It's human nature really, competitive spirit, the desire to be the best there is at anything and everything. Subcity have pulled together some of the station's finest DJ's and shows for a royal aural jousting tonight where we will finally establish who really is 'DA BEST?'
Subcity is perhaps the UK's finest student radio station, known city-wide for throwing some of the best damn parties Glasgow has ever seen over the past 16 years. From capacity crowds at The Arches to compact sweat-fests at the now sadly defunct Research Club, Subcity has the best soundsystem, finest local talent & the most imaginative promoters going. We at Synth never get more excited for a night then when Subcity decide to get jiggy with it.
And being the first party of 2011, you know tonight is going to be something special. Taking hold of the increasingly popular Stereo basement down Renfield Lane and ramming it with Cheesy & Zambo's legendary soundsystem you can expect to hear everything from skank-fresh Dubstep to driving Techno & jacking UK Funky.
The line up looks a little something like this and to be quite honest it has our knickers in a full blown Axle Hitch (that's a real knot - look it up):
For a sample of some of the testosterone charged postering that will be going down tonight check out a pre-fight warm up with all the DJ's involved in this special 'Subcity Presents'...episode:
Further to having some of Glasgow best DJ's going toe to toe for our sweaty gratification local beef cake Joe Crogan & friends will hosting the party with their Hunks Hunks Hunks entourage. Expect rippled man-pecks and some harsh but fair scrutiny of the disc-jockeying super gladiators.
I have to say, choosing this week's Local Hero was exceptionally difficult, we had three incredibly strong contenders last night on our Subcity Radio show but it was a track from Daniel Donnelly's latest EP that pipped it. If you want to listen to the show again you can do so HERE. I often wonder if we're one of the only blogs in the world that has a radio show as well...
LOCAL HERO:
So we first played Daniel last year when his progressive sounds induced some serious hands-in-the-air moments at Synth HQ. Unsurprisingly his tracks have been gaining some very positive attention and he now has a new EP scheduled for release at the start of February. Title track 'Playing Serious' is a techy roller which sweeps you into a climax of unnerving tension while our personal favourite 'Ljus' builds with a subtle confidence that lifts it high off the ground. Quality Stuff.
Pick up the Playing Serious EP 8th of Feb on Muchiq Records
Daniel Donnelly - Playing Serious
Daniel Donnelly - Ljus
Next up, a new Synth favourite by the name of Raksha has produced something truly inspiring with a new dub fixture called 'Feelings'. Using a rather clever vocal sample of Junior Jack's 'My Feeling' and perfectly melting it into a Burial-esque urban soundscape, he's managed to create a sound which is utterly mesmerising from start to finish. The perfect soundtrack to a rush-hour with no where to be.
Raksha - Feelings
Hahaha is quickly becoming one of Glasgow's most inventive producers, and with Raksha teaming up with him for this gorgeous slice of nostalgic House, we can see this partnership seriously going places. With vocals reminiscent of late 90's Garage and some seriously slick synths to accompany them, this is the product of two forward-thinking producers with a passion for the past and a vision for the future.
Finally, Kid Robotik has released a free re-rub of 2011's most hyped talent, James Blake in support of the launch of Subfriction, Glasgow's hottest new dub night. Beginning with Blake's feathery vocals wrapped in cosmic synths, the track soon develops into a liquid soundscape, nailed down by a trademark Robotik bassline which hypnotises from the drop.
James Blake - I Never Learnt To Share (Kid Robotik Re-Rub) (Free Download)
Do you remember the first time you heard 'CMYK'? How utterly fresh and original it sounded? How it had a feeling of commercial readiness but felt equally comfortable in a sweaty basement through a stack of subs? James Blake is special, his sound is one that can float effortlessly between the corporate sheen of Rhianna & Willow, yet provide the soundtrack to a comedown from Rinse.
Last night, Zane Lowe debuted his new single and following on from the great success of 'Limit To Your Love', it didn't disappointed. With a delicate purity and an angelic grace which washes over you like a downpour in the desert, 'Wilhelm Scream' sucks you in from the very first note, refusing to let go until the each second of it's four minute length has struck deep within the soul. Quite how the BBC saw it fit to make a posturing would-be American rapper the Sound Of 2011 is beyond me. Here we have an artist who is on the very edge of contemporary music, melting the foundation of Dubstep with digital Soul and taking it to inspired new levels.
James Blake's self titled debut album is released on February 7th. Check out 'Wilhelm Scream' below:
Sometimes you just know when your going to have a good week, granted it's only Tuesday and I could get find myself being set upon by a gaggle of homicidal loonies tomorrow but when you start the week with not only the return of Zed Bias but also the hottest slice of feel-good House since 2009's 'Rushing To Paradise' you can't help but get excited. Add to that the impending Subcity 'Who Da Best?' party on Friday and we're practically verging on Mardigras at Synth.
