Eww: It's the Ill Blu Hype Thread

is "monsta" a released thing or a two-minutes-mid-radio-set thing

Dude does this mean you haven't heard Ill Blu's Mistajam mix? It's a radio set but it's almost exclusively their own stuff and it is apocalyptically banging (also only about 25mins and in good quality).

― Matt DC, Friday, March 25, 2011 2:03 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Monsta is straight up single-of-the-year contender for me. We need a Ill Blu hype thread really.

― Matt DC, Friday, March 25, 2011 2:03 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

i still would like to hear this "monsta"

As these dudes are shaping up to be producers of the year for a third year running, something tells me it's time.

So what's really good?

r|t|c was right to note that "Warp Speed" is the secret gem on their Mistajam mix.

Also the second half of their 29 March Rinse set is, as matt would say, apocalyptically banging - in fact the words came into my mind independently and then I saw that matt had already used them.

In particular see the tune at 90 minutes: funereal organs and then the biggest drop of all time, all hellspawn bass and sternly commanding string riffs. Is it them? It has stolen my brain by dashing it into a million pieces on the floor and then sweeping it under the door. If we need high production values funky, can it please be like this: it's like a funky take on Orbital's "Know Where To Run".

xpost Jordan just download the mistajam mix, it's really good!

Mistajam mix I think: http://www.mediafire.com/?7qmql62ot6ppqsc

thanks -- i went to the bbc page but they had already taken it down so i just gave up tbh

29 March Rinse set: http://podcast.dgen.net/rinsefm/podcast/IllBlu290311.mp3

ILL BLU MISTAJAM MIX 08/02/11

Ill Blu - Tick Tock
Ill Blu - Overdose
Ill Blu - Bhangra Knights
Ill Blu - Meltdown
Ill Blu - Alrite Mate
Ill Blu - Monsta
Toddska - Gal From England
Shay & Sinista - Glitch In The System
Ill Blu - Dirty Monkey
Ill Blu - Do That
Katy B - Lights on (feat. Ms Dynamite)
Troublesum - Boot Install
Ill Blu - Chelt
Ill Blu - Warp Speed

'Tim's Jacka"

or really, jacka is d40's ill blu, but w/e

anyway i heartily endorse this thread, these dudes rule

It's true.

the biggest compliment that i can give to ill blu (or to pretty much anyone!) is that their remix of "rock the boat" is almost as beautiful as the original

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

^ i still would like to hear this "monsta"

Nick you're a champ.

no problem, tense tune

"eww"?

feels way overdue, this thread! i endorse it and them and all they touch.

this is the single they've actually released this year, "meltdown" - it's insane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl0Qyj3W1ik

"eww" is a ref to their vocal drop right?

Ages ago Jordan said that in his head the word "eww" now sounds like the high-pitched "Ill!" at the beginning of their tunes.

xpost!

oh right, i never heard it like that. "eww" just makes me think of nicki minaj on "did it on em".

I cannot deny that a part of me momentarily wished they'd actually called "Meltdown" "Youtube Masterpiece" in tribute to my honourable service to the cause.

ILL

BLU

Honestly at some point midway through my first play of that Mistajam mix it occurred to me that Ill Blu are making pretty much the most exciting music in the world right now. Everything they touch is an absolute beast.

Also I would very much like a definitive list of everything that's out there in standalone MP3 format, remixes included.

r|t|c was right to note that "Warp Speed" is the secret gem on their Mistajam mix.

nee nee nee, nee nee naw
nee nee nee, nee nee nee naw
nee nee nee, nee nee naw
nee nee nee, nee nee nee naw
WUM-WUM-W-W-WUM-WUM-WUM-W-W-WUM-WUM-WUM-W-W-WUM-WUM-W-W-

Missed opportunity to subtitle this thread 'Bass in the city, hype in the place' in honour of the Shystie remix which is still my favourite of their remixes, although Cheryl Cole, Sabrina Washington and the Green Light remix run it close.

although ill blu's radio mixes can often be perfunctory i have missed def-1's fantastically weird glottal elocution and weak liverpool supporter chestbeating so will stick on this 290311 mix shortly

Makes me smile to see this thread...

When did they start playing on Rinse??

Good stuff, this.

Honestly at some point midway through my first play of that Mistajam mix it occurred to me that Ill Blu are making pretty much the most exciting music in the world right now. Everything they touch is an absolute beast.

Seriously Matt you need to hear the track from 88 min in the 29 March set.

Honestly at some point midway through my first play of that Mistajam mix it occurred to me that Ill Blu are making pretty much the most exciting music in the world right now. Everything they touch is an absolute beast.

Seriously Matt you need to hear the track from 88 min in the 29 March set.

