nervesound

music from the depths

[nervesoundmusic]

iO Sounds & Lakosa - Absense

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZePfj96b5g

Forming the straight-banger high point of their thumping Mindgames EP, this shimmering floor-filler from London collaborators iO Sounds and Lakosa is a darkly crystalline work of twitchy, body-popping glory that works as both an otherworldly mood-shifter and a plutonium club hit, combining lush-sounding, cerebral synth lines with a shuffling and fragmented garage-esque beat. Absense is a piece of future garage without the genre’s more ponderous and sentimental aspects; instead, through its contagious rhythm and sumptuous semi-human vocal melody, it creates a feeling of steely cool and nefarious-sounding modernism. Sounds of an electronic netherworld still permeate through, however - from the gurgling pad hits that flutter in and out of existence, to the squelching drops of treacle bass, to the mournful, old-school, string-section ending synthline that brings the track to an emotionally thick finale. Heavy and dramatic, this track is an instant classic, beating itself through your skull and into your sense of rhythmic appreciation with forceful aplomb and an elegantly dystopian style.

[nervesoundmusic]

Rustica - Remnant

https://soundcloud.com/rusticamusic/remnant

Rising from somewhere in the concrete depths of underground bunkers and across the winds of barren landscapes is a compelling piece of work by London-dweller Rustica - a bass-heavy, gloom-ridden and sweepingly post-apocalyptic track that has the sound of a sort of urban spirituality. Its simple 4/4 beat drives the track along at a passive-aggressive pace, helped along the way with the occasional fluterring of hi-hats and watery snare sounds that add an even more cavernous level of depth. The repeated 'drop' of a distant vocal call, that sounds like the rising of a blood-red sun, is the track's crowning glory, propelling it into a state of quasi-godlike reverence, perfectly applied and enthrallingly put together. Despite the thick, dark shroud of bass that covers the track, there's a sense of quiet about the whole thing - the many layers are numerous, but no single element takes the spotlight for too long, apart from perhaps the aforementioned vocal 'drop' and possibly the singular, crackling piano that plays as the song's funereal exit. Deformed voices linger throughout, as do the Burialesque crackling of vinyl-like distortion. The sighing, muffled synthesiser melody carries the entire piece as a kind of club dirge, rising and descending with a morbid dignity, collaborating nicely with the track's title - a 'Remnant' - that is, the sense of what is left in the wake of loss. Moody and beautiful, this is highly recommended for the lovers of the sound of dystopian echoes.

[nervesoundmusic]

REKchampa - Bartender's Theme

<a href="http://rekchampa.bandcamp.com/album/self-serve" data-mce-href="http://rekchampa.bandcamp.com/album/self-serve">Self-Serve by REKchampa</a>

http://rekchampa.bandcamp.com/track/bartenders-theme

Garage is a genre that sounds inherently restless. It's a sound that can often be described as 'busy' - with that flurry of percussion and its sort of off-kilter gallop. A hectic 2-step UKG beat is akin to the shaky trundling of a tea cart or the mechanical rattling of a speeding train. Garage often suggests motion, and in Bartender's Theme, by American producer REKchampa, this aspect of garage's fidgety drum patterns is used to throw the listener into a bustling metropolitan setting, subtly suggesting an obscure sense of urgency, while also building an almost palpable atmosphere with just a few simple but effectively combined elements. The build-up in this track is so understated that you'd be forgiven for not noticing its existence at all. There are no sudden rises or sharp drops here, but its modest nature is what gives it such a unique feel - a grounded and, for this blog, more tangibly human one. The frantic, expertly assembled drums take the foreground, with the muffled ascending-then-rapidly-descending 'melody', which sounds as if it's forming out of empty air, floating just above it, making a humble centrepiece as the only two discernable notes in the whole song. The essential addition of shopping-mall musique concréte creates the audial and synesthetic backdrop of the song - people - somewhere, everywhere; chattering, laughing, speaking naturally. The sound is both familiar yet strangely unfamiliar at the same time, and the result is a track which sounds plainly ordinary, yet disconcertingly foreign, a feeling which is spurred on by the final third's switch-up to an even more determinedly hectic pace. This track is a work of limb-twitchingly animated Garage mixed with an unexciting yet weirdly tense ambience. It's a track where nothing much happens, so to say, but a particular mood is crafted and an inhabitable world is built.

