Submitted By: earwigs

Genre: Jungle / Drum and Bass

Date of Set: Jul 12th, 2008

Filesize: 113.62 MB

Total Downloads: 7

Guildford's four-man hit squad, Cause 4 Concern have made a serious impression on the drum & bass scene in a very short space of time. It's only nine months since they launched their eponymous record label and they are already receiving props from all manner of junglist top dogs. Meeting through their local music scenes, each of the four were actively involved in drum & bass before coming together as a crew; DJ Optiv as engineer for Pressure Rise, Tobie running for Aspect Records, while Stuart and Mark C were working at Vinyl Distribution.

After signing four tracks to Moving Shadow as nCode in early '99, the crew changed their name and began to concentrate on writing material for their own label. That first release hit the streets last December, featuring 'Phat Cap' and 'Euthanasia', and since then the tracks have been coming thick and fast with each one receiving more support and sales than the last. The Cause 4 Concern style met with such favourable response that before long, the boys had DJ Lee from Timeless and Renegade Hardware's Clayton at their door asking for tracks and calls from Suburban Base requesting that they send the Phuture Assassins' seminal 'Phuture Sound' through the C4C mixing desk.

As the lads are fully aware, being based in Guildford just south of London, does have its pros and cons. For years they worked hard at developing their local scene: through the record shop, putting on club nights and running as a crew but after giving back to the community for all that time, their ultimate reward was to be shunned by the city's clubs and venues. Disappointed but not bitter, they turned their misfortune into action, as Ed explains, 'now there are no clubs playing drum & bass, we've got a lot more time to dedicate to the studio,' and, as Tobie points out, 'nothing's really come out of Guildford... apart from The Stranglers, but people are definitely listening now.'

And listening they most certainly are, with key players like Doc Scott and Grooverider latching onto their material straight away and as Ed says, with all modesty, 'people who have heard it, have been into it.' As for the C4C sound, it really is a meeting of minds, 'we all work together in the studio - four heads,' says Tobie, 'we've all got different musical influences so you can hear a bit of everything in our sound. Techno, electro... even a bit of Guns 'N' Roses!' Resulting in? 'Funk, basically,' reasons Ed, 'whether you use hard sounds or mellow sounds, as long as the funk's there and you've got that groove. We don't write hard stuff just for the sake of sounding hard, and a lot do. But whatever sounds we use, it's got to have that funk element there.'

The sounds that we have heard to date are concrete proof of that philosophy, with cuts like 'Angel Dust', 'Nerve', 'Hades', and their remix of Pressure Rise's 'She's In Your Mind' rolling with a delicious blend of filthy funk. However, another cause for concern is presented with some of their more current work. The recent release on Timeless, 'Show U Something', takes a more abstract approach but from first hand experience, Stuart is quick to point out that, 'it'll still go down well in a club,' and with their new EP on their own label, a broader sound is on display. It is only nine months since their first C4C release but Ed feels that, 'our production techniques have improved vastly. The general ideas are still there, but the way we execute them has got better now. We're always reinvesting the money back in the studio, somehow or another, and so the capability to create better sounds has improved. We were held back by physical limitations before but now we're breaking that boundary and so the sound is always getting better.'

'We're experimenting with a lot more strings and harmony,' continues Tobie, 'and I think the biggest leap for the label is on the new EP. The reaction's been really good; when we were handing out the CDs, rather than just cutting one tune, people were cutting all four.' The new EP features four blistering dancehall rammers and, admittedly, it does hold their best work to date: 'Just Cause' - a streamline rolling work out, 'Epox Remix'- a hard-edged screecher, 'Antidote' - a nervous punchy lick, and 'Beyond Numbers' - a sublime, atmospheric roller and all hit the spot and stuck firmly in the box.

Elsewhere, look out for Cause 4 Concern riddims on the next Renegade Hardware LP plus a full EP on the label later on this year while there's further music in the pipeline on Timeless and another remix for Suburban Base. On the DJ front, you'll be lucky to catch the boys in the UK over the next few months, as they go global. August will find them in Australia, September sees them reaching Danish soil, while in October it's the turn of the U.S. to feel the force.

Cause 4 Concern... the name says it all.

http://www.myspace.com/cause4concerndnb

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