Q&A :: Caine [IM:LTD]

IM:LTD could call 2013 a good year. With a full-length LP project under their belts as well as a host of quality single releases, the French label seems to be going from strength to strength.

We decided it was high-time we got hold of bossman, Caine, to find out what makes the label tick. Read on for the lowdown.

Hi Caine, thanks for talking to us. Can you give us a little background into how IM:LTD came about? What made you want to set up a label?

Hi, thanks for having this interview.

I was already deep into music production and designing visuals for some other labels when I got offered to run my own imprint.

I saw an opportunity there to promote young upcoming producers such as Mortem, Atmospherix & Glen E.Ston.

People I was already in touch with that couldn’t actually fit the sound of the labels I was already working for.

How would you describe the music policy/ethos of  IM:LTD? Is it difficult crafting a product like a record label?

“Let the music do the talking” is what we stand for. We didn’t really make it easy for ourselves, we wanted the label to be as true to the underground and the Drum & Bass fans as we could, putting upfront almost unknown producers coming from barely known local scenes.

Now when it comes to the efforts of putting on a decent label, I already knew regarding my former experiences what it would demand to do it to the fullest. I knew it wouldn’t be a piece of cake, but overcoming obstacles is already a reward in itself…now I’m broke, I’m tired but I’m content as it seems we have some bright days ahead aha!

We hear you have a background in graffiti. Has that translated at all in the way you run your business?

Actually yes, it did a lot. Graffiti being all about “getting up”, I realised later the way I worked on this label project was actually with the same competitive mindset I had when I was bombing when applied to another media.

IM:LTD has quite a prolific release schedule compared to some labels. What's going on at the moment and what can we expect to hear in the near future?

We’re going to get back to a more reasonable release pace this year. Last year was all about having projects we initiated over the former years to finally come out.

But there are some pretty things already lined up starting with a forward thinking dubstep album from Kantyze which we’ve been working on for a year,

a couple of 12”s we are gathering remixes for and you can also expect something special from the IM:LTD camp to mark the 5 years milestone, so keep your ears open. 

You dropped a various artists album recently. How was the response to that? Are there many differences in the way you work towards an album compared to a single or EP release?

The response was super good…it actually always does when it’s a ‘VA’ project, I call it ‘the bundle effect’ aha.

Then it’s all about picking up the right music together, depending on what’s the release concept.

Are there any artists that you're really feeling at the moment?

There are loads, besides the label regulars such as Mortem, Arp Xp, Glen E.Ston and co, I am pretty excited about newcomers I have onboard such as Inertia from Madrid and Alpan Aytekin from Istanbul.

When it comes to what’s out there, there are a lot of people going from strength to strength I appreciate such as Foreign Concept, Villem, Fracture, the whole Manchester thing …

Current Top 5 tunes?

Derrick & Tonika :: Session [Forthcoming IM:LTD]

Phil Tangent :: We Don't Talk Anymore [Forthcoming IM:LTD]

Gerwin :: Soul Truth [IM:LTD]

Chimpo :: All Over [Soul:R]

Foreign Concept :: Paper Cha$er feat. Punchline [Critical Music]

Click this link to go to the IM:LTD store at Juno Download

Q&A :: Earth Leakage Trip [NexGen Music/Moving Shadow]

Some of you may remember Earth Leakage Trip from Moving Shadow's glory days back in the early-to-mid nineties. 

He's recently returned to the scene with an EP of spacey 140 BPM beats for the Nexgen Music Group so we thought we'd get hold of him to find out what's been going on between then and now.

Hi there, can you introduce yourself to our readers and give us a little background into Earth Leakage Trip?

With my first record release in 1992 on Moving Shadow I formed Earth Leakage Trip, the name comes from a device to prevent electric shock. Since a young age I've been playing piano and around 1990 I bought a drum machine and a few other devices and recorded my first electronic works. 

You're most likely known for your early releases on Moving Shadow and Rising High Records back in the nineties. What have you been up to you between them and now?

I met Rob Playford from Moving Shadow before the label was formed and played him some of my demos. He invited me to his studio to record some new pieces and had a plan to release our first recordings on vinyl. We called it Psychotronic, a three track EP that featured the now legendary track "No Idea" which has since featured many times on compilations. I then signed up with Rising High Records and released two more EPs featuring another acclaimed piece called "The Ice Cream Van from Hell" which featured on a Telstar compilation called Kaos Theory.

