SittingOvation

Archive for August, 2008

DFRNT – Aftermath & The Next Step

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

OK, so I know it’s a bit cheeky to post about my own stuff, but those looking for a certain sound, might start using this forum, in which case I think it’s only fair to show them anything I do which might fall in to the same category.

I’ve put up 2 new tracks on the MySpace – http://www.myspace.com/dfrntdubstep

Aftermath & The Next Step.

The Next Step – A slow plodding track with warm open synths, and a high-end sparkly sound for melody. The drop provides a slow growling bassline, which never quite emerges from the shadows.

Aftermath – A sort of stabbed-out track with warm synths leading the sound, and some guitar-licks to provide something of a melody. Deep & dubby.

Your thoughts are welcome!

Lojik – Shapeshifter

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

I’m not going to make too big a thing about this, but can we give this chap (dubstepforum link) some encouragement please? I can see him really nailing some of that quality dubbed-out atmospheric stuff that I’m really digging at the moment.

You can stream his first track “Shapeshifter” here – http://virb.com/lojik

It has a little bit of work required, but I get a good feeling about it!!

Yong – Infinite EP – ADV003

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

First things first – check out the tracks (and buy it if you want!) here or stream from Yong’s MySpace page.

“Infinite” and “Men of Earth” are your target tracks…

“If the doors of perception were closed, everything would appear to man as it is… Infinite.”

A vocal sample reminiscent of some Horizons documentary, Learning program or Tomorrows World fayre. An interesting start to “Infinite” a bass-reliant track. Take your standard sub, twist it inside-out and fire it on all cylinders through some sort of melody and you’d have your bassline here. The percussion and loop sit on top, but don’t quite compete with the bass until the bass is lost to the breakdown. As soon as it re-appears the rest of the track more or less pales in to significance. Wise? You decide.

I like it. Some will, some might not. It’s hard to put this on the dancefloor without a really heavy beat to back the bass up, but those who try might get some interesting effects!

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Liquidrockz – Angel, Clonez & Psiren

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

I’ve just found myself in the middle of a Japanese forest, surrounded by a group of people. They all have individual instruments, some of which I’ve never seen before. There’s some flutes, violins a vocalist and then some sort of hybrid bass-tube instrument amongst others.

The group are plaing me this haunting melody, with a very ‘live’ feel about it. Nothing is over-processed here by the sounds of things. They seem content to play to me, slowly building up their sounds until after a couple of minutes, they break in to this frantic beat-driven bass-heavy breaks/dubstep hybrid sound. It suddenly becomes apparent that there are twice as many people here as I thought initially, and stretching off back in to the forest are people with snares, bits of percussion, and a bunch of processors for the bass.

It’s a bizarre picture to conjour up, but it seems apt, and somewhat fitting for this track “Angel” from German producer outfit Liquidrockz.

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Akema – Wild Flower

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

I’m drifting lifeless underwater. Fully conscious, yet on the brink of letting go of life, and entering that euphoric state that apparently exists in the moments between life and death. Running through my mind is nothing… no thoughts, just sound. The sound of “Wild Flower” by Akema.

Sure – it’s not the prettiest image to conjour up – but at least you’re thinking about the track in a differnet light. You’re not looking at the title and thinking flowers, gardening or agriculture.

If you’ve not heard this track, fire on over to Akema’s MySpace page and have a listen.

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DOM – Garden / Below & Beneath – Faisty 001

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

There’s an ancient Chinese proverb that says “Those who enjoy a good skank, should wait for the second drop”.

There was something else someone told me about enjoying a good skank, but I can’t quite recall what it was.

First things first… Check out ‘Garden’ and ‘Below & Beneath’ on Dom’s MySpace page – http://www.myspace.com/domh at least then you can listen along and bop away while you read!

Anyway, bottom line here is if you like good, solid dubstep, with, a nice synth riff, some processed sub bass, and your common garden drumloop – then DOM’s release on Faisty is probably for you. It doesn’t blow minds on the second drop, but you know what… It doesn’t need to!

