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News & Reviews
BASS:
Drum & Bass DJ/producer Decoder is back as Tech Itch
Back in the late 1990s you’d be hard pressed to find a Drum & Bass
DJ who didn’t have at least one Decoder
record on their decks. The Bristol, England, production team helped
push the genre darker and harder, as D&B sought to define and
separate itself from other fast dance music such as Trance.
Decoder, whose birth names are Darren Beale and Mark Caro, produced music that was a
counterpoint to the atmospheric D&B moods of producers like LTJ Bukem and Big Bud. The beats often grind with
bass lines rumbling about as low as you could bear. The faster, harder
trend arguably pushed D&B away from the mainstream electronic music
scene, as many fans were overwhelmed by the testosterone-driven beats.
We still have some of those 1999-2000 Decoder vinyl productions in our
record case, and they often find their way into sets that want a bit of
nostalgia. But nostalgia is a misnomer now that the production duo are
back churning out new tracks and touring worldwide.
Under the new production name Tech
Itch, Beale and Caro are currently touring North America and
spreading the Bristol sound to American audiences once again. From
November 4 to 11, Tech Itch performs daily shows at several cities in
the U.S. and Canada.
Tour dates include Nov. 4 at Toronto, Canada, Nov. 5 at Ann Arbour,
Mich., Nov. 7 in Seattle, Wash., Nov. 8 in Los Angeles where they’ll
once again play the Funktion party, Nov. 10 in Portland, Ore., and on
Nov. 11 they’ll close out the tour in Victoria, B.C., before heading
back to the UK.
Hopefully they’ll include D&B hotbeds like San Francisco and New
York City in future tours, but in the meantime listeners can hear
several new Tech Itch tracks like Death
Jazz, One Of Us and Distort
at their MySpace.
Tech Itch also has started their own production label Tech Itch
Recordings with other prominent D&B artists like Substance, Biostacis, American
producer/DJ Dieselboy and Ice Minus. They will soon have
updates on upcoming tracks and albums at their website.
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