A dubstep track to kick things off… yes, really, dubstep. I have a near embargo on the genre but I do break it on the rare occasions that I find something worth breaking it for, and I hope you agree that this track is worth it. The rest of the show takes the more usual course through the latest and greatest of psybreaks and dnb.
Download (163.8MB 192kbps MP3 119’14″) 164 downloads

Download (163.8MB 192kbps MP3 119’14″) 164 downloads
Link to generate podcast enclosure

Unplanned double-length show this week… and boy did we fit a lot into it! 42 tracks in all, which is a very appropriate number what with Towel Day coming up. So what lies within?

Scroll down for the download link and tracklist, or read on…

First we round up the best of the latest releases and promos as usual, including a hot new pre-promo from Kwah (thanks man!) and some choice collaborations from VIM‘s new compilation celebrating their 100th release (congratulations on reaching that milestone, and big ups Greg and everyone else involved in this label which has been providing quality fuel for my radio shows pretty much since I started on Brap all those years ago!)

We then bid a fond farewell to Parallax Breakz, a name that will be familiar to all regular listeners of this show and indeed anyone on the prog/psybreaks scene. The man behind that name, Ukraine’s Alexander Zhikharev, is moving on to new musical pastures under different names, but we couldn’t let him go without a retrospective of some of the stack of great progressive and psychedelic breaks that he has produced over the past few years.

One of Alex’s future musical directions will be deep drum’n'bass, so for most of the (unexpected) second two hours of the show we went on one of QA’s semi-regular forays into that genre, bringing you some of the highlights of Med School’s eagerly awaited New Blood 011 along with more selections from the leading lights of intelligent dnb, starting progressive and getting pretty twisted by the end.

Enjoy!

Next show: Sat 23rd May, 19:00 BST, NSB Radio

Download (328.2MB 192kbps MP3 238’58″) 350 downloads

Download (328.2MB 192kbps MP3 238’58″) 350 downloads
Link to generate podcast enclosure

No new promos came in this week, so I had to go shopping for once. This is the result: Sick basslines galore! An hour and a half of nasty, twisted psy-edged breaks, followed by half an hour of evil DnB. Please note that this mix contains basslines that are too obscene and depraved for innocent ears…
Download (165.3MB 192kbps MP3 120’23″) 284 downloads

Download (165.3MB 192kbps MP3 120’23″) 284 downloads

Covering for Beatmassa’s show, it was a beautiful sunny afternoon here in Southampton so I took the opportunity to pig out on delicious daytime DnB.

If you like this, don’t forget to check out Chilliquid Drum’n'Bliss if you haven’t already – by popular demand, there will be a followup to that one coming at some point… but in the meantime, here’s 2.5 hours of pure drum’n'bliss for your pleasure…

Oh, and a casual glance at the Label column below should explain why I’ve just gone and added Camino Blue to the watchlist…

Download (207.0MB 192kbps MP3 150’45″) 274 downloads

Download (207.0MB 192kbps MP3 150’45″) 274 downloads

We kick off with some choice deep, rolling, techy nuskool, highlighting in particular the excellent new Early Works EP from Lady Packa, before moving on through psybreaks and electro to a second half of tasty drum’n'bass selections: progressive, wonky, neurofunk and wobbly. Easy now. Next NSB show: 16th Oct, 7pm BST.
Download (173.1MB 192kbps MP3 126’03″) 515 downloads

Download (173.1MB 192kbps MP3 126’03″) 515 downloads

Chunky progressive, psybreaks, dnb, and plenty of psytrance in this month’s trippy hop round the genres. Going out to everyone who caught my set at Waveform on the Kaplick Solar Stage… see you again next year!
Download (250.2MB 192kbps MP3 182’11″) 497 downloads

Download (250.2MB 192kbps MP3 182’11″) 497 downloads

Time for a long-overdue update to the Watchlist, where I list artists and labels who have proven themselves worthy of close attention. And it’s also overdue to give some recognition to those who are forcing forward the field of drum&bass, so this time around the focus is primarily on them…

Before we get there though, let’s deal with the other artists making their way onto this exclusive list. First up is Opiuo, one of a good handful of Aussie guys who are breaking new ground in the midtempo glitch-crunk market. If we’re being brutally honest, Opiuo’s sound is so instantly recognisable and unique, that sometimes it seems like he’s recycling his own tunes a little too much… but nonetheless he deserves recognition as the fattest thing to happen to midtempo since VENT’s Bear Crunk.

Sensient has been around quite a while, but until recently I only owned one of his rare forays into breakbeat. That all changed on seeing him live at Ozora this year. Deep, driving, maxi-minimal, hypnotic, and uber-squelchy, this is another artist with a totally unique sound. It doesn’t necessarily easily fit into a mix, but it deserves to be shoehorned in wherever possible.

We have two new players representing psybreaks — not just that, but progressive psybreaks, the very genre I most want to hear more of in the world… At the lighter end we have Blazer, keeping it rolling, hypnotic, techy and trippy. At the heavier end, still very psychedelic but rising more to a electro/tech-funk/acid mentality, is Triple Agent, whose music I have been very excited about from the beginning but initially dissuaded me with a psychotic tendancy to have odd bars with odd numbers of beats right in the middle of the mixin/out zones. He hasn’t abandoned this trope entirely, but has calmed it down enough that his tunes are now mixable (thanks Luk!)

So then, we turn to the drum’n'bass…

There are two main subgenres of dnb that I’m all over at the moment: blissed out daytime progressive, and gnarly twisted psychedelic neurofunk. One label in particular has been promoting excellent examples of both styles, and generally pushing the envelope, and that’s Hospital Records’ experimental baby brother Med School. Meanwhile two smaller labels that have also been consistently delivering the goods are Mindtech (generally on the twisted tip), and relative newcomer Offworld (generally on the proggy side).

Of all the artists on that progressive, sunny-afternoon vibe, it’s LM1 who most beautifully combines emotive melody with kickass rolling beats, precisely engineered and produced to perfection. If you’ve downloaded my mix Chilliquid Drum’n'Bliss you’ll already be familiar with the power of his tunes, and Frontier remains my absolute favourite track in this style of the past few years. So far…

If there’s an artist or label you think I ought to check out, let me know… get in touch via the contact page

Ali Mobius had been rolling some tasty dnb on the show before this one, so I decided to carry on in that vein.
Kicking off with the kind of laidback progressive dnb that I touted on my mix Chilliquid Drum’n'Bliss, then getting tougher, glitchier, more psychedelic and neurofunked, before the time machine circuits kicked in and we pay a visit to some absolutely classic mid-90s dnb, jungle, and then further back to the sound of the underground that first got me dancing, early 90s oldskool breakbeat hardcore. Bring the noise!
Download (165.7MB 192kbps MP3 120’40″) 706 downloads

Download (165.7MB 192kbps MP3 120’40″) 706 downloads

Download (167MB 192k MP3 121’44″) 798 downloads

Download (167MB 192k MP3 121’44″) 798 downloads

\ Download (189MB 192k MP3 137’46″) 623 downloads

Download (189MB 192k MP3 137’46″) 623 downloads