Sounds Defy Gravity

Nice things coming from the NorthEast this week: download of Scuba/SCB live at Panorama Bar and an interview with Scuba on Halcyon’s website. Also – if you are in the NYC area make sure to check out the BLKMARKET show happening on Saturday August 14. Get there by 11:30 to hear Halcyon/Hot Flush’s Nihal Ramchandani who has been making waves with his selections lately, follow up with sets by Dj Three, Scuba Jennifer Cardini, Taimur & Fahad. Info below the break.

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Download: Halcyon presents Scuba/SCB live at Panorama Bar
(Duration: 1:02:40 — 143.4MB)

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Halcyon interviews Scuba (read the entire article HERE)

halcyon: I’ve been following your production for a long time and was very interested when your first more techno-sounding tracks were released. I’m aware there was a certain trend towards this in the dubstep scene but can you say what specifically in your case led to this development?

Well the dubstep/techno thing has been rumbling on for a few years now, and to be honest it’s become a bit of a cliché. The interesting thing aboutdubstep originally was always that it was very wide ranging in terms of influences and the general direction of the music, but obviously as it’s become a bigger thing a certain amount of that has been lost so anything outside the mainstream is seen as some kind of sub-genre, which is quite regrettable from my perspective. But in terms the SCB project, that’s not dubstep at all, it’s always been intended as pretty straight up house and techno. It started off as a result of a few things, the most important of which was probably going to Panorama Bar as a punter and just soaking up the atmosphere there. I’d been playing more and more slower, 4/4-based sets anyway, and messing around in the studio making tracks to fit in with that kind of DJ set, and to me it’s pretty far removed from the Scuba stuff so it made sense to call it something different.

h: To me your tracks have also had a certain melody to them for a long time but this has also been coming to the fore more recently. You mentioned dBridge as influencing you towards this but it seems evident with other producers also, and in other genres of dance music. Please comment on this.

I’m not scared of using melody, of course. I think the key thing with anything is knowing when to use certain elements of whatever you’re doing, judging when something works and something doesn’t. In terms of the music coming out of London, house music has made a huge comeback as an influence and also as a genre generally so that’s had an impact on the way producers think about melody I think. The Autonomic guys are taking in a wider perspective though, which is what I find so refreshing about them.

h: Do you think contemporary trends towards more melodies in dance music may have anything to do with the comparative lack of melody in many older dubstep and minimal techno productions? Are the producers and the audience maybe missing that aspect of the music?

With London-based stuff it’s the influence of house. And actually house has completely eclipsed minimal in Berlin as well, but it’s a different kind of thing to what has been happening in London, which is still very focused on what people call urban music. Berlin is quite the opposite of that. Music goes in cycles like anything else, but it’s easy to over-analyse that kind of trend. It’s as much to do with money as anything else, certainly in London.

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SATURDAY AUGUST 14TH – NYC
BLKMARKET MEMBERSHIP PRESENTS:

THREE [Hallucination LTD] EXTENDED SET
SCUBA vs. SCB [Hotflush/Substance] EXTENDED SET
JENNIFER CARDINI [Crosstown Rebels/Kompakt]
TAIMUR & FAHAD [Blkmarket Membership]
NIHAL RAMCHANDANI [Halcyon/Syllabus]

INFORMATION http://www.residentadvisor.net/blkmarket
RSVP IS REQUIRED TO LEARN ABOUT LOCATION
RSVP TO: BLKAUG14@GMAIL.COM