Sunday, February 07, 2010
Fabric Hits A Century
The Fabric and Fabriclive mix series have just reached their half century each and continue to push the envelope exploring new sonic territories. Fabric could have easily sat back and ploughed the same old furrow as other so-called 'superclubs' by putting out generic mixes from the scenes trusted big hitters. However they have gone the other route and keep on championing rising talents.The two new mixes come from Martyn and D-Bridge & Instra:Mental. Martyn can be considered now to be a big name, however Fabric is still the first label to release mix by the artist and to give him the honour of number 50 says something about their attitude. Although considered to be a Dubstep artist, Martyn has always incorporated many more influences than straight up Bass music. His mix starts off with the Prince/Outkast R&B of Hudson Mohawke then drifts through 2-step to Dubstep to Techno. It's a varied mix of beats which would normally be reserved for the Fabriclive nights but it shows just how much the House and Techno community has opened up to dubstep that they can now sit side by side on Fabric's main Saturday 4/4 centric night.
Martyn - Hear Me (Zomby Mix) // 3024 Buy
Fabric 50 mixed by Martyn is out now. Buy
EDIT - Martyn has also done a promo mix to accompany the official release - check it out here.
The real revelation for me though came when listening to D-Bridge & Instra:Mental present Autonomic. After being mesmerised by the emotive 'Watching You' by Instra:Mental from last year, this mix just blew me away. What Instra:Mental & D-Bridge have created is a new take on Dubstep fused with a half-step minimal Drum & Bass tempo to create a brand new sound for the 2010s.“There was no space in drum & bass, it was just running twenty breaks on top of each other, so we thought about what we could do, because what we were making was quite minimalistic in some ways; we decided to not fill the gaps." - Instra:Mental
The mix contains many tracks from the artists themselves but also many of Dubstep's leading lights working at a Drum & Bass tempo. Tracks from the likes of Scuba, Skream and Distance slot perfectly in the mix.
This will be a mix that is going to get caned all year and is a breath of fresh air from the D&B scene which I personally though had lost it's creativity long ago. Highly Recommended.
Instra:Mental - Watching You // Nonplus+ Buy
Fabriclive 50 will be released on February 15th (USA March 23rd)
Labels: D-Bridge, Fabric, Instra:Mental, Martyn, Zomby
