Review: A straight up legend to the core is Appleblim - a producer who's output has become a touch enigmatic over the years but never too far off. Following up his Life In A Laser LP for Sneaker Social Club back in 2018, Appleblim returns to the label in what sounds like a hugely inspired fresh batch of new wave tracks. "Beelike" for example sails high and low through different streams of dub, stepping rhythms, glitch and weirdo house while holding down a dope experimental groove. "Illusory Universe" touches of Detroit electro sentimentalities while also exploring the bleepy, melodic and tonal madness of up tempo arpeggios and modular mechanics. With rave, hardcore and UK club cultural a continual theme throughout the music, tracks like "Fallen" flirt with jungle and liquid drum and bass progressions, while other like "Madman's Nod" throw down something you could describe as future electronic percussion trax. With plenty of dub thrown in, colourful highlights of chords and melodic sounds next to hardcore drum programming - Appleblim enters Infinite Hieroglyphics.
Review: In its almost 10 year history Sneaker Social Club has brought us records from the likes of Horsepower Productions, Basic Rhythm, Filter Dredd, Appleblim to Bassclef, 2 Bad Mice and Seekersinternational. In 2020 Sneaker Social Club do their bit to add to the perpetual motion of what's sometimes known as the hardcore continuum via Evident Ware Pt 02. With the likes of Dead Man's Chest & Sonic's dusty and dubbed out "Sneaker Rhythm" included alongside find some future-bassline driven euphoria in Konx-Om-Pax's starry, vocal-laced "Shibuya Sunset (Hardcore mix)" it Anz's closing number that really takes us back to the early-'90s. More atmospheric, jungle vibes coming out of Horsepower Productions' "DREAMWITHINADREAM Pt 2", with some rough and tumble beats in SHD & Shed's "Drop", undeniable breaks and subbass from Soundbwoy Killah, with some touches of dub techno by Appleblim in "Limbic Riddim". New school, old school, always 'ardcore.
Review: Developing its roster over the last few years DEXT Recordings has curated a discography worth talking about with a bend of artists ranging from Special Request, Nightwave and Jerome Hill to Mark Broom and Dead Man's Chest collaborations. For DEXT's first release in 2020 it does the same, pitching legends of the scene like Commix and Appleblim alongside new school mates like Pugilist and Otik. Raw beats find themselves eventually masked by swathes of delay and melody in Appleblims' 'Hydrothermal Vents" with Commixx turning in a staccato loop hovering somewhere in that grey zone between drum and bass and techno. Deep, reverberating two-step and jungle vibes outta Pugilist with "Eclipse" (tip!) with some colourful dub and melodic beat scene loops oozing between the dubstep of "Apollon".
Vurstep (Forest Drive West remix) - (7:06) 126 BPM
Review: Appleblim teams up with the Middle Eastern label Boogie Box once more for some hybridized explorations on the cutting edge of soundsystem music. "Vurstep" is a wildly psychedelic banger that keeps the rhythms broken while the sound design levels tap into the same delirious vein as his ALSO work with Second Storey. "Dream Wisdom" takes things in a smoother direction, riding on laid back breaks and plush threads of melody in a vintage ambient techno style. Shed steps up to remix "Vurstep" and delivers one of his pointed masterclasses in stripped, UK-leaning techno, and then Forest Drive West trips the whole thing out with a heavily dubbed meditation.
Review: Appleblim, one of the figures who we can associate with the birth and rise of dubstep, has been releasing since 2005. That's now 13 years of experimenting with bass and dance equations. However, Life In A Laser is his debut album, having only ever released singles or remixes up until. His big release comes via Sneaker Social Club, and it takes his sound somewhere it hadn't been before - the doorways of Berlin. That is not meant to imply that this is straight-up techno - not at all! It's the style and aesthetics used by Appleblim which give a much more polished and rounded approach to the way he makes music now. These 9 tracks are, in one way or another, dance-oriented, but there is a story to tell and a clear thread running throughout. One thing is always evident, however, and that's his extensive use of percussion and quality production work, championed from the infamous hardcore dynasty. LUSH.
Review: It's been a few years since long-time Bristol mates Komonazmuk and Appleblim collided on wax (three years to be a little more precise) Making up for lost time the pair lay down three more stark fusions that shimmer with both of artists qualities in equal measure. "Know Yourself" catches and infects with Blim's loopy technoid insistency but kicks with Komon's brutal swagger, "Enigmatic Light" is all about the creep as a foggy weave and echoing percussion gradually build us into light-kicked hypnotic breakbeat. Finally "Stepping Out Of Yesterday" peers into a bleak future with groaning chords, unhurried beats and a meandering acid line that brings everything together.
Review: Gottwood Festival's offshoot label, Gottwax, returns to action, this time showcasing the wares of artists who appeared at their 2016 weekender. Appleblim steps up first, expertly wrapping alien synthesizers around a heavy bassline and clattering machine percussion on the low-tempo thrills of "Phosphene". Leeds-based house producer Bonar Bradberry goes all Daniele Baldelli on the kosmiche chug of "Mod", before Krywald & Farrer lay down a killer jazz-house jam built around rubbery double bass and a famous old hip-house breakbeat. If that wasn't enough to get the juices flowing, the EP also includes a fantastic chunk of global deep house fusion from Heist Recordings regular Ponty Mython.
Review: Schmorsgabord is a new label, and it launches in style with this collaboration between Laurie 'Appleblim' Osborne and Julian 'October' Smith. The release sounds like a perfect meeting of the former's DJ-friendly bass excursions and the latter's tendency towards deep, dubby techno. Indeed, lead track "NY Fizzzzz" perfectly encapsulates this meeting of minds: the beats are tough and DJ-friendly, yet contain a swinging, Applepips-esque feeling that will let the track get noticed amid the deluge of straighter techno and tech-house releases. Up next, the duo focus on a more experimental approach. "Fountains of Paradise" eschews the dance floor, but the deep, brooding chord soundscape is lent some urgency by the shuddering waves of abstract percussion that occasionally break through the ponderous surface. That the label has decided to put its weight behind two different facets of this collaboration ensures that the end product is very tasty.
Review: Bristol-based Kieran "Komon" Lomax and Laurie "Appleblim" Osborne deliver an impressive follow-up to the recent Jupiter EP, their first collaborative release. Like its predecessor, Motion Blur features a range of angular, off-kilter tracks that fuse their techno and deep house sensibilities with a range of bass music influences. The title track sounds like classic US garage given the loose two-step treatment, while the more atmospheric but no less rubbery "Key Vision" douses smooth textures in acid-flecked electronics and bubbling, horror-influenced chords. The EP is completed by two solo tracks. Lomax's "Astir" is woozy, melancholic and built around decidedly live-sounding drums. Osborne takes a different but no less intoxicating path on "Echo's Retreat", which is a heady chunk of otherworldly techno in his distinctive style.
