Chronicles: Freddie Gibbs & Madlib – Piñata
‘When I first started working with Madlib, I had heard how he and MF Doom had made such a classic album. And I was like, man, I think I’m way better, or at least as good, as MF Doom. I can do that too. It started off as a challenge—no disrespect to MF Doom, he […]
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Exclusive: Chainless – Grey Veils EP Stream
We’ll say it again: 2013 was the year of the label. Every DJ and his mum seemed to set up a new stable to bypass release schedules and change artistic modes. When a label comes along out of nowhere with a determinedly clear aesthetic vision, however, is when it gets interesting. The latest to meet […]
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Truancy Volume 92: Local Action
We recently sat down for a lengthy Skype chat with Tom Lea, head of the peerless Local Action record label. There’s no one out there doing what they do, perfectly bisecting the spectrum of grime and garage. We talked early beginnings, the various directions the label has taken, the parties they’ve thrown (especially their epic […]
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Introducing: LinG
We’ve something special here. Liverpool artist LinG, who’s also a member of three-piece Ninetails, recently put out the Anthracite EP on Get Some. It’s an EP that mixes the sound of classic grime and garage with organic, filtered noise, distilled through the heavy machinery of the industrial north. To coincide with Anthracite he’s given us […]
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Recommended: Samrai – Riddim Trax EP
At the heart of Swing Ting, a Manchester-based collective whose core members curate nights, deejay at night and create music, sit Deejay Samrai and Platt. The duo came together initially to form a function where they could play out a diverse range of bass-driven tracks, non-ironically, to a crowd of slaves to the rhythm. Since its birth in […]
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Recommended – Machine Woman – Pink Silk
‘Machine Woman’ sounds like an oxymoron at first; an unholy matrimony of living tissue and cold steel, neither human, nor robot. Actually, it’s more than any spineless human or soulless droid could ever be, a tool working towards some purpose built from parts of both origins. Transhumanism ties in well with the attitude of Salford’s […]
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Truancy Volume 91: Timbah
We’ve been fans of Timbah ever since his first EP Can’t Love Without You. Two long, quiet years have passed since that offering which we called “like being served a plate full of tropical fruit after a decade of microwaved Supernoodles” but now he’s back on the warpath. His new EP Flow Poke, again out on Bad Taste Records, embraces […]
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Interview: Update with P. MORRIS
Two years ago we interviewed P. MORRIS as he was popping up on the scene with his own Goombawave sound and the Bear Club Music Group. Since then he has relocated from his home state of Kansas to sunny Los Angeles, changed his name and has been tuning up his sound and production whilst working […]
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Review: Achterbahn D’Amour – Odd Movements LP
It’s been 30 years since Roland stopped manufacturing the 303 and well over 20 years since the acid sound it brought to both mainstream pop and underground dance music in the 90s has had any significant presence in either. Fact is, nothing ever really dies in dance music, and this applies particularly to acid and […]
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Interview: 6th Borough Project
Three years ago 6th Borough Project, the Scottish duo comprised of Craig Smith and The Revenge, brought us their debut album One Night In The Borough. This followed a few years of releases and remixes across different labels. A relatively quiet period followed, as each pursued his own ends. Back on Delusions of Grandeur in […]
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Recommended: Spike – Orange Cloud Nine
Reissues, and the dawning age of the Internet have made it slightly less challenging for our generation to find lost classics and hidden gems. Record labels and blogs have made it easy, yet exciting for record buyers and fans to purchase them, many of which, would have virtually gone unnoticed 20 years ago. Labels such […]
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Functions Of The Now VI: Gage
For our next edition of Functions Of The Now, we travel from Berlin to Bristol, a city with an enviable history of dark ‘n’ deadly soundsystem music. The last decade saw Bristol rise to prominence as a second centre for eyes-down dubstep and sub-bass driven mutations only for the overground explosion of more straightforward instantiations […]
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