It’s that time again. Welcome to the third Darkfloor Stalker, home to cutting-edge Darkfloor sounds every month. Some heavy-hitting bidnezz this time round, from intricate glitch-step to crunchy, sub-loaded breaks. As always, you can send me your stuff for consideration via SoundCloud or email me. Swarm. Oh yea don’t forget, hit the mix at the bottom of my article.

Vaetxh – Mass
Despite a huge Soundcloud following, Vaetxh aka Rob Clouth has somehow managed to lurk stealthily under the radar. It wont be long until Bristol’s best-kept secret is out though; slices of Binaural recordings, Processing patches and razor sharp synths are hand-stitched together into intense tracks where sounds practically leap out of the speakers at you. Yes indeed, Rob is one of the lucky few who manages to be both a talented musician and a gifted engineer at the same time. Mass is his latest work, taken from an EP of the same title on King Deluxe Records. The track opens with 80’s sci-fi synths and a ticking time-bomb of a beat, the tension mounts higher and higher until the track detonates into thundering glitch-step. An aftermath of haunting melodies and lofi beats ensues, bringing things nicely to a close.

The EP also features remixes from Woulg, Culprate, Subjex, Circuit Bent and Deadfader, all of whom provide their own interpretations of the theme’s complex, bass-heavy production. Each download comes with unique art, based on generated code created by Rob himself. Make sure to watch Henning Lederer’s video for the track and then head on over to vaetxh.com to check out Rob’s software endevours (including some really interesting Processing patches) followed by his other monkiers, Dr:oid and Ither.

Spookhouse – DNMO
Spookhouse’s wonky techno sound somehow compliments this track perfectly. Love how he processes the vocals in it, sounds like its been stretched right out and dunked in cavernous reverb; ever-shifting, ducking and diving. Tucked underneath the waves of reverb are tight breakbeats and a rolling sub, keeping things nice and bouncy…. Tasty!

Dublin-based Rob Murphy has been hard at work of late, with tracks on Dublin Xpress and his solo EP on Digital Distortions released to much support among the bass and breaks fiends. His mash-up DJ sets are also second to none and have seen him share stages with Si Begg, Phil Kieran, Dusty Kid, Scanone, Al Tourettes, Kanji Kinetic, Thomas Heckmann, Adam Freeland, Duke Dumont and many more. Listening to his last BrawlCast mix, it’s not hard to see what all the fuss is about – chunky breaks and bass ahoy!

Jstat – Positive Feedback Loop
Shit just got nasty! Jstat is John Leonard from Detroit. With countless producers (big names included) happy to just keep lashing out the same tried and tested sound year after year, its good to see such fresh ideas coming from the very birthplace of techno. Mutant over-loaded rhythms, twisted acid lines and piercing industrial bursts – be warned, this one will kick-down the club doors, beat the security senseless and proceed to wreak havoc on the floor! Whats more, its available on a name-your-price basis over at Void Tactical Media’s HQ, grab it here and be generous, sound-terrorists gotta eat too!

Keep a watchful eye out for more state-of-the-art broken bass music from these boys- hybridizing broken-beat, breakcore and noise.

Fakohm – Great Destiny
Into some cavernous half-step next for a bit of breathing space. Fakohm has managed to escape my prying eyes and remain hidden away in the depths of the internet, the music speaks for itself though, menacing synths, haunting atmospheres and crunchy snares lead the way into the darkness. This one’s out on Italian label, Rexistenz Records‘ L’Ironia Della Sorte compilation. I got sent this promo a while back and had a tough time deciding what to play, some really interesting takes on Dubstep and DnB… Nice to see not everyone’s jumped aboard the tacky vocoded wobble bandwagon, certainly not this crew anyway – Milan’s got attitude!

Somatic Responses – Before Deckard
Kicking it back into gear are brothers John and Paul Healy, aka Somatic Responses. Before Deckard is Industrial-flavoured Techno, with the brothers’ trademark dislocated & distorted edge. Ominous atmospheric stabs and hybrid-acid synths build up the paranoia while the head nods to that pounding groove…

No doubt taking influences from the nearby mines of their hometown in south-western Wales, these boys churn out a huge range of dark industrial beats, from slower stuff, right through to full-on breakcore. They have built up quite the discography over the years (dating way back to 1995) with releases on respected experimental labels Ad Noiseam, Hymen and Acroplane to mention but a few. It looks like they’re preparing a new album as we speak too! This puts a big smile on our faces at Darkfloor HQ… Big fans so we are!

