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UNDEFINED is an experimental dub unit newly started by sahara (keyboards/programming), who was a member of Japan's top reggae band THE HEAVYMANNERS until 2009 and later participated as a support member in the reunited band DRY&HEAVY, and ohkuma, who is also the drummer for roots reggae/dub band SOUL DIMENSION. The unit is gradually gaining attention and will release their first recording, a 7-inch vinyl, on March 13th!
Beautiful piano melodies, deep reverberation/noise from analog equipment, and minimal yet fast-paced drums create the ultimate experimental dub. The recording engineer is Kobayashi "Che Que" Hironobu, who also serves as the dub engineer for THE HEAVYMANNERS, and the mastering is handled by AZZURRO, who has released many albums as a beatmaker. These two high-quality tracks combine the depth of vintage dub sound with the modern appeal of dub.
The album will be released by domestic dub label newdubhall records. It has already been decided that the album will be released overseas, including in Europe, as well as at Dub Store Record Mart. At the release party to be held at Ochiai Soup in Tokyo on March 26th, Akimoto "HEAVY" Takeshi (DRY&HEAVY) will also be appearing (he is also planning a session with UNDEFINED!), and on March 18th they will be appearing at the JAPAN LAUNCH PARTY (@Osaka SUN HALL) at the world's largest dub festival "INTERNATIONAL DUB GATHERING". UNDEFINED are gaining attention both at home and abroad. Keep an eye on their future!
Hajime Oishi
A sound like the few stars floating in the urban night sky, and drawing a scenery along with the lacquer-black space filling the void between them. The stars shining there are beautiful. In a word, it is an artifactual landscape, but they carry different beauty from the multitude of stars in the night sky in the great nature. New Culture Days is precisely of the kind: a type of music born from the work of a man, with the presence of existence and non-existence that stirs listeners’ infinite imagination.
After being in the reggae band the Heavymanners (parted in 2009) led by Takeshi “Heavy” Akimoto, and participating as a supporting member of DRY&HEAVY after which the band reunited with the original rhythm section, Sahara (keyboard/programming) and Ohkuma, who worked as the drummer of Soul Dimension, a roots reggae/dub band whose stepper-like groove pleased those with taste, started the dub unit Undefined. It is no exaggeration to say they have pushed the variously formatted term of “dub” to the far shore experimentally and furthermore, liberated the definition of dub to “undefined.” Their debut 7inch vinyl released in March last year from their own label Newdubhall is being well received even overseas and in the spring of 2018, this 10inch vinyl New Culture Days will be out, which will be their second release.
New Culture Days was co-composed with Kazufumi Kodama. It goes without saying that he is the one who has been continuing to pursue dub, through Mute Beat, the originator band of this country and also under his own name. For the past few years, he has been leading his band the Dub Station Band, actively performing live.
In this collaboration with Kazufumi Kodama and Undefined, even the spaces between the sounds are musical; while citing sound texture like techno-infused minimal dub, Undefined’s track dashes on a trackless road. And there is the trumpet of Kodama, who has also been giving sympathy to minimal dub since the late 90s. A trumpet that draws a vivid line on monochromatic aspect, flickering sounds of drum and bass, and the third lead that represents this work awaits at the far end of the echo. It is “mu,” in another words, nothingness.
Just as the stars are floating in the urban night sky, the sound is lonesome yet bold and bright and the jet-black darkness lingers. An aggressive bass and effective sounds: this track expresses the cream of dub music with its excessiveness and nothingness facing one another. This track did not come to reality without the deep understanding of these two dub seekers.
Moreover, excluding covers, this is the first original track by Kodama in a long time and E-Mura of Bim One Production who is also receiving recognition abroad pitched in for the mix and mastering, as the additional spice for this masterpiece.
Over the past several years, an electronic and experimental dub, which is diverse from so-called bass music and new roots, is being recognized again as one of the streams. It could be said that New Culture Days too, welcomes this sort of essence.
Yusuke Kawamura
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The third release from newdubhall is Babe Roots, the label's first foreign artist and a rising star in modern dub.
This project is by Andrea Perini and Alessandro Verina, based in Turin, Italy.
