Kill The Noise 'Black Magic' EP Review 22:32

The latest EP to emerge from powerhouse OWSLA Records is the long-awaited follow up to Jake Stanczak’s ‘Kill Kill Kill’ EP last November. This young American producer has shown the world that he is a true force to be reckoned with, and easily ranks amongst the biggest names in the electronic dance scene. So, how does ‘Black Magic’ stack up? In one day, the album became the top dance album on the iTunes charts in both the US and Canada, and, as of writing this, is climbing the top 10 in the UK. Of course, it would be almost rude not to take the top spot on the Beatport new releases chart too, and top the album charts for dubstep, drum and bass and electro house along with it. To say this EP is big is something of an understatement. 

The EP opens with its title track, ‘Black Magic’, a drumstep successor to the imaginatively-named ‘Kill The Noise (Part I)’ on the first EP. Spine-tingling choral chanting leads into one of the filthiest drops in recent history, a thick, chugging bassline, padded out with KTN’s signature razor-sharp synths, and even occasional maniacal laughter echoing away in the background. From an audio nerd’s perspective, this track really showcases just how good Jake’s mastering really is, with warm, deep bass and aggressively clear (but never overstated) highs cutting cleanly through the mix. Stick this one up high on your stereo to give it a real workout.

Like Skrillex, Knife Party, Zomboy and Rusko to name a few, KTN has also jumped on the reggae/dub bandwagon with ‘Jump Ya Body’. Don’t get me wrong. This is by no means a bad thing. Imagine a track traditional reggae-style synth sounds and steel drums, with an infectious hook. Now pile it high with snarling bass and high-energy vocals and you’re probably about halfway there. This one’s pretty much guaranteed to go over big on dancefloors.

‘Rockers’ takes the EP back into more familiar electro house territory. Nothing too innovative here, with KTN sticking to his tried and tested formula for hard-hitting electro. Fans of Zomboy might notice some familiar themes here too from the recent ‘Vancouver Beatdown’. Nonetheless, there’s a lot to like here, with glitched-out samples, and some sparkling synth licks. 

‘Mosh It Up’ takes the listener back to something which might have once been dubstep. But, with an absolutely frantic build-up, and an insistent double-time rhythm, this short track is pretty much the ultimate DJ tool to get a crowd going, a platform to launch from into an insane drop. Expect to see this one get rinsed at every rave for the next few months. 

Another of the biggest names in the scene, Feed Me, collaborates on ‘Thumbs Up’, a midtempo/moombahton banger very reminiscent of Feed Me’s ‘One-Click Headshot’, even down to its use of an YouTube clip as its lead sample, ‘Thumbs Up for Rock and Roll!’. But, while this kid’s message might have been adorable in its original context, this sample unfortunately mostly serves to be intensely annoying here. Moombahton tracks tend to be quite difficult on the ears of many listeners, and this one probably won’t be winning over any new followers. While intensely funky, this one is still the album’s weakest point, and a lot of wasted potential, especially given the strength of Feed Me & KTN’s previous collaborations.

Fortunately, ‘Saturn’ turns everything around yet again, striking a stunning balance between progressive and electro house, and the evocative vocals of collaborator Minxx. Growling riffs take over during the breakdowns, before giving way to haunting piano and echoing synths. And, the piano stays in place for ‘To Be Continued…’, which is definitely the most unusual piece of the album, a piano cover of ‘Kill The Noise (Part I)’. Not even a single kick drum strays into this one, nor a single modulated bassline. Whether this is all part of Jake’s great master plan, or he simply bought a piano and wanted to play around with it is a mystery. What is certain is that this is a curious and rather beautiful end to the EP, and will inevitably be put to excellent use by remix artists around the world over the next few months. 

So, where does this leave us? ‘Black Magic’ is certainly among the hottest releases right now, and one of the year’s dance music highlights. Between this and ‘Kill Kill Kill’, no-one should be in any doubt as to the fact that KTN is one of the most terrifyingly talented producers on the planet. The big names had better hope he leaves a bit of space at the top for them, because this guy is showing no signs of stopping any time soon. 

Rating – 4.5/5

2012 Thus Far - Big Things in EDM 20:28

It’s been a while.

While the electronic dance music scene has been pumping out hundreds of club bangers, this blog has been gathering dust in a quiet corner of the internet. But rather than make excuses about work schedules and personal commitments, let’s take a look back at what’s been tearing up clubland over the past few months, and have a think about where dance music might be headed next. And what better way to do this than by picking out a few album releases which have been the defining moments of the year? 

(Don’t answer that, because I’m going to do it anyway.)