― Tim F, Monday, April 4, 2011 4:02 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

can any of you wizards tell me what the track is that starts around 42/43 mins after a few shout outs? only seems to last 2-3 mins but it's a belter.

that is 'room 101' by dj mystery, out now on this essential thing:

http://www.junodownload.com/products/the-underground-collective-presents-the-5-star-ep/1713633-02/

the 88min track was not what i was expecting from the descrip at all somehow -- yet the controlled sternness of it makes it EVEN MORE awesomely dominating than the abandontraxx!!

can i has grace jones vocal plz?

abandontraxx?

can i has grace jones vocal plz?

Yes this would be good!

also listeners be sure to revel in your best opportunity yet to hear the rarely-played 'monsta' breakdown at 74:30, a shamanic orgy of sirens explosions and everything ever all at once - YOU DON'T KNOW THE TUNE TIL YOU'VE HEARD IT

at 67mins (the bmore-swallowing "get freaky with you") is a another recentish one that is best not overlooked

It all makes for a pleasingly masochistic listening experience. I even love the A1 Bassline tune.

i don't really know who they are but this seems as good an opportunity as ever to voice my total bafflement seldom previously felt regarding whatever that "i'm the information" tune is the blogs seem to be nuts for. jesus people are lame.

Oh yeah everything else they do is weak.

major

ill blu top 3 (in no particular order) :

frontline
pull it, wheel it rmx
time to get nasty

^^ tough call tho (come to think of it and the 'parachute' rmx was prob the ill blu track i listened most last year. and 'meltdown' is just huge)

"get freaky with you" has gotta be them, right? The underlying dancehall stabs are similar to "meltdown". I totally love the incorporation of breakbeats and especially

... What they do with vocals on this one. Massive massive massive tune!

I have listened to "get freaky with you" about seven times today.

love these guys! has anybody seen the 'i wonder' instrumental around? i know i've heard it on their show, ill blu at their symphonic best

Also I would very much like a definitive list of everything that's out there in standalone MP3 format, remixes included.

maybe a few missing?:

remixes:
3-2-1 - bring it back
aaliyah - rock the boat
cheryl cole - parachute
craig david - one more lie
donae'o - watching her move (& instrumental)
dj sava - i like the trumpet
funky dee - are you gonna bang doe?
h two o ft. zoe - pink love
hot chip - i feel better & instrumental
kc - r.a.v.e.
kris bayer - heartbreaker (& instrumental)
lloyd - all around the world
mj cole - gotta have it
mpho - boxes n locks
platnum - trippin
roll deep - good times
roll deep - green light
sabrina washington - OMG
shontelle - battle cry
shystie - pull it (& instrumental)
steve hoang - no coming back
suncycle ft. movado - no more
young nate - i wonder

solo productions:
meltdown ep
bellion / dragon pop
time to get nasty
blu magic
dotstar - stick up (& instrumental)
hoodzee - rider
princess nyah - big boys (& instrumental)
princess nyah - frontline (& remix ft coldsteps & instrumental)
princess nyah - hooligans (& remix ft griminal & ghetts)
princess nyah - i will be there remix ft coldsteps
shanique - take it low

+

Ill Blu - Say Yes
Ill Blu - Roll With Me ft. SpeShill
Dotstar - Stick Up (Remix)

love ill blu but some of those new tracks are a bit too heavy on the attitude. sounds like theyre trying to get the dubstep crowd on board. i dont mean this in a cruel way, but its like funky that caspa might play (and caspa used to be good, before anyone says anything).

when you and jimitheexploder go on your honeymoon can it please be somewhere far away and for a very long time? thanks in advance.

maybe jimi and i and you and tim can make it a couples weekend? only if you promise not to be a cunt though. thanks in advance.

lol

Ill Blu are ace always thought it.

http://www.sonicrouter.com/2011/03/recommended-ill-blu-meltdown-ep-numbers/

p.s. I'll happily go on a hunny moon, if anyone is paying I'm skint and need a holiday. Thanx.

thanx for the shout out rtc I fee lat home now ilm goons are calling me out yay!

ooh, as if i could afford that little minx.

seriously titch i really don't understand how you can be so wrong and bad about the new stuff, it is plainly some of the most exciting music in donkeys. i'm struggling thinking what else to say here!

The only thing I'd say about the new bits is that sometimes its a bit ott and dramatic. Not really in a bad way, I'm splitting hairs really. I've just got to be in the mood for it, they've always had that dramatic edge to them but they're really pushing it to the extream at times now and its a bit much and doesn't get the killer raw rolling groove I dig from funky going as much as older bits. They push more and more epic moments into tracks and its cool but I miss that groove a bit unless I'm in turbo drama mode. They still kill it and are some of the best producers around in the scene right now.

erm where did i say it wasnt good? of course its exciting. just think a few of them were surprisingly 'tudey. and i stand by what i said that if caspa (or d1 even) was playing funky, i can imagine this would be *totally* up their street. its got a lot of shared qualities. i know you guys think that ill blu must live in a bubble and wouldnt pay dubstep guys any mind but hello, theyve been on numbers, hyperdub... its not out of the question to think that they might be thinking it might be cool/nice to do something a bit outside their usual box. or that gasp, it might have just rubbed off on them a bit. yes i know it could of course be inadvertent influence from old house tracks but i dunno, dubstep is so unignorable these days, eg - when they did that mix on 1xtra, it was on (unless im mistaken) of all things mistajams 'daily dose of dubstep'!

jimi, life is all downhill once you fail to get rtcs stamp of approval.

ps - that deep teknologi track around 80 mins on that recent rinse show is stupidly good.