[nervesoundmusic]

Jaw Jam - Long Night

https://soundcloud.com/xlr8r/jaw-jam-long-night

Swaggering, strangely smooth, and shimmering with a high-fidelity gloss, this unsteady-sounding track is the creation of Jaw Jam, an American producer from Symbols. It's a nervous fusion of dubstep form with a minimal function, not so much exploding into action as awkwardly finding its footing in a collage of disparate and scattered 808 thumps, and although there is a constant beat hidden somewhere in the track's machinery, Jaw Jam sees no reason to keep his patterns constrained by any sort of needless repetition. The bits and pieces swell in and out of life, stumbling around, erratic but never beyond the bounds of reason, the sense of rhythm bent but never misguidedly broken. This is a track where silence is boldly applied as a sound that's effective in its own self, the elements of the track leaping in and out of the undergrowth like audial guerilla tactics, and the manic rattling of a solo tinny snare pattern jumps out at you near the end of the song, startling and self-knowingly artificial. It's a track with an oddly glamorous vibe - with the sparkling of wind chimes, and the slick sound of the sliced-up vocal melodies over the wobbling synthesisers, but it's the idiosyncratic beat and soft minimal charm that's gotten my attention, and will probably grab ahold of yours.

[nervesoundmusic]

Droict - Itsy Bitsy

https://soundcloud.com/localrecords/droict-itsy-bitsy

This track from unpronounceable and apparently Mongolian producer Droict is weird, woozy and wicked-sounding, both in the archaic biblical sense and the late-1990s sense of the word. Shuffling along through a variety of different forms on an uptempo house beat, along the way we're offered a selection of dischordant bell rings, wood thumpings, squeaking synthesisers, chirpings, warblings and chimings of all kinds, all threaded loosely together and eclectically assembled into an eccentric collection of off-kilter, yet effective, rhythms. While the same three-note repeating melody is adhered to the whole way through, this track is five minutes of mad creative switch-ups; a menagerie of strange sounds, building from dreamy and echoey slowly into a mad sonic chaos, ducking and weaving through a whole range of ideas and little additions in the process. Outlandish, weirdly hypnotising and utterly crazy in its own unique way, this is a track to dive into and travel through, bobbing your head to the beat all the while.

[nervesoundmusic]

Arapaima - Gabba Ghoul

https://soundcloud.com/origamisound/arapaima-gabba-ghoul

Glitchy, shadowy and invitingly unhinged, this is a short little creation from beloved-by-this-blog Romanian producer Arapaima. There's a lot here that's endemic to the Origami Sound 'sound', like the murmured voices, the jets of white-noise steam pressure and the demented cloud-of-knives drum patterns, but the emphasis on broken, pitch-shifting samples can be felt more strongly on this effort, and the delectable violin and piano samples that float in from the murky background solder the entire production together very nicely indeed. The twisted melody of the yawning vocals is effective at tearing through your heartstrings, and the additional flavour brought in by the classical instruments makes this a short, sweet, deliriously atmospheric track, a stargazy, melancholy piece of emotional bass-sailing that unfurls dreamily through the vestibules of your mind.

[nervesoundmusic]

Kilimanjaro - Bajkal

other link

Now here's an otherworldly club banger from Origami Sound-affiliated Danish duo Kilimanjaro. It's the sound of a rave happening within the wet recesses of a deep cave system, and it's stunningly, infectiously danceable, built upon a grooving garage rhythm that is accentuated by high-pitched, droplet-like little punches that give the hyperactive beat a beautifully resonant edge, a scene-setting naturalistic feel. Combined with the inspiringly ideal application of its main vocal sample, the result is a very special track indeed, a flawless hybrid of chilled future-music with exhilteratingly primal rhythm that excites the nervous system, and lingers forever within your head. As opposed to sounding detached from reality, as much of our beloved future garage does, Bajkal is a track where reality is augmented, where its electronic beat sounds less programmed and more tribal, where its sounds of nearby rainstorms feel less like recorded samples and more like the ambience of the world this song inhabits. This isn't as easy to pull off as you'd think. This is a track where a world unfolds before you. Listening to it is a visit to an intangible dimension, a celebration beneath a vista on the other side of the world. Straightforwardly, it's an honest hit, and immense banger, a unique and loveable classic. A highly recommended slice of pure joy.

[nervesoundmusic]

Blak Nite - Shake

Link

Echoing in from the shadowy alleyways and deserted streets of Dark Clover Records is a demented creation from British producer Blak Nite. The centre of the track is its disjointed and maddening drum loop that sounds like it's rattling down a plughole. Layered on top of this are doom-omen synths, chopped-up future garage vocal patterns, and a whirring helicopter-blade sound that moves in and out of audibility, bringing another aspect of tension to the already unhinged beat pattern. The whispered 'I love you' samples also attach a vague human connection somewhere deep within the song's hollow recesses. It's a creeping, menacing sort of track, electronically broken and formed of darkly lustrous atmospherics, bolstered by the grounded realism of its ambient sound effects and distinctly urban character. A track for fans of the more off-kilter side of emotionally resonant future garage.