Arguably, the first major release of the year came at the end of January, with Moguai’s second album, entitled Mpire. This German producer’s classic progressive sound saw some changes, with a movement towards electro house, evident on the album’s title track, jammed with big build-ups and buzzing synths. While the album had its high points, with the airy synths of ‘Smyles’, the gorgeous vocals of ‘Invisible’ and the trancey ‘Out of Nowhere’, many of its tracks fell down on simply not having enough to make them memorable, fading reasonably pleasantly into the background. Unfortunately, for many of the releases in progressive house in recent months, this has been the norm, with rather Avicii-inspired breakdowns and synth sections, perhaps topped off with some piano samples. Amid the explosive proliferation of new genres in 2012, progressive house seems to have fared worst of all. 

But, while Moguai’s album was something of a disappointment, barely a week later, a surprise came in the form of ‘Feed Me’s Escape From Electric Mountain’. Not content with dominating electro house and dubstep, the ever-talented Jon Gooch delivered a slice of drum and bass, in the form of his fist-pumping collaboration with Hadouken, entitled ‘Trapdoor’. Not content with that, he also took the tempo down with the  explosive 110bpm ‘One Click Headshot’, featuring the vocal talents of the YouTube phenomenon FPS Doug. And perhaps the biggest surprise of all was the stunning progressive banger, ‘Relocation’, whose haunting synths and spine-tingling drop lead to the very real possibility of this becoming one of the greatest tracks of the year.

While progressive house seems to have hit something of a dead end, there is plenty of innovation in the electro house scene. Fresh talent such as Porter Robinson and Zedd, as well as veteran producers like Wolfgang Gartner are unleashing a steady stream of new tracks. There is still plenty of room for new blood, however, as demonstrated by the relatively unknown James Egbert, and his innovative ‘In The Beginning’ EP, featuring 6 new electro house monsters, jammed with drum rollouts, glitched-out vocals, razor-sharp synths and contorted basslines. Falling somewhere between Klaypex and Mord Fustang, this young producer is one to watch out for.

Meanwhile, dubstep has been taking over. Of course, the endless Skrillex debates rage on, taking over the comments on what seems to be every single EDM track on YouTube. These aren’t likely to stop any time soon either, with the rumoured ‘Voltage’ EP in the works. For the rest of us though, who long since realised the best course of action is to shut up and enjoy the music, dubstep seems to be where the real excitement is, with assimilation of aspects of just about every other genre known to mankind. A perfect example of the changes in the heavy dubstep scene is ‘Vitamin D’, the debut album of Canadian basshead DatsiK. Theis album veers recklessly off into drum and bass with the strings-laden ‘Syndrome’, old-school turntablism with Z-Trip on ‘Double Trouble’, 110bpm on ‘Light The Fuse’ and full-blown heavy metal on ‘Evilution’ which features the talents of  KoRn and Infected Mushroom. Vitamin D demonstrates how many artists are no longer limiting themselves to a particular sub-genre, and instead applying their talents elsewhere. Of course, while Dim Mak and Rottun records have, as ever, been delivering on form, it would be an oversight to neglect to mention the immense talents of the Never Say Die crew. Their recent showcase, distributed by UKF, brings together the best of international talent at the noble art of dancefloor demolition. Compiled by the insanely-talented Brit himself, SKisM, this album includes the ‘Belgian prodigy’, Eptic, the maniacal Zomboy, and the acclaimed Skeptiks among others, the compilation perfectly epitomises the gleeful mayhem of heavy dubstep, brostep, or however you want to classify it. What we can all agree on is that it’s here, it’s big, and it’s definitely going to let anyone ignore it any time soon.

One of this year’s albums which has prompted the most discussion is the full-length second album by dubstep pioneer, Rusko. Most articles recently about this 27-year old producer have focussed on his ‘beef’ with deadmau5. As is typical of Mixmag in particular, this seems to have been blown out of all proportion. What they seem to have ignored is that Rusko has delivered one of the freshest pieces of electronica in months. Rusko’s signature style is all over this album, most likely some function of his remarkable drug and alcohol intake of late. But, the album doesn’t suffer as a result – it features fiendishly catchy bangers, such as ‘Skanker’ and the glitzy commercial tracks ‘Pressure’ and ‘Dirty Sexy’, the latter of which could easily be mistaken as featuring the vocal talents of none other than Rihanna. The album rounds off with the piano-laden ‘M357’, which brings everything to a close on a mellower note. But ‘Songs’ does not limit itself to tracks such as these, however, with Rusko riding another of the upcoming dubstep trends, namely that of reggae. While purists will perhaps take objection to Skrillex and Damian Marley’s controversial ‘Make It Bun Dem’, there’s far less to dislike here, with the chill vibe of the phenomenal ‘Love No More’ and ‘Mek More Green’.  Expect to see more tracks like this as the year goes on – the irresistible groove of reggae-influenced tracks is likely to appeal to a good few more dubstep producers yet.

