I must congratulate each and every one of you that came on to check out my review of Skream's album, Outside the Box. It has been by far the best received post on the blog, with over a thousand hits coming in the first day. I am very proud of the review, despite it's brief nature, and it is still on the first page of Google when you search for 'Skream Outside the Box review' - I am immensely proud.
So, back to the music. I have today completed my resit exams for Uni as I have been a dunce. Despite the boring revision riddled last week, one track has held me together. I know very little about this guy, just that he was in NME about 2 months ago and I took no notice, then I caught a listen in a live set by Mount Kimbie and my jaw dropped. This track is just huge, listen to it, find it, buy it.
Today I have decided to put together a brief review of Skream's new LP, Outside the Box. Please forgive me for the rather small review, I am meant to be revising for a resit next week! I hope you agree with my opinions, but if you don't, please give your reasons in the comments box at the bottom.
The album itself comes out this Monday, the 9th August, on Tempa Recordings. It is a fantastic LP, taking in many different styles and genres on it's way. As I am trying to keep it brief, I have just given a small review of each individual track.
Perforated
Despite having no discernible beat to it, the popping synths and mountains of reverb make this an emotional introduction.
8 Bit Baby (featuring Murs)
Nice light production, but is really let down by the vocals.
“Guess who came through the front door bangin//
one leg up on the speaker nuts hangin... danglin.”
Err.. I guess it is quite fitting that the weak point of the whole album is a guest appearance.
CPU
Real grower. On first listen appears immature and underdeveloped. When given further attention, however, you see past the incessant vocals and begin to admire the ebbs and flows of the track. Some old school Nintendo sounding keys are subtly brilliant as well
Where You Should Be(featuring Sam Frank)
My personal favourite track. Great sub bass punches every 4 bars aide the tracks introduction before the vocoded voice of Sam Frank punctures the beautiful instrumental. Purple vibes run throughout, counter acted by some pretty deep vocals, the track has the emotion and epic nature to push it beyond anything else on the LP.
How Real (featuring Freckles)
Again some vocoded vocals. Not as great as the previous track, but still huge. The crashing cymbals transport the track along it's duration, with some key synths and subs joining in to herald each passing chorus. The chopped vocals on the chorus are superb as well.
Fields of Emotion
A trade mark Skream dancefloor smash. Quite simple production is used to great effect, minimal percussion that take a back step for the synths and heavy stabs of 'wobble bass.' Just wait for the final drop, the reverbed wobbles are just fantastic.
I Love The Way
The most 'commercial' track on the record, to say it reminds of Labrinth's production could be taken as a positive or negative. An un-attributed vocal, I presume a sample, is used to great effect in 'I Love the Way'. Some brooding synths and a nice breakbeat bring the track along to an epic dnb style crescendo that is well worth the wait.
Listenin’ To The Records On My Wall
We all know this track, the Amen loops and great 'Midnight Request Line' style delays. It's a great club track that would get almost any crowd going.
Wibbler
The hardest track on the record. Constant metallic 'wobbles' accompanied by hard hitting drum patterns force the track on. Subtle alterations in chord and tempo keep you guessing and keep you interested.
Metamorphosis
At 85 BPM, this is another Autonomic style production, similar to Reflections. The track begins some different and intriguing drum patterns joined by rumbling sub bass before at around 90 seconds a great swirling synth track and slight 'wobbles' slide in to create a great concoction of noise that Skream does very well to handle.
Finally(featuring La Roux)
Skream received quite heavy flak from other blogs for this track when it leaked recently, I disagree. In my opinion the vocals fit superbly with the track. Her high pitched calls fit very nicely with Skream's forboding and quite stripped production.
Reflections(featuring D:Bridge & Instra:Mental)
As with Acacia Avenue (No.3 on our Tracks of the Year so far), Skream brings in D:Bridge and Instra:Mental to help with the production. Some fantastic breakdowns and interesting drum patterns as usual from the Autonomic crew.
A Song For Lenny
Very similar to the opening track, with some nice keys and strings, again a very emotional track. Ties in with Perforated to create what I'd call the logical end of the album...
The Epic Last Song
Hearing this track I had the impression that A Song for Lenny was originally the conclusion to the record, but I guess Skream opted to end with an upbeat banger. I kept that belief as the track rattles along, appearing to go nowhere until around the 2:30 mark it breaks down and begins a build up to an epic and fitting finale to the record.
Today AbandonSilence introduces a brand new and fresh artist to you, his name is 'My Cassette Tapes.' All I know about this guy is that he is called Andrew Bowers and he is from Manchester, England. Also I know that this track is just epic! (Wait for 2 mins 30. PURE FIRE!)
Yes, indeed it is that time again, AbandonSilence has long lost hope of retaining a 'Fortnightly Mix' series. So, instead we have made a rather extended 37 minute mix with all of our favourite tunes on it. As you listen, the tracklist pops up as comments. If that's not enough, the tracklist is written below it.
