Some people have sent feedback saying that they like the music, but don’t really fancy me talking over the tracks. I thought long and hard about this and finally came up with a way of providing an alternative for these people. With a few modifications and with the addition of a few fancy new devices, I was able to alter the setup so that the speaks will only audible in the radio stream (http://nubreaks.com/hifi.m3u) where as the video stream will be 100% music (0% bs). So if you belong to the aforementioned group you should give the video stream (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nubreaks-dj-s-on-ustream-tv) a go next time. I was also able to set up an automatic ducker / compressor for cutting down the volume of the music when I’m mumbling into the mic. This will (hopefully) remove some of those odd jumps in the volume as the laptop that is streaming the audio to nubreaks will take care of this of me. I will be posting a more detailed description of the current setup in a upcoming post (so that I can concentrate all the nerdiness into one post).

I also decided to change the format a bit, because I felt it was too unstructured and too difficult to manage. The new format contains tree parts:

1. Dnb showcase
2. Monthly mix
3. Breakbeat classic

As these names are probably not quite self explanatory enough, here’s a more detailed description of each section:

The first part will be about me introducing interesting releases – new ones as well as some older ones. In this part I will concentrate more on describing the tracks and (maybe) providing additional information about them.

The monthly mix section is where I turn off the mic and let the music speak for itself. The mix might be by me or someone else and it might be live or prerecorded. I’ll have to see what feels right for each show. The mix will be cut out from the recording of the show and be made available through the Concussion Podcast (http://concussioncrew.info/podcast). I’m also thinking of starting to upload the sets to Mixcloud, but let’s see how that will work out.

The only thing that has changed in the last part is its name. The reason for this change is that breaks is more likely to be associated to the 140 bpm nu skool stuff rather than the “non-straightened 4/4 drum pattern” styled edm genres in general (although I suppose the amount of people making this association and getting confused by that is quite small and thus the only real reason for this name change is that I thought it sounded better ). Anyhow, as before, at the end of the show, I will play one older track to finish up the show with a pinch of nostalgia.

I hope these changes will once again enhance the quality of the show and make it more interesting for the audiences (would not mind if it would also attract a couple more listeners to the show ). If you have further improvement ideas, please send them to us at conc...@gmail.com / @concussioncrew in Twitter / http://facebook.com/concussioncrew!

You know who to vote for, right?

I realized that I myself had spotted many of the tracks from YouTube from channels such as MrSuicideSheep, 17tumba, etc. so I decided to use the same channel to promote this great music. Although this media differs quite much from the regular art of DJing, I tried to put what I’ve learned during the years into creating a “set” without blends rather than just a collection of good tracks. Hope this succeeded and hope you like the music! Tune into the sequel of Hiding Place: Be Lost, Be Found here.

The new set entitled “Hiding Place” is quite different from my recent creations. As life has been a bit hectic lately, I opted out from trying to create a full throttle party mix and filled the tracklist instead with deeper and more relaxed selection. These kinds of sounds have really inspired me lately so I wanted to do share this feeling and maybe also do my small part in promoting this great style of dnb.

I also used a fair amount of time revising my mixing technique to fit better the moods of the tracks. The blends needed to be smooth and subtle, but at the same time they should still be interesting enough in order to prevent the set from becoming a numbing blob of sounds. I put a couple of harsher transitions in to the mix also to create some additional tension.

I really hope this set will help you, as it has helped me, to shrug some of that stress off your shoulders.

Click here to download elysion – Hiding Place

I have been planning on recording a new set for quite some time now. I’ve gone through the normal preparation procedures of picking tracks and trying to find ones that fit well together. Basically what I am doing is trying to find a way to make the set sound the way I like sets to sound. A good set however is not made by the DJ for himself but for all the people he plans to introduce the set to. This got me thinking.

If you are in a hurry or a bit too much ADHD, you can jump over the babble to the “real” content of this post.

I know pretty well what makes a set good, or better, spectacular, in my opinion, but I realized that I really do not know that well what other people hold in high regard. During the years practicing the art of mixing, I have been pondering this issue quite much, but to date, have not found any decent logic behind it.

Don’t get me wrong here, I am sure there is logic to be found. It’s just that to my understanding people seem to judge DJ sets in many different ways and my way seems not to be the most common one. I have quite tight criteria which the set has to  fulfill in order for me to like it. These are mainly: decent beat mixing, no harsh key clashes, decent track selection and an all-around good flow and structure. I have noticed that most of the time DJs here seem to only concentrate in the beat mixing and track selection, which is quite a shame as, at least in my opinion, those do not really help the least bit, if the set fails miserably in the other areas. My understanding is also that the crowd seems to follow these preferences, which is quite understandable as they are the most obvious ways to judge a set.