Deadfader – 00—
Personal favourite of mine up next, nosebleed-rhythmic-noise-meets-dubstep. John Cohen (check out this solo ep) and Barry Prendergast sure know how to break all the rules; So much distortion that’ll you’ll be plucking splinters of speaker membrane out of your face for weeks after, yet somehow they manage to retain clarity and punchiness in their mixdowns. This is something that’s not easily achieved (speaking from experience here). 00— is probably my pick from the EP although it was near impossible to choose a favourite. Screaming synths, mashed breaks and raw attitude by the kilowat. No frills apocalyptic rave music this, not for the faint of heart!

Luckeeey was released this week on Tigerbeat6, an experimental label run by Kid606 and friends. Vaetxh (see above) also features on an earlier release, as do a heap of our favourite glitched-up bass junkies. You know what to do.

Breaking Kaos – Steve’s Rhythmic Journey 2
Breaking Kaos is the highlight of this month’s SoundCloud search. Based out of the far west corner of New Jersey, his journey into electronic music began after several years of playing guitar and drums across a huge range of styles including speed-metal, jazz and well lets call it… ‘experimental’. Nowadays, armed with a MIDI drumpad and a copy of Ableton Live, he records out long sessions and later edits them down into polished tracks. The result, something often missing from electronic music, is the ‘live’ feel that can only result from a talented musician busting out a long jam, getting deeper and deeper to the core of the track.

Steve’s Rhythmic Journey 2 is exactly as you might imagine, a quirky adventure past the 4/4 into swingy poly-rhythms and beyond, battered out on a drum-set built from old 8-bit computer game sounds, bleeps and crunchy static. Luckily for us, he is “a free download soundclouding mutha fucka”, content with just having others listen to his creations at the moment. Get over there and make the man happy!

Voltek – Unstable Nucleophiles
Electryfing beats from Acroplane’s latest signing up next. Sam Baker aka “the Berlin artist sometime known as Voltek” is a prominent name in the darkest basements of the city. Rocking breaks, ravey synths and driving bass, thrashing it out as only he knows best. I was suprised to hear the huge diversity of sound on his latest album Power Tools. Haunting ambient tracks display a side of his output I hadn’t heard before. Some are completely in contrast to this one but yet it all somehow fits together; From high-octane breaks to beautiful, glitched-out melodies; It’s all hand-stamped Voltek.

Syndrôm – Thalweg
Stumbling into half-speed next is Syndrôm, an electronica producer from Nîmes, France. This track is taken off his latest album Dans Les Terres, available for free download on Section27. Its a beautiful, dubby number with playful evolving melodies and swingy hip-hop beats. Sam was actually making hip-hop back in ’88 at the young age of 10, turning towards breakcore, noise and drill n bass another 10 years later. Dans Les Terres seems almost a summary of his work to date, there’s elements of hip-hop, ambient, industrial, breakcore, hip-hop, electro and techno in the mix. Its a rewarding listen from start to finish – certainly not to be missed!

He also runs Pavillion36 records, a home to all sorts of experimental electronics. He has a bunch of releases out on the latter, along with others on Bypass and Section27.

Burdeos – Jupm Jmup (Ralp remix)
Finishing up now with one off my favourite netlabel’s latest release. Crazy Language have a massive discography of cutting-edge electronics under their belt (40 and counting since 2006), and for once, quantity doesn’t kill quality. Each release explores new dimensions of electronic music, be it through experimental synthesis techniques or bizzare recordings. This track is taken from their latest one, a set of abstract, glitchy remixes of Andalucian producer Burdeos (check the originals here). Ralp’s remix is my pick of the bunch, the Barcelona-based producer represents the darker side of Crazy Language’s output. Heavy mechanical rhythms pound in the background as the track rides along a sea of paranoia, bouncing along until it drops into an immense granular work-out, sculpting a wall of noise out of time-stretched clicks and bleeps… and then smashing it all down!

Until next time!

the Darkfloor Stalker 3
Download Listen

00:00 Vaetxh – Mass [King Deluxe]
05:15 Spookhouse – DNMO [dub]
08:17 Jsat – Positive Feedback Loop [Void Tactical Media]
11:39 Fakohm – Great Destiny [Rexistenz]
15:55 Somatic Responses – Before Deckard [dub]
18:13 Deadfader – 00—- [Tigerbeat]
21:04 Breaking Kaos – Steve’s Rhythmic Journey [dub]
23:00 Voltek – Unstable Nucleophiles [Acroplane]
25:32 Syndrom – Thalweg [Section27]
27:33 Burdeos – Jupm Jmup (Ralp remix) [Crazy Language]