Of course, a mention has to be given to EDM’s biggest names of all, where things have generally been a bit quieter of late. Mixmag’s number one DJ of all time, Tiesto, has released some new material on the eagerly-anticipated second instalment of his Club Life collection. In places, this compilation has notes of sheer brilliance, with the sparkling ‘Chasing Summers’ and the heavily remixed collaboration with Wolfgang Gartner, ‘We Own the Night’. But, in others, tracks which have been done to death let the side down somewhat, such as Tiesto’s own played-out ‘Maximal Crazy’, the predictable Axwell mix of ‘In My Mind’ and the remix of Coldplay’s rather nauseating track ‘Paradise’. Meanwhile, deadmau5 has been gradually releasing singles and Soundcloud demos, with some remix work on ‘Cthulhu Sleeps’, a space-inspired piece ‘Closer’, and the newly-released ‘There Might Be Coffee’. Of course, it just wouldn’t be right for us to go a few months without a deadmau5 release dominating the top of the Beatport charts, and sure enough, ‘The Veldt’ did just that, and will likely find its way onto an album soon. One of the more unusual projects this year was the ‘mau5hax’ project in March, which sought to hunt down some of the best undiscovered talent in the scene. While ‘Fractals’ and ‘Titty Sprinkles’ sunk without a trace, mau5trap has sought to make the most of their findings with the ‘We Are Friends’ compilation, featuring 9 new tracks. There are generally more hits than misses, with James Nije’s intricate electro banger ‘Room Modes’, and Born Freak’s mellow ‘Cocktail Bar’. Sadly, a few tracks seem to lack originality. I wonder if deadmau5 noticed that ‘Buddygirrl’ has more or less handed him his own tune ‘Jaded’ back in the form of the progressive ‘Fly’? And of course, a nod has to be given to Skrillex and friends on OWSLA Records, which has been graced with more chart monsters courtesy of Zedd,  Nick Thayer’s ‘Like Boom’ EP, and Dillon Francis’ three-track ‘Something, Something, Awesome’, and its bizarrely joyful  downtempo moombahton. OWSLA also generously gave out the aptly-entitled ‘Free Treats Vol. II’, which had something to keep everyone happy, from the thunderous electro house of ‘Brohammer’ and ‘Shot of Bruschotti’ right through to the dark, Magnetic Man-esque ‘Alone Time’ and ‘Chess Fight’. This innovative label are still a force to be reckoned with, picking out the cream of the crop when it comes to electronica, having just released the staggering ‘Careless’ EP by Jack Beats, which brings in Dillon Francis, Takura, Diplo & Example, reason enough in itself to give it a try. 

So there we have it. 2012 has already been quite a year for music, and is showing no signs of slowing. With DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs poll nearing its close, and plenty of new albums on the horizon, we are at an exciting time in dance music. As the distinctions between genres seem to become ever-more blurred, and influences become wider, EDM seems to be going in a direction none of us really can predict. One thing’s for sure though – we’re in for one hell of a ride.  

Skrillex 'Bangarang' EP Review 20:32

Just about everyone these days seems to want to have their say about Skrillex. And, arguably with good reason - in the past 18 months, the former First to Last emo vocalist has managed a quite staggering set of achievements – with 4 EPs under his belt, on the mau5trap and Big Beat labels, the 23 year-old has not only embarked on a mammoth international tour, jumped straight to number 19 on the Top 100 DJs list (amid yet another massive controversy), but has also collaborated with huge names across the EDM industry, among them Benny Benassi, Nero, Kaskade, Knife Party and Avicii, as well as names like KoRn, Rob Zombie, Lady Gaga and Ellie Goulding. Sonny Moore has not only launched his own record label, OWSLA, which seems to be producing some of the most consistently high-quality releases from new talent in the scene, but he has also effectively spawned his own, inimitable sound, being dubbed as ‘brostep’ for lack of a better description, a high-energy collision between dubstep, electro house and glitch, featuring massively distorted vocal samples, explosive basslines and huge synth hooks.

Inevitably, this has caused one of the biggest divisions in recent dance music history, with Skrillex’s online “haters” piling on abuse, while his fans loyally defend their idol. It’s an argument which is going nowhere –as much as every magazine wants to write an article about Skrillex being “the most hated man in dubstep” or pondering just how the young sensation has come to fame, there will also be argument. He is very much the “marmite” of music, either loved or hated, with very little in between. Regardless of which side you fall on this debate, it is undeniable that Skrillex is going places – and fast.

And now, at last, his new EP, Bangarang has dropped, after various setbacks. Many fans will remember how Sonny’s hard drives were stolen from a hotel in Milan earlier this year, meaning that his forecasted artist EP was no longer possible, and instead a remix EP, More Monsters and Sprites,  was released. Admittedly, this contained First of the Year (Equinox), which has been one of his most successful tracks, with his music video racking up over 25 million hits on YouTube since its release 4 months ago. Nonetheless, many fans felt disappointed, some to the extent that numerous death threats were being launched against whoever stole the hard drives. Fortunately, Bangarang is here at last, and full of brand new tracks. Whether it fully makes up for the lost tracks is debatable – but there’s plenty to get excited about here.