It took me a long time to decide on the tracklisting for this, and I admit that there are some mistakes in here (Mixing, whole tunes being played, etc.)
But still, I hope you appreciate this mix and enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed creating it.
After the previous posts attack of the ZIP files, I have decided to take it down a few notches with a couple of nice streaming attacks, one youtube, one soundcloud.
The music today comes courtesy of the increasingly poppy Magnetic Man and a third of that group, Skream.
Despite almost universal previous belief that they would be an underground phenomenon, recent released tracks I Need Air and this track, Perfect Stranger, have revealed that they are in fact aiming for the charts.
This may sound bad, but I say to you, who else would you prefer to take dubstep to the masses than three of the 'original's?
Here is Perfect Stranger featuring great guest vocals from Katy B;
Its been an incredible 48 hours for LEGAL FREE downloaders. Firstly, Rusko released part 1 of his 'Lost Dubs' tracks. And then, just a day later, Skream dropped the third of his Freeizm series.
Rusko's Lost Dubs appear to be very rushed. No indexing on the track names, mis-matched volumes, these appear to have been pritt sticked together. Nonetheless, there are some big tracks here. A unique version of The Girl From Codeine City being the definite highlight.
Freeizm is a whopping 9 track EP, with some absolute gems from down the years. As with Rusko's compilation, there is no time for nicely indexed tracks, just an amalgamation of tunes that must have just popped into Skream's head as he went to upload. In particular Meta Lick and Pick Ya Knees Up are superb.
Today Abandon Silence has decided to be a nice guy, were giving out love to our friends. These mixes come from Adam Armitage and David Clinton; two friends of Abandon Silence with very different musical styles.
Firstly we have Adam Armitage's mix which is a fantastic collection of tracks from post dubstep artists like Deadboy, Sbtrkt and Martyn. For the time being a tracklisting is unavailable, but we will repost with it once we have found one! This mix is just brilliant and has been taking prime position in the communal Fiesta's soundsystem.
David Clinton is in fact a former flatmate of Abandon Silence, and he DJ'd at AbandonSilence01 under the moniker of DJ Grandav. This mix is in a more up tempo style, featuring DJ Madskillz, Emanuel Kosh and Mendo.
1. Emanuel Kosh - Make My Music (Original Mix) 2. Discodonk - Borino Oro (Original Mix) 3. Christian Alvarez feat. JoLeon Davenue - Hands In The Air (The Good Guys Remix) 4. Filthy Rich - Deeper (Original Club Mix) 5. Florian Kruse and Nils Nurnberg - Lovers N Fighters (DJ Madskillz Remix) 6. Noir & Westboy - She S Got My Heart (Original Mix) 7. Loko - Disco Hamster (Original mix) 8. Fatboy Slim - Weapon of Choice 2010 feat. Lazy Rich (Original Mix) 9. Mendo - Morena (Original Mix) 10. Phonat - Set Me Free (Matt Nugent Remix)
We are proud to announce the details of AbandonSilence02!
On Thursday September 23rd, AbandonSilence will be heading across Liverpool to a new venue, The Shipping Forecast, to take over their downstairs clubroom. With only a 120 capacity, we recommend arriving as early as possible!
Our headliner will be the hottest property in electronic music, and recent winner of 'Best New Artist' and 'Best Track' of 2010 in the AbandonSilence poll, James Blake!
Joined by Manchester badaman KillaHurtz, local legend Rich Furness and historically heroic Horza, this is set to be an amazing evening!
After our previous' post's much maligned obscene outburst as to the awesome nature of Magnetic Man's movements to mass mainstream magnificence, I thought I'd just let you know that better is out there for the population. These comparisons are made solely on what you would call 'mainstream dubstep', i.e that that is produced with the aim of getting into the charts, getting onto people's ringtones, getting played in normal clubs, yes it really does sound shit doesn't it.
However,this tune is pretty good, and after 'I Need Air' is another that should go big, I'm talking top 20. After Rusko's Hold On became a somewhat odd clarrion call for the return of UKG, Benga's new track 'On A Mission' featuring Katy B just takes that idea and runs with it. After first hearing it on Caspa's FWD live set a month or so ago, it has resurfaced through this fantastic video seemingly filmed at Matter. See how many cameos you can spot; we have found Skream, Dread MC, FlowDan, Geeneus and Sbtrkt so far, let us know if you get anymore. Only time will tell as to how big this tune gets. Anywho, for now, here you go....
As we reach the end of June, AbandonSilence has decided to take a celebratory look back at the previous six months of 2010. It seems an age ago, back in January, when I decided to create this music blog. It has slowly grown and now is well established, for that I thank all of you readers. The lists below are my own personal opinion, so I apologise for any problems that you may have with these lists. If you disagree, plleeeease feel free to vent your own opinions with a comment, I promise to reply to each and every one. Thanks again, AbandonSilence.
