There’s been a recent convergence between Euro titans Bowsar & Kantyze and brand new imprint Concussion Records so we happily pulled up a chair to watch the spectacle. It’s been like watching big stellar objects move gracefully across the heavens before the inevitable * crunch *
Hello! How’s life, what you guys doing?
Bowsar: Hi! I’m all fine, working on a lot of music at the moment, mostly remixes. It’s a very exciting time for me right now. All the amazing feedback we’ve had on this vinyl release is really motivating me to push the boundaries.
Kantyze: Yo! It’s me Igor answering most of this, it’s really tight to get hold of (co-producer) Fred at the moment; we’re both highly stranded by life ha ha. All good cheers, work, music and I’m picking grapes to make wine at the moment too.
I was stunned by the cover art on this… it sets the tone. So nice.
B: Thanks! For me it’s one of the most crucial parts of a release and I really must say I couldn’t be happier with the artwork. I can’t thank SHVLFCE enough for creating this piece of art, and Adam for finding him. It’s futuristic, minimalistic and abstract, which are all qualities I love when it comes to art.
Plus it’s hand-drawn which makes it stand out even more in my opinion.
K: Yes, this art is huge, it reminded me of what our artist ‘Plume’ did for some m-Atome covers. It perfectly fits the mood of the tunes and also the path Concussion is set to carve in the near future. Looking forward to the next ones!
The release is the first on the Concussion label is that right… what’s the label setting out to do? The name is a bit of a clue I guess!
B: Yes, it’s the first release after the label’s been re-branded. There are already some releases in the pipeline, coming from ourselves and other established artists. These will drop over the next few months.
Regarding style, I think the first release acts perfectly as an outlet for what’s to be expected from the Concussion camp in the future.
As far as I can tell, Adam’s plans for the output will be focused on quality, rather than quantity. The label name really speaks for itself, it’s all about bone shattering bass and drums. Concussion is definitely a label to watch out for in the future!
K: I can tell you that there are some huge bits coming up and that the real neuro will be back soon, the Concussion name appealed to us and we like grinding music!
To get some perspective on you guys, what D&B first ever hurt you and why?
B: I first got involved with D&B around 2003 or 2004. The older brothers of a friend of mine were highly enthusiastic about this music and introduced us to acts like Bad Company, Panacea, Ed Rush & Optical and so on. We were immediately hooked and tried to go to every party that was on, around that time. It didn’t take very long until we bought our first turntables and mixer and that’s how it started.
K: Fred DJ’d between ‘95 and ‘05 so he’s familiar with all the early day tunes and has a highly wanted collection of records! Some are at my place now ha ha.
So all the early Source Direct stuff and early Virus days are his loved ones, and I took on dnb in 1998 when I moved to London, and discovered the beats through the old Dieselboy cd mixes full of gorgeous tunes that reminded me of the punk and metal vibes I was familiar with.
I think that ‘Sawn Off’ by Usual Suspects and Fierce is the one I’ll always remember. I was like, ‘Damn! I want to hear more of this!’
Your tune ‘Prelude To Schism’ is a real hotbed, Kantyze (above).
K: Yeah, I wanted to have something neuro with a modern edge. We’ve always liked the epic intros with choirs and pads, and if you listen back to some older Kantyze tunes it’s something we care about, and have always worked hard on.
This is probably because we are huge films fans and I’m fond of classical music, despite the fact that we are not real musicians, as in we don’t play any instruments. So we got the intro and I had some kind of loop and the hardest part was to link them together, without having two tunes.
So I left it aside and came back to hit later on and it worked out. I also wanted to have a real rolling kinda beat/bass in the tune which makes it interesting to mix with various styles.
And the notion of schism… are we in one right now? A cultural paradox where we move forward but get more primitive?
K: The prelude is a musical term which comes from Latin and means ‘pre-play’. Musicians used this to set up their instruments before playing in gigs.