Unfortunately, for UK-based fans, Big Beat recordings have made the decision that the EP will be limited to US fans only. At present, the only way to legally obtain it is via a workaround using the old Flash version of the Beatport site, but at £13.93 for 320kbps MP3s, or the frankly astonishing price of £21.98 for high quality WAV versions, many fans will feel hard done by, even those keen to help support an upcoming artist. Hopefully soon we will see a price reduction and wider geographic distribution, as well as an iTunes release – back when the original My Name Is Skrillex EP dropped, the release was available for free, and Sonny seems to be a big advocate of making his music as widely available as he can – on his Facebook, he even goes as far as to encourage his fans to pirate it if they can’t afford it.

Pricing aside, Bangarang shows its true colours within moments. The opening track, Right In, thunders through choppy vocal edits and grinding bass, briefly widening out with sparkling synths reminiscent of With You Friends. The whole EP shows far more attention to synths and hooks than any of his previous work, as well as a host of new collaborations.

The EP’s title track, Bangarang, was leaked online some weeks ago, but chugs along at a comparatively sedately 110bpm. Those familiar with Skrillex’s Mortal Kombat remix, Reptile may well find this track familiar – with distorted vocals from Sirah, whose name last appeared on the My Name Is Skrillex release, and harsh synths, this track is sadly probably the EP’s weakest point, with only a couple of loops making up its 3.35 runtime, which only see any variation with some filters towards the end.

The EP’s third track is another born of tremendous controversy. Above & Beyond described 2011 as the year that the notion of genre in EDM seemed to collapse completely, and Skrillex’s work with the remaining members of ‘The Doors’ certainly seems to support their point. Another project which every internet music reviewer wanted to chip in their two cents on, Breakin’ a Sweat is nonetheless a huge tune, bursting at the seams with organ sounds and clap-driven rhythms, quoting Light My Fire somewhere along the line too. 

After  that slightly more gentle collaboration, the EP takes a decidedly more menacing route. Even from the tracklist, it becomes clear to the listener that frightening things are about to happen. The Devil’s Den is Skrillex’s collaboration with Wolfgang Gartner, another electro house prodigy making a name for himself this year, with his devastating album ‘Weekend In America’. From the opening hook, this track is clearly a monster, showcasing Wolfgang’s fearsome synth style, before descending into absolute mayhem 30 seconds in. Before long, the track opens out with Skrillex’s signature breakdowns and some of the grimiest vocal mods since Noisia remixed Painkiller – this messy electro house tune will inevitably produce huge results on dancefloors worldwide.

Right On Time is another collaboration, this time with dubstep heavyweight 12^th Planet and OWSLA label-mate Kill the Noise. The sound, set at 140bpm veers more into glitch territory, with long builds and stuttered vocals more reminiscent of KOAN Sound – another useful tool for the DJ arsenal, to add a grimy technical sound to a dubstep mix.

Another track which will be familiar to Skrillex fans is Ruffneck Bass, which was released earlier in the year under the guise of ‘Flex’ and ‘Full Flex’ variations, which sadly were quite different from the original mix, which was leaked on the internet some time ago, presumably from the stolen hard drives. Nonetheless, Ruffneck Bass has been driving crowds insane at his live sets for some months, and now, it’s back – in the form of another track with Sirah, this time called Kyoto. With manic sliced-up vocal samples in the initial build-up, and a breakdown directly from Ruffneck bass, some fans may feel a bit disappointed with Sirah’s yell of “Skrill, drop it hard” on the drop, rather than the legendary “Are you ready for the ruffneck bass?”. Her predictable vocals on the later stage of the track also feel somewhat superfluous – whether we will ever see the original mix of Ruffneck Bass is debatable, but at least this version delivers a lot of the features of the hard-hitting original, combined with some fresh new synths, which lend the track something of an Eastern feel.

Finally, the EP comes to a close with Summit, featuring Ellie Goulding, whose synthpop origins set her up well for her more recent work with dubstep artists. This track feels far more laid-back than most of the album, focussing on gorgeous progressive synths and Ellie’s vocals, with a mood reminiscent of With You Friends. Tracks like this remind us of Sonny’s emo origins, but here’s hoping we see more work like this – Summit is a stunning track, and rounds off the EP fantastically, easing the listener back after the six frantic tracks before it.

So, to round it off – this EP will inevitably bring even more controversy out, dividing opinions left, right and centre. But for those who enjoy electro house, or indeed ‘brostep’, this album has a lot to offer – with devastating tunes like The Devil’s Den, and the stunning Summit, this one is definitely worth a listen to. What it won’t do is change many opinions of Skrillex’s haters – but for the rest, give it a try, if only for the Ellie Goulding collaboration. Bangarang well and truly hammers home that Skrillex is one of the biggest names in electronic music today, and before long could well be threatening the long-established heroes of the scene.

