Ilictronix Podcast: The Drum & Bass Showcase

Drum & Bass special! Claude and Adam share some of their favorite Drum and Bass tracks and talk about Flying Lotus and Brainfeeder. Adam digs out some Paradise Garage tracks. Claude goes through his personal history with the Drum & Bass genre.

The ilictronix podcast for this week is a whole mish-mash of all sorts. Completely coincidentally, me and Adam both turn on the spotlight to a bit of a contentious genre within the electronic umbrella: Drum & Bass. I talk about my past and present listenings in the world of D&B, giving a chronological rundown and background for each of my picks, Adam tries to merge the aesthetically opposite genres of Paradise Garage and Drum & Bass bypicking one of each back to back. Along the way we talk Daft Punk's Filmography, the latest info from Flying Lotus about an upcoming album (and break off into a tangent about FlyLo as a whole, particularly his sound evolution and what's what with Brainfeeder), as well as asking what exactly makes 'Liquid' Drum & Bass?

Tracklist:
Intro:
Dom & Roland - Aliens

Claude’s picks:
Soichi Terada - Time Station
E-Z Rollers - Movin' On
Omni Trio - First Contact
Chase & Status - Take Me Away
Netsky - Let's Leave Tomorrow


Adam’s Picks
Beard In Dust & Arsenaii - Hey Hey
Lemon D - This Is LA
Caroll Williams - Have You For My Love
Tango - Understanding
MCB - Time Is Right

Outro:
Everything But The Girl - Blame (Fabio Remix)


Show Notes:
The Moving Shadow mix I was talking about, 01.1, is up on youtube in full, the use of First Contact as the intro hypes me up till this day. And the adaption with a slightly different tracklist and the Afro-Carribean MC that I mentioned being featured in GTA III as MSX FM can be found there too, despite being set in the USA, it does a fantastic job of capturing the feel of a psuedo-pirate radio station, down to the slightly naff audio quality on the MC's mic.

If anyone's really interested in hearing the (admittedly subtle) differences between the release version of Time Station and the in-game one, here's two videos for each version: The released "Originape Soundtracks" version and the in-game one (I could only find this half hour loop unfortunatley). The difference is more pronounced on other tracks from the game, for example the main synth on Crabby Beach is almost completely different. Whether that's a compression to fit on the game disc issue or Terada just re-recorded it I don't know, but interesting nonetheless. I'd love to hear the technical details about the limitations of PS1 audio if I ever get the chance.

The documentary Adam talked about, Jungle Fever, is available online here via Dazed themselves. it features Fabio who remixed the Everything But The Girl track used for the outro, and Grooverider who almost made the cut with my selections, and also has my second favourite mix of the outro track you can find here (though the nly ones I could find are a little different than on the EP: Everything But The Girl - Blame (Grooverider Jeep Mix)

Adam's Twitter bot he mentioned is @garageclassics on twitter, give 'em a follow if you liked what you heard this episode and want your daily dose of more. Twitter is also telling me that Busy P of Ed Banger Records fame follows said bot which makes sense but is still pretty interesting!
And that *should* be that for this week. As I've learned doing these, there may be one or two things I've missed or otherwise forgotten to put in the show notes. If so just stay tuned, I give the episodes a quick run through after the posts go up, and I'll edit this post with updates should I have missed any! That's it until next week, join us once again where Me and Adam will be back with more hot takes and even hotter selections. As always, stay safe and enjoy the music. We'll leave the light on for ya.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Three More Flavours

Goldie - Life And Death (2013)

Same as last time: three tunes with different takes, kicking off with this free download put out last year by Metalheadz mainstays Commix. It's been stuck at the bottom of my payer since it's originally a .wav which is why it's taken me so long to post it, still check it out 'cos it's a loveley cut of liquid drum & bass.

Metalheadz · Commix - Fallen (free download)

Moving back along the timeline we got some drum & bass from it's heyday around the turn of the millennium from legendary label Moving Shadow. I remember hearing this one on the 99p 01.1 compilation I picked up form a HMV back then and the tune is still just as good. It's a little slower, a little more menacing than your usual affair and I love it, its a vibe you don't really get with the modern drum & bass scene (or at least the modern liquid funk).



