Review: Belleruche – Rollerchain

Tru Thoughts’ Belleruche are now on to their fourth full-length release and they’ve made a concerted effort to shake things up a bit. We all know that they do the DIY electro-soul thing well, so it seems that they wanted to show us they can make a darker, more complex sound work too.

Luckily, they don’t disappoint.

#157 – Hint

Here’s a song called ‘Aliens Enter’ from a UK artist signed to the ever-excellent Tru Thoughts. This song features Austin-native T Fly rapping over the top of a bottom heavy, breaks influenced production that sounds grimey. Her flow is lazy and and the slow BPM makes this a track to listen to loud while driving slow. Actually, I think I want to hear this on a soundsystem at Carnival or something. It’s sick.

#114 – Gang Colours

Gang Colours is Will Ozanne, a “post-dubstep” (that genre name has nothing to do with us!) artist from Southampton who is signed to Brownswood. The music he makes is far more than just “post-dubstep” though. He infuses elements of UK Funky, Garage and the moodiness of Burial & co. to create a sound which is very recognisable as his own. His debut EP came out at the start of June and his first full-length effort should be out at the end of this month. This is something that fans of the downtempo bass scene should be listening out for. It’s got sampled vocals, glitchy, twitchy ambient noises and beats that draw from a host of garage influences. And it has plenty of warm sub bass.

To read more about check out his Brownswood artist page here. Buy his music here.

Lucky Paul – Thought We Were Alone (Gang Colours Remix)

#106 – Pumped Up Kicks

Here’s a jolly good song and three remixes to go with it. It’s from Foster The People, who’s debut album Torches came out back in May on Columbia. The song ‘Pumped Up Kids’ made quite a stir over a year ago now. Considering it’s about a bunch of kids getting violent it seems oddly relevant right now. It’s a big tune though, in it’s own stoner/trippy kind of way, largely in thanks to that amazing bassline. I miss playing the bass. I think I’ll go and play some bass…

Foster The People – Pumped Up Kicks [Buy]

And here are the remixes. The first one is fresh and we owe All Things Go thanks for putting us on to it. As for the others, I have no idea where they have come from. So let’s thank the big, bad cyberspace. Or whatever.

Music For Horses no. 9

Deadboy / Small Black

I thought as a new contributor I best enter into the spirit of the blog, so here’s my first two chilled-out selections for the bafflingly titled Music For Horses series.

My first selection takes an emotionally charged Pop song by Drake, Fireworks from his fantastic album ‘Thank Me Later’, and twists it delicately into something completely new. Deadboy’s self proclaimed slo mo house edit sees the London based (soon to be) bass heavyweight dismantle the track and extract it’s soul and emotional core. Focusing on the achingly beautiful Alicia Keys piano and adding drum clicks and the deftest touch of bass the atmosphere is delicate, sparse and eerie. Alicia Keys chipmunk’d vocals threaten to ruin the piece on first listens but after a short while you’ll fight the instinct to dismiss the effect and understand they’re pitched perfectly as they wash in and out throughout the track. Taking a lead perhaps from Burial’s production technique Deadboy takes this track to it’s inevitable emotional conclusion, without ever forcing it.

Deadboy posted the track himself on Dubstepforum.com back in June and Pitchfork have recently added it to their playlist which is, hopefully, leading up to the originally mooted limited 7″ release.

Drake ft. Alicia Keys – Fireworks (Deaboy Slo Mo House Edit)