Rating – 4.5/5

Excision 'X Rated' Review 17:07

It’s been a good year for mau5trap recordings. It seems that every time this label drops a new major release, it takes hold of Beatport’s Top 10. Last October, Skrillex’s ‘Scary Monsters & Nice Sprites’ was released, heralding the start of a new era in dubstep, namely one where ‘traditional’ dubstep aficionados and Skrillex fans argue it out on internet message boards and on video comments as to whether this new breed of dubstep, electro house, or whatever you want to call it is a move in the right direction in the field of EDM. Like most things on the internet, of course, these discussions tend to deteriorate into mudslinging and name calling in just a few posts. Clearly if something’s this contentious, Skrillex is doing it right. Since then, the founder of the label himself, deadmau5, dropped 4x4=12 in early December, after all but a couple of the tracks had been released as singles, and soon after, Feed Me (the dubstep alias of Spor) unveiled his debut EP, which again dominated the Beatport charts after its release. Along with releases by Moguai, Chris Lake and DJ Aero, to name a few, mau5trap are proving themselves to be a force to be reckoned with.

Now, their latest release has been unleashed – Excision’s debut album ‘X-Rated’. After showcasing his track ‘Deviance’ on the recent ‘Meowingtons Hax Tour Trax’ compilations, the ominously-named Canadian is poised to smash dancefloors worldwide. Even from its cover, X-Rated looks to be an album with grandiose intentions.  The artwork depicts what Transformers might well look like if Blizzard Studios got their hands on the licence – an angry-looking demonic creation wreathed in lightning and leaking blue light. And the opening track certainly sounds befitting of this. Opening with bass-loaded growling and crashing, before deep vocals by Messinian kick in, over a chopped-up, stuttering bass-monster of a track. Unfortunately, Messinian’s lyrics are limited to the yawningly-obviously ‘X’ related puns, which, among others, have been done to death by Xzibit, DMX and the X-Executioners. This aside, ‘X Rated’ is a serious tune – clearly Excision means business with this album.

X Rated thunders along during ‘The Underground’, which uses a bouncy dubstep backing and scattered samples to guarantee dancefloor destruction, occasionally veering off into sinister synth sounds, before launching back into the unrelenting beats of the main rhythm. The album also offers some electro house, in the form of the manic ‘Ohhh Nooo’, loaded with acid synths over a thunderous four on the floor beat, as well as the similarly-frantic ‘Swerve’. Excision blurs genres even further with ‘8-Bit Superhero’, another collaboration with Datsik, sampling the Megaman 2 theme over a drum-step backing and a catchy as hell lead riff.

However, Excision also proves to us that he is also capable of slowing things down a bit, for example on the album’s closing track, ‘Jaguar’. Already this one seems to be dividing opinion, with Mr. Hudson’s auto-tuned vocals upsetting some listeners. But these seem to set the tone well for the track, a moody, plaintive respite from the onslaught of the rest of the album. But Excision’s collaboration with Savvy, ‘Sleepless’ is where this album perhaps shines brightest of all. A complete change in mood, this track brings in deep piano, and echoing, almost hauntingly-beautiful vocals,  gradually building to melodic dubstep. If nothing else, you should give this track a try – this is like deadmau5’s ‘Strobe’, a track to end the night, exhilarating, simultaneously dark and euphoric. This is a late-night track  if ever there was one – kill the lights, crack open a beer, sit back and let this one wash over you. You won’t regret it. 

So, is Excision’s album a worthwhile listen? Well, it certainly isn’t for everyone. Even among fans of electronic dance music, this one will have fairly limited appeal. Fans of the grimy side of electronica will definitely enjoy it – Excision shares a lot of common ground with the likes of Noisia, Skrillex, 16-bit, Magnetic Man, Feed Me & Nero. But this really is an extremely grimy album, veering off into what sounds more like agricultural machinery at times. Certainly, minimal fans should probably steer well clear of this one. There are enough quality tunes on show here to recommend the album – while it loses direction a bit on tracks 7-9, there’s a lot to enjoy among the rest of it. Excision has delivered on form here, and this album shows great promise for the future. He’s rumoured to be working with deadmau5 soon on some new releases – definitely worth keeping an eye on that. Time to sign off, and find out what Porter Robinson’s been up to on the newly-launched Owsla Records…

