Salva's Weird Science

Mr. Paul Douglas and a cross for whatever reason

I've said a lot about Salva, whether it was in my deservedly glowing review of his debut album Complex Housing or in my RA Label of the Month feature on the label it was released on, Friends of Friends.  But I'll say it again: the former San Francisco scene kingpin (now based in L.A., the goddamned sellout) is one of the most inspiring and multi-talented producers going in a very crowded landscape of experimental California electronic music.  Part of is due to heritage: growing up on a diet of as much house as hip-hop, Paul Douglas' music doesn't have the same top-heavy swagger of so many of his Cali contemporaries, but instead a delicate and nimble sense of movement that makes his tumbling snare hits feel graceful instead of sloppy.  His own music, especially since Complex Housing, has been a melting pot of styles, whether he's just barely hinting at garage with tracks like "Keys Open Doors," squelchy future funk by way of "Beached" and "Wake Ups," lightfooted house on "I'll Be Your Friend," or a personal favourite, the serrated cotton candy fuzz of "Icey," which I called "the best Joker track never made" and I pretty much stand by that statement.  And I'm talking prime Joker there. [Read on after the jump for more babbling praise an exclusive mix]

Futureproofing Vancouver: Bartel

Thus far the Futureproofing Vancouver series has focused mostly around what I'd suppose you would call "dance music," but there's no shortage of interesting ambient, experimental, and whatever music in this city as well.  Whether it's the Quiet City nights put on by Panospria head Constantine Katsiris (aka Scant.Intone) or any number of shows and concerts put on at semi-legal venues in run-down parts of town, there's no shortage of either soothing ambience or noise in Vancouver.  Bartel doesn't really fit into either of those categories, though I guess if you had to pick one he slots more in the ambient section: making gorgeous tracks that are somewhat beat-oriented, Bartel's sound is marked by its warm, tactile textures and organic soundscapes.  Incorporating guitar and other "real world" sounds, and a deeply complicated bed of ambient sound, he finds a way to suffuse electronic music with a distinct and tangible humanity it can so often lack.

Futureproofing Vancouver: Prison Garde + Eames

Though he's only been in Vancouver for two years, for me, Prison Garde is the epitome of the city's current inspiringly wide-open outlook on dance music.  He defines what Vancouver's club music should be like: witnessing one of his live sets -- particularly in the past year -- is to witness an hour plus of unfiltered, unleaded, unpretentious dance music: drums, bass, synths, all hitting the right places at exactly the right moments.  On the one hand it's almost simplistic, on the other hand it's bewilderingly genius.  He's produced as part of the outfit Megasoid and formerly as Sixtoo, with a long and storied history in his hometown of Montreal, but his material as Prison Garde might be his best yet.  With roots in hip-hop, his sound has been moving all over the place in the past year, and the free album he released just prior to this year's Bass Coast festival -- Systeme Hermes Vol. 1 (which I reviewed for FACT Magazine) -- is an excellent showcase for his diversification, spanning BPMs from 74 to 150.  House, hip-hop, dubstep, techno, whatever, you name it and it's probably swimming somewhere in the Prison Garde stream.   (He also runs the Catalog Gallery in Vancouver's Gastown neighbourhood.)

Then there's his recent partner in crime, Eames, aka Kevin Ehman.  Ehman as a DJ is maybe a bit more of a house head but shares the same appreciation for both hip-hop and a wide swathe of dance music.  A mainstay in Victoria's bustling scene (soon to be profiled via Victoria kingpin Chris Longshanks) for the past year, he recently relocated to Vancouver and has used the opportunity to maximize his collaborations with Squire, and the result is a wealth of tracks under the name Garde + Eames, subtle but devastatingly effective tracks that pull bits and pieces from each producer's musical personality and turn them into streamlined, purified slabs of silky seduction.

Futureproofing Vancouver: The Librarian

It might be an unusual pseudonym for a dubstep DJ, but trust me, this is one Librarian who's more than happy to let her hair down. (Sorry).  Based in the beautiful town of Squamish just north of Vancouver itself, Andrea Graham isn't your typical dubstep DJ either.  She calls her vision of dubstep "sexy, powerful, and spacious," and though I might be the "writer" here truth be told I'm having a hard time coming up with a better description. Her DJ sets are something to behold, building sensually and organically into a climax that's paradoxically as gentle as it is explosive.  There is something to be said for "spacious," and her selections have a tendency to bounce around and between the walls of a room as if feeling out the empty space: you need to hear her in a large fucking room to understand.  As focused on elegant melodies and clean lines as much as bassweight, hers is a sound that verges on polite (certainly pleasant) but isn't afraid to dip into the down-and-dirty at just the right time.  It's an enviable balance between the tear-out violence of so much modern North American dubstep and the kind of graceful 2step variations that have since sprouted, halfway between the UK and the West Coast and all the better for it.