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Lacood – Progressive Dubstep Vol. 1

Monday, August 25th, 2008

You may or may not have heard of Lacood. I for one, hadn’t until this evening. Previously a drum & bass producer Lacood has been converted to the dubstep side of things for the 13th release on Synthactica records.

So SYN013 is currently sitting at 82 on the Juno dubstep chart, and has been around for just 4 days. If you’re quick you can jump on over to their site, and download the release for free (which might have something to do with the Juno chart position not being a little higher right now) you can probably sit and listen to it as you read the rest of this post – but if you miss their giveaway (looks like it’s just an August thing) then you can get it through Juno. Where you can at the very least stream a sample or two!

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Tangka – Dryad

Monday, August 25th, 2008
Tangka - Dryad

Tangka - Dryad

I’ve just been dropped in to a cave, there are frogs, and some sort of oriental drummer who’s slowly beating out this omnipresent tribal pattern of beats along to some choral synthwork echoing down the cavern, and standing right there in the middle of it I can’t help but slowly nod my head to the groove, which almost stutters along with a long slow sub-bass.

For fear of getting a little to Mary-Anne Hobbs on this one, I’ll stop at this point to inform you that the frogs still seem to like it.

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A call to action for all dubstep producers!

Monday, August 25th, 2008

OK, here’s the deal…

You send me your spiffy release. I’ll review it and post it up here.

I’m not promising gleaming reviews every time, but It’s unlikely I’ll be making a habit of posting rubbish. The main aim will be to boost some producer’s work and just generally give credit where I think it’s due.

So as a producer I’d like you to send me your release. It can be a link to mp3s, a spangly copy of your CD, or any format you like. Hell if I still had a tape deck, I’d take cassette.

As a reviewer, I’ll post it on the blog with a review, and the relevant information, provided it’s decent enough. If it’s not – I’ll write back and explain why. Maybe offer some tips on how you may be able to improve it.

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An introduction to Sitting Ovation

Saturday, August 23rd, 2008

I registered sittingovation with the intention of writing a blog. I felt the need to join the already over-saturated blogging community and force my ill-informed, sarcastic and often particularly hate-fuelled opinions on to those one or two visitors (sorry… page-impressions) a decade who might stumble upon the site looking for something they’re unlikely to find.

It’s still a blog. Yes well done, you’ve deduced that much Sherlock. Good work. But instead of being a badly informed pessemistic complainey-voiced boring view on things like the weather being crap in th UK, the latest bell-end-techniques for recycling, crappy world-views, snore-worthy politics or what my cat is doing every 3 seconds, I decided that I might be better-placed to provide a semi-positive outlook on emerging  music producers.

I’m in to music (who isn’t these days eh. Music… what’s that all about!) and as well as helping me increase my street-cred, allowing me to get “down with the kids” (yeah, you heard me. That’s what they say these days grandpa!) it should also serve as (here comes the clincher…) “a fantastic platform for emerging talent on the internet, bringing music to new audiences and allowing…” actually – you can pretty much make the rest up it’s all bollocks really.

So here I am, pondering the infinite possibilities for pushing this whole thing forward. To begin with I expect I’ll just surf around MySpace, music forums and amateur websites looking for producers who are ‘good’, but don’t seem to see much hype or success as of yet. In the long-run this could turn in to a nice resource for those wishing to find some new dubstep, nicely categorised in to spiffy genres, tagged with similar tracks, and more or less just awesome for the most part.

Right now it could go either way, but I suppose it’s really down to me to source the good stuff. Once I’ve done the hard work, all you lot can come and post wanky comments on the posts about how you don’t agree with my tenuous references and mis-information. In fact, I’m quite looking forward to the whole thing. If it helps some producers get noticed, then so be it!

So I best push on with this, and see if we can’t make a go of the whole thing.