Rating – 4/5

Example ‘Playing In The Shadows’ Review 15:57

In the past few years, Example has made quite a name for himself in the rap/electronica scene. Certainly, his style isn’t anything we haven’t seen before – a singer/producer dabbling in radio-friendly rave tracks over catchy four on the floor backings. This description could just as easily be applied to Calvin Harris, and the similarities don’t stop there – both Harris and Example’s singing abilities are at best debatable, and they both seem to bring in a lot of girls at their live performances. But, unlike Calvin Harris, who this summer has pushed out the undeniably catchy ‘Bounce’ and ‘Feel So Close’, Example is taking a rather different direction. A glance at the cover of the ominously-titled ‘Playing In The Shadows’ indicates this is a rather different album to 2010’s ‘Won’t Go Quietly’. Example clearly wants to show us his darker side vocally, which has only ever been hinted at before. This album also marks Example’s movement deeper into electronica – having worked with Calvin Harris and Sub Focus previously, this Londoner now brings in an all-star cast of production talent, including, among others, mau5trap’s Michael Woods and Feed Me, Dutch house legend Laidback Luke, Magnetic Man’s dubstep fiend Skream, and the undisputed kings of the UK scene, Nero and Chase & Status. With support like this, Example has given himself the best chance possible of delivering us a monster the likes of which hasn’t been heard since Magnetic Man’s self-titled album, or ‘No More Idols’ which, even 8 months down the line, occupies fully half of iTunes top ten electronic tracks. Even so, Example’s chart performance this year isn’t to be sniffed at – Zane Lowe’s ‘Hottest Record In The World’ back in April, ‘Changed The Way You Kiss Me’, produced by Michael Woods, has received tremendous radio play, and has been in the iTunes top ten ever since its release. Having shot straight to the top of the charts with ‘Stay Awake’ (notably another recipient of ‘the hottest record in the world’ label), Example looks poised to smash the charts once again.

The album opens with ‘Skies Don’t Lie’, and from the offset we can hear that Example is taking a much darker direction this time around. The track is unrelenting, as Funkagenda provide a grimy backing peppered with string samples, and Example delivers an anthemic performance with a gorgeous vocal mod in the closing third of the track. Next up, the album’s lead singles follow back to back. ‘Stay Awake’ is a cocaine-themed cautionary tale, but it’s a heavyweight tune, kept thundering along by Nero – this could be the new ‘Kickstarts’, and goes to show that Example means business, in the form of delivering big-room bass-heavy tracks. After the equally-energetic ‘Changed The Way You Kiss Me’, the album opens out into the soulful ‘The Way’, produced by Faithless (of ‘God is a DJ’ fame), we’re presented with edgy, minor-key piano on the opening of ‘Natural Disaster’. It builds to a towering crescendo with Example’s urgent “need some air, need some space” lyric, before launching into a storming house breakdown – exactly what Laidback Luke does best. 

The album then takes an unfortunate detour into mediocrity, with ‘Never Had a Day’ and ‘Microphone’ – while neither is a disaster, these two fail to hold the listener’s attention, and neither do they showcase the talent of Example or the producers involved, instead feeling stifled by an unwillingness to break out into anything more ambitious. However, the album’s title track, ‘Playing In The Shadows’ changes the mood up considerably. With dark acoustic guitar and minimalistic hi-hats, the echoing vocals feel a good deal like Chase & Status’ own track ‘Embrace’ – but the ominous bass wobble hints at things to come. This track is clear testament that this album is indeed dedicated to the darker side of Example, and Chase & Status shine in the last minute or so, bursting into full-fledged dubstep, replete with growling synths and sliced-up vocals, the likes of which haven’t been heard since Bar 9 remixed ‘Kickstarts’. 

Next up is ‘Midnight Run’, produced by Feed Me (the electro house/dubstep alias of Hertfordshire drum and bass producer Spor). At a peculiar pace of 135bpm, this track lets the album open out a little, more reminiscent of tracks like ‘Last Ones Standing’. But the backing is jammed with the buzzing electro complexity so typical of Feed Me – his fans will certainly be reminded of his solo dubstep track ‘Blood Red’, as ‘Midnight Run’ moves into the breakdown, and Example tells us about the skeletons in his closet. The album’s next track, ‘Under The Influence’ is produced by Croydon legend Skream, but Example’s lyrics are predictable this time around. The track builds to become a techy dubstep monster, before lapsing back into the rather cheesy chorus, lending the whole thing a rather bipolar feel. While Example’s final drawling rap part is reminiscent of Drake on Eminem’s track ‘Forever’, the overall package is not one of the album’s high points. While ‘Wrong in the Head’ is an undisputed grimy big-room anthem,  ‘Playing In The Shadows’ closes with the more gentle ‘Anything’, produced by serial remixer Dirty South. While ‘Anything’ is a story we’ve all heard before of a relationship falling apart, the combination of acoustic guitar and piano with Example’s heartfelt vocals make this a strong closing track which rounds the album off nicely. 

In summary – Example has demonstrated his versatility as an artist, still producing chart smash hits, but with a dark twist. Backed up by some of the most talented names in electronic music, Example has once again delivered a very solid album, let down by only a couple of lacklustre tracks. If only he'd used the alternative cover Feed Me proposed...

