P048: Cabeza de Vaca – Drum n bass

Our inspiration for the program has always been to cross uneven terrain and uncharted lands and part of a shamanistic approach is also to read the signs in the surroundings and that is pretty much all the inspiration needed to have our first ever drum n bass show this week on Cabeza de Vaca and Scanner FM.

So what were the signs?

Firstly I listened to Felix K’s “Flowers of Destruction” album on Hidden Hawaii, one of those chance discs you pick up in a store or from following recommendation links on the net. Was an instant hit for its creepy Monolake-esque beat style and production which lead me on to Hidden Hawaii which is a treasure trove, but one that’s hard to dig up since if you don’t have the vinyl in your hand you have no chance. The original plan was to do a special on them, but one thing lead to another…

Drum n bass is not the only genre Felix K is into, clearly, though his formative years in drum n bass clearly give him a special sound. A focus on Dystopian (sic) elements also helps to keep things in tune with current trends. This is not a criticism of Hospital Records at all, but you certainly feel and hear a big difference between the two sounds. There is plenty of discussion over at Tea and Techno for what Felix is into at the moment and how his album has come about as well as a mix.

There is also another one here from the ubiquitous Boiler Room:

Speaking of Hospital Records, they mysteriously signed me up to their mailing list recently which is weird since there was no post even here on DnB for some time. They have been doing a lot of their big Hospitality shows of course. After listening to a lot of their newer stuff it was pretty easy to settle on the duo Nu:logic from whom I short listed quite a few tracks, but sadly couldn’t play them all.

Another sign was the recent Exit Records compilation “dBridge presents Mosaic Vol. 2”

 which was even better than the first one. It is a shame that there was only time for on track, even though dBridge turns up twice, once again with Instra:mental and not CMX to close the show.

Speaking of dBridge, he has also been branching out into techno as well under the name Velvit, though with mixed critical acclaim (the most recent scored a paltry 2.5 over at Resident Advisor)

Other signs out there include the recent Demdike Stare track “Primitive equations” from “Testpressing #002” which I nearly used to start the show, but in the end I considered it wasn’t “proper” enough. Andy Stott has had a few sneaky runs at drum n bass as well, among other artists.

And last Friday after I had committed, but before I had recorded (also a recurring theme these days), Resident Advisor decided to interview LTJ Bukem for the RA Exchange series. A masterful speaker and excellent musician. Have many good memories of seeing him play with MC Conrad live many years ago.

Number	Artist	Track	Label	Year
1	Unknown	hh.q.ii.qq.bb.qqq.h.r.iii.rr.g.rrr.ddd.s.ii.ss.aaa	Hidden Hawaii Solaris Series 3	2011
2	CMX feat. dBridge	Tesserae	Exit Records	2013
3	Emperor feat. Georgia Yates	Begin	Critical Recordings	2013
4	Nu:Logic	Brown shoes	Hospital Records	2013
5	Lenzman	Empty promise	Metalheadz	2013
6	Machine Code	Dischord	Subsistenz	2013
7	Genotype	Jam that feel	Samurai Red Seal	2013
8	Felix K	Flowers of destruction #6	Hidden Hawaii Ltd	2013
9	Instra:mental & dBridge	White snares	Nonplus Records	2013

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