Eww: It's the Ill Blu Hype Thread

"the wave" is so good

^^^

What was the The Wave in it's pre-Sneakbo guise? It's naggingly familiar from at least one of the mixes.

Tune reaffirms my belief that if Ill Blu don't have the common decency to release these as an album they should farm them all out to people like Wretch 32 and Roll Deep and a load of other jobbing pop-grime types and compile them.

"Alright Mate".

I really like the production on the sneakbo track - every element is perfectly balanced, impactful. wonder what scik mouthy would think.

the vocal is perfect too - just enough to give it a focus, but minimal enough not to detract from it

http://www.xlr8r.com/news/2012/03/ill-blu-preps-new-single-hyperdu

I've been wondering what Ill Blu have been up to lately, they've been relatively quiet of late (at least in comparison to say, Funkystepz or Champion). You can hear a preview of their new EP here: http://188.165.130.97/music/music-news/launch-music/ill-blu-return-to-hyperdub. Sounds good! Also good to know that they haven't gone aggro-bassy or deep-house, or simply disappeared, like too many UK Funky producers have done.

I haven't listened to this yet but look at all the new cuts in the tracklist!!

http://www.xlr8r.com/podcast/2012/04/ill-blu

01 Ill Blu "Clapper" (Hyperdub)
02 Ill Blu "Dragon Pop" (Hyperdub)
03 Ill Blu "Heisenberg"
04 Ill Blu "Legs"
05 Ill Blu "Turnpike"
06 Ill Blu "Bassage"
07 Princess Nyah "Soldier feat. Wiley (Filthy Fiction Remix)" (Royletease)
08 Funkystepz "Class A"
09 Ill Blu "Alrite Wave"
10 Jook10 "Bass" (Soulserious)
11 Ill Blu "PumpA"
12 Lighter "Burn"
13 Ill Blu "We Don't Stop"
14 86 Baby "Word Of Mouth"
15 Ill Blu "Me x U" (Plastik Cups)

LOL at "Heisenberg" - have they been watching Breaking Bad or is this literally a Heisenberg reference.

#clapper

new material is thoroughly impressive. i had given up hope somewhat!

Also good to know that they haven't gone aggro-bassy or deep-house, or simply disappeared, like too many UK Funky producers have done.

― Astrochimp32, Sunday, 1 April 2012 03:21 (1 week ago) Bookmark

true, but the other side of this is struggling a little with seeing quite where they fit in exactly. slightly paradoxically funkystepz are even more sui generis but still manage to work nicely as uk treble wildcards to some extent (although actually you can kinda hear this issue being thought through by 'alrite wave' (following on from 'class a'))

Double LOL at "We Don't Stop" basically being a remix of The Living Graham Bond Dub of "The Way" - it's like Ill Blu are atoning for not having thought of the original tune in the first place.

Otherwise this is... surprisingly electro-housey! I know they were already trending in that direction but it's like the key vibe here.

xp i guess it's more like right now they are this sort of amorphous creature of power looking to mould itself into and around something - hyperdub's carte blanche is exactly the least prosperous situation, creatively speaking

"electro-housey" per se also currently seems to me a little bit of an empty holding pattern given they havent got the organ house sensibility of say billy kenny and his lot

Yeah I hope this is - as I think you're saying - more indicative of them being in a transitional space than where they want to end up. Not because it's bad but because it's always more exciting to speculate on what happens next.

Is there other Billy Kenny I should check? His "Spaceship" remix was one of my very favourite things from last year.

not that i've found in terms of the same glorious one hit of everything all at once, i need to check harder though tbh

kind of don't want to disturb the air of nu-ukg unassumingness with that lot really, the 'spaceship' vibe is all there diffused longform in kenny's sets but it takes the ineffable genius of a dj q to pluck something out and let it sing solo

http://soundcloud.com/billykenny_music

http://soundcloud.com/princessnyah/princess-nyah-around-the-world

oh btw let's not front, you all know this is awesome right

!!!!! at that

I don't like being the guy doing this but I'm not hugely impressed with that IB mix. Their new productions at best sound good but not great to me. Maybe need to give it a couple more listens I dunno.

rtc feel free to direct your best zinging gif at me, I feel I have let you all down. ;(

It's not as good as the mistajam set from last year certainly.

I have some more thoughts on it that I'll try to set down later.

But for now can I just note that "Heisenberg" is majestic even in its unsurprisingly overdriven thuggishness.

yeah i'm a bit meh about 'heisenberg' really, textbook blu that was already bettered on the mistajam set cuts imo. even in that textbook style i prefer 'turnpike'

they are so obv breaking bad fans btw, that just makes perfect sense to me

'bassage' is absolutely my shit on this despite the lamentable name

I think "Heisenberg" distinguishes itself from the textbook with the trumpet bit at the end.

