Sub Focus Feat. Alpines – Tidal Waves
One of the key bass music innovators of the past ten years, Sub Focus unleashes yet another slab of radio friendly heaviness featuring the lovely Alpines. The verdict? It’s gonna be an autumn anthem….
It’s been a big and busy year for Sub Focus – aka Nick Douwma. Alongside a hectic touring schedule that makes him one of the busiest djs on the bass music scene, he’s been hard at work on his new album (from which Tidal Waves is taken).
Nick started out his career as a DJ and producer on RAM Records (Andy C’s label), and quickly became popular on the underground drum and bass scene. In 2009 his debut self titled album started blending drum and bass with dubstep and bass music, and his signature sound got him recognised on a global level. From a young age, Nick was into music – his first love was rock music (bands like Nirvana), but soon after that the dance bug bit him and he discovered acts like Prodigy and Chemical Brothers who combined rock with a dance sound.
“I was in a band when I was only a kid really and I used to produce the stuff we did,” he says. “It was around this time that I really started listening to electronic music. I think that The Chemical Brotherswere the biggest influence for me around this time, not so much musically but just in their general approach to their music – I’ve always really loved what they do at their live shows. Bands like Chemical Brothers and Daft Punk; all the obvious choices really, were
the ones that influenced me a lot. I remember listening to a lot of jungle around this time and I remember listening to ‘Incredible’ by M Beats at school and being blown away by just how different it was. So this is really how I started getting into dance music really.”
His new album, slated for release in 2013 will be a bit of a side step from his earlier work. “It’s quite wide in scope,” he says. “I’m trying to cover a lot of bases. I was coming from a drum and bass background with my last album. Now people know I do quite a lot of different stuff I’ve been much more open with it. It’s an even mixture of dnb, dubstep, house and everything in between. I’m just trying just to make stuff that sounds new to me. That was my main criteria: to make it all sound current and fresh. There’s definitely a lot more of me venturing between light and dark/mellow and upbeat stuff on the album, stuff people wont really be expecting. My criterion for the album is something that doesn’t sound old, I’m trying to make things more expressive and that don’t sound like a track I’ve already done. There are elements of house music and some more downbeat parts to the album, stuff that really contrasts with what I’m already known for.”
The forthcoming album already has two other singles released from it – Falling Down and Out The Blue. Watch this space for more details on the new LP…
Sub Focus feat Alpines – Tidal Wave out on 29 October 2012 on Mercury/RAM