A few years later I released some more pieces on Cooking Records which was a subsidiary label of Good Looking Records run by LTJ Bukem. Soon after that and since then I've still been composing, experimenting with playing live drums and recording live sessions and mixing it with electronics in my own studio space. 

You recently dropped an EP on US label, Nexgen Records. How did that come about? Was there any concept behind the EP?

Dan from the Nexgen Music Group called me up and invited me to release my latest work with his label and since then I've been compiling a mixture of projects. Earth Leakage Trip is me as a solo artist and ELT-Sessions is a group of us recording live performances in the studio. My solo work is right now experimenting with cinematic Dubstep, and ELT-Sessions in a future psychedelic funk style.

The concept for my latest EP release has been to evoke the mood of aliens and UFO's in semi playful cinematic style, and to also highlight the seriousness of the subject and need for disclosure in this area. Inspired by the work of Project Camelot it has been my desire to expand and help the ongoing movement of truth within the alternative media.

Any final thoughts or shout outs you'd like to add?

I would like to give a big shout to Kerry Cassidy from Project Camelot for all her hard work in revealing the truth and to all musicians who are helping in spreading the word. 

Blackdub Podcast #8 feat. Able Danger

It's time once again for another installment of our podcast series. Episode 8 brings with it our first Dubstep guest mix from Surround Sound Recordings' own Able Danger plus our usual round-up of recent Drum & Bass releases.

You can also find out more about Able Danger and Surround Sound in our forthcoming interview with the production duo as well as last year's Q&A with label co-owner, Lethal here.

Hope you enjoy the show!

Tracklist:

Able Danger In The Mix:

Warsa :: Terminal 502 [Deceast]

Kryptic Minds :: The Talisman [Tectonic]

Matt U :: Frequency [Black Box]

Tunnidge :: Empty Spaces [Chestplate]

Catacombs :: Music Mi Love [Macabre Unit]

Vivek :: Asteroid [System Sound]

Genetix :: Mohair [Bacon Dubs ]

Warsa :: Recon [Deceast]

Quantum Soul :: Underworld [Uprise Audio]

Matt U :: Threshold [Black Box]

Proxima :: Valve Wars [Tempa]

Sleeper :: Narcissus [Osiris Music]

Genetix :: Prototype [Bacon Dubs]

Kryptic Minds :: Bad Man VIP [Osiris Music]

Seven :: Go To War [Uprise Audio]

Able Danger :: Insane Hype [Forthcoming Surround Sound]

DJ Madd :: The Life You Chose (Distance Remix) [Black Box]

Able Danger :: The Rubicon [Surround Sound]

Enorme In The Mix:

Loxy, Resound, Escher & Blocks :: Monsters [Narratives Music]

Cern :: Micromega [Renegade Hardware]

Kantyze :: Dren [M-Atome]

Kolectiv :: Cryllic (DLR Remix) [Scientia Music]

Fracture :: Better Than Tomorrow [Metalheadz]

DBR UK & Mtwn :: Shrapnel [Dispatch Limited]

Bredren, M-Zine & Scepticz :: Faction [Proximity Recordings]

Mortem :: Iceberg [Metalheadz]

 Kolectiv :: Launchpad (Xtrah Remix) [Scientia Music]

Coma :: Half Ounce [Mute:8 Recordings]

Fre4knc, Mtwn & Mindmapper :: Relic [Samurai Music]

Cern & Dabs :: Hell Rose [Dispatch Recordings]

Generic :: Get Away [ BIOS Recordings]

Imagine This & Buck Rogers :: Bounce (DLR Remix) [Bass Mechanix Audio]

Emperor :: Radar [Critical Music]

Kantyze :: Marauder VIP [ M-Atome]

Raw Q & Amaning :: Sirocco [ BIOS Recordings]

Ruffie :: Refugee [Forthcoming AutomAte]

Kolectiv :: Dog Pad (Zero-T Reprint) [Scientia Music]

Ed:it :: Cargo Dub (Total Science Remix) [Rooted Recordings]

Dabs & Safire :: Back & Forth (Mako, DLR & Ant TC1 Remix) [Dispatch Recordings]

Ulterior Motive :: Right Here [Metalheadz]

Q&A :: Hex [AutomAte/Symbiosis Glasgow]

Our special guest this month came in the form Scotland's Hex. We got hold of him recently to find out what makes him tick and what we can expect to hear from him in the future.