So having said all that, I am challenging you to post your favorite sets to the comments section below. I would also love to know why you like the set(s) you posted. What makes the sets so good, what makes them stand out? To make it interesting and to give you some motivation to post stuff, I will reward one lucky participant with a brand new Concussion T-shirt (hope that person is size L, because I have one of those already “in stock” )! Dig deep into your archives, take a pen and a piece of paper and start ranking!

Breakfastaz – Crazy (Apologies for the low quality :/)

Feels a bit stupid pasting URLs here instead of just embedding YouTube videos, but seems like those tracks are sadly starting to be forgotten by the Great Internetz.

These and many other NSB tracks bring really nice memories back, because that was basically the stuff that got me into DJing in the first place. One nice thing about this music is also that it is really entertaining for the DJ as well, because you can do all kinds of neat crossfader, eq, etc. tricks when spinning these. Remember what blast it was to get drunk with my mate Joose aka Roister-5 aka Johnnie No-Skool on some random evening during the week to just kick back, relax and give the mixer knobs a good beating while blending these tracks.

Now, I hate to be the guy that is grieving about things of past, but I can’t help feeling a bit sad that this wonderful genre has more or less died out. Luckily loads of new genres and styles have emerged since so I can find my comfort in them. Would be nice though if someone would make a new track following the sounds of the great breaks artists such as The Breakfastaz, Ed209, Baobinga, Distortionz, etc. Anyone up for the challenge?

Found something so neat that could not resist on writing something to our humble blog. And as it is me (elysion) writing this, you probably can guess what I’m going to be all about – pure and solid, quality drum & bass!

Have been following closely two producers lately hailing from the great capitol of Czech (incredibly hard to remember how to spell Czech btw.) republic – Prague (or Praha as we Finns and the Czechs correctly call it). If you have been following the dnb scene recently, you should by now have guessed that I’m referring to the incredibly talented duo who go by the names of Hybris and Rido.

Neither of these guys can be really referred to as new on the scene though. Rido’s first releases date back to somewhere ’round 2006 and while Hybris is a rather new alias, the guy behind the name, Evan Vischi, has been producing dnb even earlier while being a part of the US based trio called Robot Death Squad. The reason I am refering to these two artists as a duo is because Evan aka Hybris moved to Prague a few years ago and has been collaborating with Rido there with absolutely fantastic results. Results that can be heard on, for instance, The Prague Connection EP, which was released just recently at the beginning of this month on the legendary Metalheadz label.

Here are links to two tracks from the EP: First Contact and Memento, prove my point about the quality:

I came across Hybris’ production the first time when I heard his production on the Invisible EP 003 released on Noisia’s Vision Recordings sublabel Invisible. I was really impressed by the sounds on the tracks – the nice, sharp and choppy, composition with deep bass and really clever drum programming. Seems like the years in Europe have done good to the guy since he has moved away from the US style, straight forward kind of vibes towards more deeper sounds.

Rido on the other hand has not been on top of my list of best producers since very recently. I have heard many of his tunes during the years, but none of them have really struck as all that interesting. The reason has probably been that I got bored of the neurofunk/hardstep/whatever sounds since quite a while ago, and that is exactly what Rido has been working around for the past years. Even his earlier releases this year have not been all that intriguing, but the most recent are absolutely phenomenal – here are two of them: “Exoplanet” and the track I am hugely hyped up about at the moment called “Twisted”:

Btw. if you can spot the breaks used on Twisted, pop a comment to this post! There are a couple in there, and that makes this track even more spectacular in my opinion.

Short and plain thing before tonights ‘battle’….

Tonight we are havin’ a guest at the radio show. Joonas Nissinen a.k.a. Dubba Jones from the Dreadmark collective is coming to the studio with us and he is going to deliver us one hour set of deep and rollin’ steps flavoured with his own production so be sure to tune in at 7 pm (GMT +2). For some extra we are going to have a little chat about his upcoming document project about Finnish dubstep culture!

For starters before the show check these out:

Dreadmark promomix mixed by Dubba Jones

Dubba Jones – Dreadmark mix 01

The infamous Vesicle just gave their recorded live rehearsal out!!

To leave no doubt about the party being totally smashing, we are giving a small preview of what to expect of it tonight at the Concussion show, as Gradon and Janky will be joining me at the studio. Remember to tune in at 5PM GMT (7 o’clock Finnish time) to http://www.nubreak.com/hifi.m3u! (Video stream will probably be available also, but don’t remember the url and can’t be certain that I get it to work. Check out Concussion’s wall @ Facebook for more info on that.)