
Pendulum - Challenge Mix - 2006
Submitted By:
Schmog22
Genre: Jungle / Drum and Bass
Date of Set: 2006
Filesize: 80.92 MB
Total Downloads: 6
Biography of Pendulum
Pendulum formed in their home-town of Perth (Western Australia) in 2002, when producers Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen teamed up with acclaimed local DJ Paul 'Elhornet' Harding. While their individual formative roots ranged from producing drum & bass, breakbeat and hardcore, to playing in metal and punk bands, their comparable talents proved an unstoppable force when they managed to single-handedly conquer the world of drum & bass in their first 12 months together.
After selling more than 100,000 units of their debut artist album 'Hold Your Colour', remixing for such respected artists as The Prodigy, being play-listed and featuring regularly on BBC Radio 1, all whilst continuing to tour the world over as DJs...Pendulum decided that was finally time to take things to the next level - performing live.
The last 12 months have seen Pendulum retreat to the depths of the underground to work on their second album, and to hone and perfect their sound for the live arena. Finding that using purely electronic sounds left something to be desired, they fetched their guitars and worked on perfecting their ultimate sound - an electronic Led Zeppelin, a crunked up Soundgarden, Tool meets Timbaland, combined with the synthetic aggression and sonic purity of the original Pendulum sound.
So apart from that, what the hell are Pendulum all about? In the words of the boys themselves...
'We want our music to be an escape. While technology continues to constantly advance production techniques and (arguably) sound quality, something has been lost in the process - that original sense of self-escape, the idea of leaving yourself open to experience something you don't necessarily find in every-day life. That was the energy we picked up on and liked about electronic music when we first got into it. It felt like the same energy found with bands like Led Zeppelin and even The Beatles, and still occasionally today with bands like Tool, The Mars Volta, Queens Of The Stone Age and others.
To us, it made perfect sense to combine the best of both worlds, but it had to be done in a way that didn't make it sound obvious. In the last 10 years you've had all these bands that tried to cross the bridge by recruiting a turntablist / using a synthesizer on their new single, or electronic artists who just threw an obvious guitar sample into a tune...but eventually it just came across as a gimmick or a bit cheesy. We thought we'd try and do it properly, because to us it still hasn't been done right and theres a lot of room for exploration.
If you turn on the radio today you'll hear 20 tracks in a row describing someone's every-day life, or songs with a one-line catchphrase chorus about shaking your ass in the club - the production is usually great but when you look deeper, there's nothing behind it...it doesn't offer you anything past its face value. We want to hear something different and exciting, but the material we want to hear isn't getting made. Thats why we spend nearly every waking moment trying to create music that takes you out of this universe - for ourselves and anyone else who wants to listen.'

Sub Focus - Challenge Mix - 2006
Submitted By:
Schmog22
Genre: Jungle / Drum and Bass
Date of Set: 2006
Filesize: 80.92 MB
Total Downloads: 6
Biography of Sub Focus
With several tracks to his name all made in the space of the last twelve months 2004 has been a massive year for Nick aka Sub Focus: the year has seen him breakthrough in unprecedented fashion armed with the likes of the technically astounding Acid Test, the simple yet devastatingly effective Strobe, the lively Get on Up and the altoghether awesome X-Ray. In a matter of months, he has gone from being one of many wannabe producers to become a permanent fixture of the award winning Ram Records family. Artists like Sub Focus are what 'Best Breakthrough Producer' awards are made for.
Even though Nick has been obsessed with dance music, both its creation and its culture for a large chunk of his formative years, his first experience with making music came from playing bass in a rock band at school. However his involvement with the band didn't last very long as on hearing dance music Nick was totally blown away by it's diversity and the variety of sounds on offer. Consequently he decided that the tone of rock music didn't satisfy as he felt it to be far too limited, in contrast Nick found the unlimited tonal possibilities of dance music to be extremely exciting. Particular music that got him hooked included; General Levy's Incredible and most things from Prodigy's early years.
Nick actually started making beats at the tender age of thirteen on an old Acorn computer, although to begin with he was just messing around he quickly found his passion and this light hearted hobby gradually became an obsession. It's important to note that until recently Nick has been entirely self taught, his only aid coming from a whole host of software instruction manuals which he enjoyed reading from cover to cover.
Things didn't really start to happen for him until last year when he made a conscious decision to take his production process extremely seriously. Nick enrolled in a renowned sound engineering course in London's East End, where he found himself polishing up his self taught skills, whilst also going deeper into the realms of truly understanding the concept of sound.
Eventually Nick managed to make a few things that he felt proud of so he began to give out some CDs for his friends to listen to, only looking for a bit of feedback. However, a certain friend decided to take one of these 'Don't Play Them to Anyone Else' CDs and give one to award winning DJ and Ram Record's label owner Andy C. On hearing the tracks Andy not only saw talent but he saw a release, within hours Nick had the phone call and within weeks Nick had his first release on Ram's much respected sister imprint Frequency: a 12' featuring Down the Drain with Hotline on the flip.
With this new found confidence in mind; in recent months Nick went in the studio and rolled out three brilliant bits of production in quick succession. To Nick's delight all of them got the stamp of approval; Acid Test and Get On Up will act as his follow up release on Frequency whilst his brilliant Strobe is to be included on Chapter Six of the Ram Raiders series on Ram Records. All the above tracks have been really well received by the scene's top flight DJs but to Nick's surprise press and radio have been in support too; they've all received regular airplay on both Grooverider's BBC Radio 1 Drum & Bass show and Zane Lowe's BBC Radio 1 prime time specialist show.