OUT NOW: Drum&BassArena Winter Selection 2013!

Selected and structured by The Risky, Drum&BassArena Winter Selection 2013 is a 36 track strong collection designed for the coldest of months. Techy, dirty, slamming, gritty… Physical music to warm you up on the darkest, dreariest of months, it’s one of our most full-strength album to date.

Seen the tracklist yet? Look no further…

CD1

Rudimental Feat. Foxes – Right Here (Andy C Remix)
Friction Feat. Arlissa – Long Gone Memory
Rae & Christian feat. Tony D, Jazzy Jeff, Agent 86 – Check The Technique (Rollz Remix)
The Prototypes – Abyss VIP
DJ Fresh & Diplo Feat. Dominique Young Unique – Earthquake (TC Remix)
Modified Motion & Faction – Shoot First, Ask Questions After
Mediks Feat. KJ Sawka – Cannibals
Metrik – Break Of Dawn
High Maintenance – The Future
Gridlok & Prolix – Slingshot
A.M.C & Loko – Only One
Cyantific – Hold Back
Zen – Year 3000
Serum – Tight Spot
Hypoxia – Space Time
Nu:Logic – Tripping In Space
Mampi Swift – Soldiers
Wickaman & RV – Risky Business

CD2

Audio – Headroom VIP
Noisia & Calyx & Teebee – Hyenas
Usual Suspects – Killa Bees (InsideInfo Remix)
Phace – Vitreous
Ulterior Motive – Lost Contact
Xtrah – Cyrax (Break Remix)
NickBee – Era
Dub Motion – See Saw
BTK – Vigilante
Emperor feat. Georgia Yates – Begin
Break – Music Is Better
Saxxon & NC17 – Addiction
Teddy Killers – Bronson
Need For Mirrors & HLZ – Smudge
Foreign Concept & Stray – Bang It
Total Science – Subwarfare
Maztek – HiveMind
Optiv & CZA – Vital Signs

Among those 36 tracks you’ll spot no less than 14 exclusives that you won’t find anywhere else. One of those exclusives is the awesome Bronson by Teddy Killerz:

We caught up with the mysterious third member of the Russian act. Working alongside Place 2B and Paimon is Greg. Co-producer, DJ and their manager, he’s recently re-located from Mother Russia to London. And he’s not enjoying our damp winters. Get to know…

Bronson…. Heaviness!

Yes, heaviness! Me and Paimon were watching the Bronson movie and got inspired. We wanted to capture some serious moods. Not just darkness but hopelessness and a little despair, too. It’s been a nice release to make as we’ve been moving away from the dark stuff in the last year. It’s good to keep a balance.

But you’ll still make dark stuff in the near future?

It all depends on the music we’re feeling at the time! We never say never to any sound; we just get inspired by certain sounds and see if we can contribute to that. For example we released a lot of trap tunes earlier this year. It’s just how we work; we try to make combinations of sounds and entertain people. We don’t just make drum & bass. We don’t just make dubstep. We don’t just make glitch. We just make music we love and hope people like it.

Do you worry you confuse fans by doing this?

I’m always afraid, yes! But when you look back to the old days, legendary producers just made the music they liked. They didn’t care about genres or pigeonholes or any shit like that. They just made what they felt at the time. We don’t open up the DAW and set it at 170 or 140BPM, it has to be more natural than that. So it doesn’t matter that I’m afraid, I know we’re doing the right thing…

Which has been the best ‘right thing’ this year? Appearing on Nightlife 6? Releases on OWSLA? You’ve had quite a few highlights this year…

There have been more than a few: Everything is a highlight! We’ve been lucky, we’ve not made any bad moves so far. We’ve not wasted our time with poor business decisions. We’ve only ever worked with the best labels and best people. Appearing on Nightlife 6 was definitely good for us; Ram Records have had a huge influence on us. Nightlife mixes are amazing, too. Andy is such a great DJ! I recently made this mix for OWSLA…

Andy has always been a big inspiration in the way he makes sense of so many sounds and styles and puts them together with so much energy.

Job done. So what’s in store for Teddy Killerz in 2014?

We have a lot more music ready to roll. We’re about to return to Bad Taste. They’re good friends of ours and they released our first big tunes that got us a lot of attention. So we’re looking forward to working with them again. We also have lots of other tunes almost ready; electro, dubstep, glitch. There’s at least an album’s worth of material ready. But I don’t think it will be an album, if that makes sense?

Yeah, an album is special. An album needs to make sense…

Of course. We still want to fine tune our skills and our sounds. We’re thinking about making less tunes and better quality.

The quality is pretty high already. Are you always searching for production perfection?

Always. I’m super strict about production. But not just technically; the main thing is ideas. Without ideas you have nothing at all.

Truth! Let’s talk Russia for a minute… UK winters must feel like summer to you, right?

No way man. I’m fucking cold! I’m from the south of Russia, it’s like 40 degrees there in the summer. It’s a different cold out there. It’s not damp, rainy cold. The UK winter is a nasty cold. Even Siberian winters aren’t as bad; it can be -30 but as it’s a dry cold it doesn’t feel as bad.

Wrap up or man up, dude. Final question… Which teddy do you want to kill the most? Rupert? Paddington?

Oh man, I’ve been waiting for this question for many years! We are the actual killers… We just have poor grammar. We are teddies who kill. The idea came about through kids discussing materialistic shit. They’re so influenced by mass media. When we were kids we spent time talking to each other and enjoying proper time. It’s a statement against consumerism. Children are very important, we need to keep their brains and minds clear of the shit that comes from our media and corporations.