Future Garage – Essential 7

Sampha + SBTRKT – Break Off (Ramp)

This is an anthem from the future, its timer counting down backwards to now. And start – the sound is all bells and whistles, woozy and set to a mischievous 2-step bump. Its blue-eyed vocals come from a bedroom, somewhere no doubt in the south of London – I’ve got no bass / to play off / I need a way / to break off. It’s an impassioned plea, a call with response from the plentiful bass around him – more than enough to get off on, let alone break off. Tell me what you need, hey tell me what you need he answers himself with in this sanguine little labyrinth. A 2010 tune.

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Break Off

Gongon – I Could Be There (Well Rounded)

Subdued fanfare synths are reticent as a looped vox in a rut builds up to Gongon’s shackle shaking beats – Tell you I loveyou/I could be there goes the pledge, and the groove, the gravitas, it’s all deadly serious, and Gongon’s euphoria is as essential as Love in Action.

I Could Be There

Deadboy – U Cheated (Well Rounded)

Future blues in 4-D. This is the sound of now and it hurts and it bumps and it trills and it skirts. The young man’s words are encrypted but the subtext is clear – you cheated. Now imagine what that would sound like in a city open wide to night skies and satellites.

U Cheated

Riya – Seems Like (Fabric)
Instra:Mental – From The Start (Fabric)

Segued together on this year’s essential dBridge & Instramental Fabric mix, the former treads in with escalator synths bleeding into the honey voice of Riya, who sounds like the saddest Sugababe in the world. Her plainsong nags like the synth keys into something despondent, before being intertwined with Far East chimes ringing from smokey peaks, heralding some mystical uprising from beneath the streets. You’re lost in soul and wonder.

This dBridge production then switches to From The Start, Riya’s voice still yearning in the distance over the sound of those chimes and a skittish hi-hat jackin rhythm, frail yet as fantastic as capes billowing in slow-motion. Some kind of vortex takes the instrumental for a ride as warm synth pads bring everything to a wind-down plateau, glowing beneath carefully placed steps. Truly genre-less and one of a kind.

Seems Like

From The Start

Scuba – Before (Hotflush)

The shuffling train has left Burialville and ended up in Bristol via Leftfield circa the 1990s. A stark, sombre intercom warning rebounds around inside a clattering industrial space as She’s disembodied through radiophonics and motorways at night. Listen to album cut So You Think You’re Special for more subterranean drama.

Joy Orbison – Hyph Mngo (Hotflush)

All drama and delirium, this is the track which started it all in 2009.  The dawn of time slowly seeps in as an intro before a rave siren beckons Her down to terra firma and the ground just doesn’t let up with the undercurrent beats. You’ll always remember where you were when you first heard this track – time stands still yet hits you flying past in the dark, one vast rush.

Hyph Mngo