Upcoming Hyperdub Releases Including Darkstar Album
The Hyperdub label have been busy of late with a bunch of releases due out over the next month or so.
Below is a rundown of the upcoming releases with clips. If you are interested in pre-ordering any of them please contact us at info@conch.co.nz
DVA ft. Fatima -Just Vybe / Step 2 Funk
Tracklist:| 01 | DVA ft. Fatima | Just Vybe | mp3 | |||
| 02 | DVA | Step 2 Funk | mp3 |
Scratcha DVA is back on Hyperdub for the second time this year. On the lead track here, 'Just Vybe', he's borrowed Fatima from Eglo Records to grace the tune with her distinctive vocals.
'Just Vybe' is a very "pop" moment for Hyperdub. It combines the stuttering funky drums of 'Natty' - DVA's previous release for the label - as it's template, and adds a big synthy melody of the kind Stevie Wonder would be proud of, plus Fatima's rich, melodic and re-flective lyrics. The retro musical depth plus Fatima's soulful voice combine in an unexpectedly fresh and unusual way with the abstract house of DVA's tough dancefloor production.
'Step 2 Funk' on the B side is nocturnal and moody, with dark "heads down" kicks and toms and lightning strike snares, with the single word 'funky' repeated throughout to hyp-notic effect. It's dreamy widescreen quality opens out as fx and abstract melodies weave in and out and drop off into wormholes.
King Midas Sound -Lost / Frequencies (ft.Pupajim)
Tracklist:| 01 | Lost | clip | ||||
| 02 | Frequencies ft. Pupajim | clip |
King Midas Sound has been leaving a trail of the dead with their searing live show since their album 'Waiting For You' was released in November last year. Their performance at Sonar in June was emphatically one of the highlights of the festival, by turns soothing and pressing an audience that grew and grew until there was no room left in the packed under-ground hall.
'Lost' is one of the album's most single-suited moments, released here on Hyperdub's first ever seven inch record. Roger Robinson's lyrics are full of regret and sorrow in the after-math of a finished relationship, while the beats sound like a long lost RZA production. The accompanying video shows him wandering around in a fever dream, bag on back, as he tries to work out what's just happened.
On the B side, new track 'Frequencies' finds guest vocalist Pupajim versioning on the rhythm from KMS's 'Cool Out', the French reggae emcee dropping lyrics like a singjay lull-aby on his ode to bass frequencies.
Limited edition in deluxe full-colour high-grade reverse-board jacket.
| 01 | LV ft. Okmalumkoolkat | Boomslang | clip | |||
| 02 | LV ft. Okmalumkoolkat | Zharp | clip |
LV made this tough Kwaito house inspired 12" after hooking up with Smiso Zwane aka Ok-malumkoolkat from the Cape Town group Dirty Paraffin in South Africa at the end of last year. LV and Smiso played and recorded together and Smiso's raps were taken back to LV's musical lab in South London, dissected and reassembled, and these two tracks were the result.
'Boomslang' is possibly one of the most infectious tracks Hyperdub has ever released. Built around Smiso's slurred, gravelly vocals raps, its tough galloping drums, sliding car-toonish melody, techy stabs and bubbling analogue riffs work together to give the whole thing a weightless, spacey energy.
'Zharp' is a stranger but still catchy track. Smiso's vocals are chopped up, pitched up and down, repeated and stretched into weird melodies, with little synth interludes breaking them up, and sparse kicks and claps providing a persistent rhythm.
Darkstar - North
Tracklist:- In The Wings
- Gold
- Deadness
- Aidy’s Girl Is A Computer
- Under One Roof
- Two Chords
- North
- Ostkreuz
- Dear Heartbeat
- When It’s Gone
Darkstar in 2010 are an upgraded model of the Darkstar which released the much loved single 'Aidy's Girl Is A Computer' at the end of 2009. That song, and previous singles 'Need You' and 'Squeeze My Lime' hinted at a nas-cent songwriting talent and mastery of oozing synth drones that has burst into life on their debut album, 'North'.
The band have adjusted their focus, adding lead singer James Buttery to the production and writing team of James Young and Aiden Whalley, and the result as heard on 'North' is a brave, low-key pop masterpiece, which discards the cheap thrills and treadmill ideas that many deploy to access success. Instead, 'North' will creep up on you with each listen, seducing with its' achingly gorgeous, synthesized songwriting.
From the intro track 'In The Wings', right through to the closing song, a lush new version of 'Squeeze My Lime' now called 'When It's Gone', the album blends their crunchy, citric synths, baroque strings, piano and tender guitar with vocal harmonies, gently laced with glitches and noise. Here, Darkstar have subtly found the beauty in distor-tion. The first single from the album, the catchy 'Gold', is a cover of a little known Human League song 'You Re-mind Me Of Gold', inspired by hearing the original slowed to 33rpm. Insectoid drum machine rhythms carry the song along accompanied by a chilly piano.
'Deadness', 'Dear Heartbeat', 'Two Chords' and 'North' impress with their icy radiance, the rich, wafting strings, dreamy guitar and keys bury the otherwise snowy-white sonics, the crunch of the drums and the translucent vocals sounding as if they're sung by a hologram. Some tracks, like 'Ostkreuz' and aspects of 'Under One Roof' conjure up a soundtrack to Twin Peaks if it was set in the North of England. Mini-anthem of 2009, 'Aidy's Girl Is A Computer' also earns a slot among the new material.
With their first long player, Darkstar have produced an album many bands with far more experience and many more releases and under their belt can only dream of. Downbeat, breezy, sometimes melancholy, sometimes just plain sad, at others optimistic and affirming, and always gracefully elegant, 'North' will surprise many, a classic record for short days and long nights.
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