18 May 2011, Posted by admin in Headlines,Thoughts, 0 Comments

Planet Mu

Words by Kitty

Last weekend, C&S was lucky enough to witness the stellar line-up at label Planet Mu’s Corsica Studios bash.  Despite Boxcutter pulling out last minute due to ill health (a huge shame as he was blinding at BLOC), the remainder crew of experimental heavyweights more than filled the gap.  And my chest cavity.  With bass.

All in all, it was a rather messy night.  The only two things I can deduce from my hazy memories are these – breakcore is a pretty good cure for the common cold, and Planet Mu are most definitely winning.  Here are 5 reasons why:

 

1) Boxcutter’s new album

‘The Dissolve’, Boxcutter’s fourth full length release, is a gentler, funkier foray into dance than his previous efforts, but certainly no less addictive.  Glitch and occasional discord saves the record from being too easy a listen; noise-lovers will still find what they’re looking for on tracks ‘Cold War’ and ‘Factory Setting’.  Altogether, wonderfully changeable and a captivating departure from his previous, more dub-focused efforts.

 

2)  Tropics live

Tropic’s set is tied with 0=0′s super late-slot for my favourite set of the night.  A deep, expansive hour of hooks, sweeps, and gorgeous pads, with occasional guitar bobbing amongst the waves, Tropics managed to get the whole room moving, without exhausting us all before 12am.  Proper proper lush.  And very considerate too.

 

3)  Everything 0=0 has ever done

0=0′s junglist apocalypse at 4am was blinding.  Aphex set the bar for beautiful, heavy music, and I honestly feel this guy is one of the only artists out there who is really smacking it.  His releases are dotted across compilations, but for starters, listen to Awake (Heartbreak), and go from there.  He’s shared airtime with some genius composers; I just recommend purchasing his entire backcatalog.

 

4)  The label’s latest compilation

If the idea of trawling through numerous musical recommendations makes you want to crawl under your desk, check out ’14 Tracks From Planet Mu’, which not only features everyone who played last weekend, but is also fucking ace and surprisingly consistent quality-wise.

 

5)  Staying ahead of the curve

Mu helped evolve dubstep.  As the genre becomes increasingly repetitive and slides further away from it’s dub roots, the label have spun off in yet another direction.  Their current roster is a bunch of artists who are all pushing the curve, and it’s nice to know that there are still labels out there who are willing to trust the new.