[nervesoundmusic]

Huzur - Salma (feat. Arapaima)

Other link

This is a track that just drips over you, like a bathful of treacle, and it's courtesy of Romanian pair Huzur and his brother in music (and real life), Arapaima. Bulging with atmospheric hums, rippling trills of electronic stardust and thick, melty synthesiser tones, there's a lot going on in this relatively compact track, lots of finely-tuned bits and pieces here and there that only multiple listens will be able to fully absorb. There's the little hits of what sounds like pressurised steam, bouncing off of water-slick percussion; deep, low sounds fermented with high-pitched, dreamy pads and elements, little sections of distorted voice, and brief run-ins with the arpeggiator. And that's before it even reaches the breakdown, a lull of swaggeringly hefty bass marching from garage beats to a short dubstep mentality, breaking stride but never compromising its overall sound. It's a song that, with its gloriously pungent main synth riff and vocal sample, feels immediately understandable first time around, but after several inevitable repeated listens you realise that you're hearing a new section or detail every single time, and that awesome little three-minute pieces of music like this can be as rich or as deep as you make them out to be.

[nervesoundmusic]

Hmot - Kissmegoodbye

Link here

Now here's a cheery little track from Hmot, cut from his and Nocow's absolutely fantastic split album Lost in Taiga, put out by the equally fantastic Origami Sound label. It's a song that's packed with a rivetingly potent sense of unnerving dread, led by a bleeding cloud of disfigured human voices that's both emotionally traumatising and yet strangely beautiful, even infectiously catchy as its own twisted form of melody. There's an intense and undeniable gothic style to the song - a spookily phantasmagorical feel, an uncannily human quality amongst the inhumanity, an antique sensibility in its brooding cello and demented music-box crescendo, despite its complex electronic beat. It's got true haunted-house sensibilities, ghostly and harrowingly creepy, with the disturbing quality of a half-glimpsed reflection in a dark windowpane, or half-heard voice echoed in an empty hallway. It's a song that screams black chandeliers and crooked portraits, a song that in its fearsome intensity, and through the broken sample that defines it, creates a mood of such anxious horror that you can feel it touch upon deeper, obfuscated emotions of fear and sorrow simply through Hmot's crafted manipulation of its sound. It's a bloody good piece of work from a bloody good album, one that anyone with a beating heart has very little chance of being able to forget. Listen and never sleep tonight.

[nervesoundmusic]

Shigeto - Field Trip

&lt;a href="http://shigeto.bandcamp.com/album/lineage" data-mce-href="http://shigeto.bandcamp.com/album/lineage"&gt;Lineage by SHIGETO&lt;/a&gt;

Link here

If you're a fan of glockenspiels, as we here at Nervesound most certainly are, then you're in luck with this track as Detroit-based Shigeto clearly shares this love, and has brought in glockenspiel and then some - those delicate metallic vibrations that somehow manage to resonate with their own uniquely mellow joy. 'Field Trip' is an appropriate name for this song, which harks back to a bygone period of childhood nostalgia, and it's a veritable celebration of that sort of innocent, shining-sun mentality. It's a collection of chirpy melodies over an acoustic 2-step drumbeat, with a few retro bleeps and buzzes fixed in for good measure, all purveying its central feeling of sincere optimism with an infectious rhythm, accentuated especially with that descending synth melody that whistles with pure positivity. The melodies may be tenderly light, but the drums are full and thick, creating the kind of tune to stroll you down the road with a nodding head and a world empty of cares.

[nervesoundmusic]

Floex - Nel Blu (feat. Musetta)

Link here

Dreamy and soulful, this track is a creation from Czech producer, soundtracker and proud clarinetist Floex, with guest vocals (and possibly a little bit of production) supplied by Musetta, an Italian duo. It's a fantastical blend of buzzing synthesisers, glorous chiming glockenspiels and a stellar bout of singing by Musetta's Marinella Matrosimone, who lifts the track to grand, soaring heights as the melody swells to a sweeping catharsis. The vocals are terrific, but they're built upon a solid foundation of warm electronica and an expertly measured drum pattern, ornamented with little pieces of musique concréte and nuanced techniques here and there (like the distant hits from the gong) that form a marvellously cohesive whole. Soothingly chilled, but also completely enthralling.

[nervesoundmusic]

Manu Shrine - Clocks Ticking in My Head (feat. CoMa)

Link here

So here's the first track to be posted on this blog, and it's a seriously beautiful piece of work from Russian(?) producer Manu Shrine. The track is an archetypally future garage composition, complete with those elements we all adore: the vinyl crackles, the ghostly, distant voices, and the staggering beat floating along a river of resoundingly deep bass. The focal point, however, is the feature of LA-based singer CoMa, who sings the central melody with a soft and understated delicacy, and compliments the rest of the track's cave-like atmospherics so astutely that her voice almost completely dissolves into it. The allusion to ticking clocks is felt in the clacking second-hand taps of the drumbeat, and while the whole piece employs some perhaps simple ideas in its formation, ultimately it's the more modest techniques, such as the timely fluttering of synth bursts and the chaste muffling of CoMa's alluring half-whisper that pull the track together into something that sounds bewitching in its subtlety. Highly recommended for future garage fanatics and lovers of the eerily gorgeous.