One of Us, the new album by Kryp­tic Minds is eas­ily the top con­tender for Album of the Year. Bring­ing the skills they honed as promi­nent Met­al­headz drum n bass artists, it rep­re­sents a mat­u­ra­tion of the core dub­step sound, spa­cious synths, heavy bass weight, and a glimpse into the future of music. Some­thing that Kryp­tic Minds espe­cially brings to the table are lush sound­scapes, as evi­denced on the title track, which is full of skit­ter­ing half­step, accom­pa­nied by echo­ing stabs, and slow mourn­ful string synths. The over­all atmos­phere per­vad­ing this and many of the other tracks is pen­sive, a slow burn of sub­tle per­cus­sion and won­der­ful low end. “Step­ping Stone” feels like a calm fall day spent in a med­i­ta­tive rock gar­den, a min­i­mal tableau of reverb and washes of sound. The waves of unknown sound that typ­i­cally sig­nal the work of Gas turn up on “Secure Lost,” the most ambi­ent of dub­step. I’m very par­tial to “Dis­solved,” with it’s highly effected vocal cho­rus, the mys­te­ri­ous alchem­i­cal nar­ra­tion, and the elas­tic melody rolling in and out. Clos­ing out the album with “Dis­tant Dawn,” is justly epic, a sparse drum track backed by swoop­ing strings and echo­ing stabs of per­cus­sion, a majes­tic end to an ele­gant elec­tronic album. Very highly rec­om­mended.
Kryp­tic Minds Exclu­sive Mp3 Mix + Black­down Inter­view (Black­down)
Kryp­tic Minds and Hatcha — Kiss FM (Get Darker)

I linked to a mix of Joker tunes in the recent Mix Roundup post, but this morn­ing I became obsessed with a track I heard in an Ikonika live mix. Googling the lyrics for an hour or so brought me noth­ing. I finally fig­ured it out, though. This lit­tle nugget of pur­ple pop was Joker’s remix of Simian Mobile Disco’s “Cruel Inten­tions.” It’s just too fun. Luck­ily those pur­vey­ors of sonic soul The Fader have it avail­able. Check this lit­tle party out.
Simian Mobile Disco — “Cruel Inten­tions (Joker Remix)” (mp3)

If I was pressed to describe Buddy Peace’s music in two words, I would be delighted come back with “kitchen sink.” Buddy is a col­lec­tor of sound, almost as if works in a room with all the win­dows open and fifth tele­vi­sions and radios tuned to dif­fer­ent sta­tions. He chooses and slices the sounds he wants and rearranges them into the most street of com­po­si­tions. You hear the cars and the peo­ple and the cul­ture and the noise of music in every­day life. With, of course, a large dol­lop of hip-hop as the glue that holds all this musi­cal detri­tus together. After years of con­struct­ing his metic­u­lous mix­tapes, the time as come for his first orig­i­nal album of beats and sound alchemy. Late Model Sedan is that album, and you have to hand it to Sage Fran­cis and his Strange Famous record label for being brave enough to release this thor­oughly exotic album. The open­ing “Buddy You Look Sick…” is a free jazz med­i­ta­tion on hip-hop and trains, full of voice snip­pets and careen­ing noises, giv­ing you the par­tic­u­lar expe­ri­ence of lis­ten­ing to your head­phones whilst tak­ing a ride on the rails. Through songs like “Dat­sun Gauze,” the mini-album of “Hawk­string Corpse,” and the furi­ous brevity of “Golden Block Dis­trict,” the sounds of the city wash over the hard hit­ting drums and snatches of MCs. Buddy lets it all hang out on the 8 minute “Short­lands Road Suite,” a sparse drum and chim­ing piano line giv­ing way to car­ni­val of ups and down that appear in the lat­ter half, cul­mi­nat­ing in a kids cho­rus of all things. This music is so full of life, it’s not hard to get lost in the details. The clipped com­puter notes, the snatches of con­ver­sa­tion, the select verses, it all comes together to form a visual land­scape in your mind of run­ning sneak­ers and boom­ing speak­ers. It’s a won­der­ful thing.

