Review: Three months after their first release by Dabs, Hydro, M-Zine & Scepticz, Rotterdam-based club night and label Blendits returns with a fresh two tracker. Kicking off the release, Lincoln-based trio Soligen & Type-2 deliver some beautifully obscure drum & bass with "Pretending". Twisted basslines, techy drumlines and an overall infusion of light and dark textures blend together to create a sound unlike any other you've ever heard. Next up, Dutch scene frontrunners Mindmapper & Silvahfonk present "Polygraph", a floating, airy track punctured by a deep sub and clever synth play. Intriguing and unique.
Review: Most labels celebrate their 50th or 100th release but Fokuz have never done things by convention, which is what's made them such a unique success story in drum & bass for 17 years. Here we find them celebrating their 80th release (and neatly referencing the work of Quentin Tarantino) with their biggest project to date that stretches two albums, over 30 tracks and some of the biggest names in D&B: Break, Calibre, Technimatic, BCee, Need For Mirrors, the list goes on. If you know Fokuz's output you'll already be on this. If you don't, just jump on the velvet sub rolls of Calibre's remix of Impish, Lenzman's hurricane soul twist of Random Movement or Dreazz & Stal's percussive frenzy "Ethiopian Jungle" and you'll know exactly what's going on right here.
Review: Rolling Rotterdam rotters Blendits have been dishing out some serious underground flavours for exactly two years this month. A suitable time, then, to look back and reflect on the damage they've caused. 15 tracks in total, we flicker and flux between lean minimal mechanical badism (Young-G's "Shantytown") to big slappy-drum jazz business (Impish's "Friday") and Bop-style glitch jitters (Hydro, M-Zine & Scepticz' "Keep Your Distance"), all the while keeping our eyes (and ears) on the future. A perfect time to fill the gaps in your collection and get up to speed; Blendits mean business.