Don't forget, you can check his mix out in the seventh episode of our podcast here: http://blackdubpodcast.blogspot.nl/2013/03/blackdub-podcast-7-feat-hex.html


For those of us who don't know much about you, can you introduce yourself?

Hi, I’m Hex! I’m a Drum & Bass DJ and producer based in Glasgow, Scotland. I help run Symbiosis (Glasgow’s longest running active Drum & Bass club night) and I run the DNB Dojo blog.

How did you get into the Drum & Bass scene and what made you want to DJ/produce?

My path into the D&B scene started back in 2004 or so when I started getting into electronic music via the likes of Aphex Twin and Squarepusher and the jungle-tinged IDM/breakcore scene. After that I started getting into Dubstep (back when it was still good) via the early Fortified Sessions nights in Glasgow where I saw guys like N-Type and Vex’d play, and I wanted to buy the tunes I was hearing so I started to buy vinyl records. Once I had a stack of 12”s I began to think about getting decks and learning to mix, which I eventually bought after finishing University and getting a proper job.

Around the same time as I was finishing Uni, I went to Shambhala festival in Canada and caught Ed Rush & Optical and Evol Intent throwing down on a 100,000 Watt soundsystem! Needless to say I was pretty much instantly converted to D&B, and found that I enjoyed mixing it far more than I enjoyed mixing Dubstep, hence my start as a D&B DJ. Neil and the Symbiosis crew gave me a set at one of their events in 2010 and I’ve been playing out as much as I can ever since.

As for production, I got interested in that more recently; I know quite a few producers who make all sorts of music and plenty of them encouraged me to give it a go, and once I’d learned the basics I found it pretty addictive…nothing quite beats the feeling of sitting in front of your laptop nodding your head to a beat you’ve actually constructed. 

How would you describe your sound/ethos both in the studio and the club?

Broadly I lean towards the techstep and neurofunk sounds both in my productions and DJ sets, though I also appreciate the deep halfstep and soulful liquid vibes. I think ultimately I’ve always been drawn to dark, angry music, all the way from listening to punk and metal as a teenager through getting into electronic music via tracks like Come To Daddy. Sometimes it’s fun to make or mix deeper tunes but more often than not I want something hench. It’s all about feeling that sub growling in your chest on a good rig! 

Can we expect to hear any releases from you in the near future?

I’ve got a pair of tunes signed to Automate Tech which should be coming out sometime this year, one of which you can hear in the mix. I’m aiming to get on it and write plenty this year so hopefully there’ll be more coming soon…watch this space!

Away from D&B, I took some time to write a four track EP of spacey, chilled out electronica leaning towards garage and dubstep which is available as a free download here.

Current top 5 tunes?

Always so hard to pick…right now I’d say: 

• Black Sun Empire - All Is Lost (Memtrix Remix) 

• Optiv & CZA - Bring It Back 

• Telekinesis & MC Coppa - Pocket Full Of Drops 

• Fourward - Street Knowledge 

• Command Strange – Regrets 

That list will probably change by next week though! 

Can you give us a little insight into the mix you put together for our podcast?

For the mix I wanted to try and go on a little bit of a journey, starting deep and then building things up into the harder, nastier tunes, and also showcase a couple of my own bits. The mix opens up with my remix of Lethal’s Seductive (which you can grab as a free download via my Facebook page) and goes through some other deep ones (like the excellent Fracture remix of Phantom Force and the sublime new Dub Phizix tune Rainy City Music) before hitting into harder territory with new cuts from Telekinesis and Memtrix. I always try and get a few classics into the mix too, and some lesser known artists/labels like the stuff from Audio Habitat on Sidechain and the tunes from Arkaik and Arclight. Hopefully the Blackdub listeners will feel the vibes! 

Any final thoughts/shouts you would like to add?

Big shout outs to Stu, Jules, Neil and Altron (the Symbiosis crew), shouts to the Automate crew, biggups to everyone who sends me promo at the blog and much love to everyone who’s ever taken the time to listen to my tunes or mixes. 

Anyone in Scotland reading this, check out Symbiosis in Glasgow every 3rd Saturday of the month down at Audio on Midland Street and come catch me playing at Midgefest in Galloway April 12th-14th. Peace!