BLOG BURNER #1:
So this week's first Blog Burner comes from Brighton duo Maxxi Soundsystem. As soon as I heard the opening synths and glowing vocals of this seven minute ode to summer sun I knew it was something special. Although an edit of Alexander O Neal's 80's classic of the same name, what the boys have done with it goes beyond measure. A throbbing Paradise Garage bassline, those irresistible House keys and that immediate sense of uncompromising quality. This will go right through to Ibiza....
Maxxi Soundsystem - Criticize
BLOG BURNER #2:
Zed Bias could perhaps be regarded as one of, if not the Godfather of modern UK Bass music, his seminal Garage classic, 'Neighbourhood' is still utterly essential and even now in 2011 he's churning out fire like we're heading into the next Ice Age. 'Salsa Funk' is an exclusive cut from his forthcoming album 'Biasonic Hot Sauce' due out in June and it's certainly got our attention. Pick it up for free on Annie Mac's blog (link below) and prepare yourself for that bassline.
You may not like this, but Example is already eyeing up his return to the charts after releasing his pop-riddled second album 'Won't Go Quietly' last summer. Thankfully (or unfortunately for the purists), he's enlisted Skream to produce the new single 'Shot Yourself In The Foot Again'. With a surprisingly hard bassline cushioned by Example's bouncy vocals this will undoubtedly fuel Dubstep's current domination of the top 40.
Example & Skream - Shot Yourself In The Foot Again
Finally, one of our favourite UK producer's, Foamo, has come good with a dancefloor-battering remix of the new Breakage single 'Fighting Fire'. Taking the quite strangely progressive bassline of the original and disfiguring it into a mutated monster which has just seen itself in the mirror for the first time, this twisted beast comes on like 'Centavo's' evil twin. Nasty.
Breakage ft/ Jess Mill - Fighting Fire (Foamo Remix)
Who: Chris Williams & Hamish Louttit Sounds: Grinding Electro, Wonking Techno & Liquid Dubstep
With little over two years production experience behind them, Chris Williams & Hamish Louttit aka Dirty Basement have wasted no time in getting things together. With releases on R&S, Crux & Atomic Zoo, regular DJ slots, plus two exceptional singles forthcoming in 2011, the duo are making confident strides to becoming one of Glasgow's finest electronic exports.
With the humble beginnings of a high school band and perhaps too many hours spent in the music department it was that most legendary of Glasgow institution's, Optimo, which digitised their hungry souls. Inspired by the pounding bass of the Sub Club & that special atmosphere only Twitch & Wilkes could generate, the inaugural Technic 1210's followed, later leading to numerous DJ gigs and a live set up which included Hamish on drums. Dirty Basement was born.
Two & a half years later and the duo are regular fixtures on the Glasgow scene, admired for not only their exceptional skills behind the decks but also in the studio. With a sound which is as filthy as their name suggests, they craft everything from razor sharp Electro to pulsating Techno, jump up Disco House to heart-aching Dubstep, choosing to explore new sounds as apposed to staying within their comfort zone.
With gigs at both the Sub Club & a debut for Subcity Radio at Stereo this week alone, plus their first live set of 2011 at the launch of Dirt Box next week, we caught up with the boys to get the story so far and what the New Year holds for them:
S: So it appears Dirty Basement is really taking off at the moment, with numerous bookings and some incredible productions stealing our airtime. What initially inspired you to get into production and how did Dirty Basement as a production duo come about?
DB: When we left high school we were both already very into music, we had both spent a lot of time in the music department and covered some songs as a band with Chris on guitar, Hamish on drums & other friends singing, playing bass & 2nd guitar. We both were very into band music rather than electronic music. It wasn’t till we turned 18 and started going to Optimo regularly that we really got into dance music and purchased a set of Technics 1210’s. We started off as a DJing/Drumming duo, Hamish would set up his drum kit and play live drums over some records then take a break from drumming every now & then and put on some records. We were dubbed “Dirty Basement” by Stevie West when he gave us our 1st gig at The Brunswick Hotel. We needed a name & as our tunes were dirty but there were also some classic records in there you’d probably find in your parent’s basement he suggested “Dirty Basement” & we went with it. We didn’t move into production till about 2 & a half years ago, it just seemed to be a natural progression given our musical background, I guess it was inevitable as we had talked about doing so since we learnt to mix.
S: With so many people involved in production now it’s obviously quite important to develop your own sound and stand out from the crowd. What do you think defines a Dirty Basement production? You obviously dabble with different styles; do you think it’s important to branch out in numerous directions?
DB: As a duo our DJ sets have always been eclectic & electro (Eclectro) so we like to be the same in our productions. We like all sorts of music, and have found we enjoy making all sorts of music also. What defines a Dirty Basement track is a hard one seen as we do make various genres but we like good melodies, big bass, swinging hihats & a bit of fun.