"Bassage" is immense, yes.

love their almost kinda campy vincent price-ish halloween horror melodies sometimes

(haha i'd written that musing on 'bassage' before i'd come to the great big and somewhat bizarre interlude there on 'alrite wave' just fwiw)

haven't got round to the mix yet but "clapper" underwhelmed me.

i'd rather hear ill blu remix pop and r&b songs than disappear down whatever rabbithole they're exploring atm.

Pretty sure Ill Blu consciously boring up their sound for their Hyperdub releases actually.

That said the stretch from 'Heisenberg' to 'Alrite Wave' is a belter. The last leg of the mix is somewhat... sterner than we're used to from them? It's not really a direction I want them to go in ('PumpA' is the worst of all possible Ill Blus), I like them when they're gleefully dropping bombs all over the place like most of the Mistajam mix from last year.

i'd rather hear ill blu remix pop and r&b songs than disappear down whatever rabbithole they're exploring atm

These seem to have dried up a bit of late? They need to remix more pop-grime tracks as well.

i guess it's more like right now they are this sort of amorphous creature of power looking to mould itself into and around something

My guess remains that in a couple of years everyone will be sounding like Ill Blu of varying quality and they'll be getting no credit for it whatsoever.

I really love Clapper in that 'Pon the Floor' kind of way.

'pumpA' is probably the best rick ross track ever, certainly his finest lyrical achievement

'me x u (plastik cups)' is the one i least appreciate i think, not badly executed or anything but chasing fool's gold all the same

less so than just remixing but i agree it's disappointing there've been no follow-ups to sneakbo's 'the wave', they really cracked it there in a way not many funky producers ever have

bless her little cotton socks for trying (and not that sneakbo is a high quality artist either) but princess nyah doesn't count

http://soundcloud.com/urban-history-x/shystie-bad-gyal-original-dj

gonna put this here cos i'll forget otherwise but the new shystie is very good and very bluish imo (it is produced by p-jam). attn lex

fuck i love 'bassage' so much, can't stop putting it on

i hereby rename it.... 'ZOMBIE GUS'

Is it pronounced 'bass-idge' or like to rhyme with 'massage'. If it's the latter I'm not sure I approve.

I can't help but read it as bassaaaage, and I'm sure I don't approve.

Pretty sure Ill Blu consciously boring up their sound for their Hyperdub releases actually.

Yeah. I like "Clapper" but it's pretty self-conscious, like they thought "Okie Dokie It's Ill Blu on Hyperdub".

"I like "Clapper" but it's pretty self-conscious"

Why, because its on Hyperdub. We've been here before with DVA Tim lol. Take it you're not a fan of the label then? I'm just happy someone is releasing Ill Blu and Funkystepz right now.

found the xlr8r mix rather dull i'm afraid

but that shystie tune is FUCKING INCREDIBLE OMG THIS IS WHAT I WANT FOREVER

and yeah "the wave" def strikes me as a fruitful path not taken, sadly

Why, because its on Hyperdub.

No, because it's a lot drier than most of their other tunes, and feels deliberately so. Mixing straight into "Dragon Pop" really underscores the point. Ill Blu going dry for a label release once may have been coincidence, but twice?

If they'd released the Meltdown EP on Hyperdub I wouldn't have been able to make the same comment. And Funkystepz's Hyperdub releases have been great (esp. the first). Believe it or not this is not actually about me and my prejudices.

FWIW I feel like Clapper is less of a distance from what I would expect from IB than Dragon Pop was (although listening back to it here Dragon Pop actually sounds better than I remember it being). Anyway listening to the mix another time Legs and Turnpike actually sound the closest to standing out as choons to me, Legs has a nice bounce to it. Still feel overall it's a wee bit average though.

Yeah, I like "Clapper" more than "Dragon Pop" (though the latter became better when they re-used it on that Suncycle/Mavado tune).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxCw31W_fj4

This is like an amazing "Flaunt It".

bloody addictive

Is no one else jumping on this? So good!

Mixmag are giving away a track called 'Turnpike':
http://www.mixmag.net/music/mp3-blog/free-mp3-ill-blu

I'm loving that Sneakbo track, that's the kind of Ill Blu production I like, fun, ott, ravey, and full of those electro/dutch house-influenced synths. Ill Blu really should be doing more vocal collaborations. I do like "Turnpike" as well, much more than when I heard it on the XLR8R mix.

I see the appeal of the tracks in the XLR8R mix now, I guess I just don't like so many of those aggro-bassy tracks in one mix without something by Sneakbo, for example, lightening it up with his talk of pagan yats, riding jet skis, and daggering women with african backs.

if by that you're suggesting sneakbo provides a counterpoint or contrast to the production then i disagree i think; he is the finer, literal point of what ill blu are already about and they have an really very unusually natural synergy

the appeal of 'zim zimma' is more in the thuggish ill blu/sneakbo mindmeld's unwitting creation of something like a muscle mary anthem