“Amplechamp” from Late Model Sedan (mp3 — zipped)
Holy Chrome mix­tape EP (mp3s — zipped)

Silkie has been one of the shin­ing lights of the ever-evolving dub­step scene since he intro­duced us to his jazz-inflected elec­tronic sci­ence with the “Jazz Dub­step” 12″. Blend­ing gor­geous washes of synths, smooth, big bass, intri­cate drum pro­gram­ming, and the tell-tale nuggets of gui­tars, saxes and other pseudo live instru­men­ta­tion, City Lim­its Vol­ume One rep­re­sents a mat­u­ra­tion of the dub­step sound. Whether rat­tling through big bass­bins at a club, or tucked into your ears on the train, or per­vad­ing your daily work­space, the album dis­plays a mas­ter at work.

While opener “Con­crete Jun­gle” is per­haps a bit too jazzy for it’s own over-long good, “Turvy” fol­lows with a more min­i­mal and sub­tle vibe, com­bin­ing sparse but heavy kicks with a shuf­fling melody and deep synth pads wash­ing over the rhythms. “Spark” is space bass funk to the hilt, it’s relent­less and deep groove cre­at­ing the per­fect sound­track to some of those lost Mil­le­nium Fal­con adven­tures where Chewie and Lando let loose. A clear ode to dubstep’s his­tory, “Quasar” is the prover­bial slowed down drum ‘n bass that dub­step and it’s pre­cur­sor garage had their hum­ble begin­nings in.

The mid­dle sec­tion is the strongest per­haps, start­ing with “Pur­ple Love” and its esca­lat­ing and spi­ral­ing synth intro which gives way to gor­geous drum work and a per­co­lat­ing bassline that bub­bles and flows it’s way into the cen­ter­piece of the album, “Planet X.” This is where Silkie’s genius shines, an epic 7 1/2 minute jour­ney through thick vibrat­ing bass weight, razor sharp snare cracks, and a big propul­sion of synths. A track that can be appre­ci­ated on a purely sound design level, every detail is immac­u­lately pro­duced and thought-out. That lit­tle bass wob­ble before the drums kick in? That’s the bit that makes you smile less than a minute in. “Cat’s Eyes” doesn’t try to mea­sure up to this big tune, it sim­ply com­ple­ments it with huge beats and a skit­ter­ing synth melody, mov­ing like a snake through the grass. This mid­dle part of the album is a high minded, bass heavy suite of future music, a for­ward look­ing, fresh look at what club music can do beyond shake bod­ies (and these tracks will shake bodies).

It’s tracks like “Con­crete Jun­gle” and the clos­ing two jazz-inflected num­bers, “The Hori­zon” and “Beauty” that bring to mind another sem­i­nal album back­wards along this UK under­ground time­line, Goldie’s genre-defining Time­less. The lush arrange­ments, the lithe piano rolls, this trio of songs give a lit­tle his­tory les­son in them­selves. Whereas “Con­crete Jun­gle” starts to stag­nant on it’s own back, “The Hori­zon” keeps it mov­ing with intri­cate break­downs and an alto­gether more effort­less vibe. Clos­ing “Beauty” brings the album back to it’s begin­ning but tweaks it a more excit­ing struc­ture, a more dynamic rhythm built on some intensely crazy drum pro­gram­ming and a slightly sin­is­ter bass wobble.

Like Time­less, this is a state­ment of pur­pose, a clear desire to put forth a sin­gle unde­ni­able vision for elec­tronic music. It’s about time we had one of those again.

Another col­lec­tion of mixes found around the web lately. I’m a big fan of mix­tapes and mixes in gen­eral. It’s a won­der­ful for­mat, a chance for a DJ or music fan to pull together every­thing they love about music into one lis­ten­ing experience.