Their modern dub style is a further advancement of deep techno dub, such as rhythm & sound and burial mix. They attracted a lot of attention with their 2017 masterpiece LP ``Babe Roots,'' which covered their style. As can be seen from their releases on modern dub stronghold ``ZamZam Sounds'' and minimal techno/dub renowned label ``Echocord,'' it is a project with a wide range of musicality, incorporating rhythms and heavyweight bass with the strong groove of roots dub, the subtle dub processing of dub techno, and an ambient feeling that melts the air.
While based on digital minimal dub, they share many commonalities with Undefined, such as featuring live instruments. In their new work, they fuse the sounds of live instruments such as percussion and trumpets, while enveloping the space with their unique digital dub worldview.
Side A is an extremely slow track in which the nourishment of dub permeates the air, and Babe Ras, who also participated in the LP, participates in singing and toasting. Side B is a song that could be said to be an answer to newdubhall's previous work, ``New Culture Days,'' featuring Kodama Kazufumi. In the quiet mood guided by the bass, the trumpet sound, keyboard, percussion, and reverberation rise and fall fragmentarily, changing the flow of the air, making it an ambient dub song.
Yusuke Kawamura
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Undefined has continued to release music in a variety of styles, including their first LP ``Defined Riddim'' and the collaborative album with Kodama Kazufumi ``2 Years / 2 Years in Silence.'' They will be releasing a 10" single for the first time in a while from their own label, Newdubhall, which can be considered their home. This is their fourth release following Babe Roots, and features Berlin minimal dub veteran Deadbeat.
Deadbeat received worldwide acclaim in the early 2000s for his albums on ~scape, led by Stefan Betke (aka Pole), which was a crossroads between glitch, electronica and dub, and has continued to be active to this day as a pioneer of so-called minimal dub techno since Basic Channel/Rhythm & Sound. Like Undefined, he has also released on ZamZam Sounds. That single featured the late reggae legend Gregory Isaac. He is currently releasing actively from his own label, BLKRTZ.
Side A of this album is a surprising drumless dub ambient. The series of deep reverberations that sink and sink like swimming underwater are provided by Vladislav The abstract form is reminiscent of Delay's Anima. The B-side is a minimalist dub techno, the very essence of Deadbeat. The repetitive heavy drums and the echoes create a wave of grooves that fill the dance floor. The unwavering sound of a veteran shines through. Enjoy both sides of the static and dynamic, the veteran Deadbeat's electrified dub.
Yusuke Kawamura
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Newdubhall has released works by pioneers of modern electronic dub from overseas, such as Babe Roots and Deadbeat. Their fifth analog single release features the first Japanese trackmaker, Element, apart from Undefined.
Hiroshi Takakura, also known as Element, is a member of Dub Meeting Osaka, along with Sak-Dub-I and Dub Kazuman, who are both highly regarded in the overseas soundsystem and dub scenes as solo artists. He also runs the label Riddim Chango with 1TA of Bim One Production. After working in the UK for a long time, he returned to Japan with a deep understanding of the local soundsystem and bass music culture. Recently, he moved his base of operations from Kansai to Tokyo, and his DJ play, which is based in bass culture and crosses a variety of new and old sounds, has been a hot topic. He has also released Night Scoops with Dub Kazuman, and as a solo artist, a 12-inch with the double name Bokeh Versions and Riddim Chango featuring the leftfield dancehall collective Duppy Gun, which mixes the essence of UK modern bass music such as new roots, dancehall, and even grime.
This is Newdubhall's fifth release, and it offers a track full of originality that is truly not easy to understand. On side A, there is a heavyweight dub with a gleaming synth phrase that cuts through the space, like a head-on collision of slow-motion new roots and grime, and on side B, there is a version of that with the drums removed, dominated by drone noise and bass, and a heavy and intense industrial ambient dub that oppresses the space. This is the cutting edge of leftfield electronic dub.
Yusuke Kawamura
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Undefined's Newdubhall releases leftfield modern electronic dub artists from Japan and abroad, such as Babe Roots, Deadbeat, and Element. The sixth release features the Polish duo Janka.
