Akin to someone dropping the equivalent of some imploded star’s worth of weight/mass/material on your house is the singular Dreadmaul.
And aided in this process? Ahmad and Acid_Lab. Yes: that is the sound of air escaping the hatch.
Hi again Dreadmaul, straight into the beats: take us into ‘Totem’?
The first step in creating a new tune is nearly always some 16-bar loop, in case of ‘Totem’ it was a loop of the first, calmer part of the track.
Then I start arranging and adding stuff, variations, and so on. I think a big part of the work on ‘Totem’ was to get the arrangement and evolution of the sounds right. When the basic arrangement is set, sometimes I route specific sounds through my hardware-effects and record it for one full cycle of the song, so the sound will change and evolve during the tune.
When most of the creative work is done I typically render out all the tracks and import them in a new, clean project to do the final mixdown.
What mental images do you have while working? You must have some?! I certainly do.
It clearly depends. I mean, sometimes I see a documentary about something and there is a potential skit – see the Blood Magic EP on Boundless Beatz – or some art piece at a museum that impresses me or something else of a visual nature… then I try to create a soundtrack.
But on other days, it’s the other way: getting a picture in your head while just jamming and turning knobs.
And this picture gets more detailed and specific, depending on the musical choices I make in the process. It really can come from both ways. Or none.
I love this ep in general… take us into the remixes here and by whom.
Acid_Lab and Ahmad are just two aliases of the same guy, so it’s just us two. But yeah, you can hear we are on at least some of the same musical wavelentghs.
I really admire the amount and quality of the tunes he releases.
When I first heard some Acid_Lab tunes, it really got me hooked: The ritualistic and dark vibes in some of his songs are insane!
‘Angry Zulu’ for example is one of my all-time favourite tunes on T3K, so it was an honour for me to remix it and even get a song I made remixed by ‘Angry Zulu’´s creator.
Do you play live much? Must be insanely nice to hear this rattle a system and all of those within!
Yeah its always nice to get the chance to play your own tunes on a big system.
At the TiefFrequenz Festival in Hamburg was a recent example.
Is D&B evolving or being picked apart by crows?
Hmm, I think it’s maybe a bit of both; evolving by getting picked apart. When our scene is big enough that ghostproducers are a thing I would consider it bad, but at the same time nearly every day I stumble across fresh sounds, all deriving from different eras of the same scene.
You just have to connect the dots, in the case of age, but also popularity-wise. I respect when a DJ has a good technique, but the selection always plays the bigger part if I like a mix or not.
And I absolutely think the core-scene of drum and bass has its mindset on the right spot, so there will always be fresh stuff, at least if you dig enough.
In conclusion; if you´re not happy with what they play on the big festivals, support your local scene and your producer-friend.
Any shouts?
Bigups to Ahmad/Acid_Lab for that nice remix and T3K Recordings for realising this EP with me. Peace!
Totem ep