First thing on my to do list for the new year was to rattle off a review of one of the many releases that had caught my ears over the festive period. No doubt about it there was lot to choose from and oh my days dear bass scooper’z have I got a new Bass Scoops Radio Show coming up for you the end of the month on me Toxic Sickness Radio residency. Nevertheless, back to the task at hand … my pick of the bunch is the latest from Lmajor, Digital Dubs Vol 1, which yes yes you Junglist Columbo’s out there, a Vol 2 is looking likely. This 9 track collection/album of ravefantabulous beatsmithery is a self release on Lmajor’s own Bandcamp page, get over there now and open both your wallet and your ears.
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LMajor is of course a total Don of the hardcore raving breaks world. With music dating back to 2018 with 'Omega Point', his debut solo EP, one half of the excellent Local Group , one quarter of the equally excellent Club Glow and a string of releases on esteemed Labels such as WNCL, Astrophonica , Future Reto and more. And for those of you that were once or still are delusionaly convinced that you're the 6th member of the Bone’s Brigade -he’s a pretty handy skater as well, The break beat skater connection a la Chis Luna C Kniteforce, Drumskull , T-Cuts et al grows ever larger.
This release , self described as “a collection of tracks I've kept as exclusives for my sets over the last couple of years that I've decided to release into the wild”, allows us access to the inside his digital record bag some of us lucky enough to catch a DJ set live may have already heard. Those of you equally as lucky (Editors note – don’t push it Scoops ) to have tuned into my TOTY Toxic Sickness show would have borne witness to my praise of Lmajor’s Drum choppage skills, getting not one but two tunes into my top 15 tunes of 2024. These tracks were both remixes of classics , FSOL’s PNG and Tango’s (RIP) Understanding. As I said on my show, you’ve got to be some fella to attempt this, let alone pull it off with total aplomb, which of course our man did. I'm a big fan of all of LMajor’s tunes but the drum work on both these tacks is some kind of transient shaping, mid side compressioning , snare eq’ing voodoo magic (man) ! Budding producers note that a ready meal package of this secret sauce is available via his sample packs if you are so inclined to quite literally "sample" this for yourself ... geddit, sample yeah? (Editors note - for the love of Christ, really?).
No remixes await you on this release but you’re nonetheless in for some delightful tuneage. I won’t list them all out, Bandcamp can do that for you, but there’s no duffers on there whatsoever. I can imagine , by of course astrally projecting myself across the cosmos to a distant dancefloor ( Editors Note- final warning scoops with your BS ) how some of these tunes would roll nicely in a set interspersed amongst the bangers, but within this collection there are some unquestionably big tunes too that could have certainly been signed by any of the “big” labels. Bristol’s finest Borai also joins in on the co-lab track Sweet. Standouts include the albums opening tune Enter, coming at you like a lost A side from any of the best of the new wave of breakbeat revivalists. The second tune Want My Love is definitely the party starting track of the whole assemblage, it’s got the beautiful euphoric vocal hook , crispy breaks ( I will never tire of banging on to any one who will listen how good Lmajor drums are) , old skool rave ambiance’z and all the good types of stabs you’d like (Piano n Synths). Though to my surprise my most favorite tune of all is not the ravey-breakz stuff that I usually associate LMajor with but one of the best liquid DnB tunes I reckon you’ll hear this year. Rain is six minutes and 12 seconds of Drum n Bass serenity. Soulful and jazzy that fully delivers a potent blend of downtempo uplifting melancholy that is a rare feat to deploy, think Portishead at their very best or this on wax, sliding out of a 1996 Mo Wax era boutique box set.
So to conclude…. If you’re a fan of LMajor you’ll probably already own this , if you like ravey breaks, do check this out, if you want to own one of the best liquid DnB tunes of the year, just go and buy the single track of Rain of the BC you tight fisted bunch (Editors note: great way to engage with our readership Scoops lad, apologies from the management if you actually read this clowns waffle to the end).
Until next time dear breakbeat’rz – John Bass Scoops.