Janka is a unit consisting of Daniel Szlajnda and Piotr Kaliński. Daniel has released experimental ambient techno and IDM-like works under his real name, and beat music under the name Daniel Drumz. Both have released album-length works under the names U Know Me Records, a Warsaw-based label where he is based. Piotr has also released works mainly under the name Hatti Vatti, and can be said to be an artist who uses dub as a starting point but also expresses genres such as jungle, ambient, downtempo, jazz, and IDM across the board. This is a unit of two truly talented Polish artists. Janka, based on U Know Me Records, released his debut single "Krzyżacy EP" in 2018, and the album "MIDI Life Crisis" in 2021. On the album, he plays an original modern electronic dub sound with an adventurous rhythm delivery that exquisitely blends jungle, juke and IDM. He also contributed songs to the compilation "Dub meets Techno" by Moonshine Recordings, a representative dub label in Poland that has a strong connection with the UK, and is planning to release an album-sized work from System Music, a prestigious dubstep label in London run by V.I.V.E.K, making this a project that is expected to become even more active worldwide in the future.
And so, their 10-inch "Piesek Dub / Nemurō Dub" will be released by Newdubhall. This album is a condensed version of their sound, with their radical adventurous rhythms and sonic experiments such as field recordings and collages, and it can be said to be a work that will make their talent known to Japan and the world. "Piesek Dub" is a song that can be called a dub jone like a ghost of the jungle, and the dub sound evokes a juke groove by changing the convulsive jungle into an afterimage through dub mixing, and "Nemurō Dub" is a heavy dark dub ambient that takes you to a daydream, with freaky electronic sounds that contrast with the electronically modulated noise of children. In fact, Daniel has previously named his album "Komorebi" and Piotr has named his free jazz ambient project, Hinode Tapes, which shows that they have a great interest in Japan. The release of this album was also made possible by Janka's approach to Newdubhall with a demo. Therefore, the release of this album and their upcoming concert in Japan will surely be something special for them. This work also shows the firm stance of Newdubhall, a label that introduces artists from around the world, including veteran artists, and even local talents, with "sound" as its criterion of value.
Yusuke Kawamura
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Newdubhall has released cutting-edge dub artists from Japan and abroad. Their second release in 2024 will be a two-song EP "Whole Earth Dub / In The Wall", a solo project by Newdubhall, keyboardist and electronics of Undefined, and Sahara. Since the label's launch, analog releases have continued, but this is the first digital release.
"Whole Earth Dub" is a quiet dub that derives a bass line that does not exist with only crackle noise and echo reverberations.
And "In The Wall" is a slow, heart-pounding beat that expands the image from the noise of tape echo, and a contrasting synth with a layer of white noise that summons the ghost of minimal dub.
Both songs have a sound that makes you feel the "next" of the "in Silence" side of Kodama Kazufumi & Undefined's "2 Years / 2 Years in Silence". The mastering is done by e-mura (Bim One Production), who is familiar with the label's works. Newdubhall will also be releasing a solo album by Ohkuma, drummer of Undefined's The Other, in September.
Yusuke Kawamura
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Newdubhall has released cutting-edge dub artists from Japan and abroad. New release in fall 2024. Following the first digital release of the two-song EP "Whole Earth Dub / In The Wall", a solo project by Sahara, keyboardist, electronics, and label president of Undefined, the two-song solo EP "Deviation / Grinding" by Ohkuma, drummer of Undefined, will also be released digitally.
In the late 2000s, before his activities as Undefined, he played drums in Soul Dimension, a reggae/dub band driven by rockers/steppers riddims strongly influenced by 1970s roots reggae. After forming Undefined in 2014, he has been playing drums that define the foundation of reggae in a sense, within a sound that expands dub minimalism to the extreme.
Ohkuma's first solo album was produced by E-Mura (Bim One Production), who also handles many of the label's mixes and mastering. "Deviation" is a moody roots dub driven by a snappy rocker groove, while "Grinding" is a slightly slower, deeper version of roots dub, with the bass line changing midway into a wobbling bass that crawls along the ground like dubstep. Both albums are a little different from Undefined, and can be said to have brought out Ohkuma's new worldview.
Yusuke Kawamura