S: One of your most recent tracks ‘So Cruel’ features Baby Taylor on vocals and is getting a lot of attention on Soundcloud. There is also a dubstep version of the track, can you talk us through some of the processes you went through to arrive at the finished article? What software you used etc?
So Cruel was an exciting track to work on. We had a few rough drafts worked out that we thought would be good to try a female vocalist on, as we had never tried working with one before. As it turns out Chris’ little sister had a friend who is an up and coming acoustic singer/songwriter. Chris suggested to his sister about writing a song together and Baby Taylor got in contact. A few draft songs were sent to her to write to and she got to work. A while later she came round and let us hear what she had got so far, we recorded some parts and discussed some ideas. After this session we let her hear our most recent draft and she instantly got excited about it and took it away with her. The next time we met up to do some recording she had switched to working on the new track and written the whole thing. Soon as we heard what she had written we instantly thought this would also make a cracking ‘pop-step’ tune, so we set to work on creating a dubstep version also. Dubstep was something we’d play around with in breakdowns in some of our tracks/remixes but we thought we'd go for it and give making a full dupstep track a try. We finished off the dubstep mix before coming back to finish off the original version and re-recorded some small sections of the vocal parts.
For the bulk of our production we use Logic Pro & its library of plug-ins/FXs but Ableton also gets used to warp samples and has even been used to make entire tunes on occasions. We are proud owners of a few synths now too; Virus TI Snow (‘Frosty The Snow Bitch’), Korg R3 (‘Ronnie Korgbit’) & a Roland Juno 106 (‘Juno’). For recording vocals we have found the cupboard in Chris’ hallway makes a cracking vocal room.
S: Over the next month you will be appearing at IAM, Subcity’s 'Who Da Best?’ and the Dirt Box launch party with a live set. How does the live session differ from your DJ set’s and what should we expect from Dirty Basement live?
DB: The live set is a selection of our originals & remixes performed live as an electronic band. Hamish bangs out beats on his V-drums while Chris makes the rest of the noise in Ableton and mixes it down on a 4 channel mixer & midi-controller. The live set is quite interesting as we have all our tunes broken down into their key elements, this means we can mix parts from different tracks in different ways; vocals & drums from one tune with perhaps the synth and bass from another etc. It takes a lot of work to prepare for a live set, we have regular rehearsals in the lead up to doing one. The live sets are pretty energetic so you can expect a lot of energy, a lot of bass & a pretty sweaty Hamish by the end of it.
S: You recently joined Subcity Radio with a new show called ‘Roll & Square’, how have you found adjusting to the airwaves and for people that are yet to hear the show, what should they expect?
DB: We do the show with our friend Peter Collins, we DJ regularly with Peter at a certain underground after party, our show is a similar music ethos to that. A good mix of House, Electro, Techno, Breaks, Rave, Italo, pretty much anything. Don’t expect much chat though, you don’t wanna hear us talk rubbish anyway. We try to keep the music constant as we only have an hour but we will still try to bring you updates on upcoming gigs and competitions. We also are lucky enough to be on some promo lists so we bring you some exclusive tracks & of course new Dirty Basement material.
S: Finally, as we’re only one month into 2011 what have you got planned for the rest of the year? Any exclusive news you can share with us?
You can expect more originals this year & probably less remixes, we also have a few tracks & remixes we wrote last year that should be due for release on various labels, 'Talent By Association' and 'So Cruel' being the main two to keep an eye out for (release dates still TBC). We have already started on more tracks with Baby Taylor, a track for the next Heartbeats Compilation and a remix for a German label. We’re also considering a side project, we’d like to form an Italo/Electro band with some friends but we’re still in the process of figuring out how we’re gonna go about it, but it’ll probably included Hamish on drums/vocals, a heap of synths & someone on bass!
Based in Glasgow, Synth is a hub for one of Britain’s most thriving clubbing communities. We pride ourselves on getting in on the ground level, whether it’s reporting on an incredible party in an abandoned warehouse, putting the spotlight on an up and coming local producer or bringing you interviews with some of the key players on the scene, Synth is your guide to one of the best party city's in Europe.
Glasgow producers, promoters and DJ's: We want to hear from you! If you've got a hot new track that needs to be heard, a brand new mix which you think should be featured or a big club night coming up that you want listed or reviewed hit us up on info@synthglasgow.com and we will get back to you. We're also currently looking for writers to contribute to the Synth blog. We have a lot of guest list opportunities for exciting new clubs and established nights. We need people to go and review them, so if your interested please get in touch on the above email address. All audio featured on this blog is for promotional purposes only, if you want a song removed please contact us on the above email address and we will remove it immediatly.