Rounding it off with another freebie from a few years back from Stenchman's partner in grime Suspect. Can't say I follow him much outside of his stuff on these compilations, but this tunes been a firm favorite for about 3 years now. Much more on the chill side of the spectrum, the bass isn't going to rattle your desk too much and those little flourishes throughout are just fantastic.

Suspect - Tranqulity

-Claude Van Foxbat

In My Box

Busy weeks ahead unfortunately, going to embrace it by returning to my old school method of posting tracks I'm digging atm. With that, here's the soundtrack to my train ride today.

Dabs Myla - Down Is The New Up

A lil' remix from Stenchman, it's from around 2010 so it sounds a little dated in comparison to his newer stuff but it sounds real nice. Stench keeps it fairly simple and I think that works in its favour, a trend he's carried on with his remixes since.

Phoenix - Lisztomania (Stenchman Remix)

A real old school addition here, I threw it in my Play Music app about a month ago and finally popped up on shuffle. Another tune I had a terrible 128kbps rip of from limewire back when that was my go-to source for tunes. Fortunately I did replace it in time, and it still sounds sweet.



And wrapping it up, some of my favourite liquid 'n light drum & bass from Commix. I've posted this one before but every time it comes up I fall in love all over again as soon as that lush intro hits.



-Claude Van Foxbat

El Hombre Oro

Goldie has been a massive influence on me in recent times. From his tunes to his art and the philosophy behind it, he's got a little something for every interest of mine. Goldie's been in the music game since 1992, and while his style's changed to fit with the times a bit more, it still has that definite gold tinge to it. Take his new tune from recently released Best Of compilation The Alchemist: The Best of Goldie 1992-2012, it's got more liquid elements to it than say the cuts from Timeless I put up a while back, especially during that intro, and even a Fever Ray-Esque pitch shift duet type thing going on with some of the vocal lines but listen carefully and you may spot some familiar breaks in there.



Midas Touch,
- Claude Van Foxbat

Drums And Bass IV: Back To The Future (Part 2)

You may have noticed that the last post kind of just finished. well that's because I looked at the pile of tracks I was gonna post and realised it wasn't gonna all fit in one. Continuing from where we left off, liquid funk is just about on the horizon.



First thing you'll notice about the tracks being produced around this time is they're a lot faster, both in terms of BPM and overall structure. Like in this track, it's only ten seconds before the first drop happens, and there's a breakdown just a little over a minute in, it's not that much shorter than the old school stuff at 5:44, but it's definitely geared more towards speed than jungle was.





Still, even with this new and speedier framework, there are still a few tracks floating around that have elements of the old school in them. This one's probably more famous for the massive Caspa remix, but the original is pretty sweet too. Reminds me just a little bit of some of Calyx's work.



Following suit is Commix, signed to Golide's Metalheadz label, they merge the old and new styles together and the result is pretty spectacular. The opening to their first LP, Call To Mind is nothing shot of amazing, mainly due to that stellar intro and the great sample work, but also because it nails everything I like about liquid funk and old school drum & bass in one track.



Back to the reason we're here, the newer stuff. Netsky used to be an electro house producer, so he fits in nicely with the melodic slant a lot of liquid funk has, and he does it really really well. There's some absolute gold on his self titled debut, but they've been posted enough already. Instead, here's one of my favourite unsung cuts from the LP



And finally, Chase & Status. They may have gone on a more mainstream approach on their second album, but More Than Alot has some of the best examples I have of liquid funk. I've already posted my all time favourites from this LP, but here's another I really enjoy. It's similar to that one BSOD track in that it narrates itself throughout, those little dashes of humour are great and don't detract from the track like you'd expect.



And there we have it, we've come full circle. We've seen new D&B, then the old, then back to new again. There probably won't be anymore of these as I've fallen out of touch with the scene again, regardless, Enjoy!

Can't Get Enough,
-Claude Van Foxbat