Dr. Who Dat? — Can I Dub Your Tape? No!!!
Fuck­ing sick sick sick sick! I’m kind of up and down on Jneiro Jarel’s var­i­ous out­put but this mix is incred­i­bly thick and dis­gust­ing.
Zshare | Track­list

Ter­ror Dan­jah — Glass­glow Mix­tape
Ahead of his Grem­linz instru­men­tal col­lec­tion for Planet Mu, the grime/beat mae­stro put together this sick mix for This Is Lucky Me, fea­tur­ing his own tunes plus like minded sounds.
Down­load mp3 | Track­list

Eskmo — The Ances­tor Mix
Com­ing with the smooth dub­step, Eskmo is push­ing ears in 2009. Keep yours peeled for more from him.
Down­load mp3 | Track­list

£10 Bag — Why Don’t You Like Me? — The Joker Mix
Joker is absolutely one of the most excit­ing pro­duc­ers out there right now, and £10 Bag has put together this mix of some of his out­stand­ing tracks, includ­ing dub­plates from the man him­self.
Down­load mp3 | Track­list

Hot­flush Record­ings — Pod­cast series
One of the great­est addi­tions to the pod­cast land­scape, this won­der­ful series started out unbe­liev­ably fresh with mixes from Sigha and Incyde, before label boss Scuba came on the scene with a huge and var­ied mix.
Sub­scribe (iTunes)

Rustie — FACT Mix 79
A com­plete party in about an hour, all over the place and fun as hell.
Down­load mp3 | Track­list

DFRNT — Mixes + Free Tracks
Very cin­e­matic and lush pro­duc­tions and mixes, a wealth of free music to grab. Get on it!
Link

Cookie Mon­sta — Two Mixes of Filth!
I kept see­ing a thread on Dub­step­fo­rum about a mix by this dude and the thread had got­ten to 17 pages. Not sure what kept me from down­load­ing it until recently but the elec­tronic dirt this guy is putting together is FILTHY.
Mary­land Choco­late Chip Mix | Send­space | Track­list
Where’s My Cookie! Mix | Send­pace | Track­list

For many of us elec­tronic beat heads, Mary Anne Hobbs has long been a sort of patron saint of the music. My first mem­ory of her is the Mo Wax set she hosted on Breeze­block, a blind­ing set of exper­i­men­tal down­tempo music. Her plunge into dub­step in 2006 cul­mi­nated in one of the sin­gle most impor­tant radio shows of elec­tronic music, the 2 hour “Dub­step Warz” spe­cial. Wild Angels is her third com­pi­la­tion for Planet Mu and the best by far. Mark Pritchard’s opener “?” is a sequel to the ambi­ent con­clu­sion of his Har­monic 313 album When Machines Exceed Human Intel­li­gence, a sub­tle and organic tableau of syn­thetic washes and a del­i­cate wind­ing melody. While emi­nent super­star Hud­son Mohawke pushes the energy up with the video game melodies and beat swag­ger of “Spot­ted,” a fun and dynamic exam­ple of his sound, the always smooth Mike Slott brings us his own ver­sion of soul­ful hip-hop with “Knock Knock” and ris­ing star Gemmy gets pur­ple with the synth crazy dub­step work­out of “Rain­bow Rd.” The dou­ble remix header of Paul White’s take on Tranqill’s Pay­roll” and the stel­lar Take rework of Architeq’s “Sleep­ing Bear Lament” rep­re­sent two of the strongest tracks, full of rolling thick bass, and unfurl­ing melodies of elec­tronic rip­ples. Another stand­out is the burly “Gut­ter Music VIP” from Starkey, a mon­ster glitchy dub­step track, with big slap­ping beats and fre­netic oscil­la­tions that slowly give way to an epic sec­ond half full of syn­co­pated synths and large washes of gran­u­lar sounds. Against this big track, Darkstar’s “Video­tape” is all the more frag­ile and emo­tional, the lead organ mir­ror­ing the vocoder telling it’s sad story. Never have elec­tron­ics given such a heart­felt per­for­mance than this pow­er­ful track. Which can be said for Wild Angels as a whole, a huge and var­ied col­lec­tion of the most excit­ing sounds on the planet.