For me, it’s more something that comes before another thing and looking at the world’s curent state doesn’t carry out a very joyful meaning.
It depends on what you are looking at but yeah there were, are and always will be schisms, be it musical, political or religious.
I think that individuality is unfortunately predominant right now and it leads to division among people, life goes fast, needs to be faster, people want to have everything right now and are people are losing patience a lot quicker.
Technology is great, but also causes destruction, separates beings and creates false relationships between people when it’s used without any precautions and balance.
We move forward, not necessarily being more primitive but we only have interest for ourselves. Not everyone is like this but many are, just look at how people behave with their phones for instance nowadays, scary. So I don’t know if we’re moving forward.
Looking at the tune itself, the prelude would be the intro, and the schism would be the drop. So in that way, it may have more sense.
‘Thanos’: is this a reference to a place? You are both here in this tune, can you take us behind it?
B: I first came into contact with Kantyze via Adam, who wanted us to do a track together for the first release of Concussion. By that time I had a track named ‘Lunatic Pandora’ which I thought could use some treatment from someone else. If I recall correctly, this was our first collab which is still unfinished. After that, the guys sent me some clips, of which I liked ‘Thanos’ the most.
It started out as a short sketch, just an intro and a basic groove. The aim was to come up with a more aggressive, dirty rolling vibe – in contrast to the light funk of Prelude. I made a lot of different final versions until I came up with the current form. If I had to start from the beginning again, there are some things I might do differently now but overall I really like how it turned out.
In the beginning I had no idea about who or what ‘Thanos’ could be, the vibe just got me. And now that I know who ‘Thanos’ is, I think the name fits quite well.
K: ‘Thanos’ is the name of a super evil villain from Marvel. I can’t help it but Fred always give names of Marvel, DC or various comic references after listening to our tracks.
Tell us about future gigs planned and where you all like to play.
B: I’ll play at one of the next In:Deep Label nights but I don’t have any specifics yet. There’s also another thing planned with Wreckage Machinery later this year but I can’t go into details now.
I would really like to play at one of the bigger festivals like Let it Roll.
K: We are playing in northern France at the end of the year and Prague is one of the only big European cities among the few we haven’t played in so that would be a treat!
What tunes are in your heads right now?
B: Billain’s last EP on Eatbrain was really mindblowing and I keep coming back to ‘Victory’. I also love Critical’s and Invisible’s latest outputs and everything that Current Value does at the moment.
Besides D&B, I’m very much into experimental instrumental downtempo/hiphop stuff from the likes of Dorian Concept, Tipper and Sicaa – a producer from France – at the moment.
K: I listen to old D&B beats at the moment, lots of Quarantine beats, but I’m a huge Mefjus fan. I really like what our mates from Signs are doing, Sustance, Fre4knc, SCAR, and also the whole Blackout team who’s doing a huge job with intense quality on every release.
Looking forward to Klone’s future beats also!
Any shouts from you gents?
B: Big shouts to Adam Concussion for the way he runs his label and especially for making this release happen! Shouts to Jade, Mefjus, Zombie Cats, Phlage, Phentix, Christoph “Reggy” Pushforward, Wreckage Machinery, Logam, Adam & Ian at Druid Records, the whole Mindtech Crew, Spiko from Modulate Recordings, Coppa, Flo Wintermute, Flo Kaiza, my girlfriend, my family & friends and of course everyone who supports me!
K: Shouts to Adam Concussion and all the roster! Disphonia, my Upbeats mates I haven’t spoken to in a bloody long while,Pat and Stu SOM, Prolix, BSE, Klute, Redeyes, June Miller, BTK, Jade, Axiom & Rico. Marco at Triplevision, the Mindtech massive, all the m-Atome artists and all the people and labels that keep supporting us after all these years! You rock! My Upbeats mates, that I haven’t spoken to in a bloody long while! Rico, Phantom Hertz and FKOF crews, all the people that keep supporting us after all these years. You Rock!