In recent years, there’s been a bit of a love/hate relationship going on between neurofunk and jump up but really they’ve overlapped almost since their respective inceptions. With lots of steppy beat patterns and aggressive, high-energy vibes, it makes sense that, with a little rearranging and creativity, they can even amplify each other. Now with jump up being characterized by a snappy beat where the kick matches the drum, lots of neuro producers are finding it fun to work with and a great match to their insanely technical synths and snares. Conversely, jump up producers are starting to explore some of those aggressive synths and laying them with other elements of their work. The lines are blurring, people, and we promise it’s ok.
L3mmy Dubz is one of those producers who’s been playing with those lines since he started releasing in 2015. Back then he was messing with divisions between dubstep and riddim, hip hop and trap but somewhere around 2018 he started to get into faster beats and appearing on labels like Bass Legion, Cre8DnbMusic and OYO. The music got tighter and tighter, with lots of dancefloor vibes and techy synths. Korsakov Music picked up the scent and now with the drop of the Isolation EP on October 23, the rest will be history.
The title track of Isolation introduces listeners to L3mmy Dubz’s glitchy, metallic alien world. If you don’t instantly hear the neurofunk vein running through this EP from the first bar, go cruise the Eatbrain discography. The atmospherics and robot sounds follow the straight, at times almost techno-esque beat throughout the EP, to the minimal yet still very intense “Corpulent” and ending with the insanely glitchy, heavily syncopated “Spoken Word.” This EP sounds like an epic sentient robot battle in the best possible way.
Our premiere is of the the EP’s second track “Rise” and it stands out in an EP full of stand-outs as likely the most recognizably jump up track. The synths have elements of “Tour”-like (gasp) melody and that steppy, single-kick jump up beat is there in spades. That said, the atmospheric sound design in the intro, at the breaks and even throughout the meat of the track still smacks of neuro. It combines the best of both the jump up and neuro worlds into a universal smasher and even toggles back and forth between halftime and D&B after the break, once again showing that L3mmy Dubz doesn’t discriminate based on tempo. Had we any dancefloors at the moment, “Rise” would certainly light up all of them across the board.
It’s fair to say that with L3mmy Dubz and his contemporaries, gone are the days where a producer can’t successfully transition from other genres like dubstep or even techno play with the technical big boys in drum and bass, an that includes neurofunk. Isolation is technically virtually spotless, fast, fun and funky all at the same time. At the end of the day if it’s quality production and it moves listeners, who cares what beat category it falls into? It’s all about enjoyment and we could all use a bit more of that right now.
The Isolation EP drops tomorrow on Korsakov Music. Pre-order by clicking here.