Breaks

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“El Dorado” took about a year to get right. This started as a simple question: what would psytrance sound like with some Latin percussion thrown in? Turns out, the answer required a lot more studio time than I expected.

The Latin influences aren’t just seasoning here - they change the entire structure. Instead of the usual psytrance build-and-release, you get these interlocking rhythmic patterns that pull in different directions. High-energy, but with more complexity than your typical festival fare.

The “Breaks” remix strips out some of the trance and finds the funk that was hiding underneath. Same source material, completely different perspective - less cosmic, more groove-focused. That bassline is on a mission!

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Originally released 10 years ago, “Typhoon” was essentially a standalone release. This was always a favorite because of the “fast but slow” nature of this track - a breakbeat track with some complexity and a lot of patience.

I always saw this as an “imperfect” track, largely due to the unique soundset from the Kaossilator Pro. The loops were recorded live and then sequenced in Ableton. This created an interesting constraint - there’s an implicit imprecision in the recording process that took several takes to get right.

Like many of my other favorites, the constraints give the track a lot of life, and imperfections are what makes it memorable. “Typhoon” is a track well-deserving of this re-release, just in time for hurricane season.

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Evening / Things You’ll Need to Know revisits in extended single form, two of my favorite tracks from Existential Funk. Within this release are some new remixes along some older ones; undoubtedly the stars of the show are the “Modern” mix of “Evening” and the so-called “Deeper” mix of “Things”.

To highlight these two remixes in particular:

• “Evening (Modern mix)” is a note-for-note re-creation of the original, but brings the unrestrained style to something a little more precise and distinguished. This is sort of a more foggy take on nu-breaks compared to the ravey original.
• “Things You’ll Need to Know (Deeper mix)” is titled so because it has a drastically different soundset than the original, and a little more “depth” in this version of the drum and bass track. Like “Evening’s” new take, it is a nearly identical arrangement (with a little different take on the intro) but has a BIG new bassline at the breakdown. The original didn’t skimp on this, and this is a fresh take in a different direction.

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The original “Dawn of the Dread” came out in 2015, but was re-released in this single in 2021.

I wanted to have the remix in time for a Halloween 2020 release (which would have put it at about 5 years to the day after the original), but it just didn’t happen. After getting a little more time to bake, the remix gave this slow-roller breakbeat track some “oomph” with a proper drum & bass remix.

I had always thought this would be a good translation. Like Mirror-world, the remix sources many samples from the original work, while turning those elements into something slightly different.

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Deep, moody dubstep. This is a dramatic piece which goes a lot of different directions, but ultimately is driven by the heavy bassline.

The electric piano was the last addition to the track, but has become the glue putting the whole thing together.

The remix adds some pace for a slightly different vibe.

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As a young child, I read a children’s book which covered a number of natural and scientific topics. There is a part which particularly interested me which talked about the death of our Sun, to occur in 5 billion years. I would read this again and again until I was overcome with dread. Looking back this is probably a bit ghastly of a topic for 5-year old readers. As an adult, I have maintained a fascination with space, and find myself with a similar fixation on black holes.

Into the Void is presented as a concept EP in two parts, with a vision of travelling a great distance from Earth to a black hole. Starting from the excitement of beginning a journey, this moves to feelings of dread and timelessness near the end.

The first part of the EP is an exciting and fast-paced set of breakbeat tracks. In the second half, dark, spacy drum and bass takes over, including “Titan”, one of the most dramatic of the entire EP (for that matter, recent memory).

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This album started with a simple concept: a series of tracks centered around common instrumentation. Bells were the centerpiece for all of these songs; they differ drastically, however, in style and tone.

There’s a bit of everything here. Starting with “Nightmare”, which gallops into the album with heavy basslines and a solid 4/4 rhythm; “Trigger Warning” brings the breaks with 808-style beats; “Apex Predator” is an agressive drum and bass throwdown; “Prism” closes up the “main” album with a slice of synth-heavy dream-pop. There’s also a remix of “No Greater Love”, one of the first tracks I ever produced.

There are two VIP mixes for a couple of my favorite cuts on the album, “Prism” and “Apex Predator”.

Existential Funk was what came out when I stopped second-guessing myself.

2008 was a year when I couldn’t stop writing. I kept starting tracks in one genre and finishing them in another - minimal techno that wanted to be drum and bass, trip-hop that demanded breakbeat treatment, house tracks that went trance halfway through.

Most producers would call this unfocused. I called it honest.

The album title came later, but it fits perfectly. This was music about being caught between states - between genres, between moods, between who you were and who you’re becoming. The “funk” isn’t just the groove; it’s that unsettled feeling when you can’t quite pin down what you’re hearing, or feeling, or becoming.

“The disc has enough thumping bass and spacy synthesizer chords to please any trip-hop head.”

– URB.COM