01st February 2018

Big Discs Little Discs 15 – Going Deep

Interviews and reviews

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Back once again, the incredible… It’s February, BFLF is back into full swing with some great parties already this year, and the new records are coming thick and fast. This week, Joe Muggs has got some spacious jazz from a currently buzzing scene, techno both deep and fearsome, drum’n’bass from a true maestro, and a full hour of ambient voyaging for you. Enjoy!

Various Artists – We Out Here

Something is happening in London: jazz is suddenly amazing. There’s so much going on, with young musicians making music for young audiences, hints of electronica, grime, jungle and all sorts seeping in, but really it being musician led at the core of it. This new album on Gilles Peterson’s label Brownswood is coordinated by saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings. I saw him at the launch of new Peckham Venue Ghost Notes just before Christmas, doing a set with drummer Giles Kwake and his Dem1ns collective, and it was pretty amazing, culminating in a jam to a packed dancefloor of full-on live techno mixed with Soul Makossa and who knows what else. The album is much more acoustic, but it still crackles with that sort of invention, plus it has the gorgeous “Abusey Junction” by Kokoroko on it, which will warm the coldest heart.

Buy it here.

Krust – The Portal / Concealing Treachery

Is it possible DJ Krust is the very best producer in all of drum’n’bass? Sometimes it certainly seems so. I worried when he all but gave up releasing, to go off and be a motivational speaker, that maybe his musical mojo had gone. But It’s very clear he’s still inspired: not only did he rock BFLF Bristol to the foundations for the Halloween party last year, but this interview shows him switched on and full of ideas, and these two new tunes for Doc Scott’s 31 label are exactly the kind of sinister hypnosis that only he has ever been able to achieve. So sci-fi, so strange, so able to suck you in to its shadowy narrative then shock you out of your reverie with odd little rhythmic tricks. It’s good to have him back.

Buy it here.

NEL – Gaussi Fighter EP

Cristian Vogel is another underground trouper who keeps on honing his craft. His recent work has tended towards digital dubby soundscapes and abstract installation art music, but here he’s gone back to his roots with an EP of Proper Techno. This is the sound of someone completely at home with their synthesisers, letting their complicated processes unfold. It’s murky and moody music for dark basements, but just like the Krust, it draws you into its world and then plays wonderful tricks with your mind.

Buy it here.

Panacea – Above the Absolute EP

Another veteran, and more dark music, but this is altogether less subtle. Mathis Mootz aka Panacea is mainly known as an industrial drum’n’bass producer but he’s got plenty of techno ties, and on this EP for New-Yorker-in-Berlin Adam X’s Sonic Groove label he absolutely bashes it out. This is all about ugly riffs and drones, if you were so inclined it could get you sweating and leaping about, but even if not it blows the cobwebs away nicely – proper brain-cleaning stuff.

Buy it here.

Joe Muggs – Ambience Chasers Mix #2

Well if I can’t spam here, where can I? I had double ambient DJ sets this week, at Spiritland with Tom Middleton on Sunday (audio should be uploaded soon), and at the Ambience Chasers session at The Social on Tuesday. The great thing about The Social is that it’s very long and narrow, and when you’re in the DJ booth at the end, it’s very easy to pretend you’re piloting a spaceship. This is a promo mix I did for it, there’s quite a lot of brand new music in this, so in fact it counts fair and square as a good entry for the recommendation station… right?

TRACKLIST:

Simon Fisher Turner – Sleepthru
Mindspan – Accept Things as They Are
worriedaboutsatan – Shift (Part 2)
Nuances – We’re Becoming Each Other
Gagarin – Gibbet
Bob Holroyd – Enough
Quiet Dawn – Human Being
Young Echo – here
Young Seth – Luiza’s Inferno / Rob Manuel – Objects for Stuff
Saul Freeman – Revocation
Molinaro – SOFAR
Xylouris White – Lullaby
Nuances – Wash the Dirt of Loneliness
Asa Chang & Junray – Hana