Rating – 4/5

Numark Mixtrack Pro Review 17:02

A few weeks ago, I visited London’s WestendDJ, just off Tottenham Court Road, with the intention of purchasing a full-featured MIDI-over-USB DJ software controller. After some deliberation, I eventually opted for Numark’s Mixtrack Pro, and, having now spent a few weeks using it, thought I would put together a few words about what it does well and annoyances I’ve encountered. Let me first say a few things about the type of music I’m DJing. I usually work with house and dubstep, occasionally trance or drum and bass, and I’m basing my review on working with these genres. I’m also not a turntablist as such, so my comments on these features are based more on my own knowledge than personal experience. I also do not use the bundled software (Traktor 2 LE). I’ve tried Traktor previously and don’t get on that well with it, so I prefer using Virtual DJ 7 Pro (even though the VDJ support team are some of the most tyrannical I’ve ever encountered – check out the forums and you’ll see soon enough). 

So, the unit itself is an all-plastic construction, weighing in at about 650g, with a footprint of about 18”x12”. Don’t be put off by the materials – even though this is marketed as a low-end product, the build quality is rock-solid, and Numark has included top-notch components. The volume sliders move slowly and smoothly, reminiscent of a far more expensive product, while the various effect/EQ knobs are also a pleasure to use. The unit is fairly portable, if a little large for your average laptop bag – bespoke flight cases are available, but these, while often beautiful, are eye-wateringly expensive. For example, Swanflight.com produce a dedicated custom flight case for the unit, priced around the £100 mark, which feels pretty steep for a £170 controller. You’d probably be better off finding a generic case or bag, which are readily available online. 

In terms of connectivity, the back of the unit has a USB type-B connector, which hooks up to your PC using the bundled cable, along with two pairs of RCA sockets. The first of these is designed to hook up to your PA system or to any further sound processing, while the second appears to be a pre-fade listening output, which is slightly mysterious, as the unit has a dedicated PFL headphone-out on the front. In my current set-up, I’m using Bose QC15s for PFL, and hence need an adaptor, as the socket on the front is for a quarter-inch jack plug. Alongside it is another quarter-inch socket for a microphone, with its own gain dial. However, even at full gain, the microphone throughput is shockingly quiet – I’ll come back to this later. 

The centre of the Mixtrack is occupied by a mixer, flanked by two identical decks. The top section of the mixer has a separate bass/mid/treble EQ  and  cue mix/cue gain dials. Cue mix appears to route the PFL signal to either the front headphone jack or the rear phono plugs in whichever proportion you so desire. Cue gain adjusts the headphone volume – a warning is that with low-impedance headphones like the QC15s, if you have the dial set any higher than about 5%, the volume is sufficient to blow your head off. This may prove to be no longer a problem when I get my Behringer headphones in, and it’s certainly not a bad thing – better than not being able to hear it. The mixer has a pretty clever file browser and options to load up to deck A or B. I personally favour using the mouse or touchpad to select my tracks, but the Mixtrack’s file browser works well. Each deck has a cue button (prefader listening) – works fine, but it’s a shame that you can’t switch on PFL in both decks, it’s either one or the other. This may be more of a software issue than the fault of the mixtrack however. There’s also a keylock for each deck, which is extremely handy. At the base of the unit, the deck A, B and master volume faders are wonderful – the amount of resistance makes them smooth, but fast enough to bring up a channel almost instantaneously. The crossfader is a lot faster, and should be responsive enough for turntablists – a nice addition would have been if the fader ‘clicked’ at the midpoint of its travel, but again this is a luxury rather than a necessity. 

Each deck is dominated by a touch-sensitive platter, which has a ‘scratch’ button next to it. With scratch switched off, the platter is not touch sensitive, and acts as a jog wheel whether the top is touched or not. With scratch enabled, the platter becomes a virtual vinyl, offering many of the features that a true vinyl deck would. The platter does not have multiple levels of pressure sensitivity – touching it will stop the music outright, and releasing it will start the music at full speed once more, so brake effects an BPM tweaking can’t be achieved directly by touching the deck. Below the platter, there are buttons for sync/cue/play/stutter. Pressing sync matches the BPM of the other deck, and immediately pitch bends the track to align the beats, assuming the other track is within BPM range – in VirtualDJ Pro, the BPM range can be adjusted up to +/- 100%, but I believe this is not available in the VDJ LE software bundled with the American version of the Mixtrack. The only button here which rarely gets any use is the stutter function, which jumps the track back or forward to the last place where you pressed play – again, this may be more useful for others who use this as part of their mix.

