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This is Category: Music Reviews
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Shapeshifter – Soulstice Review
By Christina
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Posted by: Cappa on Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 09:15 PM
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 Foreign Dub presents a CD compilation of artists that have performed at their DnBBQs. The launch party is super sized on Saturday 18th March 2006 at Manning Bar, Sydney Uni with an extra chunky line up featuring members of Resin Dogs, The Bird & Shapeshifter plus a free CD for the first 400 people!
Read on for a taste test...
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Posted by: neena on Wednesday, March 08, 2006 - 09:51 PM
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 Bad Company are back!! Well half of them anyway, Maldini and Vegas round up a heap of hard hitting, dance floor tunes from up and coming producers, as well as a few collabs and present it in the form of Bad Taste.
There's no denying the idea behind this album. Collect the the most intense, energy fueled tunes from some of the most exciting producers from around the globe to break through recently and add a few well established producers in for good measure.
USA is represented in the form of Body&Soul and Alliance and represent they do. "Thru my eyes" by Alliance is the sort of tune that drives dance floors wild. Sweet female vocals swell in the intro with lush strings before dropping into a monster of a tune with heavy, snarling reeses and change-ups a-plenty. All too soon the breakdown emerges and the female vox returns before switching to a prelonged build-up and drumroll that finally unleashes the mayhem once more. Dancefloor pressure.
New Zealand gets a look in with new kids on the block The Upbeats. These guys seem to be pumping the tunes out at a hectic pace recently across a variety of labels. "Werewolf" is a pretty standard reese and amen affair but the real gem here is "King Sasquatch". Tight drums and sparse atmospherics give way to silence and a distant filter that quitly builds before dropping into a filthy bassline groove that reminds me of why I really love Drum & Bass. I dare anyone to try and stay still when they hear this one dropped.
Chase & Status come correct in the form of "Loader". These guys have been blowing up lately world wide and its no secret why. They've release tunes across the whole range of respected labels including Renegade Hardware, Breakbeat Kaos and Bingo, and seem to be able to switch styles at the flick of the wrist. "Loader" sees them in damaging form as the tune progresses from half-step, bass slab styles to an all out dancefloor roller. Throw in a few sirens for good measure and you have one killer of a tune.
But the biggest tune on here and probably one of the biggest tunes this year comes in the form of "Meditation" by Noisia and Maldini & Vegas. Noisia can do no wrong at the moment with releases on historic labels like Moving Shadow, kicking off their own Vision Recordings with the epic "The Tide" and forthcoming releases on Friction's Shogun imprint and the mighty Ram. This is one of those tunes that really stands out from the pack and has firmly planted Noisia as ones to watch in the future.
Revieved by Sausmatoe
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Posted by: dashiki on Tuesday, November 08, 2005 - 11:58 PM
57 Comments
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Bryan G comes correct with his first Liquid V mix cd compilation and serves up a nice selection of new and forthcoming releases from the soulful imprint.
Now I've gotta admit, a whole mix of nothing but "liquid" usually doesnt appeal to me that much, but Bryan manages to pull it of with this cd, mainly because of the quality of some of the tunes on this disc. D-Bridge really steals the show here. Everything this man touches has turned to gold recently and its no exception with the two tunes that are on show here. "Better Days", his collaboration with AI is just one off those tunes that stands head and shoulders above the rest. Mournful female vocals echo in the distance before a deep pulsating sub line winds its way through the track, followed by deep, deep chords. Beautiful.
This is the perfect chill-out cd if ever there was one. I popped this in at work and the time just flew by, my non-dnb liking co-workers even enjoyed the mix. Definitely a good cd to use as a conversion tool on any fence-sitter friends you may have when it comes to the drum and the bass.
Another plus with this CD is Bryan G's mixing. He keeps it simple and it works well. I was a little hesitant to begin with after remembering some of the mixing he's put forward on past compilations but he pulls it off nicely here and it really suits the liquid selection.
The only downside to this CD is the fact that some some of the not so exciting tunes do sound kinda similar but thats hard to avoid when your
putting together a label comp. There still is a lot of variety on offer here with the disco styling of "The deep end" by Utah Jazz; the bass heavy minimalism of AI's "Uprising VIP" and the down right soultastic "Delta" by T Power (good to see him back on fine form) all branching out into different avenues of the "Liquid" name tag.
Highly recommended for anyone wanting to delve into the deeper, soulful and slightly wetter end of DNB.
Review by sausmatoe
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Posted by: dashiki on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 10:29 PM
66 Comments
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 It must be said that Metalheadz is one of, if not the biggest label in dnb. Goldie has managed to build an empire of sorts from his label, which you've got to respect him for.
Of recent times, Metalheadz has been a little hit and miss for me, more hits than misses though. Unfortunately, this album contains about half goodies and half crappies. Klute, Skitty, Digital, Marcus Intalex, OBI and Illskillz all contribute average tunes to say the least, but lets focus on the positives.
Commix show their new found emotions in "Tycoon", a nice deep roller with catchy piano hooks and cool little stabs. Would have to be my favourite track on the album. Beta 2, DKay and Lee & Drifters (NOISIA'S less noisy alias) show the others how its done with hot production on quite original sounding songs. Trust Goldie to pick these up!
Outrage is definitely one of my favourite new producers (production team???). Talking about original, Outrage have got a mad fresh style, and "No Compromise" is certainly a good example of this. The track has bleeps and breaksy techy edits, a very interesting combination, working well together.
Goldies own effort "Say You Love Me" is the most Metalheadz sounding track on the album. By Metalheadz sounding, I mean huge euphoric intro dropping into some heavy synths and huge drums and heavy bass drop. He even throws in some mad rave stabs to top it off. Its quite a strange tune in a way, some elements don’t seem to fit at first or second listen, but offer a few more goes of seems to get better. I personally like it, and would love to see a crowd's reaction to it on a big system. I think shock would be a big part of it.
Overall, I was a little disappointed from the album, as it didn’t really live up to the standard that the recent Metalheadz 12"s have been setting. However, there are few gems on there, so well worth a listen.
7/10
Review by Guy
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Posted by: dashiki on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 12:00 AM
59 Comments
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