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

I suspect that where people struggle with recent Ill Blu is that they associate it with other boshy mersh electro-house and etc. (this is not so much of a negative for me but) - if nothing else Sneakbo offers a more attractive frame.

"Zim Zimma" really is so so so good though, that strangely lethargic synth riff like a wrecking ball accidentally knocking over a building is just brilliant.

i feel more that people are just looking at it from the wrong and boring way round cos they have the "answer" already

like the story isn't oh the guys who did 'meltdown' make mersh electro-house, it's what is up with this weirdly tuff mersh electro-house that doesnt quite fit anywhere easily

do you fancy the promo of this btw

hypothetically speaking of course

Yes I agree - but I think you need to be at least neutral on the idea of "weirdly tuff mersh electro-house" in the abstract to approach it that way.

Um... hypothetically already found it.

cos they have the "answer" already

can I say this is particularly OTM

bloody addictive
YES

http://soundcloud.com/cahill/cahill-dj-q-play-1-xtra

YASSSS

Woah.

http://images.techtree.com/ttimages/story/81817_overlord_tower_minions_final.JPG

I'm really digging these new IB tracks, and I don't think Sneakbo makes 'Zim Zimma' at all- the production on that one is massive on it's own, as an instrumental it would have fit in with the rest of the Mista Jam set of theirs just fine.

Been a bit ambivalent about the lurch towards techno seriousness that Ill Blu seem to have taken on their own stuff most recently (e.g. their new single), so it's nice to discover that "419" on this radio set is a marvelous piece of bubbly vocal house:

http://soundcloud.com/madtechrecords/ill-blu-guest-mix-bbc-radio-1

so ill blu have signed to island and have reworked a five year old uk funky track for the first single
http://soundcloud.com/illblu/blu-magic-ft-max-marshall

apparently the new stuff is influenced by “the musicality of Artful Dodger and Wookie, the bass weight of Shy FX, the sampler’s ear of people like DJ Premier, the soul of Teedra Moses and the future shock production of legendary US R&B producers like Rodney Jerkins and The Neptunes”

sounds promising...my fave recentish ill blu thing is still this though
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQN_2TuK44Y

Loving these MixFresh Series DJ mixes - ploughing a really hyper furrow between DJ Q and deep tech, centred around their own current sound, oddly redolent of Tiefschwarz circa 2004:

https://soundcloud.com/illblu/illblumixfreshseries2

ha this is weirdly engrossing

i mean i kinda feel somewhat as if i'm listening more intently here than this really deserves, through the prism of past glories... but then all these relatively familiar tracks of the moment in this context make a convincing case that the world really has swung their particular, sparsely muscular way

like everyone plays shiba san 'okay' now but only ill blu were the ones deading the funky vibe with it in 2011 before it ever existed

and the tiefschwarz type thing finally works now too next to spinnin's tiptoe from edm to house n bass with tchami (whose remix of garrix 'wizard' eye-catchingly features here - everyone else will play every other tchami cut) and oliver heldens (one of the new ill blu productions here is p much a 'gecko' refix)

https://soundcloud.com/maxmarshallmusic/your-love-is-like-ill-blu-1

well ok maybe a dash overstated but still, theory goes

tchami (whose remix of garrix 'wizard' eye-catchingly features here

This one is great, yes.

Basically this mix is best when it goes all rifftacular.

new single sounds excellent

http://thump.vice.com/en_uk/words/uk-funky-duo-ill-blu-are-back-and-its-not-uk-funky

;_; at the disavowal of the uk funky scene tho

Yeah the interviewer was on some bullshit there too.

She seems a bit hung up on UK Funky being "over." It's quite an uninspiring premise for an interview. I'd rather just hear about their new material tbh.

"In the summers of 2008 and 2009, UK funky was the sound. At Numbers parties in Glasgow, I could barely finish a drink without hearing Jackmaster drop the in-your-face silliness of Piddy Py - 'Giggle Riddim..."

interviewer is clueless, that was a bassline tune, nothing like uk funky

Well if you're basing your understanding of what was going on in UK funky on what Jackmaster was dropping at parties in Glasgow...

But you know, seriously, this is the kind of take that would make sense to a lot of people.

It's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy:

"I almost view UK funky as a club tool or a series of motifs, rather than a genre or style in itself. Sort of like what Night Slugs now do with Club Constructions - that's why Lil Silva managed to grow with their camp."

People who never really viewed uk funky as a style in its own right are always gonna see it that way.

But I should stop distracting from the greatness of Ill Blu!