The top of each deck contains effect, loop and EQ kill functionality, as well as a pitch slider and pitch bend keys. The loop keys have manual or auto settings – in manual loops, you can specify the in/out points, while auto loops set up a loop between 1/16 and 32 bars, which you can easily tweak and drop out of. The effect panel has an on/off button, an effect selector and two effect parameters. For my purposes, I found the second parameter to be a bit superfluous, as most of the effects I use don’t need it – instead, I mapped it to the resonant filter in VDJ, which doesn’t have a dedicated dial on the Mixtrack. For reference, the VDJ Script for this is on the key FX_PARAM_2 on the mapper, and the action reads “param_multiply 1% & filter”, which has proven extremely handy. Another alternative mapping I’m using is the default mapping for the EQ kills, which maps hot cue 1/2/3 to each EQ kill, and the view/tick buttons map to ‘shift’, which, under VDJ allows you to cue/uncue each of the hot cues. I’d recommend this mapping – for my purposes, it’s very helpful for remixing on the fly, and I’ve never needed to EQ kill as such – I’ll usually tweak the EQ on the mixer. The pitch slider is one of the worst parts of the controller, however. Although Numark have included another high quality slider, the travel is very short, meaning that, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to within .10 of a BPM of where you want to be. There is an LED to indicate when you’re in the middle of the slider’s travel, but this is a bit haphazard – you can be several BPM off-centre and it’ll still illuminate. There’s also no locking-up of the slider at the midpoint. 

In terms of actually using the Mixtrack Pro, I’ve mostly been extremely happy with it. It’s pretty intuitive, and in the most part, it just works. Set-up isn’t the easiest thing, especially under Traktor 2 LE. I’m no expert on MIDI controllers, but for Traktor, a rather primitive subsidiary program, ASIO4ALL v2 has to be used – this is a WDM ASIO program, which has variable latency settings – however, regardless of the ASIO buffer size, even maxed out at 2048 samples I still got unpleasant audio issues, which made the whole thing unpleasant to work with. VirtualDJ has worked its wizardry such that the configuration is a lot easier – once everything is going to the right channels, it’s easy enough from there. I’ve had very few issues with audio latency – the platters are fast enough for virtually zero latency, even when scratch is optimised for quality in VDJ, and I’d imagine this is good enough for most turntablists. The only issue I’ve encountered is that the few program crashes I’ve had have all been due to scratching – this is probably more the fault of my laptop, rather than the Mixtrack, and indicates a buffer issue of some sort – either that or Windows can’t do the job properly which would be no surprise. All you Mac DJs out there probably won’t ever have this problem.  The Numark has a professional-standard audio I/O on board, which I have had no issue with – I’m sure the sound card would do you proud on a proper club system too. My only gripes linked to audio are both gain-related. Although the deck A/B volume sliders are described as A/B gain, they are mapped as volume sliders, which is a fairly fundamental part of any mixer. Thus, the Mixtrack lacks a dedicated gain dial for each deck, which could be put in alongside the EQ settings. Fortunately, VirtualDJ pretty much handles all its own gain anyway, normalising each track to maximise gain without clipping. I’m not sure if Traktor LE has automatic gain correction, but it could be a problem if it’s a missing feature. As I mentioned earlier, the microphone gain is also pretty weak. I experienced this when I was trying to use a sampler on the iPad, the ‘iDaft 2’, which I thought would be useful for the mix when doing an on-the-fly remix of ‘Harder Better Faster Stronger’. However, having hooked up the iPad with 3.5mm cabling to the microphone through socket, and turned gain up to full, the output was very quiet – certainly far too quiet to use. I’ve read that other DJs have encountered similar problems – the easiest solution appears to be to pre-amp the microphone, which can be done quite cheaply – it’s just something to be aware of.

Overall, the Mixtrack Pro is a very well-specified piece of kit for the price point, and I’m sure works just as well as many more expensive controllers. The majority of my complaints about the unit have been minor – the only other major oversight is the lack of any sampling capacity – samples can’t be recorded or triggered from the unit directly. However, this should be quite easily remedied – I can see a couple of options. For the iPad user, there’s TouchOSC, which uses MidiYoke and PureData, and can be configured as a sampler – however, it’s horrendously complex to set up, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Alternatively, there’s the Akai Pro LPD8 pad controller, which can be obtained for about £40 – I can’t vouch for how good it really is, but it looks like a useful MIDI pad controller which could be mapped to a sampler. Certainly there are videos online of people using VirtualDJ with both the LPD8 and the Mixtrack Pro, and I will probably be looking into this set-up in the future. 

So, to conclude – if you’re looking for a comparatively high-specified MIDI-over-USB controller in the sub-£200 bracket, this is as good a choice as any. With a sturdy build, high quality audio I/O and a feature set similar to far more expensive products, this should be top of your list. If you can live with the minor gripes I’ve listed (and if you can’t, you’ll probably have to spend a good three times as much on something like the NS6 or a Kontrol S4), then I would have no hesitation whatsoever in recommending this controller.