Next up taking the controls on our Heavy Rotation series, we have Red Sky, the Drum & Bass duo of Mat Zerosum and Mark A500plus! They’ve been part of our community here in Birmingham for a while now, and trust us when we say these two are definitely worth checking out. They’ve got a serious range of styles and a hefty back catalogue of releases spanning the DnB spectrum and beyond.

Heavy Rotation is about five releases that you have been playing every chance you get – those EPs/singles/albums you always draw for a track from in every set, or always add in your playlists.

Release 1

Jag – Figure of Eight (Escher remix) on Reportoire

Mat / Zerosum: The original Figure of Eight is such a good modern tech-step tune. But the Escher remix adds depth. Easily one of the best tunes of this year so far.

Release 2

Forest Drive West – Impulse from the Terminus EP on R&S

Mark / A500plus: That whole FDW EP is an inspiration. I like the minimalism and space of his Techno material, but I wish he’d do more at 170. It’s a masterclass in creating an atmosphere that’s dark and mysterious but also makes your head move.

Release 3

Latyn – Oxygen (Mineral remix) from the Saturn EP on 24 Karat Recordings

Mat / Zerosum: I like digging deep for new music. It’s too easy filling your basket with the top 10 on Beatport. I like to delve deeper listening to smaller independent labels and artists on Bandcamp. One such find was Latyn. His tunes are dark, with heavyweight bass and breakbeats. Plus sci-fi vibes, it’s got all the ingredients of what I like. Also a fan of Mineral for the same reasons. Hence, this choice is a Mineral remix of Laytn from Laytn’s new LP.

Release 4

De-Cet – Herd Mentality from Beats For The Streets on Locked Up

Mat / Zerosum: De Cet is another artist I came by browsing on Bandcamp a few years ago. He made a tune called Flavoured Beats which has sample of Dillinja which I instantly recalled as coming from a Channel 4 documentary about Valve Soundsystem. I’ve been checking De-Cet’s releases since. The track I’ve chosen, Herd Mentality is from his fantastic recent LP Breakbeat For The Streets. This album is on a label called Locked Up. I liked their output so much that I sent them some of our tracks which they liked and we’ve got releases coming up (big up Section!).

Release 5

Nine Inch Nails (NIN) – Happiness in Slavery from the album Broken

Mat / Zerosum: I’ve seen NIN a few times, Mark’s a superfan and must have seen them stacks more. Not necessarily in this track but others of theirs have switch ups going from quiet, calm and melodic to insanely intense and atonal teetering on the edge of sounding like they are about to fall apart. At times that’s definitely something we aspire towards in our music!

Check out Red Sky’s links for their up coming and recently released music below!

Stay tuned for Red Sky’s forthcoming EP on https://lockedupmusic.bandcamp.com/

And don’t forget to check out Red Sky’s bandcamp page!

Mark / A500plus: Massive thanks to Tom and Mat for running Listening Sessions. Great fun testing out tunes to a friendly and welcoming crowd.

Mat / Zerosum: It’s inspirational meeting new artists making different genres of music.