020

Seven findings today, and Muffler opened with a question.

Three minutes and fifty-six seconds. Luminous jungle banger from Blu Saphir, October 2020, getting brighter as it goes rather than harder. I've lost count of the rewinds.

Krakota followed.

Piano first, then bass, then guitars, and by the time the synths arrived I was already somewhere I hadn't planned. Sleepless Music Ltd, April 2021. You only notice how far it took you when you try to come back.

IYRE came through on Pilot, September 2021. A double A-side with Raindrops On My Skin, and this one settled in first.

Glowing Embers doesn't announce itself. It spreads the way warmth does when light catches the edge of something, and by the time you've found its edges you've been inside it for a while.

Pola and Bryson next, off Lost In Thought on Shogun Audio.

Pads arrive, then the break comes in underneath already moving. Liquid the whole way down, nothing asking for your attention twice. This is a daylight tune. The long open stretch when nobody needs you anywhere. My eyes drifted off somewhere in the second half and stayed there.

Then Ownglow via UKF, December 2020. He came up a long way from any scene, a far sector from the usual coordinates, nobody around telling him what this was supposed to sound like.

Do U? holds one steady drum line, then the room opens up wider behind it than the tune strictly needs, and nothing rushes in to fill it. The restraint is entirely his own. Give it the whole length.

Archangel led the Salamanca EP with this one on Fokuz Recordings.

Pads, then the break slides underneath like it had been waiting there the whole time. Nocturnal, refined, liquid all the way down, nothing raising its voice. SOLR pulled it apart later on the Four Days In Rome EP. Two takes on the same ache. Keep this one for the hour when nobody is texting back.

Last one in.

Dimension put Revolution out in March 2015. It went on the Drum & Bass Arena Summer Rewind that year, alongside Netsky, Maduk, Wilkinson. I found it long after. The tension presses from the inside out, and when the drop lands you feel it in your knees first. Gun fingers, both hands, involuntary. It still sounds like the future.

Seven today, all of them warm. That question at the start. The answer was yes.