If your a regular reader of this blog then you'll be more than aware of our love for Glasgow's Heartbeat collective. Over the past few months the group of 13 local producers have been responsible for some of the hottest music to fill our columns & abuse our airwaves. Created by Chris Stevens aka Megamegaman earlier this year, he managed to enlist some of Glasgow's best up and coming talent to contribute some devastating dancefloor material for the first edition 'Heartbeats: First Pulse'.
With the second compilation encouraging the same artists, plus some new ones to remix each other's stuff, the result was nothing short of incredible. Whether it's the slamming techno of Rob Etherson's driving mix on Barrientos, the progressive grandeur of Peace's strictly Balearic 'Sleeper' or Mia Dora's liquid dub mix on Megamegaman's 'Tywyllfyd', this is nothing but uncompromising quality. This album alone has provided half of our own weekly Blog Burner title's this year, and the best part? It's completely and utterly free. You can download the Zip file of all these incredible tracks below and check out some of the artists while your at it.
Heartbeats: Change Your Tune (ZIP File)
Tracklisting:
1 Peace - Sleeper (Barrientos Progressive Remix)
2 Dirty Basement - Funkyass Boom Bap (B.Tone Simplified Mix)
3 Barrientos - Breathe (Rob Etherson's Suffocating Remix)
4 Megamegaman ft EL Mondo - Tywyllfyd (Mia Dora Remix)
5 Rob Etherson - Frenchy MaMal (Esq Remix)
6 Kabur - Actualise (Kid Robotik Heart Attack Remix)
7 MAUSR - Arcane Markings (Megamegaman Remix)
8 Esq - Little Shark (MAUSR Remix)
9 Mia Dora - Snatch You From The Woods (Kabur Dark Woods Remix)
10 Barrientos - Santiago (Esq Remix)
11 Kabur - Caustic (Megamegaman Redux)
12 Kid Robotik - Buckets (Dirty Basement Remix)
13 Sly & Stallone - Fame and Fortune (Ohmegasir Remix)
For a more indepth idea of Heartbeats and what Chris is trying to achieve with it we recently cornered him for a very interesting interview:
S: Ok, with the release of ‘Change Your Tune’ this week, can you firstly tell us a little about the concept behind Heartbeats as a collective? What initially inspired you to create the group and how did you go about choosing the artists involved?
MMM: There are a lot of good nights fronted by local producers and djs in glasgow, each with their own style and crowd, all fostering creativity. I thought that it would be great to gather producers from as many different scenes as possible and put something together to show what's really going on in Glasgow. I asked the producers behind regular nights like Spectra, Itch and Subfriction to get involved, as well as artists I'd played with and a few guys that I spoke to after seeing their sets and managed to get them on board.
S: The first edition of Heartbeats was released during the summer, what was the reaction to the first edition from Glasgow’s producing talent and how has ‘Change Your Tune’ built on the original formula?
MMM: The first thing that came out of it was that it opened people's ears to artists that they wouldn't normally have heard, and that meant bookings and potential new fans for all involved, but I noticed afterwards that the producers were talking more amongst themselves too and this gave me the idea to cross pollinate further and make the second volume a remix edition. I took on a couple of new artists and drew names from a hat to decide who would remix whom to keep it as fresh as possible.
S: Obviously you believe in Glasgow’s producers and their music, can you give us an overview of the scene, who you are finding particularly impressive and how close you think some of the local talent is to breaking out on a wider scale?
MMM: I believe very strongly in the talents of the artists I've already got on board and they seem to be getting bigger and bigger all the time, in the last month I've seen some great performances from Esq, Peace and Kid Robotik and guys like B.Tone and Dirty Basement have had some big releases. There's been an amazingly diverse scene this year particularly, with new nights launched almost every week, and the one off nights from the Vitamins crew have left a trail of destruction behind them, there's some great work being done there.... and then there's that guy Vianassa that can't stop winning competitions. (Thanks, cheque's in the post - Synth)
S: You had an official launch party for ‘Change Your Tune’ at IAM on last night, how did that go and how has the response to the new compilation been in general?
MMM: The launch was really good, I did a set that included tracks from the new CD and we gave out stickers, sold the first lot of physical copies and IAM residents Beta and Kappa both played great sets. Sub Club became a warm and noisy refuge from the icy, empty streets and we had a lot of fun. Change Your Tune has been very well received so far and general consensus is that it's better than the first and that takes some doing. I'm really pleased to be able to continue giving it away online and sell physical copies at the same time, I want as many people to hear it as possible and if they like it they can pick it up at an event for just a couple of pounds to help us pay for the next one.
S: Finally, can you hint at what you might have planned for the future with Heartbeats? Are there any new artists you want to introduce to the project and how do you see the collective and brand developing in 2011?
MMM: We've recently welcomed AC from Abraxas into the fold, as well as Binary Zero from Tronic, who is putting on Tronic vs Heartbeats on the 28th of January next year at the 13th note, I'm keen on continuing the vs Heartbeats theme to take some artists to nights they haven't played at before. I'm also going to launch a blog, hopefully before the new year to give the artists another outlet and develop our online identity. We're already thinking about volume three, some of the guys are keen on collaborations which could be a logical progression but I'm tempted to go for something completely different.
You can pick up physical copies on request from the Heartbeats Facebook & at selected events.
Heartbeats Facebook
Heartbeats Soundcloud
Heartbeats Blog
No comments:
Post a Comment