college, I always felt out of step with everyone – even at Oberlin in ‘95, I’d DJ Chicago Trax records, Detroit techno records and Kraftwerk, and people would fucking run off the floor. (laughs) I felt completely isolated when I was there. That’s why I’d go to Detroit and Chicago, just to get away. So I started DJing in college, and then Darshan and I started playing together. And we were playing disco, so it was also a phase of feeling out of step – for a long time, I felt like people didn’t really get it, and all of a sudden, people sort of came around. I keep hearing people say how there’s some disco renaissance now, and I don’t really understand where why people are saying that – I would say it happened in 2001, 2002, 2003. Maybe it’s just because Hercules & Love Affair is everywhere now? Or maybe it’s because I’m in New York.” Fabric 43, an artistically arranged and brightly coloured journey through Metro Area’s vast record collections, remains as reflective as it is forward-thinking. Metro Area deliver a peerless jam-packed mix of Easy Street dance classics (World Premiere’s “Share The Night”) through to 80’s club hits (“Work For Love” by Ministry), with a generous helping of disco and boogie anthems and electropop output from the likes of Premiere Class. Poppy and infectious, retro and yet timeless, Fabric 43 dazzles with uplifting dancefloor gold. Darshan Jesrani: “It’s a really mixed bag of music, but it’s all really groovy stuff. There’s some not so obvious disco, there’s some sort of really spare and weird NY house tracks - we had to figure out how to make it cohesive. We did a few of our own custom deep tracks and made some little drum tracks and little mixing utilities to throw in there as well.” Morgan Geist: “We’re trying to not put in the classic records that we’ve played forever. We wanted to explore an area that’s not mined so heavily, but still have an emphasis on the older disco stuff. So we thought we’d do a mid 80s sort of thing, which is kind of a neglected time period but there’s some really nice records from then. With fabric mix CDs, it can sometimes be so homogenous; it’s like this |
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