Drum & Bass
Future Visions is built on a very precise format decision: Ikon-B signs every piece, and Format Music dnb credits them all as drum & bass. That authorial unity makes differences in duration, key and tempo the centre of the reading. The first...
The structure of Inglorious Mustards 2 is concentrated within a very narrow speed band. Mustard Music LTD brings together Drum & Bass titles which, apart from three departures, sit between 86 and 88 BPM. Sticky by Yatuza and Drumslave opens at...
Modern Soul XI draws a sharply defined frame for Vandal Limited: most of the repertoire is credited as drum & bass and stays between 86 and 88 BPM. Dunk opens with “Brazil Riddim,” 4:27 in F major at 88 BPM; Broma follows with “Minorities,”...
Eight of the ten cuts on 'Lizplay Compilation A' sit between 86 and 87 BPM — exactly half of the 172-174 you'd hear on a dancefloor — and that uniformity is the first clue to how the record is built: not a rollercoaster, but a plateau...
The closing track on 'from memory' is called 'maybe (intro)': 47 seconds of ambient that end the record exactly where anyone else would have started it. That structural joke sums up the debut album from Aydn, a Bristol producer:...
Of the eighteen cuts on the first volume of Cohesive Music's 'Cohesive Sounds' series, four tell most of the story. The heaviest name lands late in the running order: 'Mudskipper', a collaboration between Philth and Dunk....
Three tracks in G-flat minor —'Chaya', 'Options' and 'Amara Can'— hand this compilation something you rarely get for free: harmonic routes already mapped out. For anyone mixing in key, Resurrection LP reads like a booth...
Neither Deekline nor Ed Solo appear anywhere on 'Selecta', and that absence is precisely the point. Jungle Cakes — the London label Deekline launched in 2009, its reputation cemented by the 'Welcome To The Jungle' compilations...
Two of the nine cuts on 'Metal Box' carry the same triple signature: Flipz MC, Invadhertz and Qua Rush. That is the backbone of this Delta9 Recordings compilation, and the connection is no accident. Invadhertz came out of Italy — with...
'Resonate (Gravity Holds Me)' opens in B major, and its parenthetical reads like a mission statement for the whole record: euphoria, yes, but with gravity pulling downward. Jessica Joy kicks off a parade of ten artists across ten cuts, and...
A title track at 161 BPM and an acoustic R&B version living on the same record: 'Don't Do Me That Baby' is best explained by its extremes, not its average. Midst signs all ten cuts for Sweep Da Scene Records, a Canadian label run...
Twelve tracks, one signature: Jhauk carries this debut album alone, with no remixes and no guests, and that gamble says as much about the artist as about the label backing him. The imprint describes it as a record sitting at an intriguing...
No DJ would program a set like this: 130, 115, 132, 106, 128, 143, 124, 88. The tempo curve of 'VICTOR' doesn't draw a ramp, it draws an EKG — and that's the statement of intent. This is Victor Ruiz's debut album, released...
'Music For Haunted Souls' opens at 107 BPM, a strangely restrained tempo for a record called Electron Rave: Vasylchenko Psy spends almost nine minutes laying the groundwork before the compilation bares its teeth. It doesn't take long:...
The most violent jump lands at track five: 'Feel This Way' drops the pulse to 75 BPM and, right after, 'An Outcast Of The Islands' fires it up to 160. Everything in 'On The Jazz Corner' moves between those two extremes,...