Top 3 Albums
1)Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma == no competition, a masterpiece in cross genre production
2) Foals - Total Life Forever == the best indie record of the year, moving away from the 'Math Rock' of Antidotes has seen Foals mature into a terrific band
3) Gorillaz - Plastic Beach == just the complete record, Bobby Womack's two guest spots take this away from the crowd
Top 3 Tracks (right click on link, open new tab for Download - no CMYK dload available sorry)
1) James Blake - CMYK == recent addition, but just one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard
2) Deadboy - If U Want Me == heard this live so many times since it's release earlier this year, the droning sound at first appears irritating but in fact is genius, guiding the track along it's awesome duration
AbandonSilence was recently given the honour of interviewing the US Bassmaster himself, Starkey, just before he took to the stage at The Magnet in Liverpool.For the purpose of the interview, AS denotes the questions and S denotes Starkey’s responses.
AbandonSilence would like to offer our gratitude to Ben Vale and Ben Thapa who made it possible for us to meet the man himself - and again for Ben as he contributed the picture of Starkey (left) and my ugly mug (on the right) above. Here goes...
AS: As you were growing up and beginning to produce, from where did you find musical influences?
S: Everything you hear influences you; doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad. What got me into music back in general in the day were the Beatles and Michael Jackson. After that, once I started building my own ideas of what music is, I really got into hardcore punk rock and then jazz and classical. After that was all about Bjork and the Trip Hop stuff, Tricky and that plus Mogwai and epic post rock. All of that came to form what I do now.
AS: At what point did you realise that you could begin to make music for a living and not just a hobby?
S: Erm, I knew I wanted to get into production at about 14 or 15. I knew I had to stop kidding myself that I’d make it to the NBA. That’s when I focused on music. I’d always been interested in music, but I got into writing electronic stuff when I was about 20 or 21, that’s when I started to get into it a bit more. It’s been 8 or 9 years now that I’ve been confident about what I do.
AS: When did you discover dubstep? Coming from the US it must have been hard work to find a foothold in the genre?
S: Pretty early on man, pretty early on. I was living in London in 2001, I heard all that garage stuff; So Solid Crew and The Streets had just come out. I moved back to that states and kept in touch with what was going on. Through the pirate radio stations like Rinse I got into grime and I really got into that. Through grime I got into dubstep. I wasn’t as much a big fan of the early 2steppy stuff, but I have grown to appreciate it now. My first love in dubstep was Loefah’s darker style and Vex’d’s Hip Hop influenced stuff.
AS: On your new LP, Ear Drums and Black Holes, you cover Rave, Dubstep, Chilled and many other genres, do you find it easy switchingbetween genres?
S: That’s kind of what I do, I don’t even think about it, whatever happens, happens. I don’t try to please anyone except myself. If a track feels like it’ll get chilled, it gets chilled. If it feels like it’ll be 4/4, it’ll be 4/4. If I wana sing, I sing. I don’t mind switching styles; I have music ADD so I can get bored pretty easily.
AS: In the UK and more so the US, dubstep is really blowing up, even Britney Spears is working with Rusko, what are your thoughts on the growth of the genre and it’s move into the mainstream?
S: I’m all about it. If people are doing what they’re doing and are happy with what they’re doing, then great. I listen to a lot of mainstream R’n’B and Hip Hop. I think the word ‘dubstep’ is the problem. There are so many factions, the sound is splintering. Everything moves faster because of the internet. You split everything into these subgenres. That’s the problem, there’s really not much that holds the sound of ‘dubstep’ together. Just coz songs are round the same BPM doesn’t mean it’s the same style. That word and what people reference it is a problem. If someone hears a Rusko track for the first time and are told that that’s dubstep, then if someone hears one of my tunes they’ll never think that’s dubstep as well.
Thursday night was a huge over riding success. Sets from Mele, Sbtrkt (pictured above) and The Others blew the crowd away, with some fantastic supporting slots from local DJs Rich Furness, Horza, Deuce, Kidheader and Grandav.
Thanks to everyone who came along. Those that didn't, you really missed out! Though planning is being set afoot for AbandonSilence02 in the Autumn, so you can all make up for missing Thursday by coming then.
Particular thanks go to Ben Thapa for the excellent photography
While having a cheeky peruse of Pitchfork, I came across an article describing a new sound that is mutating worldwide titled 'Drag'. After downloading the tracks that came with it, I have fallen in love! I cannot deny its similarities with dubstep, but it appears to just be an amalgamation of dubstep and deep house, which I am in love with also. So, I compiled a mix to commemorate the discovery of this genre, and it will be the next long awaited 'Fortnightly Mix' (not so fortnightly I have to admit, apologies)
Have a listen, and if you like what you hear let me know, I'd like to find out what other people think of this style of music...
