Stasis|Collective: July 2008

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Stasis|Collective Presents: Elemental & Gatekeeper

Stasis|Collective presents:
Elemental (Live) [Hotflush]
Gatekeeper (DJ) [Skull Disco]
Kachanski (Live) [Stasis]
Richie !Kaboogie (DJ) [!Kaboogie]
Patch (DJ) [Stasis]
Visual Support from Stasis VJs

Two of the finest names in British Dubstep, Elemental (Hotflush / Destructive Recs / Pitch Black) and Gatekeeper (Skull Disco) alongside exciting new producer Kachanski (Stasis) will grace the stage of the spanking new venue at St Andrew's Lane Theatre, a recently closed theatre whose old walls will be transformed into an arsenal of new sound. An Irish debut for both Elemental and Gatekeeper, dubstep enthusiasts will be familiar with their releases that have featured prominently in more experimental mixes over the last few years. Elemental's set at Glade Festival has brought him to the forefront of British attention in the last few weeks, and while we're all regaining our balance from Shackleton's set at Mantua his spiritual brother Gatekeeper will put us back on our arses the following Friday.

In keeping with Stasis|Collective's ethos, the chosen artists each represent their own retrospective outlets in dubstep, a genre that through the innovation of such labels as Skull Disco is becoming harder and harder to define. Yet while the parameters have been nicely set, the main objective of this lineup is to blow the roof off... and it goes without saying that for this purpose sufficient sound has been catered for.

Mixes: Elemental

Venue: Andrews Lane Theatre
Date: 08.08.08
Time: 10pm - 3am
Price: €10

Elemental

North London based producer Elemental started dabbling with production in 1994 with a Roland D5 and Atari ST at school. He later invested in an Akai S2000 sampler and a PC, the rest as they say, is history. In the nineties he Predominantly focused on DnB and experimental Electronic music. At 18 he put out his first DnB release off his own back. A few years later, he became one half of breakbeat garage duo 'Elemental + 3D', releasing on their own label 'Runtime Recordings' in 2002. A couple of years later after some time abroad, he caught the likes of Search & Destroy on Rinse FM and found the sound he had been looking for - dark, heavy syncopated beats and bass.

Since finding Dubstep, Elemental has been focused on bringing his unique sound to the masses, undeniably hard yet dubbed out, dirty bass and hypnotising rhythms. He has had many releases from Destructive, Hotflush, Pitch Black and Halo Beats, and more recently, his seminal track 'Soulfire' featured on Tayo's Fabric mix cd. Elemental also DJ's, and was officially the first person to do a Dubstep 'Live' gig, using Ableton Live on a laptop, mixing up tracks and components of his productions to rapturous audiences across the world, no set is ever the same twice.

On Gatekeeper's new single: GATEKEEPER: "LET GO"/ WEDGE: "OVERFIEND"

Love the jittery pizzicato strings and the fuzzy bass undertow on this; the lushly glacial stringsynths, and the way the tune flips effortlessly back n forth from Feminine to Masculine Pressure: it's built from elements that you'd think wouldn't work together, but, like a jigsaw puzzle or crazy paving, it turns into something you didn't quite expect. Am I miles out in thinking it's got a slightly Old School Jonny L feel to it - "Piper", "Up All Night" - but filtered through 2-Step and Dubstep....?

Either way, another complete winner for the mighty Punch Drunk label, I think. Tom says this should drop sometime in Aug.

Still Gatekeeper is def. the man to watch right now - his mix of Wedge's "Overfiend" is frankly astonishing. It's a five-minute, cinematic-sounding tour de force...spooky as fuck without resorting to needless morbity or gnarly sawbass wobble. (There's a soundclip on his MySpace if you wanna go check) About three minutes in, the track rises from the dead in swirly plumes of dry-ice, and wanders off in search of food...it's pant-wettingly fabulous stuff: there's a strange sound like jets going over at one point, synths that sound like whimpering dogs, etc...if this doesn't get used on the soundtrack of the remake of John Carpenter's "The Thing", then I wanna know why. Wedge's original is pretttty damn good too, with its clicking castenet percussives, ratchety drums, knife-sharp synthswirls and plumes of frozen breath...but I think Gate's mix just pips him in the eerie stakes...

This drops pretty soon on new Bristol label Reduction which is run by DJ ThinKing, who says:

"Yep I'm kicking off my new label, Reduction Records, with a Wedge/Gatekeeper plate, just got the TPs in and will hopefully have the finished product out within the next 6 weeks.

"With respect to future releases and so on, I can confirm that the 2nd release will be from Elemental, but from there it gets a little hazy - I am also in the throes of setting up a second label, so am just sorting out which artists to put on which label. I can say with a degree of confidence that over the next 6mths or so we'll be releasing music from 23hz & Numaestro, TRG, Slaughter Mob, Cyrus, Toasty, and hopefully some newer names too.

"Reduction Records will focus on the more musical side of things, i.e. aiming to release more complete pieces of music, as opposed to a bunch of loops repeated for 6 mins. The newer label (as yet unnamed) will possibly be an outlet for the more conventional 'club bangers' - all I can say for now is watch this space..."