Jantsen & Dirt Monkey – Ice Cream Sound [Dub Summer Anthem]

Personally, for this Rager, this next jam has been an unabashed pleasure of mine over the past week.

Capturing an unbelievably catchy tune in a four and a half minute track seems entirely effortless for musicians Jantsen and Dirt Monkey, two of the most promising up-and-coming American dubstep producers. Setting aside my unhealthy obsession with two other dub production masterminds (Spag Heddy and EH!DE), Boulder residents Patrick Megeath of Dirt Monkey and Jantsen Robertson additionally possess the rare ability to produce the filthiest, nastiest of beats while still managing to keep their chord progression unique and extremely melodic. I fear that as of late, simple qualities such as these are far too often ignored in an narrow-minded attempt to synthesize the ultimate “drop.”

Utilizing a classic rolling bass melody, which to us, sounds a lot like old-school Doctor P, and a unfathomably catchy reggae hook, this tandem of Colorado DJs have struck gold with “Ice Cream Sound.” Pay special attention to the way these two have incorporated the vocal chops as an instrument and how it elegantly intertwines with the original, “Slightly Stoopid-reminiscent” vocals.

The perfect song for the perfect summer playlist.

Enjoy.

Another from Jantsen…

Another from Dirt Monkey…

Artist Spotlight | Dirt Monkey – Dubstep is What?

Sadly, due to various circumstances, one of which includes an increase in the accessibility of production related materials (DAWs, plug-ins, YouTube training videos, etc.) and thusly a spike in the number of unqualified producers flooding the scene, we now find the unfortunate phrase “dubstep is dead” appearing in much higher frequencies, from all corners of the EDM-o-sphere. With an over-saturated market producing less that average tunes, we certainly understand the frustration coming from current and former fans of this perhaps “endangered” production method.

Despite the fact that I will unabashedly admit to being a tremendous fan of this particular genre, in all honestly, dubstep has assuredly lost part of its former attractive luster that had previously captivated me so. When Skrillex infused his own concoction of punk-rocking, face-melting bass modulation into the originally underground, 2-step garage motif, and introduced it to America, it was a goddamn fucking revolution.

Sorry for the language ladies and Ned Flanders, but it emphasizes my point.

Okalie dokalie Ragerrinos?

Now, four years and about a trillion releases later, dubstep has all but exhausted the transient stranglehold and warm welcome it had once possessed in the American electronic dance music market. On the other, more positive hand however, the genre has indeed given rise to a panoply of increasingly popular spinoff styles like drumstep, melodic dubstep, and lovestep, spawning game-changing producers like Figure, Seven Lions and Kill Paris.

Personally, I firmly believe that instead of immediately writing off any future attempts at dubstep production, we as fans must re-think the way we find and critique music in general. Dig deeper. The good stuff, the original stuff, is usually at the bottom, or in the last place you’d think to find it. And sure, we’ve heard a lot of the same samples and instrumental arrangements over and over, but lets focus more so on the talent involved in developing a song’s chord progression or the crispness, vividness and fullness obtained in an artist’s mastering of their work.

However, setting all cynical premonitions aside, to this day we still manage to find dubstep producers creating unique, mind-blowing music that raises a similar set of goose bumps on our skin to the ones initially produced by our knight in shining armor, the champion of “brostep,” Sonny Moore.

Holy shit, I was supposed to introduce this next artist wasn’t I?

Whoops.

Dirt Monkey, his name says it all frankly. As usual, below we have included a smattering of the dankness from this Boulder, Colorado-based rager named Patrick Megeath. It will be all you need.

Want more? You got eyeballs, a mouse and half a brain right?

SoundCloud: @dirtmonkey
FB: www.facebook.com/dirtmonkeymusic
Twitter: twitter.com/dirtmonkeymusic

 

 

 

 

Big Gigantic – Touch the Sky [Electro-Funk Jazz Trap]

Big Gigantic and Trap music? Oh, you better believe it.

Much to our collective chagrins, it would seem trap music is here to stay. And it doesn’t appear to be going anywhere soon. However, in an effort not to add insult to injury, we find it relieving that some of the more talented producers in the game are proving what a skilled musician can do with the genre. Luckily, we have artists like Flume, 123MRK and Cashmere Cat who are constantly pushing the boundaries when it comes to producing Hp-Hop influenced EDM beats. When we found this little ditty by Boulder resident Big Gigantic, we just knew it was going to be HUGE (see what we did there?).

“Touch the Sky” is the result of a skilled infusion of musical flavors. The tediously long genre we have given the track in the title of this post does not even do the song justice when defining what it sounds like. It’s trap, electro-soul, jazz, dubstep and future bass all rolled into a jam that is truly indicative of the talent possessed by Dominic Lalli and Jeremy Salken of Big G.

(note from Big G)

“We are so thrilled to announce we’ll be releasing our latest album, THE NIGHT IS YOUNG in early Febuary 2014!!! We can’t thank you enough for all of your patience while we have been writing and recording over the past year. Stream our first single called, TOUCH THE SKY and keep an eye out for the download, music video, winter tour dates and more info on the release in the coming weeks.”
THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!! #TheNightIsYoung