Futureproofing Vancouver: Kuma

Name: Kuma (James Graham)

Hometown: Vancouver

Vancouverite since: "the age of three or four"

Associated labels: The Konspiracy Group, Immerse

Associated acts: Gunshae

Essential tunes: "Dawn Stepped Outside," "What It's Not," "The Blood Of Heroes (Kuma Remix)"

When we're talking about this whole "dubstep" / "post-dubstep" / "bass" / whatever shit in Vancouver, my mind always goes back to one figure: James Graham, better known in the city as Kuma and under any variations of the pseudonym involving bears.  Or "Captain of the Great Dubship." You get the idea. One of the very first musical connections I myself made while exploring the city, Kuma has been enlightening in outlining the recent history of the city's electronic music scene, partially because he played such a big hand in it himself.  This is the man who brought Kode9 to Vancouver to the infamous "Secret Location" all the way back in 2005, before most people in North America had ever heard of "dubstep.'  Though his role as a promoter has definitely receded in the past few years, he remains a persistent spectre haunting the Vancouver scene: you're likely to encounter the looming stature of his person at the city's best musical shows, he runs a label and collective called The Konspiracy Group, and is also deeply entrenched in the city's flourishing ambient scene as part of the duo Gunshae with Lady Eve.  He releases on his own TKG label -- the recent "What It's Not" single comes with a hearty recommendation from yours truly and also a Greivous Angel remix -- and he's also released on Bristol-based Immerse records, where he actually managed to rouse Horsepower from their hibernation in 2008 to remix his immense "Dawn Stepped Outside."  If that weren't enough, he does a radio show on Thursday nights called Art of Beatz, which has become an institution over the years and even hosted local writer Andrew Ryce (har har) for a year-end retrospective late last year.

Futureproofing Vancouver: HxdB

I just recently did a profile on Warsaw label Concrete Cut, highlighting the label’s virtuosic versatility in the larger context of an underappreciated local scene with a vibrant cast of characters with as much to offer as any better-documented hub (London, Berlin, Los Angeles, et al).  Well, I like buried treasure -- a lot.  My hometown of Vancouver -- in British Columbia on the west coast of Canada, for those unfamiliar -- sits in a similar position to Warsaw, with a large, colourful and close-knit scene that could rival many of its better-known counterparts.  We can brag about having Kode9 play all the way back in 2005, and an early support system and love for dubstep -- ahead of much of the rest of the world -- has laid the groundwork for an exciting and deeply experimental dance music scene that mirrors London in the ongoing brilliant reinventions and incorporation of other genres (house, electro, juke) into what was once the dubstep template.  All of this is why I’ve decided to start a series of features on the best the city has to offer, featuring interviews and mini-mixes of original material, an aural snapshot of what each artist is about and a chance to see inside one of North America’s most inspiring electronic music hotspots.

Photo by Vasho Pekar

Name: HxdB

Hometown: Vancouver

Vancouverite since: a long time

Associated labels: Gradient Audio, Tectonic, Brownswood, Surefire Sound, Friends of Friends, Crude, Innovative Leisure, Aufect, 10Pin, Mindset, Formant, Palms Out, East Van Digital

Essential tunes: "Typewriter Tune VIP" (Surefire), "New Sense" (Crude), "Booyant" (Tectonic)

Concrete Cut: Warsaw's Elegant Industry

Concrete Cut are a label that first came to my attention with their fourth release, from Sentel, a chiptuney chunk of UK-funky indebted strangeness that sounded like Ikonika on Mars.  It was a good enough release to warrant keeping eyes on the label, and since then they’ve released the gorgeous ambient/dub/garage experiments of ptr1, the post-rock drama of Shoju, the hollow drums of Tom Encore, and the Shackleton-indebted dread tones of Rhythm Baboon.  With releases (notably their debut) from Liquid Molly, they’ve even dipped their toes into the straight-up dubstep stakes (indeed, you can download a Concrete Cut allstars remix package of the first Liquid Molly remix for free).

So yeah, they’re a good label. So good, I’m willing to overlook the fact that they’re a digital-only label (give it time). But what is it that makes them stand out?  Well, they’re based in Warsaw, Poland.  All of those artists mentioned above are Polish. While it’s not as if Poland is some barren, unknown frontier, it’s not the first place any of us look for experimental and groundbreaking dance music -- and if you do, then kudos.  But there’s really no reason for such discrimination, and thankfully the internet is doing its job in knocking down geographical barriers.  Home to the well-respected Unsound Festival and an increasing number of prominent UK and German DJs, the Polish club seem appears as vibrant as ever, at least as much as someone who lives in Vancouver can see and understand.

Taking a survey of the label’s output so far, one begins to realize there’s a vibrant spectrum of music coming out of Berlin’s oft-ignored Eastern neighbour, a localized hub of talent that seems unfairly ignored despite the constant upwelling of talent in a manner that reminds me a lot of my hometown of Vancouver.  While there are some obvious moments of debt to UK originators, each producer puts their own idiosyncratic spin on these sounds -- personally I can’t recommend the work of Sentel or ptr1 more, and their releases on Concrete Cut are 2010 highlights. The overall impression of the label’s output is of a scene that’s arguably more experimental in sectors now ignored by those other, more visible local scenes: just check the way Sentel incorporate UK funky ideas into their music when UK funky arguably lies at its least influential back in its homeland.  It’s that mixture of incorporating trends and discarding the actual trendiness that makes Concrete Cut so inspiring: these artists just sound like they’re doing whatever they want, and they do it consummately well.  Concrete Cut might be a digital-only label relatively green behind the ears, but it suffers from none of (what I call) the SoundCloud syndrome of shitty drums, cheesy pads and bad vocal samples. 

Because I was intrigued by the label’s obviously hefty store of talent, and wanted to learn more about this burgeoning Polish scene (there admittedly isn’t a lot of (English) writing about it on the internet that isn’t by yours truly), I got in touch with label head Dana Dramowicz for an in-depth interview discussing the label and the scene in Warsaw and larger Poland.  If that wasn’t enough, Dramowicz has provided Futureproofing with an exclusive all-Polish mix spanning music both signed to Concrete Cut and other labels, and it’s one hell of a ride showcasing not only the unpredictable grab-bag that is the Polish beat scene but the uniformly high production values and execution.  It doesn’t sound like the work of a bunch of relative unknowns, and with any luck, the lot of them won